Transcript

[Greeting, offering ritual and settling in (00:00 – 09:17)]

I want to thank Geraldine and Milly and Patsy and Chia. For two nights very late, they stayed up with me doing research and looking [at] different sadhanas and books to compile all this together. And then Geraldine and Milly, more Milly, Milly Lim from Penang, she – where’s Milly? – oh there she is, the lady in the white, typed all this up and re-did it so that we could have it in time for today – I want to thank you very much. It’s very, very kind of you to do all this for all of us. And then, I want to thank Fat Monk. Fat Monk has sponsored the whole Xeroxing of this for all of you. So the whole thing was sponsored by Fat Monk, and he’s done prayers and dedications so that everybody can have this. So, everything worked out very, very nice. And, ah, let me see…

Now these are some practices that I’ve come across. The thing is this – I am not a very, very qualified person. I am not a very qualified teacher and I’m not a teacher with an ocean of knowledge, but I have a little bit of knowledge that I’ve learned from my teachers. And the little bit of knowledge that I have, I can always share with my Dharma friends like all of you. So, in no way should you think that I’m extremely knowledgeable or in any way should you think that I am very attained or I’m a very highly realised being, because I’m none of those. But I do have some knowledge that I’ve learned from my very realised gurus, very realised masters who passed on. So, I have the courage to sit on the throne, above all of you, to ‘teach’ you something, and the word is teach in brackets you know, in inverted commas. Not that I am qualified but the knowledge I received is from some of the greatest living masters of this century from Tibet, before Tibet was completely lost. So, I dare sit on a higher throne than all of you and pretend to be some kind of teacher and to teach you something, but none of this that I am going to share with you is made up from me. I don’t have that kind of knowledge.

So, this is knowledge that has been passed to me by my very qualified and very advanced masters. So, I dare sit here and speak this information to you because it comes from a source that is very, very good. If I don’t know how to purify water and I give you bottled water but I know that my friend knows how or he got it from a very clean and clear stream in the Himalayan mountains and he brings it back and it’s full of minerals and it’s very good for you, I dare advertise it to you and say, “It’s good, take it.” Not because I purified the water or I know that the water is good or I know how to microscopically examine it. It’s because I know where it comes from and the source is good. Like that, the source of these teachings and this information that I’ll pass to all of you — my friends — tonight, comes from very, very great, holy masters, who are renowned in their morality; who are unexcelled in their practice and through their meditations and prayers and their lifelong devotion, they have become very realised beings. And some of the beings that I have taken teachings from, to compile all of this, is from His Holiness the First Dalai Lama’s writings, His Holiness the great Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo and His Eminence the great Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche.

So, I’ve compiled the writings from these three great masters together for all of you. That will be more convenient for all of you. And so none of it is made up by me, none of it is composed by me but it is compiled by me – there’s a difference. Compiled and composed is different. If I compose something for all of you to meditate and pray, you might go… (crazy). But if I compile something composed by great masters, Buddha or great masters, if you do it you get higher, more peace, more happy. So, if Tsem Rinpoche composed, you meditate, you go crazy – you end up like me. If you follow what I compiled, [you] can become enlightened. Alright? There’s a difference.

So, remember that. I’m giving you as a Dharma ‘teacher’; I’m giving you the source of where this comes from. We cannot just sit on the throne and say “Oh, these are great. This teaching’s good. I had a vision. Buddha came to me. Tara came to me in a dream. Tara said this to me, that…” How do you know that? How can you verify that? Why would you want to waste your time meditating on something you don’t know that lineage or where it comes from for the next five, ten years and get no result? You go, “It’s very bad. It’s very bad to trick people”. You trick their money, you trick them [of] something like their possessions, it’s bad. But if you trick their spirituality, if you trick them of their spirit and time – the karma is very, very heavy. So, I’m very afraid of karma because I’ve made enough bad karma in my life, previous lives and I’ve got enough results of bad karma in this life and I’m still suffering my bad karma, so I don’t need more. So, I dare not compose anything; I dare compile. So, know the difference.

As a Dharma teacher, you must give the source of where the teachings come from. This is not [a] cult. I know I look like a cult leader but this is not a cult. Okay? And cults, the leaders make up something and tell you what to do and tell you they’re Buddhas or they’re enlightened or they saw Jesus or whatever, you know. I’m telling you I didn’t see anybody. Nobody. I close my eyes, I go to sleep, I took a Xanax. I don’t see anything. Nothing at all. So, if something big came – I didn’t see it.

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche in Bodhgaya with his gurus His Eminence Kensur Rinpoche Jampa Yeshe (left) and His Eminence Denma Locho Rinpoche (centre). Click to enlarge.

Then, next, I received the Black Garuda initiation from His Eminence Denma Locho Rinpoche in Drepung Monastery and I received the White Tara teachings from His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. So, the two teachings I am going to give you on the two deities, the source is – His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and the other, Black Garuda, I received the initiation from His Holiness Denma Locho Rinpoche. So, the source of where I’m giving you this teaching, I have related to you and then the compilation I have related to you. So, by [the] traditional way, I’m able to now proceed with the actual Dharma talk because I have let you know where the sources come from. Alright?

So, all you need to know is the clown Tsem Rinpoche didn’t make this up. If the clown made it up and you do it, you become [a] clown. And I have some people that are very near me that have been following what I say and … I’ve incriminated myself. Well, I have one friend from Melaka who’s been doing what I said and ….and she’s starting to look like me more and more. But I won’t tell you who it is but I’ll give you a hint – she’s sitting next to the girl in the white skirt. She’s very kind, she’s my good friend, her name is Adeline and I’ve known her since 1992 – many, many years. And she’s wonderful. I’m gonna share some things about her. She met me many, many years ago, came and asked me all kinds of intelligent questions and I was very skinny and young and … a little Dharma virgin at that time. I just showed up in Malaysia and didn’t know anything and just a little… a nice, innocent, skinny, young, virgin Dharma teacher. So, I showed up in Melaka giving Dharma talks and in Melaka, [there’s] no such thing as air-conditioning. So, it was very hot and then you give two to three-hour Dharma talks and you have people in the back raising their hands asking very intelligent questions. Anyway, after about 5,000 intelligent questions from this person and then I left back to India. When I went back to India, this intelligent person followed me there and asked me more questions.

She stayed in my house. I was very happy for about 10 days or a week – I can’t remember. I don’t want to remember. Anyways, there were a lot more intelligent questions, yes. So, we ate and answered intelligent questions and I gave this person some practices to do and with her permission I want to share with you what she’s been doing since I met her.

Since January 1996, up till now, she has been doing Lama Tsongkhapa’s mantra. Lama Tsongkhapa’s mantra is:

MIG MEY TZE WAY TER CHEN CHENREZIG
DRI MEY KHYEN PI WANG PO JAMPAL YANG
DU PUNG MA LU JOM DZEY SANG WEY DAG
GANG CHENG KE PEY TSUG GYEN TSONGKHAPA
LO SANG TRAG PEY SHAB LA SOL WA DEB

That’s the mantra and then after that you do one (mala bead) – mantra – two. So, one round is 108. So, Adeline is a very busy lady and she, when her mother was alive she was very, very devoted to her mother and she served her very, very well. Very, very well she served her mother. So, she served her mother who was very sickly at that time, unfortunately she passed away and she had to do a full-time job – six days a week, but in between she would do her Dharma practice. And since the time I told her to start this practice, this retreat, 1996 till now, she has finished 544,000 Je Tsongkhapa mantras. Just think – with a full-time job, taking care of her mother, but when she’d come and she’s free, she’d do the Tsongkhapa mantra and she has finished 544,000 so far. She has another 10 billion to go but never mind.

Then there’s another mantra I have asked her to do, it’s a protection mantra, at the same time up till now, since January 1996 up till now, along with Tsongkhapa’s 544,000, she has finished 2 million of the protection mantras. So, she would do a little bit of Tsongkhapa, after she’d do her protection mantra. She’s finished two million up till today.

Then, along with that, she has a lot of physical sicknesses, we all have sicknesses but she has a little more and if you ever travel with her, she has two suitcases; one is medication, one is [19:13 – inaudible]. And she’s wonderful because she takes a pill for everything. I learned from her: you’re not happy – take a pill; can’t sleep – take a pill; stomach not well – take a pill; your hair can’t grow – take a pill. That’s why I have such nice hair, I took my pills. So, she has a lot of pills and medication and you know, if you ever need medicine, you run to her. And wonderful, since 1996 up till now I think she does a little bit of prostration every day. A prostration is a full kowtow you know. Let me show you. A prostration is a full kowtow (you’re going to have to move it). So, let’s say that’s the Buddha in front, when you do a kowtow you recite the refuge:

NAMO GURU BEH
NAMO BUDDHA YA
NAMO DHARMA YA
NAMO SANGHA YA

You bring it to your forehead, your crown, your throat and your heart and you think about the Buddha’s body, speech and mind qualities and you go down completely, 100%, like this on the ground and then you prostrate and you come back up as soon as possible. It is said by doing prostrations like that continuously to the Buddha and showing this type of respect — there’s a much greater teaching on that, but I’ll just give you [in] short — it is said to purify many, many, many karmas of your body. Many, many negative karmas related to the body. So, imagine doing that and doing like three a day. Even three a day we don’t have time.

So since 1996, Miss Adeline’s been doing a little bit everyday with her job and up till today she has finished 72,000 prostrations. So, imagine that 544,000 Tsongkhapa mantras, 2 million protection mantras and 72,000 prostrations. She’s done that every single day, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit after her work. She’s never ever called me once and complained she doesn’t want to do it, she cannot do it, she doesn’t have time to do it, she’s lazy to do it or make up some silly excuse. She has continuously done it over and over and over.

Click here to read more about Ms. Adeline Tan.

When I receive this kind of news and information, this is what makes me want to teach Dharma. This is what makes me want to speak about Dharma to people. This is what inspires me to share information with people. When you share information with people and people show you results and they get something good for them; it inspires you to teach more. I am not a highly realised teacher where whether you do it or not, I have compassion. I’m not compassionate. You do it – I like you. You don’t do it – see ya later. You want compassion – meet the Dalai Lama, you want a clown – that’s me.

So, she has done this and she has made this kind of offering to me and I am very, very honoured to have Miss Adeline as my friend. Some more when I told her she complained a little bit because last minute about the teaching but too bad. She drove here from Melaka to attend the teachings and she does this kind of practice – no complaints. You read Dharma books too? Sometimes huh. Sometimes she reads Dharma books. How wonderful. And you look at her, she looks like some floozy from Jalan Alor. Some good time girl from Jalan Alor walking down town with Mary. But she doesn’t get as much business as Mary. Never mind, you don’t know who Mary is. Mary’s about 100 years old and she’s sitting in the back. Not as much money as Mary but still can do la. One time I was driving by and I saw them in a cat-fight, but never mind – they’re all okay. But inside there’s a Dharma practitioner and I’m impressed with things like that.

I want to share this with you, not to show off. She didn’t tell me to tell you this. I’m sharing this with you, because, to inspire you. To let you know that she’s a normal person like the rest of us. To let you know that she’s a working, busy, modern, educated person like all of you. Yet she can squeeze in time to do her Dharma practice. She has even put me to shame. I have not done this much in the last 10 years, in the last 20 years and that’s the truth. I have not even done this much. I confess. So, it’s wonderful. I’m telling you this so you can rejoice and to inspire you and to let you know that people do practice Dharma quietly and secretly and they do show transformation. Okay, that’s very, very good. Thank you for letting me know this information, Adeline. Very, very, good.

What’s this? Maybe it’s money! It’s just a letter … I thought it was a big, big, fat cheque for me. Oh, it’s a bill. My credit card bill. How depressing. Okay. Don’t you hate it when your credit card bills go up to five digits?

Ok, so, Tara’s teachings, the ones I received…there are many, many different types of Tara. Many, many types. 21 specific forms of Tara. When you condense those 21 forms, it becomes one form – the green form. When you condense that, again, she is just living, powerful, female, enlightened energy. Whether she takes on form or she has no form, there is no difference. She is enlightened female energy. Then you may think to yourself, “Well, what happened to male energy?” Male energy and female energy has no difference. Male and female energy are exactly the same, they just take on different aspects. It’s like the same coin with two faces but in this case, Buddha has chosen to manifest as female energy. Alright?

Why he has manifested as female energy is because, in this manifestation or in this form of White Tara or Tara, she’s especially invoked upon; she’s especially propitiated, invoked upon and prayed to – to give you healing; to give you wisdom/knowledge; to give you purification; to give you protection.

So, she chooses a female form. Why? These qualities or these actions are more related to a mother. A mother protects us. A mother loves us and has a lot of compassion and cares for us. When we’re sick it’s usually the mother that tends to our illnesses. The mother, physically, suffers much more for her child, physically. Suffers much, much more – never mind mentally. Mentally is a given. So, in that way, in our world system, female energy is seen as giving, caring, loving and in order to do this she must have a lot of wisdom and knowledge.

White Tara (click to enlarge)

So female energy in Buddhism is very much respected and very much looked for, sought after because it is an energy that is giving, loving, soft, healing, wisdom and knowledge. And in Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan form of Buddhism, when you get into the higher teachings, one of the vows is – you can never ever say or put women down. If you slander women, if you say negative things about women, or if you put women down, if you do any of the meditations – you cannot gain attainments. Why? Half of you is female, half is you is from a female, is female, is female energy. So, if you keep chopping your own arm off, how are you going to grab something. It’s equivalent to that. It’s not like Buddha punishes you because you broke a vow and you said something bad about women so he punishes you. No. It’s a karmic effect.

So, Tara has manifested in the female form, to heal; to protect; to give you wisdom; to help you to grow and particularly in this White Tara form. White Tara is very, very, very special because White Tara obviously is white in colour. If we go to page three to Tara’s body significance… Tara’s body significance is much more than what I’ve written here but I just wrote something short and easy for all of you.

‘With the right hand she performs the mudra of giving.’ Mudra literally means, hand gesture. ‘Signifying that she bestows ordinary accomplishments (supernormal powers) and sublime accomplishments (realisation of the nature of the mind).’ So, her right hand is in a giving mudra. ‘Her left hand accomplishes the refuge mudra, thumb and ring finger and are conjoined to symbolise the union of skilful means of knowledge, her other fingers are held up to represent the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.’ So, her left hand is in the mudra of giving refuge, in front of her heart like this and then the three remaining fingers that stay up represent the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha – the Triple Jewel.

So, what it represents is: if you take refuge in Tara, if you take faith in Tara, some of you are frowning at me saying what does she look like. There’s a picture. Okay, page six, there’s a picture. There’s a painting of her over there, White Tara, on the wall behind Ms. Kim. Right behind you, that’s a coloured picture of Tara.

So, ‘The stem of the lotuses she holds with her hand indicates that all the qualities of realisation have fully bloomed within her’. So, in her left hand, she’s holding a stem of a lotus that opens up at the right side … I’m sorry … on the left side. The opening of the lotus, the blooming of the lotus is representative, symbolic of, within Tara, within her, she has realised everything from step one to step ten of Buddhahood. In fact, she’s a fully enlightened Buddha. Fully enlightened. So, when you pray to Tara, you are not praying to a God, you are not praying to some beautiful lady, you are not praying to some wealth giving deity, you are praying to a Buddha; a fully enlightened Buddha, whose qualities and attainments are exactly the same as any other Buddha such as Shakyamuni or Amitabha or Ksitigarbha or Guan Yin. Same. No difference at all – a fully enlightened Buddha.

Then – ‘Her charm and beauty reveals that she is the mother of all Buddhas and her compassion for all beings is uninterrupted.’ Her beauty, her body is that in the form of a 16-year-old young lady – a young girl, white, very voluptuous, very beautiful; naked on top and covered on the bottom with a sash. Her having this beautiful body is representative of all the most wonderful things that are pleasant in the world – are pleasant to us, she has fully achieved, she has fully realised. Alright.

‘The ornaments and silk and jewels she bears are witness of her fully mastered qualities and activities.’ She has all the activities and all the qualities of the Buddha – for example the Six Paramitas. So, she wears ornaments on her, not because she’s greedy and she went to Starhill or Hong Kong and bought a lot of jewellery because she has a lot of money because she got a big angpow. She has these ornaments, not her physical ornaments, they are ornaments that are emanated from her realisations. So, her compassion, her effort, her contemplation, her wisdom, her ability to know other people’s minds – these are intangible attainments. So, to show some type of representation that she has these intangible attainments, tangibly to show you, it comes in the form of ornaments.

So, the ornaments on the holy Tara’s body, is a symbol of her realised attainments that she has. They are not actual jewels. Okay. So, on Buddha statues, such as the one I have here on the altar, on Buddha statues and paintings of Buddhas, in the Buddhist tradition what they usually do is, they put gold, or jewellery or pearls or precious items on the ornaments. Why? Not to make the statue beautiful so it looks pleasant to you. You are putting ornaments, on the realisations that they represent.

So, when you put ornaments, or precious jewels, or precious items, on the ornaments of these deities, it is representative of you respecting those attainments and it plants the karmic seed for you to actually achieve those attainments. So, people who realise that, they’re very excited to offer a lot of jewellery, offer a lot of gold, a lot of silver, whatever, onto the deities. Not to beautify them or to ornament them, but to make offerings to the realisations that they symbolise and to plant seeds for the realisations, for yourself to achieve in the future. That’s very important to know, so that’s why you see that Buddhist deities have a lot of jewellery, a lot of ornaments on them. Why? They are offered by patrons who wish to achieve the states and the attainments that Tara has in her. Okay?

White Tara (click to enlarge)

‘Her straight back that shows her meditation is similar to a diamond that never falters.’ Her back is straight and her back is firm and strong. It represents that – through meditation, effort, we call it tsöndru [in Tibetan], one of the Six Paramitas … how to say in Chinese Six Paramitas? 《六波罗蜜》 Ok, in the Six Paramitas, one of them is effort … is people ….is not when you’re in the mood, not when everything is right, not when you have money, not when you are healthy, but no matter what the circumstances are – you pursue Dharma practice, you pursue your goal. A person who says “I will become an enlightened being”, a person who says “I will become a fully enlightened being and I will do this practice and become enlightened” – no matter how sick they are, they will still get up and do their practice or lay down doing it. I’ve seen my masters do it. No matter how poverty stricken they are, they will still do their practice. No matter what problems are surrounding them, they will still do their practice. They will still do their meditations and chanting and practice. No matter how stressed out they are, or how many difficulties they have, they will still focus on their practice. Why? That is called the perfection of effort.

From that kind of effort, when you apply, each time a physical or mental obstacle arises in your life and you continue to do your practice, a few things are happening:

1. You’re purifying the karma. The things that’s happening to you, you’re purifying the karma.
2. You’re building your mental strength through any adversity – you will be able to see through it.

If a small little thing, you cannot ‘tahan’ [Malay for ‘to bear’], you cannot take it. Small little problem – you get thrown off. Small little difficulty – you cannot. It reflects your state of mind and what type of determination you have. In order to become an enlightened being to be of benefit to others, in order to become a Buddha or in order to even be successful in this life on a worldly mundane basis – you need to have effort. Without continuous effort through adversity, you cannot achieve your normal and super normal goals. You cannot. So, effort is very, very much focused on and concentrated on in Dharma practice. No effort – no result. How much effort you put in; will be the result you get. It may not be the same as the next person’s because karma is different but you will definitely get result.

So small thing, cannot tahan, small thing cannot take it, small thing you cannot … you’re too sick, you’re too tired, you’re too frustrated, you’re too angry, you’re too poor, you don’t have enough clothes, you don’t have enough friends, you don’t have enough this … Always complain and complain and complain you don’t have enough — as an excuse — to do your practice to build up your mind. Yes, you genuinely have those problems, yes you genuinely have those difficulties, yes, your difficulties and your problems are genuine, they are real but, they will pass. But if you give up during those problems or you let your defences down during those problems, you don’t allow your precious mind to build that type of determination. You don’t let your mind to build that kind of stamina. You do not let your mind evolve and become better and stronger.

So, when you do these practices, you collect the merit for your mind to evolve into something very strong. Simultaneously, on a mental level, you become stronger and stronger and stronger. You can take on more and more and more difficulties. You can take on more and more and more problems. You can take on more and more tolerance. How to take on more? You have to build it within your mind. If you don’t have the circumstance outside to push you towards this type of tolerance, you cannot build. So, in Buddhism, when you have problems and you have difficulties – actually you should be happy. When you have problems and difficulties, if you’re not happy, it’s a clear sign you are not spiritually advanced and on a normal level your mind is not mature and strong. If you have problems, I’m not saying you invite problems, they will come but this is the way to overcome them. This is the Buddhist view on attacking problems.

So, when we propitiate something very holy and something very great, like Buddha Tara, Buddha Shakyamuni, Buddha Tsongkhapa, Buddha Amitabha or whatever Buddha we particularly like, when we propitiate, when we do the correct meditations and we get the correct teachings, correct motivations, when we do it correctly and we do it well; we collect a reserve of karmic merits, that whatever positive things we want to do, it will be achieved more easily. Things are not achieved, not because we did not put effort or not put effort – it is due to karmic store of merits. Karmic store of merits. So, one of the greatest ways of collecting merit is the propitiation of an enlightened being, who have all those qualities so when you propitiate these enlightened beings, you gain their qualities.

In America, they say you are what you eat. In Tibet, I say, you are what you pray to. So, if you pray to something malicious, eventually you become malicious. If you pray to something very kind and compassionate, you slowly become kind and compassionate. Although don’t take me as an example. I’m not very kind and compassionate but I’m praying – I’m working on it.

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche with a statue of White Tara

So, I will get to the actual practice. I will teach you or share with you rather, three practices that will be very significant for all of us at this time. These practices were not made specifically for SARS. These practices were developed and taught and manifested by Lord Buddha, specifically for us to alleviate our outer problems such as disease and negative energy and ill fortune and once that’s relieved, we can get to the to the crux of the matter which is to do actual spiritual practice to become a fully enlightened Buddha.

So, these practices are not specifically for SARS but they are specific for the protection and healing of diseases, plagues and contagions. And the two practices that I will share with you, is very, very powerful for aiding you in healing if you have it or protection of diseases that are actually life threatening. This is a very big claim but it’s not something I developed so I dare to say it. Buddha has taught. And I’ve witnessed many cases before, with my masters, of people who are physically very beyond repair, beyond hope, who do these practices, who can recover. Not fully but not died. I’ve seen it.

