translators Preface to Living On the Essence of Flowers, HH the 2nd
Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Gendun Gyatso (1475-1542) from the book The Dalai
Lamas on Tantra.
Translator's Preamble
A NUMBER of extraordinary traditions emerged from within the tantric
tradition. The practice of chu len [Skt.: rasayana] is of special
interest. The term chu len literally means "extracting the essence,"
and refers to esoteric methods for absorbing universal nutrition and
thus being able to live without having to rely upon ordinary food. In
all of the chu len traditions the yogi or yogini practices mantra and
meditation as a means of drawing forth and absorbing universal
energy, and then using this energy as a substitute for normal food.
Four main traditions of chu len are mentioned in the Dalai Lama
literature: extracting essential nutrient from flowers, extracting
the essence of stone, taking the sky as food, and living on purified
mercury (i.e., quicksilver). In this chapter we have a text by the
Second Dalai Lama on the first of these four. We find references to
the other three in the writings of the First and Fifth Dalai Lamas.
Although these four practices are maintained as living traditions,
the first--extracting the essence of flowers is by far the most
popular today. As we will see later in this chapter, the practitioner
makes small pills out of nontoxic flowers, and during the retreat
period eats only a few of these each day. The practice is performed
both for health and life-extension, and also as a means of rendering
the physical body more conducive to tantric training and enlightenment.
As the Second Dalai Lama points out in his commentary, the lineage of
the practice was brought to Tibet by tile Indian mahasiddha Padampa
in the latter part of the eleventh century, and was passed from him
in an unbroken line over the generations. In the early days it was an
exclusive teaching within the Shijey and Tsarchod Schools of Tibetan
Buddhism, but gradually became absorbed by the other sects.
As we saw in an earlier chapter on the Six Yogas of Niguma, the
Second Dalai Lama's father was the head of the Shangpa Kagyu School
of Tibetan Buddhism. However, he was also an important figure in the
Shijey and Tsarchod Schools, largely through the Second Dalai Lama's
grandmother, who was the head of one of the three Shijey subsects.
This amazing woman performed a forty-four-year retreat in a remote
bricked-in cave, and became one of the great female mystics of her
generation. The Second Dalai Lama was very close to her, and this put
him in immediate touch with great teachers from this little known but
highly esoteric sect. In his youth he received teachings and
initiations from many of these nonmainstream masters. The text in
this chapter is an example of one such lineage that he received at
that time.
During my years in India I met dozens of yogis who regularly made the
standard twenty-one-day retreat of "flower essence extraction [flower
essence rasayanas]." Some of them continued the discipline for
extended periods of time. Two whom I knew as personal friends
achieved the power of the practice, and became able to forsake
ordinary food altogether and instead to live exclusively on a few
flower pills a day. They did so for years at a time.
One of them was called Geshey Champa Wangdu. He had lived in retreat
in the mountains above Dharamsala for many years under the guidance
of the great Geshey Rabten, who at the time was considered to be the
most accomplished meditator in the Gelukpa tradition. One year Geshey
Rabten placed Geshey Champa and a dozen or so other disciples in a
chu len intensive. The others were only kept in the practice for the
standard twenty-one days. Geshey Champa Wangdu, however, was
instructed to persevere for as long as he could.
In the first few weeks of the retreat Geshey Champa became quite
thin. However, after about three months of perseverance he achieved
the full power of the practice, and from that time on began to put on
weight. Soon he was his natural somewhat portly self. He even became
a bit too fat at one point in the retreat. It turned out that
although the pills themselves were small, his mantra practice and
visualization were drawing too much universal nutrient into them. He
had to go on a diet by cutting down on the amount of universal energy
that he visualized being absorbed into the pills. Cutting down his
visualized intake in this way, he soon returned to his normal weight.
I originally received the oral transmission and instruction on this
lineage from that exalted master.
Geshey Champa passed away a few decades later of old age. As fate
would have it, his reincarnation was discovered in a Chinese family
in Hong Kong. I happened to be in Nepal at the time, and was visiting
with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche told me of the boy in Hong Kong and
recommended that I visit him on my way to Tibet. "You were friends
with Geshey Champa Wangdu. You will be in Hong Kong next week on your
way to Tibet. Check out the boy and tell me if you can see anything
of Champa Wangdu in him."
When I arrived in Hong Kong I phoned the parents. "The boy is very
reclusive' they told me. "Although he is only eighteen months old, he
sits on his bed all day playing with the mantra mala Lama Zopa gave
him. He sits there cross-legged, and pretends to recite mantras. Many
people have dropped by to see him, but he has refused to come out of
his room to greet any of them."
"Anyway, I'll drop by" I replied. "But we won't say anything to him.
I'll just sit and talk with you, and we'll see if he responds to the
sound of my voice."
A half hour after I arrived the boy's door opened a crack and a pair
of tiny eyes peeked out. I looked over, smiled and waved, but kept
talking to the mother. The door closed again, but after another
fifteen minutes the same thing occurred again. When the door opened
for a third time, the child came running out and hopped on my lap.
I used to have a small goatee beard, and the old lama used to love to
play with it whenever I visited. Tibetans generally don't have much
facial hair, and my goatee always attracted attention. The boy now
started to tickle my chin and pull playfully on my beard, just as the
old lama had done on so many occasions when I visited him.
The child then suddenly hopped down and ran to the kitchen, coming
back with a pot of small ice cream balls. They were almost identical
in appearance to the flower essence pills that the old lama had made
on so many occasions and had given to me years earlier. The boy then
began to pop them into my mouth one by one.
The mother exclaimed in surprise, "This is rather amazing. He never
lets anyone touch his little ice cream balls, not even me, his
father, or his sister. He has never given any of them away to anyone."
For the next hour the boy continued to sit on my lap playing with my
beard and feeding the ice cream pellets to me. When it came time for
me to leave and catch the train to China, he ran to the fridge and
brought me another pot of the ice cream pellets to take with me. He
also insisted on taking my head in his hands and touching his
forehead to mine, just as Geshey Wangdu had always done whenever I
parted company from him.
The tantric tradition of "extracting the essence" has been used
successfully by the great meditators of Central Asia for many
centuries now. No doubt it will also prove beneficial to Westerners
in the centuries to come.
One of my lamas, the late great Geshey Ngawang Dargyey, commented
that he felt the practice was especially relevant to the modern age,
when the world has become so filled with toxins, and food has lost
much of its natural power because of overproduction, hybridization,
and chemical fertilization.
He also jokingly said, "In the old days in our Gelukpa School we
never allowed people to do long retreats until they had mastered the
powers of tummo ("inner fire") and chu len [rasayana]. That way we
never had to worry about them freezing or starving to death."
Indeed, during my years of training in Dharamsala most of the long-
term retreatants had mastered these two powers during short one-month
retreats before being allowed to undertake the nyen chen, or "great
approach," the name given to the three year retreat.
My translation of this text was aided by the Tibetan doctor Sonam
Rabgye.
