From my dairy: Aug. 1, 2001
I heard Lama quietly chanting to himself. I glanced over at him. The sunlight streamed in through the window and bathed him and the text. My eyes were drawn to the fine, delicate calligraphy, black with red strokes so even and precise. It was written on pecha with darkened edges from dirty fingers turning the pages over again and again.
He laughs out loud. “This is Meng-ngak. This is very fantastic. Here, in only two pages, is instruction on how to recognize yourself as Togden.” I was quiet, waiting for him to continue. “By doing this practice, you can recognize the stage of the Vidyadhara; how to tell what stage you are on.” He flips the page over and continues to read. Then he looks at me.
“This was written by one Ani. She did this practice and she attained the rainbow body. When she died, she stayed in Tugdam for over 14 days. Then her body shrank, but her head stayed big. Rainbows were everywhere.”
“Where was this?” I asked, enchanted. “Who was this Ani?”
“Tiki Zangmo. She was a student of Rigsang Dorje Rinpoche. She spent her whole life with the Lama. She was a good friend of my fathers. She knew me since I was crawling. Rigsang Dorje Rinpoche and she used to come to our Monastery in Dolpo. I was very young then. I used to always go to his seat and piss. She would get very upset with me. She called me ‘the one with eyes like saucers’. When she would find me in Rigsang Rinpoche’s bed she would yell ‘Oh, no, he is pissing in Rinpoche’s bed!” he laughs. “The next time I saw her was in Kathmandu. She was very old then.”
He continues to read her text for awhile, then says, “She used to carry a stack of texts with her wherever she went. This was her daily practice. She wrote this herself from instructions she got from her Lama, Rigsang Rinpoche. Then she took them to Dudjom Rinpoche. She asked him for more teachings on them. She said she had taken these teachings from Rigsang Dorje, and she wanted to receive them with Dudjom Rinpoche. He asked to see her texts. He was very surprised. ‘You wrote this?’ He was very surprised because she was a Nepali, but her Tibetan handwriting was so fine, so perfect.
After she passed away, I was given some of her texts and took these two pages. No one knew what practices she was doing. These two pages are the essence of all the Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Very high teachings. She did this practice everyday. She was perfect practitioner. Then she got the rainbow body.”
Vanishing Point 