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Names[edit]
Tibetan:
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Dates[edit]
Born: 1166
Died: 1244
Affiliation[edit]
Other Biographical Information[edit]
The Rok clan dates to the early dissemination of the Buddhist teachings in Tibet, the so-called Tenpa Ngadar (bstan pa snga dar). The first major figure of this clan was Rok Namkha Yeshe (rog nam mkha' ye shes), one of two brothers who were the recipient of the entire lineage of a certain Gyelwa Tenne (rgyal ba rten ne), a figure of some confusion in the Blue Annals. Twenty-four generations later, Rok Sherab Lama (rog shes rab bla ma, 1090-1173) was prophesied as the progenitor of a lineage that would give rise to eight great men. His son, Rok Tashi Drakpa (rog bkra shis grags pa, 1138-1187), married a woman named Choki Ge (chos kyi dge), who gave birth to three extraordinary sons. The eldest of these was Rok Sherab O (rog shes rab 'od). His younger brother Zhikpo (zhig po), whose monastic name was Rinchen Sherab (rin chen shes rab, 1171-1245) is recorded as having received Mahāmudrā transmission from their father; the youngest was Darcharpa Khepa Tsonseng ('dag 'byar pa mkhas pa brtson seng, 1186-1247), who carried the epethet of Mawai Sengge (smra ba'i seng ge), meaning "the lion of speech", e.g. Mañjuśrī.
The eldest son was originally named Gyamon (rgya mon). At some point he came to be considered the reincarnation of the Indian saint Jñānasiddha/i (shes rab grub), although it is unclear when this occurred. Gyamon began to study reading, writing, and the numerological sciences (rstis) at age of five under his grandfather, Sherab Lama. In just two years he could read at an incredible pace, being able to recite the entire, three-volume 25,000-line Prajñāpāramitā in single day. Skeptical that his son could actually do this, his father, Tashi Drakpa, asked for a demonstration. As his son began to read, the father was so moved that he clasped his hands at his heart in devotion. The young Gyamon studied Tantra under this father and grandfather until age ten, at which point the father decided to start his training in the art of magic (mthu). He sent the boy off to do a three year retreat on the deity Kila (phur ba). By the end of the retreat, the boy is said to have received various signs of accomplishment, including a vision of the deity: "I’ve completed the retreat of Kila," he announced, "and now my body has become like a ball of iron. Even if surrounded by a thousand gods and demons no one around me could not be harmed, much less could I myself be."
Over the next several years, Gyamon would devote himself to acquiring important teachings – initially Tantric teachings, but from age twenty or so of the exoteric or sutra variety as well. At the request of Rok Tsenpo (rog btsan po d. after 1196), the boy was first sent to him. Under this master’s tutelage, the young Gyamon learned many of the important traditions of the Nyingma school. The following year he studied under Rok Lujin (rog klu sbyin, d.u.). At age fifteen Gyamon obtained a variety of tantric teachings from Lhab Drema Gongma (lhab dres ma gong ma, d.u.).
When he was sixteen, Gyamon broke a tooth and had it replaced with an iron one. From that point on he was nicknamed the "scholar with the iron tooth." Around this same time he began to study the Zurs' exegesis on the Sutra of Intentions (dgongs pa 'dus pa'i mdo) and the Guhyagarbha Tantra under the master Yamshu Ngodrub (yam shud dngos grub, d.u.), applying himself with great zeal to the teachings. The young Gyamon studied so hard that no one at Yamshu’s academy could defeat him in debate. Yamshu Ngodrub renamed him Sherab O ("Light of Wisdom"), a name that he bore from that day until the end of his life.
