Re: Milarepa Path To Liberation Download
Giovanna Qiu
Why ? Because we have already created the causes for suffering in the past. Where are these causes of suffering ? They are in our minds right now, in the self centered mind and the negative emotions that result from this mental state.
If you really think about it, you come to understand that you are responsible for your own suffering and that there is no one else to blame. Understanding this, you will be able to tolerate difficulties and to avoid more suffering in the future. If you want to be happy you need to know the causes of happiness. The Buddha said: I can show you the path of liberation, but liberation depends upon yourself.
According to The Life of Milarepa, Milarepa was born in western Tibet to a prosperous family.[1] When his father died, his family was deprived of their wealth by his aunt and uncle. At his mother's request, Milarepa left home and studied sorcery to take revenge, killing many people.[1]
Later he felt sorrow about his deeds, and became a student of Marpa the Translator. Before Marpa would teach Milarepa, he had him undergo abuse and trials, such as letting him build and then demolish three towers in turn. Milarepa was asked to build one final multi-story tower by Marpa at Lhodrag, which still stands.[4] Eventually, Marpa accepted him, explaining that the trials were a means to purify Milarepa's negative karma.[1] Marpa transmitted Tantric initiations and instructions to Milarepa, including tummo ("yogic heat"), the "aural transmissions" (Wylie: snyan rgyud), and mahamudra.[3] Marpa told Milarepa to practice solitary meditation in caves and mountain retreats.
According to the biography, after many years of practice, Milarepa came to "a deep experiential realization about the true nature of reality." In some other sources, it is said that Milarepa and Marpa both came to India to seek one most important thing for ultimate realisation from Marpa's guru, but even he didn't know about it. Later on he tried for many years and finally attained enlightenment. Thereafter he lived as a fully realized yogi, and eventually forgave his aunt, who caused his family's misfortune.[3]
According to Lopez, The Life of Milarepa represents "Buddhism as it was understood and practiced in Tibet in the fifteenth century, projected back in time."[2] It contains "many of the key terms and doctrines of Buddhism."[2] Tsangnyn Heruka did his best to establish a lineage of teachers that connects the Kagyu tradition with the Indian siddha tradition, portraying Marpa as a student of Naropa, though Naropa had already died when Marpa went to India.[2]
Lopez notes that Tsangnyn Heruka used stylistic elements from the biography of Gautama Buddha to portray Milarepa effectively as a Tibetan Buddha, "born and enlightened in Tibet, without going to India or receiving the direct instructions of an Indian master."[2] The life story of Milarepa portrays "the rapid method of the Tantric path," in which liberation is gained in one lifetime. It describes how Milarepa practiced the generation stage and completion stage, to achieve mahamudra, "spontaneous realization of the most profound nature of mind."[2] Yet, in his instructions to his Tibetan audiences, Milarepa refers to the basic Buddhist teachings of "impermanence, the sufferings of saṃsāra, the certainty of death and the uncertainty of its arrival, the frightful rebirth that is the direct result of our benighted deeds." But, his own life also is an example that even a murderer can transform into a Buddha.[2] Lopez further notes that The Life of Milarepa portrays two parallel worlds, a profane world and a sacred world, which are ultimately one, showing that the world itself is sacred.[2]
The acclaimed spiritual poetry of Milarepa is known of as The Hundred Thousand Songs.Previous biographies of Milarepa were enlarged with religious poetry and song cycles, which doubled the volume of biographical information. Collected for publication in English translation by the Oriental Studies Foundation in 1962, in 1999 these songs were re-published in a separate volume entitled The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa translated and annotated by Garma C.C. Chang, then in 2017 a new translation by Christopher Stagg of the Nitartha Translation Network, both published by Shambhala. These summarize the various song cycles in chapter eleven of The Life of Milarepa.[3]
The Life of Milarepa is a book that reads like a poem and lifts the spirit at the turn of every page, a biography decorated with songs that seem to spring from the soul of Milarepa, where words alone seem not enough to express the intensity of his messages.
From a tormented first half of his life, where he succumbs to the lower aspects of reality by killing 35 people through his powers of black magic, Milarepa rises from the ashes with fervent, unbroken determination to purify his misdeeds, and finally attains liberation within one lifetime. His life is an example of an ardent pursuit to realise the true nature of reality through the path of yoga.
