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20110604GRNMWT1

TAYATHA GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA

Refuge

NAMO GURUBYAH I take refuge in the Guru

NAMO BUDDHAYAH I take refuge in the Buddha

NAMO DHARMAYAH I take refuge in the Dharma

NAMO SANGHAYAH I take refuge in the Sangha

Invocation

MA LÜ SEM CHAN KUN JE GON JUR CHING

DÜ DHE PUNG GYE ME ZÄ JOM ZÄ LHA

NGÖ NAM MA LÜ YANG DHAH KEN JUR PÄ

CHOM DHAN KHOR CHÄ NÄ DHER SHEG SU SOL

You who destroy all evil forces

And who know all things perfectly,

For the sake of all beings,

Please come to us.

Seven Practices

I bow down in body, speech and mind.

I offer the best I have to give

both real and imagined

to fill the space between us.

I regret and purify all transgressions.

I rejoice in all virtues.

I request you to remain until total enlightenment.

I request wise and compassionate guidance.

I dedicate my merit for the sake of all beings.

OM MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNI YE SOHA

NAMO RATNA TRAYAYA / NAMO ARYA JNANA SAGARA VAIROCHANA / VYUHA RAJAYA / TATHAGATAYA / ARHATE / SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAYA NAMAH SARVA TAGHAGATE BHYAH ARHATE BHYAH / SAMYAK SAMBUDDHA BHYAH / NAMAH ARYA AVALOKITESVARAYA / BODHISATTVAYA / MAHA SATTVAYA / MAHA KARUNIKAYA / TADYATHA: OM DHARA DHARA / DHIRI /DHIRI / DHURU DHURU/ ITTE VATTE / TSALE TSALE / PRATSALE PRATSALE / KUSUME KUSUME VARE / ILI MILI /TSITI DZOLAM / APANAYE SVAHA

OM MANI PADME HUM

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

OM ARAPATZANA DHIH

Generating Love and Compassion

May all beings have happiness,

May they be free from suffering,

May they find the joy that has never known suffering,

May they be free from attachment and hatred.

DEDICATION

By this merit

may I quickly attain the state of enlightenment

and take with me

every being without exception.

MIG ME TZE WAI TER CHEN CHEN RE ZIG

DRI ME KYEN PAI WANG PO JAM PAL YANG

DU PUNG MA LU JOM DZA SANG WAI DAG

GANG CHEN KE PAI TZUG GYAN TZONG KA PA

LO ZANG DRAG PAI ZHAB LA SOL WA DEB

00:00

Welcome everybody for this workshop. Thank you Jewel Heart Northern Michigan. I should have said, “Hello, Jewel Heart Northern Michigan”. We have quite a number of people in Jewel Heart Northern Michigan, Michelle and Chris have very kindly run this and done very well. There are also senior people here such as Brenda. If I remember correctly you are a good old friend of the late Allen Ginsberg. Brenda joined Jewel Heart together with Allen and has been working through Jewel Heart since then. The mission of Jewel Heart is to help you to help yourself by yourself. Welcome everybody.

0:01

Today we are going to do something slightly different. It won’t be in lecture form but is slightly in workshop style, including meditation, saying prayers and practicing. To begin with I would like to draw your attention to the “Jewel Heart Prayers”. [On the reverse side it has the “Prayer to the Noble Tara” practice]. In the beginning of the Jewel Heart prayers you have the mantra GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA. I remember that Allen Ginsberg always used to say this mantra. He even created a play where people would come in saying GATE and then left. Another group would come in and say PARAGATE and left. Another group would come saying PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA, which is about going beyond and at that point the stage became empty. I vaguely remember that. The reality is that this very mantra is the essence of the Heart Sutra. Those of you who are familiar with Buddhist practice will know what the words that Buddha himself is supposed to have said are called sutras. That is a Sanskrit and Pali word. Out of many sutras the Heart Sutra is commonly accepted in every part of the world, by Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, South – East Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, South India and so on and further north by Tibetans and Mongolians. Everywhere the Heart Sutra is commonly said in the Buddhist world.