So, if we take refuge in the Buddha, we take faith in the Buddha and we do the practices well, there is no reason you will not get the results. Why? It is a democratic practice. It is not: I sit on the pulpit and I tell you, I am your deliverer and you will stay down forever and only through me you will be saved. No. It is a democratic way of philosophy which is: I share with you what Lord Buddha has attained, to become the same as Lord Buddha – free from suffering. Free from suffering.

So, any practices we get, we want to get our … anytime when we go shopping, some people I know always want to get their ‘value for money’. Value for money is very important to some of my friends. It’s good because they work very hard. Now, I like to get value for my mantras. So whatever mantras I do, I want to get the best value. From morning to night whatever little bit of Dharma practice that I do and trust me those who are close to me, I do very little Dharma practice. I watch TV, I exercise, I eat and I sleep. That’s basically what I do all day and it’s the truth. Most of my people know that and it’s okay because um … I’m a Rinpoche. Just kidding. Just kidding. Don’t report me to His Holiness please! I’ll get a letter saying I’ve got to practice Dharma just as hard as all of you. Rinpoche or not, it’s all just name.

So, I like to get value for my Dharma day. [In] the morning I get up… well, I don’t get up in the morning… let’s just make it the morning because you all get up in the morning. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you sleep, wouldn’t you like to get your value for your Dharma practice? Wouldn’t you like it that if you did one mantra, you did it once but the merit you get is equivalent to 100,000? Of course. So, OM MANI PADME HUM – 100,000, OM MANI PADME HUM – 200,000. I want to get my value for mantra. So, Buddha has taught methods for people of this time – the degenerate time, when lifetime is short; merit is low; distractions are great.

During Buddha’s time there was no disco, there was no Internet, there was no gym, there was no great body, there was no nothing. There was huts and lights and people hung out in the huts and there was nothing to do but meditate and become a Buddha. So, during Buddha’s time, there was nothing to do but meditate. You don’t meditate; you sleep or play with the mosquitoes. But if you’re Buddhist you blow them away. But now it’s different. Now we have Internet and I know people who have their computers turned on every waking hour and have one finger on it constantly – playing with it. I won’t give you any hints who it is. Actually, I know people who expand their passions and open up an Internet cybercafé so that their whole body can be all over it and they’re surrounded by it. It’s okay, it’s samsara.

I know people who from morning to night think money, money, money, money, money, money, how to make money, where to get money, how to get money to make more money, when I get more money how will I make more money, money, money, money. Yes. And I know people who, when come Friday, Saturday, Sunday they go to a disco temple, I don’t know, they go there to pray, they go there to pray on the podium. I used to do that, but now I can’t. Yes, and there are people who are totally into their body, although I’m not at all. There are people totally … bye bye … there are people totally into their body, who only think about their body, so they go for this or that or this, for the purpose of beautifying their body and only that. That’s it.

Alright, there are people like that. And there are just so many, there are places, we have cars now. During Buddha’s time, you want to go from point A to B, you get on a horse, if you’re lucky, or you get on a horse cart or you walk. Now we can get into our nice new Toyotas and drive there. Our little Kancils and drive there no problem. We don’t want to be driven there – we call up a friend, we don’t want – we call a taxi, aka you’re having a good mood, they pick you up. Right? So there, we can go places, we can go dye our hair, we can turn on the lights at night, we can search the Internet for a lover. We can do all types of things. It’s so exciting and what does Buddha mean? That there are more and more and more distractions.

So for us to go home, turn on the lights and think – ‘I think I’ll go meditate’. Well, we can watch TV, Astro, what I do. Right? We can go watch Astro. We can go in the kitchen and cook up a whole bunch of things in your microwave because in Buddha’s time you had to go and get the wood, get the pot, get the lighter… forget it la! That’s why everybody was skinny – nobody would want to cook. Now you stick it in a microwave. You’ve got a refrigerator – everything is so convenient. So, you can go cook something and eat and you know and make love to your food like some people have. You can watch TV. You can call up your friends. You can get on your cell phone unless you live in Bandar Utama, 012 does not work. You can get on the Internet and stay there for five to six hours, before you go to sleep, unless you’re in Bandar Utama because the Internet connection does not work. Right? You can do a lot of things. Or you can go out with friends and play snooker in Bangsar. You can drive around. Just a lot of things to do. So all that or … meditate. And Rinpoche says – chanting. And then most of us when we’re chanting, you know how we chant, it’s my favourite joke. The way we chant, there’s no meditation, no focus, no nothing. You just tell Buddha, “I want money, long-life, health and bring me a lover. OM TARE TUTTARE SOHA.” That’s what we do. Think about it! Nobody really meditates and thinks about their chanting. And some more when we’re chanting we feel very tired, sleepy, so stressed out. Yeah, we do like that. But if it’s to go out, [we] can do it all night. No problem! Meet our friends and hangout at the coffee shop. No problem! Until the coffee runs out, until they turn out the lights, you’re still sitting there in the dark. Right? You don’t want to go home. No, we, you see what it is, it’s your mind and my mind tricking us and telling us, this will bring us happiness and pleasure. This won’t. So, it’s an uphill struggle.

It’s like when we want to do Dharma practice now in the 21^st century, it’s like throwing us in a very big river and saying, “Walk upstream.” It’s like that, it’s that hard. Like during Buddha’s time, you want to do Dharma practice, it’s like going in a small river and walking upstream with a canoe and a rower. Now no canoe, just throw you in there, no life jacket, nothing. Just swim up. It’s that hard to do Dharma practice. Buddha knows. That’s why Buddha, through time, has developed and he has put teachings away for the future, saying at this time period, this teaching will be beneficial; at this time period, this meditation will be beneficial; at this time period, this will be more beneficial, this will be more beneficial. Later, maybe White Tara practice becomes obsolete. Maybe Purple Tara appears. Yeah, because it benefits. Why? How did White Tara appear? How did Green Tara appear? How did they all appear? There’s a lot of stories, I’ll just tell you one real quick.

White Tara is an emanation of Green Tara. Green Tara is an emanation of actually Lord Buddha himself. Now what happened is this: before White Tara practice was all over the world you know, profound and whatever, people prayed to Green Tara. So, one particular disciple, I forgot the name, prayed very, very hard, one realised master, to be healed of a certain disease. So, when he did a certain amount of mantras and prayers, through his sincerity, the Green Tara from her heart manifested the White Tara, opened up and the White Tara appeared to him and taught him the mantra, the meditation and the prayer – in order to heal and overcome the disease. So, this particular master did it, he propitiated and meditated and did the form of White Tara and he was successfully healed, became a very great master and very great scholar and benefited many people. So, through his lifetime, he had many students. So he, because it was so good for him, he taught this special practice to his students, then his students taught it to their students and their students and the lineage of White Tara grew like that.

So actually, White Tara is Green Tara; there’s no difference. It’s just like inside you have a green glass, a white glass – you just pour the water differently but they manifest differently. Why? Example: if you’re outside and you need help, if someone shows up with a police uniform you feel more confident, if they show up in a clown uniform you think, “What?” Right? So, if you’re in a circus, no if you’re in a club and the police walks in you go, “What, uh-oh, do I have my ID?” but if a clown shows up you think, “Oh, fun time.” But it’s the same person wearing different clothes. Similarly, the Buddhas change their appearance to suit us according to the times. So as times change, Buddha’s forms change and the symbolism of the forms help that particular situation at that particular time.

So the Buddhas have many forms, not because Tibetan and Indian masters are bored silly out of their heads, there’s nothing to do, and there’s no electricity, but sit there in the dark and they count their toenails … you know one, two, three, four and then clean their toenails. Well, some people like doing that but never mind. And they did it because these deities actually manifested. So Tibetan, rather, Buddhism has a lot of deities, not because it’s a lot of deities – it’s different forms and manifestations of the same Buddha to serve a certain function or help.

So, most of you have your personal yidams and have your personal practices that I’ve already offered to you. Some of you don’t. Whatever the case is, this White Tara practice and the Black Garuda practice and the mantra I’m going to share with all of you tonight, will be very effective if you do [it] at this time. Some people think, “Oh my God, do we have to do this every day as well as my other prayers for the rest of my life?” I’ve had somebody voice that out. In the past, when the Guru gives a new sadhana, they’re like, [clapping]. Now when you give a new sadhana they go [slap]. It’s a different situation altogether.

What I’m trying to say is this – you may take these practices and make them permanent practices for yourselves, all the time, or you can do it for the time being until these plagues finish. Either way. Or you can do these practices for very important people to you, who you want to protect and help and you have no other way. You are not a doctor. You are not rich and you can build a quarantine house for your mother and father and husband and wife and children so you can be protected. So the best thing you can do is to propitiate the goddess, White Tara or the other one, Black Garuda, in order to send energy and protection to the people you’re concerned about.

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Transcript

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche makes body, speech and mind offerings to Dorje Shugden on behalf of Kechara during the Dorje Shugden trance in 2015. Click to enlarge.

So, you have the tensung which is mandala offering. Whoever requests for the teaching, usually in Buddhism what happens, we don’t teach unless requested. So, when requested we usually teach publicly because it would be very difficult for a teacher to teach one person idly, non-stop you know, non-stop, non-stop. So, you get everybody together, so the person who actually asked and requested for the teachings of a particular whatever, they come up to the teacher and they offer a mandala, they offer the body of the Buddha, the speech of the Buddha and the mind of the Buddha, to represent by ‘I request you to give the teachings of the Buddha in order that I may achieve Buddha’s body, speech and mind’. So, it’s a symbolic offering of the sponsors who have requested the teachings. Alright, usually it’s like that.

In Buddhism, we don’t convert, we don’t send missionaries, we don’t force and we don’t make people do it. If people request it, we do it, otherwise we don’t. There is no such thing as that in Buddhism at all. Alright? So, in the beginning that little ceremony was that. You must be wondering what’s going on you know, everybody’s doing this and doing that, do this and do that – don’t know what’s going on.

Ok, so I want to get my ‘value for mantra’. Okay. Before I start, I would like everybody to stand up for one minute, stretch your legs and sit down. Stand up and stretch your legs. That was fast… Yeah, open the door… Hello Robert, come, come, come. Come in, come in, come in. I saw your wife leave with some strange man who’s very tall and good looking. It wasn’t me though. She disappeared. She said, “Tell Robert it’s over.” You know, I’m just kidding. She’s somewhere around. Oh, you’re going to take Mummy and Daddy home? Very nice. Thank you. See you again. Bye-bye, bye-bye. My little mantra roller. Bye-bye. She comes to Kechara almost every day to roll mantras, this one – how nice. Not like some lazy people I know. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye Robert. You drink this, because you’re not used to all this [gives someone water]. Sio Chian doesn’t get one, she’s used to it already. The lady next to Sio Chian, Miss Kim – I know. It’s okay, Chia has been reciting Manjushri backwards again today.

OK. Now to get value for your mantras’ worth, alright, value for mantras’ worth. Put that on low, it’s very loud, and circulate it so that everybody can get it. I know everybody’s saying, “How come Rinpoche gets the fan and we don’t get it?” Make it circulate. Never mind the candle, blow it out. I already made the offerings. This way – Tsongkhapa’s not hot. [Rinpoche talking to someone 3:30 – 4:00] Buddha don’t need no fan, your Buddha needs a fan because your Buddha funny-one. I don’t want everybody to be sweating to death. That’s a little bit better huh? Chia gets all of it, everybody else don’t get. Okay. Wires and robes and fans and … Next life, I’m telling you … it’s going to be different. I took a wrong turn in this life. When I was taking incarnation, I took a wrong turn. There were two choices; there was one Tibetan Rinpoche, Tsem Rinpoche and there was another one to be born in Japan – very rich and I don’t know, somehow I got distracted you know…maybe some lights in the sky, the sun was rising, I was looking and I took a wrong turn, I woke up and here I am. Next life I’ll be ready. Next life I’ll be real ready. I took a wrong turn. I think most of us took a wrong turn. Some people turn, can never turn back again.

Okay. So, before we do any Dharma practices, the minute we wake up in the morning, these are very simple mantras to recite. The minute we wake in the morning and I don’t want you all to freak out – these are Sanskrit mantras. Don’t think, “Oh God, if I don’t chant it right, I don’t get the blessing.” You chant it wrong sincerely, you still get the blessing, so don’t freak out about the pronunciation. I know people think, “But I can’t pronounce it right, do I still get the blessing?” No, no, you still get the blessing, don’t worry okay? Don’t worry, the Buddha’s not so stupid. The minute you say the mantra the Buddha looks at you and says, “Poor thing but never mind, bless her.” Never mind. The Buddha blessed me, so he’s going to bless you. Okay.

The first mantra is this, I’ll say it [for] you and then you guys just listen carefully then you’ll know alright?

OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA VIMANA-SARA-MAHA-JAVA HUM
OM MARA MARA VIMANA-SARA-MAHA-JAVA HUM (3x)

Click to enlarge

Alright? This… the minute you wake up in the morning, or even a little bit later it’s ok, you recite it seven times and you think, “Whatever I do today, whatever actions I do today that’s virtuous and good, may it be multiplied so the merits propel me to become a Buddha to benefit others.” The minute you wake up you think like that. You think about your Buddha – maybe you like Amitabha, maybe you like Tara, maybe you like Tsongkhapa, maybe you like Jesus Christ – it doesn’t matter. Whatever you like, whatever Buddha or holy thing you like, you think about it, alright? Anything. So, the minute you think, “May my virtues be multiplied by 100,000 times.”

OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA VIMANA-SARA-MAHA-JAVA HUM
OM MARA MARA VIMANA-SARA-MAHA-JAVA HUM

That’s it. Seven times. So, if you’re in a place like, if you’re with your husband or wife, and then you know you don’t wake and then you become, you’re so holy and you’re so good and you just wake up and you’re – [says mantra really loud]. You don’t wake up your neighbours, you don’t wake up other people, you don’t freak them out. Ok? If you’re in a place that they don’t accept this or whatever, it’s not you’re wrong or you’re hiding or you are not proud; it is to be skilful and respectful of other people’s thoughts. So, if you’re in a place or an environment or with people who don’t, who think you’re weird cos you get up in the morning and start chanting – then don’t show them you’re chanting. It’s not that you’re wrong. It’s the Buddha’s attitude of being even one step higher to be more kind to them. And when we actually chant mantras, unless we are alone, or in a prescribed ritual place, we’re not supposed to chant loud, we’re not supposed to chant in a way that the person next to us can hear. Why? It shows something like we’re showing off. We’re supposed to chant it quietly and pronounced and not show, and when we do mantras, we should do mantras and prayers in a way as, when we are with people, as if we are not doing it, as if we don’t know it well. Never chant and never do it in such a way that’s disruptive to other people, in any way shape or form. Not because what you’re doing is wrong but the very reason you’re doing the mantra is to develop compassion – so if you’re not even compassionate to the people around you, in a simple way – what else is there need to be said? So, mantra practices are supposed to be done very gently, very quietly and very humbly – as if you don’t know anything.

Alright, so you wake up, you do that. Sometimes you forget, no problem. That day you don’t get the hundred thousand extra. So, if you give one item of food to someone that is underprivileged on the street, if you have done that mantra in the morning, then for 24 hours, during that time period, if you give a piece of food to someone, you know, the merit will be multiplied by 100,000 times. So, if you recite the mantra – OM MANI PADME HUM, OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA, NAMO GUAN SHI YIN PUSA, or anything, the merit of it – not the mantra, will be multiplied 100,000 times. Some people say “can I do the mantra and then I’m supposed to do 100,000 mantras, can I just do that and this once?” No, I had some people ask me that, I have seen it and actually I thought hmm….. I asked my Guru – I got shouted at. He said, you still have to do the mantra, it’s the merit that’s increased, not the mantra count. I went ‘oh’. Isn’t that lovely? Like, sometimes I give pujas to people I tell them – you have to do 100,000 Tara, so they do – OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA …, 7 times and they do this one round – it’s 100,000, 108,000 in fact. Didn’t work. I got screamed at by my Guru. Because I’m always thinking of short cuts to enlightenment. That’s my way. When I was in the monastery – short cut. My Guru said, “why do you always want a short-cut to enlightenment?” I said, “because I’m very distracted.” He said, “why you distracted?” I said, “because I’m a clown… I don’t know why. I just want a short-cut, I want to be a Buddha fast.” The end.

Anyways, number two. The rosary is a very important object to use. Your rosary. They should be of lotus seeds, crystals, sandalwood, or Bodhi-seed wood or they can be a precious item such as amber or lapis lazuli. These five, six objects that I mentioned are very, very good for meditation and very good for developing compassion. If you can’t get that, you can just get a normal one, it’s still ok don’t think oh my god I don’t have lotus seed, I do this I won’t become compassionate. No la. I mean there are certain things that you can do, if you cannot do, it’s ok. Don’t think if you do not have an amber mala – Buddha don’t bless you, or you have lotus seed, it’s 20 ringgit, amber it’s 100 ringgit – Buddha give the 100 ringgit mala more blessing. So, if you…no Buddha’s not like that, Buddha’s not like Chinese business man. He got amber mala I give him more blessing, he got a lotus one I give him less blessing. No, Buddha’s not a Chinese businessman. Buddha’s a Tibetan businessman. With him – no money-wan

Ok. So, 108 and usually it’s nice not to let people touch your malas. I mean if they grab it and touch it you say “Huh! You can’t! My Guru say you can’t touch my mala!” I mean it’s not like they’re touching your ‘boobali’ or something you know. It’s just a mala. I mean ask them they touch it, ok-la, but some people if our energy is weak and some people have some funny energy, it can affect us. It can definitely affect us. Because not all of us … it’s not that they intentionally want to hurt us but sometimes just got. So to bless your mantra daily … ah bless your rosary daily and keep it as a very holy object to recite mantras and also if you bless it, um, if you bless it right, it will be increased. I don’t understand this… increasing, I think it’s another hundred thousand or whatever – the merits. Because that’s numbers I don’t understand. FG understands it but I don’t know. You can ask FG Rinpoche afterwards. Anyway, recite it and you blow it on, it’s increased, at least minimum 100,000, effortlessly.

So, what you do is you hold your mala –

OM RUTSIRA-MANI-PRAWARTAYA HUM (7x)

and you blow on it. You have consecrated it. So, negative energy cannot touch your mala, negative energy cannot touch your rosary and every day you do that your rosary becomes more and more powerful and later, when you become an accomplished person, very compassionate, your rosary can be something that is an object of blessing.

So, people can touch it on their head and bless them, if they have spirit possession, touch them with it, the spirit will run. Alright. If you don’t have that power, don’t show off because if you hit the spirit, the spirit hit you back. So be very careful. With some of these spirits – you don’t know. I’m serious. You know when I do exorcism, I do divinations; who’s more powerful him or me? It always is them but never mind, I got the Buddha behind me. Because I tell the spirit, if you don’t beat it, I’m going to send Black Tara and Black Tara looks like this [action], so whenever they see Black Tara they just split – I love it. It’s not me. People always think “Oh Tsem Rinpoche’s so powerful!” when recite mantra-wan you know the spirit go like that go, this go, that go’. It’s not Tsem Rinpoche. I’ll let you in on a secret, it’s them. They are always hanging around you know. They’re not hanging around me because I’m special, they’re hanging around because I ask them to hang around. I said if you don’t hang around – I’m going back to India. So, they hang around and help me. They hang around. It’s ah, blackmail. Buddha and Protector don’t help me, I go back to India. You teach Dharma yourself. Tsongkhapa’s like [action]. So, he says ok, because they don’t like me, they want to hang out in heaven I don’t know. No, I’m just kidding, just kidding, just kidding.

Ok, the next one is, when you put offerings out – the offerings can be taken … the offerings can be taken away by spirits or sometimes not clean or impure. To purify the offerings, you can do this mantra to bless the offerings and increase it and the mantra goes like this.

OM NAMO RATRA-NAYAYA / NAMO BHAGAWATE BENZA-SARA-PRAMADINYE / TATHAGATAYA ARHATE SAMYAKSAM BUDDHAYA / TAYATHA OM BENZE BENZE MAHA BENZE / MAHA TESHA BENZE / MAHA VIDDHYA BENZE / MAHA-BODHICITTA-BENZE / MAHA-BODHI-MANDROPA SAMKRAMANA-BENZE / SARWA-KARMA VARONA BHIKSHU DANA-BENZE SOHA

So after … like example we offer light to Guan Yin on your altar at home to Guan Yin or to Buddha or you offer incense or you offer some food, you offer some bao bread you know. Whatever. Or, or , or , or you go to Tsem Rinpoche and you offer him a very beautiful fabulous, big, fat delicious angpow whatever, oh, another one. Hey, good sign, I said angpow Khong showed up. Hello. Hello. Come, come, come. Hello Mr. Khong, how are you? How are you, nice to meet you, Dato Chu nice to meet you, hello, hello. Have a seat, relax, have a seat. See this guy’s smart, he puts his hand-phone off immediately. Mmm… very good. You come here because you’re young ah – you let this uncle sit on the chair. Now you can lock the door, I think no more people. You move chair back sit. You’re a big guy, I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley. No sit, sit, sit. Be comfortable. I’m not traditional. I want you to get Dharma. Forget all this physical respecting, I’m not into all that. You get Dharma, you chant, I’m happy.

Alright now where was we before angpow walked in, ah Mr. Khong walked in. I was talking about angpow and then you knocked. I think ‘oh’. Good sign huh? When Adeline walked in, I didn’t say angpow. How come? Ok so, when you offer something on the altar, when you offer something to the Buddha, when you put something – you just don’t leave it on the altar. You can bless it and make it bigger and increase the merit by reciting this mantra. So actually, this prayer, you can just put in a little cover and leave near your altar, under a table whatever. After a while you will memorise this – it’s quite easy. Quite easy. So, this is the, purify, the mantra. Any questions about this first page so far? Anybody have any – Giok Ling, any questions? You sure? Giok Ling’s good, she did 1 million mantra on Tara. You did, didn’t you, 1 million? Or take one zero away – 100,000? No 1 million yeah, she did, she did. Giok Ling called me up one day and said “I need a job, how?” I said, “Do Tara mantra-la!” She said, “how many?” I said, “1 million.” She said, “1 million!? 1 million!? 1-0-0-0-0-0-0?” I said, “yea” and she went, “oh”. And then I said “if you do that – you’d get a job”. “Ok, I’ll do loh”. So, she did the mantra and got a job. Yeah. All types of funny people in here I tell ya. Everybody got a story, almost. But everybody’s wonderful.

