Pandit Vairochana and Pang Mipham Gonpo the old man

A tale of Vairochana (aka Berotsana བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན་, bai ro tsa na) and Pang Mipham Gönpo (spang mi pham mgon po)

After returning to Tibet, the learned pandit Vairochana was eventually sent into exile to East Tibet; there he taught Yudra Nyingpo, Sangtön Yeshe Lama and the old man Mipham Gönpo before the Buddhist Tibetan King Trisong Detsen summoned him back to Lhasa. Vairochana was a great translator and contemporary of Guru Padmasambhava. Pang Mipham Gönpo became a student of Vairochana when he was already eighty (80) years old. Although 80 years old, Mipham Gönpo’s mind was very determined to use the rest of his life to gain higher states of realisations before his death. He was not going to let his ageing body become an obstacle toward his spiritual goals. Mipham Gönpo realised he had wasted most of his life on ordinary secular affairs and now, only death awaited. But he was not going to wait for death empty-handed. Now at the precipice of death, he was going to do something meaningful. Upon meeting his famous teacher pandit Vairochana, Mipham Gönpo requested for Dharma sincerely and decided to practise strongly and consistently.

Due to his age and his weak body, he couldn’t keep his back straight and his head upright for many hours. But still, he was determined to do so with the help of a wooden stick to support his chin. The stick extended to the ground in order to keep his head up during meditations and chanting. While practising diligently for many hours every single day with a wooden stick as a ‘meditation support’, he gained realisation and ultimately attained the rainbow body. He attained the realisation of emptiness and bodhicitta, thus securing his freedom from death, bardo and the endless rounds of rebirths. His faith in his teacher, his determination to practise and not allow physical obstacles like old age affect his resolution to practise, resulted in him attaining the highest level of concentration. He released himself from samsara and thus, he would never take rebirth again in suffering.

Mipham Gönpo did not use old age, pain or weakness of the body as an excuse not to practise dharma and engage in meditation. He diligently found ways to pursue his meditations even though physically, it was extremely difficult for him. He knew that if he lost this chance, he would not meet this opportunity again because an uncontrolled rebirth does not guarantee a happy rebirth of meeting the Dharma again. We need to realise that as long as we don’t have control of our rebirth, whatever we have done in this life (including the little Dharma practice we did) is not enough and therefore, we should not rest in the mind of laziness of not doing more. Laziness can manifest by telling ourselves we are too old to practise or that it’s too painful or too inconvenient and we end up wasting our time doing nothing. This is because we are using old age to express laziness. We have to realise this truth. But whether you practise or not, you will still get old, be in a situation you are in pain or inconvenienced, or that all you do is to just eat, sleep, sit up or walk around. What’s one more activity that adds to our inconvenience but has much higher benefits? So why don’t we do an extra favour to ourselves by practising the Dharma (chanting, meditation, watching Dharma videos, listening to audio Dharma books, circumambulations, prostrations, cleaning temples, reciting the sutras, mantras, prayers, offerings, taking vows, being vegetarian, giving up intoxicants, etc.)?

Another depiction of Pang Mipham Gonpo. Click on image to enlarge.

After all, what is left in our old age but to waste more time being ‘comfortable’ for our withering bodies while we wait for death and then we experience further suffering in future rebirths? We shouldn’t do that. Instead, we should be determined regardless of how old we are and how difficult it is to practise the Dharma, because with Dharma we are ultimately ensuring less difficulties for the future.

Old age can be an inspiration for a realisation that we are near death and that we must do as much meaningful preparation daily by Dharma as we can with great determination, and that is true wisdom. Old age can be used to further our habituated lazy minds not to do more because we are inconvenienced and we are weak. That is pure laziness and wrong view. Maybe we cannot do as much as a younger person, but we still can do what we are capable of, which is still beneficial. When we were younger, most of us made excuses not to practise the Dharma. By not practising the Dharma, our body discomforts did not become less, so why not practise the Dharma as shown to us by Mipham Gönpo?

When we are children, we should make preparations to be good adults; when we are adults, we should make preparations and provisions for our old age. When we are old, we should make preparations for our future lives. We should use the last phase of our life to be determined to do even more Dharma. Tell ourselves, “No matter how old, slow or sick I am, I will still do Dharma because Dharma can be done with the mind. Even if it is just reciting thousands of mantras each day, I will do so.” Being vegetarian, giving up intoxicants, watching more Dharma videos, reciting more mantras, giving up anger, generating patience and being an inspiration to people around us can be done even if we are very old and sick because we use our minds for these thoughts most of the time. Our mind does not need the body to be determined because determination is a state of mind and nothing to do with the body. We can still do plenty of Dharma with our minds. By giving up these attachments before death, we prepare ourselves to have less attachments in our next immediate life and have less to battle with. It’s a head-start!

Think, “I will use my mind to control my body and not the reverse.” When we are old, we are nearer to our next rebirth so the more attachments we let go of, the easier it is not to have them in our immediate future rebirth because we don’t carry these attachments over. They are left behind. This is logical because we are nearer to our next rebirth when we are old, so it is better to let go and not carry over these attachments to the next life and battle the same attachments again. Let go of the baggage before our big journey and at our next destination, we will have less to deal with. We can really benefit ourselves that way.

Do not use old age as an excuse to be comfortable and laze around because death, bardo and rebirth is around the corner literally. In fact, since we are of advanced age, we should lessen or eradicate most of our attachments and put all of our energies into our sadhanas, meditations, Dharma reading, audio Dharma books, mantras and purification practices. In this way when we die, we go out with a ‘positive bang’, as the saying goes. Then we know death will be without fear. As we die, we will chant our mantras and focus on the Buddha or our teacher because our samaya is clean and ask them to bless us. We will enter bardo and not take rebirth in the three lower realms (hungry ghosts, animal and hells) because of the blessings of our Dharma practice. When we enter the bardo or the intermediate state between death and rebirth, it will not be a frightening experience. We may even see our meditational deity or protector come to us in the bardo to assist us towards a good rebirth. Then, when we are finally entering a womb to take rebirth, we will be entering a new strong body and be ready to continue our spiritual journey. In our new body, we will have less attachments, we are aware, we are spiritually prepared and we, immediately at a young age, will know what we want and look for the Dharma, a teacher and to practise. We won’t have to waste decades till we find the Dharma again. We are born a powerfully spiritual person ready to continue on towards enlightenment and relieving the sufferings of others.

That is how we should be inspired by Mipham Gönpo. We should never use old age or be of any age to procrastinate or waste time indulging in the senses because nothing positive will come of it.

The 80-year-old Mipham Gönpo listened to his teacher and achieved the highest meditative realisations at the last stage of his life and we can too. We definitely can.

Tsem Rinpoche

84 Mahasiddhas: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=23941

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