This afternoon I was talking about what messages I put on the car, but I didn’t finish what I wanted to say. I mentioned “Cherishing others is the source of all the happiness for yourself and for other sentient beings,” but then I got carried away….

So, we have to analyze and understand the purpose of our gathering here in this place at this time. It’s for happiness. It’s to get rid of suffering and achieve happiness. That’s what we like and what we wish for. But the next question is, How are we are going to achieve that?

The reason we have gathered at this time here in Mexico in this retreat place is not just to achieve short-term happiness, short-term pleasure. It’s not to temporarily prevent some problem such as sickness. You have to understand that our purpose in gathering here involves a greater happiness than what you have been looking for so far. The happiness you are looking for is not just the happiness of this life, which is very short-term happiness. You are not looking for the peace and happiness of just today or of just this life, which could mean a few years or a few months—we can’t really tell. We can’t tell how many hours, minutes or seconds this might be. And whatever length of life we have left, it is constantly running out. Our life is constantly getting shorter. As we watch the time, the seconds of our life are constantly finishing. No matter what length of life we have left, no matter how many years, months, weeks, days, minutes or seconds we have left, it’s constantly finishing; it’s constantly running out, becoming shorter and shorter.

Now, the purpose of our gathering here tonight is not just to achieve very short-term happiness and temporarily prevent some problems.

A better purpose than that is to work for the happiness of all your coming future lives, to not have problems in all your coming future lives. Future lives doesn’t mean one future life but the numberless future lives until you are liberated from samsara, from cyclic existence; until you stop the continuity of these aggregates. Aggregates may be a new term to the people who haven’t heard Dharma before. The aggregates are the association of body and mind that we have, which receives the label “I” or “self.” (This is not the eye for which we use spectacles, but the self.)

These aggregates are contaminated by the seed of delusions, or superstitious thoughts, such as ignorance, anger and attachment. Why are these thoughts superstitious? Because the way they apprehend objects and believe them to exist is false. The views that these superstitious thoughts project do not exist at all. Anger has its own projection, or view; attachment has its own projection, or view. Every delusion projects its own view and then totally believes in that view. Anger projects its view of an object, then wishes to harm that object. Attachment projects its view of an object, then clings to that object. However, as I mentioned this afternoon, what the delusions project is not there. It doesn’t exist; it’s false. Therefore, all these delusions are superstitious thoughts, or wrong concepts.

Why am I talking about this? I’ve forgotten….

[Students remind Rinpoche that he was talking about the messages on the car.]

That’s right, the car. Again I left the car….

So, I was talking about samsara and seeking the happiness of all the future lives, which includes good rebirth in the body of a happy transmigratory being. I was saying that there are not just one, two or three future lives, but numberless future lives, until we cut the continuity of the aggregates, which are contaminated by the seed of delusions. These aggregates are caused by delusion and karma, or action motivated by delusion. The root delusion is the ignorance not knowing the ultimate nature of the self and the aggregates; not knowing the meaning of selflessness of the person and selflessness of the aggregates.

Even though twenty-four hours a day from birth until now and from beginningless rebirths, we have constantly been talking about I, I, I—“I want this,” “I don’t want this,” “I’m going to do this”—many of us have no idea at all what the I really is.

There are many human beings in the world, many of them educated people, who are so busy, day and night, always worrying about this I. Even when they’re sleeping, in their dreams they’re still busy worrying about this I. They worry that this I is going to suffer, this I is going to lose its job or its business, this I is going to get sick, this I is going to die. They worry about so many things, billions of things, that might happen to this I. All this worry and fear keeps their life unbelievably busy, day and night. Even before you get any sickness, you have so much worry and fear that you may get sick, that you may get cancer. There are then so many sicknesses, and you have to have many checkups in many different hospitals and have many operations. Life becomes terribly expensive, because of the I.

But you don’t know what the I is; you have no idea what the I is. If someone asks you, “What is the I? What is the self?,” you have no idea how to answer. If you look for the I, you can’t find it. If you look inside your body, you can’t find it anywhere. You spend your whole life worrying about it. The selfish mind cherishes this real I, then attachment arises, and if it doesn’t work out then anger arises. If you are someone with power and influence, you can cause a war in which hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in this world are killed. You’re doing all this for this I, but if somebody asks you, “What is that I that you’re killing so many people for?,” your answer is, “I don’t know.”

