His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya walking under a white umbrella held by his son, sangha, Vulture Peak, India

His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya walking under a white umbrella held by his son, sangha, Vulture Peak, India, a photo by Wonderlane on Flickr.

A Melody of Experience for Yeshe Dorje

Namo Gurawe.

I fold my hand and bow to my gurus,
Past, present, and future.
In my heart I believe in the revered Sakyas,
Father and son.
I come to you for shelter.

A human who has opportunity and no impediments
Who has no problems,
And has faith
Still needs The Nine Branches to practice the path.
He will be a Buddha when he has all twelve.

Whichever fork in the road you take
You will hear about the Nine Branches.
The Nine Branches are:

Guru, Ripening, and Samaya are three;
Vast Study, Upadesha, and diligence are three;
A home, supplies, and friends are three.

First you look for a guru:
He has vast study,
But he doesn’t have Upadesha.
He has Upadesha,
But he doesn’t have comprehensive knowledge.
He has both of these,
But he doesn’t do his practice.
He does all three,
But he doesn’t have compassion.
He has all four,
But he is not diligent.
You can hunt around for a guru that has all five,
But you will end up taking many years to start practicing the path.

If you are not getting ripened you have no reason to practice.
Look for a holy guru who ripens you.

If you spend your time lining up all the supplies you need for ripening
You will end up taking many years to start practicing the path.

If you don’t guard your Samaya you will not get results.
If you don’t study you will not gain knowledge.
If you don’t have the Upadesha you won’t get the point.
If you spend your time lining up
The supplies you need to get these three
You will end up taking many years to practice the path.

You have already taken a long time.
Don’t let it go to waste.
I am a person who has all the supplies.
I present you with the Nine Branches.
This is what you need:

Goad yourself with the iron of diligence.
Try not to be lazy about your practice.
You want to practice the path,
So find a remote place to live.

If you live in the wilderness
There will be thieves.
If you live in the midst of a crowd
Distractions will carry you away.
If you spend all your time thinking about where to live
You’ll wear yourself out getting ready,
And you won’t do a thing.
So pack up the things you need
To live in a remote area
And find an abode in the wilderness.
Regardless of where you live
Cut down on distractions.

Don’t be over serious about your practice.
If you have a lot of stuff
You will have a lot of distractions.
If you have very little stuff
You will be slight on comfort.
If you think about this pair all the time
You will be distracted from practicing the path.
Don’t do that!

If you have stuff,
You should pack it up.
If you can’t get all your stuff together,
Food and clothes will be adequate.

Control your mind and take care of the little things.
Taking care of the little things
Will turn out to be the most important thing you do.

If you have a lot of friends
The demon of distraction will carry you away.
Even a couple of friends
Will talk you out of doing anything.
Stay with someone you get along with in the Dharma,
And don’t listen to their friendly chatter.

If you don’t have a friend you get along with.
Live by yourself.
Control your mind.

[These three] go together to complete the twelve branches:
Get rid of all the problems that get in your way.
Don’t give in to the forces of laziness.
Be serious about your practice.

If you want to practice,
Take it easy.
Get your supplies together,
And take it easy.
When you get tired of study and contemplation,
Take it easy.
No matter what you are thinking about,
Take it easy.

You’ll have nothing to do all day,
So keep watch on the land.
When things are complicated
Think about them.
Remember that Samsara’s specialty
Is emotional problems.

I will explain this specialty:

An ordinary eye that is not in the dark
Takes in numerous shapes and colors.
Looking at shapes makes us feel good.
Looking inside them makes us happy.

An ordinary ear that is not plugged up
Gives us amazing feelings when we listen to sounds of all kinds.
If feels good to listen in on conversations.

The ordinary nose and tongue that are not clogged up
Let us experience amazing tastes and smells as their objects.
They bring us all kinds of amazing experiences.
We can share these with others
And they make us feel good.

The senses of an ordinary body that is not sick
Make us feel good when we touch things that are alright.
We can share these sensations with others.
We can also make others feel good.

When we think about things that are alright
We find all kinds of nice things in the past, present, and future.
Our knowledge grows and we feel good.

When the day grows old we go to bed.
We can’t sleep and our mind churns.
We get confused when we think about the day’s thoughts.
At night we remember Samsara’s problems.

We play with an object
But get no satisfaction.
When we feel satisfied
We see no point in it.
The point is that there is no point.
We play with an object while we think about desire.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.

We can play and play all day long
With some object that brings no satisfaction,
But never get enough.
We work and work for needs that can’t be satisfied.
We fill our months and years with this,
But never get enough.
We look for the point of it all
Where there is no point.
We invent needs where nothing is needed.

Our sisters distract us all the time
With things that are meaningless.
We go after yet another object,
But we don’t feel anything.

The white hairs sink their fangs into our head.
They play a game of wrinkles on our skin.
We feel the gums in our toothless mouth.
Our body looses strength and we lean on a staff.
We have spent our youth and middle age.
Our body grows old,
Then we die.
It gets to us at the roots.

