Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Ignyen answers his students’ question directly: what does “no form” in the Heart Sūtra actually mean? It means no aging body, no hip replacement, no wrinkles, no cancer. In this 106-minute session, he walks through the sūtra’s sequence of negations by constantly relating them to the practitioner’s lived experience. He addresses a core paradox: the sūtra teaches “form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” yet also “in emptiness there is no form.” The key lies in understanding what a meditator directly perceives when realizing emptiness—only emptiness appears to that mind. Another strong theme is his discussion of fear: why a particular kind of fear arises as we begin understanding emptiness, and why that’s actually a sign of genuine progress. He maps the mantra (Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi Svāhā) onto the five paths. Includes Q&A with students. For practitioners grounded in Tibetan Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 04 24 Heart Sūtra Easter Retreat (4).mp3
UUID: 7334242e-ef4b-4ebd-99e5-5cf88cc45478
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Heart Sūtra Retreat (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2011-04-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 106.0 minutes
Words: ~10,927
So we’ve been dealing with the eight characteristics. So these eight characteristics come up sometimes they’re described a little bit differently. But they do come up in many of the texts. So as long as we have a rough idea of what they are, it’s useful. So this part of the Heart Sūtra is talking about the instruction given to those on the path of seeing.
And in the path of seeing one is dealing with these eight characteristics and in general the path of seeing is when we first break through to a direct perception of emptiness. And one breaks through to a direct perception of emptiness in sixteen moments. And those sixteen moments are eight moments of patience and eight moments of knowledge. And the eight moments of patience, they call patience or persevering, is like a meditative absorption. When one is enduring, one is meditating on emptiness and the emptiness is appearing to the mind clearly as like clear as eye consciousness.
And in that experience of emptiness only emptiness appears. Nothing else, not the basis of the emptiness. And in that first moment, that wisdom perceptually comprehending emptiness, directly perceiving emptiness is eliminating a level of obscuration. Because it’s in a process of eliminating the obscuration, it’s called a patient stage. Or a person is persevering with a moment with that level of realization and the next moment is a liberated state where one eliminates that obscuration to be eliminated.
So, and there are in each stage one is focusing on the four truths. But of the four truths, one’s focusing on the truth of cessation. And the identity of the truth of cessation is emptiness. And in the first moment one is dealing with the first of the four noble truths on the level of the desire realm, and then eliminates the obscurations to understanding those four truths in the desire realm. And then the four truths Sorry, individually the four truths.
First, the truth of cessation on the desire realm. The truth of suffering in the desire realm. Then the truth of suffering in the higher realms. And so on. Anyway, there are said to be sixteen moments.
These eight characteristics are shared one characteristic for each of the two moments. Something like that. Okay. Now we’ll move right along to the path of meditation. So in the path of meditation, we I look at the next section.
Śāriputra. Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness. No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. No visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste. No phenomena.
No realm of the eye or no element of the eye up to no element of mentality or mind and no realm of mental consciousness. No ignorance and no exhaustion of ignorance, up to no aging and death and no exhaustion of aging and death. Similarly there is no suffering, origin, cessation and path. There is no sublime wisdom or exalted wisdom, no attainment and no non attainment. So in that that is the way of being on the path of meditation engages in the practice of the perfection of wisdom.
There’s quite a bit in that passage. A lot of no’s. So what we’re looking at here is the What we’re looking at here it says no, there’s none of these things exist. In emptiness there is no form. Now, we’ve had previously we had the statement form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Now saying in emptiness there is no form. Is that a contradiction? One is saying emptiness is something other than saying in emptiness, there’s nothing. That’s right. The distinction there, but I’m not quite sure what it is.
Yeah. Okay. Previously, when we’re talking about that, it’s really we’re talking about the nature of an object and the nature of, like, form is empty, emptiness is form. We’re looking at the object itself. We’re really talking about different levels of the same object.
The functional level, the form, and if its identity on its subtlest level is emptiness. But they really are referring to exactly the same object. So form is empty. Emptiness is form. So here it’s talking about in emptiness.
So what is implied here is that really from the point of view of meditative equipoise on emptiness. Right from the point of view of engaging in meditative equipoise. Now we don’t have meditative equipoise at present. We don’t have meditative equipoise because we don’t have samadhi. We don’t have single pointed concentration.
We really just have an unruly mind that is hard to keep on any object for very long. Our mind will settle on an object for a few seconds and then it will think of something else. Something else will come up and that will capture our mind and we will think about that and so forth. So we don’t have single pointed concentration. If we had single pointed concentration, we’d be able to rest our mind on an object and our mind would just sit there.
Not move from it. And it would effortlessly just stay on the object. So if we had single point of concentration that’s what it would be like. But having developed that sort of single pointed concentration, then if we were to contemplate emptiness, we have a very an excellent weapon than to cut through ignorance. Because the reason, one of the reasons we can’t realize things is that our mind can’t focus on things long enough.
We don’t really understand impermanence because even when we think about impermanence for a little while, we’re distracted to something else. If we don’t it. But we need time to understand it. We need a proper tool to understand it and that is the concentration. That’s true, if we’re really concentrated we understand.
And this is our experience, when we read a book we concentrate on the book because we’re concentrated to the exclusion of other distractions and we follow the story, we understand it, we remember it later, and so on. It’s all due to concentration. The fact that we don’t understand how things exist is because we can’t apply our mind for a sufficiently long period to understanding what that object is. We need concentration. We need single pointed concentration that endures without a break.
So this is meditative equipoise. Nyamshak in Tibetan, Nyamshak Yeshe. How we get that is through training the mind. There is a process by which we can go through to develop single pointed concentration. Now what is being said here is that someone who has developed this sort of equipoise on emptiness and have attained the path of seeing, which means that they have this direct perceptual understanding of emptiness, then only emptiness appears to that mind.
There’s nothing other than it. So in a sense, in emptiness, in the equipoise understanding emptiness, only emptiness exists. Only emptiness appears. So in that equipoise, there is no form, there is no feeling, there’s no discrimination, there’s no formation, there’s no consciousness. There’s no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no mind, no mentality or No visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, no phenomena, there is no eye element.
There’s nothing, no relative truth appears to that mind. Only the emptiness. And what is emptiness? Emptiness is defined as the non affirming negation which is the mere absence of true existence. Dendrub katang gi medak in Tibetan.