The Heart Sutra is the one that says “there is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no nose, no ear, no eye, no me”, etc. It is made into a simple essence in mantra form, which is this mantra GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA. Basically it gives you Buddha’s teaching of how one becomes a Buddha in five steps plus one. The “plus one” is us. We are not on the steps yet. We are just in the lay position. The first step to take is the path of accumulation. That means accumulating positive karma and so on. That goes with GATE. That means “gone”. The first word TAYATA just means “like this”. The second step is the path of action. Here you purify and do all kinds of actions. That goes with the second GATE – meaning “gone”. The third path goes with PARAGATE – meaning “gone beyond”. That refers to the third path, the path of seeing. What are you seeing? The truth of reality. Then PARASAMGATE refers to the fourth path of meditation. What you have learnt and seen and purified is what you meditate on. BODHI SOHA refers to the fifth path of no more learning. Truly speaking the whole of Buddha’s way that he went through himself and what he wants us to do is included in that. But to able to think that through is a little more sophisticated. I am here just simply introducing you.

This mantra has been introduced to our culture by the Beatnik poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and others. So in their poems you will all of a sudden a “Gate” thrown in, which doesn’t mean anything to normal English readers and next comes out “Parasamgate”. So they have taken these words from this mantra and the mantra truly gives you the whole Buddhist way of becoming a buddha. So let’s chant this together a couple of times.

0:10 (chanting the mantra 7 times)

0:11:30

I didn’t tell you anything to think about while chanting this. I just told you the meaning. Actually you are really looking for the truth, the ultimate truth that matters. Even our individual liberation depends on the truth that really matters. You may think the truth will prevail – something like that. That is good enough.

Next comes the refuge. This is very much a Buddhist thing. To make the difference between Buddhists and non-Buddhists in traditional India about 2000 years ago that was needed, because many traditions then had very similar practices. There were many Hindu yogas, which is not just Hatha Yoga, but seven different steps of yoga. They are all very similar. But the difference was that Buddhists takes refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Others take refuge in different deities and gods. So Buddhist practices always have this refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It is like putting the Buddhist stamp on it. It is like saying “made in the USA”. So this is made by the Buddhists. It is a Buddhist practice. That is sort of customary in the culture. If we want to be true to the tradition, that’s what you include. However, if you are not Buddhist, you don’t have to. You don’t have to be a Buddhist at all. It is definitely open to everybody. So when you take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, just develop respect and faith to them. That will do. You don’t have to say I take refuge only to the Buddha and so on. You may not have to. But if you are a Buddhist you have a different understanding here. You are not taking refuge to the historical Buddha, the one that came to India, that guy called “Buddha”. The Buddha we take refuge in is connected to our own future Buddha. One day we will be perfect and then we will be Buddha. That’s it, whether you call that Buddha or not. You are sort of building a connection to that.

Next is the dharma. If you ask Buddhist scholars, they may tell you that Buddhist books are dharma and Buddhist information is dharma. That is true, but the true dharma is your own spiritual development, whichever way you get it. That is your own dharma. The moment I say “spiritual development” you may think that means developing special powers like clairvoyance or being able to touch people and heal them. Who knows what people think. If we have 50 people in this room there will be 50 different definitions of spiritual development, truly. Everybody has an idea of what spiritual development should be. But what Buddha told us is something else. We have got a lot of negative emotions, like anger, hatred, obsession, jealousy and all of those. This is our target of destruction. We need to destroy them. We don’t want them. So far we have suffered so much. I am from the background of reincarnation. We have suffered because of those emotions, hatred, obsession, hatred and jealousy and so on. These spin us out so much. We have no idea. We were talking last night at dinner. We talked about people who had no idea what they did. Then they found that they did that. Then we blame all kinds of things for that, like physical and mental illnesses. These may be true, but we have been spun by our negative emotions and through that they became mental and physical problems, like depression and going way beyond that. People become crazy and can’t even think. Most mental health problems are due to our negative emotions and the deeds coming from them and among them mostly hatred and obsession. The others, like jealousy are added up. Buddha categorized all those as symptoms of ignorance.

For us ignorance means not knowing, stupidity. But for Buddha it also means wrong knowing, having misinformation and also ego functioning, ego boosting, ego bullying. Buddha grouped all of those under “ignorance.”

0:20

It is not knowing what you are doing. You have the wrong knowing and wrong information. In some cases you can’t think straight. In some cases physical illnesses influence mental function and vice versa. I am glad you are doing “Body-Mind” combined healing here. Many of our physical problems are actually created by mind. Mental problems are definitely created by mind. So all sufferings come from those negative emotions. By reducing and finally eliminating them you cut negativity out and gain positivity. Buddha called these spiritual development. Buddha’s spiritual development does not refer to flying daggers. It is about uplifting the individual over those negativities. That is true dharma. Taking refuge, what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that I submit myself totally under your control. Taking refuge means that I will bring those positivities within me so that my negativities will go down, so that I will become a better person and keep improving and finally become perfect. That is taking refuge in dharma, leaving out all the doctrine business.

