A monk once asked master Chao-chou, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?"
I was looking out my window and saw an alien-like face in my tomatoes!! So I thought that I would take a picture of it for the C2C listeners !
--Linda Graham
The Taoist’s Answer: If you are inwardly free from fighting no one will be able to fight with you."
"Taoism & Lao-tse
Art by Ruth RandEspecially valuable in today’s hectic world, learning to flow with life heals stress and tension. In Pathways to Perfect Living Vernon Howard writes:
“The contrasting lives of two famous teachers show the difference between Forced Living and Easy Flow.
“Confucius was an advocate of correct public behavior. He taught good manners, social reform, and submission to man-made moral codes. He offered shallow formulas for getting through life, admitting that his platitudes were borrowed from other men. The inner life of cosmic peace was unknown to Confucius; he himself was a victim of Forced Living.
“Lao-Tse was the exact opposite. He cared nothing for the public parading of self-proclaimed virtues. He pointed out that human rules of conduct do not make men truly moral; to the contrary, they supply clever masks for hypocrisy and cruelty. As for living by popular slogans, they create mass misery and national neurosis. Lao-Tse stressed individual effort toward personal freedom, teaching that happiness lies in a spontaneous outflowing of one’s natural self. Lao-tse was himself a living example of Easy Flow.
“Confucius was in his thirties when he visited Lao-tse, then a sage in his eighties. We might picture what the wise man said to the young inquirer. For one thing, Lao-tse might have pointed out that human reformers never seek justice for their followers; they wish only to grasp the power of injustice for themselves. He might also have said that a formal education does not mean intelligence, for true intelligence is to live within the spontaneous rhythm of life, without cunning and deceit, and with sanity and naturalness.” — Vernon Howard
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An imaginary interview between a modern day truth seeker and a wise Taoist (actual quotes from Taoist literature):
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Q: May I have a basic principle of guidance for avoiding problems with relatives?
The Taoist’s Answer: Take precautions before the evil appears; regulate things before disorder has begun.
Q: How does an understanding of cosmic principles, like those taught by the mystics, help us in our human affairs?
A: He who knows the Tao is sure to be well acquainted with the principles that appear in the procedures of things. Acquainted with those principles, he is sure to understand how to regulate his actions in all kinds of circumstances. Having that understanding, he will not allow things to injure him.
Q: I am especially interested in understanding how inward victory expands itself to outward triumph. May I have a thought on this?
The Taoist’s Answer: If you are inwardly free from fighting no one will be able to fight with you.
Q: I have heard the teaching about artificiality being the enemy of freedom. Will you please explain it?
A: Horses and oxen have four feet. That is natural. Place a halter on the head of a horse, or a rope through the nose of an ox. This is unnatural.
Q: Is there a way to maintain peace of mind in spite of exterior changes and disappointments?
A: Resign yourself to the sequence of things, forgetting the changes of life, and you shall enter into the pure, the divine, the One.
Q: That resembles the New Testament idea that we must first lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. It seems paradoxical.
The Taoist’s Answer: The truest sayings are paradoxical.
Q: Will you please supply an example of a practical esoteric truth which needs our sincere study in order to make its value our own value?
The Taoist’s Answer: Without going out of doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out of the window, one may see the way of heaven. The further one travels, the less one may know. Thus it is that without moving you may know; without looking you may see; without doing you shall succeed
Q: But this seems to call for immense wisdom. The only thing I know is that I do not know!
The Taoist’s Answer: The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Q: Is it true that human beings actually live, work, play, marry, pass laws, fight wars — all in a state of psychic sleep?
The Taoist’s Answer: While they dream, they do not know that they are dreaming.
Q: Can you provide an example of how a free and spontaneous mind rolls forward?
The Taoist’s Answer: Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.
Q: If I were to follow the example of men who have achieved steadfast confidence, what would I do?
The Taoist’s Answer: Use the light that is in you to recover your natural clearness of sight.
