Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 38-minute teaching, Ven Margaret McAndrew opens by clarifying the guru’s unique place in the refuge formula, explaining how all teachers of virtue can be honored as gurus. She gives detailed guidance on the visualization accompanying refuge recitation: purifying negativities with white light and nectar from the refuge field, then receiving the good qualities of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha with golden light. She walks through respectful handling of Dharma materials, the merit field visualization with its arrangement of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and lineage gurus, and the seven-limb prayer and prostrations. Throughout, she addresses practical concerns including how practitioners with physical limitations can adapt the practice. Aimed at those preparing for or engaged in the hundred thousand refuge preliminary.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 P P P 1998 03 21.mp3
UUID: 3ac93c5a-6b3f-45e7-9141-294e1102dee9
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Prayers, Prostrations and Preliminaries (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-03-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 37.7 minutes
Words: ~5,485
And that also is covered in the graduated path all these things are covered in the graduated path meditations which we’re really just preparing ourselves to do but when you’re doing the graduated path meditations you reflect on these topics and you understand these matters and then when you come to take refuge again and cultivate Bodhicitta again, then you have a deeper understanding each time so, I’m not going to go into the qualities objects of refuge now, we haven’t got time for that, but you get that explained many, many times during the course of teachings on the graduated path so what we’re talking about now is reciting the refuge formula again and again like we do it at the beginning of the Guru Puja we recite three times we do Namo Gurubhya three times we do Namo Buddhaya three times we do Namo Dharmaya three times and we do Namo Sanghaya or Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya each of those so the guru is actually Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in the Theravāda countries they don’t mention the guru they just take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha here we add the guru in because of that fact that the guru is really, for us, the source of all these Three Jewels of refuge.
We wouldn’t be able to make contact with the the protection of Buddha, the protection of Dharma, and the protection of the Sangha, and if it weren’t for the guru that we relate to so it doesn’t matter if you haven’t really formed this guru disciple relationship with some somebody yet you have received teachings you have received direct teachings perhaps from various teachers so you’re receiving that sort of energy, that transmission of the energy and you will eventually perhaps make a more heartfelt connection with somebody when the time comes, you know, that you meet someone somebody with these very high qualities that you’re able to to relate to it’s said that we should actually relate to all our teachers who’ve taught us virtuous teachings as being gurus and put them in the merit field, even down to the teacher who first taught us the alphabet. Because if we hadn’t learned to write and read, we wouldn’t be able to study the Dharma teachings. I can’t even remember the name of the teacher who taught me to read and write or what she looked like all I can remember is one horrible old teacher who scared me so much that I kind of switched off for a while while she was teaching me she probably wasn’t that bad but she intimidated me at that stage but yes, really don’t remember these things but you know, you’re apparently supposed to at least try to acknowledge exactly.
Would that include people whose books you’ve read have talked to you about feeling that they feel like a kind of guru? That’s a good thought. Yes. And I think sometimes this does happen. And if you feel that this has been a positive influence, then you could include them in there.
Yes. But not the people who talk to your therapist? No. I would say something nasty and you learned from it. But Yes.
You would Well, sometimes they say that we should see our enemy as being our best friend because they’re our teacher of patience but generally it’s not said that we should put them in the merit field yes the point is not to take on that I think the thing is you don’t put them in the merit field but you could think when they’re treating you in this way that they are actually an emanation of your gurus who are in the merit field. So rather than taking it that way, take it that way. Generally when we’re doing the Guru Puja together we only recite these three times but when you’re doing it by yourself you can recite more times and particularly if you’re wanting to do hundreds and thousands of recitations. Actually, this little practice that I was reading from this morning is a practice that was put together from some of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings for the benefit of those who are doing the hundred thousand refuge practice and it was put together by one of Lama Zopa’s students from several of his teachings to make it convenient for the students so you can just keep on reciting either you can do it in Sanskrit which is Namo Gurubhya, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya or you could do it in English if you like I go for refuge to the Buddha, I go for refuge to the Buddha, Buddha, I go for refuge to the Dhamma, I go for refuge to the Sangha or you can say well, generally, I’ll get onto that, or you can do it in English, which is or you can do it in Tibetan, if you like, whichever.
