Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava

The Seven Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche, our Precious One, is a daily joy for many of us who habitually and with great faith chant the sacred vowels. Padmasambhava, the second living Buddha in our age, is special to many of us. The Lotus Born revived the Dharma at a time it was under threat from persecuting invaders, bringing the precious teachings to the Land of Snows. Most lineages of authentic teachings in Tibet are from the Sage Guru.

Padmasambhava, the Lotus Born

According to tradition, Guru Rinpoche was born as an eight-year-old child in a lotus blossom in the kingdom of Oddiyana— now the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Many miraculous life events proclaimed the enlightened nature of Padmasambhava.

After being invited to Tibet by Emperor Tri Songdetsen, Guru Rinpoche journeyed to the country and drove out the demons from the land. Padmasambhava introduced Tibet to Tantric Buddhism and is the founder of the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four major schools.

Padmasambhava:

“My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ). My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri (Sanskrit; Tib. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་མོ). I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times.”

Lovely chanting of the Seven Line Prayer by Khen Rinpoche Sherab Yeshi:

Seven Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche chanted by Khen Rinpoche Sherab Yeshi

༄༅། །གུ་རུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་ཚིག་བདུན་གསོལ་འདེབས་བཞུགས་སོ། །
The Seven Line Prayer

ཧཱུྂ༔ ཨོ་རྒྱན་ཡུལ་གྱི་ནུབ་བྱང་མཚམས༔
hung orgyen yul gyi nubjang tsam
Hūṃ! In the north-west of the land of Oḍḍiyāṇa,

པདྨ་གེ་སར་སྡོང་པོ་ལ༔
pema gesar dongpo la
In the heart of a lotus flower,

ཡ་མཚན་མཆོག་གི་དངོས་གྲུབ་བརྙེས༔
yatsen chok gi ngödrub nyé
Endowed with the most marvellous attainments,

པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས་ཞེས་སུ་གྲགས༔
pema jungné shyé su drak
You are renowned as the ‘Lotus-born’,

འཁོར་དུ་མཁའ་འགྲོ་མང་པོས་བསྐོར༔
khor du khandro mangpö kor
Surrounded by many hosts of ḍākinīs.

ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་རྗེས་སུ་བདག་བསྒྲུབ་ཀྱི༔
khyé kyi jesu dak drub kyi
Following in your footsteps,

བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཕྱིར་གཤེགས་སུ་གསོལ༔
jingyi lab chir shek su sol
I pray to you: Come, inspire me with your blessing!

གུ་རུ་པདྨ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྂ༔
guru pema siddhi hung