Samantabhadra’s King of Prayers is a practice text composed to help us cultivate the heart qualities of kindness, care, concern, love and compassion. Developing these qualities will help bring us peace of mind, confidence and a heightened sense of purpose, as well as nurturing and strengthening our relationships.
Geshe Tashi returns to Jetsun Drakpa Shedrup to guide us through the material, who in turn references a series of commentaries including one by Nagarjuna in the 2nd century CE.
As always, Geshe Tashi’s emphasis in these teachings is on how we can best experience the material for ourselves.
In this class Geshe la continues with the main body of the text and a series of aspirations that lead us step by step along the bodhisattva path. As Geshe la points out, these aspirations (in Verses 21-27) encourage us to extend and expand our vision, not just to our family, community or country, but to all living beings. They encourage us to connect will all the enlightened beings, and think, not just in terms of one lifetime, but many hundreds of thousands of lifetimes and more. We may not think we can do this, we may think it is too much. This, Geshe la suggests, is our old, cultural way of thinking. We can change that, and in doing so we will see our narrow, short term mind transformed.
- The Aspiration to Lead Beings to Happiness
- The Aspiration to Wear the Armour of Dedication
- The Aspiration to Accompany Other Bodhisattvas
- The Aspiration to Have Virtuous Teachers and to Please Them
- The Aspiration to See the Buddhas and Serve them in Person
- The Aspiration to Keep the Dharma Thriving
- The Aspiration to Acquire Inexhaustible Treasure
Experiencing The King of Prayers continues with the next series of classes beginning Sunday January 10th at 2.30pm UK time.
Wishing you the very best for 2021,
Your Admin Team
You can find details of upcoming classes as well as the text available for download here.