Seeing Things as a Hallucination
A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame,
An illusion, a dewdrop, a water bubble,
A dream, lightning, a cloud:
See all causative phenomena like this.2
We have read the English. “A star” means looking at causative phenomena, which change due to causes and conditions. In particular, our body, possessions, family and so forth, the objects of attachment, hatred and ignorance, we need to use these as objects of meditation, looking at them as empty. It doesn’t mean nonexistent empty, like empty when we run out of money, with no money in the purse. Or we have no food in the stomach, so our stomach’s empty. It’s not empty like that. It’s not that kind of empty, not nonexistent. But while it exists, it is empty.
You have to understand this ultimate nature of emptiness and not just think it doesn’t exist. You can’t think what exists doesn’t exist, looking at it like that. That is nihilism. It is empty while it exists; that is its ultimate nature, emptiness. So, with kar ma, a star, the meditation on emptiness is like there is a star in daytime but the sun is so powerful, so bright, that it obscures the star, so we can’t see it. When the sun goes down and it becomes dark, then we see more and more stars.
Then, rab rib, which I translate as “defective view.” It could also be subtle dependent arising, how things—I, action, object—exist in mere name. It could be that; it depends on how you think. But here, if it is a defective view, it means everything—the I, action, object, forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects—everything appears truly existing from its own side; everything appears real. It appears like that and we believe it is as it appears. We believe in that a hundred percent.
I’ll give an example. It’s like in a dream we get married to somebody we like and we have a hundred children. We are so happy. And then they die and we are so upset. In the dream, we are so upset and there are so many difficulties. One child is carried [away by water] and drowns. One is eaten by dogs or something like that. One is burned in the fire—there are different things. There are so many difficulties, and it is so sad. We have so many worries we get wrinkles and white hair. The body changes like that. The body is like when you act out a play, where you can wear the costume of a king or a soldier’s uniform. You change costumes many times when you act out a play.
Similarly, the body manifests how the mind is. If the mind is very healthy, the body looks very healthy. Like His Holiness. How old is His Holiness now? [Student: Eight-four.] Eighty-four, but he looks unbelievably good. He has no difficulty remembering things. Unbelievable. He can help millions and millions and millions of people in the world, bringing happiness and peace to young and old as well. It’s a little bit like that. Depending on how the mind is, the nature of mind, the body appears like that. If the mind is so sad, “When I can be happy? When I can be happy? When I can be happy?” only concerned about the I, the body is also very squeezed. The face is squeezed; there’s no smile. The body is a little bit like, what do you say? A costume? Like a costume in a play.
Whether the mind is happy or not shows through the body. When somebody is so worried their whole life, even if they are still very young, they already look very old. This is a manifestation of the state of the mind. Somebody else with a healthy mind, even if they are very old, they are still very young looking, very fresh looking. Do you understand?
Sorry, once I talk it goes on and on.
Like that dream I mentioned as an example, all the children die and we are so sad, with so many problems. We get gray hair and wrinkles. Then, we wake up and nothing happened. After all this, when we wake up, nothing has happened. All the people doing jobs in the house are still there. We had this dream about our whole life, but we wake up and nothing has happened.
Do you remember? I’m sure it’s happened to you like that, that many times you’ve had a dream and woken up thinking, woooh, so worried, but then thinking “Oh, it is not true. It didn’t happen.”
So, all these things—the I, action, object—all the things appear real, appear as truly existent, and we believe them to be real, a hundred percent truly existent. That is what is explained in the scriptures, that they appear to exist from their own side, to exist by nature. That is what is explained in the text, but if we use our everyday language, we can say they appear as real. Everything appears real and we believe they are real.
When we realize emptiness—not nihilism emptiness but the ultimate nature of the phenomena—the I, action, object, enlightenment and hell, nirvana and samsara, happiness and problems, everything—when we realize the ultimate nature, it’s like we woke up from a dream and nothing has happened. None of these problems have happened. It’s like the example I gave, where in the dream we get married and have children and then all these problems happen, but when we wake up, it’s not true. This is exactly the same.
