Enlightenment is not just a vacation
I didn’t finish the other day what I was explaining about the meditation with the refuge and bodhicitta prayer.
When Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjushri what the quick method to achieve enlightenment was, Manjushri answered that we must purify the obstacles, the defilements, and collect extensive merit. Those are the necessary conditions, then, secondly, we must make one-pointed requests to the guru. Thirdly, there is the actual body of the practice, the mind training on the path to enlightenment, from the root of the path to enlightenment—guru devotion—and then renunciation, bodhicitta and right view. That’s the causal vehicle and there is the resultant vehicle, which are the two stages of tantra, the generation stage and the completion stage.
Of the resultant vehicle, tantra, the generation stage has two levels, gross and subtle, and the completion stage has five paths: the isolation of the body—which also comes partly in the generation stage—the isolation of the speech, the isolation of the mind—which is the clear light—the illusory body, and then the unification of those two, the unification of no more learning. So the actual body of the practice is training the mind in the root of path to enlightenment, from guru devotion up to the unification of no more learning. This is the advice that Manjushri gave about how to achieve enlightenment quickly.
I’ve been talking these last few days about achieving enlightenment. Everything is about achieving enlightenment but it’s not just that. It’s not just to have a vacation for ourselves, to have a holiday. The attitude is not that, to become kind of blissed out and stay like that. It’s not like that.
Achieving enlightenment is not the final goal. The final goal is to liberate the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless gods, numberless demigods and numberless intermediate state beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, karma and delusion. Not only that, we then bring the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, gods, demigods and intermediate state beings to full enlightenment. That is the ultimate goal. That is the purpose of our life, what life is for. That’s what we should have inside in our very heart. What should be deep down in our heart is not just happiness for ourselves but for the numberless others—the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings, the numberless gods and demigods, and the numberless intermediate state beings—and not just their temporary happiness, which is what all worldly people are trying to achieve.
Death can happen at any moment
This life is very short. We can’t really tell how many years we have left or how many months, how many weeks, how many days, how many hours, minutes or seconds. There are a certain number of seconds, a certain number of breaths from right at this minute up to the time of our death, and those breaths are constantly running out; they are going very fast. There are a certain number of seconds from right now until death, and they are finishing very fast. Whatever is left over is constantly finishing very fast as we go toward death.
We can’t really tell who will die next in this world. A child who has just come out of womb—or even in the womb—can die without the opportunity to grow up. So many sentient beings die in their childhood, so many when they become middle-aged and of course there is no question of when they become old.
It’s not that we can only die if we have cancer or something like that or if we are physically very old. There are some people who are young in age but who are physically very old, with wrinkles all over the skin and aging signs happening. I guess it depends on how much merit they have collected in the past, how much good karma, whether they have had an easy or a hard life, how much they have mentally suffered. There are people who although still young in years are old physically.
We really can’t tell. Within another ten or twenty years, and certainly within another fifty years, many of us here will be gone. Can we be certain that we will still be OK for another year? It’s difficult to say, even regarding our own wellbeing.
I heard about a student in the United States who a few years ago was walking one day, completely OK, without any disease like cancer or whatever, and suddenly she fell down. She was just walking along, then suddenly she died.
At the same time an old student, Thubten Pende, told me about his parents. Pende is no longer a monk but was for many years and studied philosophy extensively. He is very intelligent and when he was at Nalanda Monastery in France he was the leader of the pujas. We are very fortunate to have a monastery like Nalanda in the West. Even in the East, when we held the Enlightened Experience Celebration in India he led the prayers we offered during the Celebration. It wasn’t only that I gave initiations, there were other great lamas, my gurus, teaching and giving initiations and at the end we requested an initiation and teachings from and offered a long-life puja to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which Pende led. He’s not a monk anymore; he’s liberated. Of course, you have to analyze what liberation is! That was a joke for the old students. Maybe some of you didn’t get it.
He told me that one day his parents were at home talking. Neither had any life-threatening illness at all like cancer. His father was standing talking to his mother and he turned his head away for a moment and then when he looked back she was dead. She died just like that. I think many times we don’t have to have some sickness like cancer or some heavy, life-threatening disease. There are many people who die like this. We can’t really tell. It can happen any time.
