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Padmasambhava Day

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
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Upasakas, upasikas, mitras and friends. Everybody knows of course that today is Padmasambhava Day. We*re not only celebrating Padmasambhava Day but we*ve also had, as most of you know, as most of you have seen, the unveiling of our Nalanda Crest. There is a sort of indirect connection one could say because

there is an association between Padmasambhava and Nalanda, and there*s also an association between the symbolism of the Nalanda Crest and the symbolism of the life of Padmasambhava himself, in fact even the name of Padmasambhava himself As we may see in a minute or two, Padmasambhava was associated with the

great monastic university or spiritual community of Nalanda, whose crest it is adorns our gateway. And of course part of the crest is a lotus, a lotus symbolizing spiritual birth, spiritual rebirth, and of course Padmasambhava himself symbolizes that, in fact his name Padma Sambhava means the one who is born from the lotus, the one who is spiritually born, the one even who is spiritually reborn.

Now some of you may know, some of you may remember, quite a few years ago on one of our Padmasambhava Day celebrations, I gave a talk about the life of Padmasambhava. And you may recollect that we saw then that Padmasambhava was born, so to speak (you*ll see the significance of that remark in a moment), born so to speak in India in the eighth century, that he came from a princely family, he left home like the Buddha, he became a monk, he became a Tantric

teacher, a Tantric guru, became a great pundit, scholar, renowned for his psychic powers, his mastery of yoga and was altogether doing so to speak very well indeed in the world of Indian Buddhism, when there came one day to him a message, an invitation, from the kingdom of Tibet, which was of course in those days very, very far away indeed from India. And perhaps he*d never thought of going to Tibet, going to the Land of Snows, but he did think about it now, he thought very seriously and in the end he decided to go.

He was rather badly needed there it seems because some efforts were being made to introduce Buddhism into Tibet, into the Land of Snows, but there were obstacles. A great monastery, the monastery of Samye, was being built, and it was being built by someone who had also gone on invitation to Tibet, the

bodhisattva Shantarakshita, usually known as the Bodhisattva Abbott, so he was trying to build this great monastery of Samye which was to be a centre for the propagation of the Dharma in Tibet, but he wasn*t able to do it. He built a little bit and then, mysteriously, when they came to look in the morning,

there was nothing there. The bricks that they*d put together, the stones that they*d put together, had mysteriously all gone back to their original places. And those of you who*ve had this sort of experience, and those of you who were, until quite recently, you know, building, or re-building Sukhavati, might

have almost thought some mornings when you went back to work to carry on from where you*d left off the previous night, it might have seemed as though some mysterious agency in the course of the night had undone your work and that you had to start all over again!

But that was certainly the case in respect of Samye, the work was undone. And according to tradition, according to the story, according to the legends, it was the work of the nagas, it was the work of the gods and demons of Tibet. They were for some strange reason of their own not in favour of the Dharma, not

in favour of the teaching of the Buddha being introduced into Tibet, into the Land of Snow, so they opposed it with all their might. And the Bodhisattva Abbott, Shantarakshita, he was a very good man. He explained the Dharma very beautifully, the ten Ways of Skilful Action, the four Noble Truths, even the twelve links of conditioned co-production, he explained all these things, all these teachings very beautifully, very clearly, but it seems that though the king was impressed, and though the people of Tibet

were impressed, the gods and demons of Tibet were not impressed at all, so they continued to undo his work. And of course in desperation Padmasambhava was eventually sent for. The Bodhisattva Abbott said to the king, “There is in India, there is at Nalanda, a great teacher, who is not only well versed in

Buddhist philosophy, not only well versed in Buddhist meditation, but a master of the occult arts and the occult sciences. He will tame the gods and demons of Tibet.” So Padmasambhava was sent for, and he came and he did tame the gods and demons of Tibet and that is quite an interesting story. He didn*t have to spend it seems very long, at least according to some accounts, didn*t have to spend a very long time in Tibet, some accounts mention only eighteen

months, but that was enough. He subdued those gods and demons, he subdued those tremendous forces and the Dharma was eventually established very firmly, very securely, in Tibet, and Padmasambhava departed. We*re told that he departed for the Land of the Rakshitas, wherever that may be.


So this is the story, this is the story of the life of Padmasambhava as it has come down to us as it were through historical sources. This is not the whole story, this is the story which is accessible so to speak to secular history and it*s this story which, as I said a few moments ago, I recounted some years ago when we celebrated Padmasambhava Day - I believe it was at Archway, at Pundarika.


So I*m not going to repeat this story, this ordinary story, of the life of Padmasambhava in detail this evening. This evening I want to go off in a rather different direction. I want to explore a rather different dimension as it were of this whole question, of this whole story if you like, of Padmasambhava. And I*m going to take as my starting point the fact that Padmasambhava in Tibet, especially among the Nyingmapas who regard themselves as his followers, is very often referred to as the Second Buddha. Now that might seem rather extraordinary. You might be thinking, how could there possibly be a second Buddha?

We all know that the first Buddha is Sakyamuni, and he*s called the first because at a time when the Dharma, that is to say the path to enlightenment, the path to the transcendental state of enlightenment, was not known, he opened it up yet again. There had of course been Buddhas in the previous ages of prehistory, there had been Buddhas in previous world periods, but they had come and they had gone. Their teaching had flourished for a while, then it had

disappeared and was not known perhaps for thousands upon thousands of years. That is the tradition. So the Buddha appeared, or an individual, a gifted, a supremely spiritually gifted individual, appears at a time when the Dharma, when the path to enlightenment is not known, and he re-discovers that path, he opens up that path again to the fate of humanity. And because he is the first, because he shows the way and others follow after him, he is known as the

Buddha. This is what Buddha means technically speaking. It*s not just the enlightened one, not just one who has realized Nirvana, not one who has reached the highest degree of human perfection, not simply that, but one who has reached it by his own efforts at a time when it was not known and not accessible.

And by reaching it, by achieving it, by realizing it himself, makes it possible yet again for other people to follow that same path which he treads, and to realize that same supreme state of Nirvana, or highest human perfection. So this is what we mean by a Buddha.

And there cannot therefore be another Buddha until the Dharma has been lost again, and has to be rediscovered again. So Padmasambhava came at a time when the Buddha*s Dharma was still flourishing. He himself studied that Dharma. He became a monk under that Dharma. He taught that Dharma. So how is it, why is

it, that Padmasambhava by his followers, his Nyingmapa followers, is called the Second Buddha? What does this mean? Well, perhaps we can understand this a little more clearly if we as it were change the word Buddha..