It’s a non affirming negation. What’s a non affirming negation? It just means a mere absence of something without implying anything else in its place. So emptiness is just the mere absence of true existence. Emptiness from meditation without having to have the realising emptiness?
Yeah. Well, in a way it’s like a realisation of emptiness. If you have a glimpse, the measure of it actually being emptiness is that a little bit of fear arises. And the fear arises because the thought, because we still so strongly grasp ourselves as truly existent, when even the suspicion of emptiness arises, we think we no longer exist. So how do overcome that fear?
You don’t. You cultivate it. You want it. That’s what you want. You know you’re on the right track when you have that fear.
That’s what I said earlier in the text, that fear is is very good. I assume it disappears as as you go along a little later, is that? Well, the reason the fear is there is because we’re grasping a true existence. And then because we grasp a true existence and we start to get an understanding of how we exist and we don’t see the self, we suspect, ah, there is no self, then we think we don’t exist at all. And we fear that.
In fact, one of our problems we have in existence is that we have such an attachment to existing that that really is the cement that holds together the rebirth process. And when we die, we want so much to exist that attachment is part of the process that pushes us forward to getting a rebirth. So that sort of fear is very good to cultivate. Is that the whole point of it to actually But is. It is.
Exactly. But the fear is there because of the grasping of true existence. Yeah. But if you recognize that, then you want to eliminate the fear. Yeah.
Once the grasping of true existence is gone, there’s no fear. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
So is it the same as the meaning that suddenly you once you realize emptiness, it’s like suddenly you found out that your what you believe from the day you are born until now is not valid anymore? Yeah. Not only from when we’re born. From the beginner’s Beginningless time. We’ve mistaken this issue.
Yeah. It is! God! Everything you believe suddenly doesn’t exist. It does exist, but it doesn’t exist in quite the way we’ve hold it to exist at present.
Yeah, we think things exist in a certain way, and that from that fear has arisen and arises for us. And we fear not existing. And not only do we fear not existing, then we fear existing. And we fear also, we fear rejection, we fear acceptance, we fear this, we fear that. It is.
Yeah. And it’s all coming from grasping at true existence. So by just understanding the way we exist, you’re saying that just by concentrating and and understanding the concept, that’s one way to overcome the fear. Or gradually, yes. Ex Yeah.
Persisting, basically. Is. Present, we have that fear. We fear death, for instance. And part of the fear of death is that we fear we’re going to stop existing.
Now, at the very root of that fear is this grasping that things exist in the way they appear to exist. We want to overcome that fear. But there is a type of good fear that’s there in the process. And that’s when we are contemplating emptiness. When we begin to make progress, then fear will arise.
A little bit of fear will arise, and that would be an indication that, oh, we’re beginning to understand the object of negation. So that’s a good thing. Ultimately, one wants to get beyond all fear. Yeah. But within that, there are good fears and there are not so good ones.
So One thing is that the grasping at true existence is so subtle that normally it’s not apparent. Sometimes it arises strongly, you know, if we’re in danger. You know, we walk near a cliff and suddenly we look over the edge and, you know, and we think we’re gonna die. And this fear suddenly, get this thing in our chest, you know, like it takes that breath away. Fear is there.
Now mixed in with that is grasping a true existence. It’s at the root of it. So but normally we don’t have it. Normally we just coast along and, you know, we’re not that in any fear of us existing or not existing. In this process, what one is trying to do is bring up that grasping.
Sometimes it’s said that we should meditate. It’s good to meditate near a cliff. You know, on a cliff’s edge, you know, so in you fall asleep. As in you fall But then also, you know, just to so that the eye, the I-grasping, you know, may become more clear. Any method well, within reason, we don’t put ourselves in danger, but any method we can to make the ‘I’, the sense of ‘I’ arise clearly is good for us because well, potentially good.
We can examine it. But we’ve all we’ve got memories of times that we’re in danger and the sense of I is really strong. And, you know, we might almost have a heart attack because, you know, the heart almost leaps beyond our throat, and we thought we were to die and we didn’t, and we’re trying to recover afterwards. That’s good. We can remember that.
And think about what is the eye there? What is the eye that’s being grasped? Similarly, you know, why are we in fear there? Because we think the I is in danger of ceasing. It’s going to stop.
And also when we meditate on emptiness, it’s similar. Because we’re really looking at the underlying way we think about the eye, in a very deep level, very effective level, then the fear of I comes up again. It’s not that we want to scare ourselves, we’re not masochists in that sense, but we’re trying to understand who we are basically. And we want the fact. If in fact we truly exist, we want to know we truly exist.
That’d be good. It’s a bit of a bummer if we truly exist because we’re finished. Death is going to finish us off completely. But this is the issue: if we resolve this issue, the others are easy. Right.
So here we’re talking about the path of meditation and in what the person is reflecting on here is that in that meditative equipoise, now here for this person who’s on the path of meditation, they’ve gone through the fear of losing the I. They’ve maintained their focus and their concentration and have understood emptiness. Now, that understanding of emptiness is like the great medicine. Because only it purifies the mind. It purifies the stains of the Buddha nature.
There’s no other way. There’s no physical means of purifying the mind. It’s only done through wisdom. And the wisdom understanding emptiness. So that wisdom that understands emptiness is serially able to start eliminating the stains, the very deep inner hard stains to remove.
And that begins on a path of seeing. And continues on into the path of meditation because it’s said that even once we’ve understood emptiness on the path of seeing, it still takes two countless eons of reflecting on the meaning of emptiness to fully purify the mind. Because the stains are so deep and so we shouldn’t have any fear that we’re going to finish everything quickly. It takes one countless to get from the path of accumulation to the path of seeing. Another countless eon to get from the path of seeing to the eighth level bodhisattva ground.
And then another countless eon to complete the eighth ground, the ninth ground, and the tenth ground. So, anyway, this is on the perfection vehicle, perfection of wisdom vehicle. So, what we’re doing on the path of meditation is we’re reflecting on really on this type of subject matter. Then in emptiness there is no form. And so on.
And during the path of meditation then one gradually progresses through the bodhisattva grounds, like the joyful and so forth. Excuse me. And what we’re doing is we’re looking at this. In emptiness there is no form, there’s no feeling, discrimination, no formation, no consciousness. No eyes, no ears, no tongue, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, and so on.
Now this in fact includes everything. In a way, what we’re doing is we’re making a list of everything that exists. How does this relate to me though? Right? How does this relate to me?
