Lama Ole Nydahl
Today, 19 March 2011, marks several special occasions. Firstly, we wish a very happy 70th birthday to our great teacher Lama Ole Nydahl – may he live long and may his vast activity continue to benefit countless beings!
Posts Tagged ‘Naropa’
Lama Ole Nydahl’s 70th birthday and Chotrul Düchen, a “Ten Million Multiplier”
Saturday, March 19th, 2011
FollowBrief History of the Kagyu Lineage by Trungram Gyaltrul Rinpoche
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
Trungram Gyaltrul Rinpoche
This is an excerpt from a teaching held on the United Trugram Buddhist Fellowship website of Trungram Gyaltrul Rinpoche.
Naropa’s prophecy to Marpa
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
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)
Marpa and Naropa on the development of the Kagyu Lineage
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Statues of Naropa and Marpa carved from rhinocerous horn by the 10th Karmapa
Marpa: “Please be so kind as to prophecy for me the way our dharma lineage will expand and flourish. Since ultimately there is no difference between the sutras and tantras in their view and realisation, one can hold the teachings – what has been told and what has been realised – of both. Is it necessary that in external appearance one adopt the robes of a sravaka and practice the pratimoksha? It isn’t, is it?…”
Naropa: “In the future of your dharma lineage, there will be many who assume the external appearance of a sravaka. Inwardly, they will realise the meaning of mahayana, dwell on the bhumis; and be surrounded by bodhisattvas. Some others of varied appearance will make the teachings of the practice lineage flourish and expand.”
From “The Rain of Wisdom” by the Nalanda Translation Committee (Shambhala, 1980)
Pictures are from the book “Karmapa: The Black Hat Lama of Tibet” Nik Douglas & Meryl White. The statues of the early Kagyu lineage holders carved by the 10th Karmapa are among the relics hopefully (see here and here) still housed in Rumtek Monastery.
