Then, in the center of that boundless, vast, clear sky, visualize a giant flower with billions and trillions of blossoming petals. Every part of the flower is made of intangible, colorful, radiant, brilliant light. The flower is as vast as a mountain and shines like the sun and moon. It emits and fills the space with a sweet fragrance. Keep enjoying the flower’s blossoming qualities for a while.
Then, on top of this vast flower, visualize a moon cushion. It is clear and white like the moon that appears in the sky. It is a cushion made of white light—bright, shining, calm, cool, and clear.
Think about the beautiful details of the vast flower with a moon cushion on it in the boundless clear sky. Repeatedly enjoy their healthy qualities deeply and fully. These images, thoughts, and feelings help change the qualities of your mind slowly but surely to reflect the boundlessness, radiance, and openness that your mind has been perceiving.
THE BODY OF THE BUDDHA OF LOVING-KINDNESS
Now, in the middle of this vast sky as the background, atop this beautiful flower and moon cushion, visualize the Buddha of Loving-Kindness.
The body of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness is made of rainbow-like beautiful pure light. His body is the natural presence of his wisdom-light. His wisdom-light appears in various forms and qualities to fulfill the needs of all beings. His body is inseparable from his enlightened wisdom.
The Buddha’s body is not a dualistic object with a gross form. Instead, he remains in the nature of self-radiant wisdom and wisdom-light. He is the ever-present body of loving-kindness and compassion—appearing luminously, resounding eloquently, and knowing all boundlessly. However, for beginners it is easier to try to visualize his form with details, each of which symbolizes various enlightened qualities. Buddhists use these symbols to generate devotion and understanding, as focal points of contemplation, objects of prayer and meditation, and sources of blessings.
Symbolizing that he is untouched by ordinary mental, emotional, and physical stains, and embodies infinite enlightened pure virtues, the complexion of the Buddha’s body is immaculately white,113 shining in all directions and glowing with enlightened radiance. His body shines as brightly as a snow mountain illuminated by the lights of a hundred thousand suns simultaneously. At the same time, his brightness is totally soothing to our mind’s eye, like the healing light of a full moon.
His exceedingly beautiful body never tires, watching us continually. His appearance makes even the most beautiful celestial beings look dull by comparison.
His body has the nine peaceful qualities of peaceful Buddhas, being pliant, robust, delicate, flexible, youthful, clear, radiant, attractive, and captivating.
The Buddha’s body is not made of gross substances like flesh, blood, or earth, but of wisdom-light—light that is inseparable from his wisdom of enlightenment. He looks ever-youthful, like a sixteen-year-old, for he is free from aging or changing. His body is adorned with the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor signs114 of a supreme Buddha—indications that he has perfected the dual accumulations. He is dressed in the thirteen ornamental costumes115 of the Sambhogakaya, symbolizing that he is prosperous, possessing excellent enlightened qualities.
The Buddha’s joyful, smiling face is beautiful like a blossoming white lotus in the sunlight. With his inconceivable loving-kindness, all beings can’t help but find him unimaginably captivating. His loving eyes are always looking deeply and directly at each of you without blinking, indicating that his unconditional love for you is ceaseless—he doesn’t even take the time to blink.
As the sign that he remains firmly in the state of the ultimate nature free from elaboration, the ultimate sphere of great peace, he sits on a lotus and moon seat in the firm vajra posture. Always keen to fulfill all the wishes of all beings with great loving-kindness, he holds at the level of his heart, between the palms of his first two hands, a wish-fulfilling gem glowing with light. The joining of his two palms symbolizes the indivisibility of samsara and nirvana or of emptiness and compassion.116 The unending circle of the crystal mala that he holds in his right second hand represents the ceaseless nature of his loving enlightened activities for all beings. Indicating that he sees every detail of all things “as they are” and sees their true nature “as it is” with his omniscient wisdom, without any stain of dualistic concepts or afflicting emotions, he holds an immaculate white lotus with eight petals in his left second hand.
