Samye Monastery (Tibetan: བསམ་ཡས་, Chinese: 桑耶寺)

Simdha Getul Rinpoche on Mount Hépori with view of Samye Monastery in shape of gaint Mandala  

Samye (Tibetan: བསམ་ཡས་, Chinese: 桑耶寺) is the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet where many scholars got together and translated the Buddhist scriptures and canons from Sanskrit into Tibetan. It is also called as “Pél Samye Mingyur Lhun Gyi Drukpé Tsuk lak Khang”.
Samye Monastery is laid out on the shape of a giant mandala, with the main temple representing the legendary Mount Meru in the centre. Other buildings stand at the corners and cardinal points of the main temple, representing continents and other features of tantric Buddhist cosmology.

Simdha Getul Rinpoche infront of the Red Stupa 

In corners are 4 chörtens - white, red, green (or blue) and black. There are 8 main temples:

·      Dajor ling in above the monastery of Samye  have go further up, thereaccomplished master Guru Padmasambhava inorder to subdue the evil spirin above the monastery of Samye  have go further up, thereaccomplished master Guru Padmasambhava inorder to subdue the evil spir 

·      Dragyar ling  

·      Bétsa ling  

·      Jampa ling 

·      Samten ling 

·      Natsok ling  

·      Düdül ling  

·      Tamdrin ling

The main temple is full of Tibetan religious art in mural and statue forms, as well as some important relics.

Simdha Getul Rinpoche infront of the Samye Monastery

HISTORY

In 8^th Century, the great Dharma King of Tibet, “Trisong Detsen” who revitalizes Buddhism invited the great scholar Śhāntaraksita also known as Khenpo Bodhisattva, to establish Buddhism in his country. Śhāntaraksita began to teach in Tibet soon after his arrival. Later he found the valley little below the Mount Hépori auspicious to build the first monastery – Samye Monastery and therefore, he set to build a structure there. However, the building would always collapse after reaching a certain stage. When he laid the foundations for Samye monastery, this provoked the local spirits, who embarked on a campaign of disasters—disease, floods, storms, hail, famine and drought—and whatever construction work was done at Samye during the day was dismantled at night.

It was then Śhāntaraksita urged the king to invite the great-accomplished master Padmasambhava in order to subdue the evil spirits. He dispatched envoys under the leadership of Nanam Dorje Dudjom. With his prescience, Guru Rinpoche knew already of their mission, and had gone to meet them at Mangyul, between Nepal and Tibet.

When Guru Padmasambhava arrived from northern India, Samye Monastery was just a work in progress.

According to Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche, it was in the Iron Tiger year (810) that Padmasambhava came to Tibet. It is said that he was then over a thousand years old. On the way to central Tibet, he began to subjugate the local spirits and made them take oaths to protect the Dharma and its followers. He met the king at the Tamarisk Forest at Red Rock, and then went to the top of Mount Hépori and brought all the ‘gods and demons’ of Tibet under his command.

According to the 5th Dalai Lama, Padmasambhava performed the Vajrakilaya dance and enacted the rite of namkha to assist Trisong Detsen and Śhāntarakṣita clear away obscurations and hindrances in the building of Samye:

The great religious master Padmasambhava performed this dance in order to prepare the ground for the Samye Monastery and to pacify the malice of the lha (local mountain god spirits) and srin (malevolent spirits) in order to create the most perfect conditions. “He went on to say that after Padmasambhava consecrated the ground he erected a thread-cross — a web colored thread woven around two sticks — to catch evil. Then the purifying energy of his dance forced the malevolent spirits into a skull mounted on top of a pyramid of dough. His tantric dance cleared away all the obstacles, enabling the monastery to be built in 767. The dance was memorialized by the construction of Vajrakilaya stupas — monuments honoring the ritual kilaya (purba) daggers — at the cardinal points of the monastery, where they would prevent demonic forces from entering the sacred grounds.

The above-mentioned quotation makes reference to the relationship of the kīla to the stupa. Moreover, the building of Samye marked the foundation of the original school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma. This helps explain how Padmasambhava's Tantra-centric version of Buddhism gained ascendance over the sutra-based teaching of Śhāntarakṣita. This was also how Lama Dance was introduced for the first time in Tibet.

Simdha Getul Rinpoche infront of the Nechung Shrine

When Padmasambhava consecrated Samye Monastery with the Vajrakilaya dance, he tamed the local spirit protector, Pehar Gyalpo, and bound him by oath to become the head of the entire hierarchy of Buddhist protective spirits. Pehar, later known as Dorje Drakden, became the principal protector of the Dalai Lamas, manifesting through the Nechung Oracle. The Nechung Shrine is located right in the front at the entrance of the Samye monastery.  Nechung (Ne, place and chung, small) was a shrine dedicated to Pehar. The legend has it that once there was a fire adverse at Samye Monastery and during that time, there was a cock statue inside the temple of Samye Monastery who warned the people before the adverse event. The cock is believed to be Pehar in form of cock.

