Milarepa

ما المطلق؟ هل الله موجود؟

He seeks no creator: the ultimate is the nature of one's own mind

لا إله خالقيُستنتج من تعاليمه

In the sources on Milarepa — the biography (namthar) and the Hundred Thousand Songs compiled by Tsangnyön Heruka in the fifteenth century — the question of a creator God does not arise as a problem. The horizon is tantric Buddhism of the Kagyü school: what must be recognised is the nature of mind, empty and luminous, which the songs describe again and again as impossible to grasp with concepts, without centre or limit. The meditation deities and dakinis who people his songs are not creators of the world but presences and manifestations on the path, and in the logic of Mahamudra they do not exist apart from mind. Liberation depends not on the grace of a God but on practice in solitude, devotion to the master Marpa and direct recognition. His work therefore falls within the non-theistic field.

من أنا؟ هل توجد ذات حقيقية؟

Sought for, the self is not found: mind is empty and luminous

لا توجد ذات دائمةيُستنتج من تعاليمه

The songs attributed to Milarepa in Tsangnyön Heruka's compilation return again and again to the search for mind and self: examined, they are found neither inside nor outside, and have no shape, colour or location. What follows is not nothingness but the nature of mind according to the Mahamudra of the Kagyü school: empty of a substantial self and at the same time clear and aware. Attachment to a self, by contrast, is the root of the passions and of the cycle of rebirth that Milarepa's biography narrates starkly, from his youthful crimes to his purification. Spiritual work consists in recognising this absence of self in one's own experience, in solitude and under the master's guidance, until the idea of a solid self no longer governs one's life.

لماذا نتألّم؟

Evil done returns: his trials under Marpa purified a terrible karma

الكارما وتعلّم الروحيقوله صراحةً

Milarepa's biography is itself a lesson on the origin of suffering. According to the namthar compiled by Tsangnyön Heruka, as a young man, urged by his mother to take revenge on the relatives who had dispossessed them, he learned black magic and caused the deaths of many people. Remorse and fear of the karmic consequences of those acts led him to seek the dharma. His master Marpa subjected him to very harsh trials — building and tearing down stone towers again and again — which the tradition interprets as purification of that karma. In the songs, Milarepa insistently recalls impermanence, the imminence of death and the sufferings of samsara as reasons to practise without delay. Pain is the fruit of past acts and, at the same time, the spur that drives towards liberation.

ماذا يحدث بعد الموت؟

Fear of a bad rebirth drove him to liberation in a single life

الولادة من جديد وفق الكارمايقوله صراحةً

In the Life of Milarepa, composed by Tsangnyön Heruka in the fifteenth century, rebirth according to karma is the engine of the whole narrative. Having caused deaths through black magic out of revenge, Milarepa is terrified at the prospect of rebirth in the hells, and that fear leads him to Marpa, to the trials of the tower and to years of solitary meditation. The songs of the tradition insist on impermanence: death comes without warning, the body is borrowed, and the only thing that accompanies the dead are their deeds; whoever does not practise now will be reborn dragged along by them. At the same time, the narrative presents Milarepa as proof that liberation is possible in a single life through Mahamudra and the yogas of Naropa, which include preparation for the intermediate state (bardo). For the realised yogi, dying is an occasion to recognise the nature of mind.

كيف يُبلَغ التحرّر أو الخلاص؟

Extreme purification under the master and years of solitary meditation: liberation in one lifetime

بالممارسة المنضبطةيقوله صراحةً

According to the Life of Milarepa compiled by Tsangnyön Heruka in the fifteenth century, Milarepa's path begins with heavy negative karma (the killings committed through black magic) and passes through two phases. First, purification: his master Marpa makes him build and demolish towers for years before transmitting the instructions. Then meditation in high mountain caves, with extreme asceticism, until realisation. The biography thus presents liberation as possible in a single life for whoever combines the transmission of a lineage, faith in the master and uncompromising perseverance. The songs gathered in The Hundred Thousand Songs insist on the same: renounce worldly concerns and practise without delay in the face of the certainty of death.

هل نحتاج إلى معلّم؟

Without Marpa and his transmission no liberation: faith in the guru sustains everything

لا غنى عنهيقوله صراحةً

The Life of Milarepa is, to a large extent, the story of a relationship of discipleship. After a first teacher who cannot help him, Milarepa is sent to Marpa the Translator, who for years subjects him to apparently arbitrary trials, such as building and demolishing towers, and withholds teaching. The hagiography presents those humiliations as the necessary purification of his bad karma, and Milarepa's unshakeable obedience and faith as the condition for receiving the lineage's instructions. Only with that transmission can he then meditate fruitfully in solitude. The work thus reflects the Vajrayana conception of the guru as the source of blessings and of the efficacy of practice: without him, the path does not open.

هل العالم حقيقي؟

Appearances are like a dream or a magical illusion: empty and luminous

شبكة أسباب بلا جوهريُستنتج من تعاليمه

In the songs attributed to Milarepa, the nature of the world is approached from the meditative experience of the Mahamudra tradition. Appearances are compared to a dream, a mirage or a magical illusion: they appear vividly but lack inherent existence. That emptiness is not presented as nothingness but as inseparable from the clarity of mind: appearance and emptiness are a unity. For Milarepa the error is not that there are phenomena but clinging to them as solid and pursuing worldly occupations as though they were lasting. Impermanence and death, constant themes in his songs, show that nothing in the world can be held on to, and therefore invite practice.