Padmasambhava is the Guru, and in the Life of Padmasambhava, from which you*ve been reading today, or which you*ve been hearing read today, Padmasambhava is very often referred to as the Guru. So let*s not speak of the first Buddha and the second Buddha, let*s speak of the Buddha and the Guru, the Buddha being the Buddha in the full sense, and Padmasambhava being the Guru in the full sense.

You*ve got the Buddha and you*ve got the Guru. When I say Guru I don*t mean by Guru here guru in the ordinary sense of spiritual teacher, it*s much more than that as you*ll see in a minute. If we go through the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, this big red book, you*ll find that there*s a chapter which

speaks of the Buddhas and Gurus appearing at various times, different ages. It says, In such and such age, in such and such period, came such and such Buddha, and just after him there came, as it were, a second Buddha, a Guru, of that particular period. So according to the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava you*ve not only got a Buddha coming in every period and every age, you*ve got also as it were following on his heels quite closely a Guru. So why is this, what does this mean?

So it*s into this that I want to go a little bit this evening, because this is very important for understanding the significance of the life of Padmasambhava, the part which he plays in the Nyingmapa tradition and the part which he plays or that which he symbolizes plays in the sort of spiritual economy of the cosmos so to speak including our own age and our own generation.

So I want as it were to enlarge the context a bit. I*m not going to speak just of the Buddha and the Guru, I*m going to speak of four as it were personalities, or if you like, four archetypes. I*m going to say first of all something about what is known as the Manu, then I*m going to say something about the Buddha, and then I*m going to say something about the Guru, and then I*m going to say something about the Terton, whatever that may be, you*ll discover in a few moments if you don*t already know.

So first of all let me say a few words about the Manu. We*re here as it were preparing the ground. What does one mean by the Manu? I don*t know how many of you have heard this word or this term before, the Manu M-A-N-U. It*s of course a Sanskrit word. Let me get into it, let me try to explain it, in this way.

Let me go back to my days in India with the ex-untouchable Buddhists. Most of you know that I spent quite a bit of time amongst these ex-untouchable Buddhists in India, and it was shortly after the mass conversion of these people to Buddhism under the leadership of Dr. B .R. Ambedkar. He died of course


six weeks after that mass conversion ceremony, and I spent a lot of time going from village to village trying to teach these people, or some of them at least, the Dharma, inasmuch as they did now call themselves Buddhists, so I took the view that they might as well know what Buddhism actually was since they called themselves Buddhists, and some effort to practise it.

So I was going around from village to village and town to town and city to city, sometimes for the whole of the winter period, giving lectures, giving initiations, performing ceremonies of various kinds and especially wedding ceremonies which were in great demand, people wanted to have real, genuine, one hundred per cent Buddhist weddings, so in this way I spent a lot of time each winter.

And I used to go among other places to Bombay. And in Bombay I had not only lots of ex-untouchable Buddhist friends, I had other friends of various communities and in particular I had a friend who was originally from Poland, he was a Pole. By birth he was a Polish Jew and he was a little old man, just

like a gnome. He was only about four feet six high, he was about sixty five at that time, he had a little bald head and though he*d been born as a Jew, he*d become a Catholic, he*d become a Jesuit priest. But eventually he*d given it all up, he*d come to India and he*d become a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, he

was very much into Kadhi (?) He wore very thick white homespun and he eventually became a follower of Krishnamurti and he was a great friend of mine. And he had rather a caustic tongue and he used to be very fond of giving me good advice. At that time I was still in my early and middle thirties, he was about sixty five and therefore he considered himself fully qualified and in fact entitled to give me as much good advice as I needed. So I was actually one

day in Bombay staying with him in his very beautiful flat which he shared with a Parsee lady even more eccentric than himself, who was aged then about eighty, aged about eighty, who was also a follower of Krishnamurti.

So I came there and I spent a few days and I was a bit tired. I was a bit tired after all these journeyings from village to village and all these lectures I*d been giving. So Maurice, his name was Maurice, Maurice, as soon as I*d been given a cup of tea, Maurice said in his usual fatherly way, he said,

Sangharakshita, you*re wasting your time!” He said, “You*re wasting your time trying to teach Buddhism to these people.” So he couldn*t resist the temptation to be a little caustic, as it were, he said, “In fact you*re wasting your time trying to be a Buddha for these people, and teach them Buddhism.” He said, “What they really need is Manu.”

What is a Manu? Well I didn*t need to ask Maurice what a Manu was because I knew very well what a Manu was. I knew exactly what he meant. I mean, I must say after thinking it over I inclined to agree with him. But of course some of you will be wondering, those of you who haven*t been properly brought up, you*ll be wondering what a Manu is. I mean, is it some kind of India sweetmeat, or is it a musical instrument, or what it is.

So let me just explain. A Manu is a primeval law-giver. According to Hindu, or perhaps I should say according to general Indian cosmological cosmo genetical belief, at the beginning of each world period, when the human race as it were reappears (they don*t quite believe in Darwinian evolution you*ll

gather from this), but when the human race reappears, there reappears with the human race, at the very dawn of what we would call history, thousands and thousands of years ago, a great law-giver who lays down the basis of society, and he is called a Manu. Manu is supposed to be connected etymologically with

manus which means mind, which is also connected with manutia (?) which is human being, so these are all interconnected. A manutia, a human being, is one endowed with mind and a manu is similarly one who is archetypically human, he is the archetypal human being so to speak, the one archetypally endowed with

mind, the law-giver who guides the whole of society, who lays the basis for a positive social life, who lays the basis we may say of the positive group. So you have the Manu right at the beginning. So why is this? Why does the Manu come right at the beginning according to general Indian belief*? Well, he comes right at the beginning for a very good, for a very important reason which is that humanity needs him. Humanity needs society. Humanity needs social

organization, but that social organization must be on the basis of certain not just social but moral, ethical, ultimately spiritual principles, in other words the whole of social life, social life in all its aspects, must be so organized as to make the spiritual life possible, or even to prepare people for the spiritual life. So this is the function of the Manu. He is the law-giver.

