December 9, 2007

DEVELOPING BODHICITTA

Good evening. Maybe just one question. I don’t know if there are many geshes here to ask.

Student: Can you please explain how we can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime?

Rinpoche: In your lifetime? By eating a lot of chocolates! Or maybe buddha grass! I’m joking, anyway. Do you know buddha grass? It doesn’t matter; it’s not important.

First, the answer is that we need the foundation, the strongest compassion for other sentient beings. Then, because of that, because we feel it is so unbearable that sentient beings are suffering in samsara, with that very strong compassion, we develop strong bodhicitta. That becomes the foundation, like the fuel for a rocket, like fuel for a jet airplane. Without fuel, even if there is a rocket or a jet airplane that can go very fast, it can’t move without the fuel. It needs the fuel. Like that, we need very strong compassion and very powerful bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, taking responsibility to free them from all their suffering and its causes, bringing them to enlightenment. We need that special attitude of taking responsibility.

You have gone through the seven techniques of Mahayana cause and effect, where there is the thought of equilibrium. Equilibrium means cutting attachment. Say, a stranger or somebody helps us and we get attached to them. If we think that person also gave us a lot of harm in the past, in past lives, and that they will give us harm in the future, by thinking like that we can stop attachment.

And when somebody harms us and we are about to get angry, we can think that person also gave us a lot of benefit in the past and that they will also benefit us in the future. That cuts our anger; it equalizes our mind, like that. The definition of this type of equanimity is having cut anger and attachment. When we think of these reasons, how enemy and friend are the same in this respect, we cut attachment and anger.

It is the same with the indifferent mind, where there is neither anger nor attachment. With equanimity, we renounce [partiality], the mind that sees others as either giving harm or helping us. On that basis, we establish the thought of equilibrium for all sentient beings, for friend, enemy and stranger, and we try to stabilize this in our mind.

When we have a stable realization of equanimity, when somebody criticizes or cheats us, we don’t get angry. We immediately know that in the past that person benefited us a lot and in the future they will also help us. By thinking of these reasons, because equanimity naturally arises, anger does not arise. Also, in the other way, attachment does not rise. Our mind is stabilized through training.

Then, on that basis, we see how all sentient beings have been our mother. When we have realization of that, we naturally want to benefit all others, like when Lama Atisha saw a cow outside tied to a stake with a chain, he felt it was so unbearable. He thought, “Oh, my mother is in trouble; she is suffering so much.” He couldn’t bear seeing how this cow, his mother, was chained, caught on that stake. He couldn’t stand to see his mother suffering. Lama Atisha called the cow “Jowo,” meaning “lord” or something like that, referring to her as his mother. He felt like that when he saw not only animals but also people.

There are some people who love animals so much but have a bad feeling for people. They love animals—cats and dogs and so forth—but their compassion is very limited. It’s a political mind, liking one side and not liking the other side. This can happen with different countries or different parties. They like the Democrats but hate the Republicans, or they like the Republicans but hate the Democrats.

That’s why before bodhicitta, before meditating on loving kindness and compassion, we need this mind training, this first foundation realizing the thought of equilibrium, otherwise our compassion is only for some; we don’t have compassion for everybody. We might have compassion for animals, but just some animals or just some people. Maybe we have compassion for our friends who love us, who help us, but not for enemies, those we don’t like or who don’t like us, or for strangers. Because we only have compassion for some people—those who help us, who know us, who are kind to us—that compassion is very limited. We cannot really develop our compassion and loving kindness; we cannot expand it to include all the sentient beings. That means we cannot develop bodhicitta.

And we cannot generate the special attitude, lhag sam, the thought taking responsibility for each and every single sentient being: each and every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura and asura. There are numberless hell beings and we take responsibility for each and every single one of them, this special attitude, taking responsibility to free them from all suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Then, it’s the same thing with the other beings. There are numberless hungry ghosts, so in the same way, we have this special attitude, taking responsibility on ourselves to free them from all suffering and bring them to enlightenment. And the same thing with the numberless beings of the animal realm—we have the special attitude, taking the universal responsibility to free them from all suffering and bring them to enlightenment. We take that responsibility on ourselves. Then, the same thing with the suras, asuras and intermediate stage beings, so for all sentient beings. There are numberless beings in each realm, and we really take responsibility for each and every single one, really taking the responsibility on ourselves to liberate them from all suffering and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves alone. Here, we have that excellent word “alone.”

Here, realizing all sentient beings have been our mother, we see the kindness of the mother sentient beings, and then the thought to repay them arises. The Tibetan word for loving kindness is yi ong jam pa. It is sometimes translated as “affectionate loving kindness,” but I don’t think that is correct because you are describing the mind as affectionate, you are not describing the object, you are not expressing the object of the loving kindness. Yi ong is not the mind, not the loving kindness itself, it’s the object of our loving kindness. We are expressing how beautiful it is, so I translate it as “the loving kindness of seeing others in beauty.”

For example, a thoughtful, compassionate daughter or son will discover how the mother is so kind. It might seem a little funny, talking about the mother and not the father. Usually not mentioning the father might sound funny, but I think this is because the mother is the one who carried us in her body for nine months, who abandoned all her happiness and comfort, all her freedom, to take care of us for nine months. She is also the one who gave birth to us. She didn’t have an abortion. If she had, we wouldn’t have this precious human body, not only for the happiness [of this life] but especially giving us the opportunity to practice the Dharma. We wouldn’t have this, which gives us this opportunity to practice the Dharma. That’s an unbelievable kindness, just by having this human body. But she didn’t have an abortion; she protected us for those nine months and then gave birth to us, enduring unbelievable pain. I’ve seen this on TV many times! There’s usually somebody there, like the husband, patting her, trying to speak nicely to her, trying to distract her mind and she is weeping, in so much unbelievable pain. But she bore all that for us.

Even after that, although the father is there also taking care of us—I think it depends on the family—usually the mother is the one who is with the child all the time. Of course, you can hire somebody afterwards when the mother has to work. However, our mother is the one who spends more time with us and takes care of us, day and night. Usually, not all the time, some children are closer to the father than mother, but mostly children feel close to mother. So, I think that is the main reason when we think of somebody as most kind, most precious, we think of the mother. Then remembering all her kindness, we generate the loving kindness seeing others in beauty. We use that as an example and then try to realize how all sentient beings have been our mother and have been so kind.

What I was talking about before was that when we have the realization, realizing how all beings have been our mother, our attitude in daily life changes, like how Lama Atisha felt with everybody, with human beings, with animals, feeling in his heart that everybody was his mother. If there is somebody, like an insect in trouble, we naturally feel strong compassion, feeling how it is so unbearable. We see our mother is having difficulties and immediately feel it is so unbearable. I mean, we are not shocked, but we feel it is unbearable, with the total realization that this is our kind mother who is suffering. In our daily life, we feel that when we see human beings, when we see animals, insects, any being. We feel they are very close in our heart.

What I was trying to say before, the very good human being, the kind, compassionate daughter or son realizes how their mother is so kind, how she gave up her life during those nine months and then for many years afterwards, not only giving birth but also protecting the child from hundreds of danger every day, giving them an education and bearing so many hardships, with no time for even a comfortable sleep.

Many years ago, Lama Ösel Rinpoche, the incarnation of our guru, Lama Yeshe, who is kinder than all the three-time buddhas, went to California for the first time, to Vajrapani meditation center, the first meditation center in the United States. At that time a couple came from Hawaii.

[Noise from microphone] That’s to remind us of emptiness! It’s a very truly existent sound, existing from its own side, including my cough! That buzz in your ear, maybe breaking your eardrum. My coughing is probably much less now than many years ago.

