The master of divination says:
For the twenty-two family members,
The reading is not good, it’s a negative reading.
On the basis of the divination of samsara and nirvana,
Since samsara without any beginning,
The overflow of confusion’s ignorance spilled
And the acrid smell—the scorch of pure vision—came forth,
Along with the defilement of attachment and aggression.
By the conditions of the overflow, acrid smell, and defilement,*10
The male deity of wisdom disappeared in the sky;
The local deity of great bliss departed and is no more;
The dralha deity of self-awareness, too, went back and is gone.*11
Because of the departure of these three deities,
Ghosts brought harm to everything.
They harmed with the bad view of the eight worldly concerns,
And the “origin of suffering,” that ruinous demon,61 arose.
The high demon with the blazing fire of anger does harm.
The low demon with the churning water of desire does harm.
The naga-demon with the darkness of ignorance does harm.
The gyalgong*12 with the turbulent wind of pride does harm.
The class of tsen with the deception of jealousy does harm.
Vajrasadhu*13 with the partiality of selfishness does harm.
The mamo with the boasting62 of taking the self as real does harm.
The haunting ghost*14 with the latent tendencies and bad karma does harm.
Due to the harmful nature of these demons,
From birth until death, one’s life-force is weak.
From meeting until parting, family affairs are bad.
From accumulation until exhaustion, affairs of money are bad.
Due to incorrect outlook, affairs with enemies are bad.
To block this negative divination, I’ll perform a Bön practice.
This is the fourth chapter: the negative divination of compromised life-force.
Now this yogi will chant a Bön ritual.
When fervently chanting a practice of Bön,
A Bönpo learned in the profound scriptures does accordingly:
On the very first morning, the beginning of time,
The ritual mat of the three pitakas is laid down.
The ransom of hearing, contemplation, and meditation is offered.
The clean food offering of samaya is laid out.
Chanting and meditating of the four tantras begins
And a select offering of freedom from attachment is made.
For the male deity of wisdom disappearing in the sky
I give the pointing-out that meets with ignorance—the base.
For the going away of the local deity of great bliss,
I do an exorcism63 of the four maras’ adverse conditions.
For the departing of the dralha deity of self-awareness,
I offer the ransom of natural revulsion.
For the bad omen of the eight worldly concerns,
I strike with the knife of desire-free awareness.
For the ruinous demon of the origin of suffering,
I put a hex*15 on him in the space of great bliss.
The high demon with the blazing fire of anger
I soak with the wisdom of emptiness.
For the low demon of the churning water of desire,
I make the ritual offering of the emptiness of mind itself.
Delusion, the naga-demon of darkness,
Is [countered] by the eight nagas of self-liberated appearance.
The gyalgong of the turbulent wind of pride
I stab with the deer’s horn of the wisdom of emptiness.
For the class of tsen with jealousy that deceives,
I plant the arrow of all-accomplishing wisdom.
For the mamo of boasting that takes the self as real,
I recite the ritual of the emptiness of self and other.
For Vajrasadhu of the partiality of selfishness,
I offer the small torma of cherishing others.
The haunting ghost of the latent tendencies and bad karma
I threaten with the empty mental factors.
If there are ghosts of suffering, I threaten them like that.
If there are ghosts of wealth, I isolate them like that.
If there is something to be offered, I offer it like that.
Mind itself, in reality, is without birth or death;
Weakened life-force I expel with Bön.
The self-arisen companion is without meeting or parting;
Bad family affairs I expel with Bön.
The noble riches have no exhaustion;
Bad affairs of money I expel with Bön.
Negative divinations and evil powers I expel with Bön
I throw bad omens into the abyss with Bön.
Suffering dawns as an exhortation toward revulsion;
All adverse conditions I expel with Bön.
This is the fifth chapter: recovery from the demons.
The twenty-two family members
Are liberated from the sickness of the ignorance of mind.
The strong wheeze of self-clinging is cleared.
The complexion of luminosity-emptiness wisdom is healthy.
The food and water of bliss-clarity samadhi is delicious.
With awareness, gratitude is shown for what was done.
Now recovered, a thanksgiving feast free of bias is thrown.
As a messenger, the young child of awareness is sent
From the mountain of the dharma of the Great Perfection
To the watchful herders always sustaining meditative experience.
