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Take The Lowest Place

Dwell alone, and you shall find the Friend. Take the lowest place, and you shall reach the highest. Hasten slowly, and you shall soon arrive. Renounce all worldly goals, and you shall reach the highest goal.

Milarepa

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Clear Mind

Naropa, Not seeing all things As the Mind of Clear Light, Made freedom almost unobtainable By naming it, “Tilopa”. Not understanding That I AM already The Mind of Clear Light, Sought the guru outside my Self. In Truth, The Guru Tilopa never existed Though I gambled everything To find him. Yet What did I have to lose? You and I Do not exist either…yet Here you are Reading about me. Where we are Does not exist either… But is merely a reply By naming it, “Tilopa”. Not understanding That I AM already The Mind of Clear Light, Sought the guru outside my Self. In Truth, The Guru Tilopa never existed Though I gambled everything To find him. Yet What did I have to lose? You and I Do not exist either…yet Here you are Reading about me. Where we are Does not exist either… But is merely a reply By naming it, “Tilopa”. Not understanding That I AM already The Mind of Clear Light, Sought the guru outside my Self. In Truth, The Guru Tilopa never existed Though I gambled everything To find him. Yet What did I have to lose? You and I Do not exist either…yet Here you are Reading about me. Where we are Does not exist either… But is merely a reply To the questions Being asked of the “I”. Emaho!!! The Mind of Clear Light Hasn’t a form Yet, you can see it everywhere! The Mind of Clear Light Hasn’t a voice Yet, you can hear It singing In all things! The Mind of Clear Light Doesn’t have a taste Yet, you never cease Licking it off your lips! The Mind of Clear Light Is disguised as Dust on the window sill, A chair, a table, And even your favorite coffee cup… All things are a pulsating pointing To a world in which Nothing exists. And soon you will say, “There is nowhere it is not! Beyond Words, Beyond Symbols, Beyond Religion, Resting on Nothing without Reliance, Remaining ever Neutral, Inconceivable, And in no need of Liberation. But when Past, present, and future Are all happening now… We tend to get ahead of ourselves. So, let’s slow down A bit With the story Of the Journey And the Path Which Led us here. But be prepared, When I Am done, Your eyes will open to find, It is you in Buddha’s skin Twenty-six hundred years ago Is today…you are Awakening Under the Bodhi Tree. And perhaps, Looking at your hands, feet, the sky, And all around this strange new world You will whisper the truth that has always Been there hidden… As when all religion had fallen away from me And In that moment I knew: “My mind is the perfect Buddha, My speech is the perfect Dharma, My body is the perfect Sangha, There is no need To search for ‘Naropa’, “I Am” here.

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Except And Demand Too Much

If one stays too long with friends

They will soon tire of him;

Living in such closeness leads to dislike and hate.

It is but human to expect and demand too much

When one dwells too long in companionship.

Milarepa

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Milarepa Biography

Milarepa (mi la ras pa) is one of the most famous individuals in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, but very little of his life is known with any historical certainty. Even the dates of his birth and death have been notoriously difficult to calculate. Tsangnyon Heruka (gtsang smyon heruka, 1452-1507) – Milarepa's most famous biographer – records that the boy was born in a water-dragon year (1052) and passed away in a wood-hare year (1135), dates also found in biographical works from a century earlier. Numerous other sources, including the important mid-fifteenth-century Religious History of Lhorong (lho rong chos 'byung) push back the dates one twelve-year cycle to 1040-1123, a life span widely accepted by modern scholars. A number of prominent Tibetan historians, including Katok Tsewang Norbu (kaH thog tshe dbang nor bu, 1698-1755), Situ Paṇchen Chokyi Jungne (si tu paN chen chos kyi 'byung gnas, 1700-1774), and Drakar Chokyi Wangchuk (brag dkar chos kyi dbang phyug, 1775-1837), however, place Milarepa's birth in 1028. Still other sources place his birth as early as 1026 or 1024. He is usually said to have lived until his eighty-forth year, although sources again record variant life spans of 73, 82, or 88 years. In any case, it is clear that he lived during the eleventh and early-twelfth centuries, at the advent of the latter dissemination (phyi dar) of Buddhism in Tibet.

According to Tsangnyon Heruka's account, Milarepa's ancestors were nomads of the Khyungpo (khyung po) clan from the northern region of the “central horn,” (dbus ru) one of two administrative regions of Tibet's central province (dbus). One early ancestor was a Nyingma tantric practitioner named Jose (jo sras). Khyung po Jose became famous for his exorcism rites, a practice that earned him both respect and a good deal of wealth. While residing in a place called Chungpachi (gcung pa spyi) in the region of Lato Jang (la stod byang), he had an encounter with a particularly fierce spirit and at last caused the demon to cry out in horror “mila, mila (mi la),” an admission of submission and defeat. Jose subsequently adopted this exclamation as a new clan title and his descendants came to be known by the name Mila.

