Advice from Dorje Shugden that His Holiness should leave and that He guarantees H.H. safety

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Excerpt from the autobiography of Kyabje Trijang Dorjechang regarding the advice from Dorje Shugden that His Holiness should leave and that He guarantees H.H. safety

When I was fifty-nine, in the year of the earth boar, on the first day of the year I performed elaborate fulfillment offerings before the speaking Päldän Lhamo statue in the shrine room of the Dalai Lama’s residence at the Potala Palace, recited the yearly torma ritual at the top of the palace, and I also went for other festival ceremonies as they had been traditionally performed in previous times, early and late on New Year’s day. There had been a slight snowfall on that morning of the first. It had drifted unevenly and it seemed to be an inauspicious omen in regard to spiritual and temporal affairs.

To mark the Dalai Lama’s completion of study of the five great treatises, at the Great Prayer Festival of Lhasa celebrating Lord Buddha’s miraculous deeds he was to engage in public debate before the vast assembly of Sangha. He therefore went to the upstairs Labrang of the Jokang Temple in Lhasa. During the prayer festival I also stayed in the upstairs residence of the Labrang.

The thirteenth was the actual day of the Dalai Lama’s public debate for Geshe Lharampa. That day at the morning public tea assembly, the courtyard teaching public debate, the noontime public tea, the ‘dry’ (without tea) noontime public debate, the evening tea, and the great evening public debate, at each of these sessions, when the Dalai Lama paid homage to each of the great treatises, at the midmorning assembly, and the great evening debate, there were near to thirty thousand monks present; it was like the ground was strewn with necklace garlands of topaz, or that the earth was everywhere covered with fresh saffron.

Amidst the huge assembly of extremely learned, wise dialecticians, geshes of the three monastic seats who thought of themselves as the master logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti, in the morning, he debated Pramana in the courtyard; at noon, Madyamaka and Paramita; and in the evening, Vinaya and Abhidharma.

In each case, he was presented with arguments on the most difficult points and gave answers without any problem, thus filling the wise elders in attendance with awe. We enjoyed the good fortune of the amazing spectacle of seeing these puffed up scholars who looked down upon him as a young upstart having their confident pride trampled under the soles of his feet!

At the midday public debate session the Great King Oracle Emanation of Nächung was invoked into his medium. He offered a brief logical assertion regarding the Four Noble Truths to the Dalai Lama, and also offered his congratulations.

On the day of the fourteenth, in the great courtyard the government sponsored for the Dalai Lama an extremely vast feast celebration of his successful completion of the public debate examinations and, in connection with accepting very impressive offerings, Yongzin Kyabje Ling Rinpoche Sharpa Chöje , I, and the debate partners, the Tsänzhab’s, received congratulatory awards of very high stature.

On the tenth day of the first month, as traditional, in the ancient Meru temple of Lhasa, the Great Dharma King Nächung was invoked and on the day of the seventeenth, as well, an extra invocation was held above the Labrang in the upper residence. Nächung, the state oracle, said, ‘Can you erect a bridge over a ford-less river? I am checking on the spirit side!’

We thought that since it was a time that the gap between Tibetans and Chinese was widening, that Nächung was saying that they would both be making preparations and that Nächung himself was preparing for some sort of action. But when I did my own checking a little later on, the circumference of Lhasa was already completed surrounded by encampments of Chinese forces and it seemed as if all possibility for escape had evaporated. Even so, I was able to receive certain knowledge that the Dharma protectors guaranteed, with immutable vajra words of commitment, that the Dalai Lama and his entourage of close to one hundred would not be subject to the slightest difficulty.

Two days after the Prayer Festival was over, as was traditional, the Dalai Lama came into the midst of the midday public tea assembly. Similar to the present day custom of taking oral examination at some schools, questioning, the Dalai Lama gave well-reasoned commentaries on the meaning of each verse. After the noonday assembly was over, in the presence of many scholars in the courtyard, he also presented himself for a smaller public debate examination.