A yak of the nine progressive yanas is selected;
A sheep of the four sections of tantra is selected;
And a goat of the three pitakas is selected.
Upon the field of equality,
Gather the guests of manifold wisdom.
Upon the jewel-torma*16 of emptiness
Is plastered the butter of hearing and contemplation.
The arrow and banner*17 of self-arisen wisdom is planted
And the feast is laid out for everyone!
The guru, the master of divination,
Is adorned with the turban of devoted interest, respect, and faith.
The Bönpo learned in the profound scriptures
Rides the stallion of means and wisdom.
The male deity, the Bön kaya,*18 Samantabhadra,
Is offered the yak of the nine successive yanas.
The dralha of the five sambhogakaya families
Is offered the sheep of the four sections of tantras.
The life deity,64 the nirmanakaya sugata,
Is offered the goat of the three pitakas.
The divination healer that clears the elements*19
Is offered the torma of the four immeasurables.
This is how excellent offerings are made.
This is the sixth chapter: the feast of thanksgiving.
As to the goats, sheep, and yaks from before:
For the goat of the vast Bön essence*20
The butcher of omniscient primordial wisdom
Grinds the sword that is sharp with prajña.
He slaughters with the two accumulations,
Cuts the aorta of the two obscurations,
And peels off the outer hide of conceptualization.
With the intentions of sutras and tantras, he cuts up the quarters
And cuts at the joints with scriptures and logic.
With the cleaver of upadeshas, it’s cut into pieces.
The various sections of meat of the “Bön phenomena”
Are put into the cauldron of the vast “Bön essence”*21
The spontaneously present three kayas are put on the three-legged hearth*22
And the fire of the four immeasurables is lit.
Experience and realization cook i
t to completion
And it’s lifted out with the union of meditation and postmeditation.
In the excellent house of the vast Bön essence,
From the city of the confused six classes,
A variety of guests gather in the marketplace.
Made with the skilled hands of the five wisdoms,
Food and drink of the multiplicity being as a single taste
Are served to all without discrimination.
To the guru endowed with lineage and prajña,
Serve the upper portion of abundance.
To the guru who transmits the upadeshas,
Serve the aorta of the liberation path and awakening.
To the guru who guides sentient beings from samsara,
Serve the eyeball, the clear sense faculty.
To the guru who is learned in both meaning and word,
Serve the tongue that savors exquisite tastes.
To the sangha that keeps the vinaya rule,
Serve the joy that’s peaceful and pure.
To the Bönpo who understands cause and effect,
Serve the meat and liquor of benefiting self and other.
To the yogi who realizes birthlessness,
Serve the fat of great bliss.
To the sthaviras*23 who protect the teachings,
Serve the larynx that benefits all.
To the practitioner of Secret Mantra’s methods,
Serve the upper section of the experience of great bliss.
To the meditator who meditates on impermanence,
Serve the lower section of enlightenment’s path of means.
To those who do not fall into the bias of tenets,
Serve the upper chest bone that is harmonious with all.
To the ones with compassion free of bias,
Serve the hand joints of the four immeasurables.
To the person who has revulsion toward the mundane world,
Serve the breast meat free of the root of attachment.
To the leader who promotes the public welfare,
Serve the square shoulder blade of aspiration.
To the healer of nourishing bodhichitta,
Serve the loin of this and next life.
To the person with faith, devoted interest, and respect,
Serve the heart-tip of the key points of instruction.
To the faithful who are never separate from virtue,
Serve the liver without deception toward cause and effect.
To those with faith who have great diligence,
Serve the kidneys of both wisdom and means.
To the spiritually immature beginner,
Serve the fat lump of skill in the provisional and definitive.
To the yogi, never separate from the experience he sustains,
Serve the entrails of meaningful instructions.
This is the seventh chapter: serving superior ones at the banquet.
In that way the banquet is excellently held.
Now comes the distribution of the ordinary ones’ banquet.
The all-base is the same, but the paths are different;
There is a difference between refined and lowly guests.
To monks who act with arrogance,
Serve the penis of perceiver and perceived.65
To teachers who merely follow the words,
Serve the rib cage that outwardly looks liberated but is empty inside.66
To the master who’s arrogant and cares about fame,
Serve the meatless nape of the neck.
To the haughty ones who do black magic,
Serve the spinal fluid67 of malevolent demons.
To monks with partiality and bias,
Serve the spine of disharmony and conflict.
