His Holiness Karmapa performs a Milarepa feast ceremony with 700 practitioners

December 29, 2009, Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, report by Michele Martin, photos taken by Pema Orser Dorje

 

The main shrine hall at Tergar Monastery has been carefully prepared for a Milarepa feast (ganachakra) with cushions laid out in orderly rows and signs posted for the seating areas of the different groups attending—monks, nuns, people form the East and West, and Tibetan lay people. Set in the middle of the elevated shrine level is a beautifully carved alter of equal sides which is flat on top.  Rising above it is a portrait of Milarepa, painted by His Holiness in the Karma Gadri style, which is very spacious and open. Framed in burnished gold brocade, the image depicts Milarepa sitting on a rocky ledge with empty space around him. The rocks are delineated by free brush strokes in a traditional Chinese style. Milarepa looks like real person, a contemporary siddha, rather than someone from the distant past.  His eyebrows angle down on the side and reinforce his deep gaze that looks both inward and outward at once. His hair is twisted together in two long plaits, one falling to the front and another to the back, which turn to wisps at their end. His right hand is raised to his ear and his left rests on his knee.  He wears deep red meditation belt and a loosely draped cotton cloth with blue green tints. A faint halo surrounds his head. Near Milarepa’s bent and raised right knee (the other is in half lotus), His holiness as written in flowing script, “May you come to hold the fullness of renunciation, devotion, and non-distraction."

In front of this painting is a traditional torma, with spiraling flowers and a small sculpture of Milarepa in his more tradition blue form, with one had up to his ear and the other holding a skull cup.  Arranged in front of the torma, in harmony with Milarepa’s life, are the traditional offerings in their simple form: seven offering bowls, a small garland of marigolds and roses, and two skull cups, their spoons laid cross wise.

 

Set on either side of the alter about 15 feet away, are two large screens, with projectors set up in front of them on the shrine hall floor. The text of the practice will be displayed line by line on these screens so that everyone can easily see. Once more, His Holiness has skillfully combined the traditional and the modern worlds, which find their spaces side by side.

 

At 6pm, monks start entering.  His Holiness has set strict rules for those who can attend: they must have completed the preliminary practices.  No one else is allowed inside. In total, there are over 700 monks, nuns, and lay people who have finished one hundred thousand prostrations, one hundred thousand repetitions of Vajrasattva mantra, one hundred thousand mandala offerings, and one hundred supplications to the guru.

Those who have finished the three-year retreat sit in the front rows, reminding us that the Kagyu lineage is known as “the practice lineage.” The card allowing people inside is a reproduction of the Xth  Karmapa Choying Dorje’s painting of Milarepa.  He is sitting at the opening of his cave and teaching Kyiraba Dorje, the hunter who became Milarepa’s disciple.  The deer he was chasing lies peacefully at Milarepa’s feet; the dog who was chasing it looks a bit astonished on the other side, and in front four black and white birds peck at bright morsels of food on the ground at Milarepa’s feet. A small figure of the Karmapa floats in the sky above.

At 7pm, His Holiness enters the shrine hall and takes his seat in front of all the practitioners on a throne set on their level and facing the alter with the great Buddha statue behind it.  Everyone chants the Mahamudra Lineage Prayer and then the practice text begins to roll across the screens in English on the right and Chinese on the left.  His Holiness leads the practice, playing his bell and damaru with a clear intensity.

 

While the feast offerings are being passed out, nine Tibetan nuns sing a lilting feast song, which is followed by a Chinese lay group who sang part of the Medicine Buddha practice, alternating men’s and women’s voices.  Before the ceremony began, it was said that we must consume all of the feast offerings inside the shrine hall.  The main offerings were two white sweets covered in coconut and a taste of amrita.  Long life prayers were recited for the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa. After the offering of leftovers, His Holiness rose from the throne and climbed a short flight of stairs onto the shrine level.  There, facing everyone  he sat at the front edge on large rectangular cushions, covered in red and gold brocade.  Taking a portable mike in his hand, His Holiness said with great sincerity that he truly rejoiced in everyone’s accomplishment of the preliminaries and asked that they dedicate the ocean of merit arising from performing this feast offering of Jetsun Milarepa so that all living beings come to realize the state of Vajradhara.

He then turned to his offering to the practitioners. “I want to offer each one of you a tiny piece of Milarepa’s clothing, one that he has actually worn. In the last chapter of his life story, Milarepa himself said that this could bring liberation from the lower realms.  Placed next to the body, this precious cloth is also a support for the blessings of Milarepa’s body ,speech, and mind to enter our mindstream.  This is what I wish to offer you.”

 

He continued, “This year at the Monlam, we are especially focusing on Milarepa, so this morning we had the Milarepa empowerment and thinking of Milarepa’s kindness, I also have drawn this image on the shrine. Next to Milarepa are written the words: ‘May you come to hold the fullness of renunciation, devotion, and non-distraction.’  This is the very foundation of practice in the Kagyu lineage.  I also wish to give you a print of this image, which I have signed this morning.

If you receive this free of concepts and doubt while filled with devotion and faith as if receiving it from Milarepa himself, his blessings will come to you. As previously, when you were practicing the preliminaries, please continue with such diligence and devotion to accomplish great benefits for living beings.

When he had finished speaking, His Holiness began to offer these gifts to his Kagyu practitioners, who come up row by row to receive them while chanting Milarepa’s mantra, Je mila zhe pa dorje la sol ba dep so. The image of Milarepa is a luminous reproduction with His Holiness’s signature right below his red square seal. And the cloth is contained in a small metal gao (reliquary) nested in a maroon velvet bag with the words “Kagyu Monlam” and its spiraling insignia above.  Holding their gifts as they come away from His Holiness, everyone was visibly moved—their hearts touched by his generosity and their minds amazed at his bountiful qualities among them being a master teacher in guiding and inspiring his students and a superb artist, whose images bring to life the history and richness of the Kagyu lineage.