LYWA Monthly e-letter Archive
No. 33: December 2005
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Dear Friends,
Welcome to our final e-letter for 2005 and our e-letter’s
3rd anniversary. We hope that you’ve had a good year
and that your 2006 will be meaningful as well. We really enjoy
what we do here at the Archive and thank all our kind and
generous supporters who make it possible for us to archive
the incredible teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche
for eternity and to make them available to everybody in the
world by putting them on our Web site and publishing them
in various other ways.
2005 was a good one, as we saw so many of our goals met for
the benefit of all…we sent tens of thousands of free
books out all over the world, added vast amounts of material—especially
audio—to
our Web site, started developing our photo
archive, launched our Lama
Yeshe DVD project in earnest, published the landmark Teachings
from Tibet, finished off a couple of other new books
(The Joy of Compassion and The Kindness of Others),
which will be printed in January, added just over one hundred
members and generally
received wonderful support from our major
and regular benefactors. On behalf of all sentient beings,
thank you so much. It is our privilege to be able to serve our
teachers, the Dharma and all living beings.
We can see that so many of you have visited our photo
archive, to which we've recently added many new pictures,
and which is growing all the time. Take a look to see more
pictures like the one above, which was taken of Lama Yeshe
at Vajrapani
Institute in 1983.
Newly posted to our public area is a series of teachings
given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New York City in 1998
at The
Spirit of Manjushri event. We have also added a teaching
by His Holiness to our Members'
Area which were given prior to the Kalachakra Initiation
in Barcelona, December 1994.
We continue to add material to Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Online
Advice Book. This month find new advices in the Family
and Relationship section under the topics "Parenting"
and "Schoolchildren", the Transitions
section topics "Helping a Dying Person" and "Prayers
for the Deceased", and a reproduction of a paid advertisement
Rinpoche wrote for a Sydney newspaper under the topic Euthanasia.
This month's podcast
is Lama Yeshe's talk on the transference of consciousness,
the transcript of which you've been reading in the last
two e-letters, and which is concluded below. We're planning
on making a DVD of this talk soon. You can find this one and
more on our Online
Teachings page. Also, we've just posted the transcript
of another series
of teachings given by Lama Yeshe on transference of consciousness
in March 1981 at Tushita
Retreat Centre, in Dharamsala, India.
Enjoy, and thank you again for your kindness, interest and
support.
Much love
Nick Ribush
Director
Transference of Consciousness at the Time of Death
(conclusion)
Even though it focuses on the mind, Tibetan Buddhism says
that the physical body is also a source of pleasure and pain.
And just as modern science now talks about pleasure and pain
centers in the brain and chemicals associated with pleasure,
Tibetan Buddhist tantra also describes a happiness, or bliss,
center. If we concentrate on that center we activate its energy,
which creates the conditions that energize the mind to experience
peace and bliss. Therefore, when we meditate on transference
of consciousness we use certain techniques that focus on or
activate the various chakras.
Signs of success in this practice include the generation
of inner heat, which itself has beneficial effects, such as
improved digestion. But there are many good results. For example,
we no longer feel stuck in the world of sense gravitation
attachment; we somehow feel that we have gone beyond, or transcended,
worldly life.
I’m not saying we should not enjoy our life; we should.
But if we feel trapped and find we have access to a means
of escape, we should definitely utilize whatever skills we
have to do so.
Of course, many people are afraid of death because first,
they think it’s going to be a disastrous experience
with much difficulty and suffering, and second, they think
that after death they’re going to find themselves in
a miserable situation; they project or presume that something
like that is going to happen.
In order to stop that kind of worry, even if we can’t
do transference of consciousness, we can at least try to diminish
our self-cherishing and attachment to our body and possessions
and generate loving kindness for others. That’s good
enough, absolutely good enough, to eradicate fear of death
and the next life; it guarantees a good rebirth because the
dedicated attitude itself is peaceful in nature. So that’s
the way those who have not mastered transference of consciousness
can eliminate fear of the next life and have a good death.
