December 10, 2007

BUDDHA NATURE

[Rinpoche chants Praise to Shakyamuni Buddha in Tibetan]

Do not commit any unwholesome actions.
Engage in perfect, wholesome actions.
Subdue one’s own mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

This stanza shows the four noble truths, the very fundamental teaching of the Buddha. What it’s saying is that the root of all the karma and delusions and of all the sufferings of samsara is the ignorance not knowing the meaning of selflessness, the very nature of the ultimate reality of the I and the ultimate reality of the aggregates, the meaning of the selflessness of the person and the meaning of the selflessness of the aggregates. It is the mind unknowing of that.

As I mentioned at other times, the mind perceives that the aggregates exist by seeing the function they do. Then, that mind merely imputes the “I,” simply makes up the label “I,” the “self,” and believes in that. The mind makes up the label. The mind we can’t see, which is formless but which exists, which because its nature is clear does the function of perceiving objects, that mind, which is also empty.

What is the mind? It is nothing except what is imputed by the thought because there is the base, this phenomenon whose nature is clear and which perceives an object. Because it is formless and exists and because it has this function, it is the valid base. So, the thought merely imputes “mind.” Therefore, because of this valid base, which is formless and whose nature is clear and whose function is to perceive an object, the label “mind” exists, which is merely imputed by thought. It is just a mere imputation.

Therefore, mind does not exist from its own side. Therefore, mind is empty of the real mind, the mind the way it appears to us—the way our hallucinated mind apprehends it and we believe it to exist. It is empty of that. The mind is empty of that hallucination, it’s empty of the way it appears to us, to our hallucinated mind, and the way our hallucinated mind believes it to exist. We believe a hundred percent there’s a real mind existing from its own side, but it is totally empty. The mind is totally empty of that real mind, that truly existing mind, what we normally believe all the time.

That is the ultimate nature of the mind, what is called clear light. The nature of the mind is clear light, in Tibetan it’s ösel. The meaning of “clear light” is the emptiness of the mind. The term clear light refers to this, to the emptiness of the mind. That is the potential to become a buddha. In some other traditions it’s called the “dharmakaya” itself, the buddha. The way of labeling it in some traditions is “buddha” or “dharmakaya.” In the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition, as explained by the Buddha or Nagarjuna, this is the potential to become a buddha. Sometimes you may see in the teachings it’s called “buddha,” but it means the potential to become a buddha. It’s either labeled as the result time, labeled as the result of what we are going to achieve, or it’s labeled as the present, indicating the potential. So, the teachings might seem contradictory like that but that is the reason. However, it’s the potential to become a buddha.

The clear light means that there is the potential to become a buddha. That means everybody can achieve enlightenment. In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva said,

[7:18] If they develop the strength of their exertion,
Even those who are flies, mosquitoes, bees and insects
Will win the unsurpassable Awakening
Which is so hard to find.

Even cockroaches, mice, crocodiles, bugs, spiders, lice! No matter how tiny they are, those we can see only through a microscope, even they have buddha nature; even they can achieve enlightenment. That doesn’t mean they can do it at that time or with that body. It’s not saying that, but generally speaking, because of that they can achieve enlightenment.

BELIEVING THE LABEL

This ignorance is the king of delusions, the greatest superstitious thought. We think that [inherently existing mind] is true, that that is the valid mind. We cannot differentiate between what is false and what is the truth of the I, of the self. In our life we do not know these two things, we can’t differentiate what is false and what is the truth of the I and of every phenomenon. I don’t need to repeat it again, talking about it over and over again.

There is the truth of the I and there is falsity of the I. The I that is merely imputed by mind and that is empty of the real I in the sense of being something real existing from its own side, being empty of that, that is the truth. The false I is how it appears to us right after we ascertain this mere imputation. Because of the base, the aggregates, the association of body and mind or the collection of the five aggregates of form, feeling, discrimination, compounding aggregates, which is often translated as “volition.” I’m not sure what it’s talking about. From the fifty-one mental factors, if we take out feeling and cognition, then the rest are called “compounding aggregates” because they compound the result, so I’m not sure what “volition” means, although I have seen it many times translated in that way. Then after that, there’s consciousness.

With the aggregate of cognition, by seeing the base of the table we recognize the table. We discriminate or recognize this is a table. By seeing the base of the mug, that thing that does the function of holding liquid to be drunk, to put tea or liquid in to be used for drinking then—by seeing that base, the mind imputes, discriminates “mug.” We cognize the mug. The aggregate of cognition. How do others translate it? [Student: Compositional factors.] No, no, not that one, the one before, which I called the aggregate of cognition? [Student: Discrimination or recognition.] What is the difference between cognition and recognition? [Inaudible responses] Cognition is the first time or recognition, uh? [Inaudible response] I think cognition is the brain and recognition on the nose! It’s a function of the nose. I’m joking, anyway.

Student: Recognition is like remembering, Rinpoche.

Rinpoche: Ah lay. Remembering? Recognition. And cognition?

Student: Cognition is like the mental process.

Rinpoche: Ah lay.

Because I think when you learn language you are learning labels. When you are learning any language, you are learning labels. Whatever you are learning, you are learning labels! You are introduced to somebody by description. They say so-and-so is like this: he has this kind of beard and eyebrows like this, or he has a bald head. Anyway, this person is described and then they say his name is Wang Wang or something! Anyway, I’m just joking! He’s called Peter or called Mr. Wong or something like that. We are taught about that person in that way. Then, by seeing the base, we put the label on that person. It is the label we have been taught, so maybe that is the recognition, because we have already been taught, then, when we remember that, we put the label that has been introduced by somebody. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily cover everything. Many times we create our own names too. Anyway, by seeing the base, our mind gives it the label “this” and “that.”

So, the collection of these five aggregates is the valid base for the mind that sees this to merely impute the I, the self, as I mentioned before. Then right after that, the hallucination of true existence is decorated on that by the past ignorance that leaves a negative imprint on the mental continuum, making the I [appear] real. So, then we have the I appearing as something real. Due to ignorance, the I that is merely imputed is made real to us, as truly existent.

That is the false I. After the mere imputation, this real I appears to the hallucinated mind and we believe it. We are not aware that this is due to ignorance, that this is a false view projected by the ignorance, by the hallucinated mind. We have not discovered this; we have not realized this. And we are not aware that our mind just imputed the I on the aggregates a second before.

We then let our mind hold on to that as a hundred percent true. This idea that it is true is fixed, harder than the Rocky Mountains, harder than Mount Everest! We have had this fixed idea, this fixed wrong concept, from beginningless time, from beginningless rebirths. It’s not just from this morning, not just from birth, not just from the time in our mother’s womb, but from beginningless rebirths. We were born with this concept; we had this concept when our consciousness entered our mother’s womb and joined with the fertilized egg. When we were born, we already had this real I there. That means there was the continuity of that concept just the second before the consciousness took place on the fertilized egg. The continuity of that ego, the continuity of that ignorance comes from before.

THE CAUSE OF THE FIRST MOMENT IN THE WOMB PROVES REINCARNATION

That’s also one reason that shows there is past life, reincarnation. Otherwise, there would be no cause for the ignorance, then the ignorance would be truly existent, arising without cause. If it was independent, there would be no way to eliminate it. If there was no cause before that, if it just happened—which means it is independent—that means we couldn’t eliminate ignorance. Without being subject to other causes and conditions, we couldn’t change it; we couldn’t eliminate it. There would be nothing we could do. That would mean that attachment, anger and all these things would be independent. All the delusions would be independent. They couldn’t be changed by cause and conditions. But that’s not true.

Even without meditation, we can see that with the object of the attachment, we sometimes have attachment, maybe at the beginning, but after some time we no longer have attachment for it. Even without meditation, it changes. Some new thing comes and then we have attachment for that and we are no longer attached to the old one—we can throw it away. In the West, people put things on the roadside, maybe not old cars, but TVs or furniture. People put a lot of furniture outside in the road, then somebody who is unable to buy new ones, which are very expensive, can take them away.

We can see that even without meditation we are sometimes angry but that changes. Even without meditation, with one object, we are not always attached, not always angry; it changes. That shows that it changes due to other causes and conditions arising.

Anyway, just to expand. When the consciousness takes place on the fertilized egg, in the teachings it is described that usually there is the feeling of suffering like being drowned in hot water. This is what many beings experience, although not everybody, not the holy beings, those who have achieved a high level of the path. But generally for ordinary beings, when the consciousness takes place on the fertilized egg, there’s a suffering feeling, like being in hot water. However, in the mother’s womb, even in that first moment, whether it is pleasure or suffering, whatever we experience, if that hadn’t had a cause that existed before, it could not have existed. Cause and result together is not possible, by nature it’s not possible.

Cause and result do not exist together. Relating to one specific cause and its result, they don’t exist together. Therefore, whatever experience we have in the first moment of our mother’s womb, either happiness or suffering, without a cause, that would be permanent. Whatever we experienced at the beginning, if it was suffering, that suffering would exist all the time, permanent. If that first thing was independent, that would mean that we couldn’t change it. Whatever we experienced at the very beginning, if it was suffering, it would be suffering all the time, and if it was happiness, it would be happiness all the time, without ever changing. Here, I’m talking about temporary pleasure. We can cease that and achieve ultimate happiness. If it was permanent, we wouldn’t be able to do that. It would be independent, without a cause. All these mistakes would arise.

All this is not true; that is not our experience. They can be changed by other causes and conditions arising. Those sufferings can be ceased because they are causative phenomena. The happiness or suffering we experienced at the very first moment of being in our mother’s womb is a causative phenomenon, which means that it depends on causes and conditions. That means the cause of that happiness or suffering must have existed before, before the consciousness took place on the fertilized egg. That means there is a continuity of consciousness before, which proves that there are past lives.

IF THE I IS ONE WITH THE AGGREGATES MANY MISTAKES ARISE

I forgot where I was going, where I was traveling to. I forgot. I lost my journey!

Anyway, I was talking about how it’s so important to realize what is false and truth in our life. I was using that as an example of what is the truth of the I, what is the falseness of the I. The I is merely imputed on the aggregates, then, on that base, ignorance projects this, decorates this truly existent I, this real I in the sense of existing from its own side.

If that were true, if the I that appears as existing from its own side, that real I, if that I existed as it appears, as something not labeled, something not merely imputed by the mind, as existing from its own side, the real one—if that were true, there would be no need for the mind to label the I all the time. Because it existed before our mind labeled it, it doesn’t depend on the mind merely imputing it. If it existed from its own side, which means not merely labeled by the mind, if it didn’t depend on the mind labeling it, there would be no need to label it. That wouldn’t make any sense.

