Where does prayer fit in? Ken: I’m not very good at giving talks. I think I’m better at some kind of interaction, so we’re just going to start off right there. When the White Heron Sangha, through Nancy, invited me to come up here, I was up here once before, last year, and I […]

[…] shortly before the exodus. And this is used pretty widely in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions as a morning ritual. The refuge, awakening mind, and the seven-section prayer are all in the context of dzogchen vocabulary. So, a couple of notes on my translation. Wherever you see “all experience,” as in the third line […]

[…] periods here. Could I borrow a copy of the prayers from somebody? Prayers Ken: In the Tibetan tradition, we almost always start with some form of lineage prayer. Usually the lineage reflects a teacher’s … that particular lineage. In the Gelugpa tradition it would be Je Tsongkhapa, in the Kagyu tradition it would be […]

[…] Well, that works the body quite well. ‘Cause it’s all uphill. But frequently when I’ve done, almost the whole time that I’m walking saying a certain Tibetan prayer which I like very much. It’s just one of these short four-line prayers. But I’ll synchronize that with the walking. And I’ll do that. I often […]

[…] guinea pigs—with using the word sanctuary instead of refuge. For those of you who are familiar with Buddhist terminology. So that is why this appears. The actual prayer is one that I wrote about 12 years ago, so it’s a little unusual in terms of refuge prayers, but I hope it speaks to you. […]

[…] a full commentary, but just to give you a quick guide, so to speak. The first verse is invocation and aspiration for why Rangjung Dorje wrote this prayer. And the next verse is a general summary of the whole prayer: A river of virtue, undefiled by the three spheres Springs from the snow-mountains … […]

[…] is to find a way that speaks to you. And by “speaks to you,” I mean something that stops the conceptual mind. And it can be through prayer, it can be through chanting, it can be through koan practice. Koan practice actually only works for a certain number of people. It can be through […]

[…] itself? Just as the sugatas of former times aroused awakening mind. Because you have the stages, you have the taking of refuge, then you have the seven-section prayer, which is generating the right basis, going through all of those, and then you actually express the vow, and then there’s the rejoicing, and then there’s […]

[…] things are taking place. And so from this perspective, when you’re practicing devotion—even though you may use this kind of language, and I’ll be referring to a prayer in a minute—it’s not like you’re praying or fostering devotion to or for some thing. That would be moving it in the direction of worship. In […]

[…] that comes through Patrul Rinpoche. So, for myself, and I’m speaking quite personally here, the outer one is the Karma Kagyu. Beginning prayers Ken: The Short Vajradhara Prayer is a very wonderful prayer and it represents one of the main streams of transmission from India to Tibet. And it also, in its last four […]

[…] make sure that you are aware of what you are meant to be doing at each stage. We actually start on page 17 here, with the lineage prayer. This is called The Short Vajradhara Prayer in Tibetan the rdo rje ‘chang thung ma (pron. dorjé chang tungma), which is the Tibetan for Vajradhara, thung […]

[…] faith can be used to transform the energies of emotions into the clear, open faith that I just spoke about. And that’s basically how it’s used. The prayer that we did this morning, The Far-Reaching Cry to the Guru, is an expression of that longing. And that’s how such a prayer is used. You […]

Opening prayer Ken: I think we’ll just start straight in and I have a few points that I’d like to talk about. So we’ll just see what happens this evening. We’ll begin with the lineage prayer, followed by the sanctuary or refuge, prayer, etc., as we did last time. May my heart turn to […]

[…] you say the mantra so much that the mantra replaces the subconscious gossip. And now you have a quiet mind. It’s exactly the same in the centering prayer [Jesus Prayer] in the Orthodox tradition: Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner. You do exactly the same. That’s the first step in using that […]

[…] could tie them all into one long question or I could … Ken: One by one would be better. Student: Friday you mentioned three different kinds of prayer: petition— Ken: Petitionary. Student: Yeah, and the other one I think was kind of basically mantra-ing where you repeat a mantra over and over again. And […]