We read through, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s like, okay, okay, been there, done that. What’s this got to do with me? What’s in it for me here? Well, firstly, in emptiness, there is no form, there’s no body, which is the basis of I.
There is no feeling, which is the basis of I. There is no discrimination, which is the basis of I. There’s no formation or no compositional factor, it’s the basis of I. So it’s relevant to who I am. No consciousness.
The problem we have is just there. Physical body, this aging body. Unfortunately, or fortunately, aging really only affects the body. Probably fortunately. Our mind doesn’t age.
Thank goodness. Our mind is it doesn’t matter how old one is, the feelings are as strong and vibrant at the age of six months as they are at one hundred and six. The mind doesn’t age, but the body does. So the body is a problem. Oh, that’s the ordinary body.
If one attains a subtle ārya body, then that also is said not to age. Anyway, so what we’re dealing with here is we have to understand how this relates to us. That first, in emptiness there is no form. Actually there’s no ageing body in emptiness. We can look at it that there’s no body that’s going to get sick.
There’s no body that’s the joints are gonna go. I’m gonna need a hip replacement. In emptiness, there’s no hip replacement. There’s no toothache. There’s no wrinkles, no gray hair.
There’s no no stomach problem. Yeah. There’s no facial job. There’s no, you know, plastic surgery. There’s no perfume required, there’s no underarm deodorant required, there is no menopause, there’s no prostate, there’s no cancer and so forth.
All of these things are implied here. In emptiness, there is none. Actually, what we want is a permanent state. Is there a color? Sorry?
No. A color. A color. A color. There’s no color.
No color. Just emptiness. But when you move out of the equipoise and emptiness, there’s color. But of course, we shouldn’t be attached to color. Because color is just an illusory thing anyway.
But it’s a pleasant illusion. Well, there’s a story about one monk in Tibet who has been meditating in a cave for many, many years. As he got older and older, he realized he was getting closer to death. And then finally the signs of death really started to appear. He started to get concerned.
Anyway, his teacher had given him these instructions on the transference of consciousness. And he’s meditating on the transference of consciousness, and it’s just not working. And he tries again, and he keeps meditating, going through the practice, and it’s not working. And finally he makes a fervent prayer to his teacher to help him. And I think it was in a dream.
He had a dream then of his teacher, and his teacher appeared to him in a dream and said to him teacher realized what he was having problems with, that he was attached to Tibetan tea, which is a salted butter tea. And his teacher appeared in a dream and said, It’s okay. In heaven, there’s really good salted butter tea. Then he was able to complete So we’re the same, actually. What we like actually the process of attaining enlightenment really depends on what we like.
And it’s almost as if we’ve got to pick our way through with what we like, you know, like from here and what next would I like, all that. As long as it’s moving a bit closer to the state of enlightenment, then in a way, that’s how we do it. That’s a dance, not a march. Oh, whatever. Yes.
It’s probably not going to be direct. Yeah. Because we’ve got a lot of we need to be skillful and a little bit easy on ourselves as well and understand what we like to do. It’s such an important thing because if we like doing something, it takes no effort. We just have to suggest it to ourselves, oh, I’d like to do it.
How can we get up and do it? If we don’t like doing it, you know, put the push, and we can. So, important to know ourselves so we know what we like. So in contemplating this, in emptiness there is no form. Okay, there is no form.
So actually it’s in a way purifies form. And there is no feeling. We can think that there’s no contaminated feeling. There’s no faulty feeling. And so on.
There’s no discrimination or discrimination of this and that. No formation, no consciousness and so on. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body. No tongue, no mind, no mentality, no body. So forth, no form, no sound, no odor, no flavor, no tactility, no phenomena.
And so on. So we understand these in this way. The first we have the five aggregates, then the twelve bases. When we have no eyes, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, No visual form. Okay.
The first five up to no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness, no form. Those are the five aggregates. Then we have the twelve bases. No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. No visual form.
So this is duality here. The duality of the sense base and the object of that sense base. So the ‘eye’. Here what’s talked about is the physical eye itself. No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind.
It’s the mind sense base. And then we have the objects of those which are no form, no sound, no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon. And then we have the eighteen elements or the eighteen realms. There is no eye element up to and including no mind element or no mental consciousness element. So there are three of the eighteen elements or realms.
There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance. Also, up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. So those refer to the twelve links: No ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, no aging and death, and no extinction of aging and death. Has anyone heard of the twelve links? Sorry?
The The wheel of life, yeah. So those links describe how rebirth occurs. So the forward order of the process of rebirth doesn’t exist. Or in meditative equipoise on emptiness there is no wheel of life, in other words. There is no rebirth process or there’s no stopping of the rebirth process.
And then we have no suffering, origination, cessation and path. So they are the four noble truths. So in the emptiness the four noble truths do not appear, do not exist. And then it says, there’s no exalted wisdom and no attainment and no non attainment. No exalted wisdom means that there is no wisdom that understands the Four Noble Truths and then after that no attainment.
There’s no attainment of any result, neither there’s no non attainment of any result. So none of those exist. They don’t appear to the meditative equipoise focused on emptiness. In a way, the trick here is to be able to relate to these categories and understand, you know, how they fit into our everyday experience. But in doing this, it’s covering everything that exists in the universe.
I’m just saying that in meditative equipoise they don’t appear. In a sense it’s saying they’re purified by that. Right. Are there any issues with that part of the text? Yes.
Yes. Here saying that continuous means that the Four Noble Truths doesn’t exist. The short link of interdependent doesn’t exist empty from its own side. Is that what they’re saying? It’s no.
It’s not quite saying they don’t exist. It’s just saying that they don’t exist for meditative equipoise directly perceiving emptiness. Is meditative equipoise? Meditative equipoise is like a type of mind that is completely stable, single pointed in its concentration, focused on emptiness, understanding emptiness to which emptiness appears. Right?
To that mind, none of these objects appear. In that sense, they don’t exist in relation to that mind. Does it mean that once they have reached the state of realizing emptiness, the preliminary teaching is defined as irrelevant? No, no. Four truths are the central teaching.
But it’s just when one is engaged in directly perceiving emptiness, only emptiness appears, nothing else appears. The four truths don’t appear. Right? Only emptiness appears. But that mind is of fundamental importance because it purifies the obscurations.