However, the couple who went to Vajrapani had a son. Wow! I couldn’t believe it. They had to watch him, not only every minute but every few seconds. To not watch constantly meant the child could be in danger. He could fall down or eat things that would cause him harm. He could cut himself. This was a very wild child! A very wild child. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, they had to watch him every second. They could never really talk or relax. They had to watch him every second. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, if she has this much patience with this child, she will have patience with all the sentient beings. It was really amazing. I couldn’t believe it.

We have been like that. We have been born numberless times to this mother in different lives, always only disturbing her, never giving her peace, twenty-four hours a day, not just for one life but for numberless lifetimes we did that, only disturbing her. We caused her so much worry and fear all the time for so many years.

The first kindness of the mother is that she gave us this precious human body that gives us the opportunity to practice the Dharma, to do whatever we wish. We can practice any Dharma that we wish; we can achieve any happiness we wish for. There are three great meanings, including the question that Peter asked, how to achieve enlightenment in one life.

Anyway, in this life with this perfect human body, we have the opportunity to learn the path, to learn the four noble truths, what is true suffering and what is the true cause of suffering—how there is a cause of those sufferings—to learn that the cause of suffering is not permanent and it can be ceased, and to learn how to achieve that cessation by following the infallible path, the true path that leads to the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. We have met the teachings, the four noble truths that show how to be totally liberated from the oceans of suffering of samsara, the oceans of each realm’s sufferings. We have met the teachings that have all the answers, explaining how we can achieve the whole path.

THE CONTINUITY OF THE MIND: THE FIRST PROOF OF REINCARNATION

We have the opportunity to learn, to reflect and to actualize the path, by meditating on it, achieving the ultimate happiness of liberation, free from every single suffering of samsara. This is something that up to now has never happened to us before. We have had beginningless rebirths because there is the continuity of consciousness.

The body of this second is the continuity of the body of the previous second. The body of this present hour is the continuity of the body of the previous hour. Today’s body is the continuity of yesterday’s body. And it is similar with consciousness. There is a body and a mind. The mind is formless, without color or shape, but whose nature is clear and functions to perceive an object, whereas the body does not have that quality. The body’s nature is not clear and able to perceive an object. The mind is devoid of resistance, devoid of form. Being devoid of substantial phenomena, it is therefore unobstructed by substantial phenomena, therefore its nature is clear. Phenomena can appear to it; it can perceive the phenomena. Like a mirror unobstructed by dust, it has that nature. With its clear nature, it can give a clear reflection of anything that appears to it. Our I, our self, that we possess—there’s a body and a mind, two totally different phenomena that have different functions and different characteristics.

So anyway, this second’s consciousness is the continuity of the consciousness of the previous second; this minute’s consciousness is the continuity of the previous minute’s consciousness; this hour’s consciousness is the continuity of the previous hour’s consciousness; today’s consciousness is the continuity of yesterday’s consciousness. Similarly, the consciousness when the body has just left the mother’s womb is the continuity of the consciousness that was in the mother’s womb. And similarly, the body is the continuity of the body that was in the mother’s womb before. And similar to that, the consciousness that first joined with the fertilized egg—the first second of consciousness in this life—is the continuity of the consciousness the second before that. So, the mind has its own separate evolution and the body has its own separate continuity, before the fertilized egg and after the consciousness joined with it.

It is like how a banana has to come from its own kind; it cannot come from corn or a pumpkin or a durian. It cannot come from the continuity of a durian! A banana has to come from its own kind, from a similar type of continuity, and a durian comes from its own similar type of continuity—they are separate. Rice has to come from its own similar type of continuity, from rice; corn has to come from its own similar type of continuity, from corn. And it’s the same thing with the body and mind, they come from a similar type of previous continuity. With all these external things, including the body and mind, there is a separate evolution.

All these are causative phenomena; they also have causes and conditions. The body and mind exist due to causes and conditions. Existing by depending on causes and conditions, they are not permanent, which is why they are decaying, changing, not only minute by minute but even second by second, and even within a second they are changing with subtlest impermanence.

Every phenomenon has cooperative causes and a principal cause. The principal cause of the mind has to be the mind. The first consciousness, the consciousness that first took place on the fertilized egg, has to have a principal cause. The consciousness is a causative phenomenon that is always changing, because it has its own principal cause, which is also in the nature of change. Why is the consciousness on the first second of the fertilized egg in the nature of change? Because its cause, which existed before that, is in the nature of change. The [preceding] consciousness is the one just before conception, just before the consciousness joined the fertilized egg.

The body also has its own causes and conditions. The principal cause is physical, so it is a separate principal cause [to the principal cause of the mind.] That which produces that result is totally separate. The other one, the continuity of the consciousness, proves there is reincarnation. The consciousness that joined with the fertilized egg is the continuity of the consciousness that immediately preceded it, the consciousness of the last moment before conception.

Another reason that proves reincarnation is habituation. I don’t remember the quotations from the pandits word by word or verse by verse. However, what they are saying is that even mute animals, because of habituation in the past, without needing to be taught how to suck milk, know how to do it themselves. They don’t have to go to school to learn how to suck milk. The minute they are born, they immediately go to suck milk. You see many times, as soon as an animal or a child is born, they go to the mother’s breast to suck milk. There’s no teacher to show them how to suck milk; they naturally do it.

When a baby kangaroo comes out, it looks like a piece of flesh, but moving! Then it goes up like this and goes into the mother’s pouch. Nobody teaches it that; it didn’t go to school to learn that. The mother kangaroo did not make a school for that. It’s natural; the baby knows how to do it. This is due to habituation from the past, from a past imprint. Chandrakirti explained it like that. That also proves that there is reincarnation, that there is the continuation of the consciousness before this life.

Probably in the West people might say it’s instinct when it can’t be explained why, but in Buddhism it’s not instinct; it’s habituation from the past, it’s past karma ripening. We can see this from all these many examples. We have been born as a kangaroo in the past, numberless times. We can’t say we have been a kangaroo a billion times, a zillion times or a trillion times; there’s no specific number. We have all been a kangaroo numberless times and, born as a baby [joey], we went like that, into the mother’s pouch.

I don’t remember now but there are all kinds of unbelievable things we know how to do. For example, birds making nests is not easy. We can use our hands for so many things but we would still find it incredibly difficult to make a nest like the birds do, all neatly woven and strong, so that even when a strong wind comes it is safe. I wouldn’t be able to do that even though I have hands and they just have tiny beaks. Even so, they can do everything. I don’t know how they do it; it’s unbelievable! They didn’t go to school to learn this, like human beings have to go to school to learn how to make things, how to clean, how to cook—we go to school to learn almost everything. We have to be taught how to be a waiter. If we want to be one, we need to go to waiter school! Birds are born in the nest from an egg, but they don’t spend long in the nest. When their wings are ready, they fly away to search for food. That’s their habituation from the past, from the imprints left from their past karma.

I don’t remember where the story came from but in China there was a very, very small girl who was expert in music, singing songs and playing music or something, for four or five years. I’m not sure, she was very small. Sorry, I don’t remember the whole story, but it was to do with how she was a very famous singer in her past life. There is a whole story, but sorry, my memory is so bad I don’t remember it. It’s a very interesting story from China.

STORIES OF REINCARNATED LAMAS: LAMA ÖSEL

When Lama Ösel, Lama Yeshe’s incarnation, came here for his enthronement, he was maybe four, something like that. On the day of the enthronement, we had lunch, not here but upstairs in the old gompa. I was eating a particular Tibetan food called pak, which is barley flour mixed with tea and butter and, if you are eating it as a sweet, with sugar and cheese mixed in. For Tibetans, that’s high class eating; that’s a lavish way of eating. As I was eating it, Lama Ösel, who was sitting next to me on a chair, wanted some so I gave him a little bit. He ate it and then opened his hand again, meaning he wanted more. He liked it very much, whereas when other people try it, after the first mouthful, that’s it! They eat the first piece and then they don’t want any more.

