It has been harming to you and harming to others. It has been harming you, causing you to continuously reincarnate in samsara and experience all the sufferings of hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras and intermediate state beings numberless times. It causes you to reincarnate continuously in one of the six realms, to reincarnate continuously and die. During that, after birth and before death, you then experience the oceans of suffering of the realm in which you have taken birth. There are the six realms in which we are circling, but here at this time we have taken birth in the human realm, so because we have taken birth we then experience old age, sicknesses and many other problems. So, I have diabetes, because of the mistake of taking birth. Anyway, there are so many sicknesses—424 of them. With many sicknesses, even though you have medical treatment, there’s no response. You try many treatments, but sometimes you don’t find anything beneficial. Even if you take the medicine given by a doctor, the medicine doesn’t suit you, and it has side-effects.

I think I might have also mentioned yesterday that there are many other problems besides old age and sickness. One is that you are unable to find desirable objects, such as a companion, for example. You wait for years and years to find the perfect companion. You look for the perfect friend for years and years, and when you can’t find them, you have so much suffering from loneliness. Or you even thought you had found them. At the beginning, when you start to live together, you are so excited, unbelievably excited. You thought, “I’ve been looking for a long time, and now I’ve found them.” Once you find them, you’re so excited. You think, “Oh, if I can be with this person, everything will be perfect. I’ll have no problems at all. I’ll be totally blissed out.” You never think of problems arising. Never. You think everything will be just perfect. You have all these unbelievable fantasies about what’s going to happen to you, about how it will be perfect. You never think of the problems. Never. You never think of the things that will arise after meeting and living with the person. You never think of all the problems that will come, like a flood or like a volcano erupting. You think that everything will be completely incredible, just unbelievable.

You then agree to live together, and you are so excited. When you then actually start to live together, one day goes, two days go, three days go, and gradually, as the days go by, you see more and more faults. Before, you didn’t see the faults, the problems, but now that you are living together, you see them.

One student told me he found a friend, then one day he saw his friend in the toilet, defecating, and his excited mind disappeared. That’s an example. You start slowly, slowly to see the faults of the body and the faults of the mind. You see the faults of the body more and more and the faults of the mind, such as the person being selfish, angry and so forth. All the things then come, like a volcano erupting or like a septic tank breaking. Before, you never thought about these things; you just thought that every problem would be solved. You thought, “If I can be with this person, I won’t have any problems.” You had that strong belief. You never thought of the problems that were going to happen.

There’s a problem before meeting a friend: if you don’t find them, there’s a problem. But if you find them, there’s then a different problem. After you have found them, there’s a problem dependent on that. This is how it is if you are in samsara, if you are not free from samsara. When you don’t find someone, you have a problem; when you have found them, you also have a problem. In dependence upon having met them, another problem starts. Basically, when you’re not living together, there are all these expectations, your fantasies or dreams, which are not true. Then as you live together, you gradually see more and more mistakes. There are not only physical problems, which you hadn’t thought about before, but especially all the faults of the mind, such as more and more anger and selfishness arising, as I mentioned before. The person has wishes that oppose yours, so you then have difficulties. Even though you are physically living together, you are always quarreling or fighting. So, it’s the total opposite of this huge dream you had that everything would be perfect, that you wouldn’t have any problems. The real life story is totally opposite to that; it is totally something else, something that you never thought about before.

So, even though you’re physically living together, you’re always fighting. After some time, even though you don’t say it, in your heart you think, “Oh, when can I be free? When can I be free from this person?” At the beginning it’s, “Wow! If I could be with this person, all my problems would be stopped. I would have no problems, just incredible bliss.” Now it’s the total opposite. Even though you don’t say it, in your heart you’re thinking, “When can I be free? What is the day that I can be free from this person?” The day that you can be free from this person looks to you like liberation. It’s not actual liberation from samsara but just liberation from that person and the problems you are having with them. It’s not that once you are physically separated from that person you have overcome relationship problems forever. It’s not that you are free from relationship problems forever. That’s totally wrong. You are just temporarily free from that person, from your relationship with them. That’s all. It’s only for a very short time. You then start another one—you may have already started another one.

