Kadampa Teachings

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Root Institute, Bodhgaya (Archive #1404 1470 1588 1683 1677)

In this book Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how to practice Dharma the way the famous Kadampa geshes did. These lamas were exemplary practitioners of Buddhism in Tibet, renowned for their extreme asceticism and uncompromising practice of thought transformation in order to develop bodhicitta. As ever, Rinpoche covers a vast amount of ground, teaching on many other topics as well.

Kadampa Teachings 3: Bodhgaya, December 2006

December 30

I’ll just read through this teaching from Lama Atisha, The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland. After the title, The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland, it mentions how Lama Atisha is from India. It then says:

I prostrate to great compassion.
I prostrate to the gurus.

I prostrate to the gurus is lama nam la chhag tshäl lo in Tibetan. Lama is not used here in the way it’s used in India, where all Tibetan men are called “lama,” even the Tibetan police. I’ve never heard Indians call a Tibetan woman “lama,” but any Tibetan man is called “lama.” I think it might also be the same in Nepal.

Here lama refers to the guru and means very heavy with qualities. The ultimate meaning of very heavy with qualities is the dharmakaya, as I mentioned yesterday when I was talking about what the guru is and how you should think when you see or think about the guru or say the word “guru.” (See appendix 3.) The dharmakaya, the wisdom of the fully enlightened mind, is free from all the disturbing-thought obscurations and subtle obscurations; not even the slightest trace of a fault is left on the mind. The dharmakaya is the one that manifests everything; it is where all the buddhas, all the Dharma and all the Sangha come from. The dharmakaya guides you through the conventional guru, by manifesting through the conventional guru. You can now understand that here very heavy with qualities means the dharmakaya, the ultimate perfection of wisdom. This is what manifests to guide you. So, you prostrate to the lamas, or gurus.

I prostrate to the devotional deity.

I’m not completely sure but this might mean your own personal deity, the one that you practice being one with in your daily life.

ABANDONING DOUBT

Abandon all doubts;
Definitely cherish the practice.

In one way it’s good to have doubts, especially at the beginning, because your doubts can make you clarify and discover what’s right. However, when you’re traveling, if you have doubts about whether a road will lead you to where you want to go, you’ll be unhappy about using it. Your doubts will stop you from taking that road. If it’s the wrong road, it’s okay; but if it’s the correct one that leads to the place you want to go, your doubts will stop you from taking that road.

Here, having doubts about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha or about the path stops you from entering the path to liberation and enlightenment. Therefore, to engage in the path to liberation and enlightenment, you have to abandon doubts, because they’re obstacles. So, you abandon all doubts and definitely cherish the practice.

ABANDONING SLEEP, DROWSINESS AND LAZINESS

Thoroughly abandon sleep, drowsiness and laziness.

Drowsiness means your mind becoming dark, like a dark house, when you meditate. Your mind is not clear, but dark. The Tibetan expression rab pang means to thoroughly abandon. Why do you have to thoroughly abandon sleep, drowsiness and laziness? Because they waste your life. They waste this most precious human life, with which you can achieve the three great meanings. If you have achieved a perfect human rebirth, which has eighteen qualities, with that you can then achieve the three great meanings. You can achieve any temporary happiness you wish, and at the time of death you can go to a pure land of buddha, from where you don’t have to be reborn in the lower realms at all and you can achieve enlightenment. That means that in a future life you can achieve a perfect human rebirth and a human rebirth that has the eight ripening qualities highly admired by Lama Tsongkhapa.1 You need to achieve a human body with the eight ripening aspects so that you can make quick progress in attaining the realizations of the path to enlightenment. There’s also the human rebirth with seven qualities: high caste, a beautiful body, long life, good health, wealth, power and wisdom. In countries with castes, if you are from a high caste, since everybody respects you, you can then benefit others. There is also the human rebirth with the four Mahayana Dharma wheels: you are born in the right family or right environment, which means there is no obstacle to your accepting the Dharma; the place where you practice is healthy and not harmful; you actualize the prayers you made in the past; and you are able to collect merit.

The other two great meanings are the ultimate happiness of liberation and of enlightenment.

By practicing Dharma, even within each second you can achieve any of these three great meanings that you wish to achieve; but you don’t achieve these things if you don’t abandon sleep, drowsiness and laziness.

It says here to abandon sleep, and there are some meditators who don’t sleep at all. However, the lam-rim teachings usually say that the first part of the night is not for sleeping but for practice; the later part of the night is when you get up to practice; and the middle part of the night is the only time for sleeping. So, you have to look for the middle part of the night. Since I don’t practice that, I don’t really know how to find the middle part. My sleeping happens at totally the wrong time.

Abandoning sleep, drowsiness and laziness is very important. You have an unbelievable opportunity to achieve incredible things for yourself and for other sentient beings. You can bring happiness— the happiness of all their future lives, liberation from samsara and enlightenment—to so many sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, through your Dharma practice. If sleep, drowsiness and laziness become obstacles, you then lose all these things, including the perfect human rebirth with which you can achieve all of them.

We have this perfect human rebirth almost only this one time; it doesn’t last long; and it can be stopped at any time. Therefore, if we spend the little time that we have in sleep, drowsiness and laziness, just attached to the pleasures of this life, we can’t achieve realization. We can’t achieve enlightenment, nor liberation from samsara, nor even the happiness of future lives.

HAVING PERSEVERANCE

Next Lama Atisha says:

Always attempt to have perseverance.

Before, it says that we should thoroughly abandon sleep, drowsiness and laziness. We should then always attempt to have perseverance. The nature of the mental factor of perseverance is a mind that is happy to perform virtue. Perseverance in harming your enemies, perseverance in anger, attachment or ignorance, perseverance in meaningless activities of this life or perseverance in nonvirtuous actions is not the real perseverance; that’s wrong perseverance. The mind that is happy to create negative karma is wrong perseverance.

Here, Always attempt to have perseverance means having perseverance in virtue, in Dharma, in attaining the path. Understanding buddha-nature can help encourage you to have perseverance. Also, knowing how this perfect human body is so precious and that with it you can achieve all these great meaning helps you to have perseverance in practicing Dharma, in achieving the three great meanings.

Also, every day you should remember that negative karmas such as the ten nonvirtues result in the sufferings of the hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals. As Nagarjuna advises, to keep our mind always in virtue we should remember every day the sufferings of heat and cold of the hell realms. To keep a horse on the right path you hit it with a whip. If the horse goes off to the right or left, you hit it with the whip to keep it on the correct path. To always keep your mind in virtue, remember the unbelievable sufferings of the lower realms. That then gives you the courage and perseverance to bear hardships to practice Dharma, to attain the path to liberation and to enlightenment. Remembering those sufferings persuades you to take the lay vows—the five lay vows or the eight vows, such as the Eight Mahayana Precepts—and to bear hardships to purify negative karma and to collect merit and thus achieve liberation and enlightenment. It persuades you to do the various practices of purification to purify all your negative karmas, which cause you to be born in the lower realms, and also persuades you to attain the path, to engage in the practice of Dharma to have a good rebirth in future lives, so that you can again meet and practice the Dharma, and then complete the path to liberation and enlightenment. In that way you get inspired, and you have courage and perseverance. You should also remember how samsara and samsaric perfections are suffering in nature.

