📔 Book: The Life of Milarepa

Author:: Tsangnyon Heruka
tibetan

🧾 Description

One of the most beloved stories of the Tibetan people and a great literary example of the contemplative life
The Life of Milarepa, a biography and a dramatic tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels. A personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a detailed guide to the search for liberation. It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. It is also a powerfully evocative narrative, full of magic, miracles, suspense, and humor, while reflecting the religious and social life of medieval Tibet.
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Highlights

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• negative karma that would ordinarily be accumulated over many past lives is created by Milarepa in one life, as he murders thirty-five people with a single act of black magic
• This was the first ordinary deed, the deed of his birth.
• Dzesé’s parents gave me new clothing and boots and said, “When riches are gone, you needn’t think yourself poor, since they are like dew drops in a meadow. In the past, your ancestors didn’t acquire wealth until later on in life. For you, too, a time of prosperity will come.” Saying this they consoled us over and over.
• When wicked men are granted power, they will measure out water by the ladleful.’”
• This was the second ordinary deed, the deed of his practicing the truth of suffering in its entirety.
• This was the third ordinary deed, the deed in which he annihilated his enemies. These three chapters constitute Milarepa’s ordinary worldly deeds.
• “But since it is a mistake to practice the Lower Vehicle seeking happiness and peace for oneself, through the desire to free all sentient beings from life’s round in its entirety, one generates the mind set on enlightenment. With love and compassion, everything one does is dedicated to the benefit of others—this, I have understood, is arousing the attitude of enlightenment according to the Great Vehicle.
• The lama said, “Dakmema, why do you weep? He has received the profound instructions of the aural transmission and is going off to meditate in mountain retreats. What need is there for tears? When you consider in general how sentient beings die in misery unaware they are buddhas, and in particular how, having attained human bodies, they die without the dharma—that is cause for tears
• This was the sixth of the supreme deeds, the deed in which, having been reminded once again of the essencelessness of life’s round, he vowed to practice.
• “You don’t need them for yourself?” she asked.“I practice austerities and seek food as do birds and mice, so I have no need for fields. I dwell in caves in uninhabited places, so I have no need for a house. Even if I were a master of the entire world, I would still need to leave them aside at the time of death. So if I renounce these things now, I shall find happiness in this and all future lives. Doing so, my conduct is contrary to that of all other men, so you can say I am no longer a man.”