A student writes:

I understand that reciting long life prayers for teachers to remain is important, however, I was wondering, what if the teacher’s activity would be more effective in a different realm, under different conditions and circumstances in time and space? So, despite the sadness of losing your teacher’s physical presence in this realm, surely I should ultimately be wishing for what would be best and most effective for the teacher and the Dharma when I make these prayers and pranidhanas?

Lama Shenpen responds:

I have been contemplating this question and since re-reading Rigdzin Shikpo’s booklet Mahayana Sutra Principles [available to Awakened Heart Sangha members] and noticing once again the centrality of the Seven Branches of Prayer for the Bodhisattva path.

The sixth branch is to beg the teachers to remain in this world and not ‘pass into nirvana’ – meaning not to cease to manifest in the world to help beings. So we pray for our personal teachers in particular to live long and for us to keep up as close a connection as possible with them by every means at our disposal, through this and through all our lifetimes working together forever to bring all beings to Awakening.

This is about Mandala Principle. There is the over-arching mandala of the Totality – of all there is – in the infinite past, present and future in all immeasurable directions and dimensions of space and your questions takes it as given that we want the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, our teachers to act everywhere equally on all beings at all times and in all places.

So, why make specific prayers for those teachers in our world at this time whom we have a close connection with to make a special effort to stay around for as long as possible? They could be active anywhere they chose and wherever they were needed in whatever way is possible.

The point is that the Five Certainties – the specific time, specific place, the specific teacher and specific teaching for a specific audience is what creates the necessary mandala for the teaching to happen.  Our role in creating that mandala and so making that happen is to practice the seven branches of prayer including making as strong requests as we can for the teachings to be given at that time and place to that audience by that teacher and to ask for that teacher to continue to manifest and not to pass into a non-manifest state.

If nobody was doing that then the mandala of that particular configuration of the five certainties will lose strength – there would not be sufficient energy exchange and samaya connection going on for it to augment or even maintain itself.

So it is not a matter of being polite and reasonable as one might be in a worldly situation – it’s a particularly English kind of way of thinking and behaving I think. We were maybe taught as children to not put too much pressure on people to do what we want. So we might think let other people have their chance if we have had a good chunk of the cake already, maybe the teacher could be doing something more useful elsewhere than just do what I want, I should put the teachers needs and wishes before my own, how do I know what I am asking for is the best thing for the world anyway? All sorts of hesitations and doubts many of which I recognise in myself! 

It is the same with making offerings – the energy exchange principle again – showing how much we value the presence of the Buddha or Guru and praising and rejoicing in the teacher’s qualities. It’s reenforcing our own allegiance to those values and qualities and that whole mandala. You could argue the teachers don’t need our praise and appreciation, our courtesy and respect, our offerings and petitions, that they are above such niceties. But actually the mandala as a whole – the mandala of the five certainties that allow the teachings to happen – does need all that from us.  It is how the whole Bodhisattva path works and is established in the world for the benefit of ourselves and others.

I have to admit when I think of Khenpo Rinpoche year after year hardly able to move or talk I wonder whether he ever feels he would rather be elsewhere or could be of more use to others elsewhere.  But it is not up to me to speculate like that. His Bodhi heart and mind is without limit of time and place, so who knows what he is up to in the clear light nature of his mind, who knows what Buddha realms he is visiting and in which he is receiving teachings and gaining power in his samadhi?

When we put relics in a stupa and Buddha images and so on, it’s because we revere the connection they embody with the mandala of this world and their own limitless Buddha Nature and enable us to benefit from the adhistana of their presence accessible through such connections!  This is all miraculous so how can we begin to understand the value of Rinpoche actually remaining in this world connecting to us through our senses even though we cannot actually see him in person – we are still closely connected to the mandala of his world – our shared world and all the mandala connections that make that up.

