TakING refuge every second
Student: I have already taken refuge last year with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, so I don’t know if I should take refuge again. Also, last year I took three of the five lay precepts, and this year I would like to take the other two.
Rinpoche: Yes, yes. When you take the refuge vow you take refuge all the time, every second. And there is no problem taking refuge vows again; it doesn’t make you lose the previous one. Every time you take whatever different level of pratimoksha vows, it begins with refuge. When you take the bodhisattva vows, it begins with refuge. That doesn’t make you lose the previous vows. For example, if you take the two hundred and fifty-three vows of a fully-ordained monk or the three hundred and sixty-five vows of a fully-ordained nun, if you then take the lesser ordination, the getsul vows, with thirty-six vows, it makes you lose the higher vows. Or if you have taken the thirty-six vows and then take the lay vows, the five precepts, it makes you lose the higher vows. But taking refuge again doesn’t make you lose the refuge you have taken in the past.
DEVELOPING PURE compassion
Student: How do we transform indifference into compassion?
Rinpoche: Changing indifference into compassion? Changing the indifference of others or your own indifference? If somebody gets angry at you, if somebody abuses you or scolds you, if somebody looks down on you or doesn’t thank you when you helped them? Are there other examples?
Student: Being detached from strangers is an example.
Rinpoche: Friendly attached?
Student: Just detached.
Rinpoche: There’s no word “friendly?” I thought the way you said it was very nice. “Friendly detached,” not just detached.
Friendly detached is very nice. Friendly but no problem, with no bondage of sticking problems. Friendly but no sticking problems, not sticking like glue. Or at certain times when you light a candle and there are flies that get stuck in the wax of the candle so they can’t walk. That’s similar to us with the attachment, when we get into that. Our limbs can’t move, our eyes can’t see, we are completely covered by the attachment. Were you saying that the other person is detached from you or you are detached?
Student: I am detached.
Rinpoche: You are detached to the stranger? Oh, I see. How to turn that into compassion?
I would say that being detached helps even more pure compassion to arise. When there’s no attachment, there’s more pure compassion. When there’s strong attachment, I can’t say there’s no compassion at all for that person. Wishing that sentient being to be free from suffering would be there, that can arise, but it’s kind of mixed with attachment. But without attachment then compassion is very pure. When there’s attachment there is an expectation to get something back. You’re helping but you expect to get something back, to fulfill what your attachment wants. It becomes conditional love, not unconditional love, because you expect to get something from that person, what attachment wants. There can be some compassion but I think it’s not really pure.
Without that attachment pure compassion can arise. There is no expectation to receive praise or for somebody to say something nice to you or whatever the attachment wants. There’s no expectation at all; you purely want that person to be free from suffering. That’s all your wish is; that’s what compassion wants. You purely want that person to be free from suffering and if that happens you are satisfied. Otherwise it’s not enough; you’re not happy until your attachment gets what it wants.
In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva said,
Previously I must have caused similar harm
To other sentient beings.
Therefore, it is right for this harm to be returned
To me, who caused injury to others.5
What he’s saying is that in a past life you gave such harm to that sentient being and as a result in this life you receive harm from them, therefore you deserve this harm. It doesn’t make sense to say you harmed that person in the past but now you can’t be treated like that by them. You killed them, stole from them, criticized or abused them in the past and because of that you are now receiving harm from them. Shantideva said you deserve to receive that harm.
Even if we haven’t heard any teachings on karma, we can intellectually understand that if you harm somebody then you will receive harm from them in return in the future. Anybody can intellectually understand this but in our daily lives what generally happens is, without practicing mindfulness, the mindfulness of karma, we don’t remember the past harm we have done and we are hurt when that person harms us by disrespecting us, abusing us, not thanking us or whatever. Then, we immediately get angry back and scold or harm them back in some way. We don’t see that this is the result of the karma of harming that person in the past. Because we are not practicing mindfulness we don’t remember, we get angry and we create more negative karma.
As the great bodhisasttva Shantideva mentioned, we deserve this harm because we treated that person in a harmful way, it’s the result of karma, and so we should accept it. The minute we accept that the harm we are receiving is the result of our past negative karma, our anger is gone. If there was anger before it immediately disappears. Immediately there is peace in our heart and there’s peace for the other person. They no longer receive harm from us, so there is also peace for them.