How does it purify the obscurations? If yes, the Four Noble Truths are the truth. Alright? The traveling of interdependence are also dharma, also true. Yes, yeah, they’re true.
But this truth in emptiness doesn’t If you look at the emptiness, this truth is not existence. You could say it doesn’t exist, but when you say it doesn’t exist, it just means it doesn’t appear to that mind. That’s all. Right? It’s a bit of a play on words, to be honest.
Trying to get through the words. Yeah, no it is. The words are difficult and sometimes they don’t add up or they add up to too much. What is basically being said is the four truths do exist. The twelve links do exist.
And why do they exist? Because they are the definition of existence is tsema rigpa they’re observed by valid awareness. Something exists because it’s observed by valid awareness. Right. So the four truths exist because they’re observed by valid awareness.
However, for the mind perceptually comprehending emptiness, they don’t appear. They’re not observed by that mind. So all that’s being said is that for that mind there is no four truths. It doesn’t mean to say the four truths don’t exist. For that mind, that four truth doesn’t exist on its own side.
Oh, it doesn’t exist. They just don’t appear. If you’re in meditative equipoise on emptiness, right, the only thing appearing to that meditative equipoise is emptiness. Nothing else. Only ultimate truth is appearing.
Is it the same as the teaching saying that once it’s second man crossing trying reaching from one destination to another destination, he reaches the river. He saw a boat. He uses that boat to cross the river. Once he crosses the river, he doesn’t drag the A little bit like that. Little bit.
It’s a little bit like that. That’s true because, yeah, we need to understand the four noble truths in our training. But once we become Buddha, we don’t need the four noble truths for ourselves any longer. We can put that down. Similarly, somewhat similarly, in meditative equipoise on emptiness, we don’t need the four truths.
We actually personify the four truths. We just emptiness is all that appears. Yeah. They don’t appear at that point. But actually, they exist at that point because one’s observing the truth of cessation, which is the third truth.
So, sorry? Well, emptiness is cessation. Yeah, Of the four truths. Yeah. And that being, that meditative equipoise itself is the truth of path.
It’s the path of meditation, which we right? And the path of meditation is the ārya truth of path. The emptiness that it’s observing is the truth of cessation, which is the cessation of suffering. So the two pure truths are there in meditative equipoise on emptiness. That’s the third and the fourth truth.
So it’s not that the four truths don’t exist. But it’s just that using that knowledge to reach to the emptiness, like a meditation stage, we have to let go of all this. In a sense, that’s right. We let go, in fact, because when we are in direct perceptual realization of emptiness, only emptiness exists for that mind, only appears to that mind. But that mind itself is the truth of path.
Right? What it’s observing is the truth of cessation. Right? And the being who is meditating is the truth of suffering. And any residual afflictive emotions that exist in the mental continuum is the truth of origin.
So actually the four truths are there. But the method for that being on the path of meditation is to observe emptiness in which nothing, none of the four truths appear. Doesn’t it seem to say that the truths Yeah. That’s Yeah. We simplify it right down to that.
That’s fine. In emptiness. Because emptiness is an ultimate truth. And these other levels are all relative truth or conventional truth. So there is a difference there.
It’s good to think a little bit about this, what meditative equipoise on emptiness means. Although it’s a long way off for us in future, it’s something that we can think about and develop some idea about. Oh, no. I’m just sinking. There are so many issues.
We used to debate these points at great length, and there’s so many fascinating elements and ways you can look at it that come up in, you know, different texts and so forth to describe it that are so useful and so beneficial. But we don’t have time, you know, to He doesn’t have the mindset for it, I think. No, no. You do. You absolutely do.
This is not difficult. It’s just that when unfamiliar, it seems, you know, oh gosh, or what does that mean? Yeah. Yep. But still the words are not easy.
And what we’re doing is, I guess, we’re dealing a bit with the words here. And the words are a little bit obscure. And although we get an understanding on one level, you know, like, alright, can put the words together. And it is a sentence, there’s a verb, there’s nouns and particles in there. Okay.
It’s probably English that I’m reading. Alright. Yeah, there is some sort of I can get some picture in my mind about what that means. That’s good. That’s what we need to do.
But we also need to develop a deeper understanding of the words. And then gradually, what lies behind the words, the meaning, that’s the real purpose, to get to the meaning. And just reading the words now and thinking about them is very good for laying down imprints on our mental continuum. Because, in a sense, from the Buddhist point of view, this is the practice for the next three countless eons. They’re just summarized here.
So that’s what we have to become familiar with. So, it’s not going to happen straight away, but, you know, just the stronger the imprint, the more chance in our next life we have of meeting these words again. That’s what’s important. Yeah. Because we want to be able to continue contemplating these topics.
And our rebirth is determined by the stronger habits we have in this life. So, for that reason, it’s good to come back to these words. And sometimes you don’t need a future life because I’ve been so called recycling this month since the age of sixteen, and only it is now that I’m slowly getting a part of it. Because the first time you read about emptiness is basically like now trying to chill. But at second class, third class, fourth class, slowly the meaning comes up by itself.
Because I I’m still, like, trying to understand just that when you think you understand it, It’s it is really like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s actually learning how to be a beginner, isn’t it? It’s like having that really fresh mind.
Slowly paring away the preconceptions that we have. Okay. So that’s the path of meditation. So, how are we doing? We’re holding out.
Okay. Good. We need a break. Alright. Good.
That’s a good sign. We’re looking to see how much further we are. Okay. Good. Alright.
I’m just Finish it. Oh, absolutely. We’ll finish it. There’s no problem in finishing. Oh, it might be good.
Good. You got the gate in there. Should have confiscated the last page, and that would have at least Well, it make a great difference to my song and the same. You know, to reciting this, if you know what it’s all about, it certainly makes a lot of difference. See, just reciting it.
Yeah. Only being able to pick out little bits that you think you know what they mean. Oh, it does. Now we’re gonna forget most of this anyway. Oh.
But that’s alright because we retain some of it and then we’ll know what we need to do to go back and look at it again, refresh our memory. But that’s right, every time we come back to it, see more in it. We see more how it applies. Oh, in this way. See.
It might be in that way as well. And so we expand our understanding. As you’ve been explaining, you start off by saying, well, the whole teachings are contained in this sūtra basically. Having first read the sūtra before coming here, you think, well, you know, it’s very shallow. You read it in very shallow meaning.
