OM RETREAT 2015

Finally, able to attend Om Retreat where Lama Dawa is again one of the chant masters and this is also the first time I hear Rabsang Rinpoche's chanting! Serene Beginning Melody chant of "Om Mani Padme Hung" by Rabsang Rinpoche motivated the hall of participants to follow his chant harmoniously. It's like the KMSPKS Mani retreat days are back... 

Nubpa Rinpoche came down the stage to give empowerment to participants.

Light offerings on 2nd evening.

Auspicious prayers at end of retreat generally involved throwing flowers but to be environmental friendly and save efforts of cleaning later, Salute to Lama Dawa's suggestion for us to hold high the flower offerings at command and to bring home after that. Very Environmental Friendly! :-)

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Below is summary of  teachings provided by Nubpa Rinpoche during the retreat and may be incomplete (more for own reference). For those with affinity to read them, pardon is sought for any misunderstanding or incorrect records.


We must generate the Right motivation for empowerment.
It should be for sake of all sentient beings , with motivation pure and sincere: Bodhicitta 
为救度众生得佛果.
This Empowerment of body, speech, mind of Chenrezig
empowers us the Right to visualise oneself as Chenrezig and go into meditative stage, with strong connection and blessing of Chenrizig.
This is the empowerment of Four armed Chenrezig. One of 50 deities of Drikung lineage.
With view of being in Pureland, view all as Chenrezig, 
Follow master instructions to receive empowerment,  understand what you are doing.
First, purification of body, speech and mind via
Chant of Vajrasattva 100syllabus mantra and drink nectar, with some to spread on hair. Torma offering to eliminate obscurations, Chanting for protection and Mandala offering .

Use this precious human body for practice of Dharma and this is wonderful opportunity here.
Recognise in desire, form, formless sphere, there is no permanent happiness hence Renuniciation of worldly concerns is important to be diligent for practice. Recognise meaning of suffering .
In this society of advancement, convenience of material things, lots of people still feel afflictive emotions. Because of lots of attachment not let go.
By thinking of own self , suffering increase, so should think of others, generate loving kindness towards them.
If we understand and generate loving kindness and compassion and with increase will overcome anger and hatred which calm ourselves.
Then our Buddha nature will surface easily from deep inside our mind.
Anyone hear name of Chenrezig, heavy karma will be purified.
Likewise, mindful of Chenrezig, we will be born in Western pureland. hearing mantra will implant seeds of Bodhisattva.
Chant mantra to dying beings' ears can help them born in Pureland.



Wisdom and compassion are inseparable. Develop own Pure Wisdom. 
Practice Chenrezig increase loving kindness and compassion of Chenrezig.
Rinpoche chanted Tibetan of history of Chenrezig ~ Heart son of Amitabha Buddha, to help sentient being.
Nubpa Rinpoche said he will use traditional way of tantric empowerment.
In the past, Druwang Rinpoche did not give the traditional way of empowerment because of his Enlightenment. Via his speech, body, mind, by seeing and by listening to his teachings and chant,  Druwang Rinpoche had given empowerment.
Druwang Rinpoche has special connection with Singapore.
Chenrezig practice is now practised worldwide because of his encouragement.

Don't be stressed with visualisation or figures.
Try your best, do it naturally , not too harsh on oneself, relax your mind when chanting in joyful relax mood. Visualisation comes naturally. 
If too diligent, burden on oneself, one may be reluctant to go another retreat in future. 
Hence, right attitude of joyful is necessary.
Right understanding of why you are doing retreat. Right attitude towards Dharma , why here and what one is practising.
Look for advice from accomplished masters on advice of practice.
Fivefold Path of Mahamudra can be used.


Preliminary practice : 
Precious human life, karma, impermanence, suffering.
Precious human life: practice to use this body to touch this life for better future rebirth, arhatship, Buddhahood.
Impermanence: fragile human life won't know when would one die so recognise to use the body to recite the mantra while in retreat.


