Naga Puja
Nagas can be wisdom holders, and can also cause skin diseases, depletion of life force energy and other obstacles. It is wise to make offerings to Nagas, when disturbing the earth for any reason. It is believed that one's present wealth, fame, health, confidence, merits will improve, obstacles and sickness will be eliminated, one will always meet good friends and master, has a happy harmonious family with pleasant looking and intelligent children, there will be fine weather in the region with sufficient rainfall, good harvest, and the country will enjoy peace and harmony. Last but not least one will accomplish one's practices.
Rinpoche and lamas will make offerings to the 8 Naga Kings and their retinues including deities who are in charge of different oceans, lakes, rivers, streams and well in order to appease them, so as to help us fulfill our wishes and increase our merits.
We should also dedicate the merit both toward the fulfillment of our aspiration, and also for the benefit of all sentient beings. For example, if one wishes to be free from a particular suffering such as a skin disease, the Naga offerings made should be dedicated to the peace and well being of the injured Nagas, and the aspiration can be made that by this offering may all beings afflicted by the wrath of the Nagas be forgiven for their mistakes and may they meet with the cesssation of their ailments etc. Similarly one should pray: May all beings awaken to the heart of enlightenment by this generosity and may this Naga offering assure prosperity for all beings.
(Nagas usually depicted as snakes and water dragons)
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Notes from Harvard (Part Two) : The Missing Link
The Missing Link: Crucial Practices for Spiritual Achievement
•This talks of some of the missing links that we have in our dharma practice.
•At times we are practicing very hard or have seen many dharma text that state how great it is (the dharma) when you practice
•But after all that, you may notice that you’ve not experience all those qualities
•The problem is with us human beings – we are attracted to tangible things (we are attracted to visual, sounds or things that are countable, so when you put too much weight on these things, you don’t see the results as you expect or want.
•For example, we are very much focus on completing a certain number of things.
•Quantity is important but Quality is more important
•Quality first and Quantity second.
•Secondly we are also attracted to forms or visuals of the deities. They are there as an object of our meditation.
•Something more important than visualization or meditation is the quality of our practice.
•Usually when we go to a centre or temple, our mind is focus on chanting/ the mala or reciting the text (sadhana) in a melody or perhaps when meditating, you focus on the arms of the deity ie. how many, eg four, or six or a thousand. You also begin to worry that you are not doing it in the right way etc …
•So when you are too focus on these details, the confidence of practice is lacking, (ie. thinking about are you doing it in the right manner) and then you begin to have doubts about yourself (your practice)
•(An example was given by relating about the story of the zhambala statue and the return policy, and also the manjushri story and how about not doing so well in your exams as you expected by praying to manjushri)
•The key is that we need to connect to the Bodhisattvas and not the statues or sounds. Statues are the art work or pieces of copper. And sound is just the vibrations. They are there for us as an object of meditation.
•Mantras and Statues are connecting points.
•What is being connected is our mind, this is where the quality is.
•(The story of Asanga was related. *Asanga is the one who puts the 5 teachings of Matrieya together). Briefly, the story about Asanga meditated for 3 years, came out met with someone who was sharpening an iron rod with a silk cloth to make a needle out of it and seeing this made Asanga go back to retreat, and after 5 years still not result, came back out and this time saw someone polishing a boulder, hoping to reduce the size so that it would not be blocking the sunlight, Asanga went back, after 12 years saying to himself that nothing is going to deter him from giving up for good, came across a dog with rotten legs that had maggots in it, and how he use his tongue to remove the maggots. And Maitreya appears in front of him)
•So here, the moral of the story is that Asanga didn’t see Maitreya is because he didn’t have genuine compassion, even though Maitreya was with him from day one.
•This shows that the Quality is more important that the Quantity.
•The success of the practice is the quality, here in this case is the genuine compassion and not the quantity - ie. the 12 years in retreat (which is the number)
•Bodhisattvas are impartial, they help all regardless if one is good or bad.
