Chod practice and compassion.

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philji
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Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 2:26 pm

Chod practice and compassion.

Post by philji »

A TALE OF THE POWER OF COMPASSION...

My father, the late Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, had one friend who was a practitioner of Chod and this practitioner was in quite a high place, in upper Tibet, he was doing pilgrimage. One day he came to a small village. The villagers came to this lama and said will you stay with us for a little bit, there is a very nice valley with some very nice land and you can stay and do a short retreat there. The lama said oh that would be very nice. They accompanied the lama up the hill a little way then they left him there and gave him lots of tsampa or barley meal then they left him there.

The lama was practising the Chod and playing his instruments and meditating when he heard a noise at nighttime. It seemed to be quite far off but then gradually the sound came closer and got louder. Then the earth began to shake. He was thinking what is going on here with all this noise then all of a sudden a large boulder landed right in front of him. When he looked at the rock it transformed into a great black creature which looked like a man.

The black creature said to the Lama you are practising the Chod aren't you. The Lama continued his mediation playing the bell and the drum. He was concentrating so hard on his meditation he began to feel dizzy. Slowly the creature grabbed him by the throat. The Lama tried to pray to the deity and to the Buddha but nothing seemed to help. Then the hands got tighter and he was unable to breathe and was almost dead.

Even though he was half dead he thought this is demon probably going to kill me and he has probably killed lots of other beings and he will reap the result of his actions and have a very negative rebirth. He generated compassion for this being as he did the hands became less tight and relaxed around his throat. Then at the end he let go of the throat. The demon like creature said there have been lots of practitioners of the Chod in this place and I have ate them all but I am not able to kill and eat you, what is going on.

The lama replied that this is because I had the strength of the compassion. The demon said to him that is true and whatever you have got to say to me I will listen to that. The Lama made a stone wall around the demon, quite a big wall, and he said to the demon you are not allowed to step outside the perimeter of this wall and cause harm to sentient beings. Then later on this demon creature dissolved into the rock. This is a real experience, something which really happened. Because of that if you practise compassion nothing can harm you.

Seven Points Of Mind Training
༄༅། །བློ་སྦྱོངས་དོན་བདུན་མ། །
The Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
(Birmingham Karma Ling - December 2002 Transcribers: Lama Chodrak, Jacqui Horne, Pat Pagett)
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