[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Jonathan,

Sorry for the delayed reply, but hopefully you’re already recovered!  Regarding the orientation of the HUM, I think this is a case of “doesn’t really matter.”  If you like, the HUM could move around, sometimes in front of you, sometimes in back…remember that visualizations are dynamic!  Best of wishes for your practice at this particular time while H.E. Tsike Chokling Rinpoche remains in thukdam, matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Jonathan,

Generally we haven’t been using bells and dorjes for the Treasury of Blessings practice, which is oriented towards shamatha and does not include a self-visualization.  As to ‘recitation’ more broadly, even in Mahayoga practices mantra recitation is most commonly done without holding the bell and dorje–among other things, you’re usually holding a mala–so I would just leave them aside for now.  Best, matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Jonathan, I can’t say what practices you can use them for now since I don’t know what you’re doing other than ngondro!  But generally they’re used in sadhana practices.  If you haven’t been told to use them I’d suggest just keeping them handy until you receive a practice that requires them.  Best, matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Dear Karin,

Thank you for your heartfelt question and greetings from Gomde New York!  To do a even a short session of practice every day is not easy, but if we can manage to do it we experience great benefits as we stumble along on the path.  Perhaps this is why Phakchok Rinpoche has always insisted that his students maintain the daily continuity of their ngondro practice by at least going through the text and doing the visualizations.  If we can develop this habit as we accumulate the five hundred thousands of the so-called “preliminary practices”, we will struggle less as we continue with other practices later on.

So the short answer to your question is that you are correct: if we miss a single day of ngondro practice we must start counting again at prostration number 1, even if we were half finished with mandala offerings when we missed a day.  This is not an easy instruction to follow, but it does come from Rinpoche’s compassion in trying to help us to develop this important habit of daily practice.  Participating in Ka-Nying’s month of group ngondro practice might be a good way to begin again, as you suggest, because you will have the support of the group each day.  Then if you generate sincere motivation to continue each day after the retreat ends, it may be a little easier.

Although I have been asked to be the moderator of this ngondro group, I think most people know by now that I generally prefer to speak with people directly about their practice rather than post answers for the whole group to read, but I am posting this reply because over the years many people have asked this same question and it seemed like a good moment to remind everyone about this important point.  If you would like to talk about your practice in a more personal way, please email me at mzalichin@gmail.com so that we can set up a time to zoom or skype.  And take heart! Over the centuries many people just like yourself have managed to complete a ngondro in this way–some of them in our modern times who you probably know!

Best wishes for joyful and successful practice, matthew zalichin

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Jonathan,

How wonderful that you will be starting the ngondro practices soon!  You will not need your bell and dorje for the ngondro, and your bell is appropriate for any practice you may do later on.  In the meantime, you can put them on your shrine as representations of wisdom (bell) and compassion (vajra).

Enjoy your practice!  matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Noah, nice to hear from you and know you’re practicing!

Sadly (or fortunately–it’s hard to be sure!), there is no way of avoiding some physical discomfort over the course of 100,000 prostrations.  That having been said, cement or stone floors like most gompas have are very solid and unforgiving, and prostrating outdoors on the ground means there is a lot of friction so that your hands cannot slide very well.  So nailing some boards together such as you’ve seen Tulkula using provide a bit of springiness that will help save your wrists from damage, but it’s not that the inch or two of height makes the prostration much easier.

You say that the problem is with your knees, and if you are dropping straight down onto your knees (so that your knees are the first part of your body to hit the board) that is likely to cause some problems over time.  Although there is no  right or wrong way to go down, you might want to try landing on your hands rather than your knees.  This causes you to use your abdominal muscles more, so that the feeling is more like going out into space rather than dropping straight down.  Then you sort of skim along on your hands and your knees don’t get banged up so much.

People who have been to Nepal or India sometimes feel that they must have a prostration board to “really” do prostrations, but that is not at all the case.  One friend of mine did his ngondro while living in a cave in the Grand Canyon and so did his prostrations on sand!  And householders in Nepal who practice at home often get a roll of linoleum, which is cheap there but expensive in the US, to provide a smooth surface.

