July 16 | Universal Smoke Day is celebrated on the 15th day of the 5th Lunar month (16th of July 2019). It is a day to commemorate the successful completion of Samye monastery in Tibet, the first Tibetan temple to be erected. This gave way to the preservation and propagation of Tibetan Buddhism as we know today.
In the 8th Century, Tibetan King Trisong Deutsen invited Khenchen Shantarakshita and Guru Padmasambahava to Tibet, from India, with the wish to firmly establish Buddhism there. First, a temple was essential, to centralize the activities of Buddhism and to preserve the teachings of the Buddha in the land.
King Trisong Deutsen
Guru Padmasambhava
Khenchen Shantarakshita
However, the temple construction faced problem after problem, and could not be constructed, due to the malevolence of local spirits and negative entities that felt threatened by Buddhism in Tibet. So, Guru Padmasambhava, the most accomplished Vajrayana practitioner, erected a holy statue of Vajrakilaya, conducted a Vajra Dance in Space, and did a Heruka ritual. These bound the malevolent human and non-human entities by oath and subdued them, which eventually led to the successful construction of Samye.
Within the next five years after the completion of Samye, Guru Rinpoche did an annual Sang Puja on the 15th day of the fifth month, on top of Hepori mountain overlooking Samye. It was meant as a Thanksgiving feast (Tib: tang rag) attended by the King, ministers and courtsmen, to pacify obstructions. It involves burning of a pile of various materials to create a pleasant smoke symbolizing a nectar-cloud of offering. Universal Smoke Day or Jamling Chisang commemorates this event.
Deity Dance
During this period, deity dances are also conducted up to this day.
Prince Mune Tsenpo, one of the three sons of King Trisong Deutsen, established three great prayer festivals in three different areas of Tibet in accordance to his father’s vision. These three prayer festivals were dedicated to the Three Trainings (Tripitaka) of each of the Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel – Vinaya in Lhasa, the Sutra in Samye monastery and the Abhidharma in Yarlung.
Traditionally, each prayer festival hosted a Great Debate on their respective topics. However, in later years, there was a change in their essence. For Samye’s festival, it became the sacred Deity Dance. The deity dance is based on the Generation-visualization stage (Tib.: kye rim) of the Secret Mantra Vajrayana, and it has been celebrated for 1,200 years up to now.
Sacred Deity Dance are vast in number, depicting different clusters of deities and ritual practices. In one cluster conducted in Samye, for example, there are 22 dances in total, with a Deity Dance for the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche, Guhyagarbha Tantra and the Ten Wrathful deities (surrounding Vajrakilaya). Others include the Deity Dance of the Retinue of Samye monastery’s Dharma protector King Pehar and so on.
On the days following the 15th day, different categories of Deity Dance are conducted.
The Requisites of the Dancer and the Audience
The Performer of the dance must:
- Have no interest in worldly fame, honor and respect while performing
- Not be mindless, or dance for amusement and play
- To hear all ordinary speech as the melody of the Secret Mantra, through samadhi on the Visualization of the Deity of the Dance,
- and have ‘divine pride’ (confidence in oneself as a Buddha)
While watching, the viewer must:
- Know Karma, the virtuous actions to adopt and harmful actions to abandon
- Generate renunciation for Samsara
- Generate loving-kindness and compassion
- Remember impermanence and death, pointing to the purpose of one’s human life (to practice to purify negative Karma and accumulate merit)
Through this, upon one’s death, one’s terrified mind is pacified upon seeing the activities of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities in the Bardo. Also, one effortlessly recognizes them as a display of one’s mind.
The benefits of Gar Cham:
- Blesses the land
- increases human wealth and enjoyments
- inner and outer obstacles are pacified
- helps accomplish common and uncommon accomplishments
- makes rainfall and makes always-bountiful harvest
- stops human sickness
- pacifies violence in this age of strife and so on
Source: Ngawang Zangpo of Samye, འཛམ་གླིང་སྤྱི་བསང་དང་འབྲེལ་པའི་བསམ་ཡས་མདོ་སྡེའི་ལྷ་མཆོད་ཆེན་མོ། (title in Tibetan), from 羊兄乐园, written on the 13th day of the monkey month
Roughly written in English by Alex. All mistakes, errors and deficiencies to him