Greco-Buddhist King Milnda (Meander) asks questions.
From: The Debate of King Milinda
Nāgasena to King Milinda. "Virtue (Pali: sīla) is the basis of all good qualities: the five controlling faculties and the five moral powers (confidence, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom), the seven factors of enlightenment (mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity), the eight factors of the noble path (right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration), the four foundations of mindfulness (mindfulness of the body, feelings, thoughts, and mind-objects), the four right efforts (effort to prevent and remove unwholesome states and to develop and maintain wholesome states), the four bases of success (eagerness, energy, tenacity, wisdom), the four absorptions (four stages of one-pointedness or jhāna), the eight freedoms (eight stages of release of the mind by intense concentration), the four modes of concentration (meditations on love, compassion, sympathetic-joy, and equanimity), and the eight great attainments (four formless jhānas and four form jhānas)."
"Each of these has virtue as its support and one who builds on it as the foundation all these good conditions will not decrease.”
“Just as all forms of animal and plant life flourish with the earth as their support, so does the recluse, with virtue as support, develop the five controlling faculties and the five moral powers, the seven factors of enlightenment, the eight factors of the noble path, the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four bases of success, the four absorptions, the eight freedoms, the four modes of concentration, and the eight great attainments."
"Mindfulness (Pali: sati) is noting and keeping in mind [virtue]. As mindfulness springs up in the mind of the recluse, one repeatedly notes the wholesome and unwholesome, blameless and blameworthy, insignificant and important, dark and light qualities and those that resemble them thinking, ‘These are the four foundations of mindfulness, these the four right efforts, these the four bases of success, these the five controlling faculties, these the five moral powers, these the seven factors of enlightenment, these are the eight factors of the noble path, this is serenity, this insight, this vision and this freedom.’ Thus does he cultivate those qualities that are desirable and shun those that should be avoided.”
May the footprints I lay, evermore, be found upon the way.
From: Three Principle Aspects Of The Path
by: Jé Tsongkhapa
…
Without a pure determination to be free,
there is no means to achieve peace owing to fixation
on pleasurable effects of the ocean of existence.
Embodied beings are thoroughly bound by craving for existence;
therefore, in the beginning, seek a determination to be free.
…
If this determination to be free is not influenced by a pure mind of enlightenment,
it will not become a cause for unsurpassable enlightenment,
the perfect bliss;
therefore the intelligent should generate a mind of enlightenment.
…
Without the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of existence,
even though you familiarize yourself with the determination to be free and the mind of enlightenment,
the root of cyclic existence cannot be cut;
therefore make an effort to realize dependent arising.
…
When you have realized the essentials
Of the three principle aspects of the path,
accordingly, seek solitude and generate the power of effort,
and quickly actualize your ultimate purpose.
From: A Lamp For The Path To Enlightenment
by: Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana
…
5. Those who, through the personal suffering,
truly want to end completely
all the suffering of others
are persons of supreme capacity.
…
9. With strong faith in the Three Jewels,
kneeling with one knee on the ground
and your hands pressed together,
first of all take refuge three times.
10. Next, beginning with an attitude
of love for all living creatures,
consider beings, excluding none,
suffering in the three bad rebirths,
suffering birth, death and so forth.
11. Then, since you want to free these beings from the suffering of pain,
from suffering and the cause of suffering,
arouse immutably to resolve
to attain enlightenment.
…
18. Having developed the aspiration for enlightenment,
constantly enhance it through concerted effort.
To remember it in this and also other lives,
keep the precepts properly explained.
…
Vow of active altruistic intent
26. “In the presence of the protectors,
I arouse the intention to gain full enlightenment.
I invite all beings as my guests
and shall free them from cyclic existence.
27. “From this moment onwards
until I attain enlightenment,
I shall not harbor harmful thoughts,
anger, avarice or envy.
28. “I shall cultivate pure conduct,
give up wrong-doing and desire
and with joy in the vow of discipline
train myself to follow the buddhas.
29. “I shall not be eager to reach
enlightenment in the quickest way,
but shall stay behind till the very end,
for the sake of a single being.
30. “I shall purify limitless
inconceivable lands
and remain in the ten directions
for all those who call my name.
31. “I shall purify all my bodily
and verbal form activity.
