His Eminence Kenting Tai Situpa Overview of Vajrayana Teachings in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, December 2003. Audio: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 (Part 3 includes the Guru Yoga Prayer)
(Beginning Prayers) This time at the request of individual Dharma followers coming from many parts of the world I am spending next six days teaching Dharma every day for two 2-hour sessions. This is with a hope that the knowledge about Dharma of all of you would become more complete and perhaps some wisdom might develop. That remains to be seen.
Definitely you will have more information of teachings and some missing pieces of puzzle might be gathered here, but our ultimate aim is to develop wisdom. And that I really cannot do very much, because the source of wisdom is inside each and every one of you, the primordial wisdom is there in each and every one of you, so you have to realize you have the wisdom, and I can't take off my wisdom hat and put it on your head! If that was to be done, I would have brought lots of hats today. One for each of you, and one to take home to your friends, spare hats.
Unfortunately, Lord Buddha Shakyamuni didn't manage to do that, so how could I? I'm just his follower and hoping to do like him but it may take me a couple of million lifetimes. That's alright with me, each lifetime is better by one million than this life, that's enough for me. This life is not that bad and everything else has been wonderful in this life. All kind of things happen in my life, but I learn from them. So they all are somehow fuel to the flames and I somehow appreciate those… other people might think they are problems and difficulties but I feel that they have done good for me, so I honestly appreciate them, but it doesn't mean you should go around and find problems to create for me, it doesn't mean that. I have learned a lot about myself and about other people and about it, what kind of things can happen in human life, it's very interesting.
To make these couple of days most comprehensive I'm sharing my notes that I made, some of them in a form of books, some of them in a form of pieces of paper, I have hundreds of pages of them. I wish to share them so that what I have learned from my great masters, that is the transmission of lineage from them, I will be able to share with you as much as possible. I found this the best way to do it, otherwise, if we go through one of those great texts, we might not even get quarter of the way, so we might have to come back again, three more times to complete it and that's not convenient for all of you. First I like to start with these notes, which I actually made a copy by hand about two years ago, and these are my notes completed in 1980, that time I was 27 years old. Today I'm half a century old.
I will not go through all of it because it's very philosophical and complicated, but some part of it is I think useful for all of us. Here I wrote four sentences. This is in Tibetan and it says: The essence of Lord Buddha's teaching, which is secret to all of us, is revealed by him, because it is not secret to him.
He realized the ultimate essence of himself and everyone and manifested dana, that is something that we have, but we don't know, so that is called secret. Your secret. By your secret I don't mean that there is something unbecoming that you have done and you don't dare to say it to anybody! But the real essence of you, which has no limitation, you don't know that, it is secret to you. So that secret revealed to Buddha through stainless wisdom. When Buddha overcame his dualism between how he manifested and what he had always been, he wasn't "me, the Buddha", anymore. We call him Buddha Shakyamuni, but he doesn't call himself "I, the Buddha Shakyamuni". Buddha manifested the Dharma, he did not work hard and make notes like this and teach with a microphone with broken English. The outcome of the stainless primordial wisdom is the secret of Lord Buddha's speech.
Now the second sentence: It is heard and received through the ears of the stained ones. Stained by I, the disciple, the Buddha, the master. First there were five of them. After seven weeks of Buddha's enlightenment, when he taught the first Dharma in Varanasi, there were five of them, who received the teaching of Buddha which was Four Noble Truths. Those five people bowed down to Buddha, sat there on their knees and Buddha was glowing with light, magnificent, so it was out of question whether he was Buddha or not. He had two meters light around him that everybody could see. Even those unfortunate people, who did not appreciate Buddha during the time of Buddha, even they had to say: "I have seen nothing great about you except two meter of light around you."
So, they saw him this way, they listened to him and they heard him speak. It was the Four Noble Truths that they heard. So it is heard through the ears of the dualistic ones, stained ones, just like us – I can't say just like us, because they must have been extremely fortunate to hear from Buddha. We are here 2500 years after trying to learn about it, so we are not equal to these five people, but sort of like us.
By hearing through the stained dualistic ears and by remembering it in the mind of dualism, saying that: "I heard Buddha saying that." And I am sure these people talked to each other: "Did he really say that?" "Yes, yes, he said that, but I don't think he said that way." They must have had discussions among themselves and finally they came to a conclusion about the Four Noble Truths.
So they heard through the dualistic ears and they held in the dualistic mind. The third line is: Because of that itself, it is very possible, that it is stained by the composition. (Composition in Tibetan is dy she, composition of subject and object, your ear is made of many things, your eye is a ball of water and your heart is neatly wired jelly. All of this is composition of atoms and molecules.) Because of that it is quite possibly that it is stained by the composition and they don't hear exactly what Buddha manifests. Otherwise there will be only Four Noble Truths, there will be no other teaching. And there was sutra, there was abhidharma and tantra. So as beings evolve Buddha's teachings manifest.
Otherwise, why didn't Buddha manifest tantra first, without all of those other things. Step by step the beings, the disciples evolved, so the teachings manifested according to their capacity. After Four Noble Truths there is the second turning of the Wheel [of Dharma] which is Mahayana, then there is the third turning of the Wheel, then there is tantric aspect of teaching, which can manifest anytime, timeless. So, the third sentence is saying that because of that itself it is possible to be stained by the composition.
Last sentence: Therefore, ultimate meaning/teaching has to be non-dualistic dharmakaya itself. Ultimate teaching of Dharma has to be the non-dualistic dharmakaya itself. You hear the ultimate teaching of Buddha only when you become Buddha. Until that we transform one thing to that, achieve that, hear another thing and practise it, then achieve the realisation of that, and so on we progress. Even we just say a simple prayer: "May all sentient beings be free from suffering." It will have meaning according to each one of us even right now. Slight differences will be there. And when you say today "May all sentient beings be free from suffering" and when you say it after one year, it will have different meaning, because you evolve. If you are progressing, its meaning will become deeper and more profound, increase each year. If you are not progressing but going backwards, the meaning will decrease and become less deep and less profound.
Therefore the ultimate Dharma, the ultimate essence of Lord Buddha's teaching is Dharmakaya itself. Those were these four sentences. As I said, I wrote this long time ago. I cannot say I evolved very much, but I am very sceptical and pragmatic, I am still today, but more so when I was younger, I was just a young man at the time. Next four sentences show that quite clearly.
I don't regret I said that but you have to wait for the next four sentences so that you don't get confused. If you only learn this, you may get confused. Here it says: The Lord Buddhas teaching became 2, 3, 7, 9 etc. The Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, kriyayoga, upayoga, anuttarayoga, mahayoga, anuyoga, atiyoga, so many already.
Next sentence: Each one, they also became quite a few numbers that is countable. So Vajrayana Buddhism of Tibet has eight main lineages. Each one of them has many sub lineages; it became quite a good number, and Mahayana itself became quite a few, the Mahayana of India, Burma, Kampuchea, Korea and Japan, China etc. It became so many kind of Mahayana and each one of them will have for example Lotus sutra, Amitabha and Chenrezig following Mahayana. It is like a big jungle with many trees and each tree with many branches. It's quite complicated actually. I know where I belong because I was born into it, but those of you, who become followers, have a big job to find out which tree that you belong to! It is quite interesting: is it a maple tree or a pine tree? Is it a banyan tree or a cypress? It depends on your final decision that you will be part of one tree and we respect of course all the trees.
The third sentence says that: After few more thousand years – the Buddha taught Dharma a little bit over 2500 years ago, and up to today there appeared so many branches already, after another couple of thousand years, then the last sentence says that it will become like a great offering visualisation. We call it kun-zang cho-drin. Most profound cloud of offerings. It means that you will generate five offerings from your five fingers and each one of them generate five, so it will go on forever, and the sky will be filled with the offerings. It will be go on forever generating. After few thousand years it [Dharma lineages] can become like that. I'm not saying it is wrong but it is how it will become. It's complicated.
Now the next four sentences, which are continuation of that I will skip. After that I wrote four sentences, which somehow try to bring a conclusion to that incomprehendable growth. Pure devotion, pure intention, pure diligence and faith, based on that one listens, contemplates, teaches, debates and does it purely and correctly. By doing that purely and correctly, then at the end, it is also possible that all of those different branches – sometimes they seem to contradict each other, if you sincerely and purely study and debate on them, then they will form into same essence, same meaning in the end. But that requires a lot of faith, patience and diligence; otherwise you will just go to half way: you only see the difference but you don't have enough patience to go further, so you don't see the similarities, and the sameness. So it can fall into the same essence.
The next four sentences, little bit surrendering, because those days I was quite fresh in my mind about my study on Buddhist philosophies and my practise on the various yogas, doing serious practice and retreats, so it was all a bit like balloon that is blown too big, so it is about to burst. When you are twenty something and you have learned a lot and you have little bit of ego also, to be honest, so when you have that kind of ego, then at the same time you learn how much you don't know. The more you learn, the more you see things that you don't know. It is hard for the ego, things that I'm better than so many, I know a lot, but yet I don't know anything. It's little hard to swallow, I'm sure it is happening to those of you who are at that age now. For that I had to do some surrendering because I could not go on like that without becoming stressed.
Therefore I wrote these four sentences: Relative words, details, all of these endless things, whether you know them or not, if your lineage is pure and if you are following with your body, speech and mind the path which accords with the morals and ethics and ways of the lineage sincerely, then the ultimate primordial wisdom, which is the essence of everyone will manifest from within without doubts.
Okay, I know a lot, but it doesn't matter whether I know or not. And how much more there is to know, which is difficult for me to admit, that I don't know yet. But whether I know about these things or not, doesn't matter, if I follow the unbroken lineage of the Lord Buddha's teaching with faith and devotion and sincerely practise it according to the morals and ethics of each one of the practice, then the ultimate essence – whatever it is – very hard to explain and put your fingers on, it will definitely unfold from within. There is no question about it.
So, whether I know about it or not really doesn't matter very much. Whether I wrote 100 or 200 books or read 300 books, doesn't matter, whether I received teachings on 50 philosophical sacred texts or not, doesn't matter, but if I'm practising any one of them sincerely, then the wisdom, the essence of all of this, what we are trying to say, it is impossible to say but we try, and at the end of the six days of our teaching here you will know that ultimate essence cannot be expressed, there is no word for it.
It is like asking somebody: "How do you feel when you become Buddha?" If Buddha had said: "I feel this way or that way," he is dualistic, he is not Buddha. It is dualistic to be experimenting: "Well, let's see, okay, I feel like this but not always," etc. Saying that would mean he is not Buddha, but just like one of us, not enlightened. So Buddha means reaching the realization beyond dualism. It is above feeling. It does not mean Buddha does not have feelings. It is above feeling and not feeling, above knowing and not knowing. You have to reach beyond that, you have to cross that. We are speaking about the unspeakable, it is ineffable, it is unexplainable. That is to make sure we will speak for six days. Each day for four hours, you see. How many hours is that? 24 hours to find out that we cannot say anything about it!
That's what we do, we human beings we think that we are so clever; we have language, culture and all kind of sophisticated things, so we are really smart, but actually we are more stupid than a cockroach, they survived through all of this. They become immune and crawl everywhere and all human beings try their best to exterminate them and they cannot. They even show up in some of the best places, because they are so good in adapting. So actually we are not as smart as we think.
The reason I wrote my notes I give here in the next four sentences. For some people (the newcomers exposed to the Dharma – including myself at that time) the central texts (most important great works which have so many commentaries and thoughts derived from them, so therefore they are like central) and also the view, meditation and action, all of this are so holy and sacred, deep and vast, that one gets confused and I saw one's head turns like the peacock feather umbrella, which is meant for the noble ones. You see, the kings and great masters, in the olden days when they travelled they had up to thirteen umbrellas (the highest rank is 13 umbrellas). They had thirteen people carrying peacock feather umbrellas and they turned them clockwise. They only had one head to cover, but… In Hindi language there is a very good way to say that: "chaka ah hai" or "chaka ah raha hai", the head is turning like a wheel. I saw that in myself as well.
The last four sentences I wrote: Therefore the ground, path and fruition, to simplify and make it short (it is for my own note, so that I don't forget), maybe it will be beneficial for some beginners. That is why I wrote this text. I like to share this part so that you know what Dharma is and you know what learning of the Dharma is. We are not learning Dharma to finish learning Dharma, it is impossible. You can learn Dharma for 10000 lifetimes and still there is more to learn. You can learn Dharma and earn 200 Ph degrees. Still there is more to learn. Learning Dharma is impossible to complete.
Learning Dharma is just like learning of anything. If I want to learn about this glass of water which I will drink in these two hours, if I wanted to know everything about this, how many lifetimes I have to learn? I cannot know everything about this glass of water until I know everything about the whole universe of all sentient beings of the entire space. Until I know everything I will not know everything about this glass of water. That also will be only one perspective, because I as a human being of planet Earth with my eyes and ears, the tools that are suitable for my hands and eyes and ears, with that I am learning about this. Even that I have to learn that way with a human eye, human ear and human mind.
But what about, if I am a dog? Then I have dog's hands, dog's eyes and tools that a civilized dog would use. It will be another way, so it will take forever. What about if I am a spirit, which doesn't have this body but another kind of body and eyes. With that to learn about this glass of water will take forever. Then if I'm born as a god with god's eyes, ears, body and perception, then learning about this glass of water will take forever. The human being of this planet Earth and a human being of another universe, which has totally different environment, they may have no eyes but maybe they see through the sound. And they don't eat our kind of food but something else, so even the human beings – how many kind of human beings there are? – Countless. Human realm of planet Earth has just one kind of human beings.
Among us there are also white, yellow, black, brown, red, so many, but these differences are absolutely hair-splitting differences. There are not really differences, everybody has one nose with two holes and one mouth with teeth in it, you know, filled with bones, and two eyes and two ears on the two sides, hair on the top. Everybody is same, whether you are black or white or red or yellow. There isn't much difference. But human beings in other universes have to be different. We are evolved through certain kind of evolution. If the others evolved through another evolution, they will look totally different. They will have totally different composition even the environment is same. We might be able to see them and shake their hands or tail whatever they have! Or ear even. They may not have hand but a very long ear to write and do things, I don't know, so we can shake them, but then human beings of another universe who have totally different environment, we might not see them. They might not see us. But if it is the same level of the realm, then they are human beings.
So, you have animals like dog, snake, worm, fish, but they all look totally different, they don't look the same. Human realm is also like that. It is a realm, and because of different level of different environment they evolve differently. So, let's say: when I or anybody knows everything about this glass of water totally, than that person is Buddha.
If you are a scientist who wants to know everything about anything, you have to become enlightened. Otherwise it is impossible. You maybe can write the finding of your research, maybe two hundred books, and you will die for sure with unfinished job. Then others will be critics of your fans and continue, they will write another two hundred books on it and they will die. Others will do the same and die, but they might win a Nobel Price of Science or they might be very respected and there can be statues made of them in front of science institutes and their portraits may hang in the gallery of the institutes. All of that can happen, but it doesn't mean you can know everything without realisation. That is impossible.
These things I wrote down and I'm sharing this with you because this part is very important. One shouldn't get discouraged or encouraged or anything, just simple facts one has to know. Of course all these things that I wrote are not coming from me but my masters. My masters' great wisdom, which they received from their masters, was transmitted to me with compassion and I received it with devotion. That is the kind of transmission and blessing I received and I tried to put it on paper for my own notes.
Why I say that those days I knew a lot, means since those days I have been working like a coolie to serve Buddha and the lineage. So I am teaching, building, travelling and doing all kind of things and past ten years or so I have also been handling things that I have no training for and which I have not been exposed before. This way it is also very interesting. I have been working like a coolie to serve Dharma. I am grateful of it – it is a great honour, but then, my learning of new texts, very little has happened since that time. I cannot work and study or teach and study at the same time. So my knowledge about Buddhist philosophy and texts pretty much stays the same as that time. Of course there is a little bit more experience, because I'm teaching and talking to people.
From here I'd like to go to one most important teaching and fundamental basic practice of Vajrayana. In Vajrayana devotion is most important but most of the time it is little bit difficult to express, because devotion is not that politically correct. Compassion is more politically correct. I talk about compassion – I can talk about compassion to anybody, but when I talk about devotion, I have to be very clear and quite sure who I am talking to. I consider all of you very serious in the Dharma and you are not just experimenting, so I must talk about devotion.
The foundation of devotion is: your confidence in your essence. If you don't have confidence in your essence, you cannot really have true devotion. Then it becomes like fear rather than devotion. When you have confidence in your essence, which is the essence of Mahayana teaching, in Mahayana Buddha taught about Bodhicitta, and Bodhicitta is about your essence. "I wish to become Buddha," that is Bodhicitta, "I wish to become Buddha for the benefit of all sentient beings to help them to become Buddha." And on the way I like to alleviate them from their suffering etc., but ultimate goal is: I wish to become Buddha. That is very big confidence that you have in you, which makes you able to say that.
"I" means I, each one of us, no matter what kind of façade we put outside, each one of us has thousands of problems and shortcomings in each one of us, we know. We don't have to exhibit to the others, not necessarily, but we at least have to know by ourselves: "I have this shortcoming; I have attachment, anger, jealousy, pride and ignorance, all of this." Each one of us has bigger share than enough of those defilements and the karma that each one of us has committed to those defilements is enormous. Each one of us has lived countless lifetimes trying to fulfil our dreams, big or small dreams. In order to achieve that, we have done so many things. Sometimes we have little bit conscience, so we are careful but sometimes we have no conscience, so we are very ruthless and do everything to get what we want and cause lots of harm to others. I'm sure each one of us has done both of those countless times.
The result shows right now. To do some good things we have to work very hard, and if we are not careful just without even knowing, we end up doing things that are not so good. For example, a mosquito lands here and bites me and to slap is very easy, automatic. And what did we do? Somebody just tried to take little bit of blood from us, maybe it is good for us, definitely it is good for me because I have little bit high blood pressure, too much blood, so if 100 mosquitoes bite me at the same time, will be good for me. Of course, if they have malaria, then I have a problem. But then it is also good for my doctors, I can go to doctors and they get job, in the clinic they sell the medicine and I get well, they made some money, why not? But fortunately or unfortunately my doctor refuses to take money from me, but pharmacies do and I buy the medicines from the pharmacies. So whether I get sick or not it doesn't really benefit him. Of course it benefits, because he is being generous and he is doing service, he considers himself a follower of Buddha, so something is special, and he is doing this free for me. It is good for his merit and a little bit low on me, because then I have to somehow digest the generosity of my doctor. I have to have pretty good stomach, pure and strong and healthy and genuine. Otherwise digesting other people's service and donations is not easy. It will short-circuit your merit, if you don’t have the ability to digest it.