Of course, it’s exactly like before. You think, “Wow! If I could live with that person, I could be so happy.” Again you have exactly the same expectations that it will be so good, that you will be so happy, that you will have no problems, that everything will be solved. Or if you are a Buddhist practitioner and the other person is a practitioner, you will think, “Oh, if I stay with that person, I will be a much better practitioner. They will be practicing and I will be practicing – it will be fantastic!” You think it will be an unbelievable match.

If you have already started with the new person before separating from the old one, it makes life even more difficult. Having already started another life with somebody else, you experience more suffering in being with your old partner and much more longing for liberation from them. Your longing to be free is much stronger because you have already started a relationship with someone else. The suffering is much heavier.

Even a practitioner thinks, “It will be so good—they will be practicing and I will be practicing.” You then live together and, sooner or later, after a few months or weeks, or after a few days, you experience the total opposite of what you expected at the beginning. Gradually, you go through the real life. You hadn’t thought about these things before, at the beginning, but you then go through the same experiences again. You find it difficult with your personality problems and the other person’s personality problems. It gets worse and worse and worse. Again it is the same. You quarrel and fight. It goes on and on, heavier and heavier. There is then more grief in your heart. You think, “I shouldn’t have tried this.” You will then feel so much regret. After you live together, there will be an explosion of all your and the other person’s unhappiness, and all the negative karma as you fight with each other. Life will become very messy. Then one day, of course, with so much sorrow and anger, you will again separate.

Again you will look for somebody and find somebody. The desire will look for another friend, another companion. Again you will think, “Wow! This is fantastic!” You will have all the dreams about what is going to happen, even though you have already gone through the same thing quite a number of times. You have learnt a lot, but somehow…. Even though you have gone through it quite a few times, the main thing is that you are following the superstitious mind of desire, so you again have the same expectations, and again it’s the same story. You think, “It will be fantastic! I will be so happy and have no problems if I can only be with this person.” Again it is the same thing. If you happen to live together, even though at the beginning you might think that you have succeeded, it will gradually become the same story. When you live together, as the days go, as the weeks go, as the months go, it will be the same story.

I have two purposes in saying this. This happens because of desire craving samsara and samsaric pleasures, or enjoyments. This happens until you are free from this desire that clings to samsara and samsaric pleasures, which are temporary and cannot be developed (not only can they not be developed but they don’t last). Also, after some time samsaric pleasures become even the suffering of pain; there is no more happiness, and they become the suffering of pain. You can’t develop samsaric pleasure the way you can develop Dharma happiness. You can complete Dharma happiness. It’s one-time work. You achieve liberation and enlightenment one time; you don’t have to repeat it over and over. Here, when you analyze samsaric pleasure, your wisdom sees that it is only in the nature of suffering. That’s what you discover: the reality of pleasure is that it’s only suffering. On a feeling that is only suffering you label “pleasure,” and it appears to be pleasure, and your big superstitious mind of ignorance believes it to be true. Attachment then arises toward that object, which doesn’t exist at all, which is not there in reality. Samsaric pleasures such as the pleasure of sleep, eating food, being in a comfortable place and sex cannot be increased, as Dharma happiness can, and cannot last because they’re dependent on external conditions. That pleasure is only suffering.

For example, let’s say that you had a bad headache yesterday. Since your headache has lessened today, you regard that as pleasure. And tomorrow your headache will be even less. So, it is in dependence upon some pain that is more than your present pain that you label the feeling “pleasure.” The reality is that that feeling is only suffering. This is how it is–compared to yesterday’s headache, today’s headache is pleasure, but compared to tomorrow’s, which will be less than today’s, it is not pleasure. However, the feeling is a suffering feeling on which you label pleasure.