Even last night there were many people who went to bed and died. There were many people on this earth, without talking about other universes, other human worlds, who died. This is one of four continents, the southern continent; there is also an eastern, northern and western continent in this world system, with eight small ones besides these four major continents. The human world is not just this world divided into East and West; there are numberless universes and each has a human world with human beings, as well as gods and demigods, animals, hell beings and hungry ghosts. It is said that for those hell beings whose karma is not finished when even the lower realms in this world end, they still have the karma to suffer in hell, to be reborn in another universe’s hell realm and experience suffering there.
Even last night, many people went to bed but this morning their body has become a corpse. They no longer have the opportunity to be a human being let alone having the opportunity to practice Dharma. It is extremely rare, there are very few people who meet and understand the Dharma, and especially small are the number of people who practice it, who have the karma to practice it.
You have gone through the meditation on impermanence and death. This is a very important meditation that inspires us to practice Dharma. We begin our Dharma practice with this meditation. You have also gone through the nine-round death meditation with the nine points and the three roots: how death is definite, how the time of death is uncertain and how nothing helps at death except the Dharma. Our body, possessions, the surrounding people, even if we owned the whole world, nothing of that can benefit when we are dying. We can’t even take an atom with us to the next life. Even if all the human beings became our family or our bodyguards or our subjects, nobody could go with us, nothing could benefit us at the time of death. The only thing that can help is the Dharma.
The continuity of the consciousness
The basic reason we need to practice Dharma is the continuity of the consciousness. This body doesn’t go to the next life but the consciousness does. There’s a continuity of the mind. There’s body and mind, but it is the mind that continues to the next life.
The principal cause of the mind is not the physical body; the principal cause of the mind has to be mind. The cause must have exactly the same nature as the result, the mind, which is formless, colorless and shapeless. Similarly, the body, this physical thing with color, form and shape, has its own cause which is physical. Of course, the mind can be a condition of that but not the cause.
This second’s mind is caused by the previous second’s mind; this hour’s mind is caused by the previous hour’s mind; today’s mind is caused by last night’s mind; last night’s mind is caused by yesterday daytime’s mind. Then yesterday’s mind is caused by the day before yesterday’s mind. This second’s consciousness or mind is caused by yesterday’s consciousness, caused by the consciousness of the day before and so it goes on like that. This year’s mind is caused by last year’s mind and all the way back to when we were conceived.
That’s why we can remember what we did this morning or last night, what we did last week, last month, last year and what we did in our childhood. Of course, we’ve forgotten some things but we have remembered some. We can remember things that left a big impression, like the times we were very frightened or excited or when we were very happy whereas other things that didn’t have a big impact on us we have forgotten.
The consciousness of the very first second we were conceived in the fertilized egg in our mother’s womb is the result of the consciousness that existed the second before. A previous consciousness was the principal cause of this consciousness of the first moment of this life which means that before this life there was the continuity of consciousness.
Some people can remember quite a lot from when they were a baby but most of us have forgotten almost all of that time, when we were crawling on all four limbs like a frog. Very few of us can remember that time. Some of us can’t even remember our early childhood well, when we started standing and walking; when we were aged one or two or three, or four or five. Probably all we can remember is when there was some trouble that had a strong impact on our mind or some great excitement, when something really big happened. How much we remember basically depends on how clear the mind is, how few obscurations cloud it.
Because of the continuity of consciousness, the consciousness that joined with the fertilized egg in the first second of this life must be the result of a previous moment of consciousness, which must be the consciousness from the previous life. That is why the continuity of consciousness has no beginning and birth has no beginning. There is no such thing as the very first birth. There are those whose mind is clearer, who can remember past lives. Those with a clear mind can also remember much more of their early childhood time, when they were very young.
We can’t remember crawling on the ground on all four limbs or our mother giving birth to us. We can say, “This is my mother,” but we have no memory of coming from our mother’s womb. We can’t remember being in our mother’s womb for nine months or coming from it. We can remember some of our childhood, when this woman was caring for us, and some of the things she told us. Other people have told us she is our mother and she has told us she is our mother, but actually we have no proof of it. We can’t remember being in her womb or being born to her. We who don’t have a very clear mind can remember very little of our early childhood, however, those who have a clearer mind can remember much more of their early life, their childhood time.
