Lama Lena gives instructions on the visualization and mantra of 1000-Armed Chenrezig (aka Avalokiteshvara), a vivid and personal meditation practice we can take into our daily lives to cultivate Bodhichitta, “nying gi”, or “open-hearted great-heartedness”, often translated as “Compassion”.
This teaching was given publicly in Tso Pema, India on Oct 31, 2019.
OM MANI PADME HUNG
TRANSCRIPT:
This teaching is on “Great-Hearted Open-Heartedness”. When we say the word compassion in English, we hear an element of pity in that word, an element of “top-down”. If I have compassion for someone it’s someone below me on some level. So that’s not the right word for the Tibetan meaning. The Tibetan meaning is ‘nying je’ [Wylie: snying rje]. ‘Nying’ is heart, ‘je’ is greatest, biggest, most superlative. Big-hearted, great-hearted, open minded, open hearted – all of these are better translations for ‘nying je’.
If you practice Vajrayana, bodhicitta and guru yoga are at the heart of it. Bodhicitta is guru yoga. Guru yoga is Bodhicitta. When you take refuge in all Buddhas of the four times, what do you think all Buddhas of the four times are made of? Sentient beings. Of the past, present and future, all beings have Buddha Nature within them – like you. As such, that Buddha nature is actualized somewhere in the time-stream. Therefore all Buddhas of the four times, which is the essence of lineage, which is the essence of your teacher, is also the essence of all sentient beings, all life. This is symbolized by Sambhogakaya nature of mind, the innate, aware, lucid, luminous, awake, aliveness of the infinite, vast, indescribable, unnamable Dharmakaya nature of mind. This infinite vastness, which is your own true nature, which is unlimited by thoughts such as centre or edge, here or there, now or then – those be thoughts, you think them. Those are words. Words are thoughts. You think words, in whatever language. Beyond the limitations of thought and word, infinite openness is awake and aware. If it were not, it could not create the infinite dance of phenomena (you know, “stuff”). Since it can, obviously it does: you can see phenomena, perceive phenomena, you interact with phenomena, you are phenomena, so obviously it’s there. Arising in emptiness, openness, vastness, dissolving in infinite, open, empty, vastness. How can this be? Because of the inherent clear light nature of infinite openness, it is aware.
Light by which the seer sees is the awareness of Dharmakaya nature of mind. Great mother ocean of Dharmakaya from which everything springs into which everything dissolves. Many people miss that innate, luminous, lucid vitality, which is inherent to the emptiness and they perceive “void”. Big dark, black space. Oops! That’s a distinct oops; you’re missing it. Why are you missing it? Because the method of ‘nying je’, open-hearted great-heartedness is not strong enough in your perception. For that method, that ‘nying je’ leads directly to the perception of the innate shared vitality of all life.
So today’s practice is a method for you coming face to face with the innate clear light nature of your own mind: its brilliance, its luminous lucidity, its vitality, its awake awareness. It’s not just openness, it is open awareness. It’s not just emptiness, it’s lucid emptiness.
So for that reason in Vajrayana there is a very excellent method – a most excellent method – for coming directly face to face with this so that you don’t miss it and get stuck in some kind of nihilistic void, which is a big Oopsie and scary too. You know when you’re meditating and you see the vastness of it, the spaciousness of it, the sheer emptiness of it and you go “Eeek!” And you stop meditating? Yeah, well that’s because you missed something, you missed bits. So this is a very simple method.
To perform this method, you need a mala. Let me see the malas, making sure everybody’s got a mala. Is there anybody who doesn’t have a mala? Making sure you all have a mala. If you don’t have a mala, I’ll give you a mala. Okay.
So there are two parts to this. And this meditation is often done while walking. It can be a sitting meditation but most people enjoy it as a walking meditation while circumambulating clockwise some actual or imagined powerpoint. So we are at the lake because it is an actual powerpoint that we can circumambulate clockwise. And when it comes, after I have taught you the visualization, I am going to ask you to take an inner kora around the lake and come back to me here. Makes sense?
So the visualization is actually fairly simple. Are you familiar with Thousand-Armed Chenrezig? Eleven heads, a thousand arms, an eyeball in each palm. If you are not familiar with this, please Google it tonight. There are many beautiful images on the internet of Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara (is the Sanskrit name). There is a mantra that goes with this image. This image is symbolic. There’s a story of the symbolism.