Another point is compassion. You feel it is unbearable that sentient beings are suffering so much only if you have strong compassion for others. If you have that kind of mind, you also want to help others; you want to free others from their suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment. Feeling that others’ sufferings are unbearable also gives you courage and perseverance to practice Dharma.

HAVING REMEMBRANCE, AWARENESS AND CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

Lama Atisha then says:

With remembrance, awareness and conscientiousness,
Always protect the doors of your senses.
Three times day and night, again and again,
Examine your mental continuum.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva gives the following example. You have to walk while carrying a container filled with some precious drink. There’s a person next to you holding a sword, and if you spill the drink, that person will strike you with the sword. So, while you’re walking you watch the road but you also watch the container, so that you don’t spill the drink. If you don’t do that, you could be in danger.2

One simple example of this is always keeping your mind in lam-rim, in virtue, in daily life. If you don’t keep your mind in virtue with remembrance, awareness and conscientiousness, there’s a danger you will engage in negative karma. Negative thoughts will arise, and you will then create negative karma. You will then fall down into the lower realms for many eons of suffering. Even later, when you’re again born as a human being due to another good karma, you will also experience much suffering in the human realm. You will reincarnate again and again in samsara, experiencing all the sufferings of samsara. Conscientiousness makes you pay attention, like the person being threatened by someone holding a sword.

You can have conscientiousness if you have remembrance and awareness. Remembrance means keeping your mind in virtue; keeping your mind in guru devotion, renunciation, bodhicitta or right view. And if you’re practicing tantra, it means keeping your mind in the tantric path. Awareness means being able to recognize when your mind is distracted, when your mind is not in Dharma. For example, when you meditate, remembrance is remembering the object of meditation and awareness is recognizing when your mind is distracted by another object. Perfect meditation has to be achieved with these two, remembrance and awareness. If you don’t recognize that your mind has scattered from the object of meditation, you will waste many, many hours and then many days and then a lifetime. You will try to meditate but most of the time your mind will be too distracted by other objects. If you’re trying to achieve calm abiding, you won’t be able to achieve it. Even if you’re just trying to keep your mind in virtue, in Dharma, you won’t be able to do that.

PROTECTING YOUR MIND 

Always protect the doors of your senses means that you close the doors of your senses to any object that causes attachment or any other negative emotional thought to arise. You protect yourself from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touching those objects that cause attachment, anger and other negative emotional thoughts to arise.

The next part of the verse explains how to do that. You can protect yourself only if three times day and night, again and again, you examine your mental continuum. You have to examine your mind, your attitude to life. You have to watch what’s happening in your mind all the time. If you don’t watch, if you don’t practice mindfulness, you can’t tell whether your mind is Dharma or not Dharma, virtue or nonvirtue. It becomes dangerous, because of your negative thoughts. You then become an evil being, destroying yourself and also endangering and harming other sentient beings. This can happen if you don’t examine your mind, if you don’t practice mindfulness of what’s happening in your mind.

December 31

Think, “The purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings from all their suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, I must achieve enlightenment. No matter how long it takes—how many lifetimes, how many eons—or how difficult it is, I’ll do it; I’ll work for enlightenment to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.”

Yesterday we went over the verse from The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland about always protecting the doors of the senses with remembrance, awareness and conscientiousness.

Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung advises:

When the desire to engage in an unrighteous activity arises, restrain your body and speech from moving toward that. If you do that, the benefits are that it eliminates the obstacles of both you and others and that you receive the common and supreme attainments.

Moving toward that means toward engaging in that unrighteous action.

There are one or two pages of advice from Kharag Gomchung, and every piece of advice ends with the expression ang—for example, gom je ang, which means meditate on this. There are about sixty angs, and each ang is asking you to practice.3

You need to understand that if you restrain your body and speech from engaging in unrighteous actions you gain these special benefits, or advantages. Receiving the supreme attainment is the best benefit that you get. It’s very important to reflect on all the special advantages—in other words, profit— that you get because it encourages you and makes you happy to restrain your body and speech from unrighteous actions.

For example, the more we meditate, the more we discover how this body qualified by eight freedoms and ten endowments is precious and very meaningful and how we will have it almost only this one time because it will be difficult to find again. It is especially important to meditate on impermanence and death, the nature of life. It is not just that death itself can happen at any time but that what happens after that is related to karma. Even though we are trying to practice, in one day we collect more negative karma than good karma, because our mind is so uncontrolled that delusions pour down forcefully and uncontrollably, like a waterfall or a hailstorm. And we have created more negative karma than good karma not just in one day but throughout this life and throughout beginningless rebirths. Whether we will take rebirth in a lower or a higher realm, the body of a suffering or a happy transmigratory being, is defined by karma. It’s up to karma; it’s up to which karma we have collected more of. Unless we have purified our negative karma with perfect, powerful confession or by actualizing the path, if our death happened now, our rebirth would be in the lower realms with the most unbearable suffering and no freedom to practice Dharma.

THE SHORTCOMINGS OF SAMSARA

The more we reflect and meditate on these subjects, the more we feel that the whole of samsara is unbearable. Besides the desire realm, even the form and formless realms are only suffering in nature. The whole of samsara is only suffering in nature. The thought of having to reincarnate again in any of these realms is most disgusting, most terrifying, like jumping into a septic tank. You don’t want to jump into a septic tank, where there are all those smelly, interesting things. You also don’t want to jump into the center of a red-hot fire or into a nest of poisonous snakes. It would be terrifying to do that. You don’t want that for even a moment. Because you know very clearly all the danger, unpleasantness and suffering you would experience, you don’t have the slightest attraction to being in the middle of a septic tank, a fire or a nest of poisonous snakes.

This is true even for the deva realms within the desire, form and formless realms. In the desire realm there’s the suffering of pain, the suffering of change (which means samsaric pleasures) and pervasive compounding suffering, aggregates under the control of karma and delusion. One meaning of pervasive is that the aggregates are the production of the impure cause, karma and delusion, and because of that, it is natural that they are pervaded by suffering. Also, because the aggregates are under the control of karma and delusion, they are suffering in nature. That’s another meaning of pervasive. They are also contaminated by the seed of delusions, which is another meaning of pervasive. Because the seed of delusion is there, mental and physical problems can arise at any time from it. The seed compounds the suffering of this life and also produces delusion, which then produces karma, leaving a karmic seed on the continuity of the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness; that karmic seed then produces the future rebirth, the future samsara.

These aggregates are pervasive compounding suffering, compounding the suffering of this life and the suffering of the future life by producing the future rebirth. This is the fundamental suffering of samsara. On the basis of these aggregates, we then experience the suffering of pain, all the sufferings to which even animals have aversion. Even animals don’t want to suffer; they don’t want to experience heat or cold or any other suffering of pain. Temporary samsaric pleasures, which come from pervasive compounding suffering, from these aggregates, are another suffering of samsara: the suffering of change. All three of these sufferings are experienced in the desire realm by humans and desire realm devas.

The devas of the form realm have no suffering of pain, but according to Geshe Sopa Rinpoche, they do have the suffering of change and, of course, pervasive compounding suffering. The aggregates of the devas in the form realm are under the control of karma and delusion and, of course, suffering in nature, and also contaminated by the seed of delusions.

The devas of the formless realm, though they don’t have the other two sufferings, do have pervasive compounding suffering. That is the nature of their aggregates. Also, when their karma to be in the formless realm finishes, they have to reincarnate from there in the hell, hungry ghost, animal or some other realm.

