There is no figure in the history of Tibetan Buddhism who inspires more affectionate devotion amongst his countrymen and women than the yogi Milarepa. He is the ideal Tantric adept, possessed of the super-normal powers associated with the most advanced yogic practice – flying; shape-changing; multiple physical manifestation, and so on – yet devoted to the path of the bodhisattva: a being who has achieved buddhahood yet remains by choice in the realm of the samsara in order to assist more sentient beings towards the goal of enlightenment. Milarepa’s life perfectly exemplifies the path of the ascetic yogi: after years of discipline with his guru, the formidable Marpa the Translator (1012–1096 CE),1 Milarepa withdrew to meditate in the icy mountain fastnesses of Tibet, gaining the fullest enlightenment. Thereafter, he lived the life of a mendicant yogi, abjuring all property, living in caves in the most absolute poverty, and refusing to try to found any organization of which he might be made head. He devoted his life to seeking to bring enlightenment to others, chiefly by his own example and by explaining to them the path of the Buddha. His explanations often took the form not of prose sermons but of songs, recorded both in his biography, the Jetsün-Khabum, and in the long collection of stories about him, the Mila Gurbum,2 both major Tibetan classics.
As is the case with a number of western saints, Milarepa’s life did not at the beginning have the appearance of that of a holy man. His father died not long after his birth in 1052,3 and his mother was unable to prevent the ruthless theft of her husband’s estate by her relatives. Humiliated and reduced to poverty as a result, Milarepa was persuaded by his mother to learn black magic. This he used to take revenge on his enemies: by means of sorcery he encompassed the deaths of many of his relatives, and in addition destroyed the harvest in his native valley by inducing violent hailstorms.4
These misdeeds were soon followed by repentance: ‘I longed so for religion that I forgot to eat,’5 and he vowed to spend the rest of his life following the Buddha Way. An enlightened lama initiated him into the doctrines and practices of the Great Perfection,6 but he still failed to make significant spiritual progress. Perceiving this, the lama sent him to a great guru recently returned from India, Marpa the Translator. Marpa realized at once Milarepa’s potential, but before accepting him as a disciple set out to destroy all the faults of character which could impede spiritual progress. One of Marpa’s chief techniques was backbreaking and pointless physical labour: thus Milarepa was made to build and then tear down a number of houses on a desolate mountain. The goal of all these techniques was to subdue the selfishness of the ego, and only when Marpa judged him ready was Milarepa accepted as a disciple and given initiation into the teachings of the sect of which he was to become the greatest member, the bKa’ brygud pa or Whispered Transmission school.7 Milarepa then meditated alone in a cave for eleven continuous months, finally achieving his first experience of enlightenment.
His training under Marpa had kept him away from home for many years, and in a dream Milarepa saw the bones of his mother lying in the ruins of his family home. He took leave of Marpa, returned home and found that his dream had been accurate. His sense of the evanescence of life became overwhelming, and reinforced his desire to renounce the world completely in order to seek absolute Liberation (i.e. enlightenment: the term ‘Liberation’ is often preferred in Tibetan texts). He meditated alone in a cave for twelve years, in conditions of the greatest hardship, finally achieving complete enlightenment. His fame began to spread, and he earned the title re.pa (= cotton-clad) in recognition of his perfection of the heat yoga, the means whereby an advanced yogi can keep warm, dressed only in a cotton shift, in near-Arctic temperatures.8 Thereafter, Milarepa spent his life preaching the dharma and initiating those he found able into the secrets of Tantric yoga. His goal was that of the bodhisattva:
May none of living creatures, none e’en of insects,
Be bound unto sangsaric life; nay, not one of them;
But may I be empowered to save them all.9
Milarepa died as a result of taking poisoned food, administered by the concubine of an envious lama. He knew that he was being poisoned, but his compassion for his poisoner forbade him to do otherwise than accept the food. No other course of action would have been consistent with his bodhisattvic vows.10
The Tantric yogas of which Milarepa was the master rest on a philosophy typical of Tibetan thought in its blend of the concepts furnished by the Madhyamika and Yogacara. Ultimate reality, the eternal, changeless oneness or absolute underlying the temporal world of change, is characterized by Milarepa as follows:
I, the Yogi who developed by his practices,
Know that outer hindrances are but a shadow-show,
And the phantasmal world
A magic play of mind unborn.