At one time Avalokiteshvara, (Chenrezig in Tibetan), was a disciple of the Buddha. He’s actually the one who gave the words of the heart sutra. Do you all know the heart sutra? You’ve read it at some point? Those words were actually said by Avalokiteshvara, not by Gautama. He was known among the disciples of the Buddha for being the most great-hearted open-hearted one. The one with the most loving kindness. Just as, I think it was Jampa Shiné, who was known as being the one with the most questions. They all had personalities, just like you do and they all had Buddha nature, just like you do.
So, in this instance [speaking to someone aside]…
At one time, during the time of the Buddha’s life, Avalokiteshvara took a vow to empty the hell realms of sentient beings. And so he went there to the hell realms and labored long and long. This is dreamtime work so time is different there. You can spend eons and come back a minute later. He labored eons and eons, emptying the hell realms of sentient beings until finally after long and long he succeeded at this. And hell was empty. And no-one suffered in the cold and the heat. And at that time he leaned back on a rock, wiped his brow and looked up from his labors. “Pfew, that was a big one!” And on looking up he saw, like a blizzard of snow, sentient beings falling back into the hells, due to their errors of judgment. Oops! And it broke him. He threw himself onto the rocks and shattered into a thousand pieces.
At that point Tara came to him and reached out a hand to him and said: “It’s alright brother, you’re not alone, I’ll help you.” And at the same time, the blessing of his guru shone forth upon him and he was healed. But instead of arising in four-armed form (as he had been), he arose with a thousand arms, with an eye in each palm to assist simultaneously to offer a hand of friendship to a thousand beings at once. This is the archetype that we are working with. The symbolic image of an energy of great-hearted open-heartedness, which exists in the universal unconscious and which can be called forth using symbols. And when you look at this image, it is full of symbols that work below your conscious level, calling forth the energy.
This practice, this visualization is very simple. First I want you to remember… how many of you have had children? Those of you who’ve had children, I want you to remember your baby. A few months old, just when it’s starting to sleep through the night, before it’s crawling around and getting into everything, there’s a sweet spot there. Remember your baby in that little sweet spot? Reaches up its hand and touches your face, remember the feeling in your heart at that point. Those of you who have not had a child, perhaps you have raised a puppy, a kitten, a hamster, a horse – something that you have loved in that way, some little being that looks into your eyes with big eyes and touches you, licks your nose, trusts you implicitly and you feel your heart opening and melting. Do you know that feeling? Somewhere in your life you have felt that. Remember this feeling, this sensation of “aaaahh…” When Tibetans see a puppy or a kitten, they exclaim automatically “nying je!” Heart melting, heart opening.
So in this way, remember this feeling, in your heart chakra. Which is not up here (points at upper chest), it’s down here (points to sternum) in your solar plexus where the apical pulse is found. There is a closed lotus bud. It has a thousand petals, although you wouldn’t know it because it’s just a bud. You’re going to water this lotus bud with that feeling. So that it softens and melts and is safe and can bloom. Your lotus is closed because you’re afraid. After middle school, who isn’t afraid of being kicked in the heart? So with this fear that someone will be mean to you, you hold yourself closed to the universe.
Let the feeling water your lotus bud, let it open and bloom. As it opens, fully opens, a thousand petals and in the middle is the seed syllable ‘Hri’. Around it, clockwise, turning on the inner petals (which are not white, the inner petals are colored red, yellow, green, blue and that is turning). And on it is the mantra OM MANI PADME HUNG. Six syllables with a ‘Hri’ standing in the middle. So the inner six petals, just like when you look at a flower, there is the stamens and the center and then there is some little petals around it a lot of times before you have the main petals. So in this lotus, those inner petals are colored, the rest are white.
So the inner petals turn and the outer petals elongate into rays of light. And each of the thousand petals reaches out as a ray of light and touches the lotus bud in the heart of a living being. When your lotus is fully bloomed and doing this, you turn from yourself into the Thousand-Armed Chenrezig. That’s what you look like. But don’t pay so much attention to what you look like, pay attention to the rays of light going out. And through those rays of light flows this feeling of ‘nying je’, of open-heartedness, of great-heartedness. And flowing through there, it waters the lotus bud of a thousand living beings, birds and bugs and fish – all of them. And so their lotuses open and bloom, just like yours, reaching out each one of them with a thousand petals to a thousand, thousand living beings with the flow of light, the light of love, of ‘dyam pa’ [wylie: byams pa], of great-hearted open-heartedness.