This way in the Mahayana Lord Buddha taught about the motivation, and the motivation is: "I wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings." That is: you have to have the full confidence in you: I can become Buddha. And how can you have such a big confidence in you? – By knowing what is Buddha. Otherwise it becomes ego, an ambition. "I wish to become Buddha" is not ego, not an ambition; it is a truth and destination. My essence and the essence of Prince Siddharta before he became Buddha are same, and Buddha called it Buddha-nature, Dewa shegpa nyingpo in Tibetan, Tathagatagarbha in Sanskrit and Fau-shing in Chinese. This Buddha-essence is in everyone, this is our essence, and knowing that and having faith in that, that is the basis of devotion.
If you don't have faith in that, and then you try to be devoted to something, it can become something like fear. People say things like this: "Law-abiding", "God fearing", I don't know what they mean; it sounds good, I like it. I'm not saying that to say that is wrong, but we don't fear Buddha. If we do something bad we will go to hell or somewhere which is not so good, but Buddha is not sending us there. It is not Buddha punishing us, Buddha does not have a torturing chamber. And Buddha does not have torturing tools, he doesn't invent them, you see. Buddha is embodiment of compassion and wisdom. We don't fear Buddha and we can't hide anything from Buddha. We do something which nobody knows and we think Buddha also doesn't know. Buddha is in front of us all the time.
It's very interesting. Some people make little shrine in their house and when they go inside they behave very well. They really walk on their knees and try not to think any unbecoming things. They change their clothes before they go into the Buddha's room and all of that is good, it is a good gesture, we should do it, it is meritorial, but if we do this by thinking Buddha is only in the shrine, and not everywhere else, then we don't understand Buddha. Buddha is everywhere.
You should have a shrine, no problem, and shrine should be kept clean, no problem, we shouldn't be engaging in worldly activities in the shrine, we don't keep our business desk or kitchen in the shrine. We don't put our fridge in the shrine, we shouldn't do those things. That is only because of us, we are dualistic and we are doing our best in our own dualistic way to respect Buddha, it is like taking your shoes off but not your socks! In India we take off our shoes outside every respected place: our parent's home or religious place, our teacher's place we take off our shoes. But you don't take off your socks. Socks are also shoes, right?
And sometimes better to go in with the shoes than without… If you have been shopping, had a lunch and went to a nice walk in the garden here, and then come back, I would rather have you wearing shoes than taking them off! That would be more polite, and meritorial. But anyway, we do our best and behave very nicely in our shrine and that is wonderful, but that doesn't mean that the Buddha is only there. Buddha is in the park, in the restaurant, in your office, on the street, in your car, Buddha is everywhere. Wherever you are, your shadow is there. Buddha is omniscient and you can't hide anything from Buddha. We have to know that as well.
By knowing that then keeping a nice clean shrine is good. Without knowing that you have strange idea about Buddha and you might fear the Buddha. If you have fear that means, you don't have confidence. If you are Hercules, a lion has got loose here, he will like it, but all of us will hide under the table. I don't know how much it will help, but we definitely go under the table. But Hercules will stand up and handle the lion. So if we don't have confidence, then we have fear. And Bodhicitta is about that confidence. So when we have confidence, then we have devotion.
I have devotion to my Dharma masters. I have respect for my music teacher but not devotion. If I were learning piano and the teacher came to my house every week once or twice, and I paid the teacher certain amount of money, I would learn from this teacher and I would respect him because he would be teaching me something that I don't know, but I would have no devotion to him, because I want to learn to play piano but I don't want to become like him. Do you understand? I have devotion towards my Dharma masters, because I want to become like them. My ultimate devotion is to Buddha, because I want to become like him, and I have devotion to my masters, because on the way I want to become like them. That is the difference between respect and devotion.
I don't know how the worldly people outside of the Dharma community think about devotion and respect, but devotion is based on your potential: I have the potential to become Buddha and Prince Siddharta achieved that goal already, so I want to become like him, that is my ultimate devotion to Buddha. That continues through the lineage of Buddha, so I have devotion to my Guru, because my Guru transmits the blessing, the lineage of the Buddha to me. He is Buddha's substitute for me. His body could be Sangha, but his teaching is the Buddha's teaching and his mind is the treasure of the Buddha's teaching because he (he or she, doesn't matter) received it from his master with devotion.
This way the devotion is very important. There is one devotional prayer, I think this prayer is written by the first Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye of Palpung Monastery, or he emphasized it, I can't say exactly but I think he wrote it. There are two set of devotional prayers and I would like to explain this to you.
May my Guru's wisdom and my wisdom become one. My Guru's wisdom is the unbroken lineage of the Buddha's Dharmakaya, so may I become one with my Guru means may I become one with all the lineage gurus up to the Buddha himself. In our lineage tree (like family tree) Buddha is on the top and Guru is in the middle, and all the lineage asters are in between. We call the Lineage Tree. Buddha in the form of Vajradhara, which is Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya, all in one, and Guru in the form of Vajradhara, which is equivalent, same form as the Buddha in the middle. This is unbroken lineage of transmission of Buddha's enlightenment, may I become one with this, means may mind and Buddha's mind become one. If we have true devotion, not forged (pretended) one, it will happen. But it may take many lifetimes before we have it. At least we can learn about it and we can cultivate towards it. So this is one prayer, very common prayer of our lineage.
The next sentence is an elaboration of this.
I pray and supplicate with devotion to the precious Guru And then, what blessings you are asking for, you line them up here. The first blessing you are asking is: May I be able to renounce my ego.
When we pray we should not be pragmatic. We should be most limitless in our prayer, so may I renounce my ego. Can I renounce my ego? – No, of course not. And did I renounce totally my ego? – I didn't. I have a big ego, really. If you could see it you would be surprised. Everybody has ego. Don't say you don't have, I wouldn't believe it, everybody has it, but our ego can be good, bad or mixed. God ego is confidence, bad ego is ruthlessness and so and so is what I think all of us have most of the time. May I be able to renounce this ego, that is the first prayer. When you are sitting in front of a judge you have prayers, right? So he is saying: "I want this and this and this." In the similar way in front of the Buddha we are asking for Buddha's blessing. And our first prayer is: "Please bless me, so that I can renounce my ego." Number one.
Number two: May I truly have the meaninglessness of the worldly activities born within me. So it is not just intellectual, not just kind of intention, but through understanding of meaninglessness of the worldly activity. What does worldly activity mean? It means serving our ego, attachment, jealousy, fear, greed, that is worldly; we are slaves of our greed and hatred and jealousy and doing everything to fulfil those things: attachment, anger, jealousy, pride. This is meaningless because our greed can never be fulfilled.
I tell you: If you become the king and queen of Planet Earth today and if all the 5000 million human beings respect you like a god, within one week, it wouldn't take even one week and you will have a lot of complains and there will be so many things that you want and you find out that you don't have so many things. If you are provided with most comfortable things, within one week you will feel uncomfortable, I guarantee. It is impossible to fulfil. It doesn't mean you should stop your work and business right now, you can still do it, but you have to know: this has no end, there is nothing in it. No matter how much we have. We cannot wear more than we can wear, we get too hot, we cannot eat more than we can eat, otherwise our stomach will burst.
Therefore really all of these worldly, things which we enjoy – like myself, I always had what I needed – when I wanted to build my monasteries, there were devoted people who gave me money from here and there, and I was able to do it. I needed a land and the land was just available, somebody made it available. Whatever I needed somehow came to me. I appreciate it very much, I think it is because of the great deeds that my predecessors have done, as the result of that karma I have this. But I have very little extras, which also I really appreciate, I'm not saying you shouldn't have extras, you should have, because otherwise if you get retired, then how are you going to live? Your living standard shouldn't go down after you retire. But it is nice for me not to have much extras, because if I had ten elephants with no circus, what should I do with them? I have to feed them and clean them; it's an awful lot of work to take care of ten elephants. But if I had a circus then no problem. There would be many people to take care of them, and they would get job, too. But ten tigers and elephants without a circus would kill me. I would be their slave. So, I'm grateful for this blessing that whatever is needed for the duties I have to perform somehow came, because people realized, they were devoted and generous, and the extras were not there, because they would have been a burden for me. Buddha blessed me, so that I don't have to worry about extra things. So the second prayer is: May I realise the meaninglessness of the worldly activities and worldly things.
When we aspire, it has to be maximum. We shouldn't be pragmatic and practical there, we have to be most ultimate. The third prayer is: Please bless me so that all the thoughts except for Dharma thoughts cease to exist in my mind. May my mind be totally occupied with the thoughts of Dharma, thoughts of compassion and devotion, thoughts that are positive for developing wisdom and beneficial to me and beneficial to others. May my mind be totally occupied with that.
The fourth prayer is: Please bless me, so that I may recognize and realize the immortal primordial essence of my mind. My mind was never born and it never dies. It is without characteristics and limitless. Each one of us, our mind, Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature, is without characteristics and limitless, it never dies and it was never born. It is ever present and pure at all times, perfect all the time, it was never stained by anything. It is like the best diamond in the worst coalmine. Whatever happens there; how black it is, how dirty it is, it never stains the best diamond. When it is discovered, it shines. It is pure. Like that our Buddha essence, essence of what we call "I", everyone of you call yourself "I" first, then you say your name "I, the Mr or Mrs so and so." The essence of that I. Some of you think: "There is nothing in me, I'm just made of molecules and all of that." Who thinks so and says it? – The "I". Some of you think "Maybe there is something." Who thinks that? And there are others who say: "My essence is Buddha." Who is saying that? The essence of the one which believes or doesn't believe, it is the same essence. And that essence is ever present Dharmakaya. To know that is our fourth prayer.
The fifth prayer is: All of the things that are happening to us right now – of course there are our past lives and pretty surely many future lives until we become Buddha, whatever is happening to us – it is all an illusion of our perceptions, which are the result of our karma derived and generated by our ego. It is quite clear right here: some of you like to have short hair, some like long hair, some like grey hair and some of you like to make your hair red or black. Some of you like to wear certain kind of clothes and others like to wear other kind of clothes. So, each one perceives the world and himself or herself in a certain way. Some of you like your tea very sweet, some of you like your tea salty, some like it just bitter, that's coffee, cappuccino. Each one has different tastes and manifestations and something that you think beautiful and wonderful others don't think so and something others think wonderful, someone else one doesn't think so. Each one's definition of pleasant, wonderful, pleasant, nice, tasty is different. Some of you like lots of chili, others hate chili, some of you like to put honey, others want to fry, some of you like to eat with hands, some like to eat with sticks and some eat with spoon. All different ways, our karma manifest the way, we like it that way.
When I was growing up I always ate with hands. My lamas thought it is not very polite, and they put a silver spoon there for me. And I put that aside and ate with my hand. I used to say: "My mother would be more happy if I ate with my hands, she gave me these!" But real reason was when I eat with my hand it is tastier. With spoon I taste the spoon, with stick I taste the stick. With hand I taste the food, because my hand is with me all the time and so I taste my hand all the time I think. Therefore I really taste the real food and no other taste in there when I eat with my hand. But nowadays, when I'm travelling around the world I use fork and knife and chopsticks, because in some places it would not be very appropriate otherwise. But in India I like to eat with my hands. It really tastes different, tastes good.
Everything is illusion and we are praying that may all this illusion rest by itself, that means be exposed by itself. How does our illusion get exposed? I give you a very simple example. We all have an illusion. The world's biggest illusion is a piece of paper with one number at the beginning with zeros following it. That is the biggest illusion which dominates all so called civilized human beings. Money is the biggest illusion, but we have to have money, otherwise we have no home, we have to walk, cannot go in car, we have no food to eat, no clothes to wear, if we have no money. If you have no money to make clothes, you have to grow cotton seeds and wait there with no clothes! Collect the cotton and save it somewhere, grow more and wait. When you have enough cotton you work very hard to make strings, then you make a sweater and then you wear it. It might talk you 3 – 4 years before you have clothes.
We still can have everything without money, we can, but it's very difficult. Especially this illusion is becoming so established that it is a bit too late to live without money. One who wants to live without it has to work very hard and rather have money and use it to live. We worked past 20000 – 30000 years to put ourselves in this difficult situation. But it is an illusion created, it succeeded and now it is dominating us. So we are totally controlled with a paper with one number at the beginning and many zeros after that. It is illusion. We created the money, money just didn't appear, we created it, we worked very hard to create it. History of the evolution of money is very interesting.
If we know money is illusion, we can still make it, but our perception and attachment for the money will not be the same. We will see money as a tool and not as a god, and we will earn money according to our needs, we won't try to earn it without objectives just limitlessly. We wouldn't become crazy to make money but we would make certain amount of it, because we want to do this and that. We know it is an illusion, a tool, therefore we can do like that. But many people do not think that way, they would do anything to get money, they will kill people to get money, they will cheat and commit fraud and all kinds of things to make money. And do they really need all of that money? Maybe yes, maybe not. So it is very good to have a clear understanding of everything being an illusion.
For example health. To be healthy is very good but if this illusion of being healthy becomes an obsession, then you will kill yourself, because you want to be healthy. Don't touch this, don't eat that, your stomach, your everything becomes so fragile, so that when some virus or whatever goes into you, you will die. You have no resistance and strength to handle that. Your body becomes defenceless. One little thing can kill you. This is a health illusion. You should be healthy and know that being healthy is an illusion. Nobody can live 10000 years, although we say that: "You are so great you should live 10000 years." And the greatest one stands up and says: "Yes, I'm going to live 10000 years." And nobody call that hypocrisy although it is, because nobody can live 10000 years. Do you like to live so long? I don't think so. We all enjoy our lives, but at the same time we actually have had quite enough of it. Anyway, we don't mind a new beginning, going to kindergarten again, it will be very interesting.
All of this is illusion and we have to participate in it out of necessity but we have to know, it is an illusion. Knowing it is an illusion then we can do our best to keep healthy, make money etc., knowing it is illusion. Otherwise we get lost. When we get lost, very difficult to find. And when we can't find ourselves, nobody can find us. Before anybody is able to find us, we have to find ourselves. This is very important. So may illusion be pacified in itself or exposed by itself.
Now the last (sixth) prayer. This is very important essence of Vajrayana teaching. The ultimate essence of everything is dharmakaya. May I realize that. In Vajrayana, the Lord Buddha's teaching of tantra, the highest teaching of Buddha, what he manifested was the essence of everything, which is perfect. You hold the worst most untouchable things in your left hand and most precious and most sacred and best things in your right hand. The essence of both has to be same. Cannot have two essences. So the highest, the Buddha and the lowest, whoever it is, the essence is same. So the essence of everything is perfect but the good and bad and clean and dirty and right and wrong is in between. There is nothing that is ultimately wrong. The ultimate of everything is right but relatively there is wrong and right. May I realise that the essence of everything is dharmakaya. He also uses the words: may I realise everything that is visible or invisible, but whatever is there, that means everything. May we realise that.
This was the last prayer. What we can do with it is we respect everyone and everything but do the good things and don't do the bad things. And we associate with the good ones and if we can help the bad ones, associate with them, but f you can't, keep away from them. If you have the strength and ability to make the bad ones good, associate with them, otherwise keep away from them physically but pray for them and dedicate merit for them. But if you associate with them when you don't have the strength, they can make you bad. Bad company is bad company for the weak ones. Bad company is good company for the strong ones, because you can make them good. Sometimes it can be lot of work, and ultimately you should know that the bad ones' essence is also good. There is no such thing as ultimate badness, ultimate evilness, ultimate dirtiness. Ultimately everything is perfect.
Now I have to stop here because I got little bit carried away here and it is your time for lunch, which is must. You must. It is illusion of course, but very real illusion. It talks from inside. We pray this three times.
Emptiness Teachings in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, December 2003
Lecture Yesterday I went through history as well as some particulars, which I thought will make you a good foundation or remind of the foundation. This morning I'd like to go through some of the teachings related to emptiness, Prajnaparamita. The teachings of Lord Buddha which are part of the sutra and known as the Prajnaparamita Sutra – actually there are six main sutras, which are known as Six Mothers and eleven sutras, which are known as eleven daughters, let's say. Se yum. Se means mother, yum means child. If it is po, it is son, if it is mo, then it is daughter, so it doesn't say semo, it doesn't have to be son or daughter, but the main texts are described as mother and the smaller texts are described as the child, daughter or son.
The six main texts, all Lord Buddhas words, first one has 100000 shlokas. Shloka means four sentences, four sentences make one shloka. So, the first one has 100000 shlokas, 400000 sentences. That is the largest of the Prajnaparamita teaching of Buddha. Second one has 20000, third one has 18000, fourth one has 10000, fifth one has 8000 and the sixth one is known as do dypa. It is quite short text compared to the others. It is suitable to be read as a daily practice and reading do dypa quite fast but not very fast might take you ½ hr – 1hr. So it is manageable size of text as a daily practice. The first one with 100000 shlokas has 12 volumes of huge size, so it is not suitable as a daily practice(!)
One of the greatest readers in our lineage today, as far as rinpoches are concerned, is Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche. From dawn to dusk he can complete reading three volumes, two volumes comfortably. For me it might take one and a half day of two days to finish one volume. It is an enormous task to read page after page, and it will be good number of pages. To western standard – way of counting a page of two sides as one – so counting your way this volume will have 800 to 1000 pages and these are called arrow size. Size of an arrow is this long and six lines, so it's quite big text.
These are known as the six mothers, and the eleven daughters are the Prajnaparamita 700 shokas, Prajnaparamita 500 shlokas, Prajnaparamita 300 slokas, Prajnaparamita 150 shlokas, Prajnaparamita 50 shlokas, Prajnaparamita which has 25 parts, Prajnaparamita which is requested by one disciple known as Rabsal Namnön in Tibetan, I don't know his name in Sanskrit, then another one is Prajnaparamita taught by Buddha at the request of Koshika, that is a Sanskrit word, I'm sure the pronunciation is not correct but I can't do anything about it. Then another one is known as Prajnaparamita one word, and another one is known as Prajnaparamita few sentences, and another one is Prajnaparamita the Heart Sutra, we call it Heart Sutra. These are known as daughters.