When one suffering stops and another suffering begins, you label that feeling “pleasure,” and it appears as pleasure to the hallucinated mind. It also appears to be inherently existent; it never appears as if it came from your mind, from your good karma, your positive thoughts and positive actions. It appears as if it has nothing to do with that. It appears to be truly existent, to exist from its own side, which is a hallucinated appearance to your hallucinated mind. When you then let your mind hold on to that as true, at that time you are creating ignorance, the concept of true existence. Attachment then arises toward that, which then becomes the cause of samsara. It ties you to samsara, then causes you to be reborn again in samsara. This ignorance and this attachment don’t allow you to be free from the suffering of samsara.

In regard to the scientific way to meditate (scientific doesn’t apply only to Western science), there are two types of meditation. One is one-pointed concentration and the other is analytical meditation, which involves checking the way that scientists do, whether Eastern or Western scientists.

[A student suddenly falls off a chair as it breaks under them.]

Oh! Was it an old chair? Any external thing that is made ends by breaking. That’s the end, breaking. If you don’t make it, there’s no breaking; but if you make it, there’s breaking.

Here, my topic was actually that because you have taken birth, you have to experience all these problems, and you then have to die because you have taken birth. The talk got expanded, but that’s the essence of what I wanted to mention.

Anyway, as I was saying, there are inner scientists. Inner scientists are the meditators studying the mind, studying the path. Through meditation, through analysis, they are trying to see the ultimate nature of the I, the mind and other phenomena. All this discovery, all this realization, of the very nature of phenomena comes through analysis. With these two, analytical meditation and one-pointed meditation, together you are able to meditate on the path. You are then able to have renunciation of the cause of suffering, karma and delusion, and the determination to be free from them. You have the wish to renounce them, to achieve liberation from them. As you learn about all these wrong concepts, the defilements that need to be purified, you learn about all the paths that remove all of them. By studying and actualizing these paths, you then remove all these wrong concepts, all these superstitious thoughts, all these defilements, gross and even subtle, and achieve enlightenment. You achieve total liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes and then achieve full enlightenment. You are then able to liberate others from the oceans of suffering of samsara and also bring them to the peerless happiness of enlightenment. This is unbelievable, mind-blowing! What an achievement! What a success in life, to be able to bring benefit as extensive as the sky and as deep as the ocean to all suffering living beings. Wow! Being able to reveal the path is amazing! You can’t imagine the benefit! So, it comes about through the inner scientist, the meditator, doing fixed meditation and analyzing everything through analytical meditation.

As far as the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment, all the realizations have to come from analytical meditation. The realization that comes from fixed, or one-pointed, meditation is shamatha, or calm abiding. After you achieve the nine levels of calm abiding, you then experience the extremely refined rapturous ecstasy of the body and mind. After you have that experience, you then achieve the fully characterized calm abiding. That’s the general explanation. Of course, while you’re meditating on the nine levels to achieve perfect concentration, you have to watch how your mind is meditating. You have to use remembrance and awareness to keep your mind on the object of meditation. You have to watch what your mind is doing. Remembrance refers to remembering the object of meditation and awareness refers to being aware that your mind is distracted or about to be distracted. You have to be aware that while your mind is not yet distracted, it’s about to be distracted by subtle attachment-scattering thought. You have to overcome even that. You then have extremely firm meditation on the object, free from all the gross and subtle sinking thoughts. In one way, since you have to watch how your mind is doing the meditation, you could say that there’s also analytical checking. Part of your mind is meditating and another part of your mind is checking whether you’re meditating or not, whether you’re distracted or not. There are many other antidotes to the different obstacles. By continuing skillfully, you’re gradually able to achieve the fully characterized calm abiding.

All the other realizations mainly come through analysis. Like a scientist, by analyzing, by checking, you then get the realization. Your mind becomes more and more familiar with the path, then it actually gets transformed into the path. Your mind actually becomes the path that is explained by the Omniscient One in the texts.