One day after that, there was the announcement of a play to be performed at the Siling Puu Chinese army encampment. We received a message from the army office demanding that Yongzin Ling Rinpoche, myself, and other Kashag government ministers attend. Before this there had been meetings in Dotö and Domä to which various lamas, ministers and important people had been invited, after which they had been seized and imprisoned.

Because of having heard of this and because of the self grasping ignorance remaining in my mind despite all of my studies of profound view and mind-training, I strongly imagined that the Chinese might deceive us all and arrest us that night, yet I had to go. It seemed to be some sort of preparation from the Chinese side to later offer a deceptive invitation to the Dalai Lama. That night we had a meal with them. While everything remained outwardly polite, we barely managed to get back.

It is said that the Arya Sangha are worthy of service and veneration, a glorious field of merit, the highest field for offerings. Intent on gathering the merit that accrues from making such offerings, for some years, at the assembly of the great prayer festival

I had made yearly offerings of public tea service, porridge, distributions of individual offerings, and had contributed to the various capital funds. Likewise at this last of gatherings for such accumulation, I again made a distribution of offerings to all the individuals present at the assembly.

Shortly afterwards, I specially called to my room the Panglung Kuten medium of the principal protector of the teachings, Gyälchen Dorje Shugdän. I invoked the Dharmapala and asked for his advice. In answer, he said that since the enemies of the teachings, the Chinese Communists, intended to soon carry out evil plans, that not only was it of the utmost importance that the Dalai Lama and ourselves secretly leave for India, but that I, especially, could not remain in Tibet because I was so high-profile.

He also said that it was very important to warn the Dalai Lama, that he would have to go and that there would definitely come a moment when he would be able to go. But because the issue of whether the Dalai Lama should go or remain had not been officially decided, many still had doubts.

After the prayer festival was over and the Maitreya teachings had been carried in, suddenly the Dalai Lama left Lhasa for the Norbulingka Kälzang Palace with an oceanic entourage. We also went along.

On the tenth day of the third month of the year 1959 by the western calendar, on the Tibetan date of the first of the second month of the year of the earth boar, the Dalai Lama, the two tutors, and government ministers along with others, were presented with invitations from the Chinese army encampment demanding our presence at a play in the Communist party army tent.

The Dalai Lama’s bodyguard Dapön Taglha Puntsog Tashi was especially invited to the Chinese camp but the Dalai Lama’s entourage of bodyguards was not to exceed ten, by terms of the invitation, and they were also not to wear armor or carry any weapons! As for the tutors and ministers, we were to come alone, and were not allowed to bring any attendants. It was so silly that it outwardly publicized their treacherous intentions. Still the red Chinese forcefully insisted that the Dalai Lama was powerless to refuse, and it was decided that he would go.

Now Tibetans, lay and ordained alike, had a general heartfelt abhorrence for the conduct of the red Chinese. In particular, in all of the eight years since they had arrived in Lhasa up to that time they had never invited the Dalai Lama to the red Chinese army camp. For them to do so now suddenly and not permit him to bring any armed bodyguards, and to invite other government officials without attendants alarmed the Tibetans and they came from every direction.

Many people heard or saw the influx of a vast Chinese army in many large trucks that night and witnessed other things. This lead everyone, headed by those of the three monastic universities such as lamas, monks, officials, lay and ordained alike, along with the general public, men and women, in the tens of thousands to congregate around the Norbulingka. No one could convince them to disperse as they were all voluntarily of a single mind to prevent the Dalai Lama from going to the play.

That morning of the first, they gathered outside the gates of the Norbulingka Palace, blocking the way and shouting their petition for the Dalai Lama to delay accepting the invitation that day, as they could not bear the responsibility of allowing him to go to the show. The Kalön minister Sampowa Tsewang Rigzin, intending to escort the Dalai Lama, came from Lhasa to the Norbulingka by car but, because his driver was Chinese, the public stoned him. Sampo was struck on the head and had to turn back.

