Teachings from Guadalajara: Days 5 - 8 (Audio and Unedited Transcript)

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Guadalajara, Mexico, 2008 (Archive #1700)

Days 5-8 of an eight-day series of lam-rim teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Guadalajara, Mexico. in April 2008. You can listen to days 1-4 here.

You can also read an edited version of this series here, and listen online to the public talk that Rinpoche gave prior to this series.

Day 7: Precious Human Rebirth

The, as I was talking this afternoon that, the, I talked about the, what messages I put around the car, but I didn’t finish, I was talking about that but then got carried away. I said: Cherishing others is the source of all the happiness for yourself and for others, for other sentient beings. Then I got carried away from that.

So the, so, our purpose coming here, gathering here, this place, this time, tonight, so that is, really what it’s for, so we have to analyze, we have to understand what it’s for. So, it’s for happiness , it’s for happiness, to get rid of suffering, to achieve happiness, it’s for that. That’s the wish, that’s what we like, what we wish. That’s the wish, but the next question is, how we are going to do that, okay, how we are going to achieve that, how we are going to do that.

So it’s, the reason why we are gathered here, then this time, in Mexico here, in this church, or this retreat place, so, anyway, so, here, this is not just, this, not just for achieve short-term happiness, not for that, short-term, short pleasure, very short-term pleasure, it’s not for that, and to prevent some sicknesses, prevent some problems temporarily, you’re free from some problems temporarily, it’s not for that. So, here, our purpose of gathering here, that is, to understand, there’s a greater happiness than what you have been looking for so far. What, happiness what you look for is not only happiness of this life, which is a very short time, very short-term happiness, not just only today, look for today’s happiness, today’s peace, not that, this life which is complete, few years’ longest, a few months, we can’t really tell, how many hours, so, how many minutes, seconds, can’t tell. And what we have is totally, it’s finishing or it’s running out all the time. Life is getting shorter, as we watch the time, I don’t know, the seconds, so constantly finishing, running. Whatever you have length of life here, how many years, how many minutes, months, weeks, days, minutes, seconds, so it’s constantly finishing, running out, constantly running out, shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter.

So, now here, the purpose of our gathering here, or, and gathering tonight, however, it’s not just to achieve a very short-term happiness, and, not for that, and to prevent some problems temporarily, not forever, temporarily to ?recover , not like that.

And, even, better than that is to, you work for happiness of all the coming future lives, all the coming future lives to not have problems or to have happiness in all the coming future lives. Future lives means not one, numberless, so it means until you are free, liberated from samsara, cyclic existence, until you stop the continuity of these aggregates, but aggregates is maybe a new term, so, some people who haven’t ?heard Dharma, then, aggregates what we have is association of the body and the mind, which receives the label, I, self, which receives the label I, not this eye that we use for putting spectacles, the self. So anyway, so which receive the label, self, okay.

So, anyway, so, continuity of these aggregates, okay, these aggregates which are contaminated, the seed of delusions: ignorance, anger, attachment, so forth, so all this superstitious thought—ignorance, anger—all this, all these delusions, superstitious thought, because, why superstitious? Because, as they, you know as they apprehend, the way they believe, what they believe, way they believe, apprehend object, it’s totally false, not true. So, do not exist at all, not there, so what they project, their view: Anger has its own project, the view; attachment has its own view, projected on, every delusion has its own view projected, okay? Then they believe that hundred percent, anger project, what view then, it hurts; attachment projected, then they cling to that, so each delusion has its own view, projected.

So, anyway, however, what they believe, as I mentioned today, this afternoon, so more details, [a couple of words inaudible] ?projection, so it’s not there, all this doesn’t exist, it’s false. So, therefore, all these delusions are superstitious thought, wrong concept, so like that.

So, why I am talking about this? I’ve forgotten. [Students remind Rinpoche he was talking about the car] That’s right, the car. Again I left the car.