Law of Karma: cause & result.
all want happiness so should plant good seeds and avoid causes of suffering by avoiding evil wrong things.
Reciting mantra has enormous merits, contemplate law of karma in the retreat.
Suffering with no real happiness in samsara: birth, old age , sickness, death.

Chant and contemplate these 4 truths will benefit one in this retreat. This aid generate loving kindness n compassion and will benefit one.
Chant mantra is a form of meditation as part of Ngondro.

In evening, Nubpa Rinpoche gave Oral transmission of Dedication of merits.

Day 2
不共四加行 uncommon preliminaries
归依大礼拜 Refuge prostration:
visualise which master if one has many teachers?
Guilty that all masters are good.
Had too many empowerment to do so many yidams and mantra .
If no actual understanding of Dharma but of normal relationship of humans, that is incorrect.
Essence is to avoid evil, To do good , to tame our mind.
all the Buddha have compassion of Chenrezig.
Any Buddha in liberating sentient beings appear in different form but they all have great loving kindness and compassion.
If visualise Chenrezig clearly, we visualised All the Yidams. 
The appearance of Chenrezig is in many forms through great compassion to help sentient beings. 
Although many mantras, like six syllabus and great compassion mantra, essence is calm the mind and chant mantra of all yidams.
Three verse is in practise of Vajra, generation and completion stage , essence is practice of Bodhicitta. 
HH. of Drikung Kagyu : any beings with Bodhiciita is my disciple. I will be his Guru or teacher.
Hence our Ultimate aim is to generate Bodhicitta successfully .
To generate at once is difficult because we are selfish in one way or another, hence Buddha taught many kinds of teachings and great masters who practised wrote commentaries of successful practice.
Relative Bodhicitta: perfection of six paramitas  and  Wisdom of emptiness.
Ngondro for good foundation.
4 uncommon preliminary practice
1) Refuge w meditation practice of Chenrezig.
 ~ reliance
Believe in deities, mind of Chenrezig- Buddha, speech- Dharma , Body - Sangha.
Taking refuge in Chenrezig - reliance on Triple Gem.
Chanting mantra Om is like a refuge prayer.
Om- Buddha
Ma- Dharma
Ni - Sangha
Pad. _- Guru
Me - yidams
Hung- dakinis



2) Vajrasattva practice
消除障碍，业障
Good deeds to eliminate negative karma, obscuration, purify our body speech mind,
Accumulate increase our merits
Vajrasattva practice for purification of our negative karma
Some of us practising Vajrasattva may have doubt if can practise Chenrezig as well.
4 aspects , strength of our mind to purify:
1) Reliance on Vajrasattva to eliminate our obscuration
2) visualise deity on top of our head and process, etc.
3) Repentence on past bad actions done with ignorance with sincere mind
4) tell ourselves not to do these actions again

Likewise, practising Chenrezig 6 syllabus mantra, , we can confess and regret, thru this practice, eliminate obscurations.


We can visualise similarly with Chenrezig on top of our head...Nectar...
Tantric text if once chant 6Syllabus mantra can eliminate the five heronic acts so it can eliminate obscurations.
Likewise we will not go into three lower realms with chant.
Drubwang Rinpoche cautioned all our illness are because of past life negative karma, if we can eliminate these karma, we can be healthy again. Hence, advised to chant the 6 Syllabus Mantra.
Story told of an old man became blind who with strong faith, chant 6 Syllabus Mantra, recovered his sight.
We can use Chenrezig to repent wrong done in past while chanting 6 Syllabus Mantra (6SM). Effect same as Vajrasattva practice.

3) Mandala Offerings
By chanting 6SM, we can accumulate merits .
In praise prayers she wrote, if we use precious things to offer Triple Gems is enormous but by just being mindful and devotion to Chenrezig, chanting 6SM towards Chenrezig, we will accumulate enormous merits as well.
Visualize Offerings from light emitted while chanting 6SM,  merits enormous too.
Attain Buddhahood and realise true nature of our mind.