The reason for mother and daughter definition has two things: one is the size of the text. The other reason, more important than the size of the text, which defines mother or daughter is, that any text that has eight aspects of Prajnaparamita to it, is a mother text, and any text that does not have all the eight aspects of Prajnaparamita, are known as daughters. So the mother and daughter definition is not necessarily the size of the text.
The eight aspects, which define mother, are actually very clearly taught by Lord Maitreya in Prajnaparamita of the Samaya Alankara. So, one of the five teachings of Lord Maitreya to Asanga is Prajnaparamita. In that text the eight aspects are taught. There are other texts, too, such as Essence of Sun, Essence of Moon, the Prajnapramita Kuntuzangpo, Prajnaparamita at the request of Vajrapani, Prajnaparamita at the request of Vajra Gyaltsen (Victory Banner), at his request, so there are many other Prajnaparamita texts, which are not included in the seventeen, they are also Prajnaparamita sutras.
Within the Six Mothers the do dypa, which you can use as a day to day reading, is actually one chapter of the Third Mother, which has 18000 shlokas. This is one chapter of that sutra. That particular sutra has 87 chapters and the do dypa is the 84th chapter. Why it is made as a Mother is because in that chapter all eight aspects of the Prajnaparamita are complete. And the whole text without the 84th chapter also covers the 8 aspects of the Prajnaparamita. Therefore this text is taken out from the main text and that one text is made into mother text. Otherwise you can say five mothers and eleven daughters, but this way it is six mothers and eleven daughters. They are known as seventeen main texts of Prajnaparamita.
Having said that, now you know where the teachings of emptiness come from. The teaching of emptiness itself and its being a Prajnaparamita, this connection is very important. Prajnaparamita and emptiness have same meaning. Prajnaparamita means wisdom paramita. Prajna – my Sanskrit is not good, I haven't studied it more that two or three weeks. There was one professor in Sanskrit language, who was invited by my Guru His Holiness Karmapa to come to Rumtek and teach us, but I think our food or our habits or whatever it was, professor did not want to stay and he went away after two or three weeks. He never came back and my Sanskrit is zero. He was very learned, I think he knew 18 or 17 languages and he was a very wonderful person. But somehow he couldn't stand us, I guess! And those days I myself was like a real teenager, maybe 15 – 16 years old, definitely over 13 and having a handful of teenagers like me was difficult for him, I guess. Therefore I pronounce the Sanskrit words the way all Tibetans pronounce them traditionally.
I myself have a very important historical connection to Sanskrit because the 8th Tai Situpa is supposed to be one of the greatest Sanskrit masters since the time beginning. In the beginning, during the time of Guru Rinpoche and afterwards, there were many great Tibetan masters who mastered Sanskrit, but then there was a very long gap: about 800 years of gap. Then he was a master of Sanskrit. He was in Nepal and there he had encounters with Sanskrit panditas and they told him that if you were in India, you would get 13 peacock umbrellas. It is something like stars on shoulders with general. He was so good in Sanskrit that he would have got that kind of respect.
So, I have a history behind me, according to it I should be very good in Sanskrit, but unfortunately I am not. I am not blaming our teacher, who went away, but somehow it didn't work out up to today, and now I am past the learning age, so I don't think I'm going to be master of Sanskrit in this life. My English is also not good, because I never learned from a teacher, I just picked up, and my writing is very bad. I only know the difference in spelling between good and god. The god other way round is dog. Beyond that my English is terrible in writing. In speaking if you are a linguistic you will find a grammar problem there in every few sentences that I say. But I really can't afford to care and worry about this. Otherwise I will be so self-conscious that I dare not say anything!
Now the connection between Prajnaparamita and emptiness: prajna means wisdom, paramita means complete. If you want to cross a river, when you reach to the other side of the river, then that is paramita of crossing the river: you reached the other side. Paramita means a completion, accomplishment, completeness and reaching beyond. And Prajnaparamita means reaching beyond of the wisdom. What is that? What is the difference between wisdom and reaching beyond, the accomplishment of the wisdom? – Accomplishment of the wisdom is the realisation of the primordial wisdom. Wisdom itself is derived from primordial wisdom, you can have wisdom without realisation of the primordial wisdom. So there are difference between wisdom only and the primordial wisdom.
For example: if you put three people together, a business expert, a computer expert and an expert politician and they have a weekend session. They come out with a brilliant master plan, which has lots of insight and depth in it, that's wisdom. As each one of them individually, each one of them might be in a terrible state, each one of them might have lots of problems at their home individually. That means the primordial wisdom is not really realised, but as a team there is wisdom derived from it. In Tibetan wisdom we call sherab, primordial wisdom is yeshe. She means knowing, rab means best or profound. You can have sherab but your yeshe is in you, primordial, as your essence. Having sherab you can be very intelligent and good in certain things, but as long as you have ego, the self, the ignorance, primordial wisdom is not manifesting, and you will have all kind of limitations. Primordial wisdom has no limitations. The limitless potential and primordial wisdom is the same thing.
Prajnaparamita means realisation of the primordial wisdom. What does that have to do with emptiness? It is very simple. Emptiness means: everything is nothing more and nothing less than interdependent manifestation of everything else. Everything is nothing more or nothing less than interdependent manifestation of everything else. Do you hear me? That is the definition of emptiness. It doesn't mean you are not there. It doesn't mean I'm not here. It doesn't mean I'm not talking. It doesn't mean you are not hearing. I'm talking, you are hearing, you are making notes, you are there, I'm here, each one of us has a history and a family tree, each one of us has plusses and minuses, all of that, but each of the things that each of one has, has nothing more and nothing less than interdependent manifestation of everything else.
For example our relationships in this room: some of us feel very clear about each other, some of us might be a little bit confused about each other, some of us must be positively allergic to each other, some of us could be negatively allergic to each other. All of these things are there but how come? It is because of countless lifetimes of relationship to be bold and clear about. Each one of us has been our father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife, lunch, dinner, enemy, friend, neighbour and stranger countless times. Each one of us has been countless times all of this to us. Each one of us has been kings and queens, gods and hell beings. Each one of us has been all the animals that you can think of, dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs, amoebas, earthworms, cockroaches, beautiful peacocks, mighty lions, you name it. Each one of us has been all of that countless times, not only one time. As the result of that the final finger print up to today is this life. This life is our finger print of all the past lives. So here we are: this is how we look, how we sound, how we feel and perceive and that is what we are, the tip of the iceberg, the fingerprint, the signature of all the past lives that we have lived, which are countless.
This life is the reflection, the production, the cream, the butter of all the past lives. That’s what we are and we are unique. Each one of us is a masterpiece, which took billions of lifetimes to correct; each one of us is a piece of art which took billions, countless lifetimes to create. This is what we managed to create! Okay. That means, time is relative, perceptions are relative. All aspects of environment there and beings in here and perceptions that go into heads of each being here, all are relative.
Relative means: they are not ultimate. So I am here and you are there. In your manifestation and my manifestation it is truth, but it is relative truth. Ultimately I am not this, ultimately you are not that. Ultimately you are equal to Buddha, ultimately I am equal to Buddha. But because of all the relative karmas that we have accumulated through the countless lifetimes I am not Buddha and you are not Buddha yet. We are like – I don't mean to be negative, but we are like a big piece of coal, which has the biggest diamond in the middle of it. This big piece of coal can be very nice and clean or very dirty and messy, it can have a nice shape or an ugly shape, it can be in a bad place or good place, on a shrine or in the garbage, but this piece of coal has a diamond in it. That diamond is the best and biggest of all the diamonds. So our limitless potential in each one of us is primordial wisdom. And what covers it right now is the relative truth. The relative truth is according to our own doing.
Therefore Buddha says: emptiness, tong-pa nyi la zug me…Emptiness has no form, no feeling, no this, no that, no eye, no ear, no nose, no form to look at, no sound to hear, all of this Buddha goes through all of the details. Buddha manifested all of the details in his teaching of Prajnaparamita which is in the Heart Sutra, which we read. It says very clearly, each one of these things in great detail. He says like this: "Form is empty." He does not stop there. "Emptiness is form." If he just stopped there, "Form is empty," then it would not be complete. Therefore he says: "Emptiness is form." Then he says: "Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than the emptiness." He goes on and on with feeling, perception, efforts, consciousness etc.
This way Prajnaparamita with the emptiness connection is very important to know. Otherwise you will have strange perception of what Prajnaparamita and emptiness are. I saw it in people. Very devoted hard working practitioners I know, who have little bit… some pieces of puzzle are missing in their practice. Emptiness means something like everything is nothing. And then Prajnaparamita is something very complicated and very hard to understand, so that you don't even try to study. You just read [the prayer] every day, that's it. This kind of thing. To take care of that, you make these two connections. Then it becomes very simple. Prajnaparamita is about the primordial wisdom. Primordial wisdom is the essence of everything. And everything, the way it manifests, is the relative truth. And primordial wisdom, the emptiness, is the ultimate truth. That is the connection.
Emptiness is a very simple subject to understand, actually. By knowing and understanding emptiness then everything makes sense. Otherwise it is very hard to explain: why do you think the way you think, and why do I think the way I think, why do you look the way you look, and why do I look the way I look? Why does the world manifest in such a way, why things exist in certain way, why some things are extinct, why some things manifest? Why? How? You have no answer. You have no real satisfying, true commonsense answer without understanding emptiness.
Without understanding emptiness I have to draw simple conclusions like: that's my faith, or it is predestined, or it is a good/bad accident, or somebody made me like this, because he or she wanted me this way. All kinds of easy conclusions to make us feel temporarily okay. If we say that and somebody else says: "Yes, that's true" and when 3, 4, 5 people say "It's true" then it becomes comfortable and we feel all right. It's a faith. But if you sit down and think clearly, because we all have the capacity to think, the limitless potential is in each one of us, if we think very carefully and clearly, then that kind of conclusion does not make any sense. If somebody has the ability to make me, why don't they me the best, most perfect? That way, if you really think little deeper, that person becomes responsible for all my problems. That person made me this way. So he or she whoever it is, is responsible for all of my problems. He cannot just take credit of all the good things that I have, and say: "All the bad things you did!" I made you to do good, but you won't listen, so you do bad things. You can't say that, it's two-way traffic. When somebody makes you, they have to make you in every possible way, if one has the power to do such thing.
This way easy conclusions are okay for people to feel comfortable and find a nice pillow to lie down. It's like a glass of wine, or pillow or air conditioning, nice music to put you sleep and feel comfortable from day to day. Day by day. Other than that it does not take you really any further. It does not involve you, it does not help you find out exactly what you could be. It is not a bad thing, but it is for the stop gap measure benefit. And Prajnaparamita breaks through that. I'm not talking about any religion; I'm just talking about the basic…
For example in Buddhist, ourselves we have all of this. If we know about karma just half cooked, then karma becomes faith and we look at karma as ultimate truth. If karma is ultimate truth we are finished. We can never become Buddha if karma is ultimate truth. Even we drink a glass of water the karma of drinking a glass of water – how many lifetimes we have to live to purify it? Living without drinking one drop of water, how could we do that? The glass of water becomes drinkable because all the germs are killed. There must be 10000 or I don't know, scientists will know, maybe 10 million germs killed to make that one glass of water drinkable. Because of them being so small and we cannot see them, you think there is no karma. It's not true. We took many lives to make a glass of water drinkable.
And as we walk, how many little beings are being squashed? When I walk from here to there, how many dust mites I may have killed on the way? Their hearts or intestines come out from their mouth, or their eyes come out, because I'm very heavy, Gulliver. My travel from here to there is Gulliver's travel. All these little creatures are living there with their family, their little dust mite babies, cousins and nephews. I squash them on the way. That's why in India we have one religion called Jains, who put white cloth on their mouth and never walk on carpets and who carry a piece of wood to sit on and the real masters don't wear any clothes at all. It takes a long time for them to eat their meal, even it is vegetarian they take one handful and look, look and look. Really, they take a long time and make sure that they don't breathe or squash any insects. I think it is the nuns who cover themselves totally and carry a cotton sort of soft broom and sweep in front of them when they walk. They wear special very soft shoes made of cloth and they also have a bell to drive away all the bigger insect. Smaller insects they sweep away. They do their best. Even we do it like that, how many lifetimes it will take us to purify the karma of drinking a glass of water, if it is not emptiness?
That is the greatness, sacredness and profoundness of the Lord Buddha's second turning of the Wheel of Dharma at Rajgir, on top of the hill, Vulture Peak, Prajnaparamita. There he said: "Everything is nothing more, nothing less than interdependent manifestation of everything else." Therefore we have hope. Our hope is based on truth, the ultimate truth: we are perfect at all times, ultimately. Ultimately everything is perfect at all times, everything is sunyata, I am sunyata, I'm emptiness, everything is emptiness, perfect. Relatively, as long as I have defilements, sunyata is only something I can understand and have faith on, confidence that enlightenment is possible. But relatively we have lots of hard work to do. Hard work or honourable work, I don't know, all the honourable works are very hard. Dishonourable works are not hard. So, honourable work to do.
I give you a simple but cruel example, happening all over the world. To make a good human being, how much time and energy it takes? The father, the mother, the relatives, the family, the school, the college, the teacher, the tutors, all of them, doctors, they have to work so hard using everything that they have got, and it will take about 30 years from the time the baby was born until the person is complete, and you don't have to worry too much about getting to wrong way. It takes about 30 years. Until 30 years of age you can be influenced, because you don't have that much experience, you are not exposed to certain things, so when you get exposed to certain things, they can overwhelm you, so it takes about 30 years. Even though today's legal age is 18 years, it really is not the case in true reality. It is very hard to influence truly mature 30 years old person. But even quite mature 25 years old can be influenced much more easier than someone who is 30. But of course, when somebody is over 40 or 50, they have mid-life crisis, then there might be a little window where you get influenced! If somebody flatters you and says: "Oh, really, you don't look like that," then you may start thinking like that yourselves and buy a new red coloured Ferrari and try to do all kind of dangerous things. In that age you might break your back to prove yourself that you are younger than your years. So there is a little window.
It takes about 30 years to make a person really set, but to destroy that – in a split of a second, it doesn't cost anything. This bringing up one careless, ignorant person can destroy to get the 500 dollars he has in his pocket, to buy some drugs. That happens all the time. Anything that is good is not so easy and anything not so good is quite easy. This way relatively, although everything is perfect and emptiness, relatively we have to have constant, effort, awareness and diligence to really continually progress.
It is very hard work from that point of view. You will never reach a stage when you can sit back and say: "Now I don't have to do anything, everything will go by itself." There is no such thing until you reach something like close to first level Bodhisattva. Then it is like that. We call it zöpa (patience). When you reach the state of zöpa, before the first level Bodhisattva, then everything will go automatically, but until we reach to that stage, we have to stay totally on our toes. And we have to use our ears, eyes, nose, and tentacles, everything that we have got to detect whatever negative influence that we might be overwhelmed by, and we have to always be disciplined and follow the guidelines given by Lord Buddha in his teaching, as a Buddhist. And if you are not Buddhist, then given by your own whatever religion you follow. You have to follow them and implement them.
Relatively everything is also empty, because for example in many schools of Buddhism there are quite few ways that each of these schools emphasize the concept of emptiness. I will describe some of them from my notebook. There are many, but I just give you examples of three of them.
First is rang tong me ga. Rang means self, tong means emptiness, ga is total cessation and me means non-existence. There it will be mentioned. The essence of everything including everything itself, does not have any true solid existence, because from the form (that we can see) to the enlightenment itself, nothing exists in a solid existing manner. That is rang tong me ga. Self non-existence by itself.
Another one is rang tong ma yin ga. Ma yin means 'it is not'. There is a difference. When somebody is looking for Mr Agarwul and he is not here, that is me. But when Mr Marter is here but somebody has taken Mr Marter for Mr Agarwul, I say: "He is not Mr Agarwul, he is Mr Marter." There is a difference: he is not here or he is not. Me ga means not there and ma yin ga means he is not.
This school or lineage will say: Buddha-nature, it does not have any solid permanent entity, but its nature is ineffable and indescribable and there isn't any other example to it. This is saying that it is not there dualistically, solidly, but its nature is ineffable and it is inexplicable. That is rang tong ma yin ga. Rang means self and tong means empty, so the Buddha-nature itself, let's use Buddha-nature for it, we can use anything, but Buddha-nature is easy, so the Buddha-nature, the primordial wisdom itself does not have any solid existence, because it is ineffable, inexplicable, unimaginable, there is no example to it. That is rang tong ma yin ga.
Now shen tong ma yin ga. Shen tong is always ma yin ga. You don't have shen tong me ga. (You remember, me ga means not existing). What does shen tong ma yin ga mean? – The Buddha-nature is always there, it is never not there, because it is the quality of the Buddha-nature. It is there not dualistically, but the non-dualistic primordial essence is there. And it is void of any kind of dualistic existence. So it is not there like a table, not there like a thought, not there as a subject, not there as an object via others, dualistic, but non-dualistic limitless primordial perfectness is always there. That is shen tong ma yin ga. I am follower of that. I will never say: we are nothing, I say: we are everything, but our essence is ineffable, indescribable with any limited kind of description, limitless essence, the perfectness, same as the Dharmakaya of Buddha is there. But it is not there dualistically as a subject or object, free from dualism the non-dualistic primordial essence is there. And that is shen tong ma yin ga.
These three examples somehow describe little bit, but there are so many others which sometimes even make a school by themselves. So rang tong me ga, rang tong ma yin ga and shen tong ma yin ga. Rang tong means – I give you a stupid example. This is the Buddha-nature and rang means itself, tong means empty. Rang tong me ga says: its self is empty, it doesn't exist. Rang tong ma yin ga says: it does not exist, because its quality cannot be described. Shen tong ma yin ga says: its essence exists but not dualistically. 'Other' is dualistic, so empty of the other means empty of dualistic entity. But non-dualistic perfect essence, which has limitless potential, is there in everyone, in everything, all the time. That is the definition of rangtong and shentong and rang tong me ga and rang tong ma yin ga and shen tong ma yin ga.