Khyungpo Jose eventually married and had a son. This son in turn had two sons, the elder of whom was known as Mila Doton Sengge (mi la mdo ston seng ge). The latter's son was named Mila Dorje Sengge (mi la rdo rje seng ge). Dorje Sengge, who was fond of gambling, lost his family's home and wealth in a fateful game of dice. The family was thus forced to seek out a new life elsewhere and eventually resettled in the small village of Kyangatsa (skya rnga rtsa) in Mangyul Gungtang (mang yul gung thang), close to the modern border of Nepal. The father Doton Sengge served as a local village priest, performing various rituals and religious activities, while the son undertook trading trips in Tibet and to Nepal. In this way they were able to regain a good deal of wealth. Dorje Sengge married a local woman and had a son they named Mila Sherab Gyeltsen (shes rab rgyal mtshan); the latter in turn married a woman named Nyangtsa Kargyen (myang rtsa dkar rgyan). This couple then gave birth to the boy who would become Milarepa.

Upon hearing the news of his child's birth, Mila Sherab Gyeltsen is said to have exclaimed, “I am delighted to hear the news that the child has been born a son,” and so the boy was named Topaga, literally “delightful to hear.” He later proved to have a pleasing voice and so lived up to this name. Several years later, his sister Peta Gonkyi was born and eventually Milarepa was betrothed to a local village girl named Dzese.

Courtesy of David Nalin. Used by permission.

When the boy turned seven, his father was stricken with a fatal illness and prepared a final testament that entrusted his wife, children, and wealth to the care of Milarepa's paternal uncle and aunt, providing that Milarepa regain his patrimony once he reached adulthood. The uncle and aunt, usually depicted as greedy and cold-hearted, responded by taking the estate for themselves, thus casting Milarepa's family into a life of abject poverty. In at least one version of the life story, by the fourteenth-century author Yungton Zhije Ripa (g.yung ston zhi byed ri pa), the relatives' actions are partially justified, noting that local marriage customs dictated that following Sherab Gyeltsen's death, the estate should have rightfully remained within the family of his brother, i.e. Milarepa's paternal uncle. In any case, the boy was sent to study reading and writing with a Nyingma master while his mother and sister were forced to labor as servants for their uncle and aunt.

Nyangtsa Kargyen then sent her son to train in black magic in order to seek revenge upon their relatives. Carrying out his mother's wishes, he trained in black magic with Nubchung Yonten Gyatso (gnubs chung yon tan rgya mtsho) and thereby murdered thirty-five people attending a wedding feast at his aunt and uncle's house. From Yungton Trogyal (g.yung ston khro rgyal) he then learned the art of casting hailstorms. Unleashing a powerful storm across his homeland, he destroyed the village's barley crops just as they were about to be reaped, washing away much of the surrounding countryside.

Milarepa eventually came to regret his terrible crimes and in order to expiate their karmic effects he set out to train with a Buddhist master. He first studied Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) with Rangton Lhaga (rang ston lha dga') in Nyangto Rinang (myang stod ri nang). His practice, however, proved ineffective, and Rangton instead directed Milarepa to seek out Marpa Chokyi Lodro (mar pa chos kyi blo gros, 1002/1012-1097), the great translator residing in Lhodrak (lho brag) in southern Tibet.

Milarepa eventually reached Lhodrak where he met a heavyset plowman standing in his field. In reality, this was Marpa who had had a vision that Milarepa would become his foremost disciple. He had thus devised a way to greet his future student in disguise. Marpa was famous for his fierce temper and did not immediately teach Milarepa. Instead, he subjected his new disciple to a stream of verbal and physical abuse, forcing Milarepa to endure a series of ordeals, including a trial of constructing a series of four immense stone towers. Marpa eventually revealed that Milarepa had been prophesied by his own guru, the Indian master Nāropa. He further explained that the trials were actually a means of purifying the sins he had committed earlier in his life. The tower still stands at the center of Sekhar Gutok Monastery.

Marpa first imparted the lay and bodhisattva vows, granting Milarepa the name Dorje Gyeltsen (rdo rje rgyal mtshan). Milarepa then received numerous tantric instructions that Marpa had received in India, especially those of tummo (gtum mo), or yogic heat, the aural instructions (snyan rgyud) of tantric practice, and instructions Mahāmudrā. Marpa conferred upon Milarepa the secret initiation name Zhepa Dorje (bzhad pa rdo rje) and commanded him to spend the rest of his life meditating in solitary mountain retreats.