To me, that clearly proves reincarnation. It shows very clearly that the others were not Tibetan before, but Lama Ösel was. Lama Yeshe quite often ate a lot of momos. When we were in the West together and Lama went to give a talk, I made momos. But I was a very bad momo maker; my momos were very dry, with no liquid inside to run out. When you eat, juice is supposed to run out but mine never did that. When other people made them they had a little bit of liquid, although when Lama made them they didn’t have liquid, but of course Lama’s momos were much more delicious. He made them very quickly; just a few minutes in the kitchen and they were ready—very fast but very tasty.

Once, I went to Australia, to Chenrezig Institute, which is the largest and almost the very first FPMT meditation center. Quite soon after it started, Tara House in Melbourne happened and then many other centers started in different places. There was Geshe Legden, an ex-abbot of Sera Je Monastery, which had quite a few thousand monks—actually, he was abbot at that time, he was teaching. Lama invited him to teach at the Chenrezig Institute when he came to fundraise to build a new temple. He came to ask Lama for help so then Lama asked him to teach at Chenrezig Institute in Queensland for one year.

At the beginning, the center didn’t have a translator for him, so he was there for three or four months without a translator, He didn’t speak English and nobody there could speak Tibetan, so he had great difficulty. He missed Sera Monastery in South India so much, he said he almost saw the walls of his Sera house! Anyway, the center found a translator, one boy from McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, who had dropped out of school and was wandering on the road. They picked him up and took him to Chenrezig Institute, but he could not even translate the word “patience.” When he translated Dharma and had to translate zopa into English, he was unable to translate even that.

Geshe-la’s course was Lama Atisha’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, the root of all the lamrim teachings, and Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, his most elaborate lamrim teaching. So, Geshe-la taught the translator, who knew nothing, for four or five hours each day, trying to educate him, so when they went into the class the next day he would be able to translate. Within a few months, the translator got a lot of benefit; he learned so much.

Anyway, why I was saying this is that the translator used to make food for Geshe Legden, the ex-abbot, I mean, the abbot. He made some of the food quickly and after putting it on the table for Geshe-la to eat, he went down to the kitchen to eat with the other people. So anyway, when I went there, I thought to make momos. I think momos come from China; they are not a particularly Tibetan food, but still I think there are Chinese momos and Tibetan momos. There’s a big difference, huge, like the difference between the sky and the earth!

Anyway, I was in the kitchen making momos with a Western nun, Thubten Yeshe—she is not a nun now, but she was helping me at that time, traveling as an attendant. The abbot was sitting on the other side of the kitchen in what was sort of the sitting room—they were kind of the same room—watching how I was doing. As I was putting a little bit of salt in the meat, he called out from the other side of the room, “Oh, no, no, no, not like that!” He corrected me. He told me you put a little bit of warm water in the glass, then you put the salt and stir it. Then, you sprinkle that on, and you will have the liquid running! So, I learned how to make momos from him, but that still doesn’t mean I succeed every time. Once, I made momos for everybody at Nalanda, our Western monastery in France, but they were very dry.

Anyway, that’s just side talk, just blah, blah, blah!

But going back to Lama. When Lama gave a talk in the city, lunch was often made by the students, so I would try to make Tibetan food. I mostly made momos because Lama liked momos. So, in his previous life Lama likes momos and now Lama Ösel likes momos. He also likes thukpa and other Tibetan food, whereas the other children don’t like it at all, even though they were born at the same time.

When Lama Yeshe ate an orange, he would suck the juice and then spit out all the stuff on the plate. This is how Lama used to do it and Lama Ösel does exactly the same! Exactly the same. And those round white things, the nuts, the cushew nuts, huh? [Students: Cashew nuts.] Cashew nuts. Lama used to like them very much. He used to have cashew nuts around his bed. Lama Ösel likes cashew nuts very much. It’s exactly the same; he likes cashew nuts very much.

In so many ways, he behaves exactly the same as Lama Yeshe. We didn’t educate him in this; we didn’t say, “Lama Yeshe likes this so you should eat this.” Nobody educated him.

I was talking about all those animals but there are also us human beings. I mentioned Lama Ösel. There are so many things like that. He treated different students differently. How Lama would treat certain students in his past life, in this life Lama Ösel treats them in the same way. This has happened many times. When he went to Italy and saw the room Lama Yeshe had slept in, the bed he used, Lama Ösel immediately ran into the room and lay down on the bed, playing sleep like that. It happened in quite a few places, not just one.

Even from just that one example, Tibetan food. Anybody who likes tsampa very much was definitely—no question—a Tibetan in the last life. Anybody who hates Tibetan food, who can’t even stand tsampa, that is different. I have no idea where they came from.

So, tea.

[The group chants the tea offering.]

STORIES OF REINCARNATED LAMAS: RINPOCHE’S MOTHER

While you’re having tea, I’ll continue.

The example of Lama Ösel that I mentioned is also the habituation from the past, from the life before this, which was different from his other brothers and sisters. This proves that there is a continuity of consciousness, that this consciousness is the continuity of the previous life’s consciousness.

Even relating to my mother, there is very clear proof of reincarnation. After my mother passed away, the child was born quite close to the cave I go to sometimes, that some high lamas talk about as the place where the lama lived who was my past life’s incarnation. He was also called Lama Yeshe. It’s where I built a monastery this time. It’s said that there was the intention to do this in the past, but it didn’t get built. Anyway, my mother lived there at Lawudo after she became a nun. She moved there from Thangme, which was her home and where I was born.

My mother’s reincarnation was born quite close, in another hermitage called Genukpa, where we get spring water from in the winter. The reincarnation’s family took care of that hermitage. I don’t know, but I think that at two or three the boy was always talking about Lawudo, about the things that were there. My sister, who is a nun, heard the stories. Anyway, I think maybe the mother was sick or something and my sister went to take them food or something. When she met the child, the incarnation, she offered a scarf and the child kept the scarf on his neck for seven days, even sleeping with it. He liked my sister so much. He put the scarf on his neck for seven days, even night.

Anyway, to make it short, when my brother, who lived near Boudhanath, was invited to Lawudo to meet the incarnation and to make a celebration, the boy behaved exactly like my mother used to. When he went into the gompa, he paid respect to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s throne. It’s a carved table and he paid respect to it. Then, there was a small seat where I used to sit during pujas, and he went there to pay respect, and he went to the altar to pay respect. He did exactly like my mother used to do. Then, he circumambulated outside a few times. I think my mother used to circumambulate seven times or something like that, so he circumambulated the gompa a few times.

There was prayer wheel that was made for my mother. It was near the bed so that she could turn it while reciting OM MANI PADME HUM. The incarnation liked my mother’s prayer wheel very much. Each time he went there he grabbed the prayer wheel and offered a khatag, a scarf.

It is a tradition to offer a scarf to somebody as a welcome. People would do that to the incarnation and then he would give the scarf back, but there were only two people he didn’t give the scarf back to. One was a monk who lived at Lawudo called Tsultrim Norbu and one was his own father. He didn’t give the khatag back to those two people but he did to everybody else. I think the reason he didn’t give the scarf back to his father was because during my mother’s time, when we tried to bring water from the stream at that hermitage, the incarnation’s father tried to block the pipe to stop the water, and my mother got very upset about that. When there were a lot of people at Lawudo, wanting to wash, making hot water and things like that, being able to bring water from there through a pipe to this side of mountain made it easy. But he tried to block it, so my mother got very upset. And because of that imprint left from the past life, even though in this life this man was his own father, the incarnation didn’t give the scarf back.

I think maybe the other one was because he had disturbed my mother’s mind or something, I’m not sure. What I’m saying is that because of this imprint from the past life, when the mind was hurt, in this life there is dislike for that same person.

