All ‘Diamond Way Quote’ posts

Marpa

During his third and final visit to India to meet Naropa, his teacher, Marpa asked Naropa to prophesise the way the Kagyu lineage would expand and flourish:

Although in this life, your family lineage will be interrupted, your dharma lineage will flow on like a wide river as long as the teachings of the Buddha remain. In the view of some impure ordinary men, you will appear to gratify yourself in this life with sense pleasures. Your desires will seem unchanging, like a carving in rock, so solid and so great. On the other hand, since you yourself have seen dharmata, samsara will be self-liberated, like a snake uncoiling. All the future students of the lineage will be like the children of lions and garudas, and each generation will be better than the last.

– Naropa (1016-1100)

From “The Rain of Wisdom” by the Nalanda Translation Committee (Shambhala, 1980)

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