STEP BY STEP TO ENLIGHTENMENT FROM JUNIOR SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY

INSTITUT VAJRA YOGINI MARZENS FRANCE WITH VEN DECEMBER 26, 2016–JANUARY 1, 2017 These teachings have been prepared at FPMT’s Institut Vajra Yogini in Marzens, France, for the students of a the annual Christmas retreat there with Ven Robina Courtin, December 26 2016 – January 1 2017. institutvajrayogini.fr

Thanks to FPMT, Inc. for the teachings in chapter 1. fpmt.org

Thanks to Yeshe Wisdom Archive for the teachings in chapters 3, 6, & 8. lamayeshe.com

And thanks to Wisdom Publications for the teachings in chapter 2 & 7. wisdompubs..org

Cover: Shakyamuni Buddha, painted in colour by Jane Seidlitz.

CONTENTS

1. The Path to Enlightenment: From Junior School to University 4 2. What is the Mind? 27 3. To Help Others, First We Need to Help Ourselves 32 4. Think About , In Particular Our Own Death 37 5. How We Create Karma and How to Purify It 43 6. We Need to Cut Off Attachment 59 7. How Do We Exist? 66 8. We Need Bodhichitta 70

1. THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT: FROM JUNIOR SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY VEN ROBINA COURTIN

BUDDHISM: FROM INDIA TO TIBET We’re going to be talking about the path to enlightenment. What does that mean? Well, there’s various ways, various packages of presenting Buddha’s teachings. The key thing with Buddha’s teachings, of course, is that they are meant to be experiential. They’re meant to be something that you put into practice. That’s the point of listening to it. It’s like if this were a cooking class; we know that the point of it finally is to go away and make cakes, right? If it were just to sit here and listen and fill our heads with nice words about how delicious cakes are, we’d feel a bit disappointed. So sometimes, when I think of spiritual practice, we’ve made it quite complicated, we think of it as something complicated. We think of it as rather esoteric. So we hear on the one hand that Buddha says lots of things – look at the number of books about , probably more than about cooking these days, so many. But always, if you look in your cooking books, there’s always the recipe there and if it’s just only words and all about the theory, you’d think: “Well, what on earth can I do with this? How can I make cakes from this? How do I learn? It’s all too much theory. How am I learning from this?” And so this is very easy to think about Buddhism; it’s very easy to think about all religions. There’s lots and lots and lots of words. All the people giving lectures, all the people giving sermons, and all this stuff. (Homilies. They used to call them sermons. Doesn’t a priest give a sermon any more? It’s a homily.) So, then it’s easy to be confused. And if we look at all the Buddhist books, even the practical ones, the simple ones, how do I put this into practice? What do I get from this?

LAMA ATISHA One thing marvelous in the Tibetan tradition is the way the teachings have been packaged. And it really comes from this person called Atisha, back in the eleventh century, around about then, a great Indian master, saint, scholar, practitioner, meditator. He was invited by the Tibetan King. There is a very long and marvelous story about how he got there. He lived the remaining fifteen to seventeen years of his life in Tibet. Well, one of the things that he did was that he wrote this little text called Lamp for the Path. It’s a deceptively simple little text. What essentially he did was, he had been in Tibet for a while and he could see that they had kind of lost the plot. Buddhism had been there for a couple of hundred years by then. There were already these marvelous practitioners in Tibet, extraordinarily great yogis, holy beings, people getting realizations. But somehow, if you look at Buddha’s teachings extensively and deeply, all the philosophy, all the things that Buddha talked about, and all the things the Buddhist masters over the centuries, from the time of the Buddha up to that

4 point had talked about, the commentaries on Buddha’s teachings, the extensive philosophy, the extensive psychology, the extensive esoteric teachings, it’s an enormous body of stuff and very easy to get lost in it. It’s like finding hundreds and hundreds of books on all levels of cooking, but you can’t see where the recipe is in there so it’s very easy to get confused. So he very kindly wrote this little text and what he did was he took the essential points from all of Buddha’s teachings and he presented them in a very orderly way.

THE GRADUAL PATH Of course, the way you present information about cooking is that it has to be an orderly way and the orderly way has to be in terms of the cooking capacity, the simple ones first and the more advanced as you go along. That’s nothing surprising. Anything we’ve ever learned in our lives, we start in grade one, more move ahead gradually, and then, finally, we graduate. Whether it’s six-month course or a weekend course, or a twenty-year course, you start at the beginning and you keep getting better. You can track your progress can’t you? It’s something we are very, very familiar with. But I think we are not familiar with it when it comes to spiritual paths. We don’t think like that. In other words, we go searching for a cooking course, but we don’t go searching for a graded course on how to get enlightened. It sounds very strange because we mystify religion. I think we mystify spiritual teachings. The moment we hear the word spiritual we lose our common sense. Really. Then we necessarily think of spiritual as something beyond ordinary. We think of it as some special feeling. We think of it as something that happens when you close your eyes and cross your legs, something mystical, a vision, a special kind of dream. “Oh, I had a spiritual experience!” we’ll say. It really is not appropriate. It’s inappropriate to think this way. We also think of it as completely hit and miss. Not in a graded sense. Somehow, you just are a very spiritual person, we say. So what do we mean by “spiritual” and what was Atisha doing in this text? What did he present? Well, the of practice, the method or lineage of presenting the Buddha’s teachings that is known as the Lam-rim in Tibetan, the Graded Path, is what has come from Atisha. We are talking here from the point of view of one of the four main lineages of practice in Tibet called the Gelugpas. Over the centuries, different great masters, different great . . . (the term lama is equivalent to the word guru, I think I have heard it translated as. . . “ma” is the female ending actually and I have heard in this context that it means something like high female or high mother. The Sanskrit word guru means “heavy with knowledge.”) So all the great masters or lamas or gurus over the centuries have developed, in different ways, the teachings and the particular tradition here is known as Gelugpa, which is starting from Tsong Khapa in the fourteenth century or so. It is directly coming in the tradition of the way that Atisha practised and emphasized the practice in the eleventh century. So, this lam-rim then, what’s it all about? What is it? I think what we’ll do tonight is give a very brief overview, a conceptual overview. Then the pieces of it we’ll put together in the weekend.

5 LORD BUDDHA So then, it’s the eleventh century by now. . . but first, who is Buddha and how did Buddhism get to Tibet? Very briefly, let’s mention the historical context. It was something like 500 years before Christ, I think, that Buddha was around. He came out of the Hindu tradition. He was this Prince; people know roughly speaking the clichéd bits of his story. There was this Prince who eventually started to question very deeply the meaning of life, the meaning of his own present life, his enormously rich and marvelous life, and realized that somehow he wanted to understand the nature of reality, he wanted to understand how to go beyond suffering. He could see that everybody was fraught with suffering, at one level or another. And so he left his kingdom and he went off and practised the various ways that were current at the time by many great ascetics. There’s a very strong tradition among the Hindus to leave home and live very ascetic lives, seeking liberation (they used the same word). So, Buddha went and tried various methods and joined different groups of people and continued to develop. Found various great teachers. Went to the point of the knowledge of those teachers and they said they couldn’t take him any further. Continued to find teachers and eventually he started to realize that none of the current teachings that he was finding actually answered the questions he had. So he eventually continued to practise finding the truth, so on and so forth. He eventually became enlightened, as they say, developed all the realizations, removed from the mind all the misconceptions – we are going to talk exactly about that. And then he taught for the remainder of his life, something like 30 years. He was 80-something when he passed away. So, that’s Buddha, very brief. Buddha’s teachings of course existed in India and then, already by the third or fourth century, there were so many traditions set up, so many establishments of practice and study. By then the Chinese had started to come; they’d heard about it. People, travelers, had learned about the Buddha and I think that the beginning of Buddhism strongly developing in the other parts of Asia, China, Japan, all around there, Tibet in something like the seventh or eighth century. It took until 1959 I think for to come to the West. There were trickles of Westerners; it’s only really exploded, it would seem, in the last 50 years in the West, with the Tibetans coming.

LAMA TSONGKHAPA So, here we are in the eleventh century; there’s Atisha. So let me get to the fourteenth century and we have Lama Tsongkhapa, this lineage lama of our tradition. He was really big on the lam-rim. So the way we’re presenting the teachings here in this packaging known as the lam-rim, the Graded Path, is according to the tradition of Tsongkhapa.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE LAM-RIM Using really ordinary terminology, let’s just look at this structure. We’ll do the pieces tomorrow and Sunday. So, if you go for a cooking class, you know the goal - the goal is to learn how to make cakes. It’s very obvious that if you join a course, it’s usual that you know what you want to graduate in. It mightn’t be so when you go to school or to

6 college, you kind of pick your courses, you’re not really sure, but as you move along, you got enough options, to eventually focus in on some topic. But here, like cooking, you fairly much know you want to learn cooking, you’re inspired about cooking, you know about cakes, you’ve tasted cakes, you’ve seen other people making cakes. “I’d like to learn that, please. I’d like to learn how to make cakes.” So, then you go find a course, don’t you?

THE GOAL, ENLIGHTENMENT So, here what is that we are trying to achieve? What is the result of this graded course, this lam-rim, what’s the result of this path, this course? Well, it’s the word “enlightenment” or the term “.” This term “enlightenment” is used by lots of people in lot of traditions in lots of different ways. First of all, as we already know, when it comes to math and science and making cakes, we’ve got to be very clear about our terminology. If you start making a cake recipe, and it says a half teaspoonful of this, and a gram of that, you know you’ve got to go check up the meaning of a gram and the meaning of a half a teaspoon, otherwise you’ll make a mess. So we do understand very naturally in our daily, ordinary life the necessity for precision, for accuracy. Again, that’s something we’re not used to thinking about in spiritual terms. We all bandy the word “enlightenment” about and assume we’re all speaking the same language. It’s like we all bandy about the word called “love.” I say I love you, you say you love me, and we actually think we are communicating. But if we actually defined our terms, we’ve probably got two completely different meanings. So, Buddha is really big on accuracy, he’s big on precision, and the Tibetans are past masters at this, I tell you. They don’t know how old they are; they talk about an “arm’s length” if I ask something like “how long?” So, they’re not so clear and accurate about those things, but hey, any of the ones who have studied, they know exactly the definition of love, the definition of enlightenment, exactly this and it’s not this, and it is that, and therefore this. And that’s not meant to just be intellectual, just like learning a recipe precisely isn’t intellectual. You need it to get the cake. So the Buddha’s approach very much is that and, as I said, the Tibetans especially, the way they have developed and practised the Buddha’s path.

A BIRD NEEDS TWO WINGS: WISDOM AND COMPASSION Okay, enlightenment, buddhahood, what is it? Well, it’s the name given to what the Buddha would say, from the point of view. . . because there are two main approaches to Buddhism, there are two wings of the bird: Buddha says a bird needs two wings, wisdom and compassion. Really, broadly speaking, we can say the wisdom wing is all the, what we call the approach to Buddhism, which is the Buddhism that’s developed in countries like Burma and Thailand or known very commonly as Theravadin Buddhism (Theravadin Buddhism is one of the only remaining of the eighteen sub-schools of what is known as this wisdom wing, the Hinayana, which has its very specific goal. The other wing is the compassion wing. These two together, the combination of these two, this is the Mahayana path, the Mahayana course, and the goal of that is this enlightenment.

7 The term used here, according to the Mahayana Buddhists is the term enlightenment. What Buddha is saying is every living being has just necessarily the potential to achieve buddhahood, enlightenment. The goal of practicing this course – not this weekend, we won’t get it by Sunday! But I mean, we might if we are really ripe and ready. This course that we’re describing this weekend, the accomplishment, the end result, the culmination, is one’s own buddhahood, one’s own enlightenment.

BUDDHA’S VIEW OF WHAT THE MIND IS So, what is that? What is that? The simple way to say it is that it occurs in your mind, where it occurs is in your mind – we’re going to be discussing all of this in its place. In part of the overview we’ll discuss that, tonight; that it occurs in the mind. So, if this is potential that we’ve all got, no choice about it, Buddha says: that if you exist, then it’s your potential. If it occurs in the mind, and the part of us that has to do the job is the mind, not your toenails and not your nose, and not your fingers, but your mind, then we better know what the mind is. So, let’s look briefly at that. We’ll get in to more detail in the second stage of this course. What is the mind? Well, “mind” in Buddhism is used in a much more broad way than we tend to use it in our own culture. It is used synonymously with the word “consciousness,” one. Two, it isn’t physical. So if you’re a Christian, or a Muslim, or you talk about some non-physical part of you, it’s known as the soul. But Buddha doesn’t use that term at all. He would use the term mind, but it would incorporate concepts, feelings, thoughts, emotions, unconscious, whatever you want to call, what you even like to refer to as the spiritual part of yourself, whatever you like. All of this is your mind. The whole spectrum of your inner experiences is your mind, and in Buddha’s terms it is necessarily non-physical. It isn’t the body. It’s not the brain. We’ll go into more detail about that, but we’re just stating this now. It isn’t the brain. So, this enlightenment is the potential of your mind, this Buddhahood. What does that mean? Well it’s, simply speaking, the full development of your mind from the point of view of the positive qualities. Buddha would say they are actually innate to us, and these words we all know: love, compassion, wisdom, joy, contentment, whatever. That is our natural potential, the full development of these, beyond which you can’t develop them further.

DEVELOPING THE POSITIVE This is an interesting concept because we don’t even talk like that. We know the words, but we don’t talk like that in our ordinary daily life. We tend to think we’re born with a certain amount and we stuck with that much and that’s it. What to do? But the Buddha’s deal is very much that we can develop that part of ourself to phenomenal degrees and this course is all about that.

GETTING RID OF THE NEGATIVE So that also implies, well, it certainly does here, this Buddhahood, when you’ve achieved it, this enlightenment, not only will you be fully developed in all your positive qualities, but necessarily, you’ll be completely removed from all the negative ones. All the negative qualities will be completely removed from your mind because they are the ones that hold back the positive ones. And what are they? We all know

8 the words: hate, fear, jealous, depressed, anxiety, wish to kill, low self-esteem, attachment, anger, pride, you name it, we all know the words. So the complete removal of all of those. Now that is quite a shocking concept. In fact, psychologically speaking, it’s quite radical to state that. None of us would think we can totally get rid of that because we just assume, along with our positive qualities, we are born a certain way and that’s just the way it is. You just have to do your best, you know. We don’t think in terms of growing that part of us, the positive qualities, whereas we do, for example, when it comes to cake making. You are not born as an innate cake maker, but you’ve got the potential and you go learn the course. You’re not born as a mathematician, but you can learn it. You’re not born as Mozart, but, hey, you can become like him. We have courses, don’t we? But we don’t have courses on how to become more loving, more wise, more compassionate. Look at the stunning degree to which we can learn piano. We are phenomenally brilliant, aren’t we, in the West, technically brilliant in the things we can achieve, but we don’t have that level of technical brilliance when it comes to emotional things; and that’s Buddha’s specialty. He’s brilliant at helping us develop to phenomenal degrees what we would say are the emotional, which we ought to be hungry to get. I mean, the courses on Buddhism should be packed with people. We mightn’t all want to be mathematicians, and we don’t necessarily suffer because we are not a mathematician, but hey, we all suffer in terms of jealousy, and confusion, and depression and want to kill and lie and steal, you get my point here. We should be packing Buddha’s courses. Buddha’s specialty is emotions, the mind, and the capacity of the human to phenomenally develop the positive parts of ourself. So, enlightenment is the term used to refer to the mind of the person who has done the job of perfecting their own positive qualities and absolutely removing the negative. Now those words just themselves are kind of understandable, nothing shocking about the words, but it’s a shocking concept. But when I tell you more precisely more detail of the qualities of the person who has achieved those things, then it really sounds insane. Because we usually refer these qualities that I am about to tell you about to a person called God.

NO CREATOR Now, Buddha says there is no such person as a creator, which is what we mean by God, but he certainly doesn’t say that there aren’t superior beings. He uses the term, in Sanskrit, Arya being, the superior being, and this is the term for the ultimate, the final superior being who has done the job of becoming a Buddha. So he has no problem with describing the qualities.

THE QUALITIES OF A BUDDHA I’ll come back to tell you now the qualities of a Buddha. It sounds like God. Sounds like God, and we would only think one person has it and that’s God the creator, and there’s no way, you’d say, that we could become this way. If you go off to some person and ask for a course in how to become like God, they’ll lock you up and put you on a pill; definite. But this is what Buddha is saying.

9 The fully developed person, fully developed in the wisdom wing point of view: they use the term omniscience. But it’s interesting, a teaching I was going to this morning from one lama from another tradition, he said the meaning of the word in Tibetan, it’s very broad here, is: “accurate cognition,” meaning knowing exactly what is, seeing as it is, which is very interesting. “Seeing something as it is”: how cute, we’ll think. And this really gets us into how Buddha talks. We’re going to be unraveling this, but the way Buddha’s saying, roughly speaking now, is because of all that neurotic stuff inside us, it completely blinds us from really seeing how everything is, and completely causes us suffering. So, when we utterly remove this suffering and delusions, we are in touch with exactly how everything is. Omniscient, we could say literally “knowing everything,” but it would mean this, too: seeing perfectly the minds of others, seeing exactly how things are, at a level of knowing or cognition that, again, is radical in comparison with what we everyday think of in scientific and ordinary psychological terms. Buddha is radical in what he is asserting: the levels of cognition that we can achieve. And he would say that is just the nature of the mind. So, when the mind is fully developed in the wisdom wing, one sees the minds of all beings, one sees everything as it is. Then there’s the compassion wing. When that’s fully developed, you can say the mind of this person, this consciousness of this enlightened being, has absolute empathy with all living beings. Not a fraction of distinction, not a fraction of discrimination; infinite compassion, love, affection for every being, equally. Which is, again, pretty insane. We find it hard to love even one person well. So, what Buddha’s saying, again, this is our natural potential. It’s the nature of mind to be this way. It’s just our nature, so we need to develop it. But there’s another quality, too. They even call it “omnipotence,” infinite power: the effortless ability to do whatever needs to be done to benefit all living beings, because the job of a Buddha, the heart job of a Buddha, is infinite compassion. There’s the wisdom that knows exactly what and how and where and what and who. And then there’s the capacity to do what needs to be done, to perfectly benefit all beings. So, we’re talking a bit like God, like we talk about God, omniscient, all- knowing, all-compassionate, all-wise, all-pervading. And then, indeed, because the mind is not physical, when it’s fully developed, this Buddha-mind, it is just necessarily pervading wherever there is existence, which is a really interesting concept, because that is, for sure, only what God does. “God is everywhere,” we say. Well Buddha talks just like this and he would say that’s the capacity of a person called a Buddha, which is the potential of every one of us. Not to be just like it, not like this; and he’s not saying a Buddha is a creator. So there’s many similarities, but fundamental differences in explaining. These words are quite different.

BUDDHA NATURE So, what Buddha is saying is this is, just naturally, the potential of every being. . . and the term in Tibetan for “sentient being” is interesting, it’s “mind possessor. A sentient being is a mind possessor, sem-chen, mind possessor. “Sem” is mind and “chen” means having. So, if you are a mind possessor, if you possess consciousness,

10 then this is your potential. It’s like if it is an acorn, it just naturally is a potential oak tree. It’s not as if you come along and you force oak tree-ness into it and now suddenly your acorn becomes an oak tree. It is just naturally, by its existence, an acorn, in its nature is a potential oak tree. So, if you are a living being, in your nature you are a potential Buddha. It’s not just for the Mother Teresas, you know. This is how Buddha talks.

ENLIGHTENMENT IS DOABLE So, the culmination of this course, this A-Z course to enlightenment, is this perfection, is this enlightenment. So, naturally, you start at Grade One. Then, when you have accomplished this, you go to Grade Two and so on and so forth until, eventually, you have achieved it. It is as practical as that. The Buddha’s approach is that type of practicality. It’s not this mystical, cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the best sort of hit-and-miss affair that we think of as spiritual. Do you see what I am saying? And it’s extremely important to think this way because it’s really a sigh of relief, actually. We all know we want to be loving and kind. We all know we don’t want to be mean and depressed. We kind of don’t really know how. We sort of think well, we’ve heard about this thing called meditation and somehow, if you close your eyes, and put the incense on, and make the light low, so the music’s sweet, somehow something will happen inside called spiritual. It’s very kind of strange, really. You understand what I’m saying? It’s not like that. The Buddha’s approach is not like that. He says it’s a really tough job, but it’s a do-able job and you start at the beginning and you just keep going. You just keep going and you will get there. We all know practice makes perfect. We all know practice makes perfect. Well, the saying they have in Tibetan is that “Nothing gets more difficult with familiarity.” It’s a different way of saying it. What a relief! The more you do it, the better you get at it. What a relief! It should give us great courage. So, in a way, it’s good to know this at the starting point that the goal of all of this is to achieve this Buddhahood. Because why? Because, hey, you’re a living being and this is the potential of your mind. They say we possess Buddha-nature. Buddha says this term. We don’t talk like that, right? We don’t say, oh, yes, an acorn possesses oak tree-nature. But we know exactly the meaning, don’t we? It’s a quaint way to put it. This is how these Asians talk, Indians probably, you know, just a bit of the terminology. We’d say: that’s a potential oak tree. Well, you’re a potential Buddha. Very simple. That’s what it means. You possess Buddha-nature. It’s not a little Buddha in there, hiding from you, for you to find. Like there’s not a little oak tree in there that, when you find it it’ll suddenly explodes into life. We know that. You understand. An acorn is something that when you give it the right causes and conditions, the sun, the water, the soil, and time and patience, it will just naturally become an oak tree. The same here. The same here. It’s something very organic and natural, whereas, again, we don’t think like that. We think it’s something you’ve got to force. So, okay, this lam-rim, this packaging of Buddha’s teachings, presented in an orderly and experiential way, is what we will be presenting this weekend in a very speedy way. One lama in Wisconsin, who is a professor at the University, he’s retired

11 now, Sopa. I think Wisdom Publications has published now, soon, the third volume of his commentary on the lam-rim. It’s not huge, the books, but he took 25 years to teach it, 25 years! Gradually, really slowly, really in depth, taking one of Tsongkhapa’s texts. So, we’ll speed through and just touch on the main points in a day and a half or two days or however long a weekend course is. OK, so far, so good? Makes sense? And if we’ve heard it a thousand times before, does it make even more sense? Because that’s the point. That’s good. We need to hear this, again and again you hear it. Just like with your piano, you keep practicing the same thing. You don’t say, “Oh, yeah, I did the C Major scale, yesterday. Give me a new one, please.”You’ve got to keep practicing, don’t you? That’s what we mean by practice! So, a part of the practice is keep hearing.