In the sky above his head as his “crown lord” sits the Buddha of Infinite Light (Amitabha) on a lotus and moon cushion amid an inconceivable expanse of beams, tents, nets, and rays of colorful lights, symbolizing that the Buddha of Loving-Kindness belongs to the Lotus Family (one of the five Buddha families).
This particular image described above—sitting with four arms—is the most widely used form of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness for meditation in Tibetan Buddhism, so I follow it here. However, the Buddha of Loving-Kindness has many other forms and colors that Tibetan Buddhists also meditate on.
For example, the Buddha of Loving-Kindness could be in a peaceful form, with two arms. He has a body of luminous light, symbolizing his purity. He is as youthful as a sixteen-year-old, symbolizing that he has transcended aging and change. He is attired in rich silk clothes and is adorned with precious jewels, symbolizing that he is endowed with the wealth of infinite Buddha qualities. He stands, indicating that he is always ready to serve others without resting. His right hand stretches down toward us in the gesture of “supreme giving,” with a stream of nectar pouring from his palm to purify all our impurities, heal all our ills, and fulfill all our wishes. His left hand holds by the stem a blossoming white flower with a jewel at the center to symbolize that he is the union of loving-kindness and omniscient wisdom.
The other peaceful forms of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness include a standing Buddha with one head and four arms; a standing Buddha with eleven heads and four arms; and a standing Buddha with eleven heads and one thousand hands, with an eye in each palm.
The Buddha of Loving-Kindness also has a wrathful form, named Hayagriva. He is red and in a crouching pose, with two or more arms and a green neighing horse’s head protruding from his head.
Buddhas manifest in wrathful forms to avert, tame, subdue, or eliminate harmful forces through the power of their wrathful expressions. Such expressions uniformly originate from loving-kindness, wisdom, and peace for the purpose of benefiting others—never from anger, violence, ignorance, or selfish motivations. Buddhas’ wrathful expressions generate strength, joy, and wisdom—never violence, pain, or confusion.
Avalokiteshvara, besides being a Buddha in various forms, also appears in various other manifestations, including as a bodhisattva, a human being, an animal, and nature—or any merciful form that could potentially serve, guide, and protect those in need of his light of love. So some East Asian and Southeast Asian Buddhists pray to Kuan Yin as a bodhisattva. She is generally interpreted as being Avalokiteshvara in female form with two arms, either sitting or standing.117
Regardless of which form or name of the Buddha we use, if we could see him or her as the fully enlightened Buddha of Loving-Kindness and pray from the heart with fervent devotion and trust, then all forms will equally become the source of blessings and the support for attainments.
THE SPEECH OF THE BUDDHA OF LOVING-KINDNESS
Hear all sounds as the pure natural sound of the Buddha’s wisdom and love. The Buddha’s speech resounds with sixty excellent qualities that fill the whole of existence. All sounds are his speech, the holy Dharma, and sounds of the sacred wisdom energy waves. Listen to the Buddha calling you—to awaken you and all trainable beings from their heavy stupor in the womb of ignorance. If we could realize sounds as such, as they are, then all the words, sounds, and expressions of the universe would arise for us as pure Buddha voices, the sound of Buddha wisdom in their true nature and quality.
THE MIND OF THE BUDDHA OF LOVING-KINDNESS
The Buddha’s mind is ever-open, ever-peaceful, and totally free fr
om conceptual elaboration and afflicting emotions. He is beyond sensory dependence: he doesn’t need the senses to communicate. He knows and reaches everything intimately and instantly through his omniscience. In the state of this ultimate boundless sphere, the union of the light of Buddha wisdom and the light of loving-kindness glows boundlessly forever, like the lights of the sun and moon. The union of omniscient wisdom and loving-kindness is the omnipresent wisdom-mind of the Buddha that pervades all phenomena and fulfills all the needs of every being spontaneously and effortlessly.