By looking inward into the mind is seen
Mind – nature – without substance, intrinsically void.11
This description, echoed in many places in Milarepa’s songs, combines the characterization of the absolute as mind – the Yogacarin view – with the thesis that its nature is that of a void, this latter being the essential teaching of the Madhyamika. The Yogacarin thesis emphasizes that reality is to be found not in the outside world of individuals and objects which constitute the samsara, but by turning inward and stripping away the layers of the surface ego. The Madhyamika view emphasizes that reality is beyond conceptual description, an absolutely undivided unity: it is a voidness (S: sunyata) because nothing can be said of it, not because it is nothingness. Milarepa acknowledges this often with his view that Reality is ‘beyond Playwords’, ‘Playwords’ being any form of conceptual characterization.
A consequence of this metaphysics to which Milarepa draws attention more than once concerns time. In the song just quoted, he refers to reality as ‘unborn’,12 and by this he means that the absolute or being-as-is exists in an atemporal or eternal manner. Time and the changes whose individuation it permits are illusions of the samsara, and have no real existence:
In the beginning, nothing comes;
In the middle, nothing stays;
At the end, nothing goes.Of the mind there is no arising and extinction!13
What exists outside time can neither come into being nor cease to be.
This metaphysics has profound implications concerning the nature of true knowledge, and the veracity of the ordinary human experiences of perception and introspection. Milarepa analyses them by means of the concept of bardo [T: literally ‘between-two’]: this notion is often used to refer to the mode of being of the soul between the death of one body and reincarnation in the next, but can be used (as here) to refer to any type of intermediate state:
you should know that this life is merely part of the Bardo of Birth-Death; its experiences are unreal and illusory, a form of reinforced dreaming. Mental activity in the daytime [creates a latent form of] habitual thought which again transforms itself at night into various delusory visions sensed by the [semiconsciousness]. This is called the deceptive and magic-like Bardo of Dream,
and the whole of ordinary human experience can be described as ‘the Bardo of Samsara’.14 All conceptual knowledge is therefore samsaric, and an impediment to experience of reality. To have contact with reality is not to know anything about it, but to experience it:
all manifestations [i.e. the samsara] [consist in] Mind, and Mind is the illuminating-Voidness without any shadow or impediment. Of this truth I have a decisive understanding; therefore not a single trace of inference or deduction can be found in my mind.15
To be exact, it is inaccurate (in this case) to speak of knower and known as if they were distinct. In awareness of reality, which is Liberation, this distinction, in common with all others, collapses:
In the Realm of Illumination
Where subject and object are one,
I see no cause, for all is Void.When acting and actor disappear, All actions become correct.16
If ordinary experience is delusive, and the use of reason a hindrance to Liberation, it follows that a special technique is needed to bring us to enlightenment. This technique is Tantric yoga practised, as long as necessary, under the guidance of a guru. In the case of the bKa’brygud pa, the key practice is the yoga of the Great Symbol (S: Mahamudra; T: phyag-chen). Milarepa stresses repeatedly that this is a stern undertaking:
Great faith, reliance
On a wise and strict Guru,
Good discipline,
Solitude in a hermitage,
Determined, persevering
Practice, and meditation –
These are the Six ways that lead to Liberation.17
Of these, Milarepa lays greatest stress on unrelenting practice. The path to reality cannot (surely) be followed in any other way, certainly not by means of book-learning or intellection. The true yogi is a disciplined ascetic in whose life everything is sacrificed to the goal of Liberation: ‘See what hardships I have undergone. The most profound teaching of Buddhism is “to practise”. It has simply been due to this persistent effort that I have earned the Merits and Accomplishment.’18 There is no short cut or easy path.
The Mahamudra yoga has four stages, of which the first is the Stage of One-Pointedness. In this stage, the flow of thought is brought to a halt by concentrating the mind on one object, physical or mental, animate or inanimate. The goal of this stage is inner quiescence:
To realize that non-clinging and illuminating Self-awareness
Is unborn and immanent,
Is the consummation sign of the Stage of One-Pointedness.19
This realization, however, is still at least partly conceptual in nature. It is only at the second level, the Stage of Away-from Playwords, that nondual awareness begins. To be ‘Away-from-Playwords’ is to leave conceptual thought behind. When conceptual thought ceases, the true nature of Mind, the Buddha-nature or reality, is experienced directly:
In realizing that the non-clinging and illuminating mind,
Is embodied in bliss and transcends all playwords,
One sees his mind’s nature as clearly as great Space.20
It is to be stressed that to see the true nature of the Mind is not to know anything about it: it is to experience it directly and to be at one with it; and to compare the experience to that of ‘great Space’ is to hint, however inadequately in conceptual terms, that the experience of reality is the experience of the infinite.
