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INTRODUCTION

by Peter Ingested

MALA AS POET: The title of Mela's poems, The Hundred Thousand Songs, indicates in its poetic exaggeration that, to the Tibetans, the songs contain all earthly and celestial wisdom. Actually Mela's known poems are about two hundred to two hundred and fifty. In the Lhasa edition which we are using, the poems are printed as three hundred and nineteen folios each divided into two sections, A and B. In the Chinese and Mongolian recensions the number of folios varies. This collection of poems has been a source of learning and delight for hundreds of years to all Tibetans, children and adults alike.

Mala raised the Tibetan vernacular to a literary level as Dante raised the Florentine dialect, and Martin Luther the Saxon, to vehicles of highest literary expression. As a matter of fact, he has a position in Tibet similar to those which Dante and Luther have in their own cultures. Mila not only refined the Tibetan vernacular but became saint, scholar, and national hero at the same time. He is the Tibetans' ideal type. He is said to have achieved what every Tibetan longs to achieve: Buddahood in one lifetime. It is fortunate that this great yogin was gifted with a genius for formulating his experiences and expressing his innermost thoughts in poetry. In this manner, learning, philosophy, and beauty were made accessible to many generations of Tibetans who did not study in the monasteries but absorbed their culture through oral tradition. The poems of Mila were recited or sung by traveling singers, much in the manner of the songs of the traveling balladeers of medieval Europe.

Since Milarepa was primarily a mystic, he did not write for purely aesthetic pleasure. That is the reason he exclaims:

"If you will listen to me, the Old One, then the doctrine will spread to your descendants." (Chapter II, Song 1)

"If this song is not repeated again and again, its sense does not enter the heart." (Chapter II, Song 3)

"I, the Yogin, give advice whatever arises." (Chapter IV, Song 6)

His poems are of a didactic order, teaching and telling of his experiences or chanting the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. Occasionally he will sing of the beauty of nature which he watches from his solitary hermitage:

"On the shores of the ponds and pools,

The water birds turn their necks to see.

On the wide branches of the wish-granting trees,

Assemblages of beauteous birds are singing.

The cool breezes carry fragrances,

And dancing gestures are made by the branches of the trees." (Chapter IV, Song 1)

In contrast to his feeling of aesthetic pleasure, he quickly returns in the same poem to a philosophical consideration of these natural beauties:

"When I, the Yogin, look at all this,

Visible from all sides from the top of this precious rock,

I consider the parable of transitory appearance.

I think of those desired gifts as a mirage in the water.

I see this life as a dream of illusion.

I contemplate the unknowing ones with compassion."

It seems as if the poet who loves and understands nature gives way to the philosopher. His contemplating mental eyes see deeper than the recording physical ones.

Mila wrote not only to teach others but as is evident from Chapter IV, Song 6, also in order to gain merit:

"On the summit of the glacier, I make verses.

I hope to attain the rewards of the fruit."

"Fruit" in this context alludes to the Tibetan philosophical metaphor; that is, the sowing of the seed, the growth, the ripening, and the fruition. The fruition may also be said to be liberation from the Wheel of Life and the attainment of Buddhahood.

The pursuits of art, painting, sculpture, and poetry are not contrary to Buddhist philosophy. The painting monks of Tibet follow careful meditation before and during the painting of religious subjects. In the mandalas (geometrical diagrams for meditation practices, consisting of a sacred circle and square: the dwelling place of deities), symbolism, magic, and art are perfectly welded into one inseparable unit. Similarly, the writing and copying of the sacred books of Tibet are accompanied by chanting and are considered meritorious acts.

The poems of Mila, insofar as they express yogic practices and moral concepts, are as much religious acts as they are artistic creations. In their quality as religious poems they help others and gain merit for those who follow their precepts, as well as for the poet who created them.

Mila's poems abound in strong poetic images but, far from being mere collections of felicitous phrases, they are powerful expressions of one of the most disciplined and profound minds in the history of Tibet—the mind of a man who found peace and truth in the pursuit of Buddhism.

YOGA AND ITS APPLICATIONS: Mila was a yogin, one of the greatest that Tibet has produced. His poems are full of allusions to his yogic powers. In Chapter II, Song 3, for example, he says:

"In me, the Yogin Mila, in six months

The experience of meditation arose."

