Chenrezig initiation preparation
I would say that among the many initiations, generally speaking, taking this Chenrezig great initiation is the most important thing, the first initiation to take. Why? Because even if we don’t have the opportunity to learn all the extensive philosophical texts, studying and meditating on the lamrim is the most important thing in the life. As mentioned in the Guru Puja,
Cherishing myself is the doorway to all loss,
While cherishing my mothers is the foundation of all qualities.
Hence I seek your blessings to make my heart practice
The yoga of exchanging myself for others.8
Cherishing other sentient beings, whether it’s numberless sentient beings or even one sentient being, is the base of all the qualities. Even if we are cherishing one insect, even if we are cherishing one person, that becomes the base for all the qualities. The earth is the basis for people and animals to live on, to live and grow crops and build houses and to have swimming pools and roads and factories and businesses and airports and all the other unimaginable things that are a means of living and happiness for people. This earth is used in many different ways for people’s happiness. Like that, cherishing others is the base for all the qualities, all the realizations from the root of the path to enlightenment, guru devotion, up to enlightenment itself. It’s the base of everything—the lesser vehicle path, the Hinayana; the Mahayana Paramitayana path with all the five paths and ten bhumis; and the Mahayana Vajrayana path, the tantric path with its two stages, lower tantra and highest tantra. Everything up to enlightenment comes from the base, cherishing others.
All the happiness we’ve experienced from beginningless rebirths, that we are experiencing now and all the happiness that we will experience up to enlightenment, all comes from cherishing others, from bodhicitta. That means all our past, present and future happiness comes from sentient beings; it all comes from the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings, the numberless gods, the numberless demigods and the numberless intermediate state beings. Every happiness has been received by the kindness of every single sentient being.
That includes everybody here, everybody who is around us here in this building. All our past, present and future happiness up to enlightenment, all the infinite qualities of a buddha’s holy body, holy speech, holy mind, all the unbelievable qualities a buddha has, like the ocean, and even the unimaginable qualities of the bodhisattvas—are all received depending on the kindness of every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, god, demigod, every insect, including our enemy, including the person we don’t like. This is all received from those beings, even the enemy. It all comes from the kindness of the enemy. The qualities of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha have all been received by the kindness of every sentient being, including our enemy.
We need to understand how precious sentient beings are, how unbelievably precious, how important they are, how unbelievably kind they are. All the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha come from every single being, including the mosquito who bothers our ear and then bites us, drinking our blood, or the enemy we hate or who is angry with us, who criticizes us. By taking refuge we not only achieve a good rebirth in the next life, but also liberation from samsara and, not only that, all the realizations on the path to enlightenment and enlightenment itself. By taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha we are able to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. This is based on having refuge, reliance on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha but then all their qualities, all their power, comes from the kindness of sentient beings, from the kindness of every single sentient being. This is how sentient beings are most precious, most kind.
And all the sufferings come from the self-cherishing thought, the thought cherishing the I. All the obstacles and all the sufferings, all the undesirable things, everything comes from cherishing the I, so that means everything negative comes from the I. Even if somebody performs black magic or gives us harm, this all comes from the I because we harmed that sentient being in the past and now we are receiving the harm back as a result. Because we harmed them due to the self-cherishing thought, with attachment, anger and so forth, all this suffering comes from the I.
Therefore, our essential practice is to exchange oneself for others. Instead of renouncing others, giving up others, we let go of the I. Instead of cherishing the I, which only becomes the source of suffering, from which all obstacles come, we cherish other sentient beings. We totally exchange the mind of self-cherishing for the mind cherishing other sentient beings. Before we cherished the I; now we cherish other sentient beings. Before we gave up on other sentient beings, renouncing them; now we let go of the I. It’s a total exchange.
When His Holiness explains this he often says that in the West, when people hear teachings on bodhicitta, they think, “Oh, in Buddhism you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re abandoning yourself.” That’s because they have heard some of the teachings, but they haven’t understood them completely therefore they think maybe the teachings are wrong.
If we do not exchange ourselves for others, but always live our life selfishly, cherishing the I and renouncing others, we can never achieve enlightenment because we can never generate bodhicitta. If we don’t achieve enlightenment, our qualities are not completed. We don’t complete the qualities of cessation and we can’t do perfect work for sentient beings without any mistakes. Therefore, we can’t liberate others from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. We can’t do this perfect work for the numberless sentient beings in each realm: the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, gods, demigods and intermediate state beings. We are not talking about only enlightening two or three people, or two or three insects or something, but all sentient beings.
While we are in samsara there is no happiness. There is no happiness now or in our future lives. When we cherish the I, we constantly create the negative karma that causes the lower realms to become our home. Leave aside the happiness of future lives, even doing the work for this life we won’t be able to achieve any happiness if we always live our life with a selfish mind. Anyway, that’s the essence.
The last thing I want to mention is that when some people in the West hear about bodhicitta, they think it is looking at the negative, asking you to abandon your own interests, to not look after yourself. However, to give just a simple example from everyday life, the minute we have a selfish mind we are unhappy; when the motivation is selfish we are unhappy. Whenever we are with a friend, we want this, we want that, we want so many things but it never happens the way the selfish mind wants. Because what attachment wants is not happening, the mind is very unhappy. Watching people in the street in the West, like New York or somewhere—not everybody but there are some people who are walking in the street with very unhappy faces, thinking only of themselves. While they’re walking along the road they are thinking only of themselves, nothing else.
Whether it’s to do with a friend or whether it’s to do with a job, there are so many things that the selfish mind wants that it doesn’t get. Because of attachment, mainly the self-cherishing thought, there are so many problems that we can think of nothing else and when we are walking down the road we have a frown on our face. We are overwhelmed by the problems all around us. With the selfish mind it’s like that, we see many problems; we find many problems in our life.
The minute we change our attitude there is happiness. “I’m here to serve others. My life is for others. My life here is to offer service to the other sentient beings.” When we say “others” there are numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless gods, demigods and intermediate state beings. Can you imagine? We can make our life beneficial for numberless beings, to cause them happiness. Before, with the selfish mind that among all these beings seeks happiness for only one sentient being, ourselves, happiness didn’t happen. We weren’t getting happiness; our mind was very dissatisfied. The minute we changed our attitude, thinking, “I’m here to serve other numberless beings,” suddenly there is happiness in our heart, just by thinking that. Suddenly there’s peace in our heart, suddenly there’s joy in our heart; we see the meaning of life, we see our life has purpose now.
