The importance of knowing what Dharma is

Even if we understand nothing else, if, by recognizing the eight worldly dharmas, we can clearly differentiate between what is Dharma and what is not Dharma, we’re very fortunate. This is the essential point. This knowledge alone gives us a great chance to really put Dharma practice into our daily life and create an incredible amount of merit.

Buddhism is a house full of treasures—practices for gaining the happiness of future lives, the bliss of liberation and the supreme happiness of enlightenment—but knowing the difference between Dharma and non-Dharma is the key that opens the door to all those treasures. No matter how much we know about emptiness, the chakras or controlling our vital energy through kundalini yoga, it’s all pointless without this crucial understanding of how to practice Dharma, how to correct our actions. There are vast numbers of people who delude themselves and waste their entire life studying the most esoteric aspects of Buddhism but never understand the most fundamental point, the distinction between Dharma and non-Dharma.

It is very easy to do Dharma activities such as reciting mantras, saying prayers, making offerings and things like that with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. That happens. But in reality, the holy Dharma, which includes all these activities, actually means renouncing this life. Therefore holy Dharma and worldly dharma can never be done together. Nobody can do these two things—renounce this life and seek the happiness of this life with the eight worldly dharmas—at once. We can do one and then the other but never both together in the one mind at the same time.

It’s better to practice Dharma

Whenever different benefactors wrote to Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo asking for advice, it seems that he always advised them to persuade other sentient beings to practice Dharma, especially lamrim, as much as possible, by giving the very heart instructions on how to make their life most meaningful.

Because the eight worldly dharmas are the source of every problem we ever encounter, if Dharma practice means renouncing suffering it means renouncing the eight worldly dharmas. “I’m practicing Dharma” really means “I’m renouncing all the suffering of this and all future lives; I’m renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.”

In previous times, Dromtönpa, Atisha’s close disciple and translator, saw an old man walking around the temple at Reting (Radreng) Monastery. The old man thought that he was practicing Dharma. So Dromtönpa said, “Circumambulating the temple is good, but wouldn’t it be better to practice Dharma?” After hearing this the old man gave up going around the temple and started reading scriptures, thinking that that was what practicing Dharma meant. Again Dromtönpa saw him and said, “Reading the scriptures is good, but wouldn’t it be better to practice Dharma?” At that the old man gave up reading Dharma texts and, thinking that maybe meditation was practicing Dharma, sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. Again Dromtönpa saw him and said, “Meditation is good, but wouldn’t it be better to practice Dharma?”

This made the old man really confused. He couldn’t think of any other way of practicing Dharma if it wasn’t circumambulating, reading scriptures or meditating. So, a little exasperated, he exclaimed to Dromtönpa, “Practice Dharma! Practice Dharma! What do you mean, practice Dharma?” Dromtönpa replied, “Renounce this life. Renounce it now, for if you do not renounce attachment to this life, whatever you do will not be the practice of Dharma because you will not have passed beyond the eight worldly dharmas. Once you have renounced this life’s habitual thoughts and are no longer distracted by the eight worldly dharmas, whatever you do will advance you on the path of liberation.”

Dromtönpa advised the old man to renounce this life because without renouncing this life nobody can practice pure Dharma. With renunciation, however, pure Dharma practice, which brings happiness in this and all future lives, is possible. Renouncing this life doesn’t mean running away from home or throwing away all our material possessions; it means running away from the cause of the suffering. That alone can cut our suffering. As long as we follow the eight worldly dharmas, whether we separate from this physical body or not, without question we will still suffer.

In a similar vein, when Lama Atisha was about to pass away, one of his followers, a yogi called Naljor Chaktri Chok, said to him, “After you have passed away I will dedicate myself to meditation.” Lama Atisha answered, “Give up anything that is a bad action.” Atisha did not say whether it was good or bad to meditate, just to give up all bad actions. Naljor Chaktri Chok then said to Atisha, “In that case, sometimes I will explain Dharma and sometimes I will meditate.” Again Atisha gave the same answer. The yogi thought some more, then made another suggestion. But no matter what he said, Atisha just kept on giving him the same answer. Finally he asked, “Well, what should I do?” Lama Atisha answered, “Give up this life in your mind!”

Keeping this advice in his heart, Naljor Chaktri Chok lived in a juniper forest rear Reting Monastery, physically no different from the way the forest animals lived. Living alone, not seeing even one other human face, he passed his life there.³⁶

But giving up this life doesn’t necessarily mean leaving everything behind and escaping from this world, this entire planet, and going somewhere else. Giving away all our possessions—even all the possessions that exist in the world—is not giving up this life. Taking our body away from our home or country is not giving up this life. Even living in a cave with no possessions at all, with only the body, is not giving up this life. Even separating from our body—as we do every time we die—is not giving up the worldly life. Giving up this life does not depend on physical things; it is a mental change.

The difference between the eight worldly dharmas and Dharma

Without renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, any action—circumambulating a stupa, meditating, reading a Dharma book—is a negative action, a worldly action. It is not spiritual, it is not Dharma; it is the opposite of Dharma. In other words, the action itself does not determine whether something is Dharma. Dromtönpa shows us clearly that practicing Dharma is nothing more than renouncing the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas.

We need to be very clear about the distinction between Dharma and non-Dharma. We know that anger is negative, of course, but we aren’t angry all the time. What really wastes our precious life isn’t anger but attachment, being attached to the eight worldly dharmas.

Without clearly understanding what Dharma is, even though we try to practice it our whole life, nothing becomes Dharma because we still have the wrong motivation. The definition of non-Dharma is simply anything that is done for the happiness of this life alone; it is whatever we do motivated by attachment to the eight worldly dharmas. The definition of Dharma is exactly the opposite: it is anything that is done for happiness beyond this life, whatever is unstained by attachment to the eight worldly dharmas. I repeat: whatever action we do with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is not Dharma; whatever we do unstained by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is Dharma. Every action we do from morning to night is either Dharma or non-Dharma depending on this.

If we clearly see the borderline between Dharma and non-Dharma, between a Dharma action and a worldly action, we’re very fortunate. Until we reach that point, despite all the suffering we’ve endured and all our attempts to stop it, we have no route out of our unhappiness. Once we do reach that point we can start to do something about it. In the past we’ve probably wanted to do many good things, like meditation, but because we’ve lacked this fundamental understanding we’ve made many mistakes. Even if we never understand one other Dharma subject, learning just this one thing is like opening our eyes for the first time.