Sangha is the companions and helpers, the persons who have the same interest, traveling on the same path to the same goal.

Saying that three times is the Buddhist stamp. So let’s say it three times.

0:24 (chanting refuge 3 times)

0:26

I forgot to mention the guru (the Sanskrit language of the refuge chants begins with NAMO GURUBHE and the English version begins with “I take refuge in the Guru”). People may be wondering why. The most important guru in Buddhism is Buddha. I want to underline the most important guru. It is almost redundant to have guru and Buddha separately, but it is the Tibetan Buddhist style. South-East Asian Buddhists don’t say “I take refuge in the guru”, it is only the northern schools, the Chinese, Mongolian and Tibetan and Northern Indian ones that say that.

0:27

The next is the invocation. Before doing the invocation we have to have somebody to invite. So before inviting we have to have our own creation the object of refuge. In this case today it is the female Buddha Tara. Her picture is available on the tangka behind me as well as on the two slides right and left. That picture is the Tibetan version of Tara. The Chinese version of her is Kuan Yin. The Japanese version is Canon – like the Canon cameras you carry around. It is funny. The Tibetan version of Tara is female only. The male aspect is called Avalokitesvara. The Chinese version is Kuan Yin as a female figure and there is a male version under the Kuan Yin category. The Japanese Canon is both, male and female, sometimes together in union. Actually it is the male and female aspect of the personality. Don’t think of schizophrenia, two different persons in one. No, this is oneness. That is why it is called ‘union’. For the Tibetans earlier, the depiction of male and female figures in union was very secret, extremely secret. We have drawings, but they are only opened to the practitioners who individually do meditations on that. You may look then. Other than that the drawings are covered, not shown and are very secret.

Somehow in the mid – fifties and sixties this suddenly exploded as an art form; as art decorations, pictures, photographs. It showed up everywhere in pictorial magazines and books and everywhere throughout the world. It just exploded, because people like sex. Seeing male and female figures together people like to look at them. That went way beyond control. But the whole idea is union. That means oneness, togetherness. It is the oneness of the male and female, not so much separation. Don’t get disappointed. We are not talking about hermaphrodites. But the personality is oneness. Every male has female aspects and every female has male aspects. That’s why it is shown as union. Ultimately, it is not about physical union. It is mental union. The mind becomes oneness. That also doesn’t mean that two minds have become one, but that two aspects of mind become one. One aspect is love/compassion and the other is wisdom. These become one. One mind, one person is compassion/love and wisdom. That is the real union. It is just depicted as the physical union of male and female figures, being together 24 hours. It gives that message.

That was very secret for us when I grew up. There were only few temples where you could openly see these drawings, but then there were lots of restrictions on who can go and who cannot go, not in terms of having to buy tickets, but in terms of who is allowed to go in and look. If you knew the temple keeper they would let you in. (laughs). That happened all the time. Then suddenly, throughout the world, everywhere, these images came out in book form, poster form, as drawings and even movie makers included them as decorations in movies and architects used them as decorations. There was a period where even Buddha heads were used as door knobs by some architects for their designs. So somehow that exploded in the late 50s and 60s. Also so many experiments were done in the 60s by people like Timothy O’Leary and Baba Ram Das. The bright Harvard professors discovered the nature of life within the individual. It was also the beginning of the drug culture.

0:36

In one way it created difficulties, in another way it created so much openness and so much looking inside and brought about a tremendous amount of knowledge about the self. All of them came out of this union-business. I was told by Ram Das about their research in Harvard. He said that they thought they were going through uncharted territory and they were finding all kinds of things and had “mind blowing” experiences. They were all scientists. At that time they were not practitioners. Baba Ram Das was then Dr. Richard Alpert. So they were discovering all this. Then a well known wealthy, older lady came and made an appointment to meet with these Harvard professors. She gave them a little, dirty, old book and asked them to read it. It was the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And all the discoveries of uncharted territories were all in there. They were surprised that all the things they were discovering were already written here. By that time they began to get into trouble with Harvard and society and got kicked out and ran away. Ram Das went to India and met the Hindu guru Nim Karoli Baba. Timothy O’Leary went to Canada. They all dispersed. But they were so surprised to see all they discovered in that Tibetan Book of the Dead, something they had never seen before and never even heard about. It tallied with the findings of their scientific studies. Mind is something really interesting. That was in the 60s. I am not sure if I can compare it or not. But today a number of scientists – and I am not talking about psychologists, but physicists, bio chemists, etc – are obsessed with studying the mind. A few weeks ago a professor from Wisconsin, Richard Davidson came to Jewel Heart. He is doing research on mind. He came because the University of Michigan invited him to spend two days and he did one evening talk in Jewel Heart about his findings. They are now teaching kids how to meditate. I thought it is really nice. They are teaching kids of the ages 7, 8, 9 to meditate. Richard Davidson does not insist that the kids sit crossed legged or anything. The kids may be lying down or running around or putting their legs up in the air or jumping around, but he is teaching them how to focus. Even if they can do it for a second it is fine. I thought it is very nice.