So, rab rib is “defective view”; that’s how I translate it. I don’t know how others translate it.
We look at impermanent nature as like a dream, like an illusion. We are going to meditate on that. You do the meditation and I will chant; that will give you time to meditate. This is to center the attention that is now outside. Now, it is totally distracted with attachment. Our mind is like paper or leaves blown about by the wind, fully distracted by the hallucination. So, we bring it back to the reality, to what is the nature of the I, what is the nature of the object, what is the nature of enlightenment, what is the nature of hell, what is the nature of samsara, what is the nature of nirvana, what is the nature of happiness and problems. What is the real nature, the ultimate nature, emptiness—we bring it back to the reality, to thinking about the ultimate nature of things.
The next one is an illusion or a hallucination. We look at [the difference between] what appears to us and what we believe. The way things appear to us, the way we apprehend them is like an illusion; it is not true.
We’ll just finish the prayer. [Rinpoche recites:]
A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame,
An illusion, a dewdrop, a water bubble,
A dream, lightning, a cloud:
See all causative phenomena like this.
Emptiness and Dependent Arising
The next one is to recite the Heart Sutra. Because this is the Buddha’s teaching, even just to hear the words is most unbelievably fortunate. Even if we don’t understand it, to be able to read it and hear it is unbelievable. There will be more, but I’ll just mention an introduction just to know the importance.
It is said by Shantideva in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life,
[9:1ab] All these practices were taught
By the Mighty One for the sake of wisdom.
The Buddha realized that how the I, action, object—all phenomena—exist, how their ultimate nature is existing in mere name, merely labeled by the mind. This is dependent arising, not gross dependent arising but subtle dependent arising.
Because of that, everything is empty. That doesn’t mean everything doesn’t exist. As I said before, it is not that. While it exists in mere name, everything is empty at the same time. You have to understand that.
The Buddha revealed that to us sentient beings. Because of that, numberless sentient beings have already realized what the Buddha himself realized and then taught, and they have become liberated from samsara. And not only that, with bodhicitta, the ultimate good heart, he became free from not only the gross obscurations but also the subtle obscurations and achieved the state of omniscience for sentient beings.
By revealing subtle dependent arising, numberless sentient beings have already been liberated from samsara. The Buddha was able to liberate them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations. It has already happened for so many sentient beings, and it is happening now.
Even nowadays, so many come to know the ultimate nature of the I, action, object, phenomena, and develop the mind in ultimate wisdom. That is the ultimate wisdom that realizes the ultimate nature of phenomena. That is the real nature. That is ultimate wisdom.
By developing that, we gain a direct perception of emptiness. That ceases the karma and delusions that create samsara, that create suffering. By totally ceasing the seeds of delusion, we totally cease karma and delusions. From that, we cease true suffering and the true cause of suffering. By ceasing the true cause of suffering, we cease true suffering, and we are totally liberated from samsara.
In In Praise of Dependent Origination Lama Tsongkhapa said,
[2] Whatever degenerations there are in the world,
The root of all these is ignorance;
You taught that it is dependent origination,
The seeing of which will undo this ignorance.
However much suffering there is in samsara—you can say “in the world” or “in samsara”—the root of all that is marigpa, unseeing, unknowing, ignorance. “Unseeing.” The Tibetan may be the same, I’m not sure what it is in Sanskrit, but in Tibetan, rigpa is “seeing” and marigpa is “unseeing,” ignorance, the root of everything. By understanding this, we are able to cease ignorance, the root where all the suffering comes from, including what millions and millions of people suffer in the West, depression. All those things, anxiety and what else? [Ven. Robina: Worrying about things.] Worrying about things. We are able to cease all the things.
By seeing subtle dependent arising, we are able to cease all the sufferings. Therefore, the Buddha taught dependent arising.