If you are able to practice like this, you can bring world peace. You can create peace at home, with your parents and brothers and sisters, with the people around you, those you are living with at home. Whenever they get angry or however they treat you, it’s the same. Being able to practice like this, you can bring peace to those outside the home—the people in your office, or anybody in the area, in the country, in the world. In this way you’re able to bring world peace. One by one like that you’re able to bring world peace.
It is unbelievably important to immediately recognize that receiving this harm is your karma, the result of your past negative action of harming another sentient being. Then, immediately there’s no anger toward that person; there nothing negative toward that person. Immediately there’s a connection, there’s peace between you. With a peaceful mind you can develop a good relationship.
Another quote from Shantideva is,
My karma persuaded him
Therefore, I received harm from him.
The meaning is you gave harm to that sentient being in the past; you created that karma and so that sentient being has no choice whether to give harm back to you. Your karma persuaded them and now you are receiving this harm.
Shantideva then asked,
Didn’t I make the sentient being become lost in the hole of hell fire?
The sentient being is now in the human realm but because they harmed you, when they die that negative karma of harming you means they will be reborn in the lower realms. They will be lost to the human realm and will fall into the hole of hell. In this way, the harm you did has caused them to create negative karma and be reborn in hell, therefore you are responsible for that sentient being’s rebirth in hell. The root of their suffering is the harm that you did.
When you think like that it’s impossible to stay angry with them; it’s impossible to not have compassion arise. Why did they harm you? Because you harmed them in the past. Understanding that, the only thing you can do is help protect them in whatever way you can, to try to protect them from being lost to the human realm and being reborn in the hell realm. Unbearable compassion arises when you think about the situation of that person and how it was caused by you.
In the first place you harmed them and then, whatever they do in retaliation—cheating you, abusing you, lying to you, saying nasty, hurtful words or whatever—you can use that to develop strong compassion within yourself.
It’s very good to write down quotations like this in your notebook and carry them everywhere. Then, in daily life when you suddenly encounter a person or a situation that makes you angry and you wish to harm them or say nasty words or whatever, you know you are creating the cause to receive harm back from them later. From that one negative karma of harming that sentient being, besides the immediate result of being harmed back by that person, for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes you will continue to receive harm; that sentient being will continue to harm you.
The great pandit, the highly attained being, Aryadeva, one of the Six Ornaments, gave the example in the Four Hundred Stanzas that if you cheat one sentient being, from that one negative karma you will be cheated for a thousand lifetimes. It’s not that the sentient being cheats you back once and the result is finished. From that one negative karma of cheating another sentient being, you will be cheated for one thousand lifetimes.
The teachings about karma are very, very important. If you remember this in your daily life you will become very careful, not only avoiding negativities, not harming others, but also being kind, generous and gentle to them. You are able to practice this because you see its importance. You are able to abandon the negative karmas that cause you to receive harm from sentient beings for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes.
Conversely, when you do one act of kindness for a sentient being, you will receive help from that sentient being for hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. From your one act of kindness you receive the benefit from that sentient being for hundreds, thousands of lifetimes. Therefore, if you want to be happy, if you don’t want to receive harm from others, you need to practice the good heart, you need to be kind to others, not only to your friends but even to your enemies and strangers. Practicing kindness, you receive the result—happiness, enjoyment—from that sentient being for many hundreds, thousands of lifetimes.
The conclusion is that every day of your life, day and night, practice kindness to others, thus causing others to have happiness. That is essential; it’s the cause of your own happiness, not only in this life but in thousands of future lifetimes.
