Guru Yoga > Seven Limbs > Prostration Flashcards
The practice of prostration is a powerful method for:
- purifying negative karma, disease and obstacles
- increasing our merit, happiness and our Dharma realizations
Temporarily…
prostrations improve our physical health
Ultimately…
they cause us to attain the Form Body of a Buddha
(i) Mental prostration
(ii) Verbal prostration
(iii) Physical prostration
(i) Generating faith
(ii) Reciting praises
(iii) Showing respect with our body
How to make prostrations to our root Guru:
We begin by contemplating his or her pre-eminent qualities and kindness
and with a mind of wishing faith we recite the following prayer:
Vajra Holder, my jewel-like Guru,
Through whose kindness I can accomplish
The state of great bliss in an instant,
At your lotus feet humbly I bow.
“Jewel-like”
No matter how precious external jewels may be, they have no power to give us true happiness or protect us from suffering.
There is nothing in the external world that can compare with our Spiritual Guide.
“Vajra Holder”
He or she is a manifestation of Buddha Vajradhara.
“In an instant”
Compared to lives of beings in the god realms, a human life is very short.
Placing our hands together at the heart
We want to experience great bliss by dissolving the ten inner winds into the central channel at our heart.
Ten fingers
Symbolize our ten inner winds
Placing the fingers together and tucking the thumbs inside
Symbolizes the inward gathering of the ten inner winds.
Verse to make a special prostration to Guru Heruka Father and Mother:
As times become ever more impure
Your power and blessings ever increase,
And you care for us quickly, as swift as thought;
O Chakrasambara Father and Mother, to you I prostrate.
Verse to make prostrations to the entire assembly of the Field of Merit:
To the Gurus who abide in the three times and the ten directions,
The Three Supreme Jewels, and all other objects of prostration,
I prostrate with faith and respect, a melodious chorus of praise,
And emanated bodies as numerous as atoms in the world.
How do we prostrate?
Wishing faith
From every pore of our body, we emanate another body, and from every pore of these bodies we emanate yet more bodies, until our emanated bodies fill the entire world.
We strongly believe that all these countless bodies make prostrations to our root Guru who is inseparable from the assembly of holy beings.