•Like the ring and the hook story, it needs one another to work, hence for bodhisattvas to help, we need to open our hearts and not just rely on tangible objects.
•And the important thing is, we know it has something to do with the mind
•And the mind, there are different levels of the mind
i) intellectual mind
ii) the mind that is related to your heart (innate to your nature)
•The 2nd type (the innate mind) is more real ‘coz it is closer to the real/reality
•The 1st kind is more (of a) concept and influence by lots of external things, such as environment and culture etc
•At the end of the day usually we make our decision with our feelings even though we’ve made a lot of research on the particular subject – such as when buying a car – you look @ the fuel consumption, color, power etc but still at the end – you decide with your heart.
•So how we can improve ourselves spiritually? What is blocking us, what is dragging us? So we need to know the problem, identify the problem
•The 1st problem is Distraction
‘coz our mind is distracted by many things
‘coz we don’t think enough or rather we don’t feel enough (of the impermanence). If you can feel the impermanence, you don’t feel the distraction (ie. we don’t feel enough)
•When we don’t feel enough about the impermanence, esp. (abt) one’s own life (one’s own human life)
•When we plan a lot of things there are many distractions.
•Therefore, the lack of the understanding of impermanence – we’ve lots of distraction
•In Tibetan, there is a word : Lo – Na - Tung ( lit. Mind-length-short), which means to Keep your length short (ie. Keep short and have fewer plans)
•4 dharmas of Gampopa
to turn the mind to dharma
when you are aware of these things, your mind will naturally turn to dharma
•Solution is that we can work on by looking upon ourselves and look at the vulnerability and we can keep short, we can overcome this distraction
Q: What are the 3 yanas? A: (from the audience) Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana
Rinpoche’s answer: Well if you go into depth, you actually wouldn’t find it as the 3 yanas in The Kangyur (is the words of the Buddha) and The Tengyur (is the treatise)
•The essence of hinayana teachings => Keeping it short, not planning too much
=> understanding the impermanence.
•The significance of Asanga’s story is => Compassion => essence of Mahayana
•With the genuine feeling of compassion, you have the practice of Mahayana
•Not having enough compassion because we have too much egotism is the problem to our practice
•So it is important to have work on sympathy/sympathetic mind
•We have the suffering we know we cannot bear but when you see that in others we are indifference
•When you really have the genuine compassion, we are unable to leave it like that, regardless of whether we cause it or not.
•Another major problem that makes our practice lack/hinders our practice
-heavy criticism of others
-we cannot improve ourselves if we criticize on others
esp. spiritual practice and even more in the vajrayana practice
•The solution to the problem => is to look at one’s own mind
the attitude of one’s own mind
•We’ll never be able to enlighten if you judge others qualities
•We are only able to be enlighten if you judge your own qualities
•We tend to ignore our own problems even though it’s huge like a mountain but raises the issue in others even though it is a minute(small) one.
•So that’s our weakness
•Solution: we need to look at our mind, judge ourselves & not others, have a Pure Perception of others (esp to other dharma practitioners)
•tang-nang (pure perception)
•Only fully enlightened beings can see others mind, therefore sentient beings cannot judge other sentient beings mind.
•So it is important to have “tang-nang” toward others and also esp the teacher
•mur-kur (devotion) => this is more toward the teacher
•mur = admiration (hence, having heard and understood the qualities of the teacher you have admiration)
•kur = sense of humility (recognizing your weakness in front of the great being, you keep yourself down)
•Because you know there is a gap, in quality between yourself and the teacher, you admired and wish to achieve the quality of your teacher.
•tang-nang and mur-kur is the main practice of the vajrayana practice
•when we practice this, we will notice 2 kinds of problems
(Minimizing the good qualities)
1. slandering/belittling of others/underestimation of others
ignoring others qualities, feeling uncomfortable eg. being jealous of others qualities
(Adding the weakness of others)
2. Overestimation of others weakeness, think others are not smart or good enough – that’s another problem!
•If the mind is pure, the ground and path is pure
•If the mind is not pure, the ground and path is not pure
•Focus on others qualities and not their weaknesses
•This talks of some of the missing links that we have in our dharma practice.
