23/05/2025
Ayu Khandro, the Traveling Yogini of Kham
Ayu Khandro was a highly regarded neljorma, yogini, in eastern Tibet, who was born in 1839 and died in 1953 at the age of hundred-and-fifteen. Unlike Sera Khandro, Ayu Khandro did not leave behind an autobiography. Instead, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu composed a short biography of her life when he was sent by his teacher in 1951, at the age of fourteen, to receive the Vajra Yogini initiation from Ayu Khandro.
Ayu Khandro was born to the nomadic family of Ah-Tu Tahang in the Kham region of Tagzi, in a village called Dzong Trang. Like Sera Khandro, on the day Ayu Khandro was born, people reported auspicious signs. Togden Rangrig, a yogi who practiced near their village, who was at her home at the time of her birth, gave her the name Dechen Khandro. She was the youngest of eight children. Her mother’s name was Tsokyi but was called Atso, and her father was Tamdrin Gon, called Arta. In comparison to Sera Khandro, who hailed from a powerful aristocratic family in Lhasa, Ayu Khandro came from modest means. She describes her family as neither poor nor rich, her three older brothers became traders and her four sisters did “nomad’s work”. As the youngest, she mostly looked after small animals that her family owned. Like Sera Khandro, Ayu Khandro also describes being religiously inclined from a young age. However, unlike Sera Khandro, Ayu Khandro did not have to travel far to seek her spiritual mentors. Her aunt, Dronkyi, was a strong practitioner who lived near Togden Rangrig’s cave. At seven, Ayu Khandro remembers choosing at her own will, to go to her aunts’ in Drag Ka Yang Dzong. During her stay, Ayu Khandro assisted her aunt and Kunzang Longyang, Togden Ranrig’s disciple, with daily chores. Kunzang Logyang taught her and his nephew, Rinchen Namgyal, how to read and write Tibetan. Having participated in reading the Kangyur twice to extend Togden’s life, her reading skills improved.
At thirteen, she received her first initiation and teaching on the Longsal Dorje Nyingpo. Although she admits not having understood most of the teaching, she implies the practice as having elevated her faith. That same year, her parents met the Gara Tsong family, a wealthy family in Kham, who were friends and patrons of her aunt. After her aunt introduced the two families, her parents set Ayu Khandro up to be married to their son, Apho Wangdo. In a similar fashion to Sera Khandro, Ayu Khandro describes having no say in the matter and pointing out her parents desire for “wealth” as the basis for her marriage. Although her aunt tries to intervene on her behalf, asking them to let her chose her own path, they only agree to delay her wedding. At fourteen, she traveled with her aunt and Togden Rangrig to see Jamyang Khentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul, and Cho Gyur Lingpa, and traveled with them to Dzong Tsho, were she met other great practitioners. During this journey, she receives many instructions and teachings from all the teachers she comes to know. After her return, feeling more confident, she begins the preliminary practices of the Longchen Nyingtig, with instructions from Kunzang Longyang. In 1854, at sixteen, she went with her aunt to see Jamyang Khentse Wangpo (also known as Dzongsar Khentse Rinpoche) who initiates her aunt and her into the Pema Nyingthig and gives her the name Tsewang Paldron. Upon her return, she goes into her first retreat. However, her spiritual path is cut short at nineteen when her parents marry her off to Apho Wangdo. She describes her husband as gentle and kind, but she is unsatisfied. After three years of marriage, Ayu Khandro becomes sick and does not get better for two years. Togden Rangrig is called in to see her and performs rituals and divinities, but makes it clear to her husband and his family that the real cause of her sickness is that she is being forced “to lead a worldly life…against her will” (142). After listening to Togden Rangrig and Ayu Khandro’s own reasons for wanting to go back to leading a spiritual life, Apho Wangdo agrees. As soon as her health improves, Apho Wangdo accompanies her back to her aunt’s cave for her to resume her practices under the guidance of her aunt and Togden.
Despite experiencing a brief interruption on her spiritual path with marriage, the rest of Ayu Khandro’s namtar continues her spiritual path without any worldly interruptions. Following the deaths of Togden Rangrig and her aunt in 1865, Ayu Khandro enters a three-year retreat. After the retreat, at the age of thirty, she decides on becoming a traveling yogini, not returning until she’s forty-three. Over the course of thirteen years, Ayu Khandro travels all over Tibet and is joined on her travels by other yogis and yoginis. On her journey visiting sacred sites and monasteries across Tibet, she meets many highly recognized male teachers who initiate her into different teachings, and instructs her on her practice and journey. When she returns to her original place of practice, she describes having found the place in ruins. After a dream, in which, she sees herself next to an egg-shaped rock in Dzongtsa, she traveled there and experiences a miracle. Although she was across the river from the egg-shaped rock in Dzongtsa, she experiences a dream in which she walked across to Dzongtsa on a white bridge. When she awakes, she finds herself on the other side of the bank; due to the auspicious circumstances she decides to make the spot her permanent place of retreat. In 1953, at the age of hundred-and-fifteen, she passed away, despite pleas from her followers to remain longer, she refused, warning that trying times were headed their way and she would be too old to bear it.