Not just from this life but from beginningless lives, why are we ignorant? Why are we born with suffering? Why are we born with the suffering of birth, the suffering of old age, the suffering of sickness, the suffering of death, the suffering of dissatisfaction, of depression and all that, the suffering of meeting undesirable objects, the suffering of being separated or not finding desirable objects? Why are we born with the suffering of the aggregates?
Why are we born with suffering? Why are we born with worry, with anxiety? We are born with suffering because our previous mind, the continuation of the mind before [the one of this life] wasn’t liberated from suffering. It wasn’t liberated from the cause of suffering, karma and delusion, so we didn’t give ourselves freedom.
We didn’t eliminate the root of all the suffering, ignorance, the unknowing mind. There are different kinds of suffering [ignorance?] but it is this particular one. From beginningless rebirths we have not been free from that; we have followed that and believed in that. It’s like our enemy, the real enemy. We might think it is our friend, but although it has been cheating us our whole life, we have never realized it; we have never recognized it.
It is a little bit like that. Being under the control of ignorance, we have had to experience all the sufferings: the suffering of the hell realms, the suffering of the hungry ghosts, the suffering of the animals, the suffering of the human beings, the suffering of the sura and asura beings. We have been suffering like that from beginningless rebirths and it has still not ended.
The Heart Sutra
Now, we are human and experiencing the suffering of human beings, so it has still not ended. For sentient beings to end the oceans of samsaric sufferings—the oceans of hell beings’ sufferings, of hungry ghosts’ sufferings, of animals’ sufferings, of human beings’ sufferings suffering, of sura and asura beings’ sufferings, whose continuation has no beginning—to liberate them from all these sufferings, they need to be liberated from the cause of suffering, karma and delusions. They need to be liberated from the root, ignorance. That is why the Buddha has taught emptiness.
It is not only to be free from the suffering of samsara but also to be free from lower nirvana and to achieve peerless happiness, total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, full enlightenment, and then to bring sentient beings to that. For that, the Buddha has taught the wisdom gone beyond, Prajnaparamita, all the teachings on emptiness. There are twelve volumes of texts where the Buddha taught elaborate teachings on emptiness. In more condensed form, there are four volumes, and then further condensed into one volume, the Eight Thousand Stanzas. Finally, all those teachings are in the much more condensed form of Sherab Nyingpo, the Heart of Wisdom Sutra.
After this, the wisdom gone beyond, the Prajnaparamita, is summarized in a few syllables:
[La ma] tön pa chom dän dä de zhin sheg pa dra chom pa yang dag par dzog päi sang gyä / rig pa dang zhab su dän pa / de war sheg pa / jig ten khyen pa / kye bu dül wäi kha lo gyur wa la na me pa / lha dang mi nam kyi tön pa / sang gyä chom dän dä päl gyäl wa sha kya thub pa la chhag tshäl lo / chhö do kyab su chhi o
[[Guru], Teacher, Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, Perfect in Knowledge and Good Conduct, Sugata, Knower of the World, Supreme Guide of Beings to Be Subdued, Teacher of Gods and Humans; to you, Buddha Bhagavan, Glorious Conqueror Shakyamuni, I prostrate, make offerings, and go for refuge.]3
TADYATHA OM MUNE MUNE MAHA MUNAYE SVAHA
Then, there is the much more condensed one-syllable Prajnaparamita, AH. That is just one syllable—AH. In Sanskrit AH is a negating word. What this AH is saying is that the way the I appears to us as the real I, the way action appears to us as the real action, the way the object appears to us as the real object—the whole hell and enlightenment, samsara and nirvana, happiness and problems, all the phenomena of forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects, the senses—the way everything appears to our mind as real is a hallucination. The hallucinated mind sees it all as real. That is the hallucination.
