Customer Reviews

Songs of Naropa: Commentaries on Songs of Realization

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This book resulted from a seminar in Nepal. It is based on 2 short "songs" by Naropa ("The View Concisely Put" and "A Summary of Mahamudra") but also includes: Thrangu Rinpoche's commentary, a legendary history of Naropa's training by Tilopa, and Q&As. His approach is quite traditional, but his style is conversational and pragmatic. He includes (p. 89-90): refutations/limitations of other approaches, a comparison of (pp. 119 & 128): Mahamudra vs. regular Shamatha, (p. 140-6), (p. 152): 5 wisdoms, the 6 paramitas, (pp. 166-7): "bringing joy & sadness onto the path," etc. He also includes several teaching stories such as: (p. 126): the master wrestler looking for his jewel (while he was wearing it) story and the (pp. 187-8): Milarepa teaching Paltabum story-with lots of analogies. Reading it, it seemed to me that Mahamudra meant turning the eye on the "I". The author gave a number of quotable statements:

p. 71: "The fully manifested state of anger is what is called the hell reams, where one perceives everything as a battleground, a realm of murder and violence."

p. 79: "Tilopa said, `to request teaching after teaching is like drinking water from the ocean-the more you drink, the more thirsty you get. You'll never end this craving.'"

p. 89: "Without cutting the root of disturbing emotions, true liberation is a `Mission: Impossible.'"

p. 103: "By shifting our attitude away from selfishness and aspiring to help others, disturbing emotions can be reduced."

p. 133: "the very essence of that which thinks is the Dharmakaya"

p. 143: "The Buddha said, `Analyze my teachings as carefully as you would test gold before buying it...Don't accept my words without questioning. You must discriminate and examine them for yourself."

p. 193: "To touch base with the practice itself, sometimes it is more helpful to have everything condensed into short, concise words. That way we can remember, understand, and remind ourselves to utilize them from time to time."

I found 2 particularly valuable: p. 168: "bringing the bardo onto the path" and

p. 120: "There's a method called `abrupt cutting' which is useful with very strong, forceful thoughts or opinions that we nurture. Abruptly cutting means we simply sever the involvement in that thought. You could say that it is a wrathful approach. [vs. letting go into whatever arises w/o fabrication]