LAM RIM TEACHINGS VOLUME III MEDIUM SCOPE Thoroughly Revised Edition

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

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 religions, 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 question 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 problems.” We build our own projection of happiness in our mind. Here you have to watch yourself continuously. 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 happiness, 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 direction, 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 better 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 understanding, 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]. In other words, we have won one war against our enemy of non- virtue and we have gained one positivity. Like that you have to go on the various stages from being an ordinary person to the total enlightened position.

Different aims: three scopes or levels. The spiritual path is very tricky. If we are not focusing properly, then whatever energy we put in will float everywhere. Then what will happen? We may try to calm down our nervous and busy mind or we may try to build a mental stability, or we may say a few mantras and hope to build a little virtue here and there, or we may want to visualize different things, but even though we do a lot, the energy we are putting into is not really geared towards the aim that we would like to achieve. We should not do that. We don’t have that much time. How much time do we really put into the spiritual path? The Kadampa masters used to say, If you are meditating and devoting sixty years you are in total putting in about five years of real time, because you are doing this, doing that, you are sleeping, walking, talking, gossiping, you are doing all sorts of things. When you cut down all this time, you really put in a solid of five years only in sixty years. Compare those people with ourselves today and see how much we are putting in. Therefore we cannot afford to waste our energy. Time-wise and energy-wise we don’t put much in, and if we don’t channelize whatever we put in into the proper direction, then it becomes very difficult. So we really have to direct our efforts towards a certain goal. If we do this, then whatever work we do will be solid. An aim is so important. Don’t move around without an aim. If your aim is to obtain enlightenment – excellent. If your aim is to get out of samsara and be free – excellent. If your aim is just to calm down your mind and gain a concentration power, that is also okay. Whatever your aim may be, put every effort in that direction and then you proceed. What did Je Tsongkhapa and Buddha and the great Indian Buddhist masters of the Mahayana tradition do? They have spoken of obtaining buddhahood as the aim. They said that buddhahood is not something beyond our reach, but something that every human being can reach. They gave buddhahood as the ultimate aim. The Theravada [or Hinayana]3 has the arhat level as the ultimate aim. And within the Hinayana, there is also a lower level, which will just give as its aim to obtain a reliable, comfortable future life. According to Buddha, any aim beyond [or below] this is not really a recommended Buddhist aim. In the ancient Indian tradition five aim-levels were introduced. The three mentioned above are considered to be Buddhist aims and below that there are two more Buddha did not recommend4. Whatever you choose, set your aim and try to gear towards it. Whatever we have been teaching and talking about here, has ultimate enlightenment as its aim and goal, and we gear towards that.

The Lamrim, the actual practice leading towards enlightenment, is basically divided into the three categories: practice common with the lower level [aiming at a comfortable future life – one of the higher realms], practice common with the medium level [aiming at nirvana – the arhat level], Mahayana practice [aiming at enlightenment – buddhahood]. Why do we use the words ‘common with’? We are neither studying the lower level nor the medium level as our fundamental path. Our fundamental path is the Mahayana practice, but in order to gain that we are picking out of the lower paths the subjects that are absolutely necessary. That is why we use the words ‘common’ in the lower and the medium level. After that comes the Mahayana practice. The most important subject of the path common with the lower level is karma. All your practice at

3 Rinpoche uses the word Theravada (Tradition of Elders) as a sign of respect for all Hinayana schools, because the word Hi- nayana –‘small vehicle’ is sometimes thought to be pejorative. However, to point out the levels of the individual practitioner, we think it is appropriate to use the word ‘Hinayana’. 4 The two lower ones are called ‘disconnected ones’ and ‘the indefinite ones’. See Gampopa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, edition Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche, p. 50.

8 Lam Rim Teachings this level really lies in understanding karma properly and acting accordingly. We have discussed karma in quite some detail, even to the extent of introducing all ten different non-virtues and their results. And, mind you, the result is not only one result but three results, or with the division of one included, there are even four different levels of results.5

Meditation When I say “Avoid non-virtues, build virtues as much as you can and control your mind”, I refer to the general pattern of life we have to take. Now at the third point, the point of controlling your mind, the question of meditation comes in. Up to here I have given you quite good information. If you leave this information in the book or on the tape it is not my fault. If you try to practice it, try to soak your mind with the practice, then I’ll be very happy to help you in whatever way I can. And I am sure I am not alone in this. Behind me is the backbone of the spiritual lineage, the great tradition. They will definitely help you in whatever way they can. And if you are not interested, then it is not worth [the effort]. Now, how to put into practice what you have learned up to this level? How to meditate on it? That is the main question I would like to spend a little time on. How does one do the meditation practice? You people are supposed to do it in your own homes. We did not really have the time to do these meditations collectively, but we always told you: do it when you go home, individually. Do it whenever you have time, but try to do it every day. I presume you have been doing it. Today it is the time for me to ask: How you have been doing it? What did you know? How did you feel?