Milarepa returned to his homeland for a brief period and then retired to a series of retreats nearby. Most famous among these is Drakar Taso (brag dkar rta so) where he remained for many years in arduous meditation. With nothing but wild nettles to eat, his body grew weak and his flesh turned pale green. He later traveled widely across the Himalayan borderlands of southern Tibet and northern Nepal, and dozens of locations associated with his life have become important pilgrimage sites and retreat centers. In his account of the life story, Tsangnyon Heruka drew largely upon earlier sources in order to document dozens such locations, but he reorganized them to create a new map of sacred sites—many of which were designated “fortresses” of meditation—along Tibet's southern border: six well-known outer fortresses, six unknown inner fortresses, and six secret fortresses, together with numerous other caves. Stories of Milarepa's taming and converting demons in these locations, recorded in Tsangnyon Heruka's companion volume The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (mi la ras pa'i mgur 'bum) echo accounts of the eight-century Indian master Padmasambhava. Many of Milarepa's most famous retreat locations were said to have been previously inhabited by Padmasambhava himself. Tsangnyon Heruka's reckoning of Milarepa's meditation sites therefore reveals a process of spiritual re-colonization, one that effectively claimed much of the Himalayan border for Milarepa's lineage. Three famous sacred sites of southern and western Tibet – Tsāri (tsA ri), Labchi (la phyi), and Kailāsa (ti se) – are said to have been established or prophesied by Milarepa, and all three later became important Kagyu retreat and pilgrimage centers, identified as Himālaya/Himavat, Godāvarī, and Cāritra/Devīkoṭa from the list of twenty-four pīṭhas of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, as well as the maṇḍalas of Cakrasaṃvara's body, speech, and mind. Drakar Taso became in important monastic institution and printing house under the direction of Tsangnyon Heruka's disciple Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyel (lha btsun rin chen rnam rgyal, 1473-1557).

Courtesy of Michael and Beata McCormack. Used by permission.

Milarepa spent the rest of his adult life practicing meditation in seclusion and teaching groups of disciples mainly through spontaneous songs of realization (mgur). One of the first of Milarepa's songs recorded inTsangnyon Heruka's takes place after returning to his homeland for the first time and poignantly marks his decision to take up a life of solitary meditation

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Interconnection

Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit, Pāli: paṭiccasamuppāda), commonly translated as dependent origination, or dependent arising, is a key doctrine in Buddhism shared by all schools of Buddhism.[1][note 1] It states that all dharmas (phenomena) arise in dependence upon other dharmas: "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist". The basic principle is that all things (dharmas, phenomena, principles) arise in dependence upon other things

The doctrine includes depictions of the arising of suffering (anuloma-paṭiccasamuppāda, "with the grain", forward conditionality) and depictions of how the chain can be reversed (paṭiloma-paṭiccasamuppāda, "against the grain", reverse conditionality)

These processes are expressed in various lists of dependently originated phenomena, the most well-known of which is the 12 links (Pāli: dvādasanidānāni, Sanskrit: dvādaśanidānāni). The traditional interpretation of these lists is that they describe the process of a sentient being's rebirth in saṃsāra, and the resultant duḥkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness),[4] and they provide an analysis of rebirth and suffering that avoids positing an atman (unchanging self or eternal soul).[5][6] The reversal of the causal chain is explained as leading to the cessation of rebirth (and thus, the cessation of suffering).[4][7]

Far away, in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. By the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each eye of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.

There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now look closely at any one of the jewels for inspection, we will discover that in its polished surface are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

This symbolises our world where every sentient being (and thing) is interrelated to one another.

Avatamsaka Sutra

Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to anyone part of the lute.

Samyutta Nikaya, from "Buddha Speaks

today world we will see what separate us, if you read the news yesterday British send a destroyer to jersey a pure act of war, forgetting that electricity on the Island depending on France.

We also forgot that just on daily basis to have food we depend on the farmer to do it for us, the factory to process it and the shop to sell it on workers to put it on shelves. So if today you got a meal to think of this there is always suffering involve to us to get something.

When talking about interdependence in the material level we still part of nature when the body disappears we getting part of a bigger nature cycle.

On the mind level according to the Buddha, we all link to each other all beings are not separate what means that buddha nature is interconnected to timeless wisdom and compassion.

The Buddha said "Since this exists, that exists, and, since this does not exist, that does not exist. That is created because this is created, so if this disappears, that disappears." We are interconnected beings

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How To Recite Mantras

Tibetan Buddhism is base on mantra recitation but do we know really how to recite mantras?

Before Garchen Rinpoche I had many teachers because my view is rimey what mean non-sectarian.

One of those teachers from the Drukpa kagyu learned me about mantras, according to his holiness the gyalwang Drukpa we need to recite mantra in samscrit if they got a sanscrit base origins because to get the proper blessing.

But to recite mantra properly we need first to sing them for at least 10 - 20 min doing that is helping yourself and others because mantra will touch all realms of existences. Secondly we need to breath in and breath out mantra recite loudly till mind and breath are quiet “ yes we always come back to shine”.

Then we recite internally the mantra till we get to the point our mind is a lake without destruction images or anything pure mahamudra. In mahamudra we need to stay as long as we can to be able to realise our true nature.