December 6, 2017
[Students recite Prayers Before Teachings]
Meditation Is More than Closing the Eyes
For Western people, learning how to meditate doesn’t mean learning how to practice of Dharma. Whereas it is very common for Western people to learn how to meditate, learning how to practice the Dharma is very rarely known. If you know how to meditate on the Dharma, that is pure Dharma practice.
How to meditate is a very big question. It is not only what you look like from outside, sitting with your eyes closed, sitting on a round meditation cushion. For me, when I sit on one it is a little bit uncomfortable, a bit too high, but of course I don’t meditate so that’s maybe why I’m uncomfortable sitting on one.
How to meditate, how to practice the Dharma, is mainly the mind. There can be a big division in life between the way you think and your Dharma practice. Something that you strongly cling to brings so many problems in your life. Hundreds of problems arrive, either at the same time or one after the other, like from the root of a tree more and more branches spread. Problems come from the strong thought that grasps on to the happiness of this life, the comfort of this life. Thinking “I want happiness,” you grasp on to that, and from that mind all the problems start. That can be the same when you try to practice the Dharma.
You Need to Be Free from the Eight Worldly Dharmas
That means you have to practice Dharma, you have to meditate, by freeing your mind from that grasping mind, the wrong concept that brings all the hundreds of thousands, the millions of problems, all the problems in life, including all the relationship problems. I think you have already heard about the eight worldly dharmas. Strongly grasping on to the comfort of this life so much and not achieving that causes failure to achieve the happiness of this life.
The first worldly dharma is craving to receive material possessions. There is so much grasping, and then because of that, when you don’t receive what you want, when what you expect doesn’t happen, there are so many problems. The stronger the grasping, the more painful it is not to receive what you want.
On the other hand, when your grasping mind is less, if you don’t receive material things the problems are less. You can see the connection, how unhappiness is totally related to grasping. When the grasping is less, the pain and discomfort are much less. If you didn’t have strong grasping to receive material things like birthday gifts or whatever, there would be no problem in not receiving them. Even if you didn’t receive anything for your birthday, the mind would still be extremely peaceful. Receiving or not receiving, the mind has great inner peace. When this strong grasping is not there, what you renounce is only suffering, so when it doesn’t happen the mind is extremely peaceful. That is the happiness of Dharma, the peace of Dharma; that is renunciation.
Similarly, when you are looking for reputation, there is so much strong grasping. What failure to have a good reputation brings is so much pain, worry and fear. When you have less grasping to reputation, there are also less problems and more peace in not receiving it. When somebody doesn’t have any more clinging, there is no disturbance at all. I should have said that before but I forgot—there is no disturbance. The mind is totally calm, like water that is so calm you can see right through to the bottom because there is no dirt inside. Like that, your mind is in the great peace of Dharma.
That is the advantage of practicing Dharma, of practicing meditation. Whatever happens in your life doesn’t bother you. That is what we all need. By practicing Dharma, by practicing meditation, whatever happens in your life doesn’t bother you. The mind should be like that. If somebody meditates their whole life, for thirty years, sixty years, a thousand years, the mind should be like that. If you meditate correctly it should be like that—whatever happens doesn’t disturb your mind.
This is what you need to achieve. The world is like boiling water, with no peace at all. Look at the news every day. They don’t talk about who has achieved bodhicitta or renunciation. Of course the news people have a responsibility to announce whatever disasters happen in the world, what dangers there are due to water, fire and wind, how many people have been killed. Because people are very attracted to that, that is why we only hear about problems. People don’t notice somebody who has achieved inner peace on a Himalayan mountain or even in the West, through real meditation practicing Dharma. Peace through the absence of attachment, peace through the absence of anger, peace through the absence of ignorance, peace through the absence of self-cherishing thought, peace through achieving bodhicitta—there are people achieving peace like this but it is not known. Maybe there is not much interest in this; maybe people are more attracted to problems.
Then, there are no methods to solve the problems and no teachings on how to solve the problems. Because people don’t have that education, it is difficult. Because the world is like noisy boiling water, this peace and happiness of practicing Dharma is needed. Then, no matter what happens in life, it doesn’t bother your mind; there is always peace. And the more you practice the more you develop peace, higher and higher and higher. For those who meditate, who practice Dharma, it is like that. That is what happens.
You Need to Be Free from Grasping and Self-Cherishing
Many people try to meditate but get easily disturbed. While meditating, even if a dog barks or a bird makes a noise outside, they get angry. They want to kill the dog or the bird, or the children who cry, or the people who scream. They are fed up, so bothered and angry that they want to destroy the animal or the people making a noise, killing them with a stone. “They won’t let me to meditate!”