How to start your meditation The first step is how you should sit in meditation. There is the sevenfold way of sitting of Buddha Vairo- chana.6 That is not really relevant for us now. What is recommended here is to sit in whatever way is most comfortable for you, except that you can’t lie down. It is recommended to take a samadhi seat; i.e. the back of the cushion being slightly higher than the front.7 If you have a problem sitting tightly cross-legged, you can make it a little wider, more relaxed. I used to sit this way since childhood, so I know all the different tricks. If you make it wide, you can sit cross-legged for hours, but sitting really tight is quite difficult. Anyway, whatever is most comfortable is the one that is recommended for you. [There is no objection to sitting on a chair, as long as you sit with a straight back.]

Then the next step is: to cool your mind. You know, we have busy activities outside and if we suddenly jump in and try to sit down and meditate, it won’t be any good. Therefore it is recommended to first relax your mind. How do you do that? Watch your breath. Counting the breath or watching the breath is the first and foremost preliminary step. My teacher used to recommend jumping straightaway to what we call the nine rounds of breath-taking.

Nine-round breathing meditation8 You take the in-breath from the right nostril [and let it slowly go out via the left nostril]. You have to watch the mind and the mind goes with the air. You do that three times. The air is the horse and the mind rides on the horse. The mind is the person, the air is the horse and when the horseman goes, the person rides the horse, right? The mind is like the man riding and the air is like the horse. Wherever the air goes – up and down – the mind has to follow. If you’re not following it, then you are not riding the horse but letting the horse run while you are watching it. That doesn’t do you any good, so you have to follow it. The main point here is not the breath going in and out; the main point is to follow the breath. The mind should follow the taking in and going out. That way you gain concentration power. That is it. Also

5 See the chapter on Karma, ch. XVII (volume II). 6 Picture of Buddha Vairochana at the beginning of this chapter. For the description of the sitting posture see chapter V (volume I), point 3: Preparing the cushion and correcting your motivation. 7 That keeps your spine better in an upright position. 8 Literature: Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 21-29.

How to Meditate 9 your attention should not be drawn towards whatever you have inside: anger, jealousy, attachment, love and patience; you should take the mind away from that. If you can manage breathing in via one nostril without touching the nose it is okay, but if you cannot manage that, it is recommended to use a finger to block one nostril. The most important thing is that the mind should follow the air. When you do this breathing exercise you should breathe towards the abdomen, not to the chest – like everybody does. The air must be taken down to the abdomen to fill it up. This is because later, at the completion stage of the Vajrayana practice, this will become very important. Therefore, from the beginning, take the breath to the abdomen and fill it up totally. Three times you smoothly take air in through the right nostril all the way into the abdomen. Then let it go slowly out the left nostril. All the time your mind follows the air. Three times you smoothly take air in through the left nostril all the way into the abdomen. Then let it go slowly from the right nostril. Then you take air in very smoothly through both nostrils and let it go out via both nostrils, three times. Your mind follows the air. That makes nine rounds. I just briefly introduced this. Later I will add practices to this.9 This is the basic foundation for doing it. After that your mind has been slightly taken away from the busy-ness.

Concentrated meditation and analytical meditation These are two types of meditation that you have to combine. Because of the combination they can sometimes disturb each other in the beginning. That doesn’t matter. When you get used to it, they won’t disturb but complement each other. In the beginning the stable mind gets disturbed by thinking and the thinking mind gets disturbed by stability. That disturbance will be there a little bit in the beginning but it won’t be a big problem. Later on they will complement each other.

Concentrated meditation [Tib. jokgom]. You have to raise an object on which you meditate. There are: meditation on a subject and meditation on an object. If you concentrate on the breath-air, that’s also fine, that’s alright. But what is recommended here is to go one step beyond the breath and concentrate on an object. You can take any object. Taking Buddha as an object makes your meditation more than concentration only. It also benefits, builds virtue and good luck – all sorts of things. So it is recommended to concentrate on Buddha as an object. People may tell you, “Look at [a picture or statue of] the Buddha and concentrate.” That is not right. Then you are training your eyes. You have to train the mind, so don’t look at [a picture]. You must have a mental projection rather than a physical thing. A picture may be able to calm your mind down, but beyond that it cannot build up anything. So it has to be mental. The first step is to find the object itself. To find the object is a very difficult step. You can really take a long time finding it. If you are concentrating on an image of the Buddha, you really can’t get it. If you try to see Buddha’s face and nose and eyes close to you, you lose the feet, the legs and the seat. If you have the feet, legs and all this, you won’t have the head and hands etc. That is the first problem we encounter. So the recommendation here is: whatever you get, even if it is just a yellow or white lump, keep it. Con- centrate on it. And once you can keep it constantly, you have the first developmental stage of the found object, as it is said. Once you find the object you have to concentrate on it without losing it in the mind. Then there are the different levels. There are nine levels we have to go through; there are six powers and four types of attention. I am not going into this in detail, because it will come at the level of shamatha and vipasyana10.