My mental activities too, I shall purify
and do nothing that is non-virtuous.”
…
Wisdom and skillful means
38. Without the attainment of calm abiding,
higher perceptions will not occur.
Therefore make repeated effort
to accomplish calm abiding.
…
42. To eliminate all obstructions
to liberation and omniscience,
the practitioner should continually cultivate
the perfection of wisdom and skillful means.
…
45. Apart from the perfection of wisdom,
all virtuous practices such as the perfection of giving are described
as skillful means by the Victorious Ones.
…
47. Understanding emptiness of inherent existence
through realizing the aggregates, constituents
and sources are not produced
is described as wisdom.
…
50. Moreover, when all phenomena are examined
as to whether they are one or many,
they are not seen to exist by way of their own entity,
and thus are ascertained as not inherently existent.
…
55. The nature of this worldly existence,
which has come from conceptualization
is conceptuality.
Thus the elimination of conceptuality
is the highest state of nirvana.
…
58. Having ascertained through scripture
and through reasoning that phenomena
are not produced nor inherently existent,
meditate without conceptuality.
lam rim: (Tibetan) literally meaning “the gradual path” or “the stages of the path,” used to refer to both the graduated path to enlightenment and also the text which outline such a systematic path.
Vajrasattva with his consort (Tibetan: dor je sem pa yab yum)
The view of tantra holds that attainment depends on purifying negativity.
Utilize the Vajrasattva practice as much as possible, to realize the non-self-existence of negativity and of self. Vajrasattva is the manifestation of the purity of all Buddhas.
Broken tantric vows are the mostserious obstacle to realizations. According to “The Essential Ornaments,” twenty-one daily recitations of Vajrasattva mantras ensures our negative karma does not increase.
Visualizing Vajrasattva
Suspended above your head visualize an open white lotus with a thousand petals, upon it the disc of a full moon, and upon the moon, a white syllable hūm. The hūm transforms into the glorious root teacher, sambhogakāya Buddha, Vajrasttva.
He is brilliant white in color, with one face and two arms. His right hand holds before his heart the five-pronged vajra of awareness and emptiness. In his left the bell of appearance and emptiness at his left hip. His two legs are crossed in vajra posture. He is adorned with the thirteen ornaments of the sambhogakāya-
The five silken garments: headband; upper garment; long scarf; belt; lower garment
The eight jewels: crown; earrings; short necklace; armlets on each arm; two long necklaces of differing length; bracelet on each wrist; a ring on each hand; anklet on each foot
Vajrasattva embraces, in inseparable union, his consort, Vajratopa, also brilliant white.
Practice
Visualize Vajrasattva and his consort seated on a lotus and moon, their bodies of radiant white light above you (as described).
While reciting the Vajrasattva mantra:
om vajrasattva hūm
Use one of three visualization techniques:
First method: white nectar flows down Vajrasattva’s and his consort’s hearts, through their central channels, and to their joined lower chakras. The nectar enters through your crown, filling your central channel and purifying you. Your negative energy is forced out and dissolves into the earth.
Second method: the nectar flowing from Vajrasattva and his consort, pours down your central channeland fills you from feet to crown. Your impure energy leaves your body through your nostrils and mouth. This method is subtler than the first
Third method: the blissful white light-energy with rainbow hue of Vajrasattva and consort instantly shatters any inner darkness. It illuminates your brain, throat and heart chakra activating the nonfunctioning parts of your brain and nervous system, leaving no space for impurities of body, speech, and mind. Your body becomes transparent as crystal.
These visualization meditation techniques with recitation of the mantra bring results and should be practiced.
“May there be no obstacles to our accomplishment of inner fire. May we all attain realization in this lifetime.
Hundred Syllable Mantra
ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ་མ་ནུ་པཱ་ལ་ཡ།
བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛཱ།
དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ།
སུ་ཏོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ།
སུ་པོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ།
ཨ་ནུ་རཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ།
སརྦ་སིདྡྷིམྨེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ།
སརྦ་ཀརྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ ཙིཏྟཾ་ཤཱི་ཡཾ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྃ།
ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ
བྷ་ག་ཝཱན
སརྦ
ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་བཛྲ་མ་མེ་མུཉྩ།
བཛྲི་བྷ་ཝ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ
ཨཱཿ །། ཧཱུྂ ཕཊ༔
——
oṃ
O Vajrasattva honour the agreement!