Q: It is only a small stream of insight at the present time, but I do see the absolute necessity for building my life upon spiritual and psychological foundations.
A: To see small beginnings is clearness of sight.
Q: By what method does a mystic master keep himself in strong and spontaneous activity?
The Taoist’s Answer: The sage attends to the inner, and not to the outer.
Q: I am puzzled by the esoteric teaching about inaction. The mystics state that the right kind of inaction is authentic action which transforms everything into its naturally healthy condition. But how can doing nothing produce something?
A: Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself?
Q: In other words, self-change makes everything else all right?
The Taoist’s Answer: The partial becomes whole, the crooked becomes straight, the empty becomes full, the worn out becomes new. Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself?
Q: I have the bad habit of trying to force people and events to conform to my personal wishes, which usually backfires against me. What esoteric lesson can help me blend with events, instead of fighting them?
A: Leave all things to take their natural course, and do not interfere.
Q: I still do not see how anything real can be achieved without effort?
Imagine a cricket about the size of an ordinary mosquito - with a pair of antennae much longer than his own body, and so fine that you can distinguish them only against the light. Kusa-Hibari, or 'Grass-Lark' is the Japanese name of him; and he is worth in the market exactly twelve cents: that is to say, very much more than his weight in gold. Twelve cents for such a gnat-like thing! ... By day he sleeps or meditates, except while occupied with the slice of fresh eggplant or cucumber which must be poked into his cage every morning... to keep him clean and well fed is somewhat troublesome: could you see him, you would think it absurd to take any pains for the sake of a creature so ridiculously small.
But always at sunset the infinitesimal soul of him awakens: then the room begins to fill with a delicate and ghostly music of indescribable sweetness - a thin, silvery rippling and trilling as of tiniest electric bells. As the darkness deepens, the sound becomes sweeter - sometimes swelling till the whole house seems to vibrate with the elfish resonance - sometimes thinning down into the faintest imaginable thread of a voice. But loud or low, it keeps a penetrating quality that is weird... All night the atomy thus sings: he ceases only when the temple bell proclaims the hour of dawn.
Now this tiny song is a song of love - vague love of the unseen and unknown. It is quite impossible that he should ever have seen or known, in this present existence of his. Not even his ancestors, for many generations back, could have known anything of the night-life of the fields, or the amorous value of song.
They were born of eggs hatched in a jar of clay, in the shop of some insect-merchant: and they dwelt thereafter only in cages. But he sings the song of his race as it was sung a myriad years ago, and as faultlessly as if he understood the exact significance of every note. Of course he did not learn the song. It is a song of organic memory - deep, dim memory of other quintillions of lives, when the ghost of him shrilled at night from the dewy grasses of the hills. Then that song brought him love - and death. He has forgotten all about death: but he remembers the love. And therefore he sings now - for the bride that will never come.
So that his longing is unconsciously retrospective: he cries to the dust of the past - he calls to the silence and the gods for the return of time... Human lovers do very much the same thing without knowing it. They call their illusion an Ideal: and their phantom of organic memory. The living present has very little to do with it... Perhaps this atom also has an ideal, or at least the rudiment of an ideal; but, in any event, the tiny desire must utter its plaint in vain.
The fault is not altogether mine. I had been warned that if the creature were mated, he would cease to sing and would speedily die. But night after night, the plaintive, sweet, unanswered trilling touched me like a reproach - became at last an obsession, an affliction, a torment of conscience; and I tried to buy a female. It was too late in the season; there were no more kusa-hibari for sale, - either males or females. The insect-merchant laughed and said, 'He ought to have died about the twentieth day of the ninth month.' (It was already the second day of the tenth month.) But the insect-merchant did not know that I have a good stove in my study, and keep the temperature at above 75 degrees F. Wherefore my grass-lark still sings at the close of the eleventh month, and I hope to keep him alive until the Period of Greatest Cold. However, the rest of his generation are probably dead: neither for love nor money could I now find him a mate. And were I to set him free in order that he might make the search for himself, he could not possibly live through a single night, even if fortunate enough to escape by day the multitude of his natural enemies in the garden - ants, centipedes, and ghastly earth-spiders.