Recommended for your spiritual practice is to use a subject instead of an object. In order to use a subject as

9 In Vajrayana teachings. 10 See chapter XXIV (volume IV). Detailed presentation: Gehlek Rimpoche, Gom, a Course in Meditation. Also see Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 102-117; Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development, p. 156-160.

10 Lam Rim Teachings your object of meditation, again, you have to find the subject. In order to find your subject we have told you all the stages. And of every stage of the path that we have told you up to here, your outlines are your [subject] stages. So on each one of these outlines you have to concentrate. First you have to find [your conclusion on the subject] and secondly you have to concentrate on it. If you concentrate on that, it has some different effect within the person. Those different effects building up one on top of the other is your spiritual development. That I have been telling you repeatedly. Apart from this there is no such thing as spiritual development hitting you all of a sudden. For example, some people develop channeling. That is not spiritual development, that’s something else. There are a lot of other things, like people who develop reading somebody’s mind or who can make them say something, but these are not spiritual developments. Unless something is spiritually worked out and built up, it is not a spiritual development, but a by-product or a karmic power. For real and solid spiritual development one has to work and build it. Spiritual development is not something which suddenly hits you and says, “Hey, here I am!” If there were such a thing it would be instant enlightenment, which not possible. It is totally not possible. Therefore, if anything happens instantly that means it is not spiritual development. You have to work and solidly build up one [realization] after the other. When it builds up, channeling and all these by-products may come up. They will come to you even if you don’t want them. Throw such things away. They just come to you, one after another. Encounters with enlightened beings, visions and all these may come to you even unwanted. Those are by-products, nothing to be surprised of, nothing great; it is just happening and that is it.

Analytical meditation [Tib. chegom]. First and foremost you must know what you meditate on. If you don’t know what you meditate on, you may be sitting a long time but that may not fulfill your aim. What kind of subjects do you meditate on? The subjects on which you really have to concentrate are the [Lam- rim] subjects we have been talking about up to now. So you have to meditate and practice yourself. As far as my job is concerned, I have given you the best selected information. I sort of channelized everything, laid it out properly and threw it at you. And I even told you how to sit and how to meditate, all this. Okay. Now it is for you to do it. If you don’t do it you gain nothing. Shantideva said: I shall put this way of life into actual practice, For what can be achieved by merely talking about it? Will a sick man be benefited Merely by reading the medical texts? Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life [Bodhisattvacharyavatara], ch. 5, vs. 109 If you are sick and you want to get better you have to take the medicine. Just getting a prescription from the doctor and looking at the medicine bottle will not help you. Similarly, listening to the information and reading about it is not going to help you. You have to do it, you have to practice, to meditate. Unless you meditate within your mind [nothing is going to happen]. As I told you, it is like putting a paper in oil. The oil should soak the paper. That is what controlling the mind really means: information and stage-by-stage development. Information alone is not enough. The information has to be channelized and not only channelized, but put in proper stages. If your stages go upside down, it won’t help and nothing will grow. For example, if you try to develop an understanding of impermanence before you gain a solid stability on the importance of life, then what will impermanence do to you? Once you realize the importance of life, then you realize it is impermanent. How effective it will be for the individual you can then see yourself. Like that. The order is so important, because those are the actual steps. If you put the order upside down then you have to redo everything and your efforts are going to get mixed. On every point and on each one of the outlines I have given you a conclusion. Draw your own con- clusions. The conclusion is a suggested conclusion, but you have to reach that conclusion yourself. My conclusion is a suggested conclusion and if you just say, “He said this and this [conclusion] is mine”, it won’t do. You have to reach it by yourself and when you reach it you have to concentrate. That is your spiritual gain. Why do you have to control your mind? If you cannot control your mind you cannot develop. If you

How to Meditate 11 cannot develop you cannot reach your aim. Then everything will be repeated again.

Just now you try to avoid non-virtue and build virtue, but all your virtues will be lucky karma. Lucky karma is not a perfect good karma. It is a good karma, because it gives you a happy comfortable result within samsara; that is why it is called lucky karma. However, what we really need is a cause for cutting the circle of existence instead of a cause for comfortable continuation of cyclic existence. In order to avoid that all your good efforts become lucky karma, in order to build up a cause towards something better than that, in order to build up towards enlightenment, you need a controlled mind.