THE BUDDHA OF LOVING-KINDNESS EMBODIES ALL THE ENLIGHTENED ONES
The Buddha of Loving-Kindness is not an individual Buddha or bodhisattva. He is the embodiment of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and the wisdom of all highly accomplished adepts. Besides that, he is the absolute and pure nature of all phenomenal existents, as they are. So feel that you are in the presence of the ultimate, boundless pure nature of all. Feel that whatever appears before you is the true nature and quality of the body, speech, and mind of the Buddha.
Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Shakyamuni Buddha, Guru Rinpoche, Yeshe Tshogyal, and the Enlightened Masters are simply different names and different forms of one essence—“Buddhaness.” That is why Patrul Rinpoche wrote about the Buddha of Loving-Kindness as the unity of all the deities or Buddhas:
The one deity in whom all deities are embodied is Avalokiteshvara.
The one mantra in which all essences are included is the Six Syllables.
The one Dharma in which all the development and perfection stages are completed is bodhichitta.
So, in the [meditative] state of the Knowing One Who Liberates All, recite the Six Syllables.118
Mipham Rinpoche also writes:
Whichever personal deity you pray to, in its true meaning it will be no different from praying to the Buddha [Shakyamuni], for, as it is said, “All the Buddhas are the same in Dharmakaya.” You must understand that the supreme Buddha has manifested in the form of this and that personal deity [yidam] to provide refuge and protection for us, the beings of this age of dregs. [However,] if you think that the Buddha and your personal deity are separate, and think that you are leaving the Buddha and picking another as your personal deity, then you will have a hard time attaining anything.119
So, we must pray to any Buddha as the embodiment of all the Enlightened Ones with total devotion and trust. The Third Dodrupchen prays:
When we are happy, you are the object of veneration and respect.
When we are suffering, you are the one to whom we lament.
While we are alive, you are the one we depend on.
And when we die, you are the one we take refuge in.
O Padmasambhava, Avalokiteshvara, and our Root Lama—
You are not separate, though you have separate names and forms.
I do not see you as separate individuals, but as one.
Please hold me tightly with your kindness— I pray.120
Buddha Is Not Separate from You
Know that the Buddha is not a separate presence from you. Through the unmistaken path of devotional prayer, meditation, and trust, if you perfect your experience of loving-kindness, purify all your emotional and intellectual obscurations, and complete the dual accumulations of merits and wisdom, you will attain Buddhahood by just seeing the true nature of your own mind and its qualities, as well as the true face and qualities of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, as they are.
If we realize the true nature of our own mind, we realize the true nature and qualities of all existents, which is Buddhahood. So the Buddha is not somewhere else. He is in us. He is our true nature.
If you keep focusing your mind one-pointedly on the presence of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness—or on some particular aspect of him, such as his loving-kindness or his eyes looking lovingly at us—then before long a powerful feeling of devotional energy is certain to emerge in your mindstream. Once that happens, a heat of joy and bliss will arise in every part of your mind and body because of a mental and physical suppleness such as you have never felt before. If you have already experienced this, it will augment the experience.
When this experience happens, you should allow the blissful heat generated by the development of loving-kindness to increase without grasping at or being attached to it. Then the precious bodhichitta unstained by the obscurations of defiled concepts will awaken in you. In the minds of those who follow the path of devotion, these enlightening effects will miraculously manifest before their own eyes.
Pray with Devotion
Visualize all this as clearly as you can, maintaining the image and feelings for as long as possible. Pray with devotion by focusing the heartfelt energy of your mind with all its six consciousnesses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) and the energies of every particle of our body with one-pointed trust in the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and his loving-kindness.
