The first richness: being born as a human being
The first of the ten richnesses is being born as a human being. A human being is generally defined as one who is able to speak and understand. But, from the Dharma point of view, the real human being is the person who prepares for the happiness beyond this life, up to enlightenment. This entails much more than just being able to speak and understand.
Without receiving this richness of being a human, there would be no opportunity to practice the holy Dharma. "How fortunate I am that at this time, as a human being, I have received the freedom to practice Dharma. With this richness I can accomplish any of the three great purposes I wish, at any time - within these twenty-four hours, within this hour, within this minute. This richness is much more precious than diamonds equaling the number of atoms of this earth. Wasting this by not practicing holy Dharma for an hour, or even a minute, is a greater loss than losing that many precious diamonds."
The second richness: being born in a religious country
The second richness is being born in a religious, or central, country. There are two ways to think of this: in terms of place and of existence of the teachings. If you had not received this richness of being born in a religious country with all the teachings of Buddhadharma, there would be no opportunity at all to receive teachings. They would not be available, and thus there would be no opportunity to practice Dharma.
This richness involves not being in a country where there are only Hinayana teachings, so that you can achieve the sorrowless state, or where there are Paramitayana teachings, but where there is the quick path of Vajrayana, so that you can achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Thinking in detail of being in a religious country makes you appreciate more and more how precious this richness is. The more you know, the stronger you feel its value, as if you possess diamonds or gold. Meditating in detail is very effective for your mind and makes you feel more fortunate. By recognizing the incredible richness you have through being in a religious country, you become happier and happier
The third richness: being born with perfect organs
The third richness is being born with perfect organs. If you are deaf, you cannot hear the teachings, though in the West there is more possibility of hearing them if you have all the right equipment. In Los Angeles, when a newsman was reading the news on television, I saw on one side a woman giving the news to deaf people with mudras, with sign language. I found this very interesting, and extremely kind. Using the various methods developed in the West such as sign language or braille, a deaf or blind person may be able to understand Dharma to some extent. However, I think the details of very profound subjects may be more difficult for them to understand.
Imperfect organs also include missing limbs. This may be because this is one reason a person may be refused ordination. A person who is deaf, missing a limb and so forth cannot be granted the thirty-six vows or higher ordinations. According to the Theravadins, such a person does not have the requisite body for the pratimoksha vows. Also those having both male and female sexes, or neither, cannot receive ordination.
"How fortunate I am to have received this richness to practice Dharma through not being born with imperfect organs. With this richness, I can accomplish the three great purposes." Meditate on this as before.
The fourth richness: being free of the five extreme actions
The fourth richness is not having committed the five extreme actions. These are the five uninterrupted negative karmas of killing your mother or father, killing an arhat, causing blood to flow from a Buddha, and causing disunity among the sangha. Other negative karmas, even if you have accumulated them in this life, can be interrupted by other negative or positive karma before you experience the ripening aspect result of rebirth in the lower realms. You may have accumulated the negative karma to be reborn in the preta realm but other karma to be born as an animal or human being may become stronger at the death time, and you then experience that result. In other words, the karma to be reborn as a preta is interrupted by the other karma so that you do not have to experience the preta realm right after the intermediate stage.
These five uninterrupted negative karmas are such heavy negative karmas that if they are not purified before the death of the life in which they were committed, right after the intermediate stage one experiences the ripening aspect result of rebirth in the hells. Other karmas cannot interrupt this so that one experiences other results after the intermediate stage. One cannot take a preta or any other rebirth.
Having committed any of the five uninterrupted negative karmas is also an obstacle to ordination; such a person cannot be granted ordination. This is one of the questions asked at the beginning of the ceremony, before ordination is granted.
Generally speaking, this heavy karma makes it more difficult to generate realizations of the path to enlightenment. Strictly speaking, especially in the Nyingma sect, the definition of an extreme action is accumulating non-virtue. With the stricter definition, you would have this fourth richness only while your actions were indifferent or if you always lived in virtue. In this case, to avoid extreme action you would have to accumulate virtue with every action: sleeping, eating, walking, sitting. This strict definition persuades you to do this.
You should rejoice: "How fortunate I am to have this richness of not having committed these extreme negative karmas." Then do the rest of the meditation as before.