Before, there was no purpose; there were many obstacles, many problems. What we wanted was not happening and we were very dissatisfied. Now we see the purpose of life, the meaning of life. We are here to cause happiness for all sentient beings. That’s really unbelievable! That’s the best thing in our life when we think like that. We find peace and joy, the meaning of life, so with this we can smile. Our heart is relaxed, without disturbance, no longer bumping in our chest. Our mind is relaxed and there’s peace, by thinking of others, cherishing others.
Even if we have problems with our job or at home or with somebody who doesn’t love us, now with this new attitude of thinking of others, it doesn’t bother us much. It bothers us less the more we think like this, cherishing others, thinking our life is to cause happiness for all sentient beings. Even better, “My life here is to be used by other numberless sentient beings for their happiness.” These problems that would have tormented our selfish mind no longer bother us; they seem unimportant.
This is exchanging oneself for others. Immediately we find peace, happiness and satisfaction in our life, no matter where we are. We don’t necessarily have to be on a meditation cushion. Wherever we are—at the beach or in a restaurant, in the bathroom or wherever—the minute we change our mind, we find great peace and happiness there. With a good heart our mind becomes healthy.
When our mind is healthy, our blood circulation also becomes peaceful and our wind, the vehicle of the mind, is not disturbed, it’s no longer turbulent. When it becomes peaceful that helps the blood circulation, so there is no chance of blood clotting or becoming unbalanced. Our four elements are balanced, at peace, and when they are balanced that doesn’t create sickness. When the elements are imbalanced, disease comes. So, our good heart takes care of our body, it makes our body healthy as well. Nowadays there are people in the West who have written books on how a healthy life comes from a good heart. Some psychologists and doctors have mentioned that in reference to cancer and AIDS.
To actualize bodhicitta, just learning the teachings and meditating alone is not sufficient. You need to receive the blessings of the special deity of compassion in order to develop compassion, in order to develop bodhicitta towards sentient beings. Because bodhicitta is the only door to the Mahayana path and to enlightenment, you need to have this realization. And for bodhicitta, the root to achieve enlightenment, you need compassion toward numberless sentient beings. To gain these realizations, just studying the texts, receiving the teachings and meditating is not sufficient. You need to receive the blessings of the special deity of compassion and bodhicitta.
To receive the blessings of the special deity of compassion and bodhicitta, you need to do the meditation of the deity and the recitation of the mantra of the deity. For that you need to be qualified; you need to receive a great initiation. If you have received the great initiation of Chenrezig, then you can receive the jenang, the blessing of the holy body, holy speech and holy mind to do the practice. You are qualified to receive the jenang, the permission to practice Chenrezig, by having received a great initiation. If you haven’t received a great initiation, then you are not qualified to receive the jenang, the permission to practice the blessing of the holy body, holy speech and holy mind, so you can’t generate yourself as deity on that.
Therefore, taking the great initiation of Chenrezig becomes unbelievably important in order to develop compassion toward numberless sentient beings: numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, gods, demigods and intermediate state beings, to develop compassion toward all sentient beings. You develop bodhicitta from that. Then, you can even achieve all the works for the self through to enlightenment, completing the qualities of cessation and realizations and, from that, you are able to complete the works for others, the numberless sentient beings of each realm. You’re able to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.
Because you need to practice Chenrezig, the Compassion Deity, this initiation becomes essential. If you have taken the initiation, you can do the nyung nä, the Compassion Buddha’s two-day fasting retreat, where one of the benefits is that, during one nyung nä, forty thousand eons of negative karma are purified. Depending on how much of a good heart you have and how much you are able to meditate on emptiness, you can purify much more than that. Many hundreds of thousands of eons, millions of eons of negative karma are purified—hundreds of millions of eons of negative karma are purified, depending on how you do the retreat. However, generally it’s said that forty thousand eons of negative karma are purified if you do one two-day nyung nä retreat.
The retreat has prostrations and recitation of the names of the thirty-five Confession Buddhas and recitation of the Praise to Compassion Buddha. By reciting the name of each buddha you purify many eons of negative karma—not years, not lifetimes, but eons—many eons of different negative karma are purified. And not only that, you also chant the mantra om mani padme hum with meditation, so again an inconceivable number of eons of negative karma are purified. You also take the eight Mahayana precepts which creates the cause of enlightenment, liberation from samsara and the happiness of future lives. All that comes from each precept you have taken and as well as that, if it’s done with bodhicitta, it creates the cause for the happiness of all the sentient beings—all those in this world and in your own country.
This two-day retreat is extremely good for those who have very busy life. You can do it on a weekend—on Saturday and Sunday—when there’s no work. It fits very well with the weekend or anytime you have some time. This is another unimaginable benefit it has. It’s extremely good to join any nyung nä your center has or to do one yourself at home. However many you can do in a year—three, four, eight or whatever—is unbelievably good. Especially when you don’t have time to do a long retreat such as a two-week or one-month retreat, doing a nyung nä is unbelievable. Doing at least one nyung nä a year is very good. To be qualified to do a nyung nä, you need the Chenrezig great initiation, otherwise you can still do a nyung nä but you’re not qualified to actually visualize yourself as the deity. That’s the very basic practice on which other practices are done.
I’ll just quickly do the preparation now. Then maybe I’ll do the initiation next year or the next night. I’m not going to talk about more things.
The story of Gelongma Palmo
The tradition of the path of Thousand-arm Chenrezig is according to Gelongma Palmo9, the highly attained bhikshuni.
There’s a whole life story about this nun, Gelongma Palmo, whom this initiation came from. She had leprosy, with her left hand almost dropping off or something like that. She was advised by King Indrabhuti to practice Chenrezig very strongly in a place where OM MANI PADME HUM naturally manifested from a rock; it was not carved by people. Chenrezig manifested into the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM. She went there and did the practice, and then in the Tibetan fourth month, on the early morning of the fifteenth—which means at night time there was a full moon—she directly saw Chenrezig, who gave her the initiation and teachings. This initiation that I’m giving and you’re taking, she received from Chenrezig directly, along with many other teachings.
Gelongma Palmo practiced and I’m not sure, but maybe she achieved a spiritual body. Anyway, her body totally changed, she became totally young and very beautiful, and her sickness completely healed. At the time she was living near a monastery. Because she was very beautiful, the people living in Kathmandu complained that she was not pure, that she had degenerated the vows. They criticized her because she was living near a monastery or something like that.
One day, she came down to the city and cut off her head and put it on a spear, telling the people, “If what people said is true and I haven’t kept my vows purely then my head will go and never come back, but if it’s not true, and I have kept the vows purely, then it will come back.” The head came back, and she flew in the clouds and danced in the sky. All the people in the city had unbelievable devotion and their wrong view, their heresy, was completely dispelled, completely eliminated.