People living in cities do not always have access to lumber to make a board, and they are also very heavy–too heavy for me to lift nowadays–which makes them difficult to move out of the way if you cannot leave them in place all the time.  In the US and Canada (I’m not sure about other places) you can easily get a sheet of masonite at most hardware stores.  You will need to coat it with polyurethane so that your sweat does not dissolve the glue and disintegrate it, but it is pretty light and easy to tip up on its side or slide under a bed to get it out of the way when not in use.  Personally I did two ngondros this way and it worked fine, though in one apartment that had a cement floor I put it on a scrap of carpet to provide a little cushioning.

Practice well!  matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Dear Hongtran,

Thanks for your question.  Traditionally development stage practices require empowerments and so on, which were given in person. Nowadays with the Covid-19 pandemic restricting travel it is difficult to know what will be happening in the future.  If you live in Vietnam or anywhere in southeast Asia (to me your name seems like it could be Vietnamese; sorry if I’m wrong!), I’d suggest you contact Tulku Migmar, who is based in Singapore and in close contact with both Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche and his sangha in that part of the world.

With best wishes for your practice, Matthew

 

[Matthew Zalichin]

Dear Eric (and all of KPR’s ngondro practitioners),

Thanks so much for sending me the link to the extensive ngondro, The Seed of Supreme Awakening.  It’s very helpful to be certain of which text you’re using and that “the long ngondro supplication practice” you referred to is in fact the Barche Lamsel.  The points you raise are important ones, and merit some general comments to begin with before getting into specifics.  I posted a statement regarding some of these issues back when the ngondro site was first set up on Samye, but that was a few years ago now, and many new people have joined since then, so it’s a good idea to re-visit them now.  Thanks for providing the opportunity!

Everyone should know that personally I take a fairly conservative approach to practice issues (my ‘brother’ Graham and I used to joke that when it comes to the dharma, we are like the Taliban!).  Generally speaking, my observation over the past 50 years (40 as a formally authorized meditation instructor) has been that we students make the most progress when we are clear about the instructions we were given and then practice them.  Sadly, we often do not do that.  Although Phakchok Rinpoche doesn’t really ‘complain’ in the conventional sense, several times I have heard him comment along the lines of, “I come one year and give instructions.  Then when I return a year later people say, ‘Rinpoche, you told me to do <i style=”mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>this</i> but it didn’t feel so good so I started doing something else.’  What advice can I give in that situation?”  This is not to denigrate the necessity of making the practice our own, as you say.  It’s not that we all have to do exactly the same thing in a paint-by-numbers sort of way, as development stage practice should always have life to it, but if Lama Sherab said to visualize a deity as 25 meters tall, I suspect that his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he said so!

Many different individuals participate in this ngondro forum, and they have a wide variety of practice histories and backgrounds.  Some are doing ngondro as their main practice, others are completing it more slowly as they are emphasizing other practices at this moment.  The written and video instructions on the website all refer to the abridged Barche Kunsel ngondro arranged by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and most participants are using that text, but others (like yourself) are using the longer one, and a few are using other ngondro texts not connected with the Chokling Tersar.

People tend to take anything written down by even a quasi-authority figure like myself as very definite.  Given that, my personal approach, and the overall situation I feel that I can be most helpful when communicating directly with one person about their practice rather than writing something that has to be understood by a wide audience as I am doing now.  Therefore from the beginning of my role as moderator of this forum I have always tried to meet with people by phone rather than merely reply on Samye.  Even people with fairly straightforward questions have felt well served by this approach, as useful things to consider always seem to emerge from the conversation.

As Gampopa points out, one reason we remain in samsara is that we don’t know how to practice properly.  So the Samye ngondro site attempts to present very clear written and video instructions about how Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche’s students should practice the abridged Barche Kunsel ngondro.  So to answer your first question, I think it’s fine for you to post questions related to your practice of the complete Seed of Supreme Enlightenment, but please remember that only a few of the people reading your post will have attended the 2016 ngondro retreat at Asura, and the great majority will be practicing a condensed version that almost certainly omits the points you’re asking about.  So please try to be as precise and specific as you can in phrasing your questions so that you will not introduce confusion into the minds of others.  Maybe beginning with something like “This is for people who attended the 2016 ngondro retreats at Ka-Nying and Asura…” will help?