My mother has a friend in Kathmandu she liked very much called Ang Puwa. When my brother and Ang Puwa went to the incarnation’s house to meet the incarnation, even though the incarnation didn’t know he was coming, as his mother was serving wine or tea, whatever it was, the little child immediately mentioned his name, saying “Ang Puwa, please have some.” The incarnation, the small child, was able to remember his name. Ang Puwa grabbed the child and cried so much; he couldn’t bear that the child could remember his name.

When my mother had [finished with a shirt], she took off all the plastic buttons and kept them in a jar as something very precious, like in the old times in Solu Khumbu, where things like needles and spoons were considered very precious. People hung spoons around their necks. You can’t find this in [other parts of the country]. In the past, plastic buttons were regarded very precious, and my mother was still carrying on the same kind of thought, so she kept them in a jar. When my sister made a shirt for the incarnation, she used the buttons that my mother had collected in the jar on that new shirt, and when he came to Lawudo and my sister put the shirt on the boy, the incarnation said, “Oh, these are my buttons!”

He was able to recognize all the family members. My mother loved the animals, the dzo. I don’t know whether it’s a yak or not, but a dzo is the female who gives milk. Actually, a yak doesn’t give butter, that’s wrong. Yak butter doesn’t exist! The dzo is the one, the dri. It’s similar to a yak but female, dri. My mother loved the animals so much, taking care of them, keeping them warm by collecting leaves from high in the forest. (In that area it’s either up or down and it is mostly rocky. It's a very difficult life.) She laid them out so the animals could sleep warmly in the house at night. Anyway, she was very, very compassionate and the incarnation was also very compassionate with the animals. He didn’t want to hear about some cows who had been alive in my mother’s life but who had since died. So, their behavior was similar, a similar way of thinking.

Lamas such as His Holiness Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, who is also His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s guru, in an observation said this was my mother’s incarnation. Besides that, there is so much proof from his own side. There is no debate, no dispute. It was totally proved from his own side.

I thought if he was in the good hands of some lama, it would be incredible. I thought to educate him here at Kopan Monastery, and then later he could go to whatever tradition he wanted to benefit others. However, the parents did not agree with what I thought. They sent him to another monastery. Then, after fifteen days, when he was playing outside, a strong wind or a hailstorm or something came, and when he tried to run inside, he fell on the steps outside and banged his head on the corner of the cement step. He broke his skull. They took him to a small hospital and then later he went to a hospital here in Nepal. No doctors wanted to accept to operate, but then one doctor who my brother’s wife knew kindly operated. He saw there were still broken pieces of bones in the skull. Anyway, the incarnation got a little bit better for one or two days and then he passed away. Somebody said that before he wasn’t sure whether to reincarnate or not. I think somebody said he was in the Chenrezig pure land, Compassion Buddha’s pure land.

I think he had such a clear memory because in his past life [as my mother] he used to recite OM MANI PADME HUM. That was her main practice. The last time she came down here to Kopan from the mountain, she told me that she used to recite fifty thousand OM MANI PADME HUM every day, but now she couldn’t do that many anymore. This last time she came here to Kopan, she then went from here to India to attend the Kalachakra initiation from His Holiness in Varanasi. At that time, she passed away. She went to see His Holiness in the afternoon and then later, after midnight or in the early morning, she passed away.

I think this is because she recited OM MANI PADME HUM. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM has skies of benefits. This clear memory, where you can remember so much, is just one part of it, like an atom or a tiny part of the table. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM with a very clear mind, you can remember past lives like that.

Here what I was talking about before was how habituation proves reincarnation.

STORIES OF REINCARNATED LAMAS: GESHE LAMA KONCHOG

Pari Rinpoche, who was a very high lama in his past life, a disciple of the great enlightened being, Pabongka, didn’t have to learn the alphabet; nobody taught him the thirty syllables of the Tibetan alphabet. When he saw the alphabet, he was able to read it by himself without anybody having to teach him. He just said, “Oh, I can read this.” He was able to remember it because in his past life he had been a very high lama and this was the continuation of knowledge from the past, because of the clear mind with less obscurations. There are many stories like that, about the continuity of the understanding from past realizations.

Similarly, Geshe Lama Konchog was a great yogi. When he came here in the early days, I remember we were in the old gompa upstairs, in Lama Yeshe’s room, when he told me that he had completed Guru Puja and Vajrayogini, these two things. I didn’t know what that meant, whether it meant having recited a certain number of recitations or having completed the path, which means you are enlightened. If he had completed the practice of Vajrayogini and Guru Puja, that meant he was enlightened in this one lifetime. To become enlightened in one lifetime means you didn’t have tantra realizations from a past life; it started in this life. You could have realizations of bodhicitta, right view and those things from a past life, but you begin the tantric realizations in this life and then you complete the path to enlightenment. What it means is achieving enlightenment within one lifetime. Geshe Lama Konchog repeated this to me twice. I was a little confused which way he meant it, so I didn’t bother to ask. But it’s clear it means he was already enlightened. There’s a story of Nagarjuna, who after becoming enlightened assumed an ordinary form to do activities for sentient beings.

Last year or at the beginning of this one, I was supposed to go to Tsum to consecrate the gompa of the nunnery that had been completed. That was the idea. But then a very kind lady who was the benefactor of the center there and of many, many things in Malaysia, said she had to go there to see with her own eyes all these projects she had helped. So, she rented a Russian helicopter that could take fifteen people, and suddenly it happened that we went to Tsum. It was only then I saw the cave that Geshe Lama Konchog had lived in for six or seven years. It’s above the Milarepa cave. There’s no particular road, only bush on the hill, so besides my two legs I had to use both hands to crawl up there. It’s on the edge of the mountain, quite steep.

Geshe Lama Konchog completely cut himself off from the people. He didn’t eat food [but practiced chu len], which was taking the essence of things like flowers, stones and water. There are different substances, but what I heard was that [his practice] was with wind. I haven’t seen the text. He didn’t eat food at all. And he completely cut himself off from people, otherwise they would have become an obstacle to his practice, to meditating on the path. He completely cut the eight worldly dharmas, the eight worldly concerns, the attachment clinging to this life, looking for power, reputation and all these things. He really practiced the purest Dharma in his life. Completely cutting his connection with people, he had no disturbances from people. He lived an austere life, like the Buddha did for six years to achieve enlightenment. Similarly, Geshe Lama Konchog did that.

He wore very ragged clothes. Nobody in that valley has seen anybody like him. Some people thought somebody wearing very ragged clothes and looking so poor was very inauspicious, but Geshe Lama Konchog especially chose detachment, living the most austere life in the Kadampa tradition.

When he was walking on the road, people even took dust from under the bed where a husband and wife slept and threw it over Geshe-la. They thought it was very inauspicious to see such a person. Not only that. One day, some people discovered him while they were looking after their animals or something. They went up there and saw a person with very long hair, meditating. They were terrified and they didn’t know what to do, so they threw rocks. Then, the next day or soon after, a group of strong people went to chase him away. Then, he left that cave, and went back to a huge rock way on top of the mountain, to another cave that was also Milarepa’s cave, and he lived there. So, for two years he practiced without a house, without any walls, without any shelter. Tenzin Zopa, who was Geshe Lama Konchog’s disciple and who took care of him, came from that area. His family had a very strong connection to Geshe Lama Konchog, so Geshe Lama Konchog took care of the whole family, guiding them.

When I was in the Russian airplane [helicopter?], I was facing the wrong way and was unable to see the tree Geshe Lama Konchog had meditated under. Tenzin Zopa was facing me and could see it, but even though he tried to show me and I turned around, I couldn’t see it. Geshe Lama Konchog had taken him there and told him the story.

Such a sacrifice in order to practice Dharma! If we had renounced our life, of course, we would have definitely attained the path. Bearing such a sacrifice, bearing hardships like that, dedicating our life, there is no question.

He never told us. Even though he lived there for six years in retreat, living a life of austerity, without eating food—just taking the essence of the wind or something like that—he never mentioned any of that to us, just some stories of how he benefited many people who were crazy, how he was able to help them to heal, things like that.