And so those thousand, thousand beings’ lotus buds bloom and open up to touch the hearts of a thousand, thousand, thousand living beings. And this reaches across all of space and all of time. It reaches into your biome – the bugs that live in your gut and on your skin. It reaches to the birds and the bugs on those. The universe is so full of life, if you look carefully. And each one proliferating thousands upon thousands, each time it is multiplied by a thousand rays of light reaching out and as they completely bloom, they turn into the form of Avalokiteshvara/Chenrezig also.
But don’t focus so much on their shape. It’s just a symbol. Focus on the light. So many rays of light, lines of light. But the universe is simply solid with light. And all the beings, all the little Chenrezigs, made of light, dissolve into the light and the universe is nothing but pure clear light. If you can, reach out in all the nine dimensions (nine local dimensions). Reach into the past, let the blessing touch your past self, your past enemies, friends, family, ancestors, strangers. Reach out in the future, let the blessing touch next and next and next to infinity lives of all sentient beings. Reach out in the west, the east, the north, the south, the up, the down, include other planets, macro and micro cosmic, reach out through the dreamtime. As far as your imagination extends, Dharmata, Svabhavikakaya extends. Filled with pure clear light.
And while you are visualizing this you say the mantra. Repeat after me: Om – Mani – Padme – Hung, Om mani – Padme Hung, Om Mani Padme Hung. [people repeating after Lama Lena]
The mantra has meaning:
Om refers to the realm of form. Mani refers to the most precious.
[Lama Lena having conversation aside in Tibetan] This is mother Wangmo, she speaks a little bit of English, so might understand.
[To everyone:] Do you understand the instructions? Have you ever seen at a fair or somewhere where there’s a rainbow wheel with spokes of many colors and you turn it really, really fast and so it looks white? Think of the inner petals like that. Not that they are turning that fast, but that the rainbow color light generates the clear light.
The mani refers to most precious, it literally means jewel, but in Tibetan that is a euphemism for “most precious object”, fulfillment of all wishes, wish-fulfilling jewel, absolute satisfaction, the total joy of the ending of angst, do you understand?
Padme refers to primordial purity. It means lotus. A lotus grows in the muck but arises pure and even if you splash muddy water on the lotus, nonetheless it remains pure – the water just falls off.
Om: form, most superlative.
Most precious: Mani.
Lotus: Padme.
Hung: mind, heart. The mind of all Buddhas. The most precious aspect of form is its primordial purity as it arises as mind, in mind, dissolves into mind, this is so of all Buddhas which arise out of all beings.
This is what you’re saying symbolically, do you understand? Go do a kora and do the practice and come back. Shoo! [laughter] Are there any questions in this practice? Yes.
[Q] So, sometimes it is very easy to practice the practice. And sometimes, depending on mood, it’s just like a stone or a hard…
[Lama Lena] That’s the time when you really need it.
[Q] Yeah! But do you crack it, you melt it?
[Lama Lena] No, you just think of kittens [laughter]. Just think about kittens and puppies. Try to bring the memory and do the visualization. It may take a couple of run-throughs, but that’s when you really need it. And yeah, that happens. Especially if you read the news. Don’t forget to include Trump [laughter]. He’s a sentient being – a particular confused one. He doesn’t mean to be evil, he’s just an idiot [laughing].
Other questions on this practice. Yes, could you come where I can see you without hurting my neck?
[Q] Sometimes this mantra is ‘Om Mani Padme Hung Hri’. What’s the difference, do they have different times, different uses, etc?
[Lama Lena] As you feel. The Hri is the seed syllable in the middle. It’s good to do it out loud and it’s good to do it as singing. Any tune. [singing] OM MANI PADME HUNG Make it up as you go along, sing. Every living being that hears you, receives a blessing. Are there other questions?
[Q] Not for me right now.
[Q] Is it the mantra that’s spinning or the lotus?
[Lama Lena] No, the lotus is not spinning. The inner six petals which have the colors with the seed syllables of the mantra on them, that’s turning. It’s not spinning fast, it’s just turning at the rate you’re saying the mantra – so fast or slow, you might be saying it either way. But each one of those colors relates to one of the five poisons, relates to one of the six realms. So, doing this softens your negative emotions. Some people have a lot of trouble working with their own negativity, their anger, their jealousy, their fear, their avarice, their sloth, their depression. This doesn’t take it away, it just softens it. As a side effect. It’s also very useful for making babies go to sleep when they are cranky. We use it like that a lot. Other questions?
[Q] About the clear light, the rays of light that you mentioned – they are made of clear light. Can you elaborate between the relation of the mantra, about the cosmic surrounding and sentient beings, please?
[Lama Lena] I don’t understand your question.
[Q] You say the clear light is rays of light..
