Students offer a short mandala, then recite Praise to Shakyamuni Buddha in Tibetan up to “…Chhog tu dä pä chhag tshäl lo.” After a pause, the students recite the final three verses in Spanish.]

Read slowly and meditate.

[The students read the verses slowly and meditate.]

[Rinpoche recites the Heart Sutra in Tibetan while the students recite it in Spanish, with pauses for meditation.]

There’s one prayer that has recently been added between the Heart Sutra and Prayer to the Lion-Face Dakini. It’s good to recite that.

[The students recite Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances in Spanish.]

There’s clapping of the hands at the end.

[The students complete the prayer, with clapping; then recite Prayer to the Lion-Face Dakini and the short mandala offering.]

Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances is the prayer that comes at the end of the Heart Sutra and before Prayer to the Lion-Face Dakini. Of course, the Heart Sutra is like an atomic bomb in pacifying outer and inner obstacles. It is said “Emptiness is the peerless protection.” Meditating on emptiness is the best protection. I guess this is because obstacles come from your own superstitious mind, the concept of true existence, which believes things to be truly existent, inherently existent. What is fabricated by this superstitious thought, you then believe to be true. That itself is the biggest obstacle, and it is the source of the other inner obstacles, of delusion and karma; of the outer obstacles; and of all suffering, including sicknesses. Outer obstacles refer to the human being and the non-human beings such as spirits that don’t allow you to practice Dharma. Because you are under their control, you’re unable to practice Dharma.

Anyway, this prayer is extremely powerful for removing whatever obstacles or problems you have, as well as any obstacles to your practice of Dharma, to developing your mind in the path to liberation and to full enlightenment. Meditating on the Heart Sutra or even reciting the words is unbelievably powerful, like an atomic bomb.

It’s powerful to do as a group of people working to benefit sentient beings and to preserve and spread the Dharma, from where you get all happiness and protection and everything you wish for, and as an individual practicing and spreading the Dharma to others.

If you have omniscient mind, you can see things directly. A buddha has six types of clairvoyance, one of which, uncontaminated clairvoyance, is possessed only by a buddha. The other five types of clairvoyance—the clairvoyances of the devas’ eye, of the devas’ ear, of remembering past lives, of reading others’ minds, of miraculous powers—are not specific to Buddhists; Hindus can also achieve these five types of clairvoyance. The special Buddhist one is the sixth one, uncontaminated clairvoyance, which only a buddha has.

Even if you don’t have omniscient mind, if you have clairvoyance, you can see things from the past and see the future rebirth after death, both yours and others. With the clairvoyance of the devas’ ear, you are able to hear the buddhas’ various profound and extensive teachings in the pure lands, and you are then able to explain them to other sentient beings, inspiring them and bringing them into the Dharma, into the path to liberation and enlightenment. Basically, in Buddhism, you use your clairvoyance to benefit others. When you explain the things that you see from past and future lives, they get inspired, then you bring them into Dharma.

Even if you don’t have omniscient mind, if you have some clairvoyance, you are able to see the causes of whatever karmic results, happiness or suffering, sentient beings are experiencing. If someone is experiencing happiness, you are able to see what kind of virtuous action the person did to bring that result. If they are experiencing suffering, you can see what kind of nonvirtuous action they did to bring that result. That gives others a lot of faith in karma and the courage to abandon the cause of suffering and practice virtue. So, showing them these things is extremely beneficial.

Otherwise, if you don’t have this knowledge, if you haven’t developed these qualities, karma is like hearing stories from history or geology about what happened in the world many hundreds or thousands of years ago. If you yourself have neither omniscience nor clairvoyance, you can see nothing for yourself and have to rely on somebody else to learn about the things that happened a thousand years ago: about what sort of rocks, mountains or buildings there were in different parts of the world. If you don’t have the omniscience of an enlightened mind or even clairvoyance, you can’t see things directly, so the only way you can understand things is by listening to somebody who knows well what happened and can explain it to you correctly. The way for you to understand is by somebody explaining things to you and your believing in their explanation; otherwise, you have no way to understand.

Now, in regard to phenomena, there are phenomena that you can understand directly, which means that you can directly discover them. There are phenomena that you can realize only through inference, through logical reasoning. An example of this is discovering that causative phenomena are impermanent in nature. Phenomena that depend on causes and conditions don’t last; they change, decay, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, and even within each second. Through logical reasoning, you discover that they are not permanent but impermanent. Also, through logical reasoning, the valid mind discovers that phenomena are empty, that their nature is emptiness, that they are empty of being real, in the sense of existing from their own side. How all phenomena—self, action, object; hell and enlightenment; samsara and nirvana; happiness and problems—exist is in mere name, merely imputed by mind. Therefore, they are empty of that thing that is additional to the mere imputation; they’re empty of existence from its own side, which is projected by the negative imprint left by past ignorance, the concept of true existence, onto the mere imputation. Things are empty of this extra thing that is additional to the mere imputation. Phenomena, which exist as mere imputations, are empty of that false projection that is additional to the mere imputation.

Here I want to tell you about one thing that you should keep in mind. Many times in the texts you see “emptiness on the vase,” “emptiness on the table,” “emptiness on the I.” When you don’t know the meaning of that, it looks as if it doesn’t make any sense at all. When you don’t understand, it won’t make any sense to you. It will seem as if the on has no meaning. You will wonder, Why do they use on? But the on in emptiness on the vase, emptiness on the table or emptiness on the I has great meaning.