THE THREE SCOPES: JUNIOR SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY Okay, so, let’s talk a little bit more about the mind. But first, this packaging, it’s really like, the way they talk about it in Tibetan is divided into, as they call it, three scopes. The meaning of that is, the scope of someone’s potential, is according to your level of capability. Now, we understand that. So we can see the junior school is a certain series of things that are taught according to the level of capability of that type of person, isn’t it? Junior school. So, then you graduate to high school. And then you graduate to university. And then you have your post-graduate. Well, I can say that that’s an exact, a perfect analogy, for the packaging of the lam- rim. There’s the first scope, which they call the Lower Scope, there’s the Medium Scope, and there’s the Highest Scope; junior school, high school, university, and then there’s, within the university, you’ve got the post-graduate, which is . Using this other analogy of the two wings of the bird, how those three scopes fit in, and it’s a perfect way to fit: the wisdom wing is the first and the second scopes: the junior school and the high school. So, if you were just to complete that, your goal would be your own liberation. And the term often used to refer to that, although it has a deeper meaning too, is the word . So, nirvana isn’t some kind of holy place up in the sky that you got to give up sexy samsara for, kind of reluctantly. All pure up there, you know? Nirvana is not equivalent to Heaven or something. Nirvana is a word that really is quite abstract in meaning; the meaning is powerful but almost abstract conceptually: it’s “freedom from suffering.”

THE WISDOM WING: JUNIOR SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL So, the first two scopes, junior school and high school, that’s the wisdom wing. And what you would have achieved if you have achieved that is you would have removed to a phenomenal degree, but not completely yet, all the gross levels of all the delusions, all unhappiness, all the ego, if you like – and we are going to go into this very much.

ROOT OF SAMSARA The ignorance, the root of this, is this deep, deep, primordial ignorance in us, the Buddha says, that causes us to not be in touch with reality. Remember one of consequences of this wisdom, one of the achievements of the Buddha’s mind, is to be completely in touch with reality, omniscient. So, right now, we’re way out of touch

12 with reality, Buddha says, because our minds are completely polluted by all the delusions. One of the things you’ve achieved when you’ve achieved this nirvana is, for sure, the wisdom wing, which means, not totally though, but pretty much, removed the gross degree, all the nonsense of the ego, which, just naturally means that you are now extraordinarily blissful, content, fulfilled person free from suffering to an enormous degree, an amazing being. You are liberated from suffering, thus the term “liberation.” You are liberated. You are freed from suffering. Hey, pretty astonishing person.

THE COMPASSION WING: UNIVERSITY But there’s more you can do. So, if you just practise the wisdom wing, you’ve done your junior school and your high school and you’re finished. You’re a pretty stunning person, but there is still more potential. So, you can go on to university and you can then really accomplish the compassion wing. And the unique characteristic of this is, just by the very nature of the word, is it’s connected to others. So, you could say very much the purpose of the first one is for yourself. And don’t underestimate that. Don’t think that’s something small. I mean, if we even began just to think about ourselves in an appropriate way and do the things that were beneficial to ourselves, we’d be stunning beings. Right now, Buddha says, we’re harming ourselves constantly – and, of course, we’re going to be discussing this. Or as my mother would say, you’re own worst enemy. Well, Buddha would agree. We’re our own worst enemies, Buddha would say. You’ve gone beyond masses of this when you’ve done the wisdom wing, if you’ve just done that, junior school and high. The compassion wing, you start to look around and realize that everybody is in the same boat. You start to develop this phenomenal capacity to encompass others, to reach out to others, to utilize what you’ve learned in junior school and high school now for the benefit of others. You help them do the same thing.

POST GRADUATE And then you want to go to post-graduate. All that is really is then you are moving along so radically on this path, moving on, becoming an amazing person, getting rid of all the nonsense in yourself, becoming an amazing being, free to a huge extent from your own suffering, now able to do the same thing to help others, developing, developing, developing, but then you can enter the post-graduate one, the esoteric teachings, Buddha’s tantra. The goal of this is the same, to become a Buddha, but it’s a really more sophisticated level of practice, a much more speedy way to now finish accomplishing your goal of Buddhahood. Propelled by this immense compassion for all the sentient beings who are in this same boat of suffering as we are, ourselves. So, you’ve got your three scopes.

BUDDHA’S APPROACH TO CHANGING THE MIND Okay, that’s one lot of stuff that I’ve said. Another thing now to talk about is really to try and get our heads around just the approach that Buddha takes, where he’s coming from, in terms of just how he talks, because I think, already, in the room, if

13 we’ve not heard this before, let’s say, we’ve got a lot of concepts about what we mean by spiritual, by what we think what practice means. Maybe we have heard it, but we’ve still got a lot of concepts. And so let’s see how Buddha’s talking. Ok? What he’s saying is, and I’ve already implied it quite a bit, said it directly, too, is that we’ve got this potential in our minds, in our consciousness, so what is it, right now, that is preventing me, this second, why is it, at this very moment I am not a Buddha? Why is it I am not fully developed in the two wings? Why is it my mind isn’t pervading the universe, seeing everything as it is, encompassing all beings? What is it? What are the things that are preventing me? Well, it’s stuff within the mind. Right? The potential of this consciousness of mine is to be absolutely pure and clear and all expansive and wise and blah, blah. So, right now, it’s completely polluted. It’s a good analogy. Buddha’s saying this: it’s polluted by, as I’ve been saying, these unhappy states of mind, the components of ego. Okay, what is the mind? How do we talk in ordinary terms? When we say the mind, we say the word “think,” “thoughts,” “concepts.” We understand that very easily. Then we have words called “emotion” and we sort of point here [the heart] for this. Then we do confuse things by then saying there is another part of us called “spiritual.” It’s almost like a third part. Buddha doesn’t talk like this. In fact, what he says, what he’s implying, spiritual means, you’re being spiritual when you are recognizing and acknowledging and beginning to change your neuroses. If you’re working on your attachment, if you’re working on your anger, if you’re working on your jealousy, hey, you’re being spiritual. Now, we would call that psychological and we go to a therapist. But if we want spiritual, we go to a Tibetan lama and we think that’ll sort of give us something different and they’ll give us a mala and we’ll say and we’ll see Buddhas: we think that’s spiritual. But, if you hear about psychology from Buddha, about anger and jealousy and depression, we kind of think: that’s not spiritual. But that’s what Buddha means by spiritual. You even would, indeed, get from a Tibetan lama. . . look at all the pictures in the paintings here: you’re going to get pictures and malas and prayers until they come out your ears, so much! But even that is not necessarily only spiritual. They’re simply a whole set of tools that one can use, which are actually from the post- graduate level, from an esoteric level, from the advanced level, that we can utilize to help do this constant job of getting rid of the junk, developing the good. It’s always psychological. Buddha is only talking psychologically. It’s just that his view, his assertion of what we can achieve psychologically is pretty stunning when you hear about enlightenment. It’s not as if suddenly when you’re just dealing with ordinary depression, that’s psychological, and when you’re dealing with enlightenment, that’s not psychological, that’s spiritual. That’s a real misconception. All of it, as far as Buddha is concerned, is psychological because all of it is all the time to do with the mind. And we know the word mind is used in context of psychology. It’s just that the word wasn’t coined back then, was it? You know, Buddha didn’t use the word psychology. I mean, who invented it? The Greeks. It’s Greek language. We utilize it. We bandy it about now in our culture. So, for Buddha, psychological and spiritual, they’re synonymous. It’s the same meaning. Because what you’re doing, the job that you are doing as a Buddhist, is psychological. If you’re working on your mind, how can you say it’s not

14 psychological? It’s just that his view of psychology – and this is my way to say it – is radical. He is far more outrageous in what he is asserting we can achieve, psychologically. But, you know, if you talk about Buddhahood, like I’m saying, you go to your therapist and say I want to know how to get enlightened. “Oh, you better go find a Tibetan lama,” they’ll say. But they’ll say, “That’s not psychological; I’m here to help you with your daily life,” as if, again, that was sort of separate. The way to say it, really, is we have an understanding of psychology to some degree in our culture. In fact, there are many models of it, but I would say that they are all very firmly based in the Western or materialist view of the mind being the brain, of the fact that you are made by someone else, that you are created by your parents, and it’s not called spiritual. Whereas Buddha is using the term spiritual, the practices that we label spiritual, but all they are are tools to help you develop psychologically all the way to enlightenment. So, we’re talking about the mind.

BECOMING OUR OWN THERAPIST So therefore, okay, in the mind, the mind, one of the major jobs of a Buddhist – and this is really in the high school; in junior school it’s not even too much talked about, the mind, ok. In junior school we’re dealing with even more fundamental things like body and speech, understanding basic laws about how things work, like karma, cause and effect. So, when we go to high school, the second scope, we really start becoming our own therapists, as Lama Yeshe would put it. Not joking, you know? Not joking. Exactly the point. Deeply understanding this mind of ours, really beginning to unravel it, really learning very profoundly how it functions, and distinguishing between the so-called positive and negative, because that’s the real nitty-gritty of the job. So, okay, if the mind is the main thing we have to work on, how do we change the mind? What are the tools Buddha is using? So, really, you could say what you’re learning to do as a Buddhist is change the way you think. So, Buddha, really, I would say he’s a supreme cognitive therapist. There’s a type of therapy in the West called cognitive behavioural therapy, isn’t three. The Buddha’s really saying exactly this: he’s saying what we think impacts upon what we do and say, which impacts upon what we feel, which, therefore impacts on what we do and say, and therefore impacts upon the world, and so forth. It all comes down to the mind. Buddha, too, has far more radical ways of talking about the mind because he doesn’t assert a creator, which is a shock if you think he’s spiritual. We only have two options on this earth, one is you’re a materialist and one is you’re religious. And if you’re religious, you posit a God, you posit a creator. Well, Buddha doesn’t. He doesn’t assert a creator. He just doesn’t say there isn’t one. His whole explanation of how things are is, absolutely, he has a way of describing exactly how things come into being, why I am the way I am, why universes, why happiness, why suffering. And his “creative principle,” if you like, is called karma, which you learn in junior school, so we’ll do that tomorrow morning. It’s explaining, it’s utterly based on the understanding of. . . karma is absolutely based on the understanding of what the mind is.

15 Your practice is to do with changing the way you think. And again, really you could say, Buddha’s understanding of thinking, of concepts, he goes to much more subtle levels. He is saying that our minds are riddled with misconceptions, but deeply packed away, so deeply that it takes a long time to unravel them. We can see even the level that we begin to unravel our minds, we go off to our therapist. To begin to see what we’re feeling is extremely painful, isn’t it? Because we’ve not looked most of the time in our life, it’s not part of our culture to investigate what we think and feel until it’s too late, until it’s kind of some problem. Buddha is dealing exactly with that. And, again, the methods that Buddha uses these kind of very skillful, sophisticated psychological techniques called meditation – they are psychological techniques – that enable one to go very, very deep, to plumb the depths of this mind of ours, to really become an amazing skillful therapist of your own self. It’s very really, definitely true. I’m using very Western terms, but we understand these words. But even saying, more than anything, when it comes down to it, we’re learning to do cognitive therapy. We are learning to radically de-construct the elaborate conceptual constructions that Buddha says our minds are. It is radical, really, what we’re attempting to do. And it’s scary as hell, because we all know that even a little bit of therapy, even a little bit of looking at your feelings and taking responsibility is painful. We know this. So that’s that. Another little piece that’s important, extremely important.

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD BUDDHA SAYS Buddha, he ok’d religion, no problem, religion yes, but not creator, as I said. So, his deal is, “Hey, please do not believe a single word you’re going to hear this weekend.” The whole point of Buddhism is absolutely not to do with believing something in the way we understand “beliefs.” I’m not criticizing that approach. I’m just saying that Buddha doesn’t take it. So, for example, we all know – well you don’t know but I’m telling you! – that I was brought up a Catholic, okay? So we all know, as a Christian let’s say, God is seen as the creator of the universe, the creator of me, the creator of good, the creator of the laws of morality, and so therefore God is to be obeyed. Now, I’m not complaining about that; I’m just saying that’s not how Buddha talks. I mean, I was talking to an old Catholic friend of mine years ago, and I said what is it that defines something as a sin? – in Buddhist terminology, a negative action. He said it necessarily is something that goes against the will of God. Now, that’s very reasonable. If God created the universe, that means he created the law don’t kill, or don’t lie. So, if you do it, what you’re doing, why you did a bad action is because you went against God’s will. That’s totally valid. It fits. But it’s not the Buddha’s approach. He didn’t create. Buddha would say don’t kill, for example, in the junior school teachings. But he’s not saying don’t kill because he said so. He is saying don’t kill because he has found, from his own experience, that the action of killing is something – forget about the harm it does to others – it comes necessarily from a negative place here, therefore is leaving a negative imprint or seed in our own mind, which will then necessarily ripen in the future as my suffering.

16 So, yes, it’s sort of like, your mother says, “Don’t go near the fire!” when you’re a kid. And you probably will say, “Why not?” And she will probably say, “Because I say so.” Well, it’s good enough. It works, doesn’t it? It prevents you from getting burned. But eventually you have to learn, don’t you, that the real reason she says don’t go near the fire isn’t because she’s said so, it’s because you will get burnt. Now, if you, for the rest of your life, here you are, 30, 40, or 50, not going near the fire “because Mummy said so,” – that’s a little bit unintelligent.

CHECK IT, TEST IT I’m not being rude about Christianity; I’m not trying to say that, but you get my point. Eventually, you know, and your mummy hopes, you will learn the real reason not to go near the fire. So, your mummy might, you know, Buddha is saying don’t kill. Good enough even to respect that, but you’ve got to know why. And that’s the Buddha’s approach. So, he’s saying don’t just believe me; check it out for yourself. So, again in just the same way, we understand, very comfortably, in our culture that what we mean by science is not something that we must believe. We know perfectly well, if I’m Einstein or if I’m Mr. So-and-so, the apple one – what was his name? Mr. Newton. If I’m Mr. Newton, and I’ve been telling you about my latest findings about gravity, you know that I just didn’t have a vision of it last night or got revealed by somebody. You get my point here? You’d chuck me out the door as a bit of a maniac, if that’s the case. You understand my point? And therefore, I’m not demanding that you believe me, you people. You see my point here? You know that. You know that I’m a person, Mr. Newton, who has, from my own experience, from my own observation, has observed, has seen something and has articulated it, and I’ve labeled it gravity, it’s a law, and I’ve put it all down. See my point? So, you didn’t have to take it away. You can believe me if you like and I think, frankly. . . You check this: we say, “Oh, but it’s scientific.” Excuse me, when was the last time you checked on gravity? As a proof? When was the last time you checked on E=mc2? When was the last time you verified Einstein? So, we really just go around believing Einstein. We say, “Oh, it’s science.” Well, excuse me, it’s someone else’s science, not yours. You’re just believing it, just quoting it because someone told you. So, actually, we act just like we do all the time, but we say, “Oh, I don’t believe anything, I don’t have any beliefs.” Well, nonsense! So Buddha’s approach is exactly like the scientists’ in this context, which is a big surprise, because we don’t think of religion like that. So, Buddha is not a creator. He did not invent what is called Buddhism. He didn’t create it; make it up, in other words. He articulated it, yes, but based on what? His own experiences. His own observations. So, he’s presented it. And he doesn’t mind if we don’t like it. You can be rude about Buddha. He doesn’t mind. You won’t get kind of hanged, like in some religions, if you criticize God. He doesn’t take it personally. It’s very reasonable. Let’s say you’re here tonight and you haven’t heard this stuff before and you think it’s a load of rubbish. It’s totally reasonable to walk away and say thanks a lot, goodbye, Buddha. He will not mind. He doesn’t want you to stuff yourself full of what’s called Buddhism. He wants, he demands, that you think about it, listen to it, and then eventually prove it. Get the proof of the pudding, taste it – that’s if you want to – and then you continue to apply it in your life because it works.

17 IT MUST BE EXPERIENTIAL Finally, again, the point is, it’s got to be experiential. You’ve got to see the results. It’s got to be a method that you’ll use to help you become a happier, wiser, more compassionate human being. That’s the purpose of all of this, to finally achieve your full potential, so that you can truly be of just spontaneous benefit to others.

TAKE IT AS A HYPOTHESIS So, do not believe a single word you are hearing. Take it, in other words, like any decent scientist, take it as a hypothesis. We get quite anguished, let’s say we hear about, especially Buddhism, I’m talking about reincarnation. It’s huge one in our culture because it’s just seen as kind of ridiculous. More and more people these days do talk about it. Lots of people who do call themselves Christians just naturally, have the view of reincarnation, but it utterly, when you want to look at the big picture of Buddhism, it absolutely is at the centre. You can’t have Buddhism and the whole picture, Buddha’s whole deal, without hypothesizing continuity of consciousness, the non-physicality and the continuity of what’s called mind or consciousness. Nothing of his teachings – lots of things you can apply – but if you want to look at the big picture, you have to take this as a hypothesis. And so taking something as a hypothesis is very reasonable. Scientists do this. A really good scientist is one who’s got a mind that’s open enough that can take something that initially is weird and then work with it. You understand my point? Otherwise, you have tunnel vision. So, that’s a really important point. Take it as a hypothesis. You don’t have to squeeze it inside yourself. You don’t have to believe it. No one’s asking you to do this. But at least give it some thought, you’ve got to say the words and act as if, in order to follow through on what Buddha’s saying: if it were true that the mind is this and this, therefore this, therefore this, therefore this. If it were true. So then the Buddha’s approach is that you take that onboard and like anything, you learn about it first conceptually. Don’t you? You learn the theory of cakes, first conceptually. It’s got to fit, conceptually. Then you can get the fruit, then you get the result. So, same here. And eventually, Buddha says, we can verify it for ourselves, within our own mind. Eventually. We can. So, take it all as a hypothesis.

HEAR THE TEACHINGS AS PERSONAL ADVICE Another way they say to listen, that’s really valid to listen, to summarize: listen to this as if it were personal advice just like you’d listen to a recipe: it’s personal advice so you can go and put it into practice. Well, it’s the same here. Listen to it as personal advice. Like I said, you mightn’t like it as personal advice, in which case you don’t have to do it. You’re the boss, not Buddha. That’s the approach.

THE THREE POTS There’s a very nice, sweet way that they say it, of how to listen. They talk about don’t be like the three kinds of pots. Don’t be like, I forget the order, but don’t be like one kind of pot, or a mug, or something, that is upside-down. Nothing will go in. Useless. Waste of your time. Don’t be like the pot that’s got a hole in it, sort of like in one ear and out the other. And don’t be like a pot that’s full of dirty, yucky stuff because

18 whatever goes in gets polluted by it. So, in other words, be very open, focused, listen, keep it inside, process it, and really keep the mind very open. That’s the one of not having dirty stuff in there, don’t have the mind all polluted, full of misconceptions and strong views already, “What do you mean this?” and “What do you mean that?” “I don’t think that’s true, that’s rubbish.” No scientist would get very far with a very closed mind like that. So, have the mind wide open, taking it as a hypothesis, thinking it through to the extent that we would want to because we are, finally, again, the boss.

TWO KINDS OF MEDITATION One more piece here tonight as overview for tomorrow, for the beginning of the business tomorrow. This is really the first point because given. . . the first thing we’ll want to talk about on this course, on this graded course, given that everything we’re going to be doing, what one does on this path to enlightenment, this course of enlightenment, is the mind doing it, okay, helped by the body and the speech – they’re like the servants of the mind. The mind is the crucial point, what’s inside here. Given that it’s the mind that will be doing the job, let’s look a little bit more at what the mind is and what it’s not. Just a reminder, okay? So this brings us to the very first kind of contemplation, the first thing to think about. Because all of this stuff we’ll be presenting is stuff to think about, to think about. That’s all. To think about and process. There’s a way of doing that in formal meditation and we call it analytical meditation. So, when you go away at home and process the recipe, if it’s a quite complicated one, you just wouldn’t go and turn your incense on and turn your lights down low, put the music on, and sit cross-legged, would you? But, why not? Because the point of doing that – forget the music and the incense, they’re just romantic – the point of sitting with your eyes closed, first of all, the point of sitting cross-legged is not because there’s anything innately special about crossed legs. It’s just because that’s the way that Asians do it, and Buddha came out of Asia. We know that. It happens that they’ve found, especially from the esoteric point of view, where they deal with the subtler physical energies, that there’s something very conducive about being cross-legged for the capacity of the mind to go quite subtle. And Buddha, indeed, is asserting we can go quite subtle with our minds in meditation. So, there is something useful in that, but if we can’t do that, it’s really no big deal. There is an advantage, though, in why you close your eyes and subdue your senses. It’s not because it’s holy. It’s practical. Because if you want to sit down there yourself, even if you had a problem during the day and you’ve got to go think about it, you don’t go and think in the middle of the freeway. You probably go to your room and sit down or lie down and you try to think the problem through, don’t you? So you can work it out and come to a conclusion. Well, that’s called analytical meditation. Okay? That’s what it is. You’re using your mind to think something through to come to a conclusion. Very simple.

ANALYTICAL MEDITATION It’s just that this approach, the Buddhist tradition of meditation, there are very sophisticated ways of doing that very deeply. But it is simply that function, it’s a

19 conceptual function, a function of our conceptual mind. And so the way to process all of this stuff that you’re going to listen to is mentally, that is to say, first of all, think about it. And then, you see, within the tradition of meditation, these very sophisticated psychological techniques, you need in the analytical mode, to sit there and then really go very deeply, but the capacity to go deep in your mind is what you achieve in the first mode of meditation. There are really two main modes, although thousands of techniques. The second mode is where you utilize the capacity to analyze, to really cut through the misconceptions, cut through all the ego nonsense. Right? Really deeply be your own therapist.

