“Tales My Lama Told Me”
by Pastor David Lai

Pastor David Lai’s book Tales My Lama Told Me contains very scintillating and riveting stories of Buddhist practitioners of the Mahayana tradition – both great masters and lay practitioners – who have achieved the state of true inner peace, love and happiness called Enlightenment within one lifetime! There is also a story about how a glimpse of Enlightenment on the face of a pure monk led to a ruler and his people being converted to Buddhism!

All the stories in Tales My Lama Told Me were recounted to Pastor David by our Guru or Lama, Tsem Rinpoche, and these stories, as they are told, reflect the extraordinary qualities of Tsem Rinpoche as a Spiritual Guide of our times. In essence, the stories of Buddhist practitioners in this book are stories of how practitioners, through a profound process of mind transformation, developed powerful qualities of compassion, love, moral discipline, generosity, patience, joyous perseverance and wisdom that led them to the attainment of Enlightenment.

The path of practice of the great Buddhist practitioners in Tales My Lama Told Me is a journey of profound mind transformation to attain the highest level a mind can reach. It is a journey of mind transformation that takes us from the egocentric mind clouded by gross delusions of anger, hatred, pride, jealousy, desirous attachments and cravings to a mind that is filled with clear-sighted wisdom and an altruistic heartfelt undiscriminating concern for all others, as though they were our only child.

When the mind achieves its highest level of transformation, it is filled with peace, altruistic limitless undiscriminating universal love and compassion and bliss. All the layers and clouds of obscurations, negativities and negative karmic imprints of past deeds of harming have been purified and completely wiped away. All the disturbing and illusory negative emotions like anger, hate, pride, jealousy, desires, attachments and cravings have all been vanquished.

Shantideva. Click on image to enlarge.

The ego – root cause of all suffering, as all negativities and negative emotions and projections arise from it – has been destroyed! In place of our egocentric mind is a mind of clarity and peace, where all disturbing elements and their causes – that were the blocks to real inner peace – have been removed. Negative emotions have been replaced by the generation of powerful transcendental qualities of the mind like compassion, love, and the Six Perfections – patience, perseverance, generosity, moral discipline, concentration and wisdom – which culminate in the attainment of the highest bliss without a trace of sorrow.

This is the state of mind of real happiness of the highest level – inner peace and bliss – that is called Enlightenment.

The nature of the love and compassion of a Mahayana practitioner, as a Bodhisattva warrior, and the bliss that he/she attains as the goals of the spiritual journey are realised, are best reflected in the following verses of aspiration of every practitioner in the stories in Tales My Lama Told Me.

The Four Immeasurables:

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes [immeasurable love],
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes [immeasurable compassion],
May all sentient beings never be separated from sorrowless bliss [immeasurable joy],
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from bias, attachment and anger [immeasurable equanimity].

From Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara Dedication Prayer:

For as long as space remains,
For as long as sentient beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world.

Transforming the Mind Through the Practice of Patience

Verse Four of “Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”

As for sentient beings who are bad–natured,
When I see they are oppressed by negativity and pain,
May I cherish them just like I am encountering
A precious treasure that is difficult to find!

Atisha, the great Indian pandit and master, who had been invited to Tibet over nine hundred years ago to teach the Dharma there, had brought with him one of the most powerful practices for which he was a great adept, the treasured practice of mind transformation. This practice has developed into a systematised method for generating a mind of great compassion and is encapsulated in the Eight Verses of Mind Transformation.

Atisha. Click on image to enlarge.

As has been explained, the development of altruistic love and compassion is at the heart of practice of this Mahayana mind-transformation path that leads to the attainment of a mind of Enlightenment. The above verse shows that the best object on which to develop altruistic love, compassion and patience of a transcendental nature – patience as a perfection – is a person of “bad nature”. Hence, when we meet a person of “bad nature”, we should passionately practise these transcendental virtuous qualities on “these precious treasures that are difficult to find” that will lead us “fast-track” to enlightenment!

