Jetsun Drolma, p3
Praying to Jetsun Drolma as an antidote to anger
Jetsun Drolma and other wisdom dakinis, khandro-mas, have the power to dispel all obstacles, internal obstacles and external obstacles, all of them. Especially in these times, for practitioners, it's very important, very helpful for us to rely upon a wisdom being like Tara who is very beneficial for removing obstacles. When we have anger, for example, this is the internal enemy, the internal obstacle. Anger creates for us an experience of hardship, an experience of difficulties, an experience of suffering. In that way, it is an enemy inside of us who is causing problems for us. Anger even changes the way we are as a being; our character can change, our way of being can change, even the way we speak changes because of anger.
Tara arises from compassion, the antidote to anger. When we have anger and we're able to supplicate Tara, then that anger can disappear. She can pacify that anger completely.
On the other hand, to try to remedy our situation when we're angry, to see the solution to our problem outside of ourselves, something that we have to take care of externally, then that can make our anger worse. It can make our troubles worse to try to remedy that way.
Instead, we can focus on praying to Jetsun Drolma. We can supplicate Jetsun Drolma, and then we can take care of the inner enemies, the inner anger, rather than trying to focus on the external world.
A prayer to Tara
There are many different supplications. Many tertons, many treasure revealers, many lamas have written prayers praising Tara and supplicating Tara. We have a very short prayer from Dudjom Lingpa; it is very convenient to recite, a prayer to Tara which has a line that you repeat that says, "Jetsun Drolma, please know me. Jetsun Drolma, please remove all of my fear and my suffering." That's the part that you recite again and again. If we supplicate Tara with faith, trust and devotion, then it can be very helpful to us to remove our obstacles. It's very beneficial to do.
༄༅། །རྗེ་བཙུན་སྐྲོལ་མའི་གསོལ་འདེབས།
Prayer to the Exalted Goddess Tara
རྗེ་བཙུན་འཕགས་མ་སྐྲོལ་མ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། །
JE TSUN PAG MA DROL MA KYED KYEN NO
Noble exalted Tara, heed me!
འཇིགས་དང་སྡུག་བསྔལ་ཀུན་ལས་བསྐྱབ་ཏུ་གསོལ། །
JIG DANG DUG NGAL KUN LAY KYAB TU SOL
Protect me from all fears and sufferings, I pray!
In this time of degeneration, the afflicted emotions, the kleshas, have very much increased. It's become very easy for people to give rise to anger. Just the smallest thing can set somebody off, and our anger can arise very, very easily and very quickly. All the afflictive emotions can arise very quickly, without any obstacle, immediately. At the same time, our compassion, our patience, our contentment and satisfaction have all decreased. So our afflictive emotions, our anger has been turned up and become easier to access and easier to give rise to. Yet those qualities of compassion and loving kindness and patience have diminished.
In order to change this situation, we need to rely upon and supplicate wisdom beings, wisdom dakinis like Jetsun Drolma. We need to take refuge. We need to have trust and devotion towards the teachers, the lamas and the dharma, and to practice compassion and loving kindness. Through that kind of practice, our afflictive emotions will become less and less. The qualities of loving kindness and compassion will increase. Our demeanor, our character, our way of being in the world will improve as well. We'll become softer, gentler beings. Our minds will become very tamed, very peaceful. Doing so is very convenient, to engage in this type of practice, to supplicate these beings is something that's easy to do and something that we can receive benefit from.
This is the essence of the Dharma. This is really what we mean by Dharma, that ability to practice in such a way that our mind is changed. We change our minds, we transform our minds. We decrease afflictive emotions, we increase positive emotions and qualities of loving kindness and compassion.
Otherwise, we can do the whole dharma thing where we meet many teachers, we receive many teachings. We are on Zoom, this Zoom and that Zoom. We engage in all kinds of dharma activity, but we're not applying the real antidote or the real message of what the Dharma is to our minds. And then we don't see results. We don't see any change in our behavior, any change in our minds. This is what happens when we are not really practicing the Dharma.
In short, it's very important to rely upon the wisdom beings, to supplicate them with faith and devotion: beings such as Manjushri, Jetsun Drolma, Machig Labdron, Yeshe Tsogyal. To all the variety of wisdom beings, we can supplicate, we can rely upon them, and through that we can transform our minds. This is the teaching for today.
- Chakung Jigme Wangdrak, July 16, 2022