To those who beg for food with joy in distraction,68
Serve the nose tip of wasted meditation.
To dharma practitioners who roam about the town,
Serve the ear of superficial practice.
To disciples with little faith and incorrect views,
Serve the spleen that does more harm than benefit.
To ones who create discord throughout the region,
Serve the bile that’s bitter to all.
To the great teacher who doesn’t realize the nature of mind,
Serve the diaphragm that’s vast and vacuous.
To the yogi who practices by looking outside,
Serve the lung that is large but has little meaning.
To the meditator who boasts much with little understanding,
Serve the chest’s hide of decline.
To Buddhist monks and Bönpos who do house puja and eat beings,
Serve the underbelly of amassing attachment and aggression.
To diviners who speak with exaggeration and lies,
Serve the water-holding bladder.
To those with the view of cause and effect as meaningless,
Serve the tail of falling to the extremes of eternalism and nihilism.
To those who are not oriented toward the way of virtue,
Serve the anus of self-deception and others’ demise.
To those who fixate in shamatha,
Serve the brains of delusion and ignorance.
To cunning charlatans who claim they have great dharma teachings,
Serve the intestines of returning back to samsara.
To those with great attachment to busyness,
Serve the tumor of getting entwined in everything.
To those who are indifferent toward birthlessness,
Serve the parts with no fat or flesh.
To those with little merit and much lack of the root of virtue,
Serve the Adam’s apple of neither benefit nor harm.
To those with little learning who act as masters,
Serve the entrails where the lower parts meet.69
To those who sit on rocks doing “dumb” meditation,
Serve the tripe that’s smooth outside and coarse within.
To leaders who just gather riches,
Serve the gullet of the downward path.
To women who are stingy with a fiery mouth,
Serve the muzzle with its inner and outer orifices.70
To rich men who are bound with avarice,
Serve the belly of accumulating and leaving behind.
To a person who puts stock in this life,
Serve the testicles that look good outside but are foul within.
To students whose speech is pure but whose heart is dark,
Serve the entrails that are rotten but disguised as good meat.
To women who engage in licentiousness,
Serve the urethra that is as hard as a rock.
To parents who have many family members in their home,
Serve the skin that’s been stretched thin.
To those who get married with nothing at all,
Serve the bowels of this life and next, not different.
To the unfortunate ones who have turned from dharma,
Serve the clear broth that’s without any meat.
To the person who puts off practicing dharma,
Serve the remnants of laziness and corruption.
To the many beings in the bardo state,
Serve the meat scraps of the ritual offerings.
The butcher, through omniscient wisdom,
Bestows the four abhisekas of the self-liberated five gates.
The ladle of the wisdom teacher
Is filled with the sweet liquor of experience.
This is served to all without regard to high or low rank.
Supplicate that you may have the base.*24
Now eat this meat and drink this liquor.
This is the eighth chapter: the banquet.
Now for some discussion about asking forgiveness:
Buddhas, please listen to what I say here
With the precious jewels residing in unmanifest space,
The guru sitting at my crown as an ornament,
And dharma companions in whatever rank they sit:
First, establish the notion of the impermanence of life.
In between, [reading] key life stories, straighten out your character.
In the end, to the degree that you are able,
Have resolve through meaningful and purposeful speech.71
All direct causes that were mine but were left hidden,
Anything that I left incomplete,
And any downfalls due to ignorance or lack of understanding,
I pray, in these rows, this assembly will forgive.
Now, the head of the household will sing a song of pride:
First, whenever I fall ill,
I’m a yogi who possesses diligence
And meets with a diviner, a master of Bön.
Then when I receive the divination,
I, a yogi with a generous heart,
Offer up a ransom without any sense of loss.
When I hold the thanksgiving feast,
I am rich and my wealth is never exhausted.
Then when I hold the banquet,
I’m a yogi who has experience
And knows the rank of every guest.
Then, when I engage in the discussion,
I have tolerance toward everyone.
When the banquet of experience is held,
I request forgiveness without any uneasiness
And make aspirations that samsara be emptied.
This “Bön,” whose “Bön” is it?
The twenty-two members of the family is Bön.
When one is seized, it is Bön that releases it.
When there is bondage, it is Bön that frees it.
When there is suppression, it is Bön that lifts it.
This is the tradition of how we discuss.
The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa Page 29