The two powerful and inspiring stories below illustrate vividly to us how Atisha and Tsem Rinpoche practised these mind-transforming qualities.

“Practice of Patience” – Developing patience with a person of bad nature

Atisha took a very difficult person with him, when he went to Tibet to bring the Dharma there. This was an elderly monk who actually hated him. He had done everything to hurt Atisha and make his life miserable, always criticising him and putting him down, and always influencing others to go against him. Atisha invited this monk to go to Tibet with him and sponsored his trip. Atisha the great master and Bodhisattva, who taught mind training, wanted to practise love and patience and felt that this monk who hated him was the best object of practice for him. Throughout the entire 13 years that this difficult monk was there and until his death, Atisha remained patient with him all the way and even served him! He never once retaliated to his criticisms. When this monk passed away, he even performed a wonderful funeral for him for his good rebirth!

“These Hard Times” – Practicing patience by not retaliating in the face of being hit and abused by a violent and angry parent

In this tale about Tsem Rinpoche’s childhood of pain and suffering, we read about how he was subject to violent abuse from his adoptive mother Dana, who had a lot of anger, bitterness and frustrations bottled up inside her and who chose the young Rinpoche as the object to vent them on. Her violent abuse of Rinpoche became very bad when her mental disease of paranoia and schizophrenia took over control of her.

Dana’s abuse of Rinpoche ranged from severe screaming and scolding to beating! She even had him locked up for weeks in their house. If she were in a foul mood, the punishment would be more severe. Then she started to threaten to kill him. She said she would go into his bedroom and kill him, but he was to keep his room open or it would be the worse for him. She did go into his bedroom at night and rant and rave at him and beat him up.

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche’s adoptive parents, Boris and Dana Bugayeff.

As her anger and temper grew, she would just hit him with a broom or stick his head under the bed and beat him senseless, and this could go on for hours. She even used her fists to punch him or slap him across the face.

However, despite this violent abuse, Rinpoche never even once retaliated or even pushed her or fought back. He thought she was his mother and he should not retaliate. There was an extraordinary Bodhisattva-like compassion in the young Rinpoche for Dana, in the face of such tremendous abuse, violence and display of anger. In his autobiography The Promise, Rinpoche did talk about his practice of compassion and forgiveness towards his mother Dana for her abuse of him.

“Je Tsongkhapa” – How Je Tsongkhapa revealed the quick and complete path of Tibetan Buddhism

The most powerful story in this book is the story of “Je Tsongkhapa”. In “Je Tsongkhapa”, we see how this great Tibetan master and mahasiddha, also known as the “Second Buddha”, integrated the three aspects of Buddhism – the Theravada, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana – into one complete path under the lineage or school of Tibetan Buddhism called the Gelug school or lineage.

The Path of Practice as laid out very clearly by Je Tsongkhapa

Practising the path of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism is practising all three schools or aspects of Buddha’s teachings in one path, the graduated path to Enlightenment. Tsongkhapa’s path of practice embodies the whole practice of mind transformation leading to the attainment of Enlightenment.

By integrating these three aspects into one path so seamlessly and giving equal focus to each of the three, Je Tsongkhapa revolutionised how Buddhist teachings should be practised from his time onwards. Je Tsongkhapa shows us that he was a perfect practitioner. He practised all three aspects of the path with equal perfection and this was shown in the way he held the three sets of vows – the Monastic or Vinaya Vows, the Bodhisattva Vows and the Tantric Vows. He held all three sets of vows purely in accordance to what the Buddha had taught in the respective sutras and teachings.

Lama Tsongkhapa

He taught his students to practise exactly as he did. Hence all the practitioners of the Gelug lineage that Je Tsongkhapa founded, who follow this complete path of practice, are able to attain Enlightenment within one lifetime, if they follow exactly his fine example.

