MARPA GURU YOGA AND PRAISES

“Blazing with bravery, like a great lion soaring through space,
Turquoise mane of thousands of oral instructions on the tantras’ meaning,
Bellowing laughter that stirs the ‘earth’ of the whispered lineage,
Remembering again the supreme translator.
སེང་ཆེན་མཁའ་ལ་འཕྱོ་འདྲའི་སྙིང་སྟོབས་འབར༎
རྒྱུད་དོན་མན་ངག་འབུམ་གྱིས་གཡུ་རལ་གསིག༎
སྙན་བརྒྱུད་ས་གཞི་གཡོ་བའི་གད་རྒྱངས་ཅན༎
སྐྱེས་མཆོག་སྒྲ་བསྒྱུར་རྒྱལ་སླར་ཡང་དྲན༎། 

–17th Karmapa’s Praise to Marpa

With great courage, you travelled many times to the noble land.
With great wisdom,  you mentally captured all phenomena.
With great diligence, you erected the victory banner of accomplishment.
Great lotsāwa, at your feet I supplicate.

སྙིང་སྟོབས་ཆེན་པོས་འཕགས་ཡུལ་ལན་མང་བགྲོད། །
ཤེས་རབ་ཆེན་པོས་ཆོས་ཀུན་ཐུགས་སུ་ཆུད། །
བརྩོན་འགྲུས་ཆེན་པོས་སྒྲུབ་པའི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་བཙུག །
ལོ་ཙཱ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཞབས་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས། །

–excerpt from Marpa Guru Yoga by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo

Yesterday, Thrangu Monastery Namo Buddha announced that now the 49 day ritual has finished for Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche’s parinirvana, that the resident lamas of overseas Thrangu dharma centers are leading a group of monastics on the Marpa guru yoga practice before the Kudung, which will continue for 10 days.  Viewing hours for the physical remains of Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche will be held Daily from 10-11 am and 2:00-3:00 pm.

As an offering for this event, I am re-publishing details of a post I wrote this year about Marpa and his wife, Dagmema. Thrangu Rinpoche himself wrote a book about the life of Marpa called A Spiritual Biography of Marpa the Translator (2001), Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal Publications).

I have written about Marpa’s Guru Yoga before here. in relation to a praise composed by Marpa in Jamgon Kongtrul’s Guru Yoga sadhana. There is also a short Marpa Guru Yoga composed by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo translated into English here. It is notable that these guru yogas were both written by two of the most important Ri-mey (non-sectarian) masters in the 19th century, a sign perhaps of their wish to be liberated from Gelug hegemony and domination and a return to the tantric/Vajrayana roots of Kagyu and Nyingma.

In March 2023, a Marpa Guru Yoga was also performed as part of the Arya Kshema annual event for the Karma Kagyu nuns being held at the Vajra Vidya Institute, Sarnath, India (see photos below and video here).

In an article this year called Hearing Her-Story Envisioning and Creating a Female Lineage Tree: Making the invisible roots and flowers of the lineage tree visible, original artwork visually portraying the Kagyu ‘foremothers’, I wrote about the following:

• Life-stories of Marpa
• Absence of biographical texts about, or by Dagmema 
• Dagema’s important role in the life of Je Milarepa
• The few visual depictions of Dagmema with Marpa
• New translation of Verse of Praise to Marpa by 17th Karmapa
• New artwork depicting Marpa and his wife and other female lineage masters of Kagyu lineage

As I spoke about here in my video Introduction to Dakini Translations, Marpa has been a big inspiration for me in my own work as a Dharma translator. Unpopular, unliked, and initially unsupported, Marpa risked his life and spent his own wealth to make the long and arduous journeys to Nepal and India (a very difficult task from Tibet) in order to bring back the Indian tantric/Vajrayana teachings. 

For more research and translations on Marpa, see this section of the website here, and Further Reading section below.

