Lecture 5

November 14, 1980

The power of the mind

Having the karma for happiness and suffering proves reincarnation

In everyday life, people find it hard to control negative minds such as attachment, anger and pride. These arise very easily but are very difficult to control. Even though you might know the remedies, the meditations that alleviate the negative minds, you cannot apply them. The mind is overwhelmed by disturbing emotions that spontaneously arise, without effort. In everyday life, this experience is a sign that there is reincarnation, that there are past lives. If there were no past lives, there would be no reason why it is so difficult to practice patience, to have a good heart, to have compassion for others. Why is it so difficult? Why does this self-cherishing thought, this I-grasping, arise spontaneously and strongly? There would be no reason unless there were previous lives.

Similarly, there are children born in the same family, to the same parents, who have very different personalities. Some are very impatient, some are very patient; some have very good hearts, some are very selfish. They have different character traits. This is due to previous habit. The child with a compassionate, loving nature, always wanting to help others and protect others from harm, was habituated to love and compassion in their past lives The other child, the incredibly miserly one who hates to give things away to people, was habituated to miserliness in their past lives.

One of the four aspects of karma is creating the result similar to the cause. Through having created the habit in the past, you have it again in this life; you have much miserliness, much anger and much attachment. If you talk about the four aspects of karma, this one, creating the result similar to the cause, means that the miserly child does the same thing in this life that they did in their previous life. They naturally repeat the same action, just as some people find it very easy to tell lies; they can’t control their cheating and lying, even though they know it’s bad, even though they think they shouldn’t. Or they steal, even though it’s not really necessary. Somehow, the thought arises easily and that person gives in to it, doing the action. No matter how many times they are punished, somehow they do it again and again. This is the result of previous karma, previous habit.

This is clear evidence that there is a previous life’s consciousness. Before this life, there was this consciousness in a past life. For those of you who are not familiar with this subject, who have difficulty in accepting reincarnation, past and future lives, you should remember these experiences that I have explained and then check for yourself. Check whether these arguments are proof of reincarnation or not for you. If you think, even with this reasoning, that there is no reincarnation, then check what you think there is.

Did you discover anything you can absolutely refute from the few reasons I mentioned yesterday? If you have, then I’ll have to admit there is no reincarnation! Does nobody have any doubts? This moment’s consciousness comes from the consciousness of the previous moment, right? And that goes right back to the first moment of consciousness of this life, so similarly we can relate that to other lives. It’s good to think deeply about this, not just accepting that the mind is beginningless, not just leaving it there, but really investigating how that is so, gradually understanding the subjects that follow that. Then, when you do the meditations, it becomes easier to generate the feeling of the continuation of mind.

Logically you must accept that the first moment of consciousness of this life is the direct result of the last moment of consciousness in the intermediate state, the consciousness before this life, before it entered the fertilized egg. When you accept that, it proves the continuity of consciousness. Because it is endless, you have to work hard! You have to plan what to do with this endless mind, whether to try to keep it happy or just go on experiencing suffering as normal. If it is endless, you should not only think about this life, but relate it to all the previous and future lives’ consciousnesses.

Because the mind can change, we have the power to transform it

As I mentioned yesterday, if mind existed without causes and conditions, without any means for coming into existence, then it would be truly existent; it would be a self-existent mind. In that case, every moment of the continuation of consciousness in the mind would be self-existent. Each moment would have to exist from its own side, without depending on thought and name, or parts or conditions. If the first consciousness truly existed, then all the consciousnesses would have to truly exist. Mind would not come from your own mind nor would it come from other beings. The mind of today would not come from your consciousness of yesterday and it would not be created by a separate being. Consciousness cannot be truly existent. On this moment of consciousness, there is not the slightest atom of true existence from its own side. That truly existent consciousness doesn’t exist anywhere, not on the body, not on the consciousness.

If the consciousness began with the first moment of this life—if it didn’t exist before it happened in the mother’s womb but was actualized there at the same time as the body—there would be no cause of that first moment of consciousness and no cause of happiness or suffering. Whatever happiness or suffering you have experienced since your consciousness first joined with the fertilized egg would be independent of causes. In that case, you wouldn’t need to create the cause to experience suffering and, conversely, even if you eliminated disturbing emotions such as anger completely, even if you achieved the cessation of suffering, even if you achieved nirvana, it would still be possible to experience the suffering of samsara. The experience of suffering would not depend on the cause and the experience of happiness would not depend on the cause.

If that were so, working to create the cause for happiness and to eliminate the cause of suffering wouldn’t make sense, because you experience both without having created the previous causes. There would be no freedom at all; it would not depend on your own mind. Your life would not be in your hands. Your mind would have no potential at all to develop, so it is useless. There would be no possibility to be liberated from the cause of suffering, the I-grasping ignorance, to eliminate all the obscurations and achieve omniscience. Because it would not be up to you, to your mind, you would have no freedom at all. When you follow that mistaken logic, that is where it takes you.

This is similar to the argument about being created by a separate being, such as Brahma or God. In that case, that separate being—Brahma or God—who created your consciousness would be the cause of your suffering. To stop the suffering you have to do something about the cause, and that would mean—following that logic—you would have to destroy the creator of your consciousness.

If your consciousness—your happiness and suffering—were created by a separate being and not by yourself, you would have no freedom at all, you would have no choice at all. Life would be completely dependent on the creator. You would be unable to transform your mind through your own effort, through listening, studying and meditating on the path to enlightenment. You wouldn’t be able to gradually eliminate all the suffering and attain an omniscient mind. Because there would be freedom, it wouldn’t make sense to make an effort to pacify suffering and achieve happiness. Whatever work you did, whether it was for your own happiness or even your own suffering, wouldn’t make any sense because it would be completely up to that other being, the creator, and not you. It would only get worse, not better. The whole thing becomes very upsetting.

Some people think that all consciousnesses are part of one principal, universal consciousness. They think that all sentient beings’ minds are pieces of that one big mind; all the sentient beings are in essence one being with different bodies. In this case, there would be no such thing as stealing, because stealing involves taking things that belong to others, that don’t belong to you. Even though somebody took everything from you and made you bankrupt, it would be OK because it wasn’t yours anyway. Or you could go and stay in an expensive, beautiful apartment, maybe the prime minister’s, because it’s all one being. Everybody would probably want to go and stay there. It becomes like this if it were one being with many different forms. It would become utterly illogical. You would steal things from yourself and put yourself in prison!

We cannot criticize other religions that have such beliefs, even though they do not accord with reality. For some people, for their level of mind, it suits them to believe that everything is created by a god, even though it is not reality. In Buddhadharma, you yourself create the cause for happiness and you experience that happiness, and you yourself create the cause for suffering and you experience that suffering. It is completely in your own hands; it is your own creation. For others, believing in a creator works well. Believing if you don’t act well God will punish you, they pay attention to God. Being scared of God, they refrain from nonvirtuous actions, actions prohibited by God, and so save themselves from suffering. That way of thinking is of great benefit to them, so you cannot say it is totally wrong.

Even though Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s main teaching is to benefit others, if you can’t benefit other sentient beings then at least you should not harm them. That was what he explained to Angulimala, the murderer who had killed 999 people and made a mala of their thumbs. By telling Angulimala that, somehow his mind became happy, and he renounced killing and didn’t run away. From that he came to understand the two wrong concepts of true existence, the self-grasping of the person and the self-grasping of the aggregates. The first wrong concept is grasping onto the person as truly existent and the second one is grasping onto the aggregates as truly existent. With Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s advice, he discovered that these two wrong concepts need to be cut off. They are the things that need to be killed. When the Buddha advised like this, his mind became very happy.

Of course, as the person’s level of mind changes, the method must change. You cannot always use the same method for that person. Shakyamuni Buddha guided sentient beings at the different levels at the different times, revealing whatever method was suitable for their minds.

When death happens the most powerful imprint will ripen

If a person’s personality were contained in the atoms of the fertilized egg, then it would be possible to remove the atoms that have attachment, anger and so forth, and keep the good atoms that have love, compassion and wisdom. Then you could make a very nice person, a perfect person who has no anger at all in their life no matter how badly they were treated. If personality were part of the atoms of a sentient being, somebody with more patience atoms would be more patient and somebody with more impatience atoms would be more impatient. You could check up each time you wanted to get a baby! You could take the juice of the brain of the most learned person in the world and inject it into foolish people. Although, I think there would be danger because you might take the juice from the brain of a doctor who is expert in their subject and they become foolish. Their knowledge decreases because there are less atoms.

There is a logical argument for reincarnation—there are countless logical reasons—whereas there is not one single logical argument against it. There is not one person who has realized that there is no reincarnation; there is nobody who ever had that experience. On the other hand, those who have realized there is reincarnation are numberless. After the previous life, the consciousness continues through to this rebirth. Then, after this life, the consciousness doesn’t cease but has to take rebirth. It definitely has to take rebirth.

What rebirth will you take? There is no trick to where you will be reborn; it is definite. And it must either be in the realms of the happy transmigratory beings or the suffering transmigratory beings. Of the six kinds of transmigratory beings—gods, demigods, human beings, hungry ghosts and hell beings, the ones who experience the heaviest suffering are those called naraks or hell beings. If you are born in the heaviest suffering of the hell realm due to the unsubdued mind, your body becomes oneness with fire. In a lighter stage of the hell realm there is a lighter suffering, being alive again and again. But even if you are born into that stage, you are killed a hundred times each day and each day you have to be reborn there, and experience all the suffering of that realm again and again. We cannot stand holding our hand in the flame of a candle for even a minute—even this is extremely unbearable for us—so how could we possibly bear the suffering of being born in the hell realm?

How you experience suffering in this body is not just like a dream that doesn’t actually exist. If, after this life, you are reborn in the realm of the hungry ghosts, you won’t be able to find a scrap of food—even a putrid one—even after a hundred years. At present we can’t stand it if our meal is late, even just by one or two hours, so, within the six realms, how could we bear the suffering of being born as a hungry ghost?

And it’s the same if you think of the beings in the animal realm. If you think of the way that street dogs live—how they find food—or cows, or the creatures that are in the ocean, it is unbearable. Fish obviously live in great fear every day. You would find it unbearable, spending your whole life always terrified of being attacked and eaten by other animals, and hardly able to find any food for yourself. There are creatures you see in tanks in Chinese restaurants, fish, lobsters and prawns, that are pulled out alive and thrown into boiling water, causing them terrible suffering before they die. There are also those living in the wild, being attacked by other animals or being hunted by human beings, besides experiencing the hardships of finding a safe place to stay and enough food to eat. Even to live as a pig for one day would be unbearable.