But now having listened to your explanations, there’s so many layers and so many gets to it. You can see how it does contain the whole teaching. Oh, that’s right. Every and Simon was talking before about in the Chinese, how every syllable in the Chinese has very specific meaning, and you can just contemplate the syllables themselves. The Tibetan is the same.
Each syllable has a meaning. And the English translation really is the same. Every syllable. For instance, in the Tibetan, often you don’t have the definite article and other things. Get rid of those, and every syllable you go through has a meaning.
So, it’s good gradually. And also if we can read the other longer Perfection of Wisdom sutras, that also is very, very useful. Alright. Okay, now I’m just reading a little bit of the Mongolian lama who’s going into more discussion on how one should interpret the meaning of these sections. I’m just wondering whether these are necessary for us.
He’s actually taught going into logic and how the logic of this presentation should be understood. I don’t know if that’s necessary. Alright, we might just move ahead then to the fifth of the five paths. The way to meditate on the path of no more learning. Right.
Now we’ve read up to no non attainment. Right. Now to the end of the day, that’s the path of meditation. Now we start on the path of no more learning. Śāriputra therefore, because there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell on the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear.
Having completely passed beyond error they reach the endpoint of nirvana. All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly completely awaken to unsurpassable perfect complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Right, so this then talks about attainment. The fifth of the five paths is the path of no more learning, which means the path of a person who’s finished their learning. So the path of someone who’s attained liberation.
So therefore it starts. Therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell on the perfection of wisdom. So what is being referred to here is there is no attainment. That non attainment is attainment. There’s no attainment in the way that we think there is attainment.
There’s no truly existent attainment, in other words. There was nothing there to attain in the beginning. But when we say there was nothing there to attain from the beginning, it means there’s nothing truly existent to attain. There is an imputed, a mere liberation that we need to attain. That type of liberation does exist.
And if we know how it exists, we’re almost liberated already. That in a way what we’re trying to do here is just work out the level at which things do exist. The mere mere nature of existence. So there’s mere nature of existence meaning existence that is freed from all extraneous misconceptions about how things exist. When all of those are taken away, what’s left over?
That’s the mere existence of something. So we exist on that level. We do exist. Liberation exists. But we attain that state of liberation through the perfection of wisdom.
And the perfection of wisdom is the understanding of the emptiness of all ourselves and all things. But that emptiness there doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It just means that the final mode of abidance of anything is its emptiness. Okay, so that paragraph there is on the fifth of the five parts. Now we begin the instruction for those of sharp faculty.
Now all of this has been for those of dull faculty. That’s it. Well, that’s it. Yeah, we pack up now. Right.
So as it said, since that is so, therefore. Now here we go into the mantra. Now we really this indicates that the tantric vehicle is those for those of really sharp faculty. Therefore the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering should be known as the truth, since it is not false. Right.
So again, What is mantra? What is a mantra? We now hear this term all the time. The mantra of a businessman, the mantra of a football player. There’s mantras everywhere these days.
But what does mantra mean? Something that purifies the mind. Yeah? Protects the mind. Yeah.
Man is a Sanskrit word from manas, meaning mind and it is related to the English word ‘mind’. So ‘man’ means mind. Man is Sanskrit manas. And the word manas in Sanskrit and the word mind in English have the same source. Man is mind and tra means to protect.
Mantra to protect the mind. So here we’re talking about something that will protect the mind. So the mantra Now again we go through the five paths again. The five paths. Does anyone remember the five paths?
What’s the first of the five? five paths of the five paths. Sorry. five paths. Yeah.
That’s funny because I’ve only got three written down. I was gonna ask you Oh, okay. Good. Good. Now we should remember the five paths.
Accumulation is the first. Yeah. Accumulation is the first. Accumulating merit. The path of accumulation is when we accumulate a vast amount of merit.
We need a vast amount of merit to sustain us on the path. The first is accumulation. What’s the second path? Oh, we should know these. These are we went through them before, but anyway good to note them down.
No. Meditation is the fourth. Contemplation. Sorry? Contemplation.
Oh, it’s almost contemplation. Meditation is the fourth. Preparation. Accumulation, then preparation. Seeing.
Seeing. Meditation. Meditation. Adept or no more learning. Right.
So those five. I had to make them up. That’s okay. It’s just so they come up again now. So we have the path of accumulation.
That’s when we become a bodhisattva, we enter the path of accumulation, of the great vehicle. Accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation, and no more learning. Right. So now we’re dealing with the presentation for those of extremely sharp faculty. Therefore the mantra of the perfection of wisdom.
The mantra of the perfection of wisdom there is talking about the path of accumulation. The mantra of great knowledge is the path of preparation. The unsurpassed mantra, the path of seeing. The mantra equal to the unequaled, the path of meditation. And the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering is the path of no more learning.
So they’re the five paths. There’s only five. Okay. Sorry. Yep.
Anyway, so those words there are talking about really the path for those of exceedingly sharp faculty, the mantric path. And then those five statements refer to the five paths. Mind without are we? unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering should be known as the truth since it is not false. Okay, so these do reflect the fact of how things are and what they refer to, what they teach, what they indicate is not false.
This is something that we’ve yet to verify for ourselves. So that’s all right. We don’t know it to be the truth yet. We don’t know that they’re not false. But when it talks about the truth, these refer to the five paths that lead to Buddhahood and the fact they lead to Buddhahood is true, it’s not false.
Okay, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared. So then another mantra itself is stated as Tadyatha. Tadyatha is two Sanskrit words, Tad and Yatha. And Tad really means this or that, and Yata means how it is. It is just like this.
This is how it is. It is like this. In the sense that saṃsāra and nirvana are just like this. This is the bottom line. This is where we are as beings.
This is how it is. This is saṃsāra, this is nirvana. That first bit. Then, gate, gate. Pāragate para samgate bodhi svaha So then we have gate gate repeated twice.
So gate means gone. Past participle of the word to go, gone. Repeated twice. So the first time gate. And gate itself is also somewhat related to English because the word in English to go is said to be related to the Sanskrit word gam, to go.
So, anyway. Gati, gati. Gate, the first gate is the path of accumulation, gone. Second gate is path of preparation. Gate, gate, path of accumulation, path of preparation.
Pāragate. Para means over there. Like Paramita, perfection or transcending. Pāragate means gone beyond. So gone, gone, gone beyond path of seeing.
