Jikten Sumgön Leaves Densa Thil and Settles at Drigung Valley

 
"The Serkhang Chojé," a most blessed statue of Kyobpa Rinpoché enshrined in the Golden Temple at Drikung Thil Monastery.

From 1177 to 1179, Jikten Sumgön acted as the abbot at Phakmo Dru. As abbot, he insisted on the strict observation of monastic discipline as taught in the Vinaya and Prātimokṣa Sūtra. This, however, caused the monks at Phakmo Dru to oppose him as they felt that Jikten Sumgön’s emphasis on discipline encroached upon the way they have been living and doing things at Phakmo Dru. When Jikten Sumgön tried to enforce the vow of abstaining from alcohol, the monks retorted with the reasoning that, “since we are the descendents of Milarepa, we should be allowed alcohol.” When Jikten Sumgön scolded them for drinking, they turned the admonition around and told him to adhere to the precept of “not causing others harm” (the essence of vows of individual liberation) and leave them alone. That night, Jikten Sumgön dreamt that his Lama came to him and handed him his meditation cushion and told him to leave Phakmo Dru and head north towards Uru (Drigung area). Nakshod Khenpo, one of Jikten Sumgön’s students told him of a place in the north called ‘Drigung,’ near the holy site of Terdrom. Upon hearing that, Jikten Sumgön recognized that it is to Drigung that he must now go. In the following night, Jikten Sumgön left Phakmo Dru with some of his disciples even as some of the others at Phakmo Dru tried to persuade him to stay.

On the way to Drigung, Jikten Sumgön met and gathered many disciples both human and non-human. At Sangphu, he was requested to transmit the Bodhisattva vows. On the fullmoon day of the twelfth month in 1179, Jikten Sumgön and his disciples finally arrived in the Drigung area. Many local people and meditators in the area came to receive them as Jikten Sumgön’s arrival at Drigung had been expected by Minyak Gomrim, a disciple of Phakmo Drupa who had established a meditation hermitage at Drigung. Within a short period of time, more than a hundred monks had gathered at Drigung as disciples of Jikten Sumgön. Although Jikten Sumgön had only intended to go to Drigung to meditate, he found himself thrust with the task of building a community. And thus before the year was over, he started building the foundations Drigung Jangchub Ling Monastery at the age of 37. At the height of Jikten Sumgön's Dharma activities at Drigung, it is said that 55, 525 lived and practiced in the Drigung Valley.

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