From the point of spiritual practice, he was a pure monk holding the vows of monastic discipline steadfastly following the Theravadan tradition.

He was a perfect Bodhisattva in his pure practice of altruistic love and compassion. He practised vigorously transcendental actions of the Six Perfections. He infused all his actions of body, speech and mind with a Bodhisattva motivation. Indeed, his whole way of life was that of a Bodhisattva’s.

From the Vajrayana or the Tantric aspect, Je Tsongkhapa was an accomplished and highly attained tantric practitioner and yogi who engaged deeply in intense tantric practices including Yidam practices. His mind was truly pure, as it was free from all ordinary perception and conceptions.

Such was his level of tantric attainment that, during a Monlam Chenmo or Great Prayer Festival, when a fire had turned into an inferno and threatened to burn the temple to ashes, he walked towards the inferno, disappeared into the burning temple, sat down and went into deep meditation. Suddenly, all the flames extinguished as if they were blown by a strong gust of wind. Je Tsongkhapa had extinguished the fire using an inner fire meditation that only a highly attained practitioner could have accomplished. However, he was very humble, as all true and pure practitioners are, and he only used his clairvoyance and miraculous powers when it was necessary.

How Je Tsongkhapa traversed the swift and complete path to Enlightenment in one lifetime

A painting of Lama Tsongkhapa and his two heart sons. Click on image to enlarge.

Je Tsongkhapa showed by fine example, how to live one’s rare and precious human rebirth most meaningfully and to the optimum by traversing the quick Mahayana path of practice to attain the mind of Enlightenment in one lifetime. Beyond holding the three sets of vows firmly and perfectly, he engaged in many highly meritorious activities. He studied the Dharma earnestly under 50 spiritual masters and engaged in Dharma practice intensively and with single-minded focus, performing many spectacular deeds. He built and founded great monasteries like Gaden Monastery and restored old dilapidated monasteries and statues in ruins. He was a great scholar and prolific writer who wrote texts on prayers, practices and rituals and composed great Dharma works (both sutra and tantra), and he proliferated the Dharma.

He founded the annual Monlam Chenmo or great prayer festival to create greater spiritual awareness among lay people as well as to enable them to gather tremendous merits. He went into a seven-year retreat with eight close students and during that period of retreat he performed vast and extensive powerful purification practices to purify all his negative karma and made extensive offerings of the Mandala to accumulate powerful merits to ensure success in completing the whole path of practice. During this retreat, he performed 10 million offerings of the Mandala (a symbolic offering of the Universe to the Buddha), 3.5 million prostrations to the 35 Confessional Buddhas and 3.5 Recitations of the 35 Confessional Buddhas!

35 Confessional Buddhas. Click on image to enlarge.

So powerful were his practices of accumulation of merits and purifying of negative karma that, at the end of the retreat, his mind attained full clarity and wisdom, free of all traces and stains of obscuration. He gained a full vision of the Buddha of Wisdom, Manjushri, who appeared to him many times after that to give him teachings, initiations and personal advice! On one occasion, Je Tsongkhapa received a stream of powerful blessings from Manjushri that eradicated the last traces of his self-grasping and ego-clinging mind, the root cause of all suffering.

Thus Je Tsongkhapa, this great and highly attained master, accomplished in one lifetime what Buddha Shakyamuni took three eons of lifetimes to accomplish in order to gain total freedom from suffering and full Enlightenment. Just as Buddha Shakyamuni showed us the path to full Enlightenment 2,500 years ago, Je Tsongkhapa came 600 years ago to show us the complete swift path to full Enlightenment.