So the path of seeing there, Pāragate means direct perceptual understanding of emptiness. Gone beyond. Gone beyond what? Gone beyond saṃsāra. Then parasamgate.
Oh, see we’ve got the dancers here today. Oh, those happy little feet on the floor next to us. Pārasamgate means gone completely beyond, meaning the path of meditation. Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi. Bodhi means enlightenment itself.
The path of no more learning. State of enlightenment. So we’ve attained the final state. Bodhi. So there we have the five paths again: Gate, Gate, Pāragate, Pārasamgate, Bodhi and then Svāhā.
Svāhā means like so be it, That is it. Also, it’s a little bit like Tadhyata. Svāhā. Okay, so that’s the mantra, it’s just that, just has that meaning. Bodhi is the path of no more learning.
So all that’s being taught here is the five paths. So these are the five paths that lead to perfect wisdom. The means for attaining perfect wisdom. Accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation, then no more learning. Or otherwise, Gate, Gate, Pāragate, Pārasamgate, Bodhi, Svāhā.
Or otherwise, gone, gone, gone beyond. Gone completely beyond, awakened, so be it. Right. So that that is in a nutshell. In a way here Avalokiteśvara is then just summarizing what he said previously in a simple five-word mantra on the nature which really also teaches both great compassion and emptiness.
Those words. Right. Are there any other issues with the mantra? It’s quite straightforward, I think, anyway. Tad yatha is it is oh it’s really tad.
Tad meaning this and yatha. Tad yatha. It means it is just like that. It is just like this, in other words, together. This is how it is, in other words.
This is how it is. What that means is that saṃsāra and nirvana are just like this. This is how they are. Prior to Gati, we had saṃsāra. Right?
We’ve got saṃsāra and then we’re in saṃsāra for a long, long time. And then we get to the path of accumulation and we have gone gone from Samsāra. Right? And then second gone. When the first gone means that actually we’ve entered the path like on the Pilgrim’s Progress, we’ve entered the path beyond the Slough of Despond and we’re leaving the realm of saṃsāra.
So saṃsāra is there. Or it’s a bit like we’re on this side of the shore. We’re on the shore, and the ocean of Samsāra is in front of us. And the vehicle, the great vehicle, is there and about to depart. And we step on the great vehicle.
And the great vehicle begins to move from this shore. So gone is a path of accumulation. Gone. From where? Gone from Samsāra.
Gone from what? From the afflictive emotions. Our old friends, the afflictive emotions. So gone. And then the second gone is we’ve gone further.
Gone much further. And then gone beyond. When we get to gone beyond, we have gone a very long way. We’ve really gone beyond Samsāra. So we’re at their mid stream.
Gone completely beyond. We’re in the path of meditation. Samsāra, we’re still a bit of the spray of saṃsāra is coming up in the ship. But it’s nothing, you know, we smile. It’s not a big issue anymore.
Being on the path of meditation has a few issues to deal with, but they’re nothing. Being at that level is just, you know, completely blissful and compassionate. Every now and again they get a bit annoyed, annoyed with things maybe on the lower grounds. Said even being on the third bodhisattva level, up to the third bodhisattva level, might get a bit impatient with things, bit of anger might arise. But because they’re so advanced, it’s got no substance to it.
See through it immediately. It’s just karmic imprints. But they’re, you know, like a bit of spray in the face. Nothing. It’s not that being is so stable in their practice.
They’re immovable like a mountain. Great compassion. There’s just vast compassion for beings. And they reach the final shore, awakened. That vehicle gets to the final shore.
And as you’re talking about the vehicle, the boat, then they discard the boat. They don’t need the boat any longer. They’re on the awakened final, the other side of the ocean of Samsāra. They’re on that land, the pure land. So they don’t need the boat for themselves.
They need to give the instruction on how to build the boat for others. Right. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakened. So be it. That’s how it is.
Right. So then the Buddha Now we come to the next section, the third section of the text. And here it’s the way in which the Buddha rejoiced in what was taught. Now initially we have the Buddha there meditating on profound illumination. And he’s reflecting on the categories of phenomena that exist in the universe.
And Avalokiteśvara is contemplating what’s Avalokiteśvara meditating on? Perfection of wisdom. Perfection of wisdom. Yep. He’s reflecting on the perfection of wisdom.
What is the perfection of wisdom? Voidness. No. That’s a wisdom that differentiates that. Here we’re talking about the perfection of wisdom is the wisdom in the mental continuum of a Buddha.
He’s contemplating the perfection of wisdom, just the wisdom that exists in the mind of an omniscient being. What is that omniscience? And that omniscience, is perfect in compassion, perfect in love, perfect in wisdom, what is it? And in that he’s contemplating, while contemplating the perfection of wisdom, he’s also contemplating Are you contemplating emptiness? But emptiness in which way?
Is contemplating the five aggregates nature lacking any true existence or any inherent existence. Okay. Why is he focusing on the five aggregates? They represent the I. They’re the basis of imputation of the I.
Why is that important? So that we understand how the I is empty of true existence. Yeah. Because that’s the main issue. The I is the main issue.
Our eye and everyone, all the other eyes. All these together, there’s no other issue. And contemplating how the I exists, which is, you know, the real fundamental issue of our existence. So it’s set up, the whole sūtra is set up, it’s relevant. But, okay, and then what happens?
Exactly. Excellent. Yeah. Śāriputra asked, how do you practice the perfection of wisdom? How should any person practice the perfection of wisdom?
And so then Śāriputra he stops talking and Avalokiteśvara he asks Avalokiteśvara this question. Avalokiteśvara responds and he gives a brief answer and then a much more detailed answer. So the brief answer is talking again about the five aggregates. It should be seen to be empty of true existence. And then a much more detailed explanation.
So the initial brief answer is about the self, the person. Five aggregates. The I. This I. And it’s not talking about the I in any other way than the basis of designation of the I form aggregate feeling and so on.
And then he goes into more detail. Doesn’t he? And a more extensive answer than what does he say? Yeah? Form is empty.
Body is empty. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is no other than form. Form is no other than emptiness.
So too, feeling. Actually for us, maybe we should think just on feeling because feeling is so important. Feeling is empty. Emptiness is feeling. Feeling is no other than emptiness.
Emptiness is no other than feeling. And so on. And he gives a more detailed explanation. And in that he’s covering the five paths. Then he talks about the five paths.