[Lama Lena] It starts out as rays of light, but there’s so many of them; enough rays together become solid. But of course light can never be solid. Is that your question?
[Q] Yeah. This clear light is the nature of mind?
[Lama Lena] Yes.
[Q] Creating the universe, creating sentient beings, that’s what you mean?
[Lama Lena] Yes. Not creating so much… if you look at your own mind, without making it all complex by thinking about it, but just directly perceive, sems kyis [?] sems lta, ‘mind-mind looking’. It is infinite and vast, ‘long chen rab jam’ [Wylie: klong chen rab ‘byams]. It is also bright, lucid, and luminous: it can think, it has the potential of thinking. This is the innate vitality of open awareness, the awareness of open awareness. Its infinite vastness, we refer to by the word ‘chö ku’ [Wylie: chos sku], describing that quality of it. When we speak about its vitality, its aliveness, we call it ‘long ku’ [longs sku ;Wylie], that refers to that aspect of mind, the vitality, the awareness of it. When we speak of its creativity, the creative aspect of it, which arises as all phenomena, in mind, as mind, dissolving in mind, we call it ‘trul ku’ [Wylie: sprul sku]. Chö ku, long ku, trul ku together, because they’re not separate, they’re just describing different qualities of the same thing, which cannot be separated. Together we call it Dharmata. In Sanskrit, Svabhavikakaya. So the clear light is the symbol. Light: the seer sees because there is light. Rigpa, awareness means the seer (literally, “see-er”, rig pa). So the rigpa is aware. The symbol of that awake awareness is light, by which the seer sees. Without light the seer sees nothing. Without the clear light nature of infinite openness there’s no awareness. And obviously there is, because look! You’re aware! If I hit you, you say “ouch”. You have feelings, you have creativity. And the shimmer of that light, its sparkle, its creativity arises as all and everything, inner and outer phenomena. Inner phenomena: thoughts and feelings. Outer phenomena: stuff. You see? Does that answer your question? So instead of trying to explain it in this practice, we’re just sticking all the symbols of it there, so that it won’t trip over your conscious mind. And your conscious mind won’t trip over it because there is no intellectual explanations. I gave you one to pacify you. It goes under the conscious, the symbols talk to your dreamtime, your dream self, your unconscious and percolates up through there. So you don’t get a chance to argue with it. Method! Are there other questions?
[Q] How often would you do this practice?
[Lama Lena ] Every day, recommended. But I’m not giving you any dam-tshig [Wylie: dam tshig]. so if you don’t get to it one day, nothing bad happens. You just – maybe if you don’t get to it for a lot of days – forget how. Other questions?
[Q] I have a question. If the visualization is more important than the words or they are equally important?
[Lama Lena] Equally important.
[Q] So they go together while you’re doing it.
[Lama Lena] They do.
[Q] Not just to say the mantra, the mind wanders, and you just bring it back to the visualization.
[Lama Lena] You know, there is some benefit in saying the mantra even while the mind wanders. But not as much benefit as including the visualization, mig pa [Wylie: dmigs pa]
[Lama Lena talking Tibetan]
Other questions on this?
[Q] When you’re doing the mani-wheels, can you do a similar visualization?
[Lama Lena] Yes, you can. That’s just a lot of mani’s in writing going around all at once. And they do it on microfilm nowadays, so it’s really a lot. Or you can walk around the Guru Rinpoche over there and turn the mani wheels or walk around the Nyingma Gompa and turn them. There is many places where you can do this and all of that just intensifies it some. Other questions?
[Q] In relation to the wheel, if it’s still white light flinging off the wheel?
[Lama Lena] What wheel?
[Q] The mani wheel.
[Lama Lena] Oh, don’t worry about that. It works by itself. You don’t have to visualize at it, you just do the visualization I taught you. Just like you don’t have to visualize any thing about your mantra, but if you hold your mantra in your hand while you do this – hold your mala while you do it, move the beads while you do it, later in your life when the shit hits the fan (cause it always does eventually) and you’re totally freaked out, grab your mala. The energy is in it, you’ve stored the energy of this. It will help you at that time. That’s why malas. Do you all have a mala, last check? Anybody need a mala. Okay, we’re good then.
[Question in Tibetan language]
[Lama Lena answering in Tibetan]
[Lama Lena] When you’re done with this practice at the end, always remember to share the benefit. This world at this moment in time is somewhat lacking in ge-wa [Wylie: dge ba]. You can tell that because of the mess it is in. Add ge-wa to the pot.
[Singing:]
Geywa dee yee
Nur du da
Cheyche sala
Go par shog
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