Last evening - the twenty-ninth of the eleventh month - an odd feeling came to me as I sat at my desk: a sense of emptiness in the room. Then I became aware that my grass-lark was silent, contrary to his wont. I went to the silent cage, and found him lying dead beside a dried-up lump of egg-plant as gray and hard as a stone. Evidently he had not been fed for three or four days; but only the night before his death he had been singing wonderfully - so that I foolishly imagined him to be more than usually contented. My student, Aki, who loves insects, used to feed him; but Aki had gone into the country for a week's holiday, and the duty of caring for the grass-lark had devolved upon Hana, the housemaid. She is not sympathetic, Hana the housemaid. She says that she did not forget the mite - but there was no more eggplant, and she dutifully expressed contrition. But the fairy-music had stopped: and the stillness reproaches; and the room is cold, in spite of the stove.
Absurd!... I have made a good girl unhappy because of an insect half the size of a barley-grain! The quenching of that infinitesimal life troubled me more than I could have believed possible... Of course, the mere habit of thinking about a creature's wants - even the wants of a cricket - may create, by insensible degrees, an imaginative interest, an attachment of which one becomes conscious only when the relation is broken. Besides, I had felt so much, in the hush of the night, the charm of the delicate voice - telling of one minute existence dependent upon my will and selfish pleasure, as upon the favour of a god - telling me also that the atom of ghost in the tiny cage, and the atom of ghost within myself, were forever but one and the same in the deeps of the Vast of being... And then to think of the little creature hungering and thirsting, night after night and day after day, while the thoughts of his guardian deity were turned to the weaving of dreams! How bravely, nevertheless, he sang on to the very end - an atrocious end, for he had eaten his own legs!.. May the gods forgive us all - especially Hana the housemaid!
Yet, after all, to devour one's own legs for hunger is not the worst that can happen to a being cursed with the gift of song. There are human crickets who must eat their own hearts in order to sing.
with efforts beyond my strength.
I came to the door and saw how
powerfully the locks were bolted.
And the longing in me became that strong,
and then I saw that I was gazing
from within the presence.
With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,
only then did Lalla flow out
from where I knelt.
- Lalla
"The only mistake that we can make as human beings is to be asleep, unaware of ourselves," states American author Guy Finley." Given that our lack of awareness is at the root of all our problems, our only solution lies in an increasingly sharpened perception of what we are." In his latest book, entitled To Tell the Truth: Inner Life Lessons on Love, Lies and Pitfalls Along the Path, Guy Finley explores the pathways leading to internal freedom.
I met Guy Finley via telephone on the first day of spring. Flocks of snow geese and Canada geese had just congregated in the fields around the house, and I could hear the piercing cries coming from thousands of feathered throats - a pleasant moment that I shared with Guy before beginning the interview. Our conversation would be colored by these voices heralding the season to come.
Speaking of voices, Guy Finley's is warm, vibrant, passionate. My impression is that I have a young man on the other end of the line. His books, of which several have become best-sellers (The Secret of Letting Go, Freedom from the Ties that Bind, and The Secret Way of Wonder), are a testimony however to great experience in life. In fact, from a very young age, Guy Finley was confronted with certain troubling contradictions in American society. Born to wealthy, famous parents, his friends were the kids of stars often having serious problems with alcohol and drugs - Dean Martin, Lucille Ball and Liza Minelli - among others. The young Guy learned very quickly that money and fame do not necessarily accompany happiness. "My father (Larry Finley) was the pioneer of the talk shows we know today, before Johnny Carson. Time Magazine named him ‘Man of the Decade' during the fifties. I remember watching a Christmas parade when I was five years old, seated on Jayne Mansfield's lap. She was a gorgeous and famous woman, yet her breath reeked of alcohol! I had everything that society taught me to be the source of happiness, yet I was unhappy."