What are you meditating for if you are angry? If you want to kill others why are you meditating? The big reason—to benefit sentient beings—is not there. You must practice patience and renounce anger. That is the basic thing you must do even for your own happiness. So how can you get angry at others?
Even though you might meditate every day for many hours, you can still fail to look after yourself by not looking after your mind. You might sit perfectly with your eyes closed but never take care of yourself because you don’t look after your mind. Taking care of yourself means taking care of your mind, and that means practicing the Dharma, meditating; it is the same thing.
I mentioned this in the past but I’ll mention it again here. If somebody asks you how you are, you would normally tell them you are happy or not happy—happy because you received this present or were praised, unhappy because you got some bad news or you are feeling ill. That is how people normally judge a happy life. But the meaning of a happy life is if you are practicing the Dharma. Then, it is a happy life. If you are practicing the Dharma you are protecting yourself from the negative mind which brings so many problems, as I mentioned before. You are protected from the painful grasping mind of attachment.
That is where negative emotions come from. You have to recognize that. I don’t know what psychologists say, but you have to protect your mind from anger and ignorance, and especially from the self-cherishing thought. That is just talking about sutra, not talking about tantra.
In tantra you have to protect the mind from ordinary appearances and concepts, protect the mind from ordinary death, ordinary intermediate state and ordinary rebirth. The mind has gross mind, subtle mind and extremely subtle mind, and the body has gross body, subtle body and extremely subtle body. According to the highest of the four levels of tantra, the ordinary extremely subtle wind and mind is the root of samsara.
Without talking about tantra, just sutra, when you practice Dharma, when your mind is living in the practice of Dharma, you experience real happiness. It is common for people to say they are happy when they see they have managed to get the object of their attachment. That happiness is according to attachment, the happiness of attachment. Maybe if they killed their hated enemy they would also feel happy, the happiness of anger. I’m not sure.
We all need the happiness of renunciation, instead of the attachment that brings all the problems to us and our many friends, and to the many people in the world. One person with a strong grasping mind who wants power and pleasure can create unbelievable problems to so many people in the country and in the world. It just happens like that. On top of the attachment, the self-cherishing thought causes so many problems to others, if the aim is to only selfishly have power and happiness.
When you are able to let go of attachment, your mind has unbelievable peace because you renounce the cause of all the unbelievable problems for you and others, for so many sentient beings. That is real happiness. In other words, renunciation is to give yourself real freedom, to free yourself from the prison of attachment, from the pain of attachment. Having become free from the prison of attachment, where you are always torturing yourself, you have incredible peace.
Most people are busy fighting, full of anger and attachment, thinking this is better, that is better, pushing and pulling each other to get what they want, but when you are free from attachment, you have no problems; the mind has great peace.
The more you cling to receiving praise from other people, the more pain, worry and fear there is when you don’t receive it. So, you can see they are totally connected.
Freedom from the Eight Worldly Dharmas Is Pure Dharma Practice
I want to say that both sets of the eight worldly dharmas are problems of life, not only one side—grasping on to material possessions, happiness, praise, and reputation—but also the other side—craving to be free from not getting them. We need to be free from all the worldly dharmas, neither grasping for praise and so forth nor being bothered when we don’t receive them.
Nagarjuna propagated the Mahayana teachings in the world four hundred years after the Buddha. This is his definition of pure Dharma practice, pure meditation, when there is no grasping if you receive these four things and no suffering or worry if you don’t receive them. Nothing bothers you, so your mind is always in great peace.
As Western people coming to India and Nepal, to the Himalayan mountains, what you need to learn is this basic thing; that is the real one. You don’t need to talk about higher realizations. Unless somebody has higher realizations of sutra and tantra, even for somebody with a realization of impermanence and death, and certainly the rest of the people in the world, they need this basic practice, to just let go of attachment, and then there will be unbelievable peace.
We are all caught in the prison of attachment, which always brings problems and unhappiness. You can have a billion dollars, a zillion dollars, a trillion dollars, you can have houses everywhere, in different countries, on different beaches, in the mountains (maybe not on Mount Everest) but your mind is always unhappy, even though all this is for the happiness of the mind. However many boyfriends, girlfriends, material things, everything is obtained for happiness of the mind but you can’t find happiness. After all this, after you have gathered as much as you can, your mind is so unhappy; there is so much more dissatisfaction than before. This is only outer wealth. Inner wealth is the realizations. When there is only outside wealth, the richer you are the more dissatisfaction there is.