4) Guru blessings
Lineage and Guru blessings with one all the time.
To get our blessings,  we need develop 100% devotion to our Guru.
100% confidence in Guru and towards his teachings to achieve liberation.
Treat master as ordinary bring will not have good effects so skilful effect by visualize your Guru as Buddha, Enlightened beings.
By visualize Chenrezig as your Guru, you can get the blessings. Chenrezig as no difference as our Guru with Guru sitting in front of us,  request for blessings while chanting.
Supplicate to Chenrezig,  white light from head middle eyebrow , red light from throat, blue light to heart position. We received blessings of body, speech and mind of Chenrezig.
From blessings received,  visualize Chenrezig resolved into lights into us and we are inseparable.
Maintain as long as we can while we chant the mantra.

Hence, this is Combining 4 Practices with current practice.



Evening
Oral transmission of short
LengYanZhou Shuragana mantra



Om retreat 2015 , Day 3
Am teaching
大手印
Combine fivefold path of Mahamudra with Chenrezig practice

 Loving kindness and Compassion and Bodhicitta
Special Ngondro practice.
Essence of Mahayana practice are these "Xin".
慈心，悲心，菩提心
Need time to practice and develop "True" loving kindness and compassion.
Drubwang Rinpoche (DR) showed practice on three kayas, 三身， 报身 Amitabha Buddha , 法身 Chenrezig, 化身 Guru Rinpoche.
Three mantras of each above 。
When DR in Nepal, Dharma friends ask for blessings of their beloved.
DR advised as Mahayana practice ,the merits should be dedicated to all sentient beings who are your past parents. It should be extended to all beings like we had chanted the Four Immeasurables.
Hence, Nubpa Rinpoche searched inside and honest with himself if when chanting Bodhicitta, do we really see ourselves genuinely generated Bodhicitta?
He trains himself to see each being as his past parent in his practice. He advised we should train ourselves, attitude in life will change and lead better life.
He used to be shy and fear ,especially in new unfamiliar foreign place . He fear if thieves or robbers appear but now, with change of attitude, he feels close and the surrounding people are friendly close to him.
That applies to animals like dogs, when we see it, we will fear dogs may bite us but when generate all beings as past parents, he realise he does not fear the dogs who follow him closely.

When we change our attitudes, others will feel and change too.
To practice and recognise all beings had been our past parents who had been kind to us and grateful for what they had done to raise us up.
Hence we should appreciate and be in gratitude to all sentient beings, we should wish them well to have happiness, generate loving kindness.
Having generated loving kindness, when we see them suffer, we try ways to help them, thus compassion to beings.
Generally, there is limit in us to generate love and compassion to our dislikes, or enemies whom we are reluctant to do so.

Unique in Drikung, before start of practice, we put care for enemies and rivals, wishing them well in priority will turn our mind to broader love and compassion and Bodhicitta.
Greater love and compassion to practice to unlimited, extend to total happiness, we wish them to attain total ultimate happiness ~ Buddhahood.
Three spheres still have suffering, help them to attain Buddhahood, not temporary relief, help them away from suffering , this way practice turn to Bodhicitta practice.
We should use this retreat to wish all beings liberated from sufferings like Chenrezig who tries to help one way or another.
To make all beings Buddha,  hence we here with this attitude and vow to help all beings with the chanting .
Hence above combine generation of love and compassion and Bodhicitta with Chenrezig practice.


Yidam practice
main practice: arisen from indefinable state of pure emptiness beyond all mental proliferation
~ profound and deep about emptiness
First generate Bodhicitta, with right views on emptiness.
When visual self as deity and chant mantra, it is different from traditional Indian practice as Practitioner must generate Bodhicitta and right understanding view on emptiness to lead us to Buddhahood. These are important ingredients to Buddhahood.
Beginners of Buddhism should learn to understand emptiness. 心经: 空不亦色，色不亦空。form is emptiness, emptiness is form .
Brief understanding of emptiness.
E.g.
this "Chenrezig meditation retreat"  is interdependent combination of factors of assembly  to be named a retreat, when you analyse it, there is no inherent nature of a retreat by itself. To elaborate, we are sitting here equal puja? It is just a place, we sitting here Each one is puja? the flower is puja?
Assemble of all phenonmenon in our mind equal puja but individually they are no inherent independent existence, essence is emptiness.
APPEARANCE and  EMPTINESS IS INSEPARABLE 显空不二.
 Pure mind is empty, away of projections, attachment to 5 senses/phenonmenon,
 Away from projection, cannot see from eye. 离戏无见。
Now in chanting, abide mind in nature stage.

