Milarepa Poem
Tsultrim
Hawaii Veteran
Milarepa, how did you do it:
Withstand freezing temperatures, starvation and
years of isolation?
How did you stay sane on those bitter nights with snow covering the land
and your only companions the wild animals?
How could your heart be that great?
Did your guilt about killing with magic drive you
Or was it your devotion to Marpa, or the suffering of beings?
You were a snow lion in its mountain den;
Eating hope and fear, making muscles and sinews of imperturbability,
Rending concept into nothingness.
Roaring beings awake.
Milarepa we need you now;
Materialism: physical, philosophical and spiritual clouds our minds
Sectarian hatred kills us with hideous weapons
Greed, with its pollution, destroys our land, sky and waters.
I supplicate you Milarepa
Please give us your perseverance, courage, and devotion
Please help us to be of benefit
Please, great one, look on us with kindness.
Comments
Did you write that @Tsultrim ?
Si Senor
... gran poema
Ay caramba. We iz Spanish Tibetan ... Eh ma ho.
Gracias, tashi delek, amigo
Amiga?
crustáceo!
Es un misterio, la gran langosta!
Beautiful poem, @Tsultrim .
)
(I can write that in other languages, too!
It really is a lobster! In your quest to save all sentient beings you saved a lobster? Incredible!
I don't know anything about lobsters and their sexes. Was i offensive with my comments? Can you tell me things i should say, for example that i'm completely open to cannibalism ( they eat each other you know, but there's nothing wrong with that.)
I'm very distraught.Any suggestions about would be appreciated.
Thank you, federica, muchas gracias.
I liked it too, @tsultrim, I hope you carry on writing.
It is an interesting mix of spirituality and the concerns of our times. I came across an interview with a man called Martín Prechtel yesterday, who became a shaman in Guatemala and was much concerned with the fate of the indigenous people and their traditions and lands. Your poem carries certain echoes of his story.
The interview:
https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/304/saving-the-indigenous-soul
Thank you, Kerome. The man has an interesting and tragic background. Reading Mayan world view was of interest, although I usually have trouble getting into such things.
A noted physicist was teaching about space and the earth when an elderly lady said that he didnt
know much,and that the world was supported by turtles stacked on top of each other.
The scientist asked what the turtles stood on and the lady said, "You think you are smart young man, but it's turtles all the way down."
Definitely an interesting story, @Tsultrim . I always associated it with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but it seems it is far older than that...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
It doesn’t quite compare to Buddhist cosmology, but I always thought that too proposed an invisible world, somewhat like the Mayan worldview. For a more scientific view of the universe, maybe this will be of interest:
I believe what I was talking about was the William James story, having no idea of the age and import of the turtle story.
Absolutely wondrous video. Really stunning effects and of course it gave me the feeling of insignificance it always does. If one wanted to introduce the idea of selflessness, that would be a good start.
Imagine, what we know about the universe is quite recent. What will be found in the future, if there is one, for us all too clever monkeys?
Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
It still suprises me that people think we may be alone in the universe. It is now known that most stars are orbited by at least one planet, and if even one in a billion of those evolved intelligent life, then there are some 100 planets bearing intelligent life in just our galaxy the Milky Way.
For me too it inspires selflessness and wonder, to consider how such tiny flecks of stardust on the face of one planet have self-organised and accumulated enough knowledge to send telescopes into space and look at the universe.
Kerome, thinking about that space video, I remembered a statement I might use as my personal line.
"There has to be other intelligent beings in the universe, because no one has contacted us yet."
nice poem . milarepa in the--dharma--house!not to familiar with milarepa.
@Tsultrim, I've felt that insignificance too when becoming aware of the infinity of awareness of space, but if everything is inherently empty and everything is connected to everything else like in Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing then your not insignicant, comtemplating that got rid of those feelings.
Milarepa is aTibetan Buddhist saint, who lived for many years in isolation meditating until he attained enlightenment.