Whatever you try, wherever you go, nothing works. You go to Tahiti, Goa, Thailand, to so many beaches, but you can’t find happiness, just more and more dissatisfaction. Whether you go to the mountains or the city, whether you stay alone or with people, you are so unhappy that you want to commit suicide. The thought comes very easily. What kills you is your attachment.
Of course, there is also the relation to outside spirit harm, but the main thing is attachment. If you follow attachment as your guru or as your best friend, if you do everything it says, then attachment will kill you. Most people can’t find happiness because they don’t know there is another life, a continuation of mind even after the body ceases. They think that after this life finishes everything is totally blank, dark, like there is no sun or moon, no stars, everything is totally foggy.
Maybe some people talk intellectually of another life because they have met Buddhism, but when they face problems, because they have not been properly practicing Dharma, meditation, their Buddhism doesn’t come into their life; it doesn’t happen.
Sorry to give this example which I have mentioned many times, but in Switzerland we had a student who knew Tibetan and translated for the courses of my guru, Geshe Rabten Rinpoche. One day his wife left him all of a sudden. This became a huge problem. He couldn’t manage the suffering. He translated Dharma, he spoke Tibetan, intellectually he knew a lot, but when he encountered this problem, he hanged himself in the house. It was maybe a sign that normally he didn’t practice Dharma, because practicing Dharma is food for the mind. Of course there is a relation to spirits, yes, but mainly it is attachment. So, like that he died. That is just one example; I’m sure there are many.
Just intellectually understanding but not practicing with the heart, there are problems like that. The problem becomes huge and you can’t utilize it to purify the suffering of numberless sentient beings—relationship problems and so forth—and utilize that experience on the path for yourself to achieve enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings. You are unable to do bodhicitta thought transformation. Life becomes very sad.
The nature of samsara is that things can happen; your life can change. We all know that. When things change, it is not the first time. You have experienced these things numberless times from beginningless rebirths up to now. That’s the reality but you don’t think like that. You think it’s the first time, and then it becomes a big shock.
The Happiest Life Is When You Practice Bodhicitta
The happiest life is when your mind is living in the practice of bodhicitta, when your life is dedicated for sentient beings. When you have a realization of bodhicitta, not even an actual realization but just effortful bodhicitta, then not only meditation, practicing Dharma, but each step you take—during a pilgrimage or on a tour, for shopping, and so forth—each step you take toward the shop, each step you take back home, each step you take is for numberless sentient beings, not only for the people you love, not only for your boyfriend or girlfriend, but for numberless sentient beings: numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras and asuras, everyone. Not only those who are attached to you but also those who hate you or those who are strangers to you, each step you take is dedicated to every sentient being. Everything you buy you dedicate for all sentient beings. If you are buying vegetables, it is dedicated for every sentient being to achieve happiness and to achieve enlightenment.
When you talk to people, each word you say has the motivation of bodhicitta, so it benefits not only the person you are talking to but numberless sentient beings, helping them to achieve not just happiness but peerless happiness, enlightenment. Then, each time you eat food or drink something, every spoonful of food that is eaten with bodhicitta, every single bite of food or sip of drink is done to obtain happiness for numberless sentient beings, for others to be enlightened. Then, when you finish the tea in the mug, however many sips of tea you have drunk, you have collected unbelievable merit, more than skies of merit. After you finish even one plate of rice or one bowl of soup, each time you eat with bodhicitta, you collect numberless merits, more than skies of merit, good karma, the cause of happiness, the cause of enlightenment. It is unbelievable, unbelievable. Each time you eat is for the benefit of sentient beings.
Similarly, how many hours you sleep, if your sleep is done with bodhicitta, however many seconds, minutes or hours you sleep you collect more than skies of merit all the time, continuously, dedicated for the numberless sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, not just temporary happiness, not just that, but the highest peerless happiness, the total cessation of all obscurations and the completion of all realizations. It’s incredible. And when you breathe, with bodhicitta each inbreath and outbreath is totally dedicated for sentient beings, for the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras and asuras, for their happiness and enlightenment.
What you should aim to achieve in this life is to have a bodhicitta realization, the ultimate good heart. If you are smart then the goal you try to achieve in this life is enlightenment. Otherwise, even if you are able to actualize ultimate reality, emptiness only, you can only achieve liberation from samsara, nothing more than that, nothing higher than arhatship. You can’t achieve enlightenment. Without bodhicitta, no matter how many other realizations you have, enlightenment is impossible, Therefore, bodhicitta is so important.