If you want your wishes to succeed all the time, you should make others’ wishes succeed. Causing others’ wishes to succeed is the cause of success of your wishes every day of your life. As much as you are able to do that, the result will be that in this life and all the future lives, all the time your wishes will succeed. Without any effort, without any worry or fear, whatever wish you have will just happen, exactly like that, including achieving enlightenment. Practicing kindness, as much as you can, you should fulfill the wishes of others. From one act of kindness your wishes are fulfilled for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says, if you want to live your life with a selfish attitude it’s better to live it by being intelligently selfish. By helping others, being kind to others, the result is that you will get happiness. From one act of fulfilling one wish of a sentient being, your wishes will succeed for hundreds of lifetimes, thousands of lifetimes. This is being intelligently selfish, thinking of how to get all your wishes fulfilled. This is correct but the main reason for helping others is still for your own happiness. For bodhisattvas there is never a thought for their own happiness. It doesn’t arise even for a second. There is always the thought of cherishing others, of seeking happiness for the other sentient beings: the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings and the numberless gods and demigods. Only practicing kindness, fulfilling others’ wishes for happiness, thinking of others’ happiness, the bodhisattvas’ attitude is very pure. This is what we should all try to practice in our daily life.
For peace, practice a good heart
Student: Nowadays in the West many families have very unhealthy relationships, everybody only thinking of themselves. Do you have any advice for how lay people can have beneficial family lives, in marriage and things like that?
Rinpoche: The foundation of understanding that question is understanding karma, how you have benefited others in the past and harmed others in the past, and as a result you are experiencing all the different results in this life, all the happiness and problems.
That is the foundation. On the basis of that, you need to practice a good heart. First of all, understand that all happiness and problems, the many ups and downs that happen in even one day, are the result of past karma. You have created various karmas by harming some and benefiting others and so you are experiencing the many different bad or good results. Seeing that, from your side you must then practice a good heart toward others, toward those in your home or at your office. When you practice a good heart, when your mind is kind, whether others are angry with you, disrespect you or argue with you, it doesn’t bother you much. Without a good heart it bothers you; with a compassionate mind, with a mind in bodhicitta, it doesn’t bother you. When your mind is in wisdom, looking at it as empty, how others behave doesn’t bother you.
If you practice a good heart, the people around you will learn a good heart from you. They will become inspired and develop courage. Then, they will have so much peace and happiness and many other people in turn will learn a good heart from them. In this way, you’re giving peace and happiness to those people and they are giving peace and happiness to other people and like that, you can spread peace in this world.
I just want to mention one thing. One of the students in Australia was organizing a meeting about world peace, I think in Sydney, which His Holiness Dalai Lama was coming to for just a short time. Everybody was making flags to put up in the venue, to fill it with and she asked me to make one. I didn’t get to draw it myself but I had an idea. There was an artist who usually went to Geshe Sopa Rinpoche’s courses in Madison, Wisconsin, a Sakya-pa who was a good artist, so I asked him to do it.
The idea was to have the sun with a smiling face shining down with beams of light on the globe which was full of sunflowers with one sunflower standing out. He finished it and sent it to me by computer but the beams of light, which were supposed to be long, were quite short. The sun represented compassion and loving kindness with the beams of light representing peace and happiness. This is no peace that comes from being afraid of a bomb. “If you don’t do this, I’ll throw a bomb at you!” There is no real peace and happiness when there is the threat of a bomb. But here the sun of compassion is shining on the world, on all the sunflowers, which are the sentient beings of this world. Sunflowers need the sunshine; they all face the sun, like in Italy where there are whole fields of sunflowers all facing the sun. Anyway, compassion and loving kindness, like the rays of the sun, bring peace and happiness to all sentient beings. The idea was to have a mantra that would purify the heavy negative karmas of anybody who looked at it. Anyway, I just thought that.
So, to your question I’m going to give this answer. You have all these experiences of happiness and problems, all the good and bad even in one day because of all the positive and negative—the virtuous and nonvirtuous—actions you have done in the past, benefiting and harming others. On the basis of knowing this, practice having a good heart, having compassion and loving kindness, cherishing others. In this way, your good heart itself becomes a protection for your life, from receiving harm from others. For example, when millions of maras attacked Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, trying to stop him from achieving enlightenment, without the slightest movement he generated loving kindness to all of them and they could not harm him at all. Their minds were tamed and they stopped attacking him. There are many stories of holy beings doing this, but this is one example.
Others might try to harm you, but you don’t get angry and you don’t harm them; you only practice a good heart and you help them if you can. At least don’t harm them back. By doing that you’re developing greater and greater peace and happiness in this life. Because you’re creating more and more good karma, you will experience the results of that good karma in the future, either later in this life or in future lives. It’s kind of like a miracle. Even without thinking about it, good things will happen to you; whatever you wish for just naturally happens. Practicing a good heart and being kind to others in this life leaves positive imprints on your mind, and as a result in future lives you are able to benefit sentient beings even more, giving much greater benefit. From this positive imprint planted on your mental continuum by doing virtuous actions, being kind to others, you are five times, ten times, more able to benefit others.