The fifth richness: having devotion to the teachings
The fifth richness is having devotion to the teachings, particularly to lam-rim teachings. With much devotion to lam-rim and inspiration to practice it, your mind changes. If you don't have this devotion and inspiration, you become thick-skulled and careless. When you hear different lam-rim subjects, if you think: "Oh, yes, yes, I know that! I have heard that a hundred times!", no matter how much you listen, the teachings won't move your mind. Your mind will be like a rock under the ocean, which can stay there one billion years but still be the same rock. The outside gets wet, but nothing else happens. Even if you hear lam-rim and thought-training teachings a hundred times, your mind will be like this.
You should not let your mind become like a rock under the ocean, or like leather wrapped around butter. In Tibet there is a custom of wrapping salted butter in animal skin, perhaps to stop it going rotten as butter can be kept like this for many years. The leather becomes very hard and the whole thing looks like a football. There is a Tibetan saying: "Dry leather can be subdued by butter, but butter-leather cannot be subdued by butter." In Tibet, in order to use dry animal skins to make shoes and the bowls in which tea is mixed into tsampa, they have to be softened. To do this a lot of butter is put on the dry skin and then, in the hot sun, the Tibetans knead it in very strongly with their feet. After some time the leather becomes soft and extremely flexible. It is then cut up and used to make different articles.
This very dry leather can be subdued, or softened, by putting butter on it; however, the leather sack that holds butter stays in contact with butter for years and years but is always dry. The saying means that an evil being can be subdued by the holy Dharma, but one who is thick-skulled about Dharma cannot be subdued. It is very dangerous to have a mind like this. When other tantra or sutra teachings, such as Abidharmakosha, do not subdue your mind, lam-rim is the only teaching that can change it - lam-rim is your last chance. If your mind becomes thick-skulled in relation to even lam-rim teachings, it will be very difficult to subdue your mind. There is no other method.
If you have much devotion to lam-rim, you have much wish to practice. Because of this practice, your mind changes, realizations come and you are able to make your life highly meaningful. It is very important to have devotion to the lam-rim teachings.
Again feel great joy as you think: "How fortunate I am to have this richness of having devotion to lam-rim teachings." Then do the rest of the meditation.
The sixth richness: being born when a buddha has descended
The sixth richness is being born in a time when Buddha has descended. To remember the four great aeons is very effective here. After this earth and this universe completely disappear, there will be empty space for one great aeon. Then the evolution of the whole universe - with the three lower realms, the southern continent, the realm of the worldly gods and so forth - takes one great aeon. The universe exists for one great aeon, followed by its degeneration, which takes another great aeon.
During the period that the length of human life is increasing from ten years to 84,000 years, no Buddha descends. This is the dark age, or dark aeon. Buddha descends only in the period when the lifespan is decreasing, which is much shorter than the other period. Also, the other human continents (the eastern, western and northern continents), do not experience Buddha descending and showing the twelve events.
"How fortunate I am to have this richness of being born in a time when Buddha has descended, with the opportunity to practice the holy Dharma." Again, do the rest of the meditation.
The seventh richness: being born when the teachings have been revealed
The seventh richness is being born in a time when the teachings have been revealed. Even if a Buddha descends, immediately after he becomes enlightened, he may show the aspect of passing away into the sorrowless state, so no teaching would be given. This sometimes happens. If you were born in such a time, there would be no opportunity to practice holy Dharma. Sometimes Buddha does not give verbal teachings after achieving enlightenment, but works for other sentient beings by sending beams from his holy body. If this had happened with Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, we would not have our present opportunity to practice Dharma; we have this opportunity now because Buddha did teach and his followers recorded the teachings. A Buddha's descent does not necessarily mean the opportunity to practice Dharma.
At this time, not only has Buddha descended but he has also revealed the teachings, so you have this richness. Think: "How fortunate I am!" Remembering the three great purposes, do the rest of the meditation on how precious this richness is.
The eighth richness: being born when the complete teachings exist
The eighth richness is that the teachings still exist. Like just making it onto a plane before it leaves, we have just made it. We haven't arrived too early and we haven't missed it completely. If we were born too late to receive the teachings - when all the Tibetan lamas had passed away and no one could reveal the teachings of the complete path to enlightenment - it would be very difficult on this earth. Even if you were born as a human being, it would be extremely difficult to plant the seed of the entire path to enlightenment. Besides training your mind in the complete teachings, it would be very difficult even to hear the teachings of the complete path.