Mila was highly trained in yogic practices before he returned to the various hermitages among the glaciers. The above quotation indicates that in the short period of six months he had reached the power of meditation. In other words, he achieved the highest degree of meditation, which is complete absorption or samadhi; that is, complete identification of the meditator with the object of his meditation. In Chapter IV, Song 6, he states unequivocally:

"I am the Yogin, completed in the three aspects of the bodhi heart."

Tibetan yoga has its roots in Hindu religious speculations. Yoga practice is an ancient Indian system of seeking "union with the divine." The term yoga itself derives from the Sanskrit root yuk or yug, meaning "to join," whence come our words "yoke," "join," etc. This method or system of "union" seems to be extremely ancient, antedating even the Indo-Aryan conquest of India between 1800 and 1200 B.C. Yoga, as we know it today, is considered one of the six darshanas or philosophical systems based on the Upanishads, which represent the highest philosophical attainment of the genius of the Indian peoples. The Katha Upanishad, VI: 10-11, states:

"When cease the five (Sense) knowledges, together with the mind (manas)

And the intellect (buddhi) stirs not—

That, they say, is the highest course.

This they consider as Yoga—

The firm holding back of the senses.

Then one becomes undistracted.

Yoga, truly, is the origin and the end."¹

There is certain evidence that yoga is pre-Aryan in origin. However that may be, it is as old as India and has been closely identified with its whole religious tradition. Buddha himself practiced the austerities of yoga before his illumination, and practically all sects of Hinduism have absorbed elements of the system.

It is practiced by countless people and has separated into various schools. These schools are differentiated according to their special ritual and methods. The best known Indian schools of yoga are: Hatha Yoga, which employs the method of developing the physical body by means of postures and mudras (symbolic hand gestures signifying charity, teaching, preaching, etc.); Raja Yoga, the supreme school, which uses basic postures with emphasis on mental realizations; Mantra Yoga, which relies on magic formulas—that is, the power of mantric spells and charms; Jnana Yoga, which stresses the method of pure knowledge; Kundalini Yoga, which emphasizes the awakening of the kundalini power at the base of the spine and of the various psycho-physical centers² throughout the body. Karma Yoga, which calls for action and deeds, and Bhakti Yoga, which centers on love and devotion, are later developments and do not stress the arduous disciplines and controls required by the earlier schools.

The practicing yogin conquers himself physically and mentally. Even though the successful application of the discipline is supposed to lead to siddhis or supernormal attainments, the ultimate aim of all yoga is identification and complete absorption into the Absolute. This is reached when the yogin has entered the highest stage, samadhi. Not all yogins, however, are able to attain, or are interested in attaining, the ultimate perfection and union with the Absolute. Some strive for the attainment of supernatural powers alone.

The yoga system was codified by the great scholar Patanjali in four small books which are known as The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali.³ The authorship of Patanjali, however, is still disputed. Actually, there were two Patanjalis, one the author of the yoga aphorisms or sutras, the other the author of a commentary upon the grammatical work of the famous Panini. Traditionally, the aphorisms are assigned to about the second century B.C., but Professor James H. Woods, on sound historical inference, dates them about the fourth to the fifth century of our era.⁴ There is, however, considerable evidence that yoga may be much older as a technique. Here we do not intend to prove or disprove the theories of yoga. Buddhist yoga differs from Hindu yoga in its philosophical and religious applications, although their techniques of disciplining the body and mind are often similar. But because of their different philosophical tenets, the aims and results are not the same. For example, the Buddhist view of Shunyata, the Void, is an important point of Buddhist doctrine and plays an important role in the Buddhist type of meditation.

In Tibet, yoga has been a time-honored practice since the country became Buddhist in the seventh century A.D. Tibetan tradition knows of many lamas who practiced it successfully. There are also available several accounts by Western travelers and soldiers who have witnessed Tibetan yoga practices and even undertaken to study them.

The form of yoga now known as Tibetan was introduced there by the famous teacher Padmasambhava. It is based upon the idealistic Yogachara school founded by Asanga about the third century A.D. This form of yoga teaches that the absolute truth or bodhi manifested in the Buddhas is attainable only by those who practice yoga. Tibetan yoga is a yoga of knowledge, in practice similar to that of the Hindu Jnana school. Yogachara asserts that all outward things—objects, stars, etc.—are really mental experiences and that we read into external nature what exists in our own minds (vijnana),⁵ This concept, incidentally, we encounter in many of Mila's poems.