As I’ve already explained before a few times, when you come inside and look at what is on this table, you don’t see the vase first. You don’t see the vase, because to be able to see the vase, first it has to be labeled by your mind. To be able to see the vase, the vase has to be labeled by your mind. Unless you see the particular thing that receives the name “vase,” your mind has no reason to choose the particular label “vase.” You wouldn’t label “vase” on seeing any of the other objects on this table.

So, you have to see a particular phenomenon for your mind to have a reason to choose the particular label “vase.” You have to see this material object with this shape and design and the function of holding liquids. In Tibetan it’s called a bumpa, so you have learned one Tibetan word this morning. You see bumpa a lot in the texts, as the texts often use the example of a vase or a pillar.

Anyway, it is on seeing this material object that has this shape and is used to hold liquids that the mind finds a reason to choose the particular label “vase.” First seeing this object gives the mind a reason to choose this particular label, “vase.”

Your mind merely imputed “vase.” The vase is a mere imputation by your mind. That’s the vase that exists; there’s no other vase than that.

Now the question is, Where is the vase? Is the vase on here? Is it on the mind? Where is it? So, that’s the very important question. If you can find the vase on the base, it means that the vase exists from its own side, which is the same as the Svatantrika school’s view. If you’re able to find something on its base, it means that thing exists from its own side. This is exactly the same as the view of the Svatantrika school: things exist from their own side, even though you label them by mind. So, that is totally wrong. This is what the Svatantrika school thinks is the correct view, but according to the Prasangika school’s view, it is totally empty right there from where it is appearing.

The Prasangika school’s view of emptiness is the only one that can cut the root of samsara, the ignorance holding true existence, or inherent existence, holding that things such as the I exist from their own side. It is only by realizing the Prasangika school’s view that you can achieve liberation. This is the reality, even though there are four schools, which each has its own view of the object to be refuted and of emptiness. (I’m not talking about the four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism; I’m talking about the four schools of Buddhist philosophy that arose in India during Buddha’s time.) These schools arose because sentient beings have different levels of intelligence and different karma. Even though the ultimate view of emptiness is that of the Prasangika school, not everybody can understand it as it’s extremely subtle.

So, I mentioned that the vase is a mere imputation. What the vase is is what is merely imputed by mind. Now, it is not only that you can’t find the inherently existent vase on the base, but you can’t find even the merely imputed vase on the base.

I got confused —it’s the emptiness on the vase that I want to explain. Now, right after your mind merely imputed the vase, the negative imprint left on your mental continuum by past ignorance projects this hallucination of true existence on the merely imputed vase. Now you have to understand this. Right after the mere imputation of the vase, the negative imprint left on your mental continuum by past ignorance projected the real vase, the truly existent vase, the vase existing from its own side. You can see that the hallucination is decorated on the merely imputed vase. Do you understand that?

Now you can understand that the absence of that real existence, of that real vase existing from its own side, is emptiness, and that’s the very nature of the vase. The extra, false thing that is projected on the merely imputed vase is totally nonexistent there, and the absence of that is the very nature of the vase.

You can see now that it makes great sense to say “emptiness on the vase.” It has great meaning. Saying “emptiness on the vase” comes from that. The inherently existent vase is projected by your negative mind, by the negative imprint left by past ignorance, on the merely imputed vase. Because of that negative imprint, a false, inherently existent vase is decorated on the merely imputed vase. You can now understand that the absence of that is the very nature, the emptiness, of the vase, which is why “emptiness on the vase” has great meaning.

But you have to understand how all these subtle things come one after another. You have to understand how the inherently existent vase is projected, or fabricated, by your mind, after the mere imputation. It doesn’t come before the mere imputation, but after the mere imputation.

Since it comes up many times in the texts, you have to understand why Buddha used the expression “emptiness on.”

Now we can relate this to the I. Even though I’ve mentioned this quite a few times, since some of you weren’t here before, I think I’ll repeat it again.

We need to recognize the root of our problems. Why do we have to die? Why do we have to be reborn? Why do we have to get old? Why do we have to get sick? Why do we have to continuously suffer from dissatisfaction and all the many other problems? What keeps our life so busy is this ignorance: the mind that is unknowing in relation to the meaning of the selflessness of the person and of the selflessness of the aggregates. To put it simply, it is this ignorance that doesn’t know the very nature of the self and the aggregates.

Here I’m introducing the ignorance that is the root of samsara, the root of all our suffering. It is from this ignorance that all the other types of ignorance, anger, attachment and all the other delusions arise; the delusions then motivate karma, and from this cause of suffering, delusions and negative karma, come the oceans of suffering of the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras and intermediate state beings.

The aggregates are a collection of five things: form, feeling, discrimination, compounding aggregates and consciousness. On seeing the aggregates, the mind imputes the label “I” to them. You have to pay attention to the graduated process. The mind sees the aggregates first, then because of that, makes up the label “I,” or “self.” How do you say “I” in Mexico? [Students: Yo.] Yo, so then it’s very easy to add “gi.” It’s very close to becoming yogi. The “yo” has already happened; now it’s ust a question of “gi.”

So, the mind first sees the aggregates, which are the base, and that is the reason it makes up the label “I.” And how does it do that? The mind merely imputes “I.”

