King of Prayer – 3

༄༅ །།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

Hello and trashi delek. 

So I guess today it is our second or maybe third, right? Third section for the Samantabhadra,  King of Prayer. In the first section we have just been overview, then the second we have been through the first verse. So today we will be going through the third verse and let’s see we can go, we can maybe touch the fourth verse. 

When I’ve been through this text to a group of Ladakhi people, I’ve been through mostly a verse a class, it is very extensive, very profound. But here if you go like one verse a class, it might take a year and also sometimes we have to skip. In the recent time I have been going here and there for some purposes, so it’s not able to have the regular class every week because of which I’m not sure. But then for now, let’s see how it goes and if there are some verses which is not completed by itself, it’s like to express some points or some practices to elaborate, some practices of Boddhisattva. Sometimes there are two verses, so for those, maybe we can go together and those verses which express its whole meaning by itself, by just one verse, then perhaps we’ll see if we can just conclude with the verse. 

Most importantly to complete a lot or to complete so many thing is good but to understand what you have completed very clearly is even more important, I mean the quality of what you have understood is more important than how many you have learned. So having that in mind we will see how thing goes and also I’ll try not to roam around and try to stick on the point as much as it is possible, but yes, as always I like questions, so if there is anything that you don’t understand, please let me know immediately, I would really be happy to have any question, anytime. So in short, I’m not having that pressure to finish it quickly or even if I don’t finish a verse a day, I still will be really happy if there are some questions, at the same time if I am able to elaborate such practices because in the last few years we have been through lots of classes and then sometimes it is difficult to understand. It’s like a tree, when the tree is right beside your house, you don’t see it’s growing, because it grows so slowly every day that you just get used to it and then you don’t see a certain growth. 

It’s like kids, they grow so fast, it mean the small monks which are around me, I see them growing only when I see their clothes don’t fit them, so then I think like “yeah it used to fit this small monk, but it doesn’t fit now, which means that he’s grown, it’s not like the clothe gets shrink, it’s not that sort of clothe.” Anyways, so the importance sometimes we may not see the changes within our own mind because it is with you all the time, and along with the classes, I believe that a lot of changes take place psychologically within us.

The more we know about the importance of kindness, compassion to broaden our mind, to open up our mind and to embarrass the whole sentient beings, even to wish them happy is a wonderful big step that has to come within us before we take actual steps physically to bring some changes. So we have been through a lot of classes in the last few years, but this one, as I’ve mentioned before, this text is true that it is in a form of a prayer. It is been the practices of all the Boddhisattvas and Buddhas are combined and liberated in the form of prayers, yeah, it is a prayer, but it elaborates the practices, it talks about how the Boddhisattva practices. 

So with that sort of intention to apply into our day-to-day life practices, it is very much important because the happiness that we all want in this life and also in the future comes from our own karma, our own actions so that action has to enhance and to do it very effectively, there is nothing better than the practices, to practice as Boddhisattva does, because they are the ones who are literally equipped with all the possible ways to accumulate merits in a very limited time. So that all these prayers in this text comes true. 

The reason why all our wishes doesn’t come true is because we have lots of karmic debts and defilements of different kind of karmas within our mind that becomes a hindrance and that avoid our wishes to come true. So to get rid of the negative karmas of the past and the defilements of that and also the karmic debts, one has to accumulate lots of merits and one has to purify the negative karmas and defilements of the past. 

Here at the beginning of the text you’re going to find the seven branches of practices. Among the seven branches of practices, the first one is the practice of prostration, the second one is offering, the third one is the way of purification, the fourth one is rejoicing other good qualities, the fifth one is requesting Buddha to turn the wheel of Dharma, or in simple words to give teachings, the sixth one is requesting the Buddha to live long and then the seventh one is dedicating the merits. 

So among these seven, generally, beside the purification part, the others are more towards accumulating merits, but these are all, I mean, these two are pretty much  work for each other as well, purification and accumulating merits also purify some negative karmas. So anyways, the first one, the prostration or paying homage has been explained in four verses: 

• The first verse is a prostration by the collection of body, mind, and speech. 
• The second verse is that we will go today, it is the prostration of physical body. 
• The third one is a mental. 
• The fourth one is the verbal prostration, verbal paying homage or mental paying homage at the same time physical paying homage. 

