Old Age: Gradual Path Teachings of an Early Dzogchen Master

Old man look at my life,

I’m a lot like you were.

— Neil Young, 1972

I have to say, the unexpected happens to students of Tibet with such frequency it feels normal. Once I spotted Rampa in the Topkapi in Istanbul. Another time, high in the Alps, I encountered this mural painting on the exterior of a guesthouse, a ski lodge in fact, by the name of “Tenne.” There were only two, including myself, who could see the humor in it. Yes, I admit, this is plain silliness. Hardly anyone in their right mind would see the name of a 12th-century Zhijé teacher in a Swiss hotel sign. Or would they? Connections both real and apparent do pop up in unexpected places, don’t they? Perhaps even more so for those who delve into obscure corners of the universe of possible knowables (shes-bya) like us Tibeto-logicians love to do.

First let’s take a quick overall snapshot of Tenné’s immense commentary* on one of the original Padampa texts. This commentary was written roughly between the late 12th and the 2nd decade of the 13th, preserved in a circa 1245 manuscript. Its title is translatable as Great Commentary on the Dialog called Mirror of the Heart.* There are some interesting quotations he makes use of, sparingly. Not least among those he cites is a work of the founder of the Aro tradition of Dzogchen.** Oddly it seems not to be particularly about Dzogchen. In fact the passages from it very much belong to the prerequisite (sngon-’gro) contemplations of the Gradual Path (Lam-rim) teachings, teachings generally associated with Atiśa and the Kadampa school that followed after him.*** 

(*The title page reads: Zhu-lan Thugs-kyi Me-long-gi Bshad-’bum Chen-mo / Bla-ma Rje-btsun-gyis Yi-ger Bkod-pa'o. Lama Jetsun is just a reverential way to refer to Tenne [Rten-ne] as its author.  Do take notice of the use an obsolete term bshad-’bum, used in pre-Mongol era in place of the ultimately victorious word ’grel-ba. This takes up the entire fifth volume of the first modern Zhijé Collection [ZC] in published form. **If you are not yet familiar with the Aro tradition, I recommend flipping back to our April Fools’ Day blog — Turkish Dzogchen of Early Ladakh — to have a look. Then come back here. ***A moot yet somehow significant point is that the Kadampa writers called such texts Stages of Teachings [Bstan-rim] rather than Stages of the Path [Lam-rim], moot because they amount to the same thing.)

Who was Tenné? Arguably the most pivotal figure in the earlier centuries of Zhijé’s Later Transmission. For the times he lived in, Tenné had an unusually long life, living to be 91 or maybe even 95 years old. Sources differ on whether he died in 1217 or 1221 CE. As he grew older his sight began to fail him and he relied more and more on the assistance of his daughter. He did have a son he hoped would be his successor in the lineage. When we dig into the middle of the huge commentary we realize, sharing in the inevitable sadness, that he had meant to write the commentary for the use of his son, but his son died young, much too young. To be clear his elder son Namkha Özer (Nam-mkha’-’od-zer) was expected to be his successor in the one-to-one transmission, but he contracted a mortal disease. Tenné then wanted to give it to his younger son Yangtsé (Yang-rtse) but he was ‘swept up by a wind’ and moved to Kongpo where he finally died.* When Tenné instead passed on his teaching to the Rog Brothers it turned out to be for the best after all, since they may be credited with bringing the Zhijé to the peak of its historical influence. Not incidental to our present purposes, the Rog Brothers continued Tenné’s tendency to pursue, and to a certain degree integrate, Nyingma Mahāyoga and Dzogchen teachings.

(*See ZC, vol. 5, pp. 416-417. If you prefer English, see Roerich’s Blue Annals, p. 936, in a passage that echoes and surely descended from the ZC.)