Even though many other Buddhist countries might exist, this wouldn't mean that you could receive the complete lam-rim teachings, without mentioning extensive tantric teachings. Some teachings might exist in other countries but, since the complete teaching from guru devotion up to enlightenment would not, even if you trained your mind in the path, you could actualize only part of it, only some of the realizations. You could not achieve enlightenment. We are in the time of flickering, like a candle flame just before it goes out. There is still a little light, though not as much as before. Like just catching a train or plane, we have just caught these teachings.
Seeing how even in the past year so many lamas have passed away one after another, we can understand that we have less opportunity to receive the complete teachings. Before, even if one lama didn't have time to give a teaching, another could give it. There were many choices from amongst those who were holders of the complete teachings of Hinayana, Paramitayana and Vajrayana. There were many perfect, qualified gurus who could reveal the necessary teachings and lead a disciple, according to his capacity, to whatever goal he wished to achieve. Even now both teachings, the infallible understanding of the meaning of the teachings and also the realizations, exist in the holy mind of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and in the minds of many other high lamas and meditators. Experiential understanding and also infallible intellectual understanding of the entire teachings do exist. Many meditators nowadays are experimenting on the lam-rim and tantric paths and developing realizations.
Feel great joy at receiving this richness of the existence of both teachings.
The ninth richness: being able to follow the teachings
The ninth richness is being able to follow the teachings. The actual definition of following, or entering, the teaching is having refuge in the mind. When refuge is actualized in your mind, you have actually entered the teaching of Buddha. Refuge is the door to the teaching of Buddha. The beneficial fear of samsara is one cause of taking refuge; another is devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. To rely completely upon Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the definition of refuge. Understanding the qualities of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and how they are able to guide you, you take refuge in them. With these two causes (fear of samsaric suffering - either of the three lower realms or the entire samsara - and devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, with complete reliance upon them), you have entered the Dharma. This, rather than simply listening to teachings, is the actual meaning of entering the teaching.
In many places on this earth, no matter how much someone may want to receive teachings on Buddhadharma and practice them - perhaps after finding some Dharma books in a shop - there is nobody in their country they can ask for instruction. No matter how desperately they may want to practice, there is nobody who can guide them completely - in bodhicitta, emptiness or the general path. Even though from his own side the person may have much inspiration to practice, because the teachings do not exist in that country, it is extremely difficult to find such a guide. There is no one with the complete experience and also the infallible understanding of the whole teaching of the path.
I find it very useful to meditate in the following way. You Western people first work in a job in the West for many years in order to save a lot of money. At considerable expense, you then come here to Dharamsala. After making it here to Dharamsala, you meet many obstacles and problems. You are often unhealthy, run out of money, have problems with your family or sometimes can't live here very long because of passport and visa problems. Even after coming all the way here, you encounter so many other obstacles. Sometimes you come here by accident, but many times you come purposely to receive teachings and learn how to have a better life. Even though there are many problems, without wasting time, you try to practice, receiving teachings and doing retreat. While you are here in the East where you have all the opportunities, you try as much as possible to practice Dharma.
The Tibetan Government opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, India, not in the West, yet it is Westerners who study there, not the many Indians who live just here. They don't have to spend thousands of dollars to come to Dharamsala; they live so close that it would be easy for them to come to the Library. Here in Dharamsala, they are living near to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other high lamas, who came here to India more than twenty years ago. They are not living in the West, but in India. In each year, however, perhaps one or two Indians study for a few days at the Library; the rest of the people are from the West. You can see the different karma; this itself is an example of good and bad karma.
All the Buddhist teachings that made the land of Tibet holy, and through which so many Tibetan practitioners have achieved enlightenment in one brief lifetime, originated in India. And there are now many monasteries and Geshes here. In the West, you have to invite Geshes from India, which can be very difficult. There are unbelievable problems in getting a passport; it can take years and years. But there are plenty of Geshes here in India - as many as you want. The entire teaching exists here. But how many Indians study Buddhadharma or come to the monasteries? How many become nuns or monks? You don't see any. Even though the teaching exists in this country, the Indians do not follow it. Because they do not try to meet the teachings, because they have not received the richness of following the teachings, they have no understanding and their minds do not develop from stage to stage, higher and higher.