We have been devas of the desire, form and formless realms numberless times in the past. Even those higher samsaric realms are not a new experience. However, all of those realms are disgusting. We human beings in the desire realm think that the sense pleasures of the desire realm are great and real happiness, because we can’t see that they are suffering in nature; but the beings of the form realm see desire realm pleasures as totally disgusting and only suffering in nature.

Through the six contemplations, or analyses, you move from the desire realm to the form realm. With the first contemplation, analysis of individual characteristics, you look at the desire realm as only suffering in nature. You examine all the sense pleasures of the human desire realm—sleep, sex, food and so forth—and discover that they are only suffering in nature, as they are only suffering. You then compare the desire realm to the form realm, where there is a very long life with more peace and happiness. Through analysis you discover that our realm, the human realm, and all human pleasures are only suffering in nature. You look at the form realm as a better realm, and your attachment then seeks that. However, you first have to achieve shamatha, or calm abiding. That is the foundation. With that as the preliminary, you then achieve the first of the four levels of absorption.4

When you are born in the form realm, you see the desire realm of human beings as disgusting. No matter how great we think our pleasures are, those who are on the first level of absorption in the form realm see them as completely disgusting. They don’t have any attraction to those pleasures for even a moment. All the pleasures that we think are so great, they see as only suffering. It’s similar to the way we see disease and many other problems in our realm. When we think of Africa or some other place with a lot of contagious diseases and many people dying in epidemics and famines, we have no desire to be there for even a day—or even a minute. We’re afraid of getting those diseases. This is how the beings in the form realm see even the human beings who have great wealth and pleasure. Here we’re not talking about how they see arya beings or meditators who have entered the path and have renunciation of the whole of samsara. We’re just talking about how the gods of the form realm see what we human beings believe to be great pleasure. They see it as totally disgusting and only so much suffering. They’re not attracted to it at all.

The devas of the form realm go through all six contemplations. The second is contemplation arisen from belief. With the next, contemplation of isolation, they start to remove the gross delusions; they are actually removing the visible ones, not the imprints, or seeds. To remove imprints one needs the direct perception of emptiness and that, of course, depends on having renunciation of the whole of samsara, which devas of the form realm don’t have.

After that, because they have removed the visible delusions, sometimes they feel happy and sometimes depressed. They then move though the contemplation of joy or withdrawal, during which they remove the three middling delusions. The fifth is contemplation of analysis. With the sixth, contemplation of final application, they remove the three subtle delusions. But these are all visible delusions.

It is by going through these six contemplations that you go from the desire realm to the form realm. From there, you go through the four levels of absorption. When you are on the first level, you compare it to the second level and find that the second one is a better state, with a longer life and more peace than the first. When you analyze, you find that the first absorption has more suffering. You then go through the six contemplations and reach the second absorption. You again do analysis and find that the second absorption is suffering in nature and that the third absorption has more peace and happiness. You then become attached to and seek the third absorption. After completing the meditation through the six contemplations, you then reach the third absorption. You then go to the fourth absorption in a similar way.

You then become bored with even the inner happiness derived from meditation and seek indifference. You then look at the form realm as suffering in nature and see the formless realm as better. Again you go through the meditation of the six contemplations. After you have achieved the first level of the formless realm, limitless space, you again look at that state as only suffering in nature, which is only suffering in nature, and look at the second level, limitless consciousness, as a better state. With attachment to the second level, you look at it as better and become totally detached from the first one, limitless space. You then go through the meditation, of the six contemplations and reach the second level, limitless consciousness. When you achieve that stage, you again look at it as only suffering in nature and look at the next stage, nothingness, as better. You then seek that stage. You again go through the six contemplations, and achieve the third level, nothingness. When you have reached that stage, you again look at it as suffering in nature and look at the tip of samsara as better, as having more peace. You realize that compared to the tip of samsara, the state of nothingness is only suffering in nature. Through the meditation of the six contemplations, you then achieve the tip of samsara.

Once you have achieved the tip of samsara, there’s no higher samsaric realm with which to compare it to discover that the tip of samsara is only suffering in nature. There is no higher realm to find better, more peaceful. Here you have total detachment to all desire realm pleasures, seeing them as only suffering in nature. You see all those pleasures as totally disgusting. The pleasures that we think are great are hallucinations. You also see all the happiness of the form realm as only suffering in nature; and you see even the first, second and third levels of the formless realm as only suffering in nature. The only thing that you don’t discover is that the tip of samsara is only suffering in nature. You don’t discover that because there’s no higher realm with which to compare it. The problem is that you have total renunciation of the desire realm, the form realm and the first three levels of the formless realm, seeing everything except the tip of samsara as only suffering in nature, but when that karma to be in the tip of samsara finishes, you then have to be reborn again in one of the lower samsaric realms. Sometimes a being believes that they have achieved liberation when the many visible delusions are removed. When their karma to be in the tip of samsara then finishes and they see that they will have to be reborn again in one of those realms, however, the heretical thought arises, “It’s not true that there is such a thing as liberation.”

Here the important point you have to understand is that even though they had realized renunciation of the desire realm, the form realm and even the first three levels of the formless realm, feeling total aversion to them as disgusting, they again have to reincarnate because they didn’t have renunciation of the tip of samsara, the last level of the formless realm. The point is that because they have no renunciation of that last level, they again reincarnate. Also, they don’t have the wisdom that directly perceives emptiness. To stop reincarnating, you have to cease your delusions and the seeds of delusion, which are of the nature of imprints. To do that you need the wisdom that directly perceives emptiness. If you don’t have that, you again have to reincarnate.

Thinking in this way can help some people to develop renunciation, or detachment.

You have to reflect on how the whole of samsara and all samsaric pleasures are only suffering in nature, as they are only suffering in nature. Like a scientist, you discover this through analytical meditation, and discovering their suffering nature encourages you to develop aversion to samsara and samsaric pleasures. You feel that samsara and samsaric pleasures are so disgusting that you wish to be free from all of them forever, particularly from those samsaric pleasures to which you have been strongly attached. Meditating on them, you discover that they are only suffering in nature. You also see the benefits of achieving the ultimate happiness of liberation, freedom forever from all suffering. Then, of course, there’s also great liberation, or enlightenment. Discovering the suffering nature of samsara makes you very happy to restrain yourself from engaging in negative karma, in unrighteous actions. The more you meditate, the more you discover that samsara and samsaric pleasures are only suffering in nature, as they are only suffering in nature, and the more aversion to them you feel. Your wish to achieve liberation then becomes stronger.

You then take vows, either lay vows such as the eight precepts or five lay vows or ordination as a monk or nun, with thirty-six or 253 vows. You are very happy to take vows, and you are also very happy to live in those vows. You don’t feel as if you living in a prison. The more analytical meditation you do, the more you discover the suffering nature of samsara and samsaric pleasures, especially the ones to which you are strongly attracted. The more you see that they are suffering, the more aversion to them you have and the stronger your wish to be free from them and achieve liberation. The very basic means to achieve liberation, to be free from this suffering, is by living in vows, either lay vows or the vows of a monk or nun. You are then very happy to do this, because you know that this is the path that protects you. This is your fundamental protection, protecting you from delusions, from negative karma and from all the sufferings of samsara.