Because of the continuity of the mind, our mind existed before we were conceived in this life, before we entered the fertilized egg in the womb. There was a life before this one and before that life there was another life. There have been beginningless lives. We have had beginningless rebirths. The clearer the mind, the easier it is to remember the story of our childhood. The more deluded we are, if our mind is clouded with delusions, we are unable to remember such things. Those with an extremely clear mind can vividly remember not just their childhood but their past lives, and they can also see others’ past and future lives.
Conversely, there has never been anybody who has realized there are no past and future lives. Nobody has realized that. Others have made up their own philosophies from their own thoughts. Because they don’t have the clarity of mind to see past and future lives they have assumed they don’t exist, without having the qualifications to prove anything. But there have been numberless sentient beings and numberless holy beings who have discovered past and future lives. Buddhas and bodhisattvas in the eighth, ninth or tenth bhumis can not only see their own past lives going back billions and trillions of lives as well as into the future, but they can also see that for others as well. The Buddha can see the numberless past lives of all us sentient beings.
I have two stories. My guru, His Holiness Zong Rinpoche, told us of a man in Tibet in Pagri where I lived for three years. I did pujas every day. We would go to do pujas to help people; that was the job of the monastery I stayed at, a branch of Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s monastery in Domo. We had a break of one day a year and that day used to be a very strange day, a long, strange day. Anyway, His Holiness Zong Rinpoche said he saw a person in Pagri without a head. This would be considered impossible by Western biologists or scientists who think the brain is everything.
Many years ago, I remember a man from Thailand debated with Lama Lhundrup upstairs in the old gompa for over one hour about this. He was quite intelligent. He didn’t say the brain is the mind or atoms are the mind, but he said that there is a wave in the brain and that is the mind. Anyway, this is a factual story that might change what is being said in the West. This person in Pagri didn’t have a head. He managed to make gestures to communicate. When he was hungry he rubbed his stomach and when he wanted to be out in the sun he made gestures and people understood. There was some place in his neck where people could spoon in tsampa or other food. This was seen by His Holiness Zong Rinpoche himself, who is highly attained, who is the deity Heruka.
I saw something similar in a text by Kundak Konchog Tenpa Donme, a very great Amdo lama who wrote many texts. He saw a man in Amdo without a head who was able to survive. This must have something to do with past karma, something very rare that the person did. Two great lamas have witnessed this, so it is not just something that somebody has made up and then expected people to believe. This actually happened. You need to check up about this, then it makes an impression on Western philosophy.
One of the most senior monks in the FPMT is Dr. Adrian, a doctor from Australia. He’s maybe six or seven years senior to Venerable Neil, who’s also from Australia. He says that the normal definition of death given by Western doctors is when the heart stops beating and the nerves stop functioning. If that happens a person is recognized as being dead. But he says there are meditators whose heart stops and then later restarts, so he just doesn’t know about that general definition, that he couldn’t use that definition himself.
why The Guru appears in an ordinary aspect
Lama Yeshe was kinder than the numberless past, present and future buddhas to us, to me and to the students. When I say “kinder than the numberless past, present and future buddhas” that includes Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the present Buddhadharma. That is because although there have been numberless buddhas in the past, present and future, I have been unable to see them and to receive direct guidance and teachings from them. To receive the teachings directly from them, to be able to see them in the aspect of a buddha, I need to have a pure mind. My mind is not pure, so I can neither see them nor receive teachings directly from them. They cannot guide me directly; there is nothing they can do to help me directly. Lama Yeshe, on the other hand, manifested in an ordinary aspect. “Ordinary” here means showing having mistakes.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama explained this during the First Dharma Celebration or the Second Dharma Celebration. We requested His Holiness to give a commentary on the extensive Guru Puja, the most secret one, which has not only the entire lamrim, the stages of path to enlightenment, and not only Highest Yoga Tantra, but also lojong, mind training. His Holiness gave extensive commentary and a book has come out in English from these teachings that we requested earlier at Dharamsala. There were maybe two hundred or three hundred Westerners there at the teachings. I received an interview with His Holiness in Delhi or Dharamsala after that and we talked about the ordinary aspect. His Holiness said that “ordinary” means showing the aspect of having mistakes in actions, having delusion and having suffering. That is the meaning of manifesting in an ordinary aspect.