Alright, today we will go through the physical paying homage,  so that is the second verse. It says:

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.

I’ll look at the Tibetan version, I don’t understand that, so in Tibetan it is:

༢ ༽ བཟང་པོ་སྤྱོད་པའི་ སྨོན་ལམ་སྟོ བས་དག་གིས།།
2) ZANG PO CHÖ PÉ MÖN LAM TOB DAK GI
རྒྱལ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡིད་ ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུམ་དུ།།
GYAL WA THAM CHÉ YI KYI NGÖN SUM DU
ཞིང་གི་རྡུལ་སྙེད་ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ཡིས།།
SHING GI DUL NYE LÜ RAB TÜ PA YI
རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་ལ་རབ་ཏུ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།།
GYAL WA KÜN LA RAB TU CHAK TSAL LO

Basically here, it says that: I pay homage to the Buddha – Now when you talk about paying homage to Buddhas as I’ve mentioned earlier – by bowing down, obviously I’m seeking the qualities that you have, Buddhas. 

So it is a physical paying homage, physical paying homages are actually different traditions in the different places, people have different ways that they pay homage. But according to the sutra, it explains about two types of physical prostration: the short and the longer one. 

The short one has to have the five points on the ground or the five limbs: the two palms, two kneecaps and your forehead have to be on the ground to pay homage, so that’s how monks usually quickly do. There, you don’t have to just lay down on the ground with the whole body, you just lay down your two palms, two knees and then forehead to pay homage or to pay respect or to prostrate.

But the longer version, in the sutra, it explains as if the tree, when somebody cut a tree, the tree falls down completely on the ground, you have to lay completely on the ground and that is the longer version. 

Of course, both has its own benefits, but in one way this is a sort of a tradition as well to pay homage not just in Buddhism, but in other religions as well in those time and the system of paying homage is even there in the realm of Gods, and even there before Buddha appeared in this world and also the purpose of paying homage is, of course, to show respect, but it is to reduce one ego and then it helps us to purify lots of negative karmas that we accumulated in the past regarding lots of negative actions motivated by disrespect towards our teacher, disrespect towards the Dharma, disrespect towards the Buddha and disrespect towards Sangha. 

Now here in other way if you say how it helps us to have a happier life, how it helps us to have a more meaningful life then I would say that prostration is to bowing down, in many texts you’re going to find prostration has been translated as ‘bow down’, so that’s why ‘chag tsal wa’ [ཕྱག་འཚལ་བ།]. When you comes to physical body, it is done whether you put your two palms, two kneecaps and the forehead and down on the ground, whether it completely lays down in both ways you’re bowing down, when you bow down, it acts as in physical therapy to bring some effects to reduce the ego and pride. So prostration is to reduce the ego and pride in a simple words and of course it has many more benefits, there are lots of different sets of benefits that has been explained in the different sutras. 

One of the explanation is that if you try to count the benefits or the merits that you accumulate by even one prostration, the number of dust particles that you cover with your body you will be able to achieve the rebirth, sort of a King of the whole universe, King of the whole world  as the number of the dust of the particles that you cover with your body. So basically what it means is that it really is very effective physical therapy to gain the faith towards Buddha and also to reduce one’s ego and pride. 

The ego and pride, because of which we have been engaging in negative actions through verbal and physical, even mental countless of times in the past, because of which we have been suffering all this time in Samsara, because of which we have taken rebirth in the lower realms many times. And so, in such a way, if you are able to get rid of such a karma, if you are able to get rid of such a negative emotion, like ego and pride, even if you are able to reduce it, even a very tiny, then still is a very effective and the merit of that is so very high that you will be able to take the rebirth of such a King as the number of the dust you do cover with your body. 

And then one of the common which you’re gonna find in many books as well, the ten benefits of prostration are some of the common by paying homage or by prostration among the ten, for example, you will have a nice body in future life, the Buddhas have such a golden color body and there is also the result of the practice of prostration, and then the verbal prostration, also you will have the better voice, your speech will be powerful and people will listen to you, people will like to listen to you. So these are some of the benefits among the ten commonly known benefits. 