Then, singing the Six-Syllable Prayer121—OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG—loudly or silently in your mind’s voice, pray to the Buddha, thinking, “O Buddha of Omniscient Wisdom and Loving-Kindness—please pay your kind attention to me and all mother-beings with your unconditional love. May your enlightened body, speech, and mind, and especially your unconditional love, take birth in our mindstreams this very moment.” Then recite or chant the Six-Syllable Prayer with heartfelt devotion in the sweetest sound or melody, as many times as you can: OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG. (Please go online to http://www.shambhala.com/heartofunconditionallove for an audio sample.) Think and feel that every thought of your mind and every sound of the breathing of every particle of your body is peaceful, joyful, and bursting into the song of the prayer of loving-kindness. OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG.
Think and feel that every being of the universe—visible and invisible, large and small, even the smallest insect—is singing the prayer with heartfelt devotion to the Buddha and enjoying the amazing warmth of his loving-kindness. OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG.
Hear and enjoy the sounds of the energy waves of every particle of nature as they are singing the prayer with the energy of joy and celebration, enjoying the sacred sounds and meanings of the prayer. OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG.
Hear every sound of the world as the singing sound of the prayer of loving-kindness. The whole universe is resounding with sounds of loving-kindness like a great symphony hall filled with harmonies of peace, joy, and love. There is nothing but the sound and feeling of loving-kindness. OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG.
When you focus on praying with the heart of total devotion and trust in the Buddha by enjoying his loving-kindness, then before long, unconditional love—the Buddha’s blessings and loving-kindness—will take birth in you. You become what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling. As a popular proverb has it, “When you see the face of a laughing person, you too will start laughing. When you see the face of a crying person, you too will start crying.”
As an indication of developing loving-kindness in your mindstream, you could suddenly experience an indescribable heat with joyfulness or blissfulness. Tears of joy might stream from your eyes. You could feel every hair of your body rising with a sense of celebrating the new birth of bodhichitta in you.
When you experience true trust and devotion in yourself as a result of your heartfelt prayers to the Buddha and his unconditional love, then loving-kindness will take birth in you, as you will have been transformed into the Buddha of Loving-Kindness himself.
Again, if you keep saying the prayers continuously with the same strong devotion and keep fully enjoying the blissful heat that is generated by the Buddha’s love, then, like a child enjoying the taste of honey, before long the thought of loving-kindness will awaken in your mind spontaneously without any need of separate effort. You will then experience that your mind itself has arisen as the body of pure loving-kindness, as it is. You will feel that all your physical activities and vocal expressions have become the very expressions of loving-kindness.
The Meaning of the Six-Syllable Prayer
Recite or chant the Six-Syllable Pra
yer of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG, with heartfelt devotion in the sweetest sound or melody you can. OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG is the heart essence of all the teachings, both exoteric (Sutra) and esoteric (Tantra), of Mahayana Buddhism.
Although it has only a few syllables, this prayer is the distillation of the wisdom and loving-kindness of all the Buddhas. It is the essence of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness manifested in the form of sacred words, sound, and letters. It is the profound sound of the ultimate nature.
Sing or chant the sacred prayer with the energy of devotion and trust in the Buddha. Your mind fully blossoms with the Buddha’s blessing energies and the power of your own devotion. As a result, whatever you say or hear becomes the expression and sound of sacred innate prayer and leads you to enlightenment. It is said that whoever sees the images of the Six Syllables or pronounces them with devotion will attain liberation by seeing and saying them. Whoever appreciates the meaning of the Six Syllables will attain liberation by understanding them. The prayer’s meaning is vast and profound and it is abundant with power, yet it is easy to say and remember. It can easily be chanted by young and old, educated or illiterate, ordained or lay, and will lead us from happiness to enlightenment.
OM is a composite of three letters or sounds: ah + o + m. These three Sanskrit letters symbolize, represent, or embody the body, speech, and wisdom mind of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, as well as our own body, speech, and mind. Also, the joining of ah, o, and m together symbolizes the indivisible nature of the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind.
The Heart of Unconditional Love Page 8