The Buddha said in a sutra, “There is real light; there is real darkness.” This is a very useful quote for meditating on emptiness. There is no darkness in reality except what is merely imputed by the mind and there is no light in reality except what is merely imputed by the mind. In reality, there’s no darkness and light existing from their own side. It appears to our hallucinated mind that way and we always believe it to be that way, but it’s a total hallucination, totally false. “There is real light; there is real darkness.” That’s a very good example of the object to be refuted, gag cha, the object we need to refute in order to realize the ultimate truth, the emptiness of the Prasangika Madhyamaka school.
There are four Buddhist philosophical schools—Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Cittamatra and Madhyamaka, and the fourth school has two sub-schools, Svatantrika Madhyamaka and Prasangika Madhyamaka. The real light and the real darkness are real in the sense of existing from their own side, not merely labeled by the mind. They never came from our mind; they have nothing to do with our mind. They appear to be not merely labeled by our mind, so this is the very subtle object of refutation. This is a very good example of what gag cha means. We need to realize the real light and real darkness are simply hallucinations, they do not exist at all from their own side; they are empty. The total absence of that real darkness and real light is ultimate nature—the ultimate nature of the light and the ultimate nature of the darkness. With dependent arising, seeing it is merely imputed by the mind, it becomes unified with emptiness and therefore doesn’t become a contradiction. When subtle dependent arising is unified with emptiness in this way, they don’t harm each other. This becomes the middle way view, u ma, devoid of eternalism, where things exist truly, and devoid of nihilism, where nothing exists.
Lama Yeshe showed the ordinary aspect, the aspect of having mistakes, and because of that I was able to see him and communicate with him. My mind is very deluded and very impure, very obscured, full of mistakes, so he appeared exactly according to my mind, according to my concepts, by showing delusions, by showing suffering, by showing mistakes in his actions. Only by showing this aspect to me was I able to directly communicate with him and receive guidance from him, taking teachings and initiations from him and so forth. Only then, following what Lama in his ordinary aspect taught me, only then can I keep the vows, only then can I practice and achieve the happiness of future lives and, if I practice, achieve liberation from samsara and then achieve enlightenment.
Our own faults appear as the guru’s actions
Not only in this life, not only today, but even in this one second, we can see that by showing this ordinary aspect to us the guru is unbelievably precious. By showing this ordinary aspect to us for even a second, having delusions, making mistakes in their actions, showing suffering, this is more precious than the sky filled with gold and diamonds or even wish-granting jewels. The sky filled with wish-granting jewels is nothing; the value is nothing compared with the value of this, the guru showing us this ordinary aspect.
Even with all this wealth, with wish-granting jewels filling the sky, we can’t achieve the happiness of future lives; we can’t achieve liberation from samsara or enlightenment; we can’t liberate numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsaric suffering and it causes; we can’t bring them to enlightenment. But through the guru showing us this ordinary aspect we are able to do all that, we can achieve all that. We are able to benefit the numberless sentient beings in each realm: all the hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the humans, the gods and demigods. We can liberate them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to ultimate happiness, enlightenment. That is what we can do by having met the ordinary aspect of the guru and directly receiving teachings from them. It is most amazing that we can get all these benefits.
Therefore, by showing us this ordinary aspect, the guru is the most precious one in our life, more precious than all this wealth, the whole sky filled with gold, diamonds, hashish, buddha grass, the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. The value of all that is nothing compared with how important the guru is. So, the guru is most precious, most precious.
It is very good to meditate in this way, “How precious, how precious, how precious, how very precious,” and so forth. Count in this way with a mala as you meditate, keeping the mind one-pointedly on how precious the guru is for you. This is very good. It is yum yum, yum yum! When you eat ice cream, it makes you feel, “yum yum, yum yum.” This is the equivalent in your Dharma practice to receiving the blessings of the guru in your heart. Receiving the realizations from the beginning of the path, from the perfect human rebirth up to enlightenment, actualizing all these in your heart is due to receiving the blessings of the guru. Reciting this—“How precious, how precious,”—for half mala or a mala or more is very, very good. It’s extremely good.