So the path of accumulation and so on. And then he gives that explanation for the point of view of being on the of dull faculty. Actually, they’re sharp faculty. When it says dull faculty here, it means actually anyone that hears or is able to contemplate the perfection of wisdom is of sharp faculty. But within those, there are those of duller faculty and those of sharper faculty.
So that’s what’s meant here. To actually have the merit to study the perfection of wisdom is extraordinary. And beings who do study it and contemplate it are by nature sharp faculty. Anyway, but us, we’re just dull faculty, don’t you? So we have a lot to study yet.
Alright, so then Avalokiteśvara goes through the mantra, Tadyatha Om Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi Svāhā and that really describes the entire path. That proceeds from Samsāra to nirvana. And the essential essence of the practice is emptiness, developing the wisdom of emptiness. But, unstated in all of this and which is as profound is great compassion. Great compassion is the very means by which the whole process functions.
To even enter the path of accumulation we need to generate great compassion. That is the only way. It’s not understanding emptiness that allows us to enter the path of accumulation, become a bodhisattva. It’s not understanding emptiness. It’s generating great compassion.
Right, so then, then we have the third part here, the way in which the Buddha rejoiced in what was taught. So then then the Buddha arose from that concentration. So the Buddha’s been meditating all that time, and he hasn’t said anything. So he rose from that concentration, meaning he comes out of that equipoise. Actually the Buddha is always in equipoise no matter what the Buddha is doing.
It’s just that he may have raised, opened his eyes or maybe looked up or something. And commended the bodhisattva, Mahāsattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, saying, Oh no, wait, I’m jumping. Okay, there’s one line that hasn’t been stated, that Śāriputra, the bodhisattvas who are great beings, trained in the profound perfection of wisdom in that way. So, okay, the final word of Avalokiteśvara was that, then we have the Buddha’s response. Then the Buddha having arisen from that concentration said, well said to the bodhisattva and great being noble, Avalokiteśvara.
Well said, well said. Sons and daughters of good lineage should practice in just that way. And having practiced in that way in accordance with the teaching, in accordance with your teaching, they will train in the profound perfection of wisdom and the Tathagatas, the Buddhas will rejoice. So, that’s nice. The Buddhas will rejoice if we become bodhisattvas.
And then once becoming bodhisattvas, we train in the perfection of wisdom. And that’s nice. If the Buddhas rejoice in what we’re doing, then, of course, that’s a good sign. It is. Tatha meaning ‘thus’.
Gata meaning gone as in gate. Thus gone or yeah. Tata thus. Gata gone. Thus gone.
A one who is gone in that way. Which way? In the way of the perfection of wisdom. Gone to the limit of the perfection of wisdom. So, the Buddha really just says a few words at the end.
Well said, well said. So he doesn’t have much work at all here. He’s set up the situation and let’s have everyone else do the work for him. Up to the point he woke up and paid attention, he was meditating on profound perception again. What that?
Oh, that’s meditation. Profound there really refers to emptiness. Illumination. Perception. It just means that he was engaged in a particular concentration with that name in which everything in the universe is illuminated.
And the categories of existing entities become clear. And then he’s influencing Avalokiteśvara to contemplate the perfection of wisdom, and then he gets Śāriputra to raise a question about what is the perfection of wisdom. How do you train in it? And so therefore he gives that explanation. Then at the end he says, Well said, well said.
So, these are really the only words the Buddha himself states. So, a sūtra of the Buddha doesn’t necessarily need many words from the Buddha. In fact, there’s another sūtra called the Rustling of the Leaves Sūtra, where the teaching is given by the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind, which is a teaching on impermanence. So here the Buddha says, Well said to the great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva. And the sons and daughters of good lineage should practice in that way.
And having practiced in just that way, in accordance with your teaching, they will train in the profound perfection of wisdom, and that the Tathagatas will rejoice. It’s really quite excellent because the Buddha here is delegating to Avalokiteśvara. Avalokiteśvara himself is a Buddha who appears as a bodhisattva. And the qualities, the Buddha often praises the qualities of Avalokiteśvara. Avalokiteśvara is worthy of praise as someone with such vast qualities.
And then the next section is the Buddha having said that. Okay. The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the Venerable Śāriputra, the Bodhisattva, mahasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, those surrounding in their entirety along with the world of gods, humans, asuras and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised that’s spoken by the Buddha or the Bhagavan. Right, so the very end of the sūtra, the very end of the sūtra, then the audience who were there, Śāriputra, Avalokiteśvara, the entire retinue of monks and bodhisattvas, and other beings who were also present. What is meant at the end here is to indicate that there were divine beings also present at the teaching.
And the world is with its gods, humans. And there were humans present, other humans present, demigods, asuras. Now we may accept the existence of gods and demigods and so forth, we may not. It’s not that relevant. Gods, humans, demigods.
The demigods are like lesser gods that exist between the humans and the god realm. Asura. Gandharvas are celestial musicians. They are generally regarded as celestial musicians. Another type of God rejoiced and manifestly praised the statement made by the Buddha.
All of this is regarded as the speech of the Buddha, the entire sūtra. The blessed speech of the Buddha, because the Buddha inspired the conversation to occur. Alright. So we’ve actually come to the end of the text. So we might as well call this the last session because it’s been, you know, been a lot of work for everyone who’s attended.
There’s a lot of concepts and ideas to go through. And it takes energy. It does take a lot of energy to do this. Still useful. It says there’s some real benefit.
The real benefit may not be apparent in this life, but downstream Downstream benefit. When Jan Young was here at Buddha House, she was saying that Lama Zopa had said that if we recite the Heart Sūtra every day, it would actually get rid of obscurations to Buddha House being able to buy a building of their own. So he had actually told her to tell the students if they could recite the Heart Sūtra daily. And on my behalf, I’d like to just thank you so much because I’ve been reciting it for some time and haven’t sort of really understood a lot of it. So I’d just like to thank you very, very, very much.
Oh, you’re most welcome. Well, is, you know, like, what I’m passing on here is really what I’ve heard from some of my teachers who have gone into great depth on the sūtra. Yeah, so it’s good to have a little bit of detail about what it means. And to think about that is very important. And relate it, of course, to relate it back to ourselves.