You will never find shen tong me ga, shen tong is only one, ma yin ga. Rang tong you can find both, me ga and ma yin ga. And there is so much debate between them, volumes written on this. One of the great texts written by a shentong master of our lineage is called Faith of the Shentong, the Lions Roar. You cannot have any greater roar than a roar of the lion today. Maybe tyrannosaurs had a greater roar but they have gone long time ago. So the king of the animals, the king of the jungle, his roar is the loudest and most majestic. The words of the shen tong ma yin ga are like the lion's roar.
And ultimately everything can fall into it, and there is no way to describe the essence of the Buddha better than the shen tong ma yin ga, that is how the shentong followers will say for the sake of the debate. But actually, if you really learn rang tong me ga, in the end it will be like sheng tong ma yin ga. If you learn shen tong ma yin ga truly, in the end there will be no problem with rang tong me ga or rang tong ma yin ga. But you really have to learn. And rang tong me ga is little harder to reach to the point than the rang tong ma yin ga. Rang tong ma yin ga is little harder to reach to the point than shen tong ma yin ga. And of course you are hearing this from a shentong practitioner, you shouldn't forget that. In the end it is really the same thing.
The description of emptiness is in a very subtle way in many many schools, the transmission is given in various ways, but truly it is the key to the basic definition of enlightenment, samsara, karma and all of the other things that Dharma and life involve. So it is a very profound teaching of Lord Buddha. Of course all the teachings of Lord Buddha are profound, but when he taught at Rajgir, what he manifested was much more than what he manifested in Varanasi, which is Four Noble Truths. Four Noble Truths is a very important base, and through that the disciples evolved and by the time when Buddha manifested the Prajnaparamita teaching then the disciples were that much evolved, so this second step of teaching manifested. It is not just good and bad but it is the essence of all which include good and bad. And then further the tantra aspect of teaching manifested.
Madhyamaka and Pramana Teachings in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, December 2003
This afternoon I'd like to go through some of the – actually it is already covered, but in other way it is not. Such subject as Madhyamaka and tsema, dialectics, how do you say that in Sanskrit? – Pramana, yes. Madhyamaka and Pramana these two subjects we already covered somewhat, but not specifically. So I would like to go on with these two subjects so that your knowledge will be more full.
Madhyamaka is translated in English as Middle Way and Pramana is translated as…? –Dialectics, cognitive science, valid cognition. Something like that. It is reasoning and you are not giving any room for superstition or just simple blind belief. You are digging into every aspect of the subject and making sure that the truth reveals. Valid cognition may be a good translation.
When we study Buddhist philosophy we study five subjects: 1.Vinaya, 2. Abhidharma, 3. Madhyamaka, 4. Prajnaparamita, 5. Pramana. These five are called Central Texts. All of this is of course in Buddha's teaching, but later great masters elaborated them. In certain way more elaborations, certain way more condensations. These masters are called The Eight Masters in India, eight masters, four of whom wrote the root texts and four of whom wrote the commentaries on them.
I only know few of them by their Sanskrit name: first four who wrote the root text are Nagarjuna, then Togme in Tibetan, I think Asanga in Sanskrit, then Chog-gi Lang-po, the name contains the word elephant, can be translated as the great master of all directions. He wrote tsema, tsema rigo etc. [Audience: Dignaga] Dignaga. The last one is Yönten Ö, The Light of the Knowledge, Gunaprabha. These are the four, who wrote the root texts.
Then Aryadeva and Vasubandu, the brother of Asanga, Chöje Drakpa which is Dharmakirti and Shakya ö, which is Shakyaprabha in Sanskrit [wrote the commentaries].
The root text which Nagarjuna wrote is known as Madhyamika root text and he wrote six of them, six major texts. Asanga wrote five texts on Abhidharma and another two texts which are to summarise the Abhidharma. So he together wrote seven texts on Abhidharma. Dignaga wrote 108 texts on pramana (tsema) and then the essence of all of that he put together and it is called tsema kundu. Altogether he wrote 109 texts and each one of them are sizeable major texts. Gunaprabha wrote a root text on Vinaya, this is called do tsawa, the root text on Vinaya and he also made his own commentaries on the root texts that he wrote. Many of these masters wrote their own commentaries. So, they wrote a root text and then they made commentaries on their own text.
Those who made the commentaries, these are Aryadeva, Vasubadhu, Dharmakirti and Shakyaprabha. They wrote commentaries on the texts of the four just mentioned. There are many Madhyamaka commentaries but the one considered as most comprehensible and largest is Madhyamaka 400 shlokas. Asanga's brother Vasubandhu wrote Abhidharma commentaries. They are known as Eight Prakarana. Dharmakirti wrote seven commentaries on Pramana, four of them are known as limbs. Sakyaprabha wrote 300 shloka Karika, which is a very important Vinaya text. He also wrote few other texts on Vinaya but these are the major ones: the Vinaya Karika, 300 shlokas.
I talked a little bit about Vinaya and Abhidharma yesterday, but Madhyamaka and Pramana I did not talk clearly, so I will go into these two. Madhyamaka is translated as Middle Way and it has quite few schools or school of thoughts or actually lineages of Madhyamaka. First one is known as uma rang jypa. Second one is uma pal jurwa. They are the two main categories of Madhyamaka.
The disciple of Nagarjuna, whose name is in Tibetan Legden Je and his disciple known as Bodhisattva, their lineage is known as uma rang jypa. It has four main schools developed in itself. First one is uma rang jypa based on sutras. The tsawa sherab is written by Nagarjuna and its commentary, tokden parwa, is written by the great master Legden Je mentioned earlier. Legden Gye also wrote another commentary on the same text uma tsawa sherab but it is not the commentary of the words, it’s the commentary of the meaning.
First he used the text written by Nagarjuna and he made a commentary based on that. Nagarjuna says something like "I pay refuge in Buddha." So he will wrote commentary: I – means this and this, pay – means this and this, refuge – means this and this, in – means this, and Buddha means this. That we call a word-commentary.
But the second commentary which he wrote, we call sherab döne, wisdom light, it should be prajna dipa or something like that [in Sanskrit]. This is not a word by word commentary but a meaning commentary. The content of all of these aspects of Madhyamika are known the Madhyamika according to the sutras, do de dang dungi uma rang jypa.
Now the second one is sem tsam pa dype uma rang jypa. This is slightly different because the disciple of Nagarjuna, Legden Je and his followers Bodhisattva (Shiwa tso "who lives by peace"), whose name is Senge Zangpo, and Kamalashila, their teaching, their kind of lineage, still based on uma tsawa sherab, the Madhyamika tsawa sherab written by Nagarjuna, that is known as sem tsam pa dungi uma rang jypa.
Sem tsam pa means, basic philosophy is: everything is mind. Everything is a manifestation of mind. Sometimes when we are debating, some of the Buddhist schools such as rangtong will say that we, the shentong are sem tsam pa, Mind Only, but it is not quite the same. The philosophical lineage of these masters contain quite few texts: the commentary of uma tsawa sherab written by Bodhisattva Shiwa Tso, uma gen, and then Kamalashila wrote three texts which are very enlightening and comprehensive, based on practise, meditation of Madhyamika known as gom rim thoma, gom rim dharma, gom rim thama. So, Madhyamika Meditation Stage One, Stage Two, Stage Three upwards.
The contents of all this is known as sem tsam pa dungi uma rang jypa. This is rang jypa still. Then the third one is close to the sem tsam pa but also quite close to the tang jurwa (at the beginning I said Madhyamika has two main lineages, one is rang jypa and one is tang jurwa.) I will explain what those words mean later. This is called juma rig drukju umapa. Juma means illusion, rigpa means cognitive science, cognitive reasoning. Drukpa means you are using your cognitive science or methods to verify drukpa, umapa. So this is juma rig drukju umapa uma rang jypa. What is the real stand of this lineage from the form, the lowest, to the highest, enlightenment? – Everything is just like a dream, illusion or magic. Some philosophical texts say that this is also Vasubandhu's and Bodhisattva Senge Zangpo's belief. It has been questioned many times by other scholars. Anyway, the main stand for this lineage is: from the lowest to the highest everything is equally illusion, like a dream.
The fourth one is known as she drang ngawa tang dyn dy uma rang jypa. She drang ngawa means – one of the masters, who is an Arhat, his name in Tibetan is Rabjampa Nyerbe, made commentaries on the basic three teachings of the Buddha, Tripitaka (Vinaya, Abhidharma and Sutra), the basic three teachings of the Buddha, except the tantra, he made his own kind of interpretation of Tripitaka. He made it very clear and his own way; he is an Arhat, not an ordinary person like us who try to make interpretation of Lord Buddha's teaching. He reached the Arhathood and after he reached it, he taught the Tripitaka manifesting in his own way, slightly different from others. She drang ngawa means… she drang means specifically, slightly differently and ngawa means speaking and teaching. So that is the fourth aspect of the uma rang jypa.
This somehow roughly covers the sub-branches of Madhyamika lineage known as rang jypa. Now I will define what is rang jypa. Rang is oneself, jy means it is focused on oneself. It's like this: when you learn the Madhyamika then you also have to use the teachings and terminology of the Pramana, because what I say: "Here is a glass of water" but I have to prove it. There is a glass and water inside. And this is a glass of water, it is like all the other water and glasses. It is not simply: "Here is a glass of water" and not show the water and glass, it can be a photograph of a glass of water. It can be vinegar which looks like water, it can be glass of wine or vodka. It is very simple to say: "Here is a glass of water," but you don't know. Pramana has ways to define and come to a conclusion and say that it indeed is a glass of water. Therefore we have to use that.
When we are using the Pramana, it is a very advanced subject. As I told you, there are seven main texts. Each one is enormous. There are so many ways, but one of the simplest ways that I can describe here is tsul sum [three things]. To say there is a fire on the mountain side, there has to be three principles to confirm it. The first one is: there is a fire on the mountain side because there is smoke there. What is the subject? The subject is the fire on the mountain side. The second is the sign of the fire, which is the smoke. The third is that there is smoke, there has to be a fire, or there was a fire. Maybe not actually right now, but there was a fire. One cannot have smoke without fire. Nowadays of course you can, the restaurants use something in the discos, which looks like smoke, but it is not coming from fire. Let's forget about… It is a steam it's not smoke, you see. You are not saying there is a fire on the mountain side because there is steam. We are still okay.
These three things we call chok chö, je chap, dok chap. Chok chö means: when there is fire, there is smoke. Je chap is: when there is smoke, there will be a fire, dok chap is opposite, if there is no fire, there is no smoke. The rang jypa [school] holds onto these three things and they take it as their stand. They consider these three things are their standpoint.
Earlier I said some of the rang jypa [followers] are according to sutras, do depa, some of them are according to the Mind Only. Some of them are sherab ngawa. Sherab ngawa I already explained, but sem tsampa and do depa I have to explain to you roughly.
Sem tsampa (Mind Only) means: all the phenomena from hell to heaven, everything is not separate from our mind. It is mirror-like projection or it is manifestation or it is totally related to our mind. So it is mind's reflection, nothing more, nothing less. Within sem tsampa itself there are quite a few definitions and beliefs, but I will leave that alone for the time being.
Do depa is based on the original sutra teaching of the Lord Buddha, rather than commentaries made by the great masters. They focus very much on the original sutras, and commentaries are taken as a secondary thing. They don't take these commentaries like the root text made by Nagarjuna and the commentary on that made by Aryadeva etc. so important, they take absolute importance on the sutra, and then they will learn the other texts as commentaries of the sutras. So there is an emphasis on them, so they are more on the comment than on the commentary of the comment. They look all the other texts as secondary.
I would like to give you some example of these three things (tsul sum). Sem tsampa , Mind Only, for example, they will say: 1. The subject, all phenomena, everything 2. is all just a manifestation of the mind and inseparable from it. 3. It is only happening because of the karma created by the mind through body and speech. All the things that are happening here are happening only because of karma created through the body and speech by the mind. So it all boils down to the mind. This is a simple way of giving definition of sem tsampa, the Mind Only.
There are very interesting ways to go into hair-splitting of this. I will go into it a little bit. That is kun ta, shen wang and jong dru. Kun ta means all is just mind's projection. We call something we put our feet in "shoes". Could we call it a hat or jacket? English people decided to call it shoes. Tibetans call it lam. In hindi it is called djuta. This is all kun ta.
Shen wang means it is through other forces, something happens through other forces, it is called shen wang. All phenomena are nothing but it is according to the power of the mind and all phenomena are totally perceived, utilized, consumed and affected positively and negatively by the mind, through the power of the mind.
Kun ta: let's say we are dreaming and seeing everything as a projection and everything is just that. Shen wang: all phenomena are influenced by the power of the mind. The third is jong dru: there is nothing other than the projection of the mind. So shen wang is void of kun ta. When I say "This is a table, a nice long table," this is kun ta. "I see this as a nice long table." That is influenced by my perception of what is nice, what is long and what is a table. Nothing more, nothing less.
These three aspects kun ta, je wang and jong dru are sem tsampas' (Mind Only) basic philosophical stands. I will not go further so that you will not get confused. I hope you are not confused yet! Now we leave these philosophical aspects a little bit aside. If you are confused it is not very meaningful.
Let's try one more time. First one is rang jypa. Now I am superficially finished with rang jypa, because half of you are confused. We try tang jurwa. That is another main lineage or system of Madhyamika. Tang jurwa by definition is: rang jypa has a belief based on three things, rang jypa believes on these three things and hold onto it and tries to proof everything with these three things. Rang jypa does not hold onto anything it is little bit like offensive. Tang jurwa is only defensive. It will not say "I believe in this or that" but according to what you say tang jurwa reacts. The philosophy of tang jurwa is to examine according to what you say and come to a conclusion rather than saying this is my belief and has to be like this and like that. That's the difference between tang jurwa and rang jypa. Rang jypa means to hold onto a belief. Tang jurwa does not fall onto a belief like this. Of course all of them believe in Buddhahood and Bodhicitta, but not as a particular dualistic belief system.
There are many branches of tang jurwa, so I will give you one example. When tang jurwa says: "Everything is impermanent," the tang jurwa is saying everything is impermanent because somebody thinks it is permanent. Therefore tang jurwa will use the philosophical principles and pramana techniques to prove to others everything is impermanent, because somebody believes it is permanent. That is shen la ka gyi jipa. Tang jurwa themselves will not believe in a particular dualistic thing. Then it is like making a condition for yourself. It becomes like a target practice. When you should send the arrow at the target, you limit yourself to that bull's eye, and all the other opportunities to be happy you somehow lose. Because until you hit that little bull's eye with your arrow, you are not happy. If you don't see the target – you shoot anywhere, it's okay. You will be happy, right? So the tang jurwa doesn't create a bull's eye. According to the others' standpoint they make comments and react. Rang jypa is different because they believe in three principles, which I have mentioned. If everything fit into this, it's okay, if it doesn't fit, then they will dismiss it. It is not as simple as that but when I simplify them, then it becomes something like that.
This way I think the Madhyamika part, which is rang jypa and tang jurwa, generally speaking these two aspects of the schools of the lineage, somehow covers the Madhyamika aspect of teaching. When it comes to the Pramana, actually Pramana is an entire subject itself, based on sutras and abhidharma. Pramana is basically a tool to truly understand the sutras and abhidharma.
For example karma, cause and result is a very basic subject, but it is very difficult for people to believe that everything is karma cause and everything is karma result. It is very difficult to believe for many people. The Pramana makes it easier for people to understand by using common sense. For example: how can there be today without yesterday? How can there be no tomorrow? Known as today is here, there will be tomorrow. They give simple examples: if you plant rice, it will grow rice, if you plant orange, you will grow orange. If you plant rice you will not grow orange. This way karma, cause and result become very simple common sense.
Why does each one of us have different taste and different likings and dislikings? Something I like may be exactly what you don’t like. Something you like may be exactly what I don't like. I see this from paintings for example. When I made exhibitions of my paintings, some paintings I did not like and I wanted to burn them, tear them and throw them away. But some of the organizers said: "This is beautiful, I want to exhibit this." For me it is terrible but some people think it is wonderful. And some things I think really beautiful and nice and they say: "I think we should skip this!" Why does it happen?
Of course we can say, I grew up in this kind of culture and environment, this is what I was taught, I became like this because I was exposed to this and not to that, you can say that, but is doesn't stop there. Conveniently we can stop at our birth. But it doesn't stop there. How can is stop there? If we have the ability to go further than that, then we can find out the past. Nothing stops conveniently somewhere. Everything comes from very far away and it goes forever. If you trace yourself, you can trace forever. There is no end to it. If you get tired of it and if you don't know how to trace further, that's one thing. But if you know how to trace and if you really want to trace, you can trace forever.
Pramana helps us to get these things right. For example I'm quite sure you all know that in Buddhism we believe in all the gods, but we don't believe somebody created us, just us, you know. We don't believe in that. But the concept of a Creator we can understand and appreciate, because we consider ourselves equal to anything that is highest. So we create ourselves.
Yesterday we did something good, today we feel good. Yesterday we did something bad, today we end up in jail. We created it. And we created past life's karma with our parents, so in this life we end up with this couple who we call daddy and mummy. We end up with brothers and sisters, cousins and nephews and all kind of people. And because all of us have developed connections for all these past lives, something is called teacher, student, guru, disciple, friend, husband, wife; all these things are production of so many lifetimes. It is not arranged by somebody like chessboard and then playing games with our life, it's not like that. We don't believe in that kind of creation. But we believe in creation by the most ultimate essence within us, which is equal to the essence of all the gods we can think of.
The essence of – I don't know too much of other gods but about the Hindu gods we say that the great god Wangchuk Chenpo is an emanation of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. That way it is quite easy for me to understand the interpretation that one god creates, one god maintains, one god destroys. I understand that by interpretation but I don't have a lineage of Hindu teaching, so I cannot preach this to you and I cannot verify it because I don't have a Guru who would have transmitted this teaching to me. But I read this and heard it so many times, I've been in India since I was barely six years old, so I know, I have no problem with that.