I think we might as well take our cue from the lineage itself that tells us the presence of the teacher in the world is significant for the whole world, even though we might wonder sometimes when the teacher is in the kind of physical situation Khenpo Rinpoche is in.  There is in fact a certain kind of yogic conduct called Chopa la shek pa in Tibetan – I don’t know what that is in Sanskrit – it translates as ‘Entering the conduct’ meaning that special kind of yogic conduct where the yogin is still alive in his body in this world but is actually travelling all over the place, to different places around the world and other worlds.

Trungpa Rinpoche was in this state for long periods of time towards the end of his life. I remember being present when the Sakyong was telling Khenpo Rinpoche about how strange his behaviour was and Rinpoche reassuring him that this was a recognised state of yogic conduct and not to worry about it.  As with Khenpo Rinpoche these days, even though he is not moving or speaking, still people feel the power of his blessing, even people who never knew him before and only ever knew him when he had passed into this state. 

So, we keep up our connection with him here at the Hermitage praying for his long life again and again – it is for our own sakes and the sake of this certain time and place – this certain or specific mandala of the five certainties.

Student:

There is still something I don’t understand about this – when I wish for something or pray or make a pranidhana, it can feel as though it’s with the whole of my being, coming from my heart. As such it feels real, authentic, genuine and unchanging. It feels a bit like giving my word and once uttered it is permanent and doesn’t change, so in a sense there feels no need to keep repeating it if it has been said once. Surely that would be enough to maintain the Mandala? Somehow to keep repeating it almost seems to undermine it in the sense that it wasn’t really meant the first time or I don’t expect the to wish or prayer ‘work’?

Lama Shenpen:

I know what you mean about repetition seems to imply an incomplete act but it’s the EVAM principle* [The dynamic of focusing and relaxing] of the mandala. To just perform an act once and think it is permanent is bordering on believing in permanence – however you have a point I have to admit!  So, I wonder if it makes sense to compare it to a marriage vow.  If you are married, okay there is no need to keep re-marrying, that would mean you had stopped being married and needed to marry again.  Nonetheless you wouldn’t say to your wife ‘I told you I loved you when we got married – how many more times do I need to tell you?’ or maybe someone would?!

The custom is to repeat the Refuge or any other vow three times and then we repeat it three times before every formal session – why? Because it re-enforces and energises the mandala of the Three Jewels and also the samadhi [concentration/focus/meditative absorption] of our practice mandala.  Focus and relax – let go and then focus again – it is how the mind works, it’s how we work, how mandalas work.

Nothing is permanent and yet we can create a mandala that has the samadhi power of constancy and stability. The essence of the whole thing is unchanging because its ‘empty’ – ungraspable – our True Nature. The mandalas that appear in that empty essence are maintained, augmented and are protected by the power of the samadhi mandala of our practice – in other words the power of the EVAM principle.

Student:

If your activity is an expression of your true nature which, as you move along the path is expressing itself more fully and in a purer and purer form, surely it doesn’t need any “external ” motivation to do so, isn’t that what it does and will always do?

Lama Shenpen:

It’s that the spontaneous activity of my True Nature will be responding to requests for teaching. There needs to be a teaching mandala for teaching activity to manifest in, that isn’t a one off event. The bodhisattva practices in the Samantabhadra Charya Pranidhana are repeated over and over again for aeons on a vast scale (practices that include all seven ‘branches of prayer’) so that the spontaneous activity of the Buddhas can have maximum effect in each of the mandalas created in that way. They appear but are an empty/ungraspable display based on mandala principle(s).

Lama Shenpen Hookham

*Evam Principle – The dynamic of focusing and relaxing, moving from foreground to background, is the nature of awareness.  In Lama Shenpen’s Living the Awakened Heart Training  it is introduced as the dynamic of EVAM, of E (relaxed background) and VAM (focused foreground).  Learning to work with it, both in our meditation and awareness practice, and in our whole attitude to our lives and practice, is fundamental to the training.

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