17 Karmapa - Enlightened Activity of Guru Rinpoche

The tertön Chokgyur Lingpa (1829-1870) was a great master and visionary who discovered many Dharma treasures. He was a prominent member of the vibrant nonsectarian movement that blossomed in nineteenth-century Tibet. In his prophecies about the Karmapa, he began by invoking Gyalwa Chokyang, the Karmapa’s incarnation as one of the main disciples of Guru Rinpoche:

Lotsawa Gyalwa Chokyang, listen to me.
In the supreme place of speech, Palace of the Half Moon,
You will have twenty-one future rebirths.
An emanation of Chenrezik, you know all three times.

Chokgyur Lingpa then continued to give the names of the Karmapas who would be born after his time: The names needed after Thekchok (Supreme Vehicle, the fourteenth Karmapa) passes into nirvana Are the Dewe Dagnyi (Very Nature of Bliss, the fifteenth Karmapa), Rigpe Dorje (Vajra of Awareness, the sixteenth Karmapa), Ogyen Trinley (Enlightened Activity of Guru Rinpoche, the seventeenth Karmapa), and Samten (Stable Contemplation, the future eighteenth Karmapa), and so forth. He also spoke individually of each incarnation and made the following prediction of the seventeenth Karmapa:

Nearby, at the foot of a verdant tree that grows on rocky mountains is the
seventeenth incarnation of the Karmapa together with Kenting Tai Situ.
This is a symbol that through their minds being fused as one, the leaves
and petals of the Buddha’s teaching will unfold and the fruit, the essence
of the Dakpo Kagyu, will be plentiful.

The text of Guru Rinpoche, Hidden Predictions (mDo byang gud sbas), gives the vast perspective:

The teachings of my emanation, the Karmapa,
Will not come to an end until the teachings of the fortunate kalpa
have come to a close.

Music in the Sky - The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje
by Michele Martin