CONCENTRATION MEDITATION But what gives you the ability to do that very deeply is the achievement of the first mode, which is simply called concentration meditation. So here it’s important, it’s helpful for us to know, even just initially, the way the Buddha would assert far more refined more subtle levels of awareness, or of conscious awareness, of mind, if you like, than we would ever posit as possible in our Western culture. A couple of years ago, in New York, His Holiness the was participating in one those many Mind and Life conferences. Maybe you’ve seen. You should look on the web. It’s very marvelous. Over these last fifteen or twenty years he’s been meeting with all the best brains in the West on these scientific topics about the nature of the universe and the mind. It’s just incredible. I mean, these Tibetans are very highly educated in Buddhist psychology, philosophy, metaphysics, and so on. It’s remarkable. And so, all these conferences and a lot of them have been published. They’re excellent books to read, just wonderful. The main topic – I think it was in Boston, or Harvard or somewhere – the main topic was the capacity of the human mind to concentrate. So okay, the Western scientists were coming up with their findings. It was probably that six seconds was the maximum. And they probably defined what they mean by concentration. Well, there’s the Dalai Lama and the other Buddhists presenting the Buddhist case from their own experience: the human mind has the capacity to concentrate for several months. Now, they know he’s been around long enough and they’ve heard from other scientists that he’s been doing this for years, that’s he’s not some nutter, he’s not some idiot. So they kind of got to take him seriously. But it’s so shocking! Why? It is simply this: it’s because in the West we are convinced that mind is the brain. Therefore mind is physical. We don’t assert, the scientific model doesn’t assert something with confidence that is not physical because you can’t observe it with a microscope, you can’t observe it with the senses. You’re with me here, roughly speaking, right? So, the Buddha would necessarily say that mind is not physical. And he would talk – and this is taking a very nice approach from the esoteric teachings, the post-graduate, tantra, a very nice little model of the mind. They talk about gross consciousness, gross mind; and that, effectively, is conceptuality and sensory experiences, which obviously means, which obviously function, these two ways we function, our mind, function in dependence on the presence of a body. Right? But that’s all we talk about in the West. That’s it. We don’t talk about anything more subtle. Right? There is only the body. So, then obviously there can only be six seconds, because the conceptual mind, we can see, is very limited in its capacity. It’s

20 very limited, too, in its capacity for memory. I mean, most of us, we would say, “Oh, come on, past lives? I don’t remember a past life. Don’t be ridiculous!” Well, I’m sorry to tell you, you don’t remember most of today! What are you talking about? You check. We’re not surprised by this. We don’t expect to remember every second, but we don’t. So why is because, using Buddha’s reference, because the conceptual level of mind is completely gross, completely limited in its capacity for awareness. And, like we’re talking here, if you really can assert for a moment the capacity to be fully developed, enlightened, that is to see all beings’ minds, to pervade the universe, etc., then Buddha’s being pretty stunning in what he’s saying we can achieve psychologically. So, it’s a bit of a difference. So okay, so this gross level of awareness, which is necessarily the conceptual and the sensory, which can only function in relation to the presence of a body. This is clear. But the Buddha is making this very clear point that conceptuality and sensory awareness aren’t the function of the body, the brain, they’re a function of consciousness, which exists in dependence on the presence of brain and body. It’s a crucial point. Not just splitting hairs. So, then you’ve got the subtle consciousness, Buddha would say. Now this is a whole realm that we don’t even touch upon in the West because we don’t assert it. And in Buddha’s terms, it doesn’t function in dependence upon the presence of the body. And this is where, for example, people have out-of-body experiences, people have near-death experiences. I mean, it’s universal. There must be countless people who’ve had this similar kind of experience, but, of course, we can’t accept it in the Western model because it’s not a function of the brain. How can your brain leave itself, you know? You see my point. How can you be sitting on the ceiling? How can your brain sit on the ceiling watching the body down there? We know that’s not possible so we hear these people have these experiences, but it’s sort of weird because it doesn’t fit with our very strong conviction that mind is the brain. So okay, it fits though, absolutely perfectly with the Buddha’s proposition that the mind, the consciousness, has the capacity to go to more refined, more subtle levels of awareness. Now, in Buddha’s terms, you can achieve that through these concentration meditation techniques. And these are around for thousands of years. He didn’t invent them; he took them from the Hindus. I mean, they don’t mind; they don’t think he’s rude. They’re happy to share. They like each other, the Hindus and the Buddhists. But, one is able. . . this is why the Dalai Lama is saying that one can stay at that level for months. Not a joke. This is a common experience among meditators who have accomplished this single-pointed concentration, as they call it. And that level of mind, consciousness, is what we experience in our dreams. Weird. It’s very weird, our dreams. We go to that place. You’re fast asleep. You’re not feeling anything with your body, but you have these very vivid experiences. You’re not seeing things, you’re not smelling things. Your body, your senses are virtually dead when you’re in very deep sleep. So, there you are dreaming these vivid experiences. That’s your mind. How can you say it’s not? That’s your subtle consciousness. Now, meditators can access that level, but they have – it’s like they wake up at that level, but they’re able to be completely controlled at that level. Whereas for us, we’re kind of dragged along by our nose in our dreams, aren’t we? It’s rare to have complete control. You see my point. You go here, you go there, weird experiences,

21 you fly, strange things happen. And we wake up, you know, like we’ve been dragged there. We didn’t go there on purpose. You understand my point here? We don’t have control like we do in our daily life, to the extent that we have control. So, that’s your subtle consciousness, so that’s the, if you like, that’s where we access our subtle consciousness, but we don’t know how to use it. Meditators can go to that level. That already sounds abstract. Well, why would they want to go there, for God’s sake? Isn’t it? We can talk about that later. Okay, then, we have very subtle consciousness and we never access that, virtually never. But it occurs, Buddha would say, every time we die. We’re going to talk about those too. So, these subtle, more refined levels of consciousness, of mind, and the Buddhist techniques of concentration, meditation of these skillful techniques. I mean, a Communist could do them. They’re not religious in the sense we mean that, in their nature. They’re practical techniques; enormously difficult, but absolutely doable. Anyone can achieve it: accessing a more refined level of awareness. And that level of mind doesn’t depend upon this body for its existence. In order to get the job done of deconstructing all the elaborate misconceptions in the mind that Buddha says have been there a long, long time, due to the way we see the world now – which he says is completely phony, completely misconception, completely mistaken – we can only really do that really well at a more refined level. So, we must necessarily in our progress on this path, whether it’s this life or the next, or whatever, we must access this more refined level where we can really do the work radically. But there’s masses we can do already at the gross level. Don’t think there’s not. You don’t need to have single-pointed concentration in this life in order to make enormous progress, psychologically/spiritually. There’s no question.

INSIGHT MEDITATION, USING ANALYSIS So, the second level of meditation where the real work happens – they call that insight meditation. The tool we use is called analysis and the subtler your concentration, the deeper your concentration, the more refined your concentration, the deeper you can do analysis. And I am talking, again, about a very sophisticated level where we can really work out what the hell is going on and get rid of the nonsense and change the way we think and do our cognitive therapy.

BEGINNINGLESS MIND So, one more point about the mind then, and this is something, if you think about entering junior school, there are certain things to think about, to prepare, sort of, like in terms of their level, they’re not really simple but they are a little bit like preliminary things you’ve got to do in order to really prepare yourself for junior school even. It’s not quite like kindergarten here because it’s really quite difficult concepts, but they’re things that are good to think about and hear in order to really hear, to begin to do to enter into the various stages of the practice, the stages of hearing about junior school and so on and so forth. The first one is about the mind so I’m already touching on that. I’m already touching on that. The very nature of mind, that it’s not physical, crucially that it’s not made by someone else. Okay, so that means Buddha’s, first of all, asserting that

22 there’s no such thing as a creator, like God. Not asserting that there aren’t higher qualities like I’ve just described, but he’s saying the job of a superior being isn’t to make others, isn’t to make universes. Then, the other thing that the Buddha would disagree with is the materialist model. You know, you’re either a person who thinks that God made you or, equally, you’re a person who thinks that your mummy made you, aren’t you? We all just assume that our mummy and daddy made us. So, you might as well say that they are your creators. That’s what the materialist world says. You began in your mother’s womb and that the one thing you could say, probably most religious people and most materialists agree upon, is that you began in your mother’s womb and somebody else made you. You were a twinkle in somebody else’s eye. So they make you. Buddha would say – well, I mean he’s not rude; I’m being very direct here, he’s very polite – but he would say that’s an insane concept. He would say it’s just demented. But don’t just believe that, check it out and find out what’s true is what he would say. But Buddha would say that it’s just not on that your parents made you. They give you a body, no problem. So, of course, we say in the West that they make you because we only say that we’ve got a body. There isn’t any other part of you. So, if you’re a Christian, at the time of conception, God puts the soul in there, into that egg and sperm and that’s what turns you into Robina. So, if you’re a materialist, you are only the egg and sperm. They come together for whatever reason and they stick together. The rest goes down the toilet, isn’t it? But these two stick together and they begin multiplying and that’s now Robina. Well, the Buddha would say that consciousness goes into that egg and sperm. What consciousness? Whose? Well, let’s start here. Robina Courtin, age 61, nearly, Sagittarius, nearly 61. But for Tibetans, the moment you are born, you turn one, actually. So, I was born in December, 1944. That means I’ll be 63 this year, I think. Yeah, they kind of have you a year ahead. The day you’re born, you turn one. So, if you’re born in December, you turn one and the next new year, which is February the lunar calendar, you turn two. So you are two at the age of three months. No one knows when they’re born, but they all say you’re born in that year. Maybe they are not sure of that, sometimes. Anyway, never mind. Here’s Robina, this person, 61 years old. So, what is my mind? Buddha would say, first of all, in my way of putting it, that the difference between dead Robina and a live Robina is the presence of consciousness, the presence of mind. Not a soul; consciousness, the living part of Robina. Why her body doesn’t turn into stinky stuff overnight is because of the presence of living consciousness, which is uniquely Robina’s. So, that means what? It’s a word referring to the sum total of what was millions more than what we’re manifesting, but just all the thoughts, feelings, emotions, unconscious, subconscious, the whole deal of Robina’s personality. Right? The way to think of your mind is not so much this box of stuff that you put things in. It’s more, really the word mind is much more dynamic, kind of subjective word in Buddha’s terms. It’s the process of your thoughts and feelings itself. It’s your very experiences themselves.

23 MENTAL CONTINUUM, A RIVER OF MENTAL MOMENTS A term they use a lot is, they call it your “mental continuum.” So, you know perfectly well, it’s not surprising to us, we know perfectly well that I’m existing today. We can deduce logically that I was existing yesterday. And we know absolutely I was existing back until whenever it was, right back to conception. We go back there. So, the Buddha would talk about the mind, Robina’s consciousness, as this chain of mental moments, going back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, isn’t it? You know if you had perfect memory, that’s what you’d do: you’d trace this second to the previous to the previous, until all the way back, to your mummy’s womb. So, the Buddha’s talking very much about your own mind, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions. It’s your continuity of mental moments. Yours. What ever is in there is yours. It’s yours. It doesn’t come from your mummy or your daddy and it doesn’t come from other people. We’ll talk very much about this when we talk about karma, which is the culmination of junior school, the first scope of practice.

MIND IS ONE’S OWN This consciousness is one’s own. This is something that gets deeper and deeper and deeper as one goes along as a Buddhist. You really learn to own what you think and feel. It’s yours. It’s your mind. If you trace it back and back and back – and that’s a very good meditation to do, just conceptually you go back and back, back and back and back – you get back to the first moment of conception. Of course, if you are a Christian, you know that a previous moment, wherever you were, that God made you. If you are a materialist, you know that your sperm was in your daddy’s body and the egg was in your mummy’s body and you didn’t exist. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the two main views on the earth. Well, Buddha has this third one. He says you can’t be made by someone else. He gives all these reasons why, but we’ll talk about this. I’m saying the point here. But the consciousness, this river of mental moments, it’s its own entity. It’s its own entity. And you can trace that river of mental moments back to a moment before conception, and a moment before that, and a moment before that.

THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT So what’s the simple law applied here? It’s the law of cause and effect. Buddha is completely into the law of cause and effect and when he uses this in relation to beings, it’s called karma. And that’s the culmination of junior school. We’ll go into the details, but it’s really the law, according to Buddha, that determines the experiences of all sentient beings. It’s the creative principal, you could say, in Buddhism. This cause and effect principal, in general, though, we’re all very good at it the West and we understand perfectly well that what we call a microphone is just a process of a series of cause and effects, isn’t it? When it was first made, it came from this, which it came from that, a metal and then this, and then that, then that came together, and then the screw. There’s countless numbers of conditions and causes that have to come together that culminate in what we call a microphone. We understand that. It’s a process. You go back and back and back. Well, the same with the mind: cause and effect. What is in here is coming from the previous moment. Simply, even in a technical sense, it comes from the previous moment and that

24 existed because it came from the previous moment, it’s like chicken and egg. You keep going back.

WHERE DO I COME FROM? So okay. We have this very powerful question on this earth: where do I come from? When was the first moment? So, the materialists very comfortably assert that the first moment is Mummy and Daddy making you in the womb. The beginning of Robina was then. And the Christians and the Muslims have it that God created you, so Robina began then, too. So, of course, we just assume that this is the only view that is available in the world, that you began somewhere; you began as a first moment. Buddha says it’s not on to have a first moment. It’s a nonsense question. He said it’s a misconception. He says it’s a wrong question. It’s an invalid point. It’s not possible that things can begin, I mean in the ultimate sense, big beginning: the moment before there being nothing, which is the meaning of begin. We think that: that before conception, nothing about Robina; there was no anything about Robina. Suddenly, there becomes a Robina. So, if you have cause and effect, in thinking in terms of Robina’s consciousness, this moment comes from the previous moment necessarily. We know that if this moment of Robina’s consciousness existed, it came from the previous moment. We know that. We can deduce with absolute certainty that there was a previous moment, can’t we? You see my point here? Take that point. It’s a very powerful point. So, then you know if, in addition to the previous moment, at four minutes past nine, we know it came from three minutes past nine. So, if it existed at three minutes past nine, we can deduce with absolute certainty that it had to have come from two minutes past nine. The microphone, the rose, the table, even the universe. Keep going back with this mind of ours; you get back to the first moment of conception, when we instinctively, desperately want it to be the beginning. Buddha would say: no, the consciousness – which is embodied in this egg and sperm, which itself has now grown into a body, right? – that consciousness, if it existed in the first moment of conception, and it’s its own non-physical entity, it has to have come from a previous moment of itself. It has to have. Taking again, remember this is the hypothesis, the concept of consciousness being non-physical, it can’t come from nothing. It can’t suddenly be nothing there. Meaning it can’t be causeless. We know that in the physical world. We love the idea. We accept the idea that suddenly, there can’t be suddenly nothing and then suddenly a microphone. We know it’s a process of cause and effect. This came from this, which came from this, which came from this, which came from this. Even the universe, as His Holiness said in one of those talks with scientists, he said, “Big Bang? No problem. Just not the first Big Bang, that’s all.” Because, even in all the Buddha’s teachings about the nature of the universe – and they’re very articulate teachings on so-called physics, science, all the rest, within , blah, blah – even the matter is beginningless. They talk in terms of earth, air, fire, water, the subtle matter, it manifests as gross universes, and so on and so forth, but you can’t have a first moment of anything. Buddha says it’s just not on if

25 you posit cause and effect as a rule, as a principle, and we certainly do in the material world, Buddha does it in the mental world, emotional, mental, the mind. So, Buddha would therefore assert your mind is beginningless. It’s not just a cop- out. You can’t come to another conclusion if you posit the law of cause and effect, because if every time you say: if it exists now, if there’s a chicken, it has to have to have come from an egg. And if it’s an egg, it has to have come from a chicken. That’s logic. If this moment of mind exists, we know it has to have come from a previous moment. But emotionally, it’s not satisfying because we all frantically want a first moment. And Buddha would say this frantic wanting of a first moment is a product of these deep misconceptions we have in our mind, wrong philosophies, basically, deep within the bones of our being, which we’ll investigate in high school.

From the teachings in Module 3 of FPMT’s Discovering Buddhism study course, Practicing the Path.

26 2. WHAT IS THE MIND? HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of “dependent origination.” This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused. Given this principle, it becomes crucial to understand what causality is and what types of cause there are. In Buddhist literature, two main categories of causation are mentioned: (i) external causes in the form of physical objects and events, and (ii) internal causes such as cognitive and mental events. The reason for an understanding of causality being so important in Buddhist thought and practice is that it relates directly to sentient beings’ feelings of pain and pleasure and the other experiences that dominate their lives, which arise not only from internal mechanisms but also from external causes and conditions. Therefore, it is crucial to understand not only the internal workings of mental and cognitive causation but also their relationship to the external material world. The fact that our inner experiences of pleasure and pain are in the nature of subjective mental and cognitive states is very obvious to us. But how those inner subjective events relate to external circumstances and the material world poses a critical problem. The question of whether there is an external physical reality independent of sentient beings’ consciousness and mind has been extensively discussed by Buddhist thinkers. Naturally, there are divergent views on this issue among the various philosophical schools of thought. One such school [Cittamatra] asserts that there is no external reality, not even external objects, and that the material world we perceive is in essence merely a projection of our minds. From many points of view, this conclusion is rather extreme. Philosophically, and for that matter conceptually, it seems more coherent to maintain a position that accepts the reality not only of the subjective world of the mind but also of the external objects of the physical world. Now, if we examine the origins of our inner experiences and of external matter, we find that there is a fundamental uniformity in the nature of their existence in that both are governed by the principle of causality. Just as in the inner world of mental and cognitive events every moment of experience comes from its preceding continuum and so on ad infinitum, similarly in the physical world every object and event must have a preceding continuum that serves as its cause, from which the present moment of external matter comes into existence. In some Buddhist literature, we find that in terms of the origin of its continuum, the macroscopic world of our physical reality can be traced back finally to an original state in which all material particles are condensed into what are known as “space particles.” If all the physical matter of our macroscopic universe can be traced to such an original state, the question then arises as to how these particles later interact with each other and evolve into a macroscopic world that can have direct bearing on

27 sentient beings’ inner experiences of pleasure and pain. To answer this, Buddhists turn to the doctrine of karma, the invisible workings of actions and their effects, which provides an explanation as to how these inanimate space particles evolve into various manifestations.

The invisible workings of actions, or karmic force (karma means action), are intimately linked to the motivation in the human mind that gives rise to these actions. Therefore, an understanding of the nature of mind and its role is crucial to an understanding of human experience and the relationship between mind and matter. We can see from our own experience that our state of mind plays a major role in our day-to-day experience and physical and mental well-being. If a person has a calm and stable mind, this influences his or her attitude and behaviour in relation to others. In other words, if someone remains in a state of mind that is calm, tranquil and peaceful, external surroundings or conditions can cause them only a limited disturbance. But it is extremely difficult for someone whose mental state is restless to be calm or joyful even when they are surrounded by the best facilities and the best of friends. This indicates that our mental attitude is a critical factor in determining our experience of joy and happiness, and thus also our good health. To sum up, there are two reasons why it is important to understand the nature of mind. One is because there is an intimate connection between mind and karma. The other is that our state of mind plays a crucial role in our experience of happiness and suffering. If understanding the mind is very important, what then is mind, and what is its nature?

Buddhist literature, both and tantra, contains extensive discussions on mind and its nature. Tantra, in particular, discusses the various levels of subtlety of mind and consciousness. The do not talk much about the relationship between the various states of mind and their corresponding physiological states. Tantric literature, on the other hand, is replete with references to the various subtleties of the levels of consciousness and their relationship to such physiological states as the vital energy centres within the body, the energy channels, the energies that flow within these and so on. The also explain how, by manipulating the various physiological factors through specific meditative yogic practices, one can effect various states of consciousness. According to tantra, the ultimate nature of mind is essentially pure. This pristine nature is technically called clear light. The various afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred and jealousy are products of conditioning. They are not intrinsic qualities of the mind because the mind can be cleansed of them. When this clear light nature of mind is veiled or inhibited from expressing its true essence by the conditioning of the afflictive emotions and thoughts, the person is said to be caught in the cycle of existence, samsara. But when, by applying appropriate meditative techniques and practices, the individual is able to fully experience this clear light nature of mind free from the influence and conditioning of the afflictive states, he or she is on the way to true liberation and full enlightenment. Hence, from the Buddhist point of view, both bondage and true freedom depend on the varying states of this clear light mind, and the resultant state that meditators

28 try to attain through the application of various meditative techniques is one in which this ultimate nature of mind fully manifests all its positive potential, enlightenment, or Buddhahood. An understanding of the clear light mind therefore becomes crucial in the context of spiritual endeavor.

In general, the mind can be defined as an entity that has the nature of mere experience, that is, “clarity and knowing,” It is the knowing nature, or agency, that is called mind, and this is non-material. But within the category of mind there are also gross levels, such as our sensory perceptions, which cannot function or even come into being without depending on physical organs like our senses. And within the category of the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness, there are various divisions, or types of mental consciousness that are heavily dependent upon the physiological basis, our brain, for their arising. These types of mind cannot be understood in isolation from their physiological bases. Now a crucial question arises: How is it that these various types of cognitive events – the sensory perceptions, mental states and so forth – can exist and possess this nature of knowing, luminosity and clarity? According to the Buddhist science of mind, these cognitive events possess the nature of knowing because of the fundamental nature of clarity that underlies all cognitive events. This is what I described earlier as the mind’s fundamental nature, the clear light nature of mind. Therefore, when various mental states are described in Buddhist literature, you will find discussions of the different types of conditions that give rise to cognitive events. For example, in the case of sensory perceptions, external objects serve as the objective, or causal condition; the immediately preceding moment of consciousness is the immediate condition; and the sense organ is the physiological or dominant condition. It is on the basis of the aggregation of these three conditions - causal, immediate and physiological - that experiences such as sensory perceptions occur Another distinctive feature of mind is that it has the capacity to observe itself. The issue of mind’s ability to observe and examine itself has long been an important philosophical question. In general, there are different ways in which mind can observe itself. For instance, in the case of examining a past experience, such as things that happened yesterday you recall that experience and examine your memory of it, so the problem does not arise. But we also have experiences during which the observing mind becomes aware of itself while still engaged in its observed experience. Here, because both observing mind and observed mental states are present at the same time, we cannot explain the phenomenon of the mind becoming self-aware, being subject and object simultaneously, through appealing to the factor of time lapse. Thus it is important to understand that when we talk about mind, we are talking about a highly intricate network of different mental events and state. Through the introspective properties of mind we can observe, for example, what specific thoughts are in our mind at a given moment, what objects our minds are holding, what kinds of intentions we have and so on. In a meditative state, for example, when you are meditating and cultivating a single-pointedness of mind, you constantly apply the introspective faculty to analyze whether or nor your mental attention is single- pointedly focused on the object, whether there is any laxity involved, whether you are

29 distracted and so forth. In this situation you are applying various mental factors and it is not as if a single mind were examining itself. Rather, you are applying various different types of mental factor to examine your mind. As to the question of whether or not a single mental state can observe and examine itself, this has been a very important and difficult question in the Buddhist science of mind. Some Buddhist thinkers have maintained that there s a faculty of mind called “self-consciousness,” or “self-awareness.” It could be said that this is an apperceptive faculty of mind, one that can observe itself. But this contention has been disputed. Those who maintain that such an apperceptive faculty exists distinguish two aspects within the mental, or cognitive, event. One of these is external and object-oriented in the sense that there is a duality of subject and object, while the other is introspective in nature and it is this that enables the mind to observe itself. The existence of this apperceptive self-cognizing faculty of mind has been disputed, especially by the later Buddhist philosophical school of thought the Prasangika.

In our own day-to-day experiences we can observe that, especially on the gross level, our mind is interrelated with and dependent upon the physiological states off the body. Just as our state of mind, be it depressed or joyful, affects our physical health, so too does our physical state affect our mind. As I mentioned earlier, Buddhist tantric literature mentions specific energy centres within the body that may, I think, have some connection with what some neurobiologists call the second brain, the immune system. These energy centres play a crucial role in increasing or decreasing the various emotional states within our mind. It is because of the intimate relationship between mind and body and the existence of these special physiological centres within our body that physical yoga exercises and the application of special meditative techniques aimed at training the mind can have positive effects on health. It has been shown, for example, that by applying appropriate meditative techniques, we can control our respiration and increase or decrease our body temperature. Furthermore, just as we can apply various meditative techniques during the waking state, so too, on the basis of understanding the subtle relationship between mind and body, can we practise various meditations while we are in dream states. The implication of the potential of such practices is that at a certain level it is possible to separate the gross levels of consciousness from gross physical states and arrive at a subtler level of mind and body. In other words, you can separate your mind from your coarse physical body. You could, for example, separate your mind from your body during sleep and do some extra work that you cannot do in your ordinary body. However, you might not get paid for it! So you can see here the clear indication of a close link between body and mind: they can be complementary. In light of this, I am very glad to see that some scientists are undertaking significant research in the mind/body relationship and its implications for our understanding of the nature of mental and physical well-being. My old friend Dr. Benson [Herbert Benson, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School], for example, has been carrying out experiments on Tibetan Buddhist meditators for some years now. Similar research work is also being undertaken in Czechoslovakia. Judging by our findings so far, I feel confident that

30 there is still a great deal to be done in the future. As the insights we gain from such research grow, there is no doubt that our understanding of mind and body, and also of physical and mental health, will be greatly enriched. Some modern scholars describe Buddhism not as a religion but as a science of mind, and there seem to be some grounds for this claim.

