Lecture 27

EIGHT MAHAYANA PRECEPTS MOTIVATION: WITH BODHICITTA NONVIRTUES BECOME VIRTUES

As the motivation for taking the precepts, do the meditation on the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought, how all problems arise from the self-cherishing thought. Then, meditate on the benefits of bodhicitta, cherishing other sentient beings.

I’ve already explained the four suffering results of a complete action of sexual misconduct. I think all four results have been mentioned twice the way that Lama Tsongkhapa explained in the Lamrim Chenmo, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.

The three actions of body—killing, stealing and sexual misconduct—and four actions of speech—lying, speaking harshly, slandering and gossiping—without the self-cherishing thought, without the motivation that seeks happiness for the self, these seven actions can become virtue.

In the Lesser Vehicle path, the Hinayana teachings, there’s no permission to ever do those seven actions because of the level of mind of the sentient beings who follow that path. The teachings of the Mahayana, the level of motivation of bodhicitta, carrying the whole responsibility for freeing all sentient beings from suffering, doesn’t fit their minds. Freeing all sentient beings from all the obscurations, all the sufferings, leading them to peerless happiness, to full enlightenment, doing this job, carrying this whole responsibility, the work for every sentient being, doing all this by ourselves alone, does not fit the level of their minds. The thought to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings does not fit them. What fits according to their capacity, their level of mind, is to seek liberation for themselves. For those sentient beings who have that capacity of mind, the Buddha revealed that level of teachings in that way, teachings that fit their level of mind, according to their level of the mind or capacity of mind.

With that intention, the thought seeking happiness for oneself, these seven actions cannot become virtue. Doing these seven actions becomes risky, dangerous for those sentient beings themselves. It’s not that the Buddha has complete freedom over sentient beings’ actions, determining that some become virtue and some nonvirtue. It’s according to the capacity of the sentient being’s mind, the level of mind. It’s permitted or not permitted according to that; it’s not like God creating the whole thing.

Of course, if it were the case that it was up to whatever the buddhas wanted to do, since the buddhas have completed the holy training in compassion, and since there have been buddhas existing in all three times—the past, present and future—of which Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is one particular buddha, if it were completely in the hands of the buddhas, then there wouldn’t be any sentient beings left. However, it’s not completely up to the buddhas; it’s also up to the sentient beings themselves.

Because there have always been buddhas, there has always been the omniscient mind, the holy mind that has become complete in compassion for all sentient beings. If it were completely up to the buddhas it would happen like this. Because buddhas have always existed, there would be no sentient beings. No sentient beings would have existed in the past; no sentient beings would exist now and no sentient beings would exist in the future.

Those sentient beings who did the practice, who followed the graduated path to enlightenment, who changed their attitude from cherishing themselves into cherishing others, those sentient beings became enlightened. The other sentient beings who haven’t met the Dharma or who didn’t complete the path, they still exist as sentient beings.

Normally it’s mentioned that the karma of sentient beings, the potential of sentient beings, and the power of the buddhas are equal. That is what is normally explained.

Whether an action is permitted or not permitted is like how some actions are considered dangerous for a small child [but not for an adult]. For instance, when there is a risk to a small child going outside alone, the parents will not allow it, but when the child becomes capable of being outside alone, traveling alone and so forth, when there’s no risk, then the parents will allow it.

Similarly, when somebody is sick a doctor might determine that some food is harmful and not allow the patient to eat it, but when the disease goes away and the food is no longer an obstacle, the doctor then allows the patient to eat it. Whether the food is allowed or not is determined by the capacity of the person Similarly, it all depends on the person’s capacity; it’s not completely in the hands of the doctor, it’s not up to what the doctor determines. There are lot of doctors in the West who are put on trial by patients when things go wrong.

With these seven actions, for the practitioners of the Lesser Vehicle path, because they don’t have the capacity due to the attitude of working for the self, of seeking happiness for the self, there’s no way these seven actions can become virtue. They can only ever be nonvirtue, so it becomes a risk, a danger to themselves. Therefore, for those beings who have a lower level of mind, the Buddha did not permit these actions.

For bodhisattvas it’s different. When doing one of these seven actions becomes work for other sentient beings, when it becomes highly beneficial for other sentient beings, if the bodhisattva has the wisdom to see that doing the actions is definitely highly beneficial for the sentient beings, then it is permitted. Even if he himself has to be born in hell to do these actions in order to benefit sentient beings, it’s like a swan happily entering a swimming pool. It’s very happy to enter the swimming pool, so delighted, like drinking nectar. It’s like we’re very happy to go to the beach. After working hard, we’re very happy to go to the beach, to surf in the water. We’re extremely happy to have the opportunity to find the time to go to the beach or to surf in the water.

For bodhisattvas, when their wisdom definitely sees that doing these things is highly beneficial for sentient beings, even if they themselves have to be born in hell because of it, they’re extremely happy and joyful to do that for sentient beings. Experiencing the sufferings of hell for the sake of other sentient beings is like drinking nectar. But doing work for themselves alone is like drinking poison. They feel that doing work for the self is poison. How we feel about taking poison—that it’s a great risk to life, that it can kill us—the bodhisattvas feel like that about working for the self. How bodhisattvas feel about doing work for the self is similar to how we feel about going to hell.

For bodhisattvas, when those seven actions become great service for other sentient beings, then the Buddha permitted them to be done by the bodhisattvas. This is shown by the examples. Anyway, I think that’s enough.

For example, before Maitreya Buddha was enlightened, when he was following the bodhisattva’s path, I think the past life bodhisattva, Maitreya, was a monk. There was a girl who wanted to commit suicide because she couldn’t find a man, so this bodhisattva completely gave himself up, completely sacrificed himself, to save her from committing suicide by living with her for some time. He sacrificed himself to protect this girl from negative karma, from falling down in the lower realms, to protect her from all the negative karmas and sufferings, thus he purified forty thousand eons of negative karma by this action.

Similarly, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, in one of his past lives as a bodhisattva, was the captain of a ship where there were five hundred business people. In the mind of one of the people came the thought to kill these five hundred people. Then the bodhisattva captain, who was one of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s past lives, realized what this person was thinking and felt unbearable compassion. He saw that if that person killed those five hundred people, he would create a lot of negative karma and have to suffer for a long time in the lower realms. Therefore, the captain determined to kill that person, even if he himself had to be born in hell and suffer for him. He thought, “Even if I have to be born in the hell by killing him, I will suffer for him.” He felt unbearable compassion for him and completely decided this.

When compassion becomes very strong like this, then naturally this feeling comes. When the compassion really becomes very strong, then this thought that we want to be born in hell for sentient beings, on behalf of them, arises sincerely from the depth of our heart. We feel deep inside our heart that we really want to be born and suffer in hell on behalf of other sentient beings. When strong compassion arises like that, this determination also arises.

By killing that person with unbearable compassion, by completely sacrificing himself, by doing the action of killing, what happened was that instead of that being the cause of having to be born in hell, that action became virtue. It became a method of accumulating extensive merit and it caused his time in samsara to be shortened by a hundred thousand eons.

The previous one, Maitreya Buddha, his time in samsara was shortened by forty thousand eons. In other words the action became a quicker path to enlightenment; it became like a tantric path, the quick path to enlightenment.

The main point here is that the bodhisattva sees with wisdom how it is extremely beneficial, how there’s not the slightest thought of doing work for the self. There’s not the slightest thought, the motivation is only to benefit sentient beings. Like these examples, these actions become virtue.

THE FOUR SUFFERING RESULTS OF KILLING, STEALING AND LYING

The negative karma of killing. The action of killing that is done out of self-cherishing becomes negative karma. By completing this karma, it has four suffering results. The ripened aspect result is rebirth in the lower realms. Even when we are born in the human realm we experience the result similar to the cause, which is shortage of life, experiencing many diseases and so forth. This is experiencing the result similar to the cause. We can die even in the womb, after even a few seconds, when the consciousness takes place on the fertilized egg; we can have a short life. Even during those times while we are alive, we have to experience many various diseases. There are many diseases experienced together or one after another; this is experiencing the result similar to the cause.

Then there is creating the result similar to the cause, which means doing the action of killing again.

The possessed result is to do with the place. Even when we are in the human realm, food, fruit, drinks, medicines, those enjoyments and so forth have very small potential. Food has very little protein, very small potential; it’s difficult to digest and it causes disease. Many of these enjoyments become the conditions for death or to experience a short life.

From this you can see very clearly the results of the negative karma of killing. If we live in the precept, in the vow to not kill, you can see how naturally, automatically, the four happy results arise. Living in the vow to not kill we experience the four happy results of this good karma, the opposite of killing; we have the absence of these four problems.