“A Man From Chatreng” – Attaining Enlightenment in one lifetime via a long meditational retreat on Vajrayogini

This story is very inspiring as it shows us how an ordinary lay person in these modern times can attain total freedom from suffering and Enlightenment in one lifetime by following the swift and complete Mahayana path of practice of mind transformation.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, long meditational retreats are engaged in for the intense and solitary practice of one’s Yidam or tantric deity. In “A Man From Chatreng”, Gonche had been a wild and wayward man, a philanderer as well as a trigger-happy guy, who liked to fire at and kill his enemies, the Chinese Red Guards in Tibet. He was also a gambler and a drunkard, who had sadly neglected his family.

H.H. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.
Click on image to enlarge.

Then, in exile in India, he met and received teachings from the great Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, tutor to the Dalai Lama. For the first time he was moved to develop deep regret for his wayward past. He cried. After the teachings, he received an initiation into the sacred practice of the tantric Buddha Vajrayogini from Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. He then received the full commentary and explanation on this practice from a geshe in Nepal.

After that Gonche completely transformed and committed himself to a complete makeover of character. In an audience with his Lama, Trijang Rinpoche, he told him that he wished to spend the rest of his life in retreat. After receiving the blessings of his Lama, he said goodbye to his family, apologising to his wife and expressing deep regret for his dreadful neglect of her. To make amends, he would now go into retreat.

He entered into a solitary retreat and remained in retreat for more than 10 years, continually meditating on Vajrayogini and enduring patiently the many hardships he encountered. He engaged in this intensive Dharma practice of the swift path steadfastly and with strong resolve. He stayed in this retreat for so long that he passed away unknown to others, in the midst of his Vajrayogini retreat. During his funeral, rainbows appeared across the sky over his funeral pyre. Such an auspicious sign signifying that he had gained the highest attainments and had entered into Kechara Paradise, all in one life-time!

“Spiritual Revolution” – An amazing story

“Spiritual Revolution” is a story of how Altan Khan, ruler of Mongolia, and all of Mongolia was brought into Buddhism, after Altan Khan had caught a powerful glimpse of Enlightenment in the face and demeanour of a pure Tibetan monk.

A statue of Altan Khan in Mongolia.

The great Altan Khan, the warlord of a warlike race of Mongolians, was travelling towards Tibet, with the intention to plunder it, when he met a monk whose face was exceptionally peaceful and compassionate. He was immediately impressed as he thought about how extraordinary this monk was whose face and demeanour reflected the attainment of real peace and happiness, the result of true practice; and he wondered who his teacher could be. When he found out that his teacher was Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso (whom he later appointed as the Third Dalai Lama), Altan Khan sent an emissary and forcefully demanded that Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso go to Mongolia and teach the Dharma to his people.

Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso decided to go to Mongolia as he had the clairvoyance and great compassion to know that the time was ripe to convert and transform the Mongolians from their hardened ways. Using skilful means, Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso was able to convert Altan Khan and his country into Buddhism. He performed a miracle which impressed Altan Khan and caused him to fall to his knees and take refuge under the Dalai Lama, and from that day onward he became a faithful disciple of the Dalai Lama.

A Mongolian statue of Mahakala.
Click on image to enlarge.

As the Mongolians were a war-like race and had been following a shamanistic blood-thirsty culture for centuries, and had been making human and animal sacrifices to their gods, he slowly and skilfully converted them to the peaceful practices of Tibetan Buddhism, by employing the tantric deities of Vajrayana Buddhism. He introduced them to the practice of propitiating wrathful tantric deities such as Mahakala, a wrathful emanation of the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara. Mahakala’s compassion is like that of a mother fiercely protecting her child. Mahakala’s fierce and demonic appearance, the flames surrounding him and his ornaments and implements are symbols and displays of compassion and compassionate wrath and power that are used to clear the inner and outer obstacles of the practitioner so that he can advance in his/her practice and progress smoothly towards achieving Enlightenment.

The Buddha deity Mahakala, a wrathful emanation of compassion, was thus most suitable for the Mongolians in subjugating and controlling their negative warlike tendencies. Furthermore, their practice of animal and human sacrificial offering to the shamanistic gods was now replaced by the offering of tormas –‘peaceful’ offerings of red coloured Tibetan ritual cakes – to the Buddhas.

