King of Prayer – 4

༄༅ །།འཕགས་པ་བཟང་པོ་ སྤྱོ ད་པའི་ སྨོན་ལམ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ།།
PHAG PA ZANG PO CHÖ PE MÖN LAM GYI GYAL PO

 King of Prayers
The Extraordinary Aspiration of the Practice of Samantabhadra
Samantabhadracaryā pranidhānaraja

PHỔ HIỀN HẠNH NGUYỆN VƯƠNG

 

༣ ༽ རྡུལ་གཅིག་སྟེང་ན་རྡུལ་སྙེད་སངས་རྒྱས་རྣམས།།
3) DUL CHIK TENG NA DUL NYE SANG GYE NAM
སངས་རྒྱས་སྲས་ཀྱི་དབུས་ན་བཞུགས་པ་དག།
SANG GYE SE KYI Ü NA SHYUK PA DAK
དེ་ལྟར་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་རྣམས་མ་ལུས་པ།།
DE TAR CHÖ KYI YING NAM MALÜPA
ཐམས་ཅད་རྒྱལ་བ་དག་གིས་གང་བར་མོས།།
THAM CHÉ GYAL WA DAK GI GANG WAR MÖ

On every atom are Buddhas numberless as atoms,
Each amidst a host of bodhisattvas,
And I am confident the sphere of all phenomena
Is entirely filled with Buddhas in this way.

༤ ༽ དེ་དག་བསྔགས་པ་མི་ཟད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་རྣམས།།
4) DE DAK NGAK PA MIZE GYA TSO NAM
དབྱངས་ཀྱི་ཡན་ལག་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་སྒྲ་ཀུན་གྱིས།།
YANG KYI YENLAK GYATSÖ DRA KÜN GYI
རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་གྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་རབ་བརྗོད་ཅིང་།།
GYAL WA KÜN GYI YÖN TEN RAB JÖ CHING
བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་བདག་གིས་བསྟོད།།
DE WAR SHEK PA THAM CHÉ DAK GI TÖ

With infinite oceans of praise for you,
And oceans of sound from the aspects of my voice,
I sing the breathtaking excellence of buddhas,
And celebrate all of you gone to bliss.

Among millions of beings around us, not just human, obviously, birds, animals, insects, many many types beings overthere in the ocean and in the water, one thing that is in common, in what they do is that everyone is seeking peace and happiness, each and everyone of us, but the way ones find peace, you might find a lot differences in the way they are trying to find the peace and happiness.

Even the worst animals, I don’t know whether it’s nice to say about tigers, lions and foxes, snakes, the unfortunate about them is that for their survival they rely on others, they spend their life, whole life, the longer they live, the more they harm others, they’ve taken the rebirth in such a way that they have to harm others. From few expects by logically they are built such a manner and also they are not that smart to change the way they eat – I am not sure how long they’re going to survive that way, perhaps they can survive, but I’m not sure – how long, but still there are many animals as we all can see and understand that they have to rely on killing others to survive, very unfortunate! 

Now, even among the humans, the most intelligent among the rest of the animals that we see around, some of them are unfortunate because of the community or the place they are born, they are raised, let’s say in a violent community, they are raised in such a community where hurting others, harming others, specially hurting, harming or killing animals are not considered wrong. Many of them are raised in such a family that, if it is for one’s own benefit, if it is for one’s own family, it’s OK to harm others, it’s OK to cheat others which is very unfortunate. Also, because at the same time, having such an intelligent human brain and not being able to use it in such a way that one can bring peace and happiness without hurting others, then it is very unfortunate that many humans are living this way. 

Now, when it comes to country, when it comes to a larger community what they call a best,  when it comes to politics for one’s own profit, even if it has to harm others, many people believe that it is OK, many people believe that this is what politics is. It’s sad that even if one has such a marvelous intelligent human brain. It’s because we’re limiting this brain where limiting the abilities that we have which is absolutely very sad. 

But among all these fortunate and unfortunate, one thing in common which is that everybody is looking or doing something to bring some happiness, peace and happiness for himself. Doesn’t matter whether one is playing some bad politics or whether one is harming others, whether the tiger is killing some animals or whether some people are cheating others for one’s own benefit. At the end of the day, even if they’re doing something wrong, it is to achieve some peace and happiness, the problem is that they are mistaken with the way they should approach, they’re mistaken in the path that they are working to achieve that happiness than they wish to have. 

