Pro(ouch)stra(I have muscles there?!)tions

I did it. I made it through 100, a second time, in my allotted time. Whew. Prostrations aren't going to kill me. I just had to break it down into sets, not unlike I do when working out. 

I noticed a couple things this morn while reciting the Refuge and Bodhichitta  prayers.  In the refuge prayer, the version I am working through states. "I take refuge until enlightenment is fully realized."  Essentially, what is presented is a mandala, and in that mandala, which is mostly an interior mandala to begin with, I take refuge. Which is to say, it is where I place my trust. I am seeking protection, safety, a place to live. All of that I seek is inside me.  I will trust in that until I no longer need to, and that is when I have fully realized, made real in this body, enlightenment. Then I no longer will need to. Up until then though, the elements of the mandala are what I need to continually trust in. I caught a glimpse that along the way of our path, it might be easy to accomplish some things and begin to think we don't need to do that. Or we forget to do that.  "Buddha, dharma, and sangha are in reality, Lama, yidam, and khandro." the Supplication to the Takpo Kagyus states, "Devotion is the head of meditation, as is taught. The guru opens the gate to the treasury of oral instructions." Maintaining that devotion, that trust, allowing it to become the nature of the relationship, is what keeps the stream of living communication open between teacher and student.

I might think I'm something now that I'm doing ngondro, and other students are not.  And despite the fact that prostrations are kicking my yogin tush.  I'm not though. I'm only doing what the teacher told me to do.  As he told me to do it.

The other thought I had occurred during my repetition of the Bodhichitta prayer. There's a line that states, "Beings wander endlessly astray in samsara's vicious cycle."  It means that beings can gravitate from a hell realm to the jealous god realm to the animal realm, to the hungry ghost realm, and somewhere along there their karma might ripen where they become human. Then they can participate in the rape, murder, hunger, disastrous life of being human.  Especially if they live in Africa, an inner city in America, the eastern part of Europe, the Middle East, and some parts of Asia. Consider briefly, if you will, all the tragedies that befall humans on this planet every day, in shockingly large numbers, and ask if that isn't a vicious life? Mind you, I have not been raped, well, that's partly not true, I've never experienced the horror of war, never faced the concept of no food but once in my life, never been without heat or meds I needed, or wondered if I would live out the school day or had to worry about a stray slug from a nearby gang war or drive-by. In other words, despite my own sufferings, I have it pretty easy. On top of that, I have a teacher and I am practicing the dharma so I really have a lot to be thankful for. My life isn't as vicious as it could be. For others, it is, and for them I practice.

I'll leave it at that for now. 

Namaste and tashi deleg!