The period starting from the first day
until fifteenth day of this lunar month
is known as Chotrul Duchen,
commemorating the event when Buddha Shakyamuni
performed a different miracle each day
to instill devotion and increase merit
Patrul Rinpoche’s message on Losar, 28 Feb 2025
All those in the ZPR group, all the Dharma brothers and sisters, the Tibetan New Year has just started and I wanted to say something. For just a second now, it’s been a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year. It’s like a new life, new experiences to come, and we must have a great aspiration, a pure aspiration. What aspiration? An aspiration towards kindness, tolerance and compassion. And ultimately, to have this great pure aspiration.
What does ‘pure’ mean? There is nothing self-centred, but it is being purely concerned about the benefit of others. We say to ourselves, ‘May I become beneficial to other sentient beings. May I liberate sentient beings’. This is the absolutely pure aspiration, the great and supreme aspiration. This is what we call bodhicitta. And at the same time you can implore or invoke your teacher or the person you trust. ‘Your teacher’ means that you can rely on him, you can trust him and you can listen to his advice for this life and the next life. And in particular, you can invoke the compassion of your guide, the kindness of your guide and his devotion to you. Perhaps you can invoke the name of your guru, teacher or guide.
But maybe you are very, very close. You can offer prayers or prostrations to fulfil your great pure ultimate aspiration to compassion for the benefit of sentient beings.
Many eons ago, there was a person who totally got rid of illusion. That person’s mind is like that. His speech is honest and true. You can say, ‘May I become like this’, because this person has perfect physical discipline and there is nothing pretentious about him.
This is a kind of great truth, taking the path of truth, practising the truth, experiencing the truth and realising the truth. And this truth is the truthful person of the Buddha. Perhaps you can prostrate yourself before him, pray to him, invoke him and say to him, ‘In the years to come, may I become beneficial to sentient beings.’
This truthful person has realised what the truth is and what is false. You have to follow this truthful person completely. That is his retinue. And if, in the new year to come, we follow the truthful person that is the Buddha and the truthful speech that is the Buddha’s speech, like the four noble truths, we will also follow, or imitate, the followers of the truthful person that is the Buddha and of his speech, that is to say the bodhisattvas. Perhaps we can say, ‘May I respectfully follow them and may I realise my aspiration for the benefit of sentient beings.’ In this way, perhaps in the New Year, we can have this great aspiration.
Brothers and sisters, you have probably been studying the Dharma for a long time. What is the benefit to your mind? I studied a lot. For instance, I studied how to have renunciation. Renunciation means understanding samsara, understanding human existence, and recognising how precious and important this human existence is. I have this existence right now. It makes me happy, but I want to give it a deeper meaning, I have this feeling.
Not just through study, but through experience. I have this human existence, but is it stable? Indestructible? It’s not indestructible and it disappears easily, that’s what we call impermanence. I want to understand impermanence; it gives me more interest in practising the Dharma. It’s the same as, of course you know them, the four reminders, causality and the defects of samsara; the more you understand them, the more they are beneficial for our mind. It will be less ego-oriented, less self-centred and you can more easily become an excellent person.
Happy new year!
Read more about celebrating together.
Rigdzin Dupa Drupchen takes place right after Losar.
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