The stronger your thought to achieve liberation, the happier your mind is when you’re living in vows. It’s not that anybody is forcing you; it comes from your own heart. It’s as if you are suddenly being released after being in prison for a long time. On the day you’re released you feel so happy. Like this, you feel so happy, day and night, knowing that living in vows is the way to get out of samsara. You’re like somebody who has worked very hard all year and is now going on vacation. After working so hard, you now have time to go skiing in the mountains or on the water. You’re so happy when you have a few days of vacation, but in this case, you’re much happier because you can attain the path and achieve liberation. You can remove the cause of suffering, karma and delusion, and achieve liberation forever. There’s no coming back into suffering.

You need to think of all the shortcomings, all the harm and suffering for you and for others in this life and all the coming future lives, if you engage in unrighteous actions with your body and speech. You then think of all the benefits of eliminating your obstacles and those of others and of achieving the general and sublime attainments.

This verse from Kharag Gomchung is similar to the third verse of Eight Verses of Thought Transformation:

In all conduct I will examine my own mental continuum. The moment a delusion arises, as it endangers me, making me and others evil, I will immediately practice forcefully averting it.

Take anger, for example. When you get angry, it also causes others to get angry. Getting angry also destroys your merits. And by destroying your merits, you destroy not only your enlightenment, your liberation, the happiness of your future lives and your day-to-day peace of mind, but those of others. When you get angry, you also cause others to get upset and angry with you, which also destroys their enlightenment, liberation, happiness of future lives and day-to-day peace of mind. It endangers you, making you evil, and it also makes others evil. Besides you, many other sentient beings are endangered. It creates obstacles to achieving liberation and enlightenment and creates negative karma, the cause to be reborn in the lower realms.

Whenever attachment or any other delusion arises, we have to avert it diligently and forcefully without even a second’s delay. If you’re even a second late, it will have already destroyed all your merits. In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva says that if you get angry for one moment with a bodhisattva, who’s a much higher being, you destroy the merits you have collected during one thousand eons by doing practices of charity, morality and so forth.5 One moment of anger destroys all those things you did during a thousand eons. So, if you delay controlling your anger for even one moment, you are already defeated; you have already destroyed your merits and your liberation and enlightenment.

How are you going to forcefully avert the delusions without even a second’s delay? By two means, method and wisdom. Applying the lam-rim meditations comes down to method and wisdom.

In general, without considering particular meditations, Kharag Gomchung talks here about restraining your body, speech and mind from engaging in unrighteous actions. He then talks about the benefits of doing that: you eliminate the obstacles of yourself and others. So, this is similar to the third stanza of Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, where it talks about what makes you and others evil. Kharag Gomchung talks here about eliminating the obstacles of yourself and others. If you are controlled by delusion and then engage in negative karma, you also cause others to generate delusion and engage in negative karma. That’s the main obstacle.

Kharag Gomchung then says that you achieve the common and sublime attainments. The common attainments are the eight siddhis.6 The sublime attainment, or siddhi, is enlightenment. Here, what gives you encouragement is thinking of these shortcomings of not restraining your body, speech and mind from engaging in unrighteous actions and of the benefits of doing so. That’s extremely important.

CONTROLLING DELUSIONS

Since it’s a very important subject, I would like to elaborate a little on the third stanza of The Eight Verses and the lines from The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland, Three times day and night, again and again, examine your mental continuum.

When there’s danger that a delusion will arise, you have to apply meditation to control it. If you don’t defeat your attachment, anger and other delusions, if you always give the victory to your delusions and take the loss on yourself—in other words, if you don’t practice Dharma—what happens now and in the future is that your delusions increase, becoming more difficult to control. It says in a sutra that for those who are attached to sleep, their sleep becomes heavier and deeper, and their life then becomes very difficult. It is the same for those who have great attachment to alcohol. It makes them drink more and more, which then creates many difficulties and destroys their life. They’re even unable to do their job, and it brings many other problems.

If you always allow delusion to arise, giving the victory to delusion and taking the loss on yourself, if you always allow yourself to be controlled by delusion, if you allow a tsunami of delusion to arise in your mind, you leave many negative imprints on your mental continuum. Each time attachment arises, it leaves a negative imprint on your mental continuum, so the imprint then becomes deeper and deeper. If you don’t practice patience, each time anger arises, it leaves a negative imprint on your mental continuum, so the negative imprint becomes deeper and deeper. That makes your future lives very difficult. It makes it very difficult for you to practice Dharma, to avert or abandon delusions. It is similar with pride and any other delusion. It makes the future very difficult, because the deeper the negative imprint, the more difficult it will be for you to control your delusions.

Negative imprints are much more terrifying than the sufferings of hell. With hell suffering, you experience it, then when the karma to be in hell is exhausted, the suffering stops. However, negative imprints make delusions arise again and again. If you leave a negative imprint, delusion will uncontrollably arise from that imprint again and again. Even though you might know the meditation techniques very well and be able to explain them, if you’re unable to practice them when delusion arises, your life then becomes very uncontrolled. Your life is controlled by delusion, and you then uncontrollably engage in negative karma. Therefore, you need to think of negative imprints when you’re in danger of giving rise to strong delusion in your daily life. It’s not an easy or simple thing to control delusion, but it’s so harmful if a delusion leaves a negative imprint on your mind, as it makes your life difficult now and in the future, causing you to engage again and again in heavy negative karmas.

It’s very important to remember what is said in the sutra A Hundred Karmas, which describes what happens if we don’t control our mind and we engage in negative karma. This is very important to understand and to write down in your notebooks, daily prayer book or diary.

Each time you engage in negative karma, it makes you habituated to nonvirtue.

You become habituated to nonvirtue, like someone addicted to drugs or alcohol. Normally the Tibetan expression that I’ve translated as habituated means to become familiar with something, but here it may have a slightly different meaning. I think it means that you become accustomed to being uncontrolled.

What happens not only now but in the future (of this life and after this life) is that you again depend on nonvirtuous activities. In the future (of this life and after this life), you again engage in the same negative karma. By following negative karma, you get reborn again and again.

This is similar to the verse in The Foundation of All Good Qualities where it talks about how your rebirth follows negative karma like a shadow follows a body.7 You get reborn again and again because you follow negative karma.

It’s very important to remember this quotation from Buddha’s teaching, from this sutra A Hundred Karmas, when you’re in danger of giving rise to delusion and engaging in negative karma in your daily life. Remember that this is something that goes on and on, not only in this life but in future lives. It makes things very difficult for you. You continuously engage in negative karma and continuously reincarnate and endlessly experience suffering, particularly the sufferings of the lower realms and of the human realm. When you think of Buddha’s explanation of the dangers, you don’t want to engage in negative karma for even a second. You immediately want to stop engaging in negative karma. You don’t want to imprison yourself in suffering in all your future lives.

If you attempt to abandon or reduce your delusions when they’re about to arise or are arising, you also leave less imprint on your mental continuum. The negative imprint, the cause of delusions, becomes thinner and thinner.

I’m going to mention here five points on how to control the mind from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. The first point is that if you follow delusion and don’t practice Dharma, don’t rely on the teachings, since your delusions become heavier and heavier, the negative imprints become deeper and deeper, making your life very difficult now and in the future. Remembering this is the first technique to control your mind so that you stop engaging in negative karma.

The second technique is to look at delusion as your enemy. You then generate the remedy to delusion. To look at delusion as your enemy is essential. If you look at anger as a friend (or, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, as somebody who is behind you, supporting and protecting you) and not as your enemy, it will harm and destroy you and others. This is similar to what I mentioned before about the quotations from The Eight Verses and Kharag Gomchung. And it is the same with attachment.