Rok Sherab O later called himself a bande, which is usually a term reserved for monks. But there is no mention of Rokben ever taking monastic ordination. When the biography mentions Rokben’s name-change – from Gyamon, his childhood name, to Sherab O – this is the result of his scholarly achievement, and not, as is more typical, as the result of ordination. The one time in the biography that Go Lotsāwa quotes Rokben concerning his own status, Rokben calls himself a yogi (rnal 'byor pa) and, significantly, not a monk. All of this is in sharp contrast to what we find in the biography of his brother, Zhigpo, whose ordination is clearly described and whose status as a monk is unquestionable. On the other hand, Rokben’s biography never mentions his taking a consort, marrying, or having children. In the end, whether Rokben was a monk or not cannot be clearly ascertained. Other names by which he was known include Sherab Sengge (shes rab seng ge) and Chaksochen (lcags so can).
Although the Blue Annals mentions that Rokben studied with Yamshu for four years, it appears that he did not do so exclusively, for during this time he also received two important lineages of Tantric teachings from Kyangpo Darma Drak (skyang po dar ma grags). Rokben began to write at the age of eighteen, composing two works: A Commentary on the Stages of the Path of the Illusion [Net] Tantra (sgyu 'phrul drwa ba’i lam rim gyi ṭīkā), and A Digest on the Basis and the Path (gzhi lam gyi stong thun).
At age nineteen, Rokben traveled to Tsang, where he met one of his most important teachers, the physician-lama So Darma Sengge (so dar ma seng ge). Great faith was born in Rokben as soon as he saw this master. He studied a variety of topics under him, including Dzogchen. He also studied under Langton Jope (lang ston jo pad) during this time. It is not clear whether this is the same Jope that was a teacher of Tsondru Sengge (brtson 'grus seng ge, 1186-1247), a. k. a. Nyedo Mawai Sengge (snye mdo smra ba’i seng ge), who later became a teacher of Rokben. Mawai Sengge studied under a Jo pad at Kha rag in 1206.
Rokben continued to travel and to study Nyingma teachings from masters in southwestern Tibet. During this time he also studied Mahāmudrā under Lobpon Pondo (slob dpon dpon zlos, d.u.), and Dzogchen under the master Jodar (jo dar). At age twenty or so he met the famous philosopher Tsangnakpa Tsondru Sengge (gtsang nag pa brtson 'grus seng ge, d.u.), from whom he received instruction on the latter’s Precis on Logic (tshad ma bsdus pa). Around this same time he also received teachings on Avalokiteśvara from the famous treasure revealer Drubtob Ngodrub (grub thob dngos grub, d.u.)
Shortly before his twenty-first birthday, while Rokben was staying with the physician So, his father died on the way to bring him supplies. Rokben became ill from grief. Whatever remained of the provisions his father had brought he spent on the funerary rituals. He then left master So, and traveled to U. Contemplating his situation – the death of his father, and the fact that his mother and younger brothers were destitute, with the brothers performing rituals for the villagers in order to support his mother – he grew depressed, and contemplated relocating to Kham. Perhaps he thought of enrolling in Katok (kaH thog) Monastery, which had been founded twenty-seven years earlier by Katokpa Dampa Deshek (dam pa bde gshegs, 1122-1192), a famous Nyingma master who, though quite old, was still alive at this point. In any case, the members of Rokben's family convinced him not to travel to Kham and to remain instead in U. Rokben started to teach when he was twenty-one years old, but he still continued to study under many different masters. Although he already had some background in the exoteric texts, he began to seriously study these subjects more intensively from this point forward – for example, under Geshe Tashiwa (dge bshes bkra shis ba, d.u.) from whom he also received teachings on the Six Dharmas of Naropa. This practice proved especially beneficial and he quickly showed signs of having mastered the instructions.
When he was twenty-four, Rokben became ill, and hearing that a famous master, Dru Namdrak (gru rnam grags, d.u.), was visiting Samye Monastery, he asked to receive teachings on the latter’s Profound Scrolls. Having received the instructions, he went into retreat at Karu Gang (mkhar ru sgang) to meditate and was able to suppress his illness. Now cured, Rokben took to the road once more.