You can see from this, the best way to develop economically, the best way to change the environment, to make our life easy, the most reliable cause, is creating the good karma of abstaining from the negative karma of killing. You can see this from the example of the four suffering results of the negative karma of killing. Living in the precept to not kill is the best cause for all these four happinesses, which are the opposite to these four suffering results, for ourselves, for the world, for others.

The act of stealing that is done out of self-cherishing becomes negative karma. The ripening aspect results in having to be reborn and suffer in the lower realms. Even during the time we are born as a human being, we experience the result similar to the cause, which is having to live in poverty, with no means of living, with a scarcity of things and very little enjoyment in life. Even if we have wealth and material possessions and enjoyments, we have to share them with others, we don’t have them all to ourselves.

With experiencing the result similar to the cause of the killing, those enjoyments become the cause of death and other human beings kill us.

With experiencing the result similar to the cause of stealing, other sentient beings steal our own belongings. They confiscate and steal our things. When we lose things or when other people steal our things—money, passport, our belongings and so forth—that is the time we are experiencing the result similar to the cause of the past karma of stealing. If we often lose things or things are stolen by others many times, those are the signs that in the past we created a lot of negative karma of stealing, and now we are experiencing the result.

Creating the result similar to the cause is doing the action of stealing again. The possessed result is that even if we are born as a human being, in the place we live crops are unable to grow, and even if they grow they are very little and there are many obstacles such as lack of rain and much drought. Even if they grow they get dried out and destroyed. The crops, the fruit and so forth might grow but they get changed or they are eaten by animals or insects. The whole crop is eaten by insects or destroyed by hailstorms and so forth. When there are a lot of obstacles like this, it is the possessed result of the past karma of stealing.

You can see now, even concerning temporary happiness, the solution that will stop these problems for ourselves and for the world is to know what the main cause of these problems is and to not only not create it but to do the opposite—to not steal. This brings all the success and happiness, to have no obstacles to plentiful crops, not having them eaten by insects, and not having to spray them and kill the insects. There is no drought and all these dangers, and the crops are rich in protein. All this comes from living in the precept to not steal. The opposite of these four undesirable things, all these happinesses come because of this.

Telling lies becomes negative karma when it is done out of the self-cherishing thought, the thought of seeking to work for ourselves. Completing this negative karma has four suffering results. The ripening aspect result is birth in the lower realms. Experiencing the result similar to the cause, when we are born as a human being, we are cheated by other sentient beings. Even if we tell the truth, other people don’t listen or don’t believe our words.

For example, there’s the story of the king and the lost cow. One day a family’s cow was lost and they told the king. At the time the king was watching a dance or something and he was given some wrong information by a minister or somebody. The king accused a person of stealing the cow and the person was put into prison for six days even though he didn’t steal it.

After some time, the king was born as a human being again and became a monk. One day this monk was dying cloth in a pot, making it red. At that time another family’s cow was lost and four people came looking for it. When they saw the monk dying the cloth red, what they saw was a pot full of cooking meat. In their view, the monk was cooking meat in the pot but in the view of the monk he was simply dying the cloth to make robes. No matter how many times he denied that this was meat, telling them this was cloth, no matter how many times he told the truth, it didn’t help. He had to go to prison because the people looking for the cow saw meat in the pot. They believed he had stolen the cow and was cooking the meat. After that he was put into prison for six months.

Before, in his past life when he was a king, he put somebody into prison for six days, then in his next life he had to experiencing the result, he had to be in prison for six months. The point of this story is to understand that the person was accused of something he didn’t do, which was not true. No matter how much we tell the truth, other people don’t trust us, they don’t listen to us, and they believe completely the opposite, accusing us of things we haven’t done.

Many times people experience karma like this. We haven’t done anything wrong but other people accuse us and somehow we have to go through the punishment. We have to go through the torture. We have to go through all this. Even if somebody else did it, we are accused and we have to go through the trouble.

Other people don’t trust us. Others cheat us. When we experience the result similar to the cause, others cheat us, not telling the truth, telling lies. At that time we’re experiencing the result of our past negative karma of telling lies.

Creating the result similar to the cause is doing the action of telling lies again. The possessed result is like this. If we become a farmer, somehow we’re unable to develop the farm, we’re unable to make a success of it. Or if our job is transportation, such as transporting people by bus or taxi or ship, we don’t get enough passengers thus our business is not successful. If we run a restaurant or a hotel, if that is our business, then we don’t receive enough people to make our business successful. We are unable to develop the business. This is the possessed result of telling lies.

Those are a few examples. From them we can make similar examples with all other rest. Not becoming successful, not having enough customers, those are the results of telling lies.

All these are the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought. All the problems that we always see in the world that other people experience, and that from time to time we experience, all these are the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought.

THE RESULTS OF NOT COMMITTING THE TEN NONVIRTUES

By living in the morality of not killing we experience the body of the happy migratory being, a deva or human body, and then we experience the result similar to the cause, having a long and healthy life. This is the complete opposite of the other action, killing. We have a long and healthy life.

Therefore, you can see now that the best way to be healthy is again to live in morality. To practice morality is the best way to be healthy. That is the main cause for health.

Again, the possessed result of practicing the morality of not killing is to live in a place where there’s plenty of food, and the food has a lot of protein. All the food becomes healthy, all the enjoyments become healthy, nothing interferes with the body or becomes the condition for death.

All this happiness comes from good karma, from living in the morality of not killing. Without the existence of suffering sentient beings, there’s no way for us to make the vow to not kill. There’s no way. There’s no way to make the vow to not kill. We don’t make the vow to not kill based on rocks or trees, we make the vow to not kill all sentient beings. Making the vow to not kill every sentient being, we create the good karma of not killing and from that comes all the results, the four happinesses. Therefore, everything comes by the kindness of each sentient being. Even just simply by their existing, just simply that, by that kindness all happiness comes.

We make the vow to not kill any sentient being, except our enemy. Except somebody who harms us. We don’t make the vow like this, a partial vow. We make the vow to not kill on the object of every sentient being.

It’s the same thing with not stealing. All the four results of happiness come from living in the morality of not stealing, such as having plenty of crops and the crops growing well without any obstacles, with rain coming at the right time, and always having plenty of food.

Then, other people don’t cheat us. They don’t tell lies; they tell the truth. Other people trust us. Because they trust our words, we succeed with what we want. We’re able to succeed in our work and our wishes. And again we are able to live in the morality of not stealing.

All these four happy results that come from the morality of not stealing, all this is by the kindness of sentient beings, because of the existence of sentient beings. These results we’re experiencing now and will experience in the future are completely by the kindness of all sentient beings. By each person here. What we experience comes by the kindness of each person here—each human being here, and each animal and each insect around us here. Starting from right here up to all sentient beings, we experience these four good results by the kindness of every sentient being.

It’s the same thing with the morality of not telling lies. By living in the good karma of not telling lies, we experience the result, the four happinesses. The possessed result is when we do business, such as running a hotel or a transportation company or something like that—even working for a meditation center—it becomes successful and we are able to benefit a lot of sentient beings. Let’s say we do work for a meditation center, we are able to benefit a lot of people because we live in the morality of not telling lies.

All this is the opposite of the four suffering results that come from telling lies and again all this happiness is by the kindness of each sentient being. These good results we’re experiencing is by the kindness of each sentient being, because we’re able to create the cause, the morality of not telling lies on the object. Because there are sentient beings existing and we’ve made the vow to not lie, the result is all the four happinesses, which we receive by the kindness of each sentient being’s existence.

Starting from here, this is the way to meditate on the kindness of other sentient beings, and, by the way, it’s also a meditation on karma. It’s also combined with a meditation on karma. Very specific actions produce very specific results, either problems or happiness.

The four results of the morality to not steal. Sorry, this part has become a mess. I’ve mixed it with the results of not telling lies.

However, all these problems come from the self-cherishing thought; they come from the I. Therefore the I is the object to be renounced forever. Next we can look at the benefits of bodhicitta.

THE BENEFITS OF BODHICITTA

If we have bodhicitta, this is the best puja. This is the best puja because having bodhicitta stops so many negative karmas. It stops so many of these nonvirtuous actions. I’ve just mentioned a few. So many of those negative karmas get stopped and therefore we don’t have to get sick; we don’t have to experience all those suffering results. Therefore, having bodhicitta, practicing bodhicitta, is the best puja. That is the best puja. By having bodhicitta and not creating all these nonvirtuous actions, we don’t experience the results, sicknesses, therefore practicing bodhicitta is the best medicine. It’s the best treatment.

If we have bodhicitta we have our best friend. It is the best, unbetraying, uncheating friend. It’s the friend that never betrays us, that never cheats us at all, the unbetraying best friend. Bodhicitta brings all success. Having bodhicitta brings us all the success, including the highest, enlightenment.

