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Mahabodhi Temple:
Before dawn broke, Choje Gyaltsab Rinpoche
conferred the Sojong vows at the Mahabodhi Temple and led the first
session of the Monlam from 6.00am until 9.00am.
Gyalwang Karmapa joined the assembly at 9.30 am, resuming his
transmission of The Life of Milarepa. He then gave a
commentary on the Prayer of Samantabhadra: The King of Aspiration
Prayers before leading the chanting of it. After lunch, he
returned to the Mahabodhi Temple to lead the Akshobhya Ritual in the
third session.
Medical Camp:
More than a thousand people arrived for medical
treatment at the camp. Staff reported that the majority of local
patients were suffering from diseases associated with poverty; the
result of sub-standard living conditions, lack of clean water, and
especially malnutrition. Indeed, most of the patients were
malnourished; the children especially were underweight and
undersized for their age.
Evening Teaching at Tergar Monastery:
In the second part of a three-part series,
Gyalwang Karmapa continued his exposition of Kyobpa’s The Fivefold
Mahamudra. He concentrated on verses two and three:
If your body, the king of the
enlightened form,
Does not hold the throne of the unchanging basis,
Mother dakinis, the citizens, will not appear,
So, earnestly focus on seeing your body as the yidam deity.
If, on the snow mountain, the lama of the four kayas,
The sun of devotion does not shine,
Streams of blessing will not flow.
So, earnestly focus ion cultivating this devotion.
Gyalwang Karmapa referred to the Tibetan idea
that if something helps it’s of use. He reassured people that if the
intention of helping existed, even if the action itself wasn’t
helpful, it was of value. In this context he explained that his own
intention in living was to be of benefit to the world, and, with
this aim, he would try to continue to live in the world. He
explained that he was deeply committed to helping those people whom
he loved, and those with whom he had a connection.
Moving on to the text, he explored the metaphor of the king and his
court. He explained that in essence the aggregates are pure and
unstained, but because of the tendency to grasp at things as solid,
to see them as real in a samsaric way, we are unable to experience
their natural purity, which is the deity. By meditating on a deity
and generating the divine pride, it was possible to purify our view.
He emphasized the importance of a clear and stable visualization
along with a clear and stable divine pride, when practising deity
yoga. In the meditation, colours and forms of the deity, clothing
and accoutrements needed to be clear. (This could be very
complicated and also difficult for people coming from a different
culture who might not be familiar with these things.) His Holiness
gave Tara as an example. In order for the visualisation of Tara to
be vivid, it was necessary to know exactly what she looked like so
that an image could be created in the mind. Yet, if we reflected on
people we knew, when we thought of them, we didn’t see their whole
body, but had a more general idea of what they looked like.
Similarly, in deity meditation, the important thing was not so much
precise detail as the sense of aliveness.
Commenting on the third verse of the text, Gyalwang Karmapa
explained that this also was a metaphor using the image of the sun
melting the snow on the mountains in Tibet, so that the streams
flowed down. Devotion to the Lama was like the power of the sun, and
the streams were the blessings of the Lama. He quipped that these
days there was so much devotion that Lamas were sweating profusely!
Or, perhaps, he suggested mischievously, devotion was adding to the
problem of global warming.
More seriously, he explained that devotion meant seeing the
qualities of the Lama and implied trust. Devotion and trust in one’s
Lama was one of the most important factors for realising the true
nature of one’s mind. This could not be explained. It had to be
experienced.
The evening concluded with Gyalwang Karmapa
conferring the Bodhisattva Vows.
[A full transcript of these teachings should be available next year.
This is not intended as a precise or complete record but as a
taster.]
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