Prayer to the Future Buddha
Maitreya
Written by Lama Je Tsongkhapa
 

                May the fire of great loving kindness
                Burn away the fuel of anger and hatred;
                May the radiance of the transcendental wisdom
                Illuminate the darkness of ignorance;
                May the holders of the Dharma enact the deeds
                Of protecting transmigratory sentient beings.
                I prostrate to you who is residing
                In the blissful realm heaven of Tushita.

                Even though you are moistened forever
                With the affection of loving kindness,
                However you burn away all black relationships
                Even though you have cut through all bondage
                Which is so difficult to sever.
                However you bind us tight in your compassion
                Even though you are endowed forever
                With an equanimity of peace, however you cherish
                Cherishing others amid renouncing yourself.
                I humbly bow at the Holy Feet of Manjugosha and
                Offer admiring praise to the Invincible Protector

                You are esteemed in the speech of the four faced
                Brahma
                And gazed at by Indra's thousand eyes of devotion
                Lord of Love - Kama, possessor of the beautiful Rati
                Bows to you without any pride and I humbly bow
                In respect, at the feet of the Conqueror's Regent.

                Like a hundred petal lotus in a clear lake
                Opened by the radiance of the rising sun,
                Like a garden of kundali - lily flowers blooming
                In the clear sky is the Lord of the constellation of stars,
                So also is the sight of your Holy Body
                Wreathed with signs and exemplifications
                Capturing the hearts of all migrators, the moment it is
                seen.
                May I be born at Your Lotus Feet, Oh Protector
                Maitreya
                And in all my lives may you adorn the crown of my
                head

                Destroyer of evil, you are free from the surroundings of
                all states of fear,
                Supreme Teacher, You are an
                incomparable Hero of the three realms
                Please watch us continuously, for we are migrators
                Who have fallen into the dangers.
                I prostrate at Your Lotus Feet O Compassionate Leader.

                You access without obstruction
                All the limitless objects of knowledge.
                You conquer with your powerful omniscience the evil
                army horror
                Whose thunder bolt weapons fall before you like fresh
                flowers and
                You defeat them with the radiant glory of your ten
                powers

                You scorch the haughty brains of your opponents
                Who have the pride of an elephant.
                You spread the great sound of your excellent sayings
                Amidst them and in their retinue.
                You put an end to the foxes
                With the speech of their false philosophy.
                Endowed with the four states of fearlessness,
                You are a lion amongst men

                The supreme wheel of Dharma which cannot be
                expressed by anyone,
                Unturnable even by the proud World-Creator, lord of
                passions,
                And not even by priests, ascetics, those training in
                virtue and so forth,
                But You as a Guardian with loving kindness,
                Turn the wheel of Dharma for migrators.

                Not even the name of "error" affects Your Holy Body
                and Speech.
                You abide in equipoise forever, with a memory which
                never declines.
                Your equanimity, without conceptual thoughts is free of
                discrimination.
                Because of Your isolation Your activities are
                completely pure.

                Your aspiration, perseverance and Your memory,
                Concentration and wisdom are completely liberated.
                You have long gone beyond all occasions for failure
                Therefore your realizations are unsurpassable.

                You know all three times without obstruction and
                attachment.
                Your holy body, speech and mind's activities are
                completely pure.
                You fulfill benefits for migrators until the end of cyclic
                existence.
                You engage with joy in the responsibilities of your
                deeds.

                You have fully perfected the aggregates of extensive
                qualities.
                You have destroyed any chance of incurring the slightest
                fault.
                Please consider for a moment the lamentable plight of
                me
                Who has become the object of you loving kindness.

                Although I have a basis of life complete with freedom
                and richness,
                Like a ship capable of liberating from the great ocean of
                suffering,
                I am saturated with the faults of carelessness and
                laziness,
                The stupor of frivolous gossip and the desire for gain
                and fame.
                In directing this birth of great value in pursuing what is
                meaningless,
                I waste away this good body which can accomplish
                ultimate happiness.
                Thus I inhabit this human flesh with an attitude of a
                beast.
                Please look upon me with Your great compassion.

                Although I have found freedom and richness,
                Which is difficult to find and great in meaning,
                When the powerful Lord of Death sends his messenger,
                There is no power to reverse it nor can I ever escape
                from it.
                Although I can see myself caught in sickness and death,
                I am still uncertain when I will die, even at the time of
                death
                While knowing that I have to go leaving everything
                behind,
                I still spend meaninglessly all the years, months and
                days.
                Please bestow upon me, who is so deluded, your timely
                compassion.

                What need is there to mention the state of definite
                liberation
                When I do not have the confidence to attain even a high
                rebirth
                Which is praised by the Capable Ones as the basis of
                the path?
                Will You not bestow upon me your equanimity?

                Although I have a body endowed in the glory of a higher
                rebirth
                With the wisdom that precisely investigates the entire
                teachings,
                If I am unable to find the unmistaken path of fortune
                Once again I fall into the causal ocean of cyclic
                existence
                And in that great killer darkness of ignorance
                For a long time I am obscured from the points of
                practice
                and completely confused as to how to do so.
                Please bestow upon me your illuminating light of
                wisdom.

                Faces covered with hair and with thirsty mouths
                Running to drink wherever seeing a flow of water
                But are stopped by beings wielding swords and spears
                And before their eyes even the water changes to blood
                and puss.
                Mouth like the eye of a needle and a goiter choking the
                neck,
                Unable to partake or enjoy even when food or drink is
                found.
                Whenever eating or drinking a blazing fire burns within
                me.
                Thus in order to survive I even cut and eat my own
                flesh.