Pure Dharma is any action that is a remedy for or an antidote to the delusions. Basically, practicing Dharma benefits future lives, unlike the meaningless activities of this life, which might possibly bring some temporary happiness in this life but nothing more. Achieving the happiness of this life is nothing special. Even animals and insects as tiny as ants can do that, so if we never do more than that we’re no more special than an insect. No matter how expert in our field we are, without practicing Dharma we can’t fulfill our human potential, especially that of this perfect human rebirth. The special purposes of having a perfect human rebirth are achievement of the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara and full enlightenment, something we can do because we can create the causes of those results every second of our lives.

Virtue and nonvirtue are defined on this basis. Every action done renouncing attachment to this life is virtue; every action done with attachment to this life is nonvirtue. If we renounce the attachment that clings to the pleasures of this life, our attitude becomes pure and everything we do becomes Dharma. Nothing we do is done for just this life.

As soon as we renounce the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas we find peace. There’s no need to wait until tomorrow or the day after. It’s not as if we renounce the eight worldly dharmas today but need to wait for a few years or the next life to receive happiness.

When our mind is not mixed with the thought of the worldly dharmas, every action we do becomes Dharma. The deeper we see the cause of our suffering, the more our wisdom grows and the more we can put Dharma into our everyday life. Then we have much more energy to make every action we do Dharma. Even if we live in a big family with twenty children and many possessions, everything we do becomes a remedy to the delusions and we can be said to be living in renunciation of this life.

Nobody can tell from external appearances who has renounced this life and who hasn’t. Renunciation is a state of mind and having lots of possessions is no indication at all. Even though somebody is a king with countless servants, stores of jewels and possessions and many rich apartments, we can’t conclude that his mind is not living in renunciation. Renouncing this life is a mental action, not a physical one.

If it were only a question of not owning anything, all the animals and insects who have no possessions and live in holes without food to eat should be regarded as highly renounced beings. At Lawudo Retreat Center near Everest there are many caves that used to be the homes of great yogis. When I went to see them I found that they were full of kaka because yaks had used them to sleep in, probably because they’re warm. If the definition of a yogi is somebody who lives in a cave, perhaps we should consider yaks to be great yogis.

Another way of defining Dharma is anything that does not accord with the actions of worldly people. If we do something that normal people do, it’s not Dharma; if we do something that normal people don’t do, it’s Dharma. This is how the great teacher Dromtönpa explained it to Potowa:

It is Dharma if it becomes an antidote to delusion; it is not Dharma if it does not. If all worldly people disagree with it, it is Dharma; if they agree with it, it is not Dharma.³⁷

Most worldly people have an interpretation of what constitutes a good life based on attachment and filtered through the ego. And so more wealth, more success, more friends, more children, more cars—such things are seen as part of a good life. They measure their happiness by how many possessions they have, by their external development. Children, and then grandchildren, and then great-grandchildren—the more of everything they have, the happier they are.

This is the exact opposite of what Dharma wisdom, based on the fundamental understanding of karma and the lamrim, considers to be a good life. What attachment doesn’t consider important in its view of a good life is having peace in the heart, having real satisfaction. Actually, this is what we’re all looking for, but very few people know this and even fewer actually know how to achieve it.

The importance of motivation

I once asked an abbot about the meaning of “worldly dharma.” He replied that it meant gambling, working in the fields and so forth—these are worldly activities. It is very common to think of worldly actions in this way, relating to just the action and not the motivation, the attitude. If done with pure motivation, however, such actions can become pure Dharma.

Dromtönpa’s example above is extremely important to keep in mind because it so clearly shows the border between Dharma and non-Dharma. It is easy to think of worldly actions as playing football, smoking, drinking, having sex and so forth but that is not what defines a worldly action. We therefore need to become very aware of the motivation for all the actions we do in daily life to see what is and what is not Dharma.

If our motivation is worldly concern, then the action becomes a worldly activity. It can’t be Dharma, even if the action is reciting prayers, meditating and so forth. It can be like Dharma but it’s not Dharma. And a person who “practices” Dharma with a motivation of worldly concern is like a Dharma practitioner but is not a real Dharma practitioner. There’s a big difference.

Somebody once gave me plastic ice cream. It looked exactly like ice cream and even ran down the spoon like melting ice cream does. When Ueli, the former director of FPMT’s Mongolian projects, came to lunch I offered it to him and he was completely fooled. It was so well made. But of course, it was completely inedible. It’s the same thing with the person who practices Dharma but pollutes it with the mind clinging to this life. His activities might look exactly like Dharma—listening to teachings, reflecting, meditating, going on retreat, even teaching Dharma—but in fact they are not Dharma. He might look like a Dharma practitioner but in fact he is not a Dharma practitioner.

Since we’re seeking liberation, this is the most important point to know. It’s like a radio dial that can be tuned to all the different stations. Without understanding the distinction between Dharma and non-Dharma, no matter how many different spiritual actions we do, no matter how long we do things such as building monasteries, making prostrations and so forth—even if we do them until we die—there’s the real danger that our whole life will become filled with negative actions, causing us to be trapped in samsara, bound to suffering. Without this knowledge we’re in great danger of cheating ourselves.

In itself, no action can be defined as a worldly action. It can be either holy Dharma or worldly dharma, virtuous or nonvirtuous. It all depends on the motivation. Enjoying sense pleasures can be positive or negative; having wealth can be positive or negative. Two people can do exactly the same thing and for one person it can be a positive action, for the other, negative. It all depends on attitude.

A politician with a good motivation can do a lot of good but if his motivation is the thought of the eight worldly dharmas—the wish for power, reputation, wealth and so forth—then his politics become negative, harming both himself and the people around him. Without the worldly mind, his politics become Dharma. And if his motivation is unstained by self-cherishing and is one of bodhicitta, then those politics become pure Mahayana Dharma, pure service for other sentient beings and a cause for him to achieve enlightenment.