Yoga disciplines are stressed in Tibet because they help in the acquisition of intuitive insight. Some Tibetan yogins believe that they can create form by thought. In other words, by projecting a mental image they create a magic appearance which they can summon up or dissolve at will.⁶ This is based, of course, on the assumption that all appearances in reality are mind, as formulated by the Yogachara and Shunyata doctrines. The claim that it is possible to communicate with, to know, or to identify with lower animals, demons, or inanimate objects is also a result of this doctrine. As W. Y. Evans-Wentz puts it: "When we know mind, we also know matter, for matter is mind; and there is nought else conceivable save mind, as this yoga postulates. In the One Mind is the summation of the whole of consciousness, the ineffable at-one-ment of all the One Mind's microscopic aspects. In transcending the microscopic mind of the human ego, man transcends himself; he becomes a conscious participator in the all-embracing Universal Mind, the Over-Mind, the Cosmic Consciousness."⁷

Some aphorisms from Padmasambhava's book, The Yoga of Self-realization, will illustrate that Tibetan yoga is a system of subjective knowledge and that certain of its mental realizations, in spite of their verbal contradictions, constitute the Tibetan form of yoga:

"The Dharma being nowhere save in the mind, there is no other place of meditation than the mind."

"There being nothing upon which to meditate, no meditation is there whatsoever."

"Without meditating, without going astray, look into the true state, wherein self-recognition, self-knowledge, self-illusion shine resplendently. These, so shining, are called 'the Bodhisattvic Mind.'"

"There being no two such things as meditation and object of meditation, there is no need to fall under the sway of deeply obscuring Ignorance; for, as the result of meditation upon the unmodified quiescence of the mind, the non-created wisdom instantaneously shines forth clearly."

"Although there is an innumerable variety of profound practices, to one's mind in its true state they are non-existent; for there are no two such things as existence and non-existence."

"Inasmuch as from eternity there is nothing whatsoever to be practised, there is no need to fall under the sway of errant propensities."

"By controlling and understanding the thought-process in one's mind, emancipation is attained automatically."

"Without mastery of the mental processes there can be no realization."⁸

Theoretically all the feats of yoga are plausible. It may seem surprising to Westerners to hear of Tibetan yogins who can meditate nude in the snow or who can run incredible distances at great speed while hardly touching the ground. Others can transmit messages from room to room or across miles of arid, windswept mountains.

This is "magical" only to those who do not understand either the Tibetan way of life or the religious ideals of the Tibetan people. Asceticism and the arduous practice necessary to maintain it surely train the body and the mind, for in proportion as the body is controlled, will-power will increase. The more advanced religious meditations are extremely difficult and time-consuming. They demand the most severe dedication on the part of the disciple or the monk.

MILA AS METAPHYSICIAN: In Mila's songs we find simple expositions of yoga (as in Chapter II, Song 1) along with the most profound metaphysical perfections (as in Chapter II, Song 2). Their full comprehension requires considerable background in Buddhist philosophy and yoga. The Void to which he refers several times is the essence of Mahayana metaphysics and is perhaps the most difficult for Western minds to understand. The only reality which exists is the spiritual reality. Only the spiritual is real; all else is illusion. As Mila sings in Chapter III, Song 9:

"The Yogin sees the clear light, neither comes nor goes.

The appearance of the external world is an illusion."

Even the visions the yogin experiences in some of his higher meditations must be recognized as illusions. The yogin is taught to visualize the deities of the pantheon, but ultimately those forms dissolve, and he identifies with the Absolute, which is the realm of non-form, non-activity—in other words, Shunyata, the Void. In the same song from Chapter III, Mila sings:

"Since demons are the phantoms of the mind,

If it is not understood by the Yogin that they are empty appearances,

And even if he thinks they are real, meditation is confused.

But the root of the delusion is in his own mind."

Mila becomes so deeply engaged in his doctrine that he recites in Chapter IV, Song 6:

"At times, I ate the Void for food."