The rebirth you might have to experience in the lower realm probably seems very far away in your mind. It seems like a life that will probably never happen, certainly not next year, next month, tomorrow or today. However, what is there between yourself in this life and yourself in your future life, between your life in the human realm and your next life in the lower realms? There is nothing but the breath flowing in and out—just that, nothing else. There will come a time when there is an in-breath but there won’t be another out-breath, and then, right there, there is the start of your future life.

If we haven’t practiced a good heart in the life, we haven’t practiced the Dharma, accumulated extensive merit and strongly purified obscurations, when the breath stops, we fall into one of the lower realms. This can happen to us if we do not examine our everyday life, our actions. Unless we examine our actions, we can believe we know how to practice the Dharma but still be heading for the lower realms. “I’ve been practicing Dharma for thirty years and my mind is very comfortable. How can it be possible to be born in the lower realms? I took ordination. I took precepts. I do my sadhana; I do my prayers. I haven’t killed any human beings or elephants! I’m not a butcher; I’m not a soldier going off to war. I haven’t created any powerful negative karma.” We feel very comfortable in our mind, but this is a mistake because we haven’t been checking our everyday actions well. If we are really aware of our actions, checking whether we are heading for the lower realms or not, we’ll see we have no freedom; it is all up to karma.

Nonvirtue is generally more powerful than virtue

You might think, “I’m practicing Dharma. I’m a holy person,” but every one of us has accumulated a mixture of virtuous and nonvirtuous karmas. So, when death happens, at the time of death whichever karma is more powerful will determine where you go. Your mind is like a big storeroom with all kinds of things inside. There are virtuous actions and nonvirtuous actions accumulated there. Just before death, craving and grasping are generated, pushing the consciousness toward the resulting rebirth. If the most powerful karma at the moment of death is a virtuous one, the craving and grasping will propel you toward the body of a happy transmigrating being. If the most powerful karma at the moment of death is a nonvirtuous one, the craving and grasping propel you toward the evil-gone realms.

You can only know which it is likely to be by examining which kind of karma you generally accumulate on our mindstream more powerfully every day. For most people, nonvirtue is generally more powerful in their everyday life, not only at the time of death. Even though you are practicing the Dharma and accumulating virtue, it depends on whether virtuous or nonvirtuous karmas are more powerful in your everyday life. If you honestly examine your mind, I think you will see that nonvirtue is more powerful than virtue.

Whether an action is a complete action of virtue or nonvirtue depends on the motivation for doing it, the action itself and the completion of the action. In everyday life, disturbing, unsubdued minds arise spontaneously, one after the other. When you meet one object, attachment rises; when you meet another object, anger arises, or ignorance arises, or pride or jealousy. One after another, these disturbed, unsubdued states of mind arise uncontrolled. They arise so easily, like a waterfall. On the other hand, a virtuous thought arises very rarely and with such difficulty, just as it is difficult for a river to flow up a mountain. There are many hindrances for virtue to arise in the mind.

Even the nonvirtuous actions you have done that you believe are insignificant can become great, powerful. When you insult somebody or swear at them, the motivation is anger, wanting to hurt them. You say whatever words are the most painful for that person, whatever hurts the most. Even after you have said it, after it’s gone from your mouth, when you relax in bed later on, you think how fantastic it was that you said it. You feel it is a great relief to have said those words, that it got a lot off your chest. At the end you even feel happy and proud that you were able to hurt the other person. The motivation was very powerful, the action was very powerful and now the completion—feeling relieved, happy and proud, thinking how good it was that you did it—is also very powerful.

If there’s a flea biting you, not letting you sleep, travelling around biting you here, biting you there, the more it happens the angrier you get. Then, you can’t stand it any longer and you go searching for that little bug. It’s difficult to find, but you finally find it and you are so happy, your anger making you think of the worst thing you can do to it. You can spray it or kill it by crushing it between your fingernails. You can even bite it! It bit you so you can bite it back. After you have killed it, you feel so satisfied, so good now you’ve got it. You have a feeling of great satisfaction. Now you can sleep for hours in your sleeping bag totally undisturbed.

Even though it looks like a small nonvirtue when it is unexamined, when you do an action like that with a strong motivation out of a disturbing, unsubdued mind, and when you feel happy at the end, the action becomes extremely powerful.

It is so easy to create powerful nonvirtuous actions in this way, but the virtuous actions you create are rarely done powerfully. They should be done perfectly, with strong, pure motivation, perfect action and pure completion. The virtuous actions most of us do are not like this. Even though you might have done a virtuous action, it is rarely done with the best motivation, bodhicitta, or even with the middle scope motivation, the mind totally renouncing samsara. Even a virtuous action done with the thought for the happiness of future lives—the lower scope motivation—is rare. You might try to do a virtuous action but, if you examine your motivation, probably you will be doing it for the happiness of this life.

Whatever action done mostly for the happiness of this life is negative, with one or two exceptions. You might recite a mala of Shakyamuni Buddha’s mantra, TADYATHA OM MUNÉ MUNÉ MAHA MUNEYÉ SVAHA, or a mala of Chenrezig’s mantra OM MANI PADME HUM. Even if your recitation is perfect in both the motivation and the actual action, during the actual body of reciting the mantra, the mind starts wandering off. Even though the recitation began with a bodhicitta motivation, “I am going to recite the mantra to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings,” by halfway through the mind is completely distracted. When you do an hour’s meditation, you might be able to start the visualization perfectly, but then, like clouds, the mind floats away. It is there and then it gradually disappears. Gradually the mind is no longer on the meditation subject but has wandered to something else.

There is something missing. The motivation is missing, even though the actual body is done. The motivation is not strong enough or it is not done, or even if both motivation and action are done virtuously, the dedication is missing. Even if you try to dedicate, you are still somehow involved with something in this life; your dedication slips over to this life. This is very important. You might believe you have done the action perfectly, but in fact the virtue has become very small.

So, even for one day, you should check whether you have accumulated more virtue or more nonvirtue. From the morning after you wake up until nighttime, before going to bed, check how many actions have become virtue and how many have become nonvirtue. You can count them with a mala or a calculator. By understanding the definitions of virtue and nonvirtue, you will definitely find far more nonvirtuous actions than virtuous.

Since your life has been like this, at the time of death, when you are about to die, craving and grasping will make the seeds of nonvirtuous action ripen, and then there will be no other realm to go to except the evil-gone realm. Perhaps someone using a horoscope or something has predicted that you will be born as a wealthy person in a Western country or as a Dharma practitioner, but how can you trust them? Could you then think, “I don’t have to practice the Dharma now. I can relax comfortably. I don’t have to worry.” How could you trust them? Maybe it would be more useful if they predicted that you had been bad and therefore you were going to be reborn in the hell realm! Then, you would be so afraid you would make sure that everything you did would be meaningful. Then, you would be able to practice Dharma longer and more purely.

There was a Tibetan monk in a monastery in Bodhgaya who, after having a heart attack, was told by an Indian doctor that he could die at any time. The monk became very scared. Of course, he had already heard the Buddha’s teaching that death could come at any time, but somehow the doctor’s advice was more powerful, more real. Until then, the monk had only ever been able to see statues; he had never been able to see them as the Buddha, even though it is taught. However, after he had been told of his imminent death by doctor, his mind changed a lot. Before, he had never prepared for death at all, but afterward he prepared for death all the time, every day.

He waited for death, never planning to live. He thought what to do with the possessions in his room. He used the money he had to sponsor teachings, inviting the Dalai Lama’s gurus to give teachings there. He made many offerings to the people who took the teachings and he even gave away his texts and the Dharma possessions he had, saying, “I was told by a doctor I’m about to die at any time, so these texts might be useful for your monastery or school.” I think he is still alive! However, the doctor telling him that he would die at any time, that his life was in great danger, became a huge teaching for him. His concern with this life, which before was big, diminished greatly. Because of that, he was able to accumulate so much merit. If the doctor hadn’t told him that, he would never have been able to do all those practices and accumulate all that extensive merit. So, the doctor was very kind.

In the next life, where will you go: to the realm of the happy transmigratory being or to the realm of the suffering transmigratory being? No observations such as horoscopes can predict that. However, Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder, the great compassionate one, has already predicted it in his teachings. The Indian and Tibetan pandits, the great yogis, have already predicted where you will be reborn in their teachings. The highly realized being Nagarjuna explained in The Precious Garland:

From nonvirtue all suffering arises,
As well as the unfortunate realms of the evil transmigratory beings.
From virtue all happiness arises,
As well as the happy transmigratory beings.⁵

This itself is a prediction. We can check for ourselves and understand. We can predict the realm we will be reborn into after this life by examining the cause. Whichever causes we have created more of will determine which realm we will be born into. None of us has the clairvoyance to actually see which realm we will be born in, we cannot see clearly with an undeceptive, valid mind, but we do have the ability to understand the true teachings given by the Buddha and to develop faith in them. The Buddha has the ability to clearly and exactly see what is extremely difficult to see and to realize, and what is incomprehensible at our level, and he has revealed the teachings without mistake.

The Buddha liberates us by guiding us

I’ll mention this story. When Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was in India, one day while on his alms round, a woman offered a handful of mustard seeds to the Buddha.⁶ When somebody made an offering while Buddha Shakyamuni was on his alms round, he always predicted the result of that karma, what kind of rebirth that person would have in their future life, and he predicted that due to this karma the woman would become a buddha called Supranihita. Her husband couldn’t figure it out at all. I think he told Shakyamuni Buddha that he shouldn’t tell lies. How could such a thing be possible?

The Buddha asked him if he had ever heard of a pipal tree whose branches can cover five hundred horse carriages. When he said of course he knew of such a thing, saying it had been his experience, he had seen it. Then Buddha said, “Of course, this karma is also my experience. From such a small karma, planting a seed the size of a mustard seed can produce a tree that has so many branches it is able to cover five hundred horse carriages. It is my experience that your wife offering one handful of mustard seeds will result in her becoming a buddha called Supranihita in the future. That is my experience, even though it is not your experience.” This is similar. Like the husband who couldn’t comprehend the results of his wife’s offering, you can’t understand which realm you will be reborn in, but you should think that, even though it is not your own experience, there will certainly be a result, due to the existence of karma.