Giving refuge or vows such as the pratimoksha, bodhisattva or tantric vows, giving oral transmissions and commentaries, giving teachings on sutra and tantra and initiations, this is the kindness of the guru. By revealing the graduated path of the lower capable being to us, we can achieve the happiness of this and future lives; by revealing the graduated path of the middle capable being to us, we can achieve liberation; and by revealing the graduated path of the higher capable being to us, we can achieve enlightenment. This is all due to the kindness of the guru. By his great kindness we are led through each stage up to full enlightenment. With Highest Yoga Tantra we can even attain enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate times.
Meditate on the kindness of the guru like that. Again, with the mala, recite, “How kind, how kind, how great his kindness, how great his kindness,” and so forth. You can do both. At the beginning recite, “How precious, how precious, how precious, how very precious,” for a mala or so and then, after you have considered the reasons, recite, “How kind, how kind, how great his kindness, how great his kindness,” for a mala like that, filling the mind with positive devotion.
This is most amazing. This guru yoga is really nectar; it is medicine for our mind. It is an especially powerful method because, when we see the guru making apparent mistakes, instead of seeing them as mistakes it only brings courage to our mind, helping develop guru devotion in our mind. From that we receive the blessings of the guru and from those blessings we receive all the realizations from the beginning of the path, from the perfect human rebirth up to enlightenment, in our heart. It allows us to fully perfect ourselves and to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. Meditating in this way, thinking in this way, when we see mistakes in the actions, when we see the delusions, the suffering, we are fully protected, we are completely protected, and it only helps us. It doesn’t give rise to heresy or anger toward the guru, or to criticism or complaints or giving up. We are fully protected from this heaviest negative karma, the heaviest obstacles to realizations. It only becomes the cause of developing devotion and realizations.
The other method whenever we see mistakes is to understand that this is only the appearance of our mistaken mind. Think, “This apparent mistake is only the appearance, the view, of my ordinary, mistaken mind.” Every time we see something that appears to be some delusion or suffering or mistake in action from the side of the guru, when we see it this way it will never cause heresy or anger to arise. We will avoid the danger of engaging in the heaviest negative karma that will cause us to never find a guru in future lives. I’m not just talking about one future life but hundreds and thousands of lives; for an unbelievable length of time we will be unable to find a guru, even though there are gurus in our country and others can find them. It is due to this karma, which affects us for hundreds and thousands of future lives. It’s unbelievable. We won’t be able to find a guru and this becomes the cause of making mistakes in our future lives. By making this mistake in this life—by seeing the guru as having mistakes—that leads to making the same mistake in hundreds and thousands of lives because it leaves a negative imprint on the mind, and so the story starts again in future lives, making mistakes again in devoting to the guru.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk on these subjects but it just happened, like water running on the ground as I mentioned the other day.
Since I mentioned this subject, I want to mention what the fifth Dalai Lama advised:
In the view of your hallucinated mind, your own faults appear as the guru’s actions. All this shows is that your heart is rotten to the core. Recognizing them as your own faults, abandon them as poison.
We must realize that the mistakes are the view of our own hallucinated mind and immediately abandon that like poison. If there’s poison or something that is very negative, very harmful for our life, that causes death, we immediately throw it away. We don’t keep it, we immediately throw away the poison because it’s unhealthy and dangerous to our life.
By thinking that all these apparent mistakes are due to our own impure appearance, we don’t apprehend that there is a mistake in the guru. This means we don’t see the guru as mistaken. By accepting that it is our mistake, we don’t see the mistake in the guru and so we are fully protected from the negative karma of developing heresy and anger toward the guru. This is the heaviest negative karma that causes us to be reborn in the lowest hot hell, the inexhaustible hot hell, and to experience the heaviest suffering of samsara for the longest time, for an intermediate eon. Then, if the karma is not finished, we must experience that again and again. That’s one thing—that by thinking and meditating in this way we are fully protected from developing heresy and anger, and from criticizing or giving up on the guru.