The reason,  one part is the ignorance, for animals, majority is ignorant because they don’t know, they don’t realize that others also have feelings and it is not fair and there is different alternative ways to live, many of these animals, they don’t even know that. Among humans, many of the humans, when they engage in negative action when they hurt others or harm others, sometimes it is out of greed, sometimes it is out of anger, and then sometimes it is because of some negative emotions. When a person has those negative emotions, a person engages in different kind of activities which hurt others, so the way person engages in such activities, the door through which person engages in such negative activities is either body, speech or mind. Even from these three: body, speech and mind, as I always say, it is the mind which directs the body and speech. 

That’s why with the prostration at the time of prostration or paying homage Buddhas or  Samantabhadra to purify ones on negative karmas or to accumulate a huge merits, the prostration or a paying homage has been done body, mind and speech together, and then the second verse is on body and then the mind and then the speech. 

So today, we finish this second verse, we are on the third verse? OK so in Tibetan – I’m also going through this in Ladakhi language to Ladakhi practitioners, so then I don’t know where we are. 

The first verse is a prostrating from the body, mind and speech altogether, the second one is basically a prostration from body, physical prostration that we have been through on the second verse. So the third one actually the sequence is body, speech and mind. But here the mind has been said in the middle because the both actions of body and speech come from the mind which is why the prostration of the mind has been set in the middle. So that one can have a little bit of focus, it’s unlikely and then the reason why here the sequence is different. 

To let us understand, to let us think that even the speech and the physical actions come from the mind, so that’s why this is very much important to the prostration from the mind. Now here prostration from the mind is to pay respect from the mind, to praise the Buddhas in the object of the prostration. So here it says: 

རྡུལ་གཅིག་སྟེང་ན་རྡུལ་སྙེད་སངས་རྒྱས་རྣམས།།
DUL CHIK TENG NA DUL NYE SANG GYE NAM
སངས་རྒྱས་སྲས་ཀྱི་དབུས་ན་བཞུགས་པ་དག།
SANG GYE SE KYI Ü NA SHYUK PA DAK
དེ་ལྟར་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་རྣམས་མ་ལུས་པ།།
DE TAR CHÖ KYI YING NAM MALÜPA
ཐམས་ཅད་རྒྱལ་བ་དག་གིས་གང་བར་མོས།།
THAM CHÉ GYAL WA DAK GI GANG WAR MÖ

Among all those human beings who wish to achieve happiness, but many of those, many of us don’t know how to achieve happiness and because of which we engage in many actions which brings suffering to us. So among those, the body and the speech, actually generated from the mind. A person might think why person has all these negativities in the mind, the innate nature of our mind is positive, is loving, compassionate, the innate nature of mind is free from all these negative emotions, at the same time, the defilements and the karmic seeds, negative karmic seeds and negative karmic defilements, our nature of the mind is free from that. 

Now when I say nature of the mind, I mean that all these negative emotions and the karmic seeds and defilements are separable from the mind. If that is in the nature of mind, then it should be inseparable, but it is not. Among all those negative minds, ego, the ignorant mind has to have knowledge and understanding through wisdom to get rid of the ignorance which is very important because you can just look at the animals and you can compare with the human intelligent mind or a brain, animals are much stupid in many senses. So to remove that stupidity, to eliminate that ignorance, one need a wisdom, in order to have the knowledge and the wisdom one has to rely on a proper teacher like Buddha who himself walk on the path to reduce and to eventually eliminate the causes of all the sufferings. 

Otherwise, if such a teacher, if you follow such a teacher who themselves are in the samsara, who themselves are suffering, then it’s more like you are drowning in a mud, how can you save somebody who is also drowning in a mud? So a teaching of someone or a guidance of someone who is also in a mud won’t be that much effective and also to save someone who is in the mud, you should be out of the mud, so that’s why it’s very important that we should look up towards the teachings of Buddha, because he is out of the ocean of Samsara, we are still in the Samsara, ocean of Samsara. To get rid of Samsara, we have to rely on someone who is outside Samsara who knows the way to get out of Samsara and to have the knowledge and understandings, to have those education and the wisdom. 

One of the biggest hindrance which avoid us from having or from learning something new or  from gaining a knowledge, it’s ego and pride. Ego and pride, not only in this sort of situation, ego and pride also play different roles. To reduce in ego and pride is so very important, because even in our general world, among friends, it can be family, it can be couples, one of the things that destroy any type of relation is ego and pride. Because of ego and pride, we don’t express many things, even when it is too late, even after like, suppose because of ego and pride, many people express very less, when the communication is less, then there is very much of chances of the misunderstandings because we don’t understand others by just looking at others. When the misunderstanding develops then it creates a sort of distance. It can be misunderstanding or maybe we did something wrong, or maybe we did something with which our friend don’t appreciate or like or a family or anyone and then, suppose something happens to the relation among their friends, let’s say, so the thing that avoid us from getting, from repairing, getting back to the earliest stage is ego and pride. 