From MindScience, edited by Daniel Goleman and Robert F. Thurman, Wisdom Publications, Boston.

31 3. TO HELP OTHERS, FIRST WE NEED TO HELP OURSELVES LAMA ZOPA

COMPASSION IS THE BEST MOTIVATION What is it that makes your life easy and free of confusion and problems? What is the source of all happiness and peace? What brings happiness and peace into your daily life and all happiness up to enlightenment, allowing you to bring happiness and peace to numberless sentient beings? It’s your attitude—the unmistaken attitude with which you live your life, the attitude by which you live your life according to its meaning, fulfilling your purpose of having been born human. What is that best attitude that gives the most meaning to your life? It is living with compassion, for the benefit of others. When your attitude is that of simply seeking your own happiness, the attitude itself attracts many difficulties and creates obstacles to your own success. Even if you are trying to serve others, when your basic motivation is that of seeking your own happiness, you experience many ego clashes and personality problems in trying to work with other people. Whether you are working in a meditation centre or an office, if you are self-centred, you will bring all kinds of useless garbage into your life, especially when associating or dealing with others. All kinds of emotional problems will arise. So even though the work you are doing—working for the welfare of others—is good, your self-centred mind generates all sorts of harmful, unnecessary emotional thoughts—thoughts that are totally useless as far as your job is concerned; thoughts that make others unhappy and angry and disturb their minds. Thoughts such as anger and jealousy create much disharmony between yourself and others. These harmful emotions impede the success of your work, bring no peace, happiness or harmony, interfere with your work and your health, and can even create obstacles to your life, to your very survival. By leading you to suicide, such thoughts can even cause your death—you’re not killed by someone else; you’re killed by your own emotional mind. The moment you begin to cherish yourself is the moment you have created an obstacle to success in working for others. Self-cherishing brings constant problems. Broadly speaking, if you have self-cherishing, you cannot develop . As long as you do not renounce self-cherishing, you cannot develop the holy mind of cherishing others. That means you cannot attain enlightenment, cannot work perfectly for the sake of all the numberless sentient beings. Thus you can see how the self-centred mind is the main obstacle that prevents you from benefiting others. It is from the self-centred mind that desire, anger and all other negative, emotional thoughts arise, obscuring your mind, blocking your wisdom. Even though there may exist many methods for solving a particular problem and you have the potential to apply them, your self-cherishing attitude totally obstructs your wisdom and prevents you from either seeing or applying them. These

32 emotional thoughts obscure your mind and cause it to hallucinate. Therefore, you cannot perceive the methods that would bring happiness, peace and harmony. Even though, simply by changing your attitude—something that your mind is quite capable of doing—you could apply those methods and solve your problems very easily, somehow you never see it or are unable to do it.

ALL OUR DECISIONS ARE BASED ON OUR MOTIVATION Also, when you are not clear about the purpose of life, you are never clear when it comes to making decisions that affect your life. You always hesitate and are always in danger of making the wrong decision. When your only purpose for living is the benefit of others, it is very easy to make the right decision. It is easy because you are very clear about why you are alive. If there is compassion in your heart, you do not harm others. All other sentient beings receive no harm from you, the one, individual person. Instead of receiving harm from you, they receive peace and happiness. Not only do you not harm them but, out of compassion and according to your ability, you benefit them as much as you can. On the basis of not harming, you benefit. Therefore, numberless sentient beings receive much peace and happiness from your compassion.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HAPPPINESS OF OTHERS So, whether or not numberless sentient beings receive that great peace and happiness is entirely up to you. Giving great peace and happiness to others is completely up to you because it depends upon what you do with your mind, whether or not you practise compassion towards others. Your own mind makes the decision— either you keep going from life to life harming sentient beings directly or indirectly, or you change your attitude from ego to compassion and offer sentient beings all peace and happiness up to enlightenment. All this depends completely on what you do with your own mind. Therefore, each of us is responsible for the peace and happiness of all sentient beings, of each sentient being—all happiness up to that of enlightenment. The purpose of our lives is, on the basis of abstaining from harm, to bring happiness to others, to be useful for others, to free them from all suffering and bring them all happiness. One kind of happiness is the happiness of this life, but long-term happiness—happiness in all future lives—is much more important than that. And, while causing others to experience happiness in all future lives is highly meaningful, it is even more important to lead them to the everlasting happiness of total liberation—cessation of the entire round of suffering and its causes, delusion and karma. This is more important than simply the long-term happiness of future lives because the happiness of future lives is still contaminated happiness while the happiness of liberation never diminishes or degenerates. It is the complete cessation of suffering and its causes. Once the seed, or imprint, of delusion has been eradicated, there is no cause for delusion, and therefore suffering, to ever arise again.

33 LONGTERM HAPPINESS, ENLIGHTENMENT, IS BEST However, as important as leading all sentient beings to everlasting happiness might be, the most important thing you can do is to bring them all into the peerless happiness of full enlightenment—the cessation of even the subtle defilements of mind, and the completion of all realizations. However, saying that bringing others to enlightenment is the most important thing does not mean that you should not try to give others the happiness of this life. It means that starting from the intention of enlightening all sentient beings, according to your own ability, you should offer whatever service you possibly can to all other sentient beings. In other words, on the basis of bringing the happiness of this life to others, you lead them to the ultimate happiness of full enlightenment. Or, on the basis of others the greatest benefit possible, that of bringing them to enlightenment, you also offer whatever you can of those previous services.

TO HELP OTHERS, FIRST YOU HELP YOURSELF In order to be able to do perfect work for the numberless other sentient beings, eliminate all their sufferings and lead them from happiness to happiness to full enlightenment, first you have to achieve the omniscient mind of enlightenment yourself. How do you achieve enlightenment? It doesn’t happen without cause or by practicing the wrong cause, by following the wrong path. Nor does it happen if you practise an unmistaken method incompletely, for example, spending your entire life—twenty, thirty, forty, fifty . . . eighty, ninety years of life—just doing breathing meditation. Even though breathing meditation is recommended as a tool to calm your mind and might be useful for developing single-pointed concentration and making your mind peaceful, that alone does not get you anywhere, does not transform your mind into virtue or diminish or eradicate delusions.

WATCHING THE BREATH IS NOT ENOUGH To terminate delusions, you need to realize emptiness; to eradicate ignorance, the root, or cause, of all the delusions, you have to realize emptiness. So how can you do that just by practicing breathing meditation? How can you escape from samsara by spending your whole life watching your breath? There’s no way. Spending your entire life practicing of the body, watching your abdomen rise and fall—after you’ve eaten a big meal or when your belly is empty! Anyway, I’m joking. Spending your whole life developing awareness of your bodily sensations might help you prevent strong anger or strong desire from arising at the time, but even if you spend your whole life with your mind watching your mind, your mind meditating on your mind, if you meditate on only the conventional nature of mind and not its ultimate nature, if you simply practise single-pointed concentration on the conventional nature of mind, how can that stop ignorance? How can that cut the root of samsara? There’s no way. Spending your time doing that is like trying to stop a poisonous plant from growing by planting another one next to it. It’s like trying to destroy a poisonous plant by putting cotton wool alongside it. Even if you spend your whole life practicing mind concentrating on mind, how can that eradicate the root of samsara, the concept of the inherently-existent I, the inherently-existent aggregates? It’s impossible. It

34 would not affect that one bit; it would not do anything.

WE MUST ELIMINATE THE ROOT OF SUFFERING: EGO-GRASPING The root of samsara is the perverted mind [Tib. log-she]. Although there is no I on the aggregates—not even a merely labeled I on the base, the aggregates—as soon as the I is merely labeled by the mind, it appears to our hallucinating mind as if it is, in fact, on the aggregates—like a brocade tablecloth covering a table or a book lying on a table. You see that it is there on the aggregates, which is the same as saying that the I appears from its own side; the merely labeled I , the I that is merely labeled by your mind, appears back to your mind, your hallucinating mind, as if it exists from its own side. Then you allow your mind to believe that it is true; you allow your mind to hold on to that inherently-existent I. That concept is log-she, the totally perverted mind, the totally wrong concept, the totally hallucinating mind, and the only way to eliminate it is to recognize what it is that the concept is holding on to, to recognize the way this concept apprehends the I. When you don’t investigate, it looks like it’s there, but when you examine it more closely you see that it is not there. While your mind is unaware, not analyzing, it looks as if it’s there, but when your mind investigates, it cannot be found either on the aggregates or anywhere else. It is totally non-existent. Even though you cannot find the merely labeled I on the base, on the aggregates, you can find it where the aggregates are. Where there is the base, there you will find the merely labeled I. You just can’t find it on the base. The object that this ignorance, the root of samsara, the concept of inherent existence, apprehends, what it holds onto, cannot be found either on the aggregates or anywhere else. It is totally non-existent; it has never existed since beginningless time. From beginningless rebirths, the inherently existent I has never existed; it doesn’t exist now and it has never existed. All buddhas realize that there is no inherently existent I, even though the merely labeled I, merely labeled actions, merely labeled objects, merely labeled hell, merely labeled enlightenment, merely labeled path, merely labeled samsara, merely labeled nirvana, merely labeled happiness, merely labeled suffering, merely labeled virtue, merely labeled non-virtue—which in reality exist merely in name and are completely empty of inherent existence—are covered by our hallucinating view with the appearance of inherent existence. Our hallucinating view covers everything—the merely labeled I, merely labeled actions, merely labeled objects, merely labeled enemies, merely labeled friends, merely labeled money, merely labeled jobs, the whole thing—all phenomena, which exist in mere name and are empty of inherent existence, with the appearance of inherent existence. This is how it is; this is our world. But what the numberless buddhas and who have realized emptiness see is that all these appearances are completely non-existent; that there is not the slightest atom of inherent existence anywhere. So, to go back to what I was saying before, even if you spend your entire life watching your mind, single-pointedly concentrating on your mind, that alone will not have the slightest effect on the root of samsara. It will give no harm to your ignorance; your ignorance will remain very comfortable, with its entourage of

35 delusions very well established. That kind of meditation alone can never help liberate you from samsara; it does nothing. To make it impossible for delusions to arise, you have to eradicate their seed. To prevent the cause of samsara, delusion and karma, from ever arising, to make sure that ignorance, attachment and anger never arise at all, ever again, you have to eradicate the seed of delusion, which is in the nature of imprints on the continuity of your consciousness, according to the Prasangika school of Buddhist philosophy, the merely labeled I. Only by realizing emptiness, by developing the wisdom that directly perceives emptiness, can you eradicate the seed of delusion. Nothing else can directly do this. Therefore, if you spend your entire life just doing breathing meditation—or even “mind concentrating on mind” meditation, which has nothing to do with the ultimate nature of mind—you cannot remove the seed of delusion or put a final end to the delusions, and you certainly can’t reach enlightenment. That’s totally out of the question.

WE NEED TO FOLLOW THE STEPS TO ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE RIGHT ORDER In order to attain enlightenment, you have to practise all the methods without exception. Not only that, you have to practise these methods in the right order, without mixing them up. If you practise them out of order you cannot attain enlightenment. To reach full enlightenment, to actualize the lam-rim, the steps of the path to enlightenment, you have to actualize the graduated path of the practitioner of highest capability. Doing that depends upon your having actualized as a foundation the graduated path of the practitioner of intermediate capability. That in turn depends upon your having prepared by actualizing the graduated path of the practitioner of least capability. On the basis of this, we should generate the good heart, bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting others. This is our best , especially for those of us whose lives are very busy, who don’t have much time for sitting or other traditional forms of practice. On the basis of reflecting on impermanence and death, we should make the good heart the main object of refuge in our lives. This allows all our actions to become , the cause of enlightenment and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. Therefore, we should lead our lives with this attitude, the thought of benefiting all sentient beings.

36 4. THINK ABOUT IMPERMANENCE, IN PARTICULAR OUR OWN DEATH VEN ROBINA COURTIN

1. DEATH IS DEFINITE Everything that we’re involved with in our daily life is impermanent. There’s not a single thing in the existence of the universe that is a product of cause and effect that doesn’t change. The very nature of cause and effect is that things change. In fact the subtle level of impermanence is the very coming into being of something assumes the passing away of it. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have anything that exists that is within the process of cause and effect that doesn’t change, that doesn’t come and go. Come and go. Come and go. And that includes our self: death is definite. Intellectually, we know it, but emotionally we cling instinctively to a strong sense of being permanent, unchanging. Intellectually it’s clear to us; emotionally we’re living in denial of it. And remember, across the board, what Buddha is saying is that we have within our mind a whole series of misconceptions about how we think things are, but in fact we’re not in touch with how they are. So okay, death is definite. How do you contemplate this, how do you think about this? When you hear about somebody dying, your first response is, “Oh!” We’re so shocked. “But I just talked to them yesterday!” So that thought is coming from the misconception that somehow instinctively we thought that they were permanently alive, you know. Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, we think, “I am a living person, I’m a living person. And Mary, I talked to her yesterday! She was a living person, how could she have died?” We’re shocked. When we think of someone who is sick, however, we think “Oh, she’s a dying person”. Look how we talk about dying people, in hushed tones. We look at them sadly, “Oh, how are you?” We talk about Aunty Mary only in relationship to her dyingness, the sickness; she’s no longer a real person, is she? She’s a dying person. You don’t even want to include her in parties. And this is because we have this misconception that somehow this dyingness is something that defines her, whereas livingness defines me. However, as Lama Zopa says: “Living people die before dying people every day”. Look at the silly way we talk, an indicator of our misconceptions. “Oh I feel so alive”, we’ll say. Meaning we feel very good. Well excuse me, happy people die. You understand? Healthy people die. Young people die. We might think, “Well, I’m not going to die yet. I’m not old”. And you keep adjusting that, don’t you? I mean, when I was 40, 61 was old. Now, 80 is old. Where is Betty? Betty is old, she is 75. Aren’t you? Betty I’m 74! Unless you add a year for the Tibetan calendar then I’m 75. Okay, Betty is old, she’s 74. But she doesn’t think she is old. She probably thinks her grandmother is old or somebody who is 85 is old. So we all just keep adjusting because we don’t like to put ourselves into that category. Dying people are over there,

37 old people are over there, because we have this deep instinct of grasping at permanent me, a living me. So we’ve got to face reality. “What do you mean: ‘Face reality?’” We think fantasies are nice. Well, Buddha says fantasies have got us into big trouble. It’s a fantasy to think I won’t die. Not because he’s trying to be cruel and sort of rub our noses in death. But he is saying that given our consciousness is a continuity that didn’t begin at the time of conception, and given that it will continue, and given that everything we say, do and think will leave seeds in the mind that will bring future results that will be my experiences – this is the view of karma – then it just makes a lot of sense that death is an extremely important moment in your life. Because it’s going to be a transition from this body to another body. It’s a bit of a scary transition. We should be used to it, we’ve done it a million times, the Buddha says. But we’re not mentally used to it because we’re clinging so powerfully to this one. And we cling to everything so mightily – Grandma’s cup: it’s so precious, you’ve got insurance on it and it’s up there and so dear to you and you look at it every day. But its nature is to break, you can’t avoid that. But we live in denial of that because we’ve imposed all of this beauty and marvelousness and value onto it. And so look what happens when it does break. You have a mental breakdown. You live in denial and you start freaking out. You’ve got to blame, you’ve got to sue somebody and it’s so painful. And then we think we’re suffering because the cup broke. We think we suffer because the person died. It’s not true. We suffer – and this is Buddha’s point – because we have a fantasy that they won’t die, because we have a fantasy that they shouldn’t die. In other words, we’re not seeing reality. Across the board this is how Buddha is talking. We are not facing reality. We don’t see things as they are. We live in denial of things. We are not only not seeing how things are, we’re imposing a fantasy onto it. So this simple meditation here we are trying to do: using Buddha’s view of what’s real, we’re giving it a go, we’re thinking about how he says things are and attempting to make that the way we think, in order to argue with ego’s entrenched mistaken views. So it’s a practical reason. I mean even when we think of a person who’s dying, we think that’s permanent. A friend of mine and her husband, they split up, and then he was diagnosed with some virulent cancer and was going to be dead in a couple of months, she went back to him to help him die. Well excuse me, he didn’t die! She kept waiting! Two months later, three months later, then six months later he’s still alive. So she had to leave him again. He was a dying person and he didn’t die. And now two years later he’s totally alive, he’s a living person again. So death is definite and it’s something that is just natural. When we hear that Mary died, it reminds us; surprise is not relevant. That’s the way to think about it. “Wow, Buddha is right. Death is definite, there’s nothing certain. Wow, look at that”. Everything that comes into being necessarily dies. But because of the ego-grasping, this primordial misconception, because of massive attachment, the main voice of the ego, we frantically don’t want to disappear. We want to be me. So we can’t bear to think that I will change, that I will die. So we have this big fantasy.

38 Intellectually it would be silly to argue with it: “Oh of course I’m not going to die!” We know we will. But emotionally it’s like that. We might as well say we’re not going to. That’s why were shocked. Death is definite. A simple way to bring this into our lives is every time we see or hear about someone dying – a person, an ant, our pets – remember that it’s natural: death is definite. And the real way to make it tasty is to think, “That’ll be me one day. I will die too”.

2. THE TIME OF DEATH IS UNCERTAIN The second point, getting closer to home now, is the time of death is not certain. So even though we do factor in death to some extent – we have insurance policies and pensions, we organize our funeral, we make our will – still, even if we’re old, we haven’t scheduled death in, have we? “Well next week is the dentist, and the week after that is death”. Or even five years’ time. We can plan vacations even in five years, but we don’t schedule death. No way, because even though we do know we will die, that death is definite, we don’t like to think that the time of death is uncertain. Why? Because I still feel like a living person. How can I be dying next week? Not possible. I feel alive. So the time of death is obviously uncertain. We all know we’re going to die. But then if I ask each one of us, “Okay, stick it into your schedule. Come on, do a ten-year schedule now, work out your schedule for your life, your plan. Now factor death in please” we’ll think it’s a joke. And, of course, we don’t know when we will die. That’s the point. We vaguely know it’ll be some time in the future. It’s a logical fact that if I know I will die and I don’t know when, then I could die today, couldn’t I? But we laugh if we say that. It’s an instinctive belief. “Of course I won’t die today. Tomorrow? Of course not. Next week? No, come on, don’t be ridiculous!” There is a story about a Tibetan astrologer, who had done his own chart, and according to the chart he was going to die today. His own chart. He sat there thinking about it, “Where did I make a mistake?” He was totally convinced he was wrong. And what happened was, while he was trying to work out where he had made the mistake, convinced that he was wrong, the story is that he had this pokey thing and he was playing with it in his ear while he was thinking. And the window shutter blew open and it hit him and he pierced his ear and he died. He died that moment. But the immediate impulse was, “Of course it’s a mistake. How can I die today?” And any one of us if we dared to think that thought and really go into it and make a meditation out of it, to use our creative imagination, it’s too scary to us, we don’t want to go there, because we can’t bear the thought that we could die. And then to do the processing we’d have to do, like the people up on the hundredth floor of the World Trade Center, think of the vivid stories, and the wives and husbands talking to each other, and “I love you, I love you”, before they were burned alive in that building. I mean you’ve really got to speed up the process of giving up attachment and recognizing impermanence when you’ve only got a few minutes. So what Buddha is saying is, we can have the luxury while we’ve got this precious life to contemplate these things. To recognize the reality that the time of death really is uncertain.

39 Most of us, probably Betty can speculate, being 74, that it’s possible that she could probably die sooner than a 20-year-old. But there is no certainty. I read about a footballer who died, a 17-year old. Whatever the reason was, he died. Now, believe me, he didn’t expect to die. “No way, I’m young. No way, I’m healthy. No way, I’m happy”. Fantasty, fantasy, fantasy. Lama Zopa says, “Best to think, ‘I will die today.’” If you really want to practise, best to think, “I will die today”. Because then you won’t waste your life. That’s the point Atisha wants from us by contemplating these things right here, because it will energize us not to waste this precious life, not to waste this opportunity. And, you think about it: what’s the name of the day you’ll die? It’s “today”, isn’t it! So we might as well get used to thinking it!