The other danger is that because we are not a bodhisattva, if we become angry with a bodhisattva we destroy one thousand eons of merits. In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva said,
Doing virtuous actions
Such as charity or making offerings
Accumulated for a thousand eons
Is destroyed by one second of anger arising1.
All happiness comes from merit. All the happiness and success of this life, the happiness of future lives, and liberation from samsara and enlightenment, all come from merit. The merit we have collected over a thousand eons is destroyed in one second if we become angry with a bodhisattva. Another quotation I can’t remember says the same thing.
Here, we are not even talking about the guru. This is when we are not a bodhisattva and we get angry at a bodhisattva for a second. Therefore, the advice is that we just don’t know who is a bodhisattva—it could be any sentient being—so we must be very careful never to allow anger to arise. We need to develop patience with everybody, even those we are working with. There is great emphasis on practicing patience. We must pay attention to that otherwise it destroys our path to enlightenment.
The third danger is that our realizations will be postponed. I am not giving any details but just talking in a very general way. If we get angry with a bodhisattva, not only are a thousand eons of merits destroyed, any realizations we might be about to have are delayed for a thousand eons. We might be just about to realize emptiness or bodhicitta or great compassion or impermanence and death—so close, just this week or this month—but one second of anger will delay that realization for a thousand eons.
If these are the results of a second’s anger toward a bodhisattva, imagine if we were to become angry with a buddha, how much longer and more intense the suffering would be. A second’s anger toward a buddha would destroy an unbelievable number of eons of merit; our realizations would be delayed for an unbelievable number of eons. Anger or heresy toward a buddha causes all this for many thousands of eons.
More powerful for us than a buddha is the guru. The guru is the most powerful, holiest object for us, so imagine how much more we must suffer by developing heresy and anger toward the guru. A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life says one second’s anger destroys a thousand eons of merits so we can just stick with that. Imagine how much more this would be for a buddha, a much more powerful object, and then for the guru, the most powerful object. It’s an unbelievable number, so much more than for a buddha.
These two meditations that I have explained are the very key. The first is Lama Tsongkhapa’s technique, where we see mistakes in the guru as our own. This prevents us from destroying our devotion and so destroying our merit, which means destroying our enlightenment, our liberation, our ultimate happiness and even our temporal happiness. We are not only fully protected from that, it also becomes beneficial for our development of guru devotion, in order to receive the blessings of the guru and to achieve realizations of the whole path from the perfect human rebirth up to enlightenment.
Perhaps you haven’t fully gone into the subject of guru devotion, but what I spoke about is the very heart. I didn’t even go through the outline, the details, but this is the very essence, the aspect of guru devotion that fully protects us from destroying all our happiness.
I was going to talk about Lama Yeshe, but this side talk happened. Sorry.
Lama Yeshe
Lama Yeshe was kinder than all the three times’ buddhas. For the tantric meditators, when you bring the wind into the central channel, the in-breath and out-breath are equalized, without one being stronger than the other. When the wind abides in the central channel the belly does not move; it stays calm. There’s no breathing through the nostrils during the absorption when the gross mind stops and only the most subtle mind is actualized.
That meditation on emptiness is like an atomic bomb, the quickest way to cease the defilements and achieve enlightenment. That becomes the direct cause of the dharmakaya. My guess is that when the mind becomes extremely subtle, when the gross mind stops, at that time the heart stops beating, there is no rising or falling of the belly and no breathing through the nose. I’m not sure; that’s just my guess.
Externally, what Lama Yeshe manifested was a heart problem. That’s what people saw; that’s what the doctors diagnosed it as. Lama actually used this heart problem that outside people saw for his meditation session. Lama’s meditation sessions were often Lama lying down and people took that to be him resting or sleeping; that was the view of other people. Actually, for Lama Yeshe that was a meditation session. It was a very high tantric meditation, part of the completion stage practice, the practice of clear light and the illusory body, the direct cause of the dharmakaya and the rupakaya. He did this at night and always after lunch. To other people he was resting or sleeping, but it was actually a meditation session.
