A Teaching by Dorje Shugden, Losar 2013

Dorje Shugden, the uncommon protector of the Gaden lineage, has been famed for upholding the sacred lineage of the great tricosmic master Lama Tsongkhapa. One of the special qualities of this great protector is that he gives teachings of the Dharma for he is an emanation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom, as well as the incarnation of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen, the unequalled Lama from the Gelug school of Buddhism.

There have been many times when Dorje Shugden took trance in oracles to give advice, spiritual pronouncements and also Dharma discourses to those in the audience. Such trances were never heard of prior to the advent of Dorje Shugden oracles for this Protector holds a special role to protect and also propagate Nagarjuna’s view on the Madhyamika – the Middle View – as elucidated by Lama Tsongkhapa.

At one audience during the Losar celebrations this year in the Gadenpa Buddhism Centre, Taiwan, the Protector spoke extensively on the mind. These teachings are very apt and appropriate for the people of our time and age for it addresses the root of much social illness we see in society today.

The Protector spoke of how we can harness the power of the mind to help overcome our negative afflictive emotions. He explained extensively how the mind correlates with our daily actions of body and speech. When the mind is calm, our bodily actions and our speech will also be calm and beneficial to our spiritual wellbeing.

Dorje Shugden gave personal advice to the people of mainland China and reminded them of their past lives’ strong connection with the Protector of the Teachings. Dorje Shugden then gave further instructions on how to strengthen their practice through their prayers to help them overcome obstacles and gain attainments.

Below is a translation of the talk which Dorje Shugden gave during the Losar celebrations. Do read and be inspired!

A teaching by the Protector during Losar, the Tibetan New Year celebration.

Date: 11/2/2013 (First day of Losar)
Location: Gadenpa Buddhism Center, Taoyuan, Taiwan
Oracle: Choje-la from Taiwan, taking trance of Dorje Shugden in Peaceful form.
Translator (Tibetan to Chinese): Huang Yi-Yan

While China and Tibet celebrate the new year together, I would like to wish everyone Tashi Delek. Most importantly, we must always believe in the Dharma, wish for the Dharma and respect the Dharma.

“Whatever degenerations there are in the world, the root of all these is ignorance; You taught that it is dependent origination, the seeing of which will undo this ignorance.” There is so much sadness, obstacles, difficulties and sufferings in this world. And the root of all these is our ignorance. Sometimes when everything is smooth, when life is good, we feel happy, yet when we face difficulties and setbacks, we suffer. This is the nature of samsara.

The root is ignorance, and the nature of our mind is pure. It is clarity since the beginning, therefore it is without fault. However, due to our defilement, much phenomena have arisen. The root cause of sufferings is ignorance, so observe our mind: if the mind is peaceful, the body will also be peaceful; both body and mind become stable. If the mind is not peaceful, the body will not be peaceful as well. This is how these two relate with each other.

Buddha said: “All fears and immeasurable sufferings arise from our mind. After seeing the reality, I give this teaching.” Whatever we are facing in this world, our fears, our endless sufferings, all come from our mind and nowhere else, this is said by Lord Buddha himself. Therefore, “to subdue our mind is to subdue everything”. All the 84,000 teachings of Buddha are to subdue our afflictions. Once we can subdue our mind, all of our sufferings and fear will be subdued.

As a conclusion, if the mind is not subdued, subdue it; if the mind is not peaceful, pacify it, only then will our Dharma practices become meaningful. When we are practicing Dharma, we of course need to do our sadhanas, recite prayers, do our prostrations, circumambulate etc to collect merits as well as to clear our obstacles. However, most importantly, we need to subdue our inner demon, so that our practice will become meaningful. Pretending we are doing sadhanas, and closing our eyes and visualizing may seem like we have an altruistic mind, yet if we have all kinds of negative thoughts, it defeats the purpose and won’t bring us any benefit.

Therefore, whatever it is, the most important thing is to subdue our mind. We have to think that: ‘Dharma’ is the teaching given by Buddha as a method to subdue our mind. We need to put in effort to subdue our mind, day after day, and after months and years of practicing, we will see the actual benefit.

The essence of Dharma is emptiness. The core of ultimate truth and conventional truth lies on ultimate bodhicitta and conventional bodhicitta. It is very difficult to realize emptiness. It is very difficult to generate bodhicitta in this continuity too. However, we still need to make these as the core of our practice, and try our best to generate bodhicitta. And when it arises, do not let it decline, but increase further, then it will bring us great benefit.

I do not have to say more, just follow what I mentioned above, contemplate and integrate it into your mind. There will be auspicious signs should your practices bear fruits.

Specially for Mainland practitioners:

Being devoted to and propitiating the Great Protector comes from your past lives’ karmic connections and aspirations. The Great Protector is in nature the emanation of the Great Manjushri and Yamantaka; we should see them as one when we do our prayer. Similarly, we should be diligent in our practice, recite Mani mantra and Migtsema as much as we can, then we can gain wisdom, compassion and power without much effort. If we are committed to our practice by collecting merits and clearing the obstacles, we will gain good results.