But if one took it literally that three guys sit up there and one creates us, one maintains us and one destroys us, then it doesn't make sense. That way it doesn't make sense. But if I go one step further and take these three aspects, creator, maintainer and destroyer as the essence – of course. Our essence, the minute we don't recognise ourselves as the limitless primordial wisdom, then we are created. Then I am created. And I am created constantly this way. And I am maintained constantly this way. I teach you. I learn. I rest. I get sick and I take medicine. Now I'm well, not like yesterday, this way I maintain. And my essence manifests and maintains. The essence of me which for me is – can we call G or D? No problem. It is more than just G(od) or D(evil) for me. My essence is limitless, so it maintains. Then, in the end it destroys, because I have to defeat and destroy my ego in order to become Buddha. If I can't defeat my ego, my attachment and my jealousy and my pride, I can never become Buddha. So, who has to defeat that? – It is my essence, by awakening.
You know Narasingha takes the evil king on his lap and the evil king has the shakti that he can never be killed by any weapon and he can never be killed when he is on Earth. So what does the destroyer do? – Pick him up and put on his lap. So he is not on the ground. He uses his hand to open his heart, his chest, no weapon was used. Whatever kind of shakti that our ego can have, cannot be compared to the shakti of our primordial wisdom. Our primordial wisdom can rib through it and destroy the ego and reveal the primordial wisdom which is within. Forgive me, I hope I'm not playing a Hindu Guru here, because I have no right, but what I'm saying is: from the teaching of Buddha and especially Vajrayana teaching that I have learned I have no problem with great maintainer, destroyer, from this kind of point of view.
But I can never believe and accept (other people believe, no problem) but I can never sincerely believe that there are guys up there dualistic, just like us, who prays to them they get happy and help, and who doesn't pray to them they get unhappy and punish you. If you listen to them they do nice things to you, if you don't listen to them, they punish you, I don't believe in that. That becomes dualistic and I don't believe in dualistic Buddha. Sometimes people tell me: "God will be happy if you do this." I don't argue with them. Sometimes people say: "God will be unhappy if you do this." I don't argue with them. But for me that doesn't make any sense, because the God, the most supreme and limitless should not have any likings and dislikings or preferences.
When I say God, I can only think of the highest of the highest. Therefore the manifestation of the Buddha up there which is always perfect and equal for all; whether how I will receive it and how I will perceive it and how it will benefit me is according to my vessel. If I am clean, (my vessel is clean,) when milk is poured into it, it will stay pure milk. But if I am a dirty vessel, sour vessel, then the best milk of a snow lion (we say the snow lion's milk is most powerful and best, snow lioness) when it is poured into it, so precious, but when it touches my vessel, it goes bad if my vessel is sour, not clean.
It is like that, Buddha's blessing and in this case I don't mind saying God, no problem with me, but it is only G or D and Buddha is B, U, D, D, H, A for me, right? So it is just different language and terminology. Buddha's blessing is there for all sentient beings at all times and it is not that if we shout loud enough, Buddha hears it and if we whisper, Buddha cannot hear it, not like that. But we, because we are dualistic, we think that we have to sing and shout, so that Buddha can hear. That's correct, because we shout as loud as we can, so the Buddha can hear us, we are doing everything that we have got to shout as loud as we can and sing as beautifully as we can, so that Buddha responds to it. It makes sense. It's because of us, not because of Buddha. It is like tang jurwa, Buddha himself is not offensive, not promoting, not doing anything dualistic but just like a sky provides at all times for all. And according to the vessel each one of us receives according to our own capacity.
It is very interesting, different capacity. I think those of you who are not from our country, you don't know. We in India believe that one sour lemon and few hot green chilli put together can wear off other people's jealousy. If other people say: "Oh, he has a nice house, he has a nice car," it brings bad luck. We don't want this to happen to us. You see this everywhere. Some shoe polisher just sitting in the corner of the street with nothing on top also has chilli and lemon hanging next to him, really. And some Mercedes car also has that hanging on the windowsill. Some very big mansion with 10 acres land around it has that hanging at the door, and some very petty shopkeeper, who has nothing but maybe just few pieces of potatoes and vegetables, worth 200 or 500 rupees altogether, also will have that.
It is very interesting, the way we perceive and for me our receiving of Buddha's blessing or as Christians say the God's grace, is like that. Everybody has their own reason to put that. If I have that small 500 rupee shop, instead of putting a lemon and those things there, I will be very depressed and instead of thinking that people will be jealous of me, I will worry that they will look down at me, because I have nothing. But the people of that level have others on that level, which will be jealous of him having that little place. So it is one's own illusion, it is really all illusion. It is very interesting. Other day, when I was driving the car, one kid selling the lemons and chillies, I bought five of them! It's so interesting. I don't know where I put them, I didn't hang them anywhere but I did buy five.
So, the Pramana is very important tool for Madhyamika. Madhyamika has to go together with Pramana. Then it all becomes very interesting and rich. But of course for beginners who are not exposed to that, it can be very complicated. That is why I wrote a book long time ago, because my head was spinning like an umbrella meant for the noble ones, because the subject is so deep and vast. Therefore I try to simplify it.
This is about the Madhyamika and Pramana. Coming to a conclusion of this subject, if you look at all of them, right from the beginning: Vinaya, Abhidharma, Madhyamika, Prajnaparamita and the Pramana, all of these five are very big subjects. For example in my monastery in Himachal Pradesh monks learn every day and debate every day to complete these five texts. It takes nine years. They only learn few of the five texts. Each of the five has many [parts]. They only learn symbolically the basics of the five texts and it takes nine solid years. And they only have 1½ – 2 months holiday each year. Every week they just have Thursday holiday. Other than that they are there every day and have several classes going on and they debate until like 11 o'clock at night. It's quite something.
When they debate they get so excited, so those of you who don't know, if you go there you will think the monks are fighting. Because the little ones have no chance. Big ones pick them up and throw them outside. The little ones are itching in their mouth to say something but never given a chance. The big ones push them aside. It can look very unruly and little aggressive, but it never gets into fight. I never saw anybody getting into fight for that. First 9-years graduations took place this year, six of them graduated. I have 108 or 109 of them right now doing this every day. But I think for you – this much is enough (laughter).
Madhyamika means Middle Way. Simplified version of Middle Way is: everything is neither this nor that. The essence of everything is limitless and it is beyond any dualistic limitation. That is the simplest way to describe the Middle Way. Middle way does not mean to be Swiss national. Switzerland is a neutral country. Middle Way doesn't mean neutral. Middle Way means: everything is neither this nor that, everything has limitless potential and everything is perfect beyond any description. Essence of everything cannot be described by any example exactly, so example for it will be only it. We can say: Mind is empty like sky, limitless like sky, but you also have to add to it: It is clear like a sun. Then you have to add to it: It is solid like a vajra. Then you have to add to it: It is illusory like a rainbow. You have to say so many things, because if you say: Mind is solid like a diamond, then you become eternalistic. And if you say: Mind is empty like sky, then you become nihilistic. Both are wrong. So you have to say everything. So the Middle Way is this, and the shentong point of the Middle Way is: Mind is the essence of everything, and the essence of everything has no limitation. That is a specific way of emphasis.
I think this is maybe time to stop here.
Chenrezig Sadhana Teachings in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, December 2003. Audio: Intro, Part1, Part2
(Beginning Prayers) As I told you this morning after saying the refuge and bodhicitta prayer we have the visualisation of Chenrezig. This is very clearly translated here. "On the crown of my head and all sentient beings pervading space there rests a white lotus and moon seat.
From the HRI-syllable, which is standing up on the moon and lotus, appears the noble Chenrezig, white. Luminous, radiating five colour light rays, smiling with compassion charmingly and gazing with compassionate eyes. He has four arms; the upper two joined together and lower two holding a whit lotus and crystal mala. He is adorned by precious jewels and silks. That means beautifully adorned.
A deerskin covers his upper part, it symbolizes compassion. Actually some people have a hard time to understand why a deerskin should represent compassion, but it is a skin of a compassionate deer, who sacrificed for the benefit of all sentient beings, so it represents the compassion, which is the bodhisattva manifestation of the deer. It is not that the deer was shot and then skin is worn, sometimes people have misperception.
The crown jewel of Avalokiteshvara is the Buddha Amitabha, although all the five Buddha families are there in his crown, on top is the Buddha Amitabha. The deer skin covers his upper part, left shoulder, Amitabha adorns his crown and he sits in Vajrasana. His back is supported by a stainless moon; there is one is one moon disc underneath as a seat and another moon crystal disc behind Chenrezig as the backrest. He is the essence of all sources of refuge, which is the basic visualisation.
After we have that visualisation then next is a prayer as I told you. There isn't any particular visualisation for this, but maintain the visualisation which we already have and through that Chenrezig we are praying and supplicating this:
Lord, whose white body is not clothed by fault, Whose head is adorned by the perfect Buddha (that means Amitabha) Who looks upon all beings with compassionate eyes (Chen is an honorific word for eye, ordinary eye is called mig in Tibetan but honorific word for eye is chen, chenre is like shalre, the face, the eyes entirely, zig means looking. In Tibetan language you have to look at the composition, and chenre without the last word za means a tiger or leopard.)
To you, Chenrezig, I prostrate. That is the salutation, praise, supplication. Then this little detail, which I thought would be very good for us, because the meaning of om mani peme hung is more clear through this prayer.
I pray to you lama Chenrezig (lama means Guru). I pray to you yidam Chenrezig (yidam means deity, the Sambhogakaya aspect of Buddha). I pray to you the perfect noble Chenrezig. I pray to you Lord Protector, Chenrezig. I pray to you, Lord of Love, Chenrezig.
All of this being said you will continue the prayer with more specifics, such as Great, Compassionate, Victorious One, Please hold us with your compassion. For numberless beings who wander in endless samsara Experiencing unbearable suffering, there is no refuge other than you, Protector. Please bestow the blessing to obtain omniscient Buddhahood.
Until now you were asking Chenrezig to bless. Now you are going through each one of the six realms, so, om mani peme hung. First you are praying according to the meaning of the hung. Hung is representing the compassion of Chenrezig to purify the karma of sentient beings which is committed through anger, so that the beings of the hell would be free from the suffering of the hell. This is starting from the lowest, which is represented by the hung. Om is the highest and hung is the lowest. Here, according to this prayer it goes with hung first, then me, pe, ni, ma and om, upwards. We are praying according to the level of realms and requesting Chenrezig's blessing to help the sentient beings of the lowest [realm] first, then above them until the highest god realm represented by om. It is the last. Here we say:
By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of anger are born as hell beings And experience the suffering of heat and cold (that means extreme suffering) May they all be born in your presence, perfect deity, om mani peme hung. (You are calling Chenrezig as a perfect deity.)
By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of greed are born in the realm of pretas And experience the suffering of hunger and thirst. May they all be born in your perfect realm, the Potala, om mani peme hung.
You are requesting Chenrezig to liberate all sentient beings of the preta realm from suffering. The way it is written is not very smooth, because Tibetan language and English language do not match exactly. For example when we ask somebody: "How are you?" Tibetans say: "Cherang kusum dewo jinbe." Cherang means 'your', kusum is a honorific way to say 'body', dewo means 'comfortable' jin means 'have' or 'are' and be is a question word. It means something like "Your body comfortable, yes?" When these prayers are translated almost literally they become little bit not so smooth.
By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of stupidity are born as animals And experience the suffering of dullness or stupidity. May they all be born in your presence, great protector Chenrezig, om mani peme hung.
Since beginningless time sentient beings accumulate negative karma through ignorance. As a result of that they are born in the animal realm. We pray to Chenrezig so that may they be free from this suffering.
Although I really like animals, they are very ignorant; I can tell you very clearly. People raise them for food by thousands and they just sit there and wait to be slaughtered, they don't know they are going to be slaughtered. Otherwise, if they were intelligent, physical strength of animals is many times more than human beings. Even a small animal like a cat, if they really want to challenge you physically, and if human being doesn't have the intelligence and protective things to wear or anything to use against them, you will be defeated by a cat.
But because they are suffering from ignorance people raise them and use them as slaves, hardly give them anything and they still sit there. That is the definition of ignorance. It doesn't mean animals are bad, for me animals are very good, pure and genuine, like dogs, they are very good people actually, and with due respect dogs are more loyal to their master than most of the people. I have one thing to say about dogs: when a dog steals food from you, what does he think? "Oh, my poor master forgot to give it to me!" He sees food there and thinks how kind his master is, and he just goes and eats it. They have a very good heart, I think. That is the syllable pe. Then:
By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of desire are born in the human realm And experience the suffering of excessive activity (derwa -being busy) and constant frustration (pongpa -like greed, not being fulfilled, always empty.) May they all be born in the pure Land (Sukhavati), om mani peme hung.
By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of jealousy are born in the realm of demi-gods (titans) And experience the suffering of fighting and quarrelling out of jealousy. May they all be born in your realm, the Potala, om mani peme hung.
That is about the semi-gods. They are not as good as gods, but they have certain amount of power and ability, so they are always jealous to the gods and fight with the gods. They will never win. That is the asura or demi-gods, om mani peme hung.
The last is: By the power of accumulating negative karma from beginningless time Sentient beings through the force of pride are born in the realm of the gods And experience the sufferings of change and falling. May they all be born in your realm, the Potala, om mani peme hung.
Gods are the highest realm and their suffering is that they know the future and the past, and when their karma of being god is coming to end, they can see their future, where they are going to be born. That way they suffer immensely because of that. That is the prayer for liberating all the gods from the suffering of samsara, om mani peme hung. That way the meaning of the om mani peme hung is said in the prayer.
Now again, the prayer becomes a little bit more personal: Whenever I am born, may my deeds by equalling Chenrezig Liberate beings from impure realms And spread the perfect sound of six syllables in the ten directions Through the power of praying to you.
What you are saying is: In this life and all the future lives to come, may my activity be just like your activity to liberate sentient beings from the lower realms and help them to be free and happy and may the sound of the sacred words om mani peme hung be pervading all ten directions.
Ten directions is a simple way to count directions: east, south, west, north, southeast, southwest, northwest, northeast, up and down. Those are the ten directions. It means all directions actually, ten directions is just a way of saying it.
Then you continue: Perfect noble one, May beings which I am to discipline pay the greatest attention to action and result, And diligently practise the virtue and the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings.
What you are saying here is: "By the power of praying to you, the Great Lord, all the sentient beings who will be subject of my activity, whoever I will encounter, whoever I will benefit, may all of those sentient beings respect and follow sincerely the Karma Cause and Result. May all of these sentient beings be moral and ethical, lead ethical life. As a result of this virtue by diligently practising virtue may everything be beneficial to all sentient beings and may all sentient beings live according to the Dharma. May I live according to the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings. May all of my followers live according to the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings. May anybody who encounters me in the future life live according to the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings. That is what we are saying here. The translation is unclear here. It is quite simple but sometimes it gets slightly complicated if you don't see the meaning.
I give you one very simple example: one of our most precious texts, Gampopa's Tharpa Rinpochei Gen is translated many times and translations and translators are very good but sometimes we don't get the words exactly according to the meaning of the words. It is translated as Jewel Ornament of Liberation. It is good, but it does not mean Tharpa Rinpochei Gen. In order to be that in Tibetan it should be written Tharpei Rinchen Gen. Tharpa Rinpochei Gen means Ornament of Precious Liberation or even you can say the Beautifier of Precious Liberation. There is not much difference, but to be exact the translation should be Ornament of Precious Liberation rather than Jewel Ornament of Liberation. Tharpa Rinpoche means Precious Liberation, Gen means Ornament. Ornament for what? – Ornament to make it more beautiful. So the precious liberation is made more beautiful, more understandable, more clear, this text makes the precious liberation more understandable, approachable, clear and easier to appreciate. Now I hope it's clear.
Next is the visualisation. Up to now is same visualisation, now here something happens, that is very clearly translated here: "Through this one-pointed prayer, the prayer we have said already, light radiates from the body of the Sublime One (Chenrezig), purifies impure karma, impure appearances and deluded mind."
Chenrezig's body's blessing purifies the impure karma of the body, speech and mind. Outer realm is Pure Land of Dewachen. Outer realm means this and everything, it transforms into Pure Land of Dewachen, the Sukhavati and body, speech and mind of all beings are in the perfect form of sublime Body, Speech and pure Mind of mighty Chenrezig. That means: as Chenrezig radiates light, whatever it touches the whole universe, outer inanimate objects transform into a Pure Land and all the sentient beings' body, speech and mind transform into the Body, Speech and Mind of Chenrezig.
Then, this is quite important, the last sentence: nang-drag ri-tong jer-me djur. The indivisible union of appearance, sound and awareness with emptiness – what you see, what you hear and everything become non-dualistic Chenrezig, sentient beings and outer ordinary world and the Pure Land of Chenrezig, it all become non-dualistic. It is like your mind and Chenrezig's mind, your speech and Chenrezig's speech, your body and Chenrezig's body, all become non-dualistic. Remain in this state and try to say om mani peme hung.
In the beginning there is lots happening, lights have to radiate and everything has to transform. Once it is transformed, then it is one, it is in absolute unity, absolute harmony, absolute union, absolutely non-dualistic and in that state we have to recite the mantra. So, you will chant om mani peme hung. Today, after chanting the om mani peme hung, which is the mantra of all the Chenrezigs, especially the mantra of the four-armed Chenrezig but all the other Chenrezigs as well. Then we will make a connection with the 1000-armed Chenrezig, which is same thing but different manifestation, so I will say the long mantra.
My intention for this is: in the future all of you will do lots of practice on Chenrezig. Not only om mani peme hung but also the njungne. Njungne is fasting practice and very sacred and precious practice. I hope that you will do njungne from time to time. Many of you maybe doing it from time to time and those of you who haven't done I hope you will do it, it is a wonderful practice and it is lots of inspiration and blessing you really can feel by doing the njungne practice. Physically you feel cleansed, mentally you feel blessed. Although it's not that easy, it is a very profound practice and hoping that you will do it I will say this mantra also.
After om mani peme hung – now you know the meaning of the mantra very well, the six syllables, because of the prayer – after the recitation, as we conclude the practice, you are saying this, there is the absorption. It is translated as: My body, the body of others and all appearances are perfect form of the supreme one. All sounds are the melody of the six-syllable mantra; all thoughts are the vastness of the great jnana (that means primordial wisdom). Through this virtue may I quickly achieve the realisation of mighty Chenrezig and may I bring every single being to that same state (the realisation of Chenrezig). That means may I become like Chenrezig and may all sentient beings become like Chenrezig. That is our prayer and visualisation.