From that, many mistakes arise. After the mind imputes the I, again on that I we would have to impute the I again, and on that I again we have to impute the I, and it becomes endless. That’s one mistake that would arise.

Also, there is the mistake of the possessor and possession. The I is the possessor, the aggregates are the possession. But if the I were truly existent, the I—the possessor—and the aggregates—the possession—would be one. That mistake would arise. We couldn’t differentiate. There would be no difference between possessor and possession. The I is the possessor, the owner, and the aggregates are what is owned. They become one. But that’s not the experience.

And also in the Madhyamaka text, it’s mentioned that the I is the receiver and the aggregates are what are received. So, similarly, the I, the receiver, and the aggregates, what are received, become one. All these mistakes would arise.

The other thing is that if anything exists it would have to exist either with the aggregates or exist separately from them. Anything that exists should be either oneness with the aggregates or it should exist separately. This is one of the common meditations explained in the lamrim, the meditation on emptiness called the four-point analysis, where we analyze whether this object to be refuted—the real I in the sense of not merely labeled by mind, of existing from its own side—is true or not, whether it is the object of ignorance. We first recognize that, and then we do analysis on whether this real I exists as oneness with the aggregates or as separate from them, as not merely labeled by the mind.

If the real I existed as oneness with the aggregates, because there are five aggregates, there would have to be five Is, five selves. Not only that, the aggregate of form would consist of five limbs: head and legs and arms and the main body. Anyway, there would be five or six for the form aggregate. And the form aggregate has many atoms, so there would have to be as many Is equaling the number of atoms. There would be that many Is, that many selves, if the I was oneness with the aggregates. Even just looking at the form aggregate, how many atoms it has, there would be that number of Is. Each atom would be an I. When we went to the hairdressers, they would have to cut all those Is. So many thousands of Is, so many thousands of selves, would be cut off. When we have our hair cut, we would be cutting the I. The hairdresser would be killing all those Is, all those living beings. They would be creating so much negative karma when they cut our hair! Anyway, all these problems would arise.

When we had to buy an air ticket, how many would we have to buy if the I were the same as the aggregates? I’m sure besides the size of the body this one ticket would need to be for billions and billions and zillions of people, if every atom was an I, a self. When we bought an air ticket, which is for one person, would we need zillions of tickets for these billions of people? This many mistakes would arise.

When we get married, we would need billions and zillions of wives, or billions and zillions of husbands, because all these Is would be getting married if every atom were an I, a self, a person. And our child would have billions and zillions of fathers, billions and zillions of mothers, and then billions and zillions of brothers and sisters. Many mistakes would arise.

If the I is only one and the I is oneness with the aggregates then all the aggregates would have to be one. That mistake would arise. Because there is only one self, one I, not many, if it were oneness with the aggregates, all the aggregates would be one and the same. Then, there wouldn’t all these parts of the body and all these numbers of atoms. There wouldn’t be that; it would just be one. Also there wouldn’t be the continuity of the consciousness because there couldn’t be many parts of consciousness; it couldn’t continue from life to life, from year to year, month to month, or for days, hour, minutes, seconds. So, it’s the same. If all the aggregates are the same as the I and the I is one, all these mistakes arise. Because the I is one, all these would have to be one. 

IF THE I IS SEPARATE FROM THE AGGREGATES MANY MISTAKES ARISE

The next thing is if the I exists separately from the aggregates. Normally I say we then wouldn’t need an air ticket, because we wouldn’t have a body. Because the I exists separately from the aggregates, that means the I doesn’t depend on having a body, and since we don’t need a body, we don’t need a seat on an airplane, so we don’t need an air ticket. We can just go! Our consciousness just enters the airplane and we don’t need a ticket because we don’t need a seat, because we don’t have a body.

Because we don’t have a body, only a mind, we don’t have to get married and there’s no way to make children. We can’t make children because we have no body. I’m not saying we are nobody. I’m saying that we don’t have a body, so how can we make children? We can’t make children!

In that case, we don’t have happiness and we don’t have suffering, these two, because normally suffering and happiness are related to the aggregates: physical comfort, mental happiness, physical discomfort and suffering, mental suffering, like depression, unhappiness. It’s through the mind, you see, but because the I exists separately the aggregates, we don’t have a mind. Because we don’t possess a mind, we don’t have all the mental problems, all the suffering, but also we don’t have liberation and enlightenment and all the other happiness. Our I, our self, doesn’t depend on the mind and it doesn’t depend on the body. It exists separately from the mind and body, without depending on the aggregates. If there were no mind, there would be no karma; the I wouldn’t create karma. All these mistakes would arise.

Then the I would be a permanent independent, uncausative phenomenon, without depending on causes and condition, without depending on the mind merely imputing it. That mistake would arise.

THE I DEPENDS ON THE AGGREGATES

All these are totally wrong. When the mind is happy, say when we have met a friend we wanted to meet or something, whatever the reason that makes us happy. Sometimes we just feel happy; there’s no particular reason but we just feel happy. When the mind is feeling happy, we think, “Oh, today I’m happy.” Because the mind is happy, our mind makes the label, “I’m happy.” We relate the label “I” to the mind. We relate it to the aggregates and among the aggregates to the mind, and among the different experiences of the mind to the feeling of happiness in the mind. The mind feels happy, so we label “I am happy.”

And then the next day or in the evening, when the mind is depressed, we think, “I am unhappy.” Again, we relate the sense of I to the aggregates, particularly to the mind, then label “I” and then “unhappy.” That’s the reality of how the I exists, by depending on the aggregates. The I existing and the functions of the I—what the I experiences—depends on the aggregates.

When the body does an action, such as the action of sitting, the mind labels the I as “sitting.” If somebody asks us “What you are doing?” we naturally reply, “I am sitting.” Our mind sees our body sitting, the aggregates sitting, and we label it “I.” Because the body does the function of sitting, the mind labels that as the function of the I “sitting,” which is merely imputed on the bodily action, but then we believe it is the real I that is sitting. Then, when the body stands up, the mind merely imputes the I because of the aggregates, particularly the body doing the action of standing, and then we label the action of the I “standing,” and we believe that. And when the body is walking, the mind sees the aggregates and particularly the body doing the action of walking, and merely imputes the I on the action of walking.

It’s like that twenty-four hours a day. Our mind makes up the I. It is constantly imputing the I but relating to the aggregates. The action of the I, the experience of the I is always related to the aggregates, to what the body and mind do. The body does the action of talking and the mind, seeing the aggregates performing that particular function of speaking, labels “I am talking.” And we believe in that. Twenty-four hours a day it’s like that. From birth until death it’s like that. The mind merely imputes the I, the I, the I, because of the aggregates, and then, depending on what function it does, what experiences it has, the mind then labels it an experience of the I, a merely imputed I and merely imputed experience of the I or merely imputed action of the I.

It has been like that from beginningless rebirths. From beginningless rebirths up to enlightenment, it’s all like that, because there’s always the continuity of the aggregates. Even in the formless realm where there is no body, only consciousness, it’s still the same. There are still the aggregates of the consciousness. The I is labeled on that aggregate of the consciousness, even though there’s no body at that time. There’s always the continuity of the consciousness. Even after we achieve enlightenment, there will always be the continuity of the aggregates. There’s always continuity of the subtle wind and mind.

Therefore, the label “I” always exists. The label I is always imputed because of the aggregates, the continuity of the aggregates. There’s always the label imputed by the mind; it’s always there: the I merely imputed by the mind, the action merely imputed by the mind and the experience merely imputed by the mind.

Now here is the conclusion. From beginningless rebirths up to enlightenment and even after that, all this exists in mere name. All those Is from beginningless rebirth up to enlightenment and even after that are all empty. All are empty. While all these are empty, they exist in mere name. All the actions of the I, all the experiences of I, from beginningless rebirths up to enlightenment and even after that, all are merely imputed by mind, therefore all the actions and all the experiences of the I are empty of existing from their own side. And while they are empty, they exist in mere name.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, the great enlightened being, said,

Even though there are activities, they are nonexistent; they are empty. How wonderful it is.

Even though there are activities happening, they don’t exist, meaning they are empty. That means that there are activities but there are no real activities existing from their own side. “It doesn’t exist” means it doesn’t exist in that extra way projected by ignorance, the way that ignorance has decorated on to what does exist. After the mere imputation of the activity, ignorance then projects this real one, decorates it on to that. “It doesn’t exist” means that extra [inherently existent] thing doesn’t exist. This is what “the activities are nonexistent” means. It is like “form is empty, emptiness is form,” in the Heart of Wisdom Sutra. It’s similar. When he says, “the activities are nonexistent” he means the “real” activities are nonexistent, meaning existing from their own side. How wonderful it is that even though the activities don’t exist, there are still activities. The real activities, those not merely labeled by the mind, don’t exist, but the merely imputed ones happen.

He then says that even though they appear, they are empty. All these things—the I, the experiences of the I, the actions of the I—the examples I’m using here to meditate on emptiness, but it means all of phenomena, are merely imputed by the mind then made real by being projected by ignorance. All that is not there; it is false.

All these things—the I, the experiences of the I, the actions of the I— appear truly existent to the hallucinated minds of us sentient beings, but they are totally empty. Even though they are totally empty in reality, they appear as truly existing.

Which one came first and which one came later? I think I got a little bit confused in the verses. I think probably what I said first must be later and then what I said later was the first! There are some other verses, but I don’t remember them. The verse says,

Even though it appears, it doesn’t exist. How wonderful your experience of how you see things. E ma ho.
Even though it doesn’t exist, it appears. How wonderful it is. E ma ho.

“E ma ho” is a term used when you feel joy. By realizing this, by experiencing this, that’s what e ma ho means. Then he said,

The kindness of the beams of Lama Tsongkhapa’s holy speech on emptiness eliminates darkness in my heart.

The darkness here means eternalism and nihilism, where we think either nothing exists—there is no I, no action, no karma—or we believe things exist [inherently] and we fall into the other extreme, eternalism, exaggeration. We are not in the Middle Way. We have the darkness of these wrong concepts, of eternalism and nihilism, in our heart. But the beams of Lama Tsongkhapa’s holy speech eliminate the darkness of these wrong notions of extremes. This is not only for the I but for all the rest of the phenomena.