From virtue all happiness arises as well as rebirth as a happy transmigratory being, and from nonvirtue all suffering arises as well as rebirth in the unfortunate realms of the evil transmigratory beings. Although this is not your own experience, you can trust this is so because it is the object of an omniscient mind, a mind that a deceptive mind cannot contradict. You cannot say it is not true. If it is definite this is going to happen, you must seek a method to not be reborn in the realm of the suffering transmigratory beings.

A criminal who has committed many crimes and is about to be punished can seek refuge from a top person in the government to save him from the punishment. Like that, you can seek somebody who has the power to save you, to guide you from falling into the realm of the suffering transmigratory beings. That is the Triple Gem, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Just as the criminal who has been saved from punishment would be in danger if they committed the same crime again, you must not only rely on the Triple Gem, you must also do the practice. You must follow the points of the practice shown by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the Buddhadharma.

The way that the Buddha liberates sentient beings from the suffering of samsara is not by pulling the suffering out with his hands, not by washing the obscurations with water. If such a thing were possible, then the buddhas would have liberated all the sentient beings and led them all to enlightenment an unimaginably long time ago. If such a method were possible, by now none of us would experience any suffering at all. The Buddha cannot liberate sentient beings from the suffering of samsara in that way. The way that the Buddha liberates sentient beings from the suffering of samsara is by revealing the teachings, such as the important points of karma, the things that must be renounced and those that must be practiced. By revealing the teachings, guiding sentient beings in this way without mistake, he leads them to practice the Dharma, which means renouncing the cause of suffering and practicing the cause of happiness.

As it is said in the sutra teachings,

The Great Ones do not wash away sin with water;
They do not rid beings of suffering with their hands;
They do not transfer realizations of suchness onto others.
They liberate by teaching the truth of suchness.⁷

Because the Buddha liberates sentient beings by revealing the truth, especially emptiness, shunyata, you should think, “In order to be liberated from the evil-gone realms, I will rely with all my heart on the Triple Gem. By doing so, I will follow the practice of karma—the law of cause and result.” Thinking like this is generating the motivation of the graduated path of the lower capable being in general. The meaning of this “in general” you can gradually understand. It means that this is the foundation.

On the basis of this, you must generate the motivation to follow the path of the middle capable being and of the higher capable being. Therefore, in general you follow the gradual path of the lower capable being. This is the first of Buddha Manjushri’s four clingings that I mentioned earlier, “If you cling to this life you are not a Dharma practitioner.”

In order to take the essence of this perfect human rebirth, to complete the work of listening, studying and meditating that is the path to enlightenment, to preserve the mind, understanding impermanence gives you strong energy. With such an understanding, all your actions of listening, studying and meditating on the graduated path to enlightenment become pure Dharma and, in that way, they become the cause of enlightenment. They also become the cause of liberation and, by the way, the cause of the happiness of future lives. Meditating on impermanence and death cuts off clinging to this life and also generates great energy to complete the work.

Lecture 6

November 15, 1980

Another happy migration is not enough

The second of the four clingings that the very highly realized lama Sakya Pandita heard directly from Manjushri is:

If you cling to the three realms, that is not renunciation.

Clinging to the three realms of samsara and the perfections of samsara is the cause of samsara. That clinging ties you to samsara and doesn’t allow you to achieve the sorrowless state of being liberated from the bounds of karma and the unsubdued mind. When you cling to samsara with the unsubdued mind you cannot separate from it, but rather create more karma that continuously binds you further to samsara. This means you continuously experience the suffering of samsara.

In order to cut clinging to even the three upper realms, you must realize how samsara is in the nature of suffering; you must see the shortcomings of samsara. The wish to clearly understand this allows you to see what you think of as the perfections of samsara are imperfections. In that way you can change your thinking. Unless this is established, you might think that to just be liberated from the lower realms is sufficient but that is not so. Even if you are able to receive the body of the happy transmigrating being once or twice, during those lives if you again accumulate negative karma, then you will again fall into the evil-gone realms. Nothing is definite. Having found the body of a happy transmigratory being by chance does not mean it’s impossible to then fall down into the evil-gone realms. Nothing is certain. It depends on karma.

Only when you have achieved nirvana, the cessation of all delusions, is it impossible for the delusions to ever arise again. Then, it is impossible to ever experience suffering again. That is definite. But just achieving the body of a happy transmigratory being, nothing is certain. You can easily fall down into the evil-gone realms.

Nothing is definite in samsara

In previous times, you have found the body of a happy migrating being so many times, again and again, and you have fallen into the evil-gone realms again and again. Even now, if you follow negative karma you will fall again into the evil-gone realms. In past lives, many times you have taken the body of a god, including the kings of the worldly gods, such as Brahma or Indra; you have enjoyed such bodies countless times, living in palaces and mansions hundreds of thousands of times more precious and more beautiful than the most expensive place in the human world. Having the body of such a worldly god, you have lived for an incredibly long time in such beautiful mansions many, many times. But then, after that life finished, you were born in the hell realm, in the hot blaze of the naraks, where you had to crawl on the hot iron ground which is oneness with fire. It has happened so many times like this. You have experienced this again and again.

You must remember in New York there was an airplane accident. (I probably read about it in Time magazine.) I think there was a group of people who were going on holidays and when the airplane landed at the airport, the people saw smoke. They screamed at the pilot and he was able to land at the airport. After he had landed, he thanked the people for a safe landing and, after some time, hostesses went to open the door. This is usually very easy; there is nothing complicated and the crew is well-trained. But somehow the door wasn’t functioning. People outside the plane also tried but still it didn’t work. The door had become very hot and the people outside started hearing cries of “Help me! Help me!” The whole plane must have been on fire and there was no way to get out. Even though the passengers were suffering, there was no one able to help the pilot release the doors.

After some time, the people outside managed to open one door a little and saw in the airplane all the passengers like in a dream world. There were piles of dead bodies. I guess the people tried to escape and everyone became piled one on top of the other, but they couldn’t escape so they died there, suffocated and also completely burnt even though they had been able to land. Half the roof of the plane was completely burnt. The newspaper said the authorities needed to check what the mistake was. Somebody mentioned that there was a button the pilot needed to press for the door to open but whether he did that, I’m not sure.

This is a very good example of the shortcomings of samsara. It proves the Buddha’s teachings that nothing is definite in samsara. The Buddha explained very clearly in the teachings on karma that karma is definite and it definitely brings its result. Whether their life before had been happy or suffering, they had created the karma to end their life in such a place in such a terrible way. Since they didn’t purify that negative karmic imprint that was on their mindstream—they didn’t do anything with it—it became definite to experience the result.

The cause might have been quite small but they didn’t do any work to purify the negative imprints, therefore it was not only definite they would experience the result, it also became powerful. Karma is definite and karma is expandable. The karma created might have been very small but the suffering result can be great for a long period of time. Maybe this was one of the results of one negative action; maybe there are still more results to come.

You do not experience the result of karma without creating the cause. Many times when a plane crashes, some people get killed and some people don’t; some people get injured and some people don’t. There is a reason why people have different experiences like this. It is not random. The pilot and all the people died in that accident. Even though a hostess is trained to open the emergency exit, on that occasion it didn’t work. That was due to karma; they had all created the cause, so they all experienced the result. They had a safe landing—they had created the cause for that—but they had not created the cause to come out safely. They had created the karma to die there, and they were completely burnt, completely suffocated.

In some plane or car crashes, some people are able to come out alive without being hurt at all, whereas others are killed. They aren’t hurt because they haven’t created the cause, whereas the other people in the same vehicle have created the cause.

In the teachings the Buddha said that nothing is definite in samsara. These people who ended their life in such a horrible, terrifying way, might have had a nice apartment, a luxurious life. They might have lived like worldly gods, but later they experienced the complete opposite. When those people took their seats in the airplane, they must have been comfortably relaxed, with no expectation at all that such a thing could happen. Nothing is definite. Life goes up and down; sometimes we experience much pleasure and sometimes terrible suffering. It changes from day to day, from one life to the next. Everything changes in samsara. If it changes in this life, why can’t it change from one life to another?

Many times in the past you have been born in the realm of the worldly gods and enjoyed unbelievable luxury, drinking nectar. Then, after that life finished, you were born as a hell being and had to drink molten iron. This has happened so many times. Similarly, in this world, there are many people who had a very rich early life, eating only expensive, delicious food that lower class people couldn’t afford, but in their later life they had to eat dust. They couldn’t even get the food that poor people eat. This is similar to the change from one life to another life. Being born as a worldly god, there are incredible enjoyments; they live on nectar, which is not even like food. The food we think as the very best in the human world is rubbish compared to the nectar they live on; there’s no comparison. But after that life, they are reborn as a hell being and have to drink molten iron without choice.

So like this, nothing is definite in samsara. Being born so many times in the realm of the worldly gods, always accompanied by boys and girls, always playing and enjoying things for a long time, and then again being born as a hell being, surrounded by fearful karmically created guardians.

Nothing is definite in samsara—not the perfections, the friends, the companions. Many times you are born as a wheel-turning king, leading millions and billions of people. Many times you are born like this, and then again many times you are born as a beggar or slave, the lowest possible state, the complete opposite of being a king. Many times you have taken the bodies of the worldly gods called “sun” and “moon,” whose bodies radiate light, like fireflies. Some creatures and some fish have light. In the zoo in Sydney, Australia, there are fish that produce electricity. When they run they make a noise. The insects and animals that have lights in their body must have achieved divine light!

There are worldly gods who have bodies like this and can see in the darkness—always having light even when they disappear into the darkness of the earth. Many times you have been born like this; you have taken bodies like this. Many times in samsara you have also been born in the deepest part of the Pacific as those animals that are like elephants, like huge piles, completely in the dark, without any light at all. You have been born under the earth where you can’t see a single light your whole life, no matter how long you live. Many times you have been born in a place so dark you can’t even see your own arms; your whole life you can’t see the slightest light.

Nothing is definite. Whatever body that you find in samsara, nothing is definite; whatever enjoyment you experience, nothing is definite. While you are not liberated from samsara, you will have to experience more and more suffering.