In the next moment, the negative imprint left on the mental continuum by past ignorance fabricates, or projects, or decorates inherent existence, true existence, or real existence. In the world, when people normally use the word “real,” it means this hallucination of true existence. They’re not talking about real in relation to the merely imputed I, the one that exists. They’re calling the other one, the false I, “real.”

Right after the mind merely imputes “I,” the negative imprint left on the mind by past ignorance, the concept of true existence, projects inherent existence, true existence, existence from its own side, existence by nature, onto the merely imputed I. The negative imprint fabricates everything as real, and you then have the appearance of a real I. The merely imputed I doesn’t appear to you. After your mere imputation of I, the next moment when the I appears back to you, it doesn’t appear to you to be merely imputed by mind. It should appear to you in that way, but you have an obstacle to its appearing according to reality. Because you haven’t purified the negative imprint left on the mental continuum by past ignorance, the concept of true existence, by actualizing the remedy of the path, the negative imprint creates this hallucination, so when the I appears back to you, it appears falsely as an I that is not merely imputed by mind.

From this example you can understand that all the things appearing to us to be not merely imputed by mind are false; all these are hallucinations. So, instead of believing that they’re real, we have to see that they’re false. You are then able to see the reality, emptiness; you are able to see the emptiness. You are able to see the subtle dependent arising, that things exist in mere name.

When you then practice mindfulness of this in daily life, everything—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects—is actually meditation on emptiness. If you pay attention to what I have just explained, everything is a meditation on emptiness. You don’t let your mind believe that everything is real, which is false. All the other delusions come from believing everything is real; you then create negative karma. You then continuously create the cause of samsara, so you always keep yourself in samsara, the suffering realm. It has been continuously like this during beginningless rebirths up to now, and it will continuously be the same without end. Your sufferings will have no end, your deaths will have no end, your rebirths will have no end.

Nobody makes samsara endless but you yourself, your mind, by always following ignorance and not following the wisdom of emptiness, the antidote to ignorance.

Anyway, when ordinary people talk about “real” in relation to the I, we mean the totally false one, the I that doesn’t exist, that is not there. We’re not thinking about the I that exists, the merely imputed one.

I’m just giving a small example, but it’s helpful in our life. The greatest mistake in our life is believing that how things appear to us is true. Believing this is what keeps us in suffering, in the hallucination.

Now, when you or other people say “real” in everyday life, in your heart you should understand that it’s wrong. To be able to meditate on that is so important. When you hear other people talking about something being real, you should think, “That’s not real—it’s totally false.” This is very important.

The second point is that your mind, on first seeing the aggregates, merely imputes the I; in the next moment, when the I appears back to you, it appears to you as a real I, in the sense of an I existing from its own side. When that happens, you then let your mind hold on to that as true; you believe that is true. At that time you are creating ignorance. And it is the same with the aggregates, the base. At that time you are creating the root of samsara, the root of all the delusions—ignorance, anger, attachment—and karma. All the oceans of suffering, the general sufferings and the particular sufferings of each realm, come from that. All the 424 diseases, whether curable or incurable, come from that. It all comes from the concept that believes that this real I, which is totally nonexistent, is true. Not even an atom of that real I exists there.

That’s why when you start to realize emptiness, you see that that real I is totally nonexistent. You lose that real I that you have been believing in during beginningless rebirths up to now. You see as empty that which is empty, and which has been empty during beginningless rebirths. At that time you are discovering the truth of the I, the truth of your self.

That’s why it’s important to meditate on emptiness; that’s why it’s unbelievably important to realize right view, one of the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment. This is the only one that can directly eradicate this ignorance, all the delusions and karma and all the suffering. No other realization you have, not bodhicitta nor any tantric realization, can directly cut this ignorance, the other delusions and the defilements. There’s no other realization that can directly cut defilements, whether gross or subtle. The wisdom realizing emptiness is the only one.

Therefore, we need to study emptiness as much as possible. We need to hear this unmistaken teaching from qualified teachers, gain unmistaken understanding and then have unmistaken attainment.

So, yesterday I checked some of the geshes, those who are learned and have very good understanding, but they don’t have time at the moment. One is the manager of the monastery, so cannot get away for one or two years. Another geshe is teaching many monks, so cannot leave at the moment.

Meanwhile, there are good translations of many texts on emptiness, as well as many teachings, especially from His Holiness. Many books have come out in different languages, especially English. You are very fortunate to be able to study the subject and have discussions with senior students. Write down anything you don’t understand. You can buy a huge book the size of this table, then write down anything you couldn’t get an answer to or couldn’t understand. You can write down in this life, next life, the life after that…. It will become a very precious treasure, because you wrote all this in many lifetimes. In every life, you can use this book to learn and to ask questions. In each life, you can go to this book….

Anyway, it’s very important for everybody to collect a lot of merit and to pray very strongly to receive a perfectly qualified teacher. It’s very important to pray for that every day, especially to Tara and Medicine Buddha. Generally, you can pray to any buddha, any deity, but it’s good to pray for success in particular to Tara, because she is the embodiment of all the buddhas’ actions, as well as to Medicine Buddha, who is extremely precious. Reciting Medicine Buddha’s name and mantra is very powerful in bringing success. You can pray to Medicine Buddha about any difficulties you have in your life. Also, as the time becomes more degenerate, with other buddhas you have to recite more of their mantras. In the past, you could recite 100,000 mantras, but now, because of the degeneration, you have to recite mantras 400,000 times. With Medicine Buddha, as the time gets more degenerate, Medicine Buddha has so much power to grant blessings, to help. Medicine Buddha doesn’t become less and less powerful. As the time degenerates more, Medicine Buddha becomes more powerful. It’s a special quality of Medicine Buddha. So, to fulfill all your wishes, it’s very powerful to do prayers to Medicine Buddha and recite many Medicine Buddha mantras.