If you want to have a good, peaceful relationship you should practice a good heart from your own side. That’s the simple answer, practice a good heart. Then, if you practice a good heart, the other person will also practice a good heart. You become the example, the inspiration, and the other person will also develop a good heart. Even if the other person has a very selfish, very bad nature, that can slowly change and they can develop a good heart.
The other thing is transforming problems into happiness. When you have problems, the best psychology is to transform those problems into happiness by thinking of their benefits, by practicing those thought transformation meditation techniques as much as possible. If you’re able to practice thought transformation, bodhicitta and the right view of emptiness—especially bodhicitta—with the person you’re living with; if you’re able to use that person to practice thought transformation for your inner development, and especially transforming problems into happiness, then living together becomes very meaningful. It becomes incredibly meaningful for yourself and for that person. There’s a book produced from teachings I gave in Bodhgaya many, many years ago called Transforming Problems into Happiness. If you read that and see there are things in it that you want to practice, write them down in your diary and prepare your life like that. Whenever a problem arises, such as somebody being upset with you or cheating you, practice these things. Then, that’s really fantastic; you will really enjoy life with that person. That’s my idea.
I think maybe that’s enough.
Both those questions are important. One is changing indifference into compassion and the other is transforming relationship problems into compassion. Basically, the essence is the same.
If you are living life thinking only of your own happiness you will create many problems, you will find many problems. Whether you are alone or living with somebody you will find many problems. Wherever you are—on a mountain or in the city; you might be living under the ocean or on the moon—with a selfish mind there are always problems. Selfishness itself is the problem. Where there is a strong selfish mind there can be no peace and happiness, only tension or the uptight mind of attachment. With so much tension you are overwhelmed with the pressure of the many problems you face. On the other hand, if your motivation in daily life is concern for others’ happiness, you will have so much peace and happiness and others will have so much peace and happiness. Living with somebody, if your attitude is to only think about your own happiness and your partner’s attitude is only to think about their own happiness, then it doesn’t work. Two selfish minds don’t work.
When you first meet somebody you never think there can be problems. Externally you only see the body—you don’t see the mind very much—and it looks very good, it looks fantastic. It makes you think if you could only be with that person then all your problems would be over; you would instantly enter nirvana. You never consider that there might be problems with that person. But then, after you start living together you start to see your partner’s mind more and more, and gradually you start to see more garbage. Slowly, slowly you see more and more garbage—the jealousy, the selfishness, the dissatisfaction, the unhappiness—and day by day in your heart your partner appears less and less interesting. An Italian student told me that he lost all attraction for his girlfriend when he saw her doing kaka and pipi! That’s how life is. The excitement you had in the beginning is no longer there. It starts to diminish the minute you start to live with that person and really learn about them. Then, as the weeks go by, you might still be living together but the mind isn’t really there any longer.
Then, you look for somebody else, somebody who likes me, who loves me. Soon you discover somebody who seems to love you more than your current partner and you start living together. But sooner or later you see it’s the same story and life becomes one big hell. Even if you eat food costing a thousand dollars it’s tasteless for you. You can no longer sleep. This is the person you prayed so hard for in the beginning, wanting to live together forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, even until after this world has ended. If you are wealthy you have spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars, a million dollars, and you have actualized your wish but then you see that person for what they are. Soon you are praying to God to be free from them as quickly as possible. You think that happiness is being free from this person, never having to see them again. But you can’t even go to sleep without seeing this person you despise. Whenever you see their face you are so unhappy. Your mind is in hell when you see their face, especially if there’s somebody else who loves you more.
However, if you have a good heart that means you think of others, you are concerned about their suffering, you want to bring them happiness and, with compassion, you want them to be free from suffering. If you have a good heart, your life is totally different; there is so much happiness and joy in your life, and you also see the meaning of life. You’re serving every sentient being. Even taking care of just one sentient being, just benefiting one, helping one, your life becomes much more meaningful.