So, anyway, so, seeking happiness of future lives, all the future lives to have happiness, good rebirth, body of the happy transmigratory being, so, that’s, so I was talking about samsara, that’s right. So I was talking about future lives are not just one, two, three, numberless, so, until you get, until we cut this continuity of the aggregates, contaminated seed of delusions, and these aggregates which are caused by the karma, the action, and the delusion, action which is motivated by the delusion, okay, so the, then, the main one is, the root is the ignorance, ignorance not knowing what, not knowing the ultimate nature of the self, not knowing the meaning of selflessness of the person, meaning of the selflessness of the aggregates.

However, even though we talk twenty-four hours, from birth until now, from beginningless rebirth, now we’re talking I, I, I, I want this, I don’t want this; I do this, and I’m going to do this, constantly, but have no idea, so the, so, many of us have no idea, at all, what really it is, no idea at all, so no understanding what really it is.

So there are many educated people in the world, there are so many, there’s many human beings just even on this earth, this world, so many, so busy, day and night, anyway, nighttime busy or either busy by sleeping, busy with the sleep, busy with the dream, so anyway, so however, always worried for the I, always worried for the I, always: this I is going to suffer, the I going to die, this I going to get sick, many things, this I is going to lose the job or lose business or, so many things, something is going to happen to this I, so, unbelievable things, billions of things, something is going to happen to this I. So, anyway, but, and then, and then, keeps life unbelievably busy, so hard, day and night, worry and fear, and having so many sicknesses or even before you get sicknesses, so many worries and fears you may get this sickness, you may get cancer, even before you get, then there are so many sicknesses. Anyway, then, so many operations and so many checkings, so many different hospitals. So, anyway, so, unbelievable expenses, anyway, life becomes very expensive, so because of the I, terrible expensive, because of the I.

But you don’t know what the I is, you have no idea what the I is. But if someone asks you: what is I, what is self, you have no idea. If you look for, can’t find. If you look inside the body, can’t find, nowhere. So you spend the whole life worrying about it, and then, if the anger arises, then, anger, because of attachment, then the anger arises. There’s selfish mind, cherishing the I, this real I, cherishing, then, attachment, then something didn’t happen, then anger arises. Then, if you have power, influence, whatever, then you kill, you can kill in this world a hundreds, thousands, a hundred thousand, millions of people, kill, make war, so, it becomes large. But, it’s all for this I. But if somebody asks, what is the I, what is that I, that you are killing so many people, making war, killing, stealing, all these so many negative karmas, so, you’re doing for the I, so what is the I, you can’t tell, say, “I don’t know,” say, “I don’t know,” so the answer is “I don’t know.”

So you work all your life somebody whom you don’t know. So, that’s it. Somebody whom you don’t know, no idea, you work for all life, killing many people, cheating many people for this I, to get happiness, when you don’t have any idea, you have no idea at all what the I is, ?from the beginning, and you don’t know where it is, you don’t know where the I is. Firstly you don’t know what it is, then secondly you don’t know where it is. First, you don’t know what it is, second you don’t know where it is. So it’s very interesting, very interesting.

So the, to get many education, you try to get many education in this world to get happiness for this I, so many different educations, then yoga, yoga or this exercising the body. Every year, a new exercise comes. I see on TV, every year there’s a new exercise, somebody says do this way [Rinpoche demonstrates] , somebody says legs do this way; somebody do the legs this way . So I see, always this new one comes after a few months or a year, different exercise. So it’s all for the happiness of the I. But you don’t know where it is, you believe here, you believe here a hundred percent, no doubt it’s here, but if you look, it’s not there, you look inside and check, can’t find.

So, anyway, so as I mentioned the other day, that, so if you watch, you go in the street and you watch everybody, you watch everybody, so walking in the road, ?driving by car, going and coming, so you watch everybody, young, old, so, of course there are buddhas and bodhisattvas, as I mentioned in the last few days, so you can’t really tell, but generally speaking, of course not everybody buddhas, bodhisattvas.

So, anyway, so, some, many, I don’t think here in Mexico, but in like New York, many people you see so worried, their face very intensive, very intensive, very worried, not happy, something not happening in their life, something not happening in the life, for this I, but it’s not for somebody else’s, it’s not for, ?person not for other sentient beings, it’s for this I, for this I that you believe is here inside this body, but if you look for, can’t find, it’s not there. So the face, not smiling, very tense, very worried.