Guy Finley's career quickly turned to music. Star musician/composer at twenty years old, he signed contracts as a rock singer, composed music for films and television, and worked with Neil Diamond for several years. Above all, he asked himself questions: How is it that at the moment where we arrive at the peak, an event takes place -- a death or a failure -- that turns us upside down and lands us at the bottom of the heap, having to begin all over again?
So he set out to find answers elsewhere. He traveled extensively in India and other parts of the Far East and then worked for many years with author and Christian mystic, Vernon Howard (The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, The Power of the Supermind), who would have a profound influence on him. It was Vernon Howard who, just before his death, encouraged Guy to write his first book. "Writing is a natural extension of my work as a composer. I wrote music and lyrics. It was nothing but a tiny step to take from composing a song to creating a book," explains the pleasing, serious voice.
But such books! The sales of The Secret of Letting Go (Lâcher Prise in French) surpassed 60,000 copies in Québec alone. This book, as well as all the others, was translated into several languages. The work of Guy Finley on letting go indeed seems to have answered a real need for inner transformation. Is it then so difficult to let go that one needs a set of instructions? "It's not that it's difficult to let go. If your house is on fire, you don't ask yourself if you should get out of it immediately, do you? My books discuss the way in which a person awakens to his internal experience so that he can discover the nature of experience and the nature of the being that is experiencing it." According to Guy Finley, each human being possesses the ability to grow, to become better, more loving, and more wise. It is the relationships that we engage in with others that give us the opportunity to discover these places within ourselves where we have accepted limitations. So letting go also means dropping our sense of limitation.
Is the human being really limitless? Or is it more just an ego trip born out of the abuse of illicit substances? There is nothing limitless about waiting for a paycheck in order to pay past-due rent, nor about waiting in line at the supermarket! "If you put one of these magnificent geese in a cage, it would still be a goose -- of course -- but it would no longer be a real goose, right? It would not be obeying its true nature, which is to fly high and far and migrate with the seasons. It's the same thing for us. We are eagles that have been conditioned to think that we are cuckoo birds. The proof of that is that we would never feel this feeling of dissatisfaction that we experience by being caged if our deeper nature were not to fly and be free." Seated in the pinkish light of the waning day, telephone in hand, I watch a bird of prey serenely gliding above a hillside. Pictures of disheveled birds and noisy clocks (cuckoo! cuckoo!) superimpose themselves on one another. I think I am beginning to understand"
Well and good, but is he letting go? "Real letting go requires being aware, being totally present to what we are," explains the American author. "No truly conscious human being sabotages himself - it's impossible, because it's contrary to Nature. If I'm aware that what I'm doing is harmful to me, I change my behavior immediately." Guy gives the example of servitude. "Most normal human beings dislike those who bow and scrape before them. We abhor that because the person doing it is showing weakness. On the other hand, when we are slavish, we don't perceive ourselves as showing weakness. We think that we are acting in a wise and even strong way! This proves that we are asleep to ourselves when we act in this manner, because we would not act this way if we knew it was harmful to us." Therefore, it is profound awareness that should be our guide.
And you, Mr. Finley, what do you do when you feel a powerful emotion? "The rule is never to repress a negative emotion and never to express it. When I feel a negative emotion, I don't push it away and I don't give it life. I bring it under the light of awareness, and this allows me to see that that state is my state, that it hurts me and that it proves its origin is within me, even though this feeling wants to make me believe that someone else made me feel it." He goes on to assert that to hold another person responsible for what we feel is equivalent to blaming our shoes for being laced too tightly. According to him, the cause of our greatest sufferings is identification with something outside of us that is therefore necessarily transitory -- be it a relationship, a house, or a financial investment. "If I am identified with my relationship, with my house, or with my money, I am doomed to suffer."