The middle brother, Rog Zhigpo, met Tenné when Tenné was in his 70’s, in around 1196 CE. Zhigpo invited the cranky old spiritual master to come and dwell with him in the Inner Dra (Grwa-nang) Valley. Yes, his demands could at times be difficult to endure (Blue Annals, p. 937) — after all he was suffering from old age and slowly but surely going blind — but Zhigpo not only indulged him, he treated him with the highest honor and respect. After Tenné’s death, his body was enshrined within an elaborate Chorten in that same Inner Dra Valley. Inner Dra is on a south tributary of the Brahmaputra, it’s the river valley just west of the valley of Outer Dra where Mindroling Monastery is still today.

One of those Aro quotes included in Tenné’s Great Commentary is this disturbingly accurate list of horrors old age brings. From its context it is clearly presented as part of a plan to instill in disciples a strong dedication to spiritual practice by provoking a sharp aversion to sangsara and all its bitter shortcomings. I’ve attempted to capture its spirit rather than its letter (the transcribed Tibetan texts are all placed in an appendix below): 

To quote Exhorting People to Virtue by Aro:

An old man in this stage of life is a fright, a bundle of white hair and wrinkles, his body all falling apart. When he sits down his butt hits hard, to get up again he plants down all four limbs. He paces and cannot stand still, his skeleton, his creaking joints and bones, tottering, hunched over and falling apart. His face is drained of color, the flesh of his eyelashes brimming with tears. His flesh dissolving, his skin dried up, his web of veins is plain to see. Nothing is clear to his eye and ear, the teeth drop out of his mouth. He talks a lot, but babbles nonsense. He is forgetful, his memory unclear, cognitions failing. So pitiful is the body at the end of life, more like a grim ghost or rakshasa. With death so near it will be hard for him to accomplish the practices.*

 (*Transcribed in Text A, Appendix One below.)

One reason this quote aroused my interest is because some of it sounded familiar, the reason being several years ago I translated a similar passage in the long Deyu history. It even has some phrases in common. It is part of a story of Four Encounters known to every Buddhist. Young pre-renunciation Prince Siddhārtha is on one of his four chariot trips to the four gateways of his palace when he an old man catches his eye.

On another occasion they arrived at the southern gate, where they encountered a very old and wretched man with a hunched back. The Bodhisattva remarked,

‘What is this? His hair white, his body all wrinkled, his limbs shaking?

When the town children see him they’ll think him better off dead.

He wheezes through his mouth. His body has no strength.

His flesh is dried up, his sinews and skin all twisted up. Who is he?’*

(*This English is from the translation of the long Deyu History, p. 138. For the Tibetan see Text B.) 

According to the so-far untranslated and somewhat earlier (ca. 1220’s) small Deyu History:

The Prince said, 

‘A mass of wrinkles and white hair, 

all his limbs are shaky.

The town’s children see him thinking 

he’d be better off dead.

His flesh and blood are wasted away. 

Who is this bone wrapped in skin?’

These three examples are not the only ones that share the initial statement about wrinkles and grey hair. But before going on to these further examples, I must give all credit due to a masterful thesis from Hamburg by Katya Thiesen. She focussed her study on a text by the founder of the Aro Dzogchen tradition, one on the subject of the preliminaries. We are thoroughly justified in expecting it to be the very same text quoted by Tenné. (Okay, the two titles differ, but titles of Tibetan compositions in pre-Mongol era were hardly fixed if they were present at all.) She finds the source of much of his material in an Indian Buddhist scripture, a sutra called Precepts for a King.  First the passage from Aro’s text on the preliminaries with the title Distinguishing the Ways of Gaining Entry to the Yoga of the Mahāyāna:

Now for the sufferings due to old age, they are these:

A mass of white hair and wrinkles, people can’t stand the sight of them.

Liquids drip from mouth and nose, their limbs all quaking.

What they think of doing they have no strength to accomplish.

All the children think they are as good as dead.

You may command them, but they hear nothing, their sense faculties lost.

Some say, ‘This old rakshasa has passed its expiry date.’

Some take up sticks and give them a beating.

Learning about and witnessing such things they want to die but are unable.