In this way, the whole of Mongolia was converted to Buddhism and became a race of peaceful people by the skilful methods of the Dalai Lama in teaching them the Dharma and in guiding them in its practice. He continued to guide them by returning as the grandson of Altan Khan who became the Fourth Dalai Lama.

This was how the whole of Mongolia was converted to Buddhism because of one man – a pure monk with a peaceful and compassionate face and demeanour!

“Guru Devotion” – The pith of the swift Mahayana path

Through properly relying on one’s Guru, listening to him and following his every instruction thoroughly, and serving him well, a practitioner is able to accumulate vast and extensive merits, purify all the negative seeds or karmic imprints in their mindstream and transform their mind from an ego-centric and self-cherishing one to an altruistic, undiscriminating mind of wisdom, love and compassion, a mind that is liberated from all mental delusions of anger, hatred, jealousy, desirous attachment and cravings. Indeed, by achieving this transformation, one completes the Mahayana path of Tibetan Buddhism in one lifetime, like what Je Tsongkhapa did. Thus does the practice of Guru Devotion lead one to attain Enlightenment in one lifetime, as many stories in Tales My Lama Told Me show.

“Gurus For Hire, Enlightenment For Sale”. Click here to purchase this book.

It is the Guru’s methods of training the student’s mind that will effectively bring about the necessary mind transformation.

As Tsem Rinpoche says in Gurus For Hire, Enlightenment For Sale, when we practise devotion and submission to a Guru, he will push us to destroy all those negative qualities in our mind that block us from Enlightenment. The biggest block or obstacle is our ego or our self-cherishing mind. The Guru will assign us work and give us instructions designed to help us achieve the Six Perfections, Bodhicitta (altruistic love and compassion), that are necessary for us to develop, for us to be ready for higher practices leading to total Liberation and Enlightenment.

The following powerfully inspiring stories show how great mahasiddhas practice Guru Devotion.

“The Snobbish Saint” – Destroying the ego

The Mahasiddha Bhadrapa, in the tale of “The Snobbish Saint”, was a Brahmin priest whose mind was steeped in the conventions and rituals of his priesthood and the society he grew up in. For him, everything that went against the norms and dictates of his society, was wrong. Dirty and defiling acts were eating pork, drinking wine, associating or coming into physical contact with the lower class – a beggar, a sweeper, meat or wine sellers and the like, which were all taboo for his circle of friends and his society. If he were caught violating any of these, he would be immediately ostracised by his society and become a social outcast! He was determined to be pure and untarnished in reputation, to always look good and to fulfil the expectations of his society.

His Guru, a dirty-looking yogin clad in rags, burst into his life early one morning, and promptly proceeded to transform him. The very appearance of this Guru was the antithesis of what he had habituated his mind to accept as correct or acceptable. There and then, his Guru gave him a Dharma teaching on what “dirt” really was – the defilement of the mind from acts of aggression. From that point onwards, the unconventional Guru-Yogin proceeded to dismantle all his habituated notions of what was right and proper and what was taboo, through his teachings and through the practices he gave Bhadrapa.

As Bhadrapa respected this Guru and wanted to listen to his Dharma, he proceeded to listen to and carry out his every instruction. From that very night when he went to the Guru’s hovel in the cemetery in the cloak of darkness and in disguise, with the pork and wine he had asked him to bring, sat and ate with his Guru in his hovel, and afterwards, cleaned his latrine and plastered the walls of his shack with mud, excrement and lime, his mind underwent a powerful transformation. His pride or ego was broken. His Guru gave him a Dharma talk and explained to him that all the tasks he had just completed to his Guru’s satisfaction were symbolic acts necessary for him to perform to achieve the goal of his practice – Enlightenment.