A most important thing in daily life is to look at delusion as your enemy or as a mental sickness, a chronic disease of the mind. You have to recognize it as a sickness, as something you have to remove or renounce. If you had cancer, you would look for any method in the world that could remove it. It is similar here. The delusions are terrifying. If you understand the unbelievable harm that delusion causes you, you will look at it as your enemy, and the courage will then come to apply its remedy. You will stop following delusion and be able to defeat, or eliminate, it. This is how to look at delusions as your enemy and make yourself powerful.

I remember once giving some advice to a Sangha member in relation to doing retreat or living in their vows. I don’t remember everything I said to them, but I was comparing their situation to the war in Iraq. (It doesn’t apply just to the war in Iraq but to any war.) In a war you’re killing other sentient beings, who are actually the most precious beings from whom you receive all your past, present and future happiness, liberation and enlightenment. You’re killing all those precious beings from whom you receive all your happiness. However, what you’re doing by living in your vows is making war on your delusions instead of on Iraq. To live in your vows, you meditate on making war on your delusions, on defeating the enemy that harms you and other sentient beings from life to life. You think of how your delusions directly or indirectly harm all sentient beings from life to life. Making war to defeat your delusions is the real war, the most important war, and the real hero is the one who defeats their delusions. A war hero is a false hero, because they kill the sentient beings from whom they receive all their past, present and future happiness.

Here Shantideva says:

Even if I am burned, even if my head is cut off, even if I am killed, I will never surrender to my enemy, the delusions.8

That’s to give yourself courage.

The next point is that an external enemy doesn’t harm you all the time, from life to life, but delusion does. Your inner enemy, delusion, has harmed you during beginningless rebirths up to now, it is harming you now, and it will continuously harm you in the future if you don’t eliminate it. It harms you all the time, in all lifetimes.

Think, “My enemy, delusion, has no beginning and no end. No other enemies become my enemy for such a long time. No external enemy harms me in all lifetimes.” By thinking this, you see that any external enemy is insignificant and that it is delusion that is your real enemy. Thinking in this way encourages you to do something to defeat delusion. You don’t want to allow delusion to arise, or if it arises, you want to do something to eliminate it. That’s the second part of the second point.

The third point is that if you take the side of an external enemy, that enemy will stop harming you and will even help you; but the more you become the friend of delusion, the closer you become to delusion, the more powerful and dangerous it becomes.

Here Shantideva says:

If you help your external enemy, it makes them happy.
But the more you become friends with delusion, the more it harms you.9

Helping an external enemy brings peace and happiness to everyone, to both you and the people around you. But if you take the side of delusion, if you become friends with delusion, delusion then becomes more powerful and makes you suffer more and more.

The following story is an example of this. Quite a number of years ago at a dinner party in Sydney, a student was talking about how his next-door neighbor, who was unhappy or jealous, had scratched his new car. The student didn’t know what to do about it. George Farley, who was an FPMT board member at that time, said, “If it was Lama Zopa, he would give him a present.” I don’t know how he came up with this idea.

The family whose car had been scratched then tried to think of a present they could give to their neighbor. When they checked, they found that he liked golf, so they bought him some expensive golf balls. When they went to his house and gave him the golf balls, he seemed very happy, though I don’t think he said much at that time. That same day or the next day, however, he came to their house and told them that he appreciated what they had done very much. Because he was happy, the family was happy. Everyone was happy.

This accords exactly with what Shantideva says: if you become harmonious with an external enemy and help them, it brings peace and happiness to everyone. That’s exactly right. But it is the total opposite with delusions. The more you are in harmony with delusions, the more harmful they become. So, that’s another meditation to encourage you to overcome delusion.

The fourth point in overcoming delusions is to remember that an external enemy harms just your belongings, your body or your life. Even if your enemy kills you, he is just separating your consciousness from this body—nothing more than that. That’s the worst harm he can do to you. But if you follow delusion, if you take the side of delusion, delusion makes you to be continuously reborn in samsara and to experience the unimaginable oceans of samsaric suffering.

Here Shantideva says:

Even if the asuras, suras and all the other sentient beings of the six realms become your enemy, they cannot lead you down into the fires of the Inexhaustible Hell.10

Inexhaustible Hell—the eighth, or lowest, hot hell realm—has the heaviest suffering of all of the lower realms, of all of samsara, and the longest duration of life, one intermediate eon. Delusion destroys whatever it encounters. Your powerful enemy, delusion, brings you to the lower realms, even to the Inexhaustible Hell, where you experience unimaginable suffering. The fires of Inexhaustible Hell could burn even the great mountain, Mount Meru, into dust in one second.11

Even if nobody kills you, following delusion makes you engage in negative karma, which then brings you into the lower realms, into the hell realms. But if you haven’t collected negative karma, even if another sentient being kills you, since you don’t have the cause to be born in the lower realms, negative karma, you won’t go to the lower realms.

In regard to an external enemy, people think, “Oh, my enemy is so harmful! One day he insulted me and another day he glared at me.” You can tell a lot of stories about how someone has harmed you, and each one becomes a reason to prove that person is bad. Here you should tell similar stories about your inner enemy, the delusions.

These meditation techniques help you to see delusion as your enemy, so that you become strong and have the courage not to follow and to defeat delusion. If you’re living in vows, doing retreat or practicing Dharma, what you hear all the time is that you need to be strong. You need to be strong because if you’re weak, delusion will overpower you and then you can’t practice Dharma; you can’t achieve liberation or enlightenment, nor even the happiness of future lives. Since you can’t have even day-to-day peace of mind, you can’t help others. Here with all these words Shantideva is inspiring you to have courage and to be strong. That’s very important to remember in your daily life. You need to make yourself very strong, stronger than delusion, so that you can defeat delusion, giving the victory to yourself and the loss to delusion. You need to do that so that delusion doesn’t get to leave more and more negative imprints on your mind, which then make your future lives very difficult.

The fifth point is that you have to make yourself strong and have courage so that you’re able to defeat delusion. With an external enemy, even if you kick them out of an area or a country, they will later come back to harm you. But once you have removed this inner enemy, it’s impossible for it to arise again.12 Like a seed that is burned and cannot grow again, once you’ve defeated the inner enemy, delusion, it’s impossible for it to come back again.

Thinking in the different ways mentioned here gives you the courage and inspiration to abandon delusion. Later, without the obstacle of delusion, you’ll gradually be able to actualize the path to enlightenment, and you’ll then be able to remove even the cause of delusion, the negative imprint, making it impossible for delusion to arise again.

REMEMBERING IMPERMANENCE AND DEATH

Another technique to control delusion is to meditate on teachings on impermanence and death. There are some important analyses by Gungtang Rinpoche, a very high Amdo lama. I met the incarnation of Gungtang Rinpoche, a great lama from Amdo who has been preserving Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings purely, at a World Buddhist Fellowship conference in Nepal. His Holiness Panchen Rinpoche was brought to Nepal for the conference by the Chinese government, and Rinpoche was always surrounded by many Chinese government officials. During the conference, Rinpoche stood up and said just a few words: “May the activities of the Triple Gem spread in all ten directions.” At the time I thought the words might be related to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s activities spreading all over the world.