As Rinpoche mentioned, the external friend, the outside worldly friend, can betray us. He can betray us and change, not being our friend all the time, from life to life. Even in one life, even within one year, within one month, within one week, he can change. He isn’t a friend all the time and he can cheat us. Bodhicitta, on the other hand, never betrays us, therefore, bodhicitta is the most reliable, unbetraying friend, the best friend.

Having bodhicitta hooks all the fortune, all the good luck to us, it hooks all the success. There’s a Tibetan term, yang guk, a puja to bring all the luck, all the success. Having bodhicitta is this puja which hooks all the luck, all our own success, all our wishes.

Having bodhicitta is also the best way, the best method to have a long life. The reason is the same as I mentioned first. If we have bodhicitta, it purifies all the past negative karmas. It purifies the past negative karmas that cause a short life, such as the negative karma of killing and so forth. If we have bodhicitta, we don’t do the negative karma of killing others, therefore it becomes the best method to prolong life now and in the future.

By having bodhicitta, whatever virtuous action we do becomes the cause of enlightenment. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment. Even the normal daily life actions of walking, sitting, sleeping and so forth become virtue and the cause of enlightenment.

After having developed bodhicitta, even nonvirtuous actions, even they get transformed into virtue. Even those seven nonvirtuous actions [of body and speech] become the cause to achieve enlightenment.

By having bodhicitta within our own mind, we become a friend to all sentient beings. We become close to all sentient beings equaling the infinite sky. We become a friend to all sentient beings and all sentient beings become our own friend. It makes all sentient beings become our friend. Even if we don’t ask them to be our friend, saying to all sentient beings, “Please be my friend,” if we have bodhicitta all sentient beings naturally become our friend. Even the person who is called an enemy, who gives us harm, by having bodhicitta within our mind, right from that second, that person becomes a friend. Even that person becomes the best friend to us.

By having bodhicitta all the harms that we receive from others we see as beneficial. All the harms given by others support us to achieve enlightenment. In this way, all the sentient beings who dislike us, who are called enemy, become our friend, the only friend to us.

If we have bodhicitta, in return for the harm done to us, what we do is only benefit. In return for the harm done to us, we do only benefit. As it’s mentioned in the lojong—the thought transformation—teachings, the holy beings, the supreme capable beings in the world, do good in return for harm.

If we have bodhicitta, this is the best means of purification. It’s the best purification. If we want to do purification, the most important thing to rely upon is bodhicitta. For example, reciting OM MANI PADME HUM once, even one time, has the power to purify even the very heavy karma to be born in the hot hells, in the lowest and heaviest hell realm, the inexhaustible hot hell. Even if a fully ordained person has broken all the four root vows, by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time, it can purify all this very heavy karma.

If we recite OM MANI PADME HUM, of course, there are infinite benefits, even without an understanding of emptiness, without meditating on emptiness or bodhicitta. It has inconceivable benefit. But this particular benefit, by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time with bodhicitta, it purifies all this heavy karma. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] If we recite the mantra with the motivation of bodhicitta, and also with the understanding of emptiness, with the meditation on emptiness.

It’s the same thing with reciting the Vajrasattva mantra just one time with bodhicitta and with the experience of emptiness, with that meditation. How much negative karma gets purified by reciting the mantra? Even reciting the mantra one time can purify all these heavy negative karmas. It depends on how the mantra is recited, whether there’s bodhicitta or not, whether there’s the experience of emptiness or not. Therefore, again, if we want to purify negative karma, to do purification, the best, the excellent means of doing that is to practice bodhicitta, to have the realization of bodhicitta.

The best method to accumulate the most extensive merit is again bodhicitta. The benefits of bodhicitta are explained in the first chapter from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, how having bodhicitta allows us to accomplish the two results, the dharmakaya and the rupakaya. It makes it possible to achieve these two results.

By having bodhicitta we are able to complete the work for ourselves and we are able to complete the work for all sentient beings, to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment.

These infinite benefits of bodhicitta all come from great compassion, the root of bodhicitta. Great compassion comes from sentient beings. All this is due to the kindness of sentient beings, therefore, sentient beings are very precious. There’s nothing to cherish other than sentient beings and there’s nothing to work for other than sentient beings. In our life there’s nobody to work for other than sentient beings.

Think, “What sentient beings want is happiness and what they do not want is suffering, therefore I must free them all, by cherishing sentient beings, by living my life with bodhicitta, without separating from that for even one second. I must do the work of freeing all sentient beings from all the suffering, all the obscurations, and lead them to full enlightenment. To do that I must achieve enlightenment. For that reason I’m going to take the eight precepts.”

 

Lecture 28

MEDITATION ON IMPERMANENCE AND DEATH

First of all, how does somebody who wants to practice the lamrim, who wants to train the mind in the graduated path to enlightenment, do it? How do we do that? Practicing tantra, when we get up in the morning there are particular practices. Generally tantric practices are similar. Depending on which deity, there are just slight differences.

Life has many harms. Life is more transitory than a water bubble that is popped by the wind. How wonderful it is, having the opportunity to wake up this morning, after the sleep we have had, just being able to breathe in and out.

I’m not going to go into much detail on this point in these verses from Bodhicaryavatara. I think I’ll probably say something from Nagarjuna’s Letter to Friend.

Life is always surrounded by obstacles, by the dangers of death. Even what we take as the means of living—a house, food, medicine, even friends and the many things that we obtain for a long life—even many of these become mortally dangerous. They become a danger to our life, conditions for death. Besides those, there are many other obstacles, such as outer beings, the four hundred and twenty-four diseases and many different types of spirits. There are many hundreds of them, such as the three hundred and sixty döns or possessors and the eighty interferers and so forth, many which become conditions for death.

Generally speaking, if there’s no breath, if there’s no breathing in and out, even if the subtle consciousness hasn’t yet left the body, even if the consciousness is there, common people still regard that person as dead. During sleep, the gross consciousness, the senses, cease to function, and what is there is breathing in and out, by that reason it isn’t called death. However, after sleep, which has breathing in and out and the gross senses not functioning, then during that time, death can happen. Life is full of obstacles. Any time death can happen. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] But last night it didn’t happen and as a result, this morning we are able to wake up. How wonderful that is. We should rejoice and feel great happiness.

We should remember the many people we know who have already died. Many gurus have passed away, many friends, or grandfathers and grandmothers—so many of them have already died.

Think, “If I were already dead and now in the narak, the hungry ghost or the animal realm there is nothing I could do.” As I mentioned in the motivation for the eight Mahayana precepts—those people who were there have heard this already but those who were not there may not have heard—even one tiny fire spark of the naraks, of the hells, due to karma, due to the unsubdued mind, the energy of one tiny fire spark is much hotter, seven times hotter than the fire that burns all the mountains, everything, the fire of the end of the time, the end of the world and that fire is 100,000 times hotter than all the fire that human beings use. Even one tiny fire spark due to the unsubdued mind, due to delusions, due to karma, due to narak beings’ karma, is unbelievably, unbelievably hot.

For example, in the same room, even if the weather is cold, one person will feel hot. Even though for the rest of the people it’s not hot, but this one particular person feels very hot. When the person is not healthy, he feels very hot. And sometimes when the person is dying, even if it’s not hot for the other people who are in the room, this one person who is dying feels so hot. Just before the death, a few hours before death or a day before, he feels so hot. Other people in the same room don’t feel that. These are common experiences of people who have been with dying people. Their life experience is like this. It’s a creation of the mind, the production of the karmic appearance. It comes from the unsubdued mind, from delusion and karma.

Similarly, somebody can feel extremely cold. In the same room other people don’t feel it but this one particular person feels very cold. Also, at the time of death a person can feel extremely cold. No matter how many blankets and things cover the body, it doesn’t keep him warm. It doesn’t help. This is normal experience. Many times, many times, I know this in my life. Many times people have different experiences. You’re in the same country, the same area, the same room, but different people have different experiences. Some people are very cold; some it doesn’t bother that much.

All these are a creation of delusion. As long as there is unpleasant feeling, suffering, it’s a production of the unsubdued mind, delusion and karma. Even if you find it difficult to understand hell, this one is a common experience. I have seen it many times in my life; it’s a common experience.

What is hell? What is hell? Hell is the experience of the heaviest suffering of samsara. The heaviest suffering of samsara, that is the experience of hell. It’s mainly defined by how heavy the experience of suffering is.

If we were there, what could we do? Nothing. There would be no opportunity to practice Dharma. And if we were in the preta realm, where there is such incredibly heavy suffering of hunger and thirst as well as other sufferings, we couldn’t stand it.