You were not born in India, but somewhere completely different - an unexpected, amazing place that is like something from another planet! Actually I was very surprised when I went to the West for the first time. I had been in Nepal during the time there were many hippies. Lama Yeshe and I arrived in Nepal during an interesting time. Wherever you went in Kathmandu, on every corner, you saw people with pale skins, as if they had dust on their bodies, dressed in all kinds of things. They were everywhere. Sometimes there were more hippies than Nepalese people. After some time, I think some Western countries told the Nepalese Government not to allow the hippies to stay. The Nepalese visa law was changed and there were then fewer and fewer of them.
At the beginning I didn't feel very much surprise that Westerners were coming to stay at Kopan and take teachings. Their trying something like this was not much of a surprise. However, when I went to the West and saw the houses in the cities (in Nepal the hippies lived in broken-down, smoky houses) and the general conditions in Western countries, it seemed impossible that Westerners would think of Dharma. It seemed impossible that the thought to do something else, such as meet Dharma, could ever arise.
First of all, in the West there is such a great development of sense pleasures and, second, the customs and the environment are quite different. I was very shocked. Actually, in terms of Western living standards, culture and way of thinking, it seemed an impossible thing to have happened: for Westerners to think to live such a new life. It is an impossible thing, like a dream - but it happened!
Seeing the West made me feel greater joy and surprise that Dharma was spreading there, that changes were happening. You should rejoice at having this richness of being able to follow the teachings. In some ways, thinking back to your own country, you have much more cause for joy than Tibetans, for whom it is normal from birth always to have lamas nearby or to be near His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is nothing unusual. In this sense it is more like a dream for Westerners. If you think back to your own country, the majority of the people there have never met Buddhadharma and their way of thinking opposes it completely. This should make you rejoice more and appreciate how precious the richness of following the teachings is.
Then do the rest of the meditation.
The tenth richness: having the necessary conditions to practice Dharma
The final richness is having others, out of compassion, help you to practice Dharma through providing the necessary conditions; and having a virtuous friend, out of compassion, reveal the teachings to you. You can relate this to both past and present teachings of the three vehicles. "In the past the virtuous friend, out of compassion, revealed to me whatever sutra teachings, tantric initiations and commentaries I wished." It is good to remember both the present and the past. Feel great joy at having met the virtuous friend who, out of compassion, is revealing the teachings. "With this richness I can achieve the three great purposes." Make the decision not to waste this precious human body qualified with eight freedoms and ten richnesses, but make it highly meaningful by constantly practicing bodhicitta.
When you meditate in detail on having met a compassionate guru to guide you, you should not think it sufficient to have met a guru revealing the graduated path of the small scope, so that you can receive a good rebirth in your next life. However, simply meeting a virtuous friend who can teach the infallible method by which you, the disciple, can definitely accomplish your wish to receive a perfect human rebirth in your next life is unbelievably fortunate. Even if you do not complete the path in this life, you can take a human rebirth again and continue to follow the path.
Remember that at this time there are many people in the world who want happiness now and in the future. However, even though they want to follow a spiritual path for peace of mind now and for future happiness, they meet a guru who is a non-virtuous friend.
Unless you create good karma, the cause of happiness - whether in this life or future lives - there is no way to experience happiness at all. For example, a person who lives by robbing banks or killing people may make money and become rich. To ordinary people in the world, who do not understand Dharma or karma, it looks as if that happiness has come from his profession of stealing or killing. Or if someone is a very successful butcher who makes a lot of money and has every comfort, to ordinary people who do not understand the inner evolution, it looks as if his happiness comes from killing. It is the same with a successful businessman: for ordinary people who do not understand karma, it looks as if business is the principal cause of his happiness.
If it were true that happiness resulted from external factors such as these non-virtuous actions, the more negative karma you created, the more happiness and peace of mind you should experience. This is contradictory because peace of mind comes only by diminishing selfishness, desire, ignorance and anger. The more negative karma created out of selfish attitude and the three poisonous minds, the more selfishness, ignorance, anger and attachment develop. From beginningless rebirths until now, you have been suffering in samsara because you have always followed disturbing thoughts and created negative karma through these disturbing thoughts. The disturbing thoughts have not lessened and have continued until now.
For anyone to expect peace of mind and happiness when their actions follow disturbing thoughts and the dissatisfied mind is completely contradictory. Lama Tsongkapa says in The Great Lamrim Commentary:
Following desire in the hope of gaining complete satisfaction is the most painful suffering of samsara. No matter how much you follow desire, the result is always greater suffering. As long as you follow desire, suffering has no end.