Many people they feel it’s so very difficult to say sorry or just to admit that it was my mistake. One thing perhaps this is something that may not sound very much OK from a mundane perspective. But as long as we have taken an action from body, mind and speech, there is a influence of negativity always there, there is always an influence of negativity, we might not have said something wrong but other person mistaken. Again, you can say sorry by thinking that “my speech are not perfect”, if our speech are as perfect as those of Buddha, then doesn’t matter whatever I say, you will be able to hear the light that suits you the most, you will be able to hear the thing which helps you the most and there is no way that you can hear something that is going to hurt you. Such is the qualities of Buddha, so “I’m sorry that I don’t have such qualities”, so you can think of that in your mind and to say sorry is very important to reunite regardless whether one’s mistakes or not and also to gain a knowledge from others is very important to reduce our ego and pride. 

And that ego and pride also breaks the relation and when a person don’t have ego and pride, even if one knows more, or even if one has more experience, let’s say in office or wherever you are spending most of your time, so by reducing one’s ego and pride when you don’t show your ego and pride, even if you might have some, it helps to maintain a very good and friendly relation with the people that you are surrounded with. So this is very much important from other expects, so their ego and pride because people don’t know when you don’t express from body and mind, but many of the time it is very difficult to hide it when you strongly feel from your mind. 

So to reduce that is by prostrating or respecting others, if you are not able to do from physically, you can at least do from verbally at the beginning, and if you are not able to do it verbally, I mean when you can do it mentally. So the result of bowing down to Buddhas definitely it has lots of other benefits, but one of the biggest benefits is that if you bow down or if you pay respect from your mind, if you see others higher than yourself, if you see others  superior than yourself, if you see yourself inferior than others, and to pay respect even if a person has one good quality, you can still respect that person because of that one quality that a person has. The good thing is that it doesn’t cost us anything in fact, it benefits us in all the senses. 

And if you do respect in this manner, it leaves a very strong, very powerful impact, it leaves a very powerful karmic seeds within our mind, because of which even in the next lives, doesn’t regardless of where we born, we will have this innate sort of respect towards others, innate  respect towards Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that can be really very much beneficial in the next and next lives regardless of where we‘re born. 

So the actual line here is :

With the energy of aspiration for the Bodhisattva way,
With a sense of deep respect,
And with as many bodies as atoms of the world,
To all you Buddhas visualized as real, I bow down.

The third one is:

On every atom are Buddhas numberless as atoms,
Each amidst a host of bodhisattvas,
And I am confident the sphere of all phenomena
Is entirely filled with Buddhas in this way.

So the Tibetan, the first line:  

རྡུལ་གཅིག་སྟེང་ན་རྡུལ་སྙེད་སངས་རྒྱས་རྣམས།།
DUL CHIK TENG NA DUL NYE SANG GYE NAM.

On every, let’s say a dust particle or every small particle, you can say atom, yes. Dul chik teng na [རྡུལ་གཅིག་སྟེང་ན་], on every small particle, dul nye sang gye nam [རྡུལ་སྙེད་སངས་རྒྱས་རྣམས], suppose in the world of Buddha there are countless of dust particles, so in each one dust particle, you imagine the Buddhas which is surrounded by Bodhisattvas in each of the particles [Dul chik teng na dul nye sang gye nam]. There are many worlds, in each small dust particle there are Buddhas surrounded by Bodhisattvas as the number of dust particles in the world of Buddhas. That’s what the first line means. 

The second line is:

སངས་རྒྱས་སྲས་ཀྱི་དབུས་ན་བཞུགས་པ་དག།
SANG GYE SE KYI Ü NA SHYUK PA DAK

So each and every Buddha that we have imagined as number of dust particles of the world in one dust particle or a small particle. Each and every Buddha is surrounded by lots of Bodhisattvas. So what I were trying to say here was that when we become Buddha we will have our own realm, for example Pure Land, the blissful Pure Land is the realm of Amitabha Buddha. So Amitabha Buddha when he was a Bodhisattva practitioner, because of his merits,  because of his prayers,  when he became Buddha, such a world appears because of his own karma. So similarly, there are countless of Buddhas, so each and every Buddhas has its own different world, in their own world, there are lots of Bodhisattva who are their own disciples to whom they give teachings. So each and every Buddha in their own world or in their own realm, they’re giving teachings to lots of Bodhisattvas. So we imagine the Buddhas with all those Bodhisattvas as the number of dust particles of the Buddha’s world in each and every dust particle. 

