The Gate-Free Ngakpa: On Freedom and Fidelity in Vajrayāna Practice

 In Vajrayāna, the tension between form and freedom is the crucible of realization. The practitioner begins within the ritual and vow-bound world of mantra and lineage, yet the culmination of that very path is gomé — “gate-free awareness,” beyond entry or exit. The question then arises: if one identifies as gomépa — a “gate-free one” — does that negate the role of the ngakpa, the vowed tantric practitioner?

At first glance, the two appear to stand in contrast. The ngakpa (སྔགས་པ་) is defined by the cords of samaya — the sacred vows linking disciple, guru, deity, and lineage. The gomépa (སྒོ་མེད་པ་), by contrast, seems to stand outside gates and boundaries altogether. Yet these are not opposites, but stages of maturation in the same path — form blossoming into formlessness, fidelity into freedom.

The ngakpa is one who practices within structure. He or she moves through gates — initiations, empowerments, transmissions — each a threshold of understanding. Through repetition, visualization, mantra, and mudrā, the ngakpabuilds a vessel strong enough to contain awakening. But when realization ripens, that vessel dissolves into its contents. As Longchenpa writes, “When realization dawns, there are no gates to pass through, for all gates are of one taste.”

To be gomépa is not to reject form, but to see through its duality. The “gate” was always a concept — a relative marker dividing the profane and the sacred. When one recognizes that the nature of mind has never left the mandala, one stands “gate-free” not because one is outside, but because one was never apart. The gomépa ngakpa thus embodies a paradox: discipline without constraint, devotion without dependence.

This distinction is subtle but vital. A “false gomépa” casts off vows and form in pursuit of a self-conceived freedom — mistaking formlessness for license. A “true gomépa” remains fully within samaya, yet no longer clings to it as an external bond. The cords of vow have become veins of light. As the tantric maxim says, “The vow and the view are not two.”

Longchenpa’s vision of realization echoes this fusion: “Activity free from effort is the spontaneous play of awareness; Conduct without contrivance is the ornament of the Great Perfection.”

When conduct (chöpa) becomes effortless, form and emptiness coalesce. The practitioner who once needed the gate now sees that every threshold was an illusion drawn on open sky. The gomépa ngakpa moves within the world of forms but is bound by none — living samaya as spontaneous compassion rather than ritual compliance.

If the ngakpa is the tantric warrior who serves the mandala’s king, the gomépa is the warrior who has realized that the king was never separate from his own heart. He still serves, but no longer obeys; for obedience and spontaneity have merged. The gate remains — yet it opens nowhere, because the yogin already abides within.

To call oneself gomépa, then, is not to step away from the ngakpa’s vows, but to fulfill them completely. It is to stand, as Longchenpa says, in “activity free from effort,” where lineage, devotion, and realization are one taste — the taste of vast, uncompounded freedom.

— Tenzin Zhikmé, Ngakpa Gomépa
(Tantric practitioner of the gate-free way)