Ok. Any questions on the first page? Any questions? Easy huh? Ea-sy! Sio Chian got a question no, Rod Stewart got a question but she did not ask, don’t want to look like stupid. She’s like [action] better not ask I’ll look stupid-la. Never mind-la just ask! No, ah, you know ah? Let’s have Sio Chian recite the mantra. Look at Rod Stewart. Oh no! You’re as red as your hair. This is another funny one. She had a trip to Korea and England, so I didn’t want her to go because we have some work here so I tricked her I said “you know the trip won’t be successful”. She went “is it?” She said, “should I cancel it?” and then she was twitching you know and I said, “you know you can do some mantras”. I tricked her to do some mantras-la. See you’ve got to trick these people to do Dharma practice. You tell them straight up, do it, you’re going to be a Buddha, they say get lost. You tell them they’re going to have an accident, do it – they go “ok I do it.” So, some people you blackmail them – make them do the mantras, they do it, when they become higher level, they know what the purpose is. So, with Rod Stewart, I blackmailed her lah. So, I got her to do a few little pujas and some little extra mantras, so she’s sitting on the plane…. And ah …so a few months ago she was looking at [inaudible name] ‘you’re doing mantra ah? Ahahaha’ and look at her, she’s doing it now. Never mind. She’s a good victim, look at that. She’s a wonderful person, you can tease her to death, she don’t care. This is friends I like. Little victims. Ok. I mean friends.

Now as a Buddhist, we’re very worried about a lot of things that we step on. A lot of ants and animals that we step on. There is some bad karma associated with it. It’s not very heavy because we didn’t do it on purpose. To avoid that, Buddha taught a mantra for us to recite, and these things I’m teaching you is just extras, you don’t have to do it alright. This has nothing to do with SARS. I’m just giving you this as a normal practice. General practice, it’s not yellow hat, red hat, this sect, it’s Buddhist practice. It’s general ok. So the next mantra is like this – you recite it three times and you spit on the soles of your feet, very lightly and gently alright and if you’re, if you’re um… if you’re very prosperous and you can’t reach your feet then you can you know … maybe long distance ah. You do your own way, I don’t know.

So, you do the mantra – OM KHE TSARA GHANA HUM HRI SOHA [3x]. Three times and then you spit on your feet very lightly like this [spits] very lightly. Just one, two small dob – no [big spit] don’t go crazy-la. No, just a little bit and then, you put on your socks and shoes and you go to work, whatever and that day, whatever animals you step on, accidentally, you actually, when they die under your feet, they take re-birth in the God realms, due to this mantra. But then don’t run around [smacks hands together]. “I send you to Buddha realm!” [smacks hands together]. Only by accident. Only by accident. Because I know there are people out there, frustrated and they have nothing to do and they just want to take it out on the insects. “What I send them to Buddha heaven-la!” Cannot. Cannot okay? Yeah. So this is by accident. Oh God, like in my house in Bandar Utama, you know near-by, near the outside area there are a lot of ants and the other day I stepped on about 20 or 30 of them by accident. And I went, “oh no…” and I forgot to do my mantra, oh God. Yeah, like that ok.

Then, before you actually do the meditation, oh any questions on the blessing of the feet mantra? Anything, anybody? ‘Can you do it for a young child?’ Oh of course. You can do it for a young child, but as they get older, teach them. Of course, you can. That’s a good question I never thought of. Yeah can, can, why not. ‘Do we do it on both feet?’ Um what, how many feet do you have? That’s a good…ok. If you blow on the left and you forget the right, what happens if you step on the right and not the left? So, blow on both and you’ll cover all bases. Blow on both feet. You’re wonderful. This lady’s wonderful. Whenever we have Dharma talk, she drives all the way from JB (Johor Bahru), 5-6 hours come attend Dharma talk, when Dharma talk finish she drives all the way back. Can you imagine that? For Dharma talk. I’m very honoured. I’m not such a good teacher that I deserve these kind of people but anyways. You know, 10 hours to listen to me. I wouldn’t drive 10 hours to listen to me.

Ok. Now, before we do any meditations, or we do any type of sadhanas or prayers, then if we have an altar, what we can usually do is this – the meditation site preparation. The first step is we should sweep and clean the room. Sweep up and clean the room; you know dust it lightly or whatever-la. Straighten it out and, arrange the altar. Number two, make offerings on the altar of light, food, incense, water bowls, water, etc, whatever you usually put. So first you clean up the place lightly and don’t think I clean for me, think I’m cleaning for the Buddha; the Buddha is here. Clean up the area, clean up the room and then number two second step is arrange the altar; you make the offerings you want to make on the altar. Number three, you make a good motivation, you sit in a comfortable position and you do the refuge and you take, uh, how to say, develop Bodhicitta mind. Those two steps will be in any practice included so any, I’ll teach you that later, so those two is taking refuge and developing a good mind; developing Bodhicitta la. Number four, you visualise the Guru, the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas or whatever or, you visualise your yidam. In this case it will be Tara. Ok?

So, you clean the place, you make offerings, then you sit comfortably and think I’m going to take refuge in the Buddha and I trust the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and I will do this meditation so that I can clean my mind and my karma so that I can be beneficial to other people. Think like that. The next step is you do the visualisation. Whether it is your Guru or a Buddha or Lama Tsongkhapa, whatever you do visualisation. The next one is, you offer the 7-limb prayer and mandala, by reciting those prayers – that will be in the sadhana later. Number six, we can make requests to the lineage Gurus – that will be in the sadhana also. Alright. That’s general preparations.

The next stage, we went over the significance of Tara. So, I want to go over, I want to, page 3; the Eight Fears. I want to go over the notes. Yeah. ‘You didn’t cover the meat part’. Oh yeah, sorry, sorry. I skipped it huh. Ok, back to page 2, ah ok. There’s a very, people always ask, the minute you’re a Buddhist, the first question they always ask you is, in a Chinese area, is – are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? No, I’m not and I kill it myself! I’ve been asked that about five billion times. If I got 10 cents for each time I got asked if I’m vegetarian – I would be rich. Me and Sio Chian will both own a BMW and mine will be a current one.

So, what happens is this – Buddha is extremely compassionate; Buddha is a fully enlightened being. Anything associated with a Buddha and a Buddha’s body, male or female, doesn’t matter, it will bring benefit to the being. So, during Buddha’s time there were many, many types of people who want to make offerings to the Buddha. So, Buddha himself at that time, Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, has no possessions, doesn’t have a house, doesn’t have any place permanent because he’s a wandering ascetic monk. So, the only thing they could offer Buddha is maybe once a year offer him fresh robes, during the rainy season offer him protection and coverage; shelter and daily food. So, when they offer the food, they want to offer the best food. So the Buddha made no restrictions on that, but he did say, if you offer me meat, please do not kill it for the person; for me specifically and you yourself cannot order the meat to be killed and you cannot instigate it to be killed by other people, like “oh I can’t kill, I’m a Buddhist, you know – I can’t do it but if I give you $10 do it but don’t tell people I did it.” Cannot.

So, you cannot order it to be killed, you cannot instruct it to be killed and you cannot have it killed and it cannot be killed for you. On those bases, you are allowed to have meat. Of course, it’s better if you don’t. Of course, it’s better, there’s no debate and I’m not going to justify it but in northern parts of Asia where the landscape is very harsh and very cold, such as Mongolia and Tibet; you know not all of Tibet, parts of Tibet. Where there are very little things that grow and people live off the live-stock; there was almost no choice. So, Tibetans on a general, cultural and geographic basis, Tibetan practitioners do eat meat. So, in order to avert the karma of that, there’s a mantra for it, spoken of by the Buddha, that if you recite it, seven times and blow it on the meat before eating it, the animal itself will be blessed and you will plant the seeds of that animal that has died, to be reborn in a pleasant place in the future. You add to it and the negative karma of eating the meat is not there. I mean you do this conscientiously.

So, if you order ah meat or whatever, you offer and give it to that. Then, before you eat the meat, you recite quietly – OM ABIRA-KHE-TSARA-GHANA-HUM! Isn’t it OM KHE-KARA-GHANA HUM HRI SOHA? Can you check madam, you have it written down huh. Got it? [Audience repeating the mantra – 27:17]. There’s a little mistake here sorry. So, after the HUM, you put HRI, H-R-I, and the next word SOHA – sorry about that. OM KHE-TSARA-GHANA HUM HRIH SOHA! KARA-CARA-GHANA HUM H-R-I-, the next word is SOHA. Ok, so you recite the mantra OM KHE-TSARA-GHANA HUM HRIH SOHA! … OM ABIRA-KHE-TSARA… no, no, no, no, wait, wait. I’m getting all mixed up here. Wait, wait, ah… Yeah, ok, give me your pen, can I borrow your pen? Maybe this one, got thicker ink, huh, yes. Ok, it’s like this ok, most of you already know. OM ABIRA-TEZARA-SOHA. Sorry about that. OM ABIRA-TEZARA-SOHA. A-B-I-R-A ABIRA, TEZARA T-E-Z-A-R-A, TEZARA SOHA. OM O-M, the next word, ok everybody look here and listen. OM is the first word, next word is ABIRA A-B-I-R-A. Ok, next word. T-E-Z-A-R-A TEZARA, last word, SOHA, S-O-H-A – SOHA. Ok, seven times and blow on the meat. OM ABIRA-TEZARA-SOHA [Rinpoche recites 7x].

So if you’re in a restaurant, with your friends and they don’t do a lot of Dharma practice, whatever, you don’t make a big show. You don’t show off like you’re such a great, wonderful, compassionate Buddhist, fantastic person and then you sit there with your mudras and you pray and you tell everybody “wait! I’ve got to bless the meat before I eat because I’m such a good Buddhist! And I’m almost becoming enlightened. OM ABIRA-TEZARA-SOHA!” And then you blow on the meat.

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You know what, I don’t think anybody can eat it after that. You blow it on your own plate quietly without anybody knowing. The object of Buddhist practice is to make you humble with humility, not to make you a big show off. Ok? So, if you’re doing Buddhist practice you know more things and you become a bigger show off, you’re doing something wrong. Buddha not wrong, Dharma not wrong – you’re doing something wrong. You don’t know how to drive car, I give you car, you have a accident; not my fault. Ok, you don’t have license, you drive car, you don’t blame the car; you blame yourself. Ok, you get in the Kancil, you learn for one month like me. That was torture, learning the car in the Kancil. It’s so small. I feel like sardine like this, one month. When I went for the test oh my God, I pay them off. I said, “here’s 10 ringgit make sure I pass huh.” Because my feet so long, cannot fit, I had to stay suspended you know. Can you imagine driving suspended for 2-3 hours? Because I stretch it, I go like that, no room in the Kancil and I put the seat all the way back, that’s it. Can you imagine me in a Kancil it’s like fitting FG inside a Kancil.

Anyway, so, where was I? Oh meat. Ok, so whenever you do mantras and you’re in public, you’re with people, show like you are not a practitioner, show humility and humbleness. If someone else knows something more, say yes you know more, do more. Always oblige; never show off. The more you do Dharma practice, the sign of Dharma practice is humility. Not showing off your knowledge, not showing off mudras, not showing off mantras, not showing off what you are or who you are. The very greatest masters, the greatest practitioners, female, male, lay person, monk, nun, whatever they are, the greatest practitioners, the ones who have real power and clairvoyance; they will always tell you they don’t have it. They will always not show it, unless it’s totally necessary and they will always be humble. That is a sign of a spiritual practitioner. It is a sign. One who tells you they have it, run the other way. One who shows off, run the other way because spiritual people never show off. The more spiritual you are, the more humble you are.

Humility doesn’t mean you’re quiet and you run around and get slapped around by people, humility means not showing off your knowledge and that is the pith of the steps to Dharma practice, to becoming a Buddha. That’s very important. That was highlighted to me by my many Gurus and I saw them living the example. They’re very attained masters. I’ve seen some of my masters, who actually people have fallen off from the second floor you know at the Dharma centre in America. They fall off from the second floor and they collapse and they hit their head and they’re unconscious and my Gurus would come out and smiled and say “oh everything ok, call ambulance, call an ambulance, ok, ok, never mind” and come and just talk to people and smile and put their hands on their face and the guy will wake up. I’m sitting there slapping them, they still don’t wake up.

Yeah and you can see their power and sometimes, I remember once in America I was going, oh here we go again. In America I was going for my driving license, you know, 100 years ago, I can’t remember, I was 18, 19, but now I’m 25, but anyways… Ok-la, I’m 28! Anyways, when I was 17, 18, I’m going for my driving license you know and um I went twice and I failed. So, if you fail a third time, you cannot take it for a few months, like 6 months or a year, I forgot. It was a stupid rule in LA you know, in Los Angeles. Anyways I failed twice, I was like – oh no! So I went to my Guru, I said, you know I really need to drive, I need to get around, you know it’s a big city. In Los Angeles public transport it’s not wonderful, it’s not like New York, you have underground trams, it’s all outside, all buses, you know you get run over by a bus or beaten up in the bus. I got beaten up in the bus once … but never mind. So, I said to my teacher you know, I’m going for my test tomorrow again, how? And he just said to me, he just smiled and said “oh, you know, you’ll definitely get it” and he went back to his prayers. And I was like “oh God he’s just saying that to make me happy” and I did it the next day. The next day I got it and it was so easy, I could not believe it. Like that I have seen my teachers manifest.

I have seen teachers, not my teachers, but I have seen great teachers in the monastery, who the local people will come and tell them “oh you know, our crops are going to be destroyed. The rains are too heavy, please do something” and you’ll see these old masters, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, go outside, take some rice and recite prayers, throw it at the air, at the rain. Within half hour the rain completely stop and I’m talking about during a monsoon in India. You know monsoon in India, not talking about doing during the time when you look at CNN, you know that the weather’s going to be bad at this time and you tell people “oh, I’m gonna make the rain come you know.” No. I have seen some of them sometimes, when there is no rain and everything is drying up and they come and they beg these masters – please do something. I have seen them go out, they throw some rice, I don’t know what they recite, I tried to bribe them but they wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, they throw up in the air and within half an hour you see rain. Sometimes within 15 minutes. Torrential rain. I’m like “oh my God”. I’ve seen it. I don’t teach you these things because they’re eloquent or they’re nice or I’m bored with my life. I am bored but I’m not that bored. I have seen it and it works, these things work and I’m a very hard person to convince. Very, very hard and very stubborn to convince. It works. I’ve seen these masters you know.

Anyways, have that kind of power, mantras have that kind of power but you have to achieve that power through recitation, good motivation, recitation and commitment and effort. Most important when you attain some kind of powers, it must be used to benefit others and you must practice it in total humility, without ever showing off or earning money from it. Earning money or showing off. It’s very important and people will slowly recognise your qualities. They will recognise. People are not stupid, people are very smart, very, very smart. Alright. So that’s the meat mantra.

Please page three, we go down to the Eight Fears and this will relate to what we’re doing later. The Eight Fears refer to fear of lions, fear of elephants, fear of fire, fear of snakes, fear of bandits, fear of captivity, fear of water and shipwrecks, fear of demons. Of course, this was originated 2,500 years ago in India so these are applicable then and you may think, well they’re not applicable now you know – how dangerous I walk down from here to Mid-Valley and drive there and I meet an elephant? Why pray to Tara to protect me from elephant? Even you pray like that people think you’re crazy. Or from here to Mid-Valley you have a ship-wreck, you think it’s not applicable but there are deeper meanings. When you pray for a fear of lions, protection from fear of lions and elephants and fire – they have a symbolic meaning. Physically there may not be lions but when you propitiate Tara, she protects you from this fear.

What happens is lion which is the inner lion which is pride; the inner elephant – delusion; the inner fire of hatred and anger; the inner snake of envy and jealousy; the inner bandit of wrong view and erroneous philosophies; the inner captivity of greed, greed holds you like a prison; the inner fear of water, lust and attachment; and the inner fear of demons.

Number one, if we have a lot of pride, if we have a lot of pride in ourselves, pride in this case has nothing to do with the western term because western people are very like – “I’m good at this, I’m good at that, I’m good at this, I’m good at that, I, I, I, I, I, I.” It’s very I centralised. It’s a cultural thing. But pride is actually, what it is, it’s not you’re good at this or you’re good at that, people will know whether you’re good or not. Pride is when you are very insecure about something within yourself and you need to re-affirm to other people that you are good at it, in order to hide your insecurity about something. And therefore, you have a lot of pride, to cover this insecurity. One.

Two, pride can be – you do have knowledge but you’re very stubborn to learn or to share other ways and other methods and you think you are the best and you are the only one. So therefore, a lot of pride arises.

Three, the fear that your way may be good but there may be another way or a better way or another way and fear of discovery of that and not wanting that and protection of that. So, pride arises to protect yourself.

Pride and spiritual practice are like putting yourself and a poisonous snake inside one room, with no protection. It’s very dangerous. If you have a lot of pride, there are specific Buddhist meditations to alleviate and cut it because pride is like an upside-down cup and you’re thirsty and no matter who pours water into it, the water disperses. The cup cannot go in. Pride blocks knowledge, pride blocks attainments, pride blocks advancement, pride blocks any type of knowledge advancement and any type of betterment because you refuse to listen to anyone else, you refuse to do any other way. You refuse to do anything. People on a superficial level, may be impressed that you’re good at this and good at that but they will see through it. So, the Buddhist method of countering that is what? To be totally open about your weaknesses; to be totally open about your mind; to be totally open about whatever faults you have. That will be one way to cut pride down.

Delusion is viewing reality, viewing the way things operate in a wrong way, seeing things in a wrong way, not getting information on it to have a correct view and operating on a delusional way of thinking – represented by elephants. Hatred and anger. There’s a lot more explanation but I won’t get into it cos it will take too much time away. Hatred and anger; very simple. Anger and hatred, there are two types – there is anger and hatred that actually arises that you wish to harm the other person. Your motivation is to harm and to damage the other person. Therefore, through anger and hatred you harm them. Another type of anger and hatred that can arise is the anger and hatred that is actually out of great love and great compassion. Where you actually show anger, towards another being out of great love. Example, always is a mother scolding or hitting a child, out of extreme great love; a father scolding his son – great love. Looks fierce, looks wrathful, is painful but the motivation is love. But the anger and hatred that we wish to alleviate is the one that’s motivated to harm the other – I didn’t get what I want, I am belittled. A lot of pride and therefore anger arises and that anger is uncontrolled and we wish to harm the other person in anyway shape or form. If we’re a good person, afterwards we regret. If we’re a bad person, we carry it out. A very, very big obstacle to Dharma practice. It burns your being, it burns your practice and anything you do – you will not have peace. Represented by fire.

Taras Who Protect From the Eight Fears (click on the image to learn more)

Envy and jealousy. Envy and jealousy is never satisfied with what you have, always wanting more, always demanding more. If you have one million you want two million and you can’t be happy with one million. If you have two friends, you’re not happy, you want to have 10 friends. If you have 20 outfits of clothes, you’re not happy; you want to have 30. Anger and jealousy is very harmful, I’m sorry, jealousy and envy is very harmful is because you are never, ever satisfied, with what you have and you never reflect on what you have but you constantly live your life on what you do not have. So, what you do not have, you complain, you show your anger, you show your dissatisfaction, to yourself, to the people around you. What happens? People go away, people run away and people avoid.

So, jealousy and envy is one of the greatest enemies of your self because that is what drives people actually away. You’re never, ever happy. We will never be satisfied with what we have until we die. So, to counter that we have to reflect on the good things that we have. It may not be as much as the good things the next person has – correct, but you still must have good things in your life. And another way to counter that is to realise if you work, if you work this hard to achieve this – you have achieved it, so if the next person has this and you don’t have it, instead of being jealous you should rejoice that they have developed these qualities, they have developed and their time and their energy into this, to achieve that, and to be happy for their sacrifice. When you sacrifice and you achieve something good and other people are jealous of you, your explanation is, “but I worked for it.” Yes. Similarly, other people have worked for it also. So, people who are better than us, people who have achieved more than us, instead of all the time sitting among snakes that constantly bite us and are venomous – the snake of jealousy and envy, we should transform it into lotuses that are harmless, by thinking that these people have collected the merits and the karma in previous lives to get these items, to achieve these items and I rejoice and I’m happy for them. Your mind becomes calm.

Wrong view and erroneous philosophies. To hold your mind, they’re like bandits because they steal things away. Bandits steal things, thieves steal things. Wrong view and erroneous philosophies steal what away? The correct practice view. If you follow wrong views, with a lot of pride and protect it and you follow erroneous philosophies – philosophies with out basis and grounding, that how to say, that the results are not proven and you cannot prove and you follow it, it is like bandits because they steal things away. These wrong view and erroneous philosophy steal your time and your energy away – which could have been dedicated to something that can actually bring results. So, it is equivalent to bandits.

Captivity is greed and avarice; similar to envy and jealousy, I won’t go into jealousy, I won’t go into much um whatever.

Fear of water and shipwrecks is lust and attachment; attachment to items and to things and not being able to let go. That you expect things to be a certain way; you want things to be a certain way and it doesn’t come out the way you want and therefore, you drown yourself in pity – self pity, you drown yourself in sorrow, you drown yourself in unhappiness and you want to give up. The sign of wanting to give up, the sign of self-pity and the sign of always attached – always unhappy because of that, is a great sign of great attachment. That your mind is very, very attached to a certain way, to a certain thought, to a certain standard and things must be done this way and if it’s not done this way; you are unhappy; you wallow in self pity; you complain and you want mercy. Constantly. It’s like a ship-wreck because, in the middle of the ocean, instead of achieving its destination – the ship goes under. So, what you could have been, what you can do – you don’t do. The ship could have gotten to its destination but it doesn’t; it becomes shipwrecked. Why? Your attachment is very deep.