So what my friend was really meaning, and what I really agreed with, was until you*ve got society organized in such a way that it reflects at least ethical

values, until society can prepare the individual human being ethically, there*s not much point in preaching so to speak very lofty, purely spiritual, even transcendental ideals. You need the positive group so to speak, to use our own terminology, before you can have the spiritual community. You need the FWBO

before you can have the WBO, at least historically if not in principle. This is what he was getting at and with this that I was very much inclined to agree. In fact it had so happened that I was in fact doing this to a certain extent in the course of my work with these ex-untouchables, I was in a sense

acting as a sort of law-giver, because I spoke about weddings, and they used to come to me and ask, well how should we perform the Buddhist wedding ceremony? So I used to say, well don*t do this and don*t do that, but do this and do that, so in a way I was acting as a sort of law-giver. It had nothing

to do with the spiritual path directly, it had nothing to do with the attainment of enlightenment, far from it, but that was as it were a necessary basis in society, in social life, in even family life preparing the way for the emergence of the sort of positive, happy, healthy, human being who could then as an individual direct himself to the spiritual life and the spiritual path.

So this is the function of the Manu. So one has, according to the Indian belief, the Indian tradition, at the very beginning of things this Manu, this law-giver emerging, and laying down the laws governing society from the ethical point of view, laws which will make it possible for society, for human beings as members of a positive group, to live in such a way that later on, when a higher, transcendental teaching is proclaimed, they are able to understand it and to follow it.

So first comes the Manu. The Manu, according to this sort of teaching, prepares the way for the Buddha. lf we read the Pali scriptures, which are in a sense the oldest scriptures, the oldest Buddhist scriptures, which give us the best picture of what it was actually like in the Buddha*s day, in India,

when the Buddha lived and preached, or taught, one of the things which we notice is what a high standard of social and cultural life there was at that time, how harmonious their social life seems to be, how dignified their religious life was, how courteous people were, with what courtesy they discussed and argued even when they differed very, very drastically about their religious opinions.

So one has the impression that there was a very high, a very noble degree of social organization, a very pure, a very noble cultural life, and it was because the way had been prepared, the basis had been laid, that the Buddha was able to gain such a ready hearing. If the Buddha had appeared amidst, say, a tribe of savages, he would not have gained a very ready hearing. His teaching was very subtle. It presupposed a great social and cultural development. So the Manu, so to speak, prepares the way for the Buddha. So this is what we mean by the Manu, and as I said, he prepares the way for the Buddha.

So what do we mean by the Buddha? This is much more easy for us to understand - I need not spend so much time about this. As I said a little earlier on,

the Buddha is the one who shows the way. Society may be very happy, it may be very healthy, it may be very human, but the path to the transcendental may still not be known, it may still have to be opened up, it may still have to be discovered, and that is the work of the Buddha. lt*s a very difficult work

in a way because sometimes the social and cultural development is so high, so refined, that people think that they*ve got it all. They don*t realize that there is something far beyond, there is something purely transcendental, something transcending the social, transcending the cultural, transcending the

religious, transcending the philosophical, and this is what we call the nirvanic or that which pertains to the enlightenment experience itself, so it*s the function of the Buddha to discover that, to experience it for himself and then to as it were retrace his steps, to come back to humanity and to show them

the way to that experience. That is his function, that is his duty if you like. This is what the Buddha does, and this is what the Buddha, our Buddha, Gautama the Buddha, Shakyamuni, did. So he proclaims the teaching. He proclaims the truth. He tries to communicate to other

human beings, to other individuals or to incipient individuals the content of his supreme experience of enlightenment, his supreme transcendental experience, so that they can be enlightened, they can be liberated, even as he is. And this is something which goes far, far beyond, immeasurably beyond,

the social and the cultural and the religious and the philosophical. It belongs to an entirely different dimension, a dimension, an experience or what you will, which is hewigenerous (?) which is not to be compared with anything else whatsoever.

So it*s not very easy for the Buddha to communicate this. He has to use the terms of the existing society, the terms of the existing culture. He sometimes has to use very general, very abstract terms. He tries to formulate a sort of philosophy, if you like, a sort of thought construction as a bridge between the minds of ordinary men and his enlightened mind, his enlightened experience, and this results in what we call the Dharma, in what we call Buddhism.


But we find that this is communicated in as it were very general terms. A Buddha does not live very long. A Buddha lives only for forty or fifty years. And that is not very long to communicate the truth. The Buddha communicated the truth in very general terms. Because of the tremendous force of his individual

personality he was able to influence, he was able to transform the lives of many, many people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, but nonetheless if we look at the formulation of the teaching it is very general. It is even, one might say, very abstract. One has the Four Noble Truths, one has the

Eightfold Path. One has the twelve, the twenty-four links of the chain of conditioned co-production. In a way that is abstract, that is to say, it can be rationally, it can be intellectually communicated. It is aimed more at the mind, it is aimed more at the intelligence. Why is this?

Because it*s the intelligence which is as it were the growing point of humanity. We grow first of all as it were in our intelligence, intellectually, if you like theoretically, we understand things and a long time afterwards the rest of our being, the rest of our personality, especially our emotions, catch

up. This is why as I*ve often said the path of vision is short, the path of transformation is long. Though the path of vision is not just as it were theoretical and mental but even so the principle is the same.

So the Buddha, Shakyamuni, Gautama the Buddha, had as it were time to proclaim the teaching only in as it were a rather general way. That is to say if one considers humanity as a whole, if one considers the cosmos as a whole, he appealed, he addressed his teaching mainly to the conscious, rational part of


man. A teaching which is able to appeal to another aspect, another part so to speak of man, takes a long time to develop, a much longer time to develop, more time than one individual human teacher, even a Buddha, has at his disposal. So a lot must happen after his death, so to speak, after his, in the case of the Buddha, his Parinirvana. He has made a start. He has touched as it were the comparatively more superficial levels, that is to say, so far as the mass of humanity is concerned. But the deeper, as it were psychic levels, he hasn*t on, as it were a mass scale, yet touched.

So who does that? That is the work of the Guru. That is to say not just guru in the ordinary sense, Guru with a capital G if you like, that is the work of - in the case of this particular period - Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava is the one who subdues the demons. That is his principle work. Subdues the gods and

demons of Tibet particularly. So the Buddha, if we look at the life of Shakyamuni the Buddha, yes he did subdue the odd god and the odd demon, he took Brahmasahampati and various brahmas down a peg or two, he had various dealings with nagas, serpent deities, but that is not the emphasis in the life of the Buddha. The emphasis in the life of the Buddha historically speaking is the communication of the teaching in a clear and rational manner to the individual as it were mental consciousnesses of ordinaryhuman beings. So far so good.