Since I’m talking about this…. Meditators say that at the very beginning, when you have to meditate on something, you try to fix your mind on that object, but later attachment-scattering thought comes, and your mind is distracted from that object of meditation to some object of attachment. You can sometimes spend many hours distracted by that. Your body is sitting in the meditation posture but your mind is not on the object of meditation. You can waste so much of your precious life in this way. Of course, when you are free from gross and subtle attachment-scattering thought and gross and subtle sinking thought, the obstacles to perfect meditation, you can plan how many hours, weeks, months or years you will meditate on an object. You then place your concentration on that object, and it stays on that object like a mountain for however long you planned. So, that’s different. As beginners, we have to know how to meditate in a skillful way from the very beginning. When you begin the meditation, the mind focuses on the object but while your mind is meditating, at the same time a part of your mind has to spy on your mind to check whether it’s meditating or not. It is not that you’re placing your whole awareness just on the object of meditation. If you do that, when some mistake happens, there is a danger that you can waste many hours. It could happen that you waste your precious human life. Without remembrance and awareness, you could cheat yourself because you won’t realize that your mind has become completely distracted, that attachment-scattering thought has arisen. But if you meditate from the beginning as I have just described, and which is according to the meditators’ experience, according to the way they meditate, your concentration will last. At the beginning, don’t put your whole attention on the object of meditation. While your mind is meditating, focusing on the object, use a corner of your mind to spy, to check whether the mind is meditating or not. Doing these two things together helps your concentration to be able to last longer and longer.

Now I am going back to suffering. Since I have brought up that issue, I would like to mention this. We have to understand why samsaric pleasure cannot be increased and why it doesn’t last, why we have to put in effort again to experience it. In this way, our effort has been endless. It has been endless not only from the birth of this life but during beginningless samsaric lifetimes. We have worked for samsaric pleasure during beginningless rebirths, and it’s all gone. In regard to any samsaric pleasure of devas or human beings, there’s nothing new left for us to experience. We have experienced everything numberless times.

It is similar with all the samsaric sufferings. There is nothing new in any problem that we see other human beings or animals suffering. Animals live their lives eating one another alive; the tiny ones eat the big ones and the big ones eat the small ones. There is nothing new in all this; we have gone through these experiences numberless times during beginningless rebirths. When we get cancer, it’s not for the first time. We have had cancer numberless times in our past lives. This is not the first time we have experienced cancer or AIDS. No matter what sicknesses or other difficulties we experience in our life, they’re nothing new. When we have relationship problems—problems with this person, with that person—all this is nothing new. We have had relationships with everybody. All of us here in this room have had relationships with each other during beginningless rebirths. Everybody has been my mother numberless times, not just one time. And not only as humans but even as dogs and cats. You have all been my mother, and not only a human mother, numberless times. You have been my dog mother numberless times. I have been born to you as a cat and you have been my cat mother numberless times. I’ve been born even as a cockroach, and you’ve been my mother numberless times. I was born even as a kangaroo, and you have been my kangaroo mother numberless times. I have been born as a crocodile, and you have been my crocodile mother numberless times. I have been born as a gorilla, and you have been my gorilla mother numberless times. I have been born as an elephant, and you have been my elephant mother numberless times. I have been born as a monkey, and you have been my monkey mother numberless times. So, all this has happened numberless times during time without beginning.

If you could remember all the past connections, all the past relationships, we’ve had with each other, it would be just unimaginable. I’ve been born all the creatures born from egg, such as turtles and fish, or from womb, and you’ve been my mother. It’s not only that you’ve been my human mother. There are also the lives as spirits, as hungry ghosts. Even in other past lives when we’ve been born as human beings, in some lives you’ve been a friend, in other lives an enemy or father, mother, husband, wife or children. All this has happened not just one time but numberless times during beginningless rebirths. So, we are all connected to each other.

I have to put some oil….[There is a pause while Rinpoche has a drink.]