The sun is setting behind the darkened trunks of trees. The geese begin to bury their beaks into their feathers. The sky tips into gold, then into shadow as Guy explains that we are our experience. Each successive event of our life is there to remind us that we have invited it into our lives. "When we realize that - that my experience begins in me - we then have solid ground from which we can do the work which transforms us. Given that we are no longer blaming whatever or whomever, we no longer feel ourselves to be the victims of situations; we work with our most intimate self, where the problem and the solution co-exist."
Suddenly I hear a laugh at the other end of the phone line; "One of the most important rules for me is: Don't ever defend myself. If we could put this one principle into practice, how much more simple life would be!" Don't ever defend yourself? "Yes, because that which is true needs no defense and that which is false cannot be defended. If I defend myself, it's because something in me was provoked. In other words, if the irascible attitude of my boss makes me angry, that anger already existed within me. So the only way for me to become aware of this anger seated in me is to not identify myself with it.
If I give it my voice, I then become the very thing that I condemn in my boss! To be unaware is to condemn oneself to being a barometer that rises and falls according to the outside temperature." This is really the first time in my life that I see myself as a barometer" I imagine myself treating my boss according to a barometer! Amusing idea that contains an explosive cocktail of anger, rebellion, fear, and helplessness. This cocktail I should neither drink nor hurl in his face, but be aware of it. It will dissipate on its own, because it's the awareness of my state that gives rise to the ending of my alignment with that state. If I repress it by believing to know it, I am only lying to myself and I learn nothing from the situation, as opposed to being a conscious person that integrates each learning experience.
According to Guy Finley, the fundamental question that all human beings should ask themselves is: "What do I want to do, in this moment, in relationship to myself?" This question pushes him to continue writing (he is currently working on five books at once), because awareness is always enlarging, and writing makes him more aware of himself. It is yet the fruit of his own experience that he shares in his latest work. To Tell the Truth: Love, Lies and Pitfalls Along the Path contains fourteen chapters, each one addressing a certain aspect of human life: "Breaking Out of Self-Punishing Patterns," "The Nature of Success," "Lessons in Love," etc. It is a practical work aimed once more at self-discovery, self-understanding, and self-knowledge.
Finally, the works of Guy Finley teach that the "know thyself" of Socrates is the royal path towards a happy life. "The human being is the fruit of the marriage between shadow and light," he declares. "We are the wolf as well as the lamb." Awareness of these two opposites -- without pushing anything away -- is therefore the key, because awareness of the wolf and the lamb expands beyond the states of the wolf and the lamb; because this awareness holds within it the seed of the unchangeable, which is our true nature." "Light doesn't change," concludes Guy Finley. "Everything passes through light." Outside night has fallen. The moon begins its ascent in the clear sky. Some geese are still squawking. It is almost quiet.
The Rainbow Body
by Sogyal Rinpoche
Throughout the advanced practices of Dzogchen, accomplished practitioners can bring their lives to an extraordinary and triumphant end. As they die, they enable their body to be reabsorbed back into the light essence of the elements that created it, and consequently their material body dissolves into light and disappears completely. {as typing this I hear the words 'dancing on the rainbow' on TV 00:41.G.}
This process is known as the "rainbow body" or "body of light", because the dissolution is often accompanied by spontaneous manifestations of light and rainbows. The ancient Tantras of Dzogchen, and the writings of the great masters, distinguish different categories of this amazing, otherworldly phenomenon, for at one time, if at least not normal, it was reasonably frequent.
.....This may be very difficult for us now to believe, but the factual history of Dzogchen lineage is full of examples of individuals who attained rainbow light body, and as Dudjom Rinpoche often used to point out, this is not just ancient history. Of the many examples, I would like to choose one of the most recent, and one of with which I have a personal connection. In 1952 there was a famous instance of the rainbow body in the East of Tibet, witnessed by many people. The man who attained it, Sonam Namgyal, was the father of my tutor and the beginning of this book.
