Orange Manjushri Retreat

I’m going on an “Orange Manjushri” retreat starting tomorrow morning. I probably won’t be back until the 25th or 26th. The reatreat will be held outdoors in the Mormon Lake area at Dairy Springs campground. The retreat is being put on by Emaho and will be lead by ZaChoeje Rinpoche. So what is an Orange Manjushri retreat?

From the Emaho website:

Manjushri represents Buddha’s infinite wisdom: the embodiment of all the Buddha’s wisdom identified with penetrating insight into the nature of reality and interdependent origination. The great power of the wisdom aspect of the mind’s inherent clarity can rescue us from confusion. Identifying with Manjushri’s aspects of transcendental wisdom can be used to free ourselves from suffering and the causes of suffering. Invoking the deity Manjushri and accomplishing the related practices produces the relative benefits of sharpened intelligence, and, ultimately, enlightenment.

In the aspect of Orange Manjushri, Manjushri demonstrates the qualities of enlightened wisdom by holding a flaming sword that symbolizes the ability to cut through the roots of ignorance. His double-edged sword cuts through obscuring layers of misconception and discriminates accurately between the independent way things mistakenly appear to exist and the interdependent way they actually do exist. Manjushri’s sword destroys the false and misleading conceptions fabricated by ignorance, the root of all of our delusions. Manjushri’s realization of Bodchitta, his ultimate compassion, never loses sight of the welfare of those who, like ourselves, wish only to be happy and to escape from suffering and reminds us that we seek happiness and the causes of happiness not for only ourselves but for all sentient beings throughout the vastness of limitless space.

I think it important to note that Manjushri is not a diety like most Americans think of. He does not have any independent existance. He does not exist ‘out there’ for us to invoke and to come fulfill our wishes. The Tibetan word for this kind of diety is ‘Yidam’ and can be translated as, ‘meditation being’ or ‘meditation diety’. This type of practice comes from the Vajrayana and visualizing the Yidam is a very skilfull way of eliminating the disturbing emotions that prevent us from having real happiness. We actually are invoking our own inner wisdom in the form of Manjushri. In our minds we hold the vision of Manjushri and relate to our wisdom through that. Why is this helpful? Well, from my side I can say that wisdom, compassion, fearlessness, equanimity - these types of things are very subtle and hard to grasp. Eventually we can imagine our own selves as the embodiment of these qualities - these Buddha qualities by identifying with the Yidam, instead of our ordinary and limited way of looking at our lives. By really connecting with our Buddha qualities we can actually become Buddhas ourselves. Again, you see the non-dual nature of these practices. We are not ultimately praying to a Yidam out there, we are not praying to a Buddha out there. All of these things, even the Guru, are ultimately projections - dream figures - aspects of our own true selves.

Buddhism is not Monism - we do not believe that everything will come back together in one god - head that has some sort of more real existance than our own. Ngak’chang Rinpoche says that we are pluralistic non-dualists. We remain individual - but completely interconnected, even at the time of full omniscience.

So, I am going on retreat and one result will be no posts during this time.

I dedicate any merit that I accumulate through the practice of Orange Manjushri to the attainment of enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.