Naldjor Repost from 2022; with a painting of the Yogini
https://www.facebook.com/100064850911777/posts/4799979520049890/
Read more from The Mirror:
Ayu Khandro Dorje Paldrön (1839-1953) was born into a wealthy family in the village of Dzongsa in Kham. Attracted to the life of a practitioner, when still a child she went to live with her aunt, a yogini, in a cave close to that of Togden Rangrig, a local master who gave her the name Dechen Khandro. There Ayu Khandro learned how to read and write and when she was fourteen attended a consecration performed by the three great Rimé masters of that time, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgön Kongtrul, and Chogyur Lingpa, receiving many teachings. Later she began the preliminary practices of the Longchen Nyingthig and received the initiation of the Pema Nyingthig from Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.
At the age of nineteen, her parents took her from her aunt, forcing her to marry a wealthy man who showed himself kind to her, but Ayu Khandro, firmly determined to dedicate her life to practice, soon fell ill. After three years of married life, her husband agreed to a separation and helped her enter into retreat.
When Master Togden Rangrig died, manifesting prodigious signs, Ayu Khandro’s aunt also died after remaining in meditation for many days. Saddened, Ayu Khandro closed herself in retreat in the cave where her aunt had meditated, remaining there from her twenty-seventh to her thirtieth year. Afterward she began a wandering life, pausing in various sacred places to practice the Chöd.
At Adzom Gar she met Adzom Drugpa and received teachings on Dzogchen from Nyagla Pema Dündul. From there she traveled in company of Lhawang Gönpo, who helped her overcome the rigors of winter, instructing her in the practice of developing inner heat and the practice of nourishing herself on the essence of the elements called chülen. Later they were joined by the yogini Pema Yangkyi, who in the coming years was to become the closest friend and travel companion of Ayu Khandro.
Having reached Dzongsar, the three received from Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo the initiations to the cycle of Nyingthig Yashi and to Khandro Sangdü; then at Nyarong they met Nyagla Pema Dündul again, who conferred on them the initiations to the Longsal Dorje Nyingpo, the Yangti Nagpo, and the Khakhyab Rangdrol.
After three months the Master told the two yoginis that in order to reach realization they had to continue their wandering, practicing the teaching of Machig in cemeteries and sacred places. He also predicted their meeting with two yogins who would prove important for them on their path to liberation. As prophesied, first they met the yogin Semnyi Dorje and after a few months Trulshig Garwang; with them they travelled to central Tibet, to Maratika in Nepal, to Yanglesho in the valley of Kathmandu, and then again to western Tibet as far as Mount Kailash.
After twelve years of intense pilgrimage, Ayu Khandro decided to return to her birthplace: there she was saddened to find the residence of Togden Rangrig completely abandoned. Following indications received in a dream of clarity, she sighted an egg-shaped rock near Dzongsar, but since a river prevented her from reaching it, she camped in the vicinity and practiced intensely. On the third night she dreamed she was walking on a white bridge that crossed that river, and upon awakening she found herself near the rock. Her husband, informed of her return, had a small cabin built in that place, where Ayu Khandro remained in dark retreat practicing Yangti intensively for the next fifty years, going elsewhere extremely rarely. It was there that Chögyal Namkhai Norbu met her and received from her various initiations and teachings; on that occasion, Ayu Khandro also dictated her biography to him.
Ayu Khandro elected to leave her body at the age of 113 years, predicting the tumultuous years that would devastate Tibet. Her body remained in the meditation position for two weeks, diminishing substantially in size.
Photo by FB Ayu Khandro; thank You! She wrote : I created these images, reposted here by Naldjor ~ it's not just AI, the prompts took hours of perfecting and I input all images of her we have with some actual Nangchen Nuns, who are supposed to be some of the most accomplished yoginis in the world. Then I edit in photoshop, I feel like we can bring her blessing and essence to life. I can imagine that is what she may have looked like. I also love that if we practice like she did, we can become filled with wisdom and beauty as we age.
Via several people; thank You!
https://melong.com/masters-khandro-dorje-paldron/