自身俱生任运观音尊

How to visualise Yidam from Milarepa's answer ?
Rainbow form of Deity, with no impurity and emptiness, no attachment to body when he does visualisation.
We visualise ourselves as Yidam as we are ordinary people with flesh and blood but absolute truth to analyse our body, it cannot independently exist. Essence is emptiness. Yet we feel body exist. Appearance and emptiness.
No duality in sound and emptiness too
Various thoughts arise from our mind.
Moon n Sun shine outright. No duality .
Luminosity
To understand visualisation by Milarepa, essence is important.
If appearance, sound, Luminosity of clear lights is emptiness, ~ body, speech and mind of Yidam.

Essence of all Yidam practice is first 2 lines.
Next Yidam features.
誓智无别圆满相好身
Rotate and light shine to outer place of universe turned to Pureland. (Even hell to Pureland).
Light shine on all realm beings will eliminate negative karma and  purify them to Chenrezig as well.
In our process of Chenrezig practice, understand everything as reflection of our mind.
e.g. hell realm with shine of our pure mind, will turn into Pureland . Bring our ordinary mind to purify stage .
All beings inside place shone increase our pure mind and true nature of mind.
Hence, Yidam to present practice.


Guru visualisation of Amitabha Buddha on top of our head.
Faith of seeing root guru and Buddha is same  and great blessings.
Tantric text - we possess Buddha nature, to realise our wisdom, we need eliminate all negative karma and purify, accumulate merits, receive blessings from root guru to receive wisdom and we see nature of own mind.
Method to visualise Guru in form of Amitabha, confidence in our root guru, requesting for blessing to realise true nature of our mind.
Thru this supplication of blessing from Root Guru, we visualise ourselves as Chenrezig, and difference in us as Chenrezig, Guru as Amitabha Buddha, and ourselves, inseparable, we will realise what is true nature of our mind.
Each of us has Buddha Nature within us. We have luminosity and inseparable pure wisdom.
Our ignorance created bad karma, habitual tendency hence unable to realise true nature of our mind.


Why supplicate to Guru if it is within us.
It is thru kindness and only with Guru blessing , then we are able to realise.
By eating a sweet, then we understand how a sweet taste.
With blessings then you are able to recognise it.
To maintain true nature of mind for long, must practise and meditate to experience for longer period.
Ho- try to understand it
Rong- thru understand ,practise and glimpse of experience
Dao- able to realise and never go back again.

Luminosity and emptiness inseparable in meditative and post-meditative stage
Always in stage of realised .
To reach this stage is not easy. practise thru Samatha and Vipassana meditation.
Visualisation as Chenrezig and syllabus Hrih, these practices embody Samatha and Vipassana  meditation stage.

Answer to Q&A: How to overcome sleepiness and thoughts.
Scattering mind, as a beginner adjust not too tight n loose.
Too lax, drowsy
Too tight , scattering mind, wild thoughts .
Milarepa advised beginner meditaters to have shorter period time and more regularly sittings. That will Cut down sleepiness or scattering minds.
Use Chenrezig with Phowa.
We as Chenrezig, with heart position white Hrih, Amitabha Buddha on head with red Hrih and light radiate to our heart.
And hook up to synchronise with  Amitabha Buddha heart



Dedication
Whatever good deeds for others and ourselves, should dedicate to avoid diminishing.
E.g. afflictive emotions may affect good karma created by you.
Should immediately dedicate after good deed.
Best dedication to beings to reach Buddhahood. With this Big Wish, even small deeds for beings has incredible merits. Analogy: Small drop of water to ocean become part of ocean.  A little virtue become hugh merits.
Three days of Chenrezig practice, do it with Bodhicitta mind, hope they liberated from suffering and attain Buddhahood is very auspicious.
Above is Relative Bodhicitta, for dedication.
Another from Ultimate Absolute Bodhicitta, like no subject, all these absolute emptiness.
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Day 2 Q&A 

1) What should we do at time of death.