Here the Chenrezig-visualisation dissolves to you and all sentient beings and everything becomes inseparable with Chenrezig. Then after the absorption we sit a few seconds, maybe a minute or so. When we manifest, we manifest in this form: all the beings as Chenrezig, all the outer universe as the mandala of Dewachen and all the thoughts as the wisdom of Chenrezig, the compassion, and all the sounds as om mani peme hung.
We don't have to brainwash ourselves, but we somehow should have that pure perception as long as we can maintain it. Throughout the day we try to say om mani peme hung, whenever we are free, and then other times of course we do what we have to do. Naturally, comfortably, simply we try to feel the presence of Chenrezig at all times.
Of course when you are very new in the Dharma and you take these things extremely serious and literal, that is not very healthy. Therefore you have to sit back a little bit and take it easy. And everything is okay, everybody is Buddha, everything is nothing different from a Pure Land in its essence. But practically we have to deal with it and little bit of pragmatism is necessary, we can't be just like all of a sudden become totally different. It doesn't work. Even if we pretend everything is different, it is not. So we have to maintain our basic commonsense and at the same time have this outlook as a plus on top of it. So when you see somebody who is not very nice to you, you can do everything to avoid the trouble, the harm or the bad feelings, at the same time deep inside you know: he or she is no different from Chenrezig in essence.
When you walk, you see some dirty place, and you go around it, you don't go on it purposely saying that this is Pure Land. You avoid it but deep inside you know, there is no difference between this not so pleasant place and the very clean apartment in which you live. There is no difference. And that clean apartment and the Pure Land, no difference in essence. But relatively there is a very big difference. If you go in that dirty place, your clean apartment will become dirty. And you have lots of attachment to your clean apartment, so it makes sure that you stay in samsara.
There is a story. There were two great practitioners practising one form of Vajravarahi and one of them had a very beautiful mala (rosary). The other one did not have such. Both of them were practising very hard. Vajravarahi sent red light stairs down for them to come to Akanistha [Pure Land.] The one, who did not have any nice mala, went and the one who had a nice mala went half way, but forgot his mala. So he came down to get it. By the time he got his mala, the stairs were gone.
Our very nice apartment will be the beautiful mala. Deep inside of us we should of course know, that the essence of everything is same, and we should try to maintain the presence of Avalokiteshvara in all aspects of our life, in all aspects of environment around us.
The dedication which we have here which we have here is very short. After we wake up from the state of oneness we stop that and go into the next stage. Then we dedicate the merit: Through this virtue may I quickly achieve the realisation of mighty Chenrezig and may I bring every sentient being to that same state. That is our dedication.
Then many other dedication prayers are there, we can add to it. Today we will say Mahamudra Dedication Prayer and also we will say Amitabha Prayer, which we said this morning for the people who died in Iran. Not only them, for everybody we should say it to all sentient beings. After the short Amitabha Prayer we will say the Mahamudra Prayer. Then we will end our session.
Audio: Intro Part1 - listen the actual practice
We did the short Chenrezig practice with some dedication prayers added to it: the Amitabha prayer and the Mahamudra prayer. Other than that it is a very brief form of Chenrezig practice. There are so many practices, our lineage is rich and abandoned with practices. There are so many tantras, deities, bodhisattvas, mantras and sadhanas. So much is there. The purpose of all these practices is one: to attain the realisation of Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings to attain the realisation of Buddhahood. That is the only purpose of practise.
Of course, on the way we also don't want obstacles to appear, so we wish those obstacles on our path to be cleared. Those obstacles can be health obstacles, mental, environmental, all kind of things. This way there are so many things that involve, but ultimate goal of everything is to reach the enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings to reach enlightenment.
Therefore those of us, who decided to go through step by step practices and by following the exact preliminary practices, and the deity practices, then step by step going through it is wonderful, very good and clear. Everything is laid down for us in the lineage. But if you want to practise only one thing, like om mani peme hung, I can guarantee, you can reach Buddhahood by practising om mani peme hung, if you do it wholeheartedly. Om mani peme hung represents the Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, and it is to purify all the karmas that we have accumulated through countless lifetimes, through pride, jealousy, attachment, ignorance, stinginess and anger. All of these causes and conditions of suffering of samsara that we have accumulated for countless lifetimes, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva's compassion manifests as om mani peme hung to purify that. If all our karma and defilements are purified, then what is left is the pureness itself. That is our ultimate essence, the Tathagatagarbha, the buddhanature, and therefore om mani peme hung is simplest, easiest, most complete and most convenient practice for everybody.
Sometimes I have a feeling when I tell to some of my disciples: "You should practise om mani peme hung only," looks like they are not very happy and I realise that they think it is too simple. In their opinion it is a practise for peasants, uneducated people or something. It is absolutely wrong. Om mani peme hung is for everybody. It is a practice for both illiterate people and very intellectual literate people. Nobody can attain Buddhahood without overcoming the six defilements. Nobody can attain Buddhahood without purifying all the karma, impossible. Therefore I would say: on top of any kind of practices that you have from your master, from your Guru, then any extra time that you get in a bus, aeroplane, coach, or in a restaurant waiting for the food to be served, you quietly say om mani peme hung. And there is plenty of time. Don't come and tell me you don't have time.
I told you yesterday: just 150 years ago to communicate with your relative on American continent or African continent you had to send a message, a letter through ships and you never knew whether it would get there or not. But if it got there and back, it took a long time. At that time also we had time. Now you can communicate with your friend on the other side of the world similarly, as you can communicate with your friend in the next room. And you can correct their spelling right there with just one little gadget on your laptop, you can actually see the person and talk to them. And of course you hear the words after the lips moved, you are little bit behind, technology is not that good with small things yet. Big things no problem, television is okay but small cameras are little slower than the real actual thing. Anyway, we are like that.
That time we had so much time, why don't we have so much time now? So much time is saved in everything, those extra times we should have. It's all up to us, do we have time or not, am I busy or not? And I tell you: many people work much harder during the holidays than during the working days. They plan their holiday and they try to catch up with the schedule, an all the luggage you know, pack, unpack, pack etc. Checking from one hotel to another, going through airports, waiting in line, plain is late, train is late, all of this, and still feel so relaxed: "I had a wonderful two weeks of holidays, I feel very good, really rejuvenated!"
Actually, when you are working, you just drive from your nice home half sleepy, had a nice cup of coffee and drive slowly, park to your parking spot and go to the office. You sit on the nice, best, most comfortable chair which you chose very carefully. You went to order it from the furniture shop. And you have secretaries and all kind of people working for you. You sit there and look what people write, change a little bit, and sign some things and its nothing. You say: "It's so tiring, I need a holiday!" Others, who are not that way are much better [off], because if you are employee for somebody, you just have to think from 8am to 5pm, then you don't have to think, right? You just show up 8am and do whatever you are supposed to do, and 5pm finished, go home and do whatever you like to do. So if you are employee, it is actually less stressful than being an employer.
But again, people like to be employer; they don't like to be employee. You see? We are really looking for trouble here. Anyway, it is all up to us. Why am I saying all this? – It's all up to us. That's why I'm saying all of this.
I hope that today's teaching and practice was meaningful for you. It was very meaningful for me and I will stop here for today.
Seven Points of Mind Training Teaching given at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi December 2003 Audio: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
As I told you yesterday, today I will be teaching on The Seven Points of Mind Training (Tib: Lojong Tin tindma). The lineage of this teaching was transmitted to Tibet by the great Indian master Atisha Dipankar who received it from his master who is known in Tibetan as Chowo Serling Pa. Many historians claim that Chowo Serling Pa is the master who is involved and responsible for the building of Boru Bodur, the great stupa, in Indonesia. These teachings of Serling Pa received by Atisha Dipankar were transmitted in Tibet in the Kadam Pa lineage. In Kadampa lineage Geshe Ton Pa wa and three of his great disciples, especially Potowa transmitted these teachings of Lo Jong wa. In our lineage these stood out as one of the main practices during the times of The First Jamgong Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, who made extensive commentaries on these teachings. The seven points can be described as seven chapters of this text and are concerned with the practice of Bodhicitta. In the definition of Lo Jong, Lo Jong means that our mind which is stained and defiled by ignorance, attachment, anger and jealousy, its essence is stainless. Through the method of practice of Lo Jong its stainlessness is revealed; the stains or obscurations are purified and removed. When you say you purify something, that naturally means that something in there is pure, otherwise it cannot be purified. So it is the pure essence of Bodhicitta, which we call ultimate Bodhicitta that is purified through the method and practice of relative Bodhicitta. So relative Bodhicitta is the method to purify, and what becomes pure and stainless through the practice, is the Ultimate Bodhicitta. Ultimate Bodhicitta is the goal of the practice of relative Bodhicitta as well as the foundation and the ground of the practice of the relative Bodhicitta. I will give you an example. You have a dirty cloth to wash and you know that there exist a clean cloth in that dirty cloth; the stain, the ink, the ketchup etc. that are there in the form of dirt, are relative. So you know that there is a clean cloth in that dirty cloth, so you apply soap and water to clean it. After cleaning it again and again the clean clothes are revealed. If the clothes were totally dirty then you cannot clean it. For example, if you have a bowl of ink and you try to clean it, until the end you will not reveal anything. But if the bowl of ink had a diamond in the middle then when you cleaned it, it would come out of the ink and the diamond would reveal. Similarly, all of us have so much ink around us, so much dirt around us and so much grease around us that we don’t even look like ourselves. But with some strong hose and soap and a brush we can help to reveal the true nature of ourselves. So this is what Lo Jong means, you don’t have to alter your thinking. To alter your thinking is like brainwashing. So it is not. If we purify our perception, then the true essence will reveal. Not by altering or training. So mind training though a correct a translation literally, does not convey the meaning properly. You cannot train somebody to be Buddha, you cannot train someone to be Bodhisattva, you cannot have crash course, so you can talk like a Bodhisattva, walk like a Bodhisattva, look like Bodhisattva and think like Bodhisattva; you don't become a Bodhisattva that way. Training is a good word but as a practitioner it is not a correct word. You can train a marine so that he is very efficient for a short period of time, but afterwards he will have a worse knee than anybody else, worse elbow than anybody else, worse neck than anybody else, because of overuse and exercise for a short term specific purpose. So old marines have to go through lots of physiotherapy and the physiotherapy business will bloom where there are many old marines. You have to fix their oversized muscles and overstrained joints. You have to make it loose and everything work. So training is okay, but I'm always uncomfortable. People even write in my introduction that I was trained in certain monasteries and by certain masters, I accept it, but it is a very funny thing to say. It is not training; it is a learning, transmission, practice and purification, that is, how it is. Once somebody asked me very sincerely and politely “How many years of training does it take for you to train and become a Rinpoche and what are the trainings that you have got?” It is not exactly like that. Having said that I will still use the word training because so many people have translated it like that, so many books have written about it, so I will use it and you must understand that you cannot train somebody to become a Buddha. Now the seven points I will go through briefly first. They are the seven chapters:
1. The preliminary practice of a Bodhisattva a) Aspiration Bodhicitta and Actual Bodhicitta c) The second part of the preliminary practice (Shinay)
2. The main practice of a Bodhisattva a) Relative Bodhicitta (Tong Len) 1. Beginning part of meditation (Refuge, Bodhicitta, Seven Branch Prayer) 3. The conclusion of meditation (Dedication)
3. How a Bodhisattva should transform the negative conditions to positive conditions 1. Thought 2. Action
4. Summarizing the practice, making a guideline for whole life's practice (Five Strengths) 2. At death
5. Assessment of the success of the practice of Mind Training
6. Don’t s of the Bodhisattva practitioner
7. Do’s of a Bodhisattva practitioner
The last two are very difficult to separate, because both will end being the same thing as if you do one thing then you don’t do the other which is the opposite, so these two chapters are in a way same and emphasize the same things in a certain manner. The 6th and 7th chapter are pretty much the same thing but in this text they are taught separately by making it very clear and emphasizing it in a certain way. The seven points are very simple and clear, very complete seven chapters. Now we go into some details, as I hope to complete this teaching today, we cannot go into full details but enough, so that we don’t leave any important and crucial points out.
1. The Preliminary Practice a) Aspiration Bodhicitta and Actual Bodhicitta Now the first point, which is the preliminary of the Lojong practice. First of all one should have the aspiration Bodhicitta and the actual Bodhisattva vow. This is number one step. Aspiration Bodhicitta is wishing to practice the Bodhisattva’s way and wishing to attain Buddhahood, but the second is actually engaging in it now and completely dedicating oneself to it. So in our lineage these to vows are received separately or sometimes they are received together. It is like the first one was saying: “I'd like to go to moon,” that is the aspiration. The second is actually wearing your space suit and sitting in the space shuttle and pushing the start button now. A minute later a half of your face is left behind and half of your face is going forwards (laughs). So these are the differences. In Bodhisattva acharya avatar by Shantideva he says: Dowar detang do wa ie Chidar zhit it shepar jin All aspiration Bodhicitta is like wishing to go somewhere And the actual Bodhicitta is actually going there. When to you go to moon you cannot walk, you are strapped tightly to the seat it is different way of going, so the aspiration Bodhicitta and the actual Bodhisattva vow one has to take. Aspiration Bodhicitta and the actual Bodhisattva vow are many, but the basic is one: not to exclude any sentient being from your Bodhicitta. For example, if somebody is so bad to you so that they will chop you in pieces and kill you, you will be angry and upset with them, but if you have any chance to make them a Buddha right now. you will do it without hesitation. You cannot say that I will not make you a Buddha, because you cut me into pieces. If you say that, you break your Bodhisattva vow. It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t scream, you wouldn’t shout, you wouldn’t kick and you wouldn’t push or try to push and run away, it doesn’t mean you cannot do all those thing. You can do all of that, but you cannot exclude that person from your sacred vow of attaining Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient being. You have to include that person like everybody else; the person who has been most kind to you, who is most dear to you and this worst person you put together. If this worst person has a chance to become a Buddha now, and the person who is most dear to you has no chance now, then you have to help this worst one first. You cannot say that “oh, he can be Buddha now but I am not going to do that because he was nasty to me and I am going to find a way to make this my dear one a Buddha first.” You cannot have a divine corruption, so that is the main vow of the aspiration Bodhicitta. The actual practice of Bodhicitta involves all the other vows and I think the practice of Six Paramitas will somehow cover all of them. b) The Four Thoughts Then at the same time, as a practice the basic contemplation of the Four Preliminaries have to be genuinely cultivated. These you all know: 1. Precious Human Life 2. Death and Impermanence 3. Karma Cause and Effect 4. Suffering of Samsara
1. Precious human life Precious human life is a very important thing to contemplate. We all have precious human life but we take it for granted, so we dismiss and overlook the basic privileges and potentials that we have right now here with us. So appreciating what we are, appreciating what we have is the number one thing. Precious human life is a very important thing to contemplate. Some people tell me “How can you say precious human life, when everyday the human population is increasing and there are over 5 billion people on the plane earth.” I told the person you should listen to me very carefully I said precious human life; I did not say human life. Precious human life means that there are 18 qualities that define that you have precious human life, we should contemplate on each of them, we do not have time to elaborate on each of them here, but these can be read in books such as “Torch of Certainty”. It is very clearly written there, so you contemplate them one by one, and if you find out that you have all those 18 qualities, then your life is precious human life. If one or two or three of them are missing then you contemplate on them and acquire them. And you make your human life precious human life. Precious, of course every life is precious not only human. Every life is precious and every one should be allowed to live happily and all of that, but this definition of precious human life has got nothing to do with that. It means precious in the sense that you have all the conditions that allow you and will be conducive to follow the path and attain Buddhahood in this lifetime, if you totally utilize all the 18 qualities that you have. So in this respect it is defined as precious human life, otherwise even those who don’t have all the qualities say only 9, they are also precious, too, not in any way less, but then they have to develop or substitute one way or another the missing part of the preciousness of the missing qualities, which were described in the Torch of Certainty. Once we find out that we have a precious human life then we appreciate it and are very grateful, and we are very euphoric about it, but that doesn’t help, because we have to know the impermanence of death.
2. Death and Impermanence
How precious or how great the things that we have, we can lose it like that in a snap. All the doctors, all the physicists, all the scientist put together can check you from head to toe, but they cannot say for 100 percent sure that you will be alive tomorrow and sign a paper to guarantee that. They cannot do that. They can say that you may not die from a lung or heart failure, if it is not natural lung or heart failure, but they have to add an 'if'. If they have to pay a fine or are liable to prosecution then they will never sign a paper for sure. So anything can happen to any one of us at any time and we can lose our precious human life like that. It is impermanent.
Everything is impermanent, but we are talking about precious human life. This is also impermanent. I don’t know if I will walk out of this room alive for sure, I don’t know. I don’t know if I will wake up tomorrow morning alive for sure, I don’t know. But I presume that I will, because I walked into this room and out of it many times. So I presume, but don’t know, for sure. So death and impermanence are there all the time. Life and death is like form and shadow, they are always together inseparable. So knowing the impermanence is the second thing.