But, we may say, the Buddha, inasmuch as he taught only for thirty-five, forty-five years, which is not a very long time, did not have time to bite very deep into as it were the collective psyche. Yes he led hundreds, thousands of individual human beings, but that was only a beginning. What needed to be done was to influence on deeper and deeper levels what one can only describe as the archetypes of the collective unconscious, to coin or to borrow a Jungian phrase. Don*t take it too literally. But the Buddha*s teaching -and it was still the Buddha*s teaching - had to bite much more deeply into the general consciousness of humanity, if you like into, in a manner of speaking, the consciousness of the world, or even the consciousness of the universe. And this is where the Guru comes in. It*s as though he doesn*t add anything, he doesn*t teach anything different, he doesn*t have any additional teaching, but he is concerned more with the transformation of the depths. And this is why he figures as the subduer of the gods and demons.

Now who or what are these gods and demons? They*re not just mythological figures, they*re forces within the human mind itself They*re forces existing at a very deep level, not only within the individual mind, they exist as it were where the individual mind ends and the collective mind, the collective

consciousness, the collective unconscious begins, but which at the same time influence and affect every individual conscious mind, especially until such time as it has attained a degree or a level of superconsciousness. So those forces, those primordial forces, those archetypal images if you like existing at these deeper levels have also to be tackled if there is to be a thorough-going transformation of the spiritual life of humanity.

So this is what Padmasambhava does. This is the prominent feature in the life of Padmasambhava. He tackles the gods and the demons. Not just the gods and demons of Tibet, not just the gods and demons of India, but the gods and demons of the world, the gods and demons of the East, the gods and demons of the

West, and in the West we*ve got a lot of demons! Which require quite a lot of tackling! And this is one of the reasons why we celebrate Padmasambhava Day in the West, because that is the sort of ideal, if you like, that is the sort of help that we need to invoke. It*s not enough to scratch the rational

surface of our minds. We have to penetrate to the depths, we have to drop as it were a sort of depth charge and blow up all those primordial forces which are sort of holding us down and holding us back.

Now it*s easy to talk about these primordial forces. Jung talks about them at great length, the archetypes of the collective unconscious. It all sounds so easy. It sounds so smooth, as though we know all about it, but do we? What are these? What are they like? And in the life of Padmasambhava there are some

pictures, some very interesting pictures, some very vivid descriptions of some of them. I*m going to read just a few passages to give you some idea, because one shouldn*t really here engage in abstract descriptions, one wants to bring oneself as it were right up against these forces in a very vivid and concrete manner.

These have got various names. They*re called, yes, gods, they*re called demons, they*re also called dakinis. The dakinis appear again and again in the Life of Padmasambhava. They represent these primordial energies but of a particular kind or in the particular aspect. They*re very strange, but they*re within

all of us and we have to come to some sort of terms with them. So all right, let*s just introduce ourselves to a few of them. I*ll read just a few passages, and let*s see what you make of them. The text is describing some of Padmasambhava*s relatively early encounters with some of the gods and demons,

this time of Tibet, sorry of India, and especially with dakinis. Padmasambhava goes to burning grounds, to cremation grounds. He practises austerities there, he meditates and the dakinis start gathering around


him and sort of looking at him and he as it were subdues them. What that means you can understand perhaps for yourselves. But describing one of these places the text says,

“There to be seen countless dakinis. Some of them have eyes that dart out sun rays, others give rise to thunderclaps and ride water buffaloes. Others hold sabres and have eyes which inflict harm. Others wear death*s heads, one above the other, and ride tigers. Others wear corpses and ride lions. Others eat entrails and ride garudas (great winged birds). Others have flaming lances and ride jackals. Others, five-faced, are steeped in a lake of blood. Others in

the numberless bands carry many generations of living beings. Others carry in their hands, their own heads, which they have severed.” (Well some of you probably have done that!) “Others carry in their hands their own hearts which they have torn out. There are others who have made gaping wounds in their own

bodies and who empty out and devour their own intestines and entrails. There are others who hide and yet reveal their male or female sexual organs, riding horses, bull, elephants.”

So some of the dakinis. These are forces, these are primordial forces so to speak, within ourselves. These are the forces which have to be subdued, which doesn*t mean just crushed, held down by force, but integrated into our conscious attitude so that our conscious attitude, our conscious being, our conscious personality if you like can be enriched so that our spiritual life isn*t just some pale anaemic thing, so that it is glowing as it were and throbbing with the energy of the dakinis, with the energy of the gods and the demons that have been tamed and transformed.

So now, another little passage. This one describes an individual dakini. The last one described a whole gang of them as it were! This one describes an

individual dakini: she*s a very interesting character. Her name is Adamantine Conqueror of Demons, (demons themselves sometimes conquer demons). “In the North-East is the dakini Adamantine Conqueror of Demons who arouses sexuality and vomits small children. She has a cranberry red body and wears

trousers of blue cotton. She has the beak of a peacock, the eyes of an owl, wears the six ornaments of bone on her pure breast, a mirror in the middle of her forehead, a vajra circle tying a tuft of hair, and in her hands are yellow vajras.”

So this is the particular dakini, Adamantine Conqueror of Demons. So these are the sort of beings that Padmasambhava subdued. So this is what Padmasambhava, this is what the Guru, represents. He represents, well, the Dharma itself. He represents Buddhism itself. He represents if you like the Buddha himself, in this particular aspect of subduer of all these primordial energies and forces within us in the depths of our own unconscious mind, so

that they can be integrated with the purer clearer energies of the spiritual life, so that our spiritual life as I*ve said is not just an anaemic and pale and sort of watery thing but pulsing with life and with energy. We*re not to cut ourselves off from these forces, from these energies, we*re not to disown them, we*re to incorporate them and integrate them which means so to speak subduing them.

Now there*s another very powerful description, a rather longer one, of a god or demon of a rather different kind, in fact of a much more monstrous kind, a much more basic kind, a much more primordial kind. You might have heard this passage some of you earlier in the day but never mind, it*s quite good to have it again. It*s a rather long one, I*m not going to read all of it, but I*m going to read quite a good chunk of it, This particular figure is known as Tharpa Nagpur. Tharpa Nagpur I think should be one of the classic figures of Buddhist mythology if you like. I think he should be much better known. Actually

of course we*re already very familiar with him but we don*t realize it. Tharpa Nagpur is Black Salvation, Black Salvation, that*s his name. So who, or what, is Black Salvation. Well originally he was a monk, he was a disciple of a guru in an ordinary sense, and along with him there was another disciple, and some misunderstanding developed between the two disciples. Tharpa Nagpur - he wasn*t that originally, but anyway let*s call him that Tharpa

Nagpur was a bit proud, a bit vain, a bit conceited and there was once it seems an argument between him and the other disciple and the guru decided that the other disciple was right and Tharpa Nagpur was wrong. So his ego was so affronted, he was so angry that he just left, he virtually disowned the guru, he went his own way. And he did all sorts of rather terrible, even rather horrible things and he had a long series of unfortunate births and then he as it were becomes Tharpa Nagpur, Black Salvation, proper. So I*m going to start reading from that point and let*s see how far we get.

