Let me tell you another story about the Dharmapalas. The reason my father, Dudjom Rinpoche, was never angry towards any particular person is because once he had a bad experience, and he vowed never to get angry again. I'll explain what happened, but we should not talk about it to anyone.

When Rinpoche was young, he had some financial difficulties, as all of us do have at one time or another. Rinpoche was sponsoring many things, and his finances weren't so good. So he borrowed quite a large sum from these three brothers, because Rinpoche was always borrowing money. He was going to pay it back, but in Tibet it is horrible to borrow money because the interest is so high. You cannot believe it.

After one or two years, if you can't repay a loan, your interest is four or five times the amount you borrowed. Rinpoche couldn't pay the loan back the first year. He had started building a monastery and just couldn't pay it. So in the second or third year one of the brothers became very angry.

Rinpoche said, "Please wait. I think my situation will soon be a little bit better." Rinpoche was already making payments, but he had borrowed quite a large amount of money.

One day Rinpoche was teaching, and in those days Lamas would teach very casually, sitting in front of the house in the garden letting people come and go as they wanted, when all of a sudden this brother turns up and says, "Give me the money right now."

Rinpoche said, "I don't have it." So the brother said, "Then what you need is a whack," and he grabbed Rinpoche by the throat and dragged him out.

Now all of his disciples were warriors, because as you know Tibetans are fighters, so his disciples were dragging their swords out, and Rinpoche was screaming, "Don't touch him, don't touch him."

Everyone there had a knife and gun and were prepared to kill this brother straight away, but Rinpoche stopped them. So the angry brother kicked him two or three times, and Rinpcohe felt really bad, but he said, "He's right. It is his money that I haven't been able to give him. It is true."

Early one morning, before the dawn light, Rinpoche was doing his practice around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. In the middle of his practice, someone came in and put something on the table in front of him, and made a big noise in the dark. So Rinpoche goes looking for a torch - batteries were brought from Lhasa, and from there they came from China, so who could afford them? - finds it, and lighting it, he finds a fresh head cut off, with the brains intact.

He immediately realizes that it is the head of the brother who grabbed him by the neck. The Protector could not bear to see him humiliated, so he lopped that person's head off and brought it to Rinpoche.

From that time on Rinpoche swore never to feel any emotion, or show any emotion. He had been thinking, "Why did that man treat me so badly?" He deserved it, but not in this way.

Two days later, another brother went completely crazy and stabbed himself. Soon afterward, the third brother was riding his horse and fell. Once a Protector gets angry, he won't stop until he cuts the entire family line.

You might ask, "What logic is there in hurting family members?", but I'm trying to tell you it goes beyond logic. So immediately, Rinpoche had to stop this, because it was spreading to the other family members. So he told the parents and relatives to come to the monastery and do prostrations in the temple and ask for forgiveness.

Rinpoche accepted their petitions for forgiveness, then it was cut. It didn't get the father and mother, but next it would have been the uncles. The wisdom mind of the Dharmapalas is such that when people are cut, they are also liberated. Don't forget this. It is not that they are suffering.

The Dharmapalas have the right to take the life force away. The life force we are talking about is a vitality which is in the grasp of the Dharmapalas. The truth is contained in this awareness. It is very difficult to understand at this moment, but the more you do Dharmapala practice, the more you will be able to see many things you did not see before.

Rinpoche felt very bad that he showed a little emotion, because he felt that it was that emotion which transformed into the activity of the Dharmapalas. It doesn't make sense to say the Dharmapalas felt anger, because they are the wisdom deities, and are beyond anger. But when you violate a holy body, the Dharmapala is sworn to protect that, so they will come into action.

Regarding the Lamas who are being killed in Tibet, as I said, the Dharmapalas are sworn to protect the body of divine truth - not outside, but inside. Physically speaking, these Lamas still have to go through the same experiences of birth, old age, sickness and death, just like anyone else.

They have chosen to go through these challenges, which is why they are called Bodhisattvas. Bodhisattva means accepting the challenge to come back into samsara and go through the same poisons and training, again and again. But innerly, they will perceive their sickness differently. They will stay in the dharmakaya perception, and when they die, they will dissolve into light.

It is only because our perception is impure that we see them suffering in an outer way. That is the difference. Now that you have been given the explanation of the Dharmapalas, if you don't have respect for that explanation, then you are in serious trouble. Then you won't practice as you should.