No matter how it looks on the surface, any action done without involvement in the eight worldly dharmas is a Dharma action. Whatever method we use to renounce the thought of the eight worldly dharmas becomes a method to stop the continuity of bad karma, which leads to escape from suffering and enlightenment. This is the perfect, true method.

And so before we start any Dharma practice, the most important thing is to cultivate a pure motivation. Just understanding this crucial point is very important. It opens our wisdom eye; it is the first thing we need to do to follow the path. Even if we don’t have a pure motivation from the very beginning, just understanding what Dharma means and how it makes life meaningful is very beneficial. As we practice more, we can develop a better and purer motivation based on this understanding. Then we have the chance to act correctly without mistake.

We can’t become like those exalted yogis of the past in just a few days or even a few months, but it’s very beneficial simply knowing how they gained their great freedom and peace by practicing Dharma. This gives us some insight into how we can start to lead our life. We can watch and ensure all our actions are as pure as possible, not controlled by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.

What is a nonvirtuous action?

What is a nonvirtuous action? The shortest definition is: any action that results only in suffering. To make the definition clearer, we can say it is any action motivated by a nonvirtuous thought, a nonvirtuous thought being a thought based on one of the three poisonous minds of ignorance—particularly ignorance of karma—anger or attachment. And as we have seen, it is not anger but attachment that dominates our life—day in and day out, we live with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, attached to the happiness of this life.

It’s not just that we have the thought of seeking a good reputation, material rewards, praise and comfort—we can seek these out of a good heart, out of a wish to benefit others. Here it’s the thought of seeking these things simply for the happiness of this life, out of the attachment that clings to this life.

Every action we do—walking, sitting, sleeping, working and so forth, even prayers and meditation—is transformed into nonvirtue by being stained with attachment to the happiness of this life and will only result in suffering, not happiness. The thought of the eight worldly dharmas not only blocks us from ultimate happiness, it blocks us from temporary happiness as well. Delusions pour down on us with the incredible force of a large waterfall. Even if we don’t want to get angry, strong anger still arises, showing us how we’re under the control of delusions most of the time.

We might know the meditation techniques that are the antidotes to the delusions, but if we don’t apply them in our daily life when situations arise, we won’t be able to protect our mind and will have missed a precious opportunity. We might try to practice Dharma, but if our mind is still overwhelmed by delusions, most of our actions will become nonvirtuous. It’s even more difficult to generate a virtuous thought when we go to sleep, so even our sleep becomes nonvirtuous. However many hours we sleep, we create that many hours of nonvirtue.

As we’re talking about motivation, I’d like to ask a question. Somebody is dying of starvation and we give her food, not with a virtuous thought but with a nonvirtuous thought of worldly concern, with attachment to our reputation and with the hope that other people will praise us. Is that action virtuous or nonvirtuous?

You might think that the action is virtuous because we’re helping somebody, but the motivation is nonvirtuous because it’s done for praise. If it were the case that such an action was virtuous, then if somebody wanted to be killed and you killed him, that would also be a virtuous action because it brought happiness to another being. It’s similar to the previous example, where filling a starving person’s stomach made her happy. Perhaps you agree that the motivation is nonvirtuous but my question is whether the action itself is virtuous or nonvirtuous.

Here’s another example. Let’s say that you have cancer and take medicine to prolong your life. Your motivation for taking the medicine is simply attachment clinging to the pleasure of this life. You want to have a long life but the long life is just for yourself; you’re not thinking of having a long life to benefit other sentient beings. Is that virtuous?

If it were, then everything you did to help yourself survive would be virtuous—eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, doing your job—because you do all these things to give yourself a long and comfortable life. None of them involves killing or any other violent action toward other sentient beings. Eating and drinking stop your hunger and thirst, having a house protects you and gives you comfort, clothes give you warmth, and doing a job gives you money, which helps you get the pleasures you desire. Since everything you do twenty-four hours a day helps you survive without harming others in any way, all these actions should become virtue. But they don’t.

In a text of questions and answers by the first Panchen Lama, Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen,³⁸ there’s the question “What is the beginning of meditation?” He replies, “The beginning of meditation is motivation.”

If an action were virtuous simply because it didn’t involve harming others through killing and so forth, then whenever we meditated there’d be no need to generate a virtuous motivation because just doing the meditation itself would be virtuous. This mistake would arise. That’s why there’s so much emphasis on watching the mind and transforming it into not just a virtuous thought but into renunciation of the whole of samsara. And not just into that, but also into bodhicitta.

If you believe that an action can be virtuous even with a nonvirtuous motivation because it doesn’t hurt others, what about the opposite, an action involving harm done with a virtuous motivation, such as when a bodhisattva kills somebody? Since there’s violence and the other person is hurt, that would have to be nonvirtuous even though the bodhisattva had bodhicitta.

For example, in one of his past lives Shakyamuni Buddha was the bodhisattva captain of a ship and killed a man he saw was planning to kill the other five hundred traders on the ship. By killing him, that bodhisattva collected great merit and shortened the duration of his time in samsara by one hundred thousand eons; he came one hundred thousand eons closer to liberation and enlightenment. This happened not because of his action but because of his motivation of great compassion. His great compassion transformed that action. What determines whether an action is a virtue or a nonvirtue is its motivation.

Therefore, with respect to the charitable act of feeding a starving person, even though the food enables her to survive and have a long life, the act itself becomes nonvirtuous because of the power of the nonvirtuous motivation. It’s the same in our everyday life when we eat food or take medicine that help us to be healthy and live long—if the motivation is nonvirtuous, the action is nonvirtuous.

For example, there’s the story of two people who were doing a very long Yamantaka retreat in Penpo when one of them died. Every evening after that, the other meditator did the sur practice, which involves burning tsampa and making charity of the smell to the hungry ghosts.³⁹ One evening he didn’t do the practice and a terrifying hungry ghost with many arms that looked just like Yamantaka appeared. When the meditator asked who he was, the hungry ghost replied, “I am your friend, the one who was doing retreat with you.” Even though the one who died had done retreat on the deity for many years, he didn’t know how to practice properly. He’d done it with attachment, omitting the lamrim and bodhicitta motivation. There wasn’t even the virtuous thought seeking the happiness of future lives, which would at least make the motivation Dharma and save him from being reborn as a hungry ghost.

