The Seven Line Prayer of Guru Rinpoche, An elixir of immortality of Enlightened Intent
/Namo Guru Padmakaraye
Although there is no lasting maturity in my continuum that I can extol as out of the ordinary, due to a sincere request of a Dharma brother, I will offer a fraction of an explanation of the basic functions of the Seven-Line Prayer from my experience for those wishing to extract themselves from errant ways which have been failing them until now.
To begin with, this ordinary mind is continuously distracted from the appearance of its own fundamental pure ground. How does this happen, you may ask. Although there is not one iota of truth in the arising of phenomenon as a separated multiplicity, mind seizes upon appearances, coloring them with the tainted lens of wants, rejections, and bewilderment while fortifying these erroneous beliefs with labels. As if these self-inflicted distractions were not already a significant challenge to overcome, other beings also trapped by their own individuated grasping onto perceptions help to assure the reification of false appearance of our dualistic assignments.
As a result of the ripening of fortunate karma first set in motion by Lord Buddha the Rishi of the Shakya clan, combined with the needs of sentiment beings to completely transcend the endless pain of sustained delusion, upon the passing of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni, Amithaba Buddha emanated a heart-ray, resplendent with wisdom lights, which penetrated through the total resonance of the Sambhogakaya, which took form as the arising of the miraculous form we have come to call Padmasambhava, the Lotus Born Guru. The miraculous nature of his birth itself is proof of his purity and transcendence from error, in any and all senses.
This great being understood the infallible nature of that which appeared to be born of cause and that which was beyond cause and condition. Because of the unobstructed continuum he was manifesting then and now, he was not bound by localized intellectual constructs such as time and space or self-infatuated reference points. Guru Rinpoche understood perfectly how to assist beings trapped by their own immersion in confusion and as a result of this ability generated countless methods that could be applied by countless migrators in Samsara. Also owing to this, Guru Rinpcohe’s ability to see clairvoyantly through the three times and ten directions gave rise to numerous predictions and powerful methods hidden during his time as treasures for future generations that continue to arise as precise medicines for our world’s ills today.
Even during his own historic time, being flawlessly adept at navigating through the illusory appearances of obstacles and the like, he composed several prayers designed to invoke his unfathomable blessing stream without reference to time and space. One of the most important and essential examples of this is the famous Seven-Line Prayer or invocation of Guru Rinpoche. The history of the initial appearance, use, and detailed meaning of this most important prayer are available elsewhere in great detail, in texts by several great Treasure Revealers (Tertons) such as Karma Lingpa, Chogyur Lingpa, Mipham Rinpoche, and a host of others. In brief the prayer has outer, inner, secret and super secret levels of meaning all condensed into one heart-felt devotional utterance. For me to try to elaborate on the detailed points would be like a child pointing into the sky and explaining where the light of the sun comes from and so I wish not to make a fool of myself when such accurate and pure materials are so readily accessible.
The prayer is as follows:
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༄༅། །གུ་རུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་ཚིག་བདུན་གསོལ་འདེབས་བཞུགས་སོ། །
The Seven Line Prayer
ཧཱུྂ༔ ཨོ་རྒྱན་ཡུལ་གྱི་ནུབ་བྱང་མཚམས༔
hung orgyen yul gyi nubjang tsam
Hūṃ! In the north-west of the land of Oḍḍiyāṇa,
པདྨ་གེ་སར་སྡོང་པོ་ལ༔
pema gesar dongpo la
On the pollen heart of a lotus flower,
ཡ་མཚན་མཆོག་གི་དངོས་གྲུབ་བརྙེས༔
yatsen chok gi ngödrub nyé
Endowed with the most marvelous attainments,
པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས་ཞེས་སུ་གྲགས༔
pema jungné shyé su drak
You are renowned as the ‘Lotus-born’,
འཁོར་དུ་མཁའ་འགྲོ་མང་པོས་བསྐོར༔
khor du khandro mangpö kor
Surrounded by a retinue of many Ḍākinīs
ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་རྗེས་སུ་བདག་བསྒྲུབ་ཀྱི༔
khyé kyi jesu dak drub kyi
Following in your footsteps,
བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཕྱིར་གཤེགས་སུ་གསོལ༔
jingyi lab chir shek su sol
I beseech you to come and bless me.
