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Life of Milarepa
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The life of Milarepa sounds like a fairy tale. It tells us the story of a little boy whose family has been mistreated by his uncle. As his mother wished, he became an evil sorcerer to avenge his family and killed 37 persons. Once he has accomplished his goal, he regretted what he had done, as he understood the concept of karma. Then, he decided to seek for some formula to create happiness thinking that it would purify his karma, so he found his teacher Marpa. Milarepa has suffered a very hard training, but has finally reached enlightenment. Nowadays, he is considered one of the most powerful yogis. Many people admire him because of his qualities and his accomplishment of enlightenment in a single lifetime. “Enlightenment may be conceived in terms of either wisdom or compassion” (Indestructible Truth, p-442) Milarepa has been able to attain these two qualities at the end of this lifetime. He has the characteristics of the Six Perfections (another way to interpret the buddhahood). Wisdom: Milarepa has succeeded in being detached from everything. This was his main goal before he reached the mountains to dedicate the rest of his life to meditation. After he had left his teacher Marpa, he discovered that has not understood anything yet since he felt pain when he found his mother dead. During the last moments with Marpa, he was continuously thinking of his mother. This shows that he has still attachment to this world. However when he saw her skeleton, all he had learned in theory made sense to him and helped him to understand better what he has been told so he decided to go in the mountains. Everything is not permanent, but rather an illusion. His attachment to his mother was as well and illusion. He has started to accomplished his goal by the time his aunt came to see him. He was able to liberate himself from all the bad feeling he could have felt toward her. Also, he has learned a bit of this theory when Marpa made him construct the building to then make him destroy them. This was a manner to show him that he should not attach to things because they are impermanent. Compassion: Milarepa is dotted of an incredible sense of compassion. Let’s stay with the example with her aunt. When she came to see him, he friendly received her despite what her husband has done to his family. His sister, a normal human being, did not agree to let her cross the bridge because she still felt the rage against them.
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