The Ways of Dharma Practitioners – Khenpo Chokyab and the Sacred Statue

At one point when Khenpo Munsel, the renowned Dzogchen master, was experiencing a period of poor health, he gave away everything he owned.

He had one very precious statue that he needed to decide what to do with. This statue was given by the great dzogchen master Nyoshul Lungtok Tenpai Nyima to Khenpo Ngakchung. Khenpo Ngakchung, regarding Khenpo Munsel to be his main student to propagate the dzogchen teachings, accordingly entrusted him with this statue that he had received from Nyoshul Lungtok.

So as part of this renunciation of his belongings, Khenpo Munsel asked his attendant, Lama Tsekor, to take the sacred statue to Khenpo Chokyab. Khenpo Munsel used to tell his students, “In the present day you would be hard pressed to find someone who upholds the teachings of Ju Mipam Rinpoche like my dharma friend Khenpo Chokyab.” Khenpo Munsel was renowned for being very restrictive with the dzogchen teachings. He would not give them easily, you must at the very least have done the preliminaries while staying with him in his dharma encampment. Although this was generally the case, he made an exception for the students of Khenpo Chokyab, to whom he gave the instructions quite readily.

Tsekor delivered the statue to Khenpo Chokhab and explained the history behind it. Khenpo Chokyab took the statue and placed it upon the crown of his head, and then said, “I’m sure this is holy indeed. However, blessed or not, I have no need for such things and will not keep it. As I see it you have two options. One, I will offer it back to Khenpo Munsel and you can take it with you when you return. Or, two, you can leave it with me and I will give it to one of the junior monks here. I certainly won’t be giving it to the local monastery. The monks there greedily hanker after such possessions, I will make a point of not giving it to them.” So the attendant offered it back to Khenpo Munsel.

Since this is the way that Khenpo Chokhab related to sacred material objects, it goes without saying that he had no attachment to ordinary worldly objects. Do you know how much money he had in his possession when he passed away? 7 Yuan ($1.10) It is worth bearing in mind that he was a famous lama with a large following. There were between six and seven hundred monks staying in his dharma encampment and he was highly revered, far and wide.

A dharma friend of mine stayed there for four years. He went into Khenpo Chokyab’s presence when he first arrived and mentioned that he had next to no resources to provide for himself during his stay. That evening somebody turned up at his door with lots of food and a set of robes. My friend said never once did he buy food for himself while he was staying there. Everything Khenpo Chokyab received in the way of offerings, he gave straight to his students, unconditionally.

He would never accept offerings in the form of material goods but he would accept money. Twice a month (a day or two before the feast practices the community would do on the Tibetan 10th and 25th of the month) he would give whatever he had received to the steward. If there was enough it would be used to offer noodle soup to the whole community, failing that tea would be served. So every two weeks he would give away all the money that he owned. He had no thought of keeping any for himself.

(As told by Drupon Khen Rinpoche toward the beginning of 2022 at Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal.)