This AH is negating all this, saying none of that exists at all. That is the correct emptiness, by negating the object to be refuted. The object to be refuted is the false object—the false I, the false enlightenment, the false hell, the false samsara and nirvana, the false happiness and problems, the false everything. The AH negates everything. It proves that our concept that believes a hundred percent in everything being real is the wrong concept; it is ignorance.
It will come again but I’ll just tell you that the meaning of ignorance is the unknowing mind. All the sufferings come from that. [To overcome all suffering], we must realize dependent arising, emptiness. We must realize the truth that negates that wrong concept; we must see that there is no such thing.
It is very interesting. The whole thing comes from our wrong concept, not somebody else’s. Suffering comes from our wrong concept, our wrong way of thinking. This Prajnaparamita is the correct way of thinking, the ultimate nature, the way things exist. AH is regarded as a very important meditation. We need to meditate on the meaning of AH.
The Heart Sutra, the Essence of Wisdom directly reveals wisdom and indirectly reveals the method to achieve nirvana, the liberation from samsara. I often say before we recite the Heart Sutra, that we should not recite it just blah blah blah. If we pay attention, it leaves a positive imprint, but if we always just go blah blah blah, it’s just like water bubbling on a hot fire, blub blub blub.
Think, “I have been suffering in the oceans of samsara from beginningless rebirths due to ignorance, marigpa, in one after the other of all the six realms. If I don’t realize emptiness in this life, I will again have to experience the oceans of suffering of the six realms, endlessly. Not only has it been beginningless, but also unless I realize emptiness in this life while I have the opportunity to learn, I will have to suffer without end, again. Again!”
The Buddha’s Prajnaparamita teachings, the Heart Sutra, the wisdom gone beyond, this contains the teachings to realize emptiness, to realize ultimate nature, emptiness, to cease the cause of suffering, ignorance, marigpa, the mind unseeing, the mind not knowing—it’s the same.
Ceasing that and developing bodhicitta, we can achieve enlightenment. We can cease the gross defilements and we can cease subtle defilements with the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. Then, we can achieve peerless happiness, the state of omniscience, in order to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, enlightenment.
Thinking like that, reading or meditating on the Heart Sutra becomes the most important thing for our life—even right now! The most important solution is to realize emptiness, to meditate on it. To end our suffering of samsara and then to liberate the numberless sentient beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment comes from this meditation on the Heart Sutra, meditating on it, paying attention to it, not just reciting the words. It is so important.
I’m just explaining the motivation. Now, you see how important this is. It’s not just blah blah blah; it’s not just to idly spend our time. After people retire, if they haven’t met the Dharma and don’t have a meditation practice or prayers to recite, what they do all day long is walk around the garden, the house, trying to find things to do, otherwise they feel lonely. They spend all day long in their small garden, letting the mind be distracted by the plants. I heard that. Spending their day like this, the time goes. [Reciting the Heart Sutra] is not just to make time, not blah blah blah.
It is important to pay attention, not just say it blah blah blah. Each time we do that, it is incredible preparation for the mind to realize emptiness. So much unbelievable preparation is done, getting closer and closer to realizing emptiness. Then, by developing the wisdom realizing emptiness, when we have a direct perception of emptiness, we cease the seed of karma and delusions. Then, we become liberated from the true suffering of samsara, from the oceans of suffering. This is just us, just this one samsaric being.
When we say the prayer, it’s important to pay attention, to do it as a meditation. Meditation has analytical meditation and fixed meditation. There are these two things. With shamatha, that is mainly fixed meditation; there is not so much analytical, but all the other meditations we have are analytical. After analytical meditation, to get realizations we do that. We transform our mind into a correct mind, a path to achieve nirvana, to achieve enlightenment. We transform our mind from the wrong concept into a realization. So, paying attention is very, very important when we do prayers. When we do our prayers without paying attention, when the mind is thinking of the beach or of traveling, of all sorts of things, when the mind is going around the world while we are doing prayers, it doesn’t even leave a positive imprint. We have to pay attention. Then, it leaves a positive imprint. That’s what I think.
