Dorje, and he was the holder of the teaching of Vajrakilaya: The Razor Slash. One
day at noon, lying in bed, without having suffered any recent illness, while in the
posture of a sleeping lion and reciting the six-syllable mantra, he attained buddha
in the primordial basic matrix of alpha-purity, his heart of clear light reality
perfected beyond the intellect. As his body dissolved into light, his wrinkles
vanishing, he seemed like an eight-year-old child with a beautiful complexion.
After a week had passed, when people came to know of his death, they performed
his death puja secretly in order to deceive the authorities, and at that time,
rainbows appeared inside and outside, and a pleasant aroma pervaded the place.
His body gradually diminished in size, and at the end, he attained buddha; not
even his nails and hair were left behind. It was just like a bird flying off from a
rock—people nearby have no idea where it might have gone.
As the tantra has it, quoted in Jigme Lingpa’s Chariot of Omniscience,
The yogin freed, like the sun rising at dawn,
The dharmakaya appears. Wah! Wah!There have been many such occurrences, like that of Nyang Sherab Jungne at
Pukmoche in Lhari, whose body dissolved into its subtle composite particles, like
mist vanishing in the morning. Such stories are so common that it is impossible to
write them all down. Through the phases of Dzogchen—the alpha-purity of Cutting
Through and the spontaneity of Direct Crossing—buddha is accomplished not
without cause or condition. If we train properly on this path from this time
forward, we too can attain dissolution of the body into its most subtle particles, or
indeed, even the rainbow body. Such assertions do not in any way denigrate
buddha-dharma and do not negate common sense or inferential logic as valid
means of cognition, just as scientific assertions regarding motive power, for
example, do not damage actual physical traction.
Around 1960 in Derge Yelung, Mani Gaygo, Yelungpa Sonam Dorje passed away
in a rainbow body, testimony about which we can still hear from some of the
elders in that place. When I was residing in Kham, I went to see the house where
Sonam Dorje had attained the rainbow body. I even had the opportunity of staying
there for a few days. At first hand I heard from his niece and nephew how he
achieved the rainbow body, and I was utterly convinced.
On the path of the alpha-purity of Cutting Through, Khenpo Acho’s body
dissolved into subtle particles, and on the path of the spontaneity of Direct
Crossing, Yelungpa Sonam Dorje attained the rainbow body. These two are
perhaps the most recent manifestations of their respective attainments. Countless
rainbow bodies have appeared in India and Tibet since those of the twenty-five
close disciples of Guru Rinpoche, the king Trisong Deutsen, and his twenty-four
subjects. These stories can be read in History of the Nyingma School by either Guru
Tashi or Dudjom Rinpoche.
Further, just as scientists can predict the precise course of the planets, so masters
of Dzogchen can predict the time it takes to attain buddha. For example, when
American scientists at NASA launched a rocket to the planet Mars, they needed to
allow for the change in Mars’ location during the rocket’s course. It was as if the