12Shantipa

Santipa is a renowened preceptor from Vikramasila. When King Devapala ruled Magadha heard of his fame, the king sent a royal messenger along with a bountiful offering to invite Santipa to his kingdom. After some contemplation, Santipa decided it was his duty to go and so took sail with 2000 monks along with many scriptures. His arrival was celebrated and in Sri Lanka the great teacher remained for 3 years, teaching many doctrines and techniques of the tripitaka to the king and his subjects.

When Santipa left, he decided to take the longer route home. It was here where he met Kotalipa who became his disciple. When he reached the monastery, everything returned to normal. Time passed and Santipa grew old. When he reached his 100th birthday, he retired and began a 12 year period of contemplation.

During those same 12 years, Kotalipa too entered retreat. While Santipa was practicing discursive contemplation, Kotalipa was absorbed in the essential nature of reality, and his nondiscursive, thought-free meditation led directly to mahamudra-siddhi. In time, Santipa returned from his retreat and was much acclaimed by his students.

When Kotalipa attained mahamudra-siddhi, Indra, lord of the gods came to celebrate and invited him to enter the 33 sensual paradises. But the yogin can only think of his guru and refused the invitation. In his invisible awareness body, Kotalipa transported himself into the presence of Santipa, and prostrated himself before his guru, but no one could see him, not even his guru, so he materialized his physical body and repeated his homage.

However, his guru had no memory of him, but when Kotalipa mentioned on how they met, Santipa recalled the incident and then kindly he asked, “what results have you obtained from your meditation?” The student told Santipa that through his great instruction, he attained mahamudra-siddhi and the existential mode of pure awareness and emptiness.

A great realization dawned upon Santipa. He realized that during all those years of teaching he had neglected true spiritual discipline. He said that he have never experienced the perfect reality he taught all those years and asked his student to demonstrate the results of the meditation. Thus it was that student become teacher, and teacher become student. Kotalipa took Santipa to a retreat and revealed to him the many qualities of the dharmakaya, thus returning the gift of instruction.

Santipa spent another 12 years in meditation, and then, he attained mahamudra-siddhi. With the attainment of true bliss, he realized that all his book learning and all the gifts he received were hollow. The years remaining to him he spent in faithful service to others and in the end, he too gained the Paradise of the Dakinis.

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