Gelongma Palmo actually achieved Chenrezig. Geshe Lama Konchog, who attained the complete path to enlightenment, who was a very inspiring example, said that Gelongma Palmo was secretly Dorje Phagmo.10 There’s a female deity who has no head but whose head is on a spear—we received this initiation from His Holiness Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche—secretly she was this deity. Externally Gelongma Palmo was a bhikshuni but maybe inwardly she was Chenrezig.
What happened, I had been waiting to find out where this mantra was because I wanted to build a small temple where many people could go to develop their devotion and bodhicitta and plant the seed of enlightenment. I waited, checking around, not going there but asking some lamas about it. I asked the head of the Buddhists in Nepal but he wasn’t sure where it was. Later, just two or three years ago, the mantra was found. It seems there’s a very high mountain where Urgyen Tulku Rinpoche’s monastery is. There’s a big monastery down below but also one that is up there. On the top of the mountain—whether the same mountain or another one, I am not sure—there is a rock where the mantra is.
There were some swamis living around there and what happened was that the mantra, which had been on a small rock, moved up a few steps onto a mushroom that was growing nearby. So, the mantra moved onto the mushroom. That mushroom had OM MANI PADME HUM on it, so then somebody took it and offered it to His Holiness. I found out this information from one young Tibetan lady who came from Tibet to offer service to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
This young Tibetan lady went to that place and to Nagarjuna’s cave. There’s a high mountain next to Swayambhunath and Nagarjuna’s cave is down below. She wanted to go inside but the attendants grabbed her. When she went to holy places she had her own visions—she was able to see many pure things according to the attainments of her pure mind. Other common people didn’t see anything, just a worn-out place, maybe some bricks, some ruins or plants, but for her, she saw it totally differently, as something extremely pure. For example, when she came here and saw Swayambhunath mountain, she saw the whole mountain as scriptures, texts, so she didn’t go up. Similarly, I think maybe when the seventh Dalai Lama went to Rajgir in India, whereas common people only saw the mountain he saw piles of Dharma texts, the long Tibetan texts. The whole mountain was Dharma texts, so he didn’t go up.
However, she went to Nagarjuna’s cave and saw a red flower which came from the cave. Then she went to this mountain where there was the OM MANI PADME HUM mantra that went onto the mushroom. Anyway, a Tibetan man had taken the mushroom and offered it to His Holiness Dalai Lama. Maybe the flower went to Dharamsala or something, I don’t remember completely. She had some visions, that’s how she saw these things.
When I went to Dharamsala, I said to her, “I want to see this mushroom.” The mushroom was not downstairs but upstairs where the Namgyal Monastery pujas were done. You enter the door and go straight to where His Holiness’ throne is; you go up there and you turn down this way then there’s an altar in that corner. The corner of the altar doesn’t touch the other wall, so there’s an empty space. The mushroom was there on that side. She saw that the mushroom was there and the story was correct.
Some lamas bought the land [at the place where the mantra was found] but they didn’t know that the rock had that mantra, where Gelongma Palmo did the practice and attained Chenrezig, where her leprosy had been completely cured. The lama who bought that place didn’t know the story, but he had a feeling about this rock and didn’t throw it out. But I haven’t seen it yet. I think after the Tibetan lady had this vision she went up there to see it. Anyway, this is the story.
Chenrezig initiation motivation
If you pray to Chenrezig, you can eliminate the obstacles of this life and follow the path in the future lives. This means all the various happinesses in future lives—being reborn in a pure land or having those different human rebirths where you can practice Dharma and thus achieve liberation and enlightenment. You can pacify obstacles and have success in these things; you can achieve the happiness of future lives up to enlightenment. It is more effective and you will have more success if you pray to Chenrezig rather than to other deities. Chenrezig is the special deity of Tibet.
Now Buddhism has also spread to the West, because His Holiness always goes to the West and gives initiations and teachings. His Holiness has given inconceivable, unbelievable teachings in many parts of the West, so Chenrezig is also becoming a special deity in the West.
There are many stories of people who pray to Chenrezig. One is of a woman who died and was wandering in the intermediate state, utterly terrified, trying to escape from all the unbelievably fearful, dangerous things there. Then she saw a white light in front of her and on the tip of the white light was Arya Compassion Buddha’s holy body, white, with a smiling expression on his face, his right hand in the mudra giving sublime realizations, his left hand holding the stem of a white lotus, adorned with scarves and jeweled ornaments, and adorned with the holy signs and exemplifications. The glorified one, the very blessed one, Chenrezig, actually directly appeared to her and said, “Don’t be afraid. Come here. I am here. I am Arya Chenrezig, the Compassionate Eye Looking One. I have come to guide you on the path.” Arya means “exalted.” He told her this.
All her hair stood on end, tears came to her eyes and devotion came to her. Then, after prostrating at the holy feet of Chenrezig, she was shocked and surprised to see Chenrezig in the intermediate stage, and she asked, “Why did you come here to guide me, this pitiful person? What is the cause of that?” She couldn’t believe Chenrezig had come to guide her because she was just a very ordinary being, a very pitiful, suffering being.
Chenrezig told her, “In one of your past lives, you were born as a person looking after an animal”—either an elephant or an ox, I’m not sure—“belonging to a king. When the elephant gave birth you took the elephant’s baby to a precipice and threw it over. Due to that karma, in your next life you fell from a mountain. At that time you made a prayer, ‘May the Arya Compassionate One please understand me.’ You made that request. Immediately after you made that request to Chenrezig, Chenrezig saved you and you didn’t fall down completely. Since that time, I have been guiding you in all your lives.”
Then Chenrezig said, “Ever since that time I have guided you in all your lifetimes. Anyone who makes just one prayer, just one request for me to guide them, I will guide any sentient being like this.” This is what Chenrezig told her.
Therefore, at this time we are most unbelievably fortunate. Even if we only make one request to Chenrezig, because Chenrezig said that he will guide all those sentient beings, that means because of our one request he will guide us in all our lifetimes. That’s the proof.
The meaning of OM MANI PADME HUM
There are many different prayers requesting Chenrezig, or from your side you can recite om mani padme hum and make a prayer to Chenrezig. It seems very, very important to make a prayer to Chenrezig, and then Chenrezig will always guide you, now and when you die and even after this life, at any time. So, you should feel unbelievably fortunate and you should feel great happiness to have this opportunity. In all future lifetimes Chenrezig will guide you.
In the past there was a very foolish person, a goatherd, who knew absolutely nothing, but he kept on reciting om mani padme hum while he was looking after the goats. He didn’t know Dharma; he knew nothing, but he just kept on reciting the mantra while he looked after the goats.
