Milarepa's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Teachings of Milarepa in 13 of his 100,000 Songs of Realization

by Khenchen Thrangu

Milarepa was Tibet's most famous saint who renounced dark magic and with Buddhist practice was able to become realized in one lifetime. Practicing in the high Himalayan mountains, wearing only a cotton robe, he taught the Dharma through beautiful, imagery-filled spiritual songs making them very accessible to the reader. Milarepa's Wisdom's begins with a retelling of the stories of ten different songs which Milarepa gave to his human students and also to non-human beings. These stories contain a wide variety of profound realizations that illustrate Milarepa's intense devotion and insight on the path to enlightenment. In the second section of the book, Rinpoche gives a thorough commentary on the Thirty Instructions that Milarepa received from his guru, Marpa, and then sang to his heart-son Gampopa. If we were to carefully follow these instructions and understand them as given in the Rinpoche's commentary, we would become an outstanding practitioner. In the third section of Milarepa's Wisdom Rinpoche takes Milarepa's Song on the Middle Way to demonstrate that Milarepa was not just an unschooled yogi in the mountains, but that had a profound understanding of Buddhist philosophy. After all Milarepa studied for about a dozen years under Marpa who as an outstanding scholar and translator. In this song we he presents the Shentong view of emptiness many years before the Shentong view was recognized by Tibetan scholars. This book is the third of a trilogy Thrangu Rinpoche has taught on the foundation and basic teachings of the Kagyu lineage. The other two are Tilopa's Wisdom and Naropa's Wisdom available also available. The three together represent a thorough presentation of the teachings of the foundation of the Kagyu lineage.

269 pages, Perfect Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Very Venerable Ninth Khenchen Thrangu Tulku, Karma Lodrö Lungrik Maway Senge (Tibetan: ཁྲ་འགུ་, Wylie: khra 'gu) is a prominent tulku (reincarnate lama) in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.

At the age of four he was formally recognized by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa and Eleventh Tai Situpa as the ninth incarnation of the great Thrangu tulku, the abbot of Thrangu Monastery, whose root incarnation was Shüpu Palgyi Sengé, one of the twenty-five disciples of Guru Rinpoche. Forced to flee to India in 1959, he went to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, where the Karmapa had his seat in exile. Thrangu Rinpoche then served as the main teacher of the four principal Karma Kagyü tulkus of that time—the four regents of the Karmapa (Shamar Rinpoche, Tai Situ Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, and Gyaltsab Rinpoche). In 1976 he began to teach in the West and became the abbot of Gampo Abbey—a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia, Canada—as well as to take charge of the three-year retreat centre at Samyé Ling in Scotland.

He is also the author of the widely studied The Practice of Tranquility and Insight, a commentary on the eighth chapter of Jamgön Kongtrul's Treasury of Knowledge, on shamatha and vipashyana.