Every Guru Rinpoche day for the last 12 years or so, Phakchok Rinpoche has been sending out letters to remind his students to be mindful, and to bring them back on the path.
This whole year, Rinpoche will cover the visionary journeys of great practitioners to Copper-Colored Mountain, and Nekhor will be sharing them every Guru Rinpoche day. This first month’s letter is on Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa’s visionary journey to this pure realm:
Dear Friends Near and Far,
Losar Tashi Delek to you all. As always, I hope this letter finds you all happy and healthy. This Guru Rinpoche day letter being the first of the lunar year of the pig and after much consideration, I have decided to focus this year on Zangdok Palri or the Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain, where our Precious Maha Guru Padmasambhava dwells, through a series of personal accounts or narrations of a great practitioner’s visionary journeys to Zangdok Palri.
For practitioners, Zangdok Palri is truly present, here and now. We can either go there by way of a long journey, like Terchen Chokgyur Lingpa, or be there instantaneously. In fact, the tertön might have felt like it was a long journey, but pure visions can actually take place within the blink of an eye, as dreams do. Our bodies may be subject to time, but our minds are not. Therefore, if one truly has devotion, one can be in the Copper-Colored Mountain in a finger snap. Devotion is the key word, here. Without devotion, one can neither receive blessings nor perceive the signs of blessings. Clear faith and devotion will dispel any doubt that may arise during meditation practice, as these qualities gear our minds towards trust and confidence.
My teachers Nyoshül Khen Rinpoché and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoché were both incredibly knowledgeable and scholarly masters. However, when they taught, the first thing they would say was, “If you do not have faith, devotion or compassion, you’re done. It’s no use trying anything else.” This was always the very first thing they taught. Therefore, please relax your critical mind and try to generate some devotion and pure perception, as you read the following account of Terchen Chokgyur Lingpa’s visionary journey to the Copper-Colored Mountain, a chapter extracted from the book the Great Tertön (For the time being the book is only available in English, but it will hopefully be translated into several languages).
Sarva Mangalam,
Phakchok Rinpoche
READ MORE: https://samyeinstitute.org/guru-rinpoche-day/the-nectar-for-the-ears-of-the-fortunate/