Then one day, when this goatherd was dying, many people saw different colors come from his body like rainbows, going to the east and his body absorbed to the pure land, Dakpa Kachö. And then, when his consciousness had gone to the pure land, om mani padme hum appeared on his skull. In that country his skull became a holy object which everybody worshipped, making prayers and prostrating to it.
Similarly, in Solu Khumbu, there was a very old, very simple couple. The husband used to spend his life carving mantras on the rocks. He did many carvings. He didn’t have any Dharma education, nothing; he just carved mantras on rocks, spending his life like that. When he died and they offered his body to the fire , his skull sprang into the sky and people saw it had om mani padme hum on it. Since then it has been kept in the temple, and people worship it as an object of devotion. That means his consciousness definitely went to Chenrezig’s pure land.
There are many stories like these. Even if someone has no understanding of Dharma, no lamrim, nothing, just by chanting om mani padme hum or carving it on the rocks, this can happen. Of course, because you are chanting om mani padme hum so much, you would have a good heart by the way, even if there’s no intellectual Dharma understanding.
That’s why I mentioned my mother’s story the other day. My mother’s incarnation had a very clear memory and was able to recognize old friends and all the family members. With new people he showed shyness and didn’t talk but there was no shy feeling with the family, even with the head of the Kopan nunnery. My mother spent three months at the Kopan nunnery, going to the stupa every day, where she was helped by the head of the nunnery and two other nuns. When the incarnation came there was no shyness at all; he talked to that head nun immediately. But with other people it wasn’t like that.
The incarnation had the benefit of such a clear memory because my mother recited om mani padme hum all day long. She said she recited fifty thousand mantras every day. She told me the year she passed away, “Now I can’t recite that number anymore.” That was when she was here at Kopan. Then she went to Varanasi and passed away during His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra initiation and teachings, which we requested and sponsored. The night before she died we took her to see His Holiness, outside the house where he stayed, but her eyes were very kind of sticky or something, so I’m not sure if she saw His Holiness. Then, that night, maybe at one or two o’clock, she passed away.
So, the chanting of om mani padme hum has skies of benefit, like the atoms of this earth. For example, this table has many atoms. The incarnation’s clear memory is like a small part of this table, whereas the benefits of reciting om mani padme hum are like the atoms the size of this earth in comparison.
The mantra has many explanations. Padme is wisdom; MANI is method. That contains the method path of the Hinayana, renunciation, the path to achieve liberation. MANI PADME is the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, the method and wisdom to achieve liberation, the blissful state of peace for oneself, the total cessation of suffering and its causes.
MANI PADME also contains the Paramitayana path, the five paths and ten bhumis. These are all contained in the method path, MANI. The wisdom realizing emptiness, including the direct perception of emptiness, is PADME. Therefore, the whole path to achieve enlightenment is contained in MANI PADME, the Paramitayana path.
Within tantra, the lower tantra has the path with sign and the path without sign, so again there is method and wisdom and that is all contained in MANI PADME. In the highest tantra, there is the generation stage and the completion stage. In the completion stage, the method path is the illusory body—the impure illusory body and the pure illusory body—and the wisdom path is clear light—the clear light of example and the clear light of meaning—and then the unification of these two. So the whole path of tantra is contained in MANI PADME.
The whole of Buddhism is like this: the base or ground, which means the two truths; the path, which means the method and wisdom; and the goal, which means the dharmakaya and rupakaya, a buddha’s holy mind and holy body. This is the whole of Buddhism and it is contained in this MANI PADME.
If you go through the details of the path there’s so much to talk about with om mani padme hum. There’s so much explanation to be given related to it: the Hinayana, the Mahayana Paramitayana and the Mahayana Vajrayana.
The HUM is establishing the root of the path to enlightenment in your heart, with such devotion to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The HUM also means when you do prayers such as protector prayers that start with HUM, it’s like calling out, like saying, “Hi Mum!” When you say, “Hi Mum” no matter how busy she is she has to pay attention to you! So HUM means you are calling to Chenrezig to pay attention to you.
Then with MANI PADME you actualize the entire path; the method is contained in MANI and the wisdom is contained in PADME. From that all the gross and subtle defilements are ceased, your ordinary body, speech and mind are purified.
You achieve Chenrezig’s vajra holy body, vajra holy speech and vajra holy mind because OM is made of three sounds: AH, U, MA. These three sounds put together become OM and signify that your ordinary body, speech and mind is purified and you become Chenrezig’s vajra holy body, vajra holy speech and vajra holy mind. After you achieve the meaning of OM, you are able to do perfect work for all sentient beings. Therefore, OM contains the entire Buddhadharma. Everything in the 84,000 teachings is contained in this om mani padme hum mantra, so any heavy negative karma can be purified by reciting this.
That especially means developing compassion. Usually people who recite om mani padme hum have a good heart even though they don’t have any intellectual understanding. In Solu Khumbu, old men and women who chant om mani padme hum a lot in their lives have very good hearts but they have no intellectual understanding. In this life, you are most unbelievably fortunate to have come to know the Chenrezig practice and to be able to recite om mani padme hum. You have this opportunity and especially the opportunity to take the initiation and become qualified to do the practice.
As I mentioned before, a nyung nä is a most powerful means to purify. There are a whole lot of stories but then there won’t be time for the initiation.
If you recite ten malas of om mani padme hum every day, when you go into the street and talk to somebody, even if your breath touches that person’s body, their negative karma gets purified and they don’t get reborn in the lower realms. When the wind blows and touches your body and then touches insects and people, all their negative karma gets purified and they get a higher rebirth. This is because your body is blessed by visualizing Chenrezig and reciting the mantra; you receive the blessing of Chenrezig. Therefore, when you shake hands with somebody, their negative karma gets purified; when you touch someone on their body, people or animals, their negative karma gets purified. And when you massage someone, their negative karma gets purified. It has special benefit when you are doing massages or healing.
Whoever looks at you, you are meaningful to behold. In a restaurant, at a cinema or on top of a hill, wherever many people are gathered and can see you, however many hundreds of thousands of people there are, by looking at you their negative karma gets purified, so you become meaningful to behold. Even if they touch you, their negative karma gets purified; even if they look at you from a distance, their negative karma gets purified. It’s amazing! You become meaningful to behold for sentient beings.
It is said that if you go in the ocean, in a lake, a river, a pond or whatever, when water touches you, all the water gets blessed and becomes holy. Then, all the numberless creatures—the insects, the fish and so forth—all the sentient beings living in that river, pond, lake or ocean, all their negative karma gets purified. Even the people who are riding over the waves or playing on the water, anybody who the water touches, their negative karma gets purified. This is the most amazing benefit it has.