Once you have gained control over your mind there are many
things you can do. Not only can you transfer your consciousness
from your body but you can also direct it into another body.
Meditation and concentration are extremely powerful—using
the mind alone you can move objects, heat them up and so forth.
However, the main point is that through the power of mind
you can eradicate negative and emotionally disturbed minds.
That’s what practice is for. In other words, you can
change your mind—from misery into happiness.
The question is—do you want to or not? Are you truly
seeking happiness or not? If you’re a true seeker you’ll
know intuitively that somehow you can do something yourself.
That’s the power of the human mind. Don’t make
limited judgments of yourself. We all have good, positive
thoughts. These can be developed limitlessly. That’s
the beauty of the human mind; it has limitless potential.
For example, we all have a certain degree of loving kindness.
That small loving kindness can be developed infinitely. The
nature of loving kindness itself is peace and happiness; the
nature of self-cherishing is misery and confusion.
To have an easy, happy life you have to be willing to correct
your behavior and attitude and then make the effort to do
so. That means you have to have some mental fortitude based
on the conviction that you can do it. A weak mind eliminates
all potential.
The reason we feel trapped is because we’re so attached
to our body. We pretty much identify with our body: “This
is me.” The truth is that your body is not you; your
bones are not you. The true essence of the human being is
consciousness and it possesses neither shape nor color.
Thinking “I’m my body” is totally materialistic.
It’s a fundamentally wrong thought. What comes next
is, “My body is nice, I’m nice”; “My
body is horrible, I’m horrible”; “My body
is happy, I’m happy.” Those attitudes are wrong.
Your body can be hacked to pieces while your mind remains
blissful and tranquilly peaceful. It’s possible. That’s
the point. Your body can be sick but your mind can be completely
radiant and blissful. It’s possible.
So don’t think, “My body is me.” That’s
my point. Western people often can’t tell the difference
between the consciousness and the physical body. You should
understand it well.
Because of their strong identification with their body many
people find it difficult to conceive of life after death.
They think that because they are their body, when their body
burns out, so do they. “If my body has finished, where
could I possibly be?”
The thing is that Buddhism doesn’t say that you’re
permanently existent, nor does it say that you go to your
next life the way you are now. From the Buddhist point of
view, rebirth is the mind’s changing bodies, leaving
one and taking another.
This happens because we’re always grasping at something.
So when we die and are leaving this body we automatically
grasp for another one, which creates the conditions for our
mind to leave our present body for that of our next life.
Taking a new body is what Buddhism calls rebirth. We don’t
go into our next life in this body or as the person we are
now.
Sometimes it can even seem that in this life itself we take
many different bodies, different manifestations. Even in just
this life. Check out in detail your experiences of your body
at different stages of your life.
After death, your consciousness continues and carries with
it all your past experiences. If you understand that this
is what happens you’ll feel much more relaxed and less
pressured to squeeze as much as you possibly can into this
life, making yourself all busy and exhausted, thinking that
this is the only life you get. There’s no need to rush.
If you understand the power of the mind you’ll find
a way to satisfy yourself. It’s very important for all
of us to find a way to make our lives satisfied and content
rather than thinking that they’re empty and worthless.
We should feel that our life is more precious than all the
wealth in the world.
Knowing the characteristic nature of your own consciousness
is the way to bring peace to yourself and the world at large
because peace is your own inner experience, not something
derived from outside of you. The beauty of peace is something
that has to be experienced. With peace comes satisfaction.
You have to generate all this within you. Once you have you
have had this experience you can share it with others. That’s
the way to bring true peace to the world—first get it
yourself, then share it with others.
Grasping is the opposite of peace. You can see this in yourself
and in the world as well. Everything destructive comes from
grasping.
Lama Yeshe gave this teaching at St. John’s
Church, London, 18 September 1982. It was excerpted and edited
from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush. Listen
to this teaching at recordings.LamaYeshe.com.
We are in the process of producing a DVD of this teaching.
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