If you happen to have been doing it with a group somewhere, and you might have got into the way of doing it. It doesn’t matter which you do it. The thing is that you understand the meaning and keep on repeating it. So when you’re repeating it many times, you first of all repeat however many you want to do, how many refuges you want to take in the guru. Say you wanted to do a hundred.
You you would repeat a hundred times, Namo Gurubhya or I go for refuge to the Buddha and then you would go on to the next one to the Guru I mean and then you would go on to the next one you would do a hundred I go for refuge to the Buddha or whichever however you prefer to say it and then after that you would do the same for the Dharma I go for refuge to the Dharma or Namo Dharmaya or Chö la kyabsu chiwo you know and then for the Sangha and in actual fact there’s another little one that you can add on the end but I won’t mention that so you do those you do those for refuges and while you’re doing them, there’s a visualization. You actually need to study all the different things that you need to purify while you’re doing this. And for half the recitation, you while you’re reciting this, you visualize the refuge field. You visualize coming from all these objects of refuge and particularly from the one you’re reciting for at the moment for instance when you’re reciting Namo Gurubhya, then from Guru Śākyamūni Buddha in the center who is the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge and from your root guru and your other direct lamas in particular, and from the lineage lamas, you would visualize five colored rays of light coming these five colored rays of light are coming from all the beings in the visualization but in particular, more strongly from these ones that we regard as the Guru, as being the representation of the Guru and for the first half of the recitation we visualized that although it’s five colors white, red, blue, yellow and green it’s it’s mainly white and that’s for purification and we’re purifying our negativities towards these beings and with our Gurus that means things like disrespecting them, disregarding our commitments and doing all sorts of other things that are offensive towards the guru or towards our relationship with the guru and after having done that, halfway around the mala, fifty beads, and then you would switch over to you could stop for a moment actually you think that nectar and light comes, both light and nectar and that they’re both mostly white and then halfway around you can focus for a little while just on feeling that you stop reciting and just feel it feel that your body’s filled up with that light and nectar feeling purified and then you go on and recite the recitation for having for receiving the good qualities of the object of refuge or the knowledge of the qualities of your Guru’s holy body, speech and mind it doesn’t matter if you haven’t got a Guru because even if you haven’t got one now you will at some time in the future and anyway you’re thinking of Buddha you know we’ve got this connection with Buddha and the lineage Gurus of the tradition so, you’re receiving this yellow light from them and well, five colors but mainly yellow, light and nectar and that fills us up, just as it did before and again, when we get to the end we can stop and concentrate on it just for a little space just imprinting that on our consciousness, feeling filled up with all these good qualities then we do the same thing for the Buddha and at that stage you visualize the light and nectar coming mainly from all the Nirmāṇakāya Śākyamūni Buddha and all the Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas who are in the visualization and then Chö, Dharma then you visualize the light and nectar coming so yes with so with Buddha, we’re visualizing we’re purifying things like disrespecting images of Buddha’s statues and so on and perhaps speaking disrespectfully of Buddha and all these other things that we might have done then when we receive the good qualities, we’re receiving all the good qualities of Buddha which you understand by reflecting on the the explanation that’s given in the graduated path on the qualities of Buddha there actually can be summarized in three good qualities omniscient wisdom, power and compassion skillful means, you could say, the ability to help us and compassion, the will to help us so that indicates Buddha is the reliable object of refuge and if we can validly rely on Buddha then we can rely on the Dharma and the Sangha because the the Dharma is what Buddha taught and the Sangha are those who have followed Buddha’s teaching to the point of achieving direct insight into emptiness, the path of seeing the aryas Sangha it’s not about the ordinary monks and nuns, it’s talking about the aryas so when we purify when we receive the good qualities of Buddha also then the next thing is the Dharma and we purify mistakes we’ve made in respect to the Dharma and it’s very easy particularly with Dharma we’re always doing things like putting things on top of our dharma books or putting our dharma books on the floor without something underneath them and or stepping over dharma books any of these things or licking our fingers when we turn the pages we actually shouldn’t put anything on on our dharma books, it’s a bit difficult when you’re in a situation like we are in now, when when you’ve got a a fan going or something and the pages will blow over if you don’t put something on them that’s a bit different and you can just kind of think apologizing in your mind to the dharma that you’re having to do this but don’t and you can think that you’re perhaps making an offering to the Dharma in the process but generally we shouldn’t put our Dharma books underneath anything else, not even under a statue of Buddha because the Dharma is the highest object of refuge because it’s the Dharma that actually liberates us from suffering no, any book that has Dharma in it it’s very difficult nowadays because even newspapers are likely to perhaps have something about the Dalai Lama in them or some mention of Buddhism or some sort of little excerpt here and there from something related to Buddhism it’s very difficult But in actual fact, it’s taught in the teachings on respecting refuge objects, if we should even respect all paper with writing on it as being a representation of Dharma.