After knowing the impermanence of death then you have to know the next thing (Ed: Karma Cause & Result). Many people commit suicide when they have a little problem (they think it big problem); they jump off the window, jump into the subway, hang themselves, take an overdose of drugs or sleeping pills, … so many people don’t mind dying and many of them intentionally cause their own death. It happens all over the world in every society. So you have to know the next thing: Karma Cause and Result. 3. Karma Cause & Result Because – even if we are dead, it is not the end. It is the beginning, because our past Karma Cause and Result brought us here and our present Karma Cause and Result will take us into the future, so I have a 50 million dollar debt and to avoid that I jump off the window. Of course I don’t have to pay the 50 million dollar because they cannot get me. But I have to pay 50 million 3 - 4 times more in my next life. So that way I am worse than before in my next life. So we must understand Karma Cause and Result, and when something wonderful happens to us then we should be grateful. And grateful to whom? – Grateful to everybody, because if it is not for everybody how are you going to accumulate good Karma? If you were the only one person floating in space, how are you going to accumulate good karma? If there is nobody else in the whole universe to whom you have compassion, to whom you have devotion, or who you can be patient with or be generous with? – Of course it is possible that that you are in a certain meditative state and you accumulate merit and wisdom somewhere there, but besides that, really, it is only due to everybody else that we are able to accumulate merit. And as a result of our merit we have the precious human life. On the other hand it is only due to us that we have done not so good things to others, and as a result of that we have bad karma. So this way karma, cause and result are the next very important things. Ending my life now does not mean that my karma will end, it continues. People make such a big deal about immortality; doctors and scientist try to make medicines that will make you live 100, 200 or 300 years. New knees, new eyes, new brain, new heart, new lungs, new kidneys, and most difficult new liver! It is very difficult to make a heart already, but they can't find out how to make a new liver. It will be great achievement when they manage to make one. All these things they try and spend hundreds of months on this, by thousands of researchers and scientists, and millions of dollars on this, trying to make life one year longer, 10 years longer, 100 years longer, and their ultimate goal I something like immortality. Some people die and their heads are put right away in a head bank inside chemical so that they can be revived later in the future. Even some people do it for their pets so they pay rent every year for the service and one day they want to revive them. All of this is such a big deal. If you look at Karma Cause and Result carefully then all of us are immortal. Everybody is immortal. Only our body is mortal. Our mind is immortal, it never died. It never was born, it never was a child. It never was a teenager, it never was grown up, and it never was old. It never died, it never was born. The mind is beyond all those limitations. The mind is immortal. We are immortal. We don't have to worry too much about creating ten more years, but we are billions and countless of eons old and we will be there forever. And we want to be there forever as what we are, not how we appear to be. What we are is Buddha. We have limitless potential for freedom and liberation, and what we want to manifest forever with that full potential. We don't want to go around forever with this limited, struggling, searching full of ups and down kind of a life. We don’t want that. 4. Suffering of Samsara Therefore, after knowing Karma Cause and Result suffering of Samsara is the next thing to know. Because even if we create a good karma it does not mean that we will be free from suffering. I will give you an example. Good karma makes you rich, makes you powerful, and makes you famous. But do you actually think that being rich, being famous and being powerful is happy, comfortable, joyful and nice?? Do you think so?? I don’t think so, because if you have 10 elephants then you have to feed those elephants and six hours later you have clean those 10 elephants and then again feed them immediately. So being very rich does not mean that you enjoy and have no suffering. The more you have, the more you can lose. So think of the worry of losing what you have. If I don’t keep a track of my finances then a single mistake can make me lose hundred million dollars. Because I have 5 billion dollars… no I don’t have that (laughs). Many people are multibillionaires, some people are on paper worth 30 billion, 50 billion, that means 30000 millions. If they make one small mistake, over sleep, don’t attend to a single phone call, give one wrong instruction, they lose 2 hundred million or 3 million dollars; so how much discipline you have to have and how hard you have to work and how much stress and pressure is there you just imagine. I have a few friends who have millions of dollars but for them to spend right now in hand they have nothing. They are below zero. Multi million dollars and yet below zero because everything is tied up and on top that everything is loaned, so they are worth thousand million but in reality they are thousand million of dollars below zero. If you have 10 thousand dollar in your pocket, then you can spend, but these people cannot as they have to look into their whole system and make their budget and look into details I am going to spend here and for this and my cash flow will not be disturbed and my accountants will know exactly where everything is, so the law will not catch me etc. It’s an enormous task and so that way being rich is also a lot of suffering. Being powerful is even worse, because how much power you have that much responsibility you have. You cannot have power without responsibility. How many people respect you, you have responsibility to each and every one them. If you don’t fulfill it, then what happens? We can count, our ten fingers are not enough to count the number of powerful people that rise and fall each week in the world. One week is only seven days but ten fingers are not enough to count how many people rose and fell. Higher you climb or higher you fly the harder you can fall. Because the distance between up there and the normal down here gets further. So the more powerful you are, that much pressure and responsibility you have. There is also another side to power, because so many people will be nice to you for their own sake. They are not really nice to you, but they are nice to you because they want to get something from you. So if you are not mature, then you really think they are nice to you, and do things that fall back on you and you'll fall flat on your belly bringing everything that is inside outside. So being powerful is also a lot of suffering. Being famous is also a lot of suffering. To be famous, is one thing, but to keep up the fame is very difficult. Because when you are famous, people who have nothing to do with you have opinions about you! Yes. You don’t know them but they know you, so you have enemies who have nothing to do with you, you have friends who have nothing to do with you, it will be very confusing. Famous people are suffering from this. When you are famous then what next? To become infamous. Very few famous people are able to keep up being famous, remain famous and die famous. So in this way the result of good karma, good health, money, power, and fame all of these things are still a lot suffering. Result of bad karma is definitely suffering. Those people who have nothing to eat, nothing to wear, no friends, are being abused, all are suffering. Some people are used like a door mat, some people are used like an oven to cook food, some people are used like a broom to do cleaning all these are the result of bad karma and are full of suffering. As long as we are in Samsara, no matter what or who we, whether we are rich or poor, famous or nobody, whether we are powerful or powerless, nobody is exempt from suffering. We have a saying in Tibetan: A king cries on the golden throne in the palace, A beggar cries under a tree on a bed of stones But the tears are the same. Similarly the suffering is the same for all everybody. Therefore after knowing the karma cause and result we have to know about the Samsara, otherwise we just become again servant and slave of our good karma. Just trying to do good karma to be luckier, to be richer, and to be more powerful, will not end the suffering of Samsara. This way we have to know the suffering of Samsara, therefore we have to be free from all aspects of sufferings of Samsara. Therefore for this the contemplation of the four preliminary practices is very important and it is there in every aspect of Buddhism especially in the Vajrayana practice and also in the practice of Lo Jong which is a Mahayana practice, a bodhisattva practice. That is the first part of the preliminaries.
c) The second part of the preliminary practice (Shinay) As a result of the contemplation on the Four Preliminary Practices, you realize that no matter how much we improve our external conditions, if we don’t cultivate and mature our inner being, then outer conditions, how much we improve, cannot help us to overcome the suffering of Samsara. Gadgets, we have all kinds of them, they can help us to overcome the suffering of Samsara. Of course the old ways of boiling a pot of water on fire is a lot hard work and nowadays we just put a plug into the socket and we have boiling water and our hands are clean there is no mess no dirty hands or pans. But it does not help you to overcome the suffering of Samsara. You might find somebody dying of an overdose of drugs on a beautiful bed in a big mansion with all kinds of gadgets around them and at the same time somebody with ten kids living in the slum cooking the food with fire with hands and feet dirty, clothes dirty, is still laughing and playing with the kids. So gadgets wouldn’t make much difference (to the suffering of the person) vis à vis also, but gadget wouldn’t make any difference. That way we have to know that the development and maturity of our inner being is the most important. I am not against gadgets, this is also a gadget (pointing to the mike) these gadgets help me, otherwise I have to shout. Well, I shout anyway, why? Because since I was teenager I have been teaching and giving speeches with no mikes, so it became a habit. Wherever I'm teaching it doesn't matter so much whether I have a mike or not unless it is a very big audience. Finally we come to a conclusion that most important thing is inner development, and that is what Bodhicitta, mind training is all about. We should not be against the outer development, these help, gadgets help, cars help, otherwise I have to walk from my place to here, I will probably reach here tomorrow, if I ride a horse then I have 5 - 6 people and each of them need a horse and then on the way we have to stop, cook our food, we have to have few pack horses also and a tent and all of that, and in that case there might be robbers waiting in the bushes, so I need some guards with weapons to protect me, it all becomes so complicated. Now just sitting in the car and driving and traffic police will take care of you, sometimes of course there are horns blowing but that’s also nice, it’s like music and you get here in time… almost in time. So in that way we are not against outer things but we must know, that they do not prevent us from suffering, they are just gadgets and that’s all. Then at the end of this chapter we have the practice of shinay (Sanskrit: shamatha). This very important, because shinay is also a preliminary practice in the Seven Points of Mind Training. Shamatha means to use a layman’s language, to calm down. Shamatha means our mind is totally influenced by everything that is happening, so through methods, such as breathing practice we are able to calm down so all those thoughts, those emotions and memories that really make you mixed up, temporarily calm down. So you are able to remain in peace and harmony, temporarily – that is shamatha. This is a very important part of the preliminary practice, without a good state of shamatha it is very hard to practice anything efficiently. Shamatha methods are many, but the most commonly used method is breathing. Because if we are able to breathe evenly, quietly and concentrate on our breathing then that somehow is very convenient and efficient; we breathe anyway. When we are calm then we breathe calmly, when we are not calm then our breath is also not very calm. Angry people can hardly talk, when they talk their breath is very short they cannot finish a sentence nicely and the whole system is distorted. It is the same way with every aspect of emotion, when you are influenced by any aspect of emotion, defilement, you become like that. For example, when you are jealous, your breath changes, your face changes and no matter how hard you try, people can see that you are jealous. When you are angry, no matter how hard you try, people see that you are angry. When you are proud, no matter how you try, people see that you are proud. Straight face, you know. If you have complexes, inferiority or superiority complexes, they show in your voice, on your face and you really cannot hide them. But when you are in that state, if you are able to do shinay, then you calm down. And all of these reactions, although they are nothing – you might be angry, you might be jealous or proud – but you may not act upon it. They are a defilement in itself, and now by doing shinay temporarily you get rid of them. Not permanently, only temporarily. Temporarily is good enough, because if you are able to pacify your small defilements, then slowly you will manage to pacify your little bigger defilements and then finally you will be able to pacify your big defilements. And at the same time you strengthen your little qualities and then quite significant qualities and then great qualities and potentials. So in this way shinay is extremely important practice for the foundation. For example, if you’re a businessman or woman, and you have a tremendous problem, you made a big mistake, you overslept or did not call back somebody or you gave the wrong instruction, then you start to worry. So now you want to fix it. If you go crazy about the problem and try to fix it like this, it wouldn't happen. You have to calm down and relax and then you will be able to handle your mistakes. So this way shinay is considered a preliminary practice in the Seven Points of Mind Training. That somewhat covers the first chapter, few things I haven’t covered yet, but these will also be repeated in the subsequent chapters. Now the second chapter that is the Main practice.
2. The Main Practice of a Bodhisattva a) Relative Bodhicitta (Tong Len) The Main Practice is the practice of Relative Bodhicitta and Ultimate Bodhicitta. These are the two parts of the second chapter. Relative Bodhicitta is practiced many ways but one of them is known as Tong Len. Tong Len is a specific terminology that comes in the Mind Training Bodhisattva practices. It comes in many other practices as well but it is most outstanding in the Seven Point of Mind Training. Tong means to give, to send, let go; Len means to take, receive [– H.E. does the action of giving the hand s going outward from the body towards the audience and back to his heart to explain this Tong and Len]. Somebody is Tong and somebody is Len. So Tong is to send and Len is to take. Now here, the practice can of course be done in many ways, but one of the ways it is done is like this: First you sit comfortably and do a good shinay meditation, perhaps a breathing shinay meditation. Then when you are calm, when your body and mind are calm, you visualize your most dear ones, perhaps your parents in front of you, surrounded by all other friends, relatives and all other sentient being including your enemies around them. That is one way, another way is: first you do with the dearest one, then you do with the others. Nevertheless what you are doing is this: as you breathing out you are giving away all of your good karmas, all good qualities, all wisdom and all the positive energy that you have to them. It is easy to feel that way, when you breathe out you are giving out these to them. Make them free from suffering, make them happy. And when you breathe in then you breathe in all their suffering, their pain, their bad karma, everything that they don’t like and don't want. You breathe it in and absorb it, you dissolve it. You do this accompanied by your breathing and this is known as Tong Len. Tong Len with breathing is a very simple basic beginning practice, but Tong Len does not always have to be through breathing, it can be just sending away, giving away, dedicating all of my goodness all of my positive-ness to all sentient beings to liberate them and purify them of all their suffering and negativities. Also if you are sick, when you have a problem, then you take that as your taking the suffering of all sentient being. You think that may this suffering of mine take care of the suffering of others, may this suffering become the purifier of the others suffering. And another aspect is when something wonderful and nice happens to you, something joyful, then you dedicate that to others, send it to everyone and wish that may everybody be happy. In India we do one thing whenever there is holidays or something nice that happens, we distribute mithai (Sweets) to everyone. At least you make your mouth sweet. Please take some. This is like sharing your happiness with all the passer-byes and strangers. In those special days when I am traveling towards my monastery, dozens of times people will stop me on the way – not just me but anybody – they have tents put up and food inside, all kind of juices and water, and they will insist that you stop there and have a meal. So if you are polite and stop everywhere, then you will probably have around 20 meals in a single day! Not always but special holidays and seasons people do that. Especially in Punjab part they do that a lot. I am not saying that they are doing Tong Len, but Tong Len is a little bit like that. When you have good things then you are sharing that with others. This is another aspect of practicing Relative Bodhicitta. Also Relative Bodhicitta practice can also be done in visualization and also in your dedication. You think of yourself as a wish fulfilling gem, or you think of yourself as a medicinal plant, you think of yourself as a river. You know a river, it quenches the thirst of everybody on its bank, and it cleans the dirty clothes of everybody on the bank. It becomes the home to many fishes, frogs and all kind of animals. It provides electricity for big cities, and it provides pleasure to people by providing them a place to boat and relax after weeks of hard work. So all of these things are like Buddha’s manifestation, so you manifest as a river, as light, as a medicine. All of these are another aspect of Relative Bodhicitta practice. We also envision ourselves as the vehicle of all the great Bodhisattvas to fulfill their activities. This is also very sacred way as this involves devotion, it involves less ego. May I be the vehicle of White and Green Tara, the 21 Taras, to liberate sentient beings from the Samsara. May I be the vehicle of Manjusri to provide the wisdom to others; May I be the vehicle of Avalokiteshvara to provide compassion to others; May I be the vehicle of Medicine Buddha to provide health to others etc. So this is another way of practicing Relative Bodhicitta. The difference between Relative and Ultimate Bodhicitta is very simple. Ultimate Bodhicitta is non-dualistic and Relative Bodhicitta is dualistic. Dualistic means that I do something for others; May I take others suffering, may I give my happiness, this is dualistic, so that is Relative Bodhicitta. As a practice how you practice Relative Bodhicitta, when you are not on your cushion, when are walking around doing your day to day activities, then you try to maintain and carry the perception and presence of the inner compassion, joy, impartiality and loving kindness to your day to day activities. For example when you hear somebody say something nasty to us, instead of saying “How dare he say such a thing” you think: "May this take care of the negative karma that I have with this person. I am sure that I have said something to him previously and as a result he is like this, so may this take care of that. When somebody does something nice to you, you think that this is the result of my doing something nice to this person and now he is returning it to me, so I appreciate it and I wish that the person also accumulate good karma by being nice to me, so that way this is not wasted as "Okay I have done something to you and now you something to me," but it becomes a great and sacred exchange and a relationship in itself. So all of this is post meditation Relative Bodhicitta.