On TV or in photos, we see the suffering lives of animals and how they harm each other so much. Or we actually see the unbelievable suffering and harm at the beach, in the water or on the ground. Animals are also tortured and killed by human beings, and experience so much suffering. To catch fish fishermen put a hook through a live worm, not a dead one, so that when the worm moves it attracts the fish. The fish are looking for food, and by following their desire, they get caught. The hook goes into their mouth, and they can’t get away. There is unbelievable pain. The fisherman then immediately scrapes off the scales with a knife and cuts out the heart. The fish might not have completely died; the mind may not have completely left the body. There is unbelievable suffering. If somebody cut your body in half, how would that feel to you? And the hook is put through the worm’s body while it is alive to attract a fish, to kill another animal. If somebody put a hook through your body so that you would be eaten by another animal and so that you would be used to cheat and kill another sentient being, it would be unbearable.

When we see a fisherman catching fish at the beach, the fisherman is giving harm to the worms and the fish, who are exactly the same as the fisherman in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering. The outcome depends on who is more powerful. Since the fisherman is more powerful, he is able to use and harm those other living beings. The animals themselves have no choice, no freedom at all in terms of their happiness. They can’t speak, so they can’t express that they are suffering. There is nothing they can say, nothing they can do. It’s a question of who is more powerful.

The next point is that when the worm and fish suffer so much and die, the fisherman creates the karma to be reborn as that fish. He doesn’t become that fish—that’s not possible. It’s impossible to become another sentient being. You can become a buddha but you can’t become another sentient being. If the fisherman doesn’t purify the negative karma of having harmed the worm and fish before his death, in a future life he will be born as a fish in the water or as a worm. Because you caused those sufferings to others in the past, it’s now your turn to experience them. It’s the result of your negative karma; it ripens on you. You are then born as a worm, and another fisherman puts a hook through your body. Or you’re born as fish and another fisherman uses a worm to catch you; you look for food, and by following desire, you are caught and then killed. So, this happens numberless times. Experiencing the result of karma is definite; you experience happiness or suffering depending on whether you created positive or negative karma.

Definitely experiencing the result of karma may sound as if it happens just one time. No. Karma is expandable. We have to understand the second outline of karma: karma is expandable. You create one cause, but you experience the result in many lifetimes, hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. We have to understand that karma is expandable. First, karma is definite. If you don’t purify negative karma, it’s definite that you will experience its suffering result. If there’s no obstacle to virtuous karma, it’s definite that you will experience the resultant happiness. The second point, that karma is expandable, is very important.

It is said in the teachings by the Omniscient One, by Buddha, that from one action of killing one sentient being, whether it’s a human being or an insect, you will experience the result of being killed in five hundred lifetimes. This is because karma is expandable. As an animal and as a human being, you will be killed by others. How many times? From that one action of killing one sentient being, you will be killed in five hundred lifetimes.

A similar thing is mentioned by Aryadeva, the great Indian pandit. After Buddha passed way, Nagarjuna, Asanga and the rest of the Six Ornaments practiced and completed the path that Buddha explained and became great pandits, great enlightened beings. Innumerable other yogis and pandits appeared. One of the pandits, Aryadeva, mentioned in his teaching on the Middle Way, Four Hundred Verses, that if you cheat one sentient being you then get cheated by others in one thousand lifetimes. Aryadeva’s teaching is based on the teachings of the great pandits, the Six Ornaments.

So, karma is expandable. If you commit one negative karma, you will experience the suffering result of that karma in many lifetimes. In a similar way, from one virtuous action, you will experience the result, happiness, in hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. Therefore, because nonvirtuous actions result in suffering, which you don’t like, you must abandon the cause of suffering. And since what you like is happiness, you must practice virtue, good karma. Karma is also expandable, with the suffering result of one negative karma being experienced in many lifetimes, hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. Therefore, you must abandon any negative karma. And since what you like is every happiness, you must engage in every good karma.