Upon hearing this, Bhadrapa’s mind suddenly attained clarity – a clear understanding of the Dharma arose in his mind. He realised an awakened state of mind and a correct view of reality where the self and phenomena are perceived to be devoid of true or inherent existence. There and then, he decided to renounce the luxuries and ease of his privileged life as a Brahmin and join his master and become a wandering yogin like him.

The services to his Guru and practices given to him by his Guru had broken his pride and ego – his strongest delusion. His Guru’s instructions to him were methods to cut his pride and ego. Without his ego, he was free from all grasping and free from all attachments.

After six years of intense retreat and meditation, he achieved Enlightenment. He travelled far and wide to teach and benefit many. When the time came for him to do so, he ascended to Kechara Paradise, Buddha Vajrayogini’s pure land, together with 500 disciples.

It was his Guru who had skilfully led him to realise the correct view and to destroy his ego and to transform, thus bringing him to the ultimate freedom and bliss of Enlightenment.

“The Dauntless One” – Serving the Guru with joy

The moment Naropa heard Tilopa’s name, his faith in him was born. There and then he made up his mind that Tilopa was going to be his Guru and he was determined to find him. He immediately renounced his life as a highly respected scholar of Nalanda Monastic University and went in search of Tilopa.

A beautiful thangka of Naropa.
Click on image to enlarge.

His search for Tilopa took many years but he was undaunted. He walked the length and breadth of India, and many a time he would miss him. When he finally found Tilopa, Naropa was highly excited. He prostrated on the ground and spoke to Tilopa about how he had searched for him and, at last, having found him, he would serve him and beg food for him. Tilopa responded by hitting him with his walking stick, saying he was not his disciple and he did not wish to see him ever again, and that he, Naropa, was to stay away from him. Naropa just folded his hands and said his Guru was blessing him! How kind his Guru was to purify his negative karma. He could not get over his excitement and joy of having met his Guru.

Naropa followed his Guru everywhere he went for the next twelve years and served him selflessly and with devotion and joy. Every day, he went to beg for food for Tilopa, brought it back, put it near him and took the leftovers as his meals. He would also wash his Guru’s plates and clothes. Through it all, his Guru never smiled at him or talked to him. He never received a word of Dharma from him.

It was only at the end of his twelve years, when Naropa had brought back for Tilopa some rare delicacy from a wedding feast that Tilopa finally spoke for the first time and exclaimed that the curry was delicious. He addressed Naropa as “My son!” Naropa could not believe his ears! He was elated! He went back to beg for more, but his Guru’s appetite for the curry was insatiable. In the end, he overcame his qualms and stole the whole pot of curry for his Guru, so that he would not be disappointed at not having more of the curry. Disappointing his Guru was worse than having his reputation sullied by the theft of the curry.

A depiction of Tilopa. Click on image to enlarge.

Naropa’s devotion to his Guru was beyond question now. After eating the stolen curry, Tilopa spoke to Naropa, praising him for following him well and serving him tirelessly for 12 years, without showing any anger. He had been very diligent and never discouraged. Now Tilopa was going to reward him by initiating him into the sacred Vajravarahi practice. After the initiation, Tilopa sent Naropa off to practise, saying that he did not need his Guru anymore!

Thus, by serving his Guru with devotion and without giving up despite his Guru ignoring him, by serving his Guru with pure joy, Naropa actually walked the whole path of practice, destroyed every trace of his ego, purified all his negativities and transformed his mind, as well as developed Bodhicitta and the Six Perfections. Naropa was sent on an intensive six-year meditation retreat on his Yidam, Vajravarahi. He gained direct visions of Vajravarahi in the form of the Tantric Buddha Vajrayogini with whom Naropa could communicate directly! With this, Naropa quickly gained Enlightenment. Naropa went on to proliferate Vajrayogini’s lineage throughout India and Nepal. Her lineage lives on till today.