For world peace, it’s extremely important that the teachings of Buddha, from where all the happiness of sentient beings comes, last a long time in this world, and for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other holy beings, who preserve and spread the Buddha’s teachings, to have long lives. Without them, there’s no teaching of Buddha; we can’t meet and practice the teachings. It’s extremely important to make prayers to Medicine Buddha to pacify all the problems in the world, global and individual. The more you place your trust in Medicine Buddha, the more power Medicine Buddha has to help you, and the more quickly it will happen.

As far as the subject of emptiness, there are still a few more meditations apart from what we have gone through, but you have enough different ways to meditate for now.

Now, going back to the three levels of phenomena…. There are things that you directly see with your senses, and there are things you discover only through logical reasoning, that your valid mind has to discover through reasoning. For example, it is through logical reasoning that you discover that causative phenomena are impermanent in nature and empty in nature. His Holiness uses the example of smoke coming from a house. By seeing the smoke, you infer that there’s a fire inside the house.

With the third level of phenomena, you have to rely on somebody else’s explanation. As I mentioned before, since you don’t have omniscience to directly see these phenomena by yourself and you don’t have even the five types of clairvoyance, the only way for you to learn about them is the way you normally learn about history and geology, about things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago: somebody who knows about those things explains them to you, then by believing what they say, you discover those things. You have to rely on somebody who knows those things and can explain them to you. Here, for this third category of phenomena where you have to rely on somebody who knows and can explain them to you in order for you to discover them, His Holiness used the example of discovering the age of the person who is in the house that is on fire. This is much more difficult, much more subtle. Somebody has to explain to you how old that person is. Because you have neither omniscience nor clairvoyance so see for yourself, you have to ask other people how old the person is. To discover that, somebody who knows that person’s age has to tell you; when you believe what they say to you, you then discover how old the person is.

This is how it is with this third level of phenomena, such as the subject of karma. For example, Buddha explained that by having made charity in the past life, you have wealth in this life. Of course, having wealth in this life doesn’t necessarily come only from causes created in past lives; you can create the cause in this life. If you practiced a lot of charity and generosity in your early life, you can become wealthy in the latter part of your life. That is normal. However, you practiced charity in the past, where past can refer to this life or past lives. Since you don’t have even the clairvoyance to see this, the only way you can understand it is if somebody who can see that perfectly explains it to you; by having faith in that explanation, you’re able to discover it. It’s the same with receiving the body of a happy migratory being. You have received a human body in this life because in past lives you practiced morality, pure morality. If it weren’t pure morality, you wouldn’t achieve higher rebirth; you wouldn’t achieve the body of a happy transmigratory being, a deva or human body, or rebirth in a pure land. So, Buddha, the Omniscient One, directly sees and explains that.

Now, listen well here. With so much in your life, it’s not that you can understand things directly. Your parents or your teachers in school have explained many things to you, and it is by believing in what they have taught you, that you understand so many things. It doesn’t only apply to what I’m talking about here, karma. I mean, we live our life believing so many things explained to us by others, including the alphabet.

So, you should meditate in detail on this. I’m just mentioning the topic of the way we are living our life. Of course, it doesn’t mean you have to accept what I say. You have to analyze; you have to use your wisdom.

Now, I’m lost again…. Now, I’ve remembered. I was going to explain about when you clap your hands. You’re supposed to visualize yourself as a deity; you then clap your hands and think that all the outer and inner (sometimes, it’s outer, inner and secret) obstacles are pacified. It’s similar to Special request for the three great purposes at the end of the mandala offering: “Please pacify all outer and inner obstacles.”

The inner obstacles are all the delusions, all the negative emotional thoughts, and karma. There are positive and negative emotional thoughts. Devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha also involves emotion, but it’s a positive emotion that brings you to all the realizations and to enlightenment, and you are then able to liberate and enlighten all sentient beings.

The outer obstacles come from being somehow under the control of others, whether human beings or non-human beings, such as spirits. You’re unable to practice Dharma because you are under the control of spirits, such as king, or other human beings. Outer obstacles come from inner obstacles, from delusions and karma.

Anyway, when you clap your hands, you think that these outside beings with negative thoughts are completely destroyed, become nonexistent. If you have received a great initiation, you visualize yourself as that deity. That’s the perfect way to do it.

You can expand the meditation by thinking of not only your obstacles but the obstacles to the center, the organization or the country. The Heart Sutra is very powerful, and it’s then very good to do the prayer Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances, which expresses the power of the blessings of the Prajnaparamita. It’s very good in centers and study groups for students to recite the Heart Sutra and then Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances, with the clapping of the hands. The prayer describes how, when King Indra had a problem, he was helped by relying on the Prajnaparamita.

