Gampopa: Physician of Body and Mind (1079-1153)

Milarepa had two main heart disciples: Gampopa, also known as Dagpo Rinpoche, and Rechungpa. Together the two are described as the sun and the moon, and each radiated his distinct light on the world. Of the two, Gampopa was designated Milarepa’s sun-like disciple, and it is his luminous presence that shines to this day through the Dagpo Kagyu lineages that collectively bear his name.

Like his lama Milarepa, Gampopa’s pursuit of Dharma was fueled by direct experience of human suffering in its rawest form. Born in 1079 CE in Nyel in central Tibet, Gampopa was the eldest son in a family with a long and illustrious history. By all accounts, he was a bright and inquisitive youth. Recognizing his aptitude, his influential family provided him with a broad education, as well as training in the medical profession that many in his family practiced. At the age of 22, already acknowledged as a learned physician, Gampopa married and dedicated himself to the life of a householder. Soon thereafter, two children were born to Gampopa and his wife, one boy and one girl.

As such, Gampopa appeared to have laid the foundation for a successful life, both in terms of family and medical career. However, while his children were still small, an epidemic broke out, ravaging the area. As an eminent local physician, Gampopa attended patient after patient, yet even the fullest deployment of his medical knowledge was no match for the force of the illness. Gampopa found himself powerless to help as one patient after another suffered and then died, caught in the relentless grip of the disease.

As one who relied upon his knowledge to be able to control and combat illness, this experience alone could have sufficed to spark an existential crisis in the young physician. Yet Gampopa’s encounter with the inevitability of suffering and death would penetrate even more deeply into the core of his being, when the epidemic struck his own family. First to contract the disease was his beloved son. All remedies failed, and Gampopa had thrust upon him the experience most feared by parents the world round: having to bury one’s own child. Grief-stricken, Gampopa carried the tiny corpse to the burial site himself, said prayers for his son there, and headed back home. As he entered the house, his heart already heavily burdened by the experience, he discovered his daughter now also lying ill, having contracted the same disease. Days later, she too succumbed. Once again Gampopa took up in his arms the child in whom he had placed so much love and hope, and carried her to the same site he had taken his son.

Upon his return home, he found his wife too presenting symptoms of the disease. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, and she swiftly reached the brink of death. As Gampopa looked on helpless, his wife hovered at the edge of life, battling for every breath and racked with pain, yet unable to let go. When it became clear to Gampopa that she was only postponing the inevitable and causing herself further torment in the process, Gampopa asked her what it was that kept her clinging to her failing body. She replied that it was her attachment to him, her husband, that prevented her from peacefully preparing for her passage to the next life. Her dying wish, she said, was that he devote the remainder of his life to the practice of Dharma, rather than establish a new family. Gampopa replied that his only aim after she was gone was to become a monk and spend his life in Dharma practice. His wife was pleased, but sought further assurances, and asked that he swear to his intentions before a witness. Once he had done so, she was able to rest in peace, and Gampopa buried the last remaining member of his fragile family.

After his wife’s death, Gampopa made a stūpa for her, settled his worldly affairs and left to pursue the Dharma. In this way, Gampopa’s renunciation for ordinary affairs was deeply grounded in his realization of the utter inadequacy of worldly knowledge to dispel the suffering of those he most wished to protect.

He entered solitary retreat, where it became clear that he had a strong aptitude for meditative practice. Yet Gampopa recognized that he would benefit from study and personal instruction, and so he departed for Phenyul, then a thriving center for the practice and study of the Kadampa teachings.

Gampopa received his monastic ordination from Kadampa masters, and immersed himself in the study of the major Kadampa treatises and tantras. He first sought out Geshe Potowa, but soon thereafter trained under a series of renowned Kadampa masters. At a certain point, Gampopa opted to devote more time to practice, and moved out of the monastery to a site nearby. It is said that during this period, he studied the Dharma by day and meditated by night, so intense was his thirst for the Dharma. As Gampopa continued his meditative practices, his concentration developed to the point where he was able to retain his focus for a full 13 days.

One day, Gampopa happened to overhear three mendicants praising the qualities of a great yogi by the name of “Milarepa.” The mere sound of Milarepa’s name awakened in Gampopa a sense of devotion so overpowering that Gampopa literally fell into a faint. The intensity of Gampopa’s emotions upon hearing Milarepa’s name is compared in the texts to the feeling of a young man upon seeing a beautiful woman for the first time. When he regained consciousness, Gampopa began prostrating repeatedly and then sat down to meditate. Despite his usual powers of concentration, Gampopa was unable to hold his mind still, so moved was he by the thought of meeting Milarepa. Later that evening, when he again attempted to meditate, his mind spontaneously entered a state of samādhi unlike anything he had known before, and Gampopa had an initial taste of the siddhis to come.

