Dear friends near and far
Happy Guru Rinpoche Day! I hope you are all well, happy and keeping up your spiritual practice. Today in the Tukdrub Barché Kunsël Twelve Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche series, we have reached number eleven. This manifestation is very important and special because after Guru Rinpoche left Tibet, he became the king of the cannibals, called Raksha Tötreng. We actually practice that king. As Raksha Tötreng, Guru Rinpoche manifests as the king of the maras, especially the king of the cannibals, or the yakshas. The benefit of practicing Raksha Tötreng is to overcome our uncertain death. Uncertain death is when conditions cause us to die before our time. Our karma is not to die, but through obstacles we are going to die. This particular practice is really good for removing those things, especially those death-related obstacles.
So related with that, I want to say two things. Nowadays, many of us, we are modern, so we don’t like to wear protection chakras. A chakra is a square protection item that contains mantras and blessing pills, then is folded in a special way and wrapped in colored thread and you can wear it. Nowadays, many of us, we don’t wear this because we think it’s not effective at protecting. But, honestly speaking, this thing is going to protect you. But you need to get one from authentic lamas who have the correct ones. That is number one. I want to encourage all of you to wear protection chakras whether you are modern or not. It is really useful.
Secondly, it is very important to ask other lamas, good lamas, good monks, good nuns to do prayers for you. It is really beneficial. Sometimes the benefit is very fast. Sometimes the benefit is a little medium, sometimes it seems like there is no benefit, but actually you did not make it any worse.
Please remember this—there are two reasons we go through difficulties. First, we go through them because of our karma. With karma, prayers can reduce things but cannot remove them completely. Secondly, it is good to do prayers when the problem has not yet begun. Many of us, we do the prayers after the problem has already begun. So that is the very important advice I’d like to give to all of you.
Thank you very much. Happy Guru Rinpoche Day and I hope you wear the protections.
Sarva Mangalam,
Phakchok Rinpoche
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