So the reason why we imagine this much of thing and this much of number of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is because we accumulate that much of merits, at the same time, if we train from now, then when we become Bodhisattva we can actually emanate such, and also by doing that when we become Buddha, and also when we are on the high level of Bodhisattva we achieve such a qualities because of which we can actually go to each and every realms of Buddhas, each and every worlds of Buddhas. 

So we can multiply or we can duplicate our body or emanate like when you reach the higher and higher grounds, you achieve the higher and higher qualities because of which you will be able to manifest more of your bodies. For example, at the first ground you will be able to emanate hundred bodies, so when you go higher and higher it becomes thousand, ten thousands, the millions and millions of bodies. So in this manner you can literally go to the millions of the worlds of Buddhas where you can pay homage, at the same time, bow down and then make the offerings to Buddhas and you can practice and listen to the teachings of all those Buddhas. So because of which, this is why Bodhisattvas are training and here is not just purification but also prostration. But also here shows the way Bodhisattvas practice, the way Bodhisattvas engage into mental prostration. 

དེ་ལྟར་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་རྣམས་མ་ལུས་པ།།
DE TAR CHÖ KYI YING NAM MALÜPA

This way [Sang gye se kyi ü na shyuk pa dak], such dust particles not on one direction or one part, but such dust particles which contain as the number of dust particles of the worlds of Buddhas, not in one direction but entire space. We imagine that countless of Buddhas surrounded by Bodhisattvas in one atom, that atom, that small particle not in one direction but in all the directions, wherever there is the sky, wherever there is the limitless, countless, the sky which has no boundary, so we imagine such a dust particle as much as there is a space, we can imagine as much as the space, there is Buddhas surrounded by Bodhisattvase and “to all the Buddhas surrounded by Boddhisattvas, I deeply pay respect and pay homage”. 

So this is what the Tibetan one says, but maybe the English one also pretty much similar, I think

 On every atoms are Buddhist numberless as atoms.
Each amidst a host of bodhisattvas,

Yes, so they are pretty much, so you can imagine that Buddha is right surrounded by Bodhisattvas, but in the Buddha’s realms is not that Bodhisattvas surrounded around the Buddhas but generally when a Buddha gives teaching, then of course Boddhisattvas surrounded. So we imagine in that manner and such a numberless of Buddhas surrounded by Bodhisattvas in one single atom and that one single atom is filled by entire space. So to all the Buddhas surrounded by Bodhisattvas in each the field in the whole space of the sky or a space “It’s more like I pay homage from my mind, I deeply pay respect from the mind”. 

This is what is the verse of the praising or prostration from the mind. So if you go to the next verse as well, the next verse is the verbal prostration. So in Tibetan:

དེ་དག་བསྔགས་པ་མི་ཟད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་རྣམས།།
DE DAK NGAK PA MIZE GYA TSO NAM
དབྱངས་ཀྱི་ཡན་ལག་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་སྒྲ་ཀུན་གྱིས།།
YANG KYI YENLAK GYATSÖ DRA KÜN GYI
རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་གྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་རབ་བརྗོད་ཅིང་།།
GYAL WA KÜN GYI YÖN TEN RAB JÖ CHING
བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་བདག་གིས་བསྟོད།།
DE WAR SHEK PA THAM CHÉ DAK GI TÖ

So the first line explains the quality of Buddha, the second line shows with what you are praising to Buddhas, the third line shows the way you praise, the way you prostrate to Budhas and then the fourth line shows who and to whom you’re praising.  

དེ་དག་བསྔགས་པ་མི་ཟད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་རྣམས།།
DE DAK NGAK PA MIZE GYA TSO NAM

“As the ocean is inexhaustible, I would like to praise that much as there is the water in the ocean”. 

The second line is:

དབྱངས་ཀྱི་ཡན་ལག་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་སྒྲ་ཀུན་གྱིས།།
YANG KYI YENLAK GYATSÖ DRA KÜN GYI

“So I would like to praise from all the different ways in branches”. Gyatsö dra kün gyi [རྒྱ་མཚོའི་སྒྲ་ཀུན་གྱིས།] “and also from my speech”, so here many commentaries you’re gonna find that here you can visualize that you have millions of bodies and countless of heads and then countless of tongues and from all those tongues you’re praising to Buddhas. So that’s why here it says ‘Gyatsö dra kün gyi’, the voice is as much as the oceans, the ocean of voices, it means that the ocean is like infinite in terms of vast and profound as well, “so as the ocean, I would like to praise Buddhas with all the different infinite number of the ways and branches of the praise”. 

