Teaching on ‘Precious Garland’ and Reading the ‘Letter to a Friend’ Preliminary Teaching- Day two

By Tenzin Menkyi Choglamsar, Jul 17, 2014
Choglamsar :
The second day of Preliminary Teaching began with the prayers at 8am. The verses of salutation form Nagarjuna’s Mulamadyamaka kariyaka was chanted to call on all the different kind of sentient beings; God, non-God, Ashuras, humans and others to listen to the nectar of the teaching of the Buddha.

His Holiness states, "Whatever Dharma discourse we are engaged in, we should have a pure, right and perfect motivation. From the part of the Lamas, this should be the case, particularly, with the principle of taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sanga, they must also cultivate Bodhisattva. Lamas should give teachings without any negative emotions such as; attachment, anger, jealousy, partiality and so forth. On the part of disciple, you should be devoid of the eight worldly concerns and make the Dharma a Dharma, turn the Dharma into Dharma practice, Mahayana Dharma into Mahayana Dharma and sacred Vajrayana teachings into sacred Vajrayana teachings. As the past masters used to say; It is not sufficient for the Dharma to be of Mahayana Dharma but the person himself or herself must be infused with Mahayana principles. Therefore is important for both the Lama and disciple, to have a correct motivation. And also to distinguish ourselves from the wrong path, we take refuge in the three jewels, the Buddha, Dharma and Sanga".
The words or prayers of taking refuge in the Bodhichitta were chanted three times.

The continuation of teaching on Nagarjuna's Precious Garland of the Middle Way (Uma Rinchen Trengwa) and Letter to a Friend (Sheting) from the day prior began. One third of both the books, distributed to public reference compiled by Kalachakra Organising Community, was covered on the same day.

Each stanza from the books were elucidate in details. The four Noble truth: the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path to the cessation of sufferings; the Buddhist philosophy of Selflessness; Emptiness, types of Happiness, Liberation, 2 Truths, its method, Meditation, Impermanence and so forth was explained in detail.

His Holiness states, "Buddha Sakyamuni has said in the Sutra that the Buddha do not wash away the sins of sentient being with water, and neither do they takes away the suffering of them, nor do they shift their own realization into others; but only by showing the reality and truth of mode of existence of things to get rid of the ignorance of reality.”

After the lunch break from 11.30am to12:30pm, the prayers began and making of the Kalachakra Sand Mandala continued.