In Gomo Rinpoche’s text, the following homage is paid to the fully ordained nun, Bhikshuni Lakshmi:
Your holy body embodies all the past, present and future buddhas,
Your holy speech leads all past, present and future transmigratory beings to enlightenment,
Your holy mind simultaneously understands all the past, present and future:
To you, glorious Pälmo, sublime guide of the past, present and future sentient beings, I prostrate.
Bhikshuni Lakshmi is the first in the lineage of this nyung nä practice. Chenrezig passed this practice to Bhikshuni Lakshmi, a fully ordained nun and a great scholar, a female pandit. (Usually you hear about male pandits, but here it’s a female pandit.) She then passed the lineage to other yogis and pandits.
Bhikshuni Lakshmi was born a princess, the daughter of the king of Oddiyana (Tib: Orgyen), an area in Pakistan23 that was previously Buddhist.
However, I think Bhikshuni Lakshmi might have been Nepalese. In the Kathmandu valley, just to the south of Kathmandu on the way to Pharping, the holy place of Padmasambhava and Vajrayogini, after you cross the mountain that is said to be the one that Manjushri cut with his sword,24 there is a high mountain, with a long set of steps going up from the main road to the top. There you find a temple with a red Chenrezig inside, and outside the temple, on the walls of the surrounding buildings, are a lot of empty pots that people have offered, though I’m not sure why. There must be a reason, but I haven’t heard the explanation of its purpose. Basically, it must be to pacify some obstacles or to fulfill some wishes. It must be for happiness—otherwise, why would people do it?
At one side of the temple, there’s also a house with a large, roofed platform in front of it, like a kind of seat. It is said that it was Bhikshuni Lakshmi’s family home and she lived in that house nearly a thousand years ago. (I’m not sure that she practiced there, because in the later part of her life she lived in a cave and did much recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM.) So, this is why I think Bhikshuni Lakshmi might have been Nepalese.
In any case, Bhikshuni Lakshmi was born a princess. Seeing the shortcomings of the householder’s life, she took rabjung ordination, renouncing the householder’s life. She then became expert in the five types of knowledge: logic, art, poetry, medicine and Dharma. She was also extremely strict in morality.
But due to past karma, Bhikshuni Lakshmi became sick with leprosy. Her body was in pain and her mind also experienced much suffering. She lost both her hands. Since she was unable to use her hands, she had to eat like a dog, taking food straight into her mouth.
Her family and members of the king’s entourage then took her to a very isolated place, where medicinal grass grew, and left her there. In India and in many other places, when a person is deformed their family may reject them and leave them somewhere in the street.
This reminds me of something that happened in Delhi many years ago. One time we went to a park quite close to Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre, our Delhi center. In the park, there was an old woman sitting near a tree, with her head completely wrapped in a shawl. When she saw me, she started to come toward me.
That night when we went to see her again, she was lying in the path completely covered by her shawl. She was so small that it would be easy for people to walk on her. We sent Tenzin Zopa25 from the center to put a blanket over her. I thought to give her some food in the morning, then bring her to Tushita, where we could make a roof over a small balcony upstairs as a place for her to stay.
When we went to see her the next morning she looked so small, sitting all hunched up, and she said, “Guru-ji.” There was blood coming from her head. We discussed her situation. I wanted to take care of her and keep her at Tushita, but it seems there was a Christian place run by Mother Teresa’s order that took care of such people. Tenzin Zopa then grabbed the old woman, put her in a taxi and took her to Mother Teresa’s place. I heard that when she arrived there she smiled. When I next passed through Delhi I wanted to go to see her but it didn’t happen. It seems that she might have gotten better. I think the woman’s family, instead of looking after her, just dropped her there in the road.
When Bhikshuni Lakshmi’s family abandoned her there in that isolated place, she cried and cried. She then had a dream of King Indrabhuti, one of the eighty-four mahasiddhas and the special disciple to whom Buddha gave the Guhyasamaja teaching. Buddha manifested as Vajradhara to King Indrabhuti and revealed to him the Guhyasamaja tantra; King Indrabhuti then practiced Guhyasamaja and became enlightened in one brief lifetime. It is said that everyone in the whole valley where he did all his Guhyasamaja practice achieved enlightenment; the whole valley was emptied.
In the dream King Indrabhuti predicted to Bhikshuni Lakshmi, “If you practice Chenrezig, you will quickly achieve sublime realization.”
When Bhikshuni Lakshmi awoke from the dream, her pain had gone. She then recited OM MANI PADME HUM continuously, day and night. After some time, however, she got bored with the practice and her mind became depressed. In a dream she then saw Manjushri, who advised her, “Go to Pundravardhana (Li khar shing phel) and practice Chenrezig there. If you do that, after five years you will have the same realizations as Tara.” Manjushri gave her a blessed pill and said, “This is for your attainment.” Manjushri then disappeared. She took the pill and then woke up. All her infected wounds had completely gone, like a snake had shed its skin.