When you die and your body is offered to the fire, when the smoke that comes from that touches anybody—any person or any animal—their negative karma gets purified. It’s a most amazing thing.
However, the most important benefit is to develop compassion and bodhicitta. That’s the root of the path to enlightenment.
We are taking the initiation for that reason, especially to develop compassion for all sentient beings. World peace depends on compassion. If there’s no compassion, world peace cannot happen, but if there’s compassion, if many people generate and practice compassion, practice Chenrezig, there will be fewer and fewer global problems and more and more peace and happiness. For example, if one influential person has power but does not practice compassion, what happens? They can kill many millions of people on this earth. This has happened historically many times in different countries, where one person has killed many millions and millions of people—children and old men and women—without even counting the animals.
Recently, an Indian lawyer who has been helping us get permission for the Maitreya Project asked me a question in a restaurant about getting angry with people. Dagpo Rinpoche, the ex-abbot of Sera Mey, was there so I passed the question on to him. Rinpoche replied that because he had given them harm in previous lives, they were now harming him. He created the cause by harming them, and from that cause he was receiving harm from them, not only in this life but also in future lives, on and on. Dagpo Rinpoche’s reply was something like this. The next morning the lawyer rang the people he was often angry with and apologized. They were completely shocked, completely surprised, because he was always wrathful, showing anger, but that morning, he apologized to everybody. That was similar to compassion.
At another time, this man had trouble with his neighbors. He had bought land and built a large house on it, then bought lots of art to put in the house. After that, he asked his neighbors to keep the art pieces for him, but they kept them for a long time and then didn’t want to give them back. When he finally returned and asked for them they refused, saying he had to buy them if he wanted them back. He got very upset. I’ve forgotten now what I advised him but I think I said he should apologize or generate compassion or something. So, he rang the neighbor to apologize and they were completely happy and they gave the art back to him.
I’m telling you this here just to show you that sometimes when you have a problem, solving it can be very simple, but compassion is the most important solution for all our daily problems. I’m just using this man as a recent example. Therefore, in our daily life, whenever you talk to somebody—they don’t have to be Buddhist, it could be anybody, young old, whoever—try to bring compassion into the conversation; let them hear about compassion and practice compassion. This is unbelievably important; it brings world peace. Therefore, we’re taking the initiation.
[Rinpoche gives the initiation]
If possible, practice guru devotion every day for ten or even fifteen minutes or longer, depending on the time, by following the outline of that meditation. Then, for one year concentrate on the small scope, from perfect human rebirth up to karma. Do that for one year and try to achieve each realization. Then, the next year, study the middle path: renunciation, the shortcomings of the delusions and the three types of general suffering of samsara, the twelve links and all that. Then, spend the next year on bodhicitta. When you have bodhicitta, spend the next year on emptiness.
Basically, that is just a general idea of what you can do, but the main meditation is like this. What I’m saying is to do this every day as much as possible. You might miss sometimes but the general idea is like that, to read and meditate in that way. It doesn’t mean you can’t meditate on other things, but I’m saying here this is the main focus. This way you have some awareness, you have some development and experience.
By taking the initiation you can learn and meditate on the tantric path, but first you need the realization of bodhicitta. That’s the one to focus on. The aim of this life is to realize bodhicitta.
If you are here for the first time, you must read one lamrim text from beginning to end in order to study it. That’s very important. You should even do it two or three times. After that, you can do one year on the renunciation of this life and future lives and then one year on bodhicitta and one year on emptiness. I think that’s very good. Then your life is always meaningful and what you do in your daily life—not only in the session time but even during the rest of the day—you can relate that to what you meditated on. Try to live your life in that way. Everything should be done with the motivation of bodhicitta from the beginning to enlightenment. That makes your life like gold, most meaningful, most beneficial to all sentient beings. That means collecting merits and purifying, all those things, what you are supposed to do in everyday life to help you have realizations.
So that’s it. Also, that means the next lives are like that.
Thank you very much.
The emptiness of the I
At the very beginning, on the first day, I didn’t manage to complete what I started; I didn’t finish it the very first day. I just want to go through the quotation of this great teacher, the seventh Dalai Lama, so you know how to do the meditation. If you write it down, you might remember it correctly. Then, if you know the quotation, you can use that for a meditation on emptiness. In the quotation the seventh Dalai Lama expressed his experiences, so it’s very tasty; it’s like a hot apple pie with cold ice cream on top.
One time, many years ago, so many years ago, in Australia, a student in Sydney—she was a nun, we had a lot of Sangha there at that time—and her father, who was Attorney-General of the Australian government, invited Lama and me to their house for dinner. After we finished dinner, the mother served dessert. She was watching us from behind and she said, “Hurry up. Eat.” You have to have two forks: one to open the bottom, the hot part, and one for the cold part on top! We only had dessert like that at her parent’s house. I’ve had apple pie and ice cream in other places, but never like that. Sometimes I have a bad memory so it’s difficult to remember.
This is what the seventh Dalai Lama said. There are two quotations, not exactly the same. There is kor, meaning circling, which refers to samsara, and there’s gone beyond that, the total cessation of the oceans of samsaric suffering and the cause, not outside but within each individual samsaric being’s mind. This is not a principal consciousness but a mental factor, one of the fifty-one mental factors, from the five mental factors that always accompany the principal consciousness. This is intention, sem pa, the karma and delusions, part of each individual being’s mind, not the body but the mind.
What kind of mind? Those types of mind that are beyond samsara. That could be not only nirvana but also great liberation, full enlightenment, the cessation of even the subtle defilements and the completion of all qualities that we can achieve by actualizing the Mahayana Paramitayana path’s bhumis, and then also the Secret Mantra, Vajrayana path.
All the phenomena of samsara and nirvana, the state gone beyond, never, never existed from the beginning from their own side. That includes the self, your own self, your actions, the objects of your actions and so forth. The whole thing—samsara and nirvana—the whole thing: form, sound, smell, taste, tangible objects.
You may have done some meditation on this, but I didn’t get to speak much on the subject of emptiness. At different times some talks were given, so now you must have some idea, not like at the beginning. So, the self and the aggregates—the mind and the body—the mind, the perceiver, that which is knowing, which is perceiving, discovering, the mind and then the object of the mind: form, sound, smell, taste, tangible objects, and the objects of mind. From the very beginning none these things ever existed, they never came into existence from their own side. They never existed without depending on the aggregates, without depending on the mind, without depending on the label; the mind which is labeled, the mind which is merely imputed and then also the label.
To make it short, all these phenomena—samsara, nirvana and all that I mentioned before: self and aggregates, body and mind and all these objects of mind, form, sound, smell, taste, tangible objects—for the hallucinated mind they have always appeared as if they existed from their own side without depending at all on the mind merely imputing them.