When you recite Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances, it’s very good to think that it includes the dispelling of all your own obstacles and those of the center. Think that all the obstacles to all wishes being fulfilled are pacified, including being able to receive, learn and spread the complete teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa, which unifies sutra and tantra and is like refined gold, in the hearts of sentient beings. All the obstacles to the center becoming wish-fulfilling, able to benefit all sentient beings, are pacified. Make strong prayers that your obstacles and those to the study group or center are pacified and, of course, you can extend it further. It’s very, very important to do this every day. It has incredible power. It’s excellent to do Extensive Dispelling of Hindrances and Prayer to the Lion-Face Dakini for all success.

Now, I think it may be good to talk a little on what I’ve been wanting to talk about for a long time but so far didn’t happen. I’ve talked about how all the phenomena that appear to you, that you see—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects—come from your present mind. The conclusion is that they are created by your present mind. Next I want to talk about the longer process by which all these things come from your mind, with your mind having created them a long time ago.

In the Dharmapada, Shakyamuni Buddha says, “The existence of phenomena is created by the mind.”

It is referring to your mind. It is referring to how all the six sense objects appear to you, to how you see them. They are all created by your mind.

“Mind is the principal and the preliminary. If a bad thought arises and you speak, suffering follows like a cart after the ox.”

It is saying that all phenomena are created by the mind and that the mind is the principal and the preliminary, which means what comes first, before the act. If you give rise to a bad thought, a bad motivation, such as self-cherishing, anger or attachment, suffering follows like a cart follows the ox. When a bad thought arises and you speak from that bad motivation, the words you speak will be ones that hurt. When what happens, the result will be suffering. What comes after that is suffering. Here Buddha used the example of oxen, which you don’t see here in the West but you still see in more primitive places like India, Nepal and Africa. In the West you don’t see oxen pulling huge, heavy carts loaded with luggage and people. You see this more in undeveloped countries. India is developing but there are still many poor people.

So, just as after the oxen comes the heavy cart, what follows bad thoughts are actions that result in suffering. It can be a physical action, but here Buddha used the example of a verbal action. When, out of anger, you say harmful words that hurt others, what comes after that, of course, is suffering, just as after the oxen comes the heavy cart. And the ox cannot say anything. It cannot say, “I’m tired” or “I’m sick.” It has to pull and pull the cart until it can’t stand up any longer. It can’t express anything, no matter how much it suffers.

In the Dharmapada, Buddha then explains, “All phenomena, happiness and suffering, come from the mind.” The Tibetan word chö can have different meanings, depending on the context. Chö, or dharma, can mean phenomena, or existence, but it can also mean Dharma practice. “The mind is the principal and the preliminary. If you generate a good heart and speak, happiness follows, like a shadow follows the body.”

A shadow is inseparable from the body. Wherever the body is, the shadow is always there. Like that, happiness is inseparable from a motivation of good heart. Happiness is always the effect after an action done with a good heart.

So, I’m giving you just the general idea. With present phenomena, as I mentioned some days ago, you think something is negative, put a negative label on it, then see it as negative. Seeing that negative thing then upsets you; it makes you worried or angry. So, here, the circle came from your mind. Your mind is the source of the problem; your mind looking at your life in a negative way is the problem. Seeing things as negative and feeling suffering, feeling upset, angry or depressed, came from your mind. It is all created by your mind.

Now, when you apply a positive label to a problem by thinking of the benefits of the problem, it becomes positive. I already gave you a few examples of this some days ago. When you put a positive label on a situation, it then appears positive; you see it as positive, and your life then becomes happy. In this way there are no obstacles to your happiness; nothing causes you unhappiness or depression. I’m talking about the practice of thought transformation. With this practice, everything appears positive, and you then see everything as positive, so nothing makes you unhappy or depressed or unable to practice Dharma. With the practice of thought transformation, if you have success or happiness, it doesn’t become an obstacle to your Dharma practice; and even if you have problems, it doesn’t become an obstacle to your practice of Dharma. So, your mind continuously practices Dharma. Even if an obstacle arises, you see it as positive.

Whatever happens, happiness or suffering, with this practice, you see everything as positive. By thinking of the benefits of problems, you have no obstacles. Whatever happens you have no obstacles. There are no obstacles to your Dharma practice, to your attaining the path to enlightenment. You use even sickness to achieve enlightenment. Even cancer becomes a cause of happiness, a cause to achieve the happiness of all sentient beings. Everything becomes positive and unbelievably meaningful, because of the skies of benefit that you get.

Also, from your mind, from your non-ignorance, non-anger and non-attachment, you achieve the happiness of future lives. With the positive mind, with the Dharma mind, you then achieve all the happiness of future lives, such as a good rebirth, being reborn in a pure land or with a human body that has the eight ripening aspect qualities, the seven qualities or the four Mahayana Dharma wheels, with which you can achieve so many realizations and complete the path, including the tantric path, and then be born in a pure land. Also, with the mind of renunciation, you can achieve the everlasting happiness of liberation. Then, with the mind of bodhicitta, which is even more advanced, you can achieve enlightenment, with the infinite qualities of a buddha’s holy body, holy speech and holy mind, and then be able to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

There are five paths to achieve liberations and five paths and ten bhumis to achieve enlightenment, as well as the tantric path, and within each of them there are so many realizations. And you achieve all of them from this positive thought. With the positive minds of non-ignorance, non-anger and non-attachment, and especially with bodhicitta, non-self-cherishing thought, you can liberate the numberless beings in each realm from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and its causes and bring them to enlightenment, which has infinite qualities. It’s amazing! Really amazing!

