The Lion’s Roar of a Yogi-Poet

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Homage

Namo gurubhadraya.

THIS OPENING LINE INDICATES that Jetsun Rinpoche is a great Vajrayana practitioner. Rinpoche is paying homage to gurubhadraya, the “excellent guru”—who, in Vajrayana Buddhism, is considered even more important than the Buddha.

Within Buddhism we have three main traditions: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana (or Tantrayana). In Theravada and Mahayana, the teacher is referred to as a guide or “spiritual friend,” but the term “guru” is not used. But in Vajrayana practice, the guru is extremely important. Without a guru, we cannot receive any initiations or instructions. Without a guru, we cannot be connected to an unbroken lineage of teachers. Without a guru, we cannot receive transmission of the most sacred mantras and practices. In order to access the transformative tantric essence of the Buddha’s teachings, we must be connected with an authentic guru. That is why in Vajrayana practice we have four objects of refuge—we take refuge in the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

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In Vajrayana empowerment rituals, the guru introduces you to the true nature of your own mind, to your buddha nature. Through receiving empowerment, you are introduced to the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind, and you become qualified to practice a particular kind of deity meditation, called a sadhana. For example, if you receive a Vajrayogini empowerment and instruction, you will then become qualified to practice the Vajrayogini sadhana, including eleven yogas. Without transmission and instruction from a guru, it would not be beneficial to practice a sadhana. That is why these teachings have remained closely guarded through the centuries. There is even a danger that the tantric teachings will be grossly misunderstood; without the empowerment and guidance of a qualified guru, they can even be harmful.

To the gurus and personal deities residing inseparably,

who join all qualities to the mindstream,

The guru is like a spiritual parent who helps us to be born into our spiritual lives. They join us to the lineage of the Buddha. In the beginning, we rely on the relative guru, our Buddhist tantric teacher. Early in our preliminary practices, we may think of the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in a dualistic way—as external refuge objects. But after initiation and extensive practice, the guru becomes the mirror in which we begin to recognize the ultimate nature of our own minds. Eventually, the dualism begins to dissolve: we see the ultimate Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha within us as the nature of our own mind.

It is through the guru’s blessings, and through the initiation, instruction, and sadhana practice, that all of these positive qualities are cultivated in the mind. In this way we “join all qualities to the mindstream.” If we have a very strong karmic connection with our guru, we may even glimpse the true nature of our mind instantaneously upon meeting them. We can read many biographies of disciples who see their guru and immediately realize clarity in their minds. If there is a strong karmic connection, the disciple can awaken to their true nature in this lifetime very quickly.

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I prostrate with pure body, speech, and mind;

In the beginning, doing prostrations can be very physically, verbally, and mentally challenging— especially if we do not understand the practice. Many Western students say that when they first try prostrations, they feel very uncomfortable; they feel that they are being too submissive, especially when bowing to a Buddhist teacher. The ego can feel very rebellious!

Prostrating can be especially hard in a culture where individualism is valued and where asserting the ego is associated with confidence and success. Due to this societal conditioning, it is very challenging to show humility or to appear subservient. It can feel very frightening to let go of that ego; it may even feel life-threatening. We may feel that without ego we will not survive.

In Buddhism we learn to surrender that ego, to offer that ego to all the refuge objects. If we cannot loosen our grasp, then it will be very difficult to learn anything spiritually. The ego is excellent at collecting and storing knowledge—the ego excels in academia. But there is a risk that we may become so filled with information that there is no space to receive any blessings or spiritual realization.

When we are ego-driven, everything we consume only fuels the ego. With such an outlook, we are never satiated; we are always chasing greater knowledge. We may acquire so much information—but we use that to inflate the ego even more! We use our knowledge to publish papers, to impress our colleagues, or to improve our wealth and social status, but we do not make space for inner cultivation and growth.

For the Buddhist practitioner with correct motivation, all study and practice become antidotes to the ego. When Rinpoche says, “I prostrate with pure body, speech, and mind,” these prostrations are arising from ultimate awareness, from the purity of his own inner buddha nature. It is only through surrendering our ego that we can offer true prostrations.

