The Complete Works of Sangharakshita Vol 19: Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship II

Sangharakshita Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship ii

E D I T E D B Y V I DYA D E V I

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 5

21/11/2017 15:57

Windhorse Publications 169 Mill Road Cambridge CB1 3AN UK info@windhorsepublications.com www.windhorsepublications.com © Sangharakshita, 2018 The right of Sangharakshita to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover design by Dhammarati Cover images: Back flap: © ????; front: Detail of Marpa (1012–1096) and Milarepa (1052–1135), Tibet, 16th century, courtesy of the Rubin Museum of Art Typesetting and layout by Ruth Rudd Printed by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the copyright holder of the stories quoted from The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, translated by Garma C. C. Chang, copyright © 1999 by Shambhala Publications. The copyright holder is invited to contact us at info@windhorsepublications.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-911407-04-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-911407-03-4 (hardback)

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 6

21/11/2017 15:57

contents

rechungpa’s journey to enlightenment (continued) Foreword The Story So Far.…

1

3

Fourth Story: Rechungpa’s Repentance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

5

Are My Books Being Burned? 7 A Wondrous Vision 23 Persistent Indignation and Silence 35 A Lost Mind is Hard to Catch 72 Try to Correct Your Wrong Ideas 88 Those Worthless Books 113 My Guru’s Words are Absolutely True 130 The Light of the Ḍākinīs’ Teaching 148 Fifth Story: Heartfelt Advice to Rechungpa

1 2 3

169

First Listen to My Song 171 The Endless View 184 A Disciple with Capacity 202

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 7

21/11/2017 15:57

4 5 6 7 8

Rechungpa, Are You Thus Convinced? 214 Are You Thus Convinced? 232 What Need Have I to Follow Your Customs? 249 The Great Perfection has no Dogmas 265 The Great Middle Way Cannot be Described 280 Sixth Story; Rechungpa’s Journey to Weu

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Compare the Father With the Son 303 Listen With Care, My Son Rechungpa! 318 Lend Your Ear to This Old Man 334 We May Never Meet Again 351 How Will You Walk On Your Way? 369 An Egg Ripens Quicker in a Warm Place 390 May These Three Gems Bless You Forever 401 May Rechungpa Soon Exceed His Father 416 An Undisciplined Disciple 427 An Accomplished Guru 442 But Written Words 455 The Transiency of All Beings 480 The Golden Treasure Underground 495 Seventh Story: Rechungpa’s Departure

1 2 3 4 5

The Heart-Son-Disciple 513 Rechungpa Now Felt Deeply Grateful I Now Confess in Full 548 Think of Your Guru Upon Your Head The Path of Joy 574 Notes Index

301

511

534 561

591 623

A Guide to The Complete Works of Sangharakshita

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 8

647

21/11/2017 15:57

Foreword the story so far.…

The foreword to volume 18 of the Complete Works explained the origin of this commentary and said a little about the history of the text on which it is based. This volume continues Rechungpa’s Journey to Enlightenment, the story of Milarepa and his disciple Rechungpa begun in Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship I (Complete Works, volume 18). In that volume, the first story in the sequence, ‘Milarepa’s First Meeting with Rechungpa’, described their relationship from their first meeting, when Rechungpa, a young storyteller, hearing the sound of Milarepa’s voice singing in the mountains, went to investigate and was immediately inspired to become Milarepa’s disciple. Unhappy at this turn of events, Rechungpa’s mother and uncle contrived to send him a cursed pot which gave him leprosy, and – with Milarepa’s blessing – the young man travelled to India in search of a cure, leaving his guru meditating in a cave. Thus a pattern was established, the young man developing a taste for travel and the old yogi exemplifying the virtues, and the joys, of staying put.

In the second story of this sequence, ‘Rechungpa’s Third Journey to India’, Rechungpa again travelled to India, this time against Milarepa’s advice. Rechungpa was hoping to learn logic in order to be able to beat scholars in debate, but Milarepa, seeing that his young disciple was intent on making the journey whatever he said, encouraged him instead to bring back some special teachings, the ‘Formless Ḍākinī Dharmas’.

Although Rechungpa achieves this, unfortunately, as revealed in the the story so far . … /

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 3

3

21/11/2017 15:57

third story of our collection, ‘The Story of the Yak Horn’, it rather goes to his head. He arrives back in Tibet wondering whether Milarepa will ‘return his obeisance’, now that he is so much more learned than his guru. The ensuing events showed how Rechungpa was led to understand what ‘acquiring teachings’ really means, and by the end, he seemed to have managed to let go of much of his pride.

At the end of volume 18 we left the two companions departing to go to ‘Bouto of Red Rock’, and this is precisely the point at which we find them at the beginning of this volume. Perhaps it’s no surprise that, despite all the lessons he has learned so far, we find Rechungpa wanting to delay their journey back to the austerity of their mountain cave, while Milarepa is intent on going straight back.…

As explained in the Introduction to this sequence of stories (see Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship I), the Rechungpa we meet in The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa may be rather a caricature of the historical Rechungpa, but the story of a stubborn, proud, and easily distracted disciple who is gradually transformed through his association with a patient and persistent teacher surely has special value for his fellow practitioners of the Dharma, more so than if he was depicted as saintly, focused, and ever-obedient. His story seems to be so directly applicable to us, sometimes amusingly, sometimes painfully. No doubt that was why Sangharakshita chose to make these stories the subject of study seminars in 1980 (the transcripts of which have been edited into the text in this volume), and no doubt they are just as applicable today.

As mentioned in the Foreword to volume 18, since these seminars were given, a number of new works about Milarepa and his teachings have been published, including (in 2017) a new translation of the Hundred Thousand Songs which smooths out the idiosyncrasies and inaccuracies of Garma C. C. Chang’s 1962 translation. Chang’s version has great merits, however, and has done valuable service all these years in making Milarepa’s teachings accessible to the English-speaking world.

Vidyadevi Herefordshire September 2017

4 / R E C H UN G PA ' S

SCWOR Vol 19 pages v2s04.indd 4

J O UR N E Y T O E N L I G H T E N M E N T ( C O N T I N U E D )

21/11/2017 15:57