•At times we are practicing very hard or have seen many dharma text that state how great it is (the dharma) when you practice
•But after all that, you may notice that you’ve not experience all those qualities
•The problem is with us human beings – we are attracted to tangible things (we are attracted to visual, sounds or things that are countable, so when you put too much weight on these things, you don’t see the results as you expect or want.
•For example, we are very much focus on completing a certain number of things.
•Quantity is important but Quality is more important
•Quality first and Quantity second.
•Secondly we are also attracted to forms or visuals of the deities. They are there as an object of our meditation.
•Something more important than visualization or meditation is the quality of our practice.
•Usually when we go to a centre or temple, our mind is focus on chanting/ the mala or reciting the text (sadhana) in a melody or perhaps when meditating, you focus on the arms of the deity ie. how many, eg four, or six or a thousand. You also begin to worry that you are not doing it in the right way etc …
•So when you are too focus on these details, the confidence of practice is lacking, (ie. thinking about are you doing it in the right manner) and then you begin to have doubts about yourself (your practice)
•(An example was given by relating about the story of the zhambala statue and the return policy, and also the manjushri story and how about not doing so well in your exams as you expected by praying to manjushri)
•The key is that we need to connect to the Bodhisattvas and not the statues or sounds. Statues are the art work or pieces of copper. And sound is just the vibrations. They are there for us as an object of meditation.
•Mantras and Statues are connecting points.
•What is being connected is our mind, this is where the quality is.
•(The story of Asanga was related. *Asanga is the one who puts the 5 teachings of Matrieya together). Briefly, the story about Asanga meditated for 3 years, came out met with someone who was sharpening an iron rod with a silk cloth to make a needle out of it and seeing this made Asanga go back to retreat, and after 5 years still not result, came back out and this time saw someone polishing a boulder, hoping to reduce the size so that it would not be blocking the sunlight, Asanga went back, after 12 years saying to himself that nothing is going to deter him from giving up for good, came across a dog with rotten legs that had maggots in it, and how he use his tongue to remove the maggots. And Maitreya appears in front of him)
•So here, the moral of the story is that Asanga didn’t see Maitreya is because he didn’t have genuine compassion, even though Maitreya was with him from day one.
•This shows that the Quality is more important that the Quantity.
•The success of the practice is the quality, here in this case is the genuine compassion and not the quantity - ie. the 12 years in retreat (which is the number)
•Bodhisattvas are impartial, they help all regardless if one is good or bad.
•Like the ring and the hook story, it needs one another to work, hence for bodhisattvas to help, we need to open our hearts and not just rely on tangible objects.
•And the important thing is, we know it has something to do with the mind
•And the mind, there are different levels of the mind
i) intellectual mind
ii) the mind that is related to your heart (innate to your nature)
•The 2nd type (the innate mind) is more real ‘coz it is closer to the real/reality
•The 1st kind is more (of a) concept and influence by lots of external things, such as environment and culture etc
•At the end of the day usually we make our decision with our feelings even though we’ve made a lot of research on the particular subject – such as when buying a car – you look @ the fuel consumption, color, power etc but still at the end – you decide with your heart.
•So how we can improve ourselves spiritually? What is blocking us, what is dragging us? So we need to know the problem, identify the problem
•The 1st problem is Distraction
‘coz our mind is distracted by many things
‘coz we don’t think enough or rather we don’t feel enough (of the impermanence). If you can feel the impermanence, you don’t feel the distraction (ie. we don’t feel enough)
•When we don’t feel enough about the impermanence, esp. (abt) one’s own life (one’s own human life)
•When we plan a lot of things there are many distractions.