Some students may do a hundred thousand prostrations in their 10ngöndro⁹ practice and become very proud of their accomplishment. If your prostrations are making your ego stronger and you are boasting of your progress to everyone, then you are not prostrating with correct motivation. On the other hand, with correct motivation and understanding, the practice will become very effective in purifying your ego.

Jetsun Rinpoche is doing prostrations “with pure body, speech, and mind,” so he is doing a perfect prostration to the guru. It’s interesting to note that his main guru was his own father, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092–1158). Jetsun Rinpoche was also related to Sakya Pandita (1182–1251), who was the fourth founding Sakya master; Rinpoche was Sakya Pandita’s uncle and served as his main guru.

The better we know someone, the harder it may be to view them as the guru. Family relationships can be especially challenging. There was a very famous Indian teacher who was renowned internationally. An interviewer once asked him, “You are so highly respected; how do your wife and children treat you?” The man said, “Oh, they don’t think I’m special at all!”

Sakya Pandita was a great scholar; he knew Sanskrit from an early age, and he was an esteemed pandita who introduced the ten subjects of classical Indian learning in Tibet. However, when Jetsun Rinpoche became ill, Sakya Pandita cared for him throughout his illness with devotion, honoring him as a guru rather than a mere uncle, and it is said that from that point onward, Sakya Pandita’s spiritual realization increased significantly.

The human mind is conditioned with all these habitual patterns and judgments. This individual conditioning and karma determine what kind of value we place on any object. Such judgments are all in our minds and not based on any ultimate reality. One person’s treasure may be completely insignificant to someone else. 11The more value we place on something, the more power it has for us. If we have faith in a guru, that connection can be profoundly transformative.

The value we place on something can change dramatically. We see this in relationships, for instance, all the time. When someone is in love, they place so much value on their partner. But if the relationship falls apart, they may have so much aversion to that person they once loved. They may even say terrible things about that person. These changing attitudes and emotions impact the value we place on everything in our lives.

Vajrayana empowerment rituals may seem very strange and illogical to us at first. We may ask, “How can an initiation practice change how we view the guru, and how we view ourselves? What is the purpose of seeing ourselves and the guru in the form of buddhas or deities? Why do we have to suddenly venerate a person who used to seem very ordinary to us?”

The purpose of these practices is to purify the mind and to alter our underlying attitudes. The purer our vision becomes, the more we will perceive the goodness and purity in the world around us. Changing ourselves is very uncomfortable, and we often resist it. It is much easier to project all our negative emotions onto those around us. But the more we transform ourselves, the more we will notice a change in how we perceive other people.

When we project value onto a spiritual object, it has so much power to transform us and to bestow blessings. When Jetsun Rinpoche prostrates “with pure body, speech, and mind,” there is no longer any ego involved. He is doing prostrations out of ultimate wisdom. It is only when we give up the ego and pride that we can do a completely pure prostration with body, speech, and mind.

I make an offering free from both grasper and grasped;

In our ordinary lives we are always giving things to others. But if we are really honest with ourselves, have we truly given? Is our motivation pure? Are we actually expecting something in return? We often give with the expectation of receiving something. 12Maybe we want love, security, recognition, health, or acceptance. Maybe we give to feel good about ourselves. Or maybe we feel forced to give due to societal expectations.

In order to truly give a gift to someone, we must do so selflessly and without any expectations. Even when we make offerings to the Buddha, we may be expecting something in return. For instance, it is common to go to a temple and make shrine offerings when we are sick or frightened. Although we are offering gifts to the Buddha, we are still hoping for healing or blessings in return.

Even when we are giving charitable donations, we often choose causes or people that we are attached to in some way. There can be mixed emotions even when the cause we are supporting is very good. Maybe we are hoping to have our names listed as donors. Maybe we are hoping to receive praise from others for being charitable. Maybe we are invested in a certain outcome. We may be very generous but there is still some attachment involved. It’s very hard to give selflessly.

