Lecture 13

April 28, 2003

Essential daily practice

Good morning. I came late but I rejoice in your practice. [Laughter]

Maybe later, not now but maybe later I thought to mention the importance of practicing Guru Puja, which was advised by Pabongka Rinpoche as the most important essential practice in our life, the integration of guru yoga, lamrim and thought transformation. It is Gyalwa Ensapa's traditional practice, and it contains the quickest means to achieve enlightenment.

Guru Puja is the most profound secret that all those great yogis, Saraha, Naropa, Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa, and all those in the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition who achieved enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerated time, including Lama Tsongkhapa disciple’s disciple, Gyalwa Ensapa, Drubchen Chökyi Dorje and all those many others—the essential thing that made them achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerated time is by this practice, the guru yoga.

Among the guru yogas, this guru yoga is very special because it is the integration of all those other various practices. So if you can, by doing this practice then you receive the blessing of the guru, and by purification and collecting extensive merit, everything comes, actualizing lamrim realizations, everything.

Anyway, maybe later I thought to mention that Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, this great enlightened being who completed the path to enlightenment, lamrim, very highly emphasized, highly recommended that this should be one of our daily practices, an essential practice. By doing this many other practices get done.

So I think I will mention this after some time. Thank you very much.;

[End of discourse]

Lecture 14

April 29, 2003 (am)

The Importance of Guru Puja

Good morning. I thought to mention what Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo stressed, the importance of the Guru Puja practice. This was very much emphasized when Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo was giving advice to various people, to high officials or Sangha or lay people. When he was giving essential advice to various people about the most important practice in the life, you find this advice, this very unique advice.

He says that in everyday life we should do Lama Chöpa, we should practice Lama Chöpa, the Guru Puja. The actual meaning of Lama Chöpa, Guru Puja, is pleasing the guru. “Puja” is Sanskrit, the Indian language, I think, and it means pleasing the guru. So from that, whenever we do actions that please the guru, then I think that’s Guru Puja, Lama Chöpa. This means, in our daily life, whenever we do something that pleases the holy mind of the virtuous friends.

Here all these practices are to pacify the cause of our samsara, delusion and karma, to cease the subtle negative imprints and to cut the dualistic views by actualizing the path and achieving full enlightenment. This means preparing ourselves to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment. Actually, the whole entire practice from beginning to end, from the beginning, refuge, visualizing the object of refuge merit field, down to the dedication, all those various practices and the lamrim prayers, there’s lamrim, direct meditation on lamrim, as well as those particular thought transformation practices.

The whole lamrim is thought transformation, transforming the mind in the path, but lamrim and thought transformation, from those two, there the general thought transformation, which is the whole lamrim from guru devotion up to enlightenment. Lamrim and thought transformation, so that in particular, those practices are transforming sufferings into happiness, into the path to enlightenment. This means transforming the sufferings into the means to, or the cause of, happiness for all the sentient beings, it’s the same. When we utilize this as the means to achieve enlightenment, it becomes the means to cause happiness for every single sentient being without discrimination.

Anyway, all these things, the common path, guru devotion, the three principles of the path, are there, and the uncommon path, in particular, tantra, the highest tantra, the most secret highest tantra, is there. Everything is there. So that makes this the quickest way to achieve enlightenment, which means it is the quickest way for us to be able to enlighten sentient beings, so that they don’t have to suffer. We need to achieve enlightenment for those numberless sentient beings who are dependent on us to be free from samsara, so they don’t have to suffer for a long time. Anyway, the whole thing, that is what pleases the virtuous friend.

And then taking the vows as well, which is the essential path to achieve enlightenment—the bodhisattva vows and tantric vows, those. Bodhisattva vows, which make us achieve enlightenment, are the essential method, the fundamental method and then the fundamental method to achieve enlightenment quickly, producing all the conditions to achieve enlightenment quickly, is the tantric vows. So like that.

So it says if we get to practice Lama Chöpa, Guru Puja, once each day, then this Lama Chöpa practice is perfect. It contains the essence of the complete sutra and tantra, so it is complete. This is like taking the essence of instruction of the ear-whispered lineage, the transformation or the manifestation of the text of the whispered lineage of the Ganden tradition. It’s, I guess, Lama Tsongkhapa, Gyalwa Ensapa, and those who are of that tradition. Those secret teachings of tantra, highest tantra are what makes us achieve enlightenment quickest, I think. That is Drubchen Chökyi Dorje, the Mahamudra lineage, as well as Gyalwa Ensapa.