In the past you were born countless times as every type of animal, such as a pig or a dog. If the bones that you chewed as a dog in those past lives were collected, the pile they would make would be much greater than this earth. There would be no space left; the whole of space would be filled up with bones. If you think of all the garbage that you have eaten when you were a pig, putting your noses right in it; if all the garbage were piled up, there wouldn’t be any space left, the whole of space would be filled up with this garbage. Unless you are able to somehow liberate yourself from samsara at this time, in this body, you will have to eat more garbage, much more than you have eaten before.

Also, in the past, your enemies have cut off your head countless times. If all those heads that your enemies have cut off in your past lives were piled up, not only would the sight of all your past lives’ heads be incredibly frightening, the pile would be greater than this world. There wouldn’t be any space left. So similarly, unless you can end samsara now, in this present body, you will have to continue losing your head by the hand of your enemy.

Again, all the times you were born as a hell being and your own karmically created guardian poured molten liquid in your mouth, if all that were collected it would be a much greater volume than the Pacific Ocean. Unless you are able to liberate yourself from samsara while you have this body, you will soon have to drink much more molten liquid.

If you could feel this from way inside your heart—that from now on you will continue wandering endlessly in samsara, having to experience all the sufferings of samsara—if you could look at your future like that, you would go crazy, you would be unable to relax for a second. It would be impossible not to do everything you can to free yourself from that future. You couldn’t stand not to practice the Dharma.

Even the bodies of the worldly gods and human beings are only in the nature of suffering. Now, you have been born as a human being—that is your present experience—but that experience includes the suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death. And even during those times you are not experiencing those four types of suffering, at other times there is little opportunity to make the mind and body comfortable, at peace; you have to experience many other problems, such as being separated from desirable objects: your parents, your partner, especially your children, your possessions and your body. At other times, rather than being separated from objects you desire, you are forced to meet undesirable objects, bringing a different kind of problem. There are so many problems you are encountering now and will encounter, even in this human body.

Even if you were born as a worldly god, a sura, their bodies are also in the nature of suffering. They have to fight much with the demigods, the asuras, who suffer greatly from jealousy. And the demigods are wounded in the fighting, but when a limb is cut off, no matter how many times it happens, it grows back again and they have to continue. They only die when their neck is cut off. That is their karma.

The heaviest suffering of the worldly gods—the suras, not the asuras—is when they see the five signs of the death. It is unimaginable suffering. You can read it in The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun.⁸

While the gods who are in the higher realms, the form and formless realms, might not have the suffering of suffering or the suffering of change, they experience pervasive compounding suffering. Their aggregates are still under the control of karma and the unsubdued mind, therefore they are not free. They have no freedom; they always have to be in that state. When their karma to be in that realm finishes, they still have no freedom and again they fall into the evil-gone realms. None of the three realms—the desire realm of humans, suras and asuras—and the form and formless realms, is beyond the continuation of suffering.

Because the whole of samsara is in the nature of suffering, you must liberate yourself from this samsara. It’s easy enough to understand that it must be done, but when should it be done? It must be done in this body. To expect to be able to do the work of liberating yourself from samsara in the body of some future lifetime is unrealistic. It is uncertain that you will find a perfect body like this again, with the freedom to practice the Dharma. Therefore, the work to liberate yourself from samsara must be done right in this present body.

With this present body you can accomplish this work. Why? You have received this special human body of freedoms and richnesses that can practice the Buddhadharma; you have met the teachings of the Buddha that reveal the path, the unmistaken method to be liberated from samsara. You have not only met the teachings of the Buddha, but you also have the perfect conditions, free from hindrances. So, while you have such circumstances, when everything is gathered together at this time, if you are unable to follow the method revealed by Buddha at this time, when will you be able to?

Therefore think, “At this time I must definitely liberate myself from samsara. The method to achieve this is the unmistaken path of the three precious higher trainings. Therefore, at this time I am going to practice the three precious higher trainings. No matter how difficult it is, and I’m going to liberate myself from the oceans of samsaric suffering.” Thinking in this way is generating the motivation of the middle capable being in general.

The two obscurations

To return to the four clingings, the next one says,

If you cling to cherishing the self that is not bodhicitta.

As long as there is the self-cherishing thought in your heart, clinging to the works for the self, as long as you don’t transform this, there is no place for bodhicitta. You cannot generate bodhicitta while you are unable to separate yourself from self-cherishing. From beginningless previous lifetimes until now, you have never generated bodhicitta because you have befriended the self-cherishing thought, and never separated yourself from this enemy. Many other sentient beings rely on you for their liberation but you have no time for them, so they must continue to suffer in samsara.

The mistake is that you haven’t done the practice of separating yourself from the self-cherishing thought. Perhaps you might feel satisfied that you have the ability to liberate yourself from samsara by practicing the three higher trainings—moral conduct, concentration and insight—but is achieving that sorrowless state sufficient? Can you be satisfied with that attainment? Even if, for your own sake, you have achieved the state of an arhat, you still haven’t completed the work for the self, let alone completing the work for others. Even if you do the work for others, there are still limitations. There are still great obstacles to be removed.

There are two obscurations, one that blocks you from achieving nirvana and one that blocks you from achieving enlightenment. The first is called “disturbing-thought obscurations” or “obscurations to liberation” (nyön drib). It is the obscuration that causes your mind to be unsubdued, unpeaceful; that is its function. Of the two goals, enlightenment and nirvana, this type of obscuration mainly blocks you from reaching nirvana. Using the term “disturbing-thought obscurations” is much clearer than just saying “delusions.”

The second type of obscuration is called “obscurations to knowledge” (she drib), which are the obscurations that block you from achieving the state of omniscience. When you have completely removed the ignorance of grasping the I, the obscurations to knowledge are what is left, the impression left on the consciousness; the dualistic conceptions and the views that arise from that.

Even though arhats have completely removed the unsubdued mind, completely eliminated the ignorance of I-grasping, they still haven’t removed the subtle obstacles, the obscurations to knowledge. There are still subtle obstacles such as the four unknowing minds to be eliminated: the inability to see the secret actions of a buddha, the inability to see the subtle karma of sentient beings, the inability to see things that happened a very long time ago and the inability to see very long distances.

There was an arhat, one of Guru Shakyamuni’s disciples, who wanted to know which world his mother was in, but it was incredibly far away so he couldn’t see it. This subtle understanding is the object of a buddha’s omniscient mind, something not even arhats can know. A buddha’s holy actions of body, speech and mind are very subtle and can only be known by the buddhas themselves, only by the omniscient mind. Arhats and others cannot see those subtle, secret actions of body, speech and mind of the buddhas.

What causes the colors and patterns of the feathers of a peacock or the wings of a butterfly? Why they have all those different colors is due to very subtle karma, something arhats cannot see, even though they have unimaginable knowledge. That is the second unknowing mind, the inability to see the subtle karma of sentient beings.

The third unknowing mind is not seeing things that happened an uncountable number of eons ago. It is so extremely far that small karmas that have been committed are hidden from them. For example, only Shakyamuni Buddha was able to see the very distant karma of an old man, something that Shariputra, his main disciple, was not able to do. This old man was eighty when he became a monk. He hadn’t done any work for his family and they were completely fed up with him, ignoring him like old people are ignored in old folks’ homes, so he decided to become a monk. He went to Shariputra, who was the abbot of the monastery there, and asked to become a monk. However, when Shariputra checked with his clairvoyance, he told the old man it was impossible; that he was too old to memorize texts or work for the monastery; that he didn’t have the karma to become a monk and do the work for the monastery. The old man banged his head on the monastery’s doors he was so upset.

At that time, although Shakyamuni Buddha was far away in another part of India, because his omniscient mind could continuously see and work for sentient beings without one second’s break, as soon as the old man left the monastery and stood in the park outside, feeling terribly depressed, the Buddha came right in front of him and asked what was wrong. After the old man explained, the Buddha told him that he did have the karma to be a monk, but Shariputra, not yet being omniscient, could not see this. The Buddha could see that an uncountable number of eons ago, when this old man was born as a fly, he landed on some cow dung that was moving around a stupa on a stream of animal’s urine. The fly was just following the dung. It was quite a mess; all kinds of things happened there! It was smelly, and that action of following the smell of the cow dung was the small karma that Buddha Shakyamuni saw that created his karma to become monk, something Shariputra could not see.

Having overcome both obscurations, a buddha can do perfect work for others

Student: Does anger and attachment have a color?

Rinpoche: Is anger or attachment the only thing to make you move your limbs? When you have attachment, is there a color? When you are angry, is there a color? Is it red? When you have anger inside the heart, you can see red, right? The ground outside is red, like fire coming out of the mouth, the arms, the nose. With strong anger, you see outside things as orange, and you are often blinded to other things, such as books or things you’ve left behind. You become completely consumed! That is due to lung, wind disease. The anger affects the winds, like a person with a bile disease. It makes you perceive things in the same way a person with a bile disease does; you see things the wrong way, you see things upside down when you have fever. This happens when the four elements are unbalanced, but I don’t think you can say it is the color of anger or attachment. It happens due to that, due to anger.

You cannot see the color of anger with the eyes but it can disturb the elements, like going up and down on the roller coaster at Disneyland. Although you cannot see it with the eyes, it is able to destroy, to rot, to burn, to do all these things. The wind outside is an example of that. You can’t see it but you can feel it, you can see the curtains moving. It does not have a shape, such as triangular, square, round or long; it’s not fat or skinny. The mind is the same. You can’t see it but it affects your world. When you get to lunchtime, you can watch how it makes your hand move to the plate. It directs your actions, like a person riding a horse or driving a car directs the horse or the car. They are under the control of the person. The question is similar. How does the wind blow that?

Arhats still have to complete the work for the self, so the work they can do for others is limited. This is because they still haven’t removed the obscurations to knowledge; they still have the causes of the four unknowing minds. There are two aspects to the work for the self, the perfection of purity and the perfection of realizations. The perfection of purity is the cessation of both obscurations—the disturbing-thought obscurations and the obscurations to knowledge.

Buddhas have completed the work for the self, having completed the perfection of purity by purifying both obscurations and having attained all the realizations, the perfection of realizations. They have no stains left to purify and no realizations left to attain. The buddhas have finished the work for the self, thus they are able to do perfect work for other sentient beings. There is no stain that obscures a buddha’s holy mind from clearly seeing the whole of existence because a buddha’s mind is omniscient. The buddhas can see things still obscured from the arhats, such as the four unknowing minds. They can see all the three times—past, present and future—as well as every single thought and imprint on the mind of every single sentient being. The buddhas’ omniscient mind can see all this clearly at the time, simultaneously.

