A Garland Song For Our Teacher

From our hearts grow vines of homage adorned with flowers of appreciation that twine into a garland song of praise for you, our most precious Guru-Buddha. 

Homage to you Mañjughosha by whose grace our minds become victorious. 

Homage to you the Virtuous Friend by whose grace our virtues increase. 

Praises to you Ge Rinpoche for leading us on the avenue of liberation.

From your high place, your vast waterfall of wisdom pours down on our hard rocky minds of great pride and little merit. The smoothing waters of your loving kindness cleanse our defiled hearts.  Your stream of compassion guides us to see clearly the need to engage in constant study and practice for the rest of our short but precious lives.

Rainfalls of blessings come

from you our precious guru,

tong pa nyi, shunyata,

emptiness, bodhicitta,

bodhicitta, bodhicitta,

renunciation.

You are the perfect Guru with perfect generosity, perfect morality, perfect patience, perfect diligence, perfect concentration and perfect wisdom.

Throughout your life you have only thought of others, placing them above all else.  When the Buddha taught cherishing others as our mothers, you made this your daily practice.

Your teachings have always been just the Buddha's pure teachings.  You guide your students to a clear understanding of Buddha's words and away from the swamp of wrong views.

We thank you for the opportunities you have given us.  You created a place for many precious teachers to teach the Dharma and for many fortunate students to study and gain the path.

You taught us how to build Dharma palaces, temples, stupas, tsatsas, residences for Sangha, for Gurus, for Buddhas.  You taught us how to receive and care for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and so many other great Gurus who continually bring us the precious Dharma.  You are the gateway, the door, the path to enlightenment.

You have saved us, your wandering children, from the dark forest of ignorance by taking us into your heart and caring for us - completely, always.

Please stay with us forever.  You have caught us with your hook of compassion.  Without your clear and firm guidance we fear we will falter and be lost forever.

Our minds have been nesting in nets of wrong views

For unfathomable countless great eons;

At last through meeting and hearing you

We are freed by your clear explanations.

 

Your words that show the conventional and ultimate

Are medicine for our troubled hearts;

Through your profound guidance, kind and patient,

On the path of wisdom we now embark.

Seeing now that we are merely imputed

On our minds, our limbs and big noses,

We will catch the grasping "I" and uproot it

And thus develop high gnosis.

You taught that there is no rabbit horn, there is no son of barren woman, that seeds and sprouts are never created and never cease - they are merely magical elephants and reflections of the moon in quiet mirror like lakes.  Your fire of wisdom has turned hard bones into a delicious feast.

Thank you for this delicious summer under the sun of your teachings.  Your presence in itself is a lesson on joy. Your teachings are in our hearts; when we remember your eyes, tears come to ours. 

Greatest of all teachers, in these last few weeks you have shown once again that you are the seventeen great scholars of Nalanda.

As Dignaga and Dharmakirti you weld the sharp weapon of logic.

As Vasabhandu, Gunprabha, and Shakyaprabha you show the path to individual liberation.

As Asanga, Vimuktsena, and Haribhadra you show the absence of truly existent external phenomena.

As Bhavaviveka, Shantarakshita, and Kamalashila you skillfully combine the external and internal.

As Nagajuna, Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, Shantideva, and Chandrakirti you combine the vast and profound showing the absolute absence of inherent existence.

As Atishi you set forth the ordered path of method and wisdom.

And as Tsongkhapa you make clear the teachings of your various Nalanda forms so those like us might understand and achieve the ultimate attainment.

Your students from places near and far thank you for bringing us these holy teachings. We return home with treasure in our hearts and unlimited gratitude.

Le agradezco de todo corazón que comparta con nosotros sus conocimientos acerca del tema central de las enseñanzas del Dharma.

También le agradezco profundamente la inspiración que brinda a mi vida y a las de todos sus alumnos.

Please know, Ge Rinpoche, that your teachings reside deeply in our hearts. Because of you we awake to refuge and recognize that your attainment is our goal.

As clear mirrors reflect the sunlight of wisdom and calm lakes reflect the moonlight of method, the greatness of your teachings are reflected in the hearts of your students.   Rinpoches, sangha, laity, those who guide great monasteries, those who clean floors, those who volunteer in your centers, the learned and those new to your teachings - your vast and profound Dharma shines forth in each of us. 

Precious Guru, your greatness is seen clearly through those you touch with your blessings.  As one of your monks wrote: "During my Gelong ordination, Venerable Choden Rinpoche asked me 'Who gave you your actual monk name?'  I answered  Most Venerable Geshe Lhundrub Sopa Rinpoche.  At that time the ordaining Lama looked into my eyes and after pausing a while he exclaimed: 'Please, you keep that name!'" 

Kind Guru, this song of praise shows but the smallest portion of our appreciation.  The essence of our praise, our highest praise above which there is no higher, is this:

On this day and in this place, we vow to continue to sit at your lotus feet, to attentively listen to your teachings, to steadfastly meditate on them, and to accomplish them fully.

And then at some future time in some other place when students gather at our feet, each of us will say:  "When I was but a beginner on the path I sought out a teacher of unmatched attainments. Then on a green hill, in a small wood-clad red-roofed temple I found a matchless guide - a Buddha appearing in the form of a simple monk from the Land of Snows.  Knowing there existed none greater, I vowed to never stray in my efforts to become only like him."

And each of us will say: "Gentle students who now gather around me, if you wish to escape the darkness of the suffering of samsara, if you wish to attain the luminescence of liberation, if you wish to bring all other sentient beings into the bright light of full enlightenment then you will vow to never stray in your efforts to quickly, quickly become of one taste with my great Guru - the Lion of Buddhas, the wisest of sages, the most compassionate of teachers, the most kind Ge Rinpoche, the one named Most Venerable Lhundrub Sopa."

Most holy Buddha, most kind Guru - this is our heart song of praise.

 

Arranged from the praises of his students and read by Rodney Stevenson
on the occasion of
Most Venerable Lhundru Sopa Rinpoche's long life puja.

August 8, 2004.

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