You try something, but don't get satisfaction. You try again, but don't get satisfaction. You try something else, but again don't get satisfaction. Your hope is to get full satisfaction, but as Lama Tsongkapa says, as long as you follow desire, suffering has no end. This is the nature of life for everyone on this earth, non-human and even human. As soon as you stop following desire, however, confusion and suffering end. As long as you continue hoping for satisfaction, more and more problems come.
If peace of mind did increase and disturbing thoughts decrease as a person became more and more wealthy, millionaires would be the ones with realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. Only wealthy people would have these realizations. Since beggars are not wealthy, they could not be happy and would not have the opportunity to gain greater peace of mind through these realizations.
Ordinary people who do not understand karma may think that happiness comes from success in business or from other external conditions. Being a butcher by profession could be the condition for someone to be happy, since he obtains money from this, but it is not the principal cause. The principal cause of his having comfort and wealth is his good karma; the other factors are conditions. This is why someone with a very good education may have difficulty finding a job, while someone without much education may have a very happy life with a good job earning good money. It is not necessarily the person who is very smart, with many thousands of ideas, who succeeds.
For example, other people - and the person himself - might believe that a person's business will succeed because he is very smart and has many, many ideas as to what can be done. However, if he has not created the good karma to experience the result of happiness or success at that time, no matter how smart he is or how much education he has, there is no way he can succeed. Without dependence upon karma, there is no way to have success. This is why so many educated people who are intellectually clever and who, according to their own plan, should be more successful than others, in practice do not succeed. For other people who are not brilliant, things may work out very well. Without creation of good karma, there is no way at all to gain happiness.
If it were dependent solely on education and intelligence, all smart, educated people should have happiness and success. However, there are many people, especially in the East, with no education at all, who cannot even sign their names, but who lead very successful lives. It is completely wrong and unreliable to believe that happiness comes from business, that the conditions for happiness are its principal cause. If you create good karma, you will definitely experience happiness as the result. As long as you do not destroy the good karma, it is one hundred percent reliable that you will experience the resultant happiness from that particular good karma.
Without dependence on the creation of good karma, there is no way to experience happiness in this life, or in future lives. Without the practice of moral conduct, there is no way to receive a good rebirth, the body of a happy transmigratory being, in your next life. If you as a disciple meet a non-virtuous friend who says that you don't need to practice moral conduct, since he does not reveal the infallible method, you will have no opportunity to receive the body of a happy transmigratory being in your next life. If you meet a non-virtuous friend who teaches his disciples that non-virtue, what is opposite to the moral conduct of the ten virtuous actions, should be practiced, that guru cannot save you even from the lower realms. He simply leads you to the lower realms.
Many people practice a spiritual path because they want to find peace of mind but when they try to find a guru, meet a non- virtuous friend. They then have no opportunity to receive even the body of a happy transmigratory being in their next life. You should feel very fortunate to have met a virtuous friend who can show even the infallible method to receive the body of a happy transmigratory being in your next life. So many gurus talk only about the happiness of this life, never about preparing for the happiness of future lives. If the practice the guru reveals results in good karma, there is a hope of creating the cause of happiness through that practice.
Many spiritual seekers on this earth have met a guru, but one who has no understanding of the Four Noble Truths, so is not qualified to teach them. Or who has no understanding of the cause of suffering, and not even the correct intellectual understanding of the infallible right view, or emptiness. Since what he believes is emptiness is wrong view, there is no way his disciple can have the correct realization of emptiness, nor even an intellectual understanding of it. As there is no remedy to samsara, it is impossible for the disciple to cut the root of samsara and achieve the sorrowless state.
Think of all the people who have met a non-virtuous friend who cannot lead them to the sorrowless state. "How fortunate I am to have met a virtuous friend qualified to show the entire path to the sorrowless state." Think of the many others who have not met a Mahayana virtuous friend who can show them the complete path to enlightenment. "How fortunate I am to have met a Mahayana virtuous friend."
Since it is uncertain when your death will happen, before your death, while you have all these opportunities through having a perfect human rebirth, you should practice as skillfully as possible. Of the ten richnesses, five come from your own side and five from the side of the place: being born in a religious country, when a Buddha has descended and given teachings, when the complete teachings exist, and when there are qualified vajra gurus. During this short time that you have all these opportunities, you should use every capability you have. You should be careful with your life and practice Dharma as carefully and skillfully as possible in order to make your life meaningful and of benefit to all sentient beings.
