Buddhist Prediction of the
17th Gyalwang Karmapa (1992 –Current)
In 1985, a boy
named "Apo Gaga" was born into a nomadic family in eastern Tibet. In
1992 that boy was recognized as the Seventeenth Karmapa. His biography can
nevertheless properly be said to start some eight centuries earlier, according
to the tradition in Tibet that enlightened masters ("tulkus") can
reincarnate in order to extend the time in which they can benefit beings.
The
Karmapas have incarnated in this form of nirmanakaya, or manifestation body,
for seventeen lifetimes, as of the present, and all have played the most
important role in preserving and propagating the Buddhist teachings of
Tibet. Details of the Seventeenth Karmapa's
life were foretold with startling insight in the vision of Chogyur Dechen
Lingpa (1829-1870), a great nonsectarian master and one of the most renowned
discoverers of sacred hidden texts ("tertöns") of the last few
centuries. The songs of His Holiness Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the Sixteenth
Karmapa, who was born in Tibet in 1924 and left permanently in 1959, reveal his
prophetic foresight that his reincarnation, the 17th Karmapa, would be
enthroned in Tsurphu, and in this way the Karmapa would see that the main seat
of the Karmapas would be restored. Many
see in the growing activity of the 17th Karmapa the dispelling of obstacles in
Tibet, India and throughout the world, and the increasingly vivid manifestation
of the heart-fulfillment of vision of the Karmapas. After the passing of the sixteenth Karmapa, it became the
responsibility of his disciples to carry out His Holiness' wishes, to continue
his activities and to find and enthrone the 17th Karmapa.
In
January of 1981, the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, gave to his heart son, the Xllth
Tai Situpa, a sealed protection amulet with a brocade cover, and said,
"This is your protection amulet. In the future, it will confer great
benefit." Many years later, the amulet was discovered to contain the
prediction letter for the rebirth of His Holiness.
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The
sacred testament |
Before
the discovery of the letter, and after the 16th Karmapa had passed into
parinvirana, one goal was uppermost in the mind of the Karmapa's disciples:
locating his successor, the 17th Karmapa. Since a Karmapa typically provides
instructions to a key disciple on how to locate the reincarnation, the years
after 1981 were preoccupied with finding the 16th Karmapa's instructions.
However, sometimes the location of such instructions is not so straightforward.
Such was the case here.
Typically,
protection amulets contain mantras, sacred pills or relics and are left sealed,
since they do not contain anything inside which needs to be examined. When the
16th Gyalwang Karmapa had given the 12th Tai Situpa the protection amulet, he
had not indicated that anything was inside the amulet needing examination. Situ
Rinpoche took the sacred gift and wrapped the brocade around one of the holy
instruments he always carried with him. Though he kept it with him day and
night for many years as a sacred object from the Karmapa, he never opened it
until many years later, after no prediction letter had been found. When HE Situ
Rinpoche decided to open the amulet, inside he found the prediction letter!
On
March 19th, 1992, the council of the four seat-holders of the Karmapa, Shamar
Rinpoche, Situ Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and Gyaltsap Rinpoche, met to
review the letter. The letter was subsequently translated as follows:
The Letter of Prediction
by His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa
Emaho.
Self-awareness
is always bliss;
The
dharmadhatu[1] has no center nor edge.
From
here to the north [in] the
east
of [the land] of snow
Is
a country where divine thunder
spontaneously
blazes[2]
[In]
a beautiful nomad's place with
the
sign of a cow[3],
The
method is Döndrub and the
wisdom
is Lolaga[4].
[Born
in] the year of the one
used
for the earth[5]
[With]
the miraculous, far-reaching sound
of
the white one[6];
[This]
is the one known as Karmapa.
His
is sustained by Lord Donyö Drupa;
Being
nonsectarian, he pervades all directions;
Not
staying close to some and distant from others, he is the protector of all
beings:
The
sun of the Buddha's Dharma that benefits others always blazes.
[1]Chos
kyi dhying, the expanse of all phenomena and equivalent to sunyata or
emptiness.
[2]The
Seventeenth Karmapa's place of birth is Lhathok: "Lha" means divine
and "thok" means thunder. In the text, thunder is poetically called
"gnam chags" or "sky iron."
[3]The
name of the nomadic community where the Karmapa was born is Bakor;
"ba" means "cow," and the Dharma term for cow,
"dodjo," is used in the text.
[4]Method
refers to the father and wisdom to the mother.
[5]His
Holiness was born in the Wood Ox year; a tree lives from the earth and an ox is
used to plow it.
[6]This
refers to the sound of the conch shell that miraculously resounded in the air
for about an hour after His Holiness' birth.
Translated
July, 1992 in Rumtek, Sikkim by Michell Martin
The
identity of a Karmapa is determined by the prediction of his predecessor.[1]
After interpreting the letter of the 16th Karmapa, the council of seatholders
interpreted the sentence in the letter stating "from here to the north
[in] the east of [the land] of snow" to mean that His Holiness the 16th
Karmapa had intended to indicate he would be reborn in Tibet. The council
agreed to send a search party to Tibet, led by Jamgon Rinpoche, who was already
scheduled to be in Tibet in June. 1
1. Taken from H.H. the 17th Gyalwang
Karmapa at http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.biographicalinfo.html and http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.background.letter.html