There is a new book talking about the bodhicitta motivation [Bodhisattva Attitude]. Each time you enter the gompa or in relation to your daily activities, you should dedicate every action for sentient beings. That advice is not for those who have a realization of bodhicitta but for us without bodhicitta, to train the mind in bodhicitta. Maybe it is useful to read the book so everybody can try to practice during the course. Of course, you can practice when you are back in your country in your normal daily life, but also during retreats. Whenever you do a retreat in a group or alone it is good to do that; it brings you much happiness. You can see your life is dedicated for everybody, dedicated for the happiness of all sentient beings. The book is in English; maybe it is good to read it. That is good to use to practice with, to train the mind. Even with the breath you benefit numberless sentient beings, helping everyone achieve enlightenment. It’s incredible.
Subdue the Mind
You should tell other people you are trying to attain bodhicitta. This should be your plan in this life. Then you are smart. Otherwise, you can walk on the water or you walk through fire without getting burned, like a miracle, but even animals and birds can go in water and not sink. And there is a fish with a light. The fish is blue and there is light inside, what is it called? [Student: Bioluminescence.] We don’t have a body that lights up but there are flies that do when they come out at night. What are they called? [Student: Fireflies.] Fireflies. It’s due to karma. There are many animals who have lights in their body at night, like that fish. What am I saying?
I will just finish the words of the Buddha’s advice:
Do not commit any unwholesome action.
Engage in perfect wholesome action,
Subdue one’s own mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
That means we should never act in a nonvirtuous way, whatever the outside action is, even if we live our whole life in a cave in the Himalayan mountains, not seeing people, not even birds, not sleeping or eating. There is a Nepalese boy the villagers call Little Buddha. I don’t know whether he is eating or not now but before, for so many years, he didn’t have to eat. I think in his past life, due to some meditation, he gained some realizations where he didn’t need food, so he lived in the jungle doing meditation. In reality, I don’t know if he is a buddha or not, but outside he looked like he was always in meditation. He didn’t get to study much Dharma in a monastery—I think he spent a short time in a Sakya monastery—and didn’t have much to tell the people, but it now seems he is out, going around to many villagers.
Western doctors and psychologists went to check him because they had never heard of people who could survive without eating food; it is not common in the Western world. They recommended that the boy should not be kept like that, he must eat food. I don’t know whether he is eating now but the villagers call him Little Buddha.
You must have Dharma on the inside, not just the outside, even if you are an expert in the Dharma, in Buddhist philosophy, knowing all five of the great Sutra philosophical texts by heart. There is the Pramanavarttika—how the Buddha’s teachings are reliable because the Buddha is reliable, all the logical arguments about how you can rely on that, how past and future lives exist, and all that. Then there is the Prajnaparamita text describing the whole path to enlightenment in detail. It is like a textbook on an airplane having a detailed explanation of how an airplane works so one person can understand it completely, even though an airplane is not made by one person. It is made by different groups, but starts with one person. The text describes the whole path to enlightenment, the basis, the four noble truths—true suffering, true cause of suffering, true cessation and true path—and then ultimate reality, the two truths—truth for an all-obscuring mind and truth for absolute wisdom. Not just that, it describes the path as well. Then, there is Abhidharmakosha and Vinaya, the monks and nuns’ rules and what to do to achieve liberation from samsara, and of course, if done with bodhicitta, you achieve enlightenment.
Even if you are expert, even if you can explain by heart the more than one hundred volumes of the Buddha’s teachings and the more than two hundred volumes of the pandits’ commentaries, if your mind is not subdued, all this—listening, reflecting, studying—becomes the cause of developing pride, attachment, ignorance, anger and the self-cherishing thought; it doesn’t become Dharma. Outside it looks like Dharma, like extensive Dharma practice, but the heart doesn’t become Dharma.
Despite knowing an unbelievable amount, you can’t subdue your mind and that causes pride, attachment, anger, ignorance, and the self-cherishing thought develops. Delusions become stronger. Your Dharma knowledge, your Dharma understanding is used for that. It is not used to subdue the mind, it doesn’t become real Dharma practice, but instead becomes the practice of the eight worldly dharmas.
When the Buddha says to not commit any unwholesome action and engage in perfect wholesome actions, the essence comes down to the point, “Subdue your own mind. That is the real teaching of the Buddha.”
In other religions you can shave your hair and put some white marks on your forehead, or you can wear a sari, but Buddhism is not like that. Even if you shave your head and wear robes, that alone is not Buddhism; it is not subduing the mind. It can be the opposite of subduing the mind. Here, in Buddhism, the whole thing is to subdue the mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha.