‘Glorious Samye—the Inconceivable—the unchanging, spontaneously accomplished temple’ was then built without any hindrance, completed within five years, and consecrated, amidst miraculous and auspicious signs, by Padmasambhava and Śhāntaraksita. Inside the Samye Monastery, there is a Guru Rinpoche Statue who spoke. 

Guru Rinpoche Sung jön (the one who spoke)

At Samye, there is one image of Guru Padmasambhava which was made from life and blessed by himself in the eighth century in Tibet. This statue is called 'Looks Like Me' (guru ngadrama) because it is believed that one seeing this statue at Samye, he remarked, "it looks like me" and then blessed it, saying, "Now it is the same as me!"

Guru Looks like me (guru ngadrama)

There then began a vast undertaking, an extraordinary wave of spiritual activity in Tibet. Vimalamitra and other great scholars and masters, one hundred and eight in all, were invited; Padmasambhava, Śhāntaraksita and Vimalamitra gave teachings, and then worked with Tibetan translators, such as Vairotsana, Kawa Paltsek, Chokro Lüi Gyaltsen and Shyang Yeshé Dé, to translate the sutras, tantras and treatises into Tibetan; the first seven Tibetan monks were ordained into the Sarvastivadin lineage, and this was the time when the two sanghas, the monastic celibate sangha of monks and nuns and the community of lay tantric practitioners, came into being in Tibet; and Vairotsana and Namkhé Nyingpo were dispatched to India to receive teachings, on Dzogchen from Shri Singha, and on Yangdak from Hungkara, respectively.

At King Trisong Detsen’s request, Padmasambhava opened the mandala of the Vajrayana teachings in the caves of Chimphu above Samye to the twenty-five disciples, headed by the King Trisong Detsen, Yeshé Tsogyal and Vairotsana; nine of the twenty-five disciples attained siddhis through practicing the sadhanas that he transmitted to them. It is said that he convened them in three great gatherings, to teach the Kagyé Deshek Düpa, the Lama Gongdü, and the Kadü Chökyi Gyatso.

Footprint of Longchen Rabjam

The standing stone with the script of Longchen Rabjam   

Later, at Chimphu, when Trisong Detsen’s daughter, the princess Pema Sel, died at the age of eight, Padmasambhava drew a red syllable HRI on her heart, summoned her consciousness, restored her to life and gave her the transmission of the Nyingtik teachings, soon after which she passed away. Yeshé Tsogyal concealed the teachings as terma, and centuries later, Pema Sel’s incarnation, the master Pema Ledreltsal, revealed the Khandro Nyingtik cycle. His next rebirth was as the omniscient Longchen Rabjam. Chimpu is located at the mountain above the monastery of Samye where there are many retreat caves and huts. It is even called Samye Chimpu. You will have to take a car for 20 minutes and then walk for approximately three hours. Inside Samye Chimpu, there is secret cave of Guru Rinpoche, Yeshé Tsogyal and Vairotsana, foot print of Guru Rinpoche, self arisen Hayagriva, Knee of Princess Pema Sel and Precious Relic Stupa of Longchen Rabjam and his foot print right next to the stupa.

Relic Stupa of Longchen Rabjam

Secret cave of Guru Padma Sambhava

Secret cave of Yeshé Tsogyal      

Self-arisen Hayagriva

Foot print of Guru Rinpoche

Knee of Princess Pema Sel

After the death of Trisong Detsen, Padmasambhava stayed in Tibet into the reign of his successors. After fifty five and a half years in Tibet, in the Wood Monkey year (864), Guru Rinpoche prepared to leave, and went, accompanied by the young king Mutik Tsepo and a large gathering of disciples, to the pass of Gungthang in Mangyul. They implored him to stay, but he refused. He gave final teachings and instructions to each of them, and then, on the tenth day of the monkey month, left for the land of Ngayab Ling in the southwest, and for his manifested pure land on Zangdokpalri, the Copper Coloured Mountain of Glory.

Simdha Getul Rinpoche infront of the Relic Stupa of Śhāntaraksita

Simdha Getul Rinpoche on the way to Relic Stupa of Śhāntaraksita from Mount Hépori

Apart from Samye Monastery and Samye Chimpu, there is a precious relic stupa of Śhāntaraksita to seek blessing on downhill of Mount Hépori. It is located in the valley downhill of Mount Hépori like Samye Monastery but on the other side. Many Tibetans and Buddhist practitioner go to pilgrimage to Samye.

• Maha Guru Monlam - When the great master Padmasambhava was on the verge of leaving Tibet (samye) for the south-west and the land of the rākṣasas, when, high up upon the Gungthang Pass in Mangyul, Yeshé Tsogyal prostrated before him and circumambulated him. Then she placed his feet upon the crown of her head, and made this prayer of aspiration.

• Leu-Dunma - The Prayer in Seven Chapters to Padmākara