From a spiritual perspective, there is more merit in making offerings to the Buddha than to a human being, even if we do so with some self-clinging and grasping. It can help to free us. It can help us to see that ultimately there is no gift, no giver, and no receiver. The Buddha doesn’t need our shrine offerings! The Buddha doesn’t need lights and incense and flowers! The more selflessly we give, the more transformative it will be. If we can give “free from both grasper and grasped,” we are offering from a place of perfect compassion and wisdom.

We can see from these lines that Jetsun Rinpoche has a very high level of realization of wisdom based on understanding emptiness. When he makes an offering, the offering is not based on any object. There is no gift, no giver, and no receiver. He has realized the empty nature of all objects. This is the ultimate offering, the perfection of giving.

The highest form of offering arises from emptiness. That’s why we recite the emptiness mantra first in our practice—to purify all of the offerings into emptiness. Out of that emptiness, we are then able to generate an offering free from both grasper and grasped. When something is free from the offerer, free from the receiver, and free from the offering 13itself, we are able to make a perfect offering through seeing the underlying empty nature of the offering, the offerer, and the receiver. It is with this purity that Jetsun Rinpoche is making an offering to his guru.

I offer praise with my mind, beyond the activity of speech, free from proliferation;

We are accustomed to offering ordinary praise in our lives. We are taught to compliment people, to be courteous, to say nice things. If we work in the hospitality industry or in marketing, we are trained to be extremely polite and flattering to people even if they are rude. Salespeople are very nice when they are promoting their products, but they are complimentary in order to gain something for themselves or for their company. Ordinary praise is complicated and there are often ulterior motives. When someone is praising you a lot, that’s not always a good thing. They may want something from you. Their praise may have much more to do with their own ego and expectations.

Jetsun Rinpoche praises his guru with pure mind. He doesn’t even need words. He praises his master without any mixed emotions or self-clinging. When we have that pure mind and our hearts are filled with faith, then that is the best praise we can offer to the guru and to the Buddha. Words are expressions of proliferation of our ordinary concepts in the impure mind.

I make a confession untouched by the sins of the three times;

Jetsun Rinpoche’s confession is also arising from a pure mind. With such a mind, even actions that appear to be immoral are not considered sin (dikpa; sdig pa). With a pure mind, even if you walk on an insect and kill it, it is not considered killing because you are not acting out of anger, desire, or ignorance.

If we read stories about the lives of the eighty-four mahasiddhas, the great Indian tantric masters, we can see that they did many things that appear immoral to us. Some mahasiddhas went fishing. 14Some mahasiddhas, like Virupa, are described as drinking alcohol. But was Virupa actually intoxicated? Were the mahasiddhas actually killing fish? This can seem very paradoxical, but from a pure mind, these actions have different significance.

If your mind has realized emptiness, and if you have that perfect wisdom and compassion, then even actions that appear immoral are not necessarily sinful. On the other hand, if we are not at Rinpoche’s level of realization, we sin today, make a confession tomorrow, and then sin again the next day! Why are we trapped in that cycle? It is because we haven’t realized that pure mind yet. We are still motivated by the negative emotions of desire, anger, and ignorance. We are still caught in addictive patterns. We repeat these negative cycles again and again. But when we have that pure mind, then we can even cut through dualistic thinking.

The actions of the mahasiddhas may seem very erratic and strange to us. There is a term, “crazy wisdom,” that refers to this type of behavior. We can think of it almost like they are magicians; the mahasiddhas can create many illusions. Virupa may spend all night drinking, yet he may never become intoxicated. Great teachers may do very unusual things to cut through the dualistic thinking of their students.

I go for refuge without an object, free from fear;

We begin our Buddhist practice by taking refuge in the outer objects of the guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We often seek refuge due to our own suffering, or fear, or loneliness. We may go for refuge because we want help, we want protection, we want peace. We are like frightened children who turn to God or to the Buddha for comfort.