An early work by Mchims included in the Snar-thang Gser-'phreng (section NGA, fol. 151r.1) has Atiśa, in the first half of the 11th century, telling his student Dromtön how much he appreciated Aro’s work. We read that the only Tibetan-composed treatise Atiśa appreciated was in fact Aro’s Theg-chen Rnal-’byor,* a work that pleased him for its high poetry, its fine treatment of karma and causation, its depth of understanding and its overarching sublimity. There are other sources telling us that Atiśa appreciated writings by Rongzompa, so we may need to ratchet down the word “only.”

(*This is just a shortened title for the work studied by Thiesen. On this passage, see also Thiesen, p. 52. It is possible the sources have over time confounded two distinct works with similar-sounding titles, one by Rongzompa and the other by Aro.)

As Thiesen demonstrates beyond any doubt this particular work by Aro very surely drew upon a scripture translated well before his time, during the last decades of the 8th century or first decades of the 9th. This is the Mahāyāna Sūtra known as Rājādeśa, or Precepts for a King, where this close-to-identical passage is found:

Similarly the sufferings of old age are as follows:

People who see them cannot believe it,

a mass of wrinkles and white hair,

mouth and nose dripping with fluids.

Every last limb is shaking. What comes into their minds

they haven’t the physical strength to do.

All the children who see them think them better off dead.

They hear none of your instructions, their hearing lost.

Some say, ‘This old rakshasa is too old to die.’

Some take up sticks and beat them.

Learning how this is they may want to die,

but find themselves incapable of doing so.

We want to conclude from comparing these passages that Aro Yeshé Jungné wrote not just one but two texts on the preliminaries (or if you prefer prerequisites) to the Gradual Path, one quoted by Tenné with the title Exhorting People to Virtue, a title otherwise not available to us, and a second one, the one studied by Thiesen, with the title Distinguishing the Ways of Gaining Entry to the Yoga of the Mahāyāna. In order to pin things down a little further, we may want to compare other versions of the Bodhisattva’s encounter with the old man in scriptures like the Play in Full and the Great Departure (these were the chief sources for the Deyu histories retelling of the life of the Buddha). We might also want to compare another early Tibetan composition by Pagmodrupa (Phag-mo-gru-pa Rdo-rje-rgyal-po, 1110-1170). Last but not least, we ought to see how the other passages that Tenné cited from Exhorting the People to Virtue might stack up (for them, see Appendix Two). Yes, there is more to do, but I hope you will excuse me from going even further into a subject that is already growing old with me.

Conclusion?  My initial motive in writing this was to support a longterm argument of mine that the Early Zhijé had a strong interest in the Aro Dzogchen lineage. This was important to me back in those 12-odd years I worked on the Deyu histories, trying to learn more about their elusive authors. While I think this aim has been well served when put together with still other evidence, after all is said and done it turns out to be more about old age than anything else. I suppose there is a much broader human interest in this subject, even among people who are not particularly interested in Tibetan Studies. Still I should be sorry about posting this since it concerns something nobody, least of all myself, wants to hear... but, well, no, I’m not.

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Reading list 

Anonymous, A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, Dan Martin, tr., The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022). We call this for short the “long Deyu.” We do this even though it is actually a post-1262 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work by a different author. It was the verse work alone, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu (Lde’u). That means the authorship listing authorized by the Library of Congress is incorrect and requires fixing. The authorship of the long Deyu History will remain anonymous until we find good reasons to say otherwise.

G.R. Coffman, “Old Age from Horace to Chaucer: Some Literary Affinities and Adventures of an Idea,” Speculum, vol. 9, no. 3 (1934), pp. 249–277. If you were thinking to compare and contrast Tibetan literature’s portrayals of old age with sources from the other side of Eurasia, this could be a good place to start. Of course there is a lot more out there, so I recommend you get your research started while you still have the energy of youth at your command.

Robert B. Ekvall, “The High Pasturage Ones of Tibet Also Grow Old,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 124, no. 6 (1980), pp. 429-437. 

Ronald E. Emmerick, “rGas-pa Gso-ba,” contained in: Tadeusz Skorupski, ed., Indo-Tibetan Studies, Institute of Buddhist Studies (Tring 1990), pp. 89-100.  Text and translation of Chapter 90, ‘On Geriatrics,’ of the 3rd book of the Four Medical Tantras (Rgyud-bzhi).

