December 3, 1997
WHAT IS THE DHARMA?
The teachings of the Buddha and the commentaries are very extensive. The texts include the Buddha’s root teachings as well as the commentaries by the yogis, the pandits of India. Then there are the texts by the great Tibetan scholars, the highly realized beings like Lama Tsongkhapa and so forth.
There is so much to learn. Even just to learn about the defilements, what we have to subdue, to purify, to cease, what we have to free our mental continuum from—even that in itself, there is so much to learn about. We have to know what is explained in the philosophical teachings within the Mahayana Paramitayana, the sutra path, what is revealed about what the defilements are and how to eliminate them. There are also the particular subtle defilements that only Mahayana Vajrayana or tantra can eliminate.
As I mentioned the other night, whatever style of life we lead, everything is suffering except for a life practicing the Dharma. If we analyze in this way, we can get some idea at this point.
Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, the great enlightened being, was highly attained. Toward the teachings of the Buddha, he was like a sun rising. He brought extensive benefit, writing so many scriptures and giving so many teachings from his own experience of the whole path to enlightenment.
For example, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explained about four people reciting the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras prayer. The first person recites the prayer with the motivation to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. The second person recites the prayer with the motivation to achieve liberation, only liberation from samsara for themselves. The third person recites the prayer with the motivation to achieve the happiness of future lives, such as a good rebirth and so forth. The fourth person recites the prayer to achieve the happiness of this life.
The action of the first person, the one who recites the prayer to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, becomes the cause to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. That means that person’s action, with that motivation, becomes the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. [The action of the second person becomes the cause of liberation, and the action of the third person becomes the cause of future lives’ happiness.]
The action of the last person, however, is nonvirtue. Motivated by this attitude, because the result is suffering, it receives the label “nonvirtue.” What makes the action motivated by attachment to this life receive the label “nonvirtue”? It is because it only results in suffering.
On the other hand, a positive attitude such as the thought of renunciation, the thought of detachment, is the opposite. The detached or renounced mind transforms the action of reciting the prayer into a positive action that results only in happiness.
ATISHA
As I often mention, Lama Atisha was not only a great scholar, but highly attained. His holy mind was enriched with the realizations of the path to enlightenment. He was highly respected by the many pandits who resided in Vikramashila, the ancient monastery in India.
Because the Dharma had degenerated in Tibet, the Dharma king, Lha Lama Yeshe Ö, invited Lama Atisha to Tibet to reestablish the pure Dharma there. Lama Atisha had been invited once before but it hadn’t happened. The king himself went to look for gold to make offering to Lama Atisha, to invite him to Tibet, but the king was captured by an irreligious king. I’m not sure, but I think it was somewhere in the upper part of Tibet, near Nepal.
When the king’s nephew, Jangchub Ö, asked the irreligious king to free his uncle in exchange for the gold, the king [demanded the same amount of gold as the king’s body] but when the gold was piled up, it only went up to the neck, so the irreligious king said that was not enough, that the gold the size of the head was missing. The nephew passed the message to the Dharma king in prison, and he replied to not give even a handful of gold to the irreligious king but instead to take all the gold to India and make offerings to Lama Atisha to invite him to Tibet. He told him to tell Atisha that he would give up his life in prison to invite him to Tibet to spread the pure Dharma and help sentient beings in Tibet. After that, the Dharma king, Lha Lama Yeshe Ö, passed away in prison.
The second time, Lama Atisha was able to go to Tibet. When everything was explained to Lama Atisha, about all the problems in Tibet and how the king had sacrificed his life to invite him to Tibet, Lama Atisha, as he often did whenever he had to make a decision, checked with the deity, Tara, who is the embodiment of all the buddhas’ holy actions. Tara advised him that if he went to Tibet, he would be able to offer extensive benefits for the sentient beings and the teachings of the Buddha, but his life would be shortened by seven years. Lama Atisha thought that if going to Tibet was going to be highly beneficial, he didn’t mind that, so he went to Tibet.