3. WHAT IS IMPORTANT AT THE TIME OF DEATH? And that brings us to the third point, the crux of it. At the time of death, at the moment when this consciousness leaves this body, what is important? What is useful to me in that moment? What will be useful to the consciousness that will leave this body and take another body. What will be useful? That’s not the way we think of death. We think of death as the end, and we see a big black hole that we’ll sort of go into that no one knows about. We think of death from the point of view of the observer. We should think about death from the point of view of this consciousness moving forward to another body, another house, you’ve got to go to another house soon. So it’s a bit of a difficult transition, and clearly, the more attached you are to this house, the more painful it is to move. If we never confronted impermanence, our own, and never thought about death, the definiteness of it, the uncertainty of the time of it, well then that’s how death will be, death will be a very scary time. I remember a friend of mine, Lenny, who worked for years as a hospice worker, she said it’s a given that most people die with fear. She said the ones who didn’t die with fear were those who had some kind of spiritual path. My feeling is it’s not because they’re such a high practitioners but because the only people who think about death are spiritual people, Christians, say, because they talk about God or heaven. Materialists, why would we think about death? Because as far as the materialist’s view is concerned you disappear when you die, there’s nothing left. So there’s no reason to think about death. There’s no reason to prepare yourself for that event. If you’re a Buddhist you prepare for that event because you’re going to move from this body to another one. So it’s an important event, it’s a very important event that’s going to happen in your life: your death. Like moving from your house, you prepare an awful lot for that. Look at the simple things we do that will happen in the future that we have to prepare for. We don’t just say, “Oh, when it happens I’ll deal with it”. That’s how we think about death. We prepare in the most elaborate ways for the smallest things that are going to happen in the future. Especially if you don’t know how to do it. Like your driving test. You don’t just say, “Oh, when I get to the driving test I’ll manage it then”. Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve got to train now, you know, it’s obvious. It’s such a simple point. So if you think of death in this sense, not as some black hole that I will fall into, but

40 as simply a transition. This is the Buddhist approach. From this body to the next. Clearly a very important event to prepare for. And I’m not talking about having your nice coffin, the way people prepare, and the nice plot, out there. We’re not discussing that. That’s just for your body. By the time your consciousness leaves your body it’s just a piece of ka-ka, so don’t worry about the body; other people can take care of that. The main point from Buddha’s point of view is to prepare internally, to think about your mind. And how do you prepare for death? It doesn’t mean you’ve got to imagine when you’re dying, although that’s helpful. You’re not preparing for death by thinking about death. You’re preparing for death by knowing about impermanence now. How do you prepare for your driving test? By driving a car now. It’s obvious. How do you prepare for death: by facing the reality of it. And you prepare for death by living our lives in a way that prepares us for death. The conclusion from this is it’s a wakeup call. And that’s the point that Atisha’s stressing here: to prepare ourselves. In other words change the way we think now and therefore change the way we live our lives, because that’s how you prepare for death, that’s how you prepare for this event. You put all the steps in place. Like you prepare for the wedding, you prepare for the driving test. You do the steps now and so when the day comes it’ll just happen in a natural way. So this third point is, at the time of death what is it useful to me? Well, there’s a few givens here: let’s look at them. Given Buddha’s assertion that this consciousness of mine didn’t begin at conception and goes back and back and back, and that it will not end at death, will continue just into the future – it’s indestructible this consciousness of ours; and given that whatever I have said, done, and thought in this life, and in infinite previous ones, necessarily leaves a seed in my mind that just doesn’t disappear; and given that seeds ripen in the future as one’s own experiences: negative actions of body, speech and mind necessarily leave seeds in my mind that will ripen as suffering and positive actions leave a seed in my mind that will ripen as my happiness in the future; and given that I don’t want suffering and do want happiness – given all this, then it follows logically that at the time of death the only thing that is of any use to me is the positive seeds in my mind. That’s it. The body is useless, it can’t help. Princess Diana died at 36. I always think of her. This gorgeous aerobiced body, totally in love, everything is perfect, blissful, blah, blah, blah. She died. So at that moment, the only thing that was any benefit to her were the seeds in her mind from the virtue she had done in her life. All the rest was worse than useless. The things that I now see as most important in life, Buddha would say – and you analyze it according to his view and it’s clear – they are totally essenceless. The things we do take as the purpose of life, you ask most people, it’s almost like a : health and family are the main point of our life. Everyone will say that’s the point of life. Well, the Buddha would say we are missing the point because at the time of death if they were so crucial they would be a benefit to us, but they are useless. Your family, your husband, your children, your possessions, your nice house, your nice body, your health, your reputation, money in the bank, all the things we spend all our time worrying about and putting into place because we believe in the

41 propaganda that that’s the security we are need, that that’s what life is all about; we believe in the materialists’ propaganda, which we are part of, we buy into it. But at the time of death all the things you spend your life thinking are important are of no use. They crumble. There’s nothing. We all say at the time of death you can’t take it with you, but we treat it like a joke. It’s very profound when you really get an experience of its truth. So if this is true, then I had better prepare now by living my life in a reasonable way now: by trying to remove the negative seeds that I have already planted and by trying to develop the positive ones. This is reasonable, based on these assumptions. So at the time of death, when it comes, I must be ready, I have to be prepared. And the way to be prepared is by having thought about it, therefore, when it comes I’m not shocked because I know it’s natural that I die. And I’m prepared because I’ve lived my life by practicing morality, goodness, by not harming others – at the very least, this. We don’t have to be fundamentalist about it and chuck out the husband, and chuck out the kids, and chuck out the reputation, and chuck out our money, no. Just change the way you see them. Change your attitude towards them. That’s the real point. Give up attachment to the house, the family, the body; give up the jealousy, the fear, the neurosis, the blaming. Because those imprints in your mind will be there when you die and you do not want those. But you do want your virtue and your kindness and your generosity and your patience and your non-attachment seeds to ripen. So you don’t wait until death to do it, it’s too late then. Start sowing seeds now. That’s how you lead your life. By recognizing that it’s going to change, that death is definite, the time of death is completely uncertain, so you might as well be ready when it does come unexpectedly. It won’t give a warning: “You’ve got ten more breaths left Robina, you better get ready”. We might have; we’d be lucky. It’s actually very fortunate if you get sick before you die, because you’ve got time to prepare. That’s actually really the Buddhist approach. My Buddhist friends on death row have been forced to confront the reality of death, so they can prepare for it. How fortunate.

From the teachings in Module 3 of FPMT’s Discovering Buddhism study course, Practicing the Path.

42 5. HOW WE CREATE KARMA AND HOW TO PURIFY IT VEN ROBINA COURTIN

CAUSE AND EFFECT The fundamental law that Buddha says runs the universe is known as karma: the law of cause and effect. No-one created it, it’s a natural law, like botany, it just works. Like gravity, it just works. And the results of karma play out in the minds and lives of all sentient beings. Minds create karma, which, strictly speaking, means intention. Minds function, minds act, minds, body and speech do things, leave imprints on the mind, which ripen as future experiences; that’s the meaning of karma. So things that minds do based upon neuroses, based upon ignorance, based upon delusions, leave imprints in the mind that distort and harm that mind and will ripen in the future as suffering for that mind. This is found from Buddha’s experience. And the positive things that minds do, based upon the virtuous states within it are what make that mind content and pleased and happy and will ripen in the future as the happiness in that mind. This is a natural law – like you put rose seeds in the ground, you’re going to get a rose bush – guess what? You put a weed seed in the ground, you’re going to get a weed. So, you put negative seeds in your mind, it’ll manifest as suffering. You put positive seeds in your mind, it’ll manifest as happiness. Given that we all want happiness and don’t want suffering, then this is our main concern. We better learn the laws of botany, learn the laws of karma. It’s very simple. It’s very down-to-earth. It’s very grounded. It’s not mystical, and nothing to be afraid of, you know. Because it’s a doable, reasonable thing, then you can predict the results, and this is the part that’s a big surprise to us. We know perfectly well, if you get the laws of botany down, you know very well – we know – the very nature of a law, once it’s been established and you’ve proven it, then you know it’s predictable. You know you do it every time, you’re going to get the same thing every time. If you know how to make a cup of tea, you’re not surprised when you get a cup of tea every time. It’s not like, “Wow, another cup of tea came…I’m amazed! It worked.” Once you know laws, you can relax. It’s how come we have such a brilliant universe. It’s how come we get computers and gardens – because we know the laws. It’s something we really understand, you know.

WE CREATE OURSELVES But when it comes to religion, we lose our common sense. We think it’s all to do with mystique, and this, and faith, and cross your fingers and hope for the best, and no- one knows – and then we live in total fear. We live in superstition. It’s so shocking to hear what Buddha’s saying; it’s so unusual for us, because the only religion we’ve known, and I’m not criticizing now, is the religion of creators: if God created the universe then my job is to do what God says – it’d be rude to stick your nose in God’s job. Do what God says. That’s the creator religion, but that’s not the Buddhist one.

43 Buddha’s not demanding we do what he says. He’s simply pointing out from his own experience what works, and if you have any interest in this, you check up on what he says and give it a go. That’s the approach, I tell you. It’s up to us; we’re the boss, not Buddha. It’s so important to remember this. We thank him; he’s a useful guide, you know. And so what he’s saying is, we can learn the laws of the universe. Not just a few philosophers can learn it – every one of us needs to, because that’s what practice is, is applying those laws; and the fundamental law that runs everything is called karma. It’s called cause and effect. We understand it, like I said, when it comes to the physical world – we get this. We know, once you know the law of botany, we know you can predict the results – it’s very reasonable, no-one’s surprised. So, the same with karma. And this is a shock to us, because we assume it’s unknowable, a mystery. No wonder we live in fear! What karma is is knowing the laws of what seeds to plant in your mind so that in the future you’ll get happiness and what seeds not to plant in your mind so that you avoid suffering. So, logically, we don’t want suffering and we do want happiness, we better learn the laws of botany, it’s very simple – so simple it’s a joke, you know. In the beginning, of course, we’ve got to have some confidence in it, based on one’s research on Buddha, research of the lamas, the teachers, who embody Buddha’s teachings, but eventually from your own experience you start to find it out and have confidence in it.

PLANT THE RIGHT SEEDS AND DO THE WEEDING So, it’s really do-able and practical. Nothing mysterious. Therefore fear would be alleviated. You know, if you go and do your garden, if you know botany, you don’t live in fear and panic of whether or not a rose will come; you know you put the seed in the ground, it’s a rose seed, you give it the nourishment, you wait for a time, you put a bit of sunshine on it and you know a rose will come – it’s not surprising. You don’t get a big shock, you know. You predict it; and you know how long it’ll take, so you just relax. Karma’s like this, surprisingly. We’re so used to believing no-one knows what’s going to happen, we think that’s scientific. “Oh, well, no-one knows,” we’ll say – as a scientific truth. Buddha disagrees and says you can work it all out, you know. Okay, it takes time… the laws are quite complex; but it’s all there in the teachings for us to check if we want. So, okay, as Lama Yeshe says, “We create negativity with our mind, so we can purify it by creating positivity with our mind. They call it “purification” which sounds a bit abstract; it just means, you know, “doing your weeding,” that’s all…got to do the weeding and grow the flowers. That’s it.

THE FOUR WAYS IN WHICH KARMA RIPENS 1. OUR HUMAN LIFE So like I said, there are four, we said on Sunday, there are four ways in which our karma ripens. If we look at our life now, we can divide it into four different results. One is the very human life that we have – that’s the result of what they call the main or the throwing karma. In fact, in our case – being human – we can deduce it was a very, very powerful practice of morality. And morality, bare-bones morality, is the

44 first level of practice, which is the mere refraining from harming others, in particular not killing, you know, refraining from harming – especially not killing. But not only that; it’s not enough, as Lama Zopa says, just being a good person. The times are so degenerate, there’s just not enough oomph in those karmic seeds, so he says it’s most likely that we’ve practised that morality in the context of a spiritual path and, not only that, but in the context of keeping vows of morality – which we can discuss – in our past life. So, we built up a lot of habit in the mind. We programmed our mind with morality. And then we died peacefully, such that the karmic seed that ripened at the time of our death was a very potent morality karmic seed nourished by all the other virtue that then programmed our mind, which was on autopilot when it left the body to run not more than a few weeks later to our own present mother’s human womb. This is the first way our karma ripened. We got a human life. And really that should blow our minds, if we think about it from the Buddhist point of view. Because we have this grasping at self, this deeply ingrained misconception called ignorance, that clings absolutely without question to self and everything being self-existent, and then since because we only live at the gross level of our mind and we don’t have any memory, and then we get born to these parents and we’re told that our parents made us or that God made us, so we just believe it all; we never question this – we maybe question the one about God, but we certainly don’t question the fact that our parents made us; that’s an absolute truth for everybody in the world. Even if you’re Buddhist, you still blame your parents if you’re depressed or things go wrong: “I didn’t ask to get born, it’s not my fault,” you know. It’s really too much! The Buddha would say it’s got nothing to do with your parents – your depression’s yours. Your anger’s yours. Your love and compassion and being good at football, too, are yours. You can’t blame Hitler’s little old Austrian housewife mummy for creating a maniac. Don’t be ridiculous – it’s Hitler’s own past stuff. Our parents do not create us. They give us a body – how kind! The rest is ours.

2. OUR TENDENCIES So this is the second way our karma ripens. You get the human life – the result of your hard work. I mean, if we stopped taking this life for granted, and started to analyze Buddha’s teachings and look into karma, and reminded ourselves of this, it would blow our minds. But we take our lives for granted. This is what believing in self-existence causes. We’re like as thick as a post, you know. We just accept the status quo, without question. We sink into kind of this sleep mode, taking things for granted. So, this second way the karma ripens is all the tendencies inside your mind. They’re yours, too; they’re just a bunch of habits, basically. Very simple. Whether you’re good at music or good at killing, or good at lying or good at generosity or or good at maths – it’s just a bunch of habits; it’s your habits from your past practice of those very things. We come fully programmed with all our habits from the first second of conception. They’re ours, not our parents’. You might share some with your parents; you’ve both got them because of past habit, and then you came together. But they’re your habits, baby.

45 3. OUR EXPERIENCES The third one is all the stuff that happens to us; all our experiences, how people see us. If they don’t believe our word it’s because of our past lying. If they think we’re very beautiful, it’s because of our past patience. If they pay their bills to you, it’s because of our past not stealing. If they’re generous to us, it’s because of our past generosity. If people harm us, it’s because we harmed them before. If people are kind to us, it’s because we were kind to them before. Everything, as Lama Zopa puts it, is our own karmic appearance. Everything. Without exception. Everything. Karma doesn’t just “happen” sometimes. It’s not like as if botany applies in gardens just sometimes. By definition, a garden is the product of the law of cause and effect called botany; by definition a life is the product of the law of cause and effect called karma. Everything in your life is your garden: if it’s there, you planted it, all the flowers and all the weeds.

4. OUR ENVIRONMENT And the fourth one is called environmental karma. Even the way the external environment impacts upon us – whether it harms us or helps us, nourishes us or damages us, whether we live in a disgusting smelly place or a lovely, sweet place; if you have volcanoes, if you have pleasant weather, harmful weather, whatever – environmental karma.

WE’RE THE BOSS All the way we experience the physical world; all the way we experience sentient beings and how they treat us and see us and love us and hate us; all our own tendencies and even our humanness – my goodness, this is the result of our past work; it’s like we’re our own creators. Not kidding. This is Buddha’s view. It’s kind of tasty. It’s kind of powerful. It’s kind of outrageous. It’s kind of radical. So, what’s the experiential implication of this? We’re the boss. We did it. We’re in charge. No one else to blame. You did it. You are the responsible for all the good things that happen to you, for all your goodness, and your morality, and the people who are good to you in your life and your kindness and the good things that happen. You did it. When we can own the good stuff, it’s easy to own the bad stuff. Makes you courageous. So, you take stock of this garden – you look at your life, and you see the crummy things that happen. You see the people who lie to you. You see the people who harm you. You see the people who don’t pay their bills to you. You see the bad things that happen to you, and you go, “Do I like this?” and you go, “No, I don’t.” And then you go, “I wonder what caused it?” and then you go, “Well, it must have been my past actions similar to this. Oh, drat. So what can I do about it?” And then you go, “Well, I’d better stop doing it, hadn’t I, if I don’t want it in the future. And I’d better clean up the seeds I’ve already planted that haven’t yet ripened.” It’s so practical. It’s a half a dozen thoughts, but instead look at the dramas we experience when things go wrong – shouting and yelling and depressed and angry and blaming people and cursing and fear and all the drama. We’re kicking and screaming like crazy children, refusing to accept the simple reality that “This is my

46 life, I did it, what can I do to change it?” All the fuss and bother we go through. We’re ridiculous. Of course, easy to say, but very hard to see this, mainly because we’re addicted to the samsaric way of interpreting life.

PURIFICATION IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS So, like all this work in Buddhism, this process of purification is practical, it’s psychological. So a really easy way to remember is – and I like this one – is to call it the “Four Rs’. There’s different orders, you know, but I like this particular order. The first one is Regret, the second one is Reliance, the third one the Remedy, the fourth one, Resolve, the determination to make changes.

1. FIRST OPPONENT POWER: REGRET So the first one is acknowledging, you’ve got to acknowledge, you know, if you’ve got a sickness, you’ve got to recognize what it is, don’t you? As long as you live in denial of the sickness, there’s nothing you can do; you can’t go further. You’ve got to first acknowledge there’s a problem. And you’ve got to be sick of it, fed up with it. And then you’ve got to want to change it. And then you use the practice as a medicine to try and prevent it, to try and purify it and heal it; and then you have to make a determination not to do it again, because you don’t want the same sickness. It’s pretty reasonable. You’ve first got to acknowledge you’ve got cancer, and regret all that smoking. “I’m sick of this suffering. This is crazy, I don’t want this.” Then you do something, you know, to purify it. Then you determine never to do it again. This is reasonable; it’s practical, it’s common sense. So, the good analogy to use here is having taken poison. Trouble is, but when it comes to our moral stuff, we get – we make this other whole set of rules and we get all guilty and ashamed and neurotic and all this thing, you know; we’re ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. We’re like children. But the same things apply and that’s why it’s a good analogy the lamas use and I like to use this one: this is the analogy of having taken poison. So we know perfectly well, if you announce, you know, “Robina! There’s poison in your dinner!” your instantaneous response, you know, would be, “Oh! What a fool!” Then we’ll instantly say, “Quick! Where’s the doctor?”

BLAME, GUILT, DENIAL Now, we don’t do that. We’re dumb, when it comes to doing things like getting angry and killing and lying and stealing and getting depressed and harming others and all the rest of the rubbish we do. Not to mention the torturing and everything, if we’re a torturer. What we do instead is equivalent to saying, “Who put poison in my dinner?” I’m going to try and find the person to blame, and then you go and try to work out who to sue, because they put poison in your dinner. Meanwhile, you’re dying. But all your thoughts are for blaming. How dumb can you get? I’m happy to blame a person, but meanwhile, take care of yourself first, please… So blame is pretty useless, which is our typical mode. Another typical mode is guilt – “Oh, I ate poison. Oh, I’m such a bad person. I ate poison.” Every day, you’re getting sicker and sicker…”Oh, I’m such a bad person, I

47 ate poison.” We love to live in this one. Completely useless. Complete waste of time. Totally impotent. It’s the same as blame, but you’re the person you’re blaming. One is anger, one is self-blame. They’re the same problem. Totally useless. The third one, even more ridiculous – and we love this one –“Robina! There’s poison in your dinner!” “There is not!” We call it living in denial.

ACCOUNTABILITY So we’ve got to be accountable. And so, this whole process is based upon the understanding of karma. It’s based completely on the recognition that you don’t want suffering. This first step is all about yourself. So, we have guilt, now, which beats ourselves up. “I’m just a bad person.” And that is just the natural one that we run to. Blame or guilt, we run to these spontaneously because they are a natural response to having ego-grasping, of having this ignorance that clings to the self-existent me. It’s this dualistic state of mind that naturally blames others, or naturally blames yourself. And we have to really conquer that. We have to argue with that wrong view. And this is the view of accountability. This is the view of karma – cause and effect. That’s why it’s an excellent way to think about in order to loosen the grip of ego- grasping. In other words, it’s one of the first examples of dependent arising. Karma. The first example, remember, of dependent arising is cause and effect – that things exist in dependence upon causes and conditions. Well, karma is a perfect example of that, the first level of dependent arising. Which is a perfect way to think about in order to realize emptiness. It loosens the grip of this frozen, concrete, set-in-stone me. Either poor me, it’s usually the poor me that bad things happen to; or “I’m a bad person.” So we’ve got to really argue with that instinctive feeling, which is very mistaken. And that’s why His Holiness – so sweetly, when he was asked one time – what’s the difference between guilt and regret. It was such a sweet answer, but quite profound. He said: “Guilt – you look in the past and you go, “I did this and I did that and I did this,” and then you go, “and I’m a bad person.” That’s the response. They come together for our mind right now and we don’t see them as separate. We assume that if I’ve done bad things, I must be a bad person. That’s how we think. That second thought is the view of ego, the view of ego-grasping, that over-exaggerates the badness, and paints the entirety of myself with that brush. The same with blame. “You are a bad person. You did this and you did this and you did this and you’re a bad person.” This is what all delusions do; they exaggerate. And it’s just not accurate. Forget being not morally right – it’s just not accurate. It’s an exaggeration. It isn’t accurate to conclude because you’ve killed and lied and stolen, that you’re a bad person. You’re not. That’s mistaken. Your actions are bad, no problem with that. That’s clear. That’s more precise.

Meanwhile, anyway, simply speaking, as His Holiness says, “Regret – you say the same thing. You say, “I did this in the past, and I did this, and I did this…” but your second thought – and we have to cultivate this consciously, it doesn’t come naturally – the second thought is different. So instead of saying, “…and I’m a bad person,” you

48 then say instead: “What can I do about it?” You change the thought. We have to cultivate that view. So, the added part about what regret is, therefore, is actually it’s like – the simplest way to put it in our words – it’s like compassion for yourself. Like the poison – the reason you say, “Oh my God, what an idiot! Quick, where’s the doctor?” – it’s obvious. You don’t have to state it. You know that poison will cause you suffering, and you know you don’t want suffering. Therefore you go, “Oh, what an idiot! Where’s the doctor?” Not, “Oh, aren’t I bad, I ate poison,” and you stay stuck in it. It’s just plain idiocy, isn’t it? So, we have to cultivate this view.

WE HAVE TO SAY THE WORDS That’s why in this first step, when we do it, we have to say the words. You know, you sit down at the end of the day, and you check up what you’ve done that day to harm others with your body and speech. And maybe we don’t do that much to harm others – but you know, we do some things. You bad-mouth your husband, you talked about your girlfriend behind her back, you know… you took the pencil at work and you never returned it. I mean, maybe you’re not going around torturing and killing too many people, but whatever it is, you’ve got to acknowledge it. “I did do this and this…” And then you check the main things throughout this life – maybe you had an abortion, maybe you went fishing, maybe you’re a hunter: you acknowledge it, and you regret it. And this is regret; regret is this whole attitude that has: one – acknowledges that you did it, two – “I regret this. Why? You’ve got to say it. Because you know what? I don’t want the suffering that will come from that if I leave that seed in my mind. Because if I do leave that seed in my mind – that poison – it will ripen as my suffering and – hey! – I do not want suffering.” So you’ve got to speak this out, because this attitude does not come naturally. Even if we say the word regret, it still feels like guilt. So, we have to spell it out to make it a new thought. It’s a really crucial point, I tell you. It’s not enough just to say, “Oh, I regret killing and lying and stealing.” It feels like guilt, so you’ve got to change the words. “I regret this. I regret stealing that pencil, because I don’t want to have – you know, the simple thing about karma is, everything you do, you leave a seed in your mind that can ripen as that experience for yourself in the future. Even just this – you know you don’t want – you just have to think; do I like being stolen from? Nope. What causes people to steal from me? I must have stolen from them. So if I’ve just stolen a pencil, then I’ll get stolen from in the future. I don’t want that. It’s just logic; you’ve got to think it through, if you apply the law of karma, you know…and that’s your choice, you don’t have to. This is Buddha’s view, that’s all. So you’ve got to be logical. Think it through. Make it real for you, not just some religious feeling. Not some weird, guilty feeling. That’s useless. It’s practical – I regret having done this because I don’t want to be stolen from, I don’t want suffering, I’m sick of it. Yet again I’ve shot my mouth off – shouted at people. I’m sick of this habit…first of all, too, you can even right now see the suffering and the hurt it causes you, the pain of that anger, you’re feeling all caught up in it and fed up with it and you’re so sick of it. You’ve got to feel that pain and be fed up with it. “I’m sick of this suffering… I’m sick of this boring habit.”

49 And we’re just talking here of the habits that we do that harm others; we’re not looking at just our own problems yet. We’re looking at the actions of our body and speech first – what we do to harm others first – killing, lying, stealing, bad- mouthing; there’s only so many names for them. You regret them. Remember the things, your old habits in this life – you know, maybe you’re addicted to sex and you harm people with your sexual attachment; but you look at the suffering you’re causing yourself… And this is the key point again; this is the key point here.