This is why motivation is so important. Motivation controls the action. As The Treasury of Precious Qualities says,

If the root is medicinal, so are its shoots,
If poisonous, no need to say its shoots will be the same.
What makes an act positive or negative is not how it looks
Or its size, but the good or bad intention behind it.⁴⁰

If the root of a plant is medicinal, the flowers, fruit and the rest of the plant will be medicinal, but if the root is poisonous, the rest of the plant will be poisonous too. The result of an action depends on the motivation with which it’s done. A great bodhisattva is permitted to do the seven actions of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, telling lies, slandering, gossiping and speaking harshly because he or she has such great compassion for others that all actions are transformed into virtue.

If we have no idea what a virtuous action is, then whatever we do will be based on ignorance. Even if we try to meditate using some simple physical yoga or watching the breath, since we lack Dharma wisdom we’re really just imitating Dharma practitioners, like monkeys imitate people, and it’s extremely difficult to make our actions pure.

We really need to be mindful of every action, to check why we’re about to do something to see if there’s the taint of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. If there is and we see that doing the action will become the cause of suffering, we can change our motivation to a virtuous one and the resulting action will then become the cause of perfect peace, enlightenment. A Kadampa geshe, Lama Gyamaba, said,

Renouncing this life is the very start of Dharma. When you take pride in being a Dharma practitioner without actually doing a single Dharma practice, how foolish you are. Therefore, from the beginning, always check whether your mental continuum contains this very first step of renouncing this life.⁴¹

This very effective instruction comes from the deep experience of this yogi and shows that he lived in his practice, renunciation of this life. Whenever we do any action, we should check the motivation and see whether we’re about to do the action with the mind renouncing this life or not. Check, because then this is really practicing Dharma. Without exploring our motivation like this, just knowing the words doesn’t help our mind.

Let me take my own life as an example. I think I’m a Dharma practitioner, but as soon as I get up, rather than immediately focusing on renouncing this life, all I think about is my first cup of tea. And so I drink that first cup of tea with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas and then it’s time for breakfast. And from then on, slowly, my whole day—eating lunch, drinking tea, going outside, coming inside, washing, putting clothes on, talking, going to bed—is spent completely in service of the eight worldly dharmas. I might think I’m leading a spiritual life but really I’m not. Perhaps I’ve not created even one Dharma action the whole day; my entire day is completely empty, blank. The only firm arrangement I’ve managed to make is to be reborn quickly and continuously in the suffering lower realms. If we live each day like this, we can expect nothing good from our future lives, and when we die—and we can die suddenly and at any time—we will die with great upset.

The same action with four motivations

There’s a quote that says that all existence depends on motivation.⁴² This means that everything we experience comes from the motivation we create with our mind: hell comes from motivation, liberation and enlightenment come from motivation; what is called happiness and what is called suffering come from motivation. Everything comes from our mind; everything depends on our intention, our attitude, our motivation.

Let’s take the example of four people—it doesn’t matter whether they’re rich or poor—who give money to a beggar. The first person gives with the motivation of achieving full enlightenment, the omniscient mind with fully developed wisdom, compassion and perfect power, so that she can completely free all sentient beings from suffering and obscuration and lead them to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment. Her action of giving becomes the cause of achieving full enlightenment.

The second person gives money not with the motivation of achieving full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings but to achieve ultimate liberation, which means liberation from just his own suffering and its causes, from just his own samsara. His action of giving doesn’t become the cause of enlightenment but simply liberation for himself.

The third person gives money with the motivation not for liberation or enlightenment but only to obtain happiness in future lives. There’s no question that the previous two people’s actions of giving money become the cause of happiness, but even this person’s action still becomes the cause of happiness, the happiness of future lives.

Finally, the fourth person gives money with the motivation of getting a good reputation, expecting that later, when he’s in trouble and needs help, the other person will help him. It’s done in order to get the four desirable objects and avoid the four undesirable ones. His motivation is the desire clinging only to the temporary happiness of this life.

In a similar example in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo talks about four people reciting praises to Tara with those four motivations.⁴³ The first person recites the prayer with the motivation to achieve enlightenment for the sake of other sentient beings, the second to achieve individual liberation, the third to achieve happiness in future lives and the fourth seeking only the happiness of this life.

The actions of the first three people are all actions of holy Dharma. The fourth person’s action, however, is not holy Dharma; it is worldly dharma because it is done with worldly concern, clinging to this life. The motivation is nonvirtuous and the result will be rebirth in the hell, hungry ghost or animal realms. So, even though the prayer itself is Dharma, the person’s action does not become holy Dharma.

Here we can clearly see the borderline between Dharma and non-Dharma, between what is virtue and nonvirtue, between the cause of happiness and the cause of suffering. The fourth person’s action of giving money (or reciting Tara prayers) does not become the cause of enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, does not become the cause of ultimate liberation and does not even become the cause of happiness in future lives. It is done only with the thought of the worldly dharmas, clinging to the temporary happiness of this life, and is therefore nonvirtuous and not the cause of happiness, now or in the future.

People who steal generally think that stealing is a way to obtain happiness. The enjoyment they get from the stolen money, however, is not the result of stealing but of a virtuous action done in the past. Stealing is just the condition, not the main cause of the enjoyment. Because it is done with the motivation of self-cherishing, seeking happiness only for the self and wishing harm to others, with one of the poisonous minds—ignorance, anger or attachment—the action of stealing is negative and leaves on the mind an imprint that results in future suffering. Therefore, even though the person believes that stealing is a way of obtaining happiness, what he believes and the reality of it are two completely opposite things.

And here it is the same with the fourth person in our example, who gives money to others but with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. He is seeking happiness, but only for himself, and only for this life, and only temporary happiness. That motivation is nonvirtuous—it is not Dharma—and its result is only suffering.

As the great bodhisattva Shantideva said in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life,

Even those who wish to find happiness and overcome misery
Will wander with no aim or meaning
If they do not comprehend the secret of the mind—
The paramount significance of Dharma.⁴⁴

Here “secret of the mind” does not mean some high realization such as the unification of clear light and illusory body;⁴⁵ it’s not talking about anything very complicated. We can interpret it as meaning the different levels of motivation I have just described. This verse emphasizes the importance of watching and protecting our mind, keeping it in virtue, because happiness and suffering are dependent upon our own mind, our own positive and negative thoughts. One way of thinking creates happiness; the other way produces suffering and problems. Everything depends on our mind, from day-to-day problems and the sufferings of the six realms up to liberation and enlightenment.