As is the case in other mystical traditions such as Hinduism, and in other branches of Buddhism, e.g. Zen, this first instance of nondual awareness is not the ultimate Liberation, but only a step, if a significant one, on the way.21 The follower of the Mahamudra has two further levels of awareness to which to penetrate. The next is the third step in the Yoga of the Great Symbol, the Stage of One Taste. At this point, all hindrances are overcome. The true nature of all things is clear to the yogi: this is the stage
In which Samsara and Nirvana are felt to be the same.
It is a complete merging of Buddha and sentient beings.22
In this stage, the presence of the infinite (i.e. reality or the Buddha-nature) is apparent in everything: hence the identity of samsara and nirvana and hence the description ‘One Taste’.23 Once again, Milarepa is careful to note that this is not the same as entertaining the belief that the infinite is present in all things: it is experiencing it:
He who says that ‘all is one’,
Is still discriminating;
In the Stage of One Taste,
There is no such blindness.24
The fourth and ultimate degree of insight is the Stage of Non-Practice, and the yogi who reaches this peak has attained Buddhahood. It is called the Stage of Non-Practice because in this condition the distinction between meditator and meditative practice is no longer meaningful: there is no practice and no one practising. All dualistic distinctions have collapsed, and the state of awareness of the few who reach this condition is ineffable.25
Those who do reach this state have attained the Great Liberation or enlightenment, and Milarepa has much to say about this condition and its benefits. Strictly speaking, nondual awareness is ineffable, but, like all mystics, Milarepa tries to convey something of this experience:
It is pure and bright as a flower,
It is like the feeling staring in the vast and empty sky.The Awareness of Voidness is limpid and transparent, yet vivid.26
This state is characterized further by the absolute inward tranquillity which is a consequence of complete freedom from desire. The surface ego is dispelled, and with it all its varied wants and needs and the suffering they bring:
No Hope, no Fear, and no Confusion
Are the quintessence of Accomplishment.27
This might seem to be a state merely of absolute indifference to all things, simply an affectless condition. However, Milarepa, like all Buddhists, stresses that when Buddhahood is reached, the enlightened person is filled with a boundless compassion for all beings still trapped in the prison of samsaric suffering. The bodhisattva is absorbed in ‘the Compassion of Non-discrimination’, 28 a compassion derived not from the limited sympathies of the surface ego but from the perspective of a Buddha, at one with the infinite. Milarepa does not present this arising of compassion simply as a datum or a mystery, but explains it by means of the doctrine of reincarnation:
From beginningless time in the past until now, we all have taken myriads of bodily forms in our past incarnations, comparable only to the total sum of grains of sand in the great Universe . . . [and so] all the sentient beings in the Six Realms are either my mother or my father29
and, conversely, he is theirs. Everyone has stood to everyone else in the relation of father, mother, son and daughter, and so the occurrence of universal compassion is less surprising than it looks.
Further, after Liberation, the way in which the realm of the samsara is experienced is irreversibly changed:
After Enlightenment, one sees all things and objects
As but magic shadow-plays,
And all objective things
Become his helpful friends.30
The ‘shadow-plays’ seen to be unreal include death, and in consequence a further benefit of enlightenment is a complete freedom from fear:
Since I know the Illuminating Void,
I fear not life or death.31
Finally, the mode of behaviour of a Buddha cannot properly be called action in the sense in which unenlightened persons act. In the state of Buddhahood the claims of the surface ego are nullified, and the only motive for ‘action’ remaining in such a condition is compassion. The deeds of a Buddha are the spontaneous manifestations of this feeling. When Milarepa states, of a Buddha, that ‘The absence of act and deed appears without’32 he means not that a Buddha remains in a state of indifference, but that the deeds of such a one are not the actions of an individual ego, but the manifestations of a holy will.
