Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan

(from the Tibetan) by RECHUNG, DISCIPLE OF MILAREPA

Obeisance to the Guru!

[ HEREIN] I wish to narrate the history of a Great Yogi, who lived in this high snow-clad table-land of Tibet. [He was] one who had been profoundly impressed from his early youth by the transient and impermanent nature of all conditions of worldly existence, and by the sufferings and wretchedness in which he saw all beings immersed. To him existence seemed like some huge furnace wherein all living creatures were roasting. With such piercing sorrow did this fill his heart that he was unable to feel any envy even of the celestial felicity enjoyed by Brahma and Indra in their Heavens, much less of the earthly joys and delights afforded by a life of worldly greatness.

On the other hand, he was so captivated by the Vision of Immaculate Purity, by the Chaste Beauty found in the description of the State of Perfect Freedom and Omniscience associated with the attainment of Vzvvdua, that he cared not even though he should lose his very life in the search on which he had set out, endowed as he was with faith, firm and full, a keen intellect, and a heart overflowing with all-pervading love and sympathy.