Endless Boon of the Awakened Heart

Endless Boon of the Awakened Heart
The Practice of Loving Eyes with 1000 Arms
and the Eight Verses of Mind-Training
Preparation
Seated comfortably, generate a virtuous motivation through refuge, bodhicitta and four immeasurables.
Then review the stages of the path (lam-rim), evoke the presence of your mentor in the form of Loving
Eyes with 1000 arms, go through the seven-fold bonding process and make a mandala offering.
Refuge and Bodhicitta
I go for refuge until I am Awakened
To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
By the energy I create through generosity and the other perfections,
May I become Awakened for the sake of all living beings.
The Four Immeasurable Thoughts
May all beings abide in impartiality, free from bias and prejudice.
May all beings experience true happiness.
May all beings be free of distress.
May all beings know the joy of Awakening.
Review the Stages of the Path (Lam Rim)
(From Foundation of All Good Qualities)
Awakened Mentor and Seeking Inspiration
The foundation of all good qualities is my kind and virtuous mentor;
Correct devotion to him is the root of the path.
By clearly seeing this and applying great effort,
Please bless me to rely upon him with great respect.
Precious Life and Taking its Essence
Understanding that the precious freedom of this rebirth is found only once,
Is greatly meaningful and difficult to find again,
Please bless me to generate the mind that unceasingly,
Day and night, takes advantage of this priceless opportunity.
Death and Seeking Refuge
This life is as impermanent as a water bubble;
Remember how quickly it dissolves and death comes.
After death, just like a shadow follows the body,
The results of good and bad actions follow precisely.
Karma and Practicing Virtue
Finding firm and definite conviction in this,
Please bless me always to be mindful
To abandon even the slightest of negativities
And accomplish all virtuous deeds.
Suffering and Developing Renunciation
Seeking worldly pleasures is the door to all suffering;
They are uncertain and unreliable.
Recognizing these shortcomings,
Please bless me to generate the strong wish for the bliss of liberation.
2 Evoke Loving Eyes in 1000-armed form
After ten cycles of breath meditation, visualize at the level of your forehead at a distance of a body’s
length in front of you, your kind mentor manifesting in the form of Loving Eyes with 1000-arms, standing
on a moon disc that rests upon a lotus. Two of his arms are joined in the prayer position holding the wishfulfilling jewel. Another left hand holds a lotus flower and in another right hand, a crystal rosary, used to
count repetitions of the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, which liberates all beings from suffering. Loving
Eyes’ body is in the nature of a hologram radiating light and he wears the silks and ornaments of an
Awakened altruist. He smiles with the deep understanding of ultimate reality and his eyes gaze upon all
beings with love and compassion.
Perform Seven-fold Bonding
Admire
Respectfully, I prostrate with my body, speech and mind
and wish to acquire all your exceptional qualities
Offer
I present clouds of offerings, actual and imagined
to delight you and feel closer in our bond
Disclose
I non-defensively declare all my negatives, feel sincere
regret and resolve with your help to be more mindful
Rejoice
I rejoice in the virtues of all realized and ordinary beings
and long to convert competition into teamwork
Request Guidance
Please mentor, teach reality to all living beings,
show us how to transform sorrow into unexcelled bliss.
Request Presence
Please remain ever available and reliable as our guide until compulsive living ends
Dedicate
I dedicate the energy created by myself and others to the great Awakening.
Offer Mandala
Imagining our world, purified of greed, hatred and ignorance, and restored to natural balance and
harmony, held gently in your hands as a gift to the Awakened. Making the offering gesture (mudra) think:
Here is the great earth,
Filled with the smell of incense,
Covered with a blanket of flowers,
The Great Mountain, the Four Continents,
Wearing a jewel of the Sun and Moon.
In my mind I make them a paradise of the Awakened,
And offer it all to you.
By this deed may every living being
Experience a Pure World.
IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALAKAM NIRYATAYAMI
I offer this jeweled paradise to the mentors!