Like a Star
I think you did it in the morning, but we will do one meditation. You all have the text,
KAR MA RAB RIB MAR ME DANG
A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame,
GYU MA ZIL PA CHHU BUR DANG
An illusion, a dew drop, a water bubble,
MI LAM LOG DANG TRIN TA BUR
A dream, lightning, a cloud:
DÜ JÄ CHHÖ NAM DI TAR TA
See all causative phenomena like this.6
The word karma means “star” because in the daytime the sunlight is so powerful you don’t see the stars. Only after the sun sets can you see more and more stars. Like that, the meaning is emptiness. Emptiness only, tong pa nyi, shunyata is so subtle. Whatever exists, exists from emptiness, from emptiness only. This is not the emptiness of what is merely labeled; this is the emptiness of what appears to the hallucinated mind, what you apprehend and what you believe to be real—the real I, real action, real object, real hell, real enlightenment, real samsara, real nirvana, real happiness, real problems, all that. It is the emptiness of this. This has never come into existence from the beginning, this has never existed. If you analyze, you discover it doesn’t exist. So, it is the emptiness of this—what never existed. It is not emptiness of what exists, what exists in mere name. What exists is what exists in mere name, in reality; it is not that. It is the emptiness of what doesn’t exist.
Nagarjuna said in the Root Wisdom of the Middle Way, [Skt: Mulamadhyamakakarika, Tib: Tsawa Sherab,
Because things are empty
Everything can happen.
If things were not empty,
Nothing could happen.
Everything that exists comes from emptiness, from emptiness only. So, everything is born in emptiness, everything exists in emptiness, everything ceases in emptiness. Everything functions in emptiness, in mere name; nothing exists from its own side. In Dhammapada the Buddha said,
He who knows that even in death and rebirth there is no death and rebirth, that knowledge is not difficult to find with concentration and a realization of the ultimate nature.7
We say that there is birth and there is death and we believe it, but in reality there is no birth and death. What this verse saying is that what we believe in is a truly existent birth and death, a birth and a death existing from their own side, existing by themselves. That is how it appears to our hallucinated mind but in reality there is no real birth and no real death. With concentration and an understanding of emptiness, it is not difficult to find this.
[Tea offering verse and break to drink tea]
During my birthday two days ago, I was going to mention the Buddha’s quotation from the Guhyasamaja Root Text, but I forgot. There it says,
From no birth all are born.
There is no birth except mere birth.
I think the second line, there is no birth except mere birth becomes a commentary to the first line. “From no birth” means from no truly existent birth, the real birth that appears to you, that you a hundred percent apprehend and strongly hold as true, that is not there. The Tibetan, kyewa me “no birth” means no real birth. Tamche kyepa means from that everything is born. Since there is no real birth, how is everything born? Everything is born in mere name. That is what the second line explains, there is no birth except mere birth.
So, there is a star, but in daytime it is obscured by the brightness of the sun. Only when the sun goes down, then the stars become clearer and clearer. Similarly, emptiness only is there, but for your hallucinated mind it is like it doesn’t exist. Even though the ultimate reality of the I, action, object—all phenomena—the emptiness is there, but for your hallucinated mind it is like it doesn’t exist.
For your hallucinated mind what doesn’t exist in reality seems to exist a hundred percent. This is what appears and what you believe in. For example, the merely labeled I exists on the valid base, the aggregates. It exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind, and it has existed that way from beginningless rebirths. That is what the I is, that which exists. But now what appears to you is just little more than that. That means it is not just merely labeled by the mind, but slightly more than that, being truly existent.
In the four schools, of the Madhyamaka school there are two sub-schools, Svatantrika and Prasangika. What the Prasangika and Svatantrika assert as truly existent is different. The Prasangika view of what is truly existent is much finer, much more subtle; the Svatantrika view is grosser, even though they both use the same word.
You apprehend an I that exists more than what is merely labeled by the mind. From beginningless rebirths it has appeared to you like that and you a hundred percent believe in this I; you believe it is a real I. What exists is the emptiness of the I. That has the same meaning as existing in mere name. That’s what exists but you don’t believe in that. What you believe is what the I is empty of, being truly existent, or existing more than what is merely labeled by the mind. That is what appears and what you believe. However, that is what has never existed at all from beginningless time.
So, what exists is emptiness, what doesn’t exist is the truly existent I, the real I. That’s what doesn’t exist but you believe what doesn’t exist a hundred percent. On the other hand, you don’t believe what exists. You believe the false and you don’t believe the truth. Many people think the truth is false, totally the opposite, like that. So, with “like a star,” the star means emptiness only.