How to do your daily [Lamrim] meditation practice First settle your mind, by means of the nine-round breathing meditation or in whatever way you choose. When your mind is settled you visualize that you are sitting down, surrounded by all sentient beings: all the males on the right and all the females on the left, or your enemies in front of you and your friends behind you. The sentient beings fill up all the space and you yourself are their leader. You are facing your own spiritual guide, who is in reality all enlightened beings. He or she is the Buddha, is the dharma, is the sangha, is all enlightened beings in the form of Sakyamuni Buddha, or in the form of Je Tsongkhapa or in whatever form is easy for you. Then generate pure thoughts.11 Now you bring a duplicate of your spiritual guide – in the form you visualized – onto your crown, facing the same direction you do, while the visualization also remains in front of you. Then your first recommended thought is: From the limitless beginning, I and all sentient beings, here around me, have taken a number of different lives and we have been through a tremendous amount of pain – samsaric pain in general and in particular different individual pains. But no matter how much we have experienced those pains, they have never been totally cut. And this time I have found a very special life, difficult to find, and very purposeful. I have found such a human life. I have also met the great path that was opened by Buddha, with a guide available, with all information needed available, with the sangha community available. And if at this time I don’t gain something solid to cut these sufferings totally from the root, again I will be running around endlessly. So therefore I would like to practice this very path, which is leading towards enlightenment. May I be blessed to be able to do that. And you remember Buddha Sakyamuni and concentrate and say the mantra: OM MUNI MUNI MA- HAMUNA YE SOHA. [Victory, victory, great victory. May the basis for that be laid now.] (…x) Then you take the second step: guru-devotional practice or some other subject. Recall the outlines and work with them. You meditate on every step, you draw a conclusion and say: OM MUNI MUNI MAHAMUNA YE SOHA. (…x) That is how you practice. That is about what I wanted to say. Any questions or discussions I will be happy about, because I think this is the point where we have to discuss.12

11 If you want to, insert here: taking refuge and generating bodhimind, the four immeasurables and the seven limbs. All either in your own words or in a given prayer form, like in the Jewel Heart Prayer Book: Jewel Heart Prayers and Ganden Lha Gyema.. 12 For the questions and discussions on this chapter, see the chapter Questrions and Answers.

12 Lam Rim Teachings

“Cherish knowledge of the chains that bind you to the wheel of cyclic existence.” Je Tsongkhapa, Song of the Stages in Spiritual Practice [Lamrim Dudon], vs. 13 Graphics: Sandro Botticelli (16th century) for Dante’s Divina Commedia.

XIV RECOGNIZING SAMSARA: ITS FAULTS AND SUFFERINGS13

If you do not contemplate the noble truth of suffering, the fallacy of samsara, The wish to be free of samsara will not arise. Je Tsongkhapa, Song of the Stages in Spiritual Practice [Lamrim Dudon], vs. 13

We have come to the Medium Scope, which is: b. Training the mind in the stages of the path common with the medium level Its main purpose is to recognize samsara, the circle of existence, to see the faults of samsara, to see how an individual is circling round in samsara, and develop a further desire to be liberated. How do we get to this purpose? There are two steps here: ▪ How to develop the motivation to seek liberation ▪ The actual method to get liberated.

What is samsara? Discussion Rimpoche: What is samsara? How is the individual caught in samsara? These are the sort of important questions I would really like to get clear before we go any further. I am not talking about the general samsara, I am talking about our individual samsara. We have to deal with ourselves; everything has to do with me. So: what is my samsara and how did I get in it?

Audience: (Samsara is: being caught by desire and addiction; being separated from the true nature.) Rimpoche: We call samsara the circle of existence. Why is it called a circle? I don’t want intellectual information, I really want you to pinpoint it. If something is separated from its true nature, will that be a wrong thing on the spiritual path? It must be wrong because it causes suffering; if it causes suffering it has to be the wrong thing.

Rimpoche: Why do you have this circle? Why? Audience: (About being aware.) Rimpoche: Here comes the great zen. True, really it is true. So the answer is: keep watching it. That is definitely a way, for sure. But still it does not answer my question. Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Being separated is separated from what? One of you mentioned the separation between self and others and another one mentioned the separation between right and wrong, wanted and unwanted. As long as you have separation you have a problem, is that what you are talking about?

Audience: (On the rules of logic: ‘One is what one is experiencing’; being tricked in the statement of being one with the food you taste.)

13 Literature: Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 265-295; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 475-505; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 1- 41; Gehlek Rimpoche, Odyssey to Freedom, step 35; L.S. Dagyab Rinpoche, Achtsamkeit und Versenkung, p. 188-206; Geshe Rab- ten, The Essential Nectar, p. 121-131, p. 216-223; Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 14-20; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 269-312; Geshe Thubten Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 381-414. 14 Lam Rim Teachings