To counter that is to realise that, everything is impermanent, what comes up – must come down, what is young must become old, what we get must be lost, what we receive must be given. Everything you have now; your children, your family, your parents, your clothes, your jewellery, your money, your position, your station, your knowledge; everything actually belongs to other people. Why? You can only have it for a few years. At the time of death, you must relinquish everything. And you may think oh well I’ll relinquish it to my kids and that, that, that. No, no guarantee. No guarantee your children will use it wisely, no guarantee that it will create harmony among them and not disruption and fighting and arguments and disharmony.

Nothing that you have, nothing that you own, nothing that you use – nothing, is permanently yours. Until you realise that truth, until you realise that single truth that Buddha has taught, that nothing belongs to you and everything you have changes and must be generated, if you don’t accept that, then whatever you lose and don’t have – you will constantly be attached and you want it again and therefore you suffer. I don’t have this, I don’t have that, I don’t have that, I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have that – because you don’t want to see the truth; you don’t want to accept what is reality.

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So, when you don’t accept what is reality, when you lose – you suffer. You will have to lose it but there’s a way of losing things, there’s a way of giving things up; one that creates more negative karma, one that creates no negative karma. Everything you have and everything you use and you own belongs to other people. Even the great kings like Tutankhamen, where they have buried their treasure in secret catacombs and secret underground tightly trapped pyramids, are now completely open for the world to use; displayed all over. Even they could not keep their wealth – with protections, with catacombs. Great kings and queens have to lose their possessions; who are we? Even when Buddha dies, he has to leave his staff, begging bowl and robes behind. Nothing can be kept. Therefore, when nothing can be kept, we use what we need and be happy with what we have. Whatever extra – use it for the benefit of others. Use it for the benefit of others; then you will cut your attachment.

Attachment is when you expect and want things to be a certain way and it must be only that way and you cannot get away from that and you hold onto that. You suffer and if you’re silly, you make everybody around yourself suffer. If you don’t have the karma and you don’t have the support merit to have what you want happen the way you want and you force it to be that way – you have not accepted the truth of impermanence. You will suffer; no one else.

And in the process of suffering you will do more and more actions to try to get it and create more and more and more and more negative karma. More and more and more – the karma just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger because you don’t want to see what is true and accept what is true, according to Lord Buddha. And what is the truth? The truth is – all things must decay, what we get must be lost, what is young must become old, what is rich must become poor, everything must be given up. Realise that, understand that, accept that, then live your life; enjoy what you have. It will be a different perspective. Buddha cannot take your problems away; Jesus and God cannot take your problems away. If they could, they would have a long time ago. But giving you wisdom and a different perspective of looking at it through wisdom, will take your problem away. In what way? You have the problem – you don’t suffer with the problem. There’s a difference of having a problem and suffering and having a problem and not suffering. There’s a very big difference.

So us not wanting to see what is reality, we don’t have the karma to get this to achieve this; yet we force it and then when we don’t get it and we try to force it and we still cannot get it, we want it, we want it, we want it and we complain, and we complain and complain and we do other bad things to try to get it and we do this, do that, do this, do this and we go lower and lower and lower. Why? The karma pulls us down. Think about that.

You are all educated and intelligent and much more educated and much more better than I am – much more experienced than I am. I’m from some weird little village in South India. You have much more education, some of you are much more older and much more experienced than I am. Therefore, I don’t teach this to you; I present this truth spoken by Lord Buddha to you and you all check it out and see – is it true or not? If it is true, apply it. If it is not true, never mind – you don’t go to hell, Buddha doesn’t punish you, there’s no guilt trips. See and check; that’s what Buddha said. See, check and see, check, see and check. Correct or not? If it’s applicable; apply it. It will definitely relieve a lot of sufferings and unhappiness. Accept that things have to go; accept that things have to change; accept that things have to degenerate; accept that all things do not belong to you eventually. Temporarily, I own this watch and this mala. So, if I’m very attached that everything must be mine, mine – I cannot give it up; someone take this – I will suffer. Maybe I commit suicide. But if I realise that things don’t really belong to me, I just use it temporarily, I protect it while I can; if it’s gone – that’s all. Then, you suffer less. That is not to say you walk around saying oh nothing belongs to me – just give everything away. No, but you have a middle-way. Think about that. That is like the fear of being imprisoned or being accused wrongly; captivity.

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Transcript

“Oh, I pray Tara, Tara, Tara there ah?” Then I think “Oh no no, I don’t kill, I don’t kill.” Don’t kill bring good result? Have doubt. Why have doubt about things that you know is inherently true? Then how to alleviate the doubt? Study Dharma, read the information, ask your teacher, investigate. You don’t sit there at home and pick your nose, go for one Dharma talk and come back and say “I know things” and then another doubt comes – How? Learn, investigate, apply effort.

So, doubt is like demons and currently demons do afflict us. There are very powerful ‘bomohs’ (shamans) everywhere in Southeast Asia. There are very powerful people who can do magic, you know they take your hair, they put things inside and next day you’re [makes a funny face]. You don’t even know why. There is magic still around. I don’t care what western people think they got or don’t got – got, definitely got. So, there are magic, there are things that can harm you, there are things that can disturb you, there are things running around with no head trying to get you, there are people who are jealous and want to send magic – there are. And the two practices we’re going to talk about will cut it off.

See as I told you before Buddhism has nothing to send magic but we sure can cut it off. Because Buddha doesn’t believe in harming other people. So, if he doesn’t believe in harming people, he’s not going to teach you how to do magic to get them, is he? No. Any Buddhists, or monks or nuns or people, who do magic or do magic spells, run. They’re not Buddhists. It’s against Buddhist vows of refuge, the very first step of Buddhism – to do magic, to harm, it’s the first step. So anybody wearing yellow robes, red robes, no hair, got hair, got long hair, short hair, whatever you know, whatever and they tell you “I’m a Buddhist Master, I’m a Rinpoche, I’m this, I can do magic, come here, give me angpow, I do this, I get you girlfriend, I get you boyfriend, I get you money, I do magic for you, you don’t like them – I make sure their business go down.” Anyone say things like that to you, they say they are Buddhist, what you do is you get on the next 747 and you split, as fast as you can because they are not Buddhist practitioners.

Buddha never taught any magic that I have seen. Buddhism does not practise magic, does not like magic and does not do it because Buddha doesn’t harm, but Buddha realises that there are people who practise it that may harm people, so he gives you methods on how to cut it and protect yourself. So, what he does is he gives you a shield, but he don’t give you a knife to strike back. So, if they hit you with a knife and you got shield – cannot, you sit there picking you nose … nobody can get you. Very powerful.

So, the doubts is like demons. Demons harm you – doubts harm you on the inside. It’s the inner demon. So when you practise Tara well, protects you from the Eight Fears. Next page. Tara’s mantra meaning, alright I won’t go over that you can read that, it’s self-explanatory. You can achieve five sciences – magical powers, that’s if that’s what you’re interested in; five different types of clairvoyances; and seven different types of wisdom by doing Tara’s practice or any type of deity practice.

The five sciences you can master is become grammar, dialectics, medicine, arts/crafts, religious philosophy. She’ll bless you to understand them well to be of benefit to others. Magical powers, which Buddhism frowns upon – flying, becoming invisible, everlasting youth, the power of transmutations, all those things, can be achieved as a side product but it’s not the aim of the practice. So, if you’re going to do Tara’s practice so you can fly in the sky, it will be easier if you just pray to Tara that next life you can be a bird. Please Tara, please may I die tomorrow and be re-born as a bird. Then you can fly all you want.

I always say if I’m going to meet His Excellency Dr Mahathir who’s a very great leader and I respect, and I’m going to meet him and when I meet him he’s going to say “Tsem Rinpoche you can have anything you want” and I’m going [clapping hands together] and I go up there and I say “Alright, alright, I want a quarter pounder from McDonald’s.” Stupid! I should say something to him like “um… can I have 10 million dollars.” You know… “can I have a big piece of land with 10 million dollars on it.” You know, something big, grab it. Get what you can. You don’t go up and say “can I have a quarter pounder?” So, you don’t go up to Tara, who can purify all your karma, who can completely free you from suffering, take you out of samsara and you can hang out in the Buddha Heaven, you can just lounge around with a beautiful body with no love handles at all and never get old and you can kiss Tara all day long. You can do whatever you want. You can become a fully enlightened Buddha, you can pray to Tara for all of this and achieve this – instead of asking for Tara for this, you ask her – “can I fly?” I mean how ridiculous. It’s a side product that you can achieve from these meditations, it’s not the goal.

Five different types of clairvoyances you can achieve through stabilising your meditation, through Tara. Divine hearing – hearing long distances, very far away. So, you become like a bat, alright.

Number two, you know other people’s thoughts, you know what they’re thinking. You know what they want. You know what’s the next lottery number. You know other people’s thoughts. But, when you gain these powers in Buddhism, the great masters actually read your thoughts, read your karma, to know what they need to help you, to help you get out of suffering. They use this skill to help you, they don’t use this skill to get something out of you. I have some silly ridiculous people who tell me, I’m bored I want to learn clairvoyance. Don’t translate! Yes. That’s not the reason we pray to Tara. It’s a side product you can get. Definitely you can get clairvoyance – it’s stilling of the mind.

Remembering past lives. “Yes, yes in my previous lives I was Egyptian, Cleopatra” – I’ve heard that 5,000 times. Every single Hollywood star, every single female Hollywood star was Cleopatra. You always read that in some trashy little Enquirer magazine, Cher, I don’t know, 1970 when I read in the National Enquirer, she was laying there on the front cover like this you know – [poses]. “I was an Egyptian Princess in my previous life, I was Cleopatra.”… God. That’s how ridiculous this is. How many people come up to me and say “what was I in my previous life Rinpoche?” And I say “you were a chicken – I don’t know!” Aiyoh. “You were a chicken and you went to the wrong place and ended up in KFC – that’s it.” I don’t know what you were in your previous life, but through meditation you can attain the power of knowing your previous life. Definitely you can. I don’t know how that’s going to help you but anyway that’s one of the things that comes along. OK.

Then knowing the death and rebirth of sentient beings. You gain the power to know when people will die and where they will take rebirth or where they took rebirth before and when they died before – you will gain that power.

Next one is, knowledge of the exhaustion of contaminations, which means you will know when people’s karma end and become a Buddha. But that power only comes if you’re an Arhat or a Buddha – that’s it. So, for us right now cannot. That one – skip it la. But I’ll be happy with the other four.

Alright. Seven wisdoms you get. Great wisdom, clean wisdom, quick wisdom, profound wisdom, wisdom of deliberation and speech. It’s not speed, that’s a mistype – speech. Wisdom, deliberation and speed? You can talk fast huh. Fastest talker in the world. Speech. Which means through this practice you’ll be able to be a very great speaker, a person whose speech will be able to convince others and benefit others and your speech will be one that when others hear… s-p-e-e-c-h- speech ok. Every little mistype there’s a [inaudible] going on, get ready for the next one. Okay. Wisdom of debate. Wisdom of Debate is what? You don’t pray to Tara that whoever I argue with I win. No, no, no. It’s that if you have knowledge and you have something that can benefit others and other people are very stubborn and difficult due to pride or anger or whatever and you need to convince them to help them, not that you’re right and not that you win, to show them a path that will benefit them that will help them, out of compassion, to win them over, to help them to gain the power of the deity. Which means when you debate with another person, when you get into an argument, there’s no way that they can win over you. No way. No matter what way they go and you can only gain this power and retain this kind of power, if your motivation is strictly to benefit the other person. If your motivation is to benefit and to help the other person, to totally help them and no other motivation, you’ll gain this type of power through Tara practice. So, whatever you say, however they debate, however they argue, they cannot win over you. No way. Number seven, the wisdom of composition and writing. That’s self-explanatory, alright?

The Five Heinous Crimes – the five worst crimes that anyone can do on this planet, in this world system. That when you die you have 49 days maximum, doesn’t mean you stay for 49 days, it means 49 days maximum that you can wonder around in between states of death and re-birth. So, it doesn’t mean you hang out for 49 days, it means the maximum is 49. Some people hang out for 1 day, some people hang out for 10 days, depending on karma and take rebirth. Alright? Me I hung out for 48 and a half days. But never mind. I don’t know how many days, I’m just kidding. So, but if you commit any of these five crimes according to Buddha, in our world system, the minute you die, the minute you close your eyes, the next time you open it you’ll end up in one of the lowest hells – the most suffering of hells, until you finish your karma. It’s very powerful. So, there’s no in-between states because the karma is very powerful. Killing one’s mother, killing one’s father, killing an arhat, causing schism within the Sangha – which means within the Sangha different monks and different masters – you say one thing “this master no good you know, he’s no good blah blah blah blah blah,” and the students run away. Or “here they talk, talk… this lineage no good, this Dharma no good, my Dharma is good.” It creates schism – they run away. When you do that, why? You’re chasing people away from enlightenment, you’re chasing people away from Dharma teachings, you’re chasing people away from the good path. It’s equivalent to sending them back to samsara. It’s like someone needs penicillin, you take it away from them. So, when you create schism within the Sangha, when you create schism in that way, talk about teachers, talk about masters, talk about monks and whatever and this good/no good – you create the type of karma, you go to hell very fast. Very powerful.

Drawing blood from a Tathagata. Tathagata is another word for Buddha – Sanskrit. You cannot kill a Buddha but you can draw blood if you try to cut his body. Why? Although a Buddha is a Buddha his body is a physical component of this world, so it has a physical composition of this world. Like … earth, air, fire, water – which is blood, the nerves, bones… So physically you can harm a Buddha but you can’t kill. He doesn’t have the karma to be killed. Harm doesn’t mean you can actually harm. You can draw blood because he has blood. To do that with malintent. Alright?

The Five Buddha Families and what they represent, we’ll talk about that later and their direction and what their mudra is and also, what their particular whatever is.

Ok. Let’s go to the next section, page 7. So, I’ve explained all that now it becomes much easier. Much, much easier. So those are the notes. The next three practices are very easy, I just go through it like that. It’ll be easy. You guys are really smart. It’s a little late, never mind. Tomorrow a little bit sleepy but tonight you get Dharma and you can sleep for the next five weeks until I give another talk, for six weeks or seven weeks. Ok, I let you guys sleep for four weeks and then I give Dharma talk, tonight a little bit sleepy you can tahan right. Can. No choice. The door is locked and this big bodyguard is blocking it. The only time this guy got up and moved his seat was when that kid was leaving. But you see that guy is pretty scary huh? He looks like Mahakala. Like Vajrapani, you know. So, anybody try to leave this place, you got to go through this guy. So, I’m staying. Look at John. John’s thinking “uh-oh!” John’s thinking “he’s pretty big.” Alright. Let’s everybody stand up and stretch your legs and sit down immediately please and then we’ll go to the next step. Yeah, stretch your legs, stretch it. Actually, sit down, everybody, some people have more … [inaudible].

Ok, White Tara practice is, you start … this practice is excellent. It’s condensed, it’s short, it’s easy, if you want to do this, there’s three practices I’m going to give you, I’m sorry, two practices I’m going to give you to protect you from epidemics, two. One is White Tara, one is Black Garuda. So, either one you can do, you can do both or you can do either one.

Now we’re going to talk about Tara. White Tara is excellent for protection because she specifically is for the prolongation of life. The prolongation of life in the sense that you can practice and further your meditations. One. Two, Tara is excellent because she has the energy of swiftness and quickness and the care of a mother for her child. The minute a mother hears a child scream she’ll run there. Tara is like that. When she hears her devotees, she runs. She’s like a very great, grandmother, not a grandmother but a great grandiose mother. So, when you call upon her, she’s excellent for protecting you from Eight Fears. She’s excellent for meditation upon attaining the five different types of clairvoyances. She’s excellent for attaining the seven different types of wisdoms and perfecting the five sciences. She can help you to collect the merits that your Dharma study becomes efficacious and quick.

Reciting her mantra devotedly, with faith and understanding and correct motivation, and, correct motivation, devotedly, continuously – her mantra is very, very powerful for healing one’s body. For healing other people’s body. For calming the distractions, for controlling weather, for controlling and dispelling negative spirits. If there is negative spirits around, if you do her practice well, humbly and you do her with full devotion by the recitation of her mantra, you will be able to control that negative spirit and even pledge them to stop harming other people. That you can achieve through Tara.

And your worldly aims – you want to gain wealth, you want to increase wealth, you want to gain health, wisdom, she’s excellent – for business Tara is excellent. One of the best. All traditions of Buddhism, all lineages of Buddhism, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma, Gelugpa, Northern Buddhism, Mahayana, whoever, who want wealth, in the divination always come up Tara.

A Tara image which is famous throughout the Himalayan region due to its ability to speak to those with pure minds (click to enlarge)

Tara is excellent and Tara is one of the deities that’s very easy to appear to you because she represents the wind element. The wind is swiftness. She’s very easy to appear. There are many, many statues, out of all the Buddha statues, there are many statues of Tara that has spoken to disciples. There are so many Buddhas and there are so many statues of them – out of the more common statues of Buddhas that speak are Tara, Guru Rinpoche and Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa statue speak to people quite often. Tara statues speak very often and Guru Rinpoche statues. These are very, very well known. We call them sungyurma, meaning statues that speak and give advice to disciples. And in India I saw two statues … In India and Nepal I’ve come across two statues that speak, they didn’t speak to me but they’re known to be speaking Taras and I made there and made offerings. Very precious.

So, Tara’s very great for these things, in fact, if you take Tara as your main yidam, your own main tutelary practice or add it to your practice, she’s beneficial for your business, she’s beneficial for increasing wisdom, she’s beneficial for attaining siddhis, she’s very powerful for answering your prayers, for healing, for long-life and protection of others, controlling spirits. She’s excellent. For healing sicknesses and if you have someone that’s ill and that’s sick or if you want to protect them, she’s one of the best practices.

She’s contained, fully contained. The beautiful, gentle and simple Tara, who’s one in nature with Guan Yin, who has arisen from Guan Yin’s own tear. She’s considered an emanation of Guan Yin, of Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig, so when you pray to Tara, you are praying to Guan Yin herself. When you’re praying to Guan Yin, you’re praying to Buddha. They are emanations of Lord Buddha, different forms, different avatars.

[With] Tara, you can never go wrong. Never. Everything is completely embodied in Tara and in this form of White Tara, white represents pacification and peace, everything is done peacefully and quietly and gently. It’s like when you’re very hot and there’s gentle breeze. White Tara’s energy is like that. Very excellent practice at this time especially and I’ve compiled it here for you very short.

To do the practice, to do the six preliminary practices, if we have time, we can set up an altar, we can make offerings – if we have time, if we don’t never mind, we just go straight to the practice. Trust in Tara, trust in Buddha. Tara, Buddha Tara… and believe. I go for refuge to the Gurus or you can recite it in Sanskrit, NAMO GURU BEH, either way. I go for refuge to the Gurus, I go for refuge to the Buddhas, I go for refuge to the Dharma, I go for refuge to the Sangha. Or you can recite

NAMO GURU BEH,
NAMO BUDDHA YA,
NAMO DHARMA YA,
NAMO SANGHA YA

and in front of you, at the height of your forehead, about 1 arm span away, you visualise Tara, the size of your hand. 3D, in full colour, moving, very happy, very bright and luminous. Her body like a beautiful, young maiden, with beautiful hair, half tied up – half coming down with ornaments, smiling, with seven eyes. Three on her face, one of each of her palms, and one of each of her legs. In the mudra of giving refuge and protection, the other mudra of bestowing whatever your needs are, sitting in a meditation posture of a vajra posture which means leg in meditation. White in colour, gentle, holding a lotus and smiling at you, very bright – filled with rainbows, very bright – filled with rainbows and she’s the emanation of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Visualise that very clearly and concentrate and pray to her, please purify my negative karma or if it’s for that person, mine and that person’s, spirit harms and sicknesses and at this time especially – SARS. May those people be healed quickly, may further people not be infected and especially if you want to think about your family members, like your mother, your father, your children, your husband, your wife, your friend – whatever. You can think of them especially at this time, or people who are exposed to this danger all the time. You can do it yourself or for other people’s sake. When? – anytime. Where? – any place, except the toilet. And how long? – up to you.

Then, visualising that and seeing the lights come very strongly from Tara’s heart – white, blessing, powerful lights enter your body and purifies your karma immediately. Completely purifies and wipes away disease and sickness completely and you recite her mantra. I’ll get to the mantra afterwards alright? This is the visualisation. And then you visualise from Tara’s heart, this is what you’re doing while you’re doing mantra. “Again, lights stream fourth from the letters at my heart”, my represent Tara’s heart ok. “Again, lights stream fourth from Tara’s heart – yellow in colour. They fill my body and my friend’s body and it fills your body completely and it increases your life span, merits, qualities, learning and understanding, wisdom of hearing, contemplation and meditation. They leave my body and form a thin halo outside the one previously constructed,” the white one ok, “all activities and increase are accomplished.”

Oh, I skipped a part, sorry. Above that is says from Tara’s heart comes white lights. Right above that is says “From Tara’s heart comes white lights, equal to that of 100,000 moons. So white lights come out, fill your body and the white lights pacify illness, evil spirits, negative karma and if you’re very ill, if you’re ill or you have some disease or sickness that you want to cure, you focus on this white light more and you realise that it’s purifying your sickness. And the negative karma, mental obscurations and interference to life is flushed out of your body and then the lights enter your body and then comes out of your pores, and surrounds your body like a nimbus or a halo.” It surrounds your body in a white light, so you’re inside an egg. This meditation is very important for protection. So, with the deepest respect to all of you, pay attention and listen well, this meditation, combined with mantra will be very powerful in protection, for you and your loved ones.

So, at this moment, from Tara’s heart comes white lights, goes into your body. You can visualise it going through the crown of your head, like pouring in, flushing out your interferences, your karma to a short life, getting diseases, illnesses and if you’re sick, visualise your sickness being pushed away. If you’re sick at a particular spot in your body, visualise the white light hitting that area and flushing that sickness out. And if you’re a great practitioner, if you’re a great master, at this time you pray to Tara that your disciple’s sickness, your friend’s sickness and other people’s sickness come to you and you visualise their sickness coming to you, you accept it and you get the pain and you get Tara to purify it. But if you’re not a great master, you just think about yourself at this moment. Then you purify it and then your body, the white light it fills your body or, let’s say we’re visualising our mother or our father, fills their body and our body, completely and flushes out the sickness. And then the white light comes out through the pores of our body and surrounds us completely. Becomes like a white egg and we’re sitting in the centre.