Just as every buddha can perfectly see every single different personality of every sentient being and every imprint on their mindstream, they can see the exact method that fits that sentient being’s mind. Therefore, a buddha never makes a mistake working for sentient beings. With their omniscient mind, a buddha not only has the power to benefit all sentient beings, they have compassion for all sentient beings.  

The kindness of the mother

Unlike buddhas, arhats cannot do perfect work for others, and neither can higher bodhisattvas. Therefore, to attain enlightenment, even if somebody becomes an arhat, sooner or later they will have to take up the Mahayana path and progress through the five paths and the ten bhumis.

While you only seek the work for the self, you cannot generate bodhicitta and you cannot do extensive work for sentient beings. Just as a banana does not come from a chili seed, enlightenment does not come from the self-cherishing thought. If somebody wanted bananas but instead planted chili seeds in their field, no matter how much they prayed for bananas, it would never happen. You need to plant a banana tree and give it perfect conditions to bring the result, bananas. Like the banana tree, bodhicitta is the principal cause of enlightenment.

The root of the path is compassion for sentient beings. You feel how unbearable it is that other sentient beings must experience suffering. From generating love and compassion, great love and great compassion grow, producing the special intention, and from that bodhicitta arises. In order to generate the special intention that you will become enlightened for all sentient beings, which arises from love and compassion, you should recognize that all the sentient beings have been your mother. Then, you should remember and reflect on the kindness of the mother sentient beings. From that comes the thought to repay their kindness.

In the Three Principal Aspects of the Path to Enlightenment Lama Tsongkhapa explained,

Swept away by the current of the four powerful rivers,
Tied by the tight bonds of karma, so hard to undo,
Caught in the iron net of self-grasping,
Completely enveloped by the total darkness of ignorance,

Endlessly reborn in cyclic existence,
Ceaselessly tormented by the three sufferings—
Thinking that all mothers are in such a condition,
Generate the supreme mind of enlightenment.⁹

There can be no greater shame than seeing your own mother of this life, who gave you your body, drowning in the whirlpools of the ocean of samsara and having no wish to save her. Rather than paying attention to your kind mother who is drowning, screaming in fear, to only have single-pointed concern for your own happiness, to ensure your own life is free from danger, is a disgusting attitude.

Think of your mother who has been very kind to you, or somebody else, a friend or a relative who has given you much help. If you are in the water with that person and they are being drawn into the whirlpool, how would you feel about it? What is in your mind when you think of that person—your mother, your friend or relative who has been very kind to you—just there guideless, helpless, in great danger, screaming, on the verge of dying? They are helpless, pitiful; there is no one able to help them. For you to completely ignore them and just concentrate on your own happiness, trying to escape the danger, how ridiculous is that? That way of thinking is utterly disgusting; there is no greater shame than that!

Just as in this example—your mother, your friend or relative who has been very kind to you—it is the same for all sentient beings who are suffering now in samsara. They are all kind; they have all been your relative, your friend; they have all been your kind mother. While your relatives, your kind mothers, are suffering in samsara, if you one-pointedly only consider attempting to liberate yourself alone from samsara without the least concern for other beings, that is only because you are unaware of how your relationship with all these beings changes due to the changes of rebirth and death. All these sentient beings who are suffering in samsara are all one family. They have all have been your sister; they have all been your brother; they have all been your uncle, your nephew, your husband, your wife, your baby son and daughter; they have all been your father and your mother. There is not one sentient being you have not had every kind of relationship with.

I think it is very important to have the feeling that every sentient being is one family, like the closeness you feel for your family of this present life, because when you feel that way, you naturally feel great concern to help that person just as if they were somebody in your family having a problem.

If you can have this feeling with all sentient beings who are suffering in samsara, that is very good. Automatically, when you feel all sentient beings are one family, the concern comes to help them as if you have something to share. If somebody you don’t know and have no feelings for is in trouble, you don’t have any desire to help them, like you would with your own family. The world’s problems come from discrimination, seeing the suffering of other people in the world as nothing to do with yours, whereas seeing all beings as your family stops that discrimination. In that way, even if the person is Chinese, Western, Indian—whatever they are, however they look, whatever language they speak—the thought of closeness, the wish to help, is the same. There is no discrimination, no mental separation. “Oh, he’s not important, not like me. He’s just an Eastern person!” You make your own reasons not to help them, to not be concerned about them. That is not the quality of a human being. Lack of consideration for others is a mistake and it is something to be renounced.

There is not one sentient being you have not had a relationship with. In the past, there have been gods who were your mother or your father, your own child, your husband or wife. They have all been related. Then, you really cared, but now, just because you are in a different body, because of death and rebirth, taking other bodies, they have all become unknown to you. There is no other reason. It’s like two people in a family who die and are reborn back into the family as animals, as cows or horses or chickens, and because of that the other members of the family no longer recognize them.

If you feel that all sentient beings circling in samsara—all the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods and gods—are one family, and you feel about them like you do about your present family, if you give them the same love, then, when you think of their sufferings, the concern to do something for them naturally comes. “I should do something to help them, to liberate them from samsara.” Compassion arises. You can’t just ignore them and relax; you have to attempt to do something to liberate them from samsara.

There is not one sentient being who hasn’t been your mother. Not one. Your present mother who gave you this body has been your mother numberless times in past lives, and likewise each sentient being has been your mother numberless times in past lives. You can understand how your present body has been given to you by your present life’s mother. But how is it that other sentient beings have been your mother? The continuation of consciousness has no beginning. The continuation of consciousness did not just begin at New Year or at some fixed time in the past; it existed before that time. Because the continuity of consciousness has no beginning, we have all had numberless rebirths.

At this time, you have been born into this body and you are going to die, and then you are going to be reborn. This is how it has been in the past and will be in the future. You have had innumerable rebirths. You haven’t always been born to the same continuation of the present life’s mother. In the past, when she was born as a dog, you were born as a human being. When you were born as a dog, she was born as a human being. When she was born as a human being, you were born as a horse. Sometimes when she was born as a horse, you were born as a monkey. You have taken numberless different rebirths, numberless different bodies. Each time, the body you received has been dependent on the mother. There is no sentient being who has not been your mother.

Then the question arises, “I can remember today’s mother who gave me this body, but I don’t understand how other sentient beings could have been my mother. I don’t remember.” It’s the same thing. You don’t remember being in your mother’s womb; you don’t remember coming out of your mother’s womb. You can’t say that even though you were told you came from that person’s womb, because you can’t remember, there is therefore no proof. In the same way, just because you can’t remember the mothers of previous lives that doesn’t mean you didn’t have them. Just as you need to rely on what others tell you about this life’s mother, you need to rely on the Buddha when he says that all beings have been your mother, that there is not one sentient being who has not been your mother. If you have faith when others tell you about this life’s mother, why can’t you have faith in the teachings of the Omniscient One?

You might think that if sentient being have been your mother you should recognize them, but you don’t. Just because you don’t know, you can’t say they have not been your mother. There are many people who do not recognize their present life’s mother. There are children who were separated from their mother and taken care of by other people. Even if after many years they saw their mother again, they could not recognize her. Many young Tibetans were taken to the West and brought up by other people, and when they had grown up they could not recognize their own parents. They had forgotten their Tibetan language, so when they went back to India from Switzerland or some other country, they needed a translator in order to speak to their parents. For the parents, it was like talking to a Western person. Therefore, it is not a logical argument to say that because you can’t remember a previous life’s mother, you never had one.

Just as this present life’s mother is so kind, you should similarly realize this about all other sentient beings who have been your kind mothers. If this present mother did not create the karma to give birth to you, you would not have received your body from her. She has been extremely kind. Even during the nine months you were in her womb, she took great care not to do any action that might in any way be harmful to the baby. She was always aware of the comfort of the baby in her womb whenever she moved or sat or lay down. With great compassion she took great care, one-pointedly concentrating on the care of her baby, always concerned to do nothing that might hurt the baby. Even if there was a particular food she really liked, if it was harmful to the baby, she gave it up while she was pregnant. She might have normally been so busy at work, but she had to stop work to prevent harming you. During that time she experienced so much hardship, so many difficulties while you were in her womb. The pregnancy made her body very heavy, very uncomfortable, very painful. Her body completely changed. Even the place where she gave birth had to be the best place she could find for the child.

When you came out, she experienced incredible pain. Even if she suffered unbelievable pain, she ignored it. The loving thought for her child is like a form of compassion. If other people asked if it was hard, she would reply she had a very easy time, despite the fact she went through so much pain and hardship, like meeting death, feeling utterly exhausted during that time.

If this life’s mother hadn’t lovingly taken care of you while you were in her womb—if she had had an abortion, which she could have done—you would never have met the holy teachings of Buddha, which is the incredible path to enlightenment. To be able to listen, reflect and meditate on the path would have been impossible. None of this would have happened. If she had an abortion, what kind of life would you have had instead? Would you have been born as a worm, being eaten by a bird? You wouldn’t have had the seed let alone the opportunity to enjoy even temporal pleasure. So, she has been extremely kind not having done that.

After you came out of her womb, she lovingly took great care of you, holding your body close to her to keep you warm with the heat of her body, looking at you with loving eyes. The look a mother gives her child is quite different from the look she gives other people. She gazed on you with a gentle smile, wanting to make you happy. She carried you on her back, taking care of you as if her heart were on the outside.

She has been extremely kind, giving you this body and then, after that, taking care of you for so long, no matter what hardship she had to experience. This is not the first time she has been kind in giving you a body. She has been kind like this numberless times from your beginningless past lives. At first, feel her kindness for giving you this present body, guarding your life and experiencing much hardship. Feel this until you get a strong feeling for the depth of her kindness.

While you were in your mother’s womb, she fed and protected you. After you were born, she experienced so much anguish about having enough money to keep you fed and comfortable, worrying day and night about not finding a job, or even after finding a job not getting enough money. She worked so hard, sweating, using her body, speech and mind to get whatever money she could, spending it all on you, to take care of all your needs. She fed you with her own milk, given with loving kindness, never able to rest. In the West baby food can be bought, but in primitive places like Tibet and the Himalayan region, the mothers give food from mouth to mouth. They chew small pieces and then pass it into the baby’s mouth in order to take the best care of the baby. Any food that comes out of the baby’s mouth, they would clean off with their tongue. They even wipe the snot off with their mouth.

