Month: August 2024

Specific Points on the Different Stages of Receiving Blessings ~ Part 2

~ DudjomTersarNgondro
Chatral Sangye Dorje, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, Dilgo Khyentse

Continuation from August 23rd  ~ b. In particular
On the outer level, having gained the certainty that the triply kind teacher is the embodiment of all refuges, to pray with intense yearning, faith, and devotion is the approach.

On the inner level, the Secret Mantra Vehicle method of purifying ordinary appearances, sounds, and thoughts, which are based on deluded attachment, into the great, infinitely pure display of the teacher’s three secrets is the accomplishment.

On the secret level, to take the ultimate, absolute nature—the primal wisdom that is the essence of the empowerment—as the path and to grasp the ultimate accomplishment, the desired goal, is the activity.

One begins by clearly visualizing the support for empowerment, according to the text. One then condenses the essential points of accumulation, purification, and increase by accumulating merit and purifying one’s mindstream with the seven branches. With intense faith and devotion, one prays one-pointedly and invokes the teacher’s mind by reciting the mantra. Finally one receives the blessings—the wisdom of the four empowerments—in the path empowerment, with the emanation and dissolution of rays of light. By the force of one’s devotion, the support for empowerment melts into light and dissolves into one. The teacher’s mind—the wisdom devoid of thought—blends indistinguishably with one’s own mind, like water added to water, and one rests in evenness, maintaining, without tension or effort, the very nature of the Buddhas’ wisdom, the great self-manifestation free of bias.

~ Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom
Shambhala

Specific Points on the Different Stages of Receiving Blessings ~ Part 1

~ DudjomTersarNgondro
HH Dudjom Rinpoche with Nyakpuwa Sonam Zangpo

2. Specific points on the different stages of receiving blessings: the approach and so forth

There are two sections.

a. IN GENERAL To approach an authentic teacher, who is the source of all perfection and virtue and the root of the Diamond Vehicle path, and to then please that teacher with great respect, physically, verbally, and mentally, and thereby properly receive the maturing empowerments and liberating instructions and acquire the treasure of the teacher’s mind, is the approach.

To one-pointedly put into practice the profound generation and perfection phases as instructed by the teacher and attain realization inseparable from the teacher’s mind is the accomplishment.

Having obtained accomplishment—realization of the innate natural state that is one’s own mind—to do whatever one can to benefit the doctrine and beings and especially to propagate the essential teaching of the Supreme Vehicleh is the activity.

It is by following these stages that one will fulfill the wishes of the knowledge holders of the past and hold their lineage; one will obtain accomplishment for oneself and benefit other beings, and by doing so one will join the ranks of the knowledge holders oneself.


~ Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom
Shambhala

Continues next week August 30th.

 

The Three Supreme Methods

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

Whatever practices we do, whether the common ones of taking refuge and making prostrations, the various trainings in bodhichitta, the methods for purifying the defilements of body and speech, or the uncommon practices of the Secret Mantra (the visualization and recitation of Vajrasattva, guru yoga, or meditation on the yidam deity), all that we do — and this is very important—should be accompanied by the three “supreme methods.”

The first of these methods is the attitude of bodhichitta. All beings possess the tathagatagarbha, the seed of buddhahood, but this is obscured and veiled. As a result, they wander in samsara. The first method is therefore to be determined to liberate them from this ocean of suffering.

The second supreme method is to have a mind free from conceptualization, which means to practice without distraction. Even if we make only a single prostration, we should not just go through the motions mechanically, with our thoughts and words elsewhere. On the contrary, we should practice with a concentrated mind, and never be carried away by distraction.

The third supreme method is to conclude with dedication. Whatever merit has been generated must be dedicated for the sake of beings, who are as many as the sky is vast. In fact, if we forget to round off our practice with the excellent attitude of bodhichitta, dedicating the merit to others, this merit could be destroyed in a moment of strong anger or defilement.

For this reason, all positive actions should immediately be followed by an act of dedication for the welfare of all beings. The benefits of this supreme method are immense; dedication renders merit inexhaustible and causes it to increase constantly.

~ Dudjom Rinpoche
Counsels from My Heart
Padmakara Translation Group
photographer unknown

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