So, the last thing is that the I does not exist separately from the aggregates. That’s the conclusion. That means it exists by depending them; it exists because there are the aggregates, the base that can receive the label “I,” on which the I can be imputed. There’s a base; the aggregates exist. And the I is what is merely imputed by the mind. What is that I which exists? It’s nothing else except what is merely imputed by mind.

At that time, because we started the analysis of the four vital points, the first vital point is recognizing, discovering, the gag cha, the object to be refuted, the I that appears to us as not merely labeled by the mind and that we believed in and hold on to or entrust to. That is the object of ignorance. By doing the analysis, we check whether it exists or not. So here is the conclusion. It doesn’t exist separately. It exists by relating to the aggregates, by mere imputation.

WE DO EVERYTHING FOR THIS I THAT IS NOT THERE

This analysis is like a bomb and our target is the object of ignorance, the truly existent I. With this analysis we destroy it. What do you call it? We eliminate it. We can’t see it. What we have been believing, what we have been entrusting, holding on to, not only from this morning, not only from birth, but from beginningless rebirths, from time without beginning, we now discover that this is totally nonexistent. So far, we have been holding on to this I as the most important, the most precious thing. All the time, we had all this concern for the present and future happiness and suffering of this I—what is going to happen to this I? Will it get sick and die and go to the lower realms? All those things.

This I is going to suffer with all these relationship problems, and before the relationship, there are all the worries and fears of not finding somebody, not finding a companion for this I. We try to do all sorts of things for this I, to find a friend, a companion. We spend a million dollars, a billion dollars. We go to Thailand to see some monks. We try to find a friend to teach us what to do. I’m joking, anyway. I think what I’m saying is more familiar to the Chinese than to Western people.

After we have found somebody, there is all this worry and fear that we are going to separate. The person is going to leave this I! After all that time, after finally meeting somebody and getting together, there is the fear that this I cannot stay with them. We think if we can meet somebody, all our problems will be solved; we will be in bliss, like liberation. It will be like the sun always shining in our life. We will be so happy, never having problems again. We have this dream for this I that is not there.

Anyway, after we meet, after we finally get together, we live together, and one day goes by, two days, three days. Of course, there’s ego, there’s the self-cherishing thought, there’s anger, jealousy and all this mental garbage. All these things start coming out. Jealousness and anger and all the things come out due to the self-cherishing thought. As the days go by we see more and more mistakes, mistakes of the mind like that person’s nature, and we see more and more shortcomings of the body. They become more and more boring. One of the students told me that seeing their partner doing kaka in the toilet, they kind of lost their attraction. Sorry I mentioned that. It just slipped out.

Anyway, we see the shortcomings of the body and as time goes on we lose interest; the other person seems more and more boring. This is because we are following desire for this I, to get satisfaction for this I. Then we start looking for another one, for something more, somebody we believe is more beautiful, younger, something like that. And so another type of confusion starts. We were confused before but another type of confusion starts in our life. Mentally, we become more and more distant from our first friend. At the beginning we were inseparable, praying, going to church or a temple. 

We had been so worried we would never meet anybody for this I, to give this I happiness. Then, after meeting somebody, it was so difficult to separate from them. We were so worried they might leave us, but in the end what happens is that they become an object of hatred. We get depressed and pray to be free from them. We look forward to the time we can get rid of them, like waiting out our time in prison. We can’t wait for it, especially so we can start another relationship!

It is all for this I, looking for satisfaction for this I, which is not there. We create the ten nonvirtues when this I doesn’t get what it wants, such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct or telling lies. There are so many negative karmas involved in trying to find satisfaction for this I.

When we have children, we completely focus on the child, leaving our other partner out. With the child, there are physical changes and we no longer have time because we are so busy with the child that our partner feels left out. We feel disgusted [with them] and we want to leave or get a divorce.

All these worries and fears, all these unmet expectations are because of this I, trying to find satisfaction for this I, which is not there. For the happiness of this I, people sue other people, spending millions of dollars in court. People kill other people. All for the happiness of this I, but it’s not there. All these things—power, reputation, and so forth—for this I. We are busy working for the happiness of this life, for this I, which is not there.

GOING BEYOND THE REAL I

Anyway, as was I saying, through analysis we can see that the I doesn’t exist separately from the aggregates. This I that we have believed in, that we have trusted from beginningless lifetimes, exists by depending on the aggregates, being merely imputed by mind.

We discover this on this day, at this hour, this minute, due to the blessings of the guru entering our heart. With our single-pointed request to the guru, seeing the guru as a buddha from our side, by depending on sentient beings, we make continual, intensive purification and collect extensive merits, generating compassion and bodhicitta. We [rely on] the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but especially the guru, the most powerful one. By following their advice and offering them service, fulfilling the guru’s wishes, pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend—the most powerful object—we collect the most extensive merit and make the most powerful purification, purifying our negative karma.

There are many ways of purifying, such as those powerful practices like practicing Vajrasattva, prostrating and reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, offering mandala and so forth. There are many other means of collecting merits, like making tsa tsas or holy objects.

Then, because of imprints from past lives or from this past time, having heard teachings on emptiness, having done all the study and meditated on it, like that, all these causes and conditions can come together, and then in just a second [Rinpoche snaps his fingers] it clicks to the mind and we discover what the object to be refuted is. In that day, in that hour, in that minute, [Rinpoche snaps his fingers] we discover what the object to be refuted is, what the false I is.

With that analysis it just takes a moment to realize emptiness, to make the greatest discovery in our life, which is when we discover the object of ignorance, the root of samsara—the object we believed to exist inherently—to be totally nonexistent, empty. That is our great discovery. It’s kind of like a start to our liberation. With that, we can be totally liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering, we can be totally free from all the death. There will be no more death, no more old age, no more sickness, no more relationship problems, no more depression, no more of all the four hundred and four sicknesses, including cancer and AIDS. It gives us full confidence that here is the start because this wisdom is the only one that can directly cease the defilements, the delusions and the cause of delusion, the negative imprints. This is the only one that can directly cease all these.

Therefore, what is more joyful in the life, what greatest happiness is there in the life other than this, realizing emptiness, seeing how this is the start of our liberation. And with this total experience, with attaining the path to liberation, with the direct perception of emptiness, we can liberate numberless other beings. We can liberate numberless hell beings from the oceans of suffering of the hell realm and the general suffering of samsara; we can liberate numberless hungry ghosts from the oceans of suffering of the hungry ghost realm and the general suffering of samsara; we can liberate numberless animals from the oceans of suffering of the animal realm and the general suffering of samsara; we can liberate numberless human beings from the oceans of suffering of the human realm and the general suffering of samsara.

THE FORM AND FORMLESS REALMS STILL HAVE SUFFERING

We can also liberate numberless gods and demigods (suras and asuras), which the abbot, Lama Lhundrup talked about yesterday, explaining how even the form and formless realms are not free from suffering, how their aggregates are in nature of suffering.

Both the form realm and the desire realm have the suffering of pain and the suffering of change, which means temporary samsaric pleasures. Experiencing sense pleasure with the five sense objects is suffering—the suffering of change—because it not only doesn’t continue, but also it doesn’t increase. What am I saying? It should be that samsaric pleasure, desire realm pleasure, not only doesn’t increase, bringing more and more happiness, but it also doesn’t continue. Why? Because that samsaric pleasure is just what is labeled on the base. It is a feeling where another suffering, the previous suffering, has stopped because we stopped the previous action which compounded it, and then another suffering begins with the next action, which compounds the new suffering. At first, this new suffering is so small that it’s unnoticeable. Because this second suffering that has started is smaller and unnoticeable, it’s called pleasure.

The previous suffering has stopped, for instance the hunger of not eating. When we don’t eat, that compounds our hunger and thirst. Then, the minute we eat and drink, the previous suffering stops. By eating and drinking, we have stopped the action of not eating and not drinking. That compounds the feeling, which is suffering, but this feeling of suffering is unnoticeable because at the beginning it is small. The more we continue [to eat and drink] the discomfort increases and becomes more and more noticeable. When the discomfort of continued eating becomes noticeable, at that time it becomes the suffering of pain, and as we continue to eat, the suffering of pain increases. Before, when it was unnoticeable, it was called “pleasure,” it was labeled “pleasure,” but in reality the feeling we label as pleasure is only suffering.

This is one example, but all samsaric pleasures are like that. Since the feeling, the base on which we label “pleasure,” is only suffering, samsaric pleasure can’t increase and can’t continue. That is the reason.

The desire realm has the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering, which refers to the aggregates that are under the control of karma and delusions and the contaminated seed of delusion. It pervades the aggregates and it compounds, meaning it compounds suffering in this life and future lives.

There is the form realm and formless realm. The peace and happiness of the form realm is derived from meditation and has nothing to do with the external form, with sound, smell, taste, external objects, with attachment. The form realm beings have totally renounced the pleasures of the desire realm, which they see as disgusting, as only suffering. Their peace and happiness is derived from meditation, from shamatha. According to Geshe Sopa Rinpoche, beings in the form realm don’t have the suffering of pain but there is still the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering. Their aggregates are in the nature of suffering.

Now, the beings of the formless realm have total renunciation, total aversion not only for the desire realm but even for the peace and happiness of the form realm. They see it only in the nature of suffering. Not only the formless realm beings who have achieved the tip of the samsara, the fourth and highest realm of the formless realm, but even the beings in the first realm, infinite sky. Then, there is infinite consciousness and nothingness. The beings of these three lower formless realms have total aversion for the form and desire realm happiness, seeing it only in the nature of suffering. There’s not the slightest attraction to those.

Because there’s no higher realm in samsara than the tip of the samsara, there’s nothing to compare. There’s nothing that helps the beings there to also realize that the tip of samsara is only in the nature of suffering and to have aversion for it, to develop renunciation, detachment. There’s no higher realm to compare it to, like all the others. They have been analyzing all the levels of the desire and form realms and the three lower realms of the formless realm and seen that they are all only in the nature of suffering. They see how each level is better than the one before, with more peace and happiness, with a longer life and all that. Through the six comprehensions, through analysis, they see how the lower level has a shorter life and a more suffering nature and the higher one has more peace, so they get renunciation for the form realm and are born in the formless realm. And again with the six comprehensions, they progress through infinite sky to the infinite consciousness, and from there to nothingness until they reach the tip of samsara, the last level.

When they reach the tip of samsara, they have reached the highest state in samsara and so they have no way of seeing how this is comparatively suffering. Therefore, they are unable to renounce this highest level, the tip of samsara. There is nothing that helps them realize how this too is only in the nature of suffering. But they can see that all other samsaric realms—the desire realm, the form realm [and the three lower formless realms states] are totally in the nature of suffering, which is true.

