His Holiness the 42nd Sakya Trizin, Ratna Vajra Rinpoche, delivered this talk on January 13, 2022, at Tsechen Kunchab Ling, U.S.A., in commemoration of the mahāparinirvāṇa anniversary of Lobpon Rinpoche Sonam Tsemo.
Source: This teaching was obtained from the Tsecheb Kunchab Ling Youtube.
Lobpon Sonam Tsemo, the second of the Five Sakya Patriarchs, was the second son of Lama Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, the elder brother of Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen, and the uncle of Sakya Paṇḍita. Only a small amount of information about his life is known; even among Sakya followers, little may have been recorded or remembered. Yet he possessed an inconceivable range of qualities that revealed the depth of his realization.
In this brief sharing of Sonam Tsemo’s life account, His Holiness the 42nd Sakya Trizin pointed out that the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the Tibetan calendar marks not the anniversary of his death, but the anniversary of his going to the Pure Land.
At the age of forty-one, on this very day 843 years ago (1182 CE, the Water-Tiger year), Sonam Tsemo—seated on a Dharma throne at the center of a gathering of eighty disciples—amid fragrant aromas and gentle musical sounds, manifested a radiant vajra body of rainbow light.
In an age that values visibility and recognition, Sonam Tsemo’s life gently reminds us that true accomplishment does not always announce itself, yet its impact endures far beyond a lifetime.
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