Voices of the Divine: The Mystery of the Bird Proclaiming Kunkhyen Chhoeje

Shingkharpa's front view
from their village.

"Kunkhyen Rinpoche kept a word of prophecies for future purposes. There are many other stories, but they would be lengthy. This place was once a small grassland. Kunkhyen spoke like a lion’s roar, ‘People will settle here, a monastery will be built, and the time will come when a bird will proclaim Kunkhyen Chhoeje. This will be the time to act upon righteous deeds, bringing benefits to fellow beings. If you do as I say, there’s no need to practice other dharma; this is enough. You will be born in the heavenly realm. If you harm others, you will be born in the vajra hell. There’s no other way,'

"I think this is true. I am between fifty and sixty, whereas this temple has been here for hundreds of years. In those years, there wasn’t space to walk around the monastery or circumambulate; every space belonged to other people. It was during our time when Shingkhar Lama requested the private landowners and completed the formalities of land transactions in the name of the monastery. Then the Kora began for the first time at this place, hardly thirty years ago.

"Now, people are saying that they hear Kunkhyen Chhoeje being spoken by a bird. I couldn’t believe it when they said it, and outsiders like you won’t either,” he burst into laughter. “I never thought birds would make such a noise until I heard it while strolling above the male and female stream. I was skeptical, but it is true what Kunkhyen prophesied,"

He pondered, “I could not be of any benefit, but when I heard such, the thought ran through my mind—I’ve taken a step toward accumulating religious merits," Those words from an old man were a hair-raising moment. I would have wiped a tear if I had been alone in that room.

"Later, Lama tried recording the sound on a mobile, but surprisingly, it automatically gets erased from the phone. It doesn’t last even a year,”

To be continued.....