At a World Buddhist Fellowship function to welcome the king of Nepal, the Theravadin monks wanted the Tibetan lamas to move down, because they didn’t want the Tibetan lamas to be ahead of them. Gungtang Rinpoche didn’t move; he just stayed where he was. It’s just a memory I have of Gungtang Rinpoche.

I also saw Gungtang Rinpoche in Tibet at Tashi Kyil, the largest monastery in Amdo. It’s a huge monastery where many thousands of monks are engaged in excellent study. The second time I went on pilgrimage in Tibet, I went to Tashi Kyil and saw Gungtang Rinpoche. Rinpoche said that the main temple of the monastery had been burnt down by the Chinese but the teaching of Buddha had not been destroyed. Twenty years before there were no monks as they had been tortured or killed and nothing was happening in the monastery. But after Mao Zedong died and Deng Xiaoping took over, all the great masters and scholars who had survived were able to come back to the monastery and educate the young monks. Rinpoche said sixty or seventy great scholars there were expert in sutra and about twenty of them were also expert in tantra. Tashi Kyil is an unbelievably inspiring monastery.

I think these teachings on impermanence and death come from the previous incarnation of Gungtang Rinpoche. The following instruction is very important.

The evil friend, the friend of negative karma, isn’t somebody who has horns growing on his head. The evil friend is someone who acts as if he really loves you, like a mother loves her beloved child. The child who knows that their mother (or father) is so kind holds them most dear.

The evil friend, the friend of negative karma, doesn’t come to you with horns on his head or in some other fearful form. He smiles at you and acts as if he loves you very much. He becomes your friend and, loving and laughing, supports you in engaging in various distractions, in various actions that are opposite to conscientiousness. By being your friend, he distracts you and makes you engage in actions of non-conscientiousness. (I’ve probably just made a new English word!) So, that is the friend of negative karma. Like a contagious disease, his influence gradually spreads out.

Abandon that nonvirtuous friend, who is like a smiling cannibal or the hala plant.

The cannibal’s intention is to eat you, but in order to get you, he smiles at you and acts as if he loves you; when you know that, you don’t follow him, you abandon him. It is the same with the hala plant. By knowing it’s a poisonous plant, you abandon it.

You should write down this advice from Gungtang Rinpoche in your notebook or your daily prayer book as a reminder, so that you don’t get cheated, or deceived. You’re then able to protect yourself and continue to practice Dharma. Without obstacles you’re then able to protect your vows and attain realizations. A lot of obstacles happen if you’re unable to understand what Gungtang Rinpoche has explained.

It’s also helpful to think in the way that Kharag Gomchung explains:

At present we have a choice between the happiness of the upper realms and the sufferings of the evil-gone realms.
Reflect on this.

At the moment you can choose between the happiness beyond this life up to enlightenment and the sufferings of the three lower realms. You should reflect on these two things together.

You have a choice. Do you want to achieve the happiness beyond this life up to enlightenment or do you want to have the sufferings of the lower realms? Every day you have the choice of which one to take, of which way to think. If you want the happiness beyond this life up to enlightenment, today you should engage in practicing Dharma; your body, speech and mind should live in Dharma, in lam-rim, and especially in bodhicitta. You should practice the three principal aspects of the path and, on top of that, tantra (if you’re qualified to practice tantra). In one day, one hour, one minute and even one second, you have a choice between the sufferings of the lower realms and the happiness of future lives. Even in each second, you have a choice between hell and enlightenment, between samsara and nirvana. As I mentioned yesterday, happiness and suffering are up to how we think. If what you want is not hell but enlightenment, you need to keep your mind in bodhicitta. If you want to achieve liberation from samsara, if you want to achieve realizations, if you want to achieve the happiness of future lives, engage in the lam-rim path. If you generate bodhicitta, you achieve all those kinds of happiness: the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara and enlightenment.

When you’re in a situation where you are about to give rise to delusion or engage in heavy negative karma, immediately remember this advice and ask yourself, “What do I want?” You then realize that you have a choice. It reminds you that if you abandon delusion and negative karma, you then achieve the happiness of future lives, liberation and enlightenment. You will then keep your mind in the path.

It is also helpful to think, “If I choose these few moments of pleasure, I give up the ultimate happiness of liberation and enlightenment. Will I choose this small, short-term pleasure and sacrifice all this? Or will I give up this small pleasure to achieve liberation and enlightenment?” If you renounce those few moments of pleasure, you get all the ultimate happiness of liberation and enlightenment. But if you seek those few moments of temporary pleasure, you then lose liberation and enlightenment. This is also a useful way to overcome delusion.

In Good Explanation Sakya Pandita advises:

One who is attached to small pleasure will not achieve the great happiness.

If you are attached to small, short-term samsaric pleasures, you won’t achieve the great happiness, which means not only the happiness of all your coming future lives but especially liberation and enlightenment.

It also means that someone who is attached to sleep, food and other short-term pleasures can’t bear hardships to practice Dharma. This is someone who can’t bear the hardships to achieve liberation and enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings. This is someone who can’t achieve all those great successes. Someone who’s attached to small, short-term pleasures can’t bear hardships to practice Dharma for the long-term happiness of all the coming future lives, liberation and enlightenment, and then being able to enlighten all sentient beings. This advice is also helpful in overcoming delusions. It encourages you to become powerful in destroying your enemy, delusion.

Also, Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung gave the following advice, which is based on a verse in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.

By depending on the human boat,
You cross the great river of suffering.
Since this boat will be difficult to find again,
While you have it, don’t be lazy.

This verse shows what you can do with this human body that you have received: you can cross the oceans of samsaric suffering, you can be liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering. Since you have such a body almost only one time and it will be difficult to find again, don’t get distracted. Rather than getting attached to small pleasures, look to achieve great happiness.

Also, as A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life says:

It’s not certain which will come first—tomorrow or the next life. Therefore, rather than working for tomorrow, it is better to work for the next life.

These pieces of great advice remind us of impermanence and death. Tomorrow is uncertain, but our next life will definitely happen, and it could happen at any time. Therefore, we should work for the happiness of that future life. This is why it’s so important to practice Dharma.

A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life also says:

You can’t just relax, saying “I’m not going to die today.”

If you truthfully and deeply question yourself, you can’t sign a guarantee that you’re not going to die today. You can’t really see what is going to happen to you, not even in the next hour or the next minute. It’s totally dark. Since you can’t see what’s going to happen, how could you guarantee that you’re not going to die today?

The thought that you’re going to live for a long time continues even to the day of your death. This thought that you’re going to live for many years is there that same morning of (and even immediately before) the accident or heart attack that kills you. It’s not true, and it cheats you.

These pieces of advice on different ways to think about impermanence and death encourage you so that you are then able to defeat delusion, thus ending your samsara and your suffering. The continuation of your suffering has no beginning, but now you can end it. Of course, your ultimate aim is to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, but at least here you end your own suffering of samsara.

THE BODHISATTVA'S JEWEL GARLAND 

I will now give the oral transmission of The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland by quickly reading the English translation, which will become the oral transmission; and if you understand the meaning, you then receive the commentary as well. If the English translation is correct, you can do an oral transmission in English. But if it’s not correct, it’s better to read the Tibetan; otherwise, you will miss some words and other words will be incorrect.

THE JEWEL ROSARY OF THE PRACTICE OF BODHICITTA

I bow down to great compassion,
To all my spiritual masters,
And to my deities of devotion.

Having cast away all my doubts
About the value of spiritual practice,
I shall exert myself in the practice
Of the bodhisattva path.