He's pretty well known, books have been written about him, even a comic book that I enjoyed. Read some of his teachings . He used to sing them.
Traveler, being insignificant is not a bad thing, being nothing is even better.
@Tsultrim I have a book called The Songs of MIlarepa, I must get around to reading, most of the time I read Theravadin and Zen literature.
Traveller, it would be a good thing to do. Read and meditate, they will enrich each other. I read Milarepa on a solitary retreat one time and I saw so much more of who he really was. He is revered in Tibet.
@Tsultrim, what was the name of the comic you mentioned? I’d like to read something like that. Thank you
Have just picked up The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, new translation on my Kindle. Not cheap but looking forward to reading it.
I hope you derive as much benefit from it as i have through the years, Lee82.
Have you read the new translation by Christopher Stagg? How does it compare to Chang?
I just googled milarepa comic and found it. The illustrations look very good, as i remember them in the past.
No, i only know of the Chang translation. I never had a problem with it and i've read quite a bit about Milarepa. I actually have the book in front of me now, pretty beat up. Oh, its a wonderful book.
yogi in a cave, singing to the yet i
Yo to the cotton clad green won
Here the call beyond mountains of magic
Won One, Buddhas above and below
Before and afters
Sing of Ever Never
More
Sing Now
Nice poem, lobster. Thank you.
Thanks @Tsultrim
Tee hee ... think I may have been inspired by the Green One ...
https://ganachakra.com/category/milarepa/
The Hinayana Tantrists such as Chogyam and other non rhinocerous ...
... are not to be confused with the great ascetics and legendary mahasiddhas
These teachers belong to the three vehicles, Hinayana, Maya yana, Tantra and MettaYana (The emerging vehicle of Western BuddhaDharma)
http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/rhinoceros.html
... and yes three and four are the same number in poetry, dreams and magick dharma ...
Es un ave?
Es un avion?
No, es la langosta!
I love Milarepa.
I have these books:
The above-mentioned Chang (pretty comprehensive), and those in the picture:
W.Y. Evans-Wentz's "Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa" (1928), Flora Beal Shelton's "Chants from Shangri-La" (1939) and Sir Humphrey Clarke's "The Message of Milarepa."
@Tsultrim has a decidedly engrossing way with words... Maybe a book is lying, embryonic in their mind.... How about the pseudonym 'Millie Reper'...?
So I've been reading Milarepa's songs and wonder, how should they be spoken or sung? With rhyme or rhythm? With expression? With joy?
I can't generally find rhythm or rhyme but perhaps that is only in the translation. The words are of beauty however.
"On this auspicious, glorious day, You male and female benefactors who welcome me with prostrations, Along with myself, the yogi Milarepa: We didn’t perish, and have met. Oh how joyful!"
The man you need to see is Tsultrim Gyamtso. He is probably 80 now, He is an enlightened yogin who sings Milarepas songs. My guess is he's in India or Nepal, maybe Sikkim.. Google him and maybe you,'ll find him singing Milarepa songs or maybe you'll realize he' s your teacher and you'll decide to visit him and quit your job and do anything to make it happen. I smile writing this, but i know the magic and I've seen stranger things happen. I did sing songs with TsultrimGyamso but I don't remember which ones or the tunes.
Yikes!! I’m not sure that’s the most valuable general advice to offer.
Magic don’t pay the bills or feed the kids.
Maybe you were smiling bec you were kidding
Half smiling.
For some reason, the poem by Milarepa that I come back to again and again, and have quoted here too again and again is "The womb of the buddhas."
Somehow, I find the poem haunting:
And for some reason this has been haunting me, "Thus it is O Son of Noble Family."
In the gap between thoughts
nonconceptual wisdom shines continuously.
In horror of death, I took to the mountains - again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death, capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind. Now all fear of death is over and done.
One should see that all appearance is like mist and fog.
It shines in thoughts as well, but they are not continuous.
Vajra like samadhi. You truly are a great one.
Emptiness at work.
Thank you, @pegembara