Stars of Wisdom: Analytical Meditation, Songs of Yogic Joy, and Prayers of Aspiration by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso & Ari Goldfield & Rose Taylor & The Seventeenth Karmapa & Dalai Lama

Author:Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso & Ari Goldfield & Rose Taylor & The Seventeenth Karmapa & Dalai Lama
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781590307755
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2010-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

THE GURU’S INSTRUCTIONS AND ONE’S OWN INTELLIGENCE

Outside my father, the lama is shining

While my own knowledge cleans the stains up inside

And in between, confident understanding starts to gleam

I’ve got no doubts about Dharma—that’s all I’ve got!

In the first line of this verse, Milarepa sings about meeting his teacher (Tib.: lama, or Skt.: guru), Marpa the Translator. Milarepa had studied with a few other teachers before he met Marpa. He trained in black magic with Khulung-pa Yönten Gyamtso and Yungtön Trogyal. But after he cast his spells and devastated his village, he began to intensely regret the awful things he had done. His mind was so disturbed by this regret that he could not eat during the day, and he could not sleep during the night. So Yungtön Trogyal advised him to practice Dharma in order to purify his negative actions, gain liberation, and help all sentient beings do the same.

When Milarepa said that he would indeed like to do this, Yungtön Trogyal sent him to a Dzogchen teacher named Rongtön Lhaga. Rongtön Lhaga told Milarepa: “My Dzogchen teachings are so amazing that if one meditates on them during the day, one will become a buddha during the day; if one meditates on them at night, one will become a buddha at night; and some very fortunate ones of the highest acumen do not even have to meditate—just hearing the teachings is enough for them to gain liberation.”

Milarepa thought to himself, “I was so good at casting spells that I must be one of the fortunate disciples who do not need to meditate,” and he spent a few days just sleeping. But when he returned to see Rongtön Lhaga and had no experiences or realizations to report, Rongtön Lhaga said: “Perhaps I cannot help you after all, and in any event, perhaps I have praised my teachings too highly. You should go see Marpa the Translator, a siddha of the Secret Vajrayana’s new translation school.3 He has been your teacher for many lifetimes.”

Just from hearing Marpa’s name, Milarepa was filled with inexpressible joy, his skin broke out in goose bumps, and he cried tears of devotion. He went in search of Marpa, and when he actually saw his guru for the first time, he was stunned, overcome by incredible joy. Then Marpa put Milarepa through many difficult ordeals, and finally, like one crystal vessel pouring all the nectar inside it into another, Marpa gave him empowerments, transmissions, and teachings in a complete and perfect way. That is what one needs as the outer condition—to meet a qualified teacher and to receive their teachings.

At the same time, one also needs the inner condition, which Milarepa sings about in the second line: “My own knowledge cleans the stains up inside.” The stains refer to the obscurations of the disturbing emotions (desire, anger, stupidity, pride, and jealousy are the root disturbing emotions), and the cognitive obscurations that block omniscience. We could also describe the stains as the mistaken beliefs that the self truly exists and that phenomena truly exist.

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