Your mother always made sure you were well-dressed, covering your body from head to foot to protect you from the heat and cold. She made sure you had so many different clothes for all the different seasons, even though that meant she didn’t have any money to spend on herself. Whatever you needed or wanted, she did everything she could to make sure you got it. If all the food and clothing she bought you over your life were collected it would make a huge pile. If you could see all the food she bought for you it would be a huge shock because it would be so much.

Whenever you were sick and needed a lot of medicines and doctors, day and night, she would only think of how her child was so precious. She was always aware of you, always worried about your safety. If she took her eyes off you for one minute, she was sure you would be in danger, falling down the stairs or putting dangerous things like rocks in your mouth. Anything could go wrong if she took her eyes off you for a minute.

Whenever I see parents taking care of their children—how the children cause much trouble to the parents and how the parents feed them and clothe them and do whatever makes them happy—even though my present life body wasn’t received by them, it reminds me of the debt, that they too took care of me in the same way in the past. It makes a great impact on me. Just seeing how they take care of their children reminds me of their great kindness to me. They have also taken care of me like that in past lives. It is very effective for the mind, especially when the children bother them and never leave them quiet.

When you came out of your mother’s womb, you were like a worm in the ground. You couldn’t speak; you didn’t know anything, what would harm or what would benefit. She worried about keeping your body warm and gave you clothing in cold weather; she was concerned about your hunger and thirst and gave you food to take care of your life and to protect you from the harms of hunger and thirst. Like this, your mother took care of you and has been extremely kind. Each day she protected you from hundreds of dangers. If for some reason she couldn’t look after you for a while, she hired somebody else to do it.

Like the worm in the ground which knows nothing, you had to be taught by her how to speak and how to walk. She was the one who put you in the line of the human beings, making you a human being with the ability to communicate and work. While she was protecting your life from harm, she had to experience much hardship. She has been very kind protecting your life numberless times from the beginningless past lives until now. Feel this. Remember how kind she has been and how much hardship she has experienced during that time.

She has been extremely kind leading you on the worldly path, giving you an education. In her inner heart she always only thought how wonderful it would be if her child was able to have a happy life. She wanted you to have a good education and a good reputation for this reason. She incurred a lot of expense sending you to good schools, to a college or university to get a degree so you can easily get a job and become self-supporting. That was how concerned she was with your life.

Because of that, you are now able to receive teachings. Even if you still can’t follow them that well, you are able to write them down, which gives you the opportunity to read them again and gradually understand them. To be able to read and understand the precious teachings, to able to find a job because of qualifications you receive, all this is because of the kindness of the mother, even though you think you are self-supporting, that you can look after yourself. You believe this has nothing to do with her kindness, that you were solely responsible for your own education, that you make money by yourself. You might believe that, but in fact all this comes from her kindness. She has given you an education, freeing you while she herself had to experience so much hardship, so much fear and worry. She has been extremely kind in this way in this life and in numberless past lives, experiencing much hardship in order to give you an education. Thinking in this way is good.

If the milk that you have drunk that she has lovingly given from her body were collected, there would be no space left. If all the clothing that she has given you in past lives were piled up, there would be no space left. If all the food and drink that she has given you in past lives were piled up, there would be no space left.

Despite you making everything dirty every day, day and night, despite all the dirtiness, all the smell, she cleaned everything with her hands. She has done that numberless times. If she had the power to give more than enlightenment, she would immediately give it to you. From her side, she has been that kind, but from your side, you the child, what benefit has she received? Nothing! Only trouble! Only the great pain when you came out of the womb and all the work and worry looking after you all those years.

During the time you were crawling, you didn’t let her sleep at night. When you had grown up a little and you were able to speak and walk, you screamed, not giving her any quiet. You screamed all the time, “I want this” or “I want that.” Even after you were educated, you needed help and got angry when you didn’t get what you wanted, insulting your mother and even beating her. You returned the incredible kindness you received from her with meanness, never giving her any benefits, only ever causing her pain and worry. It’s very upsetting when you think about it. It’s as if, rather than repaying her kindness in giving you this body by making your life meaningful, you have resolved to purposely torture her.

I’m talking about your mother, but it is the same with your father. Numberless times he has shown you kindnesses great and small. And it’s the same thing with your enemy or your friend—they have been your mother and have shown you great kindness numberless times. After that, you can think of all other sentient beings: all the hell beings, all the hungry ghosts, all the animals, all the human beings, all the gods. Start with all the humans who are here around you and then go out to all the rest of the sentient beings, thinking how they have been your mother and have been so kind to you. After you have generated the thought of kindness, do one-pointed concentration on that, holding the thought of kindness.

Although all your previous mothers might have been kind, they have all died, so how can they be kind now? There’s no difference between this mother and the past lives’ mothers—their kindness is the same. The past lives’ mothers have been kind in past lives; this life’s mother has been kind in this life. There is not one single difference. Similarly, there is no difference between the kindness of the person who benefited you last year by giving you food and drink and the person who has been kind to you this year by giving food and drink. It’s the same; it’s just a matter of time. One is previous and one is now. They are both recognized as kind. So, all the present lives’ mothers and all the rest of the sentient beings are all the same in being kind.

All these sentient beings who have been your extremely kind mother, who are drowning in the suffering oceans of samsara, do not have your concern or your attention. Even your extremely dear present life mother who has been most kind is about to be drowned in the ocean and is screaming with great fear, while you yourself are on the same ground, right next to the ocean, not paying the slightest attention to her, just singing and dancing. There is nothing more ungrateful than that.

Without considering all sentient beings in this way, you don’t see the relationship you have with them and, even though they are all drowning in the ocean of samsara, you have no real feeling for them, no compassion. Shopping in a market with your family, you might feel close to them but have no feeling of closeness for the other people in the market. Unlike your family, where there is a sense of kindness, others seem quite distant.

Perhaps you have difficulty relating others to your present life’s mother because your mother died when you were born or she ran away, and you were cared for by other people. If that is so, you can take whoever raised you as your object of meditation and base the kindness of the mother on them. Even if you can use the argument about her having given you your body, you can still see how much you owe them and then relate that to all other sentient beings.

The main point is to realize that every sentient being has been extremely kind. The degree of love you can feel for others depends on how kind you feel they have been. To start with, rather than trying to feel love for all sentient beings, you can just focus on some. For example, you can relate to those in your present life, usually your present life’s mother, father or friend who have been very kind. You can see how they have been kind and so feel love for them and wish them to be happy. Similarly, with compassion, you wish them to be free from problems and you naturally want to help. In that way, you can take the love and compassion that you have for just these few sentient beings and train yourself to generate love and compassion for more and more sentient beings, until you can genuinely wish all sentient beings to have happiness and be free from suffering.

This great compassion is extremely important because it is the principal cause of bodhicitta. Unless you can generate great compassion for all sentient beings, you can never generate bodhicitta and you can never achieve the omniscient mind. Unless you achieve omniscience, even if you do ordinary work for others, the benefit is limited; you cannot do the effortless, extensive work for all other sentient beings.

I am one, others are numberless

One of the techniques used in the profound thought transformation practice of equalizing and exchanging yourself with others is to put all sentient beings on one side and yourself on the other side. Then think, when it is called I, how much happiness and how much suffering can this one person have? Others, on the other hand, are numberless. When they experience suffering, so many of them are experiencing suffering, not just one person. So, since I is just one and others are numberless, which is more important? Put this question to yourself.

Is it more important to work for just one person, yourself? Is it more important to work just for your own happiness? Or is it more important to obtain the happiness of others who are uncountable.

Let’s put it this way. Say, there are ten sentient beings. Is it more important to give up working for the happiness of the ten sentient beings, to work to try to eliminate their suffering, or is it more important to work for the happiness of just one sentient being? If that one sentient being is yourself, which is more important? Just relating to numbers, of course working for the happiness of ten is more important than working for the happiness of one, even though that one is yourself and the ten are others. Working for others is extremely worthwhile; it is more important.

Similarly, working for the happiness of a hundred others is much more important than the previous one, working for ten sentient beings, not just the one. And of course, working for others who are infinite, uncountable, is much more important than working for a hundred sentient beings or for ten sentient beings. There is no need to say how important it is to work for an uncountable, infinite number of sentient beings. There is no question about working for their happiness and to eliminate their suffering.

Renouncing ten sentient beings and working only for the self is unworthy. Renouncing a hundred sentient beings and working solely for the self is extremely unworthy. So, giving up others who are infinite and working only for the benefit of the self is unthinkably selfish and ungenerous. I think it is very upsetting having only that motive. It is a very poor mind, whereas renouncing the I, the self which is one, to obtain happiness for ten others is extremely worthwhile. Then, giving up the self to work for a hundred others—even if you don’t think of all sentient beings, just those sentient beings in your area—is even more worthwhile.

Of course, there is no question of how important, how extremely worthwhile it is to give up the self for the happiness of all the human beings. Even if you are able to exchange yourself with just the human beings you can talk to and understand but can’t do it with the animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings or other beings; even if you work for their happiness at least, that is so worthwhile. The number of animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings is utterly uncountable, so to be only concerned day and night with your own wellbeing, to secure your own happiness, is completely ridiculous. It is such a poor mind. Without thinking of the kindness of other sentient beings, just considering their numbers, it is unbearable to not attempt to work for others in order to help them have happiness and be free from suffering.

To be one-pointedly concerned for your own welfare for even an hour, even a minute, how can you behave like that? How can you be comfortable and carry on a normal life when there are unimaginable numbers of beings suffering, even if you don’t think of their kindness. This is very upsetting.

Working for others who are uncountable is what is to be practiced; working for the self is what is to be renounced. This is the thought training practice of equalizing and exchanging yourself for others. You need to see how important it is to work for others. If you could see the benefits clearly, if you could feel how such an attitude benefits others—the most important—and how it benefits yourself, you would gladly work solely for others and feel happy to receive less than others.

Repaying the kindness

However, working for others is not easy. You can’t just run into the street and shout, “I am going to work for others!” You might have a car accident! It’s difficult working for others. First, your own mind must be developed. If you are blind, how can you work for other sentient beings? Maybe you go to another country to work for others but after one or two days, life becomes very complicated, and you return. “Oh no, I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t so now I’ve come back. There were so many problems.” Unable to overcome problems, not understanding, not having method or wisdom, without enough effort or ability to listen, not even having clairvoyance—how can you work for sentient beings?