THE BUDDHA’S VIEW OF MORALITY You see, this is a very interesting point, let’s look at this a bit more – Buddha’s view of what morality is. It’s a really important point to think about. The usual view we have about morality, which is why we’re like children and resisting it mightily, is because we think it comes from somebody on high forcing it upon us: either God or our mother or the judge or the police, you know. We think it’s done to us. It isn’t like that, not for Buddha. If I’m a Christian, and I asked a Catholic priest this – “What defines something as a sin?” He said, “It’s going against the will of God.” That is what defines a sin: something you do that is against the will of God. Now, that’s reasonable if God is the creator, and that” reasonable if you are a Christian. That’s appropriate. That’s correct. But that’s not the definition here. Completely different. Going against Buddha’s views is not what defines something as negative. It’s got nothing to do with Buddha! That’s like saying, “Why is smoking bad? Oh, because my doctor told me not to.” Excuse me, that’s absurd. Your doctor’s merely a messenger. The reason smoking’s bad is because it’ll hurt you, dear. Well, why is killing a bad action? What defines it as bad is really simple; it’s because it harms another. Buddha says this is a conventional truth that you can prove quite quickly. You just do your market research in this world, in this room and you ask around, “Do you like getting killed, stolen from, lied to, kicked in the teeth?” Everybody will say no. So we can deduce logically that a negative action is one that harms another, because you’ve just proven it by agreeing we don’t like it. That’s what makes it negative, people! Not somebody on high, it’s not set in stone…it is not, in other words, self-existent. It is a dependent arising. It’s empty, as well. That’s what it means. That’s Buddha’s view; it’s a natural law. So, what a negative action is is one that harms another. But in this very first stage of practice where you regret doing actions that harm others, the reason first – you have to hear this point – the reason here in “Regret” is not for the sake of others; it’s for your sake. So, a negative action is defined as an action that harms another; but at this first step, you regret it because – guess what – your doing it programs your mind to keep doing it and to have it done to you, not to mention being born in the lower realms. So, you regret it because you don’t want the suffering. This is a crucial point. We’ve got to understand this, not just be vague about it. “Oh I do my Vajrasattva practice, oh I regret lying, killing…” We don’t even give it thought, you know, we just wishy-washy gloss over it. So a negative action is defined as one that harms another, but at this first stage – and this is the very meaning of the first level of practice in Buddhism – in the first scope of practice, junior school, I like to call it – His Holiness uses this analogy as

50 well: the way the teachings in the lam-rim are structured, it’s like the education system. In Tibetan medieval language they call it the first scope of practice; I like to call it junior school, you know. So junior school level of practice is to control your body and your speech. So, the reason you will regret killing and lying and stealing and bad-mouthing – and there’s not that many actions you do with your body and speech that harm others, sexual misconduct, lying, killing, stealing, you know, shouting at people, harsh speech, talking behind backs; there’s only so many… you can think of them easily enough, and you regret them. “You know what, I’m sick of this suffering, I’m sick of the pain it causes me right now and I do not want the karmic fruits of this in the future. No way!” Then it makes it very real for you, because it’s about yourself. Don’t feel bad about this. Don’t feel guilty, like I should just be having compassion. Compassion’s university, people – that’s the great scope! You’ve got to recognize your own suffering before you recognize the suffering of others. You’ve got to be sick of your own suffering – this is what renunciation is – you’re sick of your own suffering. That’s why you’ve got to contemplate what these ridiculous things that we do, do to ourself. Don’t gloss over this step, it’s extremely important. So, you regret the things – you remember the things, today, yesterday, this life – the things you’ve done with your body and speech to harm others, and of course, for those of us with vows, deeply regret our broken vows, etc. That’s it. And you regret – and you say, “I regret this from the depths of my heart because you know what, I’m sick of suffering and I don’t want all this misery any more. I don’t want to keep feeling this way and I don’t want the karmic results for me.” It’s genuine, then and you can say this because you know it’s true. You know you don’t want to be killed, lied to, bad-mouthed, kicked in the teeth, stolen from; you know that. Well then, regret having done it yourself, because that is the cause. Then, of course, you can say, “And I regret anything I have ever done, since beginningless time to any sentient being.” And if Buddha is right in asserting, as he does, that we’ve had beginningless lives, that we’ve had countless lives as animals, and that mightn’t be the most suffering life, but that’s where we do the most harm; animals just in their nature harm and get harmed. Look at one whale; opens its mouth for one mouthful of one breakfast on one day and forty million creatures go in! And you get guilty cause you killed one person! Get some perspective, please… That’s a lot of sentient beings. So they live in a killing environment; they live on killing, animals do. So, the harm we’ve done to sentient beings as animals is inconceivable in comparison to what we’ve done as humans. So if our minds are beginningless and we’ve had these lives, we’ve done countless things and that means those karmic seeds are on our minds now. So, you better regret them, because you know you don’t want that suffering again! “I regret anything I’ve ever done to any sentient being since beginningless time.” Regret the lot! Because I do not want suffering – we’ve got to add that thought. “Because I am sick of suffering. Because I do not want suffering.” You’ve got to say that. That’s what makes it real, and not just some nice religious feeling. Not just guilt. That’s regret. And then of course, if you’ve taken vows, lay person’s vows – pratimoksha vows in other words – vows of individual liberation, pratimoksha – the vows you take for junior school and high school – if you’ve broken those, then you deeply regret having

51 broken those. If you’ve taken vows, then you deeply regret having broken your bodhisattva vows. If you’ve taken tantric vows, you deeply regret having broken your tantric vows, because these are lifelong vows. So you regret these, hugely, because you don’t want the suffering.

1. SECOND OPPONENT POWER: RELIANCE. a. REFUGE Now you think, “Well, good! Whom can I turn to? Where’s the doctor, please?” So you turn to Mr. Buddha. He’s our doctor. Second step: Reliance. There are two parts in Reliance: the first is reliance upon the Buddha; that’s called Refuge. So what does that mean? Let’s look at this again, carefully. If I’m a Christian, I would rely upon God, because he’s my creator. So how I get purified is by requesting him to forgive me. Well, Buddha will forgive you; he’s a nice guy, I promise. But it’s got nothing to do with purification. Nothing. It’s nice to be forgiven, but it’s not the point. It is not the discussion. Quite different. So we rely on Buddha as if he were the doctor – he’s got the methods; he’s got the medicine. So, “Thank goodness I’ve got a decent doctor,” you think. And you do a little prayer, you visualize Vajrasattva – the particular practice here is we’re going to be doing – mentioning – and the one that all the lamas praise; this particular manifestation of the Buddha in the bodhisattva aspect called Vajrasattva. He’s like the main Buddha. The main Buddha in the sutra teachings and all the regular teachings is Shakyamuni, the monk, you know. And that’s actually the manifestation of that level of practice, junior school and high school. The manifestation of completely subdued body, speech and mind. That is what the monk is a manifestation of: that level of practice. In the bodhisattva path, the Buddha manifests as like, gorgeous, you know, jewelry on his arms and ears and throat, and silken clothing; they call it the royal aspect. This is coming from Tantra, where that’s a whole different discussion and it has to do with enhancing the senses and energizing them, you know. It’s quite different, another level. So, Buddha in that aspect is called Vajradhara, or in Tibetan, Dorje Chang, who is blue; Vajrasattva is a white aspect of Vajradhara. I asked Lama Yeshe, “Who’s Vajradhara?” and he said, very simply, “He’s the biggest Buddha, dear.” I was very proud to know I liked the biggest Buddha! So basically, that’s the tantric aspect of Shakyamuni Buddha, and he’s blue. But for purification practices, we use another aspect of Vajradhara – he looks the same, but he’s white, and he’s called Vajrasattva, and it’s to do with emptiness. He’s particularly to do with emptiness, because realizing emptiness, is when you’ve finally cut the root of the delusions, and that’s when we actually purify our minds. Until then – this purification practice – we are simply stalling the ripening, we’re weakening the seeds, we’re like burning them, we’re not ripping them out completely. Until you’ve realized emptiness, you will never rip out delusions, you’ll always have more suffering… you’ve got to stop their ripening, though, and that’s what the purification process does. So, one relies upon Vajrasattva. So, one visualizes him above one’s head, and then one takes refuge, says a prayer remembering the Buddha, grateful to have a Buddha, and then grateful – if one has a

52 lama – who manifests as the Buddha for our benefit, you know, to show us the way. That’s what refuge means. So refuge is like this, you know: you rely upon the doctor. Now, you’ve got to look at what it means, rely upon the doctor. Why would you rely upon a doctor? Because you need their medicine; it seems kind of obvious – not because they’ve got a cute nose, or something. So you go to a doctor because one, you know you’re sick or you don’t want to get sick; and two, you’ve checked up and you realize this doctor has the medicine that you need. So you rely upon their advice. It’s perfectly reasonable. So this implies here having thought about the Buddha, and wanting to rely upon the Buddha, because you want his medicine, not because he’s going to forgive you. Because you want his methods; that’s what reliance is, that’s what taking refuge means. So, in other words, if you’ve taken – you know, you can have the Buddha there, but if you’ve never thought about suffering, and you haven’t regretted anything you’ve done wrong because you haven’t thought about suffering and its consequences, then the Buddha will be pretty meaningless to you. So, in other words, if you haven’t taken poison, or you don’t realize you’ve taken poison, you might have heard about some amazing doctor who’s got every antidote to every poison on earth, and you go, Oh, how interesting. But how boring. Who needs him? You don’t care. But check when how you feel when you’ve discovered you know you’ve taken poison; you’re going to hang on every word that doctor says. So, reliance on the Buddha is based upon the recognition that you’ve got these imprints in the mind that you want to pull out real quick. In other words, that you need – you’re suffering, you’re sick of suffering, and you need the doctor’s medicine. So one has to think of these things carefully; it’s practical, you know, psychologically practical. b. COMPASSION The second part – the second part of Reliance is where you have compassion for those you have harmed. It’s a bit curious that it’s called reliance. The lamas put it like this: here we are, now wanting to cultivate compassion for the suffering of others. Whom do we rely up, or need, in order to accomplish compassion? Suffering sentient beings, of course. If we never meet a suffering sentient being, how could we ever cultivate compassion. It’s in this sense that they say we “rely upon” sentient beings. In the first step, it’s like I said, it’s like having compassion for yourself. You’re regretting the harm you’ve done for your sake. Now here, what you nees to cultivate is compassion for those you’ve harmed, and you regret for their sake and want to purify yourself for their sake. But you can’t have that until you’ve got the first one. Compassion is based upon this first one, in Regret. You can’t have compassion for the suffering of others until you’ve got this real sense of renunciation for your own suffering. It’s impossible, you can’t. You’ve got to have this one first. Why? Very simple. Renunciation has two parts: The first one, the first part is, you are sick of suffering. Now, we all know that – we’re all sick of suffering. But the second part’s crucial: you now know why you’re suffering – your past negativity and your delusions. When you’ve got these two, that’s renunciation. And all compassion is, is these two – but instead of yourself, it’s applied to others. One – you see people suffering, and you find it unbearable. But, two – you now know why they are suffering; and that’s the big shift here. You don’t have compassion because they’re

53 poor innocent victims, which is the only people we have compassion for now – we love to have compassion for innocent victims, usually animals and children. Not like that – quite different here. You have compassion when you see suffering because – two – you now know why they are suffering: because of their karma and their delusions: they, like you, are the source of their own suffering. When you can do it for yourself – you’re sick of suffering, and you know why you’re suffering – then you want to change. So now you see others suffering and you know why they’re suffering. It’s a crucial difference and one has to cultivate it carefully. Again, it’s completely based on the teachings of karma, so one has to think of this so carefully, analyze it so carefully. Because the feeling we have now is guilt and shame and hate and blame, you know. Our compassion now on based upon there being no karma. We only have compassion for innocent victims, because we assume the cause of suffering is the horrible oppressor. Buddha says, “Wrong view.” Actually, when you’ve got this view of compassion, you’ll have even more compassion for the oppressor. That’s a fact. Why? Very logical. It’s like a mother for her junkie kid. Everybody else hates him – he lies, he steals, he’s a pain to be around; but the mother, her heart breaks for him. Why? Because he is causing himself suffering. That’s the basis of compassion. So, you see people who are the victims of harma, you realize it’s the result of their own past actions and your heart breaks for them, but you have even more compassion for the people who caused it, because the people who are the victims are just finishing their suffering; the ones who caused it are just beginning their suffering. So, once you’ve got this first for yourself, which is renunciation: I’m sick of suffering, I know why I’m suffering: karma; then it’s easy then to have compassion for others. You can’t get it properly until you’ve got it for yourself. This is a reasonable psychological kind of progression, and all of it’s based on karma. So you have compassion now. You think of those you’ve harmed, and you know what it’s like to suffer so you know what it’s like for their suffering. You caused it, so you regret for their sake, now. Compassion for others. And if you’re brave enough, you have compassion for those who have harmed you, because they’re going to suffer in the future. And of course, the dynamic of all this is you know – you know you caused them suffering in the past – that’s how come they’re causing you suffering now – it’s just obvious. When you’ve got karma down, you can own it so strongly. In 2003 I remember, in New York, I was there for a conference that Richard Gere had organized: a bunch of ex-prisoners, when His Holiness was there. Twenty ex- prisoners who had been meditating in prison, you know, twenty of them: black and white and male and female, Puerto Rican and Mexican and the whole works, a cross- section of American society; people who’d been in prison and had done some kind of meditation. So people like me were invited as well. We had this very nice talk all day, just a lovely conference, you know? And they all met His Holiness.

WITH THE VIEW OF KARMA, NO BLAME, THEREFORE NO ANGER So, among them they invited also two young Tibetan who’d been tortured and sexually abused in prison for a couple of years, basically for just being nuns. So they were telling their experience. And there were tears, you know. So first of all it was really obvious to all the Americans that the suffering of the nuns was more than all of

54 theirs put together; very clear, these two young women. But secondly, it was really clear they weren’t angry, which was a big surprise. Because we just assume – because we have a victim mentality, and because we think we’re innocent victims, and we think suffering is caused by others – we assume anger is normal; because anger is blame, isn’t it? But if you have the view of karma, you don’t have blame. You’ve got to hear this. They weren’t blaming. They were sad. If you’d given them a key, they would’ve happily walked out of that ugly prison. Anyway, at the end of their talk, they said – big surprise, you know, again, because of the view of karma – they said, “And of course, we had compassion for our torturers, because we knew we had harmed them in the past.” So, this is a huge point for us. This is why we can’t just gloss over karma, we’ve got to really give it thought. And this is the basis of all of Buddha’s teachings. This is the basis of emptiness, even – cause and effect. If we look at Buddha’s view – his philosophy – carefully, you cannot gloss over karma. It is a way of spelling out the law of cause and effect. Really think it through – it’s the basis of all practice, it’s the basis of compassion.

3. THIRD OPPONENT POWER: THE REMEDY So then, the third step: you think – so now you take the medicine. You apply the antidote. You take the Remedy. So here – you know, you can say in Buddhism, there’s a whole medicine cabinet of remedies, but all the lamas in the Tibetan traditions praise this particular meditation, this particular visualization, this particular mantra as a really potent medicine. Often this step is simply called “applying the antidote.” So, you know, anything here would apply. If you’ve got a habit to kill, you make a point of saving lives. You go get a bunch of worms and instead of having them killed being bait, you release the worms. It’s a powerful thing to do. Or one of your practices could be, one of your antidotes could be to help sick people: anything you do that’s opposite to the thing you’re regretting. If you’re regretting lying, you make a special point of telling the truth. You must do this anyway in your life. They are necessary. But here, in this step, the very powerful practice, very powerful antidote, remedy – and one has to think about why it’s powerful, not just because it’s religion, you know – this very potent medicine of visualizing Vajrasattva and saying his mantra. This is said to be a very powerful medicine that works at a very deep level of your mind, you know. So, one does this visualization of Vajrasattva purifying the various actions of your body, speech and mind and reciting the mantra. That’s the third step.

4. FOURTH OPPONENT POWER: RESOLVE And the fourth one – as Pabongka Rinpoche says – is the most important, this Resolve, or the determination to change. Now, if you can’t own responsibility for what you’ve done wrong, you can never determine to change, cause you don’t want to own it. When you’ve got this regret, and this determination to change, you’re really becoming accountable. You’re really growing up. You’re becoming mature. And you’re becoming your own friend. That’s why this practice is so crucial to do. Not just

55 to gloss it over, say, “Oh I’ve done my Vajrasattva mantras…” That’s not enough, I tell you. That’s just not enough. You’ve got to think through these four steps. It’s psychologically really profound. It’s being your own therapist, as Lama Yeshe puts it, I’m not kidding. Things really shift if we can do this properly, because this is where we get the courage to know we are in charge of our life and we can change. Because it’s the power of our own will, our own determination to change.

So this fourth step, again, is so practical: you make determination not to do again. So, if you have taken vows – I will never kill, I will never lie, I will never steal – you’ve taken those five lay vows, and they’re lifetime vows, so obviously you need to reiterate that vow. Every time you say “I will never kill,” it’s like digging that groove deeper in your mind. So, it’s not enough to say, “Oh, yeah, I took vows twenty years ago. Twenty years ago I vowed I wouldn’t kill, but you’ve never thought of it since. It’s like saying, “Oh, I’m a pianist, I played piano twenty years ago.” You’re not, unless you do it every day. See, again we see these things as so self-existent. It’s not enough. It’s an ongoing, dynamic daily thing. If every day you say, “I will never kill,” I mean, excuse me, guess what the result will be? It’s hardly rocket science. If every day you say it, that protects you every day from ever killing. It’s obvious. It’s so embarrassingly obvious. But we forget these things. So you need to reiterate your vows. I will never kill. I will never steal. I will never lie. I will never whatever they are, you know. I will never break my bodhisattva vows. I will never break my tantric vows. You need to say this every day. Reiterate your commitments. And it’s not just because you’re hoping God will make you good or Buddha will bless you; it’s you training your mind. Like if you do pushups every day, guess what? You keep getting better at it. We understand it when it comes to creativity and art and learning things, we just think this is “religion” so we don’t understand why I should say every day I’ll never kill. Because you’re training your mind in that direction! Because everything comes down to the thought. All you’re doing by becoming a Buddha is programming your mind with positive thoughts. That’s all, people! It’s nothing more secret that that. And so this is why they say a vow – it’s nothing abstract, a vow – it’s your mind, intentionally deciding daily, I will do this or I won’t do that. In other words, you’re practicing that by thinking it, like practicing piano every day, by practicing pushups every day. It’s obvious; you keep getting better at it. It’s practical psychology. Then, of course, you don’t lie to yourself, as Rinpoche says. If you’re not ready to say I’ll never do it again, if you haven’t taken the vow, and you’re still going fishing every day or going hunting. Or let’s say getting angry is a really deep habit. Don’t lie to yourself and say “I’ll never get angry again”; you’re not ready; it’s plain foolish. Be realistic. So, maybe you’ll say, “Okay. I see the reasonableness of not getting angry. I’m going to give it a go. I won’t get angry for five hours.” Or you might say, “I won’t lie for ten hours,” – and because you’ve got to go to bed soon, when you’re asleep, you won’t lie, believe me; you’ll keep your vow! You be realistic; it’s an incremental thing, and you’ve got to take this seriously on board. That’s why you can’t just do your mantras and think, “I’ve done my practice.” It’s not enough. It’s a serious

56 psychological procedure that you’re involved in. Practice is real; it’s you dealing with your own mind.

YOUR OWN RUBBISH So, you know, you give yourself a timeline. And when it comes of course to, you know, your inner qualities, your inner things that harm you only, and I didn’t mention this in Regret, but the same; it mainly talks about regretting actions that you do to harm others, but of course you can think of your own rubbish: your own angry thoughts, your, you know, sexual fantasies that are destroying you, your own attachment, your own – you know – depression. You can deeply regret these because it’s obvious the suffering it causes you; because you’re sick of the suffering. And here, you maybe can’t say,” I’ll never be depressed again’; it’s not possible, if you’re caught up in the middle of it. But you make some decisions for yourself; realistic, humble decisions. “Okay. I’m going to watch my mind like a hawk. I’m going to do my best tomorrow.” Even you can say, “I’m going to do my best not to speak the words to my husband” for example. Because when we’re feeling all our problems, we want to vomit it all out to the person we’re closest to. We can’t hold it ourselves, so we have to dump it on somebody. I’m not being horrible about us now, we need to talk to people, it’s true, but sometimes we’re addicted to talking about it, which reinforces it. So, maybe the way to help us with our – let’s say your angry thoughts or your jealousy or your depression, which we always want to talk about to other people – we always put ourselves down, “Oh, I’m no good, I can’t do this…” it’s just vomiting it out, you know; because we’re not able to hold it ourselves. So maybe we can vow – at least: I can’t say I won’t be depressed, I can’t say I won’t be angry again, but at least I can vow that for twenty-four hours I won’t speak the words to anybody else. This is profound. This is amazing; really shifts something inside us for our own benefit. Totally for our own benefit. See, it’s sort of like a session of therapy, you’re doing before you go to sleep. It’s so worthwhile, I can tell you. Because normally, we love to talk to ourselves about ourselves, but it’s always negativity; beating ourselves up, or all resentful because no one loves me and it’s not fair and I’m better than they think I am. It’s always ego talking; we never do it the constructive way. But this practice is really constructive thinking; really being your own therapist, really being your own boss, really being accountable, and really being courageous. This fourth step is really courageous, you know.

EACH OF THE FOUR STEPS PURIFIES ONE OF THE FOUR WAYS THAT KARMA RIPENS This is how you change. This is what purification is – these four steps; not just doing a few mantras mindlessly. You’ve got to do all four steps, because each of these four steps purifies one of each of the four ways that karma ripens; they’ve got their particular function. So, for example, regret is so tasty in terms of what it purifies – I mean, all of them altogether purify everything; but regret has a particular function. So you know, let’s say, someone bad-mouths you at work, and you’re freaking out about it. You know

57 you did nothing wrong and these mean people are talking about you behind your back and it’s so distressing, isn’t it? You feel so impotent; you feel you can’t do anything about it. And you feel, It’s not fair, I didn’t do anything. But then you have to remember, when you sit down and do your regret, “Well guess what, Robina, if this is happening, logically, I must have done it before, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening to me now.” So, then what do you do? You think to yourself, “I regret whatever I must have done in the past life – who knows which life – that is now ripening as this particular suffering. This Regret purifies the karma called experiences similar to the cause, which is this exact stuff that’s happening to you. Of course, mainly it is said that Regret purifies the experiences similar to the cause occurring in a future life, but don’t be surprised if you see changes right now. If you consciously think of this particular event that is occurring right now, and you deeply from your heart whatever I must have done in the past life – and of course, one doesn’t remember it – that is now ripening at this moment in these people bad- mouthing me, that first of all makes you more courageous, instead of like a victim, because you realize there is a cause in your past life that you don’t remember, like those young nuns who knew this, so you become more brave, and you accept it more; rather than feeling “it’s not fair, why are they doing it and …” The victim is so strong in us; whenever the harm happens. So this regret can even help shift things right now. But in general, regretting lying, regretting killing, regretting stealing; whatever it is, they will ripen. They will purify the experience happening to you, especially in the future. They’re cleaning it up for the future. They’ve got a very real function. The second one, Reliance, it purifies environmental karma. So my feeling is, I don’t quite understand this one, but it seems like it maybe is the compassion aspect, because, you know, as the lamas say – they have this saying – that “the ground that you fall down on that hurts you is the very ground that you rely upon to stand up.” So the very sentient beings you have harmed are those sentient beings you need to generate compassion for: you rely upon them in that sense. So they say this purifies environmental karma. The third one – doing the mantra, doing the actual practice – that purifies the lower realm karma – being reborn in the lower realms. The future suffering lives. And the fourth one is obvious. The one of determining – if you say every day, “I will never kill again,” guess what that purifies? The tendency to kill; it’s so obvious. And this is the most important.