“At the Feet of My Lama” – Practising guru devotion with joyful effort

Just as with Naropa, so too with Tsem Rinpoche as we see it in the story of “At the Feet of My Lama”. For Tsem Rinpoche, serving his root guru Zong Rinpoche in Los Angeles and later serving his Guru, Kensur Rinpoche Jampa Yeshe in Gaden Shartse Monastery gave him great joy. It never occurred to him to complain, even though there was very little sleep or rest for him. Tsem Rinpoche served his root guru Zong Rinpoche selflessly and with pure devotion every single day during the six months when he was staying in Thubten Dhargye Ling Dharma centre in Los Angeles. He cooked and served every breakfast and dinner without fail, and cleaned up afterwards. He attended every teaching of Zong Rinpoche, and was never late for anything. His daily life was a delicate and skilful balance between going to work and serving his Guru, towards which he gave his full focus. Yet, there was no reluctance or holding back. It was all pure giving with joyous effort!

(Left to right) H.H. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and H.E. Kensur Jampa Yeshe Rinpoche.

Likewise, when he was in Gaden Shartse Monastery, India, Tsem Rinpoche also served Kensur Rinpoche Jampa Yeshe with full devotion as his attendant, seeing to his every need. He would often accompany his elderly Guru to Dharamsala, a three-day ride, to receive teachings from the Dalai Lama. He served and protected Kensur Rinpoche by making sure he had a safe and secure seat on the train and shielding him from the unruly behaviour of the screaming crowd that surged into the train. Afterwards he made sure that his Guru and his belongings were safe and that he was safely and comfortably settled for rest and sleep in the hotel they were staying in, and that his Guru’s bags were carried safely to the hotel. At all times it was important for him to make sure of his Guru’s meals and clean drinking water.

As an attendant, he would absorb all the problems and difficulties, enemies, hatred and negative talk and never fought back. Tsem Rinpoche rose to the occasion at every turn and handled every situation adroitly and with care. He protected his teacher in every way, including seeing that he did not ‘suffer’ from his being compassionate to every being, even to the point of giving up his seat on the train to a younger lady!

“The Miraculous Yogi” – A powerful story of ‘miraculous’ mind transformation

In the “Tale of the Miraculous Yogi”, Milarepa did all that his Guru Marpa instructed him to do but always at the back of his mind was his doubt of Marpa as the Guru that he should be. He had expected his Guru to give him Dharma teachings and not the tasks that he had assigned him to do, tasks like ploughing the field, harvesting the grain, collecting firewood, fetching water for the house, collecting dung, cleaning up the house and watching the baby.

A painting of Marpa and Milarepa.
Click on image to enlarge.

In reality, it was his Guru Marpa, who saw that Milarepa’s biggest block to his achieving progress on his path to total peace, liberation and enlightenment was his ego, which manifested in his wrong projection of how his guru should act towards him. Hence, Marpa would not give him teachings until he overcame this wrong projection or perception. Milarepa had a brilliant but arrogant and fixated mind that had to be turned around for him to display his brilliance in compassion.

Marpa told Milarepa that if he really wanted the Dharma he had to build Marpa a house seven-storeys high. Then began many back-breaking years of toil, frustration and disappointment when Milarepa had to build, tear down and rebuild the house. Each time, when Milarepa had completed the building of the house, Marpa would find some fault with its construction. Milarepa continued to have the wrong perception of his Guru, who in actual fact was most compassionate and who realised that Milarepa was still being dragged down by his ego.

Marpa was working as skilfully as possible to bring Milarepa’s ego down by correcting his wrong projections of how things should be. Milarepa was deeply habituated with negative views about others which had caused him to commit so many harmful actions in the past, including murder. Marpa wanted him to transform his mind and purify his many negative past actions which would lead to tremendous suffering if left unpurified. Marpa knew that if he could break Milarepa’s pride and ego and wrong perceptions, he would become a most compassionate being, who would benefit countless others.