Lama didn’t show much sitting in a formal meditation posture with eyes closed and so forth. He did sometimes, later, but it wasn’t normal for him. He was a very high yogi, a very accomplished master, so his way of doing this was kind of secret. That is what was happening internally.
Outside, whoever he was with, he fitted in with them. If he was with children, he fitted in with them; when he was with old people he fitted in with them. Whoever came he fitted in with them, acting in a way that was best for them, in order to make everybody happy. Therefore, everybody saw Lama differently. Some people even saw him as a big businessman. But in reality he was a great meditator who had realizations of emptiness and bodhicitta. He realized emptiness while still in Tibet. He said he realized emptiness while they were debating Madhyamaka philosophy many years ago in Tibet. And I remember something happened while we were in Delhi and Lama said he could never get angry at even one sentient being, he could never renounce even one sentient being. That shows he had the realization of bodhicitta a long time ago.
I pushed Lama to come to Kopan to help with the course. Usually I talked about the eight worldly dharmas and the negative attitude and the lower realms, and I’d spend about two weeks or so on that, then everybody got very depressed, by hearing all the negatives. Then Lama Yeshe came and made them laugh, releasing them from that sadness and depression. This is how we did it.
The last time I pushed Lama to come from Tushita to Kopan. Then he took the aspect of sickness and he went to a hospital in Delhi. There was an Afro-American student, a benefactor, called Mummy Max, a very qualified teacher of Lincoln school, the American school in Kathmandu. She taught there for many years. This was after the very first Western student, the Russian lady, Princess Zina Rachevsky, who went to the mountains to meditate. Lama sent her to meditate there and she passed away there in meditation. After that, Mummy Max took care of us for many years and helped to build things here as well as the monastery at Lawudo.
After Lama had been in hospital in Delhi, she took him to a farmhouse in a village very far away to rest. Lama Lhundrup and I went there. By this time Lama’s aspect had changed; it was a little bit darker. We did a puja every night with torma. It was a Kalarupa puja where you have to hook the evil-doer that is harming you. There is a wrathful way of hooking the consciousness and Lama said that every time he did this wrathful practice his heart stopped beating, which I think meant the gross mind absorbed into the subtle mind that arose. This is what you can experience through these very high tantric meditations.
What is normally considered as dead in the West doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t relate to meditators who have these powers. This is worth checking. I saw in the paper how people have been taken to a cemetery because they are believed to be dead—the Western definition of dead—but they had been incorrectly placed in the coffin and they weren’t dead at all. At the cemetery people would hear scratching on the coffin lid and realize the person was still alive.
I heard one time that here, in the famous Hindu temple, Pashupatinath, a person was laid out for cremation Hindu style. The feet were washed to purify negative karma and grass was spread around and the fire was lit, when he sat up. Because his family had believed he was dead and because they thought it very inauspicious for this to happen they beat him with sticks until he really was dead and then continued the cremation. This may not have happened just once, but from time to time. Anyway, I think the Western definition of death needs to be analyzed.
OK, I’m going to stop there.
What I left out the day before yesterday is the subject of the requesting prayers to the lineage lamas. You have to understand why we make requests to the lineage lamas of the past who completed the path to enlightenment, starting from the Buddha and normally up to the root guru. So we request all the lineage lamas starting from the Buddha up to His Holiness Dalai Lama and many of my gurus who have actualized the path. That’s not saying I have actualized the path. It’s not saying that at all. This is very, very, very important to practice as a basis for the actual body, the mind training in the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment. I want to introduce this but my talk’s going around.
So here, today, request with devotion to receive the blessings of the guru. Guru devotion is the root of the path to enlightenment. By receiving the blessings from the guru, you can then receive the realizations of the path to enlightenment. As I mentioned before, Manjushri explained that requesting the guru one-pointedly is the foundation and then there is the actual body. To develop realizations we have to learn all these practices that make achieving realizations possible. That is my main point for introducing them.