Of course, this was easy in Tibet, where there wasn’t very much writing around that wasn’t dharma writing. It’s almost impossible for us now. You know, every plastic bag has printing on it. And even if you try to dispose of paper respectfully, then you can’t dispose of plastic bags without throwing them in the garbage but at least we should dispose of our newspapers and things in a way that’s not just throwing them in the garbage if possible the Geshe, we talked about this a lot to Geshe-la at Tuśita, Nāgārjuna Institute and approved of us using the newspapers as a mulch in the garden that’s okay but not to use them for not to throw them in the rubbish bin with all the other nasty stuff that we throw out yes, recycling is fine but to actually throw it in the rubbish bin is not so and when it’s dharma papers of course then they do have to be disposed of particularly respectfully and as in our western society with printing and photocopies and so on they mount up and up the Tibetans used to always just take any worn out books to a cave and leave them there very respectfully but we can’t do that we do have to burn them so it’s allowable to burn them and you should imagine you should recite the mantra Om Ah Hum while you’re burning them and not just think that you’re getting rid of this garbage but think perhaps that you’re sending it through the form of the smoke that’s going up, you’re sending out dharma words to all the sentient beings of this world or something like that yes, well really strictly you shouldn’t do that but Lama Zopa said that a lot of people had spoken to him about that, they really feel that they need to make annotations in their books and so he suggested that you could make the notes and think that you’re offering color to the Dharma when you do that yes, say you’re writing with a blue pen or something, know, you can think that you’re not just making notes, but you’re also, you know, offering this pretty blue color.
You can pronounce one that came up earlier. These days, in various councils here, people are not allowed to do it. Yes, well you can usually find some way to burn your dharma stuff yes, you can take it out into the garden and burn it on a non fire danger day, you can burn it in a little pot or something or if you’ve got a fireplace that’s functional, can burn it in the fireplace yes, that’s okay, it’s probably better to keep it separate rather than mix it up with ordinary stuff and just thinking of it as kindle yes, yes, that’s fine then, as long as you just sort of the main thing is your attitude of mind, thinking that you’re disposing of it in some respectful way and yes, anyway I haven’t got enough time to really go into lots of detail about that and it’s all in the teachings and I’m getting a bit carried away but anyway you do you we certainly all made this kind of carving for instance you’re not supposed to put Dharma books under your seat, but sometimes when you’re travelling, where else can you put them? Yes, if you try to put them over your head, they’ll fall down or something and really sometimes you just have to do these things, but you can purify it, and that’s why we’ve got this practice so so that, anyway, Dhamma, a Sangha that, again, although we might not have perhaps made much contact in this lifetime with the absolute Sangha, we’ve probably made contact with monks and nuns and so on and of course we think about past lives and so on so for this purpose you although we’re taking refuge in the Ārya Sangha, you can visualize the ordinary Sangha, sort of symbolize the Sangha for us and so we can accrue bad karma with particularly monks and nuns themselves are the ones who do it the most of course because they have to live with the other monks and nuns all the time so we’re the ones who have to be particularly careful about it and it’s harder to remember to be respectful to other people just they’re wearing the robes than it is if you’re a layperson and perhaps only have a sort of limited amount of contact with them so but you’ve probably all been monks or nuns in a previous lifetime anyway so you’ve probably got things to purify there particularly a group of, I think it is five monks, five fully ordained monks represents the Sangha so, then we have yes, and they say that even a piece of cloth, of maroon colored cloth, should be respected and sort of lifted up and put on a high place rather than left on the ground.