By understanding karma, you practice a good heart and things don’t bother you as much. Whether the other person loves you or not doesn’t bother you much. Therefore understanding karma is the foundation. It helps you stop things from becoming big problems.
The purpose of life is to benefit sentient beings. If you are able to benefit even one sentient being, that’s unbelievably precious. You can see the value of having the opportunity to take care of and to offer service to even one sentient being with a good heart. While you are doing that there’s great inner peace in your heart, and that good attitude also helps the relationship last longer. Even if the other person doesn’t have a good heart, if you do it helps bring so much peace and happiness in the family. Then you become an example, an inspiration, and the other person will learn from you.
If you don’t know how to live a married life then you become married just to suffer. To live a married life you have to know how to, which is by seeing that with your partner you are training your mind in patience, you are training your mind in compassion, you are training your mind in loving kindness, you are training your mind in bodhicitta. Then, your partner becomes a kind of practical teacher. Your guru gives teachings explaining the Dharma to you, but your partner actually makes you practice it.
Training in the inner development of the Dharma, the path to enlightenment through your partner, training your mind with this person, you can then benefit many sentient beings, inspiring them, teaching them, becoming an example to them. Like that, you help the world by training your mind through living with this person, even though they might be very selfish, cold and even very nasty. If you are able to use your partner for your Dharma practice, you can develop your mind day by day, week by week. But if you don’t take that opportunity to use your partner to practice Dharma, you are just creating the heavy karma to be continuously born in samsara, in the lower realms.
Refuge and the karma of living in vows
Now, we will have the refuge ceremony. You have already meditated on, and I myself have explained a bit, how samsara is in the nature of suffering, how samsaric pleasure is only in the nature of suffering, how it’s true suffering. I already mentioned how just to be free from the suffering of the lower realms you don’t need to take refuge in all three refuge objects, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. You can be free from rebirth in the lower realms with just one of these, but to be free completely from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes, karma and delusion, you need to rely on all three, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. One is not enough; you need all three. For example, severely ill patients need help from the doctor, the nurse and the medicine. The doctor diagnoses the disease and prescribes the medicine to be taken, the medicine you need to actually recover from the sickness. Then, the nurse gives you the medicine and the treatment exactly according to what the doctor has explained. For a severely ill patient, you need all three. Like that, to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes, karma and delusion, you need to take refuge in all three refuge objects, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
[Rinpoche gives refuge, the ceremony is not included]
You can take one, two or more, or all five upasaka vows, or none. Taking just one, such as abstaining from killing or from sexual misconduct is very beneficial.
For example, one act of the negative karma of sexual misconduct, done not only with attachment but behind that the self-cherishing thought, becomes negative karma. That complete negative karma of sexual misconduct has four suffering results: the ripened aspect of rebirth in the lower realms and then the three suffering results that you experience in the human realm. Due to another good karma you may be reborn as a human being some time later, maybe right after this life or after a billion, zillion, trillion eons, an unimaginable number of eons, you experience the result of sexual misconduct.
Experiencing the result similar to the cause, your partner has the opposite mind to yours so, even though physically you’re living together there is no happiness, there’s no harmony in the relationship. There are many fights. And the family or the people at work oppose your wishes; you don’t get along with others. Due to that, you separate from your partner and many problems happen.
The next result is the possessed result, which is to do with the place. When you’re born as a human being, you are born in a very unhealthy, very unhygienic place, a very dirty place with lots of kaka, lots of the bad smells. Somehow you have to live in such place. Even in this life sometimes, when you have to drive or walk through such a place, even that experience is the possessed result of sexual misconduct. Even though it’s only for five minutes, it’s still the result of a past life’s negative karma of sexual misconduct.
The last result is creating the result similar to the cause. The past negative karma of a sexual misconduct action has left a negative imprint on the mind so again you engage in the same negative karma, creating sexual misconduct, creating negative karma again in this life because of the past negative imprint.
Each time you engage in one act of sexual misconduct, each completed negative karma produces these four suffering results. The fourth is engaging in the action of sexual misconduct again, and then again, with this second instance, this completed negative karma of sexual misconduct produces the four suffering results, including creating the result similar to the cause, and so it goes on and on and on and on. There’s no end.
