Guru Rinpoche was born in the Fire Male Monkey
Year miraculously in the blossom of a lotus in the lake called "Ocean of
Milk" in South West Odiyana, which is also known as Lake Danakosha.
It was 10th of the fifth lunar month.
Ugyen Guru Rinpoche introduced and
consolidated Buddhism in Bhutan. Every facet of our religious life goes back to
the Guru’s legacy – festivals, rites and rituals, sacred sites like Taktshang,
Sengye Dzong, Gomphu Kora, Tsaluna, Gon Tshephu etc.
Further, on the tenth day of the fifth month,
the sheep month, when the tīrthikas of southern India are causing great harm to
the teaching of Buddha, through a vast display of magical power, Guru Rinpoche
smashed them to dust along with their gods and guardians, and raises the
victory banner of the teaching of the Buddhas. Guru Rinpoche under this
manifestation is known as Guru Sengé Dradok.
Blissfully, in the fifth month, all harm from
obstacles, enemies and döns is pacified, and the objects of your wishes are
brought under your control if you pray to Guru Rinpoche.
Hope all will pray tomorrow and receive
blessing from Guru Rinoche.
ཨོཾ་ཨཱཿཧཱུྂ་བཛྲ་གུ་རུ་པདྨ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྂ
--
The birth and activities of Guru Rinpoche
A true story that all must read today.
When the time for Guru Rinpoche to liberate
the beings of this world approached, on the tenth day of the fifth month of the
Monkey year, he appeared miraculously in the blossom of a lotus in the lake
called "Ocean of Milk" in South West Odiyana, which is also known as
Lake Danakosha located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier. However there are
different interpretations regarding his birth.
The great river Sindhu, one of the four great
rivers that spring from the four directions of Kailash Mountain, flows towards
the Western Land of Odiyana and finally empties into the Arabian Sea. When the
river reaches Odiyana, it forms a lake filled with lotuses. As the lotus roots
produce a sweet-milky juice, it is called "Ocean of Milk." Prior to
Guru Padmasambhava’s birth, in the center of the lake a large, fully mature,
beautiful, red lotus grew, and from the heart of Buddha Amitabha in space, a
red syllable HRI fell about eight cubits above the collora of the lotus. The
syllable dissolved into light and instantly, without depending on the causes
and conditions of father and mother, there arose an eight-year-old child
perfectly adorned with the characteristic major and minor marks. Holding a
vajra and a lotus in his hands, he immediately began giving teachings to the
gods and dakinis of the area.
At that time, the ruler of the land of
Odiyana, the Second King Indrabodhi, was residing in his nine-tufted palace
with his queen as well as hundreds and thousands of inner and outer ministers.
Because the king did not have a son, on the full moon day of the fifth summer
month, he made great offerings to the Triple Gems and recited the Dharma Cloud
Sutra.
He also opened the door of his three thousand
treasuries and went on distributing alms to the poor and needy until his wealth
was exhausted. He then exclaimed, "Beggars have still not ceased, but I
have nothing to grant!”.
When the remaining beggars did not receive
their share, they hold the king that if he did not provide their share,
whatever was done in the past would be meaningless. The king heard this and,
inspired to acquire in exhaustive wealth for the beggars, he travelled to the
ocean to procure the wish-fulfilling jewel from the crown of the mystical
creature, Charumati, daughter of Naga. He procured the jewel without mishap and
sailed back with his boat filled with the seven varieties of jewels. While
travelling to meet the king, the king’s religious minister, Trig Na Dzin, found
the extraordinary child on the lotus and narrated the full story of the child
to the king.
The king was pleased by this news and went to
the child and inquired about his father, mother and to which caste and country
he belonged. The child exclaimed:
My father is the self-arisen Samantabhadra.
My mother is the sphere of reality,
Samantabhadri.
My caste is the union of primordial wisdom and
the Dharmadhatu.
And my name is the glorious Padmasambhava.