He was a very simple, humble person, who made his way as an itinerant stone carver, carving mantras and sacred texts. Some say he had been a hunter in his youth, and had received a teaching from a great master. No one really knew he was a practitioner; he was truly called a "hidden yogin."
....he then fell ill, or seemed to, but became strangely, increasingly happy. When he illness got worse, his family called in masters and doctors. His son told him he should remember, 'Everything is illusion, but I am confident that all is well."
Just before his death at seventy-nine, he said " All I ask is that when I die, don't move my body for a week." When he died his family wrapped his body and invited Lamas and monks to come and practice for him. They placed the body in a small room in the house, and they could not help noticing that although he had been a tall person, they had no trouble getting it in, as if he were becoming smaller. At the same time, an extraodinary display of rainbow-coloured light was seen all around the house. When they looked into the room on the sixth day, they saw that the body was getting smaller and smaller. On the eight day after his death, the morning in which the funeral had been arranged, the undertakers arrived to collect the body. When they undid its coverings, they found nothing inside but his nails and hair.
My masters Jamyang Khyentse asked for these be brought to him, and verified that this was a case of the rainbow body.
Tibetan Book of Living & Dying, Rider Pub., Sogyal Rinpoche Ch.10 -p167-169
Excerpt from Golden Letters: The Three Statements of Garab Dorje
p140-141 -
With regard to the Das-rjes, in each case the master in question attained the Body of Light at the time of his death, when he dissolved his physical body into the dimension of the space of the sky. And then, in response to the distress and lamentations of their respective chief discilples, each master remanifested himself in a sphere of rainbow light (thig-le) suspended in the sky, whereupon he delivered his last testament to his astonished disciple. Here in the 'Das-rjes collection are found the posthumous teachings, delivered in the form of a last testament, of the following masters:
1. Tshig gsum gnad du brdreg-pa, "The Three statements That Strike the Essential Points, " of Prahevajra or Garab Dorje(dGa'-rad rdorje)
2. sGom nyams drug-pa,"The Six Meditation Experiences," of Manjushrimitra ('Jam dpal bshes-gnyen)
3. gZer-bu bdun-pa, "The Seven Important Points," of Shrisimha (dPal gyi seng-ge mgon-po)
4. bZhags-thabs bzhi, "The Four Methods for Remaining in Contemplation," of Jnanasutra (Ye-shes mdo)
more from 'The Golden Letters' The Three Statements of Garab Dorje:
Rigpa integrates into the pure vision before one in space and becomes that vision. One becomes a Rainbow Body, light without shadow. This despite Jung's protestations to the contrary, occurs because the obscurations or shadow (sgrib-pa), inherited from an immemorial past, have become exhausted in the process of purification by way of practicing contemplation. The causes for obscuration have been eliminated, so no more obscurations need arise to limit awareness - this is what "omniscience" means.
The Body of Light represents a complete and total and radical transformation of one's status of being, a rediscovery of what was primordially present, and this condition is permanent. It is Awareness itself (rig-pa nyid) and is dependent on nothing else. This may be compared to the various Christian notions of transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension; but in the case of Dzogchen, the methodology of how this is accomplished, namely the realizing of the Body of Light, is presented in precise terms.
There exist in history many examples of the successful completion of this process. Even in recent years there have been a number of Tibetan Lamas, both Buddhist and Bonpo, who attained realization of the Rainbow Body ('ja-lus-pa) at the end of their lives and some of these occurences were witnessed by Chinese Communist officials.
Generally, there are three different ways in which this process may occur
1. Rainbow Body of Light ('ja'lus) is attained at the time of death by means of Trekchod practice. One's physical body is dissolved into its subatomic constituents and becomes pure radiant energy, leaving behind only hair and nails. The process generally takes seven days, during which time the body progressively shrinks in size.
2. The Body of Light ('od-lus) is realized at the time of death by means of practice of Thodgal, as was the case with Garab Dorje.