In fact I*ll go back a little bit to the end of that particular life and then we*ll go through those rebirths, then to his existence as Tharpa Nagpur.


“Then the monk Tharpa Nagpur, turning himself to the activities of the hunt and other worldly ways, incapable of reciting the formulas for the contemplation of the gods, violated in his savage soul his vows to superior and brother, enlarged and multiplied endlessly the doors of the Dharma instead

of weighing the two doctrines (that is to say the Sutra and the Tantra) as he should have. Tharpa, following the inclination of the logic (mind you, the logic) dear to himself led everyone astray on an evil path. In his aberration he freed the male demons and gathered the female demons under his power. And

he took the dead into the charnel houses in order to have his fill of them. He put on human skins which caused him to have scabs. Instead of cattle he raised blood hounds and other beasts with rapacious instincts. Assembling the courtesans he consecrated them and took sport in luxuries. The nature of the four substances was digressed. Among the ten iniquities he presided over evil hangings and the lords and the army resembled brigands.

When he had for twelve cycles practised the black doctrine, incarnations followed each other. He had five hundred existences as a black jackal, five hundred as a wandering mastiff, five hundred as a carnivorous mongoose, five hundred as a bee with a poisonous sting, and five hundred as a nimble worm.

Still more he had as a ghost, a sucker of feet and other inconceivable things. And five hundred as an eater of vomit, and others lower than the rank of animals. After various births lower than the rank of ghosts he received a new form as a flesh-eater, gnawer of bones. Again he was reborn with neck and shoulders rotten, pus ghosts, made eager to make enquiries.

Then at the end of 20,000 existences, after the teaching of the Buddha Dipankara, that of Shakyamuni not having yet appeared, and in this interval many years having passed in the absence of the teaching, in Lankapura, the Land of the Ogres, a courtesan, Kontiku (?), wandering everywhere, mated with a mara

at twilight and a demon at midnight, and a genie of the dawn also mated with her and she conceived, the fathers being three fierce spirits. There was born at the end of eight months a child with three heads. lt had six hands, it had four feet, it had two wings which pushed into its body, it had nine eyes,

three on each head, it presented multiple appearances. As soon as it was born, calamity announced itself Sickness filled the Land of Lanka. The amount of merits done declined. Famines, wars, epidemics and the three scourges increased, and there were nightmarish dreams of many deadly beings.

Nine months after his birth the child fell ill and Kontiku herself died. The people of the land said, “This bastard of ill omen must be disposed of secretly. In the roots of the funerary tree was a poison, nalguee. There was the black swine of the tombs, (?), in the midst of which was the venomous

serpent, the container of height. And at the peak was the nest of the kite of desire. Yogas bring their dead to this place. This is the haunt of the elephant and the tiger, and here reptiles instill their poison. It is also here that the dakinis convey the corpses and here at the root of the tree that the ogres build their tombs. The child was buried with the dead mother.

Now, embracing his mother, the child nursed her breast with the result that he sustained life for seven days with the yellow fluid. Then by sucking her blood he lived seven days. Then by eating her breasts he lived seven days. Then by eating her viscera he lived seven days. Then by eating her flesh behind he lived seven days. Then by eating her bone marrow, the crupid (?) spine marrow and by eating the brain he lived a span of seven days.

For forty-two days his body grew, and when he no longer had anything to eat, he shook and made the tomb collapse. On looking inside the dakinis saw that the cadaver had been devoured. Having eaten her flesh and drunk her blood, he had also taken her skin as a tunic and her skull for a cup of bloody

libations. Seeing a serpent he made himself an anklet for his foot, a bracelet and a necklace. Finding a dead elephant he ate his flesh and stretched out his skin. He drank the blood and ate the flesh of a tiger and his used its pelt as a cloak.

Then from his mouth he produced the fixed form of a curd of blood and from his body disposed of a small pile of ashes. And he who had eaten his mother for nourishment and dressed himself in her raw skin, who in his thirst had drunk her blood and who in action had perpetrated crime, who had lived off the dead,

had a complexion which shone with light, white on the red, on the right, red on the left, blue in the middle. His faces were fierce. His giant body was a pale ash colour. His face was maliciously gracious with coarse muscular bundles of rough flesh. He attached on one side of himself a row of withered heads and hung fresh heads about him. He made himself a garland of three fringes dangling with skulls, and he oiled all his cheeks with red semen. On his body a swine skin grew. His mouth and eyes were scarlet, his mop of hair red with the mud of his hanging curls. He tied a knot of half length with five kinds of

asps. Armed with bird claws on all his limbs he tied to these in turn the serpents of five species. He swallowed voraciously flesh and blood, every cray (?) which he could seize. Boar spears and whatever could serve as a weapon he carried. From his left hand he drank from the skull filled with blood. His

breath gave rise to all contagions of heat, his nose to the various kinds of cold illness.” Well, it goes on and on like that!

“Manifold and terrifying ravages were spread abroad. By name he was called The One Who Devours His Mother, Matarangara (?). At this time twenty-four

countries had formidable and irresistible masters. The countries of Purivarmalaya, Jalangara, Uddiyana, and Aribuddha were seized by the gods. Godavari, Ramishvara, Devikota, Amalava, all minor countries were seized by the Gandava. All eight which the gods and Gandava seized were of celestial rank. Because they had been seized by those from heaven kamarupa and Odivisha were seized by the yaksha. Trishakun and Koshala, minor countries, were later seized by the yaksha. Kolinga, Lampaka and Shandola were seized by the ogres. Kanshi, the Himalaya and Upashandoha were seized by the ogres and constituted the earthly empire. Pretapoori and Grihadevata were places of

assembly seized by the nagas. Surastra and Subarandawipa were minor places seized by the nagas. Nagara and Sindu cemeteries were seized by the asuras. Mara and Kaluta also minor cemeteries were also seized by the asuras. Nagas of the nagaloka and titans of the Krips of Mern - these were said to be of the lower

domain. The haughty masters of the world, taking life from the inhabitants of the earth with battleaxes, pitchforks, boar spears, swords, wore eight macabre suits of bones and told their wives at the time of marriage, “We who are happy and without rivals will fall into civil war for lack of a chief,

lose our means of eating and drinking and find ourselves enmired in quarrel and battle. The very strong one, Great Lord, Great God, Magic Coffer, who commands all through action, Matarangara, this is the chief to take. And to make deeds conform to the principles, we in the Bhuta, devourers of life, whether it be of the body, speech or mind, promise never to tremble at his orders.”