Having heard this, the king was thrown into a
wonder of delight. He thought a Nirmanakaya had taken birth and invited the
child to the palace as his son as well as religious guide. The child was named
"Padmasambhava" meaning "lotus-born." Later he married
Prabhadharani, the daughter of king Chandan Gomashree, and ruled the kingdom in
accordance with the Dharma. He became renown as Shikhabandh Raja or "The
King With Plaited Hair."
He perceived that since politics is
contradictory to the teachings of liberation, and his position would not
fulfill the purpose of sentient beings, he performed a mystical activity of
killing the son of a wicked minister and lifted his consciousness into the
Charadhatu. As a result he was banished form the country to the fearful
cemetery of Sitavana. Gradually by performing mystical activities at the
cemeteries of Nandanvan, Daanbhumidvipa, Parushakavan, and so forth he
accomplished the common and uncommon siddhis and came to be known as
Rodravajrakala, "The Wrathful Vajra Display."
In order to inspire faith towards the
teachings in the disciples of the future, he then went to Bodhgaya and many
other places displaying the act of receiving teachings from many great
scholars, accomplished masters and Dakinis. By listening just once, he
comprehended and accomplished the whole canon of the three baskets of Vinaya,
Sutra and Abhidharma, as well as the teachings of the outer and inner secret
mantra, oral transmissions, and the pith instructions of the highest and
innermost tantra of Atiyoga. Even if he did not propitiate, the deities of the
mandala displayed their forms and he became a peerless erudite and accomplished
master. Thus he showed the signs of perfecting the level of the Fully Ripened
Awareness Holder. Thereafter he was known as the Guru Dhimana Varruchi,
"The Supreme Love Endowed With Wisdom."
He then took princess Mandarava, daughter of
Shastradhara, the king of Zahor, as his consort. Possessing the marks of a
dakini, he took her to the mountain cave of Maratika, known as Halesha, in
present day, Nepal, where they performed the accomplishment rituals of
longevity for three months and actualized the Immortal Vajra Body, which marks
the attainment of an Immortal Life Awareness Holder.
In order to tame the people of Odiyana he
returned there disguised as a mendicant but many people recognized him and he
was set to be burned alive in a sandalwood fire by a host of evil-minded
ministers and people. When the fire was lit, he miraculously transformed the
fire into a huge lake filled with lotuses. Sitting him with consort over a
giant lotus in the middle of the lake, the king, ministers, and people were
astounded and developed great faith towards him. In addition, at the cave of
Yanglashod in Nepal he practiced the Vishuda deity depending on the accomplishment
consort Sakya Devi of Nepal and very soon both of them became supreme Mahamudra
Awareness Holders. Thus were some of the achievements of Guru Padmasambhava
prior to coming to Tibet.
THE MASTER SPREADS THE DHARMA IN THE LAND OF
SNOWS
When Lord Buddha gave Avalokiteshvara the
responsibility of taming the backwards land of Tibet, Avalokiteshvara looked at
the barbaric land and shed tears of compassion. From these tears the Goddess
Ganga and Gangchungma were born. One day Goddess Gangchungma stole some
celestial flowers and due to her decline in merit, when she died she was unable
to again take rebirth as a god and fell to the human realm. She took birth as
the human woman, Dechogma, the daughter of Sale from the Jardzinma caste.
Being born from Avalokiteshvara’s tears, she
naturally had great faith in the Dharma and thus commissioned the construction
of a magnificent stupa in Boudha near Kathmandu in Nepal. However she died
before the stupa was completed. Her four sons vowed to complete the unfinished
stupa, and in honor of their mother, and out of supreme faith in the Dharma,
they made solemn prayers from the bottoms of their hearts. Upon completion of
the stupa, they each fervently prayed to be reborn as a Dharma king, a great
learned khenpo, a powerful tantric master, and a messenger that would bring the
previous three together. Legend also has it that during the construction of the
stupa a wise donkey was commissioned and overheard the four sons’ prayers.
Hearing this, the donkey thought, "I have done so much work for them and
they don’t even remember me in their prayers! I vow to do my best to destroy
the fruits of their prayers."