So many scientists are now very much obsessed with the mind and its activities. A distinguished group of scientists is following His Holiness the Dalai Lama around, not to worship him as Buddhists, but to explore with him the mind and its activities. Last time His Holiness came to Michigan he began his tour in Seattle. All these scientists were there with him Seattle. Then His Holiness went to California and all these scientists went there. Then he went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and they were all there. Then he came to Michigan to Jewel Heart and all the scientists were there, pushing for a meeting with him. In the midst of his busy schedule they had two hour, three hour meetings. There were about 30 scientists involved. Each one of them brings with them 25 or 35 million dollar grants. We are not getting the grants, they are. That’s how they are doing it. Today all these scientists are looking for mind and how it functions and what happens.

Richard Davidson himself stated that he is meditating. He said that when he meditates himself his findings work much better. One of his critics, he said, criticized him, saying, “Davidson has admitted openly that he is meditating. So his findings are questionable. He may be biased.” Richardson then countered by saying, “People who teach physical exercises, maybe you have question their objectivity, because they themselves are also exercising.” They should also be biased then. So that’s funny. But that is our traditional culture. So it is a very interesting period we are in. Our mind is really something fantastic. The findings by many of these professors are not only coming out of University of Wisconsin, but also University of Michigan, Harvard, MIT and everywhere. It is now totally everywhere.

As you know meditating is becoming some kind of treatment. Mediation is now done in hospitals and everywhere else and that is coming out of Buddhist teachings, from South East Asian Buddhism, like through Goenka and also the Massuchetts Insight Meditation of Jon Kabat-Zin. His method is now practiced in almost all the hospitals, in order to reduce blood pressure and improve your health. Meditation is used as a technique and tool. This all shows how mind makes a difference to us. Who controls who? People fight. Husband and wife fight in the home who has control. Who has the final say? But between mind and the physical body mind has the final say, no question. I am not going to get up and walk, unless I think that I should get up and walk. So you do, but we may not recognize, because it happens in a split second. But there is a mind before any action we take, good or bad. No matter how unconscious you might be, that is still happening. Being unconscious is just a lack of awareness, but there is mind. Therefore, dealing with the mind makes a lot of sense. It is the key that we are missing in all this great development we have.

We have tremendous development. If you think about it, it is not a joke. Even just 50, 60 years ago we didn’t control air or temperature. Now if it is hot outside we have comfortable air condition inside. If it is cold outside we have heat inside the house. Think about 100 years ago, in the good old American cowboy times. There was no such thing – nothing. At the most you could put three little stones together and put your frying pan over it and make sausages or boil tea or whatever. That’s where we come from. So there has been tremendous development today, from any angle, from the angle of temperature, health, physical care, everything. But we are lacking mental care. Mind is not to be studied, because it may be involved with religion or not objective enough. Somehow all the development is all external, not internal. That’s what we are lacking. We are a superior nation in the world, whether you like it or not. It is still true. I travel throughout the world. I do know. I go around and teach. Europe may be great, but compared with us, whatever you want to get in Europe, it is difficult, from every angle. It is not as easy as here, honestly. So it is very different here. However, we are totally lacking the mental development.

0:50

I am glad that those scientists and universities are opening new departments and things are going well. In about 50 – 100 years we may have very different results than what we have had so far. What we have so far is based on the reliable experience statements. For someone like me, coming from the Buddhist traditions, I rely on the statements and experiences of Buddha and his disciples and followers.

