Jetsun Milarepa He was born in 1040 in Gungthang. After his father died when he was very young, his uncle and aunt dispossessed and maltreated him and his mother. In the end, they could bear it no longer and his mother sent him to learn black magic and he killed many of his enemies. Later he regretted these evil deeds and went to see Lama Marpa. In order for Milarepa to purify these negative deeds, Marpa did not teach him for a long time and instead set him to work constructing buildings and made him undergo many other hardships. Eventually he gave him the complete empowerments and instructions. Because of his determination and extreme perseverance in meditation practice, the hermit Milarepa achieved extraordinary siddhi in one lifetime. He died at the age of eighty three in 1123.