Tai Situ Rinpoche | To the First Shangpa Kagyu Monlam in North America

ཐབས་མཁས་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཤཱཀྱའི་རིགས་སུ་འཁྲུངས།།

With skillful means and compassion, you were born in the Śākya clan,

གཞན་གྱིས་མི་ཐུབ་བདུད་ཀྱི་དཔུང་འཇོམས་པ།།

Unconquerable by others, you vanquished Māra's hordes,

གསེར་གྱི་ལྷུན་པོ་ལྟ་བུར་བརྗིད་པའི་སྐུ།།

Your physical form resplendent, like a mountain of gold.

ཤཱཀྱའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཁྱོད་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།།

To you, the King of the Śākyas, I pay homage!

Today is a very auspicious day. In United States of America, His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche and Wangchen Rinpoche and all the venerable senior lamas, junior lamas, and all the monks and lamas, and naljorpas, and naljormas and all the devotees and practitioners of First Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche and Yangsi Kalu Rinpoche gathered there and performing and participating in the Shangpa Kagyu Monlam. This is very auspicious. Monlam is aspiration, aspiration of a Bodhisattva to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Meanwhile, to promote harmony and joy among all living beings. At the same time, for this world, to be free from all of this very obvious disharmony, suffering and all kinds of natural and man-made disasters. To free everyone from this, we should start with our prayer, aspiration. Then when it comes to action, we all have limitations, but we never overlook whatever we are able to do to help fellow sentient beings and fellow human beings.

And we should aim and have aspiration of the highest and greatest. And for this, we already have such great aspiration prayers by Buddha Shakyamuni and all the great Bodhisattvas of the past, and all the great enlightened masters of the past. So, we follow them. These prayers are not just a wonderful words. They also carry a perfect and living blessing. This way, we do Monlam, the path which starts with aspiration. And, of course, aspiration should be followed by application and practice.

I am very, very happy and delighted that this Monlam activity is now completed for this year. And I sincerely believe and pray for many years of the same activity that will continue. We do good things, but doing it once is not enough. We have to continue. There should be consistency, continuation. And this way, then we can say to ourselves, my life as a human being this time is meaningful. I am able to at least pray and aspire. And then on top of that, do a few things.

All the best for all of you. Buddha bless you. Your Eminence Rinpoche and all the Sangha there, Buddha Bless you. Buddha bless you. Buddha bless you.

བསོད་ནམས་འདི་ཡིས་ཐམས་ཅད་གཟིགས་པ་ཉིད།།

By the merit I have accumulated,

ཐོབ་ནས་ཉེས་པའི་དགྲ་རྣམས་ཕམ་བྱས་ནས།།

may I overcome all erroneous attitudes and reach the omniscient state.

སྐྱེ་རྒ་ན་འཆིའི་རྦ་རླབས་འཁྲུགས་པ་ཡི།།

May all sentient beings who are suffering in the waves of birth, old age, illness, and death

སྲིད་པའི་མཚོ་ལས་འགྲོ་བ་སྒྲོལ་བར་ཤོག།།

be freed from the ocean of samsara.

 

འཇམ་དཔལ་དཔའ་བོས་ཇི་ལྟར་མཁྱེན་པ་དང་།།

The brave Manjushri knows things as they are,

ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ་དེ་ཡང་དེ་བཞིན་ཏེ།།

As does in the same way Samantabhadra.

དེ་དག་ཀུན་གྱི་རྗེས་སུ་བདག་སློབ་ཕྱིར།།

I fully dedicate all these virtues

དགེ་བ་འདི་དག་ཐམས་ཅད་རབ་ཏུ་བསྔོ།།

That I might train and follow their example.

 

སྐྱིད་ན་དགེ་བ་ཚོགས་སུ་བསྔོ།།

May I dedicate all the joy and positive karma accumulated,

ཕན་བདེའི་ནམ་མཁའ་གང་བར་ཤོག།།

to make the benefits for all sentient beings prevail in limitless space.

སྡུག་ན་སྡུག་བསྔལ་བདག་གིས་ཁུར།།

May I bear all the sufferings and contaminants of all sentient beings,

སྡུག་བསྔལ་གྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་སྟོང་པར་ཤོག།།

to make the ocean of sufferings dry up forever.

 

Tai Situ Rinpoche
Aug. 4^th,2019