The Case of a Missing Mo

or The Awesome Fullness of the Tibetan Mind's Void

For years, like many others who may read this, I've been reading, studying and mentally digesting a great variety of publications concerning Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Highest Yoga Tantra, Mahamudra and Dzogchen - all those labels beloved by authors, translators and publishers for the covers of such works.

During most these years, when a certain Tibetan phrase - or the title of a Tantric scripture - was rendered into English, I had little reason to doubt such translations nor did I possess the necessary information to check their validity, correctness or completeness. Meanwhile, combining an innate curiosity with an ever growing hard disk filled with data, this situation has somewhat changed - and in this series of linguistic meditations I would like to have other readers participate in some of my discoveries.

Case Background

Many a work in my (or your) library makes mention of a very important collection of Tibetan texts that belong to the highest 'concealed instruction class' of the Nyingma school. This collection of so-called 'revealed treasure texts' (Tib., terma) is usually called Rinchen Terzod, less frequently as Rinchen Terzö Chenmo. As better books usually do, one finds included the equivalent Tibetan spellings (rin-chen gTer-mDzod; or rin.chen gter.mdzod chen.mo) as well as such translations as Terma Treasury, Treasury of Precious Teachings, or perhaps even the most elaborate and correct Great Treasure Trove of Precious Hidden Teachings.

... but ...

Looking at the title (Rinchen Terzö Chenmo) more curiously, comparing the Tibetan spelling (rin-chen gTer-mDzod chen-mo) with its complete looking translation (Great Treasure Trove of Precious Hidden Teachings), there is a tiny but interesting item missing in the English rendering: the Tibetan syllable mo does not appear in the translation at all.

Here a step by step guide:

Now the syllable mo has two distinct meanings:
One the one hand, mo indicates 'divination' as well as 'prophecy', and it occurs in terms such as 'astrological chart' (mo rtsis) or 'to foretell' (mo btab pa). In this sense, the mo in chenmo could refer to the fact that a terma is usually discovered by a specific terton (terma-discoverer) in accord with prophecies made by those who have originally hidden such texts. This is a reasonable explanation but it would not warrant to leave this information out when translating the title into Western languages. So it would seem, as I'll show, that the mo in Rinchen Terzö Chenmo is meant differently.

More often than prophecy, mo indicates the female gender and is used as the equivalent of English terms such as 'woman' and 'lady'. As chen mo, this would simply add up to 'great woman', but chen mo is used more specifically. In fact, it indicates 'Great Mother' in the sense of 'Goddess' in general; yet also 'Great Mothers' as a term used specifically for the Tibetan concept of the Dakini or Khandroma (Tib., mkha' 'gro ma), the deities and initiate women ever present in Tibetan literature and tales, in visualizations and yogic techniques. Back to our simple syllable mo, it occurs in terms such as 'female lineage' (mo rgyud), 'female demon' (mo 'dre) and 'male & female' (pho mo); but also in specifically sexual terms such as 'female genitals' (mo mtshan) and 'the female organ' (mo dbang); the latter also meaning 'female faculty'.

In light of these all-female associations of our missing mo, I see several possible meanings implied in the chenmo of the title in question:

  1. it simply refers to the fact that most treasure texts come from the lineage of Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal, a lineage that is often called "Dakini lineage"; as for example in the expression Khandro Nyingtig (Heart Drops of the Dakini)
  2. it refers to the fact - usually kept secret - that many of the famous masters (male) actually learned from and were initiated by female adepts who did not make the official history books
  3. it refers to the fact - even more secret - that the 'discovery' of a terma, especially in the case of mind-treasures in coded language, takes place while practicing ritual union (Tib., yab yum) with a so-called secret consort (gsang yum) whose 'female faculty' or organ (mo dbang) is regarded as 'emptiness', whereas the male faculty (pho dbang) or organ is regarded as 'bliss'; hence the expression Union of Bliss and Emptiness. The fact that terma, both their discovery and especially their decoding depend on the Bliss-Emptiness state of mind, has been 'revealed' - though guardedly - by Tulku Thondup and much more openly by Janet Gyatso.

Conclusion

Considering we're talking here not only about Tibetan language in general, but also about those teachings treated with much secrecy (for many reasons) and subtlety, it is most likely that all the above meanings - including the prophecy aspect - resonate in the use of chen mo as part of rin-chen gTer-mDzod chen-mo and other instances.
Tibetan language is generally full of double meanings and hidden associations and it perfectly fits (has given rise to and has been created by) what I call the awesome fullness of the Tibetan mind's void.

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