Welcome to our twenty first online suggested practise for the week. We are now broadcasting a live teaching each Monday evening. If you would like to participate please contact us using the contact form on the homepage.
1.0) If you feel so inclined, begin by reciting the usual prayers (please follow below links for text). Alternatively, try to think or articulate a wish for all beings to achieve liberation from suffering, etc .
Four Thoughts: contemplating each in turn – http://northantsbuddhists.com/the-four-thoughts/
Refuge Prayer: twice in Tibetan, once in English – http://northantsbuddhists.com/the-refuge-prayer/
2.0) How Do We Take the Guru as the Path? – Part One
Advice on How to Practice by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, referring to Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s Short Preliminary Practice, called Excellent Path to Enlightenment
As you recite OM ÀH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHA HUM (pronounced in Tibetan: Om Ah Hung Bezar Guru Pema Siddhi Hung) there is this uninterrupted overflowing of nectar, which dissolves into you. The choices are beyond measure. You can visualise Guru Rinpoche seated on a lotus in your heart – though this is usually a method applied when retiring at night. If you have some sort of obstacle, such as a dispute in the family, a depression or sadness, you can visualise Guru Rinpoche above your shoulder, and think that he becomes very wrathful, even to the point of his fangs coming out a little. While seeing Guru Rinpoche in this wrathful way, you imagine that fire and scorpions flow forth from his vajra and come toward you, your obstacles, and obscurations. These scorpions snap at all the obstacles and swallow them up until each and every obscuration is destroyed. There are just so many endless methods. For instance, if you feel as though you are coming closer to death you would visualise Guru Rinpoche in an AmitÏbha like form, red in colour, but still with these similar attributes. And at such a time, you should try to transfer yourself into his heart over and over again.
After a while, there is this tendency for boredom to set in. We are never just happy with one channel, and always end up having to switch to the next one. So you switch – and on this one, Guru Rinpoche is everywhere, filling every inch of space. As you continue to chant OM ÀH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHA HUM, you look around in all directions. Suppose that right in front of me, I see six spheres of light, in an instant these spheres are effortlessly transformed into six Guru Rinpoches. A blue banner appears before me and within the blink of an eye there is another Guru Rinpoche. Seeing below me this multitude of human beings, I transform them all into Guru Rinpoche. As I look more closely I see a thermos, pen, pencil, watches, books, handkerchief, diapers and Kleenex, and all of these are also transformed into the form of Guru Rinpoche. Then I direct my gaze outside, and trees, mountains, lakes, are also now all in the form of Guru Rinpoche.
Guru Rinpoche (Padmansabhava) and His Mantra
2.1) Awakening the Buddha within by Lama Surya Das
Eight Steps to enlightenment – Tibetan Wisdom for the modern world.
Geshe Chekawa’s mind training aphorisms (Lojong in Tibetan) are a series of 59 aphorisms condensed into 8 verses, which train the mind on the path to enlightenment.
Lama Surya Das is an American Jewish Monk, who realised that westerners competing for material wealth were like passengers competing for a better place on the Titanic!
Over the next few weeks we shall be studying & meditating on these profound Lojong practises.
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