It is as if they always existed according to how they appear to our hallucinated mind and how we believe them to exist. It looks like this is the reality—it looks as if they have existed like this from the beginning. It appears that things have never depended on the mind merely imputing them, that they exist from their own side. Not only from today, not only from this life, but from beginningless rebirths we have had this hallucination, and we have had this total wrong belief apprehending it is true, that it’s a hundred percent true. We have been living our life in that way from beginningless rebirths.
Why are we born into our life like this at this time? There’s a continuation because in our past lives we haven’t removed the ignorance and the cause of the ignorance, the negative imprints from where the delusions arise. We never actualized the remedial path in the past; we never removed the ignorance. That’s why even in this life, where we have been born as a human being, we have all these hallucinations of true existence that cover the whole of phenomena, that which exists in mere name, which is merely imputed by mind. All these phenomena are totally empty of existing from their own side. They have never had any true existence from their own side. Phenomena have never, ever existed, even for one second, from their own side without depending on the mind merely imputing them.
That’s the reality of how things are: I, action, object, all the phenomena. That’s how all of samsara and nirvana—everything—is totally empty, but it is all covered by this hallucination of true existence. The hallucination of true existence is projected by the negative imprint left on our own mental continuum by the ignorance, the concept of true existence. It makes the self which is empty of existing from its own side seem very real. It makes the body, the aggregates, which are also totally empty from their own side but are decorated or projected by this hallucination of true existence, it makes them seem very real.
As I mentioned in the past, from the I down to the atoms of the body, when you go finer, finer, finer, suddenly when you look at the I, there’s a real I, but it’s not in the nose or in the brain—you don’t feel there’s an I in the brain—or in the toes or the fingers. You don’t feel that there’s an I in there in your fingers or in your thumbs. (I don’t think there’s an I there. If somebody else thinks there’s an I in the thumbs, then I’m not sure.) It’s not in the legs, not in the toes, not in the stomach. You don’t believe there’s the I in the stomach with all the junk, with all the smell? It’s not in the neck.
You don’t think the I is inside, all over the body, that there’s a body filled with the I. You don’t think that, nor do you think that the I is outside the body. So it’s neither inside nor outside. What I’m saying is that you have covered the whole body and you don’t think that the I is either inside or outside. But when you’re not examining, then it appears to be inside the body and you believe that. Putting it in a simple way, there seems to be an I inside this body—not inside the stomach, not inside the neck, but somewhere above the stomach and down below the neck, somewhere there. Not particularly where there’s a bumping heart, the bumping heart where operations are done. You don’t think that there’s an I there, not even there. Not in the stomach, above the stomach or down below the neck, but somewhere there, inside the chest somewhere.
But if you really looked, if you really analyzed or if a doctor did an operation and looked for the I, you could not find the I there. If you looked in more detail there, down to every atom, you still couldn’t find it there at all. What seemed clear this morning, or from birth, doesn’t seem clear any more. You have had this belief, even from life to life, even if in a past life you were an animal or a deva or a human being or whatever. There’s still this belief. There has been this ignorance apprehending that there’s a real I that experiences suffering, that experiences happiness, that experiences the intermediate state before taking birth.
When the consciousness was conceived in the mother’s womb on the fertilized egg, at that time there was this ignorance holding that there is a real I. There’s the appearance of the real I and then it holds that there’s a real I. The ignorance was there at that time and up to now. But if you look where you believe the real I is, if you check, the minute you start to check, it becomes unclear. Then you discover it’s not there.
Somehow, it’s very strange. You check many outside things. In business you check so many things. When you go shopping you check the quality of the food, how it’s made, you check many things. There are so many things in life that you check but somehow—it’s very strange—you don’t check about this real I, this I that the ignorance believes in. You’re doing everything for this I. You sacrifice your life for it. You live your life for this I that you believe is inside this body, in the chest somewhere. You do everything for this I, you live your life totally, completely, for this I. Do you understand what I’m saying? But it’s not there. The minute you look for it, you can’t find it. The minute you start to look for this I, it becomes unclear.
Then, what you discover is that it doesn’t exist there. It’s unbelievable. It’s very interesting how we live our life. We check everything else, but we never check this one. We live with this ignorance continuously. That’s not wisdom. Wisdom, the mind that checks and sees, is not there. Wisdom is totally the opposite of ignorance. While there is no such real I there, ignorance holds it to exist. There’s a hallucination and then it completely holds that as true. But with wisdom the object of ignorance is totally non-existent, right there. There’s no such thing at all. This I has never existed from the beginning, and yet ignorance has believed it exists from this morning, from birth, from beginningless rebirths. To our mind, to our ignorance this is a hundred percent true. It appears a hundred percent true and the mind totally holds it as a hundred percent true, as a reality.
But actually, it’s totally false, completely false. Wisdom sees this. All the buddhas’ wisdom, all the arya beings’ wisdom, even your wisdom through analysis and through meditation, sees there is no such thing as this I which ignorance holds as a hundred percent true. The numberless buddhas, arya bodhisattvas, all the arya beings, they all see that there’s nothing there to hold onto, that the I is empty.
By following the ignorance, the root of samsara, like a guru, this is where all the suffering comes from—all the delusions and karma, ignorance, anger, attachment, then karma, then all the rebirths in the six realms with all the six realms’ sufferings. As you have gone through these sufferings of the six realms, the experience all comes from this, the ignorance holding the I as truly existing. To the hallucinated mind the I appears that way but it is the ignorance believing this to be so that creates all this suffering.
But wisdom sees that there’s no such thing as the I that ignorance believes in. Wisdom sees that one is totally non-existent. When you generate this wisdom, you discover that there’s no such thing there; it’s totally empty. It never existed. From beginningless rebirths, it has never come into existence for even one second. It is extremely important to discover this and to meditate in this way.
The problems of believing in the real I
First, I’ll mention this. When you look at the I without examining it, it looks like it’s there. It looks like it’s there inside the chest or somewhere here. So, now analyze what you’ve been believing in and trusting in from this morning, from birth, from beginningless rebirths—without losing what you’ve found—this real I. Without losing that, you analyze. Form, the body, is not the real I; feeling is not that; discriminative awareness is not that, compounding aggregates—the forty-nine of the fifty-one mental factors—are not that; consciousness is not that. None of the five aggregates is the I and even the whole collection of the five aggregates is not that I. You cannot find the real I, from the tip of the hairs down to the toes; nowhere can you find it. If anything exists it has to be either one with these aggregates or it should exist separately from them.