Because it is very it’s a profound and, you know, such a profound work. And it’s not easy to bring it into, you know, into a level that is easier for us to understand. But exactly, at Sera, we recite it we used to recite it every day to overcome obstacles, especially when we’re studying, to overcome obstacles to studying. And then for the monastery, often there’d be pujas and we recite it many times over. Yeah, you should be.
Yes. In the beginning, said in your mind, okay, want may these obstacles be overcome. And I’m reciting the Heart Sūtra in order to overcome these obstacles. And then recite. And good to be as mindful as we can be as we’re reciting the Sūtra, which is good.
Try and keep our mind on the words, because keeping our mind on the words, we are able to get to the meaning. If we don’t keep our mind on the words, the meaning won’t begin to appear. Good to be focused as we can be. And even just reciting it once is good. But if we have more time recite it, you know, a couple of times.
Even just reciting the mantra is good. Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi Svāhā. Yeah, it’s a And the nice thing about it is it’s brief, doesn’t take long, and so it’s convenient in that respect. Right. Okay, well I think, yeah, look, I think we’ve done enough.
Now maybe also we should do we have Lama Zopa’s long life prayer in the longer version? Maybe we should recite it through, say, three times or might be Two seven five. Great. Thank you. Oh, that’s that’ll be fine.
Yep. Everyone got the page? Two seventy five? Okay. We recited through three times English would be better.
Om Svasti. Vijaya, all conquering goddess, whose lunar like face changes without changing fates, the faintest cooling ray of whose mantra name allays the fiery pain of our life’s final end. Rainmaker adept who brings forth life’s rain, here now grant your greatest of gifts. Victorious goddess, grant life without end. Hear our prayer, O Lama, whom we revere. You who bear the name of He who peerlessly holds the living essence of the pure paradigmatic doctrine of the victors.
Of He alone adornment of the earth, of he a guide to sublime liberation, the sphere of peace, precious treasure of precise and subtle reasoning, golden laser light of bright unerring wisdom, clarifying without confusion the two truths amongst the majesty of things. Lama remain immutably amongst us, a radiant Dharma sun, skilled in sprinkling the waters of healing fulfilling needs, benefiting all. A laughing smile revealing pearls of skill, humility and constancy. A deep milky sea of the liquid moon of morality. Lama remain immutably amongst us, once supremely worthy of veneration.
The moon of your Mayana mind ring round by the fever cooling camphor of unsullied, unsurpassable resolve brilliantly swirls to the bounds of space, unbounded seas of the happiness of now and the bliss of always. Lama remained immutably amongst, a moon guiding our way. Your teachings are vast, spreading rivers of celestial nectar. Your dialectic, an invincible cutting Vajra weapon, your writings, thousand petal lotuses unfolding their glory. Lama remain immutably amongst us, a guardian of highest knowledge.
By the might of seas of spiritual masters, deities and doctrine protectors, by the power of profound dependent arising and the unvarying emptiness of all that appears, may all the hopes of our prayers, with effortless ease, be spontaneously fulfilled. Om Svasti. Vijaya, all conquering goddess, whose lunar like face changes without changing fates, the faintest cooling rays of whose mantra name allays the fiery pain of our life’s final end. Who brings forth life’s rain, hear now, grant your greatest of gifts. Victorious goddess, grant life without end.
Hear our prayer, O Lama, whom we revere. You who bear the name of He who peerlessly holds the living essence of the pure, paradigmatic, doctrine of the victors. O he, alone, adornment of the earth, of he a guide to sublime liberation, the sphere of peace, precious treasure of precise and subtle reasoning, golden laser light of bright unerring wisdom, clarifying without confusion the two truths amongst the multiplicity of things. Lama remained immutably amongst us at Radiant Dharma sun. Skilled in sprinkling the waters of healing, fulfilling needs, benefiting all, A laughing smile, revealing pearls of skill, humility, constancy.
A deep milky sea of the liquid moon of morality. Lama remain immutably amongst us, one supremely worthy of veneration. The moon of your Mayana, mind, ringed round by the fever cooling camphor of unsullied, unsurpassed resolve, brilliantly swirls to the bounds of space, unbounded seas of the happiness of now and the bliss of always. Lama remain immutably amongst us, a moon guiding our way. Your teachings are vast spreading rivers of celestial nectars.
Your dialectics and invincible cutting Vajra weapon. Your writings thousand petal lotuses unfolding their glory, Lama remain immutably amongst us, a guardian of highest knowledge. By the might of seas, of spiritual masters, deities and doctrine protectors, by the power of profound dependent arising and the unvarying emptiness of all that appears, may the hopes of our prayers, with effortless ease, be spontaneously fulfilled. Om Svasti, Vijaya, all conquering goddess, whose lunar like face changes without changing fates, the faintest cooling rays of whose mantra name allays the fiery pain of our life’s final end. Rainmaker, adept who brings forth life’s reign, here now grant your greatest of gifts.
Victorious Goddess, grant life without end. Hear our prayer, O Lama, we revere. You who bear the name of he who peerlessly holds the living essence of the pure, paradigmatic doctrine of the victors. Of he alone, adornment of the earth. Of he a guide to sublime liberation, the sphere of peace, precious treasure of precise and subtle reasoning, golden laser light of bright unerring wisdom, clarifying without confusion the two truths amongst the multiplicity of things.
Lama remain immutably amongst us, a radiant Dharma sun. Skilled in sprinkling the waters of healing, fulfilling needs, benefiting all, a laughing smile, revealing pearls of skill, humility and constancy, a deep milky sea of the liquid moon of morality. Lama remain immutably amongst us, one supremely worthy of veneration. The moon of your Mayana mind ringed round by the fever cooling camphor of unsullied, unsurpassed resolve, brilliantly swirls to the bounds of space, unbounded seas of the happiness of now and the bliss of always. Lama remain immutably amongst us, a moon guiding our way.
Your teachings are vast spreading rivers of celestial nectars, your dialectics and invincible cutting Vajra weapon, your writings thousand petal lotuses unfolding the glory, Lama remain immutably amongst us, a guardian of highest knowledge. By the might of seas of spiritual masters, deities and doctrine protectors, by the power of profound dependent arising and the unvarying emptiness of all that appears, may all the hopes of our prayers with effortless ease be spontaneously fulfilled. I would just do one short dedication from the other small prayer book, just towards the end. Just at the end of page six, down to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s long life prayer. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the supreme jewel bodhicitta that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen not diminish, but increase more and more. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and good. All powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain until Samsāra ends.