Please start. The more you learn the lamrim, the deeper your understanding of the Heart Sutra will be. The more you learn about the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment, renunciation, bodhicitta and right view—in particular, the more you learn about right view—the more you will understand the Heart Sutra.
I just explained the motivation to think when you read the Heart Sutra. Then, every day you will find it most meaningful. You will see the utmost need to practice it.
[Rinpoche and the students recite the Heart Sutra]
The Foundation of All Good Qualities, please concentrate.
[Rinpoche and the students recite The Foundation of All Good Qualities and the short mandala]
The Graduated Path of the Three Capable Beings
Two points yesterday that I mentioned that I want to clarify, then I will continue. The question was about generating bodhicitta, how to have the attitude of bodhicitta in normal life. I said to generate bodhicitta we need first to have a realization of the graduated path of the lower capable being. The lamrim is divided into the graduated path of the lower capable being, the graduated path of the middle capable being and the graduated path of the higher capable being. Because bodhicitta is the graduated path of the higher capable being, we first need the realization of the graduated path of the lower capable being.
On the basis of realizing that the person we have taken teachings from is our guru and we are their disciple, from our side we see our guru as the numberless past, present and future buddhas and every single action is all the Buddha’s holy actions. On the basis of that stable realization, we develop the renunciation of this life, starting from the perfect human rebirth, how the perfect human rebirth is highly meaningful, how with it we can achieve the three great meanings, how it is difficult to find again.
Even what we have found this time is in the nature of impermanence. We need to do the nine-round death meditation, seeing that there is death and that death can happen at any time, and because of that, we must practice Dharma. The solution is to practice Dharma and to practice Dharma now because death can happen now. At death, we have to leave everything, those around us—our family and friends—our enjoyments, our belongings, even our body. Nothing can benefit us at all. The only thing that can benefit us is Dharma. We must only practice Dharma.
We then meditate on the sufferings of the lower realms and to be free from that, to not be reborn in the lower realms, we need to take refuge in [one of the objects of refuge:] the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Then, not only that, to be free from the whole of samsara we need to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Not only that, we need to become free from lower nirvana and achieve enlightenment.
We need to take refuge and to protect our karma, renouncing nonvirtue that produces suffering and practicing virtuous karma that produces every happiness, from the happiness this life, the happiness of future lives and ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness, peerless happiness. For all this, we need to realize the graduated path of the lower capable being, then the graduated path of the middle capable being, seeing how the whole of samsara is in the nature of suffering. As I mentioned, there are six types of sufferings, four types of suffering, three types of suffering. Seeing how we circle in samsara due to the twelve dependent-related limbs, we generate the renunciation of samsara. We see the nature of samsara is only suffering, so we don’t want to be in samsara; we want to be liberated from samsara.
To achieve nirvana, the basic path is the three higher trainings: the higher training of morality, the higher training of concentration and the higher training of wisdom. That is the basic path to achieve everlasting happiness, liberation from samsara. After that, there is the graduated path of the higher capable being. In regards of realizations, it is like that.
For example, I know people who have AIDS. Having gone through the disease themselves, when they get better they have so much compassion, so much concern for other people who have AIDS. Because they have gone through it, because they have had their own experience, they want to help people with AIDS.
At Chenrezig Institute there is a man, I don’t know his name, a little bit of an old student. He goes to Chenrezig Institute and takes the eight Mahayana precepts and does the Medicine Buddha meditation. When he does that, because he has more control in his life, his AIDS gets better. But then he goes back to the city to help other people with AIDS, and probably his life becomes a little bit messy—it’s harder to have discipline, harder to control his mind and his actions—so his AIDS gets worse. But then he goes back to the center again and takes the eight Mahayana precepts and does Medicine Buddha meditation again and again his AIDS gets better. Not only him, I’ve noticed other people like this. To have a realization of bodhicitta, we have to develop compassion for others. To do that, we have to know the suffering of other sentient beings, to feel how unbearable their suffering is. For that, we have to recognize our own suffering first.