This real I is not there anywhere. This is the real I that you have believed in from beginningless rebirths, that you have done everything for, that you have served with your body, speech and mind. As a small child in kindergarten, then in primary school, high school, college and university, getting a degree—so many years of education were done for this I, but it’s not there. Analyze how everything has been done for this I that is not there at all. After getting a university degree for this I that is not there, there was marriage for this I that is not there.
I’m not sure in the West but here in Nepal and India, the wedding is the most important thing in life. The very poor people save money for many years. If they have a girl, then the family has to give so much money to the family of the son, to whom their daughter is getting married. There are huge expenses and there is a lot of worry and fear that they will be unable to get the money that is needed. That’s what it’s like in India and Nepal, and I’m sure weddings are very expensive for people anywhere in the world. However, it’s all for this real I that is not there.
Can you imagine? If you analyze it, this is exactly what it’s like! You get scared because you believe in this I and you have to serve it, but when you analyze and you find that this real I isn’t there at all you still get scared because you want to believe there’s a real I. Maybe there’s somebody like that. All those unbelievable expenses for that wedding are not for the merely-labelled I; they’re not for the I that does actually exist; they’re only for the real I.
Then you have children for this I, for the happiness of this real I that is not there. You want to make this real I that seems to be somewhere in your chest happy, you understand? So, maybe for that purpose you have children. I’m not saying everybody, but for the majority of people this is their motivation for having children—so this real I can have happiness by enjoying the children. Even that is for this real I which is not there. “If I have children, I will enjoy my life. I’ll have great peace and great happiness.”
In the same way, if somebody spanks you or scolds you or says some nasty words to you, or if somebody cheats you or takes your money or something, then you think, “This person did something so bad to me. That person did something terrible to me, to me, to this real I.” When you say, “to me” you are not thinking of the merely-labeled “me.” You don’t think that the person harmed, cheated, stole money, said nasty words or didn’t respect this merely-labeled I. You think the person harmed the real I; you believe this happened to the real I. You think, “I gave that person a glass of water or some fruit or something, I gave him some money but he didn’t thank me.”
“Me” means this real I that you believe is there somewhere inside your chest. On the basis of believing that there’s this real I in your chest—while there’s no such I there, that’s the truth—you get angry, thinking they are terrible, or you get jealous and then you sue them! Why are you suing them? Because you believe there’s a real I there, however, it is not there. It’s totally non-existent but you believe it’s there, and you sue that person. You spend a lot of money, a million dollars, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, to put them in the prison. All that is done for this real I which is not there.
If you watch your life, if you analyze it, it’s like that. Can you imagine? It’s completely funny! It all makes you laugh; it’s all unbelievable funny. Jeffrey Hopkins mentioned this. I don’t remember exactly whether he said “phenomena” or “truly-existent phenomena” but he said something like “truly-existent phenomena are a joke.” When you discover that all these things that you assume to be real don’t exist at all, you see your life as a huge joke. I think that was probably what he was referring to. Your entire life, which you take so seriously because you strongly believe everything is a hundred percent real, existing from its own side, is a huge joke.
Then, attachment arises. Do you know why attachment arises? It’s the same reason. Because you want happiness for this real I. That’s the key; that’s the main reason. The whole root reason is believing that there’s a real I there inside chest and needing happiness for this I. You believe it is there, but it’s not there at all. Attachment arises, looking for happiness for the I. The selfish mind is looking for happiness for this real I, so then attachment arises, looking for happiness, grasping for happiness.
And then all the relationship problems occur; the most unbelievable problems with relationships occur. All these problems happen because you believe there’s a real I there and you want to achieve happiness for that. You’re not satisfied with the friend or companion you have, even though that relationship is to make this real I happy. Everything’s done for this. Even before you finish one package of relationship problems, you start another package of problems. You collect another package, another box of relationship problems that are similar to the previous ones. Then, you finish that problem and take another one. So, your whole life is a retreat in suffering, not a retreat for happiness. You are retreating from happiness into suffering.
Now listen! Why are you afraid of death? It’s the same thing. This real I is going to die. This real I is going to die but it’s not there. This real I is going to die and so you become afraid of death, you’re scared of death. That fear of death is connected to the ignorance believing that there’s a real I there, but in reality it’s not there; it doesn’t exist anywhere. Not only does it not exist there, it doesn’t exist anywhere at all, neither in this body nor anywhere else. If it existed anywhere it has to be either within the aggregates or separate from them. This real I that your mind has been holding onto as a hundred percent true from beginningless rebirths doesn’t exist within the aggregates or separate from the aggregates, therefore it is totally non-existent.
Because of this, much of your life is either up or down. You are either grasping the four desirable objects or, when that doesn’t happen, there’s the opposite, you have to experience the four undesirable objects: lack of comfort or discomfort, having no reputation or having a bad reputation, not receiving praise or receiving criticism, or not receiving material gifts. Because of the four desirable objects there is attachment, clinging, and then there’s unhappiness when you encounter the four undesirable objects—unhappiness, depression, anger and all these things. All of life’s problems are like that.
All this is to do with believing there is a real I there. Everything is connected with this. The root is a hundred percent believing that there’s a real I there inside this body, inside the chest. That is introducing this concept in a simple way.
What’s mentioned in the text is that there are the five aggregates, but these are explained in a general way and this point is not particularly clear.
There’s the I and, on top of that, there’s the I not merely labeled by mind, the real I existing from its own side. That is how it appears and then you believe it; you let your mind believe it. It’s not God, it’s not somebody else, you let your mind hold onto that as true. That’s ignorance, the wrong concept. Why is it ignorance? Because while there is no such I there in reality—it is totally non-existent right there—ignorance believes it is there. Ignorance doesn’t see that it is totally non-existent, that it’s totally empty. It believes it really exists, that it’s really true as it appears.
By realizing the total non-existence of the object that ignorance holds to be truly existing, by the wisdom realizing that, and especially the wisdom directly seeing emptiness, you are able to cease that ignorance, the delusions and the seed of delusion, the negative imprints. Then you’re able to achieve total liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes.
The emptiness of phenomena
The same applies when you think of the aggregates. When you don’t analyze, the aggregates appear to you as real, existing from their own side, not merely labeled by mind. Again, it’s the same: when you check the aggregates—the aggregate of form, the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of cognition [discriminative awareness], the compounding aggregates [compositional factors] and the aggregate of consciousness—none of these are the real aggregates. Even the collection of these five are not the real aggregates. You cannot find the real aggregates on these at all; they don’t exist at all. So, it’s the same thing when you do this analysis of each of the aggregates. The real form, real feeling, real discrimination, real compounding aggregates, real consciousness—each of these aggregates that appear to you as real and you believe to be real, you can see that they are not real at all. The parts of the form—the limbs, the head and the many parts—none of these parts are real and even the whole body—the whole form aggregate together —is not real at all. You can’t find it anywhere. Even looking at the parts in finer and finer detail, down to the atoms, you can’t find it at all, according to the Prasangika school.