And then somebody, maybe somebody have found a friend or maybe some, what you wanted got something and maybe some excitement, so, but however, for this I which is not there.

So, this is very interesting, if you check our life, nature. So people in the shop, think there’s a real I there, ?if ?you watch, so then worry, fears, not getting to sell, not receiving enough clients to come, and then the, anyway, so, if you go in the restaurant, so, who are in the office. So anyway, so life is living, doing all the activities, worry, fear, everything, somebody did a little bit wrong to you, to your house or to your car or something, to you, then immediately you sue, bring the person to prison, to court. So, anyway, so like that. So, one way you make your life very expensive, more and more expensive, because you’re believing there’s I in here, in the body.

So anyway, so now, to conclude, okay, that, so, there’s future life all the time, die and reborn, die and reborn, until we are able to stop the continuity of the aggregates from life to life, continuity of the aggregates, that which is contaminated, the seed of, the seed, cause of delusion, the negative imprint, and these aggregates which are created or produced by the karma and delusion, which are under the karma and delusion, okay, so impure cause. So, because it’s under the karma and the delusions, impure mind, wrong concepts, so therefore, this body and mind experiences suffering, therefore, this body and mind experiences suf-fer-ing.

So, why our body and mind experience suffering, why? So that’s the answer. If your body and mind is not caused by karma and delusion, not contaminated seed of delusion, and not caused, not produced by karma and delusion, then this body and mind doesn’t need to experience suffering, there’s no suffering, you don’t have to suffer, so only happiness, you don’t have suffering. But because it’s caused by karma and delusion, and there’s the contaminated seed of delusion, so, so like, pervaded by suffering, this body and mind experiences suffering. There are so many problems, so many problems of this life, then, not only that, it becomes the basis for future life sufferings; these aggregates become basis for future life sufferings, okay. So as I mentioned this afternoon, the imprint, the seed of delusion, these aggregates, this mental continuum contains, so that compounds this life’s problems, and future, future rebirth and future problems.

So to, so this is what samsara is, samsara that we should be liberated, the total liberation, what we should look for, what we should achieve is this. So, so to cease this continuum, to stop this continuity from life to life, to cease this, then you need to cease the cause: the karma and delusion, okay. So, by removing, removing looks like an operation, the, ceasing the cause of delusion, the negative imprint, so, completely. So then, there’s no cause to rise delusion at all, impossible to arise delusions, so karma, then there’s no karma, okay, not created. Then, impossible, forever no suffering, no suffering rebirth, no suffering old age, no suffering sicknesses, all those 404, 24, something like that, disease, whatever, anyway, and then, all the suffering death, then all the suffering unable to find desirable objects, then, friend and so forth, job, money, and so many things, so many things, the desirable object, can’t find, can’t get, can’t get it, can’t find, then even you found, then another suffering starts, then you experience another suffering, can’t get, then the fundamental suffering, can’t get satisfaction, so it’s same, this afternoon, this afternoon or yesterday, I talked about the Rolling Stones, “I tried, I tried, and I can’t get satisfaction,” can’t get, anyway.

So, you don’t have to, so you’re totally, so all this unimaginable sufferings of the, oceans of sufferings of human beings’ problems, then suras, asuras, those worldly gods, then, hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, the oceans of sufferings of hell beings, hungry ghosts, oceans of sufferings of animals, unbelievable, unbelievable, then you’re free forever, then the intermediate state beings, they also have unbelievable suffering. After the death, from another realm, then before taking birth, another birth, then there’s the intermediate state, so except the formless realm, those beings, to be born formless realm, you don’t need to go through intermediate state, immediately ?you ?go there.