Rimpoche: I’ll give you a story. Long ago, when I was sixteen years old, my father and one of my old teachers, Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche, were talking about something in our family house in Lhasa. At that occasion I expressed exactly what you are saying, exactly. And they came down on me, both of them, very heavily. At that time I was a member of Loseling. Loseling is one of the best, largest colleges, with almost seven thousand monks. He was the abbot of Loseling. And somehow I had to say – there was no way I could escape it – “The abbot is the shoe, the shoe is the abbot.” I had to say it, because that was one of the questions. And I cried, I really cried. After some time I had to say, “The abbot has no pants to wear, no skirt to wear”, all sorts of funny things. You know, the problem here in the west is that you don’t have rules. If you don’t have rules, you can go and say anything you want. But when you have fixed rules – and this is what Buddhist logic teaches you – you have to follow the rules and if you cannot stand the other one’s argument within the rules, it is a sign of wrongness, truly speaking. If you don’t have rules, you can just say anything you want and then it is like throwing it into the open air, you know. You are not one with the taste. You are perceiving the taste and therefore you are not the taste. You are only the experiencer, but you are not the taste. Therefore you are not one with the taste, you are separate from the taste. That is what it is, really. If you become one with the taste you have to be taste. The same goes for the river and the riverbanks. The river runs in between the riverbanks. The bank is the bank and the river is the river. The river is not the bank; the river passes the bank, but you as river are not one with the bank. There is a problem with this. Out of the three principles of the path the third principle deals with this in quite some detail.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Dissatisfaction is not samsara at all. It is a function of samsara, because the dissatisfaction makes samsara work better, but it is not samsara. Audience: (…) Rimpoche: True. All samsara is not bad, you know, it is not only full of pain, there is joy too. But still you have not told me what your samsara is. Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Do not repeat my words, but tell me what you understood of it. That is what I need. Audience: (Samsara being the inability to move away from…) Rimpoche: You are getting to the point. Away from where and why?

Samsara is the inability to go away from the form. It doesn’t really have to be a physical form. In Tibetan it is zuk [gzugs] and people translate that as ‘form’. But my feeling is that ‘identity’ may be closer to the point. I think it is something we identify with, rather than form. With what do we identify ourselves? We identify ourselves with a form, we identify ourselves with a name. The name is a label which was put on a certain form. That form identifies itself with the label and the label identifies itself with the society. So, what we are really holding on to is our identity, rather than the name or the form. We cannot get away from our identity. We are tied to it. When you are tied you may have the freedom to move around a little bit, but you cannot go beyond that. This is where the ‘going beyond’ business comes in. A lot of sutras tell you to ‘go beyond’. It means beyond the limit, beyond the limit of the tightness. Going beyond is considered to be very important. It is not going very far anyway; it is simply going away from this hold, this being tied. So, when you cannot let the identity go, you cannot get away from samsara, because you are holding it. What makes hold on to this? What is this rope tying you down? It is as everybody mentioned: the karma as well as what you translate as ‘delusions’, the obstructions, the obstacles. The Tibetan word is nyon mongs, which is what up to now I have been calling delusions. People translate it in all sorts of different ways. It should really be: ‘what makes the mind impure’. That is the definition of it. Attachment makes the mind impure, anger makes the mind impure, hatred makes the mind impure, jealousy makes the mind impure. All the ten non-virtues make the mind impure. Whether you call it delusion or whatever, I don’t really care, this is what is meant. We identify with this. And with every action we create more bad karma, which again, makes us more tied. That is why we mentioned the importance of the

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 15 watching mind, the mindfulness. It is because the karma is creating [samsaric results] and the continuation is continuing. That is a true fact, because of the rope you are producing.

How to cut the rope? Here the oneness and separateness and all this will come. How to cut the rope is not talking about the identification of samsara, but the wisdom point of it. Wisdom is the weapon with which you are able to cut it. That is what we are talking about when we talk about oneness and separateness. When you first get to know samsara, don’t deal with this part, otherwise you will lose it. First you establish samsara, then you establish the weapons, and then you can really cut it. You first have to know what you are going to cut. You may have a very sharp knife or something, but if you don’t know where you are going to use it, and just throw it everywhere, you are not going to cut anything. You may chop somebody’s head off; you can’t do that. So in order to cut samsara, you first have to recognize the base on which you’re going to cut. That is the establishment of how samsara works. So: what is my samsara? I really feel that I cannot let go of my identity. I am tied to my identity. And by being tied to my identity I begin to function. What made me become tied is my delusions and my karma. Karma and delusions both. So I cannot go beyond. I can only move within a limited area. That limited area can’t be moved, so I have to circle around. I don’t have a vertical way of going. I am only left with circling. When we say circling, it does not really mean there is something physical you circle in. It actually means: coming back again and again and reincarnating continuously. Reincarnation is not something good. Nagar- juna says: Try not to have reincarnation. There is no better achievement that you can achieve. Nagarjuna, A Letter to a Friend [Suhrllekha], vs. 104 Why it this important? The reincarnation that he is talking about, is reincarnation tied to samsara, which we don’t want and which we are automatically getting. We cannot get away from it. We are getting it back again and again. Whether we like it or not is not the point. The point is that it happens, it is true reality. If we all had the choice we would have chosen the highest possible [state] long ago. What we like or not is not the point. The point is what really happens, what will happen to me when I die. Where will I go? What will happen to me? How come the whole structure is like this? Why are all these [sufferings] here? We are talking about the true, real reality, not about a philosophical, intellectual issue.