Reveal yourself as the vajra-being!
Be steadfast for me!
Be very pleased for me!
Be fully nourishing for me!
Be passionate for me!
Grant me all success and attainment!
And in all actions make my mind more lucid!
hūṃ
ha ha ha ha hoḥ
O Blessed One, vajra of all those in that state, don't abandon me!
O being of the great contract be a vajra-bearer!
āḥ hūm phat
Vajrasattva (Tibetan: rdo rje sems dpa) Literally rendered in English as “Spiritual Hero of Indestructible Reality,” Vajrasasttva is an aspect of Akshobhya, the deity associated with the vajra family, who may appear in a blue form or a white form. In the context of preliminary practice, in particular, the recitation of the Vajrasattva’s hundred-syllable mantra is said to bring about purification of anger and hatred specifically. He is depicted as seated, holding a vajra in his right palm close to his heart and a bell in his left hand close to the left side of his hip.
Through the inspiration and blessing of our Guru comes realization of the Four Noble Truths. Thus our realization of the Noble Truths is the inspiration and blessing of our Guru. To be shown the Four Noble Truths is not realization, that requires wisdom.
Guru Yoga
In meditation, visualize the essence of your Guru as Vajradhara, a tantric aspect of Shakyamuni Buddha, as manifested in the non-dual space before you.
Vajradhara (‘holder of the vajra’) is an expression of the Dharmakaya and root of all the enlightened-families. The vajra (Tibetan: dorje) is a diamond (‘sovereign among all stones’) scepter-like ritual object that indicates the indestructible reality of buddhahood. The vajra and bell together represent the perfect union of discriminative awareness and skillful means.
In appearance, Guru Vajradhara, radiant blue in color, sits upon a throne supported by eight snow lions atop a lotus and sun seat. He holds a vajra and a bell and embraces his blue consort. Their blue spatial radiance is great bliss and wisdom of non-duality. Recognize it as such.
om āh hūm
At their crown chakra visualize a white omatop a moon seat, at their throat chakra a red āh atop a red lotus, and at their heart chakra a blue hūmatop a sun. They have great kindness and concern for you.
Light radiates in the ten directions from the hūm at Guru Vajradhara‘s heart. Atop each ray you may visualize one of the lamas who have mastered the practice of inner fire yoga and have realized the illusory body and wisdom of clear light. Preform the seven-limb prayer (below) with mandala offering. The best offering to give is the offering of meditation practiced sincerely toward happiness and realization.
Pray intently to Guru Vajradhara, the Dharma protector, for realization according to the development of your practice.
Visualize all the lineage lamas as they dissolve into Guru Vajradhara.
From Guru Vajradhara, emanating rays of:
white light from the om at his crown chakra enters yours
red light from the āh at his throat chakra enters yours
blue light from the hūm at his heart chakra enters yours
Visualize as Guru Vajradhara absorbs into you at your crown, enters into your central channel and into your your heart chakra. Unify your body and speech with those of Guru Vajradhara. Unify your mind with Guru Vajradhara’s transcendental, blissful wisdom of dharmakaya.
If you have a dualistic conceptual view of Guru Vajradhara you do not comprehend.
Recognize the guru in every moment.
Seven Limbed Prayer
Before those of great compassion
we lay bare with mind of regret
all non-virtuous actions of misfortune
committed since beginning-less time
or have caused others to commit or have rejoiced in,
we vow never to commit again.
All things are like a dream, lacking inherit or natural existence,
sincerely we rejoice in the happiness
and joy of all Āryas and non-Ārya beings
and in ever white arisen virtue.
May the rains of vast profound Dharma fall
From a hundred thousand billowing clouds
of sublime wisdom and loving-compassion,
to nurture, sustain and propagate a garden of moon flowers
for the benefit and bliss of infinite beings.
Your vajra-body subject to neither birth nor death
is a vessel of Unity’s wish-granting gems,
Please abide forever in keeping with our wishes:
Pass not into nirvāna until samsāra’s end.