There was one person, although many other lamas gave them very glorious protection [substances], because they were possessed by spirits, they still became crazy. No lamas were able to help, so in the end they went to Geshe Lama Konchog, who gave that sick person one tiny, blessed thread. Then, they became better. There were some stories like that. And it was generally known that he was a great practitioner with the experience of bodhicitta and some understanding of emptiness but the way he spoke of his life, it seemed he did not have any very high tantric realizations. It was totally unknown. So, I was very surprised, after being in Tsum and seeing this and hearing the story.

And then, with his relics, five different colors happened, which are connected with the five buddha types. A high lama, one of the top Nyingma lamas, Penor Rinpoche, when he was giving a teaching at Boudha to his disciples, mentioned in public that after cremation, when these different colored relics are produced, that is because the meditator had achieved the path of wisdom, meaning the enlightened five wisdom buddhas. I met a high Nyingma lama who told me that there’s a text that actually describes that.

And again, his incarnation as a little child did and said many things that [Geshe Lama Konchog] did in his previous life. That shows the habituation that proves that there is reincarnation, that there is the continuity of consciousness.

In Punjab in India, quite a number of years ago, there was a girl who could remember her past life’s parents and the town she lived in. She could remember everything. She took her parents of this life to the village. She guided them to the previous life’s family. There was a photo taken of her with this life’s parents and her past life’s parents, all together. She was in the center carrying a little doll. Of course, this life’s parents were younger and the past life’s parents were older. His Holiness sent somebody with a gift to especially check. I had the photo, which I kept for quite a number of years but then I lost it. I don’t know where it’s gone, maybe back to India. Somehow, I got that photo.

PAST NEGATIVITIES ARISING EASILY PROVES REINCARNATION

Without talking too much, there are many stories that demonstrate habituation from past lives, doing things due to past imprints, past habits.

As I was saying, sometimes in the same family, there can be one child with a very compassionate nature who cries when they see insects being killed or another child being beaten. They can’t stand it. But although they have a very compassionate nature, the other children in that family are not like that. They are very selfish, very impatient, very angry. Not all the children of that one family have the same compassion. That is due to habituation of the previous life, from having developed the mind so much in compassion in the previous life. The habituation leaves a positive imprint on the mind. This is continuity of that mind training in compassion.

And this is why generally for us sentient beings, attachment, the self-cherishing thought, anger, attachment and these things arise uncontrollably even though we know the techniques [to overcome them]. First of all, we don’t remember the technique when we encounter problems in our daily life. Even though we might know the techniques well, it is not easy to overcome these minds. They arise so powerfully, like a waterfall. On the other hand, it is very difficult to develop positive thoughts like compassion, loving kindness, patience and so forth. We have to put in a lot of effort, but it is still difficult. It still remains superficial; we don’t really have the experience.

Why it is so difficult for positive thoughts to arise and so easy for negative thoughts to arise so powerfully, without effort, is because of habituation from past lives. From beginningless rebirths, we have been habituated to minds like anger, attachment, ignorance and there have been very few imprints of positive minds, little training in compassion, wisdom, tolerance, those things. That proves that there is reincarnation, the continuity of consciousness.

REINCARNATION PROVED BY EXPERIENCE

The fourth one is that reincarnation can be proved by experience. Due to past imprints, past prayers, past practice, in this life, when you are born, people with clairvoyance can remember the past and future. They can see their own and other people’s past and future. Some intermediate stage beings have ordinary clairvoyance due to karma.

Before they die, due to karma, the gods hear a voice from the sky saying they are going to die after seven days. This is not through meditation. They can see that they are going to be reborn in the lower realm or as a human being, whatever it is. They have been experiencing pleasure hundreds of thousands, millions of times greater than the most developed human country, and when they see that they are going to be reborn in those places, they have unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable mental suffering. It is said to be greater than a hell being’s mental suffering.

One of my gurus, Kyabje Chöden Rinpoche, compared this to the mental suffering rich people can have. Beggars, who live by begging for food on the street and who just have enough to survive day-to-day, don’t have that much to worry about. But those with extremely great wealth can have so much depression or so much unhappiness, so much misery. We can see this a lot in the world. We can’t see this from the external appearance, but when we meet the person and listen to what they say, after a few minutes, after ten or fifteen minutes, as we listen more and more, we start to hear all the problems, all the disasters, all the worry and fear. Their inner life is one of unbearable mental suffering. This is like the gods, who see when they are about to die that they will be reborn in unbelievable, unbelievable suffering due to karma.

We can develop the five types of clairvoyance through meditation, by achieving shamatha, calm abiding, the concentration that is the unification of shamatha and great insight, wisdom realizing emptiness. From that we are able to derive mental and physical rapturous ecstasy, the extremely refined rapturous ecstasy in the body and the mind. We can derive that by meditating on emptiness. By achieving great insight, we develop the five types of clairvoyance of the arya beings.

As I mentioned last night, of the ten bhumis, the bodhisattva who has achieved the first bhumi can see a hundred past lifetimes and a hundred future lifetimes. With the second bhumi, it becomes a thousand past and future lifetimes, and then the bodhisattva is able to see their own and other’s past and future more and more. This is through the experience of meditation. So, reincarnation is also proved by experience. Even if we can’t see our past and future lives, others who have omniscience or clairvoyance, who have those insights, can see our past and future lives.

In conclusion, there is not one being with a valid mind—not a perverted one—who has realized that there is only one life. There has never been even one living being who has discovered only one life. There have been numberless beings who with the valid mind have discovered that there is reincarnation and karma.

THE KINDNESS OF THE MOTHER

Anyway, what I was saying, that’s just a side talk after talking about the kindness of the mother.

In different realms there are many different types of birth that depend on the mother. Therefore, this life’s mother has been our mother in all those different bodies and has given birth to us numberless times. All sentient beings have been our human mother numberless times and then our mother in all those other forms, such as the different animals or hungry ghosts whose birth is from the womb of a mother. Every sentient being has been our mother and has given us those bodies numberless times, especially the perfect human body which gives us all the opportunities to practice Dharma.

And then every sentient being, as our mother, has protected our life from hundreds of dangers each day. They have done that kindness numberless times from beginningless rebirths. They have given us an education and led us on the path of the world; they have done that kindness numberless times from beginningless rebirths.

And each sentient being has borne so many hardships, they have suffered so much for us when they were our mother; they have done that kindness numberless times from beginningless rebirths. And they have created so much negative karma for us. They have borne so many mental and physical hardships, so much worry. They have suffered so much and not only that, they have created so much negative karma for our wellbeing, for our happiness, killing other beings, cheating other beings, harming other beings, creating so much negative karma for our happiness, for our wellbeing. Because of that, they have been born in the lower realms numberless times and there is still so much they will have to suffer due to the negative karma they created for our wellbeing.

REPAYING THE KINDNESS

The conclusion is here that we must do something worthwhile in our life to repay their kindness. We must make our life worthwhile to repay the kindness of this life’s mother and the kindness of all sentient beings who have been our mother in our countless rebirths. They have done all the kindness that is put together in these four ways numberless times. They have suffered so much for us. It’s unimaginable. They have created so much negative karma for us; they have been reborn in the lower realms and suffered numberless times, and there is still so much left to do.

We can’t just waste this life without doing something beneficial for them, to repay their kindness. What they want is happiness and what they don’t want is suffering. What they need, what they want is happiness, but they are ignorant of the cause of happiness. What they don’t want is suffering, but they always create the cause of suffering. They don’t know [anything else]. We need to show them, to teach them, to educate them on what is right and what is wrong—the right that brings happiness and the wrong that brings suffering. We need to educate them in Dharma. This is the best. What they need is to be liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering, not only the liberation from samsara, but to bring them to full enlightenment, the peerless happiness, the state that completes all the qualities of realization and all the qualities of cessation. We need to bring them to that peerless happiness. This is what they need.