If you haven't had enough explanation, and you do the practice a little wrong, that is a little okay, but once you've had the explanation, and you do it any other way, then you break your commitment. What is more, there is the difficult matter of all the levels of the Protectors, arising from intangibility, from that which is unseen. It is very complex. I've seen thousands of examples of what the Protectors can do.

When you do their practices, you will find your confidence. As you move toward realization, the thing you will lack is the Protectors. That is when the protectors arise. What we have not understood so far is the strength of the blood, the strength of the heart,and the strength of the flesh. This means we haven't really understood the Dharmapalas at all.

If you practice consistently, then the Dharmapalas have to reveal themselves to you. Their qualities will reveal in the depth of you - in the breath, in the blood vapor, in the nerve vapor - and you will be able to see them for the first time. Then you will begin to understand what is called "the unhindered action of the Buddhas."

Right now, the closest you will come to seeing the perfect enlightened mind of the Buddhas is from the point of view of the Protectors. It is very complex. You need to do a one month retreat of the Dharmapala before you can realize, through the beat of the drum, just whose heart it is that is beating. The drum beat is not your heartbeat, it is the heartbeat of the Dharmapalas.

And when you begin to understand that, fear begins to rise, because without beating the drum, the drum is still beating. Then more fear will arise. That is how you go about looking for the Protectors. If you see the Protectors, you might just faint. Sometimes, the life force will just run away. When you pray for protection, you probably think you are praying to be protected from something, but though it is isn't written, what you are really praying for is the protection of the Dharmapalas.

The Dharmapala is the manifestation of the wisdom activity of the Buddhas. Suppose you are doing practice and someone wants to kill you, but you are saved. Who saved you? It was the Dharmapalas.

The bridge between the intellect and the wisdom mind is the Dharmapalas. The Dharmapalas are implicit in all Dharma practices. Only through the Dharmapalas do you explicitly bring up the full range and magnitude of the activity of the Buddhas. You practice with wishful thought, but when you do Dharmapala practice, that wishful thought translates into action.

"Every time something happens to you that brings a change or realization in your life, or gives you strength to live again, that is the activity of the Dharmapalas. It is not just happening by accident; it is the movement of the Dharmapala." ~ H.E. Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche

The heartbeat is the heartbeat of the Dharmapala. For example, sometimes they manifest as a person, blocking you from going a certain way, and later on you see that someone going that way was hit by a car, or they go into another person's mind and block you so you will be safe, or physically manifest so that you are saved. These are all common activities of the Dharmapala. They push you from this to that until you make the auspicious connection. It just depends on how you understand it.

Non-physical things which happen to you, which are good for you, are also the Dharmapala. If you think the person or situation that was good for you, and continue to practice, someday the Dharmapala will come and say, "Yes, I did that for you. I gave you that situation a long time ago." That is the way it is.

The Dharmapalas can be violent, but they can be peaceful too. They can be a butterfly, they can be warmth, they can be anything. They don't have to be just one particular form. The activity aspect is Dharmapala. To tell the truth, even for myself:, the complexity of the Dharmapalas is such that sometimes I say to myself, "What am I doing?"

When you practice, you will understand, but when you don't, then it is difficult. It doesn't matter whether you've seen them or not, if you continue to do your Protector practices, different situations will arise from that. Somehow, what I always see is the wrathful.

When I was small I couldn't sleep. When I grew up I was constantly seeing the movement of the Dharmapala. I remember my father saying, "Ah, these are things practitioners wish to see but can't. These are your Protectors." At that time I couldn't understand what these Protectors were, though in my depth I could.

They had three eyes, six eyes and I couldn't relate to them. And the words they spoke weren't words a small kid could understand like, "I love you." Instead they would say, "Give me your heart. I want to eat you," or something like that. Those were their exact words, and I was only five or six years old.

I couldn't sleep. I would see their translucent bodies, and they would come and grab me. In the daytime, I couldn't play either. My eldest sister would never play with me because I would see these things and when I would point them out to her, she would see the same things. And my servants, the young men who were looking after me, none of them would take responsibility for me at night. That is how bad it was.

In the daytime, I would be playing a game like hide and seek, and sometimes I would be running and all of a sudden I would fall into a gigantic lap. When I would look up I would see this horrible face, and then I'd faint.

Most of my childhood was spent in either a fainting or unconscious state. I've always been like that. I had a difficult life as a kid. My mother and father would sleep together and put me in the middle between them, and as soon as they fell asleep, someone would shake me. I'm not joking.