Now, you can see how phenomena are created by your mind, how your happiness and suffering are created by your mind. All the past, present and future come from your mind, are created by your mind, by all your positive and negative thoughts. Everything comes from the mind.

I thought to mention something about karma as there hasn’t been much said about it so far. As I have already mentioned, it is essential to understand it as the Buddha explained. Otherwise, we can think for a long time that we are practicing Dharma, but if we examine whether or not what we have done has really become Dharma, sometimes we don’t find anything that has become Dharma. Even though for many years you’ve been believing, “I am practicing Dharma,” when you actually check, you can’t find anything that has become Dharma.

I will tell you my story of this. When I was in Solu Khumbu, in the early morning when the light came, I would memorize Nyingmapa texts and Padmasambhava prayers. I would read texts all day, apart from when I went out to pee, when I would spend a little bit of time just hanging round. I would stop reading late in the afternoon, just before sunset. All day long I would read texts with my teacher, who was also my uncle. He was extremely kind. I did that for many years. Sometimes we would also go to other people’s houses with many people and do pujas, with Vajrayana prayers and meditations and very extensive offerings.

After doing that for many years, we then went to Tibet, and for three years I lived at Phagri. Every day of the year, apart from the first day of the year, we did pujas. There was only one day when there was no puja. Every day at eight o’clock in the morning we would go to people’s houses to do pujas, returning to the monastery around four or five o’clock. We did protector prayers and the sadhanas of deities such as Yamantaka. It’s all meditation but, of course, I had no idea of the meditations. I just recited the words. The pujas were for success in business or the good health and well-being of the families. It was all arranged so that we went to this house on this day, that house the next day, that house the day after that.

When mainland China took over Tibet, I escaped through Bhutan to India. I was in the main city of Bhutan for seven days, then went to Buxa in India. I didn’t really study there, just spent most of my time playing and painting. Frieda Bedi, an English nun, found some penfriends in schools and an old lady from London, who was a member of the Buddhist Society, so I made a lot of paintings at Christmas time to send to them. I did some paintings and spent a lot of time writing, but that was it. Buxa was the best place to study, but while I did do some study, I spent most of the time going for walks and things like that. Many of the other monks worked unbelievably hard, studying day and night, even though the conditions were terrible. Because of the heat and many sicknesses, many monks died. TB was the main problem—I never heard about cancer. Many monks studied the five major sutra texts and their commentaries, as well as texts by Lama Tsongkhapa and other Tibetan lamas. Many completely dedicated their life to Dharma study, besides living in their thirty-six or 253 vows.

Before I had teachings there from Geshe Rabten Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe, I had another teacher, another Lama Yeshe, or Gen Yeshe, who taught me some meditations on Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and bodhicitta. That was the first time I heard about the seven techniques of Mahayana cause and effect. I wrote down what Gen Yeshe said, but just in my own writing as I hadn’t yet learnt how to write. And two times I went to the Young Lamas’ School, once in Delhi and another time in Dalhousie. In those years at Buxa, you went to puja, debate and classes or individual teachings from the geshes.

After that I was supposed to go to Sri Lanka with Lama Yeshe to open a Mahayana Dharma center there, but that didn’t happen because of the relationship between India and Russia at that time. Lama Yeshe then thought that we should go back to Nepal. The year that we went was a special year for pilgrimage in Nepal; there is more benefit in making pilgrimage in the year of the bird, which happens every twelve years. Pilgrims do circumambulations of Swayambhunath, where inside the mountain there is a crystal stupa that is the embodiment of the dharmakaya, all the buddhas’ holy mind, and that is not made by man. It appeared when Kathmandu valley was filled with a lake; it was covered by the lake. It’s an unbelievably precious object—the most precious thing in Nepal. When Buddha came to Nepal, on the high mountain called [Lang ru lung den] behind Swayambhu, Buddha made a prediction about this crystal stupa, the embodiment of the dharmakaya.

At three o’clock in the morning, many people get up and go round the stupa. Many of the lay people do business during the daytime, but before work, they go round the mountain. And on special days, some people go there to offer water and other drinks to the people who are circumambulating. They’re very generous.

Doing sixteen circumambulations of the Swayambhunath mountain in the bird year is regarded as bringing unbelievable purification. It’s the same with a certain number of circumambulations of Boudha Stupa, but I’ve now forgotten the number. The building of Boudha Stupa helped Tibetan Buddhism to be spread and preserved in Tibet for so many years, enabling so many people to become enlightened. From Tibet it has now spread all over the world, with every year tens of thousands of people in the West being able to follow the path to enlightenment, making their lives meaningful and finding peace in their hearts. So, this includes us. And all this came from the Boudha Stupa having been built in Nepal.

An old woman who looked after chickens and had four sons wanted to build a stupa. She asked the king for permission, and somehow, due to her good karma, the king agreed. Normally the king wouldn’t have given his permission, but it just slipped out, and once he’d given it he couldn’t change it. When the old woman sent her petition, the king answered, “Cha rung.” So, the name of the holy place where the stupa is is [Cha rung kha sho]; cha rung means “it can be done” and kha sho means “slipped from the king’s mouth.” So, it seems the rule was that you couldn’t change anything the king said; you had to do it. I heard from my brother that if the king said that some servants were to be killed, if they weren’t there, you had to kill at least some chickens or other animals.