So, anyway, now, then, this one is, then, ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness. Even all the future life happiness is, that’s more important, to achieve all the happiness of future lives, than comparing just only working the whole, your whole life, just dedicate, just used to achieve this short-term happiness, just this life, very short-term. So achieving the happiness of all the future lives is much more important, it’s an incredible length of time. But, of course, still that’s temporary happiness, so, compared to that, those happiness still, those happiness—temporary happiness—and why, because their nature is only suffering, that, those happiness, their nature is only suffering, so on the suffering feeling you put label, happiness, so that’s why it does not increase, it doesn’t increase, how much you work for, it doesn’t increase, it doesn’t continue, that’s very important. The reason, because, the feeling that you label, happiness, is only suffering. But Dharma happiness, you can increase, you can complete, it’s one-time work.

So therefore, now, so all these happiness of future lives, all this are ordinary pleasure, ordinary pleasure, nothing special, ordinary pleasure, which we’ve had numberless times from beginningless rebirths, nothing new.

So now, so therefore should look for ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness: the total cessation of all the suffering and cause—karma and delusion. So once we achieve this, it’s impossible, impossible to experience suffering again. There’s no cause, there’s no reason, okay.

But that one is just for oneself, okay, it’s just for oneself, yourself, oneself, one living being, yourself, so it’s really nothing special, it’s working for your own happiness, even though it’s ultimate happiness, but it’s for yourself.

So your precious human body, this human body, this human body, this human body, so precious, this human body can learn Dharma, can learn, can do meditation practice, can understand words and meanings, so much unbelievable it can do.

Okay, maybe I just mention that one. So you can realize how you are fortunate, so, the dog, cats, even the animals that the human beings keep, horses and pigs, chickens, what else? So anyway dogs, cats, anyway, so, anyway, turtles, cows, that’s right, I’m forgetting the cows, anyway, sheeps and goats, so anyway, so, if you explain to them, “The cause of happiness is virtue,” virtue, for billions, zillions, trillion eons, to them, you explain, every day, continuously, day and night, cannot understand, even they live a billion, trillion, zillion eons, and constantly, there’s no way to understand, so sad. So, “What’s the real cause of happiness?” so, virtue, even if you explain a zillion, trillion, billion eons. Then, explain what is virtue, action which has result happiness, motivated by non-anger, non-ignorance, non-attachment, so that’s the definition of virtue. So, anyway, you explain a million, billion, zillions, trillion eons continuously, day and night, no way they can understand, no way. So that means, how it’s possible to practice, Dharma, meditation, to create virtue, abandon the cause of suffering, how to do that? There’s no way, impossible.

So now us human beings, somebody explain to you, cause of happiness, if you want happiness, cause, if you want happiness, cause of happiness is virtue, okay, and what is virtue, it’s action which brings the result, happiness, motivated by non-anger, non-ignorance, non-attachment, okay. So, within that few seconds, within a few seconds, you understood. Within a few seconds, you understood. So, these are the differences, you who has a human body now, this time, and all this, animals, even those that live with human beings, you see the difference, huge differences. Now you can see how your human body is unbelievably precious, unbelievably precious, so we have to analyze like this, to discover how this is so unbelievably precious.

So that means, you have to understand that, how so easy, wow, to learn Dharma, to learn the path to remove the cause of samsara, all the suffering and delusion and karma, and, cessation of samsara, the total liberation, so, so easy to learn Dharma, the teachings, they explain, what, all about the sufferings, then, cause of suffering, then, cessation of suffering and the path, how to achieve this total cessation, the liberation, the everlasting happiness, so unbelievable, unbelievable easy, that means also you have to understand, so easy to practice. So you have to understand, because of that, you have to understand, it’s so easy to practice and to have attainment. So, it basically means so easy to achieve liberation, so easy to achieve enlightenment, to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings from hell realm, hungry ghost, animal realm, from each realm, to liberate numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering, okay. There’s general suffering, particular suffering of those realms, okay. Then numberless human beings, suras, asuras, so then, and then, not only that, bring them to full enlightenment, peerless happiness, full enlightenment, cessation of all the mistakes of mind, gross, subtle defilements, and so, complete qualities of cessation, all that, gross, subtle mistakes of the mind, defilements, and then, complete all the qualities of realization.