“Again, from Tara comes yellow lights. The yellow lights come out, fill our body, does the same thing, except this time, increases your life span, merits, qualities, learning, wisdom,” and it comes out through your pores and it becomes another outer covering outside of the white one. So, you have a white egg and outside is a yellow egg.

Then again comes out red lights. Red light is symbolic of control, subjugation. The lights come out, leave, flushes your body out, negativities, negative energy and especially anger. So, at this time if you visualise a red light entering you, you visualise it entering especially your heart area, expelling your anger, expelling hatred, expelling your temper and you become less and less and less temperamental. Expel it and it comes out of your pores and surrounds the yellow and becomes a red.

Similarly, next page, the next one will be blue. The blue will accomplish activities. Whatever activity you wish to accomplish, through Tara, you’ll be able to accomplish. Fulfilment of activities. So similarly, the same procedure, outside of the red is the blue.

Then the next one is green. Attainments, destruction of jealousy and avarice. Destruction of jealousy and avarice of other people. The lights come out again of your pores, surround the last one which was blue. Oh, I’m sorry, yes blue.

Then the last light that comes out is brown. The last light that comes out of Tara is brown, fills your body and whatever the other lights and what they represent are there, the brown one seals it and confirms it and makes it solid and you do this while you’re reciting the mantra below. Please listen to me while I pronounce it to you and then afterwards, I would like you to follow my pronunciation. Alright I will pronounce it to your first. The first mantra is specifically to protect yourself and to purify your karma and to heal your disease.

Click to enlarge.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MAMA AYUH PUNYA JNANA PUSHTRIM KURU YE SOHA

You can do that around 21 times while you’re visualising those lights.

The next mantra will be for the person you are meditating for. So, let’s say the person I’m meditating for, the name is Tenzin. So,

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE TENZIN AYU PUNYA JNANA PUSHTRIM KURU YE SOHA

So you insert the person’s name. If they are very ill, you insert their name and this isn’t just enough for SARS, this for any disease but at this time special protection, for example if our parents are very old, they cannot do this, we insert their name.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE…

maybe Ng family, maybe Tan family, maybe your mother, you can put, if your mother’s name, maybe like Linda.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE LINDA AYUH PUNYA JNANA PUSHTRIM KURU SOHA

And you visualise the lights going to them and doing that to them and then 21 times, that’s optional. Then the mantra you actually focus on is, the essence mantra, all the essence mantra of all the Taras which is

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

So, the mantra you actually focus on is that one and you do that one rosary or more depending on time.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

And you do that visualisation. You don’t have to do that once, you can do the visualisation again or you can it again or you can do certain parts that you need more. If you need wisdom – you do the yellow light more, if you need protection – you can do the blue lights more, if you need to get rid of anger – you can do the red lights more, if you need to heal a disease or someone – you do white more and you send the energy to them. That’s how you do it. Contacting Tara.

You may think but what I’m doing is just visualisation. Does it have power? It does. The visualisation is like a telephone call to Tara. Tara needs a medium. Needs a way or a method to send her energy through you. You’re here, she’s outside. You need to open a door. The meditation you do through the mantra recitation is opening the door. So when you do that visualisation, Tara is doing what you’re visualising but she doesn’t do it in according to your visualisation, she’s doing it through the power of your visualisation, through that power you unlock the door for Tara to enter your life, so it’s very, very, very powerful. Very, very powerful.

So, if you have people you’re very concerned about. This is it. If you have people, if you’re concerned about yourself, this is it. And please do not use this practice just to protect yourself from SARS. Do it on a general level of increasing wisdom, compassion, knowledge, purifying and healing of sicknesses, make that one of them but don’t make it ‘it’. It can be very, very, very powerful to do it quietly. Then if you don’t have much time, you do the one rosary OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA, you finish. If you have more time you can continue. This practice is called a sadhana. A sadhana is to generate yourself as a deity. It’s to contact the deity. It’s like giving you a road map to Tara. A sadhana is a road map. A road map to Tara.

White Tara (click to enlarge)

Ok, so please repeat after me – OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MAMA AYU PUNYA JNANA PUSHTRIM KURU YE SOHA [repeats 3 times] – if you pronounce that just like that, fine, if it’s little bit off, never mind. Tara is not so narrow minded “eh he pronounced my mantra wrong I’m not going to bless him.” No, no, not like that. If Tara like that we pick her up and throw her out, correct? So don’t worry, you think, “oh my mantra correct or not correct.” But when you do the mantra try to do it very quietly, if you’re alone you can recite it. When you’re alone it is said that you can recite it to the point where you can just hear yourself reciting it. When you’re with other people, quietly. And you hold your mala in your left hand on your index finger, because there’s different meaning on your index, your middle finger, your ring finger or your pinkie, there’s different attainments. You hold it on your index finger for achieving peace, alright, peaceful method and you pull the mala towards you. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Pull it towards you like you’re pulling Tara towards you. And when you go around and around, when you get to the head right, you don’t need to turn it around and go the other way, because you’re not allowed to go over the head because it’s bad karma because your grandmother told you. You know I’ve had people tell me that, they turn it around because they afraid. Don’t need to, you go right over, it’s just a counter. You go right over OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA you go around. So you want to do one round you do one round. You want to do two rounds – you do two rounds, ten – ten, it’s up to you.

So, it’s like I give you a car from New York to Los Angeles and I give you the map. You want to drive faster you go, you want to drive slow – ok one round la. So, everybody in Los Angeles in the disco having a good time, your still on the road – OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Up to you. I’m already on the podium already, dancing. OK?

Any questions about that so far? Easy, isn’t it? This has been highly… Tara’s prayer is quite long, and Tara’s prayer is quite complicated, this has been condensed by very great masters to make it short for us busy people. Ok and I have made it even shorter for us busy people. But I have not composed any of this myself, I’ve compiled it from traditional sources, to make it very easy for you. Alright.

Then, next is making offerings. If you have time, you have an altar, you have Tara in front of you, you make the five sensory offerings. So, what you do is this. You bless the offerings, ah lift up this, this one here, yes, yes, bring the plate, the plate, the plate, in the back. Stand up Melvin, never mind, sit down Melvin. You have a plate of offerings you can put whatever you like. Alright I happen to put… I better not… It was very tempting you know, Tara was telling me to eat it. You think I should listen to Tara or do you think it’s my mind playing tricks? Imagine this … Quite nice huh? Ok I better not la, bad karma. I’ll do it when you guys are not looking. Ok, so you can set up beautiful offerings, on a clean plate, you can put whatever you want, you can put fruits, you can put raisins you can put biscuits, you can put more, you can put less – up to you. But don’t be a cheapskate you know, don’t put a little bit like that, “Here Tara, have it.” Even a cockroach can offer this much, a little bit more la, you know nice and you can change it every day if you like, if got ants, clean it. You can put packaged things. After you’re done you can eat it, no problem. You know offer cakes you don’t offer half an hour and then say “ok – I’m going to eat it now” that’s not really offering lah, you want to eat it, you just keeping. I had some people like that you know I had some people, oh I won’t give you any names but a few years ago I had some people that I’d made offerings and somebody asked me “do you think they’re done eating it?” Anyways, when you make the offering, let it go. When you put the offering there and you bless it and you put the five sensory offerings – the water for the feet, the water for the drinking, flower, incense, perfume all that, I put there as an example.

Click to enlarge

So you bless the offering by saying OM AH HUM three times. OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM – that’s it. Then you visualise from Tara’s heart, lights go out and invite Tara again, in front and then the real Tara comes and dissolves into the Tara in front of you again.

Then you recite this, very easy. Next page, page 9. This is offering food to Tara – OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KA KA KHAHI KHAHI. When you offer Tara food, it’s very powerful for collecting merit and for generating wealth and business. Alright, hint hint, wealth and business, money ya, ‘fook’ (good fortune in Mandarin). Ok, OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA IDAM BALINGTA KA KA KHAHI KHAHI. ‘KHAHI KHAHI’ is a Sanskrit word or Indian word for eat, so it’s mantracised here. “Please eat Tara, please accept my offerings”, so you offer beautiful things and ask her to partake. After that you offer her drinking water, you offer her water to wash her feet out of respect to show humility, you offer her beautiful flowers, you offer incense, you offer light to light the way, you offer her beautiful perfumes, delicious foods, you offer her beautiful music and that’s shown here [holds up text].

So, you offer that by reciting this – OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA ARGHAM, PADYAM, PUSHPE, DHUPE, ALOKE, GYENDE, NEWIDE, SHAPTA, PRATTICHAYE HUM SOHA. How simple. Then after that you do a praise to Tara. It’s like you invite someone to come over, you offer them food and then you tell them you’re wonderful, you’re beautiful, you’re fabulous … now can I have my job … something like that. Then after you say to Tara, “now can I get healed.” It’s not like a bribery thing but the system’s like that. Then after that you praise Tara, at the bottom –

Homage to arya Tara
Whose lotus feet
the gods and demi-gods bow their crowns.
Tara, mother of all the Buddhas
To she who is free from poverty
I bow down.

Ok, then you go to the next page, this is totally optional, if you have time, you do the praise written by His Holiness the First Dalai Lama, to White Tara, then after that on page 12, you have the 21 praises to Tara. If you have more time, you can recite that through once. It will be very, very powerful for connecting to Tara. If you don’t have time, it’s ok. Those are all optional. I just included it here so that you don’t have to dig around looking for it. Ok.

And then page 15, is the Tibetan form of the recitation of 21 Taras, you can do that or not, up to you. Then, page 17, the dedication for finishing Tara’s prayer.

‘If I see signs of untimely death, let me straight away clearly see the form of Cintachakra and crushing the might of death, quickly become a deathless Vidyadhara. May this rare and excellent body live a century and not become a vessel for sins and misdeeds, only be used of white, good deeds, fulfilling the aims of myself and others. May all be auspicious.’

You make a dedication to Tara. And the verse above it says ‘Cintachakra’. Cintachakra in Sanskrit means, wheel of fulfilment or wish-fulfilling wheel. Wish-fulfilling wheel is a very poetic way of referring to White Tara, because she fulfils all our wishes. So Cintachakra refers to White Tara. The might of death is Yama or the Lord of death. And deathless Vidyadhara. Vidyatara is a Dharma holder, one who is attained, has attainments. Ok? Then the rest is completion dedication, you can do that, you don’t have to do that – up to you. Extra, I just put that.

Now, please go to page 21. This is very excellent. Please go to page 21. The practice of the Fire Sword of Black Garuda. Again, this would be a very, very powerful practice, these are very secret practices and they’re very refined and very powerful. This practice can be – you can read at the bottom, “The practice should be done by someone who has previously received the highest yoga tantric initiations, if you do not have the highest yoga tantric initiations, if you have the lower initiations, if you have a lower tantric initiation such as Great Chenrezig, you can still do this practice but do not visualise your-self as the deity. Instead keep your ordinary form and visualise the deity outside of yourself in the space in front of you at the crown of your head. If you are doing this practice, with the deity outside of yourself, you will need to modify your visualisation as indicated by the instructions in the brackets.” So, what we do is this. Most of us do not have high initiations, we do it outside of us. We don’t visualise it within us.

So, please go to page, 24. I extracted this black … this was translated by His Eminence Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, so I extracted it from his teachings on the internet and um…it says here advice regarding this practice from Lama Zopa in short. Lama Zopa Rinpoche. “This practice can be done before you get the SARS virus as well as after you get the virus. This practice can also be done if one has cancer, leprosy, ulcers and other epidemic diseases that are related to harmful beings”, alright. AIDS is also included in this. “Even if one doesn’t have the actual SARS disease you can visualise the causes to contract the disease are completely purified. Think that there is not the slightest karma left in my mental continuum.” So, this practice is very powerful as a prevention also, so you can pick either one.

Garuda (click to enlarge)

Let’s go back to page 22. Garuda is a mythical bird; half man, half bird. From waist up it is a man, male and from neck up it’s a bird. It has two horns, has flaming hair, has a crown of vajras and has a beak with very iron, meteor–like teeth, very powerful. And his two hands hold snakes. Then his bottom from waist down is that of a bird and his feet are talons, stepping on a corpse on a sun disc and lotus. These birds were very powerful in protecting people from snakes and snake spirits. Very, very powerful. One of the most potent forms of magic is using snake spirits – nagas. How to say nagas in Chinese? Very powerful to protect you from that. So, this practice is for that, but it has two specialities; one is protection of epidemic diseases and if you have somehow unfortunately contracted it, to heal from it through this practice. It’s a fierce way of healing quick. Two, this practice is excellent for protecting you from spirits, demons, black magic and especially magic related to nagas or water spirits. So, if you have fear, you’re in a dirty place, you’re in a very bad place, you’re in a place that’s infected or not clean or you feel someone’s infected you, if you do this meditation and prayer continuously you will receive signs that you have dispelled. So, if other people want to infect, hurt you or harm you with magic, by the recitation of this mantra and practice, you can avert it and stop it. You don’t need to pay high prices to bomohs or whatever. You can simply do Black Garuda Practice, you will be able to stop this magic, no doubt at all.

So, Black Garuda is not a mythical bird, whether it exists or not I don’t know, but Buddha Shakyamuni himself took on this form of a bird and taught this Tantra for you to use. So, it’s Buddha Shakyamuni in a fierce form, like a protector. To protect you from negativities. So, if you recite this mantra continuously, in places or with people who try to harm you – all types of harm will be stopped. Definitely will be stopped. There is no doubt. This is a very secret practice, this is a very rare practice and it’s not easily given, it’s only during very epidemic or dangerous times this practice is given and it’s a very rare practice. I received this initiation many, many years ago, and I’ve never heard of anyone, any monks or anyone doing this practice – ever. That’s how rare it is. So, His Eminence, was very kind to get this on the net and luckily, I received this initiation from Denma Locho Rinpoche, many years ago. And um, I’m able to share this with you today.

So, you can do either White Tara or you can do Black Garuda – up to you, and if you’re very, very hard working, can do both, but if you do Black Garuda continuously, quietly, without showing off, don’t run around saying “hey I do Black Garuda Practice – no one can harm me” you’re going to get it! Alright, you do it quietly, you do it humbly and you do it with a lot of humility and you do it with full faith in Shakyamuni as Garuda. You will be protected. You can take this mantra and you can blow it on water. You can do this mantra, blow it on water and drink it and put it on your body to heal diseases. You can take this water and you can throw it on places to consecrate dirty places or infected places. People who give you dirty objects or objects that are harmful or magic, you can do this mantra, blow on it, it will nullify it. It’s very, very powerful.

I am giving you the knowledge for every single one of you to become your own self-induced bomoh. Just think when you leave today you will all be bomoh graduates. Just think. So, this is actually not a Buddhist class this is a class of bomoh-ism. Don’t tell. So after this if you do this one, anybody wanna harm ya, you call on BG – Black Garuda. You say “BG, take care of them!” Right. Anyone wanna throw some magic at you – BG. That’s it. I’m making a joke of this, but it’s that simple, that’s how compassionate Buddha was. That he has all this. Anybody wanna harm you, BG. Even if you’re in a place, you cannot get to your Guru, you cannot get to something, you cannot get to someone to help you, whatever, and you recite this mantra and you blow it on a string and you wear it or you give it people to wear, it will become a protection. But you must do it humbly and very kindly. So, to even blow that mantra to give to people, if you want to do that high of a practice, you need to at least do, at least you need to do about 100,000 at least and then after that you can blow and give to people. You don’t do it 21 times and say here and pretend you’re [inaudible]. Even me, I dare not blow the mantra on a string and give to you to bless. No way. It’s very powerful. Do you want protection from black magic, epidemic diseases? – this is it. You call on who? BG. Black Garuda. And his practice is very, very, very simple. Very, very, very easy.

Garuda (click to enlarge)

I go for refuge … um you recite here on page 22. The first line – ‘NAMO GURU VAJRAPANI YE’. The first word on top. Some of us need BG really badly! Alright. ‘NAMO GURU VAJRAPANI YE’ – praise to Vajrapani. “I go for refuge to the Gurus, I go for refuge to the Buddha, I go for refuge to the Dharma, I go for refuge to the Sangha,” three times. Then after that you say – “I must achieve full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, therefore I am going to do the practice and recitation of Black Mantra of Garuda.” So, it’s telling you why you’re doing this mantra, not for small reasons, for big reasons; to protect others, to gain enlightenment, to be of benefit to others, that’s why I’m going to recite it. Three times, then you recite the mantra that purifies that place – OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. Once. Everything is empty. Then, in front of you, you visualise like so: “in the centre of a very great ocean of poison,” all poisons, the most disgusting and poisonous poisons, not a little cup – a whole ocean, “is a square Mount Meru of poison.” Mount Meru is the highest mountain in the world ok, that’s Mount Kailash la. “The essence of which contain the poisons of seeing, touch, feeling,” so not only physical poisons, your inner poisons are in this ocean. What’s the inner poison? Desire, anger, hate, delusions, doubt, wrong view, greed, avarice, these are the real poisons that Black Garuda is the opponent to. So Black Garuda is opponent to the inner and outer poisons. The inner are your defiled states of mind, also in within this. “On top of that is a lotus, a sun disk and a spirit possession.” Spirit possession means a dead corpse, representing spirits. Harmful spirits. “On this three-pile throne I appear,” three-pile is the sun disc, the lotus and spirit. ‘I’ refers not to yourself because you don’t have initiation, “on this appears Black Garuda.”

Then you go to the bottom: “I have a sky iron meteorite beak and two horns. At the root of the horns are three-pronged vajras,” at the root of the horn is three-pronged vajras … so two horns, on top of each horn – this is a vajra [holds up a vajra]. Look here please, this is a vajra. This has four prongs but the one on top has three prongs. So, on top of each horn is a vajra prong, representing – indestructibility. “And at each tip of the horns a single vajra. I am in the nature of blazing fire.” So, his whole body’s on fire, the fire comes out the pores of his body. He doesn’t get burned by it. Very, very fierce. “My head is adorned with jewels”, so between the horns he has five crown jewels just like any other deity. “I have golden eyes, swirling and blazing like the sun.” Very powerful. “My holy mouth is filled with many conch shell teeth. From my wings which are designed with vajras, 100,000 fire sparks are emitted.” He has two wings made of vajras, these [holds up a vajra]. Very powerful and the wings are stroking back and forth. “My two hands hold vicious types of nagas that are being eaten in my holy mouth. From neck down to my knees, my body is in human form but my feet are claws of a bird.”

So, in his mouth he’s holding a long snake, it’s a snake representing negative beings that he can control and magic. He’s holding it. “From my holy body many fire-sparks fly out in the aspect of Black Garudas and sky iron meteorites radiating into the 10 directions.” So, from his body, billions and billions of mini Garudas that look just like him are going out. Going out and protecting you. So, if there is a certain type of magic or whatever, you visualise the Black Garudas going out and dispelling those types of harm. “All the dangerous landlords and nagas fall unconscious with fright. At my crown is an OM” – “at my” means his, is a letter OM, at the throat is an AH and at the heart is a HUM. “From the heart, at his heart radiate out lights invoking the actual Black Garuda, so the actual Black Garuda flies fourth and dissolves into the one that we visualise, so it becomes one. You recite the mantra – DZA HUM BAM HO – they become inseparable. It means your Black Garuda and the real one has become one in front of you.

You make offerings to Black Garuda, just like before, and the offerings you make is just like in White Tara, we drew a diagram there for you. It’s exactly the same offering as in White Tara. Then you recite the mantra of offering:

OM BENZA GARUDA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA PADYAM PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA PUSHPE PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA DHUPE PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA ALOKE PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA GANDHE PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA NEWIDE PRATICCHA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA SHAPTA PRATICCHA HUM SOHA

You make the offerings then you make a praise.

‘You, whose wing feathers shake the 3,000 galaxies,
Dancing with a blazing beak, by merely flapping your wings,
you instantly destroy the three types of spirit possessions,
I praise the controller, Garuda.’

Visualisation – “From his heart garlands of mantras blaze like fire at the end of time becoming a great host of fire. All the animate and inanimate become that nature of fire, blazing and burning all the interferers of upper, middle and below. All are purified.”

So you recite this mantra, the mantra is

OM MANI KYUNG KYUNG THUM THUM BÄ BÄ SOHA (3x)

There are two pronunciations you can recite it either KYUNG KYUNG or CHUNG CHUNG, it doesn’t matter. Depends on dialect. Either will be just as effective.

So, while reciting the mantra, you visualise from Garuda’s heart, blazing fire goes out to you and everybody in the world and the fire is not the type of fire like on this planet where it burns you and hurts you, it’s a psychic fire, it’s a fire of wisdom. So, Garuda’s fire comes out from his heart and burns your sickness, burns your negative karma, burns your ignorance, burns your anger, burns your jealousy, which is the root of sickness, burns your greed, burns everything away and everywhere in the world, think it burns, very powerfully, while you’re reciting this mantra. That is the visualisation that you do, very simple. Then you recite the mantra as much as you can, there is no limit and this mantra is to be recited with a good motivation, quietly and not loudly and not to be passed around frivolously. It’s a very, very wrathful mantra. It’s a very, very efficacious mantra. It’s a mantra which uses wrathful energy, to control epidemic diseases. So, when you recite it, recite it with good motivation. When you recite it, recite it with clear motivation. You can never get any harm but in order to get the power of wrathful mantras, the motivation must be very good. Recite it well. It’s very powerful.

Keep it to yourselves, do not repeat to others, do not say anything to others, do not show off. If you see someone in need of help and protection from black magic or whatever or disease, you can teach them this, you have my authorisation to go ahead and teach them this but teach it with no profit. If you teach them with profit and money in mind, sell it, you will not have any power, they will not have any results.

You may not teach it in order to show off your knowledge and with pride. You may not teach it to show that you’re somebody great. You teach it with the motivation to help and to assist humbly and quietly and no financial gain. Any financial being gained from this practice, there will be no effect – that is the criteria. Very, very important, alright. So, you may teach this to other people, you may share it with other people but be selective because it’s a wrathful, wrathful mantra. Especially very powerful, fierce spirit possessions. This will be very powerful. Very, very effective. Alright.