When the Dharma king’s nephew, Jangchub Ö, met Lama Atisha, he explained all the problems happening in Tibet, and all the misconceptions there were about sutra and tantra. There was so much confusion, with [people believing] one person could not practice both sutra and tantra as the graduated path for one person to achieve enlightenment. The people thought that if they practiced sutra, they could not practice tantra, and conversely if they practiced tantra, they could not practice sutra. They regarded sutra and tantra as like hot and cold. Because there was so much misunderstanding, people were unable to integrate the sutra and tantra teachings for one person to practice.
Jangchub Ö requested to Lama Atisha, saying, “We Tibetans are very ignorant, so please give us a very simple teaching.” He requested teachings on refuge and karma, the very basic teachings. Because he didn’t ask for very high teachings such as tantric subjects or initiations or things like that, Lama Atisha was very pleased. So, Lama Atisha wrote the teaching that is called the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment.
The Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment integrates the entire teachings of the Buddha: the Lesser Vehicle or Theravadin teachings, the Mahayana Paramitayana teachings and the Mahayana Vajrayana or tantric teachings. All the eighty-four thousand teachings taught by the Buddha were integrated and made very simple by Lama Atisha, setting them all out in a graduated path, the lamrim, so that we can attain enlightenment.
What we call the “lamrim” started from that time. It encapsulates the extensive sutra and tantra teachings of the Buddha and the commentaries by Indian pandits and yogis, and so forth. The whole path is explained there and he was able to not only integrate it but also simplify it, so it is easy to understand and to practice, without any confusion. With Lama Atisha’s special text, the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, it is so easy to know how to go about attaining enlightenment. So anyway, as I mentioned Lama Atisha, that story just happened.
After that, Lama Tsongkhapa wrote the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lamrim Chenmo), which is a commentary of this text of Lama Atisha. Then, not only that, many other great, highly attained scholars, many other Tibetan lamas who actualized the path to enlightenment, wrote many lamrim commentaries, both elaborate ones and short ones.
Because of Lama Atisha reestablishing pure Buddhism in Tibet, countless practitioners, like collections of stars in the sky, by practicing Lama Atisha’s text and all those commentaries by Lama Tsongkhapa and other lamas, actualized the path and became enlightened.
THE BENEFITS OF STUDYING THE LAMRIM
Not only that, other great Tibetan masters have been teaching lamrim not only in the East but also in the West. This has been happening more and more in recent years, and not just from Kopan.
The first meditation course started in Kopan with maybe, I’m not sure, ten or fifteen people, something like that. It was for five or seven days. Anyway, that’s a long time ago. Which year? Seventy-one? The first course started in 1971. Counting from that, this present course is the thirtieth, number three-zero.
For some years, we did the one-month course twice a year. Then, maybe it became too much! I think there wasn’t enough time, so we cut it down to one one-month course a year, and it’s been like that up to now. There are many other courses of a week or fifteen days during the year, mainly done by Venerable Karin.
Hundreds and thousands of people in the East and West have [met the Dharma] during that time, both here and in the hundred or so centers there are [in FPMT organization]. They are mostly meditation centers. There are some centers that offer social service, but most are meditation centers, and the basic meditation practice or teaching is the lamrim, the steps on the path to enlightenment. Many thousands and thousands of people have been able to find meaning in their life from this. From thinking there was no meaning before, after hearing the lamrim teachings, so many have found that their lives are so meaningful. They know where to find the answer in life, something we cannot find in Western science.
Not just Western science, we cannot find the answers on how to live our life in science or in Western culture. However, by understanding the lamrim, we have so much freedom in life, so much freedom in our hands. Practicing Dharma not only gives us peace and happiness in our daily life, but it also allows us to make preparations for death. Even if we cannot reach the level where we have completely overcome death and never have to experience the suffering of the cycle of death and rebirth at all anymore, we can still die without fear. We can die with a peaceful, happy mind by knowing how to use death as the path to enlightenment. We can use death to overcome delusions and make death useful for ourselves and for all living beings. We can use the death to achieve enlightenment, to be able to liberate all other living beings from all suffering and bring them to full enlightenment.
