Meditations to Transform the Mind by The Seventh Dalai Lama

Author:The Seventh Dalai Lama
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Snow Lion Publications
Published: 1999-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Similarly, with the second theme, the early Kadampa masters had a saying: "If you don't meditate on death and impermanence when you wake up, the morning will be wasted. If you don't meditate on it at noon, the afternoon will be wasted. And if you don't meditate on it in the evening, the night will be wasted."

As for the third theme, the Seventh Dalai Lama dedicated an entire poem to it earlier, "The Excellence of Meditation upon the Bodhimind."

• Three Meditations

The colophon to this piece states, "Once when in the mountains of Olkha Cholung, where Lama Tsongkhapa had made his long retreat, His Holiness Gyalwa Kalzang Gyatso lead a tantric feast dedicated to Heruka Chakrasamvara. After the ritual was over, a patron in the assembly requested him for a mystical song. His Holiness spontaneously composed and sang the above, hoping to lay an impression of the direct view of emptiness upon the minds of those present."

Olkha Cholung, located above Dvakpo, is a mountain region studded with caves. These have been used by the Tibetans for centuries as meditation dwellings. Lama Jey Tsongkhapa, the guru of the First Dalai Lama, had dedicated more than four years of his life to meditation there, and as a result it was especially popular with Gelukpa adherents as a place for making long retreats. Lama Norzang Gyatso, the guru of the Second Dalai Lama, meditated at Olkha Cholung for fourteen years. Moreover, the Second Dalai Lama had established Chokhor Gyal Monastery below the Oracle Lake not far from Olkha Cholung, and as a consequence most later Dalai Lamas used Olkha Cholung for meditation purposes, or at least went there on pilgrimage whenever they visited Chokhor Gyal. The Seventh Dalai Lama did so three times on his way through the region, his last visit being in 1756, the year before his passing.

This song is an excellent example of Buddhist ideas on emptiness, or shunyata, the infinity aspect of things, and embodies the quintessence of wisdom. In it the Seventh Dalai Lama celebrates his mystical experience of infinity, declaring himself "an unborn yogi of space." He borrows this expression from the Second Dalai Lama, who signed many of his mystical works as "the Space Yogi." The Seventh Dalai Lama is "unborn," for he realizes that the self does not exist as a separate, self-existent entity, and is empty of an independent nature; he is a yogi, for his mind is always united with the vision of ultimate reality; and this experience of voidness is like space, for it is not constricted by any limitations, and embraces all of reality.

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