The Protector would shake me so I would wake up, and then I would see on the ceiling this deity with three heads, tongue rolled up, guts hanging out, one hand holding a knife, saying, "Come, come, I want to just cut your neck."

It helped that Rinpoche told me it was good that I had these Protectors, and that they were the wisdom deities. As a child, I could relate to something nice, but seeing something like that just scared the hell out of me.

I couldn't understand why they would do that, why they would frighten me. And later in my life, I didn't understand why they didn't have the wisdom to know I was just a child. Rinpoche would be doing a Tsog, and I would look inside the tsog offering and see a whole host of non-existent people. Sometimes they would bring dead people to Rinpoche for his blessing. I would see that person walk in, sit down and observe. I saw many things that terrified me.

My mother would fight with my father, saying, "If this continues a long time, you will have no son left." It was true. Anything that moved, I was frightened. She wanted him to seal off my mind so I wouldn't see these visions. Rinpoche had a way of sealing this vision off, totally.

My father said no, we must leave it as it is, that it was really beneficial for me. I couldn't understand how it was beneficial. But later, after a big fight with my mother, he sealed it. Rinpoche called me in to him and said, "It is very unfortunate what I am going to do, but I am going to seal your vision completely." I was maybe seven or eight years old. There was an altar set up with some nectar on it. He told me to put it on my eyes. So I put it on my eyes and forehead, and he said, "From today on, I've sealed this one."

Truly speaking, after that I never saw them again. I could feel them move for another year, but the vision aspect was gone. Now I think it was a great mistake. My mother should have listened to Rinpoche, because he was talking from his wisdom mind. I'm sure I wouldn't have died, but I was so happy when my mother requested that. Believe me, my servants couldn't bear to be with me.

At night they wouldn't go out with me, because just like with my sister, if I pointed the Dharmapalas out, they would see them too. I would be sitting in a room, and the door curtains would start moving, and something would catch my eye and I would see this gigantic finger saying, "Come, come. "

I wouldn't want to look at it, so I'd tell my sister, "There, there," and she would see the same gigantic finger saying, "Come, come," and then she'd start screaming. It is no wonder I had no one to play with. If it had been a dream, I would have understood it as a dream, but it wasn't a dream. I really saw it. I couldn't hide in any corner.

The only time I felt secure that nothing was going to come was when I would sit right next to my father or mother when they were doing things. Even then, when I looked around, I would see things, but they wouldn't frighten me because my mother or father was there.

Rinpoche told me that later on my vision would reopen on its own, but I think it was good for my health that he sealed it off; otherwise, I don't know what would have happened to me. It was a terrible part of my life.

So when you ask about the Dharmapala, I've had the same kinds of questions, like why would they scare the hell out of me? If they had just showed themselves to me once, I would have said, "I've had an experience," but showing me again and again, daytime, evening, night time, whenever I played they were running after me, attacking me. And their words were not sweet or gentle, they were always, "I want to chop you," or "I want to eat your heart."

The only gentle thing I've seen is Kongsen Denma and she's important to me. She always appears in the most beautiful form. One day I was playing outside in the field and suddenly this beautiful lady came and said, "I'll take you to the main garden in Lhasa." I said, "Yes, I want to go." So I just held her hand and went. I saw everything in the lingka.

I'd never been to the lingka before. I was lost for seven hours. My mother was worried, and she went to my father and he said, "No, no. There is nothing wrong with him. He'll come back home. It looks alright."

During the seven hours I was lost, my memory was that I went to this lingka and had a nice time. I watched all the fish in the water. Then, all of a sudden, I was back in front of the gate, and a servant came and grabbed me and dragged me in, because all the servants were out looking for me. I didn't know what had happened. I didn't realize I had been gone for seven hours. It had seemed just a few minutes to me.

The beautiful lady had said, "Go back. I'll come and visit you again." My mother asked me what happened, and where had I been, and who took me, so I told her. The lingka is a 1/2- day's horse ride from my house. Rinpoche knew nothing was wrong. He could see everything was intact, that I hadn't been taken by a demon or a spirit.

Rinpoche said most probably it must have been one of his Protectors. So she was the only elegant lady with all the ornaments saying, "come" with gentle words. The rest I've seen were all (he makes a grimace). That's what I mean when I say Dharmapalas.

(The two stories about laying down on the road and letting the Chinese Trucks roll over him, and Falling in the Well were not translated.)

Source: dharmadhatu.web-log.nl