We are still talking about the invocation. Mentally you produce your own object of refuge. The pictures you see here are pictures. Somebody did a drawing, took photographs and somebody put them into slides so that you can see them on the screen. But what you need is not a picture or image made by somebody else. You need your own. So since a person like me can’t even draw a straight line, you make a mental image of your own Buddha, in this case the female Buddha, Tara. Mental image means imagination. We call it visualization. That is a sexy word. Actually, it is imagination. How do I imagine my object of refuge? Where does the object of refuge come from? Buddha told us it all comes out of emptiness, space-like openness – beautiful open space.

0:53

A while ago, while I was having my lunch and drinking a couple of beers, the phone rang. That was when Allen Ginsberg was still alive. He called and said, “A friend of mine – perhaps you know, Timothy O’Leary – is dying. He needs to talk to you. Can he call you?” So since he was dying I couldn’t say, “Call me tomorrow”, so I said “ok”. So the moment I hung up the phone rang again and a lady spoke and said “one minute”. Then a thick, heavy voice came and I couldn’t understand much. So I kept on saying OM MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNAYE SOHA. That is Buddha’s mantra. I could hear that voice very slowly say, “Why?” So I thought, “Oh, maybe that’s not right.” I wanted to do something for him and remembered a few days ago I was watching television and saw a car commercial. I was a Henry Ford commercial for a car, in which somebody said, “If you are an American with a job you can have this car and you can drive through God’s beautiful creation” and the commercial showed beautiful open space, going over bridges. That clicked in my head and I stared talking about beautiful, wonderful open spaces, sort of directing his thoughts in that manner. I didn’t plan that intentionally. I suddenly realized that saying mantras did not work for him, because with great difficulty he managed to say “Why”. So I linked up with wonderful open space and beautiful travels through that and then suddenly I heard that weak, slow thick voice say, “Why not?” Then I continued talking but heard nothing from his side, nothing. Then I stopped talking and listened but there was nothing. Probably somebody forgot to hang up. Probably he passed away then. So right now, when describing the visualization and talking about emptiness as beautiful, open space that thought came up in my head. That’s why I shared that with you. What happens is that he consciousness, at the last minute, when you are leaving the body links up with that you think about. Later Allen told me that what I said was perfect, but Timothy O’Leary had a tremendous amount of interest in space. He even wanted the ashes of his body spread in outer space. Whether he died exactly at that time or later, or whether somebody forgot to hang up the phone or whatever, I was holding it for a long time and listening, but it was still on the other end. Then I hung up too.

So open space is something very beautiful. I don’t want to leave the open space at the level of the car commercial. I want to transfer that beautiful space to the view you have when you look out of the windows of the spacecrafts in outer space. That is space – like emptiness, empty like space. You don’t see pillars, walls or roof, just simply open, beautiful space.

In the middle of that suddenly pops up a beautiful lotus flower, a huge one. You can’t count the petals but think there are lots of them. So in the midst of blue open spaciousness, suddenly pops up this beautiful, huge lotus. On the top of that lotus is a flat, disk – like moon cushion. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition we sometimes use a sun cushion and sometimes a moon cushion and sometimes both. So you are sitting on that. Instead of a chair you sit on a beautiful moon. On the center of that you have your Tara who is sitting on the lotus, on the moon, beautiful, young, youthful. In the funny Tibetan description they say she has “one face, two hands.” You know why? Some deities have six faces and multiple hands. So here it is one face, two hands. For us that is normal.

[interlude about people should turn their cell phone off: Once I was doing a workshop and I was talking, standing up and my phone kept ranging. I pretended it was not mine. Somehow I managed. The next time we were in a panel discussion with a group of people and my phone rang again. I wanted to pretend not to be the one, but somehow it was connected to the microphone. So it was ringing everywhere and there was Joan Halifax who said, “Rimpoche, Rimpoche, it is your phone!” So I was caught red-handed]

1:03

So you imagine that beautiful, youthful female Tara, just like in the pictures you see. This is the Tibetan version. You make your own. The picture you see on this slide was painted by a Swedish artist [Marianna Rydvald]. She was hired by one big theater in Detroit to do one big mural painting. [a ceiling mural for Detroit Orchestra Hall in 1989]. I commissioned her to do this Tara painting for Jewel Heart. She is a very experienced, wonderful painter. She asked me what kind of face I wanted, Tibetan or Chinese. I said, “As Caucasian as possible”. You can see lots of Tibetan and Chinese faces in all kinds of paintings everywhere. In those days one didn’t see too many Caucasian ones. I really want you to picture your own Tara face. Picture the most beautiful. You know who is really the most beautiful? You yourself. Do not look down on yourself. You like yourself the most. Sometimes you may hate yourself, but mostly you are the most beautiful. When you try to compare anyone in beauty you are comparing them to yourself. So create an image with a few corrections here and there. It will be nice to think about a younger and more beautiful version of yourself. This is your own Tara. Perhaps you will become that one day. So create it for yourself, by yourself, at this moment in front of you as an object of refuge. But later you may occupy that. Make it as beautiful as you can think and youthful.