What am I saying? I lost what I was talking about!

Anyway, that is why those worldly gods, the formless realm beings who are in the tip of samsara, are unable to enter the path to liberation. What blocks them is their attachment to the tip of samsara, which they can’t see is in the nature of suffering because they have no higher realm to compare it to. Even though they have renunciation for the whole of the desire realm and the form realm and for the rest of the formless realm, they cannot enter the path. Until they have total renunciation for even the tip of samsara, discovering that it too is only in the nature of suffering, they can’t enter the path to liberation. The door of the path to liberation is renunciation of samsara. They also lack the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness that directly ceases the cause of the delusions, the negative imprints. That means when their karma to be in the tip of samsara finishes, they will again have to be reborn in the lower realms, the same as before.

So, even the formless realm beings, although they don’t have the suffering of pain and the suffering of change, they are not free from pervasive compounding suffering. Their aggregates are under the control of karma and delusions, the nature which is suffering, and the contaminated seed of delusion that also compounds the suffering of future lives, of future rebirth and future suffering.

THE I ON THE AGGREGATES

What was I saying? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t remember where the source came from, but anyway, all the suffering of the desire realm, the form realm and the formless realm comes from the root, ignorance. The root of all karma and delusions is ignorance, holding there’s a real I while there’s no such thing. There’s no real I in the sense of existing from its own side in this body. We can’t find it anywhere. While there’s no such real I in the sense of existing from its own side, from above the aggregates, not merely labeled by mind on these aggregates, when we say the word “I” there is the sense of existing from its own side. Once we mention that word, we don’t need to say, “from above the aggregates.” The I that appears from above the aggregates is the truly existent I. There is no I from above the aggregates, from the side of the aggregates, but there’s an I on the aggregates. There’s a saying like that. The I that is on the aggregates is the merely imputed I. There’s one explanation like that.

However, the experience is like this. We don’t see the I from the side of the aggregates but there is an I there very strongly. That I seems to exist uncontrollably on the aggregates, without choice. There is the I existing on the aggregates, under the control of name. There is an experience like that, not from the side of aggregates but on the aggregates, very powerfully, very strongly, without choice, under the control of name.

According to His Holiness, that is the correct understanding, maybe the Prasangika Middle Way school’s view. But Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche thinks that this is not the view of the Prasangika school but the Svatantrika school. That is their way of realizing emptiness. It’s still Madhyamaka but it’s the Svatantrika way of realizing emptiness. So, there are different ways of explaining it depending on different lamas.

Perhaps it’s like this. When we see the I as very strongly under the control of the name, without choice, there’s still something there. The I is on the aggregates, not from the side of the aggregates, but still there’s a little bit of feeling of a real I there. Therefore, this maybe fits more as the Svatantrika school view of understanding emptiness. 

It is on the aggregates under the control of the name, very powerfully, very strongly, but still there’s a real I, kind of a little bit real one. I think that we have to change. To become the Prasangika School view, the Middle Way, even that little bit of a real one, the I on the aggregates, where there is still something a little bit real one, I think even that should be realized as totally empty. But that doesn’t mean this is nihilism. It’s the same as I mentioned before.

The realization that should happen is the merely imputed I—that there’s nothing real there, not in the slightest. It is mere imputation, merely imputed, existing in mere name. It’s not completely nonexistent but the way it exists is something extremely subtle, something unbelievably subtle. It exists but it’s something extremely, unbelievably subtle. It’s like it doesn’t exist. It’s not nonexistent but it’s like it’s nonexistent. There’s a big difference when you put the word “like.” “Like an illusion” doesn’t mean it’s an illusion but like an illusion. There’s a big difference. A dream and like a dream—there’s a big difference. A dream doesn’t exist, but “like a dream” tells us it exists but it doesn’t exist from its own side; it doesn’t truly exist. Nothing that appears in a dream exists. In a dream, we see things as truly existent, as existing from their side, but that’s not true. Nothing we see in a dream exists, even without talking about truly existent. Here, it’s like that. Relating to a dream, a truly existent phenomenon is “like a dream”—it doesn’t exist.

TAKING REFUGE

So now, the purpose of taking refuge is all these reasons you have talked about, I think from beginning of this course, all the topics you went through, such as the perfect human rebirth, how precious this human rebirth is, how difficult it is to find and if it’s found how it has great meaning, how it is difficult to find again and that it doesn’t last long, how it can be stopped at any time because of impermanence and death. That is the nature of life; it can be stopped at any time. And, at the time of death nothing helps. All the possessions, the friends, family, everything has to be left. Even this body that we cherish most has to be left. Only the consciousness goes to the next life like having taken hair from butter. When you take a hair from butter, only hair comes out; the butter doesn’t come with the hair. Everything has to be left; nothing goes with us to the next life. The only thing that helps at that time is the Dharma, nothing else. At that time and in future lives, what benefits us is only the Dharma; if we have practiced the Dharma in this life, that’s the only thing.

There are all these reasons [to take refuge]. If we didn’t create good karma, if we die without practicing Dharma, if we only create negative karma, after death our consciousness migrates to either the lower realms or the higher realms, there’s no third alternative. That’s according to karma. With good karma, it’s the higher realms; with negative karma, it’s the lower realms.

So, all this becomes the reason for taking refuge, for relying on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. From the beginning, the subjects of the course, especially impermanence and death and especially the sufferings of the lower realms, if you think of all that, the results of negative karma, the immediate thing to stop that is taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha instructed we should protect our karma. When we are sick, we go to see a doctor and the doctor checks us and prescribes medicine according to what we need. We have to follow the prescription, otherwise the doctor can’t help us; we won’t recover.

By relying upon the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, by following the refuge vows, we protect our karma. We abandon negative karma, the cause of suffering, and practice virtue, good karma, which brings the result of happiness, of a good rebirth in our future lives.

There’s the refuge vow and the refuge precepts, where there is the advice on the three things to abandon and the three things to practice. By doing that, we collect so much merit in our daily life, the cause of happiness.

There’s respecting holy objects, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And before eating, we should make offerings to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Just by this way in our daily life, while we are eating or drinking, doing activities, by following the advice to do these things, we collect so much good karma in our daily life. We collect unimaginable skies of merit with these activities, whereas disrespecting the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha obscures the mind, which means besides falling to the lower realms, we can’t have attainments; we can’t have the awakened mind. It blocks, obscures, pollutes the mind.

The other thing is, even for lay people, you can take vows to protect morality, the five lay vows: abstaining from killing, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from sexual misconduct, abstaining from telling lies, abstaining from taking intoxicants. Taking intoxicants causes you to lose control, having no shyness or shame, then it is very easy to engage in killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and all the things. Without shyness and shame, you are totally uncontrolled and it is very easy to engage in these things.

It’s like the story the story of the monk who met a woman carrying a pot of chang, wine, and leading a goat. She told the monk he could either have sex with her, drink the wine or kill the goat. She gave him those choices. The monk thought that maybe drinking the wine was the easiest choice so he drank the wine. But then after that, he killed the goat for dinner and had sex with the woman! The monk thought the simple thing was to drink the wine. If he did that, he wouldn’t have to kill the goat or have sex, but actually after drinking the wine it didn’t become simple.

Generally speaking, sexual misconduct is having sex without someone belonging to somebody else, like somebody’s husband or wife. The texts say owned by another but that sounds a bit strange these days. Anyway, basically that becomes sexual misconduct.

Even if you can’t take all the five lay vows, you can take four, and if not, then three or two or one. If it’s one from the five, I normally emphasize refraining from killing. Maybe for some people being lied to is more harmful than being killed or for some people sex is more harmful than being killed. I’m not sure; it depends on the person, but normally I emphasize not killing, because nobody wants to be killed. People or animals, it’s the same. Nobody wants to be killed. That includes mosquitoes. They don’t want to be killed. They have the same mind as us, wanting happiness and not wanting suffering. It’s also the same. We cherish ourselves. Among all sentient beings, we cherish ourselves the most, and that is true even of insects. They cherish themselves the most. So that’s why I normally emphasize that.

But if it’s very difficult to stop telling lies or to abstain from sexual misconduct or stealing or drinking wine, then only take one, whichever is easiest for you. You can do that.

THE RESULTS OF NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE KARMA

I think you have already gone through karma, how a complete negative karma has four suffering results. That is a very important subject for everyone on this course, so I’m just going to mention a few points.

The complete negative karma of one act of sexual misconduct—there may be many, but I’ll just talk about one act, the complete negative karma of one instance of sexual misconduct, which produces four suffering results. The ripening result is rebirth in the lower realms, as a hell being, a hungry ghost or an animal, depending on how heavy it is. For a heavy one it’s the hell realm.

The other three results are experienced in the human realm. When due to another good karma we get born in the human realm, we experience these three suffering results of that complete act of sexual misconduct. The possessed result is that we are born in the place that is very unhygienic, full of poopoo, excrement. It’s a very smelly, dirty, unhealthy place. The place where we have to live is a very dirty place.

Even during our life, when sometimes we have to drive or walk through a very dirty, smelly place, that did not happen without cause. There was a reason we had to experience it, even for a short time, even for an hour or a few minutes. It had a cause. Why did we experience it? We had created the cause before. It was the result of sexual misconduct, even just having to experience a few minutes of that terrible smell and all this junk and filth. There are some people who live their whole life like that. Anyway, that’s the possessed result.

Then, experiencing the result similar to the cause—we have to understand this one. We can’t trust our partner—our husband or wife. They go against our wishes. The way they think is the opposite of what we wish and so we can’t trust them. And they cheat us. That is the result. We have to understand what is the cause, why we experience things like that. It was caused by something we created before. There’s a reason for what is happening to us. That is experiencing the result similar to the cause of past sexual misconduct.

In the same way, our family members or the people in our office all go against our wishes. We have so many problems with others. They don’t like us; their wishes are the opposite of ours, so things never become successful. What we wish for is never accomplished. Whenever we are experiencing things like that in our life, we have to immediately know it’s the result of that. There’s no reason at all to blame the others; it’s the result of our past karma. We created the karma and this is the result of that karma. It has come from our mind. In reality, there’s nobody to blame except ourselves, except our own self-cherishing thought, except the root of suffering: our ignorance, our delusions, our attachment, those things. There’s nobody outside to blame.

