The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Five (57 page)

Halfway through, Marpa returned and demanded to know why Milarepa was putting up a triangular building on his land. When Mila answered that the great teacher himself had asked him to undertake this work, Marpa became extremely angry and accused Milarepa of plotting against him. “I would have to be crazy to ask you to build something and then forget. With your evil ways, you must be thinking of imprisoning me in your triangular tower. Tear it down immediately.”

Milarepa was now both miserable and confused. However, he blamed only himself and his stupidity for his problems and tore down the tower as instructed. Then Marpa asked him to build a ten-story tower, which he swore would never be torn down. As insurance, Milarepa requested that the guru’s wife, Damema, be a witness to her husband’s promise. Damema was extremely fond of Milarepa so she agreed, but she warned him that her husband built and destroyed without reason and wouldn’t listen to her later if she tried to challenge him. However, Milarepa felt somewhat hopeful about this project, and he began to lay the foundation of the building.

While he was working on the tower, Milarepa developed terrible sores from carrying rocks on his back. Marpa kept his promise and did not ask him to disassemble this building. However, he changed the design so many times that Milarepa came to believe that there was no hope of ever finishing the task. Damema tried to persuade Marpa to show some reasonability or at least some sign that he was pleased with Milarepa’s work. This had no effect. So she consoled Milarepa and encouraged him to continue his work. She felt so sorry for him that she suggested that he attend some of the religious ceremonies that Marpa was conducting. She even gave Milarepa offerings to present. However, each time he tried to enter a ceremony to receive religious instruction, Marpa had him thrown out and sent back to his tower.

Finally, with Damema’s help and at her urging, Milarepa left the farm to study with a teacher in another valley. He was quite certain that he could not obtain the complete teachings from anyone but Marpa. Since this seemed impossible to achieve, he thought that at least he could learn something useful from another teacher. However, the teachings he was given had no effect. Milarepa realized that, without Marpa’s blessing, there was no hope of any attainment. So, although he was completely discouraged, he returned to his guru.

Even before their first meeting, Marpa had known that Milarepa would be one of his greatest disciples. He had realized this from a dream before they ever met. The guru’s harsh methods were designed to cleanse Milarepa of the heavy stain of karma that he had accumulated from his past actions, which themselves had been very harsh. Asking Milarepa to build and tear down the various towers was not based on Marpa’s random whims. Indeed, the towers had particular tantric implications, including the significance of their shapes and the cardinal directions where they were placed on the land. Marpa was therefore not pleased by Damema’s interference, but he was extremely pleased when his student returned. However, he did not show his feelings. Instead, when Milarepa presented himself and asked once again for the teachings, Marpa cursed him and threw him out of the house. Milarepa felt utterly miserable. Remarkably, however, he felt no anger toward his teacher. He blamed only himself for his failure. How many of us would be able to take the blame onto ourselves in a situation like this? Milarepa certainly had remarkable devotion.

At that point, he thought that there was nothing he could do to win his teacher’s approval. He felt that it would be futile to continue to live if he could not receive instruction in the holy dharma, so he decided to end his life by throwing himself off a cliff. One of Marpa’s students found him in this state and sent a message to the guru that Milarepa was despondent and could not be left alone.

Outwardly, it appeared that Milarepa was in a terrible state. In point of fact, at this stage, Milarepa’s life was becoming inseparable from the dharma and the teacher. Feeling that he had failed his teacher, he felt that his life was pointless. In the vajrayana or tantric process of surrendering, one must give up all of one’s past habitual patterns and expectations until the logic of ego or self-interest totally breaks down. In Milarepa’s case, given the extreme circumstances of his life and his extreme character, the process of breaking down his preconceptions was also extreme. In order to gain genuine realization, one must identify with the sanity of the teacher and the teachings without editing or twisting anything to fit one’s own concepts. Milarepa had finally reached the stage where there was nothing further to give up. Realizing this, Marpa called Milarepa to him and finally accepted him, proclaiming him as his true heartson and giving him initiation into the vajrayana teachings of Buddhism.

Milarepa remained with Marpa for several years. He stayed in solitary retreat in a cave above the farm for months at a time. His practice, like everything in his life, was marked by total conviction and sincerity. Because of his teacher’s skill in working with him, his zealousness and steadfastness became a source of great accomplishment.