Even though they don’t know that they can achieve such a thing, that they have buddha nature, this is what they need. I mean, there are many reasons why people don’t know this, but this is what they need to know for their happiness. There are many examples. Therefore, we need to educate them, and the most important education is enlightenment. That is the best way to repay their kindness.

It’s good to give them medicine, shelter, food; it is good to help them in all these material ways, but that alone does not solve their problems. It doesn’t liberate them from the suffering of samsara. Just giving medicine, money, shelter and so forth is good, but that alone is not sufficient. It doesn’t liberate them from the true cause of suffering, karma and delusions. How can they be liberated from the suffering? They will have the same problems again and again: famines, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, global warming, and so forth. As long as they don’t change their mind, the world problems will be the same, on and on again and again.

They have never ever experienced that all this comes from the mind, from them changing their minds, by ceasing karma and delusions, by ceasing ignorance, the root of samsara. The cause of delusions, the negative imprints, need to be removed. [This cannot be done] by giving them chemical medicines or by doing operations in the hospitals with scissors and taking out the bad bits. By revealing the truth, the complete teachings to achieve liberation and enlightenment, the Buddha has revealed the complete path, with nothing missing. That needs to be studied. By listening and reflecting and by actualizing in meditation, they especially need to realize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. That is the only thing that can directly cease ignorance. Even if there is the realization of compassion, of loving kindness, of bodhicitta, no matter what other realization there is, that cannot directly cease the delusions and the cause of delusions, the negative imprints. Only the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness can do that.

LOVE AND COMPASSION ALONE ARE NOT ENOUGH

What I want to say is this. Since I came to this point, we can’t just be satisfied with some meditation in life, like breathing or something, just spending our whole life on one or two meditations. That’s not enough. We need to learn the whole path. If we don’t want suffering, we need to learn the whole path to liberation. There are five paths: the path of merit, the path of preparation, the right-seeing path, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning. With these, we progress until we cease the different levels of defilements, delusions, obscurations. We need to learn the whole thing and then practice correctly and then it can happen. Then we can achieve liberation or enlightenment.

If we want to practice correctly as the Buddha explained, we need to learn the whole thing. To think we want to learn meditation and just spend our whole life repeating one or two meditation techniques will not lead us anywhere. We will never get free from samsara; we will never remove the whole of karma and delusion, the negative imprints.

Therefore, always talking about love and compassion, love and compassion, love and compassion, love and compassion—that’s not sufficient! Even with love and compassion, there’s a whole stage to develop. As you heard today or yesterday, we especially need to develop renunciation. Renunciation of samsara is the foundation, seeing how the whole samsara is only in the nature of suffering, how it is unbearable. We need to realize that. And stronger than that, we need to have strong compassion for others, seeing how they are suffering.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that love and compassion is good. To have a good heart, helping this and that, is good. I think it’s very important but it’s not sufficient in life if we don’t want to suffer, if we don’t like dying. Put it this way, if we don’t like to die, that’s not sufficient. It is so important to have the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, to achieve enlightenment. Then of course, with that we need to develop great loving kindness and compassion.

The bodhisattva needs to engage in the practice of the six perfections, creating so much merit. And then there is the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness that is able to cease the subtle defilements. When we achieve the third Mahayana path as a bodhisattva, the right-seeing path, at that time we don’t have suffering. This is a long time before enlightenment, but the bodhisattvas who have achieved the right-seeing path, who have the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, have abandoned rebirth, old age, sicknesses, death. They have a spiritual body, not this suffering body. There’s no suffering. This is not only because of the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, but also because of bodhicitta, which creates so much merit. Because of the support of all that merit, those arya beings, those bodhisattvas, are able to achieve this spiritual body which has no suffering.

Therefore, just love and compassion is not enough; we need wisdom. If we never brought up the ultimate wisdom realizing emptiness, the real weapon is missing. The real weapon that cuts all the delusions, the liberates us from suffering is totally missed out. Love and compassion can help but cannot directly cease the delusions and the cause of the delusions, the imprints.

GREAT LOVING KINDNESS AND GREAT COMPASSION

[In the seven-point cause and effect technique for developing bodhicitta] after repaying the kindness, the next one is loving kindness, yi ong jam pa, sometimes translated as “affectionate loving kindness,” but that’s not the correct translation, because “affection” means we are describing the thought of loving kindness itself, affection for others, whereas here yi ong refers to the object. I started and then I got carried away. What it’s saying here is a kind, generous daughter or son sees the mother or the father in beauty. That has nothing to do with the body, how the nose is beautiful or how the hair is beautiful—it has nothing to do with that. It’s seeing how they are so kind to us, so precious to us, then we see their beauty. That beauty has nothing to do with the particular shape of the body. It is similar to how the mother sees her beloved child, her daughter or son. Even if they are physically deformed or physically ugly, the mother sees her beloved child in beauty. The good human being, the kind, generous son or daughter sees the parents in beauty, as warm. By seeing their kindness, we see a kind of beauty.

So here, yi ong jam pa means loving kindness in beauty. I want to add one more word, “beauty” or “dear one” to loving kindness, Then, it completes the translation. If we add “dear one” or “beauty” then the meaning of yi ong jam pa is complete.

Kadampa Geshe Potowa explained that loving kindness is like a mother, whose heart totally goes out to her child and how the mother sees the child in beauty, seeing them as beautiful. That is the feeling we should generate for all sentient beings, the feeling the mother has for her beloved child who she sees as beautiful, who she loves so much, thinking they are so precious. This has nothing to do with their physical shape. That is the feeling of loving kindness [seeing sentient beings in] beauty that we should generate for all sentient beings.

That’s the outline of what yi ong jam pa means. So, I want to add that one extra word, “loving kindness in beauty,” or “dear one.” It is the beauty of the object, the dear one. We feel that that person is the dear one, is something so precious, just as the mother feels for her child. It is something that mother feels is so precious, something most dear she doesn’t want to lose. I’m not sure. Anyway, it might be like that.

Then, after that there’s compassion. In this way, by meditating on the kindness of the mother, both loving kindness in beauty, the dear one, and compassion come. We don’t need a separate meditation. That one is the cause, the process, to have that realization. There’s no separate meditation for that. As you meditate on the kindness, they both come as a result.

There are great loving kindness and great compassion. It is said that they do not necessarily come in that order with great loving kindness first or with great compassion first. Either can come first. Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche mentioned that.

With great loving kindness and great compassion, “great” is because we take responsibility on ourselves to bring [all sentient beings] to happiness, to liberate them, to bring them to enlightenment. We resolve to do that by ourselves. We take the responsibility on ourselves, which is why it is called “great.”

It is said that the difference between the thought of repaying the kindness and great compassion and great loving kindness is that first we make the preparation, such as preparing to go shopping, for example, which is the thought of repaying the kindness, and great loving kindness and great compassion are like actually going shopping! It’s like that. First, we think like that and then we actually engage.

SPECIAL ATTITUDE

The next one is special attitude or lhag sam. I want to add one more word to make it clear. The translation of lhag sam is special attitude, but to express it more clearly, it means taking universal responsibility, taking responsibility for every sentient being, where nobody is left out. There are numberless beings and the special attitude taking universal responsibility, lhag sam, is to free them suffering and to bring them to liberation and enlightenment.

After the special attitude comes bodhicitta. For that to succeed, we need the thought to achieve enlightenment to arise, with the thought of seeking to work for others, which means seeking enlightenment. We seek to work for others and then we have the thought seeking enlightenment, which is a similar and special mind, a special principal consciousness that is bodhicitta. But I think in the actual philosophical subject there are more details.