We dedicate white virtues created
that we may be inseparably protected throughout all our lives
by venerable Gurus possessing the three kindnesses
and that we may attain Vajradhāra Unity.
From: Milarepa The Magic Life of Tibet’s Greatest Yogi. By: Eva Van Dam
“Abandon concepts, realize all-encompassing emptiness, and dissolve all duality.”
Milarepa Tibetan: mi la ras pa
(1040-1123) The great twelfth century poet-saint of Tibet. He is known for his magnificent perseverance and determination in his quest for spiritual accomplishment and learning, even at the cost of tremendous hardship encountered under Marpa’s tutorship. His reputation for meditation and practice is such that all four main traditions of Tibetan Buddhism accept Milarepa attained full enlightenment within a single lifetime. He is particularly remembered for his collection of inspiring poems and songs, relating his experiences on the spiritual path. Principle among his disciples were Gampopa, the founder of Dagpo Kagyu school, and Rechungpa.
From: The Dhammapada: Cittavagga (The Mind)
33. Just as an arrow-maker straitens an arrow shaft, even so the discerning person straitens his mind- so fickle and unsteady, so difficult to guard and control.
36. Let the discerning person guard their mind, so difficult to detect and extremely subtle, wandering wherever it desires. A guarded mind brings happiness.
43. Neither mother, father, nor any other relative can do one greater good then one’s own well-directed mind.
Thus said the Blessed One.
From: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. By: Shantideva.
I. The Benefits of the Awakening Mind 4. Leisure and endowment are very hard to find; And, since they accomplish what is meaningful for humanity, If I do not take advantage of them now, How will such a perfect opportunity come about again?
8. Those who wish to destroy the many sorrows of (their) conditioned existence, Those who wish (all beings) to experience multitude of joys, And those who wish to experience much happiness Should never forsake the Awakening Mind.
15. In brief, the Awakening Mind Should be understood to be of two types; The mind that aspires to awaken And the mind that ventures to do so.
25. This intention to benefit all beings, Which does not arise in others even for their own sake, Is an extraordinary jewel of the mind, And its birth is an unprecedented wonder.
36. I bow down to the body of those In whom the sacred precious mind is born. I seek refuge in that source of joy Who brings happiness even to those who bring harm.
III. Full Acceptance of the Awakening Mind 4. And with gladness I rejoice In the ocean of virtue, for developing an Awakening Mind That wishes all beings to be happy, As well as in the deeds that bring them benefit.
24. Likewise, for the sake of all lives Do I give birth to an Awakening Mind, And likewise shall I, too, Successfully follow the practices.
28. Just like a blindman Discovering a jewel in a heap of rubbish, Likewise, by some coincidence, An Awakening Mind has been born within me.
From: Eight Verses for Training the Mind
By: Kadampa Geshe Langritangpa
5. In all actions may I watch my mind,
And as soon as disturbing emotions arise,
May I forcefully stop them at once,
Since they will hurt both me and others.
Bodhicitta (Sanskrit) (Tibetan: byang chub kyi sems): An altruistic aspiration to attain full enlightenment for all beings. Bodhicitta is cultivated on the basis of certain mental attitudes, principle among them being the development of love and great compassion towards all beings equally.
From: The Handbook of Tibetan Culture, 1993. Compiled by Graham Coleman
All conditioned things are impermanent,
All conditioned things are unsatisfactory,
All things are without Self…
When one sees this with wisdom,
One turns away from suffering.
This is the path to purification.
Sabbe sankhārā anicca,
Sabbe sankhārā dukkhā,
Sabbe dhammā anattā…
ti
yadā paññāya passati,
atha nibbinsati dukkhe;
esa maggo visuddhiyā
This World Which Is Made Of Our Love For Emptiness
by Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Balkhī (Rumi)
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence.
Existence: this place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I am saying so much begin to lose meaning:
existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.
Salutation to you, O Lord, the master of the universe, the great Lord, the three-eyed one, the destroyer of Tripura, the extinguisher of the Trikāla fire and the fire of death, the blue-necked one, the victor over death, the Lord of all, the ever-auspicious one, the glorious Lord of all deities.
Tripura: cities built of gold, silver and iron in the sky, air and earth by Maya for the Asuras and burnt by Śivah The golden city of satttva, silver of rajas, and iron of tamas