Is there an explanation on that or not? [Ven. Ailsa: No, Rinpoche.] I think slowly, slowly, slowly you can understand. Then next time you come back to the course you will understand better. Or next life!
So, we’ll do the meditation. You can follow the English.
[Rinpoche slowly chants the verse from the Vajra Cutter Sutra in Tibetan while the students meditate]
KAR MA RAB RIB MAR ME DANG
A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame,
GYU MA ZIL PA CHHU BUR DANG
An illusion, a dew drop, a water bubble,
MI LAM LOG DANG TRIN TA BUR
A dream, lightning, a cloud:
DÜ JÄ CHHÖ NAM DI TAR TA
See all causative phenomena like this.
Do the dedication.
Dedication
[Rinpoche and the students recite a dedication verse in Tibetan]
I think I’ll go straight. First we have to stop. Sorry it took time.
Then, the motivation is to listen to the Dharma to achieve enlightenment and to liberate all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.
The Beauty of an Object Comes from the Mind
At the end of yesterday I was talking about how everything comes from the mind, from the heaviest suffering of the lower realms, the hells, up to enlightenment, then samsara and nirvana, the happiness and problems in daily life, everything. Everything comes from your mind—your enlightenment, your hell, your samsara, your nirvana, your happiness, your problems, everything. That is kind of the way to start to discover, to see life, the world, seeing how everything comes from the mind.
Now, I can mention a few words. In your life, even if somebody’s body wasn’t particularly an object of attachment at the beginning, you can easily change your mind due to the way they talk, how they give you presents, and so forth. Because of things like that you change your mind about them and develop attachment for them. Then, you see the object of your attachment with a kind of beauty inseparable from that object. It is very hard to separate your mind from that. That happens and attachment arises. It projects on that person’s body a beauty that becomes inseparable from the body. It is painful to separate from that object, even if at the beginning there was nothing; it wasn’t an object of attachment. That is an example of how things come from the mind.
At first it was an indifferent object, but then, due to the way the person talks to you or gives you a lot of presents, and things like that, your mind changes and you get attached, and project beauty onto that object. Then, it is painful for your heart, your mind, to separate from it.
Of course, that can change when the person does something negative. They say something negative or their way of looking at you is negative, kind of peering from the side of their eye. Peering? [Ven. Ailsa: Glaring.] Glaring. Or they say some bad words, telling you that you are so selfish or something like that. Then your attachment stops and you get angry. Then your mind projects ugliness onto the object. That is the view of anger. It projects something unpleasant, undesirable, onto the object.
Put it this way. When the person did something, your mind interpreted it as bad. You feel you have been harmed. To your mind, this person harmed your I, this real I that is not there. They harmed the real I that you can’t find anywhere from head to toe if you look. Then, after you believe in what you label; you project that and what appears is what your mind has labeled. It appears to you in that way, as unpleasant, and then anger arises.
So, you can see, you are the one who created the anger, not that person. It is very clear if you analyze it. You interpreted that this is bad, that it harmed you, it harmed this real I that is not there, and then the anger arose.
It all comes from the mind. Also, you might see somebody you think is very ugly, but then you see somebody who is even uglier and suddenly that first person seems beautiful! Or you see somebody you think is beautiful but then see somebody even more beautiful and that first person seems ugly. It is all dependent arising, all relative. It comes from the mind; it has been created by the mind.
If it were beautiful from its own side, then it wouldn’t change. There is no way you could see something beautiful become ugly, or ugly become beautiful. It shouldn’t change; you should see that thing as beautiful forever. It wouldn’t change by comparison. Ugly would always stay ugly, beautiful would always stay beautiful. But it does change by comparison because it has come from the mind. Do you understand?
Say a hundred people look at him. [Rinpoche points out a student] Sorry, today, when I need to mention your name, I’ve forgotten it. [Student: Bill.] Bill. When a hundred people look at Bill, some people see him as beautiful, some people see him as middle, some people see him as ugly; he appears as all kinds to different people. It’s the same thing with food you like so much. Another person hates that food, not only to eat it but even just to see it.
It’s even like that for places. One person looks at some place and it appears as a hundred percent very nice, but somebody else will see it as very ugly. It comes from the mind. For the person who sees it as ugly, as all bad, that is the result of past negative karma, unwholesome actions. For the person who sees good things, it comes from past good karma, virtuous, positive actions. That is one way to see how causative phenomena are created by the mind—one thing is karma, a person’s karma. That is why it appears differently to different people and different people see it differently.
