Mañjuśrī

I guess I was sort of feeling like I don't feel like I can make it through this on my own.

So what Shantideva does is he prays to the Bodhisattva Manjushri, who I've got here on this thangka that a reader of my blog very generously gave to me.

And so I guess, yeah, I guess maybe a little while after that, I read the Dalai Lama's How to Practice.

And he sort of talked about this sort of nightly worship.

And there is this sort of seven-part worship that Shantideva does.

And I kind of do that sort of modified version of it as a prayer to Manjushri.

And, you know, do I believe that Manjushri exists? No, I don't.

You know, but I had to...

From the stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death, from the ocean of samsara, may I free all beings.

The courageous Manjushri, who knows everything as it is, Samantabhadra, who also knows in the same way, and all the bodhisattvas that I may follow in their path, I completely dedicate all this virtue.

Thank you guys for all your support.

One and done.

And we all need to train it.

Like Manjushri training his beast, the beast of self.

He's not keeping a beast in a cage or beating it to death.

He is sitting still on that self, watching it so it doesn't run off with him.

Try to do what's good to do, which may not always be what we want.

And to do this, we need to sit still, to see with wisdom what is good to do, sitting still in meditation.

That's why Manjushri is in our meditation hall, sitting still on his beast of self, because he personifies wisdom and meditation sitting still, because they go together, of course.

And the other half of this, the other wing, is compassion.

In Sanskrit, the words hero and sacrifice have the same root.

Manjushri's sword kills and gives

life.

The Tigris Jotica dramatizes the perfection of noble giving, dana, of selfless generosity, and perfects it in one fell swoop.

Esto es el Vajrayana.

There is also Manjushri.

También está Manjushri.

Again, he, she is shown before the age where it matters.

Before the?

The age where it matters of he, she.

Look, for your baby, it doesn't really matter.

Yes, para él tampoco tiene nada que ver-- o sea, para Manjushri, para él mismo, poco le importa si es masculino o femenino.

It's in the mundane, everyday daily task.

How do you speak to someone? Like, what's your tone? Is it kind? And it doesn't mean that you don't have to bring your sword of Manjushri at some point, so it's not like rose-colored glasses and everything is like...

I'm not speak- [chuckles] I'm not saying that either, uh, because at times you do need to be very direct in your speech.

But it just invited me into looking in these very toxic spaces, because in spaces of injustice, there, there are a lot of toxicities, right? There-- That's why they're, they're injust, right? They're injust, and they've been injust for a while, and often the injustice, uh, continues because, um, we haven't been able to address the root causes and to change them.

From the ocean of samsara, may I free all beings.

The courageous Manjushri, who knows everything as it is, Samantabhadra, who also knows in the same way, and all the bodhisattvas that I may follow in their path, I completely dedicate all this virtue.

The opening and closing music for the podcast is Tibetan Flute Song by Tamding Arts at tamdingarts.com.

Please join us again next week for another Dharma Talk.