The third line is:

རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་གྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་རབ་བརྗོད་ཅིང་།།
GYAL WA KÜN GYI YÖN TEN RAB JÖ CHING

The way you place is by seeing all the qualities of Buddhas, specially the qualities of compassion, wisdom and power. Generally, the Buddhas have countless qualities of body, mind and speech, but if you summarize all these qualities of Buddha, you can pretty much summarize in the quality of compassion, quality of wisdom and quality of power. And also these three qualities of Buddha, the compassion, wisdom and power define or enough to explain the Buddha Shakyamuni much different from all the other founders of different faiths and religions as a quality teacher or as a proper doctor requires compassion towards the patients, a wisdom or a understanding of the medicine and the sickness, and also the ability and the authority to treat the patients. 

So when a doctor has these three qualities, compassion and a proper knowledge or wisdom, and then authority or power to treat the patients, so without these three, a doctor cannot effectively serve the patients, exactly the same way a person won’t be able to give a proper teaching or a person cannot be a proper guide if a person is lacking one of these three qualities. Here it says “I am praising to all the Buddhas with countless number of the voice and the way you are praising is by seeing the wonderful qualities of Buddhas which is the third line.

And the fourth one is:

 བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་བདག་གིས་བསྟོད།།
DE WAR SHEK PA THAM CHÉ DAK GI TÖ

To whom you are praising is the Buddhas of the three times: the Buddhas of the past, the Buddhas of the present, and even the future, the Buddhas of the future basically it can be some Buddhas right now in the different realms which is not in this realm, and also Buddhas of future can also be the Bodhisattvas right now, they will be Buddhas, they will achieve Buddhahood in the future. So that’s why even for them, we can say Buddhas of the future, “So to all of them I would like to praise”.

This is what the third or the praise or the prostration from the speech. So the prostration from the speech is nothing but seeing the qualities of Buddhas and by praising the Buddha by all those wonderful. Some of the Buddhist prayers are something like that, you just say the praise of Buddha and then many people misunderstand when they talk about the prayer, they think that you know prayer is like requesting someone to achieve something or sometimes it can be seeing the praising someone and then after the praising someone then you basically ask some so that person to give these, to give that, “I want this, I want that”. 

But Buddhist prayers are totally different, Buddhist prayers are even if you say that “May Buddhas bless me” or “May Buddhas and Bodhisattvas bless us”, even if you say that in a prayer, the definition of the blessing in Tibetan is like ‘yin lab’ [བྱིན་རླབས་], it says that “May your speech, may the power of your speech and may the power of your teachings”, basically means “May your teachings be able to transform my mind, my negative mind into positiveness”. So that is what even when we ask for the blessing of Buddhas, this is what it means: “May I be able to transform my negative mind through the power of your speech”. Now again the part of ‘your speech’ doesn’t mean some miracles, it just means that “By understanding your teachings, by following your teachings, may I be able towards positive”, that’s what it means, and then majority of the Buddhist prayers are more like practice, it elaborates a mental practice. So when you say these prayers again and again and again, slowly influence your mind towards positiveness. 

For example, if you say that when somebody get angry to you, it doesn’t mean that it is your mistake, you have to have compassion towards them, so if you repeat this words for thousand and thousands of times, then you innovate thinking about that thousand and thousand of times if somebody get angry to you it’s not your mistake, it could be that a person has a bad day and then a person is just expressing it, you don’t have to get affected by it. If you say it for millions of times then definitely it will dissolve in your mind and then slowly it will affect your mind in such a way that you start to think that way and one day when actually somebody get angry to you, when you have been thinking that way and saying that way from many time, very long time, then it actually comes even with your physical and verbal action. 

So then somebody getting angry to you it doesn’t disturb your mind, but rather you think that “A person might had a difficult time, it doesn’t mean that I did something wrong. So if he’s getting mad, it doesn’t mean that it’s my mistake, and if it is not my mistake, then why should I worry? Why should I get affect?  It is also possible that he might or she might had a just difficult day”. So Buddhist prayers, most of the practices, by understanding that even if you are saying some prayers, it’s very important that you should try your best to understand what you are saying. Understand what you’re saying so that it helps you better in dissolving those wonderful advices into your mind so that you can change or bring some changes, transformations in the mind. 

And when you are able to set that transformation within your mind, you will be able to output that transformation through your speech and through your physical action. And that is how we will be able to be better in seeking happiness and we will also be able to help many others in the proper way they should seek happiness. 

With this I would like to conclude for today. I thank you very much Chessy and thank you everyone for joining, it’s very happy, it’s very nice to see all of you. 

Source.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K34GU_NBXpDgOBzErmMjzDYjb4AuAyZ8/view?usp=sharing

 

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