Then, creating the result similar to the cause, again in that life we do the same thing; we commit sexual misconduct. Like that, it becomes a complete negative karma of sexual misconduct, which then produces another four suffering results, and one of them is creating the result similar to the cause, which again produces another four suffering results—one of which is creating the result similar to the cause. Like that, this one negative karma of sexual misconduct becomes endless, producing endless suffering. Unless we purify that negative karma, if we don’t do anything, from that one negative karma we must experience endless suffering, it goes on and on, without end. This is what we have to understand.

When we take the vow of abstaining from sexual misconduct, that means we don’t experience all these ongoing, endless sufferings. They are completely stopped. By taking this vow of abstaining from this one negative karma of sexual misconduct, the result is not only that we don’t have to experience all those endless sufferings, but also that we have happiness from life to life. Rather than the four suffering results, we always experience the four happy results by living in the morality of abstaining from sexual misconduct.

The ripening result is rebirth in a higher realm as a deva or a human being. The possessed result is that we live in a clean, beautiful place. The place where we live in this life is very clean, with a beautiful garden. There is no poopoo all over, no smell. We should know that this is the result of our past positive karma. It has come from our mind.

It has come from our good karma, which is our mind, from the mental factor, sempa, intention, from that mental factor. Even if we sometimes see a beautiful flower in the garden, that has come from our mind. We should know that. We should realize how it is due to our good karma in this way. Seeing all those beautiful, clean things and realizing how they have all come from our mind, we should rejoice. We should realize that this has come from abstaining from sexual misconduct in the past. Then, when we rejoice we collect more merit. It’s so worthwhile to rejoice in the Dharma practice we did in the past, in the morality we practiced in the past, and how because of that we will be able to practice it again in the future.

Then, the other results of abstaining from sexual misconduct. Experiencing the result similar to the cause, our wife or husband or other people live in harmony with us. Their wishes are exactly according to our wishes all the time. We are harmonious, we have a lot of success, and all the people in the family, in the office, everywhere, have the same wishes as we do. Because they think the same way, we get a lot of support. We succeed in whatever we wish for. We must realize that. When something like this happens, we should realize this is from our past good karma, from living in the morality of abstaining from sexual misconduct, which means it has also come from our mind. Then, we should rejoice.

The next one is creating the result similar to the cause, which means that again in our future lives, because of this imprint, from this positive habituation, we are able to live in the morality of abstaining from sexual misconduct.

Then, from that, there will be the four happy results, and again the same thing will happen. The happy results will continue like that, up to liberation and enlightenment.

THE SECRET OF THE MIND

Now you can see how important it is, how this gives us unbelievable protection. It is the unbelievable source of happiness, not only in this life. It cuts all our relationship problems and brings us so much peace and happiness. We have so much freedom and all this peace and happiness not only in this life but also from life to life—peace and happiness, and then liberation, and of course, with bodhicitta, enlightenment.

Therefore, I want to remind you to rejoice during this course, not only when we meditate, sitting like this with the eyes closed. Or open! I’m not sure which way. Many people do it like that. Many people sit like this or sit like that or like that or any way! But here, the most important thing is the first lamrim, the heart of the 84,000 teachings of the Buddha. Meditating on the heart of the lamrim is the essence. Maybe we haven’t done tantra yet, but sutra is the foundation of tantra. What Peter asked the other night, how to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime; here we are creating the foundation. During this course, we are creating the foundation to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime, the basis for tantra.

Many people meditate and do retreats and all that, but taking the eight Mahayana precepts and making meditation effective is not easy. Meditation is not easy. I think I should tell you that. Many people do meditation, but you have to know that meditation can easily become negative karma, nonvirtue. Why? Because it depends on how meditation is done. If it’s not done correctly, it can be negative karma; it can waste our whole life.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva says… My memory got stuck! Anyway, the essence is if you don’t realize the secret of the mind you will wander meaninglessly in samsara. If you don’t know the secret of the mind, you will wander meaninglessly in samsara and experience all the sufferings, without purpose, without meaning. That’s what it says.³

DOING CALM ABIDING WITH THE FOUR MOTIVATIONS

What I want to tell you here is what makes you waste your life, why something becomes negative karma. By now, everybody should know, because I think motivation is already explained. I’m sure most people know, but it’s still good to hear it once more. Let’s take a person doing a breathing meditation or a person who is meditating on this tissue paper.

Actually, I’ll tell my story. For eight years I lived at Buxa Duar, which was a concentration camp when India was under the control of British. It’s where Mahatma Gandhi-ji was imprisoned. That part became the nunnery. And where Nehru was imprisoned became Sera Monastery. In Tibet Sera Monastery had maybe seven thousand monks, something like that. Some of the monks escaped and there were maybe sixty or seventy living in the hall, a very long building. All the beds were lined up along both walls; it was not much wider than this. Outside was a very short verandah, and then a ditch and the wall of the house, and then there was all this barbed wire, because it was a prison. So, all the monks’ beds were lined up like this. My teacher, Geshe Rabten Rinpoche, who was a great scholar, a great yogi, lived a bit higher up. The beds were made from bamboo cut from the forest, then crushed. You placed the crushed bamboo on four planks and that was the bed. Then you put a simple cloth on that. It was very hard, not like the beds in the West, the spring beds where you press and it pops back, like that.

When you went out to go to the toilet the leeches came, and when you went back, besides the have leeches, there were mosquitos and red bugs around the bed. The red bugs lived in the corners of your mosquito net, and when the lights went off they came down. While the lights were on, they stayed in the corners. There were so many inside the net and their bites became very swollen.

It was unbelievably hot. So many monks died of the heat and of tuberculosis and bad food. The place was unbelievably unhealthy, surrounded by mountains with very thick forest, where there were tigers. You would sometimes see a tiger on the road, but I never saw an elephant. Anyway, with all those conditions, it didn’t matter.

What was I going to say? That’s right. I heard a little bit about zhi nä, calm abiding. Geshe Rabten used to talk about achieving calm abiding. So, at night, after I put up the mosquito net, I tried to sit. There was a wooden cup with silver on it or something, I’m not sure, with a white lid, so I put that on the pillow and I tried to meditate on that. I tried to focus on that. That was my way of achieving zhi nä, my way of doing a meditation on zhi nä. I put this wooden cup with the white cover on the pillow under the mosquito net and tried to sit. Anyway, while I was concentrating on this, sometimes the cup fell down! I think I tried to meditate with my eyes open. I didn’t meditate by closing my eyes because it was supposed to be an object of the mind, not the eye. I was so inspired by what Geshe Rabten explained. Anyway, I thought to tell you that.

Anyway, I’m going to say this. Even if it’s a meditation of the mind watching the mind, which is supposed to be very profound, even that [depends on the motivation]. Of course, if it is done with the thought to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, then it becomes the cause to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, it becomes the cause of happiness of all sentient beings. But if it’s done with the thought to achieve liberation from samsara for ourselves, then it becomes the cause of that—not the cause of enlightenment but the cause to achieve liberation from samsara for ourselves, ultimate happiness, just that.

Now, the next level of motivation, if it’s done with the motivation to achieve the happiness of future lives, just that, it still becomes Dharma. The meditation still becomes Dharma, but it doesn’t become the cause of enlightenment or the cause to achieve liberation from samsara for ourselves. Why is it still Dharma? Because our motivation is being unattached to this life. We are seeking happiness of our future lives so maybe we are attached to the happiness of future lives, but we are not attached to this life. Because it’s done with the motivation detached to this life, it’s virtue. Because the motivation is virtuous, our action of meditation becomes Dharma, the cause of happiness of future lives.

The fourth level of motivation is just for the happiness of this life, just to be healthy, to get some power, to get a reputation—we wish to be called a great meditator by other people, a yogi or something. So, the motivation is solely for the happiness of this life, for reputation, power, a long life, health, wealth, all this, not even for the happiness of future lives, nothing. When the motivation is attachment to this life, it is nonvirtue.

So, there are differences depending on the motivation. When we do the meditation seeking the happiness of future lives, which is still attachment but detached to this life, there’s peace in our heart, there’s inner peace. But if we do meditation with attachment to this life, there’s no peace in our heart. If we check what the effect is on our mental continuum from that attachment, that clinging, that grasping, seeking the happiness of this life, we will see it’s not peace. That mind brings disturbances, ups and downs. If we check, we’ll find the effect is totally different. One motivation gives inner peace, satisfaction, and the other one gives the opposite, continual dissatisfaction. Because we are following desire, that’s what we get—no peace.

That’s the experience. The action of our meditation becomes nonvirtuous, even if the meditation is the mind watching to the mind. Not only that, even our tantric practice becomes nonvirtuous, even meditating on the completion stage, on dzogchen, on the graduated completion stage, dzogrim, or on tummo meditation, meditating on inner fire, which Hindus also have. Even all these exciting things from tantra don’t become Dharma, because they are all nonvirtuous if they are done with that motivation. If the motivation is worldly dharma, the action of meditation becomes worldly dharma; it doesn’t become holy Dharma. Holy Dharma is that which brings happiness, which protects us from the lower realm sufferings. It doesn’t become that. Worldly dharma, which is nonvirtue, causes rebirth in the lower realms, and even in this life there’s no peace. Because we are following desire, we can’t find satisfaction, we can’t find peace. 

We might think, “I’ve been meditating for forty years,” but because we haven’t met the heart of Buddhadharma, the lamrim teachings—the graduated paths of the lower, middle and higher capable beings—we are ignorant about the need for a pure motivation. Because we haven’t met these teachings, we are totally ignorant of how to have a happy life.

We don’t know that happiness and suffering come from the mind, not only day to day but also moment to moment. Peace and happiness come from our mind, from our way of thinking, from our motivation, as well as the lower realms’ suffering, future lives’ suffering and liberation from samsara and enlightenment. This all comes from our mind. Samsara and nirvana, hell and enlightenment, all these come from our mind, from the different ways of thinking, from positive thinking and negative thinking. If we didn’t get that education, we have no idea. We think that just meditating like this is enough. We might even have pride that we have been meditating for forty years, but it is all done with that attachment, clinging to this life, so everything becomes negative karma. Nothing becomes Dharma, not even one single meditation. 

RINPOCHE’S EARLY LIFE

Before you take refuge I want to tell you one thing. Refuge is coming soon! It’s coming very soon, very, very soon, but I just want to tell you one thing.

