The Transformation of Speech
[An excerpt from The Dharma , by Kalu Rinpoche, from a chapter on The Four Dharmas of Gampopa. ]
“The second aspect of transformation [of confusion into wisdom] concerns our speech. Although it may be easy to consider speech as intangible, that it simply appears and disappears, we actually relate to it as something real. It is because we become so attached to what we say and hear that speech has such power.
Mere words, which have no ultimate reality, can determine our happiness and suffering.
We create pleasure and pain through our fundamental clinging to sound and speech.
In the Vajrayana context, we recite and meditate on mantra, which is enlightened sound, the speech of the [Bhodisattva of Compassion], the union of Sound and Emptiness.
It has no intrinsic reality, but is simply the manifestation of pure sound, experienced simultaneously with its Emptiness.
Through mantra, we no longer cling to the reality of the speech and sound encountered in life, but experience it as essentially empty. Then confusion of the speech aspect of our being is transformed into enlightened awareness.
At first, the Union of Sound and Emptiness is simply an intellectual concept of what our meditation should be.
Through continued application, it becomes our actual experience.
Here, as elsewhere in the practice, attitude is all-important, as this story about a teacher in Tibet illustrates.
The teacher had two disciples, who both undertook to perform a hundred million recitations of the mantra of Chenrezig, OM MANI PADME HUNG. In the presence of their lama, they took a vow to do so, and went off to complete the practice.
One of the disciples was very diligent, though his realization was perhaps not so profound. He set out to accomplish the practice as quickly as possible and recited the mantra incessantly, day and night. After long efforts, he completed his one hundred million recitations, in three years.
The other disciple was extremely intelligent, though perhaps not as diligent, because he certainly did not launch into the practice with the same enthusiasm. But when his friend was approaching the completion of his retreat, the second disciple, who had not recited very many mantras, went up on the top of a hill. He sat down there, and began to meditate that all the beings throughout the universe were transformed into Chenrezig.
He meditated that the sound of the mantra was not only issuing from the mouth of each and every being, but that every atom in the universe was vibrating with it, and for a few days he recited the mantra in this state of samadhi.
When the two disciples went to their lama to indicate they had finished the practice, he said, ‘Oh, you’ve both done excellently. You were very diligent, and You were very wise. You both accomplished the one hundred million recitations of the mantra.’
Thus, through changing our attitude and developing our understanding, practice becomes far more powerful.”