Otherwise, if we don’t know our own sufferings, if we think we are suffering just when we have relationship problems or we have headache or diarrhea, or when we have cancer, that is not enough. There is not only the suffering of pain, all samsaric pleasures are the suffering of change. I think I went through that yesterday. Did I go through yesterday? [Ven. Robina: You mentioned the three.]
The third is pervasive compounding suffering. Without understanding our own suffering, our compassion for others is just words between the lips. There is not much feeling, because we don’t see their suffering. Our understanding of their suffering is very limited. Our compassion is, how do you say? Kind of not real. Then, our bodhicitta becomes just words. Even if we say it, we don’t really feel it. It is like that.
Therefore, after the graduated path of the lower capable being, with the middle capable being, there is the renunciation of this life and the renunciation of future lives’ samsara. We meditate on the details of all the suffering of our own samsara. It feels unbearable. Being in samsara is like sitting on a needle, or like our naked body sitting in the thorn bush, or our naked body in the middle of a fire. It is so unbearable. Being in samsara is like being in prison, even that loose example.
Only when we have renunciation for our own samsaric suffering can we feel unbearable compassion for the numberless other sentient beings suffering in samsara. We can’t stand it that they are in samsara for even one day or one hour or one minute. We can’t stand it! We have this incredible compassion for all the desire realm sentient beings, for all form realm sentient beings and for all formless realm sentient beings.
With that, we develop the realization of bodhicitta. We want to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, enlightenment, by ourselves. Even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas helping sentient beings, we have this special attitude that we want to do it alone because all our past, present and future happiness comes from sentient beings.
All sentient beings have also been our mother numberless times from beginningless rebirths and they have been so kind. Every day we survive, we stay alive by eating and drinking what has been created by the suffering of numberless sentient beings. For our food and drink, numberless beings have had to work and numberless have been killed. The house we live in and the comforts we enjoy come from the numberless sentient beings who were harmed and killed, as well as our clothing. Especially if it is fur or leather, so many sentient beings were harmed or killed. Our enjoyments totally come from the hard work of so many sentient beings, from them being harmed and killed. All our comfort, our survival, our happiness totally come from the kindness of sentient beings.
There are many ways to meditate on their kindness. We want to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves alone to repay their kindness. That is right. Then, our bodhicitta becomes real. The more we meditate like this, the easier realizations happen.
Therefore, without knowing how we ourselves are suffering in samsara, we can’t feel the suffering of others. Then, our compassion is very limited. It’s not really compassion; it’s just words, just reciting words. These meditations on the graduated paths of the lower capable being and the middle capable being are so important to develop compassion for others and to have a realization of bodhicitta. I didn’t mention that yesterday, so I want to emphasize it now. It is so important.
As I said yesterday, Western people don’t generally like to meditate on suffering because they don’t know the purpose. Just meditating on love and compassion can be very shallow, with nothing real. Even if we spend millions of years—millions of lifetimes—meditating like that, realizations won’t happen. We have to meditate according to how it is explained in the texts, not what we like. We need to follow the outline to develop the mind in bodhicitta and emptiness.
That is the common path. Then, there is the tantric path to achieve enlightenment. Without tantra, by meeting the Mahayana teachings, to achieve enlightenment we have to collect the merits of wisdom and the merits of virtue for three countless great eons. We have to complete those two merits and then we can achieve enlightenment, attaining the rupakaya, the buddha’s holy body and the dharmakaya, the buddha’s holy mind, to benefit sentient beings. But if we practice tantra we don’t need to take that much time. We can achieve enlightenment in one [extended] life, even practicing the lower tantra. Practicing highest tantra, Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra, we can achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate times. It is much, much quicker. It all depends on how strong our compassion is.