The hand gestures you can’t change. The right hand reaches down over her right knee opening out, in a gesture that is inviting. She is inviting us, who don’t have help, who don’t have much hope, the downtrodden, the hopeless and helpless ones. She is saying, “Come with me.” Her left hand has 3 fingers up and two are joining. Ringfinger and thumb joining gives you a message, “I am the union of wisdom and compassion”. So by joining they become one. And that makes three fingers stretches up and that represents Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That means protection. She says, “Those who want help, those who need protection, come with me. I give you protection.” It is the protection of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It is almost going beyond the one person. This is Tara.

She has loose hair, partly up in a little knot. She has very youthful nipples, because she is not flat chested. Sorry. She has a lot of jewel ornaments and silk dresses. Now you have drawn that image of Tara in the midst of beautiful space, on a beautiful lotus and moon cushion. She is the living Tara. Who is she? She is the kindness, compassion, love and wisdom of all enlightened ones everywhere. It is sort of in normal American language God’s manifestation of a beautiful angel – like female Buddha. Try to visualize that. Whatever you visualize, you can build it up by looking at the picture and putting it together with your imagination and making your own Tara build for you, by you.

1:12

Is that enough? No, that is just what I have imagined. But there is something called wisdom beings. There is the personality or entity that is Tara, the female Buddha. So how do I link up my imagined Tara and the actual Tara’s entity? By invocation. I invite this wisdom being from wherever she is, her heavenly abode, to the one which I have built.

It might not be out of place to mention. The central Tibet in Lhasa, Tibet, has a chapel called Tara chapel. There is an image of Tara in there, made of clay or mud. The story goes like this. There is a person, a yogi who was coming from Eastern Tibet to Lhasa. In the old days there were no cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, nothing. People virtually had to walk. Walking from Dagyab in Eastern Tibet to Lhasa would have taken normally about 2 – 3 months. This yogi came from his native land, crossed 2, 3, mountain passes and found a place to rest. There he saw a beautiful woman standing in the middle of nowhere on the plateau. He started talking to her and she said, “I am going to Central Tibet, Lhasa. Take me with you.” He looked at her and noticed she was not a normal human being. He thought she must me some extraordinary manifestation. The more he looked at her the more vivid she became. So he jumped to her and hugged her. When he did that she became all mud and fell into pieces on the floor. So he collected all this mud, put it in a bag and carried it on his back. He walked for a month or two all the way from that area, up and down the hills and valleys, cutting across rivers and so on. Finally when he reached Central Tibet he thought, “I am going to make an image of Tara.” So he started making that image. Somehow the image almost came together naturally. It didn’t take much time to do anything. It sort of popped up naturally. Yet there was no head. He ran out of mud. So he ran back all the way to that area to get additional mud out of that ground to make the head. He was already half way back to that area, when she suddenly appeared to him and said, “Hey, I am here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to carry that mud. I am here and I will go back with you.” So he walked back with here all the way and then when he reached Lhasa, the image had a head on it. That is the image of Tara in the Tara temple, which is part of the central temple of Tibet. Sometimes it is imagination. In order to cut down our negativities we may have to do a little hard work and when that is done the result is there. That just gives you the whole idea of purification, accumulation of merit and what becomes then. Our imagination just now is just imagination. Maybe one day it will become actual.

1:19

Tara sits cross legged. In America many people call that “lotus position”. But the Tibetan call it “vajra style” sitting. It doesn’t matter. It is the same thing. Then we invite the actual wisdom being. The words we say are also very interesting. There is a particular verse and that came about 2600 ago. One of the northern Indian kings had a young daughter. She was sent to the far south of India into marriage. She was very miserable when she got there. She missed her parents. She missed her northern food. She missed her northern culture and her friends. And particularly at that time Buddha was alive and lived in that northern area with his retinue. The king’s family had the habit of inviting Buddha for lunch. Hundreds of disciples would come. The kings of that time would give feasts to all of them. So she missed them all and was crying all the time. So her husband said, “This is a bigger kingdom than your old one, more important and powerful and you and me rule this together. So why are you crying?” She said, “I miss all that.” He said, “You can visit and you can invite your parents to come here.” She said, “What if I invite Buddha?” He said, “Well, if you can invite him that will be fine. I will feed them all.” So she said, “Alright, I will invite Buddha then.” He said, “How are you going to do that?” She said, “I will pray and he may come.” He said, “All right, I will wait.”