3. The Great Transfer ('pho-ba chen po) is accomplished also by way of Thodgal, but there is no necessity of going through the process of dying. Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, and the Bonpo master Taphihritsa are all examples according to tradition, of individual masters who realized the Great Transfer.
p159:
But before one can practice Thodgal, one must first purify the twofold obscurations and master the state of contemplation throught Trekchod practice, a releasing or a cutting through of all one's tensions and rigidities. If one does not first perfect Thekchod as an absolutely necessary prerequisite, then the Thodgal practice will be little better than watching a cinema show. Although one practices Thodgal not in the state of ordinary consciousness but in the state of contemplation, there is nevertheless the ever-present danger that one will become attached to the visions that arise.
Excerpt from: The Golden Letters : The Three Statements of Garab Dorje, the First Teacher of Dzogchen, Together With a Commentary Garab Dorje, John Myrdhin Reynolds (Translator) (co.uk / com
MY TALKS ON "RAINBOW LIGHT GREAT ATTAINMENT
Dharma Talk by Living Buddha Lian Sheng on 01/07/96 (page 10-13)
Today I am going to talk about "Rainbow Light Great Attainment" which is the highest spiritual level to which a Tantric cultivator can aspire to achieve.To begin with, what is "Rainbow Light Great Attainment"?
It can take a long time to explain it. In form, it is the lights of rainbow. And, in abstract, it is the most profound "cosmos-consciousness". When a Tantric cultivator is able to have union with the cosmos-consciousness, he is said to have achieved the "Rainbow Light Great Attainment".
Spiritual cultivation is a big undertaking in life, as all the cultivators can see the transient natures of all the passing events. When a person makes up his mind to do cultivation, he is at the peak of his career. The "Rainbow Light Great Attainment" I am talking about is the spiritual fruit that all cultivators seek - an ordinary human being is able to have a union with the cosmos-consciousness.
First, I would like to briefly explain the difference between "Tantrayana" and "Sutrayana" Buddhisms. Permit me to use an analogy. Sutrayana is like a classroom where you learn all the theories about Buddhism. And Tantrayana is like a laboratory where you put what you learned in the classroom to experiment. In short, while Sutrayana stresses the importance of theory, Tantrayana emphasizes the significance of actual practice. Hence the former is like a classroom, and the latter a laboratory.
"Rainbow Light Great Attainment" is the highest spiritual level a Tantric cultivator can aspire to achieve. Upon attainment, many inconceivable events will unfold. The accomplished cultivator will be able to radiate "purified lights", and bring brightness wherever he goes. If he so wishes, he can even summon help from the mysterious cosmos-consciousness. Many highly competent cultivators are known to have radiated rainbow lights from their bodies, and caused many rainbows to appear in the sky before they departed from this Samsara world.
The Tantra taught by True Buddha School has the same effect. All accomplished cultivators will be able to summon the rainbow, and cause strange phenomena to appear in the sky. And they are able to have unions with the cosmos-consciousness also.
Before I began the first lecture on this series of talks on "Rainbow Light Great Attainment", an unusual Vajrasattva appeared. He was holding a Vajra on his right hand and a bell on his left. When he threw his Vajra into the sky, a huge rainbow light appeared. It's my aim to let everyone (cultivator and otherwise) know the true meaning of "pure cultivation". As spiritual cultivation is very important in life and a genuine effective way of cultivation is hard to come by, I sincerely hope all of you would treasure this "Rainbow Light Great Attainment", since it is the most profound Dharma taught by Tantrayana School of Buddhism. That's all for today.
