Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [133]
For me, accomplishing these preliminary foundational practices of Vajrayana and completing a boom of full-length prostrations while chanting the Refuge Prayer was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in Dharma practice—and probably in anything else as well. When I first started studying with lamas, all the students were encouraged to practice the Nöndro. It was a wonderful experience to be with the sangha, going for refuge, chanting and praying together, while visualizing all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Since Mahayana Buddhism and the Nöndro emphasizes the ideal of all beings—friends, relatives, animals, insects—entering into the joy of Dharma, all becoming enlightened together, it’s a very joyous, boundless, all-inclusive, spiritual practice.
However, from the outset I found the physical prostrations incredibly difficult. It was hot in India; I was skinny. There was little protein, no vitamins, and no hot showers. We Westerners were typically pretty uncomfortable, afflicted by various intestinal “bugs” and often feeling unhealthy. Yet we were supposed to bow as many as three thousand times a day, not to mention the prayers and visualizations that went with the practice.
And then there were the obvious Western-type questions. Bow? To whom? Why? Most of us had been taught not to bow to idols or graven images. We just wanted to get enlightened; what was all this bowing and scraping about?
I would accost Kalu Rinpoche with these questions. Again and again he would patiently explain that the physical bows purify the mind and the body’s energy. Again and again he would say that the practice developed devotion, focus, attention, and a contemplative state of awareness—that it was like being in the presence of the Buddhas themselves, as though you were bowing right in front of them. It would sound good when Rinpoche said it, and I would toddle off to do a few more thousand. Feeling inspired for a few days, all would go well; and then once again I would start wondering exactly what it was we were all doing.
Eventually the practice became much more deeply joyful; and after two thousand or three thousand prostrations during the day, the meditation when you sat down at night would be fantastic. Pushing yourself beyond where you would normally let yourself go does develop aspiration, will, and concentrated focus. I remember one early dawn at Karmapa’s monastery in Sikkim trying to do a few thousand prostrations in the temple before the midday sun made it too hot. I was counting the bows and prayers with my beads in hand. The Karmapa was walking around in his informal clothes, carrying his rosary. He smiled, came near, and sprinkled white rice over me, and whispered prayers and blessings. It was really inspiring; it felt like flowers and blessings raining down upon my head, reaching right into my heart.
In 1974, at Lama Norla’s hermitage high on the mountain above Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery in Darjeeling I stayed in retreat to practice Nöndro during a rainy season that lasted eighty-nine days straight. With the generous assistance and coaching of the energetic young Lama Norla, and his kind stepmother’s cooking, I completed the boom of 100,000+ prostrations. I assure you when I completed that huge number, it felt like a sonic boom. But just to make sure I didn’t get too proud of my accomplishment, Lama Norla said, “Don’t forget the other four booms.” He then told me about a woman practitioner in Sikkim who had accomplished these five booms no less than seventeen times. Of course, I asked why. Lama Norla laughed and said, “Great merit, very good practice.” What more could I say? Eventually I completed