So she went up to the palace roof and looked in the direction of her old home town – it’s almost like the muslims who do prostrations towards Mecca. She started crying, holding incense and said these words:

You who destroy all evils forces

And who knows all things perfectly

For the sake of all beings

Please come to me

Meanwhile Buddha was in Northern India and that evening told one of his disciples, “Tomorrow we are invited for lunch by Princess So and So. Only those who have magical powers and can fly in the air can go. Would you find out who will go?” They had a vote and their system of voting was different from writing on a piece of paper or raising their hand. They had little wooden sticks and carried them around the gathering and those who were going would pick up one little wood stick each between their two hands. That meant a “yes” vote. Those who picked up the sticks were going. Early next morning, when she was praying to Buddha and her incense was burning, those people started flying there. A monk came flying with his robe outstretched and the king asked her, “Is this your Buddha?” She said, “No, this is disciple So and So.” Then there came a king with horse cart and banners and the king asked, “Is this the Buddha?” She said, “No, this is disciple So and So.” Finally they call came and this particular invocation is very well known among Buddhist cultures, particularly among Tibetans.

1:25

When I was a kid I had a cave in which I was supposed to learn and meditate. There was a little living room connected to the cave, with glass windows and even running water. Tibet didn’t have running water in those days, but this was in the midst of huge rocks and above the rocks was a little spring. So we connected the spring with bamboo pipes and brought the bamboo end up to the cave and we got a faucet from India. So when I turned the faucet on the water came in. That was very nice. One wall of that room was covered by a mural which showed this whole scene, with Buddha and his disciples coming flying in from Northern India to that palace in South India. You see people flying in the air on that wall mural.

1:27

So let’s sing that verse in English.

In your visualization with profound respect in general and in particular towards the female Buddha Tara, through the invocation from the bottom of your heart the Wisdom Tara comes in and enters into the imagined Tara and becomes oneness, inseparable. That is your object of refuge or your field your merit. You know, farmers grow food on the fields. Like that we grow positive karma and merit and healing all from this basis. This is our field of merit.

The invocation alone is not enough. The moment you invite you do the 7 limbed prayers. There are 7 activities.

I bow down in body, speech and mind.

I offer the best I have to give

both real and imagined

to fill the space between us.

I regret and purify all transgressions.

I rejoice in all virtues.

I request you to remain until total enlightenment.

I request wise and compassionate guidance.

I dedicate my merit for the sake of all beings.

First is giving respect. We call that prostration. Why do we respect? Not because it is magical, but because of the qualities of perfection. We admire and appreciate the qualities and we are seeking that wonderful combination of love, compassion and wisdom. That is the prostration.

Second comes offering. We offer all the best, the best environment, the best inhabitants, the best of everything. We may have arranged some offering bowls with water or whatever and that shows our limit of how much we can do. But offering mentally we can offer tremendous amounts of water and flowers, incense. Imagine beautifully smelling incense, not just a little stick burning. Imagine flowers with beautiful fragrance and a beautiful clean, pure environment. The water is clean, pure, nectar like, very drinkable. Then we offer light, like the sun, moon and stars – that sort of light. We can also offer the light of electricity. Even traditional Tibetan poets write about offering electricity from the early 20th century on. The offerings are actually arranged and mentally created. Actually arranged is very limited. You may do the best you can but it is very limited. But mentally there is no limitation. When you make more offerings you get more merit, more benefit. That’s why the space between us and the object of offering should be filled up with all these different offerings. It should not just be dumped there either, but with good artistic decoration. This is important, because everything should have the art of presentation. I can’t say much about it, because we have limited time.

