The Second Part of The Life of Milarepa encompasses Milarepa's spiritual transformation from repentance to awakening. It first sets out to resolve the conflict established in the First Part: Milarepa's misdeeds. After generating so much negative karma by using black magic for evil purposes, Milarepa seeks out a lama to help him repent. Milarepa learns from a few lamas before reaching his most famous lama, Marpa.

Milarepa made a strong impression on one of his first lamas when he received the teaching of the Great Perfection and did not even need to meditate on it (43). After this, his lama sent him to Marpa, who had already heard of Milarepa's accomplishments and misdeeds. Upon Milarepa's arrival, Marpa told him that he could provide him with either teaching or food, but not both. Milarepa agreed, and chose the teaching. I found this to be an interesting moment, and wonder if there is any deeper significance to Marpa only being willing to provide one type of "nourishment." What was Marpa's aim in telling Milarepa to seek food elsewhere?

Once under Lama Marpa's direction, Milarepa is instructed to build a tower. Milarepa builds several towers, and is interrupted by Marpa each time for a different reason. Marpa was either drunk, or mistaken, or otherwise, each time he instructed Milarepa to build a tower, and there was a seemingly endless cycle of Marpa instructing, Milarepa building, Marpa interrupting, and Milarepa tearing down. Even as the cycle repeated itself to a point of near absurdity, Milarepa did not outwardly object to the instructions of his lama, and he continued to build to the point of pure frustration and great injury to his back. At this point, Milarepa asked himself,

"Of what use is this human body which, without religion, only accumulates defilement?" (54).

This realization of the body's fragility and impermanence is a central tenet of Buddhist teaching which Milarepa came to understand organically from firsthand experience. Perhaps Milarepa did not yet realize Marpa's intentions in the tower-building trials, but that realization proved that the trials were a brutal yet effective way to demonstrate that principle. Therein lies the brilliance of Marpa's guidance.

Marpa's wife had an important role in this part of the story: she showed empathy toward Milarepa when Marpa turned a (seemingly) blind eye, and I would argue that her kindness helped Milarepa to persist in the thankless and physically exhausting work. There is some degree of paternalism in the description of Marpa's wife; she is described as only helping Milarepa because she does not fully grasp Marpa's teaching methods. Regardless, she is an important agent in Milarepa's teaching, especially when his mind was not yet strong enough to appreciate that Marpa always had his best interests at heart.

Milarepa's frustration with Marpa's teaching eventually leads him to seek initiation with another lama, Ngokpa. He spent some time under Ngokpa's care, and even received initiation from him, but it did not produce any sort of inner experience in Milarepa. This was because Milarepa did not actually have Marpa's permission to leave (64–65), and, knowing this, Milarepa eventually returned to Marpa. Marpa was angry with his wife, Milarepa, and Ngokpa upon Milarepa's return, which caused Milarepa to vow to kill himself. Ngokpa forbade Milarepa from doing so, telling him that suicide is the greatest crime one can commit (70). This is an idea that has come up in several other readings this semester: because birth in the human realm is so rare and conducive to the pursuit of buddhahood, surrendering one's life is a huge mistake.

Later, Milarepa began to miss his family and his homeland. When he asked Marpa if he could return to his homeland, Marpa gave him a list of places to meditate so that he could attempt to abandon his attachment to pleasure-seeking people (94). He did, and during his travels he returned to his homeland to meditate on his mother's bones for seven days without interruption (102). This reminded me of Chöd practice, which we discussed in our section, and it is likely that doing this practice was instrumental in helping Milarepa fight back against his ego and abandon his attachments. I do wonder if Milarepa's meditation actually was Chöd practice, or if meditation on top of a corpse is a more common feature of all meditation?

Afterward, Milarepa turned to a life of asceticism in which he meditated for years on end with very little food (118). I was interested in the descriptions of food, as they reminded me of Siddhartha Gautama's asceticism. Each time Milarepa ate food, his mind became clear and his practice was enhanced. This demonstrates the importance of the Middle Way approach to asceticism for which Gautama advocated: Milarepa's practice did not benefit from only eating nettles, and he actually saw improvement whenever he ate "real" food.

After he had perfected his practice, Milarepa was approached by someone whom he recognized was trying to poison and kill him. Milarepa did not object to taking the poison, as he felt he had reached the end of his life anyway. He demonstrated compassion toward the person who had tried to poison him, and consumed the poisoned food. His followers were upset by his willingness to die, but he assured them that he had completed his work and needed to

"leave for the sake of other beings" (164).

He instructed his followers to commemorate his death by venerating their lamas, which I read as a quite touching tribute to Lama Marpa. It is interesting to think about the similarities between Milarepa and Siddhartha Gautama, from their firsthand experiences of impermanence, to their experiences of asceticism, to their instructions to their followers prior to their death.