So, it means by having this human body, this time you have achieved, so this is what you can do, this, what you can do, it’s amazing, wow, , limitless sky, benefit, unimaginable.

So, now, these animals, the sentient beings, can’t, totally, no opportunity. So therefore you are, this time you are so unbelievable fortunate, how incredibly fortunate you are. Them there’s no way to learn, constantly only creating negative karma, from following attachment, anger, all this, only negative mind, only impure, negative mind, so, constantly only creating negative karma. So then that means continually cause to be reborn in the lower realms. So, that, you can see in the future lives, basically it’s like that, so, future lives going to turn out how they, what karma they created this life, with ignorance, anger, attachment, and usually the attachment, all the time, so that’s how they live the life.

So therefore, must, therefore, we must not fool ourselves this time, must not cheat yourself, must not fool yourself, so must, must be, should be very wise, must open your heart and learn the Dharma, the, so learn Buddhadharma, you analyze, so you, like a scientist, so here, meditator is inner scientist, okay, inner scientist, so, inner scientist, so scientist, scientist of mind. So, then, learn, the, through analysis, you learn, then you understand, and then, prove and practice, so that, okay. So, then what you can do is unbelievable, what I mentioned before, unbelievable. So, it’s so essential to take the opportunity, don’t make to lose the opportunity, okay.

Then, so, I’m going to do some oral transmission tonight, which I promised to do, and maybe not the preparation tonight. I do tomorrow, the initiation tomorrow. You can do it in one day , except sleeping, you have to check, whether you can achieve Medicine Buddha or not, or the, you have karma to attend, things like that, so, by putting kusha grass under the bed, under the pillow, then you sleep, check the dream.

So maybe after lunch can have some sleep , or maybe even sleep, or maybe you can sleep here , so, okay.

So, I want to mention here, again, so, the Buddha taught 84,000 teachings, the heart of that, three basket teachings, heart of that, the lam-rim, the stages of the path to enlightenment which comes in three levels, and the very heart of that is the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment: renunciation, bodhicitta, right view.

So, if you want, now, what I’m telling you here, okay, if you want to make your life most productive, most beneficial for sentient beings, most beneficial for sentient beings, and that one is beneficial one for yourself, when your life becomes most beneficial for sentient beings, then that makes your life become beneficial for yourself, comes by the way. So, therefore, I’m just giving you the idea, what to think, what you should look for in your life, to learn, to awaken your mind, to realize, so, rather many billion things like this, maybe this might be better, maybe this might be better for me, maybe this might be better for me, maybe this might be better for me, then, one day death comes suddenly, and nothing happened, your life is gone, your precious human body you had, gone, lost the opportunity, so, lost unbelievable opportunity, billion, zillion dollars, filled the whole sky, is nothing. Even if you lost that money that’s nothing, that much gold, the size of this earth, gold, diamonds, lost, nothing, or even filled the whole sky. So I was talking to you before, wish-granting jewel, so, wish-granting jewel, whatever you pray, that you get all the material possessions, material enjoyments, fill the whole sky, you own, even you lost, it’s nothing, than losing this precious human body, didn’t get to practice Dharma, didn’t develop the mind in the path to liberation and enlightenment, this is the greatest loss.

So, so even, not only one day, minute, hour, minute, even each second, if you didn’t get to practice Dharma, even each second, didn’t get to practice Dharma, then that means, in each second, this, with this human body, which has eight freedoms, ten richnesses, and have met a guru revealing the path to liberation, happiness of future lives, then liberation, enlightenment, who has revealed the method, unmistaken, so, then, having met the Buddhadharma or can meet, can learn. So, in each second, with this body, you can create the cause of happiness of future lives, okay, that, the, by relying on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and abandoning ten nonvirtues, practice ten virtues, so you can achieve happiness of all the future lives, future lives, okay, so, living in morality, living in vows, living in morality, that, so, every second you create cause of happiness of future lives, you’re attaining future lives’ happiness.