Then we have the best opportunity to purify all the negativities we have created. Negativities can be purified. Although we may have committed sins, like killing somebody and we cannot bring that person back, however, we can purify the negativity. That is Buddha’s big deal here. Everything can be purified, no matter whatever it may be. Even in our case as human beings, if we are fond guilty, the court will give you punishment. Once you have paid the punishment you are free. If you are locked up for 12 years, you may sit the whole time or get your sentence reduced you come out and you have paid your dues to the society and thereafter you are free. That is even the case in ordinary law. Likewise here, though we cannot bring a killed person back and can’t undo what we have done, we can pay compensation. Not in terms of money, but in terms of deeds. We can pay and purify and be perfect. Why? Because everything is impermanent. So it changes. Even the Statue of Liberty is impermanent and changes. I saw one time they had to take the huge head down and repaint it, because the paint was going. So everything changes. Everything is impermanent and changeable. Our wrong and right deeds are changeable. Therefore purification works. Even if somehow we haven’t looked after our body and have been smoking and drinking or whatever, we can still go on the South Beach diet like President Clinton and he had his heart repaired and did improve and is functioning okay now. Just like that, will he have a new heart and perfect functioning like a new human being? No, but he had corrected his heart problem and is functioning well as a beautiful person. Just like that we can purify our wrong doing and make it right. We all have that opportunity. We all have that right. Here spiritually in the presence of our refuge, the female Buddha Tara, we can do this.

Then next there is an easy solution to build merit or positive karma. Do I have proof for that or not? I don’t, so I have to rely on Buddha’s words. The method is rejoicing. If somebody is doing something great, rejoice and it is wonderful. I am a couch potato, doing nothing, just sitting here and not moving. But I can rejoice in people who are hard working, working for positive deeds, who engage in humanitarian activities and environmental activities. I sit here and rejoice in what the Dalai Lama does. I sit here and rejoice in what Mother Theresa has done. I sit here and rejoice in what Dr. King has done. So I get benefits. They work and I get benefits by rejoicing. I get some, if not equal benefit, because they are spiritually very high people. So that is an easy way to collect good karma. Just rejoice. Jealousy will destroy merit.

The remaining ones of the 7 limbs are important too, but not as important as prostration, offering, purification and rejoicing. These four are really important.

Let us chant and at the same time visualize that we are prostrating physically, as well as verbally and mentally, admiring the qualities of the refuge object and seeking those qualities. Let us visualize making offerings. Think about purifying all negativities and rejoice in all the great deeds done by every great being and every good person.

1:41 Chanting the 7 limbed practice

1:43 So what have we done this morning? We talked a little bit about refuge and generated the field of merit and talked about the 7 limbs. Actually in terms of generating the field of merit it is not only working with the front page of your prayer sheet but also with the back page, the Prayer to the Noble Tara, which has the creation of Tara altogether. Now the time is 12. So we take a break here. Enjoy this beautiful place here and have your lunch and get some movement and exercise. Then we will meet again at 2.30 pm.

1:44

Prayer to the Noble Tara

I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and Tara.

May I reach enlightenment for the benefit of all. (3x)

May all beings have happiness

May they be free from suffering

May they find the joy that has never known suffering

May they be freed from attachment and hatred.

In the space before me appears a white lotus. Upon it

is a moon cushion and upon that, the love and compassion

of all the enlightened appear as the seed syllable TAM. Light radiates from the TAM and transforms into the Noble Wish-fulfilling Tara. She sits on the lotus and moon with a luminous aura surrounding her. Youthful and radiant, her right hand gestures an invitation to liberation.

Her left hand indicates the Three Jewels, giving courage

and assurance to those dominated by fears.

At her crown is a white OM,

at her throat a red AH,

at her heart is the white TAM

marked by a blue HUM.

Light radiates from the syllables, inviting the

wisdom beings and empowering deities. The wisdom beings unite inseparably with Tara. The empowering

deities anoint her, confer initiation, and with the overflowing nectar a Buddha of Infinite Life

appears on her crown.

I bow down in body speech and mind.

I offer the best I have to give,

both real and imagined to fill the space between us.

I regret and purify all transgressions.

I rejoice in all virtues

I request you to remain until total enlightenment.

I request wise and compassionate guidance.

I dedicate my merit for the sake of all beings.

Brilliant light emanates from the syllable TAM within her heart, reaching infinite universes and collecting back the essence of inexhaustible vitality and the powerful blessings of wisdom mind.

The energy streams forth from Tara’s heart and body, and I completely absorb this nectar of light, cleansing and revitalizing my body speech and mind.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

If foreseeing signs of premature death, by consistently practicing the path of Noble Tara, may I become a vessel worthy of receiving the powerful blessings of immortality.

By this virtue may I quickly attain the essence of Noble Tara and secure every being without exception in that state.