It was at this point that he met the famous Zhije master Mawai Sengge (smra ba’i seng ge), more commonly known as Chupa Darma Tsondru ('chus pa dar ma brtson 'grus, 1117-1192), at Zhongpa Teng (Zhong pa stengs). The Blue Annals tells us of their encounter. Since Rokben traveled very simply and never put on airs, Mawai Sengge, considering him to be an ordinary itinerant student, was initially reluctant to give him the complete instructions. But someone pointed out to the master that the young man before him was "the most renowned scholar of the doctrine below the Silma Pass in Tsang." Mawai Sengge apologized to Rokben and immediately gave him the complete set of teachings. From this point forward Rokben began to acquire many of the major lineages of Zhije. The following year, while he was practicing one set of these teachings, the Tunchu Instructions of Rma (rma’i thun bcud), Rokben is said to have had a breakthrough experience of gnosis in which "all phenomena belonging to samsara and nirvana became liberated as mere names" ('khor 'das kyi chos thams cad ming tsam du grol ba).
This experience did not stop him from continuing to search for more instructions, for instance, teachings on Mahāmudrā, which he received from Ngamsho Gyare (ngam shod rgya ras, d.u.). Mastering these instructions, we are told, he could counteract any negative conditions that impeded his practice, but he had yet to succeed in attaining the state called "the neutral mind" (lung ma bstan gyi shes pa). Unable to arrive at the realization of the four awarenesses (rig pa bzhi), at age twenty-eight he decided to seek out further instructions on Zhije. But since his previous master, Chupa Darma Tsondru, had passed away, he sought out the latter’s son, Chupa Tsondru Sengge ('chus pa brtson 'grus seng ge, 1186-1247). The younger Chupa was Rokben’s junior by some twenty years, but he also possessed all of the instructions and meditation experience of his father. As appears to have been his habit, Rokben went to Chupa's residence in Chang-kyim (chang khyim) dressed as a mendicant or beggar (ldom bu pa). During his first year in residence at Chang-kyim, he received the three major lineages of Zhije instructions – those of Ma, So and Kam – and he applied himself earnestly to meditation.
Rokben grew to have tremendous respect for Chupa, whom he considered both a great teacher and a great practitioner. Due to his various acts of devotion and generosity, Chupa also came to admire Rokben and in short order gave him all of the remaining Zhije instructions as well as many additional teachings. When he imparted the lineage of the Prajñāpāramitā to Rokben, Chupa made his student promise to engage in austerities (dka' thub) for three years. Now Rokben had a particular affinity for the So system of Zhije meditation, but, perhaps because of Chupa’s instructions to practice as an ascetic for three years, he decided to enter into a retreat following the Kam (skam) system, which required him to give away all of his possessions, down to his very bowl. When his old teacher Yamshu heard that he was about to undertake such a practice, he became somewhat displeased, but Rokben recited a spontaneous spiritual song to Yamshu which was so moving that it brought tears to his old teacher’s eyes. Yamshu eventually gave in to his student’s wishes and permitted him to undertake the rigorous Kam retreat practice.
Rokben entered into his famous three year retreat in the central room of the Tsewa Gang Temple with no provisions, using alchemically transformed substances (bcud len) as his only source of nutrition. For his clothing he used patched rags. He also kept strict silence. He practiced in this way with tremendous zeal until "the signs of the path appeared… and the continuum of his defilements was destroyed." For about a month he experienced visions both day and night (nyin mtshan med pa'i snang ba shar). First he saw his tutelary deity; then he received the prophecies of the ḍākinī; and finally, he was able to bind yaksha spirits so that they would perform various acts on his behalf.