As with all philosophies derived from mystical insights, Milarepa’s thought involves a number of intractable logical difficulties, notably why the samsara exists at all, and why it should involve so much suffering, or again whether, in the presence of so much pain, one can justify a life of ascetic retreat which if it does no harm in most cases appears to do little good. Milarepa, who was anything but solemn or unctuous and laughed a great deal, would certainly have smiled at these problems, dismissing them as trivialities typically produced by those lost in the realm of playwords. The experiences for which he lived are beyond words of any kind:
. . . in [the realm of] Absolute Truth Buddha Himself does not exist;
There are no practices and no practisers;
No Path, no Realization, and no Stages,
No Buddha’s Bodies and no Wisdom
There is then no Nirvana,
For these are merely names and thoughts.33
References to C.C. Chang’s translation of The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, 2 vols, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1962, are given as HTSM + vol. number + page. References to the classic biography of Milarepa, the Jetsün-Khabum, W.Y. Evans-Wentz (ed.), Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa, Oxford, Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1928, are given in the form TGYM + page number.
1 ‘The Translator’ because of his extensive Tantric learning.
2 Jetsün-Khabum = The Hundred Thousand Words [about] the Holy [Milarepa]; Milarepa is often referred to simply as the Jetsün or Holy One. Mila Gurbum = The Hundred Thousand Songs of Mila[repa]. In neither case is the figure of one hundred thousand to be taken literally, indicating instead simply a substantial work.
3 Some Tibetan sources give Milarepa’s dates as 1040–1123 CE. I have followed the dates 1052– 1135, which are those given (in the Tibetan calendar) in the Jetsün-Khabum. Both sets of dates place Milarepa’s nirvana in his 84th year, said also to have been the age of the Buddha at the time of his nirvana.
4 cf. TGYM, pp. 41–81.
5 TGYM, p. 84.
6 rDzogs. Pa. Chen. Po, the major yogic doctrine of the rNying ma pa [‘The Old Ones’], founded by Padma-Sambhava. rDzogs Chen is the rNying ma pa version of the Mahamudra [Great Symbol] yoga of the bKa’brygud pa.
7 In another popular system of transliteration of Tibetan, this school emerges as the Kargyütpa. Its yoga is based largely on that of the Indian sage Naropa; cf. The Yoga of the Six Doctrines, in W.Y. Evans-Wentz (ed.), Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, London, Oxford University Press, 1958, pp.155–252; and The Yoga of the Great Symbol, op.cit., pp. 101–154.
8 The heat yoga is the first of Naropa’s six yogas; cf. Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, pp. 172–209.
9 TGYM, p. 257.
10 cf. TGYM, pp. 244–304.
11 HTSM, I, pp. 18–19.
12 As does the Zen master Bankei, q.v.
13 HTSM, I, p. 102.
14 HTSM, II, pp. 487–488.
15 HTSM, II, p. 390.
16 HTSM, I, p. 29.
17 HTSM, I, p. 32.
18 HTSM, II, p. 495, cf. p. 469. Professor Chang justly points out that in his stress on practice Milarepa resembles the Zen master Hui-neng, q.v.
19 HTSM, I, p. 98.
20 ibid.
21 On stages of mystical awareness, cf. the Hindu Aurobindo and the Zen master Hakuin.
22 HTSM, I, p. 99.
23 The same state occurs in other forms of Buddhism. Thus, for example, in Zen, to ‘solve’ Hakuin’s koan, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ is to experience (not to understand) the presence of the Absolute in one hand in the same way as in two.
24 HTSM, I, p. 99.
25 There is a more detailed statement of Mahamudra practice, based on a different text, not by Milarepa but identical in essentials with his views, in Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, pp. 101– 154.
26 HTSM, I, p. 128.
27 HTSM, I, p. 70.
28 HTSM, I, p. 275.
29 HTSM, I, p. 304.
30 HTSM, I, p. 308.
31 HTSM, I, p. 302.
32 HTSM, I, p. 132.
33 HTSM, I, p. 325.
Milarepa did not write any books himself. His thought was recorded by disciples in two major works:
Jetsün-Khabum (The Hundred Thousand Words [about] the Holy [Milarepa])
Mila-Gurbum (The Hundred Thousand Songs of Mila[repa])
the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Padma-Sambhava
Chang, C.C. (ed. and trans.), The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, 2 vols, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1962
Chang, C.C., Six Yogas of Naropa and Teachings of Mahamudra, Snow Lion Books, USA, 1986
Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (ed.), Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa, London, Oxford University Press,1928, and many reprints (an edition of the Jetsün-Khabum)
Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (ed.), Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1958
Tsang Nyon Heruka, The Life of Marpa the Translator, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1983