Grant your blessing so that my mind may turn towards the Dharma.
Grant your blessing so that Dharma may progress along the path.
Grant your blessing so that the path may clarify confusion.
Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
Inspiration can be long or short and this one from the great Kagyu teacher Gampopa is precise, and to the point. A favorite prayer of mine for over a decade, Gampopa was a student of the great yogi Milarepa and founder of several monasteries in Tibet. One of his students, Düsum Khyenpa, who studied with him at Daklha Gampo, was the first Gyalwa Karmapa.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche speaking about this prayer, said that “The incomparable and world-renowned great master Gampopa condensed all the teachings that have been given and will be given by the one thousand Buddhas in this good aeon into four sentences called the Four Dharmas of Gampopa. These extremely profound sentences are a combination of Sutra and Tantra…If a practitioner receives these instructions and is diligent, he or she will be able to attain complete enlightenment within a single lifetime.” Source click here
The Berzin Archives has an excellent translation of commentary about these four lines from Longchenpa. He explains that in the first sentence of the prayer, turning the mind towards Dharma; “What anyone who wishes to cross the boundless ocean of recurring samsaric existence first must think is to make full effort, right now in this lifetime, to achieve the stilling and the blissful awareness that are the phenomenon of liberation.” Source click here.
Longchenpa illustrates that the sentence “path may clarify confusion”, includes the highest tantras. “Furthermore, out of the shared, special, and unsurpassable methods for having the pathway minds eliminate confusion, the first is the great Mahayana pathway of mind that is shared in common (by sutra, all classes of tantra, and dzogchen). With its identity-nature of the four immeasurable attitudes, the development of a bodhichitta aim, aspiration prayer, and compassion, and through great waves of bodhisattva behavior, you eliminate confusion.”
Reading these four lines as well as the commentaries inspires me to practice and this prayer I can say over and over again and never tire of it. His life story and how he came to find Milarepa is amazing, read about it here.
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I love this quote! Very profound indeed, especially when you consider what has been incorporated in just those four lines. Please continue to post these Inspirational sayings/quotes. Doing so prompts curiosity and leads to learning.