“Thus Matarangara became chief of the entire world of the genies.” Just a bit more.

“All were eager for the magic coffer, the Viganas day and night perpetually guarded their sinister chief A multitude of Bhutas, the non-human beings, crowded around, battering everyone, seizing living human beings and making slaves of each one, or slaves of slaves. The great strength of the formidable one crushed his adversaries and at that time all who died went to hell.

“Now,” he said, “I must announce the renowned of the world according to merit. Who is greater than I? Who surpasses me?” In a frenzy of pride he talked such nonsense. “We need an army of burning fire, I will create it. I am the Lord of all the Bhutas. If any other lord excels me, to that one will I submit.” Pride thus proclaimed him to the ten points of space, obscured his mind.”

So what a tremendous demoniacal figure. What sort of feeling, what sort of image, does this conjure up? It*s this sort of thing that Padmasambhava was up against. It*s in a way this sort of thing that we*re up against! Because this great figure, Matarangara, is lurking in the depths of our own mind, in fact lurking in the depths of all our minds, lurking in the depths of the collective unconscious, lurking in the world, lurking in mundane existence, in fact in a sense is mundane existence, in a sense doesn*t even lurk! Later on in the story, this great Rudra, this great fierce one, that is to say Tharpa Nagpur,

Black Salvation, is subdued is by a sort of incarnation of Padmasambhava in a very strange and dramatic way. We*re not going into that now, we*re not going into that this evening. But subdued he was, and transformed into a protector of the Dharma, even he.

So from these sort of figures, these strange figures of the gods and demons, the dakinis, this sort of cosmic figure, the Black Salvation, we can get some idea of the work, some idea of the task of Padmasambhava, some idea of the task of the Guru, what the Guru has to transform, and what in a sense we too have to transform.

When I was reading that passage about Matarangara, I was reminded of a few similar figures in our own tradition in the West, perhaps not quite so

extraordinary or dramatic or powerful, but nonetheless of much the same kind which spell out much the same kind of meaning, much the same kind of message. How many of you I wonder have heard of Urizen? Urizen? Students of Blake, yes. Who is Urizen? He*s much the same sort of figure as this Matarangara, from a

somewhat different point of view. Urizen - it*s ‘your reason* according to some commentators - Urizen originally the Prince of Light, originally the illumined intelligence so to speak, fell. He falls into duality, he limits himself, he contracts and he starts seeing the world in a very narrow, limited

sort of way, just with his reason and just through his senses. So he confines himself, he constricts himself, and he sort of explores simply this constricted, confined existence being all the time in the dark, and he tries to bring everything under his own control, this is his great feature, tries to bring everything under rational control. He prescribes laws. He*s also the sort of God of the Old Testament. He tries to bind everything, hold everything down, limit everything, constrict everything. He doesn*t want anything to be free, he doesn*t want anything to be spontaneous, he wants to have it all

bound down. He wants to have it all sort of reduced to order, which is actually disorder, because the disorder which he wants to reduce to order is in fact not disorder at all, it*s just richness and creativity. So this is Urizen, the limiting reason, seeing the whole universe just in terms of the five physical senses and the rational mind. So he*s much the same sort of horrific figure as this Matarangara of the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava.


Another figure that I also think of is one that came to my mind a bit recently, and I*m sure this will be much more familiar to at least some of you than Urizen, and that is the figure of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. Some of you might have been to see that film of The Lord of the Rings, or of the first part of it rather, and there in the film as in the book the figure of Sauron appears. So who or what is Sauron? He*s a sort of almost cosmic principle of

evil that*s just trying to destroy everything good, trying to gain power, trying to gather power to himself He*s a sort of eagle personified, a sort of cosmic eagle if you like. He*s destructive, he*s negative, he*s death, he*s poison, for he*s trying to bring everything under his control with the help of the one Ring, which of course he doesn*t get, but anyway that*s another story. Those that know it don*t need to be reminded of it. But you see the sort of

thing, you see the sort of figure, you see the sort of feeling. There are other analogues in Western traditions, but I*m not going into them this evening. So you can see what it is Padmasambhava, what it is the Guru, or the Buddha or Guru is up against. It isn*t enough to sort of skim the sort of spiritual surface of these things and ignore them, because the flames as it were are licking at your heels and you have to do something about them. You can*t just

sort of soar above them. You*ve got to descend into the flames as Blake would have said and you*ve got to transform them. You*ve got to walk in the flames and delight in the flames, enjoy the flames, and use the flames, not run away from them into some vague, ambiguous sort of light, cool and all that sort of thing.

So we see in the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, and reflected also in Western tradition, quite often we see these vast, primordial, archetypal figures and forces as something to be transformed and transfigured, not something to be disowned, something to be brought within the sphere so to speak of

the spiritual life and this is what Guru represents. This is what Padmasambhava represents, and again this is why we*re celebrating Padmasambhava Day this evening, or today in fact.

So Manu, Buddha, Guru and then we*ve got Terton. This is not a Sanskrit word as all the others were, this is a Tibetan word. Terton means a taker-out of treasures, a taker-out of treasure. Ter is treasure or what is hidden, ton is one who takes, a treasure-finder if you like.

So what is this treasure? Terma, the treasure is terma, that which has been hidden. Hidden by whom, and what has been hidden? Well, hidden by Padmasambhava. This is the Tibetan story, this is the Tibetan legend, this is if you like the Nyingmapa teaching. Padmasambhava taught in Tibet, gave many

instructions, as well as subduing the demons and the gods, but he foresaw a time when other teachings would be needed, teachings which, if he gave them then, would have been misunderstood. So according to the teaching he hides in different parts of Tibet, in fact in different parts of India too, he hides away treasures.