Don’t mix Dharma with the eight worldly dharmas

Marpa granted the complete teachings on receiving enlightenment in one lifetime to his disciple Milarepa. Once when Milarepa was going away, Marpa instructed him,

Son, don’t mix the Dharma and this life’s work. If they are mixed you will lose the Dharma. Think on that: you, the son, are suffering in samsara. Even if I were to try to explain the nature of suffering an infinite number of times, I could not. It is inexpressible; it is infinite. Even if I were to manifest hundreds of mouths and tongues to explain it for hundreds of thousands of eons, I could never finish. So, my instruction to you is don’t waste the Dharma, don’t mix this life and Dharma.

This has great taste, but if we don’t know the actual meaning of Dharma, if our Dharma is only mouth Dharma, then what Marpa said won’t mean much to us. No matter how much we work for enlightenment, if our practice is mixed with the work for this life, it is meaningless. That action cannot bring the result we expect; it’s like milking a goat’s horn—even if we milk it for eons, we’ll never get any milk. There’s no living being who can obtain both the work of this life and the holy Dharma. No matter how much we try to do both without losing either, we’re only deluding ourselves.

There’s the story of one of the ancient yogis, a Kadampa geshe called Ben Gungyal,⁴⁶ who always watched his motivation. In his early life he was completely crooked, a robber by day and a thief by night, but when he eventually met holy gurus living in the practice, he totally changed his life. He became a monk and spent his life in a cave practicing the graduated path. His robes were all he owned, nothing else. One day he received an invitation to a nearby monastery where a benefactor was offering curd. All the monks were sitting in a line and because of his junior status he was seated somewhere down near the end. As the people offering the curd moved down the line he heard how much curd was plopping into the cups of the people before him and became more and more worried that it would run out before they got to him. Then he checked his motivation and, realizing what was happening in his mind, turned his bowl upside down. So when they got to him and told him to turn his bowl the right way up, he said, “It’s OK, I’ve had mine.” Here, his attachment to the curd was telling him that the others were getting too much and he was going to miss out, so he turned his bowl over to punish his negative mind, to tell it that he wouldn’t let it destroy his peace. Instead of following the negative mind, he fought it.

Another time, as a monk, he’d been invited to a family’s house to do puja and was left alone in the living room while they were outside working. Suddenly he found his hand in a sack of wheat, an unconscious reaction from the days when he was a thief. When he realized what was happening he shouted loudly, “Thief! Thief!” When the people came running back in looking around for the thief, saying, “Where? Where?” he pointed to his hand in the sack and said, “Here he is!” It sounds silly, but actually he was practicing purely, trying to fight the negative mind, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, the mind that’s attached to the happiness of just this temporal life.

There’s also the story of the day his benefactor was coming to his hermitage.⁴⁷ He cleaned his room ahead of time, set up his altar nicely and made sure everything was very neat and clean. Then, as soon as he sat down and examined his motivation, he saw that he’d cleaned the room in order to impress his benefactor so that he’d continue supporting him and that his motivation was the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Realizing this, he suddenly stood up, took a handful of ashes from the fireplace and threw them all over his altar, making a real mess. He had recognized that what he had done had the form of a Dharma action but in reality wasn’t. So, to immediately practice the antidote and let go of the attachment, he scattered ash over his altar.

At that moment, Padampa Sangye, one of Geshe Ben Gungyal’s teachers and a great yogi like Milarepa, was teaching at a far distant place. Suddenly, in the middle of his teachings, he smiled, and when his students asked why he was smiling, he said, “This morning, my student Ben Gungyal made the best offering in Tibet. He threw dirt in the mouth of the eight worldly dharmas.”

Any action is either holy Dharma or worldly dharma. Nothing can be both. We can do both, but not at the same time. One action cannot become both holy Dharma and worldly dharma. Those two are complete opposites and if we try to do them together, we lose the holy Dharma. If we don’t renounce the thought that clings to this life, it’s difficult even to stop rebirth in the lower realms let alone make our Dharma practice the path to nirvana.

The Kadampa geshe Potowa said that “a two-pointed needle cannot be used to sew cloth.” Holy Dharma and worldly dharma are completely opposite, so no matter how we try to mix the two, we can’t do it. We might think that we’re practicing holy Dharma and also doing the work of this life at the same time, but the two can never come together, just as a two-pointed needle—a needle without an eye—can’t sew. We want both. We want enlightenment and we also want the comfort of this life. We try to have both, but when we do, we lose. As Marpa advised Milarepa, when holy Dharma and worldly dharma are mixed, the holy Dharma is lost.

As long as our mind is involved in the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, we’re a worldly person and whatever action we do—meditating, studying, teaching—is negative. Therefore the great Indian pandits and Tibetan yogis of old always instructed their followers that the very first step in Dharma practice is avoidance of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.

There are many wonderful life stories of the ancient yogis showing how they practiced by renouncing the eight worldly dharmas. In The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, the great Gampopa said,

Nobody has attained both the holy Dharma and the work of this life. There’s no doubt that the person who wishes to obtain both together cheats himself. Even if I were to meet you face to face I’d have nothing to say other than this. Keep your body and mind in virtue at your own place.

Gampopa shows us that it’s impossible to practice holy Dharma and worldly dharma at the same time. If, for example, we read a Dharma text with attachment, expecting a good reputation, we’re only cheating ourselves. We might think that our action is Dharma but the holy Dharma is lost. He then says that the only worthwhile topic of conversation is the true meaning of Dharma, so even if we were to meet somewhere, he’d have nothing else to talk about, and when we separated we should go to our respective places and keep our body, speech and mind pure and in virtue.

Living in renunciation of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, we produce only pure actions that continually make our life meaningful, no matter what the external appearances might be. Following worldly concerns, however, we only use up the result of previous lives’ good karma and don’t make any arrangements for our future lives. Once the result of our previous good karma has finished, the future results will be only suffering. Like trying to drink the water of a mirage can never quench the suffering of thirst, trying to do good actions polluted by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas can never bring happiness. Such actions can never become Dharma.

