In a text he composed, the very learned Sera-je Geshe, Geshe Jampa Chödrag,
says,
Thus, by meditating on the holy body of Compassion Buddha just once, hearing
the holy name just once or memorizing it or seeing the six-syllable mantra
written or just touching it by hand, one gets protected from spirits called de
and spirits called za, which cause paralysis, from yamas, evil vicious animals,
diseases, dangers and harm from human beings and non-human beings, and whatever
wishes of this life one has—such as for long life, wealth, power and so
forth—get fulfilled exactly as wished. Then the five uninterrupted negative
karmas and so forth, such as extremely heavy negative karma collected during
beginningless time, get purified, and one receives good rebirths in all one’s
future lives. And one is able to see Compassion Buddha’s holy face and so
forth.
If it is said that there are such limitless skies of benefits from remembering
the qualities of Arya Compassionate-Eyed One and remembering the kindness and
blessings and even just reciting the holy name, then one must attempt to
practice, making offerings and requests and so forth.
In places such as Tibet, Nepal, India and Ladakh, there’s a well established
tradition of doing the Compassion Buddha retreat and reciting one hundred
million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras…
If you’re feeling guilt in your life, you can overcome it through the
purification of attending this retreat…
Whoever attends a Mani retreat is unbelievably fortunate. Even if you can’t
attend the whole retreat, you can participate for two months, one month or at
least a few weeks. You can do even just one week. I especially hope that this
retreat will also be established in Mongolia, since their main food is meat and
so many animals are killed there every day. This practice is a great help in
purifying that….
This retreat also blesses the country where it is held and brings so much
peace, happiness and prosperity to the land.
Even if you know the teachings on how to meditate on bodhicitta, you still need
to receive the special blessings of the deity, Compassion Buddha. You receive
these by doing the meditation and recitation we practice in the maniretreat.
Therefore, recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM is one way to actualize
bodhicitta–to transform your mind into bodhicitta and make your meditation on
bodhicitta effective…
Generally, according to my experience, in my home Solu Khumbu in the Himalayas
of Nepal, there are people who live their lives chanting OM MANI PADME HUM but
have no idea of the three principal aspects of the path–renunciation,
bodhicitta and the right view of emptiness–not even the words.
Even though they can’t read and don’t even know the alphabet, they have great
devotion to compassion and bodhicitta and live their lives reciting OM MANI
PADME HUM. Such people are warm-hearted, very kind, very compassionate. This is
proof from my own experience that reciting this mantra has the effect of
transforming the mind into a good heart and compassion.
Without bodhicitta, you cannot cause all happiness for all sentient beings. You
cannot do perfect work for all sentient beings, and you cannot achieve the
complete qualities of the realizations and cessation, even for yourself…
We should especially think of death. When the thought of death comes, when we
remember death, there’s nothing else that makes sense; everything else is total
nonsense. When we think of death, so much of what we do in life doesn’t make
sense; it’s all just nonsense. The only thing that makes sense is Dharma
practice. Only Dharma will benefit us at the time of death and after death. The
only thing that we can carry with us and can enjoy in our future life is
Dharma—nothing else.
This practice of the meditation-recitation of the Buddha of Compassion will
especially benefit us. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM has merit as limitless as the
sky. Even Buddha can never finish explaining the unbelievable purification and
collection of extensive merit brought by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM.
This is a special means to develop compassion. Intellectual study alone cannot
bring you the realization of compassion and bodhicitta. With the intellectual
understanding, you then have to purify your mind and collect extensive merit.
On the basis of those preliminary practices, you then receive this special
deity’s blessings by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM. It is through this that the
realizations of great compassion and bodhicitta then come.
Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM is one of the most powerful means of developing
compassion and bodhicitta.
Doing specific meditation on the Buddha of Compassion and reciting the mantra
are like soil and water, the conditions that together enable a seed to produce
a sprout, or like the pieces that are all put together to enable a clock or
watch to show time. The mind works in a similar way.
The preliminary practices and the meditation-recitation of Compassion Buddha
persuade the Compassion Buddha’s holy mind. Purifying negative karmas, or
obstacles, and collecting extensive merit enable us to receive the blessings of
Compassion Buddha , and through these blessings we then receive realizations.
And the benefits of compassion are as limitless as the sky. …
If you are able to recite six or seven million OM MANI PADME HUMs, you can
become a great healer. You then have the power to heal various sicknesses, as
well as the ability to make rain or to stop it. After you have done that number
of mantras, if you recite mantras to bless water or some other substance or
just blow with your breath, you have much power to heal.
A text by Padmasambhava explains the various problems that you can solve. If
you have recited six or seven million mantras, your activities become powerful;
your various activities of peace, increase, control and wrath are certain to
help others. This is not the main aim of the retreat, but it comes about
incidentally that you can do these things to benefit others.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
NO GREATER PRACTICE
Every Mahayana practice exemplifies various aspects of bodhicitta—there are no
exceptions—but I am convinced that there is no greater practice than Chenrezi
for developing kindheartedness and compassion.
Moreover, no deity meditation is superior to Chenrezi when it comes to ensuring
temporary, relative happiness here and now, and for laying the groundwork for
ultimate happiness in the future.
– Maniwa
Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche
Recounting a dream by Jamgon Kongtrul
The Great:
At a certain point later on, the evening after I had performed a formal
empowerment for Phadampa Sang-gyé’s lineage of Manjushri for a few of my
students, I dreamed of the venerable Karma Chagmé (a past Mahasiddha) as an
elderly monk, who said to me,
"It
would be best to use Avalokiteshvara as a deity in which to place your hopes.
Then when you die, you take on the suffering of all sentient beings with your
compassion, and there is the power to keep your attention from reverting to this
world. If you practice the meditation of Manjushri, there is no guarantee of
such power. ”
(Note: All deities are one in nature, there is no higher or lower deity/Buddha
but their aspirations may have different effects on the practitioners who
practice these deities.)