Close transcript

Transcript

You don’t need Black Garuda for negative thought. Whenever you have negative thought, black karma is generated. So, don’t bring Dharma, something high, to the level of something small. Use this and do it well, it’s a very, very secret practice. People who are here, people who are able to make it, have the karma to receive this. People who are not able to come or last-minute cancellation, it’s a very clear sign they do not have the karma to receive this. People who are sleepy or bored during the talk of Black Garuda, it’s a clear sign that many obstacles stop them from listening to something very powerful. Very clear sign.

So, anyone who has this practice, I offer it to you today as a gift. I offer it to you to practice and I also offer you the authorisation to pass this practice to other people, with a sincere heart, with no monetary gains, without a show of pride or knowledge, sincerely to help other people. You may share this with other people and explain to them and teach them well how to do it, to the best of your knowledge. Whatever happens, it can never go wrong. Whatever happens it can never go back on you because it’s a Buddha practice. The worst that can happen is nothing happens, if you have the wrong motivation – that’s it.

Black Garuda is very, very powerful so after you do this practice, for example if you’re going to go to a very dangerous place, or if you’re going to go to a place you know it’s got a lot of negativities or spirits, or bomohs or magic or you know it’s a place that’s cursed or something like a cemetery. You go cemetery, you come back, something follows you, you don’t know, right? So, before you go to these places, it’s good to do this practice, if you do it daily, secretly and quietly to develop this, then when you need it, when you do it, it’s quicker. It’s like a friend, if you call every day and say how are you? When you need help and you call, they come immediately. You call them once a blue moon, when you need help, they say get lost. I mean BG won’t tell you “get lost” but you don’t make the karma, so not easy for him to help you.

So if you call BG every day, right, if you call him every single day and you’re making contact, you know to dial the number OM MANI KYUNG KYUNG THUM THUM BÄ BÄ SOHA, dial on your cell phone. Here’s you cell phone la [holds up mala] don’t need battery. You dial it on your cell phone OM MANI KYUNG KYUNG THUM THUM BÄ BÄ SOHA, you recite every day, you dial him, when you meet him you say ‘Hey BG, I’m going to a very horrible cemetery today and I know it’s really haunted and I don’t want anything to follow me so, you know what to do BG.’ No problem. If some ‘hantu (ghost) try to get you, they’re going to see a big black bird behind you. Flapping its wings. So, you know what happen to the hantu? The hantu run. And if you do this practice very well, you do millions and millions of mantras and you get a vision, example – you get dreams of BG – in the future you can subdue spirits. If spirits appear to you, you can actually by the power of mantra subdue them. They will see you, as BG. They will see BG above you and they will kowtow to you, immediately.

Tibetan Rinpoches who have power over spirits, they have generated the deity within them, so when the spirits see them, they don’t see them as human beings, they see them as that spirit ….as that deity. When they see them as that deity, they will immediately kowtow to that Rinpoche. They are kowtowing and showing respect to the deity he has generated. They know. So, if you didn’t generate and you run around doing BG and you show up to the hantus, the hantu might jump inside of you. So, you come home, BG outside, hantu inside, how? No need come see Tsem Rinpoche because Tsem Rinpoche himself don’t know how already. OK?

So, if you’re humble, cannot, if you’ve got a lot of pride. Why? If you have a lot of pride, the pride opens up the karma for negative things to enter. That’s it. It’s very simple. So, before you go to dirty places or dangerous places if you do this practice and you do this practice secretly and quietly, without showing off: very, very efficacious and very powerful. I feel excited, I want to do this practice. Oh, never mind. So next time you see Tsem Rinpoche with wings, you know what happened. Right. I hope I get two, not one. BG probably play a trick on me you know, grow one wing here and one there and I go …. Flapping one here, flapping there – something went wrong. Right, but with Tsem Rinpoche anything can go wrong because he’s a clown. Yes, I’ve been voted Tibet’s clown Rinpoche but never mind. At least I’m still a Rinpoche, even though I’m a clown.

OK. So, very powerful. Any questions on BG? Eh next time someone got that initial, you know BG, you’d be like… [makes face]. Any questions on Black Garuda, now’s the time to ask. So that is the main mantra, you go to the next mantra. You go to page 24. The next mantra you just recite once, finish, it’s ok. NAGPO KALA RAKYA BÄ BÄ. ‘B – a’ with a dot on top becomes ‘ay’, ok, not ‘ah’. With a dot on top become ‘ay’ like a German umlaut. NAGPO KALA RAKYA BÄ BÄ / SÖ SÖ / CHHUNG CHHUNG / PUTRI ZANG ZANG / CHAG KYI TERMÖ NYING CHHUNG / NÖ JE DUG PÄ SHA LA ZO / OM HLANG HLANG / TSER TSER / ÜB ÜB SO – One time enough. The main one is the previous one. You recite it and think of it as very holy words. Why? It is Garuda’s essence and power and energy in the form of words. So, when you recite it, recite it with folded hands, with reverence. It’s power through words, it’s very, very…

If bomohs can send things to you by reciting things – words must be very powerful. If people can curse you through words, just words and sound, words are powerful. Similarly, mantras have the same power. They’re words but they’re not words arbitrarily formed. They’re words based on the power of a certain Buddha and that power is in the form of sound. So, when you recite that sound, to you it may sound funny but to the beings that are around you and are about to harm and they hear it, it’s like thunderstorms in their ear – they run. When you recite these types of mantras, to the spirits that want to harm you, the effect is as if there is thunderstorms in their ears and they cannot take it, they must run. They will disperse immediately. OK?

So do this quietly, do this secretly and do this well. Why secretly? Why quietly? Not because you’re doing anything wrong, to train in humility, to train in humbleness. The purpose of Tibetan Buddhism, when you get to the higher practices of practising secretly, is not because you’re hiding something, it is because you’re on the threshold of gaining powers that benefit others. So, the more secret you do it, the more humble you become, the quicker you can attain these powers. The minute you show off, that’s it. The minute you show off, you didn’t get the power. It’s gone. OK?

Then after that you go down to dedication. “Due to these merits may I quickly achieve the enlightened state of Black Garuda and lead every transmigratory being without exception to that enlightenment. However, many sick sentient beings there are, may they be immediately liberated from sicknesses. May all sentient beings never experience sickness.” That’s it.

The rest of the practice you guys can do. I’m not going to teach you, there’s nothing to teach. You guys can read it and you can recite it. Alright. It’s a mantra for purification – self-explanatory. There’s another meditation on page 19. It’s called the vase breathing meditation. It is to increase qi energy. It is to increase qi energy, the life force energy within your body. It’s a tantric meditation, focusing on your chakras and it focuses on two chakras in particular, the secret chakra and the navel chakra. Alright. So, I wrote this down for you and you guys can do it if you like, if you need instructions you let me know – I will teach it again but most people here will not do this meditation, so to the people who will not do it, if I just teach it for the sake of people who will do it, it’s waste of time. Alright?

This is a very, very powerful meditation to be done. There’s no words. You just read it and you visualise it. In order to control qi energy to move your chakras and to increase your qi energy, when the qi energy or the life force is increased – your immune system gets boosted up. It’s another way to avoid disease. If you do this meditation daily, you do it well, you will see your body become light, you will feel your mind become light and anything you wish to learn or grasp comes very quickly and you will see your body become very healthy, rosy, pink and alive. If you look at the great kung fu masters, they’re always bright – like your father Uncle Yap. How old is he? “77” Uncle Yap is 77 years old, whenever you look at him, he’s a qi gong master – very great. He’s always pink, always fresh, always alive. He has mastered qi energy. Similarly, qi energy’s not only for China, Chinese people, everybody in the whole world got qi energy. It’s how to enter it.

The Buddhist practice is here. If you do this energy, if you do this simple meditation well, there are no side effects if you do it wrong or bad, there’s no bad way. If you do it well, you will see a lightness in your body, your immune system growing, your strength growing and a clarity and cleanliness of the mind. You’ll be very clear and very focused. It’s quite self-explanatory. Alright. So, I left that there for auspicious reasons. The main thing I want to teach … ah … to share with all of you is, White Tara and Black Garuda.

I have offered this all of you to do in order to protect yourselves and when you do it don’t think only of yourselves, think of the other people who are suffering and dedicate the energy to other people. There are two main practices for this. Whichever you choose to do, do it well, do it sincerely and even after the epidemic is finished you can continue doing this because this is not just for the epidemic, it’s for enlightenment. Alright. Any questions before I conclude?

You all have been very, very attentive, you all have been very, very focused – thank you. It makes it easier for a teacher to pass. If a person … there are three faults we need to avoid during a Dharma talk. It’s likened to an example of three cups. One cup is facing up but it is contaminated. Inside is dirty. One cup is facing down. One cup is facing up but has holes. The first one if you pour something into it, the contaminated cup, if the person has wrong view, if the person is stubborn, if the person has a lot of pride – whatever you pour into that cup – it becomes dirty. It’s like contamination. No point. Even the teaching is good, even what you’re pouring is good – even the cup is good. Second is the cup facing down, refuse to listen, lazy, don’t want to try, don’t want to practise. So, it’s like a cup going down, whatever you pour, the water doesn’t go in – it goes off. Third is a cup that has holes, you listen to the teaching. You like it, you understand it, you don’t apply. You don’t try. Out of laziness, you make excuses… just don’t want to, but complain, complain, complain, complain all the time. Always complain but don’t want to do anything. How to do something? You must make the karma for things to be successful. You don’t make the karma to be successful, how can you be successful? So, you must make the karma, by doing spiritual practice. Once you make the karma and then you do the action, definitely got result. So, it’s like listening to advice from people who can…here no one charges you anything. Here no one asks you for money. No one says you must do labour. You don’t have to do anything. All this information is totally free. And it’s beneficial. It’s for you, taught by Buddha out of great compassion.

So, if you’re sick, I give you medicine and you don’t take it, but you say the doctor is good, the medicine is good, you don’t take the medicine, you don’t get result. You pray to the Buddha, you kowtow to the Buddha, you kowtow to the Dharma teaching, but you don’t apply it to yourself – you cannot get result. Buddha cannot force his teaching into your mind stream. A doctor cannot force his medicine down your mouth. You must take the medicine. You don’t take the medicine you don’t apply the Dharma, you don’t get the result. So, you always complain and you get nowhere. If you don’t complain, you don’t get anywhere. So, complain. Complain, complain, this cannot, that cannot, this no successful, that no successful, that no successful, this … Always have excuse but never apply.

Here’s one of the methods to apply. To purify your karma, to make things successful. To do things to protect yourself to help others. If you cannot do ten, don’t complain you cannot do ten – do one. If you do not do five – do two. Don’t always complain, “I didn’t get five.” If you get one, be happy – maybe your karma only one. Better than nothing. Some people out there – zero. Suffer so much. If you cannot get eight – be happy with three. Don’t always say if I don’t get eight, I won’t settle for three. If I don’t get ten, I won’t settle for one. I won’t settle unless I get what I want. It’s just laziness la. Just laziness.

So, these teachings are available. It’s free, it’s easy. The Lim family, Madam Lim, Ruby’s parents, Ruby’s mother, has offered this place for us to use for Dharma talk. The Dharma teaching has been sponsored, been printed for free, sponsored by someone. I have studied 20 years under my masters, through a lot of hardship and difficulty in India and in America. Serving my Gurus to get this knowledge. You have made a lot of effort to drive here. Most of you have worked all day and now you’re very tired and are sitting there listening to the teachings. Somehow, we all have the karma and affinity to be here together to listen to something very holy. I’m not holy but what I’m telling you is holy. It doesn’t make me holy. I’m not telling you I’m holy. You’re not here to see me. You’re not here to see how good or holy I am, you’re here to listen to knowledge that is holy in essence. It’s holy because it can bring you benefit. Anything that brings you benefit is holy.

So, some of you are from far away countries, some of you nearby, some of you from another town, some of you work all day, some of you had to fight the traffic jam to get here. You all made very great effort to be here. You made very great effort to listen to Dharma – attentively. You have karma. Don’t waste this opportunity. You have collected the causes to get all this now and you received it. I have offered to you sincerely from my heart, with a pure motivation – that you will get benefit from this.

Everything is here, everything is free, everything is provided. Now I’m giving it to you on a golden platter. Please use the platter and do it. I don’t say you are complaining but in general, stop complaining, it’s a general advice, and apply the methods that’s been taught. If you need a hundred methods, never mind, slowly can, but whatever you’ve got now apply it. If you have some suffering, or problem or difficulty in your life, realise that it is your karma. Don’t burden and complain to people around you consistently and constantly. Find the ways that purify the karma, to stop your own suffering and apply the Dharma. Don’t make the Dharma beautiful to listen to, wonderful to recite mantra. The Dharma – don’t reduce it and deduce it down just to reciting mantras. Apply the teachings to your life. Only reciting the mantra and only going to the temple and offering incense will not alleviate your karma. It will collect a little bit of merit for you. Go away from superstitious Buddhistic practice. Go to knowledge and wisdom and logic and do something substantial this is a substantial sadhana. This is a substantial practice. It is not a little here, a little there, a little there, a little here – put together. It is something from A-Z complete, substantial, from a correct lineage, with no fault. All you have to do is apply it and practise it and you get the result.

Protection, increase of wisdom, and you may think that “well what’s the big deal?” It is a big deal. If you gain these qualities in your mind of wisdom – let’s say there’s ten steps to wisdom and you gain three steps, before this you only had zero step, you gain three steps. When you die, you take those three steps with you because it’s the mind that reincarnates into your new body. In your new body you start out with three, everybody still starts out with zero or one. So, if you gain seven – there you are. You take it with you. You don’t leave it behind.

Click to enlarge

Material possessions and money and friends and all these things around you are left behind. You can use those and have those, don’t be attached and concentrated on those. Don’t be concentrated and attached to people, things, material objects, money, clothes, whatever. Be attached to your mind and how it can develop. That is the only thing that will be taken with you at the time of death. Everything else is left behind. If you can take, if you can take this piece of gold and you cannot take this piece of gold, you cannot take this, it’s not yours to take but you can take this. Wouldn’t it be stupid to keep this in a safe and keep it locked and check on it every day? You cannot keep it. Wouldn’t it be smarter to put this one inside the safe and put this one just wherever la. Similarly, your body, your friends, your kids, your parents, whatever, you have to leave them behind. Love them, take care of them, do what you can – do not be attached.

Do not be attached doesn’t mean a cold “I don’t care” attitude. It means to realise, ‘do not be attached’ means to realise that one day you have to let go. That time will come. You do what you can, when it comes, realise it – don’t make other people suffer. That is the truth. But things that you have to take with you and develop, is your mind. Your mind goes with you and you have to travel to the next life with that and whatever negative things you do, that karma will be attached to your mind. And whatever positive things you do will be attached to the mind and that goes with you and the mind and whether it creates positive or negative is based on knowledge and that knowledge comes from Dharma in this case. On what afflicts the mind on what makes the mind good – that is Dharma.

If we apply it and we practise it, we can transform our mind. If we can transform our mind, we can transform our body and our actions, that is what we’re going to take and that’s the karma we’re going to take with us. It’s more logical to focus on something we’re going to keep long term than to focus on something we cannot. So, if you’ve been chasing after money, fame, glory, looks, body, appearance – it’s ok but don’t chase only after that and spend 100% of your precious human time and life only on that. Why? Because you can’t take it with you and it’s short-lived. That’s why.

Yes, make a living. Yes, have partners, yes have fun, enjoy, but you must apply Dharma practice. You must transform the mind. You must make the mind higher in its level. That is what you’re going to take with you. It’s very logical. Take and develop. So, if you only chase after money, you only chase after fame, wealth, whatever. If you have been doing that – look at yourself now. You got it. So, are you happy? Are you not going to die because you have it? Are you any better because you have it or you have seen it as senseless, useless, you need it but it’s just something to use already but nothing more. Think about that.

Click to enlarge.

Think about all this. This is not a lecture. This is not a scolding. This is pure Buddha’s teaching of truth, for all of you with intelligence to contemplate and think. And if it’s acceptable and it’s good, apply it. If it’s not – nothing bad happens to you because you didn’t listen to Buddha or me. No. There’s no threats here. And if you do listen, I cannot promise you heaven and salvation either. I can’t bribe you or I can’t punish you. Neither can Buddha, but definitely if you listen, there are going to be self-benefits and benefits for others. If you don’t listen, if sufferings come – don’t complain. If you don’t listen to the virtuous way and correct conduct and activity and you don’t listen to correct advice on any level – when the sufferings come, be ready.

So, if you’re going to harm others, if you’re going to hurt others through anger, if you’re going to steal from others, be prepared to be harmed back, be prepared for poverty. If you’re going to trick others, be prepared to be tricked. So, if you want that and you don’t mind it, go ahead and do it. If you don’t want it – don’t do it and whatever you do gets multiplied. Your karma multiplies daily. It’s very logical.

Wonderful. Any last questions? Yes. [questions asked in inaudible] Oh you can do it before your sadhana, after, anytime. So, let’s say you have to do Lama Tsongkhapa and Buddha Shakyamuni every day, you add Tara to it or you add Black Garuda, so you finish the other two – you just do it. It’s like if I give you a pau bread and I give you some rice… how to eat? You eat one at a time, when you finish and then I give you maybe, a banana – how do I eat it? You eat it after you finish the other two. OK? Serious. You finish when you finish. If you got big mouth go all three ok la.

Any questions? OK? Oh yes, yes. “If your visualisation is not good” – oh very good question. If your visualisation is not good, you try your best and although you try to visualise Black Garuda, the only thing that appears is maybe you know Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. If you attempt and you make your attempt, Black Garuda or Buddha will bless you through your attempt. Don’t think they’re so narrow minded. And they realise that our visualisation, at first it’s always like that. Every time I close my eyes I don’t see Tara what I see is Astro remote yes, yes. Every time I do meditation I think about my wonderful pillow because it’s sloped and it’s especially made for my neck so I don’t get a neck ache. Yes. So, if your visualisation’s not good, never mind. Have a good motivation and try to make it better, slowly. Because if you can focus and make it better, you’re training your mind on concentration – you can apply that to anything in life. You’re training your mind. Don’t let it control you, you control it. Good question. But no adverse reactions or negative reactions can come from this or any Buddhist practice that you might do ‘wrong’, ok, in inverted commas. The Buddha is extremely compassionate. None that his [of his] teachings can create harm for you. He doesn’t have that type of motivation. OK?

Yeah – “instead of going through all the preliminaries, can you just go straight to the mantra?” Sure … ah no. You cannot go straight to the mantra, you have to do the sadhana. Example – if it’s White Tara you have to start from this page and then White Tara page, you can skip this front part yes. “In this case the preliminaries are the same as the taking refuge?” No, no. Taking refuge is not a preliminary in itself – it’s part of the practice. It’s part of the practice. So, if you’re going to do White Tara, you start at White Tara and you end at White Tara. If you’re going to do Black Garuda, you start at Black Garuda – end. Once you finish the prescribed prayer…let’s say you start here and it finishes here right, let’s say it finishes here, once you finish that you finish for the day. Besides that, if you’re just sitting around watching TV or you’re bored, you want to recite the mantra – you can. Skipping this and just doing the mantra – not effective. If you do this and then extra you want to do mantra on its own, yes. Understand?

“That means when you continue with it you just…” No when you’ve finished the three pages and you’re free. Maybe in the evening you want to do some more you don’t have to do the three pages again – you just do the mantra.

“If we want to start a new practice, have to do from the first page?” Daily, yes, once.

“And do we need to recite at the same time or something like that. Let’s say we do in the afternoon, must do in the afternoon at the same time or anytime.” Oh no, no, no, no. Sometimes you do morning, next day you can do afternoon, next day can do evening, next day can do afternoon. Anytime. Anytime. And face any direction, sit anywhere except, toilet – no joke, except toilet. Anywhere. Even bedroom can. No problem.

Questions? “When you chant the mantra as an additional, if you don’t visualise is that ok?” If you chant the mantra as an additional, you don’t visualise – it’s no problem. It’s during the sadhana you visualise. Good question. “Because sometimes I drive”. Oh, no don’t visualise when you drive. No don’t visualise when you’re driving. I didn’t tell him to visualise while driving.

Questions? Any questions anyone? Please keep in this mind, in case questions arise later, you cannot go wrong with this practice. You cannot do it wrong. You cannot recite it wrong. You cannot. Don’t be worried. Don’t think if I did it wrong, I won’t get the result. Buddha is not so narrow minded. OK?

Yes. [question is inaudible] Page 24? yes of course. The long one right? OK, please listen up. This one you just recite once at the conclusion of the main mantra. NAGPO KALA RAKYA BÄ BÄ / SÖ SÖ / CHHUNG CHHUNG / PUTRI ZANG ZANG / CHAG KYI TERMÖ NYING CHHUNG / NÖ JE DUG PÄ SHA LA ZO / OM HLANG HLANG / TSER TSER / ÜB ÜB SO. You recite the best you can, little bit off – never mind. Buddha knows that his teachings are spread all over the world, people have different accents. You know maybe some of you recite [Rinpoche makes funny noises] and some of you [Rinpoche makes funny noises]. Never mind lah. If it sounds near it, Black Garuda hears you, he comes. You’ll hear wings. Alright you’ll hear wings. So don’t worry. If you hear the flapping of wings, definitely it’s not a ‘pontianak’ (female spirit), it’s BG. Recite this mantra – got wing sound, it’s not pontianak, it’s BG. OK?

I want to thank all of you so much for coming and listening to the Dharma talk. I want to thank all of you so much for practising and to make such an effort. It’s really, really wonderful and I rejoice for all of you. We do a dedication, alright. Dedication means we dedicate the energy of this practice, that all beings may benefit and may this epidemic come to cease and may the great doctors, we pray get a cure – ASAP. We send the energy of this teaching to the doctors to find a cure ASAP. Alright. Think like that very carefully.

The dedication is very nice – page what…Page 17 is the dedication, short and easy and nice. Everybody please read along:

May the precious Bodhi mind, where it is not born arise and grow, may that born have no decline but increase forever more.