Also, you don’t experience the result if you haven’t created the cause. Whether it’s happiness or suffering, you don’t experience it. You don’t succeed in achieving happiness if you haven’t created the cause, good karma. In the same way, you don’t get cancer and other sicknesses if you haven’t created the cause, negative karma. Even if you stay with someone who has a contagious disease, you won’t get it if you haven’t created the cause for it. The third outline is that you don’t experience the result if you haven’t created the cause. You don’t experience a suffering result if you haven’t created negative karma. Therefore, you must not engage in the cause of suffering, negative karma, and must engage in good karma, because what you want is happiness, and you will definitely experience happiness as long as no obstacle happens to that good karma.

The fourth outline is that whatever karma is created is never wasted, never lost. No matter how subtle or powerful or small the negative or good karma is, it will never disappear. The sutra teachings mention that no matter how small the good or negative karma that you have created is, and even if it was created hundreds of eons ago, the karma will never be lost. That means that no matter how small a negative karma is, when the cause and conditions come together, we will definitely experience the suffering result. If it’s good karma, no matter how small it is and how many eons ago it was created, when the cause and conditions come together, we will definitely experience the result of happiness. No matter how many billions of eons ago it was created it doesn’t disappear; and no matter how small, how subtle, it is, it doesn’t disappear. Therefore, the conclusion is that we must not engage in even a small negative karma and we must do even a small good karma. If we can bring even a small benefit to other sentient beings, humans or animals, by helping them, we must do it, we must help them. Since karma is expandable, you will experience the result of happiness in many hundreds or thousands of lifetimes; and the karma will never disappear, no matter how many billions of eons ago you created it.

The time is gone. Time didn’t wait! I will just explain this as the conclusion since I came to this point anyway and since it would have to be explained on one of the days.

This is a very important, scientific meditation. Imagine that you have bought a beautiful car. In the beginning you’re very excited about your new car. Then as the days go by, the weeks go by, the months go by, you don’t have as much excitement as you had at the beginning. The car becomes more and more boring. You then see another car, one that is more expensive and much more attractive than the one you have. The old car is uninteresting, and you’re excited about this new one. After you have bought the new car, another company makes a car that is even more attractive, with many features inside. I haven’t yet seen a car that has a shower. I will tell you one story. A few years ago I went to give a talk in Florida, where we have one meditation center called Tubten Kunga Center. I had to go to give the talk at the university, so the director of the center arranged a car, a stretch limousine. I saw in this car that they had all these water bottles and drinks lined up like bottles of alcohol in a bar. (There was no alcohol, only water.) I then thought that there should be a shower. The thought of a shower came after seeing this. Anyway, I think the director tried his best.

So, this is how the whole life goes. We get bored with what we have and want something better. The previous pleasure we had in having a new object has gone; that object has become old and not very interesting. Then the excitement in having the new object doesn’t last. As the days go, the months go, the pleasure doesn’t increase and it doesn’t last. It becomes even the suffering of pain. This is especially so when you see something better. You then have no interest in the old object, and having it becomes a problem. Why doesn’t the pleasure increase? Having the object should increase the pleasure. The longer you have that car, as the days go, as the weeks go, as the months go, as the years go, the happiness should increase. It should go up every day, but that is not what happens. The happiness doesn’t go up and it doesn’t continue. It cannot continue. The car then becomes uninteresting, boring, and it then becomes the suffering of pain. Basically, all these feelings are only suffering. I’ve been talking about a car but another example is a friend, a companion. It’s the same. All these pleasures are “pleasure” labeled on a feeling that is suffering. That’s why the pleasure doesn’t increase and doesn’t continue.

Now, as Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned in Lamrim Chenmo, after your body is exposed to the hot sun and you become hot, when you jump into the cold water of a swimming pool or the ocean if you are at the beach, at the beginning there’s pleasure. We will now analyze whether that pleasure is true happiness or in the nature of suffering. The longer you stay in the water, the pleasure doesn’t increase, and it doesn’t continue. The cold then becomes more and more unbearable. First I will explain this one then explain what we believe, which is false, a hallucination.