Audience: (About the possibility to leave the karma alone, so that it dissolves?) Rimpoche: No. Unfortunately you can’t leave these things alone. They won’t leave you alone. It is inte- grated, they make you do this, they make you do that. A lot of things we do with or without realizing, are of karmic influence. A lot of things we do are influenced by delusion – with or without us realizing it. Sometimes we even know something is influenced by delusion, but we can’t avoid doing it, we have to do it. That is the clear sign they don’t leave us alone. But there are ways of purifying karma. Another thing is that we do not have to get all karma out; we have to build good karmas and we have to throw bad karmas out. Funnily enough, a lot of people think that outside samsara there is no karma. There is karma. The karma continues till total enlightenment. Even at the total-enlightenment level karma functions. Fortunately they have only good karmas and no bad karmas. We have more of the bad and less of the good ones. That is the true situation. You have to think carefully. Clearing by words is one thing; clearing by seeing it yourself is another. You really have to put a lot of effort in it and these efforts have to be enforced. Retreats and things people do will give them the force to see it better. You just don’t see it.

Audience: (About identity, what is true mind, what is pure identity?) Rimpoche: Is there such a thing as pure identity? No, there is not. What you have to think is this:

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Existing in true reality is not good enough not to exist. Existing relatively is good enough to exist. That is funny language. If you exist relatively, as the relative I, it is good enough to be I and me. If I do not exist in absolute true reality, it is not good enough not to exist. Do you get it? So, if in absolute reality you do not exist, it does not matter. Existing relatively, as the relative I, is good enough for you. Because that is the I which produces the foundation. The absolute I does not exist; absolutely, I do not exist. That does not mean I do not exist. If I exist relatively it is good enough to be able to function. That is that. Now a lot of different thoughts come in. Even in India during Buddha’s period a tremendous amount of thoughts on this came, even among the Buddhists a lot of different thoughts and schools of thought came up. Some say, “Yes, it exists, but it does not exist. So it is neither existing nor not existing.” Some will say, “If not existing absolutely, you do not exist.” Some will say, “If you are not [existing] in the absolute sense, you are not there at all.” Others will say, “If you are not [existing] in the absolute, it does not matter.” A lot of different things came in. Nagarjuna’s Middle Way or central path, the path that Tsongkhapa praised, says: Every functioning is on the relative level. The relative I is the I which is the base of all functioning. Therefore you don’t have to say: neither exist nor not exist. Of course you exist [in a relative sense]. If you don’t exist in the absolute sense, it does not matter. You do exist, of course. What people are talking here is true. It is not a delusion, we are not all under the influence of drugs or something; it is true. You are talking, I am talking – we cannot ignore this. Dhar- makirti, one of the most outstanding early Indian saints and masters, gives five logical signs of stupidity. One of them is: ignoring what is really happening. He used a different word: ngum sum la nyowa. Nyowa is gone mad, gone mad on actual things you see and feel. This happens to so many people, thinking it is deeper philosophy. I am not denying those people who have established those schools of thought, but Dharmakirti treats them as people gone mad on the true reality. That is why I had to say, “The shoe is the abbot” and I had to cry. I had to say the shoe is the abbot. Not the person, because there was no person, so the only thing that was left for me to hold on to was the shoe.

Audience: (About establishing something by what it is not, like Krishnamurti does.) Rimpoche: I know that. When you say what is not, then what is will appear at the end, for sure. But when the relative goes away, the absolute does not appear. That is a misinterpretation. But if you throw away what is not, then what is will appear, if there is something to appear! That is important.

Audience: When it is said that there is no inherent self-existence, do they speak relatively or absolutely? Rimpoche: Absolutely.

Audience: Can you see emptiness by seeing what it is not? Rimpoche: No! Actually, truly, the emptiness you cannot find by saying what it is not. What will happen is this. Emptiness is empty of self. What is the self? When you look in that direction and you keep on saying what it is not – you keep on peeling off all the ‘nots’ – at the end you are left with nothing. And that is where selflessness comes in. If what it is not is thrown away, then what is will appear… if there is something to appear, but there is nothing to appear. That is not emptiness; that is the empty of what-has-been- found. That emptiness is empty of what? Empty of self. That self which one has to be -less of, must be found in that manner. There is no real emptiness to be found, but you can find one step before the emptiness. Do you get it? Think in this direction. It will take time, but I think you’ll get it that way, slowly.

Audience: Are you saying that the absolute can emerge from the relative? Rimpoche: Sure! But not by throwing the relative out, but within the relative! By looking into the relative you see the absolute. But by looking into the absolute you see the relative. That is called: The emptiness helps to see the dependent origination. Looking into the dependent origination helps to see the emptiness.

