CHOKMA

On the morning of March 17, 1714, Chögyal Terdag Lingpa said, “I must take seven steps toward the East”. He then rose and after walking seven steps, sat down cross-legged and, as his Last Testament, said:

“Appearance, sound and awareness are deity, mantra and dharmakaya,
Infinitely pervasive as the display of the kayas and primordial wisdom.
May practitioners of the great, profound and secret yoga,
Remain inseparable from the innermost one taste awareness of wisdom mind.”

He then said, “Now the dakinis have arrived to usher me on” and raised his hands as if playing the damaru and bell and with a contemplative gaze, sitting in meditation posture, passed into Parinirvana amidst many wondrous omens.

There are to be seen countless dakinis:
some of them have eyes that dart out sun rays;
others give rise to thunderclaps and ride water buffaloes;
others hold sabres and have eyes which inflict harm;
others wear death’s heads one above the other and ride tigers;
others wear corpses and ride lions;
others eat entrails and ride garudas;
others have flaming lances and ride jackals;
others, five-faced, are steeped in a lake of blood;
others in their numberless hands
carry many generations of living beings;
others carry in their hands their own heads which they have severed;
others carry in their hands their own hearts which they have torn out;
there are others who have made gaping wounds in their own bodies
and who empty out and devour their own intestines and entrails;
there are others who hide and yet reveal their male or female sexual organs,
riding horses, bulls, elephants.

~ Padma bKa’i Thang,

The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, The Sojourn in the Cemetery of Chilly Grove, c. 22, Dharma Publishing, 1978