You work all your life for somebody you don’t know. That’s it. You cheat and kill people for the happiness of this I, when you have no idea at all what the I is. First you don’t know what the I is and second you don’t know where it is. So, it’s very interesting.

You try to learn many things to get happiness for this I, including yoga and many exercises for the body. I’ve seen on TV that there seems to be a new exercise every year or every few months. Somebody is saying to do this with your legs and somebody else is saying to do something else. So, it’s all for the happiness of the I. But you don’t know where the I is. You have no doubt that it’s here in your body. But if you check inside, you can’t find it; it’s not there.

As I mentioned the other day, you should go into the streets and watch everybody, young and old, as they’re walking in the road or driving by in a car. Of course, there are buddhas and bodhisattvas among those people, as I mentioned before, and you can’t really tell who is or is not a buddha or bodhisattva. But, of course, not everybody is a buddha or bodhisattva. I don’t think it’s the same here in Mexico, but in cities like New York, you see so many worried people. Their faces are very tense and unhappy. They’re worried about something not happening in their life for the I. They’re not worried about somebody else’s I, just their own I. They are worried about the I that they believe is inside their body; but if they look for it they can’t find it. This is why they’re not smiling, why their face is very tense, very worried.

And some of them may be excited because they have found a friend or got something else they wanted for this I, which is not there.

So, if you check the nature of life, it’s very interesting. The people in the shops think that there’s a real I there. If you watch them, you see the worry and fear about not having enough customers and not selling enough things. You also see worry and fear if you go into a restaurant or an office. People are living their lives, doing all their activities, with worry and fear. If somebody does something a little wrong to you, to your house or to your car, you immediately sue them; you take the person to court and want them to go to prison. In one way you make your life more and more expensive because you believe there’s an I in your body.

Anyway, to conclude…. There will be future lives all the time and you will die and be reborn, die and be reborn, until you are able to stop the continuity from life to life of the aggregates, which are contaminated by the seed of delusion, the negative imprint, and are created, or produced, by karma and delusion. This body and this mind experience suffering because they are under the control of karma and delusions, or impure minds.

Why do your body and mind experience suffering? That’s the answer. If your body and mind were not caused by karma and delusion and not contaminated by the seed of delusion, they wouldn’t need to experience suffering. You wouldn’t have to suffer. You would have only happiness and no suffering. But because your body and mind are caused by karma and delusion and are contaminated by the seed of delusion, they are pervaded by suffering, they experience suffering. These aggregates are the basis not only of so many problems in this life, but of future-life sufferings. As I mentioned this afternoon, the imprint, the seed of delusion, on the mental continuum compounds this life’s problems and future rebirths and future problems.

So, this is what samsara is, and what we should achieve is total liberation from this. To cease this continuity from life to life, you need to cease the cause, karma and delusion, and completely cease the cause of delusion, the negative imprint. There is then no cause to give rise to delusion at all. Since it is then impossible for delusions to arise, no negative karma is created. There is then no suffering forever. There is no suffering of rebirth, no suffering of old age, no suffering of any of the 424 sicknesses, no suffering of death. There is no suffering of being unable to find desirable objects, such as a friend, a job or money; there is no suffering of not finding satisfaction once you have found a desirable object. Even when you have found a desirable object, another suffering starts; you experience another suffering. The fundamental suffering is that you can’t get satisfaction. As I mentioned this afternoon or yesterday, it’s the same as what the Rolling Stones say, “I tried and I tried, but I can’t get no satisfaction.”

You’re totally free from all the oceans of sufferings of human beings and of the worldly gods, the asuras and suras, as well as from the oceans of sufferings of the hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals. You’re free forever from the unbelievable suffering of the intermediate state beings. After death and before taking another birth, there’s the intermediate state, except if you are to be reborn in the formless realm. In that case you’re immediately reborn in the formless realm without needing to go through the intermediate state.

Now, this is ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness. Achieving the happiness of all your future lives, which is an incredible length of time, is much more important than working your whole life to achieve just the very short-term happiness of this life. But, of course, the happiness of future lives is still temporary happiness, the nature of which is only suffering. On a suffering feeling you put the label “happiness,” which is why, no matter how hard you work for it, it doesn’t continue and it doesn’t increase. It’s very important to understand that the reason for this is that you have labeled happiness on a feeling that is only suffering. But you can increase and complete Dharma happiness; it’s one-time work.

