The thought of extraordinary individuals has the power to shift what we conceive of as possible in this human realm. It also changes what we think of our teachers, ourselves, and our brothers and sisters. A saint, both in the East and in Western traditions, is something more than a good person, or someone of exemplary character. Moving past this mundane conception, we enter into a supernatural framework for understanding the lives and influence of a saintly person.
Padmasambhava however used it as a place of practicing Vajrakilaya, and if you have the right karma, you will see some relevant images in the cave walls. There are also various rock formations which have Buddhist, Hindu and in some cases Kirat, mythology attached to them, such as the two rocks just inside the cave door, which are meant to be the the body and head of a demon decapitated by Padmasambhava.
“I learned that well-being and happiness are things that have to be obtained from within yourself. No one is going to give them to you. You have to learn to be wherever you are and to appreciate that, to be with it and be happy with it, not to hope for anything else at that particular moment. ” In these words, Lama Tashi summed up the experience of his three and a half years of retreat, traveling through the Himalayas of India and Nepal.
A live sword of Fudo — who has it? We often hear that just reading and intellectualizing teachings are not enough, we have to practice and embody them. Only then we can see if they work and only then we can see a change.
The Tibetan translators a millennium ago chose nangpa as the word for Buddhist and it simply means insider, to accept that mind is responsible for everything. To be a true insider means to change the causes, rather than blaming the effects.
I have heard my teacher say that in the same way a summer rain will bring forth countless mushrooms in a meadow, the mind-training and meditation practices of Tibet brought forth an uncountable number of masters who awakened to their own potential. These masters attained a degree of fulfillment and insight in their lives that far surpasses anything we can imagine.
At first she was horrified, doing her best to keep them out by stuffing an old blanket into the crevice beneath the door so that they couldn’t get into her bedroom. But they easily chewed and clawed their way through whatever barrier she put there, until finally she gave up fighting them.