White Tara initiation preparation
Now there are the preparations in order to grant the White Tara long-life initiation. There are the graduated things to do from the side of the Lama such as a mandala offering and giving torma offering to the interferers who interfere with granting the initiation, and there are graduated things to do from the side of the disciples, such as cleaning the mouth with the blessed water, doing prostrations, distributing flowers and so forth.
[Rinpoche chants]
It’s very worthwhile to take the long-life initiation. It’s not that I have some power, but because of Tara, who is the manifestation of all the buddhas’ holy actions, and White Tara in particular to grant long life and wisdom to sentient beings.
In the past, my guru, His Holiness Zong Rinpoche, explained that in the past the great pandits first did a long-life retreat and then did a retreat for attaining wisdom, so that they could have a long life and complete their studies to work for other sentient beings. That’s how they began, doing White Tara long-life meditation.
Especially at this time your life has changed. It’s not as before. By coming here and attending this Kopan meditation course there has been some change for the better, for a better life. A better life means developing more compassion, patience, loving kindness and bodhicitta as well as wisdom and so forth. Even if there’s no tantric practice, this lamrim practice is the most important foundation.
In your daily life in the past when you encountered a situation that would normally cause you to easily become angry or jealous or any of those negative emotions, you engaged in negative karma and so have been continuously reborn in samsara and experienced all those sufferings—not only the sufferings of the lower realms for an inconceivable length of time but even the sufferings of the higher realms such as the human realms. You have had to experience all these problems over and over again. But after coming here and attending this Kopan course there is more awareness of life, more understanding about life, more understanding about the mind. So you become more careful creating karma, especially to not harm others and to be as beneficial to others as possible, depending on the degree of wisdom, compassion and loving kindness you have developed.
Therefore, there are many good things happening now. In your life you can practice patience, to practice compassion and loving kindness in the difficult times. Instead of being depressed, thinking you are hopeless and so forth, bringing yourself down, it’s very worthwhile to take the long-life initiation and by developing a good heart with this practice you can bring peace—at least peace in your life, in your heart and to your parents and family members, those closest to you, and the animals that are close to you, by not giving them harm and only bringing benefit to them, bringing peace. Like that you can bring peace to the world.
[Rinpoche gives the initiation, not included]