Some are treasures of books, but others are other things, rather strange things, rather odd things, and also there*s a chapter, a very interesting chapter,

in this Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, which deals with the termas, these hidden or secret things, and apparently they*re not just books, they*re not just material objects, there are many kinds of things. You can have mind termas. You can have termas which are hidden in the depths of the mind. You can have termas of kings. You can have termas of males. You can have termas of females. You can have termas of hermaphrodites, etc. etc.

So terma begins to mean something very strange and very mysterious. It isn*t just a book tucked away in a cave, though it can also include books tucked away in caves. It*s something rather different, more elusive, more general if you like, than that. There are eighteen kinds of termas in fact we are told.

So anyway, whatever they are, Padmasambhava, this Guru principle if you like, this transforming and transfiguring principle, hides away teachings, catalysts, inspirations if you like, in places, dimensions, where they can remain for hundreds, even thousands of years until they are needed. And then

they*ll be taken Out. And those who take them out are the tertons, who are believed to be emanations of Padmasambhava himself So this is what we*re told. This is the tradition. This is the story. This is the Nyingmapa teaching.

So what does it mean? Well it means that even Padmasambhava cannot do all the work. The Buddha as it were proclaims the teaching in a more general sort of way. Padmasambhava causes it to penetrate into the depths of the psyche, causes it to transform one might say the archetypes of the collective unconscious. But even he can*t do it once and for all. Situations change, circumstances change, teachings need to be adapted. So adaptors are needed. New versions as it were of the teaching are needed adapted to particular specific circumstances. And this is what the termas represent. They represent the transforming

principle as it were adapted to very, very specific concrete circumstances right in the here and now. This is what the tertons represent, the force of these sort of figures, along with the Manu, the Buddha and the Guru. The application of the transforming principle to particular circumstances, specific

conditions right here and now at present, inspirations as it were which come to us in the present, for our present guidance, in accordance with the general principles of the teachings, both in its visionary and also its transforming aspects.

Now, we can go a little further than that. I was talking about Tharpa Nagpur, Black Salvation, and again there*s a very extraordinary chapter, a very extraordinary passage in the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava. Tharpa Nagpur is very big, he*s very huge. He*s many sided, multi-dimensional. He doesn*t just exist as an archetype in our collective unconscious, no, he*s much more prominent, much more in evidence than that. As I suggested he can also

be regarded as this world itself, certainly the world as we perceive it, the world as we experience it, it*s a self-centred world. That*s the sort of world that we*re up against. That*s the sort of world that we have to grapple with.

I remember in this connection - and this is to diverge, or to digress a bit, but never mind, let me do that and I*ll come back to the point in a minute - quite a few years ago, shortly after I started the FWBO, a friend was driving me through the City of London. Now I*d not been driven through the City of

London before, I*d not in fact even been to the City of London before, not that is to say before in terms of my you know return to England - I might have gone through the City when I was very, very young, if so I don*t remember it - so that was probably my first time, this drive through the City of London.

When I say the City, I mean the City, you know, with a capital C, where the Stock Exchange is and where all the banks are and all that sort of thing. So as we drove through, as this friend was driving me through, I just looked from side to side. Skyscraper to the right of me, skyscraper to the left of me, bank to the right of

me, bank to the left of me, all these big, ponderous buildings, all connected with money, all connected with finance, all connected with high finance, all connected with a certain kind of power, money is power. So I said to this friend who was driving me, I said, referring to the FWBO, “This is what we*re up against”, because this is one of the demons. This money, this sort of form of power, which as it were has got out of control, out of control of the spiritual principle.

So there are economic demons. There are social demons, sociological demons. There are political demons. There are even religious demons, not to speak of the odd philosophical demon, all of whom need to be brought under control. So we mustn*t think of these demons as just sort of mythological things, you know you can*t read about it in you know sort of fairy story type books, it*s all rather nice, but you never meet a demon. You*re meeting demons all the time, of one kind and another. You*re living in a world of demons.

You*re living in a society of demons. I mean, you yourself are half demon. But it*s a good thing, provided you can subdue your demon half or your demon two-thirds, or nine-tenths or you know whatever it is, or you know your dakini half or whatever it is. But this is what again we*re up against and this is what we have to do.

So it*s not simply that we*re in the midst of demons. It*s all a demon. The world is a demon. The god of the world as it were is a demon. And that is Tharpa Nagpur. So, this particular chapter says, and here we get back to what I was talking about, that where are the termas located? Where are these

treasures located? They*re hidden away in caves, yes, they*re hidden away in the stones, yes, but what does that mean? They*re hidden in the body of Tharpa Nagpur. You*ve got one treasure hidden in his kidneys, another in his veins, another in his lungs, another in his foot, they*re all hidden in the body of Tharpa Nagpur, Black Salvation.

So what does this mean? Well, if we look at it carefully, if we want just to express it in a few words, you find the remedy where you find the disease. The remedy is found in the depths of the disease itself If you understand the disease, you arrive at the remedy. If you plunge deeply into the body, so to speak, of Tharpa Nagpur, you can take out the treasure. You don*t have to go outside the world to find the transcendental. You go very deeply into it, You

utilize it. You utilize all its forces, its energies. You integrate them with yourself And that is your spiritual life. You dig deep within the body of Tharpa Nagpur himself, this gigantic, festering, foul body, but that*s where you*ll find the treasure. And that*s as it were you anyway. So this is what is generally signified by this figure of the Terton, or the terma, the treasure, and the taker out of the treasure.

So we*ve got these four great figures. We*ve got the Manu, who represents, yes, the law-giver, the founder of the positive community. We*ve got the Buddha, the opener of the path to the transcendental, who proclaims the Dharma in a general, as it were philosophical sort of way, and then we*ve got the Guru, who

brings it right down into the depths, who subjugates, overcomes, who subdues all those forces of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, brings them into harmony with the Dharma, makes them subserve the Dharma, makes them subserve the interests and purposes of the spiritual life, and then we*ve got of

course the Terton, we*ve got the person who digs deep as it were into the body of Tharpa Nagpur and finds the exact remedy for the actual concrete situation existing now within the situation itself

So if we look at things, if we look at the figure of Padmasambhava, if we look at the figure of the Guru, within this wider framework, the framework of these four persons, as it were, these four figures, then we can get a much better idea, a much clearer conception, of what the Guru or what Padmasambhava himself really represents. He*s this as it were transforming principle which must follow in the wake of as it were the illumining principle. If we take the

Buddha as more the personification of the path of vision, Padmasambhava is more the personification of the path of transformation. And this is why he*s very much needed today, because as I*ve already indicated, we*ve got a lot to transform, not only within ourselves, but also outside ourselves. We have to transform ourselves. We have to transform the world.