I was born in Solu Khumbu. When I was young, I memorized Nyingma prayers. As the morning became light, I memorized the texts. Much of the time in Solu Khumbu I read texts as well as wrote them. Then I went to Tibet and lived for three years at Pagri. I became a monk in Domo Geshe’s monastery, who in his past life was a great yogi. Have you read Lama Govinda’s book, The Way of the White Clouds? What’s the other one called? Huh? There’s one book, The Way of the White Clouds, and there’s another one, something to do with tantra and science, mixing tantra and science, something like that, I’m not sure.⁴ Maybe the people in the early days, those who were called hippies or something, many years ago, maybe they were more familiar with this but now maybe not. 

This was the beginning, when LSD came out. I mentioned buddha grass but I think I didn’t mention LSD and those things that came out at that time. Anyway, that was also when these Dharma books came out. I think that one may have come out a bit earlier, but at that time there were very few Dharma books, maybe only three or four. Then later, after some time, His Holiness produced a small pamphlet, just a few pages, which was an introduction to Buddhism. Now there are many, of course, but at that time there were only three or four books. One was Milarepa’s life story, one was Lama Govinda’s book, and I think one was the book on the Wheel of Life, something like that. There was one book, what is it? What was her name? Not Madame Blavatsky, the other one? Huh? [Ven. Kaye: Alexandra David-Néel.] Alexandra David-Néel. There was one small book.⁵

Anyway, what I was talking about? Many people read those books, but that was such a long time ago. I don’t know why I brought this up. Ah lay! I was talking about Domo Geshe, the great yogi, I think Lama Govinda went to Tibet and met this great yogi. He reincarnated and studied in a monastery in Tibet when it was independent and then he was put in prison after Tibet was overtaken by mainland China. Then he escaped and went to India, then he lived in America, where he passed away. He has now reincarnated again now and is studying in Sera Monastery.

When he was conceived, rainbows appeared over the family house. The khangtsen I belong to at Sera Je—“khangtsen” means “section” and there are many at Sera Je—went to offer robes after His Holiness recognized the reincarnation, as a welcome or a celebration. On that day a rainbow also came over the house. So, that definitely shows he is a very special, holy being. That’s normal to have that sign.

So anyway, I lived for three years in Pagri in Tibet near Domo. Every day I went to do puja. We had to do pujas for this family. Mostly it’s all fixed. In one year, there were one or two days free when we didn’t have pujas to do. Those days were very long, very strange, because we didn’t have pujas. I lived there for three years like that, memorizing texts in the morning and evening. You went to the monastery to offer examination among the public and it became a puja, with all the monks and offerings to the umdze. It was a little bit of puja. You sat down and recited, and the leader of the puja asked, “Please recite now for me.” It seemed like it was the umdze saying he had done a good job!

At that time, I was called chömdze,⁶ which is kind of like the one who makes a big offering to the monastery. You then get a special title and you don’t have to do the work for the Sangha, you don’t have to stand and offer tea to the Sangha, you’re kind of free from that. By that time, Tibet was already overtaken by mainland China.

Anyway, I was the last person in the line. There was another chömdze sitting next to me. He was maybe a little bit jealous because he told me he had done a better recitation than me.

OPENING THE DOOR OF DHARMA

I then lived eight years at Buxa, memorizing texts and doing a little bit of debate. My debating was just playing. Then I returned to Nepal because Lama thought to establish a monastery here. Lama built this one and then at the same time I went up to build the monastery in Solu Khumbu. It happened that way. 

While I was building the monastery up there, I was supposed to watch the workers outside, but actually I was in the cave reading the texts. There was one text of a collection of the Kadampa teachings that covered the four traditions: Sakya, Kagyü, Nyingma and Gelug. Most of the texts were Nyingma because the past life Lawudo Lama, who was called Lama Yeshe, was supposed to be Nyingma but also Sakya. Somehow the high lamas mentioned that he was my past life. Although most of the texts were Nyingma or Sakya, there was this text that all four traditions could practice. That text is called Opening the Door to Dharma: Mind Training at the Very Beginning. 

I spent much time reading that book and when I looked back on my life—Tibet, Buxa, Solu Khumbu—I didn’t find anything that had become Dharma. With all that memorization and doing puja, I could not find any action that had become Dharma. That’s what I discovered. I’ll just give an example.

Whether something is Dharma, spiritual, is not just what appears externally. Whether it’s spiritual, whether it’s Dharma, is only judged by the motivation. There are three things with meditation. One is the subject of the meditation and another is the motivation. The motivation is highly emphasized. Whether we waste our time or not depends on the motivation, not the subject itself. So, there’s a danger that we will waste our whole life if we don’t know how to practice Dharma. We believe we are meditating but we are actually wasting our whole life. That’s very dangerous. Therefore, we are extremely fortunate that we have met lamrim teachings in this life, that we have met them now. It's not too late.

I have to go back. I don’t know where I was. What did I say? Where does it start? Anyway, I forgot. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten, anyway.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING THE VOWS

Anyway, I hope you understood the point I’m making. Therefore, I was saying that, as a lay person, as regards to protecting our karma, we have to do what we can do according to our capacity. Then I explained the reasons why it’s so important. I talked about the shortcomings of the four suffering results of one complete negative karma and the four happy results of one complete positive karma, such as living in the morality abstaining from sexual misconduct, how we can enjoy the happiness from life to life, to liberation and—with bodhicitta—enlightenment.

Somebody who always gets sicknesses, one after another, that is the result of the past negative karma of killing, experiencing the result similar to the cause. One negative karma of killing can have that result. Even though we are born a human being, we always get sick, with one illness after another. Some people lead their lives like that.

For example, gossiping. You have already gone through that, but of the negative karma of gossiping, with experiencing the result similar to the cause, even if we ask for help or give a talk to people, our speech has no power. People don’t listen to us; they don’t keep our words in their mind. And they won’t do what we ask for, whether we are giving a teaching or we are asking for help. I’m not going to say everything, just this one here.

With the result of negative karma of telling lies, when we are born a human being, experiencing the result similar to the cause means we are criticized, we are blamed by other people. And others cheat us. That’s experiencing the result similar to the cause of the negative karma of telling lies to other sentient beings. It doesn’t have to only be in a future life, we can also experience it in this life if the karma is powerful. Others blame us for something we have not done; they cheat us. When something like that happens to us, we must immediately know it comes from that negative karma, it comes from our mind. That’s enough.

Each of these complete negative karmas has four suffering results, so it goes on and on like that. Now you can see how this is so important. Living in these vows, abstaining from these negative karmas, living in morality, is the source of happiness through our whole life.

The negative karmas we have done in the past need to be purified. That’s why we need to do a deity practice. There are powerful deities for purifying negative karma. The Buddha or the absolute guru manifests as a powerful deity like Vajrasattva to purify the negative karma of us sentient beings.

To do the recitation-meditation depends on receiving the initiation or the jenang, the permission to practice, the blessing of the deity, which allows us to purify the negative karma we’ve collected in the past, from beginningless rebirths until today.

Purification alone is not enough. If we purify our past negative karma but then we commit the action again and again, our purification will have no end. Therefore, the solution is to not commit the action again. Along with the purification, we do not commit it again. That’s how important taking the vows that are coming are.

That still means you take the number of vows according to whatever you can. If you can’t take all the five, if all you can take is the refuge vow, that can be done. Because the Buddha has so much compassion for us, he gave us so much choice, according to our capacity. If it is only the refuge vow, that involves abandoning four things to be abandoned and practicing four things to be practiced. Sorry! Three things to be abandoned and three things to be practiced! Then there’s the general advice.

So now think that the purpose of taking refuge is to be totally liberated forever from the oceans of the hell beings’ suffering, the hungry ghosts’ suffering, the animals’ suffering, the human beings’ suffering and the sufferings you are going through of the suras and asuras of the desire, form and formless realms, and to be totally free from the cause of those sufferings, karma and delusions, including the seed of delusion, by actualizing the true path and true cessation of suffering. Not only to be free from samsara, but also to cease the subtle defilements by actualizing the Mahayana path with bodhicitta and the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. With that, we achieve the great cessation, the cessation of even the subtle defilements, which is full enlightenment. Then we can do perfect work for sentient beings, freeing them from all their suffering and the causes and bringing them to enlightenment.

THE REFUGE CEREMONY

So, the motivation for refuge is vast. It’s not just for your happiness but for the happiness of all sentient beings, for all sentient beings to be free from the suffering of samsara and to achieve enlightenment. It’s very vast, like limitless sky. That’s the purpose of taking refuge in the Buddha as the founder of the actual refuge, the Dharma as the actual refuge and the Sangha as helpers to actualize the actual refuge within your own heart. By relying on them, you attain every success, every benefit, as I mentioned before, not only freeing yourself from samsara but also achieving enlightenment for sentient beings. To do that, you are going to take the refuge vow, relying upon the Buddha as the founder, the Dharma as the actual refuge and the Sangha as helpers to actualize the actual refuge in your own heart.

Those who are taking refuge, please do three prostrations to the Buddha, seeing the statue behind me as the actual living Buddha. Then after that, do three prostrations to the lama who gives you refuge.

[Rinpoche continues the refuge ceremony]

At the end of the third repetition, have the strong determination in your heart that you have received the vow, otherwise if you don’t think that, you won’t have received it. From that time, I become your lobpön, the guru or master who leads the disciples on the path to liberation. How? By granting the vows that cause the disciple to live in those vows. The lobpön is the leader of the disciples. I become your lobpön, like that.

[Rinpoche continues the refuge ceremony]

Those who have a higher ordination shouldn’t take the lower vows, the upasika [or upasaka] vows. If you have taken the higher vows, like the higher pratimoksha thirty-six vows of the getsul or the 253 vows of the gelong, you should not think “I have received the lower vows,” because that destroys the higher vows. The eight Mahayana percepts are exceptional. You can take them.

Some geshes say you can’t take the eight Mahayana precepts because you can’t take a lower vow, but that is because it is not common to take eight Mahayana precepts in the large monasteries. It doesn’t happen that the whole community takes the eight Mahayana precepts, so they regard them as similar to the lower pratimoksha vows, which also have eight precepts. In that case, you can’t take the pratimoksha vows if you are living in the higher vows. But the eight Mahayana precepts are the exception, because they are taken with bodhicitta, they are taken with all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. There are a few special things with that. This is commonly done in Dharamsala by His Holiness, who has given them many times in public, but they are not common in the large monasteries, where the whole community takes them, so they are not well known, and sometimes at a center there are some teachers who say you can’t take them [if you have higher vows].