That’s why I say that this fourth result—creating the result similar to the cause—this karma is much more terrifying than being born in hell. Being born in hell, you’re born there, you experience it and then that karma finishes and that’s it. But here, creating the result similar to the cause leaves an imprint on the mind and again in a future life it produces the four suffering results, including creating the result similar to the cause. Again you have to do that and it creates the endless suffering of samsara unless you can somehow purify those negative karmas, abandoning them so you don’t have to experience the suffering results. Without purifying, without stopping this negative action by living in the vows, you have to suffer endlessly in samsara. I’m using sexual misconduct here as an example.
That is how one completed act of sexual misconduct is unbelievably harmful to life and doesn’t allow you to achieve liberation from samsara and to achieve enlightenment. Therefore, here it becomes most unbelievably important to take the vows. Without taking the vows such as abandoning sexual misconduct, what happens in your life is that you experience the unimaginable suffering of samsara. What you have experienced from beginningless lifetimes up to now you will have to experience endlessly.
By living in this vow of abstaining from sexual misconduct you experience the result, the four happinesses: rebirth in the higher realms as a god or human being and so forth Then, the possessed result is living in extremely beautiful, clean place. Experiencing the result similar to the cause is to live very harmoniously. Your partner thinks exactly the same as you and shares your wishes. You are harmonious with everybody, with your family, at the office and so forth. That’s experiencing the result similar to the cause of living in the vow of abstaining from sexual misconduct. Then, creating the result similar to the cause means in future lives you will again take the vow, which means for hundreds and thousands of lifetimes you experience all these four happinesses.
This has quite a big explanation. [Rinpoche is referring to a refuge leaflet the students have been given] I included the prayer of St Francis, the Christian saint. He was a great saint who led an ascetic life, dressing in very poor, patched robes. I saw that robe in Assisi in Italy. It’s about an hour and a half drive from Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, the main center we have in Italy. You can see covered in glass the body of St Francis’ chief disciple, a nun who had three hundred disciples. That was seven hundred years ago. You can see her body but not the body of St Francis. I don’t know why, but they put his body in something round. When I was there with Lama Yeshe, Lama sat down and meditated in front of St Francis’ body for a little while.
On the mountain there was water running. The disciples complained to St Francis that they couldn’t meditate because of the noise of the water, so St Francis went to the water and called to the water, “Sister, please stop because my disciples cannot meditate.” Then the water stopped and has not run since that time. There are many bodhisattvas in Buddhism who, when they were crossing a river, actually stopped the river due to the power of their bodhicitta, allowing them to cross. This is recorded in the life story of many bodhisattvas, so we can see from this story that because St Francis has similar power he has actual bodhicitta.
Similarly, there was a wolf that harmed many people. St Francis told people that he would go into the forest and talk to the wolf. People told him not to go, but he went. When the wolf saw him it was like a dog seeing its master. It was so happy that it laid down and licked St Francis’ legs and feet. He told the wolf, “Don’t harm others. I will beg food for you and bring it to you.” From that time the wolf stopped harming others. St Francis then collected food and took it to the forest to give to the wolf.
There are amazing, wonderful stories like that about the Kadampa geshes. And St Francis didn’t like being praised by others; he liked to be criticized. He begged his disciples to criticize him but they couldn’t find anything to criticize him for, only good things. That is exactly like the Kadampa geshes. That’s a real saint. He saw Jesus up there because his mind was very pure, so of course he could also see the Buddha. Because his mind was very pure he could have a vision of the Buddha, according to whatever aspect, whatever karma was appropriate. I think the picture of Jesus spoke to him and gave him advice.
With refuge there are three things to abandon and three things to practice. Those are very important to pay attention to in daily life. Then, there are the seven or eight general pieces of advice,6 to take the teachings and to generate compassion and to rely on holy beings, meaning the virtuous friend. There are things like that so you can control the mind when there’s the danger of anger arising.
For instance, when you eat food you should first make offerings to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. There are things like that. The Buddha is very skillful. In our daily life you eat and drink so many times, so first you make offering to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and then eat it. It just takes a minute. Can you imagine the inconceivable merits collected, like the atoms of a mountain, like the atoms of this earth? When you do these things, it makes your life very meaningful. When you get up, you should do at least three prostrations to the Buddha and the holy objects—the statues, the scriptures and the stupas. And before going to bed, again do three prostrations to the Buddha. It’s a very simple thing but it makes life very meaningful. It’s incredible purification and it collects inconceivable merits, helping you achieve enlightenment.