Driven by his longing to see Milarepa’s face and sit at his feet, Gampopa travelled across Tibet and at last was received by the great yogi far to the west. In stark contrast to Milarepa’s initial encounter with his lama Marpa, Milarepa took Gampopa as a disciple at once. At that time, Milarepa declared that Gampopa would spread the lineage’s teachings in all directions. Readied by his own life experience, his monastic ordination and the fierce commitment to the Kadampa teachings on renunciation and compassion, Gampopa arrived as a vessel perfectly prepared to receive what Milarepa had to offer. Within a short time, Milarepa had transmitted his teachings to the eager and receptive Gampopa, and granted him full instructions on the practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Less than a year after he arrived, Milarepa perceived that Gampopa was ready, and sent him off to do retreat.

As they parted, Milarepa told Gampopa that he had one last piece of personal instruction that he had not yet transmitted to any of his disciples. As Gampopa was leaving, Milarepa called him back, saying that he alone would not let the instruction go to waste. As Gampopa sat expectantly awaiting the words of advice, Milarepa turned his back to Gampopa and lifted his cotton robes, to reveal the buttocks that had become completely hardened and callused during Milarepa’s own long years of intense meditation. The most profound advice I have, Milarepa told Gampopa, is: to meditate.

Promising to return to see Milarepa once again, Gampopa left, taking this advice very much to heart. After his time in mountain retreat, on the return journey to see the lama who awakened such heartfelt devotion in him, Gampopa heard that Milarepa had already passed away. Upon learning of the loss, Gampopa was overcome with grief and wept.

Though now lacking the face-to-face guidance of the lama who so profoundly inspired him in his pursuit of enlightenment, Gampopa was not lacking any of the initiations, instructions or blessings he needed, and so determined to spend his life in practice. For seven years, in an area called Ölkha, Gampopa practiced Mahāmudrā and other meditations that Milarepa had transmitted to him.

Next Gampopa continued to what would become his own main seat, Daglha Gampo. There, he intended to enter a sealed retreat in which he would be completely plastered into a room with just a small opening for provisions to be passed in. Gampopa planned to seal himself in for 12 years, until he had a vision of ḍākinīs counseling him that it would be better to spend 12 years spreading the Dharma than 12 years in sealed retreat.

At that point, Kadam geshes, yogic practitioners and ordinary monks began arriving at Daglha Gampo seeking Gampopa’s spiritual guidance. Along with his own realization and the blessings of the lineage, Gampopa offered his disciples something that no other spiritual master in Tibet then could: teachings that integrated the Kadampa approach with the meditative instructions of Mahāmudrā. By integrating Kadampa and Mahāmudrā, Gampopa forged a powerful combination of sutra and tantra, with direct instructions for realizing the nature of the mind itself.

From that point onward, Gampopa’s activities to bring about the well-being of others and to spread the Dharma grew increasingly vast. Among the many disciples of Gampopa who attained realizations of their own were three extraordinary masters from Kham: Dusum Khyenpa (1110-1193), Phagmodrupa Dorje Gyalpo (1110-1170), and Seltong Shogom (b. 12th century). In addition, Gampopa’s nephew Lama Gomtsul (Tsultrim Nyingpo, 1116-1169) became a teacher in his own right and would take over responsibility for Gampopa’s monastery after the master had passed.

Within a relatively short time, Gampopa had drawn literally thousands of disciples, and Daglha Gampo became a thriving center of Dharma activity. Gampopa’s presentation of the Dharma was grounded in the vivid awareness of the pervasive suffering of sentient beings that the loss of his family had impressed so deeply upon him. Yet the sheer size of the Dharma community he cared for indicates that Gampopa was able to move well beyond the particularities of his own life experiences, to connect with a broad range of disciples. Indeed, a major feature of Gampopa’s skill as a teacher was his ability to present the truths of Dharma in startlingly clear and direct terms accessible to listeners of many spiritual levels. Gampopa’s teachings sparkled with the freshness of his own experience and realization, as is palpable in the records of discourses he gave.

Until his passing in 1153 CE, Gampopa dedicated his entire adult life to ensuring that others, too, found the way to transform their most painful and difficult experiences into a source of well-being for others. In this way, the brilliance of Milarepa’s sun-like disciple continues to shine across the centuries to offer light and life-giving warmth to the world.

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