Cindy Griffith, Psychic
315-685-8395 or 877-511-3510 ~ 9am to 9pm Eastern Standard
Three Days with the Dalai Lama!
Taking the Bodhisattva Vow
by Cindy Griffith
I couldn’t believe it, His Holiness, The Dalai Lama in New York?! He’s teaching for three days?! Christopher and I have to decide. Do we get the $300 tickets, the $200 tickets or the $100 tickets? Thinking of the Buddhist concept of choosing the Middle Way, we chose the $200 tickets.
I want to stress that I am not pushing Buddhism. Many of you have asked me to talk about the amazing experience of studying with the Dalai Lama that I was blessed to share with two very special friends, and so I am now sharing that experience with you!
His Holiness was mainly teaching about the thirty-seven practices of the Bodhisattva. (I will explain more about the Bodhisattva a little later on.) We were sitting with about 900 others in The Big Buddha Hall which houses the largest Buddha statue in the Western Hemisphere. The statue is about 37 feet tall and there are 10,000 smaller Buddha statues surrounding it. If you are ever near Kent (Carmel) New York, I highly recommend visiting this very special place! The Chuang-Yen Monastery is about 15 minutes from Cold Springs on Route 301 east which you can get to from Route 9 or the Taconic Parkway.
His Holiness spoke in Tibetan while one translator spoke Mandarin into the loudspeaker and the other translated into English via our headphones! After three days I was basically brain dead. I could only take in the teachings on a intuitive level. But, I was on such an energy high that I didn’t really care. At least one of us was constantly teary eyed because we were tapping into all the unconditional love and energy that this amazing man puts out!
I remember at one point, I just started crying (well not just once) because I realized that this man was the essence of love, of compassion. He is believed to be an incarnation of compassion. You could say his essence is compassion. I could feel unconditional love radiating from him. And laugh? All this holy man did was laugh! If you have never seen him in person or on tape, I highly recommend it. You will start to smile, I guarantee it! His laughter and love are definitely contagious!
Now, what is or who is a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is basically a person who has vowed to reach a mind state of complete enlightenment, and to then remain incarnate (doesn’t leave the cycle of death and rebirth) until the last sentient being has achieved enlightenment. You can make the vow and not be a Bodhisattva, the vow is like the freshman saying "I wanna", the Bodhisattva could say "I did". (but because of humility, wouldn’t)
I think it’s easiest to explain what a Bodhisattva is through the following story. Three men were walking through the desert. They were lost and about to die from thirst and hunger. They come to a very high wall and the first one climbs up, shouts for joy and jumps over the wall never to return. The next man climbs up the wall and he too, exclaims in ecstasy, jumps off the wall and never comes back. Now the third man climbs up the wall. He gets to the top and sees a sort of Garden of Eden place with water and lots of fruit trees. He smiles, turns, goes back down the wall, returning to the desert to help the others find their way to this paradise. This third man is a Bodhisattva. He doesn’t jump over the wall of enlightenment into Nirvana. He chooses to go back into the desert of the world and help others find their way.
Now it was break time on the last day, before the formal taking of the vows. The three of us discussed that it will be interesting to watch, but none of us planned to actually take the vows.
We go back and The Dalai Lama is speaking about the vows and I start to cry. I couldn’t tell you why, I just couldn’t stop sobbing. Then His Holiness says that all who wish to take the vows should place their hands in prayer position. All three of us, at the same time, put our hands in the prayer position and proceed to take our Bodhisattva vow with The Dalai Lama. I cried through the whole thing, and for a while after that! His Holiness told us to say the mantra, "Om Mani Padme Hum," daily. Which translates "The Jewel is in the lotus". The Dalai Lama also told us to recite the following prayer often, as it reiterates our vow:
"With the wish to liberate all migrators
Until I reach the essence of enlightenment
I will always take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
With wisdom, love, compassion and so on,
I will make efforts to benefit sentient beings.
By abiding before the Buddhas, I generate the mind of complete enlightenment.
For as long as the space endures
And as long as sentient beings remain,
For that long I will abide
To dispel the suffering of beings."
You can be a Christian Buddhist or an Agnostic Buddhist. Buddhism is a way of life, not a religion. Buddha was a man, not a God. What Buddha found is that we make our life one of suffering through our focus on our wants. By following an 8-step path, we can learn to release our self from our sufferings.
It is a big commitment to say that you will stay and help all sentient beings find enlightenment and some I have told think I am a little crazy for this. When I took my vows, crying as I was, I knew that it was the right thing for me. If this sounds familiar to what you are praying for, if you have been asking Spirit to be of service to humanity, I urge you to research this further.
Cindy is a psychic in Skaneateles, NY who is now tweeting under the name of Tarotheals. You can visit her web site www.PsychicSupport.com to read her daily Tarot Numerology tweets, find out where she is reading and teaching as well as read other articles she has written!
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