Marpa asked Milarepa to build the tower three times. Not only that, during those years, Marpa never gave him teachings, and if he came along very quietly with the other disciples to seek teachings from Marpa, when Marpa saw him there in the group, Marpa immediately scolded him and kicked him out. So many times he beat and scolded him without a nice word or any praise, only scolding and beating.
Anyway, for years and years Marpa never gave any teaching to Milarepa, only scolding and beating him. Finally, Milarepa’s wisdom-mother, feeling great pity for Milarepa, couldn’t bear it and she pushed Marpa, insisting he give Milarepa teachings. Then, Marpa gave teachings and initiations to him, and guided him to a mountain where he could go to meditate and actualize path. So Marpa even pointed out the place he should go and guided him in everything.
Then, Milarepa went to that isolated place and practiced exactly as Marpa advised. He achieved total control, total freedom of his mind, of the chakras, wind and drops. He gained control over his speech. From his realizations, the Dharma came to him very naturally, without any effort, in the form of songs or hymns. He had total control over such things as the psychic power to fly from place to place. He achieved full enlightenment in that life, in a brief lifetime of degenerated time.
This happened because of his guru Marpa’s skillful guidance, such as asking him to build the tower three times which was like doing all the preliminary practices, the many hundreds of thousands of prostrations, the many hundreds of thousands of mandala offerings, the many hundreds of thousands of Vajrasattva mantras, the many hundreds of thousands of refuge prayers. There are many different preliminary practices to do, a hundred thousand of this, a hundred thousand of that. Letting Milarepa build the tower three times by himself was all preliminary practice for Milarepa. Building it three times contained the many hundreds of thousands of prostrations, the many hundreds of thousands of Vajrasattva mantras, of mandala offerings, of all these things. Each time Marpa scolded Milarepa was an incredibly powerful purification, purifying Milarepa’s negative karma. Each time Marpa beat Milarepa it was incredibly powerful, purifying so many eons of negative karma.
Milarepa became enlightened in a few years, in one brief lifetime of degenerate time, because of his guru Marpa’s most skillful way of guiding him. Because it was the quickest way to purify his negative karma and to collect the most extensive merit, he was able to achieve the realizations of the path to enlightenment very quickly. And the very important thing is that, during all those years when he was never given any teaching, only hard work and scolding and beating, from Milarepa’s side he never had a bad thought about Marpa. From Milarepa’s side, he never developed any heresy, any negative thoughts towards Marpa. He was such an incredibly devoted disciple, a perfect disciple. He never thought Marpa was abusing him or taking advantage of him. He never had a single thought of heresy, never one negative thought about Marpa. Because of that, he never created an obstacle to hinder his realizations.
He followed every single piece of advice that Marpa gave him exactly. That’s how he was able to achieve the unified state of Vajradhara, full enlightenment, in a number of years in one brief lifetime of degenerate time. That’s why Milarepa is always used as an example when we pray to be able practice guru devotion. Among the names of those who are incomparable in devoting to the virtuous friend, Milarepa is the name most used.
8 сен 2024