If deceased is non Buddhist , chant 6 SM to deceased eg  near ears of animals.

2) After death, what happens?

4 Bardo stages

A) birth n death bardo (now),

 b) at time of death (4 elements in body resolution, phenomenon), fainted ~ see clear lights if know to get liberation 

 c) becoming stage 法界中阴 met with 100 wrathful and peaceful deities 

d) Rebirth bardo stage- urge to find another body.

3) prayer wheels 

Think of Guanyin and while turning, chanting mantra . Hold it upright, not tilt here and there.

Visualise Chenrezig infront of you , chant in pure place .

4) How to guide loved ones to Triple Gems for interested parties.

Affinity to Religion by past karma to be in touch with Buddhism. Loving kindness n Compassion to them,  treat them with equanimity as all beings are with  Buddha nature. Be Kind to them.

5) How can we increase Faith in Triple Gem for those who think they are intelligent to handle samsara issues themselves.

闻思修

Listen and contemplate to put into practice.

As we go deeper, understand more the deeper one reads. 

Buddha point out the truth, not blind faith, the truth still valid in 2000 years later.

realise the truth of impermanence.

Merge into your daily life, practice, realise and faith in Buddhism.

6) how to ignore surrounding and focus on practice.

心清，自在

good meditation ~ know how to relax and know chance of meditation , if set high objective of a good environment.

Train and tame your mind to face noises, etc.

Peace and harmony and anger always there so you have to learn how to let go, should not attach to idea you hate the sound.


7) Guru yoga.
Visualise Chenrezig as Guru many times while chanting 

Or only once is also okay .

Day 3 Refuge precepts
Understand why take refuge
Refuge to Buddha~
All sentient beings dislike suffering, want happiness , common wish of all.
We must find proper way away from suffering, get real happiness.
Search right path to happiness. We need guidance from teacher who elimiated emotions, afflictions, with wisdom and compassion to help all equally away from suffering.
Similar to searching for good doctor for curing sickness, likewise Buddha is good teacher to guide us.


Refuge to Dharma~
Buddha gave us teachings to eradicate our afflictions, suffering.
He taught necessary Dharma to eliminate afflictive emotions and realise true nature of our mind.


Refuge to Sangha~
Disciples of Buddha practise and realise nature of own mind, like nurses assistant to help doctor.


Buddha our teacher;
Dharma are Teachings of Buddha to help;
Sangha are Seniors who passed exam and can help us.



Precepts
Vows develop belief, right idea we are taking refuge under Triple Gem.
I want to be disciple of Buddha deep in mind.

Benefits
Merits alot.
1) we are disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni
2) we lay down foundation for all Buddhist practices, foundation for future vows
3) Devotion to triple gems and blessings eradicate past karma and purify obstacles of body, speech and mind
4) prosperity increase day by day
5) accumulation of merits our wish will materialise
6) because of blessings, we have protection from Triple Gems hence protection from non human disturbance
7) will not take rebirth in 3 lower realms
8) will have better rebirth in better family and where Dharma can be heard again practice and better life till Buddhahood
9) past lives accumulated merits to want to take refuge in Triple Gems.

If take refuge in Triple Gem, do not take refuge in other local deities who are still in samsara suffering and cannot liberate themselves,  subject to karma, cannot help you if they cannot help themselves.


We should not harm sentient beings e.g. no killing.
Essence of Buddhism is loving kindness and compassion to all sentient beings.
Try not to mix with those in bad company adn influenced by them.
If we see any defective statutes, to still be respectful.
Respect Sangha, offer food bf meals.
Respect eradicate bad karma.
The tradition of Hair cutting during Refuge symbolise to offer body, speech and mind to Triple gem, cut off samsara afflictions.
Again, pardon is sought for any misunderstanding or incorrect records.