Please stand up and do three prostrations.
Dedications
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by all sentient beings and buddhas, may my paramita of morality be completed by keeping the vows purely without mistake and without pride. Please pray like this.
[Rinpoche chants]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by all sentient beings, may bodhicitta be actualized in my heart and in the hearts of all sentient beings without delay of even a second and in those whose hearts there is bodhicitta, may it be developed.
[Rinpoche chants]
May bodhicitta be actualized in the hearts of all the leaders of the world, especially the leaders of mainland China.
[Rinpoche chants]
May bodhicitta be actualized in the hearts of everybody who follows different religions without delay of even a second.
[Rinpoche chants]
Dedicate the merits of having taken these vows—the refuge vow and upasaka vows if you have taken them as well—for His Holiness Dalai Lama to have a stable life and for all his holy wishes to succeed immediately.
[Rinpoche chants]
Dedicate all the merits so that the extensive prayer for Tibet made by the Compassion Buddha in the presence of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas may be actualized as quickly as possible. That means there’s freedom for Tibet. This independence for Tibet is what His Holiness is asking mainland China. May Tibetans have total religious freedom and may they be completely free in the land taken over by China. This is what His Holiness asks for, so pray that these things are actualized.
[Rinpoche chants]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by others, may I have the same qualities as Lama Tsongkhapa and offer extensive benefit to sentient beings and the teachings of the Buddha from now on, forever. Please dedicate like this.
[Rinpoche chants]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by all sentient beings, may the father and mother sentient beings have happiness, may the three lower realms be empty forever and may all the bodhisattvas’ prayers succeed immediately, by myself alone.
[Rinpoche chants]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by others, which are merely labeled by mind, which means they do not exist from their own side but are totally empty; may the I, who is merely labeled by mind, which means it does not exist from its own side but is totally empty; achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which is merely labeled by mind, which means it doesn’t exist at all from its own side but is totally empty; and lead all the sentient beings, who are merely labeled by mind, which means they do not exist at all from their own side but are totally empty; and lead them to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which is merely labeled by mind, which means that it doesn’t exist from its own side but is totally empty; by myself alone, who is merely labeled by mind, who doesn’t exist at all from its own side but is totally empty.
I dedicate all the merits to be able to follow the holy extensive deeds which Samantabhadra and Manjugosha realized. I dedicate all my merits in the same way as the three times’ buddhas dedicated their merits. This is the abbreviation of the King of Prayers.
May Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, like refined gold, be completely actualized within my heart and in the hearts of my family members, and in the hearts of all the students of this organization and all the benefactors of this organization and all the people who offered service at the beginning to this organization, who are offering service now and who will be offering service in the future, to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings and to actualize them, as well as in the hearts of the sentient beings who rely upon me, whom I promised to pray for, whose names were given to me, in all their hearts, in the hearts of everybody in this world, to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings and actualize the complete path in all their hearts.
[Rinpoche chants]
This is a photo of the statue of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha that is in Bodhgaya, where all the thousand buddhas will achieve enlightenment. Inside the hundred and fifty-foot stupa there’s this statue of the Buddha. This is where His Holiness Dalai Lama and everybody from all over the world goes to pray. This is to use for your altar to do prostrations and make offerings to. That collects merits like the atoms of this whole earth, maybe more, just to give you an idea. Every day when you circumambulate, make offerings, prostrate, offer flowers or incense, whatever you can do, you collect inconceivable great merit, good luck. Good luck is created by the mind, as I mentioned before; it’s not something truly existent from its own side.
NOTES
5 Ch 6, v. 42. [Return to text]
6 The three things to avoid are: don’t follow a wrong founder, don’t harm others, don’t be influenced by those following wrong paths; the three things to practice are: respect holy objects, respect the written texts, respect the Sangha. The general advice is: take refuge three times in the morning and three times at night, offer the first portion of food or drink, guide others with compassion, listen to teachings as much as possible, always rely on the holy beings with all your heart, never give up your refuge. [Return to text]