What I was saying is that with the special attitude taking universal responsibility, there is the thought that “I’m going to do it by myself alone.” Before that we had the thought we were going to do it, but now we have the thought we will do it alone. Even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas working for sentient beings, we are going to do it by ourselves alone. Then, bodhicitta arises.

Sorry, I went to many places! What Peter mentioned yesterday when I started, the strength of the great compassion we generate gives us the possibility to achieve enlightenment in one life. I want to explain that. That was the root this started from.

The proof of this is the story of Maitreya Buddha and Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. Maitreya generated bodhicitta much earlier and Shakyamuni much later, but Guru Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened much earlier than Maitreya Buddha. Why? Because Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s compassion was much stronger than Maitreya Buddha’s. Even though they were the same, both bodhisattvas, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s compassion was much stronger than Maitreya Buddha’s compassion.

In the story, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha gave his holy body to the tiger family here at Namobuddha, on that side of this mountain. A tiger family of five was dying of starvation. Both the bodhisattva brothers, Maitreya and Shakyamuni—at one time they were in the same family—saw them dying of starvation. They both started to return home but the bodhisattva who would become the Buddha went back alone and gave his whole body to the family of five tigers. The bodhisattva who would become Maitreya Buddha didn’t do that. So, there’s a difference like that. Because of having such courage, such a brave heart, such compassion, he collected extensive merits in such a short time, the cause of the dharmakaya and rupakaya, and so much purification was done—so many defilements were purified—due to the strong compassion. So, even though Shakyamuni Buddha generated bodhicitta much later, he become enlightened much earlier.

Also, when the great Indian yogi Ngagpa Chöpawa was going to Oddi, where he was going to do his last tantric practice before achieving enlightenment, at a riverside he saw a woman. Her body was totally filled with leprosy, with pus and blood coming out and looking very ugly. She asked the great yogi Ngagpa Chöpawa to take her to the other side of river but he didn’t help her. He went straight to the place to do his last tantric practice.

Later, his disciple Getsul Tsembulwa came and she asked the same thing, for him to take her across the river. When Getsul Tsembulwa saw this woman, he felt unbearable compassion. Even though he was a monk and couldn’t touch women, and even though her leprosy was so bad, he felt unbearable compassion and he immediately picked the woman up and carried her on his back, without any hesitation [or concern] of catching the leprosy. Before they got across, when he reached the middle of the river, he saw the lady was the enlightened being, Dorje Phagmo. Because his mind had not been purified before, he had seen her as very ordinary, full of leprosy, very filthy and smelly. But because of his unbelievable compassion arising, because he totally sacrificed his life to take her on his back, even just there in the middle of the river, without crossing to the other side, all that negative karma that obscured him from seeing she was an enlightened being was purified. So, just middle of the middle river, he saw the deity Dorje Phagmo, the enlightened being.

Then, this enlightened being, Dorje Phagmo, took him in his present body, without the need to die, to the pure land, where he would definitely become enlightened. If his guru Ngagpa Chöpawa had done that, then he would have gone to a pure land earlier and become enlightened, but that didn’t happen because he had not generated compassion and helped her. That’s also another example of how compassion makes us achieve enlightenment more quickly. Strong compassion for sentient beings is the most important thing for the quickest enlightenment.

WE NEED HIGHEST YOGA TANTRA TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED QUICKLY

The other way [to achieve enlightenment quickly] is to practice tantra and guru devotion. To achieve enlightenment within one lifetime has two meanings. If we practice lower tantra, we first achieve immortality, living for a thousand years, and then we achieve enlightenment. It is still within one lifetime, but I think Peter is probably talking about something even quicker than that. To achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerated times means within a very short life, like within our life as it is now, within a hundred years or seventy years. I don’t remember how many years [an average lifespan is]. To do that, to achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerated times, we need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra.

I want to mention the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra, Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra. We don’t practice Highest Yoga Tantra for our own happiness. If that is what we want, we can relax. We just have to hang around and do nothing! It’s not like that. The main reason we practice Highest Yoga Tantra is because we feel it is so unbearable that sentient beings are suffering. To see them suffering for even an hour or a minute is like they are suffering for eons. We feel so unbearable. From our side, we can be born and suffer in hell for eons. How many eons? Equaling the number of drops of the oceans or the sand grains of the earth. From our side, we can be born there and suffer for sentient beings. To achieve the path, to achieve enlightenment, we can do that. But when we think about sentient beings’ suffering, we can’t stand to see them suffer for a long time in samsara.

From our side we can suffer, even if that means being born in the hell realm and suffering for so many eons in order to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. But from the side of sentient beings, we can’t stand knowing they have to suffer in samsara for so many eons. Therefore, we need to achieve enlightenment quickly. Therefore, we need to practice tantra, and not only that, we need to achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerated times. We can do this if we practice Highest Yoga Tantra. Without receiving an initiation of the deity we are not a receptacle to practice tantra, to listen to tantra and to meditate on it; we are not allowed.

In Highest Yoga Tantra, there are two stages: the generation stage, which ripens the mind, and the completion stage with five stages, which liberates the mind from the dualistic views and the gross and subtle defilements. There is the base, path and result. The base time is the ordinary death, intermediate state and rebirth, which are the base time three kayas. Then, with the path, there is the path time dharmakaya, the path time sambhogakaya and the path time nirmanakaya. We need to actualize that. Then, by receiving the initiations—the vase initiation, the secret initiation, the wisdom initiation and the word initiation, we are allowed to actualize this path. With that, we are permitted to receive the teachings and to meditate on and actualize the path and we do achieve the actual result time dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.

In tantra, we need very strong, very special guru devotion to achieve all these realizations. That is always emphasized by His Holiness in the teachings. Besides what the Buddha said in the teachings, His Holiness always emphasizes that we need to receive the blessings of the guru to do all this.

The dharmakaya we achieve is not a gross mind. The gross mind doesn’t go to enlightenment. The lower tantras do not have the method to cease the gross mind. Only Highest Yoga Tantra has the method to cease the gross mind. What goes to enlightenment is only the subtle mind. So, that is the reason we need to practice tantra. It is the fastest escape, like a rocket; it is the supreme escape to remove the dualistic view and to cease the gross and subtle defilements, to achieve enlightenment.

For that we need two things: strong compassion and strong guru devotion, correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. They are the root, and that root is incredibly important. If we have this, we can achieve shamatha, calm abiding, zhi nä, even in twenty days. If we have strong guru devotion, correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, without create much negative karma with the guru, without breaking their advice or disturbed their holy mind, if that is done well, even within twenty days we can achieve shamatha.

It has recently happened that some meditators have achieved shamatha with perfect meditations, free from the attachment-scattering thought, gopa, and, sinking thought, jingwa. Some meditators— those who have excellent guru devotion, without mistakes—have achieved fully characterized calm abiding, zhi nä, in recent times. To have success in realizations, so much depends on how much we pay attention to that. That is the foundation. If the mind becomes like a yo-yo, always up and down, not much will happen. There will be many obstacles to attaining the path and even to ordinary success.

There are four continents: east, west, north and south. Where we are is the southern continent and this southern continent is the one that gives us the opportunity to achieve enlightenment in one life. No other human beings have this opportunity. This is the only one that gives us the opportunity to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. Now, with this life, we are born in this time on this continent, so we have this opportunity, therefore we need to continue to learn Dharma and practice the whole path to enlightenment correctly.

I think maybe I’ll stop here, otherwise we might not survive to the next day. Tomorrow, maybe we will not have survived and there will be many bodies that have to be taken out!

DEDICATIONS

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

Please dedicate the merits.

“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, the three-time merit collected by others, may bodhicitta be actualized in my heart and in the hearts of my family, in the hearts of all the students and all the benefactors, in the hearts of all the many people in the different parts of the world who sacrifice their life for the organization, doing service for sentient beings, for the teachings of Buddha. May bodhicitta be actualized in all the hearts of all those who rely upon me, those I promised to pray for, those whose name have been given to me. In those who have generated bodhicitta, may it be increased.”

