His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Monkey Year Tse-chu Ceremony Observed at Tso-pema

Tso-pema, Rewalsar, Himachal Pradesh, India, 14 July 2016 – Celebrations of Guru Padmasambhava’s birth, which is observed on the 10th of the 5th month of the Tibetan calendar, began at 4 am this morning at the Orgyen Herukai Nyingma Monastery in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Booming horns announced the start of a ganachakra or tsog offering based on the Rigzing Dungdrub cycle. This was followed, after a brief interval nearly three hours later, by an invocation of oracles, commemorating the occasion in the 8th century CE when the Great Abbot Shantarakshita, Acharya Padmasambhava and Dharma King Trisong Detsen bound the Dharmapala Pehar by oath to protect Tibet’s spiritual and temporal traditions.

The five oracles variously invoked within the temple by monks chanting to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals included the State Oracle Nechung, Nyenchen Thangla, Dorje Yudronma, Gyalchen Karma Trinley and an as yet unidentified female presence whose medium comes from Zanskar. They each approached His Holiness and paid their respects to him. He in turn reminded them of their pledge to protect the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and called on them to redouble their efforts to fulfil it at this critical juncture.

Emulating a ceremony that used to be observed at Nechung Monastery in Tibet, the energetic oracles in trance left to make a procession around the temple accompanying a statue of Guru Padmasambhava carried on a palanquin. They returned and approached His Holiness once more. As their trances came to an end the mediums were swiftly carried out and relieved of their elaborate costumes. Restored to their normal state, the mediums re-entered the temple and received silk scarves as a gesture of gratitude.

In the afternoon, the crowd that had grown to an estimated 10,000 gathered at the teaching ground beside the lake. On his way there His Holiness stopped briefly to give his blessings to the Padmasambhava Public Library Society, founded by a former student of TCV, which presently has a collection of 7000 books. Arriving at the venue he climbed onto the platform, greeting and teasing old friends as he came and sat before the mandala to perform the preparations for the Rigzin Dungdrub empowerment. When he was ready he took his seat on the throne and addressed the assembly.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking to over 10,000 gathered at the teaching ground at Tso Pema, Rewalsar, HP, India on July 14, 2016. Photo/Tenzin Phuntsok/OHHDL

“It’s through our body, speech and mind that we create good and bad karma. Once you gain control of your mind, you’ll be able to discipline your acts of body and speech. Generally, although we don’t want suffering, we willingly engage in acts of harm that give rise to it. We think that if we have health and wealth they’re enough to be happy, but actually happiness depends on the state of our minds. In tackling the negative emotions that disturb our minds we need to overcome our misconception of reality.
“The Buddhas don’t wash beings’ unwholesome deeds away with water, nor do they remove their sufferings with their hands. Their kindness is to reveal reality and the path to liberation. Ignorance can be merely not knowing something or it can involve having a wrong view of reality. It is this wrong view that the Buddhas help us correct. Our pervasive misconception of reality is that things have intrinsic existence. We tend to think of a self that is the ruler or controller of our body and mind. No such intrinsically existent self exists apart from the self that is merely designated on the basis of our body and mind. What the Buddhas reveal is the Dharma by which we will be liberated.
“When things are going well we easily remember the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but we forget them when things go wrong. There’s a story I heard and repeated to Karmapa Rinpoche of a nomad from Kham bringing his yaks to Lhasa. When they had to cross a river he called on the blessings of the Karmapa saying ‘Karmapa khyen-no’, but after losing one of the yaks in the water he changed his tune muttering ‘Karmapa to hell with you’ instead.”

Some of the over 10,000 attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching at Tso Pema, Rewalsar, HP, India on July 14, 2016. Photo/Tenzin Phuntsok/OHHDL

His Holiness remarked that it’s the unwholesome actions and negative emotions that arise as a result of our misconception of reality that give rise to suffering. However, if there were no way out of suffering the Buddha would not have talked about it. The wisdom realizing selflessness is one of the factors that put an end to ignorance and once that is clear we see that the Buddha’s teaching is based on reason. His Holiness reported another story from Kham of someone visiting the abbot of a monastery and, finding him absent, being told that he had gone to the village to frighten the old people. His Holiness stressed that there is no place for fear in teaching the Dharma.
“Much more effective is knowledge and understanding, which is why I’ve been encouraging friends to transform even small temples into libraries and places of learning. The more than 300 volumes of the Kangyur and Tengyur should be read to form the basis of study rather than stored on shelves and treated as objects of veneration.
“In the ‘60 Stanzas of Reasoning’ Nagarjuna says ‘May I complete the two collections that give rise to the two bodies of the Buddha’. Those two collections don’t just involve accumulating merit, but wisdom too. It’s by understanding the Two Truths that we enter into the path to enlightenment. When we enter into Tantra, this can also involve introducing the disciple to the mind of clear light.
“I received this empowerment from Trulshik Rinpoche who, in addition to adopting a genuinely non-sectarian approach, was a truly great practitioner. This Rigzin Dungdrub cycle was revealed by Rigzin Godemchen, a forerunner of the Chang-ter Northern Treasure tradition that was later maintained by Dorje Drak Monastery and in which the Fifth Dalai Lama participated.”

Parliament Speaker Khenpo Sonam Tenpe and Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay tossing flowers into the mandala as part of the Rigzin Dungdrub empowerment at Tso Pema, Rewalsar, HP, India on July 14, 2016. Photo/Tenzin Phuntsok/OHHDL

As a preliminary to the empowerment, His Holiness led the assembly in a ceremonial generation of the awakening mind of bodhichitta. At the point in the empowerment where it is customary to toss a flower into the mandala, His Holiness called on the Speaker of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, who also happens to be a Nyingma Deputy, Khenpo Sonam Tenpe, to represent the monastics in the audience. He then called on Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay to represent the lay-people.
His Holiness’s motorcade was slowed as he drove round the edge of the lake to return to the monastery because of the number of people lining the road to catch a glimpse of him. Several times he stopped his car to give blessings from the vehicle to people in wheelchairs waiting to greet him. Tomorrow morning he will leave early to drive back to Dharamsala.

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