REVIEW | SARA LEWIS 111
Free from extremes of permanence
or absence,
The sun of awareness, the definitive
meaning, arises,
Recognizing the nature of awareness
as clear light,
Just that is nonconceptual wisdom.
Through the power of our aspirations,
If coincidence makes it possible to meet,
In the powerful Monkey Year,
At the eastern Turquoise Peak’s
lakeshore,
Sacred site of the Eight Command
Sadhana,
If we are able to make aspirations
together,
We will awaken the entrustment as
a couple.
If we reach ten million feast offerings—
The material arrangement of five gems
Along with superior gold, silver, copper,
and iron—
It is our fortune for circumstances
to converge.
At the meditation site of White Cliff
Monkey Fortress
Are yellow scrolls of the one hundred
thousand dakinis.
Namtrul Rinpoche responds beginning
with elongated praise for Tare Lhamo as
an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal. As Gayley
recounts, he implores her to keep sending
letters and prays for her “long life in lan-
guage reminiscent of a longevity chant to
a Buddhist teacher: ‘May your lotus feet
remain on a vajra throne.’ Along the way,”
she adds, “he makes an artful innuendo
with respect to their future consort rela-
tionship, by referring to her as ‘the lady of
bliss–emptiness’ who is skilled in conjuring
the ‘sport of attraction’ and guiding to ‘the
wisdom expanse of the four joys.’ The four
joys are engendered through the tantric rite
of sexual union and provide access to a
state of nondual bliss and the deep reachesCultural Revolution, which had brought
the destruction of thousands of monas-
teries and temples as well as the loss of
great teachers, was marked by sweeping
revitalization across the Tibetan plateau.
Namtrul Rinpoche had himself been
imprisoned, and locals recounted many
stories of how both of them (long before
they met) inspired others to resist killing
animals in work camps and offered dharma
teachings and rituals in dangerous political
contexts. In their letters, they yearn to be
together, to join in great bliss, not for their
own mere pleasure but for the protection
and revitalization of the dharma.
The letters were batched into two col-
lections: his letters to her in Adamantine
Garland and hers to him in Garland of
Lotuses. As Gayley articulates, the very
first letter Tare Lhamo sends foreshadows
the tone of much of their life together. In
it she “demonstrates her knowledge of
esoteric Nyingma teachings in a style that
is reminiscent of a song of experience,
relaying the results of meditative experi-
ence; the second half of the letter contains
a prophecy about a treasure revelation
awaiting them” at a well-known Nyingma
pilgrimage site in Amdo:
To the tulku of Namkhai Nyingpo,
Free from extremes, removed from
worldly concerns,
In the dream of dependently arisen
phenomena,
There is nothing for the mind to gauge.
In alpha-pure naked awareness–
emptiness,
No distortions from thoughts, good or
bad, remain.
While unobstructed experience,
the cognizing aspect,
Flashes forth as the five lights
manifesting wisdom,