The thought of the eight worldly dharmas is something that we have within our own mind right now, so it’s important to be conscious of our emotions and feelings as they arise and deal with this problem. We need all our skill to stop attachment arising. In this way, we become our own guide. In fact, by being conscious of attachment when it arises and dealing with it immediately, we become our own savior.

Evil people can be subdued by Dharma, tough-skinned ones cannot

The Request to the Supreme Compassionate One from the nyung nä practice says,

Behold with compassion tough-skinned beings like me
Who maintain a religious manner but do not achieve the great meaning,
Being overwhelmed by attachment, hatred, and the eight worldly concerns,
Without having subdued our minds by observing cause and result.⁴⁸

We assume the form of a Dharma practitioner but our actions can never obtain the three great meanings that Dharma practice should bring: happiness in future lives, liberation and enlightenment. In truth, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is our practice.

Butter is very important in Tibet. When Tibetans use leather to make shoes or clothing they treat it with butter to make it flexible. The rancid butter they use has a very bad taste and a kind of blue-green color. They stretch a skin out on the ground and make it flexible by rubbing the butter into it with their feet and leaving it in the hot sun. But they also use leather as a container for the butter itself and that kind of leather is different. Because it’s permeated by butter it becomes very hard and inflexible.

And so it is said that greatly evil beings can be subdued by the Dharma but a “tough-skinned” person cannot. Even though evil beings accumulate much negative karma, when they hear Dharma for the first time there’s a chance that they’ll feel regret. They can understand that what they’ve done is very negative and can change their mind, purify their negativities, practice confession and determine never to do evil actions again. In that way, no matter how evil they are, their mind can be subdued by the Dharma.

But that doesn’t happen with tough-skinned people.⁴⁹ Even though they might be living in a monastery or some other Dharma environment where everybody is practicing continuously and listening to teachings all the time, somehow, nothing penetrates their tough skin. Just as our daily life can become dull and routine—breakfast, coffee and so forth—in the same way, listening to Dharma becomes nothing special for them. Whatever they hear, it’s always, “Oh yeah, sure, sure, I know that, oh yeah.” Instead of becoming medicine to subdue their unsubdued minds of attachment and anger, Dharma becomes medicine to nourish their self-cherishing.

We listen to so much Dharma, read so many Dharma books, but our mind never changes, there’s never any progress. That’s not the fault of the lama who reveals the teachings. It’s not the fault of the teachings. It’s our own fault. If we make no progress it’s because we’re making the mistake of following the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. A teaching says,

You have hundreds of qualities, but you’re still under the control of the one mistake. You have a hundred thoughts, but the mistake is not having thought the one thought.

We might have many great qualities and an incredible education but still be under the control of the one mistake of letting ourselves be ruled by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. No matter how high our degree, no matter how knowledgeable we are in Dharma, we have never learned how to create happiness, how to accumulate virtue. Instead of using our incredible education for that, it’s all directed toward accumulating nonvirtue as we seek just the happiness of this life.

Rather than subduing our mind, our education makes us more tough-skinned, full of pride and arrogance. Under the control of that one mistake, we waste our education and our Dharma knowledge, and because of that we waste our life. We have so many thoughts all the time, so many ideas, so many, so many—the “hundred thoughts” of the quote—so why do we still have so many problems? Because we miss this one crucial thought of renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. It’s like we have a heavy stone fastened to our legs—we have no freedom to go where we wish. Because of that one mistake we have no liberty to develop our mind.

The long road ahead

Practicing Dharma is the best way—the only way—of really taking care of ourselves. His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says that if we want to be selfish we should be wisely selfish. That means if we want happiness then we should not only never harm others but always benefit them, finding the best ways to serve them. In other words, the best way to take care of ourselves is to fully dedicate ourselves to the welfare of others.

Practicing Dharma in this way has an element of selfishness in it. Along with our wish for the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara and full enlightenment we have the wish for the happiness of this life. It’s there in our heart even as we do service for others. Because of the delusions we still have in our mind, our motivation is not completely cleansed of attachment. But, even if we can’t find full satisfaction in our life because of this, we’re still performing positive actions and still being useful to others.

Therefore, there’s no reason to stop helping others, even if our motivation is impure and we’re still full of delusions. If we were to wait until we had a completely pure motivation before we tried to do positive things, we’d probably never do anything beneficial. Even with a mixed motivation, it’s still a good life because we’re helping others. Stopping benefiting others because we don’t yet have a pure motivation is crazy. It would mean that instead of doing positive actions we’d be completely wasting every action we did; all the time, energy and expense we put into obtaining shelter, food, medicine, clothes and so forth would be completely wasted. We wouldn’t have benefited ourselves and we wouldn’t have benefited others.

If you’re new to Dharma you might feel like giving up because you think it doesn’t work. You feel lonely, depressed and alienated from your friends. This actually comes from not having enough understanding of Dharma. You’re applying the remedy to your delusions but not strongly enough. You’re surrounded by people always trying to develop their three poisonous minds and working only for worldly concerns and you’re trying to do the complete opposite, trying to diminish your poisonous minds and be free from worldly concern. You might think that it’s impossible to practice Dharma and live a normal life, that the only thing you can do is to physically separate yourself from this life.

However, when your mind gets a little closer to Dharma, you start to find that you have less interest in the happiness of this life. You don’t need to get so involved with worldly concerns. The attitudes of the people around you affect you less. Things that go on around you—all the pride, jealousy, attachment, anger, ill will and so forth that you see others display—mean less to you. You find that you no longer act or think like the people around you. With less contact with such people, of course you have more time to practice Dharma, but it can seem strange at first. You can feel lonely when your old friends no longer come around.

The point is, however, that it’s not necessary to give up your job and your life, but it is necessary to change your attitude. You can practice morality and charity just as well where you are. But as long as you follow the thought of the eight worldly dharmas you cannot achieve liberation. The door of the path to liberation is the mind renouncing samsara, and renunciation of the happiness of this life is the first renunciation you need to generate in our mind.