It is explained by Lama Tsongkhapa, who is the embodiment of Manjushri, the embodiment of all the buddhas’ wisdom, that the pleasure arises because the action of entering the water stops the previous suffering of feeling hot from the body being exposed to the sun. Because the action of being exposed to the sun is stopped, the feeling of being hot is stopped. With the next action, entering the cold water, as soon as you put your body in the cold water, in the next moment the effect is the suffering of being in cold water. The discomfort of being in cold water started the next moment, right after the action was done; but it is so small that it is unnoticeable. Because the discomfort of being in the cold water, compounded by the action of being in the water, is unnoticeable, you then labeled it pleasure. The longer you continue the action of being in the water, that discomfort will increase more and more and more. Later it won’t be pleasure any more; the discomfort will increase, and it will become the suffering of pain, the suffering of samsara. Before it was the suffering of change; while having pleasure it’s the suffering of change. Then it’s the suffering of pain.

With samsaric pleasure, one suffering stops and another suffering begins, but it’s very small so it’s unnoticeable. On that feeling your mind then labels “pleasure.” Right after your mind has merely imputed pleasure, the next moment the pleasure that your mind has merely imputed should appear back to you as merely labeled by your mind, which is what happened just a moment before. When you analyze the details in this way, that’s the reality; but that doesn’t happen.

Now here there’s a big question to meditate on to discover what drives us crazy or puts us into this huge hallucinated world. A negative imprint has been left on our mental continuum by ignorance, the concept of true existence, which holds things to be truly existent, existent from their own side. This concept believes that things are truly existent, that things exist from their own side and are not merely labeled by mind. We haven’t removed this negative imprint which has been left on our mental continuum during beginningless rebirths. This negative imprint has been left not just a second, minute or hour ago but during beginningless rebirths. We haven’t removed this imprint by actualizing the path to enlightenment, especially the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. This is the one that directly ceases this but we haven’t achieved that. To remove the subtle defilements, you also have to have realization of bodhichitta. In order to have bodhichitta, at the beginning you have to have renunciation of samsara, renunciation of this life and renunciation of future-life samsara.

We lack the attainments of the path that remove, or cease, this negative imprint that projects this hallucination of true existence on the merely labeled I, on the merely labeled action, on the merely labeled object, on all the merely labeled phenomena. This negative imprint decorates all phenomena with this hallucination, like putting carpet on a floor, a brocade cover on a table or clothes on a human body. I, action, object—everything that exists is what is merely imputed by mind; but this negative imprint on the mental continuum then covers everything with this projection of inherent existence. This then makes everything real to you. For you, there is a I real existing from its own side. There is a real light, in the sense of a light existing from its own side. There is a red flower existing from its own side, existing from there. All these flowers, plants and leaves– everything appears to be existing from its own side; everything appears to be real. When we look at people, we see real human beings existing from their own side. When we look at the statues and thangkas, everything is real. This Medicine Buddha thangka is a real one. Everything appears to be real, to be existing from its own side. So, all this is a total hallucination that we’re trapped in. It has made everything, whatever you look at, real. If you look at the sky, there’s a real sky, a sky from its own side. If you look at the trees, even though they’re merely labeled by your mind, they appear to you as the total opposite, as real ones from their own side. If you look at the house, it appears as a real one existing from its own side. When you look at the road, it also appears that way. When you walk on the road, there’s a real road from its own side. So, it’s a total hallucination.

Now it is the same thing here with happiness. Your mind merely imputed happiness to the feeling after you went into the water, but when it appeared back to you in the next moment, it appeared to be truly existent pleasure, real pleasure, which means not merely labeled by mind, which is completely false. Just a moment before, your mind merely imputed pleasure, but because you are not aware that your mind merely imputed pleasure just a moment ago, the pleasure appears to you as existing from its own side.