His Holiness Zong Rinpoche often recommended [this practice.] He often said that Milarepa had to bear so much hardship—he achieved enlightenment in a brief lifetime of a degenerated time, but he bore so much hardship, whereas Gyalwa Ensapa achieved enlightenment very comfortably, eating delicious food and [practicing] in comfort. This is the reason why His Holiness Zong Rinpoche was talking here about the special qualities of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching, that’s what he was bringing out. He said it has very special techniques, the most skillful means, so that Gyalwa Ensapa and so forth, without the need to bear much hardship, were able to achieve enlightenment easily. That’s what often Rinpoche praised. His Holiness Zong Rinpoche himself is a great pandit, a Tibetan great pandit, the most fully distinguished among the learned ones. Of course, he is the most fully distinguished among the learned ones in Tibet.

Anyway, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo says Drubchen Chökyi Dorje is one who achieved enlightenment in one brief lifetime. When His Holiness was giving teachings, Mahamudra teachings during the First Dharma Celebration that we requested, in Dharamsala, Alex Berzin was the translator and there was only one word he could not translate, that was Mount Everest. [Group laughs] I remember there was only one word he could not understand, in Tibetan called Chomolungma, so that’s the only one he couldn’t understand. That was the only one he could not translate, but I could translate it. That word I could translate because I lived near Mount Everest, but that was the only word he could not translate. Everything was very fluent translation, but he had just that one kind of resistance, a blockage to that. So it took a little bit of time to get to know the mountain.

The Essential Heart Practice

His Holiness said Drubchen Chökyi Dorje is still there on the Himalayan mountain. His Holiness said he’s still there. Then that great yogi Chökyi Dorje and Gyalwa Ensapa, Lama Tsongkhapa’s disciple’s disciple, I think they did this as their heart practice, the very essential practice that we have in the heart, the most important one. They did this as the heart practice and achieved the unified state, which means Vajradhara, in one life.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo says that this is our tradition, and all the previous holy beings, this is their heart practice. It has less words but it embodies or it contains a lot, like oceans, the meanings, the subject, like the sky. It has great blessings and it has very profound, great vital, important points.

This advice was given to, I don’t remember who, the individual disciples who were asking for advice about their practice. So Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo was advising that in our life we should practice Guru Puja and then on the basis of that, as Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo was saying to this particular person, the deity practice of course depends on the particular person. Here it says on the basis of Guru Puja, then Yamantaka, the solitary Yamantaka practice, the sadhana, or Vajrayogini. So on the basis of Lama Chöpa to practice one of the Highest Yoga Tantra deities, that’s what the essence is.

However, to this particular person—usually Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo highly praised and emphasized Heruka practice, body mandala, especially like that—so to this particular person [he recommended] solitary Yamantaka or one deity from mother tantra I think, so Vajrayogini. Here he was advising two things. It looks like one was from father tantra and one from mother tantra. It looks like that.

So if we get that practice done then in so many ways it becomes special, very profound and a quick way to achieve enlightenment.

It says that the heart practice—where we put our main effort in the practice or what we emphasize—there is no greater importance than integrating everything into the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment, that which is one key for opening the door of the hundreds of doors of the Buddha’s teachings.

This is similar, I think, maybe to the beginning of the lamrim outlines. So the lamrim teaching is the key to understanding the Buddha’s vast teachings, the extensive scriptures. It’s like the key to open the door of the museum. The lamrim teaching is like the key to open the lock for the museum, making it easy for us to understand the extensive scriptures of the Buddha and making them beneficial for our mind. Lamrim not only helps us to understand the path to enlightenment, the whole entire philosophical teachings or scriptures, all the words of the path to enlightenment, not only to understand that but it makes the whole entire teaching of the Buddha that we study, all the extensive teachings, beneficial for our own mind. Lamrim does that.

the Target is the delusions

[Pabongka Rinpoche] says it is extremely important to do this practice. The military, the armies, in a war, when they shoot or bomb or whatever it is, without missing the point, without missing the target, hitting right on the right target, the enemy, so exactly like this, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is emphasizing that it is extremely important that all this practice hits on the right point, the target, which means the ego. So he is emphasizing all this practice is to aim, to target the delusions in our own mind, especially the self-cherishing thought, like that. Without the self-cherishing, if we have bodhicitta we can achieve enlightenment. If there is self-cherishing, if the self-cherishing thought is there, we never change, then we can never achieve bodhicitta and we can never achieve enlightenment. And then we can never do perfect work to other sentient beings.

So Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is talking about the importance of doing all this practice, and when we do this practice it is extremely important to hit right on the point, the delusions, and especially the self-cherishing thought.

Here, he is telling the Tibetan people, I think, because many Tibetan people recite so many prayers in their daily lives, so many prayers, so Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is saying this to the common people. This is not talking about geshes or those who know how to practice Dharma, who know Dharma, not them. This is the common, ordinary people who do a lot of prayers, so Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is saying to eliminate obstacles in their life they do Praise to Tara and the eight types of prayer, the King of Prayers and the Blissful Realm prayers, Maitreya Buddha prayers. There are eight prayers that are very common to recite, to dedicate the merits in an extensive way at the end, and then if somebody has died, in the monasteries they recite the eight types of prayer. That’s a very common thing to do. So Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is saying, except for these prayers for eliminating obstacles, Praise to Tara and the eight types of prayers, except for these, other than these, doing so many other prayers which look like Dharma, which appear as Dharma, reciting so many prayers is kind of messy.

It depends on which context. It could be like mud everywhere or ink getting dropped everywhere, but it depends on context and it can be kind of messy doing many prayers. It looks like, it appears like Dharma but it’s not Dharma. Also the prayers, even subject-wise, are not the Buddha’s real teachings, they are not taught by Buddha. There are certain texts—I think this is referring to the texts that people recite a lot, those which don’t benefit in the next life—so leave out all this, all this elaboration can be left out.

The prayer that you are doing now, the Guru Puja, the inseparability of bliss and voidness, this one, not becoming just only merely reciting words, without becoming just mere words, running, just rushing, so without doing that. Elaborate as much possible; this means as much as possible do it slowly, elaborately, and as much as possible hit on the point, on the target. It means relating to the mind, one’s own mind, as I mentioned before, delusion and especially the self-cherishing thought, so that’s what it means.

I remember asking Geshe Jampa Wangdu, the most successful meditator, the old meditator in Dharamsala. The first ones, many of them have already passed away, the first ones in Dharamsala, Dalhousie, who had great success. So after I made a Dharma connection with Gen Jampa Wangdu, after taking the pill retreat, this chu len, “Taking the Essence,” where without the need to make food, to obtain food, then you just live on pills in an isolated place, very, very far away, where it’s so far to get food, all these things.

So after I took that, then I asked Geshe Jampa Wangdu, “What is the quickest way to achieve lamrim realization?” I think that’s the question I asked. Then his answer was, “The quickest way to receive realization of lamrim is to always regard your self-cherishing thought as the enemy. Keep that always as your target; all the time keep that as your target.” I think probably Gen Jampa Wangdu mentioned that whatever we see, to try to use it as a means to destroy the self-cherishing thought, the enemy, the self-cherishing thought. Then if that happens, all the obstacles to having realizations are dispelled. In that way we have no obstacles in our Dharma practice; we have no obstacles to practice Dharma. He said like that.

It makes great sense because while we are doing a session, even if somebody makes a noise outside, shouting or banging on the door, or calling us while we’re doing the session; if we are having a great time or we are blissed out, then somebody is banging on the door and calling us—anyway, just using this as an example—so then anger, unimaginable anger will arise, and we suddenly want to kill this person even though we are reciting mantras. [Laughter] The session, reciting mantras of deities, is meant to pacify anger, but then incredible anger arises immediately and we want to kill that person.

There is a story about one student who was doing retreat, a Western student who was doing retreat, maybe trying to finish the numbers, and then somebody came and banged on the door. I think it might have been a person that they had problems with, so the person came and banged on the door. The student who was doing retreat was holding a knife in his hand, his mala and his knife, then this person opened the door, somebody the retreater had problems with. So anyway, he was holding the knife and the mala. [Laughter] So anyway that is contradictory, sitting on the meditation cushion reciting mantras and then holding a knife, these things. There’s danger we could become like that. That’s why Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is saying so much to hit on the right target. [Rinpoche snaps fingers] That’s why we practice to shoot, to hit on the right target. That’s why he emphasized all this practice so much, even though it’s so profound, all this is secret [practice] and blah, blah, blah, secret, the essential Buddhadharma, all that. That’s why he emphasized so much the need to hit on the right target, on the point.