May the precious emptiness where it is not born arise and grow, may that born have no decline but increase forever more.

May this merit accumulated by myself and others, beneficially serve all sentient beings and the Buddhadharma and especially may the essential teachings of the unerring Master Tsongkhapa, become clear and enduring.

In all my rebirths, may I not be parted from perfect Gurus, let me enjoy the abundance of the Dharma! Perfecting the quality stages and paths, May I quickly attain the rank of Vajradhara Buddha.

By this virtue, may I quickly realise Guru-Buddhahood and transfer each sentient being into that Enlightened state.

May all conducive conditions arise, and all obstacles be pacified in order to increase infinitely the doctrine of the spiritual king, Tsongkhapa.

By the merits of the three times of myself and others, may the doctrine of Lama Tsongkhapa blaze forever.

At dawn or dusk, at night or midday, may the Three Jewels grant us their blessing, may they help us to achieve all realisations and sprinkle the paths of our lives with various signs of auspiciousness.

May the holy teachers have long lives, may the enlightened activities be fully displayed in the ten directions and may the brightness of the teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa continuously dissipate the veil of darkness covering the beings of the three realms.

In this Holy Land surrounded by snow mountains, you are the source of all benefit and happiness. May your lotus feet, O powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, remain in this world until the end of existence.

Someone in here after they do the practice of Black Garuda, will have an excellent dream. Write that dream down – do not reveal it to others and send it to me.

It’s a mala for you – lotus seed. No need to bless. No need to bless la. I’m giving out malas. Sit, sit sit, everybody will run with their malas at me, I’ll be yelling like a hantu. Some more no angpow, how am I going to bless?

[Giving out gifts to audience.]

Who needs a Setrap tsa tsa? Anybody knows what a Setrap tsa tsa is? Tsa tsa is a small, clay figurine of a deity. This one, can encase it, put it in a car for protection, can wear? No, cannot not unless you’re very big. Or you can keep it in the house, where you open the door or you keep in a business for (money). Everybody knows Setrap is a fierce Amitabha. Anybody want…? Who want, raise your hand. Anybody need? OK, like this, if anybody need, you just help yourself. Oh, maybe I do a prayer first. This one very quick, don’t worry.

Keep it well, it’s very holy. Who want? Raise your hand. Setrap, his name is Setrap.

Close transcript

White Tara line drawing (click to enlarge)

Condensed White Tara Meditation
for protection, growth and merit

Preliminary Mantras

(To be recited only during the first session of the day)

 
Multiplying Mantra

OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUM
OM MARA MARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUM (7x)

OM Cherish, cherish, you of the very-swift-moving aerial chariot HUM!
OM Remember, remember, you of the very-swift-moving aerial chariot HUM!

If you recite this seven times, it is taught in the Prinata-cakra-sutra, whatever virtuous actions you do will be multiplied by a hundred thousand.

 
Blessing the Rosary

OM RUTSIRA MANI PRAVATAYA HUM (7x)

OM Throw the splendid jewel HUM!

If you recite this seven times, then blow on the rosary and do your recitation, it is multiplied to reciting many 10^2+3+11+7=10²³ of all the secret mantras taught by the Tathagata, it is taught in the Palace of Vast Jewels (Nor bu rgyas pa’I gzhal med khang).

 
Blessing the Feet

OM KHECARA GHANA HUM HRIH SOHA (3x)

OM Only moving in the air HUM etc.

It is taught that if you recite this in the morning three times, then spit on the soles of your feet, any living creatures that die beneath your feet that day will be reborn among the gods of the Thirty-three, so you should recite this too.

 
Blessing the Meat

OM ABIRA TEZARA SOHA (7x)

When you have meat, recited seven times and blown on to the meat before eating, the fault of eating meat is stopped and the sentient being whose flesh it was will be reborn in a happy destiny, it is taught.

 
Offering-Cloud Dharani

(When setting out in front of an image whatever offerings you have prepared, recite this offering-cloud dharani to bless the offerings and increase them.)

OM NAMO RATRANAYAYA NAMO BHAGAWATE BENZA SARA PRAMADINYE TATHAGATAYA ARHATE SAMYAK SAM BUDDHAYA TAYATA OM BENZE BENZE MAHA BENZE MAHA TESHA BENZE MAHA VIDDHYA BENZE MAHA BODHICHITTA BENZE MAHA BODHI MANDROPA SAM KRAMANA BENZE SARVA KARMA VARONA BHIKSHU DANA BENZE SOHA

Homage to the Three Jewels!
Homage to the Lord, the Destroyer strong as Vajra
the tathagata, the Arhat the complete and perfect Buddha
OM Vajra holder, Vajra holder, great Vajra holder
Great brilliant Vajra, great knowledge Vajra,
great Bodhicitta Vajra,
Great vajra who has reached the supreme point of Enlightenment,
Vajra cleansing all karmic obscuration SVAHA!

Note: Vajre may be either a vocative of Vajrin, treated as an i-stem – “O Vajra-holder” – or a feminine vocative, “O Lady of the Vajra”.

It is taught in the Sutras that this brings infinite benefits such as raining a great rain of offerings in front of the Conquerors and their Children.

Preliminaries

Taking Refuge

NAMO GURU BEH
NAMO BUDDHA YA
NAMO DHARMA YA
NAMO SANGHA YA (3x)

I take refuge in the Guru
I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha (3x)

 
Generating Bodhicitta

I must achieve full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings;
therefore, I am going to do the practice and recitation of the mantra of Wishfulfilling White Tara. (3x)

Visualisation

[TARA’s heart in this case but read as is]

Visualise White Tara above your head or in front of you at the height of your forehead. Visualise long-life nectar coming from Tara’s heart. This blissful white light energy enters your crown and completely fills your body. Feel strongly and concentrate clearly that all your negative karma, obscurations, spirit harms, and sicknesses are completely purified.

Meditate on the above visualisation in the following way. While reciting one mala of Tara’s mantra, concentrate on the nectar entering and filling your body. After this, at the completion of one mala, feel strongly that your life has been increased, your merit developed, and your scriptural understanding and wisdom increased, and that you have achieved undying realisations.

From Tara’s heart come white lights equal to that of a hundred thousand moons. They fill my body and pacify all illnesses, evil spirits, negative karmic forces, mental obscurations and interferences to life. The lights then leave via my pores¹ and form a white circular halo around me approximately a span in depth. All activities of pacification are accomplished.

[¹ instead of pores – visualise it coming from Tara and surrounding oneself.]

Again lights stream forth from the letters at my heart*. Yellow in colour, they fill my body and increase my lifespan, merits, qualities of learning and understanding, wisdoms of hearing, contemplation and meditation, and so forth. They leave my body and form a thin halo outside the white one previously constructed. All activities of increase are accomplished.

Light once more radiates from the letters at my heart*. Red in colour, they grant me power over the three worlds. They leave my body and form a red halo outside the yellow one. Countless activities of power are accomplished.

Blue light shine forth from the letters at my heart*. They bestow upon me power to accomplish all activities. They leave my body and form a blue halo outside the red one. All activities of destruction are accomplished.

Again lights proceed from the letters at my heart*. Green in colour, they bestow upon me attainments both common and supreme. They leave my body and come to form a green halo outside the blue one. All activities are accomplished.

Now brown lights shine forth from the letters at my heart* and fill my body. All attainments are made firm. The lights leave my body and form a brown halo outside the green. All siddhis and blessings are made firm.

All six halos are oval-shaped, somewhat like eggs. They are so strong that even the wind that destroys an aeon could not move them. The spaces between them are so thickly filled with blue utpala flowers that nowhere is there an opening. Thus is great protection established.

White lights and a stream of nectars proceed from the mantra malas² and fill my body. Illnesses, evil spirits, negative karmic forces, mental obscurations and obstacles to my life are quelled, and I attain the siddhi of immortality.

[² life, merits and wisdom knowledge increases] (With this visualisation, recite the mantras.)

Mantras

Increase Mantra

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MAMA AYUH PUNYE JANA PUTRIM KURU YE SOHA (21x, for oneself)

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE [name] AYUH PUNYE JANA PUTRIM KURU YE SOHA (21x or more, for other people)

 
Essence Mantra

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA (108x or more)

Making Offerings

Offering Blessing

OM AH HUM (3x)

 
Offering Torma

Lights from Tara’s heart go out and invite the actual Tara and retinue before me.

DZA HUNG BAM HO

OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA IDAM BALIMTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI (3x or 7x)

 
Sensory Offerings

OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA ARGHAM (water) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA PADYAM (foot bath) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA PUPE (flower) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA DHUPE (incense) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA ALOKE (light) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA GYENDE (perfume) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA NEWIDE (food) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM ARYA TARE SAPARIWARA SHAPTA (music) PRATITSA HUM SOHA

Click to enlarge.

Praise

Homage to Arya Tara, at whose lotus feet
The gods and demi-gods bow their crowns.
Tara, mother of all the Buddhas,
To she who frees from all poverty,
I bow down.

Optional Praises to White Tara

A Gem to Increase Life and Wisdom
by Gyalwa Gendun Drub, The First Dalai Lama (1391-1474)

Homage to the female Buddha beautiful with youth
Who sits on seats of white lotus and moon in nature
Spreading with stainless compassion and knowledge
Who captures the radiance of snow mountains.

Homage to the Youthful One with budding breasts
Who has one face and two arms, sits in the Vajra posture
Is bold with grace and calm, has a full moon as a backrest
And is filled with great bliss.

Homage to the Ultimately Generous One whose right hand
Showing the mudra of Supreme Giving
Easily releases boundless karmas of peace, increase, power and wrath
As well as the eight siddhis and even supreme Buddhahood.

Homage to the Spiritual Mother who gives birth to Buddhas
Past, Present and Future, whose left hand
Supporting a blue lotus, grants protection
From lions, elephants, fires and all eight terrors.

Homage to the Refuge of the World, who has eyes
In hands and feet gazing at the four doors of freedom
And who leads all living creatures
Towards the isle of blissful liberation.

Homage to she whose face unites
The beauty of a million autumn moons
Whose wide eyes gaze with compassion
Whose joyous mouth smiles equally on all.

Homage to she with head adorned by Amitayus boundless life,
The mere thought of whom grants life and wisdom
Whose hand in the contemplative mudra
Holds a vase filled with ambrosia of immortality.

Homage to the All-Beautiful One whose crown
Steals the light of sun and moon
Whose sapphire hair is half-knotted on top,
And half falling freely over her shoulders.

Homage to the Majestic One of precious ornament blazing
Whose crown, earrings, necklaces, arm-bands
Bracelets, anklets and belt so elegantly arranged
Surpass the ornaments of men and gods.

Homage to she of celestial raiment
Whose shoulder-sash and skirt
Hug her body like rainbows
Hug the crystal mountains.

Homage to the goddess before whose lotus feet
Vishnu, Indra, Shiva, Brahma , the anti-gods, spirits
Men, semi-humans and all the world
Submit themselves in devotion.

Merely by reciting your mantra
Those who make offerings at your lotus feet
Gain immortality, wisdom and merit
And attain all desired siddhis; to you I bow down.

The knowledge, compassion and perfect actions of all the Buddhas
Appear in the form of the beautiful goddess
I take refuge in you and offer you my prayers
Pray eliminate all my obstacles and fulfil all my aims.

Quickly release your perfect action of peace
Claiming all interferences to my practices for enlightenment
Interferences such as the eight terrors
Sickness, demons and other harmful agents, inner and outer.

Quickly release your perfect action of increase which multiplies
All good qualities, such as life, merit, unapprehending compassion
The stainless wisdom of learning, contemplation and meditation
And all the three higher trainings

Quickly release your perfect action of power
Which causes gods, men and spirits
To humbly bow before you
And which fulfils all wishes of the mind.

Quickly release your perfect action of wrath
Which with punishments befitting the evils done
Destroys demons, interferences and hindrances
Hateful opposing Buddhadharma and its holders.

Pray, bestow quick and easy attainments of siddhis
Such as the magic sword, mystic eye-medicine, fast walking
The food pill and the precious vase
And even Mahamudra, the highest siddhi.

In brief, from now until enlightenment
I respectfully make offerings at your lotus feet
I need seek no other refuge
Out of compassion gaze upon me and quickly grant protection.

By the meritorious energy of this practice
May the transcended, perfect Tara
Look upon me forever with pleasure
And never leave me, even for a moment.

May all sentient beings after death take rebirth
Before Amitayus in Sukhavati, Land of Pure Joy
May they live in the ways of the great Bodhisattvas
And come to equal Avalokiteshvara, Lord of Compassion.

May I realise the oceans of Sutras and Tantras
To be able to pass them on to others
And until Samsara be emptied may I strive
To uphold the victory banner of practicing exactly as taught.

 
Praises to the 21 Taras

From your sublime abode at the Potala
O Tara – born from the green letter TAM
Whose light rescues all beings
Come with your retinue, I beg you.

The gods and demi-gods bow
To your lotus feet, O Tara,
You who rescue all who are destitute
To you, Mother Tara, I pay homage.

OM Homage to the Venerable Arya Tara

OM JE TSUN MA PAG DROL MA LA CHAG TSEL LO

{ 1 }
Homage to you Tara, The swift heroine
Whose eyes are like an instant flash of lightning,
Whose water-born face arises from the blooming lotus
Of Avalokiteshvara: Protector of the three worlds.

CHAG TSEL DROL MA NYUR MA PA MO
CHEN NI KAY CHIG LHOK DANG DRA MA
JIG TEN SUM GON CHU KYE SHEL GYI
KE SAR JE WA LAY NI JUNG MA

{ 2 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose face is like
One hundred full autumn moons gathered together,
Blazing with the expanding light
Of a thousand stars assembled

CHAG TSEL TON KAY DA WA KUN TU
GANG WA GYA NI TSEG PAY SHEL MA
KAR MA TONG TRAG TSOG PA NAM KYI
RAB TU CHE WAY O RAB BAR MA

{ 3 }
Homage to you, Tara, born from a golden blue lotus,
Whose hands are beautifully adorned with lotus flowers,
You who are the embodiment of giving, joyous effort, and asceticism.
Pacification, patience, concentration and all objects of practice

CHAG TSEL SER NGO CHU NAY KYE KYI
PAY MAY CHAG NI NAM PAR GYEN MA
JIN PA TSON DRO KA TUB SHI MA
SO PA SAM TEN CHO YUL NYI MA

{ 4 }
Homage to you Tara, the crown pinnacle of Those Thus Gone,
Whose deeds overcome infinite evils,
Who have attained transcendent perfections without exception.
And upon whom the sons of the Victorious Ones rely.

CHAG TSEL DE SHIN SHEG PAY TSUG TOR
TA YAY NAM PAR GYAL WA CHO MA
MA LU PA ROL CHIN PA TOB PAY
GYEL WAY SAY KYI SHIN TU TEN MA

{ 5 }
Homage to you, Tara, who with the letters TUTTARA HUNG.
Fill the realms of desire, direction and space,
Whose feet trample on the seven worlds
And who are able to draw all beings to you.

CHAG TSEL TUTTARA HUM YI GE
DO DANG CHOG DANG NAM KA GANG MA
JIG TEN DUN PO SHAB KYI NEN TE
LU PA MAY PAR GUG PAR NU MA

{ 6 }
Homage to you Tara, Venerated by Indra,
Agni, Brahma, Vayu, and Ishvara
Praised by the assembly of spirits, raised corpses,
Ghandaravas and all yakshas.

CHAG TSEL GYA CHEN MAY LHA TSANG PA
LUNG LHA NA TSOG WANG CHUK CHO MA
JUNG PO RO LANG TI SA NAM DANG
NO JIN TSOG KYI DUN NE TO MA

{ 7 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose TRAD and PHET
Destroy entirely the magical wheels of others.
With your right leg bent and left outstretched and pressing,
You burn intensely within a whirl of fire.

CHAG TSAL TRED CHE CHA DANG PHET KYI
PA ROL TUL KOR RAB TU JOM MA
YAY KUM YON KYANG SHAB KYI NEN TE
MAY BAR TUG PA SHIN TU BAR MA

{ 8 }
Homage to you, Tara, the great fearful one,
Whose letter TURE destroys the mighty demons completely,
Who with a wrathful expression on your water–born face,
Slay all enemies without exception.

CHAG TSEL TURE JIG PA CHEN PO
DU KYI PA WO NAM PAR TOM MA
CHU KYE SHEL NI TRO NYER DEN DZE
DA WO TAM CHE MA LU SO MA

{ 9 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose fingers adorn your heart
With the gesture of the Sublime Precious Three,
Adorned with a wheel striking all directions without exception
With the totality of your own rays of light.

CHAG TSEL KON CHOG SUM TSON CHAG GYE
SOR MO TUG KAR NAM PAR GYEN MA
MA LU CHOG KYI KOR LO GYEN PAY
RANG GI O KYI TSOG NAM TUG MA

{ 10 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose radiant crown ornament, joyful and magnificent,
Extends a garland of light,
And who, by your laughter of TUTTARA,
Conquer the demons and all of the worlds.

CHAG TSEL RAB TU GA WA JI PAY
U GYEN O KYI TRENG WA PEL MA
SHAY PA RAB SHAY TUTARA YI
DU DANG JIG TEN WANG DU DZE MA

{ 11 }
Homage to you, Tara, who are able to
Invoke the entire assembly of local protectors,
Whose wrathful expression fiercely shakes,
Rescuing the impoverished through the letter HUNG.

CHAG TSEL SA SHI KYONG WAY TSOG NAM
TAM CHE GUG PAR NU MA NYI MA
TRO NYER YO WAY YI GE HUM KI
PONG PA TAM CHE NAM PAR DROL MA

{ 12 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose crown is adorned with the crescent moon,
Wearing ornaments exceedingly bright
From your hair knot the Buddha Amitabha
Radiates eternally with great beams of light.

CHAG TSEL DA WAY DUM BU U GYEN
GYEN PA TAM CHE SHIN TU BAR MA
REL PAY TRO NA O PAG MAY LAY
TAG PAR SHIN TU O RAB DZE MA

{ 13 }
Homage to you, Tara, who dwell within a blazing garland that resembles
The fire at the end of this world age,
Surrounded by joy, you sit with your right leg extended and left withdrawn,
Completely destroying all the enemies.

CHAG TSEL KEL PAY TA MAY MAY TAR
BAR WAY TRENG WAY U NA NE MA
YAY KANG YON KUM KUN NE KOR GAY
DRA YI PUNG NI NAM PAR JOM MA

{ 14 }
Homage to you, Tara, with hand on the ground by your side,
Pressing your heel and stamping your foot on the earth;
With a wrathful glance from your eyes you subdue
All seven levels through the syllable HUNG.

CHAG TSEL SA SHI NGO LA CHAG GI
TIL GYI NUN CHING SHAB GYI DUNG MA
TO NYEN CHEN DZE YI GAY HUM KI
RIM PA DUN PO NAM NI GEM MA

{ 15 }
Homage to you, Tara, virtuous and peaceful one,
The very object of practice passed beyond sorrow.
You are perfectly endowed with SOHA and OM
Overcoming completely all the great evils.

CHAG TSEL DE MA GAY MA SHI MA
NYA NYEN DE SHI CHO YUL NYI MA
SOHA OM DANG YANG DAG DEN PAY
DIG PA CHEN PO JOM PA NYI MA

{ 16 }
Homage to you, Tara, surrounded by the joyous ones,
You, completely subdue the bodies of all enemies;
Your speech is adorned with the ten syllables
And you rescue all through the knowledge letter HUNG.

CHAG TSEL KUN NE KOR RAB GA WAY
DRA YE LU NI NAM PAR GEM MA
YI GAY CHU PAY NGAG NI KO PAY
RIG PA HUM LAY DROL MA NYI MA

{ 17 }
Homage to you, Tara, stamping your feet and proclaiming TURE;
Your seed-syllable itself is the aspect of HUNG
Causes Meru, Mandhara and the Vindhya mountains
And all the three worlds to tremble and shake.

CHAG TSEL TURE ZAB NI DAB PAY
HUM GI NAM PAY SA BON NYI MA
RI RAB MAN DA RA DANG BIG JE
JIG TEN SUM NAM YO WA NYI MA

{ 18 }
Homage to you, Tara, who hold in your hand
The hare-marked moon like the celestial ocean;
By uttering TARA twice and the letter PHET,
You dispel all poisons without exception.

CHAG TSEL LHA YI TSO YI NAM PAY
RI DAG TAG CHEN CHAG NA NAM MA
TARA NYI JO PEY KYI YI GAY
DUG NAM MA LU PA NI SEL MA

{ 19 }
Homage to you, Tara, upon whom the kings of the assembled gods,
The gods themselves and all Kinnaras rely
Whose magnificent armour gives joy to all,
You who dispel all disputes and bad dreams.

CHAG TSEL LHA YI TSOG NAM GYAL PO
LHA DANG MI AM CHI YI TEN MA
KUN NE GO CHA GA WAY JI KYI
TSO DANG MI LAM NYEN PA SEL MA

{ 20 }
Homage to you, Tara, whose eyes –
The sun and the moon – radiate an excellent illuminating light;
By uttering HARA twice and TUTTARA,
You dispel all violent epidemic disease.

CHAG TSEL NYI MA DA WA GYE PAY
CHEN NYI PO LA O RAB SEL MA
HARA NYI JO TUTARA YI
SHIN TU DAG PO RIM NE SEL MA

{ 21 }
Homage to you, Tara, adorned by the three suchness
Perfectly endowed with the power of serenity,
You, who destroy the host of evil spirits, raises corpses and yakshas
O TURE, most excellent and sublime!

CHAG TSEL DE NYI SUM NAM KO PAY
ZHI WAY TU DANG YANG DAG DEN MA
DON DANG RO LANG NO JIN TSOG NAM
JOM PA TURE RAB CHOG NYI MA

This Praise with the twenty-one verses of homage
Is itself the root mantra.

TSA WAY NGAG KYI TO PA DI DANG
CHAG TSEL WA NI NYI SHU TSA CHIG

Dedication

If I see signs of untimely death,
Let me straightaway clearly see the form
Of Cintacakra*, and crushing the might of Death, *(wish-fulfilling wheel)
Quickly become a deathless Vidya-dhara*! *(one who is attained)

[if practising for one’s own life]
May this rare, excellent body live a century,
And not becoming a vessel for sins and misdeeds,
Only be used in white, good deeds, fulfilling
The aims of myself and others – may all be auspicious!

