THE FASTING PRACTICE of Nyungne is a well known, very popular, and profound purification practice that is widely performed in Tibet. One set of Nyungne consists of two days of practice. The first day is the preliminary day, and the second day is the actual fasting day. One takes what is called the Tekchen Sojong vow, the mahayana vow of Restoring and Purifving Ordination, with a total of eight precepts, and on the preliminary day one eats only one meal with drinks for the entire day. The meal is completely and purely vegetarian, which means it is free from any meat sub¬stance as well as onions, garlic, eggs, etc. The next day is a complete fast with no meals or drinks, and one must also be silent.
This important and well cherished fasting practice can be done by anyone. The only requirement is that if you are not a Buddhist, you must take the vow of refuge as well as the bodhisattva vow, and you must receive the empowerment for Thousand-Armed Chenrezig. As long as one is willing to receive these teachings, one is welcome to participate in the practice.
SOURCE OF THE PRACTICE
The source of this practice is a revered historical Buddhist figure known as Gelongma Palmo. She was actually an Afghani princess during a time when Afghanistan was a great Buddhist nation. Padmasambhava, who is considered second only to Lord Buddha, is also known to have come from that area. In Buddhist history books this place is known as Oddiyana, in what is now northwest India. Gelongma Palmo was a very learned, fully ordained Buddhist nun who overcame the dreaded disease of leprosy
through her practice of Nyungne by means of a vision of Chenrezig. From her the lineage of this extraordinary Nyungne practice tradition began.
LEVEL OF PRACTICE
Buddhadharma is generally classified into three vehicles (Skt. yanas). The three vehicles are shravakayana (hearers), pratyekabuddhayana (solitary realizers), and mahayana (Great Vehicle.) The path of mahayana is further divided into two paths, sutrayana and tantrayana. In tantrayana there are many levels, but generally we speak of four different tantras:
kriya tantra or action tantra; charya tantra or performance tantra; yoga tantra; and anuttara yoga tantra, which is known as the highest yoga tantra. Within all these levels of tantric teachings, the practice of Nyungne belongs to the action and performance classes of tantra, kriya tantra and charya tantra.
Actually there is some debate with regards to the level of practice to which Nyungne belongs. Because Nyungne includes self-visualization, some historic masters consider it to be in the highest yoga tantra tradition practiced as action tantra. But enlightened masters, such as the Eighth Tai Situpa and Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, believe Nyungne is action tantra practiced as performance tantra. The main issue here is that there is no self-deity visualization according to action tantra doctrine, whereas in performance tantra there is. If the Nyungne practice of self-visualization were associated with highest yoga tantra, then strict physical practices would not be important. But in the historical tradition of Nyungne, physical discipline is an essential part of the practice, therefore the understanding and belief that this practice belongs to action and performance tantra makes perfect sense.
Action tantra here means that as practitioners we try to develop insight mainly through physical actions such as fasting, washing ourselves, and many other things that need to be done if the doctrine is to be followed strictly and precisely. Since Tibetan buddhadharma focuses primarily on highest yoga tantra, Tibetans pay less attention to action tantra and therefore some of the details of the physical practices are missing, such as bathing and changing one’s clothes every day, etc. I have seen some of these traditional action tantra practices performed by Indians in India, but most Tibetans have no knowledge of them.
GENERAL BENEFITS OF THE PRACTICE
Those who wish to make their human life meaningful must do one Nyungne practice at the very least. One practice is just two days, but those two days go a long way as far as your unending future is concerned. Because of the enormous benefits of the practice, we organize two Eight Nyungne sessions every year, one in the United States and one in Taiwan. We have been doing this for many years. In addition to this, we also have Nyungne practice one weekend every month. I am very happy that many of my students make every effort to participate in both sets of Nyungne every year, and I’m so glad the number of students who do Nyungne is growing.
A student once expressed a wonderful attitude, which I thought everyone should adopt. Since he was a new student, I asked him what made him come to do Nyungne. He told me that upon hearing about all the beneficial results of practice, he decided to participate in a complete set of Eight Nyungne. He said he realized that sixteen days out of a lifetime was nothing considering the benefits. He correctly recognized the benefits of the practice, and saw that the sacrifice of sixteen days of prayer and fasting was really a minor undertaking. I think that’s the kind of attitude everyone should have, and it’s an intelligent decision and wise attitude as well.
During practice some people may feel a little bit of hunger and thirst. But a little bit of hunger and thirst is absolutely worth going through when it’s for the purpose of truly overcoming one’s own future pain and suffering and that of all other sentient beings in the world. Consider how some people are willing to climb mountains and rocks for momentary exhilaration, and others are willing to go through all kinds of pain and suffering just for the purpose of survival. These are just minute and short-lived benefits, but still people are willing to go through such difficulties. My point is that the enormous benefits of the practice absolutely outweigh the hardships that you go through during the practice.
In the Sutra of Great Liberation, one of the most profound purification prayers, Lord Buddha mentions that if someone were to recite this sutra, such enormous purification could take place that even if they had the karma to be born in the hell realm, they might only experience a little headache instead. The benefits of Nyungne practice are very much like that, meaning that if you suffer at all, it goes a long way toward your own karmic purification.
One great Nyungne practitioner writing about Nyungne mentions that being able to complete eight sets of Nyungne should bring us more joy and happiness than receiving all the wealth in the entire world. I think he is quite correct, because the benefit of doing Eight Nyungne brings happiness in your future forever. As happy as you might be to receive all the wealth in the whole world, it would still be for a short period of time. The benefit of true practice has no limitation.
Generally speaking, every practice has a certain set number of practices that must be completed in order to have genuinely accomplished the practice. With the four foundation practices, for example, one hundred thousand prostrations are performed as well as one hundred thousand repetitions of the other three practices; when you have completed those you can say, “I have done the Four Foundations.” For our Nyungne practice, to complete eight sets is to really do the Nyungne practice. Certain qualifications come with that. For example, if you wanted to lead others in the practice, you would be able to do so.
The Nyungne Method of Thousand-Armed Chenrezig
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