I think why Pabongka emphasized that so much is because if the target, the delusion, our own self-cherishing thought, is missed out then there is danger. It becomes like this example, because if we missed out, then this retreat, doing the session becomes for some other purpose. The purpose didn’t become to practice Dharma, which means destroying our own delusions, our own self-cherishing thought; it didn’t become the remedy to our own delusions. So that person was holding a knife here and a mala here; he was reciting mantras of the deity, doing the session.

If it doesn’t hit on the right target, our own delusion, especially the self-cherishing thought, then even though it’s a very secret, profound practice, it doesn’t become the quick path to enlightenment. It cannot pacify the mind because we missed the target, we didn’t use it for that.

Then there’s the danger of using the practice to develop the delusions, like doing retreat to develop delusion. Doing the sessions, chanting the mantras, doing retreat to develop delusion. It becomes the other way round, because the motivation is something else, it’s not Dharma. So the practice didn’t hit on the target, it didn’t hit on the right point, which means we made a mistake in the beginning. Our practice didn’t hit on the right point because we made a mistake. One thing is, we made a mistake at the beginning of the practice, which is the motivation, so like that, where we direct our mind from the beginning becomes wrong, mistaken.

It says then combined with the commentary, we should do the meditation as much as we can. Here, as much as we can, we should do meditation combined with the commentary, then refuge, mandala offering, confessing downfalls, migtsemas and so forth, counting these numbers, elaborate or short, and purifying, collecting merits, these various practices, according to our own time that we have. And then, especially in the verse zhing chhog dam pa … the supreme merit field, [LC 84] this verse from Lama Chöpa, in these words there’s lamrim and there’s thought transformation and generation stage, completion stage, and powa, transferring the consciousness, so all this is contained in the last part of the prayer. There is a whole body elaborated, the profound importance of the complete path of sutra and tantra is here in Lama Chöpa, in this last part, the prayer of the graduated path to enlightenment, which starts from the supreme merit field.

Pabongka says it shouldn’t be just merely words, just running so fast. We should reflect on the profound meaning in our heart as much as we can, so that means while we are reciting the words, according to the words, even if it just becomes a mere prayer, without the meditation, even if it just becomes a mere prayer, just praying “May I achieve this realization, may I achieve this realization,” making this prayer, even without the meditation, it definitely leaves an extraordinary special imprint of the complete pure path—an imprint of the pure path, that which is complete—and that definitely makes us achieve enlightenment, the essence of life.

Therefore, our recitation of the prayer, the practice, the principal one, should be this, and on the point, on the target. So integrate everything into this, the whole practice.

This one is like, here it says hundreds of [drops of] water come under one bridge. It’s an expression, I think. Maybe another example, hundreds of [drops of] water or thousands or millions of [drops of] water, anyway, it comes to the ocean. From where, from which direction or country, wherever it comes from, it all goes into the ocean, so like that, so that which embodies the importance of the Buddha’s teachings.

So then it says this is the essential scripture of the manifestation of the Ganden ear lineage, or whispered lineage. The blessing it has is unequaled in other practices. This one has a blessing that is unequaled in other practices, so it says it is of great importance, to achieve the realizations of the path to enlightenment.

And then it says, “Without cunning mind, with love, with loving thought,” so I think, telling that person, communicating, “without cunning,“ meaning Pabongka himself, “without a cunning mind,” so with a loving thought, especially if we are pursuing or engaging in this practice. It is so easy but has great meaning; it’s an essential practice. So the importance of this I will clarify for you. It has very poetic or sweet words. It says, “By taking in the heart, absorbing in the heart, and then doing extensive practice on the pure path, that which makes us to achieve enlightenment, the whole realization, so keeping this in the heart, I make requests.”

Medicine for the Emotional Mind

Also, one thing that I started doing; it is not something peculiar but a normal part of the practice. It’s very important to stop when we come to rejoicing. We must stop there. I don’t know about other times, for example, when we do the seven-limb practice, I tried to introduce this at the beginning when I led the prayer. Stop there and give a little bit of time to meditate on rejoicing. I think that’s very important, because here we can collect limitless skies of merit so many times in every second. Within a minute we can collect limitless skies of merit so many times, and we can multiply the merits, ours and others.

If we don’t get to meditate [on rejoicing]; if we just always recite the words and we don’t meditate; I mean, while the prayers are being recited if we are meditating, of course no question, then the practice gets done, but if it’s just words without meditation then we have lost all this. This is a greater loss than billions of dollars. For example, if we lost one hundred dollars we would feel such an incredible loss. If we had one hundred dollars and then it was gone, it disappeared, that would be an incredible loss. If we lost a billion dollars we would become crazy, we’d have a nervous breakdown and we would become crazy, suicidal.