བཟང་པོ་སྤྱོད་པའི་ སྨོན་ལམ་སྟོ བས་དག་གིས།།
ZANG PO CHÖ PÉ MÖN LAM TOB DAK GI

With the energy of aspiration for the Bodhisattva way,

 Here, ‘With the energy of aspiring for the Boddhisattva way’, in Tibetan is ‘Zang po chö pé mön lam tob dak gi’ [བཟང་པོ་སྤྱོད་པའི་ སྨོན་ལམ་སྟོ བས་དག་གིས།]. So towards the wonderful actions of body, speech and mind of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas, by having such a faith towards them, it’s more like ‘I pay homage to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with my physical body’. 

རྒྱལ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡིད་ ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུམ་དུ།།
GYAL WA THAM CHÉ YI KYI NGÖN SUM DU
ཞིང་གི་རྡུལ་སྙེད་ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ཡིས།།
SHING GI DUL NYE LÜ RAB TÜ PA YI

‘Gyal wa tham ché yi kyi ngön sum du’ [རྒྱལ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡིད་ ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུམ་དུ།], Shing gi dul nye lü rab tü pa yi [ཞིང་གི་རྡུལ་སྙེད་ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ཡིས།], the way, I’m prostrating, it’s more like I’m duplicating or I’m manifesting, we have to imagine that our physical body, we duplicate or we multiply it or we visualize that our body has a countless emanation as the number of the dust particles in the realm of Buddha, we multiply as that much of number. 

‘Lü rab tü pa yi’ [ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ ཡིས།], so all these countless number of our own emanation of our body or duplicate, visualization that we made of our own body with all these bodies we bow down and pay homage to all the Buddhas. And at that time, even the object that we pay homage to Buddha, it’s not just one or two Buddhas, but the Buddhas of the three times: Buddhas of the future, Buddhas of the present and Buddha of past; it’s not just in one or two directions, not just in one or two worlds, but in all the worlds of ten directions. Ché yi kyi ngön sum du’ [ཅད་ཡིད་ ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུམ་དུ།], by visualizing all the Buddhas of ten directions and three times right in front of us, as if we see them, as we see the screen right now. 

So the first line shows the motivation, why we are there prostration? Why we are prostrating? We are prostrating because of the power of the faith that we gain, the power of the prayer of the faith that we gain by seeing and understanding the wonderful qualities of the actions of Buddha body, speech, and mind. So that explains the motivation. 

So the second line explains the object of our prostration, the object of our prostration is not just one or two Buddhas, but by visualizing or by thinking, or by seeing we just have to think that we are able to visualize Buddha or we are able to see the Buddha as if we see somebody who sits next to us and not just one Buddha, but the Buddhas of ten directions and three times. So that explains the objects of our prostration. 

The third line is pretty much how we are prostrating is by via we are prostrating by  duplicating our body or by multiplying or visualizing our body as the number of the dust particles of the whole Buddha realms of the world. Shing gi dul nye lü rab tü pa yi [ཞིང་གི་རྡུལ་སྙེད་ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ཡིས།], so all these emanations of our own body by bowing down to the Buddhas physically, so that is what the third line says.

རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་ལ་རབ་ཏུ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།།
GYAL WA KÜN LA RAB TU CHAK TSAL LO

Gyal wa kün la rab tu chak tsal lo [རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་ལ་རབ་ཏུ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།], so the fourth line is ‘to all the Buddhas, I pay homage’ where there is by putting down the five points: the two palms, two kneecaps and the forehead on the ground, or by totally laying down through the full body, so this is what the fourth line literally means. 

