Milarepa's Yogic Songs:Bullet into hearts
Taken from http://www.yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk087.html
Some excerpts that touched me are put here:
1. Suffering of Birth
In the Bardo state the wandererIs the Alaya. It stays nowhere,Driven by one's own sorrow,It enters a womb unknown.Therein it feels like a fish,Caught into crevice of rock,Sleeping in blood red and pus yellow,In all discharges it must pillow.Crammed in filth, it suffers pain,From bad karma one is to gain,Though remembering past lives,It cannot count four or five.Now scorched by heat,Now cold it does meet.For nine months it remains,In the womb with all pains,From womb by pliers as if pulled out,Head is squeez'd but safety is nought,Like being thrown into a bramble,When it bears all of a-tremble,Its body on mother's lap with sorrow,It feels gripped by a hawk like a sparrow.When his body blood and dirt is cleansed,Like flayed alive its pains increas'd,When umbilical cord is being cut,It feels as if the spine does jut,When wrapped in the cradle,It feels bound by a girdle.He who realizes not the truth of non-bornNever can escape from birth to be grown.
11. Things Should Be Renounced
An action without meaning,Fearless and empty talking,And the profane pretention,These three things reject the Lore.I have renounced them before.You should have these three no more.The place that's not fixed to pray,The group that quarrels too much,The status where hypocrites stay,These three things reject the Lore.I have renounced them before.You should have these three no more.The guru with tiny learning,The pupil with poor devotion,The friend who has no discipline,These three things reject the Lore.I have renounced them before.You should have these three no more.The wife who frequently complains,The son who needs strike and blame,The servant e'er needs more to explain,These three things reject the Lore,I have renounced them before.You should have these three no more.
29. How to Get Sufficient Cause for Accomplishment
If there be neither karma nor condition held,In this life one would not obtain the Buddhahood.He who cannot put all trust in his teacher,Should not expect care & blessings in future.He who cannot satisfy his students,Should not expect to get good attendants.He who cannot master his own mind,No hope to lead others could he find.He who cannot hold the lineage tradition,There is no hope to get the realization.He who does not practice with great diligence,No hope to get the Buddha-like reverence.He who has not cut the bonds of duality,Can't expect great compassion and reality.He who reveres not the chain of clinging,Should not expect an all-free-view teaching.He who has not seen self-mind in nakedness,Cannot behold the true nature in brightness.He who does not cleanse the evil purulenceShould not expect the unceasing experience.He who destroys not the attachment, hence,Expects not relaxation of the six sense.He who is not skilled in the voidness Samadhi,Cannot get the real omnipresence of Bodhi.He whose subtle sorrows still maintain,Has no trikaya to obtain.He whose moral rules have not been observed,Immediate happiness will not deserve.He whose two Sambharas have not been held.Should not expect to obtain Buddhahood.He who obeys not the guru father,Shouldn't expect to guide all the brothers.He whose awareness has not been mastered fine,Should not expect the freedom from ghost divine.All appearance he cannot master and win,Should not expect to govern those three realms.He who has not transcended the mundane level,Should not cherish the "no good & no evil."The yogi who a temple is leadingShould not neglect rules & discipline.Knowing not the stages of experience principle,Should not try to check those practice of disciple.Without fulfilling practice of the instruction,Can't expect in Bardo to gain Liberation.If precepts have not been observed in perfect form,One's wishes will never be easily performed.He whose samaya rules have not been well observed,Protection by Bho Wa, Bho Mo is not deserved.He who obtains not the essence of holy scripture,Should not neglect the words and the symbol nature.If one has no five powers so fine,Should not be proud of external signs.If real experience one's not able to find,He shouldn't neglect to control his mind.
7. Yogi's Realization against Death
Those who practice merely with mouth,Talk much, seem to know more teachings,When times come for passing away,To the space are thrown their preachings.When the clear light naturally shines,It is cloaked by blindness of sin.The chance to see the Dharmakaya,At death is lost through one's confusion.Even though one spends his lifeIn learning holy scripture,It helps not at the momentWhen mind takes its departure.And those yogis have not sufficient meditationMistake psychic light as sacred illumination,Cannot unify the light of mother and of son,They're still in danger of rebirth in lower station.When your body is rightly posed,Mind absorbed in meditation,You feel that here is no more mind,Yet it's only concentration.Like starling fly unto the vast, empty sky,Awareness as pure flower, bright lamp shining,Though, it is void, transparent & vivid,Yet it's only a Dhyana feeling.He who is with these good foundationsPenetrates Truth with contemplation,And prays earnestly to the Three GemsThe non-ego wisdom he will win.With the life rope of deep concentrationWith the power of kindness & compassion,With altruistic vow of Bodhi-heart,He can directly get the clear vision,The Truth of the Great Enlightened Path.Nothing can be seen yet seen all things,He sees how wrong were the fears and hopes,All were in his own mind yet nothing.He reaches the pure land without arrival,Sees the Dharmakaya without seeing.Without effort naturally sees all things,Dear son, in your mind keep all my sayings.
