Reflection on Khakhyab Dorje – Melody of Buzzing Bees

I began this post a couple of months ago and wasn’t able to finish it. I thought I’d just publish what was there, as the teaching from Khakhyab Dorje is extraordinarily rich …

Last night I dreamt of the 15th Karmapa, Khakhyab Dorje, so thought sharing ‘Melody of Buzzing Bees’ would be auspicious.

Just a few reflections, unnecessarily trying to gild a solid gold statue:

You are the primordial ground, Buddha Vajradhara,
Unobstructed manifestation, the body of great compassion.
You posses the kindness that delivers Buddha into the palm of one’s hand,
Please enjoy being an ornament on the top of my head.

This nature that’s there in *all* experience, the primordial ground, which Khakhyab Dorje refers to as the Buddha Vajradhara is the groundlessness of experience. This never changes whatever arises in our mind, whether pleasant or unpleasant, skilful or unskilful, nor whether enlightened or not. It’s always there and is known as Buddha Nature. You don’t have to become something else to be enlightened. You don’t have to become something else. Right there, right here – where is the ground in whatever you experience right now?

Your son supplicates with devotion and longing;
Father Rinpoche, please look on me with kindness.
Lord, by the light rays of your kindness,
The darkness of confused ego-fixation has been cleared.

To develop sufficient level of attention so that we can remain aware in *any* experience, however unpleasant, however hooked into past actions and patterns and conditioning, then we need a lot of energy available to that attention. In Vajrayana that energy comes from cultivating devotion to the guru. It could be loving kindness or compassion, such as in the Hinayana or Mahayana. For myself, what matters most is that the emotional energy, the energy that can move mountains, is there. It’s clear how powerful emotions are compared with thoughts. You can feel the whole shift when emotions stir. Having that available to fuel your attention underlies your ability to remain in attention when appearances beguile.

NAMO GURU-GUNASAGARAYA

You are the primordial ground, Buddha Vajradhara,
Unobstructed manifestation, the body of great compassion.
You posses the kindness that delivers Buddha into the palm of one’s hand,
Please enjoy being an ornament on the top of my head.

Having obtained a human body this one time,
I was accepted by your great kindness, lord.
You, the Jetsun who makes this free and well-favoured birth meaningful,
Please dwell inseparably in the very centre of my heart.

Your son supplicates with devotion and longing;
Father Rinpoche, please look on me with kindness.
Lord, by the light rays of your kindness,
The darkness of confused ego-fixation has been cleared.

In this song of the realization of the pure ultimate natural state,
These naive words are like the buzzing of a bee.
Although they irritate the ears of the father Jetsun,
Your son, with overwhelming longing,
Offers this song of nonsense words; please think of me with compassion.

In general, this body endowed with the eight freedoms and the ten favourable circumstances
Is more excellent than the wish-fulfilling gem.
Obtaining this body,
I know it to be the power of unperverted merit.

Although I have obtained it, it is impermanent,
And, therefore, the moment of death is unavoidable, as is said.
Since one never knows when it will come,
I wonder, “When will death come for me?”

The cause and effect of karma ripens infallibly in everyone
Just like a see that has been planted.
Because of my actions of deceiving myself and others,
I wonder, “What will my end be like?”

In general, ignorance, the great city of samsara,
Is filled with endless and strenuous suffering.
When I think about this, I almost lose my mind.
Panic-stricken, I wonder, “When will I be liberated?”

My body, blown by the wind of bad karma,
Falls from the precipice of the wrong path.
Now I am sunk in the mud of samsara; please look on me here!
Kind lord, precious Guru,
Please protect me from this terror.

Through a break in my evil karma, I discovered good karma.
I met the father Jetsun, the excellent true Buddha
Whose essence if Sri Cakrasamvara.
The skin of ignorant ego-fixation fell away from me,
And the great knot tied by passion and aggression was loosened.

As for the klesas, produced by the three poisons,
The object of their arising, the arising itself, and the one who gives rise to them
Are all projections of mind.
Like a reflection in a mirror,
Their essence is empty.
Like waves merging with the ocean,
they subside into empty ineffable space.

External phenomenal objects: forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and objects of touch,
All these phenomena are no other
Than the magical tricks of mind.
Like a child who builds sand castles,
It is mind that fixates on names.
Realizing that this is unreal is also mind.

Therefore, nothing exists as separate from mind
Neither as substance nor as a mark.
Realizing that everything is the manifestation of mind,
So-called samsara and Nirvana,
Considered to be bad and good respectively, do not exist.
Realization that mind is the manifestation of Dharmakaya,
The natural state of self-existing mind
Does not exist as form or substance.

It completely passes beyond even being shown by analogy.
To say “emptiness” is not total negation;
Rather, its nature is luminosity,
All-pervasive like space.
To say “existence” is not to establish a reality.
Just like space,
It does not exist, but it is very luminous.
Although it arises, it does not exist as separate,
But is liberated in the essence of this luminosity.
Like clouds in the sky,
It arises from space and dissolves into space.

In short, the phenomenal world is mind.
From the aspect of its luminosity, there is appearance.
From the aspect of its essence, there is emptiness.
Neither Buddhas nor sentient beings
Exist as separately established things.
All the so-called gods and demons do not so exist.
Everything is mind.
Mind is self-existing luminosity.
It passes beyond all arising, ceasing, and projecting.
It is free from dwelling, coming, or going anywhere.
Other than this ineffable mind,
There is no Vajradhara.
Mind is luminous;
I have confidence in realizing that this is so.

Jetsun, this realization is your kindness.
Rinpoche, now I remember your kindness.
Please look upon me, one of bad karma, with compassion.
Father Jetsun, ultimate Vajradhara,
Time and time again I think of you and devotion blazes up;
With undistracted longing I supplicate you.
Father, grant your blessings so that we may be beyond meeting and parting.

This song of experience
I offer to your ears, father Jetsun.
If there has been any stain of error,
Please wash it away with the amrta of loving kindness.
This son supplicates with one-pointed longing;
Please accept me with the iron hook of your compassion..

At the Karma Vihara of Akanistha, the great Dharma palace of the Buddha Karmapa, in the year of the Iron Tiger called Vikrta, I offered this song with great devotion of body, speech, and mind at the feet of the omniscient Jetsun, the king of Dharma.

15th Karmapa, Khakhyab Dorje
Melody of Buzzing Bees