Since all this happiness of future lives is ordinary pleasure, it’s nothing special, nothing new. We’ve had such ordinary pleasure numberless times during beginningless rebirths.

Therefore, we should look for ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness: the total cessation of all suffering and its cause, karma and delusion. Once we achieve this, it’s impossible for us to experience suffering again. There’s no cause of suffering.

But if that is just for yourself, one living being, it’s really nothing special. It’s working for your own happiness; even though it’s ultimate happiness, it’s just for yourself.

Your present human body is so precious, because with this body you can learn Dharma, you can understand the words and meanings and do meditation practice. What this human body can do is unbelievable.

Maybe I will just mention this here….. You can realize how fortunate you are by looking at even the animals that human beings keep: horses, pigs, chickens…. What else? Dogs, cats, turtles, cows, sheep and goats. If you explain to these animals, “The real cause of happiness is virtue,” continuously, day and night, for billions, trillions or zillions of eons, they won’t understand. Even if they lived for a billion, trillion, zillion eons, there’s no way they could understand. It’s so sad. If you explained that virtue is an action motivated by non-ignorance, non-anger or non-attachment that results in happiness, even if you explained this definition of virtue continuously, day and night, for a million, billion, trillion, zillion eons, there is no way those animals could understand. So, how would it be possible for them to practice Dharma, or meditation? How could they create virtue and abandon the cause of suffering? There’s no way they could do that. It’s impossible.

Now, with us human beings, if somebody explains to us that if we want happiness, we have to create the cause of happiness, which is virtue, and that virtue is an action motivated by non-ignorance, non-anger or non-attachment that brings the result of happiness, we will have understood it within a few seconds. So, there is this huge difference between us, who have a human body at this time, and all these animals, even those that live with human beings. You can now see how your human body is unbelievably precious. You have to analyze in this way and discover how this body is unbelievably precious.

We have to understand how easy it is for us to learn Dharma, to learn about the path that removes the cause of samsara, delusion and karma, and all suffering. It is so easy for us to learn the Dharma teachings that explain all about suffering, the cause of suffering, cessation of suffering and the path. It is unbelievably easy for us to learn about how to achieve this total cessation, the everlasting happiness of liberation. You also have to understand that, because of that, it’s so easy for us to practice that path and have attainment. Basically, it means it’s so easy for us to achieve liberation and enlightenment, and then be able to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering of the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms, from the general sufferings of samsara and the particular sufferings of each of those realms, as well as to liberate the numberless human beings, asuras and suras. Not only that, but you can then bring all sentient beings to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment, with cessation of all the faults of the mind, the gross and subtle defilements, and completion of all the qualities of realization.

It means that by having achieved a human body at this time, you can do all this. You can bring limitless skies of benefit to all sentient beings. It’s amazing!

Now, these animals, these sentient beings, have no opportunity to do this. Therefore, at this time you are incredibly fortunate. They have no way to learn and are constantly creating only negative karma by following attachment, anger and all the other negative minds. That means they are continually creating causes to be reborn in the lower realms. You can see how their future lives are going to turn out on the basis of the karma they have created in this life with ignorance, anger and attachment. They live their lives with attachment all the time.

Therefore, you must not cheat yourself this time. You must be wise. You must open your heart and learn the Buddhadharma. Like a scientist, you must analyze the Dharma. Here, a meditator is an inner scientist, a scientist of mind. Through analysis, you can learn and understand; you can prove it to yourself and then practice. So, what you can do, all the things I mentioned before, is unbelievable. So, it’s essential to take the opportunity. Don’t miss this opportunity.

Tonight I’m going to do some oral transmissions that I promised to do, and maybe not the preparation. I will do the initiation tomorrow. You can do it in one day, except for checking the dreams. You normally put kusha grass under your mattress and pillow then check your dreams to see whether you have the karma to attend the initiation, to achieve Medicine Buddha and so forth.