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

“May bodhicitta be especially generated in the hearts of all the leaders of the world, so that millions of people in each country will have so much perfect peace and happiness and be led on the correct path to peace.”

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

Then this is very urgent. “May bodhicitta be generated in all the hearts of all the people—the believers and nonbelievers, who have thoughts to harm the world. May bodhicitta to be taken place instead of harmful thoughts.” That prayer is the most urgent.

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

Then, please dedicate the merits. “Due to all the three-time merits collected by me and by others, may the only one object of refuge, the Compassion Buddha, Chenrezig, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is the source of peace and happiness for all of us sentient beings, have a stable life and may all his holy wishes succeed immediately.”

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

The next prayer, fulfilling all the holy wishes of His Holiness, spontaneously came out when the head of the Nyingma, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, was requested to give some prayer to recite every day for His Holiness, to fulfill his wishes. When he was about to leave His Holiness, this prayer spontaneously came out. I have a card with His Holiness’s picture and these different prayers for the success of the Tibetan cause that His Holiness wrote, asking for Chenrezig to help this happen. This was made in New York but it didn’t really happen here, just a few prayers and motivation, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s explanation of motivation when we wake up in the morning what to think, to give ourselves courage. That’s a very nice package for daily advice. Maybe, before the course ends, I can ask for it to be sent. This prayer is there.

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, may all the father and mother sentient beings have happiness.” That doesn’t mean temporary happiness, the pleasure that normal people think of as happiness, not that. It means liberation from samsara and enlightenment. You should think that. When you pray for happiness, you should not only think of the happiness that normal people in the world see as happiness, not only temporary samsaric pleasure, which is only suffering. You shouldn’t think that. You must think of real happiness: liberation from samsara and enlightenment. Even when you do the four immeasurable thoughts, which says “May all beings have happiness,” you shouldn’t think this is just ordinary happiness; you must remember liberation and especially enlightenment for sentient beings.

“May the three lower realms be empty forever. May all the bodhisattvas’ prayers succeed immediately. May I be able to cause all 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…” Today, there is a different dedication, a very important one. As I mentioned about the guru devotion practice, correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, I didn’t clarify before how, by looking at the guru as a buddha from the disciple’s side, having that pure mind, you become very stable, not just for a few hours or a few days. Then, you receive the blessings and achieve all the realizations.

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, may I and all sentient beings be able to find only the perfectly qualified Mahayana guru in all our lifetimes; and from my side and the side of each sentient being, may we be able to see the guru as only an enlightened being in all our lifetimes. From our side, may we only do actions most pleasing to the holy mind of the virtuous friend in all the lifetimes. May I and all sentient beings be able to fulfill the holy wishes of the virtuous friend in all the lifetimes.”

This prayer is extremely important to do every day. If this happens, everything happens without obstacles, including enlightenment, doing perfect work for sentient beings, everything.

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by others, may all the projects in this organization that have already been initiated, and the ones that haven’t been initiated, be actualized as quickly as possible by receiving everything needed for that. And may they be most beneficial for all sentient beings.”

To make it short, I elaborated a little bit on the other days. There’s also the prison project helping so many; I think the project is helping may be less than two hundred prisoners. There are prisoners who have done three hundred thousand prostrations or mantras, Vajrasattva, and many other practices have been done in prison. It’s such an incredible benefit. It kind of means that being in prison is like a long retreat. Then, it is no longer prison; it is a retreat, a retreat of many years! That is of unbelievable benefit, taking the eight Mahayana precepts and retreating on the lamrim, so unbelievable. There’s one prisoner who did many mantras and many practices. He didn’t have a mala, so he used breakfast cereal, you know the tiny round cereal bits with the holes. He took them out and used them as a mala. I don’t know where he got the fine thread from, but he made a mala. He didn’t have a mala so he made one like that. There is unbelievable benefit for those people who are in prison. So fantastic! Yum, yum!

There is also universal education, called Essential Wisdom.² There are already a few schools that give a special education to bring up children to be good human beings, so everyone can become a source of peace and happiness for the world. Instead of being harmful, they only become beneficial, kind human beings, only giving peace and happiness. They grow up with many basic human values. The organization is making books on that. There are already a lot of good results with young children in India and America. They do not harm others; they do not kill insects and so forth. There are many things.

When the children go back home, they teach the parents what they study. They explain it to the parents, so the parents also refrain from killing insects because the children don’t want to kill insects. (Maybe they kill them when the children are not there but at least not in front of them.) Anyway, there are a lot of benefits for the parents. It has become an education for the parents through their children, changing their minds, making them better human beings. It has been of great benefit already, and it is still developing. This is another way, because everybody cannot become Buddhist, cannot become Christian, even cannot become Muslim or Hindu, so there should be some way to become a better human being through education.

Then there is publishing Dharma books and spreading them in every corner of the world to awaken the mind, to liberate people from ignorance, to bring them to liberation and enlightenment. Printing Dharma books is going all over the world. There are many services like that, helping the sentient beings of the world. By reading the Dharma books, even if they don’t practice, it leaves a positive imprint in their hearts. Then later, either in this life or in future lives, they can meet the Dharma again and they will be able to understand and practice, and be able to achieve enlightenment.

Another project is Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth, helping the young. That too is progressing. All these are most beneficial for all sentient beings. That includes all the centers.

Now, my hobby. “Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by myself, the three-time merits collected by others, which appeared to our hallucinated mind as something real, as existing from its own side, but which in the view of the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, is totally empty, totally nonexistent in the view of wisdom, the directly perceiving emptiness, in equipoise meditation.”

Think like that. First how things appear to you and that you believe in that, which is totally wrong, which in the view of the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, equipoise meditation, sees all these as totally nonexistent, as empty. Try to see what that wisdom sees, how everything is totally empty. This is the beginning meditation on the verse, kar ma rab rib mar me dang, “A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame…” That is the Buddha’s teaching, how causative phenomena are like a star. To your hallucinated mind, everything is false. All these real ones existing from their own side are mental fabrications, projections of ignorance.

The three-time merits collected by you, the three-time merit collected by others, in the view of the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, in equipoise meditation, see all these as totally nonexistent. In the view of wisdom, meditate on that, on you, yourself, the meditator, the action of meditating, the meditation, on everything.

Now, “May the I, who appears as the real one and is believed like that, that is the projection of ignorance, but in the view of wisdom is total nonexistent—there’s no such thing—achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment…” Again, here how it appears to you and is believed as something real existing from its own side, that is a total hallucination, a projection of ignorance. In the view of wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, the equipoise meditation, that is total empty, nonexistent. “Lead all sentient beings…” Again here, to your mind it seems something real in the sense of existing from its own side, which is the projection of ignorance, but this is total nonexistent, completely nonexistent, empty in the view of wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. “To the Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment…” Again the same thing, how it appear to us and we believe the total projection of the ignorance, the hallucination, as something real, but it is totally nonexistent, totally empty in the view of the valid mind, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. “By myself alone.” Again it seems something real is existing from its own side, which is a total projection, a hallucination, projected by ignorance. In reality it is totally nonexistent, totally empty in the view of wisdom directly perceiving emptiness.

“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.

“May the general teaching of the Buddha, and particularly Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, spread in all directions. May they flourish in this world forever by being completely actualized in my heart, in the hearts of my family, in the hearts of all the students and all the benefactors, and in the hearts of all those who sacrifice their life to this organization, doing service for other sentient beings and for the teachings of Buddha through the organization, and in the hearts of everybody in this world.

[Rinpoche and the students recite in Tibetan]

So, I hope it’s not already a good morning! Thank you very much.

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Notes

² Now known as the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom (FDCW), this is a global charity offering secular training, resources and programs across many sectors of society. [Return to text]