So Padmasambhava represents that very powerful principle of transformation which is even more powerful than what has to be transformed. He*s the subduer of this Rudra, Tharpa Nagpur, Black Salvation, and that*s why we*re celebrating Padmasambhava Day today. And that*s why we*ve got these emblems of Padmasambhava on the shrine today. Some of you might have been wondering what they*re all about, but perhaps too much explanation isn*t really necessary, one should sort of just look at them

and try to just take in something of the feeling associated with them. Of course there*s the lotus cap, surmounted by the vajra, you all know what the vajra means or at least you can feel it, and that*s surmounted by the feather - I hope it*s a vulture*s feather - the vulture being the highest flying of all the birds. Sometimes they say eagle*s feather because - many different explanations are sometimes given and some where there should be a skull, a skull cup, and strictly speaking it should be filled with blood, at least with red wine, which represents the bliss which you sort of quaff when you experience the voidness and you have you know renounced everything, and that renunciation is bliss and that bliss is as it were quaffed from the bowl of your renunciation. And then of course there*s that staff with that same trident you know which we saw in the knoll of the crest right at the top according to some interpretations symbolizing Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, according to others symbolizing the three kayas, the Dharmakaya, Samboghakaya, Nirmanakaya,


and then there are the three heads, some say the three poisons, again some say the three kayas. You*ve got the two vajras. So this also represents the dakini, because Padmasambhava holds it in the crook of his arm so it represents the subjugated dakini principle, it represents even you could say all the

gods and demons and dakinis which Padmasambhava has subjugated which he holds in the crook of his arm which have as it were been integrated into his total being. So this is primarily what this celebration is all about, it*s about integration of all these very basic primordial energies, which take so many

negative forms in ourselves and in the world outside us. It*s all about the transformation, the integration of these energies into our own spiritual lives so they subserve those lives and into a more positive, a more creative society, in fact the spiritual community ultimately.

So this is really what we*re celebrating, Sukhavati itself, ideally, the London Buddhist Centre, itself ideally is a sort of centre of this sort, a centre of transformation, so that whatever you know comes in contact with this place, with this centre, starts being transformed. The place itself, or the people in the place itself, or the people who come to the place or belong to the place in a sense they should be strong enough and powerful enough to transform

and transfigure whatever comes into contact with them. Let all the demons come! All the gods and demons of the City of London and all the gods and demons

of the West if you like, the gods of the demons of the whole world and let them be transformed. One shouldn*t be afraid of the gods and demons. One shouldn*t be afraid of the little dakinis, even if they do ride upon buffaloes, I mean let them come! But let them be transformed. And let them contribute

to the spiritual life, let them contribute their energy to the spiritual life, not the alienated from them, from the spiritual life so that there*s a constant tension and a constant struggle between the two.

So Padmasambhava represents this principle of what we might call radical transformation. To begin with, yes, we do have a sort of idea, we have a sort of vision of the spiritual life, and in the light of that vision we try to grow. But sooner or later we have to contact all those deeper, profounder, more primordial energies within ourselves and incorporate them too into our spiritual life and our spiritual quest. Only then will our spiritual life be really

rich and really growing, and not based upon tension and not based upon struggle all the time. And we need to do much the same sort of thing within the world. It*s not that the world is bad, it*s not that the world is evil, it*s not that the world is wrong, it*s simply that the world*s energies, or the energies which are the world so-called are misguided. They*ve got to be redirected, they*ve got to be guided in the right direction. So transformation of life, transformation of world, as we saw in those talks some time ago on The Sutra of Golden Light. This also is an aspect of the message so to speak of Padmasambhava.

So today and this evening as we celebrate and let*s hope we really celebrate Padmasambhava*s Day, let*s bear in mind all these sort of things. Let*s try to realize that the spiritual life is essentially one might say, integrally a process of subjugation and incorporation and integration and transfiguration of

all the as it were grosser but very powerful and potentially very rich energies of our own consciousness, the collective unconscious even of humanity as well as of the world in general. If we think of the spiritual life in this way we shall arrive at a sort of very heroic conception of the spiritual life, a spiritual life is not a running away, a spiritual life is a facing of these energies, a facing of these forces, these processes, a subjugating of them, a transforming of them and if you like even a dragging along of them, by the hair if necessary along the path of the spiritual life. But eventually you won*t

need to drag them, they*ll sort of willing go along with you and as it were melt into your being and reinforce your energies with theirs, because ultimately they are you and their energies are your energies.

So this is the sort of thing that we have to do. We have to sort of think of ourselves as living in a sort of world of these rather scattered energies and we just have to sort of claim them and collect them and bring them together and incorporate them into the spiritual life, into the life of the spiritual community, so that our individual spiritual lives can be reinforced and the collective as it were spiritual life of the spiritual community also be reinforced.

So we have to go out in various directions as it were, and this is what we do with our Centres, with our communities, with our co-ops, they*re all ways of contacting different aspects of life and transforming them, transfiguring them because this is essentially what our whole movement is all about. It*s a

sort of transforming and transfiguring agency. It*s not simply a Buddhist movement in the narrow sense, it*s not even a spiritual movement in the narrow sense. It*s a stream of spiritual energy, you might say, which transforms or which deeply transforms and transfigures everything and everyone with whom and

with which it comes into contact. So this is what Padmasambhava did. He encountered a god, transformed it, encountered a demon, transformed it, encountered a dakini, transformed her. So this is the sort of thing that we must do: allow ourselves to be in contact with these energies, yes, well if we*re strong enough that is, not flee from them, allow ourselves to be in contact with them, especially the deeper energies within our own selves, and transform them, and go forward along the Path with renewed energy, renewed strength and renewed inspiration.

So I hope therefore that everybody who participates, who has participated, in the celebration of Padmasambhava Day, and who has listened to the readings of the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, who*s taken part in the pujas, who*s taken part in the meditations and who*s also maybe seen the unveiling of our

new Nalanda crest, will feel inspired and will feel that this is what they*ve got to do. They*ve got to transform and to transfigure everything with which they come into contact, especially everything that they come into contact with within their own selves. In this way we shall all go forward together. We shall have a more and more flourishing spiritual movement involving more and more people and doing more and more true good to the whole world, or at least to that section of it with which we come immediately into contact.




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