I was feeling goofy today and wanted to test the video on my new phone. This is my response to a Buddhist friend who had some objections to me adapting Tibetan butter lamp prayers to accommodate Christmas lights.
In case you can’t tell through the terrible singing and playing it is supposed to be the 7 Line Prayer of Padmasambhava sung to the tune of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
I found this linked from another entry that warns practitioners against trying “Buddhist sorcery” without BEING A BUDDHIST and having an empowerment that ties you (with secret tantric threads) to the body of the lineage, because “there is no tantra without the lineage”, or something similar. The reason was at least partially because there were retinue of wrathful energies protecting the integrity of the practice.
So I have to ask, for the theoretical insight of it, why mixing traditions like this is not TERRIBLE AND DANGEROUS?
Here it is:
“Remember Tantra means thread and refers to the lineage. Without it there is no Tantra. Onto this Mandala are grafted various protector spirits and such that have retinues which can be harmful and are specifically designed to protect the integrity of the practice. The being IS the practice.”
Granted, your referring to Vajrakilaya here, not Padmasambhava. But it’s weird to me that even a simple Padmasambhava practice (“the being IS the practice”) is just… not serious enough or important enough that preserving the integrity of it doesn’t matter, and ISN’T crawling with wrathful, hyper-conservative Lineage Protectors, and you can just feel free to be eclectic and experiment with it…
Hi,
There are a few things here.
1. First, there is no one tune for this prayer. I know a dozen.
2. Second, I did not change the prayer itself.
3. Things get damaged when they are altered without reason and presented as traditional. This is not being presented as traditional.
4. What I was referring to was people claiming to work inner tantras without initiation or guru. The forms of these change all the time within the tradition. I am in the tradition.
5. Most importantly, Tradition did not arrive at the present in one solid and unchanged unit. That is not how it is maintained, and not how it moves forward either. As long as people are working within the parameters of the principals of the tradition there is no problem for new tunes, new sadhanas, etc.
6. Lastly, this is not me changing the tradition. Its a bit of humor.
I took the sense of the old post to be less about someone thinking they’re an initiate of a tantric practice, which would simply be incorrect, and more like: “Don’t even THINK about saying OM AH HUM VAJRAKILI KILAYA HUM PHAT like you saw in that stupid YouTube video OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU”.
And I guess I’m curious why screwing around with Guru Rinpoche (not to mention the Christmas Spirit) seems so harmless and funny but just saying OM AH HUM VAJRAKILI KILAYA HUM PHAT without permission is like, a crime against the Dharma.
Actually, more to the point of it, I once asked a Nepalese (He wasn’t even Tibetan, is that important?) thangkha painter who clearly (visibly, on display, indeed for sale) knew SOMETHING about Vajrakilaya, and he told me the Vajrakilaya mantra was “very good for healing”, and to go ahead and say it all the time, and when I mentioned empowerment he literally laughed at me.
Obviously I’m bringing up an old post from May 2012 more or less out of context, but I really do want to know.
Some do feel that the empowerments are not needed at all. Others feel that as long as you are not self-transforming into Kilaya and only saying the mantra TO Kilaya that you do not need an empowerment.
It is similar to some ATR’s. you do not need initiation to pray TO an Orisha, but you do in order to do certain things.
And while I’m still thinking about it, there’s obviously some kind of disconnect between the esoteric (yet well published) idea of THE GURU as One’s Own Enlightened Mind and the exoteric guru as an actual person with institutionalized teaching authority and the Tibetan monastic equivalent of a PhD, or maybe an 8th century traveling sage with traditional robes and a very specific kind of hat. (Or like a 0th century Jewish guy those angels are supposed to be singing about. This is what I’m saying.) I latter kind, I have reason to suspect, unnecessary, if not actually deceptive and bad… but maybe that’s a prejudice.
And if I lose interest in a merely historical guru, I will also lose interest in a merely a merely historical teaching lineage, and I won’t care about my sadhana’s credentials as long as it works…
You wrote: “I took the sense of the old post to be less about someone thinking they’re an initiate of a tantric practice, which would simply be incorrect, and more like: “Don’t even THINK about saying OM AH HUM VAJRAKILI KILAYA HUM PHAT like you saw in that stupid YouTube video OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU”
You took it wrong.
Ok, I got it. Took me a while to get the question right… shouldn’t think out loud in public forums, excuse me.
Could you please explain how the authority of a Tantric empowerment going all the back through Tibetan lineage channels is DIFFERENT than the authority to perform the sacraments (and perform cool Book of Acts style miracles) which is passed down in the Catholic Church, etc., through the Apostolic Succession, going back through very similar lineage channels back to Christ?
Or was that maybe actually the FUNNY PART of your Christmas song?
“Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!””
Dude, chill out. It’s a bout of humor. No one is going to die, and working yourself into a tizzy over it is silly.
Besides, I’d wager that Jason does have all those uber-important empowerments and initiations. If it were someone like me, who’s never done a single thing in Buddhism of any kind beyond basic samatha meditation, I’d say it’s disrespectful or foolish. Jason can be counted on to know what he’s doing, and actually practices, so I don’t understand why this is such an issue for anyone. It’s like a Christian working themselves into a frenzy because someone sung “We Three Kings” while playing drums.
Just chill and regard it as what it is — pointed humor.
*
What do you mean “terrible singing and playing”? I’ve heard terrible, and that’s not it. It’s not Pavarati either of course.
As to the piece, I have to admit I’ve never heard Padmasambhava filked. Well done!
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