From teachings given at FPMT’s Osel Shen Phen Ling, Missoula, Montana, 2011.

58 6. WE NEED TO CUT OFF ATTACHMENT LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE

ATTACHMENT IS SUFFERING Not following attachment is practicing Dharma; following attachment is not practicing Dharma. It is as simple as that. The whole point of Opening the Door of Dharma, these instructions from the holy mouths of the Kadampa , which they practised and experienced, is to cut off the eight worldly , to be free of attachment clinging to this life. Whether you are practicing Dharma or not, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is the source of all obstacles and problems. Everything undesirable comes from this thought of the worldly dharmas. When you are told that you have to give up attachment, you feel as if you are being told to sacrifice your happiness. You give up attachment, then you don’t have happiness and you’re left with nothing. Just yourself. Your attachment has been confiscated; you have been robbed of your happiness; and you are left there empty, like a deflated balloon. You feel as if you no longer have a heart in your body, as if you have lost your life. This is because you have not realized the shortcomings of attachment. You have not recognized that the nature of attachment is suffering. Attachment itself is a suffering, unhealthy mind. Because of attachment, the mind hallucinates, and you are unable to see that there is another happiness, real happiness. For example, when there is attachment for an object and enjoyment of it, you label this experience “happiness,” and it appears to you as happiness, but in reality it is only suffering. As you keep doing the action, such as eating food, your happiness doesn’t increase but only decreases. As your stomach becomes full, your happiness then becomes the suffering of suffering. Before the suffering nature of the action is noticeable, it appears to be happiness; but when it is noticeable, it becomes the suffering of suffering. When the suffering was not noticeable, the feeling was labeled “pleasure” and appeared as pleasure, but as you continue the action, the feeling gradually becomes suffering. The peace you experience by abandoning attachment leads you to nirvana, the sorrowless state. This peace, which is the absence of attachment, allows you to develop completely, to become enlightened. You can experience this peace forever. From the very first time you free yourself from thought of the worldly dharmas, from attachment, you begin to develop this peace in your mental continuum, and eventually you experience it forever. If you feel that by sacrificing attachment you are sacrificing your happiness and are left with nothing, remember that all your problems are based on attachment and thought of the worldly dharmas. Not knowing that the nature of attachment is suffering, you cannot see that there is a better happiness. You cannot see that by sacrificing thought of the worldly dharmas, by freeing your mind of attachment, there is real peace, real happiness. This happiness doesn’t depend on any external

59 sense objects; it is developed within your own mind. With your mind you can develop this peace. For example, let’s say that you have a skin disease that makes you itch. You scratch yourself so much to relieve the itch that you make sores. Rather than labeling pleasure on the relief that scratching the itch gives you, wouldn’t it be better not to have any disease at all? Wouldn’t it be better to give up the disease? Having attachment is like having this skin disease. If there were no attachment, there would be no cause for all the problems that arise from attachment. There would be no evolution. If we didn’t have this body, this samsara, caused by delusion and karma and contaminated by the seed of disturbing thoughts, we wouldn’t have to experience hot and cold, hunger and thirst, and all the other problems. We wouldn’t have to worry about our survival, or spend so much time and money looking after our body. We are kept busy just keeping this body looking good. From our hair down to our toes, we put so much work into decorating this body. So much of our precious human life is spent on that. When you get sick, however, even taking medicine cannot always cure you. So, wouldn’t it be better not to have this body, this samsara, at all? Then you wouldn’t have to experience all these problems. Without attachment, there would be much peace in the mind - a peace that could be developed and completed. This work has an end. Seeking samsaric pleasure in dependence upon external objects of attachment is work that has no end. No matter how much you work towards that goal, it has no end. Like waves in the ocean coming one after the other, that work never ceases. First of all, temporal happiness, which is dependent on external sense objects, is in the nature of suffering; and second, no matter what you do, there is no way to finish the work for temporal happiness.

LESS ATTACHMENT, LESS PAIN As explains in the verse that Dromtonpa often recited:

Acquiring material things or not acquiring them; happiness or unhappiness; interesting or uninteresting sounds; praise or criticism: these eight worldly dharmas are not objects of my mind. They are all the same to me.

It is easy to understand how it can be a problem not to acquire things, to be unhappy, to hear uninteresting sounds, to have a bad reputation, to be criticized. These are commonly recognized as problems. But you might not recognize acquiring things, having comfort and happiness, hearing interesting sounds, having a good reputation and being praised as problems. However, they are all the same; they are all problems. But the object itself is not the problem. Having wealth is not the problem. So, what is the problem? The problem is the mind desiring and clinging to wealth - that is the problem. Having a friend is not the problem; the mind clinging to the friend makes having a friend a problem. Attachment makes having these four - material things, comfort, interesting sounds, praise - a problem. If there’s no attachment, no worldly concern, having or not having these objects does not become a problem.

60 You might be sleeping comfortably one night when suddenly your sleep is disturbed by a mosquito biting you. If you have strong worldly concern, strong attachment for comfort, you will be very annoyed at being bitten by the mosquito. Just being bitten, by just one mosquito. It is nothing dangerous, nothing that can cause any serious disease. The mosquito takes just a tiny, tiny drop of blood from your body. But seeing that mosquito’s body filled with your own blood, you are shocked. You become angry at the mosquito and are upset all night. The next day, you complain about the mosquito all day long, “I couldn’t sleep for hours last night!” Losing sleep for one night, or even a few hours, is like losing a precious jewel. You are as upset as somebody who has lost a million dollars. For some people, even such a small problem becomes huge. There are also people who attachment so much to be praised and respected by others. Now, if you ignore such a person and walk past them with your nose in the air, or say just one or two words disrespectfully, something that they don’t expect to hear, it causes great pain in their mind. Or if you give them something in a disrespectful manner, whether purposely or not, again there is great pain. For such a person with so much expectation, so much clinging, the pain from even a small physical action that they dislike is great. It is like having an arrow shot into their heart. Suddenly anger arises strongly. Suddenly their body becomes very tense. Their face, relaxed and peaceful before, now becomes kind of terrifying - swollen and tight, with their ears and nose turning red and the veins standing out on their forehead. Suddenly the whole character of the person becomes very rough and unpleasant. The greater a person’s attachment to receive praise and respect, the greater the pain in their heart when they don’t get it. It is similar with the other objects of attachment. The stronger the attachment for material things, comfort, interesting sounds and praise, the greater the pain when one experiences the opposite. If you expect that a friend will always be pleasant, smiling, respectful, kind, and always do what you wish, but one day they unexpectedly do some small unpleasant thing, that tiny thing causes an incredible pain in your heart. All this is related to worldly concern, to how strongly you attachment something. The less attachment you have for the four desirable objects, the fewer problems you will have when you meet the four undesirable objects. Less attachment means less pain. If you cut off clinging to this life, there is no hurt when you experience criticism or do not receive something, because there is no clinging to praise or receiving things. In the same way, when you do not cling to the expectation that your friend will always be nice to you, always smile at you, always help you when asked, there is no hurt when your friend changes and does the opposite to what you attachment. There is no pain in your heart. Your mind is calm and peaceful. By cutting off the attachment that clings to the four desirable objects, you don’t have a problem when the four undesirable situations happen. They cannot hurt you, cannot disturb your mind. Without this thought, there is so much calmness and peace in your mind that meeting the four undesirable objects doesn’t bother you. And meeting the four desirable objects also doesn’t bother you. If someone praises you, it doesn’t matter; if

61 someone criticizes you, it cannot disturb your mind. There is stability in your life, and peace of mind. There are no ups and downs. This is equalizing the eight worldly dharmas. How do you keep your mind peaceful when problems happen? How do you protect your mind so that experiencing the four undesirable things does not disturb you? By realizing that clinging to these four desirable objects is the problem. You have to realize the shortcomings of these four desirable objects and abandon clinging to them. This is the basic psychology. If you use this method, undesirable situations will not disturb you. Geshe Chenngawa would equalize the eight worldly dharmas by reciting this verse:

Being happy when life is comfortable and unhappy when it is uncomfortable: all activities for the happiness of this life should be abandoned as poison. Virtue and non-virtue are functions only of the mind. Cut off non-virtuous motivations and those motivations that are neither virtuous nor non-virtuous.

The latter refers to actions of body and speech with indeterminate motivations; these are called “unpredictable” actions. The best way to train our mind is to expect the four undesirable objects rather than the four desirable ones. Expect to be criticized and disrespected. This practice of renunciation, which cuts off attachment, is the best psychology. Having trained our mind to expect undesirable things, when something undesirable actually happens, because we are expecting it, it doesn’t come as a shock to us; it doesn’t hurt. Before knowing about Dharma, before practicing meditation, you regarded discomfort, uninteresting sounds, criticism and not acquiring things as undesirable problems. Now, if you examine well the nature of the mind that clings to material things, comfort, interesting sounds, praise, you won’t find that it is happy; you will see that it too is suffering. It is not the happiness you thought it was before knowing about Dharma. It is not peaceful - it is painful. The mind that clings gets stuck to the object of attachment. When you receive praise - “You are so intelligent,” “You speak so well,” “You understand Dharma so well” - your mind gets stuck to the praise and is no longer free. Like a body fastened with chains, the mind is fastened with attachment. The mind is tied, controlled, chained by attachment. The mind is stuck like glue to the object. Or like a moth flying into melted candle wax: its whole body, wings and limbs become completely wrapped in the candle wax. Its body and limbs are so fragile that it is extremely difficult to separate them from the wax. Or like a fly that gets stuck in a spider’s web: its limbs get completely wrapped, and it is very difficult to separate them from the web. Or like ants in honey. Attachment is the mind stuck to an object.

ATTACHMENT IS THE SOURCE OF ALL PROBLEMS As Lama Tsong Khapa mentions in The Great Commentary on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment: “We follow attachment in the hope of getting satisfaction, but following attachment leads only to dissatisfaction.”

62 In reality, the result of following attachment is only dissatisfaction. You try again and again and again, but there is only dissatisfaction. Following attachment and not finding satisfaction is the major problem of samsara. Having cancer or AIDS, for example, is not the main problem. Compared to the problem of following attachment and not finding satisfaction, cancer and AIDS are nothing; they don’t continue from life to life. If you don’t do something about the problem of attachment in this life, while you have a perfect human , it will continue from life to life. Following attachment ties you to samsara continuously, so that again and again you experience the sufferings of the six realms. Again and again - endlessly. If you continuously follow attachment, there is no real satisfaction, no real peace. Following attachment leads you only to dissatisfaction and the continuous experience of the sufferings of samsara in one of the six realms. It is thought of the worldly dharmas that brings again and again all the diseases that scare us so much. Again and again, from life to life, it brings all the serious problems that a person can experience; it creates the karma for us to experience these problems again and again. Thought of the worldly dharmas, attachment clinging to this life, is the most serious disease. Compared to the worldly dharmas, other problems are nothing. If you do not have thought of the worldly dharmas, which ties you to samsara, even if somebody kills you, all you do is change to another body. Your consciousness takes another perfect human body or goes to a pure realm. Your being killed is just a condition to change to another body. But if you have thought of the worldly dharmas and do not practise Dharma, even though no one kills you and you live to be a hundred, you constantly use your perfect human rebirth to create the causes of the lower realms; you use your fortunate rebirth to create the causes of unfortunate rebirths with no opportunity to practise Dharma. The longer you live, the more negative karma you create, which causes you to abide in the lower realms and experience suffering for many eons. Therefore, this thought of the worldly dharmas is much more harmful than some enemy who merely kills you. Lama Tsong Khapa’s quotation about following attachment continues: “Attachment brings so many other problems. Through following attachment, the mind becomes rough and unpeaceful.” Hundreds of problems come from dissatisfaction. When there is very strong attachment, it is very easy to become angry, for example. The stronger the clinging, the stronger the anger that arises. If you don’t cling very much, you don’t get so angry when someone upsets you. You might still be disturbed, but less. Anger, jealousy and so forth arise in relation to clinging. Because of clinging, these other negative thoughts arise. When any of these negative thoughts arise, you create negative karma, the cause of the lower realms. When your mind is overwhelmed by attachment, completely clouded by attachment, you cannot meditate. Even if you have some idea of emptiness, for example, it is very difficult for you to have any feeling for it. At times when your mind is quiet and peaceful, you may have some feeling for it; but when your mind is clouded, a thick fog of attachment covering everything, you are unable to meditate on emptiness. And you are unable to think of the shortcomings of attachment.

63 When you have strong attachment for an object, you become very unhappy if you can’t be near it. You cannot relax; there is no physical relaxation because there is no mental relaxation. Even though you may not have any particularly hard work to do, since your mind isn’t relaxed because of attachment, there is no physical comfort or relaxation. There are many such examples of the shortcomings of attachment. Think of alcoholics and drug addicts. Their lives become so unhappy, so uncontrolled, that they cannot do anything. In particular, they damage their awareness and memory. Disease comes from the dissatisfied mind of attachment, the evil thought of the worldly dharmas, because dissatisfaction creates the conditions for sickness. You are then sick for many years, with huge unwanted expenses of many thousands of dollars. When you can’t get money in a proper way, you have to steal. Your mind becomes disturbed; you have a nervous breakdown and go crazy. You then have to spend so much time and money on psychiatric consultations, and you end up in an institution. And the origin of all this? One moment of uncontrolled attachment. That one moment when you did not protect yourself from thought of the worldly dharmas, when you did not practise Dharma, brings so many problems. The problems go on and on for years and years, costing you a lot of money and making your life unnecessarily complicated and difficult. All these worries and expenses are caused by thought of the eight worldly dharmas. If, from the very beginning, you had kept yourself free of the worldly dharmas, all those years of unwanted problems and expenses would not have happened. You need never have experienced them. When your attachment isn’t fulfilled, when you can’t get what you want, this is the time of nervous breakdowns and thoughts of committing suicide. Recently one Dharma student in Switzerland had problems like this and committed suicide. He hanged himself. I think he had heard some Dharma teachings but hadn’t done much practice or retreat. He had a very good job earning a lot of money, but he had relationship problems. You may have had the experience many times of thinking about suicide, about ending your human life, because of these kinds of problems. Basically, this is the shortcoming of the worldly thought of attachment. Kadampa Geshe Gonpawa, who had clairvoyance and many other realizations, said:

If one receives the four desirable results of comfort, material things, interesting sounds and praise from an action done with thought of the eight worldly dharmas, that is the only result in this life, and there is no benefit in future lives. And if the four undesirable results come from the action, there is no benefit even in this life.

Often, actions done with thought of the eight worldly dharmas that bring the four desirable results eventually lead to the four undesirable results anyway. For example, in business, you may have success after success; because of that success, you then act more and more with thought of worldly dharma. After some time your karma for success finishes, and the karma of failure is experienced. In one day you can become

64 a beggar. One day, you are a millionaire; the next, you do not even know how you will pay your rent and take care of your family. Your whole life collapses. This is due to doing actions with thought of the worldly dharmas. Even though you have achieved material comfort, you are not satisfied and continue to act with thought of the worldly dharmas. Because of your past success, one day your karma for success is exhausted, and everything collapses. Someone who was wealthy yesterday, with no financial worries, today suddenly has to worry even about such a small thing as how to take care of his family. He doesn’t know what to do and is unable to eat or sleep. Even if you successfully steal one, two, three times, for example, your success cannot continue indefinitely. You need to have some control over your attachment; you need to find some satisfaction. Otherwise, by continuing to steal, you will definitely get caught one day. No matter what the mistake is, by continuing to repeat it, one day it will definitely become a big problem. The shortcoming of attachment is that it eventually leads to so much that is undesirable. Freeing yourself from attachment becomes a great protection. Cutting off clinging to an object or person means that all the other negative minds do not arise, and you don’t create all those negative karmas as a result. It provides unbelievable protection. Normally, by clinging to a particular object, you create much negative karma in relation to many other sentient beings. By cutting off clinging, you stop the causes of the lower realms. Great peace comes when you free yourself from the thought of attachment. Concentrate on this real peace that you can experience immediately by freeing yourself from attachment. When you focus on this, there is no problem. When you attempt to attain this greater happiness, this real peace, temporal happiness becomes uninteresting and not difficult to renounce; it’s like picking up used toilet paper. Be aware of this, then there will be no danger of depression or of going crazy. So, we can see, no matter how many problems we have, there is no choice: we have to practise Dharma. And practicing Dharma means controlling the mind, controlling attachment. Forget about living an ascetic life of pure Dharma practice; at the very least, for peace of mind and the happiness of this life, and to stop the increase of problems, we need to control attachment.

65 7. HOW DO WE EXIST? LAMA YESHE

WE’RE JUST A NAME The way we exist is in accordance with the view of the great second century Indian yogi Nagarjuna. This combination of the five aggregates – form, feeling, discrimination, non-associated compounded phenomena, and consciousness – is given a name. The name is a label, given by a concept. That is enough. That is the reality, conventional reality. No more. But the characteristic of ego-mind is that it’s always dissatisfied with that reality, and ego-mind – perhaps it’s better that we say “ego-wisdom,” because in a sense ego is so intelligent, so skillful – completely knocks out our reality. You can also say we’re a combination of the six elements – the usual four plus consciousness and space. To these elements a name is given. Just a name touches this combination: this is the conventional reality. The name comes from the mind; the mind looks at this combination, then gives it a name, a label. It doesn’t matter how important you hold it be, that’s the way it exists; no more than that. I mean it: no more! The root text quotes Nagarjuna:

The individual is not earth, is not water. Is not fire, is not wind, is not space, Is not awareness, it is not all of these. Yet, what individual is there, other than these?

In other words, if you go looking for something more among each of the six elements, no way can you find anything there, either. In Buddhist terminology, this is the meaning of “conventional”: in itself a phenomenon is not absolute. But the ego holds things as absolute. Ego wants absolute me. We hold on to an absolute I, which is totally non-existent. There is no absolute I; and nor are there absolute six elements. There aren’t, scientifically. When we understand this we’ll see that if something were existing from its own side, it couldn’t change. Nothing exists like that!

EGO EXAGGERATES Ego wants, ego wants. When it’s summertime in and it’s a hundred degrees, the ego wants absolute-reality Coca-cola. Coca-cola becomes the absolute solution. This view is totally wrong; it’s an exaggeration. Coca-cola does have a relative, conventional, artificial quality, but how can you say it is absolute? When the ego-mind perceives something, there is no room to accept it as it is; ego-mind has to go beyond the relative way that the thing exists.

66 For this reason, Buddhism emphasizes the understanding of interdependence, dependent-arising, as the logic to prove non-duality, non-self-existence. To some extent we do understand this.

THERE IS NO SCOTT Take Scott, for example. We give the name “Scott” to the group of six elements sitting here. There is a combination here and then we say the name, “Scott.” There are three things involved in this process: your mind, the name, and then the conventional reality of Scott’s six elements. Okay, there must be some reason we say “Scott”; there is some reason; always there is some reason. But that reason is superficial; there is no absolute quality at all. We merely give the name, “Scott.” There is no absolute phenomenon there. Something just occurred, like some wind coming . . . Scott is coming . . . All there is, what Scott is, is just some interdependent phenomenon linked with the concepts of superstition: our superstitious, conceptual thought says the word, “Scott.” All this is just a bubble; so interdependent. There is this combination, these parts, and then we give a name to them, that’s all. You cannot go further than that, you cannot say, “Scott is special.” But we are looking for more than that, objectively; our ego is not satisfied – especially if we are attracted to Scott and we project a quality of handsomeness onto him. Our ego tries to project handsomeness onto him almost beyond his capacity. When we go beyond the interdependent, conventional level, then it becomes absolute. But it’s a false absolute, isn’t it? This is very difficult to comprehend: maybe today we get it, but tomorrow it disappears. And then from his side, his own ego’s side, he also doesn’t want to accept himself at the conventional, superficial level, as an interdependent phenomenon. His ego also goes beyond the conventional reality of himself. His ego is also holding such a concept of “handsome,” which is absolute for him. He puts that label onto parts of himself: sometimes he puts it on his eyes, sometimes on his nose, sometimes his mouth, sometimes his neck – perhaps his navel chakra! He tries, he tries, but no way. It’s like he’s forcing extra things onto himself. In other words, what I am saying is that he holds such an absolute, unchangeable, unconventional, unsuperficial view. He feels, “This is my reality.”

SCOTT IS MERELY LABELED Scott does not exist in any of the elements of his body, any of the parts of his mind. It’s like a car before it’s assembled in the factory: it’s just a bunch of things, right? It’s not a car then. That combination of parts is not the car. Similar: the combination of Scott’s parts is not him. Now, if we put Scott in front of a mirror, there are two things, right? The reflection of Scott in the mirror and Scott in front of it. So, in our judgment, we think, “Scott is the true one; the one in the mirror is just a reflection, it’s not Scott.” But from the point of view of the great yogis Nagarjuna and Lama Tsongkhapa, within both of these atmospheres – the body of Scott and the reflection of Scott – there is no Scott existing. The reflection is not him – and nor is the bubble of his elements. Both equally are not him. It’s not, “Ah, the combination of parts is Scott

67 and the reflection is not.” Normally we think this. But realistically, if you try to find Scott within these two atmospheres, you cannot. No way. Scott comes from the name, the label. That is why is he existing. Other people’s concepts produce the artificial name, the label: then Scott exists. For this reason, all conventional reality is produced by the superstitious mind. For this reason, Scott is not earth, Scott is not water, Scott is not fire, Scott is not consciousness, Scott is not space. So, between the elements and the name, the superficial view, that is the only existing Scott. You cannot go further; you cannot go beyond the name. When you reach beyond the name you discover the non-existence of Scott. That is not Scott but the totality of Scott, the mahamudra of Scott. But we want to go beyond the name, don’t we? So, the conclusion is: Each of the elements individually is not Scott. And the group of them, the combination, is not Scott. Becoming Scott depends on the label, the name, being given to the elements. This connection between the name and the elements is the way that Scott exists. The operation of these is Scott. When we non-conceptualize in meditation the experience of Scott, our mind reaches beyond the conventions of Scott. If you stay there a long time, contemplating, and then after your session you open up to his atmosphere, his elements, he’ll seem like a mirage: is he there or not there? Is he real or not real? Somehow there is some vibration there, but not absolute. In other words, the absolute Scott disappears. When we are dealing with the normal ego, we always feel that Scott is absolute, which is totally wrong; it’s because we have not tasted the non- duality of Scott.