Not only this, there are other practices not normally done in the monasteries in public. Individual monks might do them, but not the whole monastery. Like the Jorchö practices. A whole monastery doing the Jorchö practice is not common. I always chant the Offering Cloud mantra in the Lama Chöpa, Guru Puja, combined with Jorchö. One of our resident teachers told me because it was Kriya Tantra I couldn’t recite it in the Lama Chöpa offering section. I said that I had seen this in Pabongka’s text, it says it there, but he didn’t say anything. Actually, it comes at the beginning of the Lama Chöpa Jorchö when you visualize the merit field is the Guhyasamaja body mandala visualized on the guru’s holy body. That’s Highest Yoga Tantra not lower tantra. 

It comes at the beginning. The Offering Cloud mantra is very commonly done in the Gelug tradition, but it’s not common to do the Jorchö puja in the big monasteries. Therefore, they didn’t know and thought putting it in a Kriya Tantra text was corrupting it, but in the Lama Chöpa Jorchö, when you visualize the merit field, it is according to Highest Yoga Tantra. If you check the commentary, if it’s lower tantra, the Guhyasamaja body mandala shouldn’t be there. I didn’t get to explain that; I just said I saw it in Pabongka’s text, and then he didn’t say anything.

It has a special function here, increasing the offerings. So, it’s not only a blessing, it also increases the offerings. There are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, and if you do this mantra each one receives skies of offering, the offerings you have set up. Each one of the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas receives skies of light offerings, of water offerings, of flower offerings. Even if you only set up a few offerings, if you do this mantra, numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas each receive skies of each of the offerings. There are nine benefits in the Kangyur, which is why I recite it all the time.

So anyway, there’s clear proof that I’m not corrupting the Jorchö practice from Pabongka. I just thought to mention that. Anyway, I think the geshe was very concerned that the FPMT prayers and practices should be first class. They should be neat, with no mistakes. That was his only concern, that there shouldn’t be any mistakes there, that they should be good quality. So, it was very good. I just wanted to mention this because it might help in case there is some discussion about it.

What did I do? Sorry! The next one. I hope you have very strong determination that you have received the vow. OK?

Those who have taken all five precepts, the complete upasika vows, and those who have taken one, two, three or four upasika vows but are unable to take the other vows, or those who haven’t taken any of the vows, only refuge, everybody be clear [about what you’ve taken].

I also want to mention this. Since you have taken the vow, even one vow, such as abstaining from killing, whatever it is, you have to understand this. While you are sleeping, while you are eating, while you are walking, while you are talking—whatever you are doing—since you took this one vow, you always collect merit, always, day and night—all the time until death. Because you collect merit all the time, you are making your life meaningful all the time. And the more vows you have taken, you collect that much merit all the time. And then, whatever virtuous activity you do in your daily life, it increases hundreds and thousands of times, and the more vows you have taken, the more the merit increases from those virtuous activities. That’s one thing.

The opposite is somebody who becomes a soldier, which means killing human beings, killing sentient beings. When they make the vow of being a soldier, they collect negative karma every day, all the time, by living in that vow. The examples usually used are wine sellers or soldiers, people who harm others [with their profession]. They are living in the vows [of that profession], which means they collect negative karma all the time, no matter what they are doing. But here, it’s the opposite. You always collect merit, and the more vows, the more merit. That makes life so meaningful, even while sleeping eight hours—even if you sleep twenty-four hours each day—or while eating or drinking or whatever.

So now you can understand, whatever number of vows you have taken, this is your best contribution for world peace. This is not just world peace from the mouth but your real contribution for world peace, whether you take one vow, two vows, three vows or all, abstaining from those harms, abstaining from creating that negative karma that harms you and harms others. You have to understand this. It is not just world peace from the mouth but real, practical peace you are offering, protecting yourself and others, not harming yourself and not harming the world, bringing peace and happiness to others.

In the past, the arhats changed their attitude from engaging in these negative karmas. Think, “Just as they abandoned negative karma, today I am also going to change my attitude and change my actions. I am going to abstain from those negative karmas.” Then take whatever number of vows you have decided to take.

[Rinpoche continues the refuge ceremony]

THREE THINGS TO BE ABANDONED AND THREE TO BE PRACTICED

I’m not going to mention that, so please study the refuge book, where it talks about the three things to be abandoned and the three things to be practiced. I won’t explain now because it’s too late, but this is very important, so please study it. It is there.

And then there’s some general advice on the refuge card. At the end, I have also added Saint Francis’ prayer, his advice. He lived in Assisi, near where Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa is, our large Italian center. Assisi is where his holy body is, as well as the body of his chief disciple, a nun who had three hundred nun disciples. You can still see her body there. I mean, that was quite a number of years ago. I went with Lama Yeshe, but her body is still very well preserved. I don’t know what happened to his holy body. You can’t see it. It’s wrapped up and it has walls around it. Lama Yeshe sat down and meditated there.

No, you don’t have to kneel down; you can sit.

The first of the general advices is relying on holy beings, correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. Then, there is listening to Dharma as much as you can, and keeping in the mind the Dharma you have listened to. As well as listening to the Dharma as much as possible, reflecting and meditating on it as much as you can, whatever listening, reflecting and meditating that harmonizes with liberation.

As I explained when talking about the levels of motivation, listening, reflecting and meditating in the correct way becomes the cause of achieving liberation. It might have that meaning. It could also mean not following subjects that go against liberation, that hinder your progress, putting you on the wrong path. I guess it could mean that. Instead of achieving liberation, it becomes an obstacle for that. But here you should listen, reflect and meditate on that which harmonizes with liberation, the sorrowless state, and doesn’t become an obstacle.

There are four other things like that. The next one is not letting yourself be ruled by your senses. You should control your senses as much as possible. Of course, you can’t change instantly like that in one minute! [Rinpoche snaps his fingers] But the advice here is to not let your senses go to objects of the three poisonous minds, not allowing the objects of the three poisonous minds to take over your senses. If you practice thought transformation, if you keep your mind in renunciation, bodhicitta or right view, in guru devotion, when you do thought transformation, even if the object is there, it doesn’t become the cause of developing the three poisonous minds. You need to do this as much as possible.

Taking the higher vows, such as the eight Mahayana precepts you have been taking for the last two weeks, makes your life so meaningful. Taking the Mahayana precepts for the last two weeks has been going on during the November course at Kopan for many years. I think that is incredible. It makes your life so profitable, so meaningful. Even if you take the eight Mahayana precepts for just one day in your life, it’s just unbelievable. I’ve already explained the benefits of living in morality, of abstaining from the eight negative karmas, so even doing it once in your life, just for one day, is amazing, unimaginable. If it’s done with bodhicitta, you collect skies of merit. It becomes the cause of enlightenment. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment if it’s done with bodhicitta, so here we’re talking about taking higher precepts for lay people and things like that. This advice doesn’t mean everybody must become a monk or nun. It’s not saying that! It’s not threatening, not demanding that everybody becomes a monk or nun.

The next advice is having compassion for sentient beings, which means abandoning harming others and as much as possible bringing them to virtue. That means bringing to virtue those sentient beings that have a connection to you or who are around you, bringing them as much as possible into the path to happiness.

Next, the fourth one is relying on holy beings, listening to the Dharma as much as you can, keeping it in your mind—listening, reflecting and meditating as much as you can, harmonizing your mind with nirvana, with liberation.

Then, there is not allowing the senses to follow the objects of the three poisonous minds as much as possible. As much as possible not allowing sense objects to cause the three poisonous minds to arise. I think the second one may be similar, something like not indulging in the senses, and then there is taking the higher vows as much as possible.

That would mean the third one is having compassion for sentient beings, giving up harming them as much as possible. Then, the fourth would be bringing them to virtue. I think it has to be put together in that way.

The next one is attempting to make offerings to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha before you eat and drink. You can recite OM AH HUM to bless the food or drink, offering it to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, or you can do it like this, offering to the guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. You can even offer to the guru, thinking that the guru is all the buddhas, all the Dharma, all the Sangha. In that way, you make offerings to the highest, most powerful object, and you collect the most extensive merit.

By making offerings to all the buddhas, you create numberless causes of enlightenment; by thinking of all the Dharma, you create numberless causes of enlightenment; and by thinking of the numberless Sangha, you create numberless causes of enlightenment. That means numberless causes of liberation from samsara, numberless causes of happiness of future lives. Saying it three or four times while thinking of the guru, who encompasses all the Three Rare Sublime Ones, you create the highest merit. That way is much simpler. Or you can offer to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, thinking Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is all the gurus, all the numberless buddhas, the numberless Dharma and the numberless Sangha, everything. You can also offer like that. In that way, in just one second you collect unimaginable, unimaginable merit, like skies of merits.

There may be a small booklet or whatever showing the meditation on how to make offerings. If you want to understand more, you can look at that. But first, at the beginning generate a motivation of bodhicitta. Think, “The purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings from all the suffering and its causes, to bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, I must achieve enlightenment; therefore, I’m going to make this offering.” Then, you make the offering. Your practice of offering will be vast; you will collect the most merit, even if it’s just offering a candy, a piece of fruit or a piece of biscuit—even half a biscuit! With this meditation, from this one small candy or spoonful of food, you collect unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit. You should understand that.

You can also visualize yourself as Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and make the offering. It’s the same as I explained before. With every bite, with every spoonful of food, with every sip of drink, you collect the most extensive merit. With every tiny bit of food and drink, you become closer to enlightenment and closer to enlightening all sentient beings. That’s amazing. Or you can visualize Guru Shakyamuni in your heart and with every bite and drink you make the offering. Whichever way suits you. Then, while you are eating and drinking, with each spoonful of food or sip of drink, you collect the most extensive merit. Unbelievable.

Otherwise, what happens? The food you are eating now is the result of your past good karma. Just enjoying it [without collecting merit] means that your past good karma has finished. It’s like you have money from having worked in the past, but now you are just spending it, so your money is running out. The karma you created in the past, you’re just making it finish. It makes you run out of the little past good karma you have. That’s one thing.

The other thing is what happens if you don’t do this food offering practice. Eating and drinking become the cause of samsara, the cause to be reborn again in samsara, and because you are eating with the attachment in the lower realms.