In English it says ‘With the energy of aspiration for the Buddhist way’, there is pretty much the similar as the first, I think is the translation of the first line of the Tibetan. The second  ‘Gyal wa tham ché yi kyi ngön sum du’ [རྒྱལ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡིད་ ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུམ་དུ།], so here the last part ‘To all you Buddhas visualized as real’ is actually in Tibetan is the second line. And ‘Shing gi dul nye lü rab tü pa yi’ [ཞིང་གི་རྡུལ་སྙེད་ལུས་རབ་བཏུད་པ་ཡིས།], ‘And with as many bodies as atoms of the world’ here, ‘atoms of the world’, atoms is more like you can say atom, but it’s more like dust particles; ‘of the world’ here it talks about the world of Buddha or the realm of Buddha; ‘with as many bodies’, like it talks about our body is like we duplicate or we multiply or we visualize our body as the number of the dust particles of the whole Buddha’s world. ‘To all you Buddhas’, here ‘all’ is like whether it’s the three times or whether it’s the ten directions. 

Three times and ten directions of Buddhas that as an object of a prostration and that we have to visualize in front of the whole bodies that we emanated and to bow down to the Buddha with a huge respect and a huge faith by seeing the qualities of Buddha body miraculous or wonderful body, speech and mind. 

So that’s pretty much the version number 2.  Yes, the another way one can also do visualize, if it is difficult for you to just imagine the countless number of your bodies, the countless number as the number of the dust particles of the Buddha’s world, if it is difficult for you to visualize in that manner, then yes, the alternative choice you can just think of the countless number of your own previous lives. We all might have taken a rebirth as a God, Animal, Human, so many, many times all the different species of the animals, we have taken a countless number of rebirth in a previous life. So by thinking and by visualizing all those previous lives, the bodies of the previous lives, you can visualize as a human body. 

Otherwise, you’re gonna think or feel like a cartoon, all these, even the animals are standing and doing some. The reason why I thought of this like, the other day, a small monk was watching a cartoon where some animals for driving a car, so that looks quite funny because it is something that I never even imagine all thought. So to see some animals driving a car or to see some grasshoppers standing up and doing something that human does, it is such a funny as well in some sense. Yes, because these you are doing to purify as well as to accumulate merits, so here many of the thing is something that you have to visualize from your mind. When we are doing the prostration is not like Buddhas are looking forward for our prostration for them, but Buddha recommend us to prostate because this is a physical therapy with which we can reduce our negative mind which gives us suffering. 

What we are doing right here is the mind training, we are literally trying to bring some effects to the mind to be more positive, to be better. Let’s take an example of this to make it a bit simple: Suppose you are on the stage and then you have this – what you call that? – stage fear, you get nervous, you get tumbling, shivering or what you call that, so you literally are shaking, your whole body is shaking and then you’re not able to speak as usual, so that happens to many people when they stand in front of a big audience on the stage. 

So there actually is a fear, actually is a bit of anxiety in sometimes, in some sense, but that comes out physically or that affects the verbal, so to get rid of such thing, to get rid of the stage fear, one of the ways to be there on the stage one time, two times, three times, it’s more like you go through a problem one time, you go through a problem two times, you go through a problem three times, you have this in a whole body shaking in your speech and then you’re not able to think properly, you feel like you’re falling down somewhere or all these things. 

One way to get rid of that is to suffer, to have difficulties, one time, two times, three times and then slowly you get better. Another way to get rid of a stage fear is to imagine in your mind that there is a whole big amount or a whole big number of audience ready in front of you, you may be in your room, nobody is there in your room beside you, but still just close your eyes, and if you imagine that the whole audience are over there talking, looking at you, expecting you to say something and this and that or whether a singing or a sing or a say whatever it is, or if you have to deliver a speech or a talk. So by imagine the whole audience right in front of you, you just talk, so when you talk, try to imagine as it is a real that you’re talking for the whole people. If you do that one time, two times, three times, four times, five times, you will overcome that stage fear. 

By visualizing and thinking, so exactly the same way we are visualizing the countless Buddhas in front of us and we are visualizing the countless us. Ego is a very funny thing, if people say something to you, you may not feel that ego, it will not hurt you much. If people say the same thing to you in front of many people, it will hurt you, you will have the ego, you will not like that people say that in front of lot of people. And to reduce that ego and pride very effectively, you visualize countless number of Buddhas and you visualize yourself as a countless number; and also to accumulate a huge merits, just imagine how huge the merits will be if you offer something or you offer the prostration to the Buddha. 

