LAM RIM TEACHINGS VOLUME III MEDIUM SCOPE Thoroughly Revised Edition
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LAM RIM TEACHINGS VOLUME III MEDIUM SCOPE thoroughly revised edition Gehlek Rimpoche teachings 1987 - 1991 Jewel Heart Transcripts 2005 Jewel Heart First edition 1993; revised 2005 © Ngawang Gehlek All rights reserved. CONTENTS HOW TO TAKE THE ESSENCE OUT OF LIFE: MEDIUM SCOPE XIII How to Meditate 5 XIV Recognizing Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 13 XV The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 29 XVI The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 57 XVII Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 67 APPENDICES 81 Questions and Answers 83 Outlines 99 Charts 106 - Chart 3: Desire Realms - Chart 4: Form- and Formless Realms - Chart 5: The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising Root texts 109 - The Rice Seedling Sutra INDEX 117 Buddha Vairochana XIII HOW TO MEDITATE1 Buddhism in a nutshell We are all following the path that was laid out by Buddha. So the most important thing you ask yourself is: What is Buddhism really? Buddha himself has answered this. One of the sutras says, Avoid non-virtuous actions, Build virtues as much as you can, And control your mind. Some people translate it, Avoid evil, build good and watch your mind. Avoid non-virtuous actions, build virtues as much as you can Avoid non-virtues, because they make us miserable. Take anger as an example. What does anger do to us? It generates a tremendous discomfort; your peace of mind is disturbed. It even creates trouble between people: it destroys the person-to-person harmony. So it is really an evil within us. The sutra itself doesn’t use the word ‘avoid’ but, ‘don’t do it, don’t even do a single non-virtue and build up all the virtues in the best way’. Not the best way you can, but the best way. Now when you want to practice, the question really rises: what is virtuous and what is non-virtuous? Virtues and non-virtues are two sides of the same coin, e.g. killing is a non-virtue, not-killing is a virtue; lying is a non-virtue and not-lying is a virtue, and so and forth. When you look into the major world relig- ions, you’ll see that they have their divisions of virtue and non-virtue very much in common. Buddhism talks about the ten virtues and the ten non-virtues. Christianity talks about the ten commandments. And when you look into both of them really carefully, you can see that it boils down to the same. Sometimes I have been wondering whether Buddha had a conference with Jesus Christ. That’s a joke. Since it is the truth, it boils down to that. We have to keep those as our basic principle guidelines, not only if you are following Buddhism, but whatever spiritual path you follow. So, doing is one side of the coin and not-doing is the other side: killing and not-killing. Now the ques- tion is: if you just sit there and don’t kill, will that develop the virtue of not-killing? I don’t believe it does. What really happens is: you are presented with the opportunity to kill and you think about it. You see the faults of killing and the benefits of not-killing and then you decide not to kill. That is when you build the virtue of not-killing. Otherwise, just sitting and not killing does not build the virtue of not-killing. And that goes for all ten. Now there is the question of taking vows. What does a vow do? When you have taken a vow of not- killing, then even if you do not encounter with the opportunity to kill, you are building the virtue of not- killing. Because you have promised you are not going to indulge in killing, therefore by not killing, by sitting idly, you are also building the virtue of not-killing. That is the power of the vow. And if you don’t have the vow? Whenever you have the opportunity to kill and you decide not to, you develop a virtue of not-killing. 1 Literature: Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 93-116; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 89-94. Kathleen McDonald, How to Meditate, p. 13-23. 6 Lam Rim Teachings Control your mind The word in the Tibetan translation is dül, which means to control or conquer. The translation in Chinese is: to watch. How does one handle that? And why is it important? That is again related to the actions of virtue and non-virtue. Any action of virtue or non-virtue is an act of body or mind or speech, or a combination of these. Body and speech actions both follow a mental action. The mental thought produces something and then body or speech act. So the key point lies in the mind. Our mind is very unstable, it changes all the time and is always rough, for we always want me to be the most important, we want all my wishes to be fulfilled. Whenever I compare myself with others, I like to be the best of all. Whenever we talk we have ‘I’ in our speech, “I did this, I did that, I want this, I want that.” The ‘I’ is always so important. That is because our mind is only concerned about self, we are so much used to keeping a self-interest. On top of that, the ‘I’ always goes for happiness, “I want happiness, I don’t want misery and prob- lems.” We build our own projection of happiness in our mind. Here you have to watch yourself continu- ously. Ask yourself, “What kind of happiness am I seeking? What is happiness really?” Everyone has a different projection of happiness. And that makes us seek all kinds of things without checking whether our imaginative happiness is really happiness or not. First we build material happiness as our aim. Then, realizing that material happiness is not real happi- ness, we go for mental happiness [and see that] as real happiness. But, again, just mental happiness is not necessarily real happiness. So we sort of project either physical, material or mental happiness and use various ways to try and build that up. Unfortunately in reality, ninety percent of us, although we think we are building happiness, are always building in the opposite direction. The reason is that we are so used to the non-virtues that we pick them up automatically. And although we work very hard and try our best to work in a certain direc- tion, we are still not going towards it. The problem is our ignorance. We really don’t know exactly what real happiness is and how one proceeds towards that. We don’t have the proper information, or a proper picture in our mind and so we half practice this and half practice that and it doesn’t really lead us towards our goal. Learning, thinking, meditating. In order to avoid all this I will go to the great master Tsongkhapa, of whom we have just celebrated the death anniversary.2 Tsongkhapa’s main [method to control the mind] boils down to this. Learning. As a first step, Je Tsongkhapa emphasized the learning – as varied and as much as possible. Learning in the spiritual path is, I think, slightly different from learning in the university education sense of the word. When you look for education you collect information and you build that up. Learning here is not only collecting information in your notebook or on your tape recorder. Learning also has to be focused inwards. Every time you learn something, read something or hear the subject you are taught, you gain some understanding. That is called ‘understanding depending on hearing or study’. That becomes a seed. Thinking. The second stage is that you analyze that. Analyzing and thinking is the second stage. You collect more information from various sources, you try to analyze that within yourself and you gain a bet- ter understanding. That understanding we call ‘understanding depending on thinking or analysis’. Once you have that, you develop it further. Meditating. Then you have to meditate on it. When you meditate on it you get a far better understand- ing, you see it much better. And then, by practicing it, you really get it within you. When you get that, those non-virtues that your practice is directed against are really cut away from you. By cutting it… not by suppressing, not by throwing it away, not by letting it linger around, but by totally cutting it [you gain the positive side of it]. Let me present it another way. We are trying to gain positivity or virtue. For each one of these counts: you see the faults of the non-virtue and you see the qualities of the virtue, you analyze it and you find a reliable conclusion by your own intellect, by you own analysis, based on the information and guidance you have received. When you meditate strongly on that subject and concentrate on it, you sort of strongly be- 2 The 25th day of the tenth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. Usually in December. How to Meditate 7 come convinced that for example killing is something really bad, “I am totally not going to do it, I am not only promising not to do it, but I really, really, really don’t want to do it.” When that comes it is a positive step you are taking towards [that virtue].