Séra Jikga Trülku Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok
- Student
- Teacher
A prominent Awo Séra Tekchen Chökhor Ling lineage holder, Séra Jikga Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok—The Fifth Séra Jigmé Gawa Trülku—was an important figure in the transmission of the Düdjom Tersar in the Serta area of Golok. He was closely associated with Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol (1869–1935), Trülku Drimé Özer (1881–1924), and Déwé Dorjé (1892–1940), and is remembered within the lineage as a significant custodian of the Düdjom terma cycles in Golok’s Nyi Chu Valley.
A Trülku of Awo Séra Monastery
Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok was identified by Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol (1869–1935) as an emanation of the Fourth Séra Jikmé Gawa (Jikga) Trülku and belonged to the remarkable constellation of incarnate teachers associated with Awo Séra, the principal religious establishment of the Awo nomadic community in the Serta–Golok borderlands.[1]
Awo Séra, formally known as Séra Tekchen Chökor Ling (‘Séra Monastery of the Great Vehicle Dharma Wheel’), was an important center of the Palyul Nyingma tradition and became closely associated with the transmission of Düdjom Lingpa’s terma cycles in the Serta area of Golok. The monastery was founded by the First Sögen Bumshul Lama Sönam (1617–1682) and subsequently developed under successive Sögan incarnations.
By the time of the Fourth Sögan Natsok Rangdrol, Awo Séra had become an important center of the Düdjom Lingpa tradition. A close student of Düdjom Lingpa and of his son Trülku Drimé Özer (1881–1924), Natsok Rangdrol began transmitting their combined terma traditions at Awo Séra before moving the monastery from its original location in the Séra district to Nyilung Chötri Laka, in the Nyi Chu Valley, where he constructed a new monastic complex while retaining the institution’s established name of Séra Tekchen Chökor Ling, or Awo Séra.
Awo Séra subsequently became one of the principal settings for the transmission of the Düdjom Lingpa and Drimé Özer terma traditions. Following Drimé Özer’s death in 1924, Natsok Rangdrol invited Drimé Özer’s consort, Déwé Dorjé (1892–1940), to Awo Séra, where she remained for many years, revealing and transmitting her own termas as well as preserving and propagating the profound teachings of Düdjom Lingpa and his son. Her residence there gave rise to the name by which she became widely known in the West, Séra Khandro––the ‘Ḍakinī of Séra’.
Within this vibrant transmission environment, Séra Jikga Trülku Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok became one of the lineage holders associated with the Düdjom Tersar, propagating the tradition in Serta and the surrounding regions of Golok in the early twentieth century.
Trained by Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol
As the senior lama of Awo Séra Monastery, Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol––the Fourth Sögen Trülku—took Séra Jikga Trülku Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok under his guidance and oversaw his training in the monastic and yogic disciplines of the Nyingma tradition. Natsok Rangdröl himself had received teachings from Düdjom Lingpa and his son Trülku Drimé Özer and distinguished himself both as a scholar and practitioner. At Awo Séra, he established a retreat center devoted particularly to Düdjom Lingpa’s Nang Jang (‘Buddhahood Without Meditation’), thereby making the monastery an important center for the preservation and practice of Düdjom Lingpa’s visionary teachings.
In this setting, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok received the principal empowerments, oral transmissions, and pith instructions of the Düdjom Tersar. His training thus placed him directly within a living transmission only a few generations removed from Düdjom Lingpa himself. Through Natsok Rangdrol and the Séra community, the teachings revealed by Düdjom Lingpa were carried into a new generation of practitioners in Serta and the wider Golok region.
A Close Student of Trülku Drimé Özer in Awo Sera
While still in his teens, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok formed a close connection with Trülku Drimé Özer (1881–1924), the fifth son of Düdjom Lingpa and one of the principal terma revealers of the next generation. Drimé Özer was also an important teacher of Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdröl, thereby linking Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok to a particularly intimate circle of transmission within the Düdjom lineage.
During the final years of Drimé Özer’s life, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok received from him a succession of empowerments, oral transmissions, and pith instructions connected with his profound terma revelations. Among these was a longevity empowerment associated with Drimé Özer’s Zabmo Sangwé Thuktrak Lam (‘Profound Path of Secret Heart-Blood’).
Their connection deepened during the years immediately preceding Drimé Özer’s death from smallpox in 1924. As Drimé Özer committed his teachings to writing and began to organize the extensive corpus of revelations associated both with himself and with his father’s terma cycles, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok was among the early recipients of the resulting transmissions. He received empowerments, oral transmissions and pith instructions from this body of teachings, which eventually comprised eighteen volumes. Drimé Özer also became a source of personal counsel to him, advising him not only on spiritual practice but on matters of ordinary life.
Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s circle of relationships extended into the next generation of the Düdjom family. He became a friend and associate of Sönam Déutsen (1910–1959), Drimé Özer’s son, and of Dzongter Kunzang Nyima (1904–1958), the only child of Khyentsé Trülku Dzamling Wangyal (1868–1907) and a recognized speech incarnation of Düdjom Lingpa. Through these relationships, he remained closely connected with the principal custodians and successors of Düdjom Lingpa’s teachings as they passed from the first generation of terma revealers to their twentieth-century heirs.
Following Drimé Özer’s death, Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdröl and Déwé Dorjé recognized Séra Yangsi Tsültrim Gyatso (1925–1988) as Drimé Özer’s reincarnation. Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok took an active part in the subsequent recognition and enthronement of the young trülku at Awo Séra. His participation in this transition was particularly significant: having received teachings directly from Drimé Özer himself, he now helped ensure the continuity of the lineage through the tertön’s primary reincarnation in that region.