After he had been living at Marpa’s farm and practicing for several years, one night Milarepa dreamed that his mother was dead and his sister had become a wandering beggar. He awoke in tears, thinking of his mother. The next morning he left retreat to ask Marpa’s permission to return home. When he entered Marpa’s room, the guru was still asleep. As Marpa opened his eyes, the sun was rising and a beam of sunlight touched his forehead. After listening to Milarepa’s request, he reminded him of everything he had given up to practice the dharma. However, when Milarepa still wanted to go, Marpa realized that this journey was a necessary step on the path and he agreed to let him go.

Marpa understood his being asleep when Milarepa entered his room as a sign that, after this parting, he and Milarepa would not see one another again in this lifetime. He told Milarepa that the sun rising as he entered the room foretold that the Buddhist teachings would shine like the rays of the sun. The light falling on the guru’s head meant that the teachings of Marpa’s school, the Kagyü lineage of Tibet, would flourish.

Before he left, Milarepa was given several important transmissions from Marpa. A special celebration, a feast offering, was held, and Milarepa was empowered as a lineage holder in the Kagyü tradition. Marpa gave Milarepa an oral, or ear-whispered, transmission, which can only be passed down from one teacher to one disciple. He told Milarepa to guard this teaching more dearly than his life. Marpa instructed Milarepa to remain only briefly in his village. Then he should find isolated caves throughout Tibet where he could practice meditation in solitary retreat until he attained realization. The guru also gave Milarepa a scroll, telling him to read it only when he encountered a great obstacle in his practice. When Milarepa finally left, Marpa and Damema accompanied him partway down the road. When they finally said good-bye, it was with great sadness.

When Milarepa reached his home, he found everything just as he had seen it in his dream. He found his mother’s bones lying in the ruins of their house. He seated himself on the bones and meditated there for seven days. Not surprisingly, the impermanence of life and the reality of death filled his mind. The futility of samsara, or confused existence, was overwhelming to him. Realizing the importance of meditation, he vowed to renounce the world of illusion and ego-clinging and to practice the dharma as his only occupation.

Following Marpa’s instructions, Milarepa then left the village and went into solitary retreat, practicing in many caves throughout the countryside. When his food ran out and his clothing became tattered, rather than leave his cave to beg, he wore rags or went naked and ate nettles that he found nearby. He became quite emaciated, and his skin gave off a green glow from all the nettles in his diet. His body became covered with strange gray fuzz, and hunters passing by his cave ran away, fearing that he was a ghost.

Milarepa’s asceticism has sometimes been described as self-mortification. However, Milarepa presents us with an example of genuine ascetic practice, which is not based on punishment but on complete adherence to discipline, not giving in to any samsaric corruptions of ego. A dharmic warrior, Milarepa had total dedication to his practice and to his teacher’s instructions. Because wealth, fame, and even companionship no longer had a hold on him, his renunciation of these things was an expression of freedom and a celebration of simplicity.

Of course, Milarepa did experience loneliness during his solitary retreats and he missed his guru very much. Sometimes he became discouraged in his practice. However, he never lost his faith in his teacher, and he continued to follow the basic instructions he had been given: to meditate in isolation and to join all experiences together with his practice of meditation. In this way, the obstacles that he encountered eventually became the source of insight and inspiration. For example, Milarepa once returned to his cave to find it inhabited by a number of demons. He tried to subjugate them with a mantra, which had no effect, and then tried meditating on compassion and friendliness, which did nothing to pacify them. Several of them disappeared when he sang a song praising them and making offering to them as local deities. Several others departed when he sang a song expressing his confidence in the experiences and view of meditation. One particularly persistent demon only disappeared when Milarepa sang a song expressing his deepest realization and then surrendered to the demon by putting his head in its mouth. Over the years, Milarepa befriended and converted many of the mountain demons and gods—which from a modern perspective we might say represents conquering both our own internal fears and confusion as well as the local, environmental energies and preconceptions.