We have so much freedom. We can stop reincarnating in the unfortunate realms, the realms of the hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals, and we can attain the body of a happy transmigratory being. We have so much freedom. We can have whatever we wish for, the happiness of this life and, by ceasing the cause, karma and delusions, we can achieve the complete cessation of the entire suffering of samsara. This is such incredible freedom; it is very precious.
The other incredible freedom we can achieve is full enlightenment. We can achieve the state that is the cessation of all the mistakes of the mind and the completion of all the realizations. Then, with this omniscient mind that has perfect understanding, perfect great compassion that embraces all living beings and perfect power, we can cause all sentient beings to attain every happiness. We can guide them from happiness to happiness to the highest happiness, full enlightenment. Without the slightest mistake, we can do perfect work for all living beings.
By meeting the Buddhadharma, by coming to Nepal and attending this course from its very start, many thousands and thousands of people have been able to have all this freedom. Then, there are all the other centers within this organization, as I mentioned before, all those meditation centers where there are many extremely qualified resident teachers who are pure, compassionate and learned in all aspects of Buddhadharma. All this is due to the kindness of Lama Atisha. Without talking about Asian people, in recent years so many people in the West have been able to make their life meaningful by understanding and practicing the Dharma and especially the lamrim.
Of course, there is no question about the importance of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the present Buddhadharma, but here I am talking about Lama Atisha’s kindness, his holy actions of having written this text, the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and benefiting us in our everyday lives. Because of that, we can purify any negative karma that causes sufferings on the path, that causes obstacles to realizations, obstacles to happiness, even the happiness of this life. We have the incredible opportunity to create the unmistaken cause of happiness. We can collect so much merit in our everyday life, creating the cause of happiness in this life and in future lives, liberation from samsara, and full enlightenment. We can create so many positive actions every day that help us to free numberless other sentient beings from every suffering and cause them to have happiness, especially enlightenment.
CLINGING TO THIS LIFE BRINGS SUFFERING
To finish the point that I started, when Lama Atisha was in Tibet, Lama Atisha’s translator was Dromtönpa, who is also embodiment of Chenrezig, the compassionate buddha. Dromtönpa asked Lama Atisha, “What will be the results of actions done with the attachment clinging to this life?” Lama Atisha answered, “The results will be rebirth in the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm or the animal realm.”
Nagarjuna also explained in The Precious Garland,
Desire, hatred, ignorance, and
The actions they generate are nonvirtues.
Non-attachment, non-hatred, non-ignorance,
And the actions they generate are virtues.From nonvirtues come all sufferings
And likewise all bad transmigrations,
From virtues, all happy transmigrations
And the pleasures of all lives.
In other words, those transmigratory beings born in the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm or the animal realm do so due to having committed negative karma, whereas beings born in the fortunate realms, the happy transmigratory beings, are born due to having created virtuous actions, non-attachment, non-hatred, and non-ignorance.
Just to conclude, of course we can meditate in order to be healthy, to have a long life, wealth, power and so forth with the motivation to benefit other living beings. That is a good heart; that is the pure Dharma, unstained by the self-cherishing thought. But here I am talking about meditating with attachment, seeking the happiness of this life. When we do such actions as meditating, reciting prayers and so forth with this motivation of attachment, clinging to this life, all those actions become nonvirtue.
No matter how many years we spend doing breathing meditations with this nonvirtuous motivation, with attachment, clinging to this life, even if we spend hundreds of years, it all becomes nonvirtue. If our meditation is watching the sensations, focusing on the mind itself, looking at the conventional nature of the mind or the ultimate nature of the mind—of course there are huge differences between them—if those meditations are done with a nonvirtuous motivation, to gain power, to become a famous yogi or a great meditation teacher, to achieve a good reputation and so forth, then, no matter how many eons we meditate on these things, it all becomes totally black, totally nonvirtuous.
Here, I’m talking about how meditation, reciting prayers and so forth become nonvirtuous. Of course there is no question that all our other activities—doing a job, walking, talking, sleeping—when done with this motivation, are all nonvirtuous. I’m relating this to even these specific meditations, which many people spend all their life doing. They spend their whole life doing breathing meditations without actually knowing how to meditate, how to practice Dharma. They believe they have been practicing Dharma for thirty, forty, fifty years, but actually they have no idea how to meditate, how to practice Dharma.
EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON THE MOTIVATION
Just because we know the subject of meditation doesn’t mean we know how to meditate. Having an object to meditate on doesn’t explain how to meditate. The key [is the motivation]. It’s like having different TV channels. We tune in to one station and we have fighting, killing, wars, destroying the houses, bombing, people killing each other—so much violence. On another station, people are singing or playing rock and roll! Then we tune in to a totally different channel, one that is the opposite to all the violence and killing, and there are people relaxing, enjoying themselves. Maybe there can even be one channel where people are the opposite of fighting and killing, they are relaxed and aesthetic, but with a big guitar!
So, like that, we choose our channel. Whether we make our life happy or whether we make it suffering depends on which channel we choose; it depends on our motivation. As I mentioned before, the action of the fourth person reciting the prayers, the one doing it with a nonvirtuous motivation, is nonvirtuous, even though it appears to be a Dharma activity. Therefore, of course, with that motivation all worldly activities such as working, eating, sleeping and talking, are nonvirtuous. Even though our actions might look virtuous, the channel we have chosen is nonvirtuous. By watching the mind, seeing what is virtuous and nonvirtuous, we can change the channel and transform the very same actions into virtue, into Dharma.
We can do that through breathing meditation. It is explained in the lamrim texts that when we have a very disturbed, destructive mind, one that is nonvirtuous, by doing a breathing meditation we can make our mind neutral, like having to clean a cloth before we can dye it any color we want. Once we have made our mind neutral, we can then transform it into a virtuous one. Then, all our actions—our prayers, meditations, and so forth—become Dharma. What positive result comes from these actions of course then depends on our level of motivation, whether it is the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara or enlightenment.
Without mentioning the self-cherishing thought or the ignorance not knowing the ultimate nature of I and phenomena, when we have not even renounced samsara, then whatever we do becomes the cause of samsara, which means it becomes the cause of suffering. This includes doing prayers, meditation, eating, walking, sleeping, working—everything becomes the cause of suffering. And when we cannot even renounce our attachment to the happiness of this life, then doing meditation, prayers, eating, walking, sleeping, working and all these things become the cause of the lower realms, the cause to be reborn as a hell being, a hungry ghost or an animal.
When we go shopping, normally the motivation for buying each of the many objects we buy is attachment, clinging to this life. Every shopping trip we take without the lamrim, without the renunciation of this life, becomes nonvirtue. Every step on that shopping trip becomes nonvirtue and so the cause of the lower realms.
I’ll make this smaller. With even one plate of food, unless each bite we take is done with the mind living in the first level of lamrim, renunciation of this life, it becomes nonvirtue. With every glass of water or mug of tea, every sip becomes nonvirtue, the cause of the lower realms. Then, if we are not living in the lamrim, not practicing the lamrim, the bigger the mug, the greater the cause for the lower realms.
This is an example but we can elaborate in the same way about anything, such as people playing football or whatever, that white thing they hit far away—golf—it’s the same thing. Without the first level of lamrim, without the mind renouncing this life, everything becomes nonvirtue. When we talk, if we are not living in the lamrim, even the very first level of lamrim, detachment, every word we say becomes nonvirtue, the cause of rebirth in the suffering lower realms.
That is why I say that any style of life is only suffering except the life practicing the Dharma. We can understand this by knowing this secret point, how a suffering life comes from the mind, how a happy life comes from the mind, how everything comes from the mind, from the attitude we have. Therefore, the need to practice the lamrim is unbelievably important in our daily life, more important than food, than money, than clothing, than a house—more important than anything else.
I’ll stop here. We’ll do the dedication.
Therefore, the lamrim, practicing the good heart, becomes the most important thing. Then, eating with that attitude makes our life beneficial for other sentient beings. With the good heart, whenever we eat, we can do the action by seeing ourselves as a servant to all sentient beings, in order to bring them happiness. We can also use it to make offering to the Triple Gem, either the internal or external Triple Gem.