The old woman built the stupa up to the vase, then she passed away. Her four sons completed the rest of the stupa, the thirteen golden wheels, the umbrella on top and so forth. When the stupa was completed, they all stood up together and made prayers. When they made the prayers, all the buddhas absorbed into the stupa. This is why Boudha Stupa is called the All-Encompassing Wish-Fulfilling Stupa. The wishes of anybody who prays to this stupa get fulfilled, especially when they see the stupa for the very first time. It’s extremely important when you first go to Nepal that when you see this stupa from the airplane or wherever else, you make the best prayers you can, because it has so much power to actualize those prayers. This is well known. And even praying to it normally is very, very powerful.

So, after the brothers finished building the stupa, they dedicated the merits. The eldest brother made a prayer, “May I become a Dharma king in Tibet and spread Dharma.” The next brother heard what he said and prayed, “May I become the minister during that time to help my brother to spread Dharma.” The next brother heard that and prayed, “And may I become the abbot to spread the lineage of the ordination vows, the vinaya.” The fourth brother heard that and prayed, “When there are obstacles, may I be a powerful yogi to pacify those obstacles.” There are more stories, but this is exactly what happened. The eldest brother was born in Tibet and became the Dharma king, Trisong Deutsen, and then spread the Dharma. The next brother became his minister; the next one became the abbot, Shantarakshita; and the fourth brother became the great yogi, Padmasambhava.

When the first monastery was being built in Samye, in the daytime the people would build and in the nighttime spirits would tear it down. That happened many times. The people then asked the king to invite Padmasambhava, the powerful Indian yogi. The king sent an invitation to Padmasambhava, who then came to Tibet. Padmasambhava then manifested as a powerful deity and hooked all the spirits. I think there might have been fifteen spirits, and three ran away, in accordance with the karma of sentient beings. He then subdued the minds of the thirteen spirits there, and made them pledge to become protectors of the Buddhadharma and Dharma practitioners in Tibet. The [Tenma chu nyi], twelve female protectors, are situated around the Himalayan mountains, and that’s why no other religion came to Tibet. There were a small number of Tibetan Muslims for a long time, but there was no problem at all with them. Because of these protectors, no other religions came to Tibet for many hundreds of years, so Buddhism was able to be kept very pure. Everybody in the government and general population were Buddhist. So many people learnt and practiced in monasteries or went to caves to meditate and actualize the path, to liberate themselves from the sufferings of samsara and all the delusions and achieve enlightenment.

No development was brought from the outside world to Tibet. There were Dharma connections to China and India, with the great pandits bringing Dharma to Tibet; but, generally, the Tibetans kept to themselves. That is why Buddhism was able to be preserved so well, in such a deep and vast way. So many bodhisattvas and enlightened beings happened in Tibet; so many Tibetans completed the path. It was unbelievable.

And now, so many people in different parts of the world, including us, have been able to meet Dharma and are fortunate to be able to follow the path and bring peace and happiness within themselves and within others. So, basically, all this comes from Boudha Stupa, from the old woman who built it and the four brothers who made prayers to spread Dharma in Tibet.

So, circumambulating Boudha Stupa in that special year is very powerful. Even normally it’s powerful in purifying negative karma and collecting extensive merit and bringing the success of prayers, but especially in those special years.

I’m not sure what brought me to the subject of Nepal. Why am I talking about Nepal? [Some students explain.] Oh, now I understand. Sorry, I went off into a side-talk….

So, I went to Lawudo, the place of the Lawudo Lama, who is supposed to be my past life, or this is what some lamas say. The Lawudo Lama’s son returned to me the cave, all the ritual objects and all the many scriptures that had belonged to the past life. As I was building a monastery at Lawudo, I went there for many years. One time, when I stayed there the whole summer to build the monastery, I came across a thought transformation text that was a collection of Kadampa geshes’ advice, Opening the Door of Dharma: The Very Beginning of Thought Transformation. So, I read that text there while I was building the monastery.

When I read the text, I found that it was talking about what is and is not Dharma, or what is holy Dharma and what is worldly dharma. When I checked back through my life, all the way back to being a child in Solu Khumbu, in the light of the Kadampa geshes’ advice, I could not find anything that became Dharma. I did all these things I mentioned, but it was a totally empty life.

If your mind becomes Dharma, whatever you’re doing becomes Dharma. Otherwise, if your mind doesn’t become Dharma, all your activities might appear to be Dharma, but they don’t become Dharma. This is very clear.

First I will mention this point, which is good to keep in mind. Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explains that there are four people reciting Praises to the Twenty-one Taras. The first person recites the praises with the motivation to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. That person’s action of reciting becomes Dharma, and, of course, it becomes the cause to achieve enlightenment, the highest success, which means it also becomes the cause of the happiness of all sentient beings.

The second person recites the Tara praises with the motivation to achieve liberation from samsara, from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, for him- or herself. That person’s action of reciting does not become the cause to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, but only the cause to achieve liberation, ultimate happiness for the self.

The third person recites the praises with the motivation to achieve just the happiness of future lives for his- or herself. That person’s action does not become the cause to achieve enlightenment nor the cause to achieve liberation from samsara, but only the cause to achieve the happiness of future lives. But, of course, it becomes Dharma. That’s the last Dharma.