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

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

So, now, what I’m telling you here is what to do if you want to make your life most productive, most beneficial, for sentient beings, which is what is most beneficial for you. When your life becomes most beneficial for sentient beings, by the way it makes your life become beneficial for you. I’m just giving you the idea of what to think, what to learn and what to look for in your life to awaken your mind. Otherwise, there are billions of choices. If you spend your time thinking, “Maybe this might be better for me. Maybe that might be better for me,” one day death will suddenly come, and nothing will have happened. Your life will be gone. The precious human body you had will be gone, and will have lost this unbelievable opportunity. Even if you lost a billion dollars, a zillion dollars, the whole sky filled with dollars, it would be nothing compared to that loss. Even if you lost gold or diamonds the size of this earth or filling the whole sky, it would still be nothing. I was talking to you before about a wish-granting jewel, which grants you whatever material possessions you pray for. Even if you owned and lost wish-granting jewels filling the whole sky, it would be nothing compared to losing the opportunity to use this precious human body to practice Dharma, to develop your mind in the path to liberation and enlightenment. This is the greatest loss.

Not only is it a great loss if you didn’t get to practice Dharma for one day, one hour or one minute, but even for one second. You have a human body with the eight freedoms and ten richnesses; you have met (or can meet) and can learn the Buddhadharma; and you have met a guru who can reveal the unmistaken path to the happiness of future lives, liberation and enlightenment. So, in each second, with this body, you can create the cause of the happiness of future lives. By relying on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and by abandoning the ten nonvirtues and practicing the ten virtues, you can achieve the happiness of all future lives. By living in morality, by living in vows, in every second you can create cause of the happiness of future lives.

Not only that, but by practicing renunciation and the three higher trainings (the higher training of morality, of concentration and of wisdom), in every second with this precious human body you can achieve liberation from samsara. In every second you can achieve total liberation from all suffering and its causes.

And in every second, by practicing bodhicitta, you can also achieve enlightenment, because you create the cause of enlightenment in every second. When you practice bodhicitta, in each second you create the cause of enlightenment; you are in the process of achieving attainment. That means that, by the way, you achieve liberation from samsara and all the happiness of future lives. Even if you don’t become enlightened in this life, you achieve the happiness of future lives.

So, even each second that you have this human body is unbelievably precious. All this wealth that I mentioned—diamonds the size of this earth—is nothing compared to each second of your precious human body. Even the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels is nothing compared to the value of this human body, compared to what you can do with each second that you have this human body.

So, the most important thing in your life is Dharma practice. That doesn’t mean always sitting in meditation posture or always praying as if you’re in a church or a temple. It means that your mind is in Dharma all the time. Even while you’re eating, sleeping, walking or working, your mind is always in Dharma.

Before I was talking about bodhicitta, but you can also keep your mind in guru devotion, renunciation or right view. The practice of bodhicitta is unbelievable. When you practice bodhicitta, you achieve everything. When you practice bodhicitta, you achieve all happiness, including enlightenment, and you can cause the numberless other sentient beings to have long-term happiness: the happiness of all the future lives and the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and the peerless happiness of enlightenment. Therefore, practice of bodhicitta is the best Dharma. Your goal in this life should be to actualize bodhicitta. It would be fantastic! You collect merit and purify your mind with this in mind. Your project in this life is to actualize bodhicitta.

With bodhicitta, whatever you do with your body, speech and mind is always for others, who are numberless. You help everybody, including your enemy. Everything you do, even breathing in and out, is for other sentient beings. With bodhicitta, everything is dedicated to sentient beings. So, that’s the best, happiest life. There is unbelievable joy now and in the future. It’s like the sun shining in your life. Your future is to enlighten all sentient beings; this is the unbelievable benefit others get from you.

So, now, I will do a quick oral transmission of Praises to the Twenty-one Taras, with also the mantra for each of the Twenty-one Taras. I have received the oral transmission of this many times from my gurus. Here I’m putting together the praise and mantra for each of the Twenty-one Taras, even though I received them separately. In this way you will get the oral transmission of each mantra.

Think, “The purpose of my life is to benefit the numberless sentient beings, freeing them from all their suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. Therefore, I must achieve enlightenment; therefore, I need to actualize the path. Therefore, for success in attaining the path to enlightenment and in offering extensive benefit to sentient beings and the teaching of Buddha, I’m going to take the oral transmission of Praises to the Twenty-one Taras.”

Tara is the embodiment of all the buddhas’ holy actions. She has manifested in this aspect to benefit us, to liberate us from oceans of samsaric suffering and gradually bring us to liberation and to enlightenment.