b) Ultimate Bodhicitta The Ultimate Bodhicitta is actually meditation. But here in the Seven Points of Mind Training it is taught in two major stages. Meditation and post meditation, and meditation itself is taught in three stages: 1. Beginning part / preparation of meditation (Refuge, Bodhicitta, Seven Branch Prayer) 2. Actual meditation and finally 3. The conclusion of meditation. After that is post meditation. So there are the meditation and post meditation of Ultimate Bodhicitta. The meditation of the Ultimate Bodhicitta is in three parts, the beginning, the main and the conclusion. 1. Beginning of meditation When you sit down in your shrine or wherever there is proper space or environment, you say the refuge and bodhicitta and you visualize all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas above and around you. That is just our way of doing it, because all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are always there so everything is a part of the limitless manifestation of Buddha, everything. Nothing is a secret from them, but we in our dualistic and un-enlightened stage invite them by our invocations and they come round us and in front of us. That’s how we do it, for our sake but they are always there in and out above and around us all the time. Then we do some shinay practice, whichever method, such as breathing practice. After that we think and appreciate the Bodhicitta itself. Bodhicitta is like a sun that shows everything, it is like a river that cleans and quenches the thirst of everyone and everything. It is like the sky that provides the space for everything and for everyone and it is like a medicine which heals every aspect of suffering and pain. So we think and appreciate all the qualities of Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta in detail would be compassion, loving kindness, joy and impartiality and wishing to attain the limitless freedom for the limitless freedom of everyone which everyone seeks. And provide limitless happiness, joy and harmony to all sentient beings, which all sentient beings seek just like me. You will not find one sentient being in the whole universe who likes to suffer. You cannot find one sentient being in the whole universe that would not like to be happy. In that way it is a universal quest. So be it. Provide for it. And that is the Bodhicitta which provides. It is the greatest and limitless provider. So appreciate and recognize this. This is the beginning part. After this, if you know, you say the seven branch prayer:
The seven braches are: 1. Prostration, salutation 2. Offerings 3. Confession 4. Rejoicing 5. Requesting the Buddha to turn the Wheel of Dharma 6. Asking Buddha to live for the benefit of sentient beings 7. Dedication of merit of all the above. The first is easy to understand, bow down to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, second is us to make offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Third one is to confess all of our wrong doing whether we remember them or not and all the negativity that we have, to confess them. The fourth one is to appreciate all the wisdom and compassion of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas all the happiness of all the sentient beings, it is the opposite of jealousy. Jealousy is a very evil thing, you appreciate other people's suffering and dislike their happiness, so that is quite evil so the opposite of that Joy. The fifth one is requesting Buddhas to turn the Wheel of Dharma. And the sixth one is requesting Buddhas to live for the benefit of others, these two need some explanation. Buddha Shakyamuni said that enlightenment of Buddhahood is rare indeed, but countless sentient beings attain Buddhahood each moment. He gives an example: sentient beings that reach Buddhahood each moment cannot be equaled to the grains in the sand of the river Ganges from its source to the ocean. So river Ganges from its source to the ocean how many grains of sand will be there? In the bank and underneath – countless. In a moment (snaps fingers), in shortest time – countless beings. So he said enlightenment of sentient beings is very rare, but because beings are so numerous and the universes are so numerous, therefore, even if in a million universe or galaxies one sentient being attains Buddhahood in a million years, even then we cannot count them. Therefore the endless space is filled with countless universes each one filled with countless sentient beings of all kinds. That way even if it is so rare, every moment countless beings attain Buddhahood. And Buddhahood is the fully maturing and developing their ultimate and limitless potential, which manifest as limitless freedom, harmony and liberation. That is Buddhahood. So it is natural for sentient beings to attain Buddhahood because it is their potential. Of course in India Prince Siddhartha attained Buddhahood, and in Sanskrit we call him Buddha. So everybody uses Buddha and Tibetan use San-gye and everybody uses a word that is related to the original Sanskrit word. Buddhahood is not limited to that name and the image of Prince Siddhartha that we have. All the Buddhas may not look like him. Prince Siddhartha is the human being on planet Earth of this galaxy of this solar system, who attained Buddhahood here. So in this planet Earth human being have two hands, one head, two eyes, one nose with two holes, two ears, and hair on top and five fingers on each hand and 5 toes on each feet, two legs, two hands and one middle body trunk and they walk straight. So he is the perfect image of that kind of human being, in another universe the human being can be totally different, form can be totally different, and when that being attains Buddhahood will not look like Buddha Shakyamuni, will not look like Prince Siddhartha, but will look exactly like them but in their manifestation whatever they consider to be perfect, the best and most majestic. In that way Buddha does not mean only Prince Siddhartha but it means a being that attain that level of perfection and ultimate liberation. That is the Buddha. Therefore, if we sincerely request every Buddha who attains Buddhahood, right now to turn the wheel of Dharma, then it is same as the King of Gods [Brahma] who came down from heaven and sat in front of Buddha and offered him a conch shell and the other one [Indra] who offered him the Dharma chakra (golden wheel with thousand spokes) and the two deers which came from the forest, unicorn deers, and sat next to him, and then Buddha turned the First Wheel of Dharma, the first teaching, the Four Noble Truth in Varanasi. That is also the logo of our lineage, the dharmachakra with two deers. So if we sincerely request all the countless Buddhas, who attained enlightenment right now, to turn the Wheel of Dharma, it is same as the King of Gods came down and asked Prince Siddharta, the Lord Buddha to turn the Wheel of Dharma in Varanasi. Time and distance do not make any difference, but of course, it cannot be exactly the same because we know we are here, we are dualistic and not enlightened; we don't see any Buddha in front of us. We visualize and say: "Please turn the Wheel of Dharma." It is not exactly same as what happened to them, but it will be similar. Another thing is: that many Buddhas as there are, are also about to enter parinirvana (to use simple language – about to die), because when the time for karma for beings to see the Buddha's Nirmanakaya [finishes], then Buddha's Nirmanakaya enters into parinirvana. That is the death of the Buddha. Prince Siddharta as Buddha Sakyamuni died at the age of 81. That many Buddhas as there are to attain enlightenment are dying also. We request them to live longer to benefit sentient beings and help sentient beings and give them an opportunity to see the Buddha living. So that is the requesting Buddha to turn the Wheel of Dharma and requesting Buddha to live. These are the 5th and the 6th branches of the Seven Branch Prayer. The last one is dedicating the merit of all the above and all the other merit and wisdom that we have for the benefit of all sentient beings to reach Buddhahood. So that is the Seven Branch Prayer, the beginning part of the Bodhicitta practice. Ultimate Bodhicitta practice has three parts: the beginning, main part and conclusion. I have now completed out of the Seven Points of Mind Training the first part and the beginning of the second part until the actual practice of the Ultimate Bodhicitta. Let us dedicate the merit for the benefit of all sentient beings.
2. Actual meditation practice of Ultimate Bodhicitta Out of seven points of mind training we have completed the first and second, the Relative Bodhicitta practice and post meditation, and we completed the beginning part of the Ultimate Bodhicitta. Now the second, the actual practice. Again here there are many ways of practice of Lojong, to practice Ultimate Bodhicitta, and this is one of them. When your preliminary is complete and you are supposed to have reached quite calm abiding state of mind, in that state you dissolve everything into emptiness. All the objects, everything outside of you is like a dream and they all are nothing more than how your mind perceives. Also the mind that perceives them does not have a solid tangible reality. Not only that, for example, now, let's say my mind, the now, what is now? If you think of the shortest time, the shortest time must have a part that is close to the previous shortest time and a part that is close to the future shortest time. The part that is in the middle, which is not closest to the previous shortest time and the future shortest time, has to be the now. But that we cannot find, therefore in the dualistic context also we cannot find the mind. This way outside (the object) and inside (mind), which is the subject, both do not exist, both are empty. But then, it is there, it doesn’t exist but it is there. It can only be there above the dualistic existence, because in dualistic existence you cannot find true substance in anything. All the objects are molecules that combine in a certain way to form objects and the molecules are supposed to be the smallest aspect of reality. But this smallest aspect cannot exist without having six sides to it. Because an object is attached from six sides (Editor: think a cube – an object in the middle and having the six sides of a cube as its imaginary six sides, thus total there are seven including the object and its sides) one have to attach and thus becomes seven like in a cube. If something is attached to it, that way it should get bigger and bigger. But if something has six sides it is not the smallest, so you have to cut it into six pieces, but then those six pieces have six sides to them! So how much you cut and how much you make it smaller it can go on being smaller and smaller forever. All of this is made out of that, which really doesn’t exist. And the mind is superficially like a river; you go to the river Ganges you dip in it and come and say "I bathed in river Ganges"" and tomorrow you do the same and say I bathed in the river Ganges." But yesterday’s river Ganges is already in the ocean. You cannot bathe in the same river Ganges. You look at a lamp and see it burn, the shape of the flame is the same but it doesn’t stay there even for a split second, it keeps on burning, that way time is relative. What is the present moment? If we try to find the present moment, it is just like the molecule. It has to have two sides to it, one side close to the past and one side close to the future and in the middle a part that is not close to either one of them. This way even the shortest time doesn’t exist, so all the time all the reality is absolutely baseless, but it is here. Therefore, as a practitioner of Mahayana, as a practitioner of Lo Jong, the aim of practice of Ultimate Bodhicitta is to remain in the non-dualistic state. So philosophically and scientifically we can prove that nothing is here. But it doesn’t help. So what? Nothing is here, but when something nice happens I am happy, when something not so nice happen I am upset, so “nothing is here” doesn’t help me. Therefore the core of the whole thing is the non-dualistic state of mind, which is above and beyond something and nothing. If you ask yourself: "Is my mind something?" You cannot point to it, you cannot grasp it. If you ask yourself “Is my mind nothing?” Definitely not. Your mind is asking questions about itself “Is my mind something” who asks that, your mind asks that. So, if it is nothing, how can that question come about, and who is asking that question? And when you come to a conclusion that my mind is nothing, who says that? Who came to that conclusion? Who understands that? Therefore it is not nothing, it is not something, it is above and beyond nothing and something. That is the Ultimate Bodhicitta. We call it free of three circles. In Tibetan we say khor sum lambar mitopa. So it is free of thought, of the three circles: 1. Circle of object 2. Circle of subject 3. And the circle of interaction between the subject and object. For example, paramita means to reach beyond. But to reach beyond means what? For example with Generosity Paramita what is it suppose to mean? Does it mean that you have to make everybody rich? Does that mean that you have to spend everything you have got? What is Generosity Paramita supposed to mean? Generosity Paramita means a state that when you reach beyond you as a giver and the other to whom you give and what transpires between, when you reach beyond that, then that is Generosity Paramita. So the non-duality between you as the giver and to whom you give and the action itself, free of these three circles is the definition of paramita. Generosity Paramita, Morality Paramita, Diligence Paramita, and Wisdom Paramita, all of these mean this. So now the Ultimate emptiness and Ultimate Bodhicitta is the same thing. Ultimate emptiness in Tibetan we call it dön dam tong nyi. Dön dam means ultimate, tong nyi means emptiness, and Ultimate Bodhicitta in Tibetan is dön dam chang chup sem or dön dam chang chup chi sem, it is the same thing. So first you dissolve all the reality into emptiness and then you dissolve yourself into emptiness and then what remains there is the limitless non-dualistic state of being what is left there, and you stay in that state for as long as you can. This is called the practice of Ultimate Bodhicitta. Now, shall we try to meditate on this for few seconds? First relax. – Physically and mentally you relax. – Don't try to stop your thoughts and don't follow them. Just let them come, let them go. [Meditation.] Now reach relatively calm-abiding state and maintain that state, that awareness. [Meditation.] In this state everything is in absolute harmony. –Sounds are just like echoes, images are just like a dream. – Continuous state of awareness of the present. In this kind of short time this is as close as we can get to our ultimate don-dualistic state, just a glimpse of it, a taste of it. Of course we don't want to come out of it but you have to come out of it. So Ultimate Bodhicitta means the ultimate essence of bodhi within each one of us. In this very brief simple meditation we can somehow feel relaxed, comfortable, in harmony, as there is no problem anywhere, as everything is perfect, as everything is in harmony, and this is a very good feeling, but of course still being dualistic. We are seeing a little piece of the puzzle of the entire limitlessness. It is like seeing the space which is left in my glass here and through it we know there is limitless space out there which has no centre no end, no beginning and no end whatsoever. So our mind is just like that. There is no beginning, no end, there is no centre, no edge, it is all pervading and to realize that is the purpose of Ultimate Bodhicitta practice and also is the definition of it. Of course, when we practice in the beginning it is advisable to do short sessions and repeat it often rather one long session. But as you progress you can have fewer session and longer sessions. That way you will progress. Of course it depends on the individual, but many times the beginners like the state of calm abiding very much. It is better than any kind of relaxant that we take today. If we get into that too much in the beginning and it becomes just for that, then it is not really an Ultimate Bodhicitta practice but it is stress management. So we are not doing calm abiding meditation for our stress management. We are practicing calm-abiding meditation and on top of that Ultimate Bodhicitta meditation to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings to attain Buddhahood. Therefore it has to be truly and sincerely progressive, and not for feeling good only. We feel good, that’s just a bonus, we are allowed to feel good, there is nothing wrong about that, but if we are doing our meditation only for a comfortable feeling, like I can describe: from my head to my toes I feel there is nothing, no sickness or disease, no discomfort, everything is absolutely perfect, even I have a cold, in that state I feel perfect. It's like swimming in an ocean of honey, something like that. Perfect. But if we get attached to it then we are back to square one. Meditation becomes like a daily dose of relaxants. That should not become the case. So for beginners short sessions and each time refuge and Bodhicitta in the beginning and dedication at the end reminds us why we are doing this. We can get lost in bad things, but we can get lost in good things also. We shouldn’t get lost anywhere, not even in good things. So remember to have short sessions and repeat them often. And later when we are more advanced and we don’t have the danger of getting lost in it, then we can prolong our sessions. Also when people meditate there are two kinds of people. Some people when they meditate and they fall asleep, others cannot calm down. I will not worry at all about those who fall asleep, for me that’s very good news, because you know how to relax. But when people meditate and become the opposite of sleepiness, then I worry, because that means the persons doesn’t know how to relax. Then the meditation can have adverse effect. The people who fall asleep when they meditate will never go crazy due to meditation, but the others, if they do not have proper guidance then there is a chance that they will have mental problem, because they cannot calm down and then it is possible to have problems. So the most important thing about meditation is relaxing. You don’t meditate vigorously. Of course in certain tantric meditation we have to meditate vigorously, breathing and exercise, but that comes later and with a different technique, but practice like this, the basic is relaxing, not vigorous but calm-abiding. Concentration here is not like that of a fighter pilot flying only two thousand feet above ground, especially flying through mountains, you have to really concentrate, otherwise you will hit something and perish. We don't need that kind of concentration here. Here the concentration is just like you are looking at the sky and seeing the vastness of the sky; it is that kind of concentration. It is different. If you are able to do this, then your meditation will succeed. I have to say this because I know people who do lots of meditation and few of them become affected. It is important to relax first and reach a calm abiding state of mind and based on that you do the Ultimate Bodhicitta meditation. For those of you who fall asleep easily you can do one thing: open your eyes. That is one very ancient and original technique to not fall asleep! (Laughs) So open your eyes. Another thing is to look up, then it is harder to fall asleep. If you have too much thought then you close your eyes and bend your chin a little and that will help, because our body functions in many different levels and there are different functions of subtle aspects of body which makes us think one way or the other, and also our diet makes a big difference. For those of you who have a lot of thoughts and mind can't be at peace, can't relax, of course you should consult your doctor, I don't want to be responsible if anything happens to you these days, I have to be very careful; I might be liable, but generally speaking, eat little heavier food and make yourself little bit substantial, then you will be more grounded. And conversely for those who fall asleep, you cut down on those substantial foods and eat lightly and make yourself lighter, then it will help. And also it has something to do with blood pressure. People with high BP find it harder to relax and people with low BP people will fall asleep easily. So this too can be a cause and is opposite to heavy diet and light diet. Maybe you are very thin and fit and have high BP or thin and fit but have low BP or fat like me but have high BP or fat and have low BP. Even heavy people have low BP. Knowing all of this you should understand that if you fall asleep when you meditate, then it does not really mean that there is something wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you, you are perfect. But due to some environmental or physical condition, your meditation could sometimes be good or sometimes it may not be so good, sometimes the environment is more conducive, sometimes less conducive to your meditation. This kind of understanding is very helpful; no ghost is disturbing you and all that kind of thing. Actually it is very convenient whenever something goes wrong blame it on ghosts. On the other hand if something goes well then give the credit to almighty. That’s also good because there is no ego then, if it is bad it is ghosts and if it is good then the almighty, nothing to do with ego (laughs). Not true, not true. It’s very tricky. Ego is the smartest and the most impeccable thing and it always finds its way around anything so you always have to be aware of the games of the ego. All of us are very, very, very, very good at playing games with ourselves. So we have to play fewer games with ourselves.
3. Dedication Now the third point, which is the conclusion of the Ultimate Bodhicitta meditation: the dedication. We dedicate the merit of the meditation on the Ultimate Bodhicitta for the benefit of all sentient beings to realize the Ultimate Bodhicitta, the Buddhahood. This conclusion is always the same. The conclusion of every Buddhist practice is the dedication. And that is way we should conclude.
Post Meditation The post meditation of the Ultimate Bodhicitta is whatever state we manage to reach in our sitting meditation of the Ultimate Bodhicitta, we try to maintain some aspect of that state throughout our other activities. For example, you do your meditation in the morning, then you finish the meditation and do your regular things, go to work to your office or something, but try to maintain that state of perfect harmony. Automatically it will be very much related to the way you do things. For example, normally people do things in a stressful manner, but when we are in a calm abiding state; we can do the same thing without causing ourselves stress. When I put my spectacles down calmly like this and pick them up calmly like this, it is not stressful. But if I throw them wherever, they become dirty and I cannot see through them anymore and I must start cleaning them. So, lots of things I have to do. This way we try to maintain a calm abiding state and do things clearly with awareness and we will accomplish much more by doing much less and our daily activities become like a practice. Driving, talking, eating, anything you do, becomes practice. You know we eat breakfast everyday, but many times we do not know what we ate, we eat lunch, yet we do not know what we ate, we ate too much or too little, but if we are able to manage to maintain our calm abiding state of mind then we are able to taste every sip of our cup of tea nicely, every sip of the orange juice that we are drinking nicely, every slice of bread nicely, and we know what we are eating and enjoy it and it itself becomes a harmonious and healthy thing and in itself it will help us to progress. I will tell you one thing: there is nobody who knows how to drink a glass of water ultimately and perfectly until they reach Buddhahood. When I know how to drink my glass of water 100 percent ultimately and perfectly, I will become Buddha, until then I am drinking my glass of water everyday, but I am not doing it 100 percent correctly and ultimately and perfectly. That is the post meditation of the Ultimate Bodhicitta: we try to maintain the calm abiding state. Of course, we can pretend that but that does not help. "Everything is so holy and so sacred and so calm." But inside there is turmoil. Inside you should be able to maintain that state, it is not that easy; of course not. But we should know that it is important, and we should do it, then sometimes we manage and sometimes we don’t. It's okay. We have been in Samsara for countless lifetimes. And we are here quite okay, we are here and we all have a precious human life and do you think that in our past lives we have done some unbelievable things, some unimaginable things to get this precious human life this time? I don’t think so; there is no reason for me to think that in my past life I have done something unbelievable, something unimaginable and impossible and as a result I became human now. And you did the same. That is not true. We have done okay and as a result we are okay. But at the same time we have to know that all the good part and all the bad part that we have is coming from everything that we have done in the past. Karma is like this: The rain that fell in the ocean a million years ago, And the rain that fell in the ocean yesterday Is all there in the ocean. So karma is not like in the army that everything is lined up and cut and dry. It is like a vast space, like an ocean and the result manifests as the outcome of the forces of karma, which forces, which aspect of karma manifests now and later and all that. All of my countless past lifetimes’ karma is like an ocean of milk and I am the butter of that milk. So, each one of you is the butter of the ocean of karma that you have. This is how it works.
3. How a Bodhisattva should transform the negative conditions to positive conditions Transforming the negative circumstances as a path to liberation is taught here in two stages: 1. Thought 2. Action
1. Thought In Relative Bodhicitta when anything, any negative circumstances occurs to us, first we should know that it has everything to do with us. If anything bad happens to me, I should know that it has everything to do with me. Do you understand? If it had nothing to do with me then it would not happen to me. Of course somebody does that to me, we can say that, but it has everything to do with me finally. It does not mean that you should blame yourself, but you should know the core of the problem. If I have a problem then it has everything to do with me. I have everything to do with it. Knowing this whatever negative things happen to me, they do not become the cause and condition for more negativities. I will do my best to get rid of the problem, I will do my best to work out the problem, not get rid of it but work it out, or I will do my best to endure it. That depends on what kind of problem it is. How easy it is to solve, how difficult it is to solve, and it also depends on my capacity. Maybe I don’t have capacity to endure it, so I will have to solve it. Maybe I have the ability to endure it so I endure it or work it out. It’s like catching a cold. If I have the capacity to endure it, then I just sit there and drink lots of hot water, take no medicine and get rid of the cold, but if I don’t have capacity to endure that, because I have to talk to you, you have to hear me, then I take a lot of pills, so I can talk to you without running nose, without sneezing and coughing. So there are different ways to handle things a |