Imagine if you were obliged to meditate all day long and not allowed to eat food. You were obliged to sit there and listen to teachings all day long and not allowed to eat food. You weren’t given any time to eat food. No breakfast, no lunch, no dinner. Just for one day. How painful that would be. If somebody kept on talking. If somebody kept on talking and talking and talking. Talking on and on and on, not allowing you to drink tea, no breakfast, no lunch, how painful it would be. Even when we have to feel hunger and thirst practicing the Dharma, how painful it is, how unbearable. We can’t stand it. We can’t stand having our food delayed even one hour.

If we were in a place where there was no water at all, not one drop of water for five, six, seven days, and where there was no food at all, nothing to eat, just desert, hot desert—if we were in such a place, what could we do? We couldn’t stand it at all. This is what pretas have to experience for many hundreds of years, as long as ten thousand years. How could we stand experiencing that for many hundreds of years? And yet a preta’s experience is much greater due to karma. Besides having no opportunity to practice Dharma, there’s no way to bear that experience even for an hour, even for a minute, even for a second.

Even if we find one white hair on our head it’s very frightening. We get freaked out when we see one white hair in the mirror. Or we see one more wrinkle on the face. We can’t stand it; we want to wipe it off immediately, to erase it or whatever. So how could we stand being a dog? Being a crocodile? Being a turtle?

When we look at a bird and those things, we say “nice cat” or “nice bird” but actually their own experience is not like that. We misjudge because we’re not looking at their mind, we’re looking at just the outer shape. It seems very nice but if we actually were an animal, or if an animal’s suffering ripened on this body, there is no way we could stand their suffering. It would be so unbearable we wouldn’t be able to express what it was like, what we were experiencing. There’s no freedom. There’s no freedom even for a household animal that is taken care of by a human. Living with a person, it’s up to the person how the animal lives. It’s up to the person, not up to the animal.

Think, “If I were now in the hell, preta or animal realm I couldn’t stand it. Besides having no opportunity to practice Dharma, even for one second I couldn’t stand it. However, this time I have not just been born as a human being, but I have received a perfect human body. This is like a dream. Not just being born a human being but receiving a perfect human body, it’s like a dream”. You should feel great happiness and rejoice. It’s like a dream.

When a beggar finds a million dollars in the garbage, he can’t believe it. When somebody who has never been rich suddenly wins the lottery, he finds it very hard to believe. It’s like a dream. That person says it’s like a dream because it’s something that is rare, that is very unusual to happen, but it has happened, so it’s like a dream. Like this, we have received a perfect human rebirth and it’s like a dream. Not just having met the Dharma, but having met the Mahayana teachings that give us the opportunity to achieve enlightenment for ourselves and for sentient beings, it’s like a dream.

Not just that, the third dream is, especially, not just having met the tantric teachings and not just having met Highest Yoga Tantra, but we have particularly met the unification of sutra and tantra, like refined gold, Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, whose qualities I briefly mentioned before on the hill. There’s a prayer to increase or to spread Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, and that prayer contains all those special qualities.

Not just having met the Highest Yoga Tantra teachings, but especially having met the unification of sutra and tantra, the pure teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa that is an extremely clear explanation. That is like a dream. Just like a dream.

After that, you can think about impermanence and death. Think, “I’m going to die today.” [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] “I’m going to die today.” Make the complete determination that you are going to die today and, in doing so, reflect on impermanence and death.

Lama Tsongkhapa explained that the purpose of thinking we are going to die today is that by doing so we make preparations for death. That persuades us to make preparations for death. That is the best way to create the cause to achieve enlightenment. Practicing Dharma with bodhicitta, we create the cause to achieve enlightenment; that itself becomes the cause to achieve liberation. And by the way, it makes preparation for the happiness of future lives. Living the life with bodhicitta, practicing Dharma with bodhicitta, that itself becomes the best preparation for death.

Lama Tsongkhapa explained that the reason to think that we are going to die today is that this persuades us to practice Dharma, to prepare for death. Lama Tsongkhapa said, in case we do actually die today, if we die today, there’s no regret because if we do die today, we have got something done. We’ve got some preparation done before death.

And if we don’t die, by thinking that we are going to die today, even if we don’t die today, it’s good because we have more time to do more practice, we have more opportunity to accumulate merit. Either way, thinking we’re going to die today makes us get our practice done. Even if death happens we get something done, therefore it’s positive. There’s no regret, and even if death doesn’t happen it’s positive, life becomes meaningful.

After thinking “I’m going to die today,” the question comes, “What am I going to do?” [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] “What should I do?” What is essential is that we should practice Dharma, but, what Dharma practice?

The essential practice, the very heart of Dharma is bodhicitta, renouncing ourselves and cherishing other sentient beings. That is the heart of Dharma. The answer to the question “I’m going to die today. I’m going to die now, so what should I do?” the answer is to practice the very heart of Dharma. Of course we must practice Dharma, that is the answer. But what? There are so many practices, so what? Bodhicitta, exchanging oneself for others. That’s the answer. That’s the very heart of the Dharma, and in particular the Mahayana teachings.

“THIS CHRONIC DISEASE OF CHERISHING THE SELF”

Remember the verse from the lamrim prayer of the Guru Puja,

This chronic disease of cherishing myself
Is the cause giving rise to my unsought suffering.
Perceiving this, I seek your blessings to blame, begrudge
And destroy the monstrous demon of selfishness.³⁶

So, recite this. Recite this. This has great meaning. This has great meaning in our daily life. Whatever problem arises comes from, is caused by, the self-cherishing thought. I mentioned already in the ten nonvirtues and the result of the ten nonvirtues, how each of the seven nonvirtuous actions [of body and speech] become nonvirtues because of the self-cherishing thought, because they are done out of self-cherishing thought. As I’ve already mentioned, many of life’s problems are caused by the self-cherishing thought, so we should recognize that and put all the blame on the self-cherishing thought.

When we put all the blame on the self-cherishing thought, immediately there’s peace. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] Immediately there’s peace. When we blame somebody else, there’s no peace in the heart. When we put the blame on somebody else there’s pain in the heart. It creates pain in the heart. But when we put the blame on our own mind, the self-cherishing thought, there’s peace, there’s great peace. There are big differences in the effect. Even by that there’s peace, there’s calmness. There’s that much calmness.

The second thing is this. We give the problem we are experiencing back to the self-cherishing thought. Rather than taking on a problem—cancer, AIDS, a relationship problem, whatever it is, even death, whether it’s a small problem or a big problem—rather than taking it on ourselves, we give it back to the self-cherishing thought. We return it to the self-cherishing thought where it came from.

We use it as a weapon to destroy the self-cherishing thought; we use it as a medicine to eliminate the chronic disease, the self-cherishing thought. We let him have it. We tell ourselves, “Let him have it.” Him, the self-cherishing thought, the ego. If we have some problem such as cancer or AIDS or a very heavy toothache or stomach pain or whatever, if there’s some unbearable pain or problem, we give it to the self-cherishing thought and let him have it.

Immediately by this second solution, this second meditation, giving the problem back to the self-cherishing thought, to the ego, there’s great peace; it cuts down the pain.

As the Guru Puja says, “I seek your blessings to blame, begrudge and destroy the monstrous demon of selfishness.” However many problems there are in daily life, we use them as the path. Bodhicitta helps us destroy the self-cherishing thought, and the wisdom realizing emptiness, this path also helps us destroy the ego.

After we have realized emptiness, there’s no truly existent I, something concrete from its own side that we cherish so much. There’s nothing to cherish, there’s no concrete, truly existent I, no real I from its own side. There’s nothing to cherish because it doesn’t exist.

Arhats don’t have the self-cherishing thought but they have the thought of working for the self. The reason they don’t have the self-cherishing thought could be because they have the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. For most of us ordinary beings, however, besides having the thought of seeking happiness for the self what we have is the self-cherishing thought, the thought that strongly clings to the I.

ADVICE FOR PRACTICE

This verse I have just mentioned is very important to understand thought transformation. It’s very important psychology showing us how to deal with the problems we have in daily life. Whether we have cancer, AIDS or even if we are experiencing death—from the greatest to the smallest problem—this is a very important, fundamental Buddhist psychology that shows us how to deal with it. It’s a fundamental, very powerful, effective thought transformation technique. Whenever we motivate, however we are going to live our life, we should do this. In short, we should always see how all undesirable things, all obstacles, everything comes from the self-cherishing thought. And all the good things, all happiness and success, everything comes from cherishing other sentient beings. Then, if you want to use them, there are also the verses in the Guru Puja similar to the one I mentioned that are very effective.

