Previous Changling Incarnations

Since the fifteenth century, the line of Changling Rinpoches have practiced and
maintained the Northern Treasures lineage of Buddhist teachings. The Northern Treasures
were the last teachings given by Padmasambhava before he left Tibet. After giving them,
he hid them for a future generation.

Rigdzin Godem
In the late 14th century C.E., Tulku Zangpo Drakpa found the famous Prayer in Seven
Chapters. This he gave to Rigdzin Godem for whom they were the key to finding the
main body of teachings. Later branches were recovered by Tennyi Lingpa (15th c.) and
Garwang Dorje (17th c). Among its many famous teachings is the Gonpa Sangtal, one of
the most sublime works on The Great Perfection among Padmasambhava's vast
teachings.
Dudjom Rinpoche wrote in his History of the Nyingma School that as the Northern
Treasures were given to help the king and his descendants they subsequently served all
Tibetans like a faithful minister.
Decades ago, when the Chinese sought to occupy Tibet, many fled their homeland. These
precious Treasures were dispersed and dwindled.
Until now, the Northern Treasures Buddhist Fellowship is a newly created nonprofit
organization dedicated to the preservation and practice of the treasures. The texts are

being collected and translated. The oral teachings are being gathered, preserved and
offered as courses.
Brief History of the Changling Lineage
There are two main Kagyu lineages: the Marpa and Shangpa Kagyu. In the Marpa Kagyu,
there exist two lineages: the Dagpo Kagyu from Gampopa and the Rechung Kagyu from
Rechungpa.
Rechungpa purposely took rebirth to collect the life stories and songs of Milarepa and
restore the teachings of the formless dakinis. As Marpa could only translate two of the
eight chapters of the eight dharmas of these teachings, he told Milarepa that one of
Milarepa' disciples would gather these teachings. Later, Milarepa said to Rechungpa that
since he had a prophecy from his master that one of his students would go to India, he,
Rechungpa, should go to India and get the rest of the formless dakini teachings.
Rechungpa went to India and met Tipupa who was none other than Marpa's first son
Dharma Dode who was intended to be the blood lineage holder of Marpa's oral
instructions. Dharma Dode was given the exceptional and secret phowa empowerment
and pith instructions to transfer consciousness into the recently expired body of an
ordinary human being. Dharma Dode was wounded in, and later died from, an horrific
riding accident. As Dharma Dode lay dying, Marpa gave him the pith instructions on the
exceptional transference of consciousness.
No appropriate recently deceased human corpse could be found, so Dharma Dode
transferred his consciousness into a newly deceased pigeon with the direct pith
instructions from Marpa. Marpa's other students present saw many miraculous signs and
all saw Dharma Dode in the form Hevajra. Marpa sent the pigeon to India to a charnel
ground where the recently deceased body of a 16-year-old boy was to be burned. Dharma
Dode transferred his consciousness from the pigeon into the boy's dead body and that boy
appeared to come to life again. "Tipu" means pigeon. This phowa lineage was thus
temporarily lost as the lineage could only be given once orally from guru to student and it
had already been given the once to Dharma Dode.
Tipupa became a student of Naropa and Maitripa and received all of the formless dakini
teachings from them. When Rechungpa came to India, Naropa had already gone to
Khechara, so Rechungpa received the rest of the formless dakini teachings from Tipupa,
brought them back to Tibet and gave them to Milarepa. This formless dakini lineage is
thus Naro, Tipupa, Rechungpa and Milarepa. The Rechung Kagyu is mainly based on the
formless dakini teaching and the teaching Rechungpa received from Naropa.
Tsang Nyon Heruka was from Rechungpa's lineage of students and is known as an
emanation of Rechungpa. Tsang Nyon Heruka was the Kagyu master who collected
Milarepa's life story. Tsang Nyon Heruka's second purpose was to restore the teachings of
the formless dakini. This is a strict teaching lineage - the lineage holders do not give
general public teachings, but teach only a few select students.

Tsang Nyon Heruka had many students, but his heart student was Gotsang Repa Natsok
Rangdrol. Gotsang Repa in turn had many students - of his two main students, one was
Gothukpa Sangye Dorje. He is regarded as the incarnation of Tsang Nyon Heruka, and
was the first Changling Rinpoche, who Tibetans from Tsang called 'Lama Rechungpa'.
This first Changling Rinpoche and the first Dalai Lama were contemporaries. Some
subsequent Changling incarnations died at a very young age. There have been fifteen
incarnations altogether.
The Changling tulkus are regarded as the lineage holders of the Rechung Kagyu. The
eleventh and twelfth Changling Rinpoches engaged more in the Nyingma Northern
Treasure practices and established the Northern Treasure tradition in Changling
monastery.
The previous Changling Rinpoche wrote many commentaries on the Rechung Kagyu
teachings - even the renowned Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo came to his monastery to
receive the Rechung Kagyu lineage from him. The fourteenth Changling Rinpoche
became more involved in the Nyingma and thus had two types of students: Kagyu and
Nyingma. The fourteenth Changling incarnation died at around 50 years of age, and did
not come to India.
When the fourteenth Changling Rinpoche passed away, there were two incarnations. One
is the present Changling Rinpoche at Shechen Monastery in Nepal, and the other is still in
Tibet. There is still a Kagyu group and a Nyingma group of students: the current
Changling Rinpoche was brought up by the Nyingma group.
In Tibet there were two main seats of the Rechungpa lineage. One was Rechung Phug and
the other was Changling. Changling is in the Shigatze district, between Shigatze and
Sakya. Sakya Ngor monastery and Changling monastery are separated by one big
mountain. The Kagyu practiced in this lineage is the Rechung Kagyu tradition. This has
not yet been taught in any western country.
The Rechungpa practice extends from the preliminary practices to mahamudra. The
ultimate teachings of mahamudra are the formless dakini teaching. Milarepa gave
teachings to everyone equally, but his closest heart son was Rechungpa and so Milarepa
wrote teachings from the development to the completion stage for him only. These
teachings were given not by singing, but by Milarepa composing them himself.
Because of this, we have Milarepa's extremely direct explanation from Milarepa himself
an explanation not passed from master to student, but rather the exact view of
Milarepa himself. This has not yet been translated since no one practices it in the West these teachings exist just in Tibetan.