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

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

[Rinpoche, in giving the oral transmission of Praises to the Twenty-one Taras, recites to the end of the first verse…ge sar je wa lä ni jung ma.]

This is the quick one. This Tara is for controlling.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission, giving the mantra for each Tara after each verse. At the end of the third verse:]

This Tara is for increasing life, fortune, merits, wisdom and realizations. The previous Tara is for pacifying sicknesses, spirit harms, negative karmas and defilements. The first Tara is for controlling. It gives control over sentient beings, so that they listen to you, and you can then free them from suffering and bring them to enlightenment. It also gives control over the material needs for your practice or for helping others.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the fourth verse:]

The next one is a long-life Tara.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the fifth verse:]

The next Tara is for attracting sentient beings, so that you can help them, reveal Dharma to them, thus liberating them from suffering and bringing them to enlightenment.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the sixth verse:]

This is the victorious Tara, victorious over the three realms.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the seventh verse:]

The next Tara, who is slightly wrathful, is for destroying others’ black magic.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the eighth verse:]

This Tara is for destroying the maras.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the ninth verse:]

This Tara is for protecting from harm, from dangers.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the tenth verse:]

The next Tara is for destroying the maras and controlling the world.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the eleventh verse:]

The next Tara is for eliminating poverty. You need a picture or a statue of this Tara when you make a wealth vase. This Tara is for increasing wealth, so that you can help other sentient beings and the Dharma. You need a statue of this Tara or at least a painting to put in the wealth vase. This is the Tara to whom you pray to relieve your poverty. There are two types of poverty: material poverty and poverty of Dharma. If you don’t have Dharma knowledge, no realizations and no intellectual understanding, you have poverty of Dharma, spiritual poverty.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the twelfth verse:]

You practice this Tara for auspiciousness.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the thirteenth verse:]

This Tara is for destroying enemies.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the fourteenth verse:]

This next Tara, who is black and a little wrathful, is for pacifying interferers.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the fifteenth verse:]

This Tara is a peaceful one.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the sixteenth verse:]

This Tara has the power to increase mantras.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the seventeenth verse:]

This Tara shakes the three worlds.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the eighteenth verse:]

This Tara eliminates poison. If you have eaten poison, you practice this Tara to get rid of it.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the nineteenth verse:]

This Tara eliminates bad dreams, nightmares and quarrels. This is the Tara you practice to pacify quarrels and fights.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the twentieth verse:]

The next Tara eliminates contagious diseases.

[Rinpoche continues the oral transmission to the end of the twenty-first verse:]

The last Tara, who is white, is for all the purposes I mentioned before for each different Tara. The last Tara is for everything.

[Rinpoche completes the oral transmission.]

That’s it. We’ll stop there.

“Dag gi ji nye sag päi ge wa di….”

[The students recite the short mandala offering.]

“Due to all the merits of the three times collected by me and the merits of the three times collected by others, may bodhicitta, the source of all success and happiness, up to enlightenment, for me and all the numberless sentient beings, be generated within my heart and in the hearts of all my family members, all the students and benefactors of this organization—so many people in different parts of the world are sacrificing themselves and bearing many hardships for the organization to benefit sentient beings and the teaching of Buddha—in the hearts of all those who rely upon me, for whom I have promised to pray and whose names have been given to me, and in the hearts of all the sentient beings.

“May bodhicitta also be generated in the hearts of all the world leaders.

“Next, and very urgently, may bodhicitta, the ultimate good heart, be generated in the hearts of all the people of every religion, not only Buddhism.

“Jang chhub sem chhog rin po chhe….

“Gang ri ra wäi khor wä zhing kham dir….”

Everybody, please pray very strongly for the fulfillment of all His Holiness’s holy wishes. Everybody uniting to pray together has so much power. Please also pray for total freedom for Tibet, so that the Buddhadharma in Tibet can be preserved for a long time and spread, and so that Buddhadharma can last for a long time in the rest of the world. And pray also for religious freedom in China.

“Tong nyi nying je zung du jug päi lam….”

[The students chant the short long-life prayer for Rinpoche three times.]

“Chhö kyi gyäl po tsong kha päi….

“Dag dang zhän gyi dü sum dang….

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