According to their aspirations, one son was
reborn as Trisong Deutsen, the 38th king of Tibet and an incarnation of Manjushri.
One son was reborn as the kings’ messenger who invited both the great Khenpo
Shantarakshita and the tantric master Guru Padmasambhava from India, who were
the reincarnations of the other two sons.
Guru Padmasambhava, recalling his past
aspirations, accepted the invitation, and on his way he subdued all the harmful
gods and demons of Tibet, making them faithful guardians of the Dharma. After
meeting in Tibet, the king, guru and khenpo together constructed Tibet’s first
great monastery at Samye and fully furnished it with statues. In addition they
gave monk’s vows that Tibet’s first seven monks, standardized translation
methods, supervised translation of most of the sutras and tantras from Sanskrit
to Tibetan, and for the first time in Tibet, firmly established the tradition
of study, contemplation and meditation, thereby radiating the Buddha Dharma in
Tibet like rays of the sun.
As for the donkey, he was later reborn as
Langdharma, the 41st king of Tibet, and subsequently almost succeeded in eliminating
the Dharma from Tibet.
Not leaving even the space of a horse-hoof
untouched, Guru Padmasambhava miraculously walked upon the entire land of Tibet
and generally blessed all the mountains, lakes and caves as places for
accomplishment. Specifically in the Ngari region of upper Tibet he blessed
twenty mountain caves. In Utsang he blessed twenty-one sacred places of
accomplishment. In Dokham he blessed twenty-five sacred places, as well as the
three kingly treasure places in upper, central and lower Tibet, the five
provinces, three valleys, one island and so forth.
In addition, for the sake of beings to be
tamed in the future, Guru Padmasambhava concealed eighteen varieties of
treasure which include treasure texts, material wealth, holy images and so forth,
and gave explicit prophesies regarding the future manifestation of these
treasures, including the revealer and protector of the treasure, as well as the
time of revelation.
So forth were the enlightened activities
performed for the sake of sentient beings by Guru Padmasambhava’s eight
manifestations, which are as follows:
1. Padmavajra, Vajra of the Lotus, severed the
roots of the five poison.
2. Padmaraja, King of the Lotus, provided
mundane and ultimate benefits to sentient beings.
3. Padmasambhava, the Lotus-born, blessed
beings endowed with faith.
4. Dorje Droled tamed the Yakshas and haughty
beings.
5. Suryaprabha, the Rays of the Sun, taught
the essence of secret mantra.
6. Sakyasimha, the Lion of Sakyas, guided
beings towards the path of liberation.
7. Simhanada, Roar of the Lion, defeated the
outside aggressors of non-Buddhists.
8. Dhimanvaruchi, the Supremely Wise Love,
showered the teaching of sutra and mantra.
The results of Guru Padmasambhava’s activities
include the attainment of liberation by his twenty-five disciples and eighty
other disciples who attained rainbow body. In addition, three million disciples
achieved stability in tantric generation stage practice, one hundred thousand
disciples showed signs of accomplishment, ninety thousand disciples achieved
the uncontaminated Illusory Body, and eighty million disciples had some
attainment. Having accomplished these great activities, knowing his personal
beings to be tamed on Earth were exhausted, he departed for the South-western
universe of the magical cannibals, to help the beings there and to protect
Earth from their harm.
Guru Padmasambhava is said to have lived for
three thousand and six hundred years in India upholding the Buddha’s teachings
and benefiting sentient beings. But for his stay in Tibet there are many
unreliable versions claiming he stayed for three years, six years, thirteen
years and so forth. Despite these differences, according to Guru
Padmasambhava’s own kama teachings, he actually stayed for fifty years and
three months, directly manifesting the meaning of the teachings by benefiting
countless sentient beings in incredible myriad ways according to their desires
and propensities, which is a reliable and trustworthy fact.
COURTESY: Story of Guru Padmasambhava as
translated from Tibetan and published in the "Oasis of Liberation" ©
1999 Ngagyur Nyingma Institute, India.