When she was going along the road to Pundravardhana, seven dakinis of the lotus family offered to help bring her there. At Pundravardhana, in front of a self-manifested statue of Chenrezig, Bhikshuni Lakshmi made a vow that she wouldn’t move from her seat until she had achieved sublime realization, enlightenment. She then did nyung nä practice on one seat, eating only one meal every two days and reciting the long and short Chenrezig mantras. After she had done that for one year she was completely healed of her leprosy.
Due to the power of the loving kindness and compassion in her holy mind, she was able to gather the eight great nagas, the ten guardians and all the maras under her control, and they all promised to become Dharma protectors. The eight great nagas made a particular commitment to be protectors of the lineage of the nyung nä practice.
When Bhikshuni Lakshmi was twenty-seven years old, on the first day of Saka Dawa, the fourth Tibetan month, Tara appeared to her, and she achieved the first bodhisattva bhumi.26 Tara predicted to her that she would be the doer of all the buddhas’ activities.
On the eighth day of that month, she saw Amoghapasha (Unfailing Lasso)27 and almost all the other Action Tantra deities and reached the eighth bhumi. The deities told her, “Bhikshuni Lakshmi, you will lead sentient beings to enlightenment through the yoga practice of Chenrezig.”
In the early morning of the fifteenth day, she saw Thousand-Arm Chenrezig with all the deities and mandalas of the four classes of tantra28 inside his holy body. She also saw numberless pure lands in the pores of Chenrezig’s holy body. There are numberless pores, and in every pore she saw a buddha’s pure land.
Bhikshuni Lakshmi then complained to Chenrezig, “I bore so much hardship for twelve years to achieve you—why didn’t I see you before this? Why is it only now that I see you?” (The Tibetan expression is yü, but I don’t know how to translate it precisely into English. It means something like “I did so much for you and you were ungrateful and never did what I asked you.”)
Chenrezig replied, “I’ve always been with you, without separation, from the very first day that you began your practice of Chenrezig. But because your karmic obscurations weren’t finished, you didn’t see me.” Chenrezig then blessed her. She then reached the tenth bhumi, and her holy body became golden in color. According to one story, her whole body totally changed: she became youthful, like a sixteen year old, and extremely beautiful.
Bhikshuni Lakshmi then engaged in tantric conduct, activities done for a few months or a year just before achievement of enlightenment. While engaging in tantric conduct, a person does all sorts of things that ordinary people might think are unreasonable or even crazy. It seems that each person has a different individual style of tantric conduct. One tantric practitioner became a butcher; another at Ganden Monastery in Tibet built a tall building for no particular reason—it wasn’t a temple or a place to live.
When Bhikshuni Lakshmi engaged in tantric conduct, everybody in that area criticized her. Because she was a nun and lived near a monastery, the local people criticized her for not having pure vows.
To change the people’s non-devotional thoughts toward her, on the day of a special festival of Khasarpani,29 she went into the market, where many people had gathered. With a curved knife, she cut off her own head and put it on top of her staff (kar sil).30 Holding that, she flew up into the sky and danced among the clouds. She then came down on the ground again with her head still on the staff.
The local people didn’t know that Bhikshuni Lakshmi was a pure nun and had high attainments. In order to prove it to them, she said, “If it’s true that I’m impure, which is what you people believe, my head won’t come back to my body. If I’m pure, the head will come back.” The moment she announced this to the people, her head came back and her body returned to normal.
When all the people gathered there saw this, all their non-devotional thoughts disappeared, and everybody developed incredible devotion. She brought everyone there into a state of devotion. All those people, male and female, who saw her then achieved sublime realization and went from there to the pure land of Vajrayogini (Dakpa Khachö).
Externally, Bhikshuni Lakshmi was a fully ordained nun; internally, she was Tara; and secretly, she was Vajravarahi (Dorje Phagmo). The conclusion of the whole story is that Bhikshuni Lakshmi achieved Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion.31
Notes
23 Wangchen Rinpoche and Bardor Tulku Rinpoche suggest Afghanistan. [Return to text]
24 Before, Kathmandu valley was a lake full of water; Manjushri cut this mountain with his sword so that the lake could easily drain. [Return to text]
25 Now Geshe Tenzin Zopa, the attendant of Geshe Lama Konchog and of his incarnation, Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche. [Return to text]
26 This means she achieved the path of seeing, the third of the five Mahayana paths. [Return to text]
27 An aspect of Chenrezig. [Return to text]
28 Action, Performance, Yoga and Highest Yoga Tantra. [Return to text]
29 A one-face, two-arm aspect of Chenrezig. [Return to text]
30 One of the thirteen implements of a fully ordained nun or monk. [Return to text]
31 For other versions of Bhikshuni Lakshmi’s story, see Buddhist Fasting Practice, pp. 18–21, Rest for the Fortunate, pp. 5–12, and Chenrezig: Lord of Love, pp 99–102. [Return to text]