However, in order to completely free ourselves, we have to become independent. The only way to become independent is to dissolve those refuge objects into light in our minds. With that dissolution practice we can begin to realize that the refuge objects are no longer outer objects; they are the true nature of our own mind. Ultimately, there are no objects of refuge. The perfect refuge is when you realize that the true nature of the mind is the guru, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. 15In that independence, there is no longer any fear. That is the true refuge Jetsun Rinpoche is referring to.

I generate limitless bodhichitta without objects,

In the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, we generate bodhichitta by taking the bodhisattva vows. We vow to achieve buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. At the time we take these vows, they are merely an aspiration, a prayer or wish that we have generated in the mind. It is not enough to simply generate the aspiration, though. To achieve buddhahood, we need to cultivate bodhichitta through our spiritual practice.

Bodhichitta is cultivated through generating compassion and loving-kindness, and through practicing the six perfections. The six perfections, or paramitas, include the cultivation of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, meditative concentration, and wisdom. As our loving-kindness and compassion become more extensive through our practice, we will want to help all sentient beings, even our enemies.

When we first take bodhisattva vows, the aspiration is not objectless. We have an ordinary mind generating the aspiration; we have the object of our aspiration, which is all sentient beings; and we also have a result, which is buddhahood. So this initial aspiration has a subject, an object, and an aspirational result.

There are two forms of relative bodhichitta: “wishing bodhichitta” and “entering bodhichitta.” They are relative because they still have an object. If a practitioner has practiced and realized the six perfections, then there can be bodhichitta without an object—there can be ultimate bodhichitta.

the nature of which is the space-like dharmata;¹⁰

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The nature of ultimate bodhichitta is the union of wisdom and emptiness. Its nature is called dharmata, which is like space, the emptiness of all phenomena. When we have such a realization of wisdom and emptiness based on the practices of wishing and entering bodhichitta, then we will experience the ultimate bodhichitta. Ultimate bodhichitta is the realization of the true nature of our own minds and of other phenomena. We realize the truth of emptiness and we go beyond the dualism of subject and object. When Rinpoche says “limitless bodhichitta without objects,” it refers to the wisdom of the ultimate bodhichitta that is free from all dualism.

I dedicate the root of virtue not gathered to enlightenment;

In that ultimate perfection, “the root of virtue not gathered” is dedicated to enlightenment. In that ultimate perfection, there is nothing to accumulate; there is no merit in the ultimate dedication, which is free from the three wheels of practitioner, practice, and objects. There is nothing to gather because, in that ultimate state, the accumulator and accumulation¹¹ have become one. Such dualisms have been transcended in the ultimate state. Therefore, the virtue that arises from emptiness cannot be gathered. It is this kind of perfect virtue—rooted in wisdom and emptiness—that Jetsun Rinpoche is dedicating to enlightenment.

Please accept this mandala of empty phenomena

and bestow blessings upon me, the fortunate one.

From an ordinary perspective, when we make a mandala offering in our practice, we have a subject, an object, and all of these ritual components that act as means. The universe is the object; we, the spiritual practitioners making that offering, are the subject; and we are using physical materials like rice or jewels as a means to represent those offerings. From an ultimate perspective, with the level of spiritual realization that 17Rinpoche has, it is possible to generate and offer a mandala with complete awareness of the empty nature of that offering. At that stage, there is no one making the offering and there are no physical ingredients—no jewels, no rice, no silver mandala set. We are not separate from the universe. There is no longer a subject nor an object. The ultimate mandala offering arises out of emptiness. It is with such an ultimate offering to the guru and to the deities that Rinpoche is requesting blessings.

In these initial lines, Rinpoche makes the ultimate prostration, offering, praise, confession, bodhichitta, dedication, and mandala offering right at the beginning of the doha in order to accumulate wisdom. These are also called tathata mahamudra offerings, which are beyond the perception of the three wheels of practitioner, practice, and objects.

9. Tib. sngon ’gro; a set of preliminary practices used to prepare and purify a practitioner for Vajrayana practice.

10. Dharmata (chos nyid) refers to the ultimate nature of dharmas, freedom from extremes.

11. The accumulations of wisdom and merit.