Now, the fourth person recites Praises to the Twenty-one Taras with the motivation seeking the happiness, the pleasure, of only this life, seeking good health, a long life, success in business and so forth. They are seeking these things out of attachment. It’s not that they want to be healthy or have a long life in order to practice Dharma, in order to benefit other sentient beings or achieve liberation or achieve the happiness of future lives. Of course, you can wish for good health or a long life so that you can benefit others. Benefiting others is very positive; that’s the best motivation. But for this person it’s nothing like that, and they’re not even reciting the praises to achieve the ultimate happiness of liberation or the happiness of future lives. They’re doing it just for this life’s happiness. So, that is attachment; that is pure nonvirtue. Therefore, that person’s action is not a spiritual action, even though it might look spiritual. Of course, since they’re reciting Praises to the Twenty-one Taras, they appear to be a religious person, but that person’s action of reciting doesn’t actually become Dharma. That action is a nonvirtue because their motivation is nonvirtuous, only attachment to this life. The result of that is not happiness. Even though the subject is Dharma, their action did not become Dharma. The subject being Dharma doesn’t mean your action becomes Dharma.

There are other examples. You can recite deities’ mantras, but with the bad motivation to harm somebody. You can do it out of anger or selfishness, with the wish to harm, like people doing black magic. You can use mantras to achieve enlightenment, to overcome problems in practicing Dharma and to benefit others, but here with anger, self-cherishing or another negative thought, you use them to harm others. So, that action of reciting mantras becomes only negative karma, and its result is only suffering, even rebirth in a hell realm. Such things have happened many times.

There were two monks who did many years of retreat on Yamantaka, the Highest Yoga Tantra deity who is an embodiment of Manjushri, who is the embodiment of all the buddhas’ wisdom. One of the monks then passed away. One day the other monk, who was still doing retreat, was offering sur, a practice in which you burn tsampa mixed with butter and special substances and make offering of the smell to guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and make charity of the smell to the sentient beings of the six realms, especially to beings in the intermediate state, for whom it is food. The beings in the intermediate state have died but not yet found rebirth. The smell is a special food for them. Through a special mantra and meditation, they then receive oceans (or cities or countries) of unbelievable enjoyments from this. And, of course, it also purifies them and gives them a higher rebirth. Doing sur practice has great benefit, especially for intermediate state beings. It’s also common when somebody has died, for a family member, or somebody else, to do sur, in case that person is in the intermediate state.

Anyway, when he was doing the sur practice, this monk saw a spirit with many arms and heads, like Yamantaka. He then asked, “Who are you?” The spirit replied, “Well, I was the friend who was doing retreat with you before.” So, even though he had been practicing tantra, he had been born as a spirit and had come to receive the sur. Since he didn’t know how to practice tantra, he had been born as a spirit. He didn’t practice tantra with the lam-rim. He didn’t practice tantra with renunciation; he didn’t practice with bodhicitta; and he didn’t practice with right view. That’s the whole point. Even though he chanted mantras and maybe did meditation, he had left out the lam-rim; he had left out renunciation, bodhicitta and right view, which clean the mind. So, it means that his tantric practice did not become Dharma. It didn’t become even renunciation. Since there was no renunciation of future lives and no renunciation of this life, his practice did not become Dharma. Instead, it became negative karma, and he was then born as a spirit. So, it’s not enough that the subject is Dharma.

At the beginning of the lam-rim, it talks so much about how to practice Dharma, how to meditate. The very first, most important thing is to know what makes your life meaningful and what wastes your life. It totally depends on your motivation. If there’s no Dharma motivation for your retreat (or whatever you are doing), your retreat doesn’t become Dharma. If there’s no motivation of renunciation, your retreat doesn’t become the cause to achieve liberation from samsara for yourself . Without right view, your Dharma practice doesn’t become an antidote to samsara. It can’t liberate you from samsara because it doesn’t become an antidote to the cause of samsara, ignorance; it can’t eliminate the ignorance that is the root of samsara. Without bodhicitta, the Dharma practice you’re doing doesn’t become the cause of enlightenment. But if you live your life with Dharma, with renunciation, bodhicitta and right view, even your many hours of working and sleeping become Dharma. If you do those many hours of working or sleeping with renunciation, they become the cause for you to achieve liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause. If you do those many hours of working or sleeping with right view, they become the antidote to samsara and to the cause of samsara. And if you do them with bodhicitta, those many hours of working or sleeping become the cause of enlightenment. In this way, not only doing prayers or sitting in meditation, but even doing your job, sleeping and all your other ordinary activities become causes to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings.

[Rinpoche and the group recite the short mandala offering.]

“Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me and the merits of the three times collected by others, may bodhicitta, the source of all happiness and success, including enlightenment, for myself and the source of all the happiness and success for all sentient beings, be actualized within my heart, in the hearts of all my family members and everyone connected to me, including my enemies, and in the hearts of all sentient beings. And may those in whose heart bodhicitta has been generated have it increase. And, especially, may bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of all the world leaders and of all the people of different religions in the world, which will fill this world with perfect peace and happiness. And may war, famine, disease, torture, poverty, sicknesses and dangers from fire, water, air and earth be stopped, and may nobody ever experience any of these again.

“Jang chhub sem chhog rin po chhe….

“Due to all the merits of the three times collected by me and collected by others, which exist but which are totally empty from their own side, may the I, who exists but who is totally empty from its own side, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which is totally empty from its own side, and lead all the sentient beings, who exist but who are totally empty from their own side, to that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which is totally empty from its own side, by myself alone, who exists but who is totally empty from its own side.”

So, please enjoy food….