I heard that once in Switzerland, where there are a lot of Tibetan people, including some incarnate lamas who have disrobed, the factories where they worked were shut down for a week. During that week nobody earned any money and most people were really worried about this—the Swiss workers as well as the Tibetans. But there were some who were Dharma practitioners and very happy to have the break, especially one man who found a lot of time to do Dharma activities. He told me that when he met the other factory workers they were very unhappy but he had an incredibly good time.

When we stayed with His Holiness Song Rinpoche’s family in Canada once, I saw how hard they worked, day and night, not only to earn money for the family but also to sponsor monks in the tantric college and the big monasteries in India, to make offerings and to sponsor big statues. Each year they also found time to go to the East to visit the monasteries and see their lamas and sponsor teachings. With such strong faith in the Triple Gem, they used as much of their money as possible to accumulate merit. This is such a worthwhile thing to do. Their lives are not empty, not wasted, and the merit they create is something they can carry with them to their future lives.

Perhaps we are a monk or a nun living for years in a monastery or nunnery but, because our mind is not completely renounced, we’re still not really happy. I still say that this is a good life because all the practices we do will bring a good result in future lives. We’re still living in moral discipline and following the advice of our spiritual friend. If, on the other hand, we get so disillusioned that we want to give it all up, we can create big suffering for ourselves. Maybe we think, “Oh, I’ve been living in ordination for years and it doesn’t give me any satisfaction. Studying Tibetan Buddhism doesn’t work. Maybe I’ll try being a Muslim.” Maybe we think like this or that living our life as a “free” person—no rules, just doing whatever we want whenever we want—is the way to happiness. Before, we were trying to be free from attachment, but now we’ve given in and allowed ourselves to become a slave to attachment again. We interpret happiness from the point of view of the eight worldly dharmas, not from the point of view of Dharma wisdom.

And perhaps, in the short term, if we leave our monastic environment and give up our vows, we might have more fun and seem to be enjoying ourselves more, but really, this is just a total hallucination. We close our eyes to our motivation and to our long-term happiness and don’t see how much this current, temporary enjoyment is costing us. It only appears to be pleasure but the karmic result will be strong suffering. Therefore we should define happiness only by its motivation and whether it brings a good result.

When we read Milarepa’s biography we can understand how many hardships he had to bear, how hard he practiced under his great guru Marpa, how he completely put his whole life in Marpa’s hands. He had to build and rebuild a nine-story tower many times. When he completed it the first time his guru told him to tear it down and put the stones back in their original places. Then when he had done that he had to build it again. He was made to do this several times, but by practicing in this way all his negativity was completely purified in one lifetime.

Just like Milarepa, Naropa and many other great yogis also went through incredible hardships in the practice of Dharma. Understanding why we have to go through such hardships helps us understand how to practice.

When we live within the various vows, such as ordination in a monastery or nunnery, we have to bear a lot of hardship because we can’t make our mind pure in one day. It takes time. However, if everything we do is aimed at benefiting our mind, we will definitely progress. Then when we meditate continuously on the graduated path of the lower capable being and live in morality, we’ll be protecting our mind. This is discipline, but completely different from the discipline an army imposes. The discipline in monasteries such as Sera, Ganden or Drepung, or in Gyume or Gyuto, the Lower and Upper Tantric Colleges, has been made by those incredible, learned holy beings, and everything is aimed at benefiting the mind, to not give harm to others but to benefit them. Even if we find such discipline hard and don’t think we’re happy, the result of our practice of abstaining from killing, stealing and so forth will definitely have a good result in the future.

Of course, it takes time for this to happen and we need to develop a continual and strong meditation practice, especially on subjects like the perfect human rebirth, impermanence and death, karma, the lower realms’ sufferings and the general suffering of samsara. As we strengthen our understanding of these subjects within our mind, our clinging to this life will lessen and meeting the objects of the eight worldly dharmas will not disturb our mind as much.

Changing a deep-seated habit doesn’t happen all of a sudden. Meditating on renunciation of attachment once or twice doesn’t work, and even after one year, two years, ten, thirty, forty years, it might not completely turn our life around.

From beginningless lifetimes we’ve been working for attachment, our mind always under its control, and even in this life attachment has been arising continuously, making our mind more and more habituated to it, so how can we expect the problem to be solved instantaneously? Even physical habits such as smoking cigarettes are difficult to stop. So we shouldn’t have a fickle mind when we try to practice Dharma. We shouldn’t become discouraged because we don’t see much progress after meditating for a month or two. When we do a month’s retreat and a thousand prostrations and still our mind hasn’t completely changed, we shouldn’t decide that the methods don’t work, give up and go back to our old life and just put more kaka in our mind.

And in the same way that feeling regret for a negative action is a positive thing to do, it’s negative to feel regret for having done the very positive actions we did in trying to transform our mind. That sort of negative regret destroys the merit we created from doing the practice.

It’s very helpful to understand that we will naturally encounter many difficulties when trying to overcome attachment because of our habituation to negative actions. Really understanding this will give us continued energy to practice, even though we don’t feel good and seem to be making very little progress—even if we still haven’t received any siddhis!

Milarepa received enlightenment in one lifetime but he had meditated extensively on emptiness, the fully renounced mind and so forth in previous lifetimes; his mind was already well trained in those things. Shakyamuni Buddha, too, created merits for many eons before he achieved enlightenment for the sake of sentient beings. We build up our practice drop by drop, like putting drops of water in the ocean, creating one or two merits, doing a retreat or a daily Dharma practice and so forth. Therefore it is totally unrealistic to think that we can receive realizations instantaneously. This is the expectation of a small mind. When we’re feeling discouraged, it’s useful to think of holy beings such as Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and how they practiced for such a long, long time.

Meditation

Meditation on the objects of the eight worldly dharmas as repulsive

Our attachment to an object depends on the aspect of the object we relate to, so a useful technique to eliminate attachment is to change the aspect of the object the mind focuses on. The most effective way of doing this, of course, is to meditate on the emptiness of the object, to see that the object, the beauty we ascribe to it and the pleasure we gain from it are all completely empty of existing in the way we think they exist, that what we think of as real is in fact an utter hallucination. Normally we see objects of attachment and their beauty as independent and self-existent, which is simply not true. That is how attachment is just a wrong conception.