Gampopa (Sgam-po-pa Bsod-nams-rin-chen, 1079-1153), Ornament of Precious Liberation, tr. by Ken Holmes, Wisdom (Boston 2017). At pages 71-72 of this Stages of the Path classic by a well known Kagyü master is a different way of characterizing old age in the form of a ten-fold list, its content well worth comparing. Although this well polished translation is most highly recommended, there are others out there. If you have Herbert Guenther’s The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, you can find it on pages 66-67.

Mchims Nam-mkha’-grags, Snar-thang Gser-’phreng [a descriptive rather than an actual title, with works of varying authorship and dating], a manuscript supplied at BDRC no. W2CZ7888.

S. Musitelli, “Senility, Illness and Death in Açvaghosa’s Buddhacarita; The Feats of Buddha,” The Aging Male, vol. 6, no. 4 (2003), pp. 264–274.

Patrul Rinpoche (Dpal-sprul O-rgyan-’jigs-med-chos-kyi-dbang-po, 1808-1887), The Words of My Perfect Teacher, tr. by the Padmakara Translation Group, Harper Collins (San Francisco 1994). Just to supply yet another example of an old age description in a Stages of the Path context, have a look at pp. 82-83, with its particularly remarkable quotation from Milarepa. This text is a quite recent one, of course, but I did search through the very lengthy Stages of the Teachings text by the Kadampa teacher Drolungpa (Gro-lung-pa Blo-gros-’byung-gnas, late-11th to 12th centuries) and could find nothing particularly relevant, even if mentions of old age are frequent.

Rājādeśa nāma Mahāyāna Sūtra (Rgyal-po-la Gdams-pa zhes bya-ba Theg-pa-chen-po’i Mdo).  Tôhoku no. 214.  Dergé Kanjur, vol. TSHA, folios 207r.1-210r.3.  Translated by Dānaśīla and Ye-shes-sde. The immediately following scripture, Tôhoku no. 215, has exactly the same title. Both are available in translation at 84000. The king in the title is Bimbisāra. If comparative translation studies gives you odd pleasure, compare this:

The sufferings of the elderly are like this:
White hair, gathering wrinkles, being ignored by others,
Dribbles of spittle and snot at the mouth and nose,
Trembling hands, and unsteady legs.
The body becomes too feeble to do what the mind intends.
Relatives all consider you better off dead;
Your advice is not heeded and your authority is lost.
Some may even say, ‘That old monster should have died long ago.’
Some may even threaten to beat you with cudgels and sticks.
Seeing and hearing this, you may want to die, but die you cannot. 

Alexander von Rospatt, “Negotiating the Passage beyond a Full Span of Life: Old Age Rituals among the Newars,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 37, no. 1 (2014), pp. 104-129.  See also this online resource at the Rubin site.

Elliot Sperling, “Old Age in the Tibetan Context,” Saeculum, vol. 30 (1979), pp. 434-442. It may be true that Tibetans do not have the same ways of paying respect to elders in the form of well-established religious rituals that neighboring Chinese and Newars have. The main message is that Tibetan people in earlier historical eras never had to face a retirement age. To the contrary, they continued doing useful work with a strong sense of independence. Tragically, the author of this essay, written in his youth, never got to make use of his own ‘retirement’ years even though he had great plans he surely would have carried out.

Katja Thiesen, A-ro Ye-shes-’byung-gnas: Leben, Werk und Tradition eines tibetischen Gelehrten – Mit einer Übersetzung seines Theg pa chen po’i rnal ’byor la ’jug pa’i thabs bye brag tu byed pa (Eine detaillierte Analyse [der] Methode für den Eintritt in den Yoga [entsprechend] der Mahāyāna-Tradition), Master’s thesis, University of Hamburg (2009).

Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, tr. by the Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2000), in 3 volumes. In volume one, at pages 275-276, are Tsongkhapa’s 1402 CE poetic evocations of the sufferings of age. My favorite bit: 

“Physical strength and vigor deteriorate: for example, when you sit down, you drop like a sack of dirt cut from a rope; when you rise up, it is like uprooting a tree...”