The short way is to think like this, “From now on, from this second, especially today, I will never let myself be under the control of the self-cherishing thought and I will never separate from bodhicitta, cherishing other sentient beings.” Make the strong determination that this is how you’re going to live your life. Make this the motivation for your life.

Also, after that, you can do the refuge and bodhicitta prayer. The meaning of the bodhicitta part is, “I’m going to achieve enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from all obscurations and lead them to enlightenment.” You can use this as a motivation, thinking, “For this reason, I’m going to do all my activities.” In other words, everything you do is in order to achieve enlightenment to free all sentient beings from all obscurations, from all sufferings, and to lead them to full enlightenment. Think, “For that reason all my activities, all my Dharma practice, is going to be virtuous.”

Here you’re motivating for everything. There are two types of motivation, the motivation of cause and the motivation of time. The motivation of time is the motivation while you’re doing the act, while you’re doing the work. Before you do the act, there’s the motivation of cause. What you have to understand is that, of the two types of motivation, the motivation of cause—the motivation you set before you do the action—is what actually decides whether the action is virtuous or nonvirtuous. Therefore, for all activities, this motivation, the motivation of cause, becomes the cause of enlightenment, bodhicitta. By training your mind like this, after some time your heart naturally feels that way.

People talk about the brain and the heart, or the intellect and the heart. Here we can say without putting effort into saying the words, without it coming from the brain, from the intellect, after some time your heart naturally becomes that motivation, through training. Then, all your actions, whatever you do, naturally becomes the cause of enlightenment.

Motivate like this. After sang gyä chhö dang tshog kyi chhog nam la …, after this prayer, this meditation is done, think, “In order to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, I’m going to make all my activities virtuous.”

If you have a guru, you can think of the root guru above your crown and make the request to him like this. “From now on may all my activities and all the Dharma practice only become the cause to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.” Pray like this, even two or three times. Or you can pray to all the ten directions’ buddhas, bodhisattvas and gurus. Whichever way you do it, make a strong prayer like this. It’s extremely good to do it this way.

To elaborate, after this, you can do the blessing of the speech. There’s a practice to bless the speech before you speak. This way, all day long whatever you say, even gossiping, becomes like reciting a mantra. It gets transformed. There’s unbelievable benefit. The recitation of mantras, all those get increased many millions of times. I don’t remember exactly but for whatever mantra is recited the benefits are increased many millions of times. That means you accumulate so much merit and purify so much. There is great benefit in that.

The blessing of the speech is in English in one of the Dharma Celebration books. This way the speech has power. Otherwise, eating black food makes the power of speech decrease, when you recite a mantra and so forth. Depending on which kind of black food you eat, it becomes an obstacle, it weakens the power of speech for a certain length of time.

After this, you can elaborate by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, the Compassion Buddha’s mantra. OM MANI PADME HUM is a very important mantra to recite to develop compassion. Here, I’m expressing what I feel. It’s very important and it’s a great loss if you don’t get to recite it, if even one day you don’t get to recite OM MANI PADME HUM. There’s infinite benefit in that. This mantra OM MANI PADME HUM is the heart of the whole entire Dharma.

With OM MANI PADME HUM you can do the extensive meditation on the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought and the benefits of cherishing others. Either that or the kindness of other sentient beings. While you’re meditating, you can recite the long or short mantra, or both, of Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha. If you have a commitment and you recite the mantra together with the meditation, at the time it becomes very rich; the time you spend becomes very rich.

Each morning, the times that I came to do the ordination, I have introduced different motivations, different ways to meditate on the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought and the benefits of cherishing others. There are still some points to explain, but I’ve already explained many. Today, this morning, and the next day you can do different ones. You can do it like that, at the same time reciting OM MANI PADME HUM.

At the end, make the conclusion: “What sentient beings want is happiness, what they don’t want is suffering. Therefore, there’s nothing in my life to cherish other than sentient beings; there’s nothing to work for other than sentient beings. What sentient beings want is happiness, what they don’t want is suffering. Therefore, I must lead them to the peerless happiness, full enlightenment. For that reason, I must achieve enlightenment.”

After that Chenrezig can be absorbed into you. Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explained that a quick way to develop bodhicitta is by meditating on the path, the bodhicitta meditation itself. The other way is to recite OM MANI PADME HUM as many times as possible with the meditation that your mind is oneness with the Compassion Buddha, Chenrezig’s holy mind. In other words, your mind and the holy mind of Chenrezig, the Great Compassionate One, are one, like having put water into the water, oneness.

This probably might be a secret teaching, but anyway, I’ve finished it already. I’ve already gone to hell!

Anyway, with this divine meditation, then recite one mala of OM MANI PADME HUM. This is an excellent meditation.

After this, you can do tonglen, taking and giving. Try to feel how much one hell being is suffering. Then think, “How wonderful it would be if I could take all this one hell being’s suffering and causes on myself and let this one hell being be completely free from all this. How wonderful it would be if I could take the complete suffering and its causes on myself. How wonderful that would be.” Then, you take it.

Think the same thing for all the other beings. “How wonderful it would be if I could take all the suffering of all the numberless hell beings on me and let them have ultimate happiness. How wonderful that would be.” Immediately take everything on yourself. Like that, for all other sentient beings, you take their suffering and its causes so they will become free. You can do the same thing with the preta beings and the animal beings.

First you start with one, then with all. This is very effective, extremely effective. You take all of one human being’s problems completely. First you think, “How wonderful it would be if I could experience that one human being’s whole entire problems and its causes, everything. How wonderful it would be if this one human being could be free and have ultimate happiness.” After that you take on all the sufferings and obscurations of all human beings. They are also all received by you.

I think with these meditations you can recite OM MANI PADME HUM.

After that, you do the practice of giving. You give all happiness to all the hell beings. Their entire place becomes a pure realm. All those houses that are oneness with fire become a mandala or a celestial mansion, a pure realm where there’s no death, rebirth, old age, sickness, where there’s no suffering at all. Instead of all the enjoyments causing delusion, they don’t become an obstacle to developing the path, so by receiving all the enjoyments they actualize the path. You give your body as a wish-granting jewel, then you give all the merit and the results of all the good karma, up to and including the highest, enlightenment. All the happiness, the belongings, everything you have, you give.

Whatever enjoyment they receive becomes the cause to actualize the path in their minds. Then they all become enlightened; they become Chenrezig. With this, if you recite OM MANI PADME HUM it’s very good. It’s an excellent practice because each time you take others’ suffering, because sentient beings are numberless, you accumulate infinite merit. And when you do giving, because sentient beings are numberless, again you accumulate infinite merit. Each time you do taking and giving, each time you accumulate infinite merit. The actual practice of exchanging oneself for others is an unbelievable practice.

The purpose of doing this visualization is to train the mind. Then, when you’re actually dealing with people the rest of the day, when you’re actually working with people, you’re able to take other people’s problems, other people’s suffering, other people’s difficulties, other people’s hardships, on yourself and give them happiness, freedom or comfort. You give the comfort to another person. In daily life you are actually able to give your happiness to the other person and take whatever problem that person has upon yourself. If he is carrying a very heavy load, then you help him by carrying that heavy load yourself. You let that person have comfort.

If he has been accused of making a mistake that was actually somebody else’s fault, rather than letting him take the blame, you take it yourself. Even if he did make the actual mistake, rather than letting him suffer you take the blame yourself, even though you didn’t do it. You let the other person have happiness.

There are many things like that. Giving the victory to others and taking the loss upon yourself. Why? Because all good things, all happiness comes from others. Why take the loss upon yourself? Because all sufferings, all loss comes from the I. Why are we experiencing defeat, why are we experiencing loss in this life? Why do many unsuccesses happen in this life, spiritually and even materially? Why? Because with the self-cherishing thought in the past we always took the victory for ourselves, we always took the profit for ourselves, we always gave the loss to others. This attitude creates the cause of failure in this life, in the spiritual life and also in the material life.

Taking the loss upon yourself, offering the victory to others, this gives the greatest victory, enlightenment, to you. And with that you’re able to give the victory, the greatest profit, enlightenment to all sentient beings.

The previous one is just in short. If you can, extend it by reciting the Chenrezig mantra.

A very good thing to do is prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, because each one purifies many eons of different negative karma. If you haven’t memorized the practice you can put it on tape and play the tape recorder. While the tape recorder is reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ prayer, you do prostrations. You imitate what the tape recorder is reciting, so that you also learn. By verbally reciting, it purifies many eons of negative karma and by doing prostrations, with each prostration you accumulate unbelievable, inconceivable merit.