Suppose you are there right in front of the Buddha 2600 years back and you have a chance to do prostration in front of Buddha, how big the merits will be. So if doing a prostration to one Buddha with your one body is that much of huge merits, then imagine by visualizing a countless number of Buddhas’ bodies, a countless number of you, it is a wonderful technique and method to accumulate a countless number of merits. 

That is the secret of this, so this is the reason why this prayer is so special, at the same time, this prayer explains the way Boddhisattvas practice. If you want to benefit the countless number of sentient beings, you have to accumulate the countless number of merits, even if you are doing a simple merit, you have to visualize yourself in a countless number, even if you are offering something even to some animals you can just visualize that “I’m offering to the whole animals in this world”. Suppose you’re offering one apple – animals may not eat – to a monkey so you can visualize a countless number of you at the same time a countless number of apples, that is very much effective even to reduce the stinginess and misery, and then selfishness. This is a wonderful technique that Boddhisattvas practice and also it is wonderful if you can also practice in such a way. 

Now, when I have time, sometime soon, I’ll also try to think about the English translation, but for now we will just have this, I believe this is a good one. All right, so with this I would like to conclude here, I’m gonna leave for the next class, but if there is a short question you can go on and then we’ll do the dedication. 

Yes, in English, if I see the prayer in the English, it’s difficult for me to get into this, if I see in Tibetan and also it’s very important because the prayer, the practice whenever we think we ride  – like in ancient time, people ride on the horse – so when we think we ride on the words, when we think we think along with the words, so the words help us to think. Now the words I usually think in Ladakhi or in Tibetan, even when I practice, I do it in Ladakhi or in Tibetan, so the words that I’m riding are Tibetan or Ladakhi, when I do such practices the words are all in Tibetan. So when I see the English one, I can’t sink into the words and try to get the deeper meaning out of it, but still is very good that we have the both Tibetan and English. 

When I try to explain in English, you will have it in the English and then hopefully you can also make that horse, a English one, English words so that it will help you to sink into that and to practice, so this is the reason why I try to attach the English lines at the end, all right. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

Lama, can I prostrate to any state or image of sublime beings? Like a printed image of Buddha in a paper for example?

Yes, absolutely. Actually, even if there is no Buddha, it’s still OK because we can visualize, just visualize that the Buddha is in front of you and then you do and there are some practices for a monk to do in front of Buddha and sometimes, for example, I’m in the airport, when I came back from Dharamsala recently, monks, they have to take a sort of a permission to do certain things if it is for the sake of others, if it is for the sake of Dharma, and for that we have to take permission from the Buddha, so that’s we are supposed to do in front of Buddha image, statue, whatever it is, but at the airport there is nothing and then my Buddha statue was in the  bag, which is not with me at the time, so this is still OK. I can just find a quiet place, there was no prayer room so I just found a quiet place and then I did a prostration, I just visualized the Buddha is right in front of me and then I do prostration, that is also OK. 

Sublime beings, are you talking about some teachers? Yes, otherwise I don’t understand, maybe Boddhisattvas of high grounds, of course. But to postrate, it can be anyone, it’s not a big problem. You can even prostate to your parents, to pay homage to show your respect. 

Lama, how to visualize Buddha or many Buddhas? Because when I close my eyes I just see the darkness.

No, not from your eyes. Yeah it is true, whatever you think from your mind, it’s very much related to the object of five senses. You know the Photoshop, you have one picture and then there multiply and make like 3 pictures duplicated for five, six. Similarly, we just think that and also countless of sentient beings already have achieved Buddhahood, so even if you are not able to see the Buddhahood, in your visualization, just think that there are countless of Buddhas, Buddhas all around. So I’m doing this prostration to the countless number of Buddhas all around, that’s something that we can do as in practice. 

Yes, thank you very much and then with that I would like to conclude for today and I’m really happy to see all these faces and truly appreciate that you show your interest to learn the practices of Boddhisattvas. 

[Dedication]

Alright, see you all soon. Thank you very much and if there is any further question you can also send in the group to Chessy or to me, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible. One, and then second is try to read the prayer, it is really very effective. Alright, see you all, bye. 

Source.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1juQTWwuEezVQtdWS-b23_Y5sCtOXIQ_X/view?usp=sharing