Chamdo Pagpa Lha’s relative, Känchung Sönam Gyältsän, a young man who was well known for always associating with Chinese agents, made the mistake of coming to the Norbulingka that day dressed in Chinese clothing and further infuriating people with his conduct until he was stopped by the suspicious crowd at the main gate and they stoned him to death.

All this led to the Dalai Lama deferring his trip to the Chinese encampment. The public thronged through Lhasa shouting, ‘We Tibetans are free and independent!’ Over a thousand people from Tibet’s three regions formed a volunteer bodyguard army, bringing their own shields and weapons, assembling to stand watch on each side of the walls surrounding the Norbulingka Palace, around the Potala Palace and the Lhasa cathedrals.

At the ritual house of the Norbulingka the people created a new bodyguard army headquarters. Many thousands of Lhasa women also thronged together, demonstrating against the Chinese communists, shouting for the Chinese to leave Tibet.

On the day of the eighth the red Chinese shot and killed two monks near the north side of the Norbulingka, and two mortar shells were fired at the Norbulingka Palace, as has been related in detail by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his own writings. The situation had become so dangerous that it greatly disturbed me and the people like me who don’t realize all things are illusory.

As a result of this situation the Kashag authorities asked for prognostications regarding the suitable way for the Dalai Lama to reach any foreign country in order to seek asylum. They used the mediums of dough balls in the presence of the talking Päldän Lhamo statue, Nächung Chögyäl Chenpo-–the state oracle-, and the prophecy of the Gadong Dharmapala Shingjachän, but following the intentions and orders of the Dalai Lama, I secretly ordered Ratö Chubar Rinpoche to go to Panglung Retreat and to ask Gyälchen Shugden for his instructions.

The Dharmapala said, ‘You must go immediately! If you go by way of the southwestern direction, no harm will come to the Dalai Lama or any of his entourage; I guarantee it! You must go raising this sword in my name at the head of the Dalai Lama’s column!’ Thus, he advised using the path leading to the southwest through Rama Gang and then performed the shooting arrow and sword dances.

Following this very advice, on the night of the eighth day of the second month at nine o’clock, preceded by members of his family such as his mother, the Gyälyum Chenmo, the Dalai Lama and a small entourage then left. Following after him came Kyabje Yongzin Ling Rinpoche and I, Kalön Zurkangpa, Wangchen Geleg, Neshar Thubtän Tharpa, Shänkab Gyurme Tobgyä, and a reduced entourage including three close attendants. Everyone had cast off the clothing they normally wore and put on ordinary clothing and servant’s clothing.

We left the Norbulingka and took a boat across the Lhasa Kyichu River in the southwest at Rama Gang. When we got out of the boat we left quickly together as if we were going about ordinary business. I had my close attendant Lhabu, Jamyang Tashi, Norbu Chöpel, Namdröl, and Sönam Tänzin, on the night of the eighth, go ahead unobtrusively to wait for us at Pari in Rama Gang. Päldän, Lozang Sherab, and Lozang Yeshe came with me that night.

When we left the Norbulingka Palace we hid inside a big oxcart covered over by a tarp. We got out without the official bodyguards at the gate even asking who we were! Leaving from Kyichu Pari, until crossing the small Sandy Pass at the fortified monastery of Neu Tzong, to the north of the Kyichu River, the whole way we could clearly see the lamps of the Chinese army camp close by on the ‘Nortö’ fields to the west of the Norbulingka.

The moonlight seemed to be even brighter than usual and we went feeling a mixture of dread that the Chinese knew we were there and would pursue us, and hope that, if we could get across the Kyichu, we could escape. It was like the proverbial huntsman and the black Vajra Mahakala deer.

Not confronted with disaster, sitting on a throne, I had always proclaimed with a thunderous voice the mind-training teachings, including how to incorporate negative conditions on the path, but today I felt like a liar without any such realizations.

(end of excerpt)