This is explained in the teachings. There are teachings, commentaries, on how to do all these preliminary practices and what all the benefits are, so you can study these things if you want to know. If you wish, you can study these things and take teachings on them. If you don’t know how to do them and what their benefits are—why they are done—there are many commentaries, many teachings. You can study those or you can receive teachings, even though I haven’t managed to give those explanations at this time.

That is one, the Thirty-five Buddhas. You can do it once or you can recite the names three times. If you do that with the prostrations, by repeating each of the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names three times, just the names, it becomes more than a hundred prostrations. Without needing to count the prostrations separately, if you recite the Thirty-five Buddhas’ prayer like that, with the prostrations, then that much gets done.

This way, after you have taken refuge, a general precept of refuge is doing prostrations. When you get up, you have to do three prostrations, and before going to bed, three prostrations. If you combine it with doing the Thirty-five Buddhas, it becomes much more powerful.

As far as the mind training in the lamrim, those who do the lamrim meditation with the six-session yoga, with the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, with Lama Chöpa, the Guru Puja, of course that’s excellent. But for those who are not familiar with those other practices, how to meditate on lamrim?

As in the course book, you can do the preliminary prayers, blessing the offerings and so forth. Then refuge, bodhicitta, and you can do the four immeasurables and the seven-limb practice. After that you can do a long mandala or a short mandala offering, depending on your own time. After that do the lamrim prayer. After the mandala offering, you can do one of the requesting prayers. Even if you can’t do the very long one, there are short ones, more abbreviated ones, even one stanza requesting prayers. Even just pal dän tsa wäi lama …,³⁷  this is requesting the root guru, who is the entire merit field. Even that can be done.

THE BENEFITS OF RECITING THE LAMRIM PRAYER

After that, recite the lamrim prayer. It’s extremely important when you read the prayer to do it mindfully. This becomes a direct meditation on the whole path to enlightenment, both sutra and tantra. Also there’s tantra mentioned there. This direct meditation on the lamrim, going over it mindfully, is one of the most important practices in daily life. Even if you don’t have time, even if you don’t have another separate time to do an analytical meditation and fixed meditation on the lamrim, going deeper, at least do a direct meditation, going straight, mindfully. That is extremely important. Each day, each time you read the lamrim prayer, which has the complete essence, when you do it mindfully it leaves an imprint of the whole path to enlightenment—each time—on the mind.

The benefit of the imprint is that sooner or later you’re able to understand the extensive teachings of the Buddha and then you’re able to actualize the path. As much an imprint as you can leave, it makes it much easier, without difficulties, quicker, to actualize the graduated path to enlightenment.

For example, either in this life or in the next lives, as soon as you hear the teachings you experience the path. As soon as you hear the teachings on emptiness you’re able to experience emptiness. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] As soon as it talks about bodhicitta, you’re able to realize bodhicitta; as soon as it talks about renunciation, immediately you’re able to feel renunciation. Many meditators experience it like that. Depending on how deep the imprints left are, which part of the subject you have deeper imprints from in the past, thus in the next life, the understanding of the teachings comes easily and you experience it easily.

My belief in reincarnation, my belief that I have had past lives, is not that I can see all the past lives, not that I have clairvoyance to see all the past lives. In the past because I tried to do some meditation on past lives, even for a very short time, there’s some understanding, some experience, which just comes during meditation. I believe that’s because in a past life I meditated on those subjects which left an imprint of those subjects. This is my belief of reincarnation.

I don’t think that this understanding of the Dharma or these experiences come from water. I don’t think that they come from water bubbles. Human beings came from monkeys and monkeys came from something else and then it goes all the way back to things in the water. The very first thing, the very original thing, is an amoeba or something. The very first original being is an amoeba or something, I don’t know, some kind of water bubble or something. I don’t think this experience came from water bubbles or those atoms in the water.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explained that even just doing the direct meditation on the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment, is much more precious, much more meaningful than reciting many hundreds of millions of mantras. This direct meditation on the lamrim is much more meaningful than even being able to do hundreds of millions of mantras or even meeting the buddhas, even seeing the buddhas. Why? Because even if you actually meet a buddha you still have to meditate on renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness; you still have to actualize these. You still have to meditate; you still have to go through this path. Just by seeing a buddha you don’t become enlightened like that. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.] Even if you see a buddha, you still have to meditate on the three principal aspects of the path and the two stages of Highest Yoga Tantra in order to achieve enlightenment.

Succeeding in this realization depends on the imprint, on creating the cause. Therefore, the direct meditation becomes essential, it becomes extremely important in daily life. Going over the lamrim prayer mindfully each day makes the day meaningful. It’s the same thing as, “An apple a day, good-bye doctor. An apple a day, goodbye doctor.” Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m talking about.

If you can at least do the direct meditation each day, going over the prayer mindfully, this makes that day highly meaningful. It leaves one more imprint of the whole path to enlightenment, and that means you become closer to enlightenment. You become closer to enlightenment.

Also it is mentioned that the Kadampa Geshe Chengawa was asked by one of his disciples which he would prefer if he had the choice between meditating on the lamrim or having one-pointed concentration that could last for eons. Even if a big drum were to be beaten in front of the ears, it could not disturb you. In other words, even if a big jet airplane went in front of your ears it couldn’t disturb your concentration. Which one would you prefer? Kadampa Geshe Chengawa said that even to ask, just to question in the mind what the lamrim is, is preferable to having the five types of clairvoyance, all those concentrations, all those psychic powers, that can last for many eons. We have achieved all those psychic powers, those concentrations, in the past, but we haven’t achieved the graduated path to enlightenment. This is new. This is the new experience, therefore, this is very essential.

The other thing is this. In the lamrim there are two direct meditations, two direct prayers. The lamrim prayer that contains just the names of the tantric path is very brief. The other prayer, if you have received a tantric initiation in the Highest Yoga Tantra practice of whichever deity that you’re practicing—the deity you have the most karmic connection with—there’s a prayer of the graduated path of the tantra of that deity. That prayer is very important to recite, to leave the imprint of the whole path of the Highest Yoga Tantra of that deity. If it’s Cittamani Tara, Vajrayogini, Yamantaka, Kalachakra or whatever deity, to recite the graduated path of Highest Yoga Tantra of that deity is, I think, very important. It’s maybe OK to just recite the prayer even if you haven’t received the initiation, as long as it’s the deity that you are going to practice. Maybe that part is OK, as long as this is what you are going to practice, even if you haven’t yet received the great initiation.

These two direct meditations are very, very important. Even if you can’t do a more detailed meditation on the tantric path, at least you should do the lamrim part. Those who have time, those who are going to meditate on the lamrim, after that direct meditation is finished you should do the analytical meditation and the fixed meditation.

As a beginner, first you should make yourself familiar with the whole, entire subject, from the beginning, from guru devotion up to the last part, great insight, emptiness. You should become familiar with all the meditations. How to do it is like this. Today, you begin from guru devotion. If you can’t remember all the details, read a book on guru devotion. That’s the first meditation. Whatever is not finished you do the next day. Whatever is then not finished you do on the third day. Do it like that, according to the time you are able to make.

Except for shamatha, calm abiding, everything else involves analytical and fixed meditation. For example, with the perfect human rebirth, you go through each freedom and each richness one by one. After that, when you have done this, you do a fixed meditation. That means after the analytical meditation, when you have the experience, the understanding that this is so precious, then you hold that. You keep that experience. You hold that feeling, “This is so precious.” You keep the mind in that experience, “This is so precious.” You stay there for a little while. It’s good to do it like this.

After the analytical meditation on, for instance, guru devotion—with the quotations, the logic of seeing the guru from your own side as an enlightened being, a buddha—when the mind is transformed, you do a fixed meditation, keeping the mind in that state, the state of the devotion seeing that the guru is a buddha. You keep the mind in that state for a little while.

From the beginning of the lamrim, down to great insight, emptiness, you do it a few times like this. In that way you make your mind familiar with it. Do this for about six months or a year or whatever. You have to become familiar with the whole subject.

To really experience the path, you start to actually experience, to have the realization of guru devotion. No matter how many months or years it takes, you spend time on that one subject. Then you start another subject such as perfect human rebirth, depending on how much time you are able to dedicate to meditating.

If you are practicing tantra, His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised that you can do one-pointed concentration with the tantra, either the generation stage or the completion stage, especially with meditations such as tummo and the Six Yogas of Naropa. One-pointed concentration can be combined with this. In this way the meditation on emptiness also comes into the tantric practice when you do the dharmakaya meditation in the sadhana. If you practice tantra it’s like that. If you’re not practicing tantra, then you do the meditation on emptiness at another time.

