Great Buddhists from Triratna Refuge Tree - Free Buddhist Audio

He then describes how, having had an initiation of Padmasambhava from Khachu
Rimpoche, he came across a xylograph of the Tharpe Delam, a Nyingmapa text, in
the Kalimpong bazaar, which contains the Four Mula Yogas in the Nyingmapa
tradition. With more instruction from Khachu Rimpoche, he took up this practice.
Although he could do the practice for only two years because he then returned to
England, he states: “I had a more intense and more sustained experience of Going
for Refuge than ever before,” and later he says that by undertaking the practice and
becoming deeply absorbed in the experience of Going for Refuge, it becomes, “No
longer possible... to think of the Going for Refuge and Prostration Practice simply
as one of the four mula yogas, or of the act of Going for Refuge itself simply as a
means to the arising of the Bodhicitta,”, so the practice becomes, “A spiritual
practice in its own right.” He adds that the Going for Refuge and Prostration
Practice represents, “A transposition of the act of Going for Refuge into the rich
and colourful mode of the Indo-Tibetan Tantric tradition. As such, it also
[represents] a restoration of Going for Refuge to something like its original place
in Buddhism and in the Buddhist life.” I shall return to some of these points later.
I shall now examine how the Going for Refuge and Prostration Practice of
Śākyamuni, in the form that we have been doing it, came about in the Triratna
Buddhist Order and in the Triratna Buddhist Community.
The Padmasambhava prostration practice, of course, came through Bhante. He
gave that practice to certain Order Members many years ago, and individual Order
Members took it up. Some Order Members have done the 100,000 prostrations in
that practice. It became quite popular in the late 1970s. On the Vine Hall 1978
Order Convention we did the practice collectively every day.
Thus a good many people took up that form of the practice. In the last few years,
however, particularly in what is known as the new Men‟s Ordination Process,
Subhuti and the team presumably felt that, in order to enable Mitras to deepen
their Going for Refuge, it would be good for them too to take up the Going for
Refuge and Prostration Practice, and the practice they adopted was the Going for
Refuge and Prostration Practice of Padmasambhava. We also introduced this
practice into the Women‟s Process. Eventually Subhuti began to feel that it was no
longer completely appropriate for the people doing it. It is interesting that that
decision did not arise in a superficial way. It was not a case of, “Oh, let‟s change
the practice”, or “This isn‟t working.” I think that the Padmasambhava practice
was really explored. Subhuti himself produced talks called The Mythic Dimension,
and Aloka produced a booklet on the Prostration Practice of Padmasambhava
which went into it in very great detail. It was as a result of quite a deep
exploration of doing that practice on successive Going for Refuge retreats, for the
purpose of helping Mitras and Order Members deepen their Going for Refuge, that
Subhuti came to feel that it was not entirely appropriate.
There were a number of reasons for that feeling. In the first place, not everybody
felt a connection with Padmasambhava. Some people have a response to Tibetan
Buddhism very early on – that is the kind of Buddhism that they are interested in –
so those people would enjoy particularly that practice with all its detailed Tantric
figures. But not everybody felt that connection. Furthermore, it is a practice from
Triratna Dharma Training Course for Mitras
Year Four, Module 7: Great Buddhists from the Refuge Tree of the Triratna Buddhist Order
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