If we have compassion for sentient beings, we can achieve enlightenment. If we have no compassion for others, then there is no enlightenment. So, compassion is so important.
Look at the Hallucinated Mundane World
Yesterday I mentioned the quotations. It is so important to write them down. The thing we should concentrate on all the time, the important meditation and important practice in our life, is compassion for sentient beings. Then, we can achieve enlightenment quickly. It all depends on that. If we practice tantra without compassion, we can’t achieve enlightenment; we have to have compassion for others.
The other one is as I mentioned about Milarepa. He didn’t even have one rupee, as I said. You might think it strange to say he didn’t have a rupee but, living an ascetic life, he achieved enlightenment. He practiced Dharma and in order to renounce delusion, he lived an ascetic life.
For example, once when a thief went to his cave, Milarepa had no other food to offer him, only nettles. He only picked and ate nettles. When he had boiled the nettles and made nettle soup [for the thief], the thief asked him where the salt and the chili were. He didn’t have salt or chili, so when the thief asked for them, he said, “This is my salt,” and he put some nettles in the pot for the salt, and “This is my chili,” and he put in another nettle for the chili. I think after some time the clay pot broke, but because of [the residue] of cooked nettles, it still worked like a pot. You might think it strange that he achieved enlightenment without one rupee, but it meant he lived an ascetic life.
[Rinpoche asks Ven. Robina what time the tea break is]
The Fifth Dalai Lama mentions,
From now on, this one time that you have found the boat of a perfect human rebirth,
The basis of achieving the collections of goodness of benefits and happiness,
If, without going to the land where you can definitely get jewels,
You return back to samsara empty, your heart is rotten.
He uses the example of a boat, but this refers to the perfect human rebirth, which is found this one time. “Without going to the land where you can definitely get jewels.” As I explained yesterday, “jewels” means wish-granting jewels. We have received a perfect human rebirth, which is the boat and we can use that boat to go on the ocean to a place where we can definitely get as many wish-granting jewels as we want—meaning the perfect human rebirth is the basis we can use to achieve all the collections of goodness of benefits and happiness. “You return back to samsara empty, your heart is rotten.” If we return empty—meaning we waste this perfect human rebirth and don’t make this life meaningful—our heart is rotten.
Milarepa’s disciple, Gampopa, said this in Pearl Garland. It is a very important quotation. If you can, write it down, please. Write it down for your meditation to do. If you can remember it every day that is so good.
By looking at the hallucinated mundane world,
Whatever you do is meaningless and a cause of suffering
And whatever you think is of no benefit.
Therefore, always train your mind to watch your mind.
I don’t remember the last line well, but in the quote he asks us to look at our mind. “Watch your mind,” something like that is the conclusion.
Looking at the mundane world we can see that it is hallucinated. So, here we are looking at how our worldly life is hallucinated, which means whatever is done is a cause of suffering. Because of that, whatever we think has no benefit. Therefore, Gampopa told us we must always train ourselves to watch our mind. That is the last line.
First of all, we have to understand how the mundane world, our life, is hallucinated, by looking at this life. We have to understand the meaning of that.
OK. I’ll just finish this.
Lama Tsongkhapa explained in the lamrim:
Ti mug den dzin gyi dro tag päi rang zhin la leg pa dang nye päi dro dag nä. Leg pa dang nye päi dro dag. Dro dag means, leg pa dang nye päi dro dag nä dö chhag dang zhe dang kye war gyur la di dag gi dzin tang kyang rig pä sün jung war nü pa yin no.
The ignorance holding to true existence, which is in the nature of exaggerating, exaggerates good and bad. After that, attachment and anger arise. Therefore, also the way they apprehend their objects can be eliminated with logical reasons.4
That is so important to realize. This is a mirror to realize our life. As I explained before, ignorance holds objects as truly existent. That is the basis. Do you understand? Nothing, nothing, nothing, in reality exists from its own side.
