Dudjom Rinpoche’s Prayer for recognising our faults

The prayer by which one recognises one’s own faults and remembers one’s refuge together with a repentant confession and rectification and a very pure aspiration to be absolutely clear about what is to be adopted and abandoned.

By Dudjom Rinpoche
Translated by James Low in 1984 and revised in 2010
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Colophon
Regarding this work, which is a combination of prayer, repentant confession, and aspiration, one night during the waxing moon of the tenth month of the water-pig year, my wife, Shes-Rab-Ma Rig-‘Dzin dBang-Mo, had a dream in which there appeared a lady who had been in her dreams before. This lady said, “You should now ask Rinpoche to write a prayer,” and then departed.
Moreover, later, on the night of the tenth day of the same month the same lady appeared and told her, “You must immediately help to request the writing of a prayer,” and then she vanished.
I was informed of the dream the next morning but I said, “Not many people are ready to recite the prayers that already exist, so it’s not that there are no prayers at the present time.” My wife then requested me to quickly write a prayer without being concerned about the length. So then I had the idea to write a prayer since there seemed to be a need for one to request protection from the fears of sickness, famine, weapons and fighting that are prevalent at this time. But it remained only an intention as other things occurred and it seemed less pressing.
However, later on, in the evening of the 10th day of the 11th month, the lady appeared again in my wife’s dream and said, “My request for that prayer is not something of little importance. It is a great necessity.” So then, on the basis of hearing of that dream, on the morning of the 15th day of that month I had the idea to write something.
Then in the evening of the 14th day of the next month I prayed one-pointedly to Guru Rinpoche and made an aspiration for a very meaningful blessing.
At cock-crow the following morning I had a dream in which I was sitting inside a large building that resembled my temple. Suddenly a white man appeared, young, dressed in white, and with long, flowing ringlets. He was playing cymbals very softly and dancing in the clockwise spiralling steps of the Ging as he came through the door and approached closer and closer to me while chanting these words:

If you want to establish the dharma then plant it in your heart.
When it is in the depth of your heart you will get buddhahood.
If you want to reach the buddhaland then purify your attachment to ordinary confusion.
Happily, the pure buddhaland is right beside you.
Develop diligence in the practice of the essence.
If you do not practise then who will gain the attainments?
It is difficult to look at one’s own bad faults.
To really see one’s own faults is the one essential point of the dharma instructions.
Gradually purify the errors you have and increase and develop the good qualities you have.

At the end of each line he increased the volume of the cymbals and at the end he departed while playing them very loudly—and due to this I woke up. Immediately on awakening I remembered his words and knew that their meaning concerned the difficulty of training in ‘rejecting and accepting’. Then, with the regret of having seen my sole father, Guru Padma Sambhava, directly in front of me and not recognising him, with longing devotion this old father of the rNying-Ma, Jigtral Yeshe Dorje, wrote this in accordance with my vision.

May it be beneficial.