You can start going through these different meditations, training the mind in these in order to get the actual realizations. Every day you can start two or three meditations and continue no matter how many months or years it takes, until you get the realization. You can do two or three meditations, or if that’s not possible, at least do one. The purpose of starting two or three meditations a day is because life is short, so before death you can have some experience, some realization. If this realization doesn’t happen, then you have that realization. If that one doesn’t happen, this one happens. The purpose is to have some realization of at least one.

When you feel that all the buddhas are the guru and each guru is all the buddhas, when you feel like this from the very inside of your heart, at that time you have the realization of guru devotion. When you feel from your heart that there’s no separation between the buddhas and the guru, that’s the realization.

For your mind, the work of this life is nothing important. Whether it happens or not, nothing is important. The comfort of this life, the work of this life, none of that is important. Worldly people feel that the happiness of this life is very important and their whole life is dedicated to that. When your mind is completely changed from that, when you feel in your heart that the happiness of future lives is most important and whatever happens in this one doesn’t bother you—when you feel what is important is long-term happiness, the happiness of future lives—at that time you have the realization of the graduated path of the lower capable being.

When you see the whole, entire samsara like being in the center of a fire, when you don’t find even the slightest attraction to it, when you feel this naturally, day and night, from your heart, when you want to achieve liberation, that’s the realization of renunciation of samsara.

Similarly, if you feel bodhicitta like this, in a similar way, day and night, naturally, from your heart, wanting to achieve enlightenment for each sentient being; when you feel this from the heart, naturally, day and night, that is the definition of having achieved bodhicitta.

And when you see things—the I and so forth—unified with emptiness, with dependent arising, at that time you have completed the unmistaken realization of emptiness.

VAJRASATTVA

In the evening before going to bed, it’s extremely good if you can do prostrations with Vajrasattva. Do twenty-one Vajrasattva mantras or half a mala or one mala, depending on your capacity. Doing at least three prostrations before going to bed becomes part of the refuge practice. Doing the Thirty-five Buddhas or Vajrasattva in the morning or the evening is extremely good. In this way, those who really want to experience the path are able to do so.

If you don’t do confession with Vajrasattva, with the remedy of the four powers, then the negative karma that you created today—even having killed one tiny insect—multiplies day by day and after fifteen days it becomes the same heavy karma as having killed one human being. It becomes the same heavy karma as having killed one human being because without confessing it, purifying it using the remedy of the four powers, it multiplies day by day and like this, as the months, the years, go by it becomes like a mountain. It becomes like the earth. It becomes unimaginably, unbelievably huge.

Therefore, doing the Vajrasattva practice before going to bed is an extremely important practice. It’s a very important preparation for death and dying. There’s so much talk about death and dying. This is a very important preparation, working on the preparation for death and dying for yourself as well as helping in other people’s death and dying.

Reciting the Vajrasattva long mantra or the short one—OM VAJRASATTVA HUM—twenty-eight times or twenty-one times has the power to stop the negative karma increasing, multiplying. If you say [the long mantra twenty-one times] or the short one twenty-eight times, it stops the negative karma multiplying.

Then do the dedication. You can dedicate using the four or five dedications I did during the course. This is most important for bodhicitta and then with ge wa di …, sealing it with emptiness, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings.

“THIS IS NO TIME TO SLEEP!”

We say that there’s no time to meditate. In the daytime we have to go to work and in the nighttime we have to sleep, so there’s no time to meditate. My idea is that if our sleep could be like the yogis whose sleep itself is meditation, everything would be meditation. No matter how many hours the yogis sleep, it’s meditation on the clear light thus it’s the quickest path to enlightenment. If we could do it like those meditators, even if we slept for twenty-four hours, it would all be meditation.

From beginningless rebirths we have been sleeping but our sleep is normally nonvirtuous, especially sleeping with attachment. We’ve done this numberless times. Not just in this life, not just from the time of our birth, but from beginningless rebirths we have been sleeping in samsara. All that sleep, all those numberless times we have been sleeping, what has it done for us? That’s one thing. From beginningless rebirths we have slept, but what has it done for us, especially the sleep that becomes nonvirtue because of attachment.

Even if we live for a hundred years, for half of our life there is no opportunity to practice Dharma because of sleep. Half of our life is gone to sleep, nighttime sleep and also daytime sleep. The time that is left for practice, the time that we give ourselves from our side for practice, is very little.

As Shantideva said in Bodhicaryavatara,

Relying upon the boat of a human (body),
Free yourself from the great river of pain!
As it is hard to find this boat again,
This is no time to sleep, you fool.³⁸

“This boat” means this perfect human rebirth; we use this “boat,” this perfect human rebirth, to cross the ocean of the suffering of samsara and to achieve enlightenment. As Shantideva said, this boat is difficult to find again, therefore while we are ignorant we mustn’t sleep. While we are ignorant, don’t sleep!

It doesn’t mean don’t sleep at all. It’s not saying to not sleep at all. Here it’s talking about making this perfect human body useful, beneficial, and that happens only by practicing Dharma, virtue. It’s not saying don’t sleep. Making your sleep virtuous means making this perfect human rebirth beneficial and particularly not sleeping with attachment, which is negative karma.

Usually, those who are real meditators get up at three o’clock in the morning. Even in Sera, Ganden and Drepung, the monks in the monasteries and those real meditators get up very early. They are very busy in the daytime doing pujas for other people as well as many other activities, so they get up very early in the morning, at three o’clock, and do all their prayers. Because the daytime is very busy they finish their practice in the morning before they start work, doing pujas or activities for others.

If even the Sangha do this there’s no question about the real practitioners of the lamrim. Even those who do many activities in the daytime for others, and even many Tibetan lay people, in the daytime they do business, things like that, starting from eight o’clock, but in the morning they get up at four or five and do their prayers.

By making sleep shorter, there’s time. The conclusion is that. It’s not saying don’t sleep, but it’s making the sleep shorter. Instead of sleeping for so long, saying, “I need it,” by making it shorter, you have that much time to do prayers or for meditation.

Whether you have time for practice or meditation or not, or to do prayers, mainly depends on your interest. If your interest is more in parties or watching TV and other things like this, there’s a lot of time for those things. You find a lot of time for sleeping, for talking, for gossiping and things like this but you can’t find time to recite even one mala of a mantra or do one meditation on the lamrim. It’s basically a question of which one you have more interest in.

It’s not that time is truly existent. It’s not that it’s coming from the side of time. It’s a question of interest. It’s a question of how important you feel it is to help other sentient beings, with bodhicitta. It depends on how much you feel renunciation, renouncing the suffering of samsara, is important or how much you feel the meditations on impermanence and death, the lower realms and so on, are important. It depends on that.

As far as thinking you don’t have time, my explanation is that. Also, although at the beginning you might find it difficult to make your sleeping hours shorter, you can get used to it. You can get in the habit of it, making it one hour or half an hour shorter.

The other thing to put emphasis on is to do a retreat each year. If you can do that, I think it’s very important. Even if you don’t practice tantric deity retreat, you can do a lamrim retreat combined with mandala offerings, prostrations and preliminary practices. There are many preliminary practices to do—Vajrasattva and so forth—you can combine this with the lamrim and get two practices done. It’s very important to have this plan to get some retreat done each year, for ten days, fifteen days, a month or even longer is better. Sometimes, if you practice tantra, also do a deity retreat but even that has to be based on lamrim practice. Otherwise, without the lamrim, the retreat itself doesn’t become rich.

To continue the inspiration of Dharma practice, the other thing is, if you can, to listen to the teachings and to take courses on the lamrim. If you can, try to listen to teachings, to take teachings, whether it’s in the West or the East, especially from His Holiness. If you can, take teachings from qualified masters, from lamas. That one is very important. If you’ve taken courses or listened to teachings again and again and somehow lost your inspiration or practice, this brings it back. It helps you to continue to listen to the teachings again and again. That’s an important thing, I think.

The teacher you listen to teachings from, who you established Dharma contact with or who at least inspires you by emphasizing morality, at least that person should become an example by living in morality. That is extremely important because without morality the teacher cannot guide you, cannot even protect you from the lower realms’ sufferings. That is just the essence, when talking about the qualities of the teacher. Secondly, the teacher should emphasize how the happiness of future lives is more important and cherishing other sentient beings [even more important]. The teacher should emphasize bodhicitta. This is an even greater quality than the second one.

Once you have established a Dharma contact, you have to look at the teacher with a new mind. You have to devote to that person correctly. Correctly means according to how the Buddha explained, how Lama Tsongkhapa explained, according to what is explained in the teachings. That is what “correctly” means. Even if you saw mistakes before, now after establishing a Dharma contact, you have to look with that new mind. With that new, pure mind there’s pure appearance. With devotion, you receive the blessings and that makes it possible to achieve enlightenment.