The atoms are made of particles and so there are no real atoms at all from their own side, but even the collection of particles is not the real atom. You can’t find it at all. The collection of parts is the basis and the atom is the label; the basis cannot be the label. Those two phenomena exist. They do not exist separately, but they do exist differently. So, you can’t find the real atom on the collection of parts. You cannot find the real atom existing from its own side. Even the particles that are the basis of the atom are merely imputed by the mind, they come from the mind. The atom and the particles of the atom are nothing except what is merely imputed by the mind. Therefore, it’s mere imputation, merely imputed by the mind.
After that, after the mere imputation, ignorance, the concept of true existence, by leaving a negative imprint on the mind, then projects true existence on the mere imputation. In reality, this is completely, totally empty. There’s no such thing as a real atom or a real collection of particles existing from its own side. In reality there’s no such thing there. What exists is what comes from the mind, what is merely imputed by the mind, just that. That is totally empty. It exists but it’s completely empty of existing from its own side. Like that, from the I, from the self, down to the particles of an atom, all are totally empty of being the real ones, existing from their own side.
Of the different mental factors, what is feeling, the mental factor that experiences happiness, suffering and indifference? Your own mind merely imputes “feeling.” Feeling is nothing else except what is merely imputed by the mind, therefore feeling doesn’t exist from its own side; it is totally empty. Every second of that mental factor, every split second of that mental factor, it is totally empty.
It’s the same with the discriminating cognition, the mental factor that discriminates the object—this and that, this is a table, that is a book, this is a vase and so on. Your mind discriminates this from that and then your mind merely imputes the aggregate of discriminating cognition. Then, it’s the same thing for all those other forty-nine mental factors labeled compounding aggregates. This is a compound, it’s a result. In the consciousness that discriminates the object, there is a quality and an essence there and what the mental factor does, you can call the quality and the essence. There are more things mentioned but anyway this is very rough. From those two which mainly focus on the essence of the objects, there’s the consciousness. So that mind is labeled “consciousness.” All these are labels imputed on the base. Therefore, nothing exists from its own side; everything is totally empty.
All phenomena, all of samsara and nirvana, are empty. The I, action, object and all of samsara and nirvana, all phenomena, are empty; all are totally empty from the beginning. They are empty of existing from their own side but that does not mean they don’t exist.
Meditate on that. They’re empty from the beginning, so meditate on that. Do one-pointed concentration on that: the I, action, object, and all the phenomena, all of samsara and nirvana, are totally empty from the beginning. Just meditate on this emptiness as one-pointedly as you can.
Next one is your own superstitious thought, the conceptual thought. If you use this I, this self, first your conceptual mind makes the drawing. This not-merely-labeled I never existed from the beginning; it has been totally empty from the beginning. Although it’s like that, your mind, your conceptual thought, labels the merely-imputed I. Think about this. After the mere imputation—right after that second—the negative imprint left on your mental continuum by past ignorance projects, decorates, true existence. After the mere imputation, in the next second this is what happens.
Now, your mind conceptually made the drawing like that of this totally false I. What happens now is that you let your mind hold onto this as true; you believe this is true, this is reality. Then this cheats you. Holding this to be true you are cheated for your whole life. As I mentioned before, you do everything for this real I which is not there.
Whether you are eating candy, chocolate or ice cream, or drinking a glass of water, there is discrimination in everything you do. You discriminate some sentient beings as good and some as bad, and then you create karma—with attachment you create negative karma with your friends and with anger you create negative karma with your enemies. Like that, you create all the negative karmas. Conversely, you create virtue so this real I won’t be reborn in the lower realms. You create virtue so this real I will get a higher rebirth.
But of course, you can’t achieve liberation without eliminating this ignorance, this belief. You can’t achieve liberation; you can’t achieve enlightenment. So, it cheats you. For your whole entire life this ignorance holding the truly-existent I has been cheating you, it has been deceiving you from beginningless rebirths, not only today, not only now. That’s why we are still suffering, why we don’t have liberation or enlightenment.
This is what the seventh Dalai Lama said,
Every second this concept holding the truly-existent I cheats you totally.
It is vital that you see the concept of true existence as your most terrifying, most harmful enemy.
You must cut the root of this hallucination.
This is my advice.
You need to see where this hallucination comes from and you need to cut this ignorance. This not only refers to this truly-existent appearance but also, on the basis of that, the attachment and discrimination that comes from it, thinking, “How beautiful this is, how nice this is,” and so forth. From this, attachment arises with its own hallucinations. Or we think, “How bad this is,” and then anger arises with its own exaggerations, its own projections, seeing that thing as something bad, ugly. Attachment has its own hallucinations and anger has its own hallucinations; each projects their own view. It’s the same with jealousy. Whatever delusion arises, it has its own wrong view, hallucination. All these incredible piles of hallucinations that we have in our life come from the fundamental hallucination, true existence. They have been decorated, created from that ignorance. This is what we need to cut; this is what His Holiness the Seventh Dalai Lama advises.
You cut the ignorance by realizing emptiness and then by achieving great insight. When you achieve the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness you achieve the arya exalted path. That is the one that directly ceases ignorance and its cause, the seed of ignorance, the negative imprint. Then you are free forever from the oceans of suffering of each realm. Of course, with the support of bodhicitta, you collect extensive merits and with this wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, you are able to cease all the subtle defilements and then achieve enlightenment.
I started with the letter A but I still did not complete that talk. Your concept, the ignorance, holds the real A as existing from its own side, but if you look at it, if you look at these three lines that make a letter A, that you see as a real A, you can’t find it at all on the first line or the second line or the third, or on all three lines together. If you check the details, you can’t find that real A anywhere. That proves that the appearance is a hallucination; there’s no such thing there.
That is another analysis. The A that exists is what is merely imputed by mind. The real A doesn’t exist on the first line, on the second line, on the third line or on the whole group. There’s no real A. The A is the label and the pieces together are the base. These are two different phenomena; they are not one. By analyzing this you can’t find that real A. That proves that it’s a hallucination, that it’s totally non-existent.
I’ll stop here and start the Chenrezig initiation.
[Chenrezig initiation not included]
NOTES
8 LC94. [Return to text]
9 Bhikshuni Lakshmi (Skt). See Abiding in the Retreat, Ch. 3. [Return to text]
10 Vajravarahi (Skt). [Return to text]