I think in Tibet, mainly if you saw bits of maroon cloth lying around, there probably were bits of monks or nuns clothes because generally people didn’t use maroon there here perhaps it’s a bit different if you know what it is then you don’t have to worry about a bit of old maroon rag lying around but anyway, in Tibet people didn’t use that color much so then so, you know, again with all of these we purify with the white and then receive the good qualities with the yellow then we when we finished doing that, then it’s time to go on to the next thing so then we’ve finished with the refuge visualization so, anyway, then having taken refuge, we can dissolve the refuge visualization away into emptiness and then the next step is to set up the visualization of the merit field and there’s a couple of practices that come before that before that, we’ve already arranged the offerings and blessed them with om ahum, and we’ve arranged them nicely and so on so, the next step is to prepare to visualize the merit field and it’s called this visualization is called the merit field because by visualizing all these holy objects and then making them off making offerings and making prostrations and so on, we can purify an immense amount of negative karma and accumulate an immense amount of merit so this is very important practice and it’s something that’s that we can do now you know, we might not be able to do a lot of tantric practices these things are hard to do, it’s hard to do things like attaining single pointed concentration but we can do these seven limb practices and this is really powerful because then it builds up all this merit so that later on we’ll be able to do these other things so, in order to do this, first of all we have to dissolve the refuge visualization and then we meditate on emptiness briefly and then out of emptiness we build up the visualization but we start off by concentrating the ground, we visualize the ground first and this should be a flat, even ground and at this stage, I should have handed up these books you’ll find some of the prayers we need in these you’ll find these come into a lot of our different practices So we’ve already had the page thirty two.
This is just the prayers that we do as a preliminary to the eight Mahāyāna precepts. Thirty two. So you’ve got the Mahāyāna refuge first, which includes refuge and and Bodhicitta. And and then you’ve got multiplying the offerings sorry, we’ve already gone through all that, then the next thing you’ve got is purifying the place. So we visualize that the whole environment becomes beautiful and perfect, it says that it should be level, not up and down, with rough places and so on and there’s a beautiful prayer that goes with that may all the realms where sentient beings exist be pure and devoid of coarse objects, may they be as smooth and flexible as the nature of love as in the palm of one’s hand it should be lapis lazuli.
Then the next one is multiplying the offerings. And this is connected with the practice of Samantabhādra, the bodhisattva who’s particularly noted for achieving great attainments by emanating masses of offerings and offering them to all the Buddhas in countless Buddha fields I think I talked about that last week, for those of you who were here last week and after reciting that, may the entire realm of space be filled with offerings of gods and men, those that are actually offered and those that imagined, like the supreme clouds of offerings made by Samantabhādra, we associate that with the offerings that we’ve already arranged on the altar and think that those few small offerings are transformed into perfect beautiful offering objects and multiplied and filled the whole realm of space and you can also bring in things you can’t put on your altar, like swimming pools and jewel mountains and all sorts of things, you know? Whatever you think is lovely! Yes, that’s right, you can perfume on your mandala plate or on your altar, yes. That’s actually connected with the tantric offerings.
Yes. It’s actually one of the tantric offerings too, to offer one of the perfumes as one of the water bowl offerings. Yes, so anyway, yes, so you can do all these things, know at one stage when I was doing a lot of mandala offerings, thought it was a good idea to put in all my objects of attachment, and so one of the things that I was putting in was ski slopes cause at that stage I was kind of having a lot of thoughts, flashbacks to skiing holidays so whatever you think is, you know, enjoyable, know, it might be beautiful beaches with palm trees or whatever and then having so but anyway, this is multiplying the offerings and then you actually recite this mantra which is associated with that and that’s the Om Namo Bhagavati mantra there, you recite that three times Then we go on and bless the offerings into suchness, or into emptiness. So this is very profound practice, it’s before this, it was just even though we were making them beautiful and perfect, it was still on the conventional level. Now, we’re looking at the suchness of the offerings, and that’s bringing in the practice of wisdom, and this is very, very powerful.