The other thing is, if in the West there’s a meditation center in the city where you live, that’s very helpful because you can help them and they can help you. If there’s a teacher, then of course there’s no question you should learn from him or her. Even if there’s no teacher, just having discussions and group meditations together, you inspire each other. So, that’s a very good one. Even if there’s no meditation center established, if there are Dharma students there, you can just meet together and do the same thing, discussing and meditating in a group together. It’s kind of like you oblige the others to practice and the others oblige you to practice, so you are helping each other to develop the mind. That’s something I think you would find helpful. Even if there’s no established center you can still do something like this.

Now, we’re about to finish.

UNIVERSAL RESPONSIBILITY

The very essence is that you must try to avoid harming yourself and others as much as possible. Even if you can’t avoid doing it completely you should try to do it as little as possible. Then, as much as possible, you should try to benefit other sentient beings and that is benefiting yourself. Especially, you should concentrate on giving whatever is of ultimate benefit, putting more time and effort into that than into work which has only temporary benefit.

Even if you don’t have faith in reincarnation and karma, in those things, still it’s worthwhile to attempt to lead sentient beings, to bring sentient beings to the highest happiness, liberation from samsara and to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment. Even if those two are not possible, you should attempt to bring sentient beings to long-term happiness, to cause them to have the happiness of future lives.

As I mentioned at the very beginning of the course, in your everyday life, from morning until night, at least you must remember the meaning of life is to free everyone from all the problems and the causes and to obtain happiness for all sentient beings. That is the meaning of life. To only work for the happiness of the self, that’s not the meaning of life. And you must remember that you have universal responsibility, as I mentioned at the beginning of the course. Remember those reasons and think, “I have universal responsibility to free everyone from all the suffering and the causes and to cause happiness for all sentient beings. I have universal responsibility. I am responsible because if I practice compassion, everyone doesn’t receive any harm from me, they only receive happiness and peace from me. On top of this, because I benefit them, I help them. This is the additional benefit they receive from me. Therefore, I am completely responsible for each sentient being’s happiness.”

You should try to live your life with this attitude from morning until night. With this motivation you get up, get dressed, have breakfast and go to work. With this motivation you have lunch; with this motivation you have dinner; with this motivation you go to parties; with this motivation you go to sleep. Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation and karma, in hell and so forth, at least you can live with this correct motivation, the thought that you have universal responsibility, which is the meaning of life.

If you can live your life every day with this motivation, even if you’re talking, you try to talk with this attitude. For the eight hours at work, you try to work with this attitude. If you’re working in the family, taking care of children, you do it with this attitude. This way there’s satisfaction in life; there’s happiness, there’s peace in your life, in your heart. This way, you dedicate your life for others, so there’s enjoyment.

When you only think of yourself, when you cherish yourself, there’s only pain, suffering, dissatisfaction; you become more and more dissatisfied. Even if you are doing a job that pays a million dollars a month, there’s still dissatisfaction.

That is my conclusion.

THE KINDNESS OF LAMA YESHE

The last thing is, I must apologize that I kept you for so many hours, nighttime and morning time. All those things, I must express, I’m sorry for them all.

Of my talks, those that are mistakes can be left and those that are useful—that are not mistakes but useful—can be put into practice. So I hope there’s a tiny bit of benefit from all the talking I’ve done. I hope there’s some worth in it.

Anyway, you should realize how extremely fortunate you are that you met great teachers, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and Geshe Lama Konchog and Lama Lhundrup. Many people who are here for the first time may not recognize how great these teachers are. The old ones may know more. You should feel extremely fortunate to have received those extensive teachings and been able to deepen your wisdom. I think you’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to receive teachings from them and been able to study.

However much merit we have accumulated during this month by understanding the Dharma—and especially bodhicitta and emptiness that have left so many imprints to achieve liberation and enlightenment—all this is basically due to the kindness of Lama Yeshe. If I hadn’t met Lama Yeshe, all these things wouldn’t have happened. For all of us, all these things wouldn’t have happened. All this virtue, this merit, this understanding of the Dharma, wouldn’t have happened.

Therefore, please pray for the whole organization and for Lama’s incarnation to have a stable life, and to be able to be of benefit. He’s already benefiting the world incredibly, even before he actually starts to give teachings after studying in the monastery. Pray he is able to benefit all sentient beings and for him to be able to be the owner, the possessor, of the whole, entire teachings of the Buddha—not just one part of the teachings—and then to be able to benefit all sentient beings, like Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, like Lama Tsongkhapa, like Lama Atisha.

Please pray, please dedicate the merits to the success of the organization, that whatever work being done to benefit other sentient beings succeeds immediately, and to receive all the necessary conditions without difficulties.

THE KARMA TO PRACTICE DHARMA

Not everybody has the karma to practice Buddhadharma. Only some sentient beings have the opportunity to practice the Dharma. Not everyone has the karma to be a Buddhist, to be an inner being. Not everyone has the karma to be an inner being.

If transforming the mind or developing the mind were so easy, if it didn’t depend on sentient beings’ karma, if it were in the hands of the Buddha, the Omniscient One, without depending on sentient beings’ karma, if there were no obstacles from the side of the sentient being, then, as Rinpoche explained, because the Buddha’s omniscient mind sees sentient beings’ minds all the time, and whenever the karma is ripened, there’s no delay for even a second, immediately the Buddha’s guidance is there. [Rinpoche snaps his fingers.]

As soon as the karma is ripened, the mind is ripened, the Buddha’s guidance is immediately there, without the delay of even a second. Therefore, if there were no obstacles from the side of sentient beings, by now there wouldn’t be even one sentient being remaining. There wouldn’t be any world problems. There wouldn’t be one single suffering. Everyone would have been enlightened an unimaginable length of time ago. As the Buddha exists, there wouldn’t be one sentient being; everyone would have become enlightened.

Developing the mind in the path to enlightenment, finding faith in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, in reincarnation and karma—even to have some faith in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, even to have some faith in reincarnation and karma, is a kind of realization. Comparatively, even to have some faith is a kind of realization.

It’s not easy. It takes time, and you need a lot of purification. You need to purify the obstacles. It depends on how many obstacles there are from the side of each sentient being, so it takes time.

As I mentioned just before, I’m not sure about the Buddhadharma, but you can practice Dharma. I’m not sure about Buddhadharma, but you can practice Dharma. With this positive attitude of universal responsibility, which is the meaning of the life, it’s still practicing Dharma. If you can live life with this attitude, then so much of the work in that one day becomes Dharma, the cause of happiness.

DEDICATION

Again, as with last night, here again tonight I’ve kept you for a very long time. It took much time.

I would like to say thank you very, very much. Thank you very much to everybody, especially those taking the eight Mahayana precepts, getting up early in the morning and bearing so many hardships to practice the Dharma, to do the course. This present situation at Kopan is living in luxury compared to many years back. But maybe compared to the West this is very uncomfortable. However, with all that, you continued to practice.

So I would like to thank everybody very much, and I will also pray all the time. I think that’s all. Thank you so much.

[The group offers a long mandala and recites long-life prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.]

“Due to all the three-times’ merits accumulated by myself, by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, may the bodhicitta be generated within my mind and in the minds of all sentient beings. Those who have it, may it be developed. May all sentient beings generate bodhicitta without the delay of even a second.” Please dedicate like this.

“Due to all the three-times’ merits accumulated by myself, by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, that are empty from their own side, may the I, who is empty, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, that is empty, and lead all sentient beings, who are empty, to enlightenment, that is empty.

“Due to all these three-times’ merits, may the father and mother sentient beings have happiness, and may I cause that by myself alone. May the three lower realms be empty forever, and may I cause that by myself alone. May the bodhisattvas’ prayers be successful immediately, and may I cause that by myself alone.

“As the three-times’ buddhas and all the bodhisattvas have dedicated their merits, I will dedicate all the merits to quickly enlighten all sentient beings.

“Due to the three-times’ merits accumulated by the buddhas and bodhisattvas and by myself and my family, may the pure teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa, the unification of sutra and tantra, especially bodhicitta and clear light, be generated within my own mind, in the minds of the family and in the minds of all the students, without delay of even a second. And may we all quickly achieve enlightenment and spread the Dharma in the minds of all sentient beings and lead all sentient beings to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

“Due to all these merits, may the general organization that benefits others succeed immediately. May the activities of the individual meditation centers benefitting others succeed immediately. May the work of individual students to benefit others succeed immediately and may all their wishes succeed immediately according to Dharma.”

Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

[End of the 24th Kopan course.]

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Notes

³⁶ V. 91. [Return to text]

³⁷ Requesting Prayer to the Lamrim Lineage Gurus, which can be found in the FPMT Catalogue. [Return to text]

³⁸ Ch. 7, v. 14. [Return to text]