And then, not only that, then, with renunciation, practicing renunciation, these, the three higher trainings, the higher training of morality, higher training of concentration and wisdom, so then, however, in every second with this precious human body, practicing renunciation, you can achieve liberation from samsara, total liberation from the, all the suffering and causes you can achieve, in every second.

And in every second, by practicing bodhicitta, with bodhicitta, every second, then you also achieve enlightenment, so, because you create the cause of enlightenment in every second. So when you practice bodhicitta, cause, in each second you create the cause of enlightenment, you achieve, so, you’re in the process to attainment, okay. So, creating the cause, okay. So that means, by the way, achieve liberation from samsara, okay; that means, by the way, all the happiness of future lives. Even, if you don’t become enlightened in this life, happiness of future lives.

So, each second how, even each second, this human body, unbelievably precious. So, all this wealth in this earth is nothing, so as I mentioned, all those, the size of earth, diamond, nothing, okay, compared to this. I’m talking here each second, I’m talking here, now, second, each second of your precious human body. Then even, filled the whole sky with the wish-granting jewel, that’s nothing compared the value of this human body, in each second, what you can do, okay.

So, what you should do, the most important thing in your life, so, most important thing in your life is Dharma practice, Dharma practice. That doesn’t mean to always to sit like this [demonstrates] or always praying like this [shows], like that, being in a church or a temple. So, it means your mind is in Dharma all the time, even while you’re eating or sleeping, walking, doing job, your mind is always in Dharma, okay.

So before I was talking bodhicitta, so, here, guru devotion or renunciation or the right view, bodhicitta, so I was talking about bodhicitta, so, unbelievable, you achieve everything, you practice bodhicitta, you achieve everything, you achieve everything, okay.

So all the happiness, including enlightenment, everything you achieve, and you can cause, to other sentient beings happiness of this life, the long-run happiness you can cause happiness of all the future lives to sentient beings. You can cause liberation from samsara, ultimate happiness, you can cause enlightenment, peerless happiness, to them, to numberless sentient beings. So, if you practice bodhicitta, okay.

So, therefore, so this is the best Dharma, okay, ?when ?we practice Dharma, the best Dharma is bodhicitta. So therefore, in our life, in this life, your goal should be, your goal, what you are looking for, should be bodhicitta to actualize, then it’s unbelievable, fantastic, you collect merit by purifying the mind, okay, so it’s your project in this life is to actualize bodhicitta, so it’s your goal.

So, bodhicitta, then always, whatever you do with the body, speech and mind, whatever you do is for others, for others, okay, for others who are numberless, everybody, including your enemy, you help, benefiting, okay. So, everything, whatever you do, even breathing in and out is for other sentient beings, okay. So whatever you do, everything is dedicated for sentient beings, okay, bodhicitta, so like that. So that’s the best, most happiest life, happiest life and the unbelievable joy now and future, it’s like sun shining in your life, future, out, so towards enlightenment to enlighten all sentient beings that’s your future, what unbelievable benefit they get.

So now, the, [pause] it’s a different time. So, I do a quick oral transmission of the Twenty-one Tara praise, okay, Twenty-one Tara praise with the mantra, with the Twenty-one Tara mantra. Each Tara mantra, so, I have received many times the oral transmission from my gurus, so you’re receiving also the Twenty-one Tara, each, mantra of each one, okay. Here I put together, with the praise and the mantra, put, so, anyway, I received separately but so anyway, in this way you get the oral transmission of each mantra, okay.

Yeah, then, purpose of my life is to benefit for numberless sentient beings, to free them from all the suffering and to bring them to enlightenment, therefore I must achieve enlightenment, therefore I need to actualize the path, need success, attaining the path to enlightenment, okay, and success to offer extensive benefit to sentient beings and the teaching of Buddha, so then, so therefore I’m going to take the oral transmission of the Twenty-one Tara. And Tara is the embodiment of all the buddhas’ holy actions, manifest in this to benefit us, to help us, to benefit us, to liberate us from oceans of samsaric suffering and gradually to bring to liberation, to enlightenment.

So, listen to each word, then it plants the seed of enlightenment in your heart.

[Rinpoche recites short mandala, and refuge-bodhicitta verse.]