And that’s by the power of the truth of the triple gem, the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the spiritual energy of the two vast collections, and the pure and inconceivable Dharmadhatu, may these offerings become suchness. So, at this point then, we can visualize the merit field as well, And then we have the invocation, which follows. And then we have the seven-limb prayer. So I’ll just skip over the invocation, but we’ll be going over the merit field and the seven-limb prayer. So it might a good idea to stand up at this stage.
I wonder if I can put this in my pocket. So anyway, we all went through this last week. Do you want to come down here? Do you want to walk down here and we’ll have a closer look? So this is actually a diagram of how we’re going to visualize the merit field.
And it’s basically in the same order as I described for the refuge visualization except that as you see it’s set out there’s this wish fulfilling there’s this lake milk lake with all sorts of jewels and precious objects on it, in it, in the water, and around it. This is in the middle of this beautiful environment that we’ve which which we’ve visualized with the jewel mountains and jewel trees and so on. We have this, milk lake with the wish-fulfilling tree arising in the center, which is all made of gold and jewels and precious objects. And then right at the very top of it the tree has eleven tiers. And right at the very top sorry.
No. The tree doesn’t. The tree upholds a golden throne. And on the golden throne is a lotus, an enormous lotus. And the lotus the lotus has eleven tiers of petals.
So the the tree is just upholding all of that. And you can see there’s this enormous throne, which is held up by two snow lions on each corner. Think of that as being a square throne. And on it is the lotus, and the lotus goes up like a a double rose. You know, it’s got layer after layer of petals.
And right at the very top on the center of the lotus, you’ve got another lotus and moon seat. And there you’ve got as the central figure instead of Śākyamūni Buddha. You’ve got Lama Tsongkhapa in the aspect of holding two lotuses. One lotus has the sword of Mañjuśrī, the wisdom sword on it. The other one has the text.
This indicates that, Lama Tsongkhapa is the emanation of Mañjuśrī because you see the same objects being held by Mañjuśrī in in some tankas. And then from Lama Tsongkhapa’s heart, there’s three streams of rainbow colored light going out, and those emanate the three lineages. There are there’s actually three streams of light going out. There’s the one that goes to the the right of Lama Tsongkhapa is the the vast lineage which as we mentioned before relates comes from Maitreya Buddha and comes down through the various different lineages to Lama Tsongkhapa again who is also represented there and then the subsequent gurus of the lineage. And then on this side, you have the profound lineage coming from Mañjuśrī, and again, the lineage comes down to Lama Tsongkhapa and then to the Gurus of the two lineages.
And since the two lineages were combined in Lama Tsongkhapa and passed on as a combined lineage lineage, then the lineage Gurus after Lama Tsongkhapa are the same in both instances. And then you have the Tantric lineage behind Lama Tsongkhapa. And in front of him, you have your well, those are his great disciples there. So then you would have your direct gurus in this position also, your root guru and your direct gurus. And then you have the four major deities of Maha Anuttara Yoga Tantra, and that is Yamāntaka, Heruka, Chakrasamvara, and Kālacakra.
Guhyasamāja, sorry. Sometimes Kālacakra is considered to be among those two, and sometimes Kālacakra is kind of left aside a bit. So the four ones that are usually included are Yamāntaka, Guhyasamāja, that one’s that’s Heruka. What did I say? Yamāntaka, Heruka, and Guhyasamāja.
Oh, that’s right. The other one must be called chakra. Yes. Okay. So that that’s the four.
And then then on on the next level, you’ve got the other Maha Anuttara Yoga Tantra deities. And then you’ve got the next layer the Yoga Tantra then the Caryā Tantra then the Kriyā Tantra deities then the Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas which includes the Buddhas of this world of the past future. Where’s the empty seat? Up high, through them on the end. Yes, they’re down.
We saw them last week somewhere. It is. There it is. Yes. That’s what Margaret told us this week.
Is for you. Yes. Actually, it’s for future gurus, but you could be one of them. You you want to be one of them. Yes.
