The qualities of Lama Tsongkhapa
Good evening everyone. I thought I’d mention a few words about Lama Tsongkhapa because today is a special day commemorating Lama Tsongkhapa’s passing.
Before that, I want to thank everyone. I heard there are five centers, especially Losang Dragpa Centre, who made offerings today to the Sangha, to Kopan’s monks and nuns. From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank everyone for that as well as for your daily practice, your good heart. No matter how much prayer or meditation you do, the most important thing, the most important Dharma, is the good heart. Thank you very much.
Lama Tsongkhapa is actually Chenrezig, the embodiment of all the buddhas’ compassion. Lama Tsongkhapa is also Manjushri, the embodiment of all the buddhas’ wisdom, and Vajrapani, the embodiment of all the buddhas’ power. That is the reality of what Lama Tsongkhapa is.
That Lama Tsongkhapa is Manjushri was shown by some external signs after his birth. He was born to a very poor family. His mother had gone out to look after the animals and so the birth happened on the road. Then, his mother left the baby and went to look after the animals. When she returned she thought the baby must have been eaten by animals because he was not there on the road. However, she saw that he was being protected by crows or ravens. Quite a few of them were protecting the baby with their wings. His mother then took him back home and raised him.
Where the birth happened, a sandalwood tree grew where some blood from the womb was spilled, and on the leaves of that sandalwood tree Manjushri images appeared. A total of one hundred thousand Manjushri images appeared on the leaves of the sandalwood tree as well as the syllable DHI. I think that’s why Lama Tsongkhapa’s monastery in Amdo, Kumbum, is called One Hundred Thousand Statues. I think the name started from that.
Later, the tree was cut down and was put inside a stupa in the temple of Kumbum Monastery that contains Lama Tsongkhapa’s relics. I went there twice on the same pilgrimage and did extensive jorchö or Lama Chöpa. Geshe Lama Konchog, who completed the path to enlightenment and whose relics are down in his stupa, was there with us. All morning we did the practice.
The sandalwood tree was still growing outside the temple. It was cut down but the root was still there under the ground and so it grew again. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Panchen Rinpoche went there when they had to go to mainland China, many years ago, when Tibet was still independent. People believe that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Panchen Rinpoche are in essence one because when they were going to China a new sandalwood tree grew from the root. These are some of the external signs that show Lama Tsongkhapa is a manifestation of the Buddha Manjushri.
There may be other stories, but this is just one story of how he is Chenrezig. Before his mother conceived, she had a dream that she invocated Chenrezig, the great Compassionate Buddha, and requested him to come down. Many devas, dakas and dakinis made offerings to Chenrezig. Then Chenrezig become smaller and smaller and absorbed within her body. During the time of the birth, she had a dream that somebody came and asked, “Where is the Compassion Buddha?” Then a man came with a key and opened a silver door and brought out the great Compassion Buddha.
When Lama Tsongkhapa was traveling to India to receive teachings he stayed at the place of a great yogi of Vajrapani. He had a dream in which Vajrapani advised him that the next day he should take teachings of Shantideva’s text from Maitreya Buddha. While he was receiving the teachings from the great yogi Vajrapani, above Lama Tsongkhapa’s head was Maitreya Buddha, to his right side was Manjushri and to his left side was Saraswati, who is similar to Manjushri but in a female aspect. He saw all this, thus proving from the advice given by Vajrapani that Lama Tsongkhapa is also Maitreya Buddha.
There was a prediction that after passing away he would become the heart disciple of Maitreya Buddha in Tushita. That’s why, when we do the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, we visualize his two heart disciples coming from Maitreya Buddha’s heart.
As I normally say, Lama Tsongkhapa very thoroughly studied and checked on the teachings of the Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyü traditions, all the teachings that happened, as well as all the direct teachings from the Buddha and all the commentaries by the Six Ornaments, the highly-attained great scholars, their extensive scriptures and commentaries based on the Buddha’s teachings.
He completely actualized the whole path to enlightenment that the Buddha had revealed. He experienced the entire path, what is revealed in the sutra path, the essence, guru devotion, and the three principal aspects of the path advised by the Buddha. He put them together in the lamrim, with the foundation of tantra and then accomplished the generation stage and completion stage of tantra. The generation stage has two levels, gross and subtle, and the completion stage has five. Lama Tsongkhapa completely actualized all that and became enlightened. He could have attained enlightenment in one very brief lifetime of degenerated times but he especially chose to be enlightened in the intermediate state to help ensure that the teachings of the Buddha would stay pure and not become corrupted. He chose to achieve enlightenment without depending on the action mudra, the wisdom mother. This requires becoming enlightened in the intermediate state.
Lama Tsongkhapa wrote the most unbelievable teachings and commentaries. He wrote several texts on emptiness, the ultimate nature, explaining different views of the four schools: Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Cittamatra and Madhyamaka, with Madhyamaka divided into two, Svatantrika and Prasangika. All the previous schools have their different views of the self, different explanations of emptiness, what ultimate reality is. They all have different points of view.
By realizing the most subtle level of emptiness we are able to cut the very root of samsara, ignorance. There are many types of ignorance, but this is particularly the ignorance holding the I, the self, as something real in the sense of existing from its own side, not merely labeled by mind. The I that exists from its own side is something that is not there at all; it totally doesn’t exist. But this ignorance holds onto such a false I, not the I that does exist.