There’s another danger, which is the pollution, kor,⁷ that can happen. [If you have taken vows] but you are not living in them purely, there’s heavy pollution. There’s more danger if you make offerings, visualizing yourself as a deity without having received any initiation. That’s what Kyabje Denma Lochö Rinpoche said. You might be able to visualize Guru Shakyamuni Buddha because he is the present founder of the Buddhadharma. Rinpoche said visualizing Guru Shakyamuni Buddha might be OK, even though you haven’t received a great initiation. Visualizing the food transformed into nectar, you then visualize yourself as the deity Shakyamuni Buddha. In that way, it doesn’t make you run out of the little merit, the good karma, you have collected in the past that you are living on now. Instead of that, you collect unbelievable merit. The other thing is that your eating and drinking doesn’t become the cause of samsara, to reincarnate again, particularly in the lower realms. It becomes protection from receiving pollution to the mind that is an obstacle for realizations. There are many benefits like that.

The next advice is to never give up the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, even if it causes danger to your life. Don’t give up protecting the advice. Then, with these practices, please the Three Rare Sublime Ones.

The last one is that in everyday life you should rely on no other refuge than the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, thinking in your heart you have no other hope. [Rinpoche sneezes a couple of times] Sorry, disaster happened! I have no other hope in my heart. Anyway, always go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and have no other refuge.

Go for refuge three times in the day and three times at night. When you get up, do three prostrations to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and before going to bed do three prostrations. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do more! But at least prostrate three times in the morning and three times at night. I mean, if you do prostrations while reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas, that’s amazing. You can do that in the morning, and then in the evening you can do Vajrasattva with prostrations, reciting the mantra twenty-one times. Whichever practice you do has the refuge prayer, so the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are there. It comes in the prayer, so the commitment to go for refuge three times in the day and three times at night is done when you recite those prayers.

This is the general advice from the Buddha on how to make our life most meaningful, most productive, because this life, this general human life, and especially this perfect human life, is most rare. First, a human life is most rare. The number of sentient beings who reincarnate in the hell realm is like the number of atoms of this earth, the dust of this earth. The number of sentient beings who reincarnate as hungry ghosts is the number of sand grains of the ocean. Unbelievable. The number of sentient beings who reincarnate as animals is like the number of blades of grass on all the mountains and hills in this world—uncountable.

Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, how many sentient beings reincarnate in those realms? The number of sentient beings who reincarnate in the upper realms, the human or deva realms, is very small. It’s so rare; the number is so small. The Buddha used this example. If you scratch the earth, the dirt you collect between your nails is like the number of human beings compared with all the animals in the world. If the number of human beings is very small, the number who attain a perfect human body is much rarer.

And this life lasts a very short time, like last night’s dream or a flash of lightning. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers] It happens and then, the next minute it’s gone. It’s like that. Thinking we will live like this for many years is a totally wrong concept. This concept of permanence is a wrong concept. It always cheats us, not allowing us to achieve enlightenment, to achieve liberation from samsara, or even to achieve the happiness of future lives. We have this life for just a very short time. Therefore, we need to do our best during that short time. Whatever the best is in this life, we must do it, not only for ourselves but also for the benefit of all sentient beings. So, please rejoice in all this.

DEDICATIONS

Yeah, now we dedicate. No, I mean three prostrations to the lama, OK!

Now, we dedicate. Rejoice greatly in having this opportunity to take refuge and especially to take these vows to achieve liberation and enlightenment and for the peace and happiness of all sentient beings, particularly the peace and happiness in this world. Rejoice that you are able to do something, you are able to offer something that is most practical.

Now we dedicate.

“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, may bodhicitta be actualized within my heart and in the hearts of my family members, and in the hearts of all the sentient beings, without delay of even a second. And in those whose hearts bodhicitta has been generated, may it increase.

“For the leaders of the world and all the people who have thoughts to harm to the world, to harm people, to harm others, may bodhicitta be generated in their hearts.” Dedicate the merits collected by you and by all others.

[Rinpoche and the students recite prayers in Tibetan]

“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me and collected by others, may the paramita of morality be completed by keeping it without any mistake and without pride and keeping it pure. May this happen for myself and for all sentient beings.”

[Rinpoche and the students recite prayers in Tibetan]

Then, please dedicate the merits. “Due to all the three-time merits collected by me and collected by others, in all our lifetimes, may I and all sentient beings, including my family members, have Lama Tsongkhapa as our direct guru. And may we never separate from the pure path that pleases all the buddhas. May the complete path to enlightenment be actualized within my own heart, just as revealed by Lama Tsongkhapa, Nagarjuna and Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, and just as Marpa, Milarepa and Padmasambhava have actualized.” So, think like that.

[Rinpoche and the students recite prayers in Tibetan]

“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me and collected by others, may I be able to offer limitless skies of benefit to sentient beings and to the teachings of the Buddha by having the same qualities within me as Lama Tsongkhapa has. From now on, in every second, may it be like that.

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, may all the father, mother sentient beings have happiness; may the three lower realm beings be empty forever; may all the bodhisattvas’ prayers succeed immediately. May I be able to cause all of this to happen by myself alone.

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, by having actualized bodhicitta in the hearts of all sentient beings in this world, may war, famine, disease, torture, poverty, sicknesses, dangers of fire, water, air, earthquakes, tsunamis, all these things, be stopped immediately wherever it’s happening. May nobody in this world experience these things forever.”

We dedicate however many merits we have collected during this course and today by having taken refuge and so forth in this way. “May this world be filled with perfect peace and happiness, particularly in Burma and Iraq and all those many countries where there’s so much killing, where there are so many problems.” Dedicate your merits especially for the people of all those countries to have peace and happiness.

“Due to all the past, present and future…” Now, this is my hobby!

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, which exist but do not exist from their own side, which are totally empty; may the I, which exists but does not exist from its own side, which is totally empty; achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which does not exist from its own side, which is totally empty.”

If you can try to feel that, something very deep, there is nothing to discriminate this and that. In emptiness there are not all these things, this and that, just one thing. There’s no “my merits” and “others’ merits.” There’s no I, there’s no Buddha’s enlightenment, no this and that.

“And lead all the sentient beings, who exist but who do not exist from their own side, who are totally empty, to achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which is empty, by myself alone, who exists but who is empty from its own side.

“I dedicate all the merits to be able to follow the holy extensive deeds of the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra and Manjugosha as they realize. I dedicate all the merits in the same way that the three-time buddhas dedicate their merits.”

[Rinpoche speaks to someone in Tibetan]

Where are the books? Maybe we’ll do it now or tomorrow? Maybe tomorrow, OK?

[Rinpoche and the students recite prayers in Tibetan]

So, good morning. Today, it really is “good morning!

VISITING THE HOLY PLACES

One thing that is very good, which maybe we have to do, is to go to Boudha to circumambulate the stupa and also to go to Swayambhunath. It has never happened in past courses. I mean, individually people have gone, but we never did it as a group, taking the opportunity to circumambulate the Boudhanath and Swayambhunath stupas. If we don’t see two, at least see one. You came from very far away, from the West. You have all spent a lot of money to come here and yet you don’t get the chance to even circumambulate this enlightenment stupa, this most holy object, built by holy beings, or the crystal stupa inside the Swayambhunath mountain that is a manifestation of Buddha’s holy mind, the dharmakaya.

When Kathmandu [emerged from] the lake, a crystal stupa naturally appeared. It was not made by hand but was a manifestation of Buddha’s dharmakaya. It is covered by earth inside the mountain. It’s also regarded as Heruka’s palace, in the mountain. The top stupa was built by Padmasambhava, when Padmasambhava returned after purifying the country of Tibet and spreading the Dharma in Tibet. It is said he returned and built that stupa. I thought the main one is on top but actually it’s inside the mountain. There’s a whole story. That’s why most people circumambulate down below.

We have never done this before as a group. I think, maybe one time we went there to do puja, in the past, many, many years ago. I feel this is a great loss, to come all the way with a lot of expenses and with no certainty you will have the opportunity to come back again [and not go to these holy places]. Therefore, it is very important to take even one circumambulation and prayer. If you don’t know how to pray, you can just read the lamrim prayer to achieve all the path, then you can do the King of Prayers, with those extensive bodhisattva prayers, thinking “Whatever prayers the buddhas and bodhisattvas make, if I make the same prayer, it will happen to me.”

Anyway, you can recite a lamrim prayer; that’s a requesting prayer. Then, at the end, if you can, you can do the bodhisattva’s extensive prayer, the King of Prayers and Lama Tsongkhapa’s very special Prayer for the Beginning, Middle and End of Practice. That’s a very important prayer. When Lama Yeshe dedicated his merits, he especially recited this one. Every stanza is very important. 

I feel it’s a pity to come all the way for this course without seeing the stupas. They are just there. Soon, you will have to go back and then it’s not sure when it will happen again. It’s not sure whether you will have the opportunity to come back or not. These stupas were built by holy beings to benefit us sentient beings and many holy beings, not only the ones who had the idea to build them and who built them, but the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas abiding in them in that form, benefiting and liberating us sentient beings. There are so many holy beings in these holy places that we can make prayers to. They are there to benefit us sentient beings.

Being in a holy place where somebody has achieved realizations and become enlightened, we ordinary beings receive blessings. And if we do practice there, it moves our mind. It is easy to transform our mind, easy to have attainments, because those great enlightened beings, those great bodhisattvas, blessed the place. Sometimes the merit we create is much more. It is said that if we practice at Bodhgaya, the merit increases eight times. It’s so easy to transform the mind in those places because they have been blessed by many enlightened beings, by bodhisattvas. It’s also to develop devotion and from that we receive blessings. We ordinary beings go there to receive blessings. That is the purpose of pilgrimage. That’s why pilgrimage is important; it is to transform our mind into the Dharma, to purify the mind, to collect merit, to have realizations. That’s the purpose of pilgrimage.

Probably it’s best to go in the middle of the night, when there are less people, although maybe there are more dogs at that time. At certain times, there are a lot of people and it’s difficult. Maybe we have to think of the times when there are less people so that you can circumambulate. Even one circumambulation, even making one prayer, that will make a difference to your life. It depends also on how long before you have to leave.

So that’s it. I thought just to express that. So, thank you very much.

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Notes

³ Even those who wish to find happiness and overcome misery / Will wander with no aim or meaning / If they do not comprehend the secret of the mind / The paramount significance of Dharma. – Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 5, v. 17. [Return to text]

⁴ The other popular book by Lama Govinda was Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, first published in 1960 and now out of print. [Return to text]

⁵ Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Dover Publications, 1971. [Return to text]

⁶ Wylie: chos mdzad. The title given to a monk, usually a tulku, who has made a substantial offering to the monastery and is therefore exempt from work obligations. [Return to text]

⁷ Wylie: dkor. A multi-layered term that can mean wealth or material offerings given to the Sangha and the Three Jewels, and can also have a negative connotation of misusing offerings. [Return to text]