Why should you work for other sentient beings? How important is it? Even though you can’t do perfect, extensive work for other sentient beings at present, you can create the conditions. This is the whole point. In order to effortlessly do extensive, perfect work for other sentient beings, first you should achieve a stable omniscient mind. Listening, reflecting, meditating on the path to enlightenment—that itself is working for other sentient beings. It becomes the method to achieve enlightenment and becomes the method to be able to do work for sentient beings.

You might pray to be able to do work like this, but it impossible without achieving the omniscient mind, without practicing the Buddhadharma, without transforming your own mind. Without subduing your own mind, how can you subdue others sentient beings’ minds? How can you bring peace of mind to other sentient beings? It’s impossible without the method to subdue the mind, without practicing Buddhadharma. The ability to do perfect work for others comes from the state of omniscient mind, which comes from bodhicitta, and bodhicitta comes from great compassion. To achieve the omniscient mind you need bodhicitta, the thought wishing to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. And that comes from great compassion and great love.

Great compassion and great love come from realizing how sentient beings are kind and precious. Therefore, in order to generate great compassion and great love for all sentient beings, it is very important to realize how kind sentient beings are. The whole thing comes to this point. The Buddha explained this and you can apply your experience of the kindness of your mother and father to other sentient beings. You don’t have to necessarily use your mother or father if you were brought up by some other unrelated family or your sister or brother. You can meditate on your present mother or whoever took care of you and brought you up. If your father was the one who took care of you as a child because your mother had left before you could even remember her, then remember the kindness of the father.

Remember that sentient being. Remember that person’s kindness and think how all sentient beings have similarly been so kind to you in the past lives. One reason the “kindness of the mother” is the meditation that is usually done—meditating how all sentient beings have been your mother and remembering their kindness—is that usually a child is closer to the mother than the father, so it is easier to feel the kindness of all sentient beings through that example. You can think that all sentient beings have been your mother or your father and have been incredibly kind. You can use the father, even though the meditation only mentions “mother.” The main point is to see how sentient beings are kind, whether you use your father, mother or whoever—whatever is more effective for your mind.

Because all these sentient beings have been your kind mother, you determine to repay that kindness. What do sentient beings need? These mother sentient beings who are fully engaged in taking care of their children have themselves been worldly kings numberless times in the past, with incredible material wealth and incredible power. They have been kings of the worldly gods like Indra or Brahma. They have had so much wealth in past lives, but what benefit has it been? They are still in samsara, suffering. What sentient beings want is happiness; what they do not want is suffering. So, the best way for me to repay their kindness is to liberate all sentient beings from all their suffering and to lead them to sublime happiness, the state of the omniscient mind. That is the best way to repay them.

Then, generate great love for all the kind mother sentient beings who are devoid of happiness—the sentient beings who are in the lower realms and devoid of even the simple pleasures. Even those sentient beings who are in the realms of the happy transmigratory beings and have some temporary pleasures are devoid of ultimate happiness.

Also think that although what your kind mother sentient beings want is happiness, because they are ignorant of its cause, they always destroy the cause by generating anger and heresy. Even though they know how to create the cause of happiness, they are lazy to do it. Then think, “I myself will cause them to have all the happiness and create the cause of happiness.” Make a challenge. “I myself will do that.” Then generate great compassion.

What they do not wish is suffering but in practice, because they are ignorant of the method to attain happiness and eliminate suffering, they run toward suffering day and night. Think of it. Watch the actions of the birds, the small creatures. Their actions are only nonvirtue. Watch the birds. How many worms do they eat in one day? How many nonvirtuous actions of killing? Watch the mother sentient beings in the bushes or living in the water and see how many nonvirtuous acts they commit. They are so busy always running to create the cause of suffering. The motive is completely seeking the happiness of this life.

After you have realized how these types of creatures are suffering, then watch human beings and see how they are suffering, how your kind mother sentient beings are suffering. Again, it is the same thing. The motive is the same; it is one of the poisonous minds. Attachment, seeking only the happiness of his life, is at the heart. Whatever they do, they are mainly focused on their own happiness, and so, because of that motive, the actions of their three doors are nonvirtuous. They are all so busy. Those who fly in the sky are the same; those who swim in the water are the same; human beings are the same. Those who live in a house are the same—the motive and the actions are the same thing. Those who work outside are the same. Their motive is like this, constantly busy creating the cause of suffering day and night.

The mother sentient beings who are in the lower realms constantly create the cause for rebirth in the lower realms, but even those who know what the cause of suffering is, those kind mother sentient beings who are in the upper realms, constantly create the cause to be reborn in the lower realms. That’s how it looks. Even though they know the cause of suffering, they are too lazy to renounce it. So think, “I myself must cause them to be free from all the suffering and the causes of suffering,” and feel great compassion.

Lecture 7

November 16, 1980

Only a buddha knows all the methods for relieving suffering

After generating great love and great compassion, you should generate the special intention, the great will that derives from these thoughts. You take the responsibility to do the work for other sentient beings by yourself alone. You should generate this thought. Think, “While my mother is suffering, if I, the child, do not help my kind mother sentient being, then who should help?”

There are children who help their mothers by thinking like this. If you do not help your mother who has been so kind to you when she is in trouble, if you are lazy and careless or think there are other people who can help her, that is an ungenerous mind. Even though there are numberless buddhas, there are mother sentient beings you have to enlighten. You might think, “Because there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, why should I be so busy? I don’t have to hurry to achieve enlightenment.” This is a ridiculous way of thinking. It’s a totally useless thought.

Even though there are numberless sentient beings, they don’t have the karma to be enlightened by other buddhas, therefore they are still suffering in samsara. There are many sentient beings that you have to enlighten. They don’t have the karma to be enlightened by other buddhas except you, therefore you must determine to carry the responsibility, to eliminate all the suffering of all sentient beings and bring them all to happiness. You must think, “I must do this by myself.” Make the complete determination.

When you see a beautiful piece of clothing in a shop and you want to buy it more and more, thinking about it more and more, you then make the determination to return to the shop with the money in your pocket. You can’t keep away from the shop without buying it! In the same way, you must have completely strong determination to save all sentient beings with love and compassion.

There is the thought to do it by yourself. You carry the complete responsibility to do that work by yourself. You are aware of the suffering of every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, including your enemy. You remember every sentient being and are aware of their suffering. That is the whole point. It is completely unimaginable not to work for sentient beings, to renounce all their suffering and to work solely for your own happiness. If a person is carrying a very heavy load and they are sick with exhaustion, make the complete determination to carry that heavy load yourself, relieving them from their tiredness and pain and giving them happiness.

You don’t lead all sentient beings to enlightenment by pulling them by the hand, dragging them along towards enlightenment, saying, “Come to enlightenment!” You don’t put big piles of sentient beings in trucks! You can’t put them in airplanes and trains, you can’t place all the vast crowds in whole convoys of vehicles to take them to Tibet, or to the top of a high mountain like Mount Everest or somewhere, with you yourself as the pilot. It is not like that. If you are going to lead all sentient beings to happiness and enlightenment, they themselves have to follow the path.

In order to follow the path to enlightenment, they have to understand the teachings on the path to enlightenment, so you should reveal the teachings to the mother sentient beings who have been so kind to you. In order to reveal the teachings to mother sentient beings, first you should clearly and completely know the personality of every single mother sentient being, the different levels of their minds and their different characteristics, as well as all the imprints that they have on their mindstreams. You have to know this clearly without the slightest mistake.

Because there are various levels of thoughts, imprints and personalities, knowing only one method is not satisfactory. There are various methods that need to be revealed in order to suit all those different sentient beings, and you should know every single different method clearly without any mistake. Who knows this? Nobody, except a being with an omniscient mind, a buddha. Not even the highest bodhisattvas know this perfectly.

Therefore, you must achieve omniscience in order to fully understand all the different imprints, characteristics and levels of thoughts of every sentient being, without the slightest deception. You must precisely understand every single method to help them and be able to reveal the path to them. With an omniscient mind, you are able to manifest in millions of different forms just to guide one sentient being. Every pore of a buddha’s holy body can eliminate many sentient beings’ suffering and lead them to happiness.

This is like the story of Buddha Shakyamuni when he was invited by an Indian woman, Magadha Sangmo. Her husband was Hindu and he was devoted to the Hindu priest but she was Buddhist, so she wanted to invite Buddha Shakyamuni and the arhats. Her husband said Buddha Shakyamuni wouldn’t come to the house just by her standing outside and inviting him, but she said if she invited them they would definitely come. The husband let her do this, thinking she would make a fool of herself, so she prepared the meals to offer Buddha Shakyamuni and his followers well. After she fixed the house, she went outside and waited, carrying incense in her palms in the mudra of prostration. Then, because there’s not the slightest second the Buddha does not see the works of sentient beings with his omniscient mind, he came. At first many arhats and followers came, flying over the mountains and into her house, then afterward Buddha Shakyamuni came. 

When he was coming down to Magadha Sangmo’s house, at her invitation, in such a short time on his way he passed over so many birds and worms, on the road and in the forest, and those who saw Shakyamuni Buddha were immediately freed from their suffering and led to happiness. Even when Buddha walked, he didn’t touch the ground. He walked with his feet just above the ground so on the road the worms and creatures who wanted to cross over felt incredible great bliss. There are many unimaginable stories of how Buddha Shakyamuni skillfully works for sentient beings according to their needs.

Like that, think, “Therefore, I must achieve the same as that. At any rate, I must achieve enlightenment, the complete state of buddhahood for the benefit of all mother sentient beings.” This generates the motivation to save living beings by leading them on the graduated path to enlightenment. At present generating such a thought to achieve the fully accomplished buddhahood for the benefit of sentient beings requires effort. By thinking how they have been so kind and by generating love and compassion, you should make the great determination to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others, like Buddha Shakyamuni. For that, you have to generate the effort. 