Zhijé Collection. To get access, try this link, or if that doesn’t work, try this one — https://library.bdrc.io/ — and type “W23911” in their search box. 

• Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it you’ve got to start young.

— Quote attributed to both Theodore Roosevelt and Fred Astaire

Appendix One — Tibetan texts in transcription

Text A — Zhijé Collection, vol. 5, p. 239, line 2:

a ro'i skye bo dge bskul las / na tshod gyurd pa'i rgad po 'jigs rung ba // 'go dkar snyer 'dus lus kun zhig // sdod na 'phongs sdebs langs na sug bzhi 'dzugs // gom ba mi bstand lus 'khyor dbyigs sgur zhing // 'jigs pa'i brang skas tshigs rus krog sgrar bcas // byad kyi mdog nyams rdzi sha myig chu can // sha zhu pags skams rtsa'i dra ba mngon // mig dang rna ba myi gsal kha so brul // ngag nas cal col smra zhing brjod la dga' // rjed ngas dran pa mi gsal shes pa nyams // rab 'jigs 'dre srin gzugs su mthong 'gyur ba'i // tshe'i mthar phyind snying rje'i gnas 'gyur ba / 'chi dang nye bas bsgrub pa mthar phyind dka' //  // 

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Text B — From the long Deyu History (Lhasa ed.), p. 54:

de nas lho’i sgor byon pa dang rgad po shin tu rgas pa sgur ba nyams thag pa gcig dang ’phrad nas ’di ci yin dris / mgo dkar gnyer lus rkang lag kun kyang ’dar // grong pa’i bus pas [~byis pas] mthong na shi na rung snyam sems // kha nas shus ’debs lus kyi stobs dang bral // sha skams rgyus dang paṭ pas dkris ’di su // zhes smras pas /...

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Text C — From the small Deyu History, p. 24:

rgyal bus gsungs pa / mgo dkar gnyer ’dus rkang lag kun kyang ’dar / grong pa’i bus bas mthong na shi na rung snyam sems / sha khrag nyams te rus lpags dkris pa su / 

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Text D — BDRC no. W25983, vol. 59, p. 12, line 2:

• Note: This is based on a single text, for critical text edition see Thiesen, p. 174, with German translation on p. 115.

rgas pa yang ni 'di ltar sdug bsngal te // 

skra dkar gnyer 'dus gzhan gyis mthong mi thos (~thub?) //

kha sna'i chu zag rkang lag kun kyang 'dar //

sems kyis dran yang lus la nyams stobs med //

bu tsha kun kyang shi na rung snyams sems // 

zhal lta byas kyang mi nyan dbang yang shor //

kha cig srin rgan shi mchis (~'phyis?) shes kyang zer //

kha cig ber dbyug thogs nas rdung bar byed //

de ltar mthong thos shi 'dod shi mi btub //

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Text E — Dergé Kanjur, Tôh. no. 214, vol. TSHA, fol. 209r, line 6:

rgas pa yang ni 'di ltar sdug bsngal te // mgo dkar gnyer 'dus gzhan gyis mthong mi mos // kha sna chu 'dzag rkang lag kun kyang 'dar // sems kyis dran yang lus la nyam stobs med // bu tsha kun kyang shi na rung snyam sems // zhal ta byas kyang mi nyan dbang yang shor // kha cig srin rgan shi 'phyis zhes kyang zer // kha cig ber dbyug thogs nas rdung bar byed // de ltar mthong thos shir 'dod shir ma btub //

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Appendix Two — A cursory excursus on other citations in Tenné’s commentary

We find in Tenné’s commentary several quotations from the Aro text of our chief interest, an apparently unavailable text called [Slob-dpon Chen-po] A-ro’i Skye-bo Dge-bskul or in the shortened form A-ro’i Dge-bskul. The quotes appear in the first-published version of the Zhijé Collection, vol. 5, at the following pages: 