Having removed sleepiness, dullness and laziness,
I shall always be joyful
When engaging in such incredible practices.

I shall guard the doors of my speech, body and mind
Against any negative action,
By constantly being alert and mindful in my behavior.

This word alert is quite often used in the United States. After bin Laden, this word alert has been announced many times; but I don’t think they’re announcing an alert against the real enemy, delusions and negative karma.

Since the Tibetan here is dren pa she shin bag yö, you have to have all three terms in the English. Alert is fine for bag yö, conscientiousness, but dren pa she shin means remembrance and awareness. These are two things that you need when you do the practice of calm abiding. Because each one has a particular function, I think all three terms need to be translated separately.

I shall examine my mind
Over and over again, day and night.

I proclaim my faults, not seeking faults in others,
Hide my own good qualities but praise those of others.

Even though it’s difficult to do this, we have to try, even if it’s only once or twice a day. If we try to do it one time, we will succeed one time, and we will then succeed two times, three times….

Not seeking material gain or veneration from others,
I will be able to abandon any desire for fame,
Being content with whatever I have.
I shall not fail to repay
Whatever kindness I receive from others
And shall meditate on love and compassion,
Reminding myself always of bodhicitta,
The altruistic mind of enlightenment.

I abandon the ten nonvirtuous actions
And consolidate my faith in spiritual practice.
Having abandoned pride over my qualities
And disdain towards others,
Always humble,
I abandon wrong livelihood and follow right livelihood.

Having given up all meaningless activity,
I shall be endowed
With the inner jewel of arya beings.

Having given up all meaningless activity,
I remain in solitude,
Abandon senseless talk
And discipline my speech.

Whenever I see my spiritual master
I pay respect from my heart,
And with equal respect
Hold even ordinary sentient beings to be my great teachers,
As I hold great arya beings to be.

Quite a number of years ago when I was in Melbourne, Australia, Samdup Tsering, a Tibetan who was Geshe Doga’s translator for many years, told me an interesting story. Samdup had found a job in a Japanese shop, and he told me that everybody in the shop was instructed by their boss that they must regard every customer as someone very precious and be very kind to them. That’s very interesting. Of course, it wasn’t done for the happiness of other sentient beings; I think it was a policy to enable the shop to successfully sell things and make money. I can’t say what the boss’s motivation was, but it may have been self-centered. The attitude was like that, and the external method was to show kindness.

Of course, here in Dharma, in Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, being kind is not for your own happiness but for the happiness of other sentient beings. The main aim is to bring happiness to other sentient beings. You think that others are precious and you then respect and are kind to them. With your mind you think that they’re precious and kind, and with your body and speech you help them. You talk to them respectfully and respect them with the actions of your body. You do that not for your happiness but for theirs. Your kindness is sincere, not political. With political kindness, you are actually doing things for yourself with a self-centered attitude but acting as if you care for others. Your kindness is just a show.

I think this boss was very smart and taught the people who worked for him an interesting technique. However, I think you should practice cherishing others as it’s described here in The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland or in the practices of Mahayana Buddhism.

Nagarjuna explained that there are two attitudes you should have in daily life, not only for your own happiness but for the happiness of all the numberless sentient beings. The first attitude you should have is, “This person (or animal) is my wish-granting jewel. I receive from them all my numberless past, present and future happiness, liberation and enlightenment. They are most precious and most kind.”

After you have discovered that they are most precious, Nagarjuna explains that you then think, “I myself am like a wish-granting jewel, fulfilling all the wishes of sentient beings.” In essence, you first think that each sentient being is the most precious one, a wish-fulfilling jewel that is fulfilling all your wishes for happiness up to enlightenment. You then think that you yourself become like a wish-fulfilling jewel, fulfilling all that sentient being’s wishes for happiness.

You can also think that you become like a wish-granting tree, fulfilling all wishes. In a pure land, when you pray to a wish-granting tree, everything you pray for is materialized. It fulfills all your wishes.

You think, “May I myself become like a wish-granting jewel, fulfilling all sentient beings’ desires. And may I become like a wish-granting tree that fulfills all their wishes.” You yourself become like a wish-granting jewel and a wish-granting tree for sentient beings, fulfilling all their wishes for happiness.

First think of the other being, who is so kind and precious, as a wish-fulfilling jewel from whom you receive all your happiness of the three times. Next, think that you yourself become like a wish-granting jewel and a wish-granting tree, fulfilling all that sentient being’s wishes for happiness.

Even if you are living alone, this is what you should practice; and this is what you should especially practice when you’re dealing with people, whether you’re working in a school, an office, a family home or a Dharma center. This attitude should be there as much as possible in your daily life. When you remember how each sentient being is most precious and most kind, you naturally respect them, and you talk very nicely, very kindly, to them. Your heart cherishes that being the most, and the way you behave toward them is respectful.

You become very kind and would do anything to help that person or animal.

Here I’d like to mention another point. Whatever help, however small, you give an animal or person with this good heart is an offering to all the buddhas. It’s the best offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Even if you give only some small comfort or pleasure to that sentient being, whether human or non-human, it’s the offering most pleasing to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Why? Because this sentient being, even if it’s an insect, is what the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas cherish the most; this is what they hold in their hearts. Like a mother cherishes her beloved child most in her heart, this sentient being, even if it’s a mosquito or some other bug, is cherished most by all the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. This insect, this beggar or this person who is angry with you and abuses you is cherished like their heart by the numberless bodhisattvas. Day and night the numberless bodhisattvas pray for this being. They work, dedicate their merits and try to achieve all the realizations, including enlightenment, for this sentient being.

The numberless buddhas achieved enlightenment for whom? For sentient beings, for this person, for this insect. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha collected merits for three countless great eons for this sentient being; Buddha achieved enlightenment for this sentient being. He sacrificed everything—his wealth when born as a king, his body and his life—for this sentient being. He sacrificed himself numberless times during countless great eons to make charity and practice the rest of the six paramitas for this sentient being. He achieved enlightenment for this sentient being. Buddha is working for all sentient beings, and that includes this sentient being. So, this sentient being is what is cherished most by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the rest of the numberless buddhas.

Therefore, even though you might offer just a little help for a small problem, it’s the best offering to the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. It’s the offering most pleasing to them. It is like saying a few words of praise to a beloved child; even those few nice words to her child make the mother very happy. And if you criticize or say a few nasty words to that child, it makes the mother very upset.

Buddha said in the Avatamsaka Sutra:

Any harm to a sentient being is a great harm to me. Any benefit to a sentient being is a supreme benefit to me. I and sentient beings are equal in happiness and suffering. And I have achieved the rupakaya for the benefit of sentient beings.

It is very important to remember this in daily life. It is also helpful to remember that anything you do to sentient beings affects the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, the ones to whom you pray to receive blessings to actualize the path, the ones you are trying to become. When you remember that, you naturally do everything you can, great or small, to help sentient beings. You treat every sentient being, every human being and even every insect, in the best way.

You must do this practice, especially if you’re working or dealing with people in everyday life but even if you’re living alone and not working in any organization. You must remember to do this practice. This is a key practice, especially in a Dharma organization. Working in a Dharma center means being kind to everybody. You don’t have to be rude. It’s not that you can give everybody what they need. You can’t perform magic and give a billion dollars to everybody. However, even if you can give only limited help, at least the way you behave and the way you talk to people should be very respectful and very kind. You shouldn’t get upset with people, and other people will see and appreciate that. Even if you can’t help someone, the way you explain that you can’t help them should at least be respectful.

