Friends have asked me about some of the techniques that keep me intrigued with my Tibetan teachers who share with me their ageless lore of the Dorje Phurba “demon-defeating dagger”. Are you up for trying out an exercise?
The phurba dagger is a very real tool – a 3-edged blade like the famous commando daggers once used in western warfare but now banned in warfare for being just too fiercely deadly. Hand-held phurba spike daggers can be made of silver, gold, copper, or iron, or carved from wood of white, yellow, red, or black colors. However, the phurba is most important as a symbol of focused intention even more powerful than the hand-held blade.
What would you do with a weapon that could pierce through conditions in your life that stood in opposition to your fulfillment? What would you change right away if you had a tool that could nail into powerless paralysis any situations that caused lack or frustration in your life?
So here’s exercise one: Find one small condition that nags your life right now. Find something that you want but cannot seem to get, or something you dislike but cannot seem to dump. For this exercise, start with something relatively small, some little thing easy to identify, something that you will clearly recognize as being cured if or when a positive change comes about. We will save the big things for later.
Maybe you find some toxic condition you want to relieve – too much debt, excess body weight, unsafe car, co-workers or friends who bring you down, poor health, too much stress, overworked, etc. – something to purge in order to purify your life.
Maybe you will find some acceptable condition you want to expand – Mildly “OK” home or career or health or relationships or financial security or knowledge or appearance, etc. – but it could be and should be more satisfying and enriching.
Maybe you find your life missing key people, or positioning, or access to the kind of influence that would allow you to advance and accomplish – you lack the right allies, lovers, mentors, opportunities, titles, or outright patron sponsors – people or conditions to attract and bind to you in order to give your life the boost in momentum it needs.
Maybe you find your life invaded by people or groups or situations or conditions that seem to target you specifically and hold you back from what is rightfully yours – rivals, competitors, jailers, saboteurs, or outright enemies – some identifiable force to conquer and nail down out of the way in order for your life to be free to blossom.
Exercise One, part Two is to sit and take a deep breath and very clearly and explicitly identify with a vision in your mind’s inner eye and in as few strong words as possible just what you want to change. Stay with that for a few moments and repeat this step over and over to be sure you are focused. If you are comfortable with spiritual adventure, you could even press your palms together with the fingers of each hand gripping like claws the knuckles of the other hand as illustrated as Kuji no In Ge-baku-ken mudra in Chapter 5 in book 2 of Ninja; The Complete Collection. I will show you a minor adjustment of that sometime when we are together personally.
Exercise One, part Three is then to watch very carefully over the next week for any and all signs, coincidences, omens, hints, whispers, or offers that could indicate a possible solution to your challenge. Just remember to pay attention and look for even the most subtle of communications as to an answer. See what catches your awareness directly, obliquely, or in moments of distraction or even dreaming.
Try it and write me a comment on what you experience.
Venerable Lama Pema Wangdak has been a monk since 7 years old. A student of His Holiness Sakya Trizin, he graduated from Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Benares, India in 1980 with Acharya (Masters) degree. In 1989 Lama Pema founded the Vikramasila Foundation, and then Palden Sakya Centers in New York City, Woodstock, NY, Philmont, NY, Charlottesville, VA, and Cresskill, NJ. Lama Pema is the creator of “Bur Yig” Tibetan Braille, and founder of Pema Ts’al (“Lotus Grove”) Schools in Mundgod, India and Pokhara, Nepal, and Pema Ts’al School in New York City based on the curriculum at Sakya College, India. Lama Pema has been guiding western students for over 20 years through his marvelous command of the English language and his knowledge and compassion.