                Enveloped by a great darkness of ignorance
                Without the capacity to discriminate right from wrong
                Killing each other, controlled by goals and hungry
                beings
                Showered by the sufferings of being beaten and
                burdened.

                All peace of mind is destroyed by a burning fire
                Of a consuming jealousy, disturbed by the glory of the
                gods.
                The body is slashed and lost from the fighting
                Deceived by trickery, with no fortune to see the truth.

                Not to mention the experience, merely hearing about
                these realms
                Produces terror in my heart and shudders of fear
                Of the complete fall into these great abysses
                Of the hell, hungry ghost, animal and demi-god realms.
                Having accumulated since beginningless time and still
                accumulating
                Those unbearable evil actions condemned by the holy
                beings,
                I am trembling in the face of this great abyss.
                Please save me in time, from this fate of bad migration.
 

                Even in the human realm, with the riches of power and
                possession,
                There is the fear of losing these very high estates.
                When ruined by parting from the excellent fortune of
                higher rebirth,
                I am physically exhausted searching for the happiness of
                my desire.
                When I do fulfill the means to the wishes for happiness,
                Much worse than attaining the happiness, is instead
                The physical pain and the mental anguish
                Which is experienced in all the various aspects.
                With beautiful bodies adorned bejeweled ornaments
                In celestial palaces, surrounded by gardens of pleasure,
                Enjoying for long the pleasures of the desire.

                Even as the deva-gods, sporting the glory of higher
                rebirth,
                When I am gripped by the signs of unwanted death,
                I lose my mind and my heart just stops.
                When I see that very soon I unwillingly will have to
                separate
                From the beautiful goddesses capturing my heart
                And the delightful gardens for pleasure
                From food of nectar, finest clothing and ornaments of
                beauty
                And from the other youthful sons of the gods
                More than the happiness of being born in this realm
                Is the extraordinary great suffering of the mind
                I am burnt by the fiery tongues of the sorrow generated.

                By exhausting the joy of fruits accumulated with much
                effort
                Through my actions of goodness, undertaken over many
                lifetimes
                Overpowered by carelessness, I accomplish causes for
                lower migration
                And thus once again I fall into the hellish realms.

                Without notions longing for desire and the thoughts of
                malice,
                Having abandoned all deeds of sleep and mental
                anguish,
                By being free of the sufferings from physical and mental
                harm,
                Abiding for long in bliss, through the power of
                concentration,
                Even though I attain the form and formless realms of the
                gods,
                One to not being free from bondage and the compounded
                suffering
                When I exhaust the benefits of my past concentration
                Again I fall low down and continue with the circulation.

                Thus, even the Lords of life's migration, the gods and
                the humans
                Are also caught in birth, death, sickness, aging and so
                forth
                And carried by the waves of suffering in the ocean of
                existence.
                What need is there to mention that it is improper
                To be attached to the pleasures of cyclic existence?
                But my eye of awareness is still obscured to life
                Having the wrong wisdom, grasping at suffering as
                happiness.
                I, who am so obscured by such perverse concepts,
                Please free me from the great current of existence.

                Sunk in the quagmire of desire,
                I have strayed from the path of liberation.
                Possesses by the darkness of ignorance,
                I am separated from the eye of wisdom.
                Caught in the trap of fabrications,
                I am chained to the prison of samsara.
                Tormented by my karmic actions,
                I am the object in need of your compassion.

                In order to stop at the fearful cliff of cyclic existence,
                I must rely upon stainless forms of extensive listening.
                Through the power of pure reason of correct analysis
                Of definitive and interpretive methods of the boundless
                teachings,
                By discerning rightly and by depending on no other
                When I definitely need to find the state of impeccable
                learning,
                What need is there to mention the subtle intentions of the
                Victorious Ones?
                When even the most gross points of involvement and
                cessation
                Are not clear and open to the vision of my intellect
                Still, the enemy of gross delusion obscures my heart.

                And for a long while I have no chance of liberation
                Considering this situation, please clear the darkness
                from my heart.

                In the presence of the sciences taught by the Conquerors
                and their Sons,
                I will extend an ocean of learning over many different
                lifetimes
                And then excellently awaken the imprints of practices
                again and again.
                You are the sole eye revealing the fortunate path for
                transmigrators.
                Abandoned by all the pure beings of the past,
                I am at a loss of being separated from a protector
                In becoming like a guest arriving from a distant region.
                It is time that you cared for me with your great kindness.

                You are the refuge I humbly turn to again and again.
                You are Love-Maitreya, with Your great love for all
                transmigrators,
                In coming quickly and more quickly, please become
                mine.
                My Mahayana-virtuous friend in lifetime after lifetime.

                Before the presence of your look without interruption
                At all embodied going, with your great love forever;
                Whoever recalls with a mind of faith your excellent
                qualities
                Daily, you will come to them.

                In a place far away, in order to experience all
                The taste of solitude in the place of a fortunate field,
                Even though I wish to engage, I am physically unable to
                do so;
                Thus You are the holiest field of merit.

                To please You with extraordinary pure thoughts,
                With jewels, gold nuggets and celestial silks,
                With the tree robes, monk's staff and ascetic's bowl,
                Practiced by the Capable One for all those training in
                virtue,
                Also emanated through prayers and concentration,
                An excellent array of exquisite offerings pervading
                space
                Thus completely filled in offered to the Chief Lord of
                Humans,
                With a mind detached and free of expectations.


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