[From Advice to Vajrayana Practitioners given by Lama Tashi Topgyal in Battle Creek, Michigan on September 22, 2012. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed and edited by Matt Willis. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.] We’re concerned here with practicing the dharma that comes from the lineage of Terchen Barway Dorje. The [...]
One of the other tertöns predicted by the Fourteenth Karmapa was Terchen Barway Dorje. Terchen Barway Dorje received from the Fourteenth Karmapa an empowerment that the Karmapa called The Embodiment of All Victors in the Three Jewels. It is a sadhana of Guru Rinpoche. When the Fourteenth Karmapa gave him this empowerment, he did it entirely from memory. He did not use a text. He gave Barway Dorje the empowerment, the transmission, and the instructions, and allowed Barway Dorje to commit it to writing. It was evident that this was a mind terma of the Fourteenth Gyalwang Karmapa himself. In the context of that empowerment, the Gyalwang Karmapa prophesied to Terchen Barway Dorje that he would also discover terma.
The teachings of the Barom Kagyu, like the teachings of all four primary and eight secondary divisions of the Kagyu, are the teachings of mahamudra given by Lord Gampopa. All of these teachings originally come from Lord Gampopa, we can therefore regard the four primary and eight secondary divisions as being like the four children and eight grandchildren of one family. Each of these lineages has continued down to the present day and many of them are very well known. The Barom Kagyu still exists; all four of the primary subdivisions still exist; and the eight subdivisions do as well. Among these, many are well known to you. The Karma Kagyu is one of the four primary divisions; the Drikung Kagyu and Drukpa Kagyu are the two of the eight secondary divisions that are best known worldwide. All of them are fundamentally the same in that what they are focused on, what they transmit, is the mahamudra of Lord Gampopa.