Now, you might be able to generate the experience with effort. When this experience becomes effortless, it is like the mother who sees her one beloved child fall into a fire. Whatever she is doing—while she is eating, working, sitting—continuously, spontaneously, without any effort, without having to consider any reason, the thought comes to save her only beloved child from the fire. Even while she’s talking with other people, while she is eating, whatever she is doing, this thought is spontaneously there. Like that, it is effortless. If you can have that thought totally spontaneously, where you can’t stand to see sentient beings experience suffering and be devoid of happiness for even a minute; if the thought comes spontaneously to liberate them from their suffering and give them happiness and therefore to achieve enlightenment—like this example of the mother and how she feels for her one loved child who falls in the fire—you have generated bodhicitta, the loving compassionate thought.

The clear light nature of the mind

It is a very good idea to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. That’s fantastic, but how can you do it with your deluded mind? All sentient beings, not just human beings, can achieve enlightenment. All sentient beings’ minds can achieve the omniscient mind, the complete state of buddhahood. There is the potentiality of becoming a buddha in the mind of all sentient beings. 

Why is that? The nature of the mind is clear light. For example, if a mirror is completely covered with dust it cannot reflect back a single object. If the mirror itself were completely oneness with the dust, you could not separate it from the dust, and therefore there would be no way to make the mirror give a reflection, because there would be no way to clean the mirror of the dust. Just as you cannot separate kaka from kaka, it would be like this with the dust.

You might feel now that your mind is deluded, ignorant, full of attachment, full of hatred, but your mind is like a mirror. Just as a mirror is not inseparable from dust, your mind is not inseparable from attachment, not inseparable from hatred, not inseparable from ignorance. Because the mirror is only temporarily covered with dust, there’s an opportunity to gradually clean off the dust that dulls the reflection, and gradually the mirror is able to reflect more and more back until it is able to give a completely clear reflection.

Similarly, you can see that your unsubdued mind is temporarily obscured by the dust of afflictions. By practicing, by following the power of the remedies, you can manage to gradually eliminate the obscurations. That’s how the mind can become omniscient. This is the nature of this present mind. It becomes an omniscient mind when there is not the slightest obscuration. Then, when all the obscurations are completely finished, your mind will be able to see the whole of existence. The clear nature of this present mind is the omniscient mind.

Aryadeva explained that it is very effective when you are feeling depressed to think that it is possible to achieve enlightenment. It may not be important for others but it is important for you. When you feel depressed it is difficult to see any connection between this mind and the omniscient mind but it is very important to see it is possible.

You need to think more particularly about this subject. First, you should understand that the mind is not oneness with the unsubdued mind, and second you should appreciate that you have this precious time where you have gathered all the necessary conditions to practice the Dharma. You should examine how you have everything now, so if from your own side you don’t attempt to practice the Dharma it’s a great waste. Aryadeva said it is possible to achieve nirvana, the sorrowless state, in daily life because the mind is not oneness with the unsubdued mind. Anger might arise about an object, but the mind isn’t continuously the object of anger; sometimes it can be the object of attachment and sometimes the object of indifference or ignorance. So, like this, it changes. This second reason is the main reason that shows how is it possible to separate the mind from this unsubdued, confused mind.

Searching for the non-existent I

How can you eliminate the cause of the unsubdued mind? How can the cause of this unsubdued mind, the ignorance that grasps at the “I” as truly existent, be eliminated completely? How can the cause of all the other confused minds be eliminated completely? How can the ignorance, the self-grasping, grasping the I as truly existent, be cut off?

What is grasped is the truly existent I—that is the object of ignorance—and that is false. In fact, it is completely empty. The truly existent I does not exist technically. While the truly existent I is completely empty on the I, it appears to ignorance as if it is true and the ignorance grasps it as true. While it doesn’t exist at all from its own side, ignorance believes that it does exist. This ignorance that holds and grasps the I as truly existent is the basis of all other unsubdued minds, such as anger, attachment, hatred. You accumulate karma with this unsubdued mind and have to experience suffering again and again and be reborn again and again. You experience the cycle of death and rebirth in each of the six realms. Right now you are suffering in the human realm.

You need to listen to and understand the teachings given by experienced teachers on shunyata, emptiness, and on the meaning of selflessness, and then, with this wisdom, you need to research whether the object of ignorance—this grasping at the I as truly existent—does truly exist. You need to try to find the truly existent I, the object of ignorance. 

Then, after having found the I that the ignorance believes to exist truly, you need search throughout the aggregates to see whether you can find it on one of them, to see whether it exists or not. Understanding the teachings and the advice given by an experienced guru, you will find by searching that the object of ignorance is completely empty.

It is like a mirage you see in the distance. It appears as water and you believe it to be real water and grasp at it as water but someone who comes from that place will tell you there is no water. Why did that person say there is no water? Due to certain conditions, it appears as water, but when the knowledgeable person explains that it is just a mirage and you go closer to examine whether there really is water there, you will find there is not a single drop. Then, your view of water completely disappears. The water that you see is completely empty. In the same way, you realize the truly existent I is completely empty. That which you have been grasping onto since beginningless time, you can now see as completely empty. Then you have realized emptiness, shunyata. By realizing it is completely empty, the truly existent I, which is the object of ignorance and grasping, is completely eliminated. By developing this wisdom realizing emptiness, you will continuously progress along the five paths until you are able to completely remove the very root of the unsubdued mind, the ignorance clinging to the I as truly existent.

That’s how the absolute nature of the mind becomes completely free of the obscurations of the unsubdued mind. That is called nirvana. That is the goal of the arhat. You need to completely eliminate the main enemy, the ignorance grasping at the I as truly existent. 

All the suffering of samsara comes from karma and the unsubdued mind. All the unsubdued minds come from that very root of ignorance—grasping at the I as truly existent. That can be eliminated by realizing that the I is empty of true existence. When the very root of the delusions is eliminated, the other delusions are ceased. When you achieve the true cessation, then you have finally achieved nirvana and have become a great meditator. Then you are an arhat.

The five paths

The five paths to omniscience are the Mahayana path of merit, the Mahayana path of preparation, the right-seeing Mahayana path, the Mahayana path of meditation and the Mahayana path of no more learning. When you generate bodhicitta effortlessly you have entered the Mahayana path.

Within the first Mahayana path, the path of merit, there are three divisions: lower, middle and greater. The first Mahayana path is the accumulation of merit. That is the literal meaning. The second path is when you have achieved insight, the wisdom realizing emptiness. Then, you have achieved the path of preparation, which has four divisions. The initial meaning of the Mahayana path of preparation is about working in order to fully see the meaning of selflessness, without any deception. 

Whenever you generate the wisdom of fully realizing emptiness, your mind approaches the right-seeing path, the third path. You have the wisdom to fully see the meaning of selflessness, emptiness. Then, the next stage is the Mahayana path of meditation, where the wisdom that you have generated before, fully seeing emptiness, is developed by continuously training the mind. Then, when all the disturbing-thought obscurations and all the obscurations to knowledge are both completely removed, there is no need for further training, and you have achieved the path of no more learning.

According to the path to nirvana for the individual liberation practitioner, when you have generated the thought of renouncing samsara, at that time you enter the Lesser Vehicle’s path of merit. The thought of renouncing samsara is the door of the path to nirvana. If you only generate the thought to renounce samsara, without the thought of bodhicitta, then you enter the path of the individual liberation practitioner. When you effortlessly generate the thought to renounce samsara and bodhicitta together, then you have attained the Mahayana path.

You can experiment on the mind, just as a scientist does on external phenomena. You can understand it with your own experience. All the confusion and world problems come from the unsubdued mind. Not having a subdued mind is the whole problem. Everything that the Buddha said in all the five great treatises, everything that Buddha ever explained, is the method to subdue the mind. He did not explain it just to calm the mind. It was not just to write books, not just to show he was very learned and a great scholar. The whole Sutrayana teachings are to subdue the mind, to improve the mind, because the unsubdued mind is the whole problem. 

Scientists examine things. They count the numbers of things, to try and learn things—how many people in the mountains have big heads, how many stones are in this country, how many birds are in that country. No matter how much they examine things and how many numbers they know about external phenomena, it cannot subdue the mind. It is more profound to examine the mind than to examine external phenomena. By examining the mind you can understand better and be clearer about the nature of the external phenomena. No matter how much scientific progress there is, inner peace doesn’t increase in the minds of the humans in the world. Even in the country where there are the greatest scientific discoveries, there is no more inner peace. That is mainly because what is missing is the method, the practice to subdue the mind. Even though you learn so much about external phenomena, the practice to subdue the mind is still missing.

Therefore, you should attempt to practice meditation; you should seek enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, not only for your own happiness, for nirvana, but for the happiness of all others. If you have that aim, you should make an experiment about the thought of liberation from samsara, bodhicitta and the wisdom realizing emptiness. When you generate each of these realizations, is there greater and greater peace? When each of the wrong conceptions is eliminated in the unsubdued mind, when all the conditions are perfect, you should experiment on these three principal paths to enlightenment. When you do, you are making an experiment on something you have never done in any of your past lives, from beginningless past lives until now. There is nothing more worthwhile in the world to do. What else can you do? What is the most precious thing you can do in the world? What is there in the world that gives greater benefit for others, even for yourself? Nothing.

Just watch everybody in the whole country; watch the people’s minds. Whatever they do, they are just repeating what they have done numberless times, just repeating on and on. Their minds are completely confused. Going for a holiday, working, whatever they are doing, they don’t know what they are doing. They don’t know what the best thing for others is.

In this life, if you are able to make an experiment on the three principal aspects of the path, that’s great. Even if you just want to benefit yourself, that is good. But if your concern is for other sentient beings, that is the doorway to give extensive benefit to others. 

So, without wasting time, without being lazy, it’s time to have a long-term plan, even though you might find the subject unclear and hard to understand now. It takes time to learn the ABC all the way up to Z. It takes time to understand the Dharma and generate realizations. This is the hardest work! It is the most profitable work but it is the hardest work of all. So far, you have been overwhelmed. Since beginningless time until now you have been unable to eliminate your delusions but now, at this time, you are able to face up to them and not be overwhelmed. So, of course, it is the hardest thing. By knowing this, it is extremely important to have a long-term aim and be prepared to practice for a long time in spite of the difficulties.

---

Notes

⁵ V. 21. [Return to text]

⁶ In Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, (p. 390), Pabongka says the offering is a handful of sweetmeats made of sesame. [Return to text]

⁷ Quoted in Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 247. [Return to text]

⁸ Rinpoche’s first book, from 1973, was the coursebook for the very early Kopan courses. You can now read this book online or download a PDf file. [Return to text]