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Buddha’s Joyful Garden

October 15, 2022

Buddha’s Joyful Garden is a piece of artwork designed by His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche. All objects and elements in the artwork were prepared and arranged by Garchen Rinpoche himself.

The frame of the work is a round wooden box specially made by the carpenter Samba. It has a transparent acrylic cover which attaches to the box with magnets. The rim of the cover is painted with gold color. 

In the wooden box, there are three layers. In the bottom layer, there are aquatic organisms, as well as groves and flowers.

In the middle layer, there are lovely monks performing pujas and making musical offerings with a variety of instruments such as cymbals, drums, gyalings, conches, and the Tibetan horns (dungchen). On both sides of the middle layer, Rinpoche places the mini vases, from an old disciple, Judy, and puts artificial flowers he bought by himself. The flowers extend from the middle layer to the top layer.

In the middle of the top layer is a statue of Buddha Shakyamuni. It was made by Khenpo Gawang and offered to Garchen Rinpoche. The statue was filled with Tripitaka and consecrated. The two monks standing on the two sides of Buddha Shakyamuni represent his two major disciples. Other monks in the back are doing different activities; some are turning prayer wheels, and some are making phone calls. They symbolize that the noble beings benefit sentient beings in different ways in the world. The various animals in the artwork such as the dog, sheep, elephant, cow, pig etc. represent sentient beings in the six realms.

Garchen Rinpoche named this artwork “Buddha’s Joyful Garden”, which implies that all sentient beings are happy. Rinpoche explains: In India, some temples offer free food for those in need. People who receive the food all enjoy the food happily. That is called Joyful Garden. Some Tibetans name their hostels Joyful Garden in the hope that whoever comes to the hostel will be happy with eating, resting, singing, and dancing.

The Buddha Shakyamuni statue in the middle was filled with Tripitaka, so it is complete with Buddha’s body (statue), speech (Buddhist canon) and mind (Dharmakaya is pervasive like space, and emptiness pervades everything) Therefore, Buddha’s Joyful Garden is complete with Buddha’s body, speech, and mind.

The two background photos used are the landscape of Garchen Buddhist Institute. They were taken in the summer this year (2022). Since there was plenty of rain in the summer, the landscape was filled with greenery.

Buddha’s Joyful Garden was set up in Garchen Rinpoche’s new room next to the new gathering hall on October 15, 2022, which was an auspicious day (འགྲུབ་སྦྱོར།) [1]in the Tibetan calendar. The next day was Lhabab Duchen (if not counting the extra month in Tibetan calendar and counting only with summer and winter solstices.) Therefore, Treasure of Blessings – A Practice of Buddha Shakyamuni ritual was practiced. 

Garchen Rinpoche said: because sentient beings don’t know that Buddha and Dharmakaya is pervasive like space, in order to let sentient beings generate faith and devotion, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya are necessary, since they are perceivable. This is like extracting butter from milk. For this purpose, I designed and made this Buddha’s Joyful Garden. If you think of Buddha, Buddha will indeed come to you at once. This is explained in Mipham Rinpoche’s text Treasure of Blessings – A Practice of Buddha Sakyamuni.

噶千仁波切設計的「佛陀喜悅園」介紹（2022/10/15）

此「佛陀喜悅園」是噶千仁波切設計之作，園中的物品皆由仁波切親自準備與安放。

作品的外框是請木工Samba特別訂做的圓形木盒，蓋子是透明壓克力，以磁鐵吸附於木盒，蓋子的外圈塗以金色。

盒內分上中下三層，下層有水中生物，亦有樹叢花朵。

中層則是可愛的修法僧眾。他們正在修法，演奏各式樂器進行音樂供養，諸如敲擊鈸與鼓，吹奏甲令與海螺，還有藏式的長號。仁波切將老弟子Judy的迷你花瓶放在中層的左右兩側，插入仁波切親自購回的假花，花朵從中層伸展到上層。

上層中間的釋迦牟尼佛像，是由堪布Gawang製作並供養給仁波切的，佛像中以《大藏經》裝臟。佛陀左右兩側站立的僧侶代表佛陀的兩大弟子，其他後方的僧伽，有的正在轉經輪，有的正在打電話，他們各式各樣的動作，象徵聖者以不同形相在世間渡化眾生。作品中的各式動物，包括狗、羊、象、牛、豬等，代表六道有情眾生。

噶千仁波切稱這件作品為「佛陀喜悅園」，有「眾生皆歡喜」之意。仁波切解釋：有些印度廟宇會提供免費食物給需要的人，領受食物者都很開心，那便稱做「喜悅園」。有些藏人旅館取名「喜悅園」，則是希望到這裡的人，不論是吃飯或休息，唱歌或跳舞，都很開心。

作品中的釋迦牟尼佛像中裝有《大藏經》，所以具足了佛之「身」（佛像）、「語」（佛經）；佛陀的「意」，因為其法身遍虛空，空性遍一切，所以「佛陀喜悅園」完全具足了佛之身、語、意所依。

兩張背景照片是美國噶千法座GBI今年（2022）夏天因雨水豐沛，而綠意盎然的風景。

此「佛陀喜悅園」於2022年10月15日、藏曆吉日（འགྲུབ་སྦྱོར།）[2]當天安置於新聚會廳（Gathering Hall）旁的仁波切新房間。翌日為「佛陀天降日」（若不算藏曆多一個月，僅以夏至／冬至計算），故唸誦〈釋迦佛修法儀軌〉（༄༅། །ཐུབ་ཆོག་བྱིན་རླབས་གཏེར་མཛོད།）。

噶千仁波切開示：因為我們不知佛陀遍虛空、法身遍佈，故需要以可見的報身與化身，使眾生產生信心與虔敬心，就像從牛奶中提煉奶油一般。因此我設計製作此「佛陀喜悅園」。若你憶念佛陀，佛陀真的會立刻到來。這在米龐仁波切之〈釋迦佛修法儀軌〉中有所解釋。

[1] འགྲུབ་སྦྱོར། means “intersect”: The seven luminaries (sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Juniper, Venus, Saturn) intersect with the seven Mansions. Sun intersects with  Chariot. Moon intersets with Ox. Mars intersects with Bond. Mercury intersects with Room. Juniper intersects with Ghost. Venus intersects with Legs. Saturn intersescts with Net. When this happens, astrologists say the day is auspicious.

[2] འགྲུབ་སྦྱོར། 稱作「成合」：七曜（日、月、火、水、木、金、土）有七個成合之局：太陽會軫宿、月亮會牛宿、火星會婁宿、水星會房宿、木星會鬼宿、金星會奎宿、土星會畢宿。當此之時，占星家說爲大吉。