ما الحب؟

Breaking the bonds of worldly affection so that compassion for all may arise

رحمة بلا حدوديقوله صراحةً

The Life of Milarepa shows two kinds of love in tension. On the one hand, family affection: the love for his mother, which drove him to revenge, and that of his sister Peta, who visits him in the cave and reproaches him for his poverty. When he returns to his village and finds the house in ruins and his mother's bones, Milarepa experiences that attachment as a source of pain and decides to renounce everything. On the other hand, the songs present him cultivating bodhicitta, the mind of awakening that seeks to free all beings, as the root of practice: compassion towards beings, whom the Tibetan tradition teaches one to see as former mothers, replaces attachment to one's own. Towards his persecutors, such as the lama Tsakpuhwa who ends up poisoning him, the tradition credits him with compassion rather than resentment.

هل نحن أحرار أم أن كل شيء مقدَّر؟

The repentant murderer who purifies his karma in a single lifetime

الكارما والاختياريقوله صراحةً

In Tibetan tradition Milarepa's life is the supreme example that karma conditions but does not condemn. According to the *Namthar*, the young Thöpaga learns black magic to avenge his mother and causes the death of dozens of people; terrified by the consequences of those acts, he seeks the Dharma. Marpa makes him build and tear down towers again and again, trials the tradition reads as purification of the evil committed, and only then gives him the instructions. Milarepa attains realisation in that same life through years of retreat. The story does not deny the law of karma —fear of its fruits is what moves him— but shows that present action, sustained with extreme effort, can change its course.

لماذا نتأمّل أو نصلّي؟

Meditating in the cave because death comes: recognising the nature of mind

رؤية الواقع كما هويقوله صراحةً

According to the *Namthar* and the *Hundred Thousand Songs*, Milarepa's meditation has an explicit driver: awareness of impermanence and death, which makes any worldly occupation a waste of time. After receiving the instructions from Marpa, he withdraws for years to high caves, lives on nettles and practises inner heat (*tummo*) and meditation on the nature of mind, in the line the Kagyu tradition would call *mahāmudrā*. His songs to disciples and visitors insist on two ideas: everything compounded falls apart, and the mind, looked at directly, is empty and luminous. To meditate is to see reality as it is until that seeing becomes continuous.

هل يستطيع العقل أن يعرف الحقيقة القصوى؟

The cave yogi against the scholar: practice, not books

الحقيقة القصوى وراء العقليقوله صراحةً

Milarepa's tradition often contrasts the meditator's realisation with bookish learning. In the *Namthar*, one of the last episodes pits the yogi against the scholar Geshe Tsakpuhwa, who tries to humiliate him with questions of logic and doctrine and, envious of his prestige, ends up having him poisoned. The *Hundred Thousand Songs* contain several answers to monks and scholars in which Milarepa declares that he has forgotten the words of the texts because he has become familiar with their meaning, and that the nature of mind is reached not by reasoning but by direct experience received from the master and matured in meditation. The ultimate is not proven: it is recognised.

الانسحاب من العالم أم تغييره؟

The cave and total renunciation, without house, goods or family

الانسحاب لكي نجديقوله صراحةً

Milarepa is the model of the solitary yogi in Tibetan Buddhism. According to his Life, after completing the trials imposed by Marpa he withdrew for years to Himalayan caves, living on nettles until his skin turned greenish, without possessions and declining the offers of marriage or a comfortable life made to him. When his sister Peta reproaches him for his poverty and asks him to live like decent people, he answers with songs that set the eight worldly concerns — gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute — against the freedom of the practitioner. The tradition presents this renunciation as the condition of awakening in a single life. Yet it is not a fruitless isolation: in his maturity Milarepa receives disciples, such as Gampopa and Rechungpa, and teaches in song to herders, hunters and villagers.

Woodstock, Nueva York · Estados Unidos

Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD), Woodstock

Karma Triyana Dharmachakra

Karma Triyana Dharmachakra is a traditional Tibetan monastery in the Catskill Mountains above Woodstock and the North American seat of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje. It keeps daily practices, a weekly meditation class and retreats ranging from one-day calm-abiding sessions to eight-day retreats and Nyungne fasting practices; it also accepts personal retreats of up to two weeks and runs online study groups. Like every Kagyu centre, it regards itself as heir to the chain of transmission that runs through Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa, whose songs of realisation are recited and taught in the tradition.

Eskdalemuir, Dumfries and Galloway · Reino Unido

Kagyu Samye Ling, Scotland

Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre

Samye Ling, founded in 1967 in the hills of southern Scotland, was the first Tibetan Buddhist centre in the West and is one of the great monasteries of the Kagyu lineage outside Tibet. That lineage, known as the lineage of oral transmission, descends directly from Marpa the Translator and his disciple Milarepa, whose songs and life of retreat in Himalayan caves remain the model of Kagyu practice. The centre offers meditation courses, teachings by masters of the tradition and retreats, along with a Tibetan-style temple and a monastic community that keeps up daily practice.

Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, Dordoña · Francia

Dhagpo Kagyu Ling, Dordogne

Dhagpo Kagyu Ling

Dhagpo Kagyu Ling is the European seat of the Karma Kagyu lineage, in the Vézère valley in the French Dordogne, under the spiritual direction of the 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje. It describes itself as a place to understand and live Buddhism, with teachings, retreats, a progressive cycle of study and meditation, regular practices and activities for young people, both in person and online. The Kagyu lineage counts Milarepa among its founding fathers: his life, from guilt to realisation through effort and devotion to his teacher Marpa, is one of the stories most often studied within the tradition.