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20130526GRGRTB05 Sunday morning

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The Chinese call it “incense offering” and they seriously dress up and line up and beat little instruments and sing together, but actually it is the seven limbs that they do. Maybe not the complete seven limbs, but three or four. Many of them have four or five or three of them. It is almost like a service, very much like that. In one way it is praising and prostrating to the enlightened beings, but on the other hand purification and accumulation or merit along with that. Offering and prostration are accumulation of merit. So I think we covered the purification yesterday.

Now rejoicing.

Me pa jung wa lab chu so du pa/ da pa je tsu yi rang cho du wa/ che par rang gyen ngon jen ge wa la/ …

Without efforts you can have a very big gain. If you keep on rejoicing you are supposed to be getting tremendous gain, especially if you rejoice in your own personal good deeds that you did before. Then you get double the benefit. You made the effort some time ago and keep on rejoicing and you will get double of that effort. It is better to keep milking a cow than to get angry and cut it and then you are finished. So rejoicing is very easy and that’s why when you take the bodhisattva vows they put the rejoicing in there with the purification.

kÖn chok sum la dak kyab chi

dik pa tam che so sor shak

dro wai ge la je yi rang

sang gye jang chub yi kyi sung

I take refuge in the Three Jewels!

I confess one by one all sins!

I rejoice in beings’ virtue!

I embrace the Buddha enlightenment!

We take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, purify all negative deeds, rejoice in the good deeds of all beings, hold bodimind as the most important practice. That’s how you take the vow. Quickly taking the vow needs quick development of good luck, good karma. That is rejoicing. If you look at each and every one of those 7 limbs, particularly 5 of them are very important and easy to do. But once is not enough. Constantly putting efforts in is always better, like the idea of putting drops in the bucket and there will be a time when the bucket is full. It’s just like that. And that’s why it is called ‘daily practice’. Those of us who do different sadhanas do that four, five times a day. Each sadhana will bring that in. Plus you have the Six Session yoga and the refuge. So we do this at least 7, 8 or 9 times per day. The bucket will be filled 7, 8 or 9 times faster.

Next is the request to remain. This is important and also the best for your own longevity. Then comes request for guidance. That’s important because we do need the guidance. Particularly when you don’t have a guide, at a crucial time, like at the 11th hour before becoming enlightened and things like that you do need guidance. When you talk about becoming enlightened through a vajrayana practice it is very often mentioned that at the time of enlightenment, the last minute before the lama in the form of the yidam, or the yidam in the form of the lama will appear and give the last boosting teaching. And it is needed at every level. That’s why this request is there.

Next is dedication. That is safekeeping. I told you earlier that karma is definite, however, it is impermanent. When it is dedicated, the mechanical system changes in the karma, until the result is given. Until then it will not change. That’s why we need dedication. Also it should be dedicated to very important and good points. That’s why we do it for the longevity of the teachings, the longevity of Buddha’s teaching and other very important things. That doesn’t mean you cannot also dedicate for your little personal things. You can and you should, but dedication changes the karmic mechanism. Out of those seven, requesting to teach, requesting to remain and dedication are important, but not as important as the first four, especially purification, rejoicing, etc. Within them there are certain priorities. That’s about it for the Seven Limbs.

These are essential for purification of negativities and accumulation of merit. They are both included in this.

Now comes mantra. We have been saying mantras for a long time the last 2 days, so at least you should know a little bit. I am not going to explain every mantra. Some of them are long. Otherwise we will have a long mantra explanation.

The first mantra is: OM MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNAYE SOHA.

Normally we say this. What does OM mean? It is commonly used almost by all traditional Asian religions, particularly in the Hindu-Buddhist system.

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Many people will say that OM is the beginning of the mantra. That is true, but it doesn’t end there. There are a number of different ways of explaining what OM is, but the most important thing here, if you look, is the letter OM by itself is also known as jewel mantra. Even if you don’t have anything else to say you can keep on saying OM OM OM and that will be fine. People do that. OM is the combination of three letters: A O M. A is the base.

A ni yin dru kun chi chog

Dön je yi ge tak pa yin

Ko ne jung wa kye wa me

Tsig du je ba tong pa chi

That is from the Manjushri Nama Sangit. A is the basis of all sound, all letters. Everything is coming out of A. It is the basic, original source of language. It is also the basis of the letter OM. Then A combines with O and then it is combined with M and becomes OM. These three parts represent body, speech and mind. When you say OM you talk about body, speech and mind. Then in this particular case we have MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNAYE. Mantras are said in whatever the original language the mantra was established in. You are supposed to keep that. You can translate the meaning, but the translation doesn’t become a mantra. You have to keep it in the original language, whether you pronounce it properly or not. That doesn’t matter. You have to keep it in the original language. Mantra is sound and not meaning. It is not the translation. It is the sound. Even if you don’t pronounce it properly you keep the original.

The Tibetans have translate the original Sanskrit teachings and prayers and everything into Tibetan, but kept the mantras in Sanskrit – with a great deal of difficulty to pronounce them. Tibetanized Sanskrit words are only known to the Tibetans, not to the Sanskrit speakers, honestly. It is true. Even then, for a thousand years we kept them in that way – because mantra is sound, not writing, not meaning. They have meaning, but that is mental activity, nothing else. Mantras are sound.

MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNAYE in Tibetan is thub pa thub pa. It means something you have achieved. So it is translated as victory victory, greater victory or achieved, achieved, greatly achieved, conquered, conquered, greatly conquered, etc. The whole idea is that Buddha managed to conquer and greatly conquer the negativities. These are divided into two, nyön drib and she drib. The negative emotions, the direct negativities are afflictive emotional negativies. Overcoming these is the first MUNI. The second MUNI is overcoming the self-cherishing and selfishness. The MAHA MUNI, the greater victory is overcoming even the imprints of the negative emotions. That’s the she drib.

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Then SO HA means to lay the foundation or establishing the ground, same as in Hindi. In Tibetan it is zhi tsung.

Above we said that OM is body, speech and mind. Then we had MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNAYE as victory, victory, greater victory and then comes SO HA. So the body, speech and mind of the Buddha will lay its foundation in my body, speech and mind. SOHA and HUM have almost the same meaning. When some mantra become a little longer they are made with that.

Man-tra means protection of mind. There is also something called yantra or dharani. Mantra and dharani are two different things. The long Avalokitesvara dharani goes:

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

If you look in detail that’s not a mantra. Mantras normally begin with OM and end with either SO HA AND HUM and dharanis normally begin with TAYATA rather than OM – but you can never say that as a blanket statement. Then some people will say TAYATA OM…so that is either added up or came later, I don’t know. But the idea of the dharani is not the have OM, but begin with TAYATA.

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Now, let me tell you about OM MANI PADME HUM, the famous short mantra of Avalokitesvara. Similarly the Chinese tradition will say NAMO TAPEI KUAN SE YANG PO SA…Here TAPEI is the same as dharani. KUAN SE YANG PO SA is instead of OM MANI PADME HUM. That is Sanskrit origin. I already explained OM. MANI means jewel. If you look at Avalokitesvara’s hand implements, you find he holds a jewel in his hands. PADMA is lotus. HUM is union.

So it is the body, speech and mind of the object you are supplicating, in this case, the Jewel – and Lotus Holder. That’s why they say in vajrayana that the hand implements of the yidam are also the actual yidam. It is like their initials. You initial on this page, on this line. There is a reason why jewel and lotus. The jewel is a symbol for wishfulfilling. What is wishfulfilling in the practice of the individual? All the compassion aspects and their related activities. Lotus stands for purity. The lotus itself grows from the mud, yet there is no fault of mud for whatsoever. So it is pure. That refers to the wisdom. Though grown from contaminated beings such as ourselves, wisdom has no fault whatsoever. It is pure.

The word HUM, though often pronounced HUNG, is written as HUM, the M being represented by a circle above the H. The HUM refers to union. People will tell you there are six parts of the HUM and that represents the six realms and purity, etc. That is all true, but the most important thing is the union. It is the union of the object’s body, speech and mind, in this case Avalokitesvara’s and the subject, oneself. So his body, speech and mind and ours, the supplicator’s body, speech and mind, become oneness. Your body, speech and mind and my body, speech and mind may become one.

Last night one of the questions was, “Is it prayer or meditation?” If you look at the prayer as a simple supplication, asking the higher power to make it happen, then that is one thing. Then the mantra is actually the individual trying to handle it, do it, rather than asking somebody to do it.

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Mantra is hands on action. Then I even said it is meditation, because it is focusing, concentrating and if you simply say the words alone without focusing may have still benefit of saying the words, but not have the benefit of a true mantra. In true mantra each syllable has meaning and a message and you are expected to cooperate with this message and bring it within you, to your deeper mind.

Then it is the same thing with OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA. The real meaning of that is the Four Noble Truths. OM is the same. TARE TUTARE

CHAK TSÄL TARE NYUR MA PA MO

TUTTARAYI JIK PA SEL MA

TURE DÖN KÜN JIN PE DRÖL MA

SO HA YI GE KHYÖ LA DÜ DO

OM, I and all prostrate to the liberator,

the fully realized, transcendent subduer.

I prostrate to the glorious Mother

who liberates with TARE,

the Mother who eliminates all fears with TUTARE

the Mother who grants all success with TURE,

To SOHA and the other syllables we offer the greatest homage.

With this praise of the root mantra

twenty-one times, I have paid homage.

This is the short form of the 21 Tara praise. I never memorized these words before. But that will tell you that OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA means the Four Noble Truths.

TARE – means heroine, who overcomes suffering. That’s the First Noble Truth.

TUTARE – that’s the cause of suffering, the delusions and karma, the Second Noble Truth.

TURE – is fulfilling the two positive truths, cause of perfection or cessation and the cessation itself. So when you are saying OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA you are thinking and giving the message of the Four Noble Truths.

Mantras are not easy. You can get them on your mouth and without thinking say them a lot. But it’s not that easy. It is among the deepest meditations. In vajrayana, sound as mantra is one of the important things, with mind doing the visualization and the physical gesture altogether. That means body, speech and mind working together. So these are the efforts you put in, once you generated your own motivation.

So I think I have to say ‘bon appetit’ here and I am sure you will have a lot more questions and discussion tonight and I will be happy to join you.

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