•Therefore, the lack of the understanding of impermanence – we’ve lots of distraction
•In Tibetan, there is a word : Lo – Na - Tung ( lit. Mind-length-short), which means to Keep your length short (ie. Keep short and have fewer plans)
•4 dharmas of Gampopa
to turn the mind to dharma
when you are aware of these things, your mind will naturally turn to dharma
•Solution is that we can work on by looking upon ourselves and look at the vulnerability and we can keep short, we can overcome this distraction
Q: What are the 3 yanas? A: (from the audience) Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana
Rinpoche’s answer: Well if you go into depth, you actually wouldn’t find it as the 3 yanas in The Kangyur (is the words of the Buddha) and The Tengyur (is the treatise)
•The essence of hinayana teachings => Keeping it short, not planning too much
=> understanding the impermanence.
•The significance of Asanga’s story is => Compassion => essence of Mahayana
•With the genuine feeling of compassion, you have the practice of Mahayana
•Not having enough compassion because we have too much egotism is the problem to our practice
•So it is important to have work on sympathy/sympathetic mind
•We have the suffering we know we cannot bear but when you see that in others we are indifference
•When you really have the genuine compassion, we are unable to leave it like that, regardless of whether we cause it or not.
•Another major problem that makes our practice lack/hinders our practice
-heavy criticism of others
-we cannot improve ourselves if we criticize on others
esp. spiritual practice and even more in the vajrayana practice
•The solution to the problem => is to look at one’s own mind
the attitude of one’s own mind
•We’ll never be able to enlighten if you judge others qualities
•We are only able to be enlighten if you judge your own qualities
•We tend to ignore our own problems even though it’s huge like a mountain but raises the issue in others even though it is a minute(small) one.
•So that’s our weakness
•Solution: we need to look at our mind, judge ourselves & not others, have a Pure Perception of others (esp to other dharma practitioners)
•tang-nang (pure perception)
•Only fully enlightened beings can see others mind, therefore sentient beings cannot judge other sentient beings mind.
•So it is important to have “tang-nang” toward others and also esp the teacher
•mur-kur (devotion) => this is more toward the teacher
•mur = admiration (hence, having heard and understood the qualities of the teacher you have admiration)
•kur = sense of humility (recognizing your weakness in front of the great being, you keep yourself down)
•Because you know there is a gap, in quality between yourself and the teacher, you admired and wish to achieve the quality of your teacher.
•tang-nang and mur-kur is the main practice of the vajrayana practice
•when we practice this, we will notice 2 kinds of problems
(Minimizing the good qualities)
1. slandering/belittling of others/underestimation of others
ignoring others qualities, feeling uncomfortable eg. being jealous of others qualities
(Adding the weakness of others)
2. Overestimation of others weakeness, think others are not smart or good enough – that’s another problem!
•If the mind is pure, the ground and path is pure
•If the mind is not pure, the ground and path is not pure
•Focus on others qualities and not their weaknesses
Sunday, January 3, 2010
27th Kagyu Monlam Chenmo/ MP3 download of Nagajurna's Letter to a Friend
In conjunction to this particular Monlam, we were so lucky to have Tulku-la here to not only join us in prayers but to actually sync with the entourage in Bodhgaya in offering the Monlam Aspiration prayer at the closing of the 8 day event on new year's eve. And then even more happy when Rinpoche-la decided to sent us a text message all the way from Bodhgaya! :)
Links:
Webcast of the 27th Kagyu Monlam Chenmo 26th December to 31st December 2009 on
http://www.kagyumonlam.tv
and the teachings on Nagajurna's Letter to a Friend can be downloaded from here.
A Letter to a Friend": Teaching by H.H. the 17th Karmapa MP3 for Download
Links:
Webcast of the 27th Kagyu Monlam Chenmo 26th December to 31st December 2009 on
http://www.kagyumonlam.tv
and the teachings on Nagajurna's Letter to a Friend can be downloaded from here.
A Letter to a Friend": Teaching by H.H. the 17th Karmapa MP3 for Download
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