An easier way of changing the aspect of the object of our attachment is simply to imagine it as something else. For instance, if you have an object to which you’re attached, imagine it as made of stone or wood, as just an ordinary object that doesn’t cause attachment to arise. Or you can focus on the ugly aspect of the object rather than its beauty, effectively countering your attachment to the object. Then you won’t have to get rid of it. The problem isn’t in the object but in the creator, the mind that superimposes “beautiful” onto that object.

If somebody brings you a gift and your mind just freaks out, flying with attachment to the gift, you can change the aspect of the gift from “wonderful” to something dangerous. Imagine that the thing in your hands is made of red-hot iron. If you do, the incredible attachment that made your mind so uptight and stressed suddenly decreases and you can control it. You make yourself happy and relaxed and don’t create negative karma. This practice itself is a pure Dharma practice. Also think, “This red-hot iron may burn my hands but it can’t cause me to be reborn in the suffering realms; it can’t cause me to continuously suffer in samsara. But this object I’m attached to has been causing me to suffer in countless previous lifetimes until now and will continuously cause me to remain trapped in samsara and suffer.” If you meditate like this, it’s quite easy to lose your attachment.

A similar technique can be used when there are problems such as attachment arising by hearing sounds to which you’re attached, like music. When you hear the sound, visualize it as a red-hot burning needle and think, “This red-hot burning needle can’t cause me to be reborn in the suffering realms of samsara but this sound has been causing delusions and attachment to arise in me from numberless previous lifetimes until now and will continuously cause delusions to arise and make me experience continual suffering, even in future lives.”

This simple technique to stop attachment from rising can really help. If you could see the actual nature of the sound there’d be no way for attachment to arise, but that’s difficult; you need understanding, you need wisdom, and sometimes your wisdom is not strong enough to work. At such times, simple techniques like this can be very helpful and are quicker at stopping attachment. The main problem is not the sound; it’s your mind, your attachment—but by using techniques such as these you can lose that attachment.

Whenever you hear personal praise that makes your heart burst with pride, try to be conscious of what’s happening in your mind. If you have a painful open wound on your hand and you’re in a bustling crowd of people, you protect your wounded hand very carefully in case somebody bumps into it and makes it worse. Your mind is like that vulnerable wound. If you don’t take care of it, there’s the danger of all kinds of things happening with your mind, then with your speech and then with your body.

So when you hear praise, as before, try to visualize it as a thunderbolt or a red-hot needle that destroys things. You don’t have to say anything, you can still listen to the person praising you, but at the same time work with your mind, because the problem is in your mind. Understand that these pleasing words cause your pride to get bigger and greed and many other negative minds to arise and at the same time visualize the words in the terrifying form of a thunderbolt or a red-hot needle. Then what’s happening in your mind becomes quite different. Before, your mind was lifted up, like a piece of paper caught by the wind. Just as the paper is powerless and has to go wherever the wind takes it, so your mind is made powerless by the praise. But just by changing the object, visualizing it in a different way, all of a sudden it changes your mind; it comes down and becomes peaceful and relaxed.

Then think, “Compared to being attached to praise, this red-hot needle is nothing, because even if it pierces my body it can harm only this present life’s body, not my future lives’ bodies. But praise has caused me to experience the infinite sufferings of samsara countless times, preventing happiness, realizations and enlightenment, is still doing so now and will continue do so in future.” If you think this strongly and don’t just say the words, it will be very useful. No matter how much praise you receive, there’ll be no problem in your mind, no confusion—it will be peaceful, relaxed.

Many of us have too much attachment to food. Again, the problem isn’t with the food but with the mind. A human being shouldn’t eat food like a dog does. A dog sees food and just gobbles it up, expecting happiness. Our motivation for eating food should be higher than this. In everything we do, including eating, our fundamental motivation should be to achieve happiness and peace, so we should find a method of eating that brings peace, not more suffering through attachment. In this way, eating becomes worthwhile; it becomes wise eating.

Again, visualize the food as something disgusting, like kaka. This will definitely bring down the strong attachment you have for the food immediately. Then, as before, think, “This object, the kaka, may cause some harm to this present life but it cannot harm me as much as the food, which has been causing me to experience suffering since beginningless previous lives, preventing me from experiencing happiness and enlightenment, is still doing so now and will continue to do so in future.” Practicing like this, you keep yourself from mental danger, from the attachment that causes you to be reborn in the three lower realms. In particular, attachment to food causes rebirth as a hungry ghost, so you’re protecting yourself from that danger and making a huge profit.

You can use any of the four undesirable objects, such as displeasing words, abuse and criticism, to destroy the negative mind. Let them harm your attachment rather than you. Feel that they’re your allies in the fight against your negative mind.

Even if you don’t meditate or say mantras, even you don’t have an altar, even if all your daily life is spent eating, sleeping and making kaka and pipi—it can still be Dharma practice fighting the negative mind, depending on your skill and mental power. This is better than sitting in a cave meditating without any possessions but still holding onto the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas.

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Notes

³⁶ See The Door to Satisfaction, p. 34. [Return to text]

³⁷ Quoted in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 298. [Return to text]

³⁸ The first Panchen Lama (1570–1662) composed Guru Puja (Lama Chöpa) and Path to Bliss Leading to Omniscience, a famous lamrim text. He was a tutor of the Fifth Dalai Lama. [Return to text]

³⁹ See Aroma Charity for Spirits; this can be found in the FPMT Catalogue. [Return to text]

⁴⁰ Quoted in The Words of My Perfect Teacher, p. 125. [Return to text]

⁴¹ See also The Door to Satisfaction, p. 64, and Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 296. [Return to text]

⁴² Sometimes expressed as “everything exists on the tip of a wish.” [Return to text]

⁴³ Liberation, pp. 154–55. [Return to text]

⁴⁴ Ch. 5, v. 17. [Return to text]

⁴⁵ The most profound practice in tantra, done just before achieving enlightenment. [Return to text]

⁴⁶ See also Ben Gungyal’s story in the section “We always have what we need,” p. 147–48. [Return to text]

⁴⁷ See also Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p.117. [Return to text]

⁴⁸ From Nyung Nä: The Means of Achievement of the Great Eleven-Faced Compassionate One, p. 41; this can be found in the FPMT Catalogue. [Return to text]

⁴⁹ Rinpoche sometimes calls such people “Dharma thick skulls.” [Return to text]