When we are old we think that we’ll live forever.
Our big plan is to be a young god that never dies.
But it doesn’t matter whether we are old or young.
We lust for life’s fortunes
While we battle against the elements.

Our ancestral gods move on to someone else.
We humble ourselves before spiteful demons and monsters.
We have no physical strength
So we lean on someone else.
Eating food or drinking water throws us into convulsions.
Our body hurts with so many pains.
When our loved ones are around
We burst out crying.
We are tortured by Yama,
The Lord of the Dead.

We toss off our presence in this world.
The earth burns and there is nowhere left to go.
We are surrounded by great darkness.
Yama, who is our own karma,
Chases us from behind.
We hear sounds that scare us.
We’re going on to a horrible life.

When this happens your merit is your shelter.
I will no longer attend on you at that point.

The objects we played with in the past are of no use.
They just hurt us in so many ways.
We didn’t think about the horrors of Samsara.
We wasted our wits on stupid things.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.

When you wake up
You are sitting there by yourself.
You turn your thoughts up and down,
Full of wrath over this awful charnel ground of Samsara.
You start to wish for a home where you can be free.

Think about what you have to do to get that:
Knowledge, methods, and practice.
Consider this well:
Freedom begins by developing a knowledgeable perspective.

Your thoughts in days gone by were confused.

Different objects each have their wonders of great beauty.
Take a look at these wonders.
You will see the point
That there is no point.
You will have found the point you were truly aiming for.

When you look at an object you won’t recognize it.
It’s pointless.
What does it matter?

If you look at your body you won’t recognize it.
Remain calm when you can’t take form.
Physical appearance is like a reflection in a mirror.
It’s like an illusion.
What does it matter?

You’ll hear sounds,
But you won’t recognize them.
All the noises sound like echoes.
You figure out that nothing is making the noise.
Remain calm when the noise is empty.

Notice that holding, touching, and feeling begin and end with an object.
Perceptual experience is only a figment.
Remain calm when your awareness is empty.

You will find no reason to think the thoughts that are in your mind.
You will find no start or end to the things you think.
They have no center or edge.
They are like the sky.
Remain calm when you can’t be born.

There are no lands that are higher or lower.
There is no birth or ending.
There is no good or evil.
Remain calm in the equanimity of the Dharma.

Your thinking in yesterday’s thoughts was mistaken.
Nothing is born,
But you thought there was birth.
Nothing is sick or old,
But you thought there was.
Nothing ends,
But you thought there was an ending.
The Dharma does not begin with birth.
How could it stay or end?

You will get the idea that there is no birth or ending.
This conception will grow.
Watch it take its place and let it go.

Put down your fixations,
And let them go.
Settling on something is also a conception.

You don’t understood the way things are
When they are left to themselves.
You have not come to terms with the instructions
About not holding on.
You hold on to whatever you happen to be thinking about.
You even hold on to thoughts about not holding on.

Selflessness does not stop shining.
May you understand the interactivity of what is.
The meditation you practice has one point.
If you are diligent it is in your hands.

Don’t campaign for depression and madness.
They are your enemies.
Build your path out of Peaceful Abiding and Higher Perception.
The profound instructions for this practice
Are in the Tantric literature of the Secret Mantra.

Don’t sing the songs of the Secret Mantra.
Keep the Upadesha all in your mind.

Bodhisattvas who want to do this practice
Adorn themselves with the seven classes of Personal Freedom.
They are serious about the practice.
They do not use their body or speech frivolously.
They do not work against the Buddha’s teachings.
They do not abuse living beings.
They don’t throw us in the trash when things get bad.
The benefits are enormous, so they are serious.

This is the root;
Don’t be slack with it.
If you use this as a foundation
You will have three ways of practicing the Secret Mantra:
When things are complicated postpone them
On account of the difficulty of getting it together.
When things are not complicated
Or when they are totally uncomplicated
Get serious about watching what you’re doing.

If you use these words for your practice
The Buddha is in your hands.
It won’t be long till he sits
On the palm of your hand.
You’ll get results
Without a hassle.

[Dragpa Gyaltsen] wanted to get some exercise, and had just gone out to the Western face of Pal Sakya Mountain, when Yeshe Dorje, a man of faith, came along. He said “Write an evocative poem that does not run counter to the way things really are and that will help me understand things when I put my mind to it.”
Rigdzin Dragpa came here to teach. He said “You are proficient at letters; write this down!”

Reading it will help us understand.
Thinking about it will help our minds.
It may be of use to others.
Take a ride on the horse of song!

Bless me to be like the great Jetsun.
By any virtue I may get from writing this down
May all living beings ,
Reckoned to the ends of the sky,
Quickly gain unsurpassed perfect enlightenment.

WORDS OF THE SAKYA MASTERS
Translated from the Tibetan by Chris Wilkinson