Akshobhya Buddha and the Kagyu Lineage
by Norma Levine
Whoever hears it (the Mantra), whether people or Animals, will be liberated from Samsara and all its sufferings. In the Kagyu there is a Sutra called the Purification of all the Obscurations of Karma. There is another one in Chinese which totally liberates all sufferings of obscurations.
The Buddha taught about Akshobhya in a Sutra and described Akshobhya’s Pure land. When he Buddha was seated surrounded by many Monks and Bodhisattvas, Shariputra asked The Buddha to teach. The Buddha said in a thousand worlds away from here, in the east, there is the Pure land of Akshobhya. Everybody in that land is performing the bodhisttva’s actions and have all generated the Bodhicitta. How did that Pure land happen?
A long time ago there was a Buddha called She Chenpo who taught many dharmas including the 6 paramitas. There was a Monk who stood up and said, from now onwards I will never be angry or aggressive towards anybody. He made a very strong commitment. From then onwards that Monk was called Mitrugpa which means ‘never disturbed’. That Monk then made eight particular prayers and also eighteen aspirations… One of them was ‘when I become a Buddha in that Pure land there will never be any downfalls.’ He made all these different sets of prayers and then generated the Bodhicitta. At the time he made this promise there was a big earthquake and a strong Sound like the roar of a lion, so he became very famous. Then he enacted the Bodhisattva’s Path for many aeons, and became Enlightened thus creating the Pure land of Akshobhya.
Mitrugpa means one who never becomes disturbed by Anger or aggression. He is regarded as especially powerful for purifying the negative karmas. All samsaric beings are Suffering because of negative actions and emotions. Especially nowadays because of the five degenerations, the Karma is even stronger. For example, there used to be hunters and fishermen all the time. But now hunters carry Weapons which can kill many hundreds of things and fishermen have big nets and can catch hundreds of thousands of fish. So we can do more negative actions than before. This is called the negative time. It has come to the brink so that we may even destroy our own World. We really have to take it seriously, how our negative actions are happening. We have to look at it. Otherwise we will face pitiable and serious problems. These negative karmic results are coming out of our own negative emotions, our own Greed, aggression, Ignorance – we don’t know what is good and not good – therefore we need to purify negative karmas.
Also we have to take the Blessings, help and Power from other great beings who have already become Enlightened, like Akshobhya. Generally all Buddhas and great Bodhisattvas are always trying to help beings, but Mitrugpa is especially powerful for purifying negative Karma.
Taking the example of Akshobya, we should make the commitment not to be disturbed by Anger and aggression, by negative emotions and to work with Dedication and commitment. We also need a connection with that. We have entered The Vajrayana Path and have the opportunity to get the teachings on The Vajrayana and the opportunity to read the Akshobhya Sutra.