Page 210, line 1: a ro'i skye bo dge skul las / snang ba 'brid mkhas 'khruld pa 'dris par sla // bag chags tshan che nyon mongs skye 'drungs 'phel // 'dod pa 'phro gshin zhen chags 'bral bar dka' // bdag 'dzin 'phrang dam le lo gzhi che bas // 'gro ba 'di dag srid pa'i brtson ra nas // thard med sdug bsngal 'bha [~'ba'] zhig gis mnar ba // nyes byed gzhan na yod pa ma yin rang gis lan // snying rus gal che 'di myed thar lam bral skad // //

Page 213, line 4: slob dpon chen po a ro'i skye bo dge skul bas / 'khor ba 'di ni bde ba med // sdug bsngal gnas su ma rig pa'i // rten des dam pa'i chos mi grub // 'jig rten bya ba 'khrul pa la // bden par bzung ba log pa'i lam // byas pa don med tshe 'di'i ched // da lta'i grabs dang phyi ma'i tshis // 'di gnyis 'tshogs pa lhan cig min skad.

Page 235, line 4: a ro'i dge bskul las / rin chen gling nas ded dpon gyis // stong par log pa bde mod kyi // chos med mi lus de lta min // shi nas ngan 'gror skye ba'i // 'khor los sgyur rgyal de bas ni / phyi ma bde 'gro thob pa'i // mdze rgan long ba khyad par 'phags // ri rab dang ni rdul phran las // dam chos yod med khyad par 'phags skad.  

Page 239, line 2:  See Text A.

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We also find cited a not further specified on worldly wisdom (Lugs-kyi Bstan-bcos).

Page 101, line 7: de skad du yang lugs kyis bstand chos las / gzhon ba'i dus su pha mas bsrungs / lang tsho'i dus su khyo yis bsrungs / rgas pa'i dus su bu tshas bsrungs / bud myed rang dbang thob ma yin zhes pa'o.

Page 217, line 7: lugs kyi bstan chos las / shind tu drang por myi bya ste / nags su song la ltos cig dang // der ni yon po bsdus 'gyur la // drang po thams cad cod par byed // bzang po'i rlod yangs stond pa la // ngan pa glags cher lta ba yod // mi ngan rnams la phan btags pas // sa rdo nam du stor ba yin gsung skad.

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Gdams-ngag Sems-kyi Sgron-ma is cited on p. 282, line 2. It might be a similarly titled Padampa dialog text, I haven’t looked into it yet.  

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Snyan-bsngags Za-ma-tog-gi ’Phreng-ba, which may stand for a Sanskritic title *Kāvyakaraṇḍamālā, or something like that, is cited at least twice.

218.2 snyan bsngags za ma tog gi 'phreng ba las /

chog shes gong na nor gzhan med //

'dod pa spangs pa bde ba'i mchog //

phung 'drer grogs ngan rten pa che //

mdza' bo ngan pa thabs kyis spang //

rdong [~gdong] pa dam tshig med pa ni /

yon tan klug [~blug] pa'i snod ma yin //

ma brtags pa dang 'brel mi bya //

grogs kyi dri ma ngan 'go bar rkyen skad.

220.2 snyan sngags za ma tog gi 'phreng ba las /

mdza' bo snying la bab pa'i //

rang dang 'dra ba'i grogs po ni //

nor bu rin chen lta bur dkon //

de'i legs spyad snying gi tshig //

phan par smra ba dkon pa ste //

de bas de la nyan ba skon [~dkon] //

byams pa'i zhal ta mi nyan ba /

ru rbal [~rus sbal] kha nas shing shor 'dra skad.

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At page 309, line 3, is a recommendation to consult the Dpe-chos of “Spu-to-ba” [~Po-to-ba Rin-chen-gsal, 1031-1105], who was, by the way, a teacher of Tenné’s Zhijé lineage teacher Patsab (Pa-tshab). Tenné once more mentions the Dpe-chos of “Pu-do-ba,” on page 54, line 5. The spelling Spu-to-ba may also be noted in Rog’s Zhijé History. It is at least worthy to see that this Kadampa classic was known to Tenné and his followers.

• I would like to dedicate today’s blog to one of my older brothers. Today would have been his birthday.