At age thirty-two Rokben met the famous yogi Kyitsang Zhikpo (skyi tshang zhig po). The yogi was extremely old at this point and had to be supported by two female meditators. According to the Blue Annals, Zhigpo would regurgitate ambrosia and eat it. Despite his age, he was extremely handsome and was always smiling. Go Lotsāwa states that merely looking at him was enough to transform someone’s perception of the world. Go Lotsāwa has it that Rokben was so taken aback by this old sage that he became paralyzed, unable even to pay him reverence. Zhigpo then gave him some of his ambrosia to eat and as soon as Rokben swallowed it, his body became filled with great bliss. Feeling somewhat intimidated in Zhigpo’s presence, Rokben nonetheless forced himself to ask the master some questions about the doctrine. Zhigpo answered, "In the past I studied all the doctrine there was to study. I understood everything there was to understand and I also practiced it. Now for me there is no difference between the doctrine and what is not the doctrine. Since you don’t possess the ability to listen to the doctrine, I don’t know how to explain it to you, but take this trifle." And he gave Rokben a nail off of a finger from his right hand on which there was magically imprinted an image of Vajrayogini. Taking it into his hand, all of Rokben’s conceptions disappeared and he no longer saw any difference between virtue and sin, between what is to be eliminated and the antidote that eliminates it, between meditative equipoise and post-meditation.
Even this experience, however, did not stop Rokben from continuing his studies. When, years earlier, he was living at Chupa’s temple, he heard of an individual who possessed the lineage of Gyelwa Tenne, presumably the lineage that had been bestowed to Rokben’s ancestor Rok Namkha Yeshe hundreds of years earlier. On his way to meet some famous lamas, he actually met this individual, whose name is simply given in the Blue Annals as Tenne (d. 1127) who bestowed on Rokben the "Three Stainless Common Lineages of Tenne." The master asked Rokben to invite him back to his hometown, to which Rokben replied that, being a yogi, he had neither a place nor the means to host him. But the Tenne master insisted, and in the end convinced Rokben that this was something he needed to do. A date for the visit was set and Rokben then journeyed to Kitsang (skyi tshang) to listen to teachings on the Manjushir Namasamgiti and Machik's Six Fragments of Chod, a practice that, up to this time, no one else had received in its entirety.
Shortly after receiving these teachings in Kitsang, Rokben experienced a strange illness. Go Lotsāwa explains that this was the result of not having completely fulfilled the promise he had made to Chupa years earlier – namely, to practice austerities for three years (which suggests that perhaps the three years of his intensive practice of the Kam system did not in fact last a full three years). As a result of breaking his pledge, Rokben was bleeding from his nose. A week passed and no medical treatment or religious ritual would cure him. The bleeding only stopped after he had a vision in which So Darma Sengge blessed him by touching his forehead.
Around this time, one of Rokben’s teachers, Rokton Tsenpo (rog ston btsan po), passed away. In the process of doing the funerary rituals for his master, the date that Rokben had made with the Tenne master passed. In a dream, a beautiful woman with ornaments appeared to Rokben and reminded him, "The Conqueror Tenne is waiting for your invitation." Rokben immediately sent four men to invite the master. Over the course of several months, Tenne imparted all of his teachings to Rokben. Some of his instructions, he said, were not to be taught to anyone else until after his death. Tenne would later tell his other disciples that although his entire corpus of teachings did not generate in Rokben any new insights, the transmissions made the lineage of Padampa Sanggye’s instructions penetrate into Rokben’s very core.
In 1197 Rokben invited the master of Drachi named Robhe (gra phyi'i slob dpon ro bhe) to give various initiations and teachings. The following year, Rokben built a road at Menchig (sman gcig). Two years later he received more exoteric teachings, this time from Dargom Shigpo (dar gom zhig po), but from this time forward we hear little about his receiving teachings. Instead, his biography begins to recount his visions and accomplishments. For example, at age thirty-six, at Karchung (mkhar chung), he had a vision of Cakrasaṃvara in his form as Blood Drinker (khrag 'thung). Three years later he had a vision of Padampa Sanggye, who taught him the Appearance of Experience (nyams snang ma).