Regarding the mantras for the 12 manifestations, there are empowerments for each of them; Phakchok Rinpoche began giving them a few at a time at Gomde New York, but has not completed the set so far.  I don’t know what his plans to give these empowerments might be.  But from what you describe of Rinpoche’s and Lama Sherab’s programs in 2016 (I wasn’t there, remember), it seems fine to add them to your practice, but I agree with Robby that it would be more appropriate to do them within the context of the Trinley Nyingpo.  Sadhana texts have space to add that sort of adornment in a way that the ngondro text does not, and the Barche Lamsel is a unit unto itself, so it seems best not to interrupt it.  And if you end up saying one or more of these mantras as you go about your daily activities, why not?  Mantras are always better than namtok!

Hope this will be helpful to you, and others.  Practice well!  matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Eric,

I take it that you’re using the full Barche Kunsel ngondro text rather than Tulku Urgen Rinpoche’s abridgement which is what most of Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche’s students are using and to which all his instructions on Samye refer.  Am I right?  Although I have the lung for the full version from Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche long ago, I do not have a copy ready to hand, so it is a little difficult to reply to your questions.  If it’s possible for you to email me a copy to mzalichin@gmail.com or tell me where to find it on line somewhere I’ll be able to discuss the specifics with you, maybe via skype or zoom.

That having been said, broadly speaking it is usually best to stick fairly closely to the text itself and the instructions we’ve received.  For instance, Vajrasattva is part of the ngondro practices, but is also practiced as a yidam.  In the second case, one might have been instructed to visualize the deity with channels etc., but that is not a part of the visualization for the ngondro practice.

toujours samaya!  matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Thanks for showing me where to look, Ping!  You are right, of course, that those 4 lines are not there!  Looking at the video myself, it does not seem that those lines were edited out, but that Tulkula simply skipped them by mistake and that no one noticed at the time.  But the tune is the same as for all the other chanted sections, so I hope you will be able to manage ok.

Thanks for bringing this up so we can fix it!  I’ll pass this along to the Samye people who work so hard on the site.  I’m not sure when they will be able to get to it, but will get it on the list!

Yours in Dharma, Matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Ping,

I’m afraid I have not been able to find the video you refer to in these course materials, so I could not check to verify what is there.  But the Inner Guru Yoga is simply the vajra guru mantra: om ah hung bendza guru pema siddhi hung, so perhaps Tulkula just skipped over it.  Also, mantras are generally recited very softly, so perhaps it is there.  If you can send me a link to this video I’ll certainly look at it.  Best, Matthew Zalichin

 

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Ping,

I’m afraid I have not been able to find the video you refer to in these course materials, so I could not check to verify what is there.  But the Inner Guru Yoga is simply the vajra guru mantra: om ah hung bendza guru pema siddhi hung, so perhaps Tulkula just skipped over it.  Also, mantras are generally recited very softly, so perhaps it is there.  If you can send me a link to this video I’ll certainly look at it.  Best, Matthew Zalichin

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Carlos, either way is fine!  If you are only going to do one session in a day, then it would be good to combine the refuge/prostrations and Vajrasattva.  But if you are going to do two sessions, you could either combine the two each time, or do refuge in the morning and Vajrasattva in the evening.  Up to you!

best, Matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Karin,

I’m not completely sure what you are after.  I do have a diagram of the 37-point mandala offering, but as shown in the video, Phakchok Rinpoche has not asked us to do that as part of ngondro, but rather to simply let the offering rice/gems/etc pour through your hand into a single pile on the plate.  Does that help?  If this isn’t clear perhaps we should talk about it on the phone or skype.  best, matthew

[Matthew Zalichin]

Hi Shlomo, how about 7pm Israel time (1pm in New York)?  I believe my skype ID is matthew.zalichin1

Talk to you tomorrow, matthew