གུ་རུ་པདྨ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྂ༔
Guru Padma Siddhi Hung
OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUNG (Guru Rinpoche’s Mantra)
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Instead I wish to share what I have gathered within the practice of plowing of my own field of experiences born from following the instructions of many revered holy masters of our Ancient Lineage.
Whereas it was previously thought to be exclusively a matter of science fiction, many of us now speculate that time travel may one day be possible. The warp and weft of the relation of space and time’s fabric are now common topics of world leaders in physics disciplines. Although we may not yet be able to step into a small wooden box with dials and buttons and arrive in the past or future, there is now deep suspicion that it might in fact be possible on some level. For us faithful followers of Guru Padmasambhava, this is in fact a basic underlying principle of our daily practice of Guru Yoga.
Using the recitation of the Seven-Line Prayer and utterance of Guru Padmasambhava’s mantra, the false constructs of delusions can be instantaneously or at least gradually eradicated. In the common language of both the general public and Buddhist practitioners alike, the Seven Lines we are talking about are called “The prayer to Guru Rinpoche” and his mantra is often referred to as “The Mantra of Guru Rinpoche.” In fact, if understood properly, the Seven-Line Invocation to the Guru when uttered by a practitioner with ordinary awareness, is in fact Guru Rinpoche himself inseparable from its utterance.
Because of this, this prayer, invocation, or miraculous formula, however you may wish to label it, is none other than a clear and direct opening of the Heart-Mind of the Guru’s spontaneous presence of wisdom and function of unobstructed compassion simultaneously. Considered by wise people to be the condensed essence of all Tantras and Mantras condensed into one prayer, a single utterance of the Seven-Line invocation is minimally the equivalent of giving rise to Guru Rinpoche himself.
If this view of the prayer can be maintained even unevenly throughout any given practice session, the blessing stream is manifest without regard to any other obstructing or contributing factors. In simple terms, even if one has only mediocre faith in the recitation of the Seven-Line Prayer, the positive downpour of blessings is unstoppable. It is the unique power of this all-pervasive template of complete enlightenment that makes it so appropriate for the challenges we now face on all levels — outer, inner and secret.
The Seven-Line Prayer is the one panacea, simple and easy to practice, which curtails the need for other elaborated practices while having the power to illuminate any darkness of the mind.
Its radiant utterance purifies obscurations and diseases born within the corporal body. It purifies all corrupt and untruthful speech and overpowers conceited misleading speech. It leads the mind to recognition of its own self-arisen wisdom nature and finally, it subdues and incinerates the heaviest of ripening negative karma leaving peace and well-being in its place. The wake of its instantaneous ripening causes ordinary appearances of suffering to arise as wisdom nectar and clears away the causes for future rebirths in confused existences.
Having been requested by a close Dharma brother, Daniel Subkoff, to say some words about the importance of reciting this prayer, these few words are the form of my response. Moreover, based on the conditions we find ourselves coping with today and the advise of my own Guru, His Holiness Dungse Shenphen Dawa Rinpooche, I can safely say that the time to focus on such accumulations is squarely upon us. Regardless of whether you adopt accumulations of the Seven-Line Prayer exclusively or as a portion of your daily practice, or if you recite to benefit yourself, to benefit others or both, and regardless of my words being perfect or imperfect, such efforts will yield fruits beyond any other activity I can imagine.
Although such declarations about the benefits of this prayer normally belong to the domain of realized masters, it is the ripening of my Guru’s blessings combined with unbending faith in Guru Rinpoche that allows me to dare to make such proclamations. If I have offended any scholars or highly educated intellectual people, I apologize for this childlike presentation of my delusions. Any errors within my impure human speech are all my own, whereas any merit that may arise or has arisen from reading this, I dedicate to the transformation of all beings into the complete manifest display of the Guru’s fully ripened Four Kayas of Body, Speech, Mind Qualities, and Spontaneous Miraculous Activities.
This was written by an uneducated child of the Guru, parroting the sentiments of those with actual realization. May benefit somewhere and everywhere.
Resources:
To join in a vast collective accumulation of this prayer, please visit the Seven Line Prayer accumulation website:
https://www.sevenlineprayer.com/
And, to learn more, please see The Seven Line Prayer Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/sevenlineprayer/