First of all, that’s the discovery about samsaric pleasure. That’s what pleasure is. The pleasure that are you looking for is a name imputed to suffering. When one heavy suffering is stopped and another suffering begins but the suffering is unnoticeable, you then label that pleasure. That’s exactly what samsaric pleasure is. That’s its very nature. That’s all it is—nothing else. Now, because of the negative imprint from the past you have there on your mind, you are not aware that your mind has merely imputed this just a moment before, so the pleasure that you have labeled appears to you to be not merely labeled by your mind. It appears to you in the wrong way, as a hallucination. We then allow our mind to believe that it’s true. At that time we create the superstitious mind of ignorance, the wrong concept of true existence, which believes that the pleasure is truly existent. The pleasure appears to be truly existent, and we believe that this is the reality, that this is really true. Such pleasure is not there at all; it’s totally nonexistent there. And when we allow our mind to believe this is true, we create ignorance at that time. That’s the main superstitious thought that makes us suffer. All our attachment and anger come from ignorance, and we then create karma and continuously die and are reborn in samsara, experiencing all the sufferings of each realm. So, we create ignorance, believing this pleasure to be a hundred percent true. Next, attachment arises and grasps onto that pleasure. This is how it becomes the cause of samsara, causing us to be reborn again in samsara, tying us to samsara.

I’m giving this as an example for you to meditate on, to do a scientific analysis of as an inner scientist. It is the same with any other pleasure. We should meditate on our pleasures to realize how the nature of pleasure is only suffering. This discovery that they are in the nature of suffering helps us to be detached from them and then renounce them, which then enables us to achieve ultimate, everlasting happiness. With renunciation and bodhichitta we then achieve enlightenment. Basically, as said in the teachings, a person who is seeking small pleasure cannot achieve great pleasure, the everlasting happiness of liberation from samsara and enlightenment. The way to achieve the great happiness of liberation and enlightenment is by letting go of temporary pleasure, which in reality is only in the nature of suffering. By letting go of that, you’re then able to achieve the great happiness. So, that’s what we need to achieve, though we haven’t achieved it during beginningless rebirths up to now. What makes our life meaningful, worthwhile, at this time, is looking for this, and it happens only by practicing Dharma.

I was talking before about all the problems, including death, that come by taking birth. If you didn’t take birth you wouldn’t then experience all those things. If you don’t take birth, you don’t have to have diabetes, cancer and so forth. The mistake is taking birth under the control of karma and delusion. Therefore, we need to cease the cause of samsara, karma and delusion. That is possible only by Dharma practice—there are no other means to do it. You can’t do it in a hospital; you can’t go to ask the doctors, “Please do an operation that liberates me from karma and delusion.”

Okay, I will stop here, I think.

This is how practicing Dharma and actualizing the path to liberation and enlightenment become of unbelievable importance.

“Due to the merits of the three times collected by me and by others, may bodhichitta be actualized in my heart, in the hearts of all the students—there are so many people giving their lives to offering service to the organization—in the hearts of all sentient beings, in the hearts of all the world leaders, and in the hearts of all the people of the different religions.

“Jang chhub sem chhog rin po chhe….

“Due to the merits of the three times collected by me and by others, which exist but which are empty, may the I, who exists but who is empty, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which is empty, and lead all the sentient beings, who exist but who are empty, to that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which exists but which is empty, by myself alone, who exists but who is empty.”

Of course, not everybody can become Sangha, not everybody has the karma to do that. What I am saying here is that if you are not practicing Dharma, if you don’t have Dharma practice in your life, especially if you’re not practicing loving kindness, compassion and bodhichitta cherishing others, your life is totally suffering. If you don’t have Dharma in your life, life is only suffering. Because I talked about all the samsaric suffering in our life and also renunciation, I wanted to mention this last point. In case you have questions, that’s my answer.

Thank you so much. So have whatever, tea or dinner.

[There is a short mandala offering by the students.]

Okay, thank you very much. Gracias.