Around the year 1200, when he was forty, Gyeltsa Dowang (rgyal tsha mdo dbang) offered Rokben the monastery of Nyedo (snye mdo), but instead of accepting it, Rokben passed the institution on to Nyedo Mawai Sengge. Two years later, during the performance of the Ambrosia rituals at Tsegang (rtse sgang), so much ambrosia fell from the altar that it practically drenched the robes of the participants. At age forty-eight, while residing at Mutig (mu tig), Rokben developed the supernormal faculty of divine sight (lha'i spyan), which allowed him "to see anything located within the bounds of the universe."
Rokben began teaching extensively at age forty-nine. Since Tenne had passed away, he was now free to start imparting Tenne’s special meditation practices. The act of imparting these secret teachings apparently posed some danger to Rokben’s person, but we are told that the threat to his life diminished after he turned sixty-five. When he was sixty eight, Rokben went on a two-week teaching tour in which he lectured at thirty different monasteries. He passed away at the age of seventy-nine, in the year 1244. It is said that in the ashes of his cremated remains images of Cakrasaṃvara and Vajrayogini were found.
The Blue Annals only mentions two of Rokben’s disciples. One is Sumton Repa (sum ston ras pa), also known under his monastic name of Sonam Sherab (bsod nams shes rab) and under his tantric name of Dharmavajra. The other is the "Omniscient One from Nyedo" (snye mdo kun mkhyen pa), who is almost certainly Mawai Sengge – that is, Chupa the Junior. Although Rokben studied the Zhije system under the younger Mawai Sengge, he, it seems, in turn studied the Nyingma Tantras under Rokben. Hence, they served as master and disciple to one another. Another disciple listed in the Ming Dzod is Geshe Khampa Sherab Tsondru (dge bshes khams pa shes rab brtson 'grus)
A number of later historical sources mention that Rokben was a treasure revealer, for example Guru Tashi and Jamgon Kongrul, who wrote that "Rokben Sherab O is said to have revealed many treasures such as the Fifty-Eight Deity Cycle of the Practice of Yangdag (Yang dag gi sgrub skor lha lnga bcu nga brgyad pa), and the Ninefold Lamp of Yan dag (Yang dag mar me dgu pa)" In any case, if Rokben did reveal any termas, none of these works survive.
Beside his famous History and Philosophy of Buddhism (chos 'byung grub mtha' chen mo), Rokben penned a Digest on the Basis and Path of the Illusion Tantra (sgyu 'phrul gyi gzhi lam stong thun), and a Commentary on Buddhaguhya’s Exposition of the Paths of the Illusion Tantra (lam rnam bkod kyi ṭīkka). The influential Nyingma Master Longchenpa Drime Ozer (klong chen dri med 'od zer, 1308-1364) is said to have studied these texts at Denbag (dan bag), but apparently preferred the explanations of Rongzom over those of Rokben. Given Longchenpa's tremendous influence on the later Nyingma tradition, this may partly explain why Rokben’s Guhyagarbha works have largely been forgotten by later generations of Nyingmapa scholars.
This essay was adapted from The Buddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles: Rog Bande Sherab's Lamp of the Teachings, pp. 39-51, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Sources
- Cabezón, José. 2013. The Buddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles: Rog Bande Sherab's Lamp of the Teachings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Dung dkar blo bzang 'phrin las. 2002. Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo. Beijing: Krung go’'i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, pp. 1927-8.
- 'Gos lo tsa ba gzhon nu dpal. 2002. Deb ther sngon po. Sarnath, Varanasi: Vidya dpe mdzod khang, pp. 1093-1109.
- Grags pa 'byung gnas. 1992. Gangs can mkhas grub rim byon ming mdzod. Lanzhou: Kan su'u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, pp. 1625-6.
- Gu ru bkra shis. 1990. Gu bkra'i chos 'byung. Beijing: Krung go'i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, p. 481.
- 'Jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas. 2007. Gter ston brgya rtsa. In Rin chen gter mdzod chen mo, vol. 1, pp. 404-696. New Delhi: Shechen, p. 693 (f. 177a).
- Roerich, George, trans. 1996. The Blue Annals. 2nd ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, pp. 939-949.