'jigs med gling pa
From Rinchen Terdzö
A Tibetan exegete and visionary, renowned as one of the premier treasure revealers (gter ston) in the Rnying ma sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 'Jigs med gling pa was born in the central Tibetan region of 'Phyong rgyas (Chongye), and from an early age recalled many of his previous incarnations, including those of the Tibetan king Khri srong lde btsan, the scholars Sgam po pa and Klong chen pa and, in his immediately preceding birth, Chos rje gling pa. After a period of monastic education, in his late twenties, he undertook an intense series of meditation retreats, first at Dpal ri monastery and then at the Chims phu cave complex near Bsam yas. In one of the numerous visions he experienced during this period, he received the klong chen snying thig, or "Heart Sphere of the Great Expanse," from a ḍākinī at the Bodhnāth stūpa in Kathmandu. The revelation of this text is considered a “mind treasure” (dgongs gter), composed by Padmasambhava and revealed to the mind of a later disciple. 'Jigs med gling pa kept this revelation secret for seven years before transcribing it. The klong chen snying thig corpus systematized by 'Jigs med gling pa, including numerous explanatory texts, tantric initiations, and ritual cycles, became a seminal component of the rdzogs chen teachings in the Rnying ma sect. While based in central Tibet, 'Jigs med gling pa was also influential in Tibet's eastern regions, serving as spiritual teacher to the royal family of Sde dge and supervising the printing of the collected Rnying ma tantras in twenty-eight volumes. His patrons and disciples included some of the most powerful and prestigious individuals from Khams in eastern Tibet, and his active participation in reviving Rnying ma traditions during a time of persecution earned him a place at the forefront of the burgeoning eclectic or nonsectarian (ris med) movement. Numerous subsequent visionaries involved in promulgating the movement identified themselves as 'Jigs med gling pa's reincarnation, including 'Jam dbyang mkhyen brtse dbang po, Mdo mkhyen brtse Ye Shes rdo rje, Dpal sprul Rinpoche, and Dil mgo mkhyen brtse. (Source: "'Jigs med gling pa." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 387–88. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Tertön Gyatsa Information from the Rinchen Terdzö
5 Cycles
- བླ་མ་དྲག་པོ་རྟ་ཁྱུང་འབར་བ་
Bla ma drag po rta khyung 'bar ba (4 of 4 Texts) - ཡུམ་བཀའ་བདེ་ཆེན་རྒྱལ་མོ་
Yum bka' bde chen rgyal mo (2 of 19 Texts) - ནང་སྒྲུབ་རིག་འཛིན་འདུས་པ་
Nang sgrub rig 'dzin 'dus pa (4 of 4 Texts) - ཡང་གསང་བླ་མའི་སྒྲུབ་པ་ཐིག་ལེའི་རྒྱ་ཅན་
Yang gsang bla ma'i sgrub pa thig le'i rgya can (6 of 6 Texts) - ཡུམ་བཀའ་བདེ་ཆེན་རྒྱལ་མོ་
Yum bka' bde chen rgyal mo (3 of 3 Texts)