For example, (I mentioned this last time as well), you see the gompa here full of holy objects, so many unbelievably precious holy objects that allow you to collect unbelievable, unbelievable merits each time you see them. I won’t explain that now. You collect unbelievable merit by seeing holy objects. But hungry ghosts don’t have the karma to see these beautiful things, these amazing holy objects. It is said in the texts that dogs don’t have the karma to see holy objects. So, how do hungry ghosts see this place? They don’t have the same view as you have. They see the place, the environment, as very sad, as copper ground, very hot, in the daytime burned by the sun. Even the moon becomes hot due to their karma. The trees they see are logs, standing up, burned by fire. There is no beauty; it is a very depressing place. The same place you see as a gompa, so beautiful, appearing due to your past good karma, for hungry ghosts who don’t have the same view, it appears as a depressing place. They don’t have the karma that you have, so this is the view that appears.
Now devas, gods, have a different view again. This is not talking about buddhas, but suras and asuras, devas. They see a jeweled palace, unbelievably beautiful. I don’t know about the holy objects, but they enjoy incredible sense pleasures. They have much more sense pleasure than we do. They see things as unbelievably beautiful.
For example, it is explained in the Madhyamaka, one bowl of liquid appears as water for you but for hungry ghosts they see pus and blood. They don’t have the karma to see water, so they see pus and blood. And devas, suras, asuras—this is not talking about buddhas—see nectar, because of their better karma.
This is very, very useful to keep in mind. What you see is just during this time, while you are a human being. And again, not every human being has the karma to see things like you do. Hungry ghosts see things totally differently from devas. Of course, because the buddhas have ceased all the gross and subtle mistakes of mind and completed all the realizations, they have a view that is totally pure. Their view is the result of that. Whatever appears to a buddha is a most pure view. With infinite bliss nondual with emptiness, they see things as amazing, amazing, as numberless offerings.
So, how you see things is according to the mind. Do you understand the point? It is according to how developed your mind is, how pure your mind is. The purer your mind, the more you purely see things. It totally depends on the mind; the perceiver is the person’s mind.
This point is most important, how everything comes from the mind, how all causative phenomena come from the mind. As I mentioned yesterday this is very important, basic Buddhist philosophy. Then, it helps when you have relationship problems, when somebody abuses you, when somebody is angry at you, when somebody looks down on you, with the eyes down and the nose up in the sky, saying impolite things, or when you have helped somebody and they don’t thank you. You expect them to thank you but they don’t. When you give somebody a glass of water or something, but don’t even get a thank you, it bothers you so much; you get angry at that person.
I remember one time in Dharamsala when I was coming down the long road from McLeod Ganj to the Dialectic School, there was a monk coming the other way, not a Tibetan monk, I think he was Korean or something like that. I’m sorry, I didn’t acknowledge him. My mind should have respected him but I didn’t remember to even do that. I did like that, like the police do. I went to the Dialectic School and the monk followed me all the way to ask me how I could have done what I did. So, I apologized for not showing respect and then he went all the way back.
If you are practicing Buddhism you always have to remember the basic Buddhist philosophy, that everything comes from the mind. Whatever problems you experience all come from the mind, they don’t come from another person. You should always immediately remember what Kadampa Geshe Chekawa8 said in Seven-point Thought Transformation,
Blame all the shortcomings on one.9
The one is what? The self-cherishing thought. Whatever unpleasant things you ever experience, they all come from your self-cherishing thought. So, you need to put all the blame on one, the self-cherishing thought. Besides that, what do you need to do? In the next line Geshe Chekawa said,
Toward all beings contemplate their great kindness.
I can mention this now. This is very important, so write it down to meditate on it every day. You have to remember it otherwise you might forget. If it was me, I would forget! The very next minute!
You have to contemplate the kindness of others. I’m able to teach you what little Dharma I know—just some familiarity with a few words—because of your kindness. And generally when students are able to learn something, whether it is Dharma or whatever, that is due to the kindness of the teacher. For example, the teacher can make a salary in a university or school, they can make money through education, due to kindness of the students. So, the kindness depends on each other.
That the population gets many freedoms and forms of happiness is due to the kindness of the government. And what the government is able to do for happiness is due to the kindness of the population. For example, taxes! If you think like that, there are so many examples of kindness and they depend on each other.
But now I’ll mention this, then I’ll stop here. All your happiness—from beginningless rebirths, at present and all the future happiness—depends on karma. All temporary and ultimate happiness, freedom from samsara, the blissful state of peace for yourself, including peerless happiness, enlightenment, buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of all realizations, everything, even the small comfort when you are hot and tired and a cool breeze blows on you, cooling you, making you feel comfortable, even small pleasures like that—these all come from your good karma.
