Prayers
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    Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    All practices are meant to alleviate suffering, especially if it develops tranquility and insight.
    As for praying for something, can try chanting green tara mantra. If one is truly overwhelmed, should also consider finding a counsellor or someone for advise or help.
    Lama Tashi Namgyal introduction chapter of Thrangu Rinpoche book on Medicine Buddha:
    The second half of the mahayana teachings-the third turning of the wheel of dharma-goes on to teach that emptiness is not simply a mere nothingness, nor merely the other side of the coin of interdependence, nor even simply a state beyond all conceptuality. The third turning teaches that this emptiness-while lacking any limiting characteristics, such as color, shape, size, location, substance, or gender, and being empty of all cognitive and emotional obscurations-is not empty of its own nature, the radiant clarity of mind, which includes all aspects of reality and which we refer to as clear light. In this empty radiant clarity inheres as one undifferentiable quality all the positive qualities that we normally conceptualize as being distinct from one another, such as intelligence, wisdom, compassion, skillful means, devotion, confidence, healing power, etc. Various manifestations of this quality arise out of the clear light nature in the form of the deities of the vajrayana tradition such as the Medicine Buddha, Vajrayogini, Tara, Vajradhara, Vajrasattva, or Chenrezig. And although it is said, from the standpoint of relative truth, that some, if not all, of these deities actually do exist as individual beings who can be supplicated, they exist as such because, and only because, the qualities that they embody were already inherent in the clear light nature, the buddha nature, of their own minds when they were confused sentient beings, just as they inherently exist today in the minds of all confused beings.
    The essential nature of all deities can be better understood by understanding the essential nature of their body, speech, and mind. The body of the deity is the union of appearance and emptiness and emerges in the practitioner's experience when the experience of perceiver and perceived is purified. Of what is it purified? It is purified of grasping and fixation and of all the obscurations of mind that arise from grasping and fixation. It is purified of the perceptual grasping or clinging to a self, and the perceptual fixating on everything perceived as being other to the self. In the words of Guru Rinpoche, "Perceiver and perceived when purified are the body of the deity, clear emptiness.
    DailyOM - Medicine Buddha Teachings by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
    DAILYOM.COM
    DailyOM - Medicine Buddha Teachings by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
    DailyOM - Medicine Buddha Teachings by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
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    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    The speech of the deity is the union of sound and emptiness. We all know that sound is intangible, but sounds without the experience of their emptiness have tremendous power to hurt us, to insult us, to exalt us, to exhilarate us, to fascinate us, etc. But when sounds and verbal communications are experienced as mere sounds, as the union of sound and emptiness, their power over us dissolves and we experience them with perfect equanimity, and thus without being bent out of shape in any way by them.
    The mind of the deity is the union of awareness and emptiness. The experiences of the five sense consciousnesses and of the mental consciousness give rise to a constantly changing kaleidoscope of thoughts, mental afflictions, positive and negative feelings, sensations both felicitous and painful, and subtle dualistic perceptions which have the power, in the absence of the experiential understanding of their emptiness, to involve us in the most outrageous, outlandish, though sometimes very subtle, melodramas of the mind with their consequent suffering. But when the essential emptiness of all of these experiences is recognized, and one ceases to welcome and reject them, they dissolve or are self-liberated in their own place, the space of empty radiant awareness.
    All deities share these three aspects of the essential nature-which we also call mahamudra or dzogchen-and all practitioners who practice deity meditation with sufficient diligence and perseverance will come to realize this very same nature-the body, speech, and mind of the deityin themselves as they become the deity.
    At the same time, each deity has its own particular relative blessing. If one meditates on Chenrezig, ultimately one will realize mahamudra or dzogchen, and attain buddhahood, complete enlightenment. But in the short run, one will experience a strengthening of one's loving kindness and compassion. If one meditates on Green Tara, ultimately one will attain enlightenment, but in the short run, one will experience freedom from fear and mental paralysis, the increased ability to accomplish one's objectives, and an increase in active compassion. If one meditates on Manjushri, in the end one will attain enlightenment, but in the short run one will experience an increase in intelligence, insight, and wisdom. If one meditates on the Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain enlightenment, but in the meantime one will experience an increase in healing powers, both for oneself and others, and a decrease in physical and mental illness and suffering. Whether or not we have a very strong motive to attain buddhahood, we all desire these sorts of relative objectives, so deity meditation provides tremendous incentive for the practice of dharma.
    And yet deity meditation is just another version of calm abiding and vipashyana (spiritual insight). When one meditates with concentration on the deity, when one visualizes the form, the attire, the jewelry, the hand-held implements, the throne, the seat, and other attributes of the deity, when one visualizes and meditates on the entourage, the general environment, and the internal mandala of a deity, and when one recites the deity's mantra, one is cultivating calm abiding; and when one realizes that all that one is meditating on is mere empty appearance, one is cultivating spiritual insight. But because meditation on the deity and on the union of the deity and one's own root lama also instantly connects one with the empty clear light nature-which is the essence of the deity, the guru, and the lineage, as well as being one's own essential nature -the power of this way of cultivating calm abiding to purifying the mind of the practitioner of the mental obscurations blocking his or her spiritual insight is immeasurably greater than that of ordinary tranquility meditation on mundane objects like the breath or a flower or a candle flame. And since the forms upon which one is meditating are mere mental fabrications, their emptiness is more immediately apparent than, say, the emptiness of something like the Jefferson Memorial or the Washington Monument.
    This is all possible because of the special quality of the vajrayana, which takes enlightenment as the path, rather than seeing it merely as a goal. Through the three processes of 1) abhisheka (empowerment, initiation), which ripens the mental continuum; 2) oral transmission conferred through the reading of sacred texts, which transmission supports one's practice; and 3) tri-the teachings, explanations, and pointing out instructions, which liberate-one is connected directly to the enlightened state which is uncovered in us through these transmissions of the guru and the lineage. Thereafter, when one practices or merely brings to mind these teachings, transmissions, and empowerments, one is instantly reconnected with that compassionate primordial awareness, and this constant reconnecting then becomes one's path, bringing with it the rapid purification of mental defilements and the rapid accumulation of merit and wisdom. The recognition of this connection is the uncovering of one's own wisdom. If it goes unrecognized, it still exists in the practitioner's mental continuum as a seed, which will gradually ripen according to conditions, principal among which is perseverance in practice.
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