A Brief Biography of Drupön Lama Karma Jnana

Drupön Karma Jnana, also known as Tsampa Karma (“Retreatant Karma”) or Drub-la Karma Yeshe Tharchin, was born in 1953 in the Tashi Yangtse region of eastern Bhutan, near the site of Pemaling, a hidden land sacred to Padmasambhava. He began his formal education in Tibetan language and Buddhadharma at an early age, under the tutelage of his father, Lama Sönam Wangchuk. By the time he was thirteen, he was already serving as a scribe in a royally commissioned project to prepare an edition of the Kangyur in golden ink in Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, far to the west of where he was born. Later he returned to the region of his birth and began intensive training at Long-Nying Chöling Monastery, practicing the five sets of 100,000 accumulations of the Longchen Nyingtik preliminaries and learning various aspects of ritual performance. By about 1979, the twenty-six-year-old Tsampa Karma had been introduced to the extraordinary Tibetan yogi who would become his root guru: Lama Naljorpa Sönam Druktop (1934–1994). By this time Lama Naljorpa was already an accomplished master of Mahāmudrā and Dzokchen, having spent nine years of intensive study and retreat under the tutelage of masters from all four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism (after he escaped to India in 1961), followed by nine years of retreat in various sacred places throughout Bhutan. Lama Naljorpa’s root guru was Tokden Sönam Chölek, who had been principal tutor to the Eighth Khamtrul Rinpoché, Döngyu Nyima. Upon meeting Lama Naljorpa, Tsampa Karma became one of his closest disciples, following a strict regimen of instruction and retreat practice for about the next three years in the Durong Charnel Ground in the region of Tashi Yangtse. With a few other young disciples, Tsampa Karma received transmission and instruction in several forms of Chöd practice, in the yogic conduct of equal taste, and in the Six Yogas of Nāropa in the Drikung Kagyü lineage. He completed two three-month mantra retreats focused on Avalokiteśvara and Amitāyus, respectively, as well as a seven-month retreat on the Rikdzin Düpa (a Nyingma guru yoga sādhana of the Longchen Nyingtik) and a 100-day retreat on the four revolutions in outlook. He received extensive transmissions in the stages of the path of the Mahāyāna, including (among others) Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Patrul Rinpoché’s Words of My Perfect Teacher, Sakya Paṇḍita’s Ascertaining the Three Sets of Vows, the Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, the Profound Instructions on the View of the Middle Way, Sachen Künga Nyingpo’s Parting from Four Types of Clinging, and Düdjom Rinpoché’s Extracting the Vital Essence of Accomplishment: Concise and Clear Advice for Practice in a Mountain Retreat. Lama Karma quotes frequently from the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, the Three Phrases That Strike the Crucial Points, and the Gangama Instructions on Mahāmudrā by the Mahāsiddha Tilopa, all of which he learned at that time.

During this period in the Durong Charnel Ground, Tsampa Karma and his fellow retreatants also received detailed instructions from Lama Naljorpa on the “nine methods for stilling the mind”—or the nine attentional states—that culminate in the achievement of śamatha, and they were instructed to put these into practice in short periods of retreat right away. Yet when Tsampa Karma expressed to Lama Naljorpa his yearning and intention to actually achieve śamatha, Lama Naljorpa was delighted and began to take him through a strict regimen designed precisely as preparation for this path. As we see in the account translated below, Tsampa Karma was first guided through a practice to purify the body, speech, and mind, and only after passing a test with respect to his proficiency in that practice was he granted instructions on how to investigate whether the mind truly has any origin, location, or destination. It was only after several months of this investigation that his guru taught him how to identify “the triad of stillness, movement, and awareness” (which is a practice very similar to “taking the mind as the path” as taught by Düdjom Lingpa). Following this, Lama Naljorpa introduced Tsampa Karma to the actual nature of mind, so that he was ready to engage in the core practice of śamatha without a sign, not simply as it is held in common with the Sūtrayāna, but as it is embedded deeply within the context of the teachings of Mahāmudrā and Dzokchen. Thus, such practice of śamatha without a sign prepares one for the requisite stability of meditation to sustain the view of cutting through. Tsampa Karma then entered a period of six or seven months in extremely strict retreat within a “sealed hut,” that is, he only emerged in the middle of the night to fetch water, when he would not see anyone else. This retreat also took place at the Durong Charnel Ground. As Drupön Lama Karma explained, this sealed retreat was followed by about five years during which his challenge was to integrate in his  conduct the meditative equipoise he had attained in a strict, sealed retreat. In the first year following those six months, he completed another six-month retreat focused on the Seven-Line Supplication to Guru Rinpoché, and many months focused solely  on the Dzokchen practices of cutting through and the direct crossing over.

Then Lama Naljorpa asked Tsampa Karma to serve as the scribe for the renowned treasure revealer, Pegyal Lingpa  (1924–1988), who was transmitting the Kusum Gongdü at Sengé Dzong in response to profound supplications and offerings made by Lama Naljorpa. Tsampa Karma spent these years of active Dharma service (c. 1984–1988) in a constant practice of mindfulness but not in strict, closed retreat. He commented at the time that he was sad not to be in formal retreat, but Lama Naljorpa replied that it was indeed a kind of retreat since he was not engaged in mundane activities. Even while Tertön Pegyal Lingpa was still alive, Lama Karma was the one to bestow the oral transmission of Pegyal Lingpa’s Kusum Gongdü treasure to an assembly of tulkus, lamas, and practitioners, while Pegyal Lingpa granted the actual empowerments, soon before he passed away in 1988. Following  his juncture, Lama Karma gradually became Drupön Lama Karma (“Retreat Master”), completing two 3-year retreats at Lama Naljorpa’s former seat in Phurpa Ling (near Dechen Phodrang, outside of Thimpu) and then guiding a 3-year retreat at Pema Yangdzong Monastery in Paro, Bhutan, where Drup-la continues to serve as retreat master. In all, he spent more than eighteen years devoted to a life of retreat. Drupön Lama Karma has also received extensive teachings and transmissions from the great Kagyü and Nyingma lamas of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century, including Düdjom Rinpoché, both the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Karmapas, and Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoché. Drupön Lama Karma’s wife and spiritual partner is Khandro Tsering Drölkar. He currently lives with his family near Paro, Bhutan, guiding disciples in retreat both in Bhutan and around the world.