 
Completion Dedication

JANG JUB SEM CHOK RINPOCHE
MA KYE PA NAM KYE GYUR CHIK
KYE PA NYAM PA ME PA YANG
GONG NA GONG DU PEL WAR SHUG

May the precious Bodhi-mind,
Where it is not born arise and grow
May that born have no decline
But increase forever more.

TONG NI TONG WA RINPOCHE
MA KYE PA NAM KYE GYUR CHIK
KYE PA NYAM PA ME PA YANG
GONG NA GONG DU PEL WAR SHUG

May the precious emptiness,
Where it is not born arise and grow
May that born have no decline
But increase forever more.

DAG SOG JIN NYEH SAG PA GE WA DEE
TAN DANG DRO WA KUN LA GANG PHAN DANG
CHE PAR JE TSUN LO ZANG DRAG PA YI
TAN PI NYING PO RING DU SAL SHEH SHOG

May this merit accumulated by myself and others,
beneficially serve all sentient beings and the Buddhadharma and
Especially may the essential teachings of the unerring master Tsongkhapa,
become clear and enduring.

 
Prayer by Je Tsongkhapa
KYE WA KUN TU YANG DAK LA MA DANG
DRAL ME CHO KYI PAL LA LONG CHO CHING
SA DANG LAM GYI YON TEN RAP DZOK NA
DORJE CHANG GI GO PANG NYUR TOP SHUG

In all my rebirths, may I not parted from perfect Gurus,
Let me enjoy abundance of the Dharma!
Perfecting the qualities of the stages and paths,
May I quickly attain the rank of Vajradhara Buddha.

 
Dedication of virtue
GE WA DI YI NYUR DU DAK
LA MA SANG GYE DRUP GYUR NA
DRO WA CHIK KYANG MA LU PA
DE YI SA LA GO PAR SHUG

By this virtue, may I quickly
Realise Guru-Buddhahood,
And transfer each sentient being
Into that Enlightened state.

CHO KHI GYAL PO TSONG KHA PA
CHO TSUL NAM PAR PHEL WA LA
GEK KI TSHAN MA ZHI WA DANG
THUN KYIN MA LU TSHANG WAR SHOK

May all conducive conditions arise
and all obstacles be pacified,
in order to increase infinitely, the doctrine
of the spiritual king Tsongkhapa.

DA DANG SHEN GI DU SUM DANG
DRIL WATSOK NYI LA TEN NAY
GYA WA LO ZANG DRAG PA YI
TAN PAR YUN RING VAR GYUR CHIG

By the merits of the three times
of myself and others.
May the doctrine of Lama Tsongkhapa
blaze forever.

 
Auspicious dedication
NYIMO DELEK TSEN TELEK
NYIME GUNG YANG DELEK SHIN
NYITSEN TAKTU DELEK PEL
KON CHOK SUM GYI JIN GYI LOB
KON CHOK SUM GYI NGOR DRUL TSOL
KON CHOK SUM GYI TRA SHI SHOK

At dawn or dusk, at night or midday,
may the three jewels grant us their blessing,
may they help us to achieve all realisations
and sprinkle the path of our life with various signs of auspiciousness.

 
Dedication for the Guru’s long life
JETSUN LAMA KU TSE RABTEN CHING
NAMKAR TRINLEY CHOG CHUR GYE PA DANG
LOBSANG TENPE DRON ME SA SUM GYI
DRO WE MUNSEL TAKTUR NE GYUR CHIG

May the holy teachers have a long life.
May the enlightened activities be fully displayed in the ten directions
and may the brightness of the teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa continuously
dissipate the veil of darkness covering the beings of the three realms.

 
Dedication for the long life of H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama
GANG RI RAWE KORWAI SHING KHAM DIR
PEN DANG DEWA MALU GYUNG WAI NE
CHENREZIG WANG TENZIN GYATSO YI
SHA PEI SITHAI BARDU DEN GYUR CHIG

In this holy Land surrounded by snow mountains,
You are the source of all benefit and happiness
May your lotus feet, O powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso,
Remain in this world until the end of existence.  

Benefits

The benefits of this practice are innumerable. To quote the great Atisha:

“None of the worldly gods, such as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and so forth, will be able to affect you. You will be able to crush the Lord of Death. Ill fortune and poverty will be eradicated. All misery, and even the eight great terrors, will be cleared away. You will gain the ordinary magical powers, will become excellent in expression and composition, and will become of sharp mind. In fact you will become a perfect Buddha. What need to say more?”

These are the general blessings of the practice of White Tara, the Wish-Fulfilling Wheel. Furthermore, in particular, untimely and premature death will be avoided, your wisdoms of learning and insight will increase and, ultimately, Buddhahood will be quickly attained.

Vase Breathing Meditation (optional)

First, visualise your body as being completely hollow inside, free of all obstruction, and that your skin is of the nature of light and very thin. In the centre of your body, just in front of the spine is the central channel, a transparent hollow tube about the size of your little finger’s breadth in diameter. The central channel runs straight from the crown of your head to the base of your spine. Next, visualise the right and left channels, which run alongside the central channel. They start from the right and left nostrils respectively, travel upwards to the top of the head and then curve over to run downwards on either side of the central channel. They curve inwards and join the central channel at a point approximately four finger widths below the level of your navel. To prepare yourself for vase breathing, it is helpful to first do “nine-round breathing”:

 
Nine-Round Breathing

Holding the left nostril closed with an index finger, inhale slowly and fully through the right nostril, sending the breath all the way down to the end of the right channel. Imagine that the breath flows from the right into the left channel as you move your index finger to hold the right nostril closed. Now exhale slowly and fully through the left nostril. As the breath leaves the left nostril, imagine that all impurities (such as distraction and mental dullness) are expelled with the breath.

Repeat twice more, inhaling through the right nostril and exhaling through the left.

Now reverse the process. Holding the right nostril closed with your index finger, take a deep breath through the left nostril, sending the breath all the way down to the end of the left channel. As the breath moves into the right channel, move your index finger to hold the left nostril closed. Exhale slowly and fully through the right nostril. As the breath leaves the right nostril, imagine that all impurities are expelled with the breath.

Repeat twice more, inhaling through the left nostril and exhaling through the right.

Now inhale slowly and deeply through both nostrils, sending the air down the side channels. The breath is then exhaled up the central channel. Breathe out, expelling all impurities through both nostrils. Repeat twice (three breaths in all).

Now imagine that the three channels are completely clean and luminous. Keep breathing gently and evenly, imagining your breath flowing freely through the channels.

 
Vase Breathing

Gently contract the muscles of the pelvic floor, concentrating on the internal rather than the external muscles, and in this way bring air energy up from the lower chakra (secret area) to the area four finger widths below your navel.

Next, gently take a full breath through both nostrils. The air travels from the nostrils down through the right and left channels to where they enter the central channel just below the level of your navel. The upper air joins the lower air energy brought up from below.

As you finish your inhalation, immediately swallow and push down gently with your diaphragm in order to firmly compress the energy brought down from above: now the air energy is completely locked in, compressed from above and below. Hold your breath for as long as it is comfortable. You may notice a gentle heat or tingling sensation idling at your navel regions. This is completely natural.

When you are ready, relax your lightly tensed muscles and exhale gently and completely. Although the air leaves through the nostrils, visualise that it rises up through the central channel and dissolves there.

Once your first exhalation is complete, again tighten the lower muscles, inhale a second time, swallow and push down with the diaphragm, thus again compressing the air energy at the area below the navel. Hold your breath and concentrate on this area, feeling the energy building there. Then, again, when it becomes uncomfortable to hold the breath any longer, exhale, releasing the air up the central channel once again. This process is known as vase breathing.

You can do three, seven, or any number of vase breaths in this way to help strengthen your life force energy.

 
Dedication

At the completion, dedicate the merit to all sentient beings so that you achieve the state of Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings.

 
Colophon:

Buddha in his great compassion has turned the 84,000 different types of teachings especially to relieve the different types of sufferings of sentient beings such as physical and mental ailments, improving one’s body, speech and mind, wealth, healing diseases, stopping disasters, averting magic, protection from spirits, medicines and the list goes on and on. But ultimately all his holy and precise instructions was left as a great treasure to sentient beings for their benefit. All his holy practices lead eventually to elimination of delusion and suffering leading to full enlightenment. Although these practices are specifically in this case for the protection of diseases, healing of diseases and protection from negative forces and energies. Their purpose is much greater than that. These are just immediate benefits one may derive from these practices.

I have compiled these prayers, meditations, mantras and sadhanas for the benefit of my dharma friends who are like precious jewels to me. They have been extracted from the renowned writings of His Holiness the 1st Dalai Lama, His Eminence Pabongka Rinpoche and Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche. A silly ‘teacher’ like me has no qualifications to come up with such exalted teachings that can benefit others, so I dare not even fool myself and others by composing something on my own not based on the Buddha or great Masters. Even if I could compose, there is no need as the compassionate Buddha has taught all that is necessary and further elucidated by Lama Tsongkhapa.

I am sure if these practices are done well, one can be protected from infectious new and old diseases, help heal existing ailments, purify negative karma, collect merit, gain wisdom and indeed hook forth the blessings of the Buddhas. I am very happy and honoured to be able to share this knowledge with all of you who have been kind in many ways. I pray to the Three Jewels for your mundane and spiritual successes.

Compiled Wednesday, April 23, 2003, Kuala Lumpur in the beautiful country of Malaysia, by Tsem Tulku of Gaden Shartse Monastery. Special thanks and much appreciation to my researchers and typists Ms. Patsy Gooi, Ms. Milly Lim, Ms. Geraldine Chong and Mr. Chia Song Peng who have worked very hard and late in order to prepare this for the benefit of all our friends.

Go to Black Garuda

Back to Tabs

Black Garuda line drawing (click to enlarge)

The Instructions of the
Fire Sword of Black Garuda

This practice should be done by someone who has previously received a highest yoga tantric initiation. If you do not have a highest yoga tantra initiation (even if you have a lower tantric initiation such as Great Chenrezig), you can still do this practice, but you do not visualise yourself as the deity. Instead, keep your ordinary form and visualise the deity outside of yourself — in the space in front of you, or at the crown of your head. If you are doing the practice with the deity outside of yourself, you will need to modify your visualisation as indicated by the instructions in [brackets].

Preliminary Mantras

(To be recited only during the first session of the day)

 
Multiplying Mantra

OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUM
OM MARA MARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUM (7x)

OM Cherish, cherish, you of the very-swift-moving aerial chariot HUM!
OM Remember, remember, you of the very-swift-moving aerial chariot HUM!

If you recite this seven times, it is taught in the Prinata-cakra-sutra, whatever virtuous actions you do will be multiplied by a hundred thousand.

 
Blessing the Rosary

OM RUTSIRA MANI PRAVATAYA HUM (7x)

OM Throw the splendid jewel HUM!

If you recite this seven times, then blow on the rosary and do your recitation, it is multiplied to reciting many 10^2+3+11+7=10²³ of all the secret mantras taught by the Tathagata, it is taught in the Palace of Vast Jewels (Nor bu rgyas pa’I gzhal med khang).

 
Blessing the Feet

OM KHECARA GHANA HUM HRIH SOHA (3x)

OM Only moving in the air HUM etc.

It is taught that if you recite this in the morning three times, then spit on the soles of your feet, any living creatures that die beneath your feet that day will be reborn among the gods of the Thirty-three, so you should recite this too.

 
Blessing the Meat

OM ABIRA TEZARA SOHA (7x)

When you have meat, recited seven times and blown on to the meat before eating, the fault of eating meat is stopped and the sentient being whose flesh it was will be reborn in a happy destiny, it is taught.

 
Offering-Cloud Dharani

(When setting out in front of an image whatever offerings you have prepared, recite this offering-cloud dharani to bless the offerings and increase them.)

OM NAMO RATRANAYAYA NAMO BHAGAWATE BENZA SARA PRAMADINYE TATHAGATAYA ARHATE SAMYAK SAM BUDDHAYA TAYATA OM BENZE BENZE MAHA BENZE MAHA TESHA BENZE MAHA VIDDHYA BENZE MAHA BODHICHITTA BENZE MAHA BODHI MANDROPA SAM KRAMANA BENZE SARVA KARMA VARONA BHIKSHU DANA BENZE SOHA

Homage to the Three Jewels!
Homage to the Lord, the Destroyer strong as Vajra
the tathagata, the Arhat the complete and perfect Buddha
OM Vajra holder, Vajra holder, great Vajra holder
Great brilliant Vajra, great knowledge Vajra,
great Bodhicitta Vajra,
Great vajra who has reached the supreme point of Enlightenment,
Vajra cleansing all karmic obscuration SVAHA!

Note: Vajre may be either a vocative of Vajrin, treated as an i-stem – “O Vajra-holder” – or a feminine vocative, “O Lady of the Vajra”.

It is taught in the Sutras that this brings infinite benefits such as raining a great rain of offerings in front of the Conquerors and their Children.

Preliminaries

Namo Guru Vajrapaniye

 
Taking Refuge

NAMO GURU BEH
NAMO BUDDHA YA
NAMO DHARMA YA
NAMO SANGHA YA (3x)

I take refuge in the Guru
I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha (3x)

 
Generating Bodhicitta

(The bodhicitta motivation for the recitation of Black Garuda should be to have a long and healthy life, to be able to serve other sentient beings, and to actualise the path. One should not be doing the practice just for one’s own protection.)

I must achieve full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings; therefore, I am going to do the practice and recitation of the mantra of Black Garuda. (3x)

(Purify in emptiness with:)

OM SOBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SOBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM

Everything is empty.

In the very centre of a great ocean of poison is a square Mount Meru of poison, the essence of which contains the poisons of seeing, touch, feeling, i.e., all the different types of poison.

(On top of this) there is a lotus, sun disc, and spirit possession. On the seat of a three-piled throne I appear as Black Garuda. [On the seat of a three-piled throne is Black Garuda.]

[Look at Black Garuda with the understanding and devotion that this is actually Buddha, who cherishes you billions of times more than you cherish yourself. Buddha manifests into Black Garuda to protect you and numberless sentient beings from harm and to bring all of you to enlightenment.]

[For the description of the deity, replace “I” and “my” with “he” and “his”.]

I have a sky iron (meteorite) beak and two horns. At the root of the horns are three-pronged vajras, and at each tip of the horns is a single-pronged vajra. I am in the nature of blazing fire. My head is adorned with jewels, which lie between the two horns. I have golden eyes, swirling and blazing like the sun. My holy mouth is filled with many conch shell teeth. From my wings, which are designed with vajras, 100,000 fire sparks are emitted. My two hands hold vicious types of nagas that are being eaten in my holy mouth. From my neck down to my knees, it (my body) is in human form, but my feet are the claws of a bird.

From my holy body, many fire sparks fly out in the aspect of Black Garudas and sky iron (meteorites), radiating to the ten directions.

All the dangerous landlords and nagas fall unconscious with fright.

At my [his] crown is a white OM.
At my [his] throat is a red AH.
At my [his] heart is a blue HUM.

From the syllable HUM at my [his] heart, beams radiate out and invoke the wisdom beings in an aspect similar to that visualised, along with the initiating deities.

DZA HUM BAM HO

We [they] become non-dual.

Making Offerings

OM BENZA GARUDA ARGHAM (water) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA PADYAM (foot bath) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA PUPE (flower) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA DHUPE (incense) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA ALOKE (light) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA GYENDE (perfume) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA NEWIDE (food) PRATITSA HUM SOHA
OM BENZA GARUDA SHAPTA (music) PRATITSA HUM SOHA

Praise

You, whose wing feathers shake the 3,000 galaxies,
Dancing with a blazing beak,
By merely flapping your wings, you instantly destroy the three types of spirit possession¹,
I praise the controller, Garuda.

[1 Spirit possession abiding above (de), abiding in the middle (spirit kings and tsen), and abiding below (nagas and landlords)]

Visualisation

From your [his] heart, garlands of mantras blaze like the fire at the end of time, becoming a great host of fire. All the animate and inanimate² become in the nature of fire, blazing and burning all the interferers of the upper, middle, and below. All are purified.

[2 “animate and inanimate” refers to creatures, land, and planets]

Mantras

(Recite this pacifying mantra a few times)

OM MANI KYUNG KYUNG THUM THUM BÄ BÄ SOHA

(Recite the wrathful mantra as much as possible. One can recite this mantra to purify those who have a specific disease and those who do not, including yourself. Think that now it is impossible to be harmed by others.)

[Nectar beams like sunbeams emit from Black Garuda into you and totally illuminate you, dispelling all the sicknesses, spirit harm, negative karma, and obstacles.]

NAGPO KALA RAKYA BÄ BÄ / SÖ SÖ / CHHUNG CHHUNG / PUTRI ZANG ZANG / CHAG KYI TERMÖ NYING CHHUNG / NÖ JE DUG PÄ SHA LA ZO / OM HLANG HLANG / TSER TSER / ÜB ÜB SO

[Imagine that you receive all the qualities of Black Garuda — omniscient mind, all the realisations, perfect power, infinite compassion. etc. Finally, think, “I have received perfect power so that no other beings can harm me and no sickness can be received.” At the end complete with dedication.]

Dedication

Due to these merits, may I quickly
achieve the enlightened state of Black Garuda
and lead every transmigratory being
without exception to that enlightenment.

However many sick sentient beings there are,
may they be immediately liberated from all sicknesses.
May all sentient beings never experience sickness.

[Dedicate in this way and seal with emptiness]

 
Completion Dedication

JANG JUB SEM CHOK RINPOCHE
MA KYE PA NAM KYE GYUR CHIK
KYE PA NYAM PA ME PA YANG
GONG NA GONG DU PEL WAR SHUG

May the precious Bodhi-mind,
Where it is not born arise and grow
May that born have no decline
But increase forever more.

TONG NI TONG WA RINPOCHE
MA KYE PA NAM KYE GYUR CHIK
KYE PA NYAM PA ME PA YANG
GONG NA GONG DU PEL WAR SHUG

May the precious emptiness,
Where it is not born arise and grow
May that born have no decline
But increase forever more.

DAG SOG JIN NYEH SAG PA GE WA DEE
TAN DANG DRO WA KUN LA GANG PHAN DANG
CHE PAR JE TSUN LO ZANG DRAG PA YI
TAN PI NYING PO RING DU SAL SHEH SHOG

May this merit accumulated by myself and others,
beneficially serve all sentient beings and the Buddhadharma and
Especially may the essential teachings of the unerring master Tsongkhapa,
become clear and enduring.

 
Prayer by Je Tsongkhapa
KYE WA KUN TU YANG DAK LA MA DANG
DRAL ME CHO KYI PAL LA LONG CHO CHING
SA DANG LAM GYI YON TEN RAP DZOK NA
DORJE CHANG GI GO PANG NYUR TOP SHUG

In all my rebirths, may I not parted from perfect Gurus,
Let me enjoy abundance of the Dharma!
Perfecting the qualities of the stages and paths,
May I quickly attain the rank of Vajradhara Buddha.

 
Dedication of virtue
GE WA DI YI NYUR DU DAK
LA MA SANG GYE DRUP GYUR NA
DRO WA CHIK KYANG MA LU PA
DE YI SA LA GO PAR SHUG

By this virtue, may I quickly
Realise Guru-Buddhahood,
And transfer each sentient being
Into that Enlightened state.

CHO KHI GYAL PO TSONG KHA PA
CHO TSUL NAM PAR PHEL WA LA
GEK KI TSHAN MA ZHI WA DANG
THUN KYIN MA LU TSHANG WAR SHOK

May all conducive conditions arise
and all obstacles be pacified,
in order to increase infinitely, the doctrine
of the spiritual king Tsongkhapa.

DA DANG SHEN GI DU SUM DANG
DRIL WATSOK NYI LA TEN NAY
GYA WA LO ZANG DRAG PA YI
TAN PAR YUN RING VAR GYUR CHIG

By the merits of the three times
of myself and others.
May the doctrine of Lama Tsongkhapa
blaze forever.

 
Auspicious dedication
NYIMO DELEK TSEN TELEK
NYIME GUNG YANG DELEK SHIN
NYITSEN TAKTU DELEK PEL
KON CHOK SUM GYI JIN GYI LOB
KON CHOK SUM GYI NGOR DRUL TSOL
KON CHOK SUM GYI TRA SHI SHOK

At dawn or dusk, at night or midday,
may the three jewels grant us their blessing,
may they help us to achieve all realisations
and sprinkle the path of our life with various signs of auspiciousness.

 
Dedication for the Guru’s long life
JETSUN LAMA KU TSE RABTEN CHING
NAMKAR TRINLEY CHOG CHUR GYE PA DANG
LOBSANG TENPE DRON ME SA SUM GYI
DRO WE MUNSEL TAKTUR NE GYUR CHIG

May the holy teachers have a long life.
May the enlightened activities be fully displayed in the ten directions
and may the brightness of the teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa continuously
dissipate the veil of darkness covering the beings of the three realms.

 
Dedication for the long life of H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama
GANG RI RAWE KORWAI SHING KHAM DIR
PEN DANG DEWA MALU GYUNG WAI NE
CHENREZIG WANG TENZIN GYATSO YI
SHA PEI SITHAI BARDU DEN GYUR CHIG

In this holy Land surrounded by snow mountains,
You are the source of all benefit and happiness
May your lotus feet, O powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso,
Remain in this world until the end of existence.  

Advice regarding this practice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

This practice can be done before you get the SARS virus as well as after you get the virus.

This practice can also be done if one has cancer, leprosy, ulcers, and other epidemic diseases that are related to harmful beings.

Even if one doesn’t have the actual sickness (SARS), you can visualise that the causes to contract the sickness (delusions and karma) are completely purified. Think, “There is not the slightest karma left in my mental continuum.”

 
Colophon:
This was translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kachoe Dechen Ling, 29 March 2003, for the outbreak of SARS virus (pneumonia) in Asia. It was scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett and reformatted and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen, FPMT Education Services, April 2003.

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