The Golden Light Sutra

[sraddha]

http://www.fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/goldenlight.asp

One of the most beautiful sutras! The site also contains experiences of people who tried reading the sutra!

http://www.fpmt.org/golden_light_sutra/default.asp#exp

[Ngawang Drolma]

Thanks for this

[sraddha]

You're very welcome! I love reading this sutra -- one of the most beautiful and poetic!

[sraddha]

Here are a few excerpts

Listen to me, O youth, concerning
The inconceivable greatness
Of the Tathagata, the protector
And savior of the world.

The realm of the buddhas is inconceivable
And the tathagatas are peerless.
All buddhas are ever serene.
All buddhas are perfectly emerged.
All buddhas are of the same hue.
This is the suchness of buddhas.

The Lord Transcendent Victor is uncontrived.
The Tathagata is unborn.
His body, hard as a vajra,
Manifests emanated forms.
Thus, no relic small as a mustard seed
Of the great sage is to be found.

Since his body is without bone and blood,
How can there be a relic?
Yet to benefit living beings,
Skillfully, relics are formed.

Dharmakaya – the complete Buddha;
Dharmadhatu – the Tathagata
Akin to the deed of teaching the Dharma,
These are the body of the Lord.

[sraddha]

Continually unaware of its benefit,
I have rejected the sublime Dharma;
I have shown unwitting insolence to parents;
These deeds I confess in full.

Childish and veiled by stupidity,
Blind with desire and hatred,
Ignorance, arrogance and pride,
These deeds I confess in full.

-------------------------------
Conquerors that appeared in the past,
Those who dwell now in the ten directions’ worlds,
To those conquerors, I prostrate.
Of these conquerors, I sing praise.

The vanquishing sages are calm, utterly calm and pristine.
Their bodies shine with the color of gold.
Their voices are the sweetest of all melodies,
For they roar the melody of Brahma.
Their hair is bee, peacock and lotus-blue,
Curly and jet-blue as the blue jay.

Like snow and conch, their teeth are ever beautiful –
Intensely white, gleaming like gold.
Their eyes, long and flawless blue,
Resemble lotuses in full bloom.

Their tongues, fine and broad,

[sraddha]

We have a passage in the Nikayas about the "DRUM OF THE DEATHLESS"

In a world become blind,
I beat the drum of the Deathless.'(MN 26 Ariyapariyesana Sutta)

There's a BEAUTIFUL PASSAGE ABOUT THIS DRUM IN THE GOLDEN LIGHT SUTRA! It's from the beating of this drum that all verses issue forth!

This is found in the chapter on confession of all sins:

One night, without distraction,
I dreamed a vivid dream:
I saw a large and beautiful drum
Filling the world with golden light
And glowing like the sun.
Beaming brightly to all places,
It was seen from ten directions.

Everywhere buddhas were seated
On thrones of precious lapis
At the foot of jeweled trees
Facing assemblies of many hundreds of thousands.

I saw a form like that of a brahmin
Fiercely beat upon the drum;
When he struck it,
These verses issued forth:

By the sound of this majestic drum of golden light,
May the suffering of lower migration,
Yama and the poverty of the three realms
Of the triple thousand worlds cease to be.

By the sound of this majestic drum,
May the ignorance of the world be dispelled.
With fears quelled, just as vanquishing sages are unafraid,
May sentient beings become fearless and brave.

Just as the Omniscient Vanquishing Sage in the world
Is possessed of every excellence of the aryas,
May countless beings too possess oceans of qualities,
Concentration and the wings of enlightenment.

By the sound of this majestic drum,
May all beings be endowed with the melody of Brahma;
May they touch the sublime enlightenment of buddhas;
May they turn the virtuous wheel of the Dharma.

Remaining for inconceivable eons,
May they teach the Dharma to guide migrating beings.
Conquering delusion and overcoming affliction,
May their attachment, hatred and ignorance be pacified.

May sentient beings who have fallen to lower migrations,
Whose bodies of bone are alight with blazing flame,
Hear the speech of this majestic drum;
May the proclamation “Homage to the Tathagata!” be heard.

In the course of hundreds of births
And tens of thousands of millions of births,
May every being remember their former lives,
Hear these teachings completely
And always recall the vanquishing sages.

By the sound of this majestic drum,
May beings always find the company of buddhas.

[sraddha]

For those beings who lack abode or support
And are wretched and bereft of refuge,
May I in future times
Become their refuge, protector and guardian.

So that I may end their suffering and its source,
And become a wellspring of all virtue,
In the future, I shall accomplish enlightening deeds
For eons as many as those gone past.

Through this confession of Sublime Golden Light,
May the ocean of my misdeeds dry up.
May the ocean of my karma be depleted.
May the ocean of my delusions be exhausted.
May the ocean of my merit be complete.

May the ocean of my wisdom be perfectly pure
And become an ocean of every virtue.
May enlightenment’s precious qualities be complete
Through the power of the confession of Sublime Golden Light.

May the force of my merit brightly shine.
May the light of my enlightenment be pristine.
Through the sublime light of stainless wisdom,
May the light of my form glisten
And cause the light of merit to gleam.

[sraddha]

Today is Sunday -- those who practice this sutra should certainly read it today; and if you don't perhaps you should try reading it today!

O buddhas who continually look upon beings,
I request you to gaze intently upon me.
Your compassionate minds always overflowing,
May you hold the remorseful always near.

Due to countless sinful actions
Performed in hundreds of eons past,
My mind is pierced and stricken with grief,
Wretchedness, sorrow and fear.

Solemnly fearing unwholesome deeds,
I shall always keep my mind modest.
Wherever I commit the smallest action,
I will not succumb to frivolous excitement.

Since buddhas are compassionate
And dispel the fright of all beings,
I entreat them to hold the remorseful fast
And free us from every fear.

May the tathagatas keep at bay
My negative karma and emotion.
May the buddhas always bathe me
With the water of their compassion.

[sraddha]

O Conqueror, your body resembles refined gold,
For its glorious presence possesses a golden hue.
You are golden like the golden king of mountains.
The White Lotus Seer has features of gold.

Sublime major marks adorn your body in full;
Sublime minor signs embellish your body parts.
You are brilliant and possess the fine splendor of gold.
Utterly pristine, serene as the lord of mountains,
You have the voice of Brahma and Brahma’s melodic sound.

You roar the rumbling song of the lion and that of the dragon too;
Your sixty-fold melody echoes and resounds.
Conqueror, your melody holds cuckoo and peacock songs.
Utterly without stain, spotless and immaculate with glorious light,
O Conqueror, marks of hundreds of virtues adorn you.
Your ocean of wisdom is supremely flawless and pristine;
Conqueror, like Sumeru you are endowed with every virtue.
With supreme compassion for the welfare of beings,
You are the supreme bestower of peace upon the world.
Granting the state of tranquility beyond death,
O Conqueror, you expound the highest sublime truth
And usher in the serenity beyond suffering.

O Conqueror, through revealing the nectar of the Dharma
You usher in the deathless city;
An abode of peace,
You are the source of everything serene.

O Conqueror, you free migrating beings from suffering
And liberate creatures from the ocean of misery;
You place them well upon the path to peace
And give happiness to every being.

Nothing can be found that is comparable
To the sage’s ocean of virtue and wisdom.
Possessing compassion for beings laden with life,
You have the powers of love, perseverance and skill.