While he was in solitary retreat, Milarepa was visited by his sister, Peta; his scheming aunt; and his former fiancée. In the past, they had represented a world of struggle and grief. Initially, while he was in retreat, they tried to dissuade him from his ascetic life. His gentleness, insight, and dedication to his practice so impressed his aunt that she eventually became a yogic practitioner. His fiancée and his sister became devoted to him and brought him food and clothing.

Over the years, Milarepa had many encounters with those who passed near his cave. Hunters, animals, and others wandering in the wilderness became his disciples. Visitors frequently thought he was a wretched hermit when they first saw him, and they would bring him food and clothing out of pity. Many were converted to the path of meditation by the beautiful yogic songs that Milarepa sang, praising the teachings of dharma and pointing out the misery of samsaric life. Far from being a miserable person, Milarepa had tremendous appreciation for the beauty and richness of his environment and of his lineage.

After years of solitary meditation, Milarepa reached a great obstacle in his practice. Constantly in a state of hunger, he was experiencing such fluctuations of pain and pleasure that he found that he could not meditate. Unable to overcome these distractions, he finally opened the scroll that Marpa had given him. It contained instructions for his meditation and also advised him to eat good food at this time. He followed the teacher’s advice, and his meditation became thoroughly accomplished. Recognizing that his realization was the fruition of many years of practice, he felt extremely grateful to all those who had provided him with food, clothing, and other provisions. At this time, he also recognized that the root of suffering and the root of liberation are in essence the same. Realizing this interdependence, he experienced great compassion and gratitude for all beings. When he realized that there was no longer any question of rejecting or accepting his experience, the final traces of ego were overcome. He understood the ultimate meaning of nonaggression: that there is no separation between oneself and others.

For the remainder of his life, Milarepa traveled throughout Tibet, meditating and spreading the teachings of the Buddha. Wherever he went, he accumulated disciples and was loved by the people. When he was eighty-four, he accepted a drink from a lama who was jealous of his reputation. He knew that it contained poison, but he felt that his life’s work was complete. Before he died, he gave his final instructions to the assembled students. These are instructions that could benefit any of us today, as much as they did then. He said,

When I die, there is no certainty that my body will remain in the form of a corpse. Don’t build statues or stupas in my memory. Instead, raise the banner of meditation. Reject all that increases egoclinging or inner poison, even if it appears good. Practice all that benefits others, even if it appears bad. This is the true way of dharma. Since life is short and the time of death unknown, devote yourselves wholly to meditation. Act wisely and courageously according to your innate insight, even at the cost of your life. In short, act in a way that you will not be ashamed of.

When Milarepa died, many miracles were reported. He was seen at the same time in many different places, and the air was filled with dakinis singing his praises. It is said that a shower of many-colored blossoms fell to the earth and that rainbows filled the sky. As he had predicted, his body did not remain but dissolved into a crystal stupa, which was carried off into space by the assembly of deities.

In the Shambhala teachings, it is said that the warrior whose way is complete achieves both temporal and spiritual victory, that his mind is beyond mind, and that he is the warrior of the warriors. In the Buddhist scriptures, it says that when the Buddha Sakyamuni was born from his mother’s side, he took seven steps and proclaimed that in heaven and earth he was the World-Honored One. Whether we see them as literal or symbolic, the miracles that accompanied Milarepa’s death are similarly a proclamation of his conquest over the corruptions of ego. He too was a world conqueror; his victory was a statement of the power of nonaggression.

There is a saying in the Kagyü tradition that the grandchildren will surpass the ancestors. Milarepa’s teachings of complete sanity—which came from the Buddha Vajradhara, were passed down from Tilopa to Naropa to Marpa, and then were given to Milarepa—he in turn gave to Gampopa, who founded the monastic order of the Takpo Kagyü, which spread the teachings of the dharma to innumerable disciples. The order of the Karma Kagyü, to which I belong, began with the first Karmapa, Tusum Khyenpa, a disciple and heartson of Gampopa. As a lineage holder of this tradition, I am extremely grateful to Milarepa for giving us such a magnificent example of courage and wisdom to follow. Through the incorruptibility of his lineage, the teachings of the buddhadharma have been completely preserved and constantly renewed, so that the power of wakefulness continues to sound the great drum of dharma in the world today. I am pleased that we can fulfill the prophecy of our forefathers.