Milarepa’s mind remained negative until his 13^th attempt to rebuild the house. This time, while he waited for Marpa to come to inspect it, his mind accepted in advance whatever his Guru would decide about the house. If Marpa were to criticise it again and ask him to pull it down once more and rebuild it, he would accept that and follow his instructions.

The moment Marpa saw that Milarepa’s mind had shifted from doubting to trusting and accepting his instructions as a devoted student should, he welcomed him into his home, gave him a special seat and called him “son”! Marpa explained to Milarepa that the years of hardship had been both teachings from him and purification for him to break his ego. He immediately gave him the initiation to higher practice. Milarepa did not need any preliminary practices, because he had already accomplished the preliminaries. The years he had spent in building and rebuilding Marpa’s house meant that he had already completed them, and his ego had been destroyed!

Heruka Chakrasamvara.
Click on image to enlarge.

Marpa proceeded to give Milarepa the initiation and commentary to the higher tantric practice of Heruka Chakrasamvara as well as the complete teachings of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Milarepa was astounded by his Guru’s great love and kindness in giving them to him. He was filled with great joy! Then he broke down in tears as he realised that he had been wrong about Marpa. All the years of “torture” melted away because he now saw clearly what his Guru was doing.

After receiving the teachings, Milarepa went into a cave and joyfully engaged in meditational retreat, coming out to report to Marpa each time he received auspicious signs that his retreat was successful, and going back into the cave afterwards to continue his retreat, upon receiving further instructions for his next level of practice. Thus was he able to achieve very quickly the state of full Enlightenment. He survived only on eating nettles growing nearby for food.

After attaining full Enlightenment, he was seen flying in the sky, an attainment that had developed from the sacred practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Milarepa is especially well known for conveying the Dharma through many poems and songs sung in his beautiful voice. So powerful were his songs, owing to his many realisations and his Guru Devotion, that even shepherds and hearers hearing him would be instantly transformed!

Conclusion

Tales My Lama Told Me is a must read for everyone who wishes to reach the highest level of human endeavour with the mind – attaining inner peace and real sorrowless bliss and happiness by achieving full Enlightenment. We have only this rare and precious human life, with all the conducive freedoms and endowments that we should make optimal use of, as every one of the practitioners in the stories here have done. As I read every one of these stories on Dharma practice and Dharma practitioners, I discovered that here, in the pages of this book, is where I am inspired to train and transform my mind to realise the highest levels of bliss and peace a mind can ever reach! Here is where I learned why Guru Devotion and following every one of the instructions of one’s Guru are the only ways to tread this path successfully to reach these highest levels! I learned all this through the uplifting life-stories of Tsem Rinpoche and the spiritual warriors and heroes in this book.

Pastor David Lai and H.E. Tsem Rinpoche

All the pain and the suffering, as Milarepa says, melts away when one realises that they were necessary to develop in us the qualities that would yield us the state of highest bliss of the mind. Milarepa, with his doubting mind is someone we can identify with easily. Milarepa had the seeming disadvantage of being very poor. He had thought that this had prevented him from making offerings to his Guru and hence he was not receiving any teachings from him. He thought wrongly. Owing to his Guru’s compassion and skilful means, he also attained Enlightenment in one lifetime. The overwhelming and immeasurable compassion of the Guru is the most powerful teaching of all in Pastor David’s Tales My Lama Told Me!

For more interesting information:

• Gurus for Hire, Enlightenment for Sale– A Review
• Be Happy
• Snakes, Roosters and Pigs by Tsem Rinpoche
• Faces of Enlightenment by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche – a Review
• The Kechara Pocket Prayer Book: A Review
• Nothing Changes Everything Changes
• A Review of “Compassion Conquers All” By Tsem Rinpoche
• Conversations in Love
• Spirituality Unexpected
• Coming into Kechara: A Journey to Find My Spiritual Self

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