3 Actual Practice
As you recite the text pause after each stanza and contemplate its meaning. Imaging your mentor as
Loving Eyes emitting a beautiful white light, a blissful nectar, from his heart that fills you, purifying your
negativities caused by self-interest and kindling your highest potential for wisdom and compassion.
(1)
With the thought of attaining Enlightenment
For the welfare of all beings,
Who are more precious than a wish–fulfilling jewel,
I will constantly practice holding them dear.
(2)
Whenever I am with others,
I will practice seeing myself as the lowest of all,
And from the very depths of my heart
I will respectfully hold others as supreme.
(3)
In all actions I will examine my mind
And the moment a disturbing attitude arises,
Endangering myself or others,
I will firmly confront and avert it.
(4)
Whenever I meet a person of bad nature,
Overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear
As if I’ve found a precious treasure.
(5)
When others out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
(6)
When someone I have benefited and in whom
I have placed great trust hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person
As my supreme teacher.
(7)
In short, I will offer directly and indirectly
Every benefit and happiness to all beings, my mothers.
I will practice in secret taking upon myself
All their harmful actions and sufferings.
(8)
Without these practices being defiled
By the stains of the eight worldly concerns,
By perceiving all phenomena as illusory,
I will practice without grasping to release all beings
From the bondage of the disturbing unsubdued mind and karma.
4 Completion
Request for Blessing
Make the following request:
Most compassionate one, Loving Eyes, please hold me and all other living beings in the tender embrace
of your 1000 arms. Be our mentor guide forever and quickly lead us to the supreme Awakening!
Insert any other personal requests…
Absorb Loving Eyes
Then your mentor as Loving Eyes melts into light from the top of his head and the tips of his toes inwards
towards his heart until all that remains is a drop of light, like a tear of joy, coalescing his nondual wisdom
and compassion. That drop comes to the top of your head, slips past your crown, throat and heart,
purifying your body, speech and mind, and at the heart center melts inseparably with your own inner
guide. Instantly, you become one with Loving Eyes, like a drop merging with the ocean. Feel the joy and
inspiration of that merger resonating at your heart, which then naturally kindles the wish to share it with all
living beings.
Recite Mantra
The wisdom and compassion at your heart resonates with the sound of the six-syllable mantra OM MANI
PÄDME HUM. Imagine beams of light radiating outwards from your heart center in all directions,
touching every living being, purifying their obscurations and kindling their highest potential. They all look
at you basking in white radiance and are inspired to likewise care for others. The entire universe is
brought into a loving embrace of selfless interconnectivity. As you concentrate on this visualization, recite
the mantra as many times as you can, imagining both light and resonance liberating all living beings.
Pronounced OM MANI PEME HUM translates as Jewel in the Lotus
and means to Achieve Awakening through nondual wisdom and compassion
Conclusion
At the conclusion of reciting the mantra imagine all living beings have been installed in the state of perfect
happiness. The light rays you have been emitting outwards to the ends of the universe return in a wave of
solidarity with all beings, and arrives back at your heart center. The blissful drop of nondual compassion
and wisdom of interconnectivity continues to resonate at your heart, and carries on between practice
sessions.
Dedication
Make the following dedications:
May the suffering of all living beings ripen upon me right now, and may they all receive my happiness and
virtue.
Through this and all my future lives, may I never be separated from precious teachings and expert
mentors pointing the way to ultimate reality.
May the precious Awakened Heart that has not yet arisen begin to blossom, and may the boon which has
already ripened never decay but increase forever more.
Through these spiritual activities, may I quickly attain the state of Loving Eyes and, without exception,
lead all livings beings to Awakening.
5 Colophon: Prepared by Dr. Miles Neale under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Loizzo for the Nalanda
Institute. Based on the Ever Flowing Nectar of Bodhicitta composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche (1946 -)
and the Eight Verses of Mind-Training by Langri Tangpa Dorje Sange (1054-1123) translated by Tsem
Tulku. Image of Loving Eyes with permission by Carmen Mensink from www.tibetanthangkapainting.com
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