Dedications
[Mandala offering]
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by all sentient beings and buddhas, may bodhicitta, the source of all success and happiness for me and all sentient beings, be actualized within my heart. May this bodhicitta be actualized, may it fulfill all my wishes for happiness, including enlightenment and fulfill all wishes of all sentient beings for their happiness, up to enlightenment. May this wish-fulfilling bodhicitta be generated within my heart and in the hearts of my own family members and everybody who has a connection to me, animals, people, everybody, and may it be generated in the hearts of all the students and benefactors of this organization, FPMT, all the supporters, also all the people who offer service to this organization, who have served in the past, who are serving now and who will serve in the future. May bodhicitta be generated in all their hearts as well as those who rely on me, whom I promised to pray for, whose names have been given to me to pray for, who have died and who are living. May bodhicitta be actualized in all their hearts and in the hearts of all the sentient beings without delay of even a second.
[Jang chub sem chog rinpoche …]
Secondly, due to the three times’ merits collected by me, the three times’ merit collected by others, may bodhicitta be actualized in the hearts of all the leaders of the world, especially the leaders of mainland China, and then also the other countries who have so many problems, so much suffering because of the leaders’ motivation, because of their self-cherishing thought or lack of a good heart, not having compassion and loving kindness, causing the people of that country to suffer so much. We should pray that bodhicitta is actualized in the hearts of all the leaders so even in one city where there are many millions of people they get so much peace and happiness and then of course also in the country where there are so many more, they get so much peace and happiness.
[Jang chub sem chog rinpoche …]
Thirdly, due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three-time merits collected by all sentient beings and the buddhas, may bodhicitta be actualized in the hearts of all the people who follow the different religions, so that this world is filled with perfect peace and happiness and everybody lives their lives only benefiting each other, without harm. May whatever they do only become the cause of enlightenment, and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings.
[Jang chub sem chog rinpoche …]
[His Holiness’ long-life prayer]
All the opportunities you have received to meet and practice the Dharma—how much Dharma understanding you have received since you came here, how much Dharma wisdom you have received, how much negative karma you have purified since you started attending this course, by meditating on the lamrim bringing your mind closer to the realizations of the path to enlightenment—every single one of these benefits you have received by the kindness of His Holiness Dalai Lama. He’s the embodiment of all the buddhas’ compassion, so you have received this by the kindness of Avalokiteshvara, the Compassion Buddha.
For example, when the Tibetans escaped to India after the uprising when mainland China took over Tibet, at that time Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru decided to send all the Tibetans back to Tibet. If His Holiness had not requested that the Tibetans who escaped be allowed to remain in India, Nehru would have sent them back to Tibet. If that happened, there wouldn’t be Kopan Monastery and there wouldn’t be all these courses. How many courses now? Forty-two? None of these forty-two courses would have happened because Kopan Monastery wouldn’t have happened. Similarly, none of the meditation centers, services, projects, hospices and so forth of the organization—about one hundred and sixty-four or something—would have happened. There would have been none of this, the centers serving the people, serving the sentient beings of this world. This would not have happened in the different parts of the West.
You can see from that, it’s completely through His Holiness’ kindness. He sent a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru to not send the Tibetans back to Tibet and then all these things happened. Besides His Holiness, so many lamas were able to go to the West and spread the Dharma and help so many people, turning their faces toward enlightenment. Therefore, it’s very important to do this prayer to fulfill His Holiness’ holy wishes. Now is an extremely difficult time for the Tibet issue; there are unbelievable obstacles. Then, for His Holiness to have a long life.
Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times’ merits collected by all sentient beings and buddhas, that exist but do not exist from their own side, that are totally empty, may the I, who exists but does not exist from its own side, who is totally empty, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, that exists but doesn’t exist from its own side, that is totally empty, lead all sentient beings, who exist but who do not exist from their own side, who are totally empty, to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, that exists but doesn’t exist from its own side, that is totally empty, by myself alone, who exists but does not exist from its own side, who is totally empty.
I dedicate all the merits to be able to follow the holy extensive deeds in the same way that Samantabhadra and Manjugosha realized. I dedicate all the merits in the same way as the three times’ buddhas dedicated their merits.
Please pray to be able to completely actualize Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching within your own heart, in the hearts of your family members, in the hearts of all the students and supporters and in the hearts of everybody in this world.
NOTES
1 Ch. 6, v. 1. [Return to text]