Nothing exists from its own side, so everything is empty. What exists, exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind. Therefore, the ignorance that holds onto true existence, believing things to be real, exaggerates [those objects]. “This is real.” It exaggerates everything as real, in that nature. This is an incredible hallucination. The first basis is an incredible hallucination.
In that nature, after that, it discriminates good and bad. Then, attachment and anger arise. Only then, after that, attachment and anger arise. Maybe you think they arise together, but no, they don’t.
Attachment and anger do not arise before ignorance holding things as truly existent. There is no reason before that, only after. Then, it makes sense. Something is exaggerated as good, and then there is attachment. We see something that appears as good, we exaggerate it, and then attachment comes. We see something that appears as bad, and then anger comes. They only come after, not before, not at the same time. It is so important to understand that.
In Gampopa’s quote, I’ve translated jig ten as “mundane world,” but the literal translation is “changeable aggregates.” That is the word-by-word translation. In general, jig ten means our life. We need to look at that which is hallucinated as a hallucination—that is the first hallucination. Then, the second hallucination is to exaggerate good and bad, truly existent good and bad. Then, after that, attachment and anger arise.
Our life is full of hallucinations. By looking at it like watching a movie, [we can see this]. That is great scenery to just look at our hallucinated life. [When we misapprehend things in this way] whatever is done becomes a cause of suffering. Because of the motivation everything becomes meaningless.
Basically, the motivation is attachment, ignorance or anger. Then, in particular, it is attachment to this life, to having a long, healthy life with power, wealth and reputation. Everything we do is for the happiness of this life; we are attached to that. Whatever action we do—doing business or even going to sleep, getting up in the morning, eating food—everything is to get happiness for this I, for this real I which is not there. Everything is for the happiness of this life.
[We are ruled by] our delusions, particularly attachment. Whether we become a king, whether we become a beggar, the motivation is just that—the happiness of this life—so it is attachment. Everything we do—eating, walking, sleeping, studying in university—is done with attachment to this life. Because that is a nonvirtuous mind, whatever we do becomes nonvirtue.
Even meditating, even studying, if it is done with attachment to this life, it becomes nonvirtue. Studying the Dharma or studying in college or university, it becomes meaningless, nonvirtuous, leading to rebirth in the lower realms. Everything we do not only brings problems in this life, it causes unbelievable suffering in the next life.
[The quote continues,] “Whatever you think is of no benefit to you.” Even if we are thinking of going to the moon, it is no benefit to us. What is the benefit when we die? There is not one single benefit; it doesn’t bring happiness in the next life. Then it says, “So always train yourself to look at your mind.”
It may have a specific explanation. It has many different meanings and I don’t know all the things, but one thing is to look at how everything comes from our mind. Our whole world comes from our mind. All our actions come from our mind. Our I comes from our mind. That is one way to think.
I’ll stop here.
The next meditation is this—how everything comes from our mind. How our whole world comes from our mind. Our happiness, our suffering, everything comes from our mind.
I’ll stop here. Everything comes from our mind.
OK. I’ll just stop here. I won’t go further.
So, please meditate on these things. OK, thank you.
[Rinpoche and students offer mandala]
Dedications
“Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me, all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may bodhicitta, which is the source of all happiness for me and for all sentient beings, be generated in the hearts of all sentient beings. In those in whom it has been generated, may it increase.
“Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me, all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, which do not exist from their own side, may the I, who does not exist from its own side, achieve buddhahood, which does not exist from its own side, and lead all the sentient beings, who do not exist from their own side, to that buddhahood, which does not exist from its own side, by myself alone, who does not exist from its own side.
[Dedications in Tibetan]
Thank you very much. Good night.
Notes
2 See FPMT Essential Prayer Book, p. 79. [Return to text]
3 See FPMT Essential Prayer Book, p. 77. [Return to text]
4 This quote corresponds roughly with a passage from the Lamrim Chenmo. [Return to text]