You have to do this because you’re working in what’s called a Dharma center, a meditation center. Meditation means training the mind; meditation means taming, or subduing, the mind. Of course a Dharma center is totally different from an ordinary company, which isn’t based on Dharma teachings. As I explained in relation to the manager of the Japanese shop, even though the motivation might be selfish and not sincere, it’s still good externally to be respectful and kind. That’s essential.

If you can do something to help someone, you do it. Of course, as an ordinary being, you don’t have psychic powers so you can’t give people everything that they need; but you should do whatever you can. However, if you can’t help them, at least you shouldn’t be rude to them. You should be kind and respectful, and with your mind you should cherish that person. As Nagarjuna advises, you should cherish that sentient being as most precious and most kind. If that is your attitude, the way you communicate will naturally be respectful and kind. A Dharma center is very different from a company or business, which is based on money. You pay someone money and if they don’t do their job properly, you kick them out. It’s simple, because you pay them. A Dharma organization is very different from that.

Also, a Dharma organization has to set an example. It should be an inspiration to others to practice Dharma, to practice the good heart. Whether you’re an old student or a new student who doesn’t know much about Dharma, you should be an inspiring example so that people see the signs of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist practice. This is very important.

Whenever I meet others
I regard older ones as my parents,
Those of similar age or younger
As my brother, sister or relative.

Having abandoned bad influence from others,
I shall follow spiritual friends,
Be happy myself wherever I go,
Without any ill will towards others,
And not be discontented with my life.

I abandon attachment to any desirable things
And remain desireless,
For attachment in any form
Can never lead to a happy rebirth.
Instead, it takes away the life-force
Of liberation from suffering.

I shall exert myself in any virtuous activity
That can lead me to ultimate happiness,
Accomplishing first whatever practices I have started.
Thus, I will be able to accomplish all my practices,
Otherwise none of my tasks will be accomplished.
I take no interest in those activities
That can be harmful to others,
And cast away pride over my qualities
Whenever it arises in my mind.
I must remind myself always
Of the instructions of my spiritual teacher.

I shall be able to encourage myself
Whenever I feel depressed,
Whenever my mind is deluded by attachment to myself
And hatred towards others,
I shall be able to realize that both I and others
Are equally void of inherent existence,
And view myself and others
As being illusory-like, a magic form.

Whenever I hear unpleasant words,
I view them as echoes.
Whenever my body is harmed by others,
I shall be able to view it as being
The result of my previous negative karma.

Abiding always in solitude,
Like the corpse of a wild animal,
I shall keep myself away from the temptation
Of meaningless activities,
And remain desireless,
Reminding myself always of my deity of devotion.

Whenever laziness or laxity arise in my mind,
I shall be able to remove them immediately
And always remember the essence of moral behavior.

Whenever I meet others,
Having removed angry behavior,
I shall be able to speak sincerely and frankly,
With a smiling face.

This smiling face is not a political, or diplomatic, smiling face. Sometimes, because you can’t really smile, you just move the corners of your mouth up, but it doesn’t look nice. You know that it’s not natural, and it doesn’t make you happy. The smile here is not a political smile, but a smile that comes from the good heart. The purpose of smiling is not for your happiness, but for the happiness of other people. If your smile is for that, it is then Dharma, pure Dharma. Showing a gentle, smiling face to others out of the good heart makes other sentient beings happy. The smile is not to make you happy but to make others happy. Your smiling to make other sentient beings happy causes you to have a beautiful body in future lives. That’s the temporary benefit.

Whenever I meet others,
I shall not be jealous of them,
But be generous to them.
I abandon any dispute with others
And concern myself with their welfare and comfort.

I shall not be fickle in any relationships with others,
But remain firm.
I give up any form of humiliating others
And always respect them.

Whenever I give advice to others,
I shall do so with sincerity and sympathy.
I abandon any disrespect for other forms of spiritual practice
And appreciate whatever religions others are interested in.
I shall be able to remain with the practice of the ten virtues, day and night.
I shall dedicate whatever virtues I have done in the past,
Do now and will do in the future,
To the benefit of other sentient beings.

Through performing the seven-limb prayer
I pray for the happiness of all other beings.
Thus I will be able to accomplish
The merit of wisdom and skillful means,
And will be able to eliminate all delusions,
For in this way, I shall be able to attain enlightenment
For the sake of all sentient beings.
Thus I will be able to achieve great meaning
From finding this precious human rebirth.

There are seven gems that adorn the minds of bodhisattvas:
The gem of faith,
The gem of instruction,
The gem of contemplation,
The gem of wisdom,
The gem of ethics,
The gem of modesty,
And the gem of generosity.

These seven gems have limitless virtuous qualities.
When I practice these inner gems within myself,
I should not reveal any to those
Who are not yet mature to practice these excellent qualities.

I shall be heedful of my speech
In the presence of others,
And be heedful of my thoughts
In isolation from others.

This translation of The Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland is by Geshe Namgyal Wangchen, a great scholar and teacher in Drepung Loseling monastery, who is educating His Holiness Ling Rinpoche’s incarnation and quite a few other incarnations who in their past lives were outstanding scholars in the largest monasteries in Tibet. He was the resident teacher in Jamyang Buddhist Centre, our London center, for many years. I think he was there seven years or even longer. He was alone there. There were no other Sangha living in this big city of London, where there’s an explosion of delusions—or the advertising of delusions, anyway. He lived for many years in this big city of London, totally alone.
 

Notes

1 The eight ripening qualities are 1) long life, 2) an attractive body, 3) high caste, 4) wealth, 5) trustworthy speech, 6) power and fame, 7) a male body and 8) a strong body and mind. [Return to text]

2 Chapter 7, v. 71 [Return to text]

3 We asked Geshe Thupten Jinpa about Geshe Kharag Gomchung’s ang, and he replied: “I am aware of seventy ang by Kharag. This is a beautiful advice verse in seventy stanzas, each ending with the request term ang. (The angs are preceded by not just one verb gom, but many other verbs.) There is in fact a reference to this in my Mind Training: The Great Collection. [See pp. 639–40, end of note 848: ‘He is best known for his short poetic work entitled Mind Training with Seventy Exhortations….’] The full text is found in Thoyon Yeshe Dhondup’s Treasury of Gems [pp. 257–64], but no English translation exists to my knowledge.” For more about this lama, see The Book of Kadam, p. 661, note 547, for biographical information and pp. 601–608 for more of his sayings. [Return to text]

4 For further details see Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism; Opening the Eye of New Awareness, pp. 60–66, or The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Volume Three, pp. 96–103. [Return to text]

5 Ch. 6, v. 1 [Return to text]

6 The eight siddhis are: magical sword, magical pills, magical eye medicine giving power to see objects at great distances, the power of miraculous walking, the magical elixir of youth, miraculously changing the physical form, the power to vanish miraculously, the power to pass through material barriers. [Return to text]

7 After death, just like a shadow follows the body, The results of black and white karma follow. [Return to text]

8  Ch. 7, v. 62  [Return to text]

9 Ch. 4, v. 33  [Return to text]

10 Ch. 4, v. 30  [Return to text]

11 See Ch. 4, v. 31  [Return to text]

12 See Ch. 4, v. 45  [Return to text]