The teaching theme of this year in the Awakened Heart Sangha is Pranidhana, a Sanskrit word which translates as ‘powerful aspirational prayer’, known as Monlam in Tibetan. This is the second part of a transcript from a teaching given by Lama Shenpen on the theme, with the rest of the teaching to follow on this site in parts over the coming months. You can read part one here.

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Lama Shenpen:

Another element of pranidhanas is confidence. If you can trust your own intentions and your word, then you have confidence and others can have confidence in you. This is a basis for any kind of relationship with the Guru. Or any kind of student-teacher relationship. If there is no trust anywhere, the sangha is not going to hold together, society is not going to hold together.

The Guru has to have confidence that they will keep their word. And the student has to have confidence that they will keep their own word and that the Guru will keep their word. When that confidence is shattered, it is a terrible thing. Who can you trust if that combination of confidence and honesty that makes the pranidhanas effective is not there?

Another point to consider when making pranidhanas is skillful formulation. This is why we use pranidhanas that have already been formulated for us, like the Samantabhadracharya Pranidhana, or Rangjung Dorje’s Mahamudra Pranidhana. We use words for taking refuge or for taking the bodhisattva vow that have been handed on to us. They are perfectly formulated. It is a kind of intelligence; it is a skill to assess the situation and find the right balance with what one could reasonably expect to achieve without having any contradiction within it.

Rigdzin Shikpo’s favourite example was that it is like wanting to eat lots of cake and wanting to get thin. You have to think through what you would need to do in order to achieve it. Then you must be as committed to doing what is needed as you are to wanting it to happen. Otherwise, it sounds like wishful thinking. Which is an interesting topic in itself. There is, for example, the story of the monkey’s paw, a badly formulated pranidhana or wish. 

Another point to consider is that of casting a spell. A pranidhana is a kind of magical power. It has within itself the power to fulfill itself. We tend to think of a magical illusion as though it’s not really there. But we’re not talking about magic in that sense. This is a magical illusion that can do what we want it to; because the world is not fixed in a certain way, it can be changed by our pranidhanas, actions and intentions. The world is all based on the intentions we have had in the past and those we are carrying forward into the future. It is all built on intentions. And that’s a kind of magic. From a scientific point of view, where the world obeys ‘physical laws’ or ‘mathematical principles’, you would not expect that to be true – that the world is created magically, that you could actually conjure something up and it would be powerful and effective. But this is what we are saying. We have the power to create pranidhanas; we can actually bring something about. All beings have that power.

Lama Shenpen Hookham

Part three of this teaching will follow soon.

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