During his intense practice in caves, Milarepa starts his awakening, attaining spiritual insights on the nature of reality. He would practise without eating, without moving his body even if that meant starvation, sickness or exposure. His thirst for realisation was greater than his fear of death. Here we see for the first time Milarepa as a master. He removed his fear of death and understood that all the phenomena of this world and transcendence are interdependent, and that only spiritual insight would lead him to transcendence. The following song illustrates poetically one of his intuitions on the essence of interdependence of all beings:
In the last part of his life, Milarepa took the task of benefitting sentient beings through the result of his practice. This is his eighth supreme deed. Finding life precious, he did not dare to waste an hour of time.
Personally, the book was an impulse for my spiritual practice. It kindled my inner fire and my aspiration, and opened my eyes to spiritual tests. The intense longing of Milarepa made it tangible and I can still feel it inside myself.
When Buddha Shakyamuni transmitted the teachings on the ultimate nature of mind in the Samadhiraja Sutra, he asked his assembled disciples which of them would vow to take rebirth in the future to serve as guardian of this precious wisdom. The bodhisattva Dawu Shunnu vowed to do so, and many years later took rebirth as the Lord Gampopa-who obtained full transmission from Milarepa and spread the teachings on Mahamudra, the essence of mind, throughout Tibet.
Gampopa1079-1153, also called Dakpo Lhaje, meaning the doctor from Dakpowas born in Nyal, in eastern Tibet. His father, a doctor, trained him to be a skillful doctor and to release suffering of many people. Yet during a severe epidemic he was unable to save his own beloved wife and children. Renouncing worldly life, he took the vows of a monk and devoted himself to studying the stages of the path as taught in the sutras, and cultivated the aspiration to benefit all beings impartially. Various signs presaging liberation arose in his dreams, and he would remain absorbed in an unwavering state of meditation for many days.
One day, Gampopa overheard three beggars discussing the miraculous qualities of Milarepa. When he heard the great yogi's name, Gampopa was overcome with devotion and fainted. When he awoke, he set out to find the great master, who at the time was staying in an isolated mountain retreat. Gampopa traveled like a man possessed, sometimes fainting from exhaustion and weakness. Finally, he reached the feet of Milarepa, who accepted him as a disciple.
Milarepa bestowed on him the essential instructions of the Kagyu lineage, including the Six Yogas of Naropa. He then sent Gampopa to meditate in a desolate cave, where various experiences of the path swiftly arose. On one occasion, he perceived his cave to be filled with deities. On another, he saw his body as a net of veins and bones, devoid of flesh. On yet another, the valley in which he sat practicing became filled with smoke, and he was forced to grope his way back into Milarepa's presence. Each time, Milarepa taught him not to cling to what appeared, saying "It's neither good nor bad. Keep practicing." Due to the high level of realization he had achieved in former lives and to his reliance on Milarepa, Gampopa progressed rapidly. At last, Milarepa transmitted to him all the precious teachings and empowerments, then sent him to central Tibet to develop his practice.
After meditating in hermitages and wild mountains for many years, Gampopa achieved enlightenment and clearly saw his teacher was Dorje Chang. As Milarepa had prophesied, local deities invited Gampopa to establish a monastery at Dagpo, where vast numbers of disciples gathered to receive the Kagyu teachings he expounded. During this period, Gampopa frequently displayed supernormal powers, often manifesting as Buddha Shakyamuni or the bodhisattva Chenrezig. Many people reported seeing him simultaneously presiding over a feast at one place, performing a consecration in another, and teaching in yet another. When at last he entered the realm of ultimate reality, the sky was filled with countless rainbows, images of white stupas, and a rain of flowers to mark the passage of a fully enlightened being.
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For whatever reason, be it cultural or philosophical, or a need to act as an extension of the phenom that was Indic scholasticism, many early Tibetan scholars/translators placed great energy into codifying all of the various routes taken by the three Buddhist vehicles. Of equal interest to Tibetan scholars/translators were the various the road-maps provided by the lineages that comprised these vehicles. Indeed, lam rim (stages and paths) literature from Jey Gampopa onwards, for example, has functioned as a great cornerstone for the practice of dharma up to this very day. Rest assured that if you are ever lost on the path to enlightenment, the Tibetans have all the various maps you may need neatly organized.
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