And so, like, it has two meanings. Well, one is for for future gurus to come along and continue the lineage. Lineage. You also aspire to continue the lineage yourself. So are they up to?
The Buddhas. Okay. So that would include the thirty five Buddhas. There’s many different kinds of Buddhas. And then you’ve got the Bodhisattvas.
These ones with the sort of beautiful clothes on it are Bodhisattvas and that is because Bodhisattvas are supposed to be able to the simile is they’re like a peacock. The peacock can eat poisonous plants and thrive on them in the same way bodhisattvas, because of their pure motivation, can live among worldly beings and enjoy the sense pleasures of the world and so on without being disturbed in their practice so they’re sort of wearing all these they’re depicted as being laypeople wearing these beautiful clothes then you’ve got the two levels of Hīnayāna practitioners the the pratyekabuddha, the ones who are following the pratyekabuddha path and the ones who are following the hearer path they’re both aiming at becoming arhats and then you’ve got the well they are arhats they are because they’re on the merit field they’re arhats so they’ve achieved the goal of the path so these are the two levels of arhats of the two levels of Hīnayāna practice. And then you’ve got the dakas and dakinis. And in this representation, it’s hard to tell which is which, but I think you’ve got pairs of them, dakas. If you could see them more clearly, you’d see that some of them are male and some of them are female, and they’re alternating.
So they’re each sort of facing towards each other. You’ve got pairs of dakas and dakinis kind of facing towards each other. And then around here, you’ve got the dharma protectors, and then on these clouds off the throne, you’ve got the directional protectors who are worldly beings. And then I suppose down here, you’ve got the ordinary people and so on I suppose yes yes some of these might I think these are devas and so on you know making offerings and offer some of them some of them might be offering guidance and so on. Yes.
So, anyway, you don’t yes. So, actually, the gods are supposed to be the worldly gods are supposed to be below the level of the lotus, but you visualize them there making offerings to the merit field. Okay, so that’s it. And that’s the visualization. And then when we were going to do prostrations today, so I think we’ll just go quickly through the prostrations.
We might not have much time to actually do a meditation on the merit field today, but I think it’d be better if we go through the prostrations, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Yes. Okay. You do the best you can, but one thing you can do if you can afford it is support somebody else to do it.
For instance, I knew a chap who walked on crutches all his life from Melbourne. He used to live in Melbourne. Walked on he had polio when he was young, and he he walked on crutches. And, obviously, he couldn’t do prostrations. So when he asked how he could get around that for his preliminaries, suggested that he could, sponsor somebody to do it and in fact, that’s a good thing to do because it really helps two people because there are practitioners, you know, perhaps some of the nuns are wanting to do their preliminary practices and they can’t really afford to do it so they have to keep on working, they haven’t got time to do these things, so if somebody sponsors them to do it then it’s very helpful for them and it also takes care of the person’s prostrations.
But of course, if you can do it yourself bodily, then then you really do need to do it yourself bodily for the sake of doing that bodily activity. And the same with sitting, really. You just do the best you can. Yeah. Anyway Oh, sorry.
Oh. What what about if you can replace it? Everybody else is on the floor and you can’t. Well, you can’t. You can’t.
Yes. Sometimes in half, you’ve got limited mobility. Yes. Well, I was halfway through my hundred thousand when my arm went on me, and I’ve never finished my hundred thousand. Oh, I’ve gone to go.
Haven’t I’m too mean. I haven’t given up hope of being able to first do to finish it myself. In fact, I could finish it myself if I was willing to do just a few each day and count those. I don’t like to count those because I don’t feel I’m doing them properly, but maybe one day I’ll give in and just say, oh, yes. I’ll count my daily because I can do, you know, I could do, say, twenty or so a day without any trouble.
It’s the What were you aiming for before? A hundred. Yes. In one session? Yes.
Or for a No. I’ll do it in one session. You used to do a hundred in one session? Yes. I found that for me, that was all I could handle in one day.
Okay then. So you probably all know about prostrations already, but maybe maybe there’s no point in recording this because it’s all demonstration stuff. The video.