So that great loss, a billion-dollar loss is nothing, it is hardly anything, it’s nothing compared with the limitless skies of merit we collect by rejoicing. All the merit we collected from beginningless past lives, by rejoicing in our own merit it will double, so we collect limitless skies of merit. I’m not going to specify here. We collect limitless skies of merit by rejoicing in other sentient beings whose level of mind is higher than ours or especially if its lower than ours, and then rejoicing in a bodhisattva’s merit is unbelievable, unbelievable.

Lama Tsongkhapa highly praised that merit we collect. Rejoicing is the easiest way to collect merit and the most extensive, and if we do it we collect the most extensive merit. A billion dollars is nothing; it’s like one penny or something, it’s nothing compared to all those merits. Even a zillion, trillion dollars is nothing. So we are losing an unbelievable opportunity if it becomes always just words.

Of course, when the prayer is led by others we do not have much choice. We do what we can. Within that time, we do what we can. If we can’t do much, we do what we can. But when we do the prayer by ourselves, or in the organization, I think try to give a little bit of time to meditate. What happens if we don’t do meditation when we do prayers, then it appears as just a ritual, that’s one thing. If we don’t do the meditation then that’s what appears to people—it appears just like the Christians, what people think in the Christian temple, when they go to church, sorry, temple or church, anyway, so what the people believe—the ritual. It becomes boring and tiring without the meditation.

But when we do meditation; if we know the meditation and we do the meditation—two things, we know the meditation and we do the meditation—then the idea of ritual is not there. It’s like medicine. It becomes medicine for our emotional mind or a less simple way to say this, we enjoy it and it’s like going to the beach. We work so hard then we go to beach, so that’s a great day! A great day, the essence of life, the real essence of life, the great day, the real essence of life, is going to the beach. We relax, lie down in the sun and ride the waves or go for a swim, so it’s the essence of life, a great day!
Now here, this becomes a great day; by meditating it becomes a great day, but this great day is actualizing the whole path, making preparation in the mind. Every time we get closer [to enlightenment]. We are making preparation all the time, the essence, making preparation every time, every session, every time, we are making preparation. We are preparing ourselves all the time to liberate other sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. We are preparing ourselves every time to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. So that’s what it is.

We should remember this each time we do sessions and meditation and normally when we do our prayers, our sadhanas and commitments, we should remember that. Of course, generally, any other activity we do, whatever we do, everything can be for that! Our aim is to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Then it’s like a bodhisattva’s activity. Whatever we do, everything becomes the cause of achieving enlightenment because we are doing everything to benefit for sentient beings.

So I want to remind you of this again. Of course, at certain times there’s no time to stop and do things, but usually we must do that, even if it’s for such a short time. It reminds people and it gives us time to meditate as well as giving time to other people. It reminds other people why we stopped here, what we stopped here for. So then it reminds people to meditate. It gives so many people a chance to collect extensive merit.

This is just an example, talking about rejoicing, but it’s similar for the other things—when we’re doing prayers, we can do different meditations as much as possible.

If you have received a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation there’s an excellent commentary on the Guru Puja by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I think he gave the commentary at one of the Dharma celebrations, at the Second Dharma Celebration, I think.¹ We requested the Guru Puja commentary and there’s a book already produced.² It’s very unique. There are many other commentaries on Guru Puja, so many in Tibetan texts, but the common one is by Kachen Yeshe Gyältsen, this great lama, that one is the commentary that’s used. Anyway His Holiness’s commentary, because His Holiness has done vast checking on how this great lama explained the Guru Puja, just Guru Puja. He checked many times on how it’s presented, then he brought, he united that in his commentary. So it’s extremely clear and very effective, pinpoint. It’s a commentary to learn about that; it’s an excellent teaching, so like that.

I think I’ll stop here. Thank you very much. So chai garam or whatever it is. Maybe nearly lunch time? OK.

[End of discourse]

Notes

¹ These teachings by His Holiness were given in March 1986 at the Second Enlightenment Experience Celebration (EEC2) organized by FPMT. [Return to text]

² Gyatso, Tenzin, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. The Union of Bliss and Emptiness: Teachings on the Practice of Guru Yoga. Trans. Thubten Jinpa. New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1988, 2009. [Return to text]