Om Mani Padme Hum
Miraculous event - 16th Karmapa
For several years, those thought to be responsible for finding the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa were apparently left without instructions. Over time this led to turmoil within the Kagyu lineage. It was assumed that those believed to be holding the mantle of Karmapa's spiritual power, Shamar Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Tai Situ Rinpoche, and Gyaltsap Rinpoche, all renowned Kagyu lamas, would shoulder the task of finding and recognizing his reincarnation. However, trouble was brewing even before the funeral of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa was over. During the cremation at Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, a miraculous event occurred which is common only to the very highest of accomplished Buddhist yogis. Under a cloudless blue sky bearing a circular rainbow around the sun, Karmapa's heart rolled from the flames to the edge of the cremation stupa. It appeared as a fiery ball of electric blue-black material where, upon the advice of Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche, it was retrieved. Karmapa's eyes and tongue were also found unburned by the flames and they too were saved. Traditionally, such an occurrence indicates that body, speech and mind aspects have come together to be preserved as timeless relics, imparting intense enlightened transmission and blessing to all beings in the future. Such an event also occurred during the funeral of Gampopa and the 2nd Karmapa.
Those who witnessed the 16th Karmapa's cremation, saw the heart come out to the spot where Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche, Drongu Nondrub, Namkai Dorje, Kurt Nubling and Khenpo Chodrak Rinpoche, among others, were stationed. Many people were therefore quite surprised that Tai Situ Rinpoche proclaimed at a meeting after the cremation, that the heart had "fallen in his lap." Later, in 1992, such a claim became the basis Situ Rinpoche gave as to why he was the one person with the authority to recognize the reincarnation of the 17th Karmapa. Situ Rinpoche had in fact taken the heart from those who had retrieved it and took it to his own room after the cremation. Later, many gold and silver pearls, Buddha images and other precious substances were also found among Karmapa's relics. Since then a fantastic golden stupa has been built to contain Karmapa's heart, which is kept at Rumtek monastery.
1981 Taking Leave of Karmapa In July 1981 Karmapa began the reconstruction of temples and meditation centers. He had thousands of Dharma texts printed and distributed, among these 500 copies of the Dege-edition of the Kanjur. Even during the last months of his life he worked hard to spread the Dharma. He died in the USA in a hospital in Zion near Chicago on November 5th, 1981, at 8:30 p.m. local time. His death was a last teaching on impermanence for everybody present, and indeed for all of us. As death approached, he had taken a half-dozen deadly diseases upon himself. Using his yogic power, he removed much of their harmfulness, at least for those in his powerfield. He also allowed the physicians to test their medicines on him. Some of their findings were amazing: even the highest doses of sedatives had absolutely no effect on him. He cared for their well-being and never talked about himself. On the evening of November 5th, the day of Liberatrice, the doctors had routinely entered his room. Seeing that his machines had apparently turned themselves off, all had the same thought, "He's playing a joke on us." At the very moment, they started up again, worked for five minutes and then stopped completely. The next morning, when the staff wanted to remove his body from the bed, the lineage holders asked if all signs of death were present. They were not. Karmapa's body was still warm and supple, and especially his heart center was so hot that one could feel it at a good distance. This is how he stayed. On November 9th, a helicopter landed at the military airport, on the other side from Rumtek of the large Sikkim valley. A line of cars left the airport, and about an hour later Karmapa arrived at Rumtek on a Mercedes truck. All four lineage holders sat next to the driver on its narrow seat. Karmapa's body was put into a concentric structure - a mandala - in the upstairs hall in the Rumtek monastery. The cremation took place one and a half months later. Instead of falling apart during the forty-five days, Karmapa had shrunk and was now sitting in a two-foot high box, which had a window so one could see inside. A thin veil covered his face, which was of a deep grey hue and somewhat shrunken. The rest of the formerly powerful man was the size of a small child. After the "Diamond Songs of the Kagyu Masters" was read, and a meditation on the eight Karmapa, the box was carried outside and inserted into a recently built clay stupa on the monastery's roof terrace. Then a monk who had never had any contact with this Karmapa and was called upon to light the masses of dry sandalwood underneath the stupa.
In Lama Wangdor Rinpoche's words "That guy? He went rainbow
body...all the way. He was a westerner. You're all westerners. He was
from California. You're from California. So what do you think?"