There is an I that exists, but it is empty. While it exists it’s empty, unifying emptiness and dependent arising, unifying ultimate truth and conventional truth, the truth for the ultimate wisdom and the truth for the all-obscuring mind. There are these two truths, ultimate truth and conventional truth, and emptiness and dependent arising unifies the two. That is how the I exists.
This ignorance that holds onto the non-existent I as existing is the root of all karma and delusion, and all the oceans of sufferings of the hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the human beings, the gods and demigods and the intermediate state beings. The wisdom that realizes emptiness can cut this root, eliminating the root of samsara and even the seed of that ignorance, ceasing all karma and delusion. Then, we become totally liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering and never experience suffering again. We achieve ultimate happiness, the blissful state of peace, for ourselves.
That is the view of the Prasangika school, the wisdom realizing emptiness that is explained by that school, by recognizing the subtle object to be refuted, the very subtle hallucination. This does not happen by realizing the emptiness explained by the previous schools, only by the Prasangika’s explanation. There is only one emptiness and only by realizing that can we cut the root of samsara, ignorance.
Besides these four schools that happened in India during the Buddha’s time, there are many other schools that taught different views of emptiness that Lama Tsongkhapa wrote commentaries on. You can see now how important this subject is. Without learning this, without realizing this, we have no way to escape, to be free from samsara. It’s impossible. That particular emptiness, the Prasangika school’s view, that we have to realize.
All that the Buddha taught can be divided into two levels, the lesser vehicle or Hinayana and the great vehicle or Mahayana. The Mahayana can further be divided into Paramitayana or Mahayana Sutra vehicle and the Secret Mantra, Vajrayana. You must understand that the Mahayana has two: one is the teachings of the Paramitayana, the Sutra vehicle, and one is Mahayana Secret Mantra, Vajrayana. This comes to three levels in all within the Hinayana and these were all condensed by Lama Atisha into the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment.
Lama Tsongkhapa made an extensive commentary of the lamrim, the Lamrim Chenmo, the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. He talked about very important points where many learned meditators had made mistakes that became obstacles to achieving the complete path to enlightenment. Because there were many wrong ideas about emptiness, he made a special effort to make the clearest, most elaborate explanations of that. Where many learned ones had previously made mistakes, Lama Tsongkhapa put effort into correcting those mistakes, which were obstacles to realizing the unmistaken, Prasangika school view and thus being able to cut the root of samsara. By explaining the subtle points, Lama Tsongkhapa made the teachings of the Buddha very clear.
Besides the Lamrim Chenmo, there’s the Middle-length Commentary on the Stages of the Path and the short lamrim text, Hymns of Experience of the Graduated Path which is about Lama Tsongkhapa’s own experience on the stages of the path to enlightenment. So, these are the foundation. The extensive scriptures have been explained but there’s also the essence that makes it very clear, like food that has been made ready and is set out on the table by the cook ready for you to just sit there and eat. Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings are like that.
Lama Tsongkhapa wrote on tantra in the Great Exposition of Secret Mantra. This text has the most unbelievably extensive teaching on the five completion stage practices with all the subtle points expressed so clearly.
Lama Tsongkhapa wrote eighteen volumes in all. Maybe people who don’t understand Dharma well may criticize him but for those who are really learned, whose mind is very straight, when they study these teachings by Lama Tsongkhapa they find them very clear, very beneficial. The head of the Nyingma tradition, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, who has passed away and reincarnated now, wrote about the four Tibetan Mahayana traditions: Nyingma, Kagyü, Sakya and Gelug. He wrote about how these came about and in the text, after talking about how the Gelug tradition emerged, at the end he said in a comment that Lama Tsongkhapa made the clearest teachings of the Buddha. That’s what His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche wrote. Others who are really learned see Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings as unbelievable.
Many people who criticize Lama Tsongkhapa haven’t studied his teachings; they haven’t checked. They listen to somebody else’s criticism and believe that, spreading the criticism without checking. But if that person had actually studied Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings it would be totally different. The learned ones, on the other hand, really rejoice; they highly appreciate Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings.
What I want to say in conclusion is that we are most unbelievably fortunate. It’s a miracle to have met Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, to have heard Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, and to be able to study them with qualified teachers who for many years in monasteries have studied the extensive teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa and his disciples, all those who completed the path to enlightenment. We are not only able to study but we are also able to practice and meditate in order to have realizations. I think this is most unbelievably fortunate. It’s like a dream. How we created the cause in the past is hard to believe.
Therefore, my conclusion is that every day we should rejoice. We should feel incredible joy and happiness that we have met Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings and have the opportunity to study with qualified teachers and to meditate in order to have realizations. We must rejoice every day. That’s what I am doing. This life is very short, so we must put as much effort as possible to study, learn and take the essence, and put it into practice through meditation and then realizations. We must do this as much as possible in our life. Then, sooner or later, we will be able to complete the path and achieve enlightenment and like Lama Tsongkhapa, we will be able to offer extensive benefit like the sky to sentient beings and to the teachings of Buddha.