A Student of Déwé Dorjé in Awo Séra
Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s relationship with Déwé Dorjé further deepened his connection to the inner circle of Düdjom Lingpa’s terma tradition. Déwé Dorjé was the consort and close spiritual partner of Trülku Drimé Özer, but she was also a major tertön in her own right, whose visionary revelations became an important stream of the Düdjom Tersar. Following Drimé Özer’s death in 1924, Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol invited her to Awo Séra, where she remained for many years, teaching disciples, preserving the teachings of Drimé Özer, and revealing and transmitting her own termas. Her long residence there was an important factor in establishing Awo Séra as a major center for the combined transmission of the Düdjom Lingpa, Drimé Özer, and the Séra Khandro Déwé Dorjé traditions.
Within this setting, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok received empowerments, oral transmissions, and instructions from Déwé Dorjé alongside other prominent lamas and trülkus. His relationship with her was therefore significant not simply because she was the surviving partner of his former teacher, but because she herself embodied and transmitted a distinct stream of visionary revelation arising from the same Düdjom lineage. Her two principal terma cycles, Chönyi Khandrö Sangdzö (‘Secret Treasury of the Ḍākinīs of the Nature of Reality’) and Khandro Tuktik (‘Heart Essence of the Ḍakinīs’), became among the most important expressions of her own revealed teachings.
Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok also became closely acquainted with members of Drimé Özer’s family and immediate lineage. Among them was Drimé Özer’s son, Sönam Déutsen, who was recognized as one of Düdjom Lingpa’s reincarnations. Sönam Déutsen later assumed responsibility for Dartsang Kalzang monatsery, Düdjom Lingpa’s former seat in the Upper Do Chu Valley, and himself became a tertön, revealing more than five volumes of terma teachings. During this time, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok also became acquainted with Déwé Dorjé’s teenage daughter, Yangchen Chöying Drönma (1913–1946), Déwé Dorjé’s first child and the only one to survive into adulthood.[2]
In 1929, Déwé Dorjé journeyed from Awo Séra to Dartsang Kalzang, the principal seat established by Düdjom Lingpa in Golok, to gather and copy the extensive corpus of his revealed teachings. The undertaking was an effort to preserve and consolidate a body of teachings that had until then remained dispersed among the various holders of the lineage. On returning to Awo Séra, she transmitted the collected teachings to her disciples, together with the profound terma cycles she herself had revealed. Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok was among those who received these transmissions.
Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s Final Years
This final period of Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s life thus brought together several strands of the Düdjom inheritance. From Natsok Rangdröl he had received the teachings of Düdjom Lingpa within the institutional setting of Awo Séra; from Drimé Özer, he had received teachings and transmissions directly from one of Düdjom Lingpa’s sons and principal successors; and from Déwé Dorjé he received the continuation of that visionary tradition through the revelations of a second-generation tertön. His role was consequently not confined to a single branch of the Düdjom Tersar but connected several of its principal early-twentieth-century streams.
The transmission came at a critical moment. Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok died later in 1929, before turning thirty, while Natsok Rangdrol survived him by several years and Déwé Dorjé until 1940. His brief life therefore spanned a pivotal period in which the first generation of Düdjom Lingpa’s successors was consolidating, recording, and transmitting the tertön’s revealed teachings to a new generation. His death shortly after receiving the transmissions from Déwé Dorjé makes his place in this history especially poignant: he belonged to the generation that received the Düdjom inheritance directly from its earliest twentieth-century custodians, even as that generation was already beginning to pass into history.
According to lineage history, Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s reincarnation––the Sixth Jikga Trülku––was recognized as Chöktrül Jikmé Gawé Dorjé (c.1930–2003), better known as Trülku Jikga. When only eight years old, the young Jikmé Gawé Dorjé received from Déwé Dorjé the complete empowerments, reading transmissions, teachings, and oral pith instructions of the combined terma teachings of Düdjom Lingpa and his sons, together with Déwé Dorjé’s own revealed teachings. He received these transmissions alongside the thirteen-year-old Séra Yangtrül Tsültrim Gyatso, who Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdröl and Déwé Dorjé had recognized as Trülku Drimé Özer’s reincarnation.
Preserving distinctive branches of the Düdjom Tersar transmission
Within a few years of Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s death, the transmission he had received from Sögen Trülku Natsok Rangdrol, Trülku Drimé Özer, and Déwé Dorjé was already being carried forward by a new generation of incarnate teachers. Séra Yangtrül subsequently became the third major incarnation lineage associated with Awo Séra, while Jikmé Gawé Dorjé continued the Jikga line, preserving through the twentieth century one of the distinctive branches of the Düdjom Tersar transmission.
Notes
- ↑ Rigdzin Chönyi Döntok’s root emanation was Awo Tsultrim Lodrö (also known as Jikmé Gawé Lodrö).
- ↑ Yangchen Drönma’s father was Gara Gyalsé Pema Namgyal, son of Gara Terchen Dündül Wangchuk Lingpa, a tertön based in Benak Monastery, in Golok. Yangchen Drönma spent her whole life with her mother, mainly in Golok, but also in the different parts of Kham where she was invited to grant empowerments and teach. She became the consort of Sonäm Deutsen, Drimé Özer’s only child with whom she had children. She died at childbirth when their son, Do Ngak Tenpé Nyima, aka Doli Nyima, (1946–1960) was born in 1946.
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