Tonight after our group prayer, Acho Rinpoche invited Dharma Brother Guang to share his experience with the rest. Guang said he had never expected himself to be hit by a fatal illness so suddenly. Fortunately, his doctor finally confirmed that his illness was not a fatal one. So, he felt relieved now as his problem was being diagnosed as a heart inflammation instead. Acho Rinpoche felt sorry for Guang who obviously had not learnt his lesson as a practitioner, for the period of suffering was simply too short for him to develop a strong sense of renunciation.
Acho Rinpoche shared with us that he fell very ill for a long period f 3 years in the past when he nearly wanted to gave up his life. He lost more than 20kg and his face turned dark; his mother cried upon seeing his terrible state of health. There was a voice speaking into his ear one day, telling him to jump down from higher floor to end his life and suffering. Luckily, Grand Master saved him from that ordeal. Henceforth, he developed a very strong sense of renunciation and knew it very well that when a man draws his last breath, all things in life will become totally irrelevant to him. He lost his interest of all worldly concerns and broke free of all worldly attachments. He advised us to turn all adversities in life into opportunities for our spiritual advancement, by not being defeated easily by our illness but insist on doing our last prayer till our very last day in life. A practitioner should die without regret; the rest of the things in life are just not important.
Next, Dharma Brother Yi shared with us a recent dream of his. In his dream, Acho Rinpoche was presiding over a prayer. Yi saw an Acala image carved on a huge piece of rock. Suddenly, this Acala image began to move and walked out of the rock while producing a very loud and deafening sound. This Acala suddenly transformed into a young woman who walked towards Acho Rinpoche and started a private conversation about helping the sentient beings with the Buddhadharm; the two seemed to be very intimate friends. Later, Acho Rinpoche requested Acala to confer his blessing to all present. Acala took a vase from a group of vases but noticed some dirt within the vase, and therefore handed it to Yi for cleaning. Acala explained that it is pointless to pour nectar into a dirty vase, for the nectar will be polluted and became poisonous instead. It is the same for the practitioners who should cleanse our inner defilements such as lust, hatred, ignorance, pride and suspicion that bind us to the cyclic existence. Hence, we need to purify our mind of such mental defilements in order to truly benefit from the precious teachings of the Buddha.
Acho Rinpoche recalled his trip to Japan more than 30 years ago which was related to Acala. In the 80's, he went to Japan and met an abbot of a huge monastery of Japanese Vajrayana lineage. At the monastery, Acala appeared and conferred blessing to the Japanese abbot through Acho Rinpoche. So, the abbot felt very grateful to Acho Rinpoche and presented a full set of robes, hat, rosary and an Acala image made of stone to the latter, as a token of appreciation and a recognition of the spiritual accomplishment of Acho Rinpoche.
Acho Rinpoche told us that Acala was actually the first deity with whom he attained a spiritual response; that goes to show a very profound spiritual connection between the two. That is also the reason why Acala is one of the deities which appeared in the thankha (picture) depicting the spiritual lineage of Acho Rinpoche. The prayer ended with an Acala Empowerment being given by Acho Rinpoche, ending it with a perfect closure tonight.
Reported by Sun Moon KFS on 26-Feb-2017