Music? Mantra of Marpa Lotsawa, Milarepa’s Song of Remembering His Guru and Marpa’s wrathful wisdom and love,  Gotta Be Cruel to Be Kind by Nick Lowe.

Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 24th July 2023.

Further Reading/Sources

Decleer, Hubert. 2004. “Mar pa.” In Lindsay Jones, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion. Second edition. New York: Macmillan Reference, pp. 5715-5716.

Ducher, Cecile—–

2016. bKa’ brgyud Treasure and rNying ma Revealer: The Sras mkhar ma of Mar pa Lo tsā ba,Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 37, December 2016, pp. 98–126. 

2017. Building a Tradition: The Lives of Mar-pa the Translator. Munich: Indus Verlag.

2020. Goldmine of Knowledge – The Collections of the Gnas bcu lha khang, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 55, Juillet 2020, pp 121–139.

 2019. From Song to Biography and from Biography to Song: The Use of gur in Marpa’s namthar. Life Writing.

Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, Guru Yoga on Marpa the Translator composed while at Serkhar Gutok. Translated by Adam Pearcey, Lotsawa House, 2019.

Lavole, Oriane, 2018. GTER MA AS TIMELY TRADITION: REVELATION BEYOND INNOVATION IN THE LITERARY SELF-PORTRAYAL OF GTER STON MCHOG GYUR GLING PA, CBS Masters Thesis.

Pickens, J. (2019). Marpa’s commands in the Milarepa Life Story. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 82(2), 303-314.

Quintman, Andrew. “Marpa Chokyi Lodro,” Treasury of Lives, http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Marpa-Chokyi-Lodro/4354.

Tomlin, Adele (2020-2022)—–

HEARING ‘HER-STORY'(II): DAGMEMA. Marpa’s Wife and Milarepa’s confidante, friend and teacher

NAROPA’S ‘VAJRAYOGINI FOR BEGINNERS’ (TRANSLATED BY MARPA) AND DRIGUNG KAGYU VAJRAYOGINI CATALOGUE OF TEXTS: New translation of Nāropā’s ‘Innate Vajrayogini for Beginners’, ‘Eight Praises to Vajravārāhī’, catalogue of Drigung Kagyu Vajrayogini texts and lineage

‘JOYFULLY JOYOUS’ SIDDHA’S ROAR: Padampa Sangye’s Song to Milarepa ‘Dharma that Pacifies Suffering (Zhije)’ and Marpa Lotsawa’s Supplication to Machig Labdron

THE ‘FOUR FLOWING DESCENTS’ SOURCE OF KAGYU: MARPA’S SONG ON THE FOUR TRANSMISSIONS. 16th Karmapa’s 40th Paranirvana (Part II).

REVIVING MARPA THE TRANSLATOR’S LINEAGE AND LEGACY: Hevajra Tantra, Marpa-Ngog Lineage, Six Bone Ornaments of Nāropa, Editions and contents of Marpa’s Collected Works and Drikung Kagyu

‘GOLDEN TEACHINGS’ OF KAGYU TANTRA: Marpa the Translator and student Ngog, the Seven Ngog Mandalas, Thirteen Tantras of Marpa, Kongtrul’s ‘Treasury of Kagyu Mantras’, 17th Karmapa’s birthday teaching and Drikung Kagyu ‘Mar-Ngog’ activities

JE TSONGKHAPA AND THE KAGYU LINEAGE: Marpa’s Guhyasamāja and Nāropa’s Cakrasaṃvara and Six Yogas. ‘Good Deeds’ teaching by 17th Karmapa (Day 12)

Anniversary of Marpa Lotsāwa: Jamgon Kongtrul’s Praise in ‘Marpa’s Guru Yoga’

A ‘Kagyu Treasure’ Tradition? Marpa’s Fifteen ‘Hidden Scrolls’ from Sekhar

Tsangnyön Heruka (Nālandā Translation Committee transl.). 1982. The Life of Marpa the Translator: Seeing Accomplishes All. Boston: Shambhala Publications.