Your good karma, your virtuous mind, that is the action of the buddhas. The buddhas have two actions, one is possessed by the buddhas’ own mind, but one is possessed by us sentient beings, so your good karma is the buddhas’ actions. So, your good karma comes from the buddhas, and the buddhas come from bodhisattvas; bodhisattvas come from bodhicitta, bodhicitta comes from great compassion, and great compassion comes from sentient beings whose minds are obscured and who are suffering. Compassion is generated by depending on them. Compassion depends on them, on their kindness.
Therefore, you receive all your happiness from beginningless time, now, and up to enlightenment, from sentient beings, from every sentient being, from every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal. There are numberless fish in the ocean, numberless worms under the earth, numberless insects in the grass, in the bush, including those tiny flies that jump when you walk on the grass, there are numberless birds in the trees and in the sky. You receive all your happiness from every animal, from every human being—and there are numberless universes with numberless human beings—from every sura, every asura and every intermediate state being. Every happiness, every wish for happiness that succeeds is received from every single sentient being. Your enlightenment comes from every single ant here and outside; you receive your enlightenment, the cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations, from every sentient being. Now every ant you see outside, every dog, cat, bird, every human being, as you go to the market, you see people in the shop, the restaurant, traveling by car, walking—from every single one you have received every single thing from them.
This is a very good meditation. When you go to the market, this is your mindfulness practice. When you walk around or go on a tour or pilgrimage, or when you just go around the city, in the market, shopping, this is an excellent meditation, meditating on the kindness of sentient beings. It is so good.
Even the Buddha comes from sentient beings, so there is no question about the Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha come from every sentient being, every mosquito, every banana slug, or whatever. Your refuge objects, those you take refuge in to be free from the lower realms, to be free from samsara, to be free from lower nirvana and to achieve enlightenment, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, who guide you, they come from sentient beings. Therefore, sentient beings are most precious, most dear, your most kind. Sentient beings are your wish-fulfilling gem, fulfilling all your wishes for happiness. I’ll stop here.
Dedications
[Mandala offering]
“Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me, all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of all sentient beings who have been your mother from beginningless rebirths and been kind from beginningless rebirths, showing unbelievable kindness, having taken care of you. Because they don’t know the Dharma, they haven’t met the Dharma, and those sentient beings who have met the Dharma hardly know anything, so the way they took care of you was with attachment, anger, ignorance, the self-cherishing thought. Because of that, they created so much negative karma, and they have had to suffer from beginningless rebirths up to now.”
So think, “If I don’t practice Dharma and have a direct perception of emptiness, I will have to reincarnate to the sentient beings, then they will have to suffer unbelievably again with no end, like in the past. There will be no end; they will have to suffer because I have to be born to them. Therefore, I need to generate bodhicitta in all their hearts, especially the sentient beings living in this world, especially the sentient beings living in Nepal, especially the sentient beings, the students, all those who rely on me, who I promised to pray for, whose names were given to me, in all their hearts may bodhicitta be generated, and may bodhicitta be generated in all of us here doing the course, including any family members who have died, who have already left this world, and those who are living now. May bodhicitta be generated in all their hearts.”
When we dedicate include all those who are dead, not just the living, that is very important. One way is to think that if we don’t dedicate for them, who will save them from the oceans of suffering of samsara? That is one way to think.
You can also think in this way, “May any sentient being who sees me, hears me, remembers me, touches me, even the flies who land on my body and the ants, including all of them, not only people, those who see my photo or dream of me, may bodhicitta be generated in all their hearts, also in my heart, and for those who have already generated bodhicitta, may it be developed.”
[Prayers in Tibetan]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, who exist in mere name and who do not exist from their own side, may the I, who exists in mere name and who does not exist from its own side, achieve buddhahood, which exists in mere name and which does not exist from its own side, and lead all the sentient beings, who exist in mere name and who do not exist from their own side, to that buddhahood, which exists in mere name and which does not exist from its own side, by myself alone, who exists in mere name and who does not exist from its own side.
Thank you very much. Good night.
Notes
6 See FPMT Essential Prayer Book, p. 71. [Return to text]
7 This verse could not be located, but it resembles verse 419: He who in every way knows death and rebirth of all beings and is totally detached, blessed and enlightened—him do I call a holy man. [Return to text]
8 Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (1101–75). [Return to text]
9 Thupten Jinpa’s translation is “banish all blames to the single source” but this is how Rinpoche generally translates it. See Mind Training: The Great Collection p. 83, 2006, Boston: Wisdom Publications. [Return to text]
