Lone and Venerable Being

Lone and Venerable Being

(Forward)

In 2004, I went to Romania to attend the International Literature Festival, with the theme “Loneliness in the Global Village”. More than 150 authors from over twenty countries all expressed their personal insights on loneliness. But almost all views articulated were complaints about the current extrusion of literature by the media or lamentations on the marginalisation of authors. In an interview by International Radio Station, I said “The authors have trivialised the concept of loneliness. The loneliness of which they speak is merely an emotion – a disappointment caused when personal greed and desire cannot be satisfied, a complaint against the world by individuals on the periphery. It is a sign of decline. True loneliness is the awakening of wisdom. It is realisation of the frailty of life and the capriciousness of the world and its conflict with the creation of eternal value which is the author’s goal. True loneliness is a spiritual status – the solitary view from an empty mountaintop, the melancholy born of being without peer, the silence that greets the lone riser in a sleeping world. The crucified Christ is lonely, the enlightened Buddha beneath the Bodhi tree is lonely”.

True loneliness is a spiritual status.

In human history, there is an existence that compels our reverence, a spirit that calls our admiration, there is a company that makes us realise our own smallness. They have shared the same earth with us. Their transient bodies have vanished like smoke, but their spirits have become our spiritual nutrition, have led us to self reflection and dared us to hope.

This world is made splendid because of those lone and venerable beings. The people in this book are those lone, venerable beings.

Imagine a traveller braving the sandblasted skies to plant an oasis in the desert; imagine a saint venturing deep into the wastelands to teach barbarians of enlightened truth; imagine a mother crying as her children wage war with each other before her; imagine a lamp-bearer carrying his flickering candlelight into the endless night... Without doubt, they are lonely, yet this loneliness is not the hollow state of being without purpose, but the noble smile of the awakened.

The history of Tibetan Buddhism is filled with these lonely, venerable smiles. They have planted peace, tranquillity, transcendence, magnanimity and unconditional love into the hearts of people to become inerasable cultural landscapes. According to their differing appearances, we have given them their different names and lineages.

The subject of this book, Shangpa Kagyu is a treasure that has been buried for a thousand years, a hidden memory in history, a secret as yet unrevealed, and most splendid flower of wisdom.

The main dharma lineage of Shangpa Kagyu is the “Five Golden Dharma of Niguma”. In the first hundred years, it was passed on by one single root guru to the next single root guru for the first seven generations of Shangpa Kagyu lineage, so that its name was seldom heard in the world. During the almost one thousand years that followed, though there were writings of wisdom by numerous saints, they were mostly in the form of secret literatures and unrevealed to the world. In a millennium of time’s long river, this book is the fist to proclaim the stories of Shangpa Kagyu to the world.

One night, in a dream of purification, I dived into the depths of the ocean and from its deepest, most unfathomable place, brought out a box that glittered with the light of true gold. You may read this as a symbol of my writing of this book. If you allow yourself to be fully immersed in this text, you may concede my point.

It has been close to six centuries that Shangpa Kagyu has become no more than an icon, history has buried it. Today, it is time for her to emerge. I thank the fate that brings me such opportunity.

This is not one person’s biography, nor one author’s book. This is the fountain risen from a hidden current of wisdom which has been surging for a thousand years. It is writing from the souls of a company who have strived to achieve a certain spirit. Crystallised within is the blood and sweat of thousands—though it takes the form of one author’s story about the soul.

From this book, a spiritual course in human history, a treasure of culture which makes us marvel, a wisdom which can enlighten this age, and a spirit worthy of our awe and aspiration can be seen.

Our age is in dire need of such a spirit. This we all know.

Cast your eyes over the horizon, on the smoke and slaughter across the globe; turn on the TV and see the images of child bodies crippled by violence and terrorism; ask those around you who have lost their souls; search within and confront the insatiability that denies you peace. No matter who we are, we all have need of a freshening breeze, a smile of wisdom, a calm transcendence, and a subtle compassion. These are endowed not by money, or power, or by material goods but comes from our thousand year culture.

When greed burns out our perception and desire breaks our serenity, when life needs another kind of nourishment and the world needs another enlightening, we should turn our wondering gaze back to our own hearts and search within. Often, to question our own hearts is to question history and to question fate.

The human spirit is a place more mysterious than any other. To date, few have been able to uncover all its secrets. In the study of the soul, religion may have gained more success than science.

The nurturing of the spirit requires spiritual nutrition. Material supplements suffice only for the body, happiness with higher meaning is dependent on the spirit’s awakening. While penniless Milarepa, eating grass for sustenance, revelled in the feast of fetterless joy, princes and nobles were distraught to the point of seeking death at their own swords. The relationship between happiness and material wealth is limited. When the problem of survival has been solved, genuine happiness rests on whether the light of the spirit has manifested. Money can bring temporary satisfaction, but can not bring peace to the spirit. Spiritual peace requires the nurture of wisdom, spiritual enlightenment requires the awakening of wisdom. As humanity falls to smallness, frustration, greed and hate, the light of Shangpa Kagyu brings deliverance.

The emergence and propagation of a culture is often saving grace for humanity. What would be the state of Western society without the Christian principle of ‘love thy neighbour’? What path would China have taken, unguided by Confucian benevolence? Frequently, humanity requires the nourishment from ancient – but also ever youthful – wisdom.

What Shangpa Kagyu provides us with is, undoubtedly, nurturing wisdom ample to make our souls tranquil, magnanimous, compassionate and unconditionally loving, but more than that, it is a paradigm on how to live.

There have been embodiments of perfection in human history, such as the preaching of Christ and the enlightenment of Buddha. They are lamplights in the darkness, breaking the long night and alerting worldly inhabitants. That dazzling wisdom and love is the most beautiful vision of human history, of which we are in awe and to which we aspire. Each time we do so, we wash impurity from our souls, and rays of innate brightness shine through.

The vastness of the universe is without boundary, without known origin and without known end. Earth is but a dust speck within it. Humanity should continue in love, free from ignorance, greed and war. We should transform the heat of our petty frustrations into the refreshing breath of a cooling breeze.

Thus people in this book smile at you.

For those unfamiliar with Buddhism, this book will tell you what is meant by Buddhist practice. For those interested in Tibetan Buddhism, you will see the unique vista of Shangpa Kagyu. For Buddhists, this book will bring you to the core of a great and enduring faith, and may give you inspiration. If you are a scholar, this book will bring you an entirely new cultural outlook. For the general reader, this book will reveal to you another kind of existence, directed and motivated by conviction. For lovers of literature, this book will tell you that the writer Xue Mo once made a journey not known to this world.