WE REALLY BELIEVE “I’M THERE” Here we talk about Scott; I use him as an example. But it’s the same for each of us. We feel, “I’m so solid. I am this, I am that.” We believe, “I’m the important one.” Our concepts hold a dualistic view of our own self. So, our responsibility is to observe this view, the way our concepts grasp at the I as self-existent. Do I exist as I believe, or not? We have to check that out. We really feel that somewhere within our body or mind, “I’m here.” This is a totally wrong conception! It means that we do not recognize how things operate conventionally, how they exist interdependently. We can’t accept it. We feel that we have some absolute quality.

THE CONVENTIONAL SELF EXISTS ONLY FOR THE RELATIVE MIND Remember, mahamudra meditation is not trying to destroy the conventional view of I; anyway, this is not the problem. The great yogi, the enlightened one, , said to his disciple, , “My son, you are not bound by the view, but you are kept in bondage by concepts; they have such a tight hold.” The conventional, relative I operates only for the relative mind. It is not possible for it to become absolute. Coca-cola cannot become absolute. It is a combination of elements gathered together, then we give it a name, then it becomes Coca-cola. It’s the same with ourselves: what we call “I am this, I am that” is only the connection between name and the elements. That’s the only way the I exists.

68 Because of our superstition, our delusions, we create the fantasy of conventional existence. But the ego mind doesn’t want to accept this; it wants to make it absolute. But it’s not possible.

THE INTUITIVE EGO PROJECTS HALLUCINATIONS ONTO REALITY The problem is: as long as you hold the concept that your self exists objectively within the five aggregates, that such a self is existent from its own side, within itself, then you do not touch reality – you go beyond reality, or below it. So the unique skill of this mahamudra meditation technique is that it banishes those concepts. Seeing things as absolute in this way, holding the concept of an independent I, is not an intellectually-created idea of ego, philosophically made up. We’re talking about the intuitive ego, the simultaneously-born ego, the inborn ego, and because it is so instinctive, it is very difficult to catch its projection. If we don’t understand the concepts of ego, how it projects hallucinations onto reality, our mahamudra meditation becomes Mickey Mouse. For this reason, we need a clean-clear state of consciousness gained first from concentrating on the clarity of our mind; then we can go beyond ego by seeing emptiness.

Excerpted from the teachings of Lama Yeshe in his forthcoming book, Mahamudra: Enlightenment in One Lifetime, to be published by Wisdom Publications in 2018.

69 8. WE NEED BODHICHITTA LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE

CHERISHING SELF MORE THAN OTHERS IS THE CAUSE OF ALL PROBLEMS By cherishing the I, you experience all the shortcomings. It not only interferes with but actually harms any attempt to achieve ultimate happiness, liberation and enlightenment, especially enlightenment. Not only that, it even interferes with having the success of this life; it even creates obstacles to temporary happiness. As the great bodhisattva Shantideva mentions in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, “What is the need is there to mention? The childish work only for their own end while the buddhas work solely for the benefit of other. Just look at the difference between the two.” The results of self-cherishing are only suffering, only problems, opening the door for all the problems if your attitude is only seeking happiness for yourself. If, on the other hand, you seek the happiness of others, if your attitude is wishing happiness for others, cherishing others, then you achieve all the happiness up to enlightenment, including the day to day life’s peace and happiness. When you are seeking only happiness for oneself, by cherishing the I, from there you open the door to all suffering. We can prove this by seeing that what has happened until now has only ever been through the self-cherishing thought and because of that has never been true happiness. From beginningless rebirths, we have only sought happiness for ourselves, cherishing the I, living that kind of life. This is why Shantideva calls such a person “childish.” That means the ordinary beings who live their lives with the attitude seeking happiness only for themselves, working only for themselves. Such a person is called childish. We have been doing just that, living our life with that attitude, from beginningless rebirths up to now, therefore we are still a child, still childish. We have so far done nothing at all to become enlightened.

THE BUDDHA GAVE UP CHERISHING SELF The Buddha himself changed his attitude from self-cherishing to cherishing others. From seeking happiness only for himself, he changed his attitude to one of seeking happiness only for others, and as he changed his attitude, he changed his actions. Therefore, because of this in Tibetan the Buddha is called the “Mighty One” (Tib: Thu-pa). This name denotes he was able to change his attitude from the self- cherishing thought to cherishing others, as well as the actions. Even at the very beginning of the Mahayana path, the Buddha was called Thu-pa because even though Shakyamuni Buddha had been the same as us, with all the delusions, sicknesses, problems, obstacles and so forth, he was able to change his attitude. He didn’t stay like that forever. By realizing the extensive shortcomings of

70 self-cherishing and the extensive benefit of cherishing others, he changed his attitude and developed bodhichitta. Having generated bodhichitta, he was able to enter the Mahayana path and complete the two types of merits, the of wisdom and the merit of virtue, the merit of wisdom is the cause of the dharmakaya, the holy mind of a buddha, and merit of virtue is cause of the rupakaya, the holy body of buddha. He achieved full enlightenment and he has liberated numberless sentient beings already and is still enlightening them. In each minute, in each second, he liberates numberless living beings. This is what Buddha is doing, liberating unimaginable sentient beings, even with each beam that emits from Buddha’s holy body within each second. This is what is happening. This is why Buddha is called the Mighty One. Buddha has infinite qualities of holy body, speech and mind. He has inconceivable qualities. It is beyond our concept to know Buddha’s holy actions’ extensive benefit to other sentient beings, how Buddha is able to benefit sentient beings. It comes from cherishing others, from changing the attitude; it started from there.

WE HARM OURSELVES BY CHERISHING SELF If we haven’t changed up to now, if we haven’t achieve full enlightenment up to now, if we haven’t even achieved liberation from samsara, it’s because of following the ego, the self-cherishing thought. It hasn’t allowed us to have any realizations up to now. From beginningless rebirths up to now, our mind has been empty of realizations, we haven’t had any attainments up to now. This is due to the self-cherishing, which has caused all the other negative emotional thoughts to arise, such as anger and, attachment and all those things. And because of that, we have had to experience all the sufferings of samsara up to now again and again, without beginning. If we never changes our attitude and continue to be the same person, continuously following the ego, the self-cherishing thought, keeping the demon self-cherishing thought in our heart, then there won’t be any realizations—neither enlightenment or liberation, not any realization. We will endlessly experience the sufferings of samsara without end. That is how it has been in the past and it will be continue to be like this in the future. We will have to experience the sufferings of samsara endlessly. Therefore, the ego, this self-cherishing thought, is much more harmful than all the atomic bombs there are in the world, because even if all the atomic bombs explode, if we have bodhichitta, they can’t cause us to be reborn in the hell realm, the lower realms. Even if the actual atomic bomb exploded, even though it caused the mind to split from the body, if we have bodhichitta, it doesn’t cause us to be born in the lower realms, but if we have the self-cherishing thought, if we die with the self-cherishing thought, then due to that negative emotional thought arising, that causes us to be reborn in the lower realms. So with ego, with the self-cherishing thought we are thrown into lower realms. No matter how many atom bombs there are, they are nothing compared to the

71 harm our own self-cherishing thought can do, how much it has done since beginningless rebirth up to now and it will continue to do. As long as we don’t change it, as long as we don’t eliminate it, it will torture us, it will make us suffer without end.

WE HARM OTHERS BY CHERISHING SELF And then we will give problems to other sentient beings, giving them so much suffering and harm, cause them to create negative karma from life to life—all due to this ego, this demon the self-cherishing. When we say “life to life harm to all the sentient beings” it is like that. The atomic bombs can’t do that, all this harm to all the sentient beings. This ego, this self-cherishing thought abiding in our heart is much more harmful than the atomic bomb. An atomic bomb is nothing compared to this.

CANCER AND ILLNESS ARE NOTHING IN COMPARISON WITH SELF- CHERISHING Normally, people are terrified when they their doctor tells them they have cancer. Their mind gets so terrified. But, for example, many of my gurus have had cancer but they passed away in a state of meditation, and have reincarnated again in a monastery in order to benefit sentient beings. They changed the body, just took another young, fresh, healthy body to benefit sentient beings. They took that aspect to benefit other sentient beings, by showing this aspect of ordinary being, then they go to a monastery in their childhood to inspire others, in order to go through what ordinary people go through. Buddha also did the same thing. He was born a prince, then as a child, he played and took part in competitions. Then he got married. Even though Buddha became enlightened inconceivable eons ago but he showed the aspect of only in that life discovering suffering, old age, sickness and death, and then rebirth. Looking for a spiritual guru, he led an ascetic life for six years, then he showed the aspect of becoming enlightened and revealing the Dharma. At dawn time, just before become he became enlightened he was attacked by millions of maras, not wanting the Buddha to be enlightened at all but Buddha, without the slightest movement, in meditation state on loving kindness, subdued all those many millions of maras. Only if you have the self-cherishing thought, if you die with the self-cherishing thought will you be born in the lower realms. Even if you experience a sickness such as cancer, you can also go pure land of the buddhas, such as the Kalachakra pure land, Shambhala, the Amitabha pure land, the Vajrayogini pure land or the Heruka pure land – those pure lands where there are tantric teachings and you can become enlightened in that next life. Therefore, what is really frightening is the ego, not the sicknesses, not the cancer. Of all the four hundred and twenty-four sicknesses, all of the harm they can do is nothing compared with your own ego, your self-cherishing thought. All those sicknesses are nothing; they do not even compare with the harm the ego does.

72 How many weapons there are in the world is nothing, their harm is nothing compared to your own self-cherishing thought, how it is harmful to yourself and all other sentient beings. If there is a good heart, bodhichitta, no matter how many weapons you own, they are harmless. But even if you don’t have any weapons, but your attitude is the self-cherishing thought then there is danger to harm others with the body with the speech with the mind. There is great danger to harm others with the body, with the speech and with the mind. How much pollution there is in the world, how much poison there is in the world, all those external harms are nothing compared to how much harm the ego, the self- cherishing thought does to you and other sentient beings from life to life.

SELF-CHERISHING BLOCKS ALL REALIZATIONS This self-cherishing thought is something that you must get rid of without delaying for even a second. Without delay of even a second you need to get rid of it, it needs to be abandoned. This self-cherishing thought always interrupts with your ability to practise Dharma and even to meet the Dharma. Even when you finally, finally, met Buddhadharma, or when you finally try to meditate, to open the mind to meditate, to help yourself to have realizations – something that has never happened before from beginningless rebirths, this chance to have real change – when you finally do this, again this self-cherishing thought comes and doesn’t allow even for one minute to concentrate one pointedly. It causes attachment to arise which distracts the mind, moving it to other objects. Not only does it block perfect meditation even for one minute, it doesn’t even allow a full mala of reciting to happen. Even if you have a wish to practise Dharma, the self-cherishing thought not only interferes with that wish, it actually causes a fear of practicing Dharma, because it causes a fear of letting go of the I and of cherishing others, of offering the victory to others. It doesn’t allow this. Because of self-cherishing thought, desire arises which doesn’t allow you to practise the renunciation of samsara, the renunciation of this life. It doesn’t allow you to be able to practise pure Dharma. Even if you wish to practise, even if you know that to practise Dharma is a good thing for yourself and for others, still the ego doesn’t let you practise Dharma. It always finds excuses for you to do something else. There is always something else to do and the Dharma practice gets delayed. Similarly, the self-cherishing thought doesn’t let you take vows, take precepts, not just the higher ordination of a monk or , but even the lay vows. The self- cherishing thought gives you a fear of taking precepts. Even if you have the opportunity to do so because you are in the right environment, the ego doesn’t allow that to happen, causing inferences, making attachment arise. And even if you have taken vows, the lay or higher ordinations of a monk or nun, the self-cherishing thought again harms you by not allowing you to practise purely. Due to it, many other emotions and attachments arise which cause you to break the vows. The ego harms you even if you are trying to have a pure life. It ego doesn’t allow it. The ego

73 doesn’t allow it, even if there is opportunity to collect merit, to create good karma, by practicing charity by making charity.

SELF-CHERISHING STOPS YOU FOLLOWING THE GURU Having met your guru, even if you were to meet Shakyamuni Buddha himself, or Buddha or , there is nothing more you can learn from these buddhas, nothing more you can achieve from them than you can learn from your guru. I am not saying that I am one of them. I am not saying that, you shouldn’t think that way. But, for example to receive teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Geshe Sopa Rinpoche and then meet Manjushri, there is nothing else he could teach you. However, due to the self-cherishing thought, having met a virtuous friend like that, you are still unable to follow their advice, you are unable to surrender to the guru who reveals the path to enlightenment. Again, this is all caused by the bad ego, the self-cherishing thought. This why, even though you have met a virtuous friend, the most qualified you can find in the world, still nothing happens in your mind. Even if you have received all the most profound and most secret sutra and tantra teachings, containing the whole path to enlightenment, even if you have heard it many times, still nothing happens, there is no change in your mind. That is completely, totally because you follow the ego, the self-cherishing thought instead of following the guru. Instead of surrendering to the guru, you surrender to the ego, you follow the ego, you become a disciple of the ego, follow it day and night, listening to what it says all the time. This is why there is no change, no realization, even after having met the Dharma and hearing so many teachings, for years and years. That is completely the shortcoming of following the ego, of surrendering to the ego. Even if all the buddhas come in front of you and give you teachings, as long as you don’t give up this ego, this self-cherishing thought, you won’t be able to achieve realizations because as long as you don’t change the mind, as long as you follows the ego, there is no way to achieve enlightenment.

WITH SELF-CHERISHING THERE IS ONLY UNHAPPINESS Whenever you experience unhappiness or depression in daily life, this is caused by the ego, the self-cherishing thought. Any obstacle you experience, to practicing Dharma or even to achieving the happiness and success of this life, this is caused by the ego. How many times you have suffered due to relationship problems, one after another, on and on, all this totally is due to the ego. Because of the self-cherishing thought, attachment, desire arises and this creates all this suffering and confusion and all these relationship problems. Others’ unhappiness, anger, jealousy and so forth, all these problems are also caused by the ego. So many times the thought comes that life is totally overwhelmed by suffering, you are totally suffocating. Because there are so many problems such as relationship problems, you experience life as suffocating. Then when there is no other solution the thought arises to commit suicide. You can’t think of anything else so the thought

74 arises to kill yourself by jumping from a roof or from a bridge like the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or like the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The thought comes many times to commit suicide. All this is definitely related to the self-cherishing thought. You can definitely see the connection to it. When a businessperson fails in business, losing, say, thousands of millions of dollars, then has a nervous breakdown and commits suicide, all these unhappy life’s problems are definitely related to the ego, because in the past, out of ego, he did actions of stealing, covetousness and such things, and created negative karma which resulted in all these things, such as lack of success. Because he wishes are not fulfilled he takes his life. From success, suddenly one day he is plunged into loss and his business fails and there is so much difficulty in his life. Why we have been so unhappy in the past can all be related to the self-cherishing thought, but also they come from negative karma. As I have mentioned, how that negative karma happened, first there is the self-cherishing thought then due to those actions that’s how they become negative karma, stealing and telling lies, covetousness and so forth. First there is the thought, but the resulting actions of speech and body become negative karma because the motivation behind them is the self-cherishing thought. That is how they are transformed into negative karma. Then, because of this, these problems arise and you are unable to succeed in business. When you have problems in your job – other people are jealous and they try to kick you out, to sack you – all these things are shortcomings of self-cherishing. They are caused by the self-cherishing thought. So many relationship problems come not only because you are unable to control desire, unable to control the self-cherishing thought, but also your companion or friend you rely on, who you trust, lets you down. You want to live with them, you want to live together harmoniously, but they change their mind and leave you, they abandon you. These are the results of slandering, the past negative karma done out of self-cherishing. The other person leaving you, giving you up, splitting from you, is due to your own negative karma of slandering in the past out of self-cherishing. As well as sexual misconduct in past lives, done out of self-cherishing, became negative karma, all this unhappiness is related to the present self-cherishing thought and related to past lives’ self-cherishing who committed that negative karma. Therefore all those problems you normally experience came from the self-cherishing thought. Those normal problems you always see on TV, that you always hear and you yourself have also experienced are shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought, caused by the self-cherishing thought. Even in one day, what makes life empty is the self-cherishing thought. Why every action you do in each twenty-four hours doesn’t become cause to achieve enlightenment is because of the ego. Because ego is abiding there, there is no place for bodhichitta, no place for the altruistic mind to achieve enlightenment, no thought of cherishing others. So in that twenty-four hours your activity did not become the cause to achieve enlightenment and your life is wasted; it did not become meaningful, because it did

75 not become the cause to achieve enlightenment. Then not only did that twenty- four hours of your activity not become the cause to achieve even liberation from samsara, but because of the self-cherishing thought – the attachment to samsaric perfection, to samsaric pleasure – with those activities during the twenty-four hours there is no attitude of renunciation of samsara. Your attitude is only the desire clinging to samsaric happiness. Due to the self-cherishing thought, desire arises, attachment, clinging to this life, seeking the happiness of this life and so due to that, in the twenty-four hours activities, even if you try to meditate, or even if you manage to meditate or chant mantras, those things do not become Dharma. What appear to be Dharma such as making charity, giving things to others, since the attitude comes from attachment, clinging to this life, it does not even become the cause to achieve the happiness of future lives because it does not become Dharma. Each activity of the twenty-four hours is the worldly dharma, it is non-virtuous due to the attachment clinging to this life. Therefore, the twenty-four hours’ life becomes totally empty, totally meaningless—not only not Dharma but non-virtue. Everything becomes non-virtue. Therefore the ego makes your life during each twenty-four hours totally meaningless, empty, and not only that but every action is non-virtue, the cause of suffering, the cause of the lower realms. Therefore, this self- cherishing thought is to be abandoned, to be renounced without delay for even a second. What is called the I, this is to be let go of forever because cherishing this is opening the door for all problems, all obstacles.

BODHICHITTA IS THE SOURCE OF ALL HAPPINESS Bodhichitta is the source of all the success, of all happiness, yours and all other sentient beings. Your bodhichitta brings all the happiness up to enlightenment to you, it completes all your work, ceases all the gross, subtle defilements such as anger, and completes the works for others, completes all the realizations up to enlightenment. One person’s bodhichitta gives happiness to all sentient beings, causing them happiness in all future lives, causing them ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and full enlightenment. One person’s bodhichitta causes all this happiness to numberless other sentient beings. The numberless hell beings are liberated from all their oceans of samsaric suffering and are brought to enlightenment. Your bodhichitta causes all the numberless hungry ghosts to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and brings them to enlightenment, besides all the other happiness. Your bodhichitta liberates numberless animals from the oceans of samsaric suffering and brings them to enlightenment, and causes all the other happiness. Your bodhichitta causes numberless human beings to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment and all other happiness. Your bodhichitta causes all the numberless suras and asuras to be free from all the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Your

76 bodhichitta causes the numberless intermediate state beings to be free from all the suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment. Normally I recommend to even just think about the animals, the number of fish in the ocean or even in just one lake. Just thinking of one spot where there is a lake or river, without talking about the ocean, how many fish are there? Without talking about other animals, just the fish there is an uncountable number. If we think just one place, if you have bodhichitta then you liberate those numberless beings from that one lake – you liberate so many fish from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. That is fantastic; it is unbelievable! Then think of all the fish in the ocean, all the fish in any universe, you liberate them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Even without thinking of any other sentient beings, without thinking of any other animals, just looking at the fish you liberate, how fantastic it is! If you think of just the ants you liberate, there are numberless ants, even in just those living one mountain or one field. It is unbelievable how many ants there in one field, even under a rock there can be a whole nest with thousands and thousands and thousands of workers that your bodhichitta is liberating from those oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. How wonderful is that! How incredible is that! This is what you do with your bodhichitta if you have bodhichitta.

Now think of all the ants living in all the universes – not only on this continent but in all the universes. You are able to liberate them all from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. How wonderful is that! How incredible is that! Similarly, we can talk about the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless suras, the numberless asuras, the numberless human beings, all the numberless sentient beings are liberated from the oceans of suffering and brought to enlightenment. When we think about one type of worm, there is an unaccountable number, and to be able to liberate them and bring them to enlightenment is incredible. Therefore, they get all the happiness up to enlightenment from you, from your bodhichitta. It is up to you. It is your responsibility. All their happiness up to enlightenment comes from your bodhichitta, so you are responsible. How crucial, how urgent it is to generate bodhichitta, the good heart. This is an emergency. You can’t wait, you can’t delay for even one second to have this bodhichitta realization. All the numberless sentient beings, their happiness up to enlightenment comes from your bodhichitta. They all depend on you, so you can’t wait. Your bodhichitta is crucial. It is so unbearable that sentient beings are suffering, that they are suffering is unbearable so you can’t delay for even a second. All happiness comes from bodhichitta. All your happiness, all other sentient beings’ happiness comes from bodhichitta. All your past, present and future happiness comes from your good karma. Your good karma is the action of a buddha working within a sentient beings’ mind, within your mind. There are two types of action of a buddha: there is one where a buddha possesses his own mind, a buddha’s mind, and there is one within us sentient beings’ mental

77 continuum. So this is the action of a buddha, our own good karma is the action of a buddha. And a buddha came from a bodhisattva, a bodhisattva came from bodhichitta and bodhichitta came from the root, great compassion. From this you can understand. You can see that a bodhisattva came from bodhichitta. From this explanation, you can understand how all your happiness and all sentient beings’ happiness came from bodhichitta. Now it’s clear, it came from bodhichitta. All the happiness every single comfort that you experience, past, present and future, all happiness came from bodhichitta.

ALL MY HAPPINESS COMES ALL SENTIENT BEINGS: FRIENDS, ENEMIES, AND STRANGERS Bodhichitta came from great compassion and great compassion is generated by depending on the existence of suffering of sentient beings. Great compassion is generated dependent on the existence of suffering of sentient beings. It happens by the kindness of the suffering obscurations of sentient beings. This is where all your past, present and future happiness came from, from other sentient beings. That means every sentient being. You can’t only include the friend and leave out the enemy; it is not like that. All your past, present and future happiness – including enlightenment and all realizations – everything you have received is by the kindness of every single obscured suffering sentient being. So that also includes the enemy, the person who abused you, the person who criticized you, the person who doesn’t love you. All the past, present and future happiness you have received is also from this person that you call enemy, because compassion, from where bodhichitta arises, is generated by depending on the existence of that suffering sentient being. Great compassion has to cover all sentient beings. The compassion that feels how unbearable is the suffering of all sentient beings who are obscured by suffering, that compassion covers all sentient beings, and wants to free them all from suffering and its causes by oneself. That is great compassion – without leaving out any sentient beings, without exception, without leaving out any sentient being. All your three times’ happiness came from this person who also abused you, who got angry at you, therefore this person is the kindest, most precious person in your life. It is like that with all other sentient beings. Every human being, every animal, every hell being, every sentient being is the kindest, the most precious one in your own life. Everybody, including the person next to you. Look around here, starting from here, there is the kindest, most precious one in your life. Therefore think, “In my life, there is nobody for me to cherish except only the other sentient beings, there is nobody to work for except only the other sentient beings. I have no purpose to work except only for others. Any work other than this is meaningless, senseless. What sentient beings want is happiness, what they do not want is suffering. Therefore, I must free them from all suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment by myself alone – alone. There is no other means to do that except first myself achieving enlightenment.”

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