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 17

It is not like peeling off the skin of an orange and then getting to the real thing; not that way. The Middle Way philosophy14 is this: the empty helps the relative, the relative helps the empty. That is the real middle way. You cannot find a middle way. If you try to look for a middle way by taking this out and taking that out, you will find nothing. That nothing is nothingness. That nothing is not emptiness, that would be becoming nihilistic; totally going nihilistic. We’ll come to that.

There are two ways of getting to know the process of functioning of samsara: 1) through The Four Noble Truths15 and 2) through The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination16.

The Four Noble Truths The four noble truths is a very famous subject. It is very, very important. It can be explained in detail as well as very briefly. Actually it is the first teaching of Buddha. At first, Buddha decided to develop the total enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. After some time, when he had really obtained enlightenment, he thought it was impossible to explain and impossible for the people to understand. He said: Deep, peaceful, perfectly pure, Luminous, uncompounded, and like nectar Is the Dharma I have obtained. Even if I were to teach it, It could not be known by another. Certainly, I must remain silent in the forest. The Voice of the Buddha [Lalitavistara Sutra], vol. II, ch. 25 So after obtaining enlightenment Buddha kept totally silent for the first couple of weeks. Then Brahma, the most important Hindu god in the thirty-two heavens, and Indra both appeared to Buddha.17 One of them offered a little golden wheel and the other one offered him a conch-shell. That is why Buddhists use the conch-shell and the golden wheel and see it as very important, auspicious objects. The reason that Brahma offered the wheel (the hand implement of Brahma himself) to Buddha, was to instigate Buddha to give teachings. This is where this ‘turning the wheel of dharma’ comes from. You even find a lot of places called Dharmachakra, i.e. the wheel of dharma. There is not literally a wheel to turn, but the teachings are referred to as the wheel of the dharma being turned. When the five disciples requested Buddha to teach, the first teaching Buddha gave was the four Noble Truths. I don’t know why it is called like that in English. In Tibetan it is pakpa’i denpa zhi18. In the Bud- dhist tradition living beings are divided into two categories, the ordinary and the extra-ordinary. The San- skrit word for pakpa is arya, noble one. So the aryas are referred to as extra-ordinary persons. Why? Be- cause they are people who see the truth. Denpa is truth and zhi is four. Ordinary people are those who do not see the truth. The division between ordinary and extra-ordinary is whether you see the truth or not. The moment you see the truth, you are sort of transferred from one category to the other. So four noble truths means: the truths as the aryas see them. Nagarjuna refers to the ordinary persons, those who have not seen the truth, as children: When one hair from the palm of the hand goes to the eye, There will be discomfort and suffering. The childish, like the palm of the hand, Are not aware of the hair of all-pervasive suffering. The saintly are like the eye, 19 And will feel the all-pervasive suffering.

14 Skt. Madhymaka. A person following the Middle Way philosophy is called a Madhymika. 15 Chapters XIV, XV and XXIV. 16 Chapter XVI. 17 Rimpoche: “When you talk about this, always this Indian hindu or buddhist myth comes in. Whether it is myth or reality is not for me to judge.” 18 Transliteration: 'phags pa'i bden pa bzhi – the four truths of noble beings 19 Quotation in: Gampopa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, p. 66

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On this basis people talk about dualistic perception, about feeling and perception being wrong and all these sort of fancy things. When you hear about the four noble truths it means: the truths as seen by the extra- ordinary persons, the aryas. That is what it really is. Why are they called truths? Because it is as the extra-ordinary people have perceived it, in reality, in true nature, without the influence of wrong perception, without the influence of the dualistic view or whatever you may call it. They have clearly seen it; that is why they are called noble truths. When Buddha gave the first teaching, he gave the Four Noble Truths, the basics: 1) the truth of suffering 2) the truth of the cause of suffering 3) the truth of the cessation of suffering 4) the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering.

I do not know what they call it: suffering, pain, miseries, problems or dissatisfaction; sometimes they even like to call it the reality of samsara. The English terminology is always a borrowed one, so I don’t know how it really works. Sutras are for Buddhists what the bible is for Christians, and when you read the actual sutra, you will find two ways of counting. Sometimes the cause of suffering is explained as the first truth and the actual truth of suffering, with the result as the second. In that case the path to the cessation of suffering is number three, with the cessation of suffering as result. Mostly you will see it the other way round, counting the suffering first and then the cause. A lot of people follow that method. The reason they do that is because of Maitreya.

When Maitreya tried to clarify the Mahayana path, he gave the following example. When you are sick the first important thing is to know that you are sick, because many sick people don’t know that they are sick and refuse to accept it. I don’t have to tell you, you know. Particularly people who have mental problems are very stubborn on it, saying, “I am perfectly okay.” Mental problems are very hard to accept for whoever it may be, very, very hard. But then there is no way you can treat them and there is no way you can help. So it is very important to recognize the illness first. And then secondly, when you recognize the illness, you should not treat the symptoms – doctors around here, forgive me. That is what Maitreya says: not to treat the symptoms. Treating the symptoms can give you a temporary relief, but it may not cure you. When you know you are sick, when you recognize the illness, you have to look for the cause of the illness. And once you know the cause of the illness, try to get rid of it, try to remove it. By doing that you can gain pleasure, harmony, health, comfort or whatever. That is the example Maitreya used. i How to develop the motivation to seek liberation: recognizing samsara, its faults and sufferings The first noble truth: the truth of suffering Why do we have to talk about these sufferings and pains all the time? That is another question. I know some people who say, “Whenever you talk about Buddhism and the Buddhist path it makes a lot of sense and it is very nice, but what we are fed up with, is always the pains, pains, pains.” I met a number of people who talk like that. I don’t blame them, everywhere they talk about pain, pain, pain only. Even if you don’t have pain you get it, because it is talked about too much. I already mentioned what samsara is. I said, “The actual samsara is the base we are holding on to, is the identity. You hold on to your identity. There is a big fear behind it, a fear of not existing, a fear of getting lost. That is why we hold on to our identity so much.” The identity we are holding on to, is not the correct identity. The identity we are holding on to, is not uncontaminated. We are holding on to a contaminated identity, which is controlled by unfavorable karma. We have a continuation of a contaminated base, controlled by unfavorable karma. That is what we hold on to. On that we experience our joys, we experience our pains and we also go ‘feeling-less’ (what you call apathy). On these three feelings we put that identity and that is the whole cause of our troubles. The whole samsara actually started from this: joy, pain and apathy. Because of that identity we experience all this, we

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 19 are associated with it. That is why we have all the pains and the misery; it all comes in.

The recognition of samsara, its faults and sufferings, and has two divisions: 1) the general faults of samsara; 2) the individual realms and their problems.

1) The general faults of samsara The general faults of samsara. That means it is available everywhere, it covers every path. It is available in the samsaric-gods’ level and in the human level; it is even available in the hell realms, the hungry-ghost realm and in any other of the six realms. So thinking on the discomforts and miseries of samsara in general. Here we talk about: the six types of suffering. They are six. Sometimes they are called pains, but I prefer to call them the faults of samsara.

The six types of suffering a) The fault of uncertainty There is no certainty. Now, if you look carefully, this is very funny. We think our life is very solid and very stable: right and wrong, black and white – very clear. Unfortunately I believe it is not.

The story of the family relations. On each one of these points I would like to quote a sutra. There is a sutra on this20. If you look at the pictures of Buddha, you will find two monks standing next to Buddha. It differs; in some traditions, in south-east Asia and in the Chinese tradition, they have Ananda and somebody else staying there, in the Tibetan tradition you’ll find the disciples Shariputra and Mogelputra21. The one is outstanding in wisdom and the other one is outstanding in magical power. Shariputra was always traveling around; where Buddha went he had to go. I believe there was a house with a pond at the back. A dog was lying near the door. They used to keep dogs as a guard, preventing people from getting in. In the old times they used two dogs, right and left of the door, so that nobody could go through. This was a fearsome dog; anybody coming near the door would be bitten and so people could not come through. Shariputra went through and – he could not help it – started laughing. Somebody asked him, “What happened?” So he told this story: Once there was a family in this house and they had a son. The family used to catch fish from the pond at the back of their house and lived on that. After some time there was a quarrel with another family, because a member of that family was very much attached to or rather very much after the wife of the family’s son. You know what I mean? So they had a fight. The son of the family killed the man who was after his wife. After some time the father and the mother died. The father was reborn as a fish in that very pond, and because of her attachment to the family, the mother was reborn as the fearsome dog by the front door. The man who was killed had such a strong attachment to that wife that he was reborn as the son of that family. When passing, through his spiritual power Shariputra was able to see what was happening. They caught a fish, which happened to be the father, cooked it and ate it. The dog near the door tried to jump towards the family trying to get some fish to eat. And as they didn’t want the dog to eat the fish, they started to beat the dog with a stick. So they were eating the flesh of their father, kicking their mother and the enemy, which had been killed by them, was carried on their lap as the most precious baby. Shariputra said, “This is why I am laughing. I laugh because of the nature of samsara”: Eating his father’s flesh, a son beats his mother And holds in his lap the enemy that he killed. A wife gnaws on her husband’s bones. These circumstances of samsara are laughable! Do you get the story? This shows us how uncertain samsara is. We really sort of think it is very certain, very much black and white. One of the first important faults of samsara is: there is no certainty, there is unreliability, you cannot rely on anything.

20 The Great Sutra on the Distinctions of Karma [Mahakarmavibhanga Sutra]. 21 Maudgalyayana.

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Pegye and his old bones. There also was a great benefitter at Buddha’s time, called Pegye22. One day Mogelputra took Pegye by the hand and said, “Let us go.” “Where?” “I’ll show you something you haven’t seen; hold my hand, let’s go.” It is a very, very long story I will not go into. What happened is this