Story of Takla Mebar

Letter From Menri Ponlob

"Here I’ll explain a little about the Takla Mebar Ritual. We do Takla Mebar prayers all year but this Takla Mebar ritual we do once a year as wrathful fire rituals for the whole world to be peaceful and in good condition.

There are three different Takla Mebars. One is the wisdom Takla Mebar, the second one is the manifestation Takla Mebar and the third one is the practitioner Takla Mebar. The wisdom Takla Mebar is the main deity Takla Mebar called Yeshe Kyi Takla Mebar, and is actually kind of a manifestation of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab Miwo. The Takla Mebar ritual is from the main root text.

The second Takla Mebar is the manifestation Takla Mebar and is the main topic of this ritual. The manifestation Takla Mebar actually was during the time of Tonpa Shenrab Miwo. His father’s name is Lhayi Gyalpo. In Zhang Zhung language Gyalpo means king, Lhayi means Sidpe Gyalpo, King of the Universe. His mother’s name is Takza Heting who is something like a female Takla Mebar. These are the names of Takla Mebar’s parents. This manifestation Takla Mebar actually is the manifestation of Buddha Tonpa Shenrab Miwo’s wisdom, from wisdom from the heart. 

Especially Buddha Tonpa Shenrab Miwo was sent to this world to subjugate demons and to liberate negative spirits and from order of the Loving Mother, Sherab Chamma, he did these practices and these rituals.

Why is it called Takla Mebar? Takla means tiger in Tibetan. Mebar means flaming tiger. During this time there were many tiger symbols. When he was born there were many tiger symbols on his body and flaming fire signs. His face looks very wrathful and his hair goes up like flaming fire. He was born in the year of the tiger and month of the tiger and tiger date so that is why he got the name Takla Mebar. 

Later he received the teaching and also empowerment and oral transmission from Cheme Tsukphud and his father Trulshen Nangden who was a very great lineage master of the tantric vehicle and from his mother, Zangza Ringtsun.  Takla Mebar received teachings, empowerments and transmissions from these three great masters. He meditated in very wrathful and very scary places especially in the rock cave. He meditated  and practiced the tantric teachings with very, very great results, fruits, siddhi. All the bad spirits, negative spirits, all the evil demons respected him and became very humble to him and helped him for his meditation, his practice.

There is one main negative spirit, Sinpo Dharsha Gir. Negative spirits are destructive and disturbing to all sentient beings resulting in too much anxiety and too much violence. At that time Takla Mebar tried to subjugate these negative spirits to liberate them for them to become peaceful and calm. But they never listened, they never subjugated or respected him. So Takla Mebar meditated on Takla Mebar deities and did all kinds of rituals and prayers, chants and mantras. 

Takla Mebar’s heart is very compassionate, full of love and compassion, But the “action’ is  shown as very wrathful and very scary in order to subjugate those negative spirits.

At that time Takla Mebar did fire rituals called  Dakpo Jinsek, or Hom. We have peaceful fire rituals and wrathful fire rituals This is wrathful fire rituals. We heat up a very, very strong oil, maybe 10 cases of oil and when it’s if very hot then we add some alcohol for the flame to become strong and we chant, pray and recite mantras to liberate those bad spirits. Liberate from samsara. This kind is wrathful deity rituals. We do these especially in the winter time, in the western calendar it is done mostly in November, the 10th month in the Tibetan calendar. The reason we do this in the winter is because all the bad spirits awake and arise in the winter. In the summer all these natural element energies are so fresh and the bad spirits are sleeping and hiding. In the winter they wake up. That is why we do the rituals  especially in the winter. 

All the monks do three to four days of prayers at Menri and we do the rituals and tsampa, barley flour, flaming and oils are flaming and we throw the white stones. Those are actually thrown to separate the bad spirits from you. So that is why there is so much benefit to the bad spirits to become peaceful and liberated and other beings become more peaceful and happiness as a result. This is why we do this ritual. This is a very, very powerful ritual. If you want to see this and join us at the monastery we do this in November in the western calendar. 

I wanted to share this with you can see the pictures also. We do this in November, so if you like to come and receive the blessings, you can join us.

Thank you so much for reading my message. I hope you all are very healthy with happiness in your life. No more negative emotions, no more negative spirits. I hope you enjoy life, a healthy life, a life of happiness and many, many Tashi Delek to all of you."

- Menri Ponlob