Tonight we
performed the practice of Cintamani Wealth Enrichment Practice. This is an
annual practice that will increase the merits of a practitioner, helping him to
achieve a smoother progress in his spiritual practice. A group of Chinese
students in China took part in the group prayer too via Internet webcast. One
of them, Dharma Sister Hui, had a vision of Yellow Jembhala during the
recitation of Cintamani’s mantra. She “saw” Jembhala emitting rainbow light, blessing
everyone participating in the prayer. Acho Rinpoche explained that Jembhala is
the wealthiest in the universe, with him gracing the occasion would mean that
everyone had truly gained a huge share of wealth. Such spiritual wealth does
not necessarily translate into a monetary form, as it could also encompass
other aspects of our lives including having a good family relationship, good
health, good career, good inter-personal relations etc. Such spiritual wealth
will provide adequate financial support to a practitioner, affording him some
spare time in doing his spiritual practice while taking care of his other basic
needs in life. Nowadays, there are many rich men in China but they are too
pre-occupied with their businesses that they have no time for spiritual practice;
such lifestyle is just meaningless.
Acho Riponche
reminded us again that the purpose of our spiritual practice is to prepare us
to face our final moment with confidence. When we face our final moment in
life, the physical elements of our body (earth-flesh, water-fluid, fire-warmth,
wind-breath) will disintegrate naturally. At that juncture, we actually stand a chance to
attain Buddhahood during the bardo stage (the intermediate state of existence
between death and the next re-birth) when a strong light appears. This light is
extremely bright and it is a manifestation of our innate Buddha Nature; we just
have to recognise it and merge into it – thus attaining Buddhahood
instantaneously. However, if we fail to recognise this light, we stand a second
(and the last) chance of attaining Buddahood during this bardo stage, when the
second light appears in the form of One Hundred Deities. However, while some of
the deities appear in peaceful forms, others appear in wrathful forms; they are actually the manifestation of our innate Buddha Nature
too. If we could recognise them and merge into them, we will attain Buddhahood
instantaneously during the bardo stage. However, if we fail to recognise and
pass the opportunities of enlightenment (these lights disappear very swiftly),
we will miss the chance of enlightenment and will now face a rebirth in the
cyclic existence of the Six Realms (god, demi-god, human, animal, hell being,
hungry ghost). For those who have not done spiritual practice during their
life, they will not be able to recognise such critical moments during the bardo
stage and will easily miss both opportunities of ultimate liberation; as they
will feel terrified seeing the strong light and the wrathful
deities, and will try to run away from them, thus falling back swiftly into
the cyclic existence.
We need to know
that during death, when the four elements of our physical body disintegrate, we
will be overwhelmed by the feelings of great sufferings – the entire world
appears to be collapsing, with flood and fire breaking out everywhere. The
deceased will feel terrified and absolutely helpless. At this juncture, if he
has a vision of a man and woman doing their sexual intercourse which arouses
his sense of desire, he will swiftly enter the womb of the woman and be reborn
into the Six Realms of Existence. Or he could be feeling afraid of a sudden rain and
run for shelter, and entering a house or a cave – he will be reborn into the Six
Realms of Existence. A myriad of illusions will appear during death, which are very powerful forces that will push the deceased back into the
Six Realms of Existence without any strength of resistance.
There was a
Tibetan Master who said that nowadays, 99 out of 100 people will certainly fall
into the Three Lower Realms (animal, hell being, hungry ghost) after death
because he saw (with his celestial eye) almost all the people walking on a
street manifesting the appearance of sentient beings of the Three Lower Realms.
They were, however, just ordinary people but not big villains. Why so? Actually, our current society is
progressing on the wrong path, with the general community sharing
and teaching the wrong values including our educational system - promoting individualism, materialism, competition etc. Our ancient society was different as it propagated the good
value system based upon the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism - promoting oneness, spirituality, collaborative spirit etc. Also, when a society becomes
affluent, the rich will tend to kill the lives of animal for their eating
enjoyment too. The world is currently in a state of chaos, with US, Russia,
Middle East, North Korea etc., constantly fighting one another in wars. If the people in
this world do not realize the importance of spiritual cultivation and continue
to misbehave in the current way, they will have nowhere else to go but fall
into the Three Lower Realms; especially those who instigated the wars and who
killed others, who will only fall into the lower and more miserable hells.
Grand Master
stressed that every practitioner must do his sadhana (meditative practice) at least once a day. If a
practitioner aspires to attain a spiritual response with his principal deity,
he must first attain the mental state of this principal deity. For instance, if
his principal deity is Avalokitesvara known for being the most compassionate
one, he must fully develop his sense of compassion to be of an equal state as
that of Avalokitesvara. And he must choose only one principal deity for his
life-long practice. Grand Master also said that if a student puts in 100% of
his efforts in doing the practice, he will be able to attain Buddhahood on his
own. If a student only puts in 80% of his efforts in doing the practice, Grand
Master will come to bring him to the Buddhaland when the latter draws his last
breath in this life. If a student only puts in 60% of his efforts in doing the
practice, Grand Master will, very reluctantly, come to bring him to the
Buddhaland when the latter dies. If a student puts in less than 60% of his
efforts in doing his practice, Grand Master will not come to help him during
his death – he needs to take care of himself then.
Acho Rincpohe
stressed that a practitioner must first attain the state of emptiness of self
(egoless) before he could achieve a spiritual response with the Buddha and Bodhisattva.
A practitioner cannot feel attached to anything in life, including his family, wealth
etc.; otherwise such things will manifest during his death and pull him back
into the Six Realms of Existence. Our daily sadhana is in fact very
important, as it is designed to prepare us to face death in the correct way – recognising
the path to enlightenment. Every step in the sadhana must be done with proper
visualisation. Although the visualisation need not be too detailed, the key
features of every deity being invoked must be visualised. For instance, when we
invoke Majushri Bodhisattva, we should visualise his sword of wisdom; when we
invoke Avalokitesvara, we should visualise his thousand arms; when we invoke
Acala, we should visualise his burning flames etc. One day, we will finally be
able to touch the hearts of these deities during the invocation with our mental
strengths, and they will actually appear before us. We should also visualise
the numerous sentient beings surrounding us, doing the practice together and showered
by the blessing of lights from the deities. These sentient beings include our
foes, parents of our present and past lives, friends and relatives, and all
sentient beings in the Six Realms of Existence. This act of kindness can really
help all sentient beings in relieving their sufferings and setting them on the
path to enlightenment eventually. How well we can do at our final moment will
depend solely on our daily preparations; it is not something that should be
taken lightly. We need to practise letting go of our attachments to our worldly
concerns, and constantly remind ourselves that this human world is just an
illusion, and the Six Realms of Existence is just an illusion too. We should
only be thinking of the Buddha and Bodhisattva at all times, as this is the
only way to liberate ourselves from the Six Realms of existence at our final
moment.
Acho Rinpoche also
reminded us that when we turn the Mani Wheel in our hand, we should recite the
Six Syllable Mantra softly to focus our attention inward. When we do the
recitation of mantra, we should visualise the appearance of Avalokitesvara who
shower his blessing on all sentient beings in the form of light. We should not
be distracted by others during the recitation and should not be engaged in a conversation
with others while turning the wheel in our hand. We practise for the purpose of
actually changing and improving ourselves, but not showing off a false
appearance to others.
Om Mani Padme Hom.
This is a teaching given by Acho Rinpoche
on 4-3-201, extracted and reported by Sun-Moon KFS
