Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal by Matteo Pistono Page A

the realization of the teachings and holy books to study, nothing else is of value. Give it all away—offer it to your guru.”
    For the five years he stayed in retreat at Drikok, Sogyal continually had visionary encounters of Nyala Pema Dündul. Pema Dündul bestowed tantric empowerments and meditation instructions upon him. Pema Dündul and Sonam Thaye were leading Sogyal on the path of the secret Vajrayana that involves two stages. The first stage of the tantric path is receiving empowerment, which matures a disciple and initiates him or her into a particular meditation practice. Just as a candle wick gives light when lit, an empowerment awakens the student’s enlightened potential. The second stage of the path involves the instruction, the pithy know-how that liberates the disciple.
    “When I saw my guru Pema Dündul in visions, whatever he told me and predicted all arose in the script of the dakinis,” Sogyal said. Sogyal practiced just as the master had once sung:
    Emaho!
    The View is like the sky
    Always afterward what it was before
    Forever unmoving and unchanging
    And Dzogchen is simply this.
    Emaho!
    Meditation is like a vast ocean
    Fathomless, endless
    Nothing to get rid of, nothing to maintain
    And Dzogchen is simply this.
    Emaho!
    Action is like a spear whirled through empty space
    Unobstructed in all direction
    Anything that arises liberates by itself
    And Dzogchen is simply this.
    Emaho!
    Fruition is like a great eagle soaring through the sky
    Naturally no hope, no fear
    Samsara and nirvana liberated in the ground of being
    And Dzogchen is simply this.
    During the fourth month of the Water Monkey year (1872), Sogyal was continuing his meditation retreats. Early one morning, he had an unusual vision of Pema Dündul. The elder master appeared as a body of light, seated in meditation posture with his hands in his lap and a single thin cotton shawl draped around him. As if Pema Dündul’s body were spiraling into his own heart, the light body dissolved. Sogyal awoke from the dream with a feeling of joy tinged with a sense of loss. A few months passed before Sogyal realized that in his vision he had presciently seen the passing of Pema Dündul. Sogyal was later told about the last days of Pema Dündul and how the master had called for his disciples to assist him in walking to a small tent on the mountainside.
    “Be determined and have courage on the spiritual path,” Pema Dündul told his students. “Sew up the door of my tent, and do not come near for seven days.”
    Fierce rainstorms came that evening and continued for a week, interspersed with rainbows. Three minor earthquakes shook the area while the sky was painted with spheres of light. Nomads in the area heard horns and cymbals, and a sweet fragrance filled the air. After a week, as the disciples climbed the hill, they saw a rainbow arc from Pema Dündul’s tent all the way to his throne at Kalzang Temple. When they opened the tent door, they looked toward Pema Dündul’s meditation carpet and immediately bowed their heads, because all that remained were the master’s hair and fingernails in a pile. His body had vanished, dissolved into light. Pema Dündul had attained the supreme realization of a Dzogchen yogi.

    The Tibetan medical tantras teach that the process of dying begins when a person’s breathing stops and the five elements of the corporeal body—earth, water, fire, air, and space—progressively dissolve into one another. The death process takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days. While the death process of the body is occurring, the consciousness is suspended between death and the next rebirth. During these in-between bardo states, the consciousness has different kinds of visionary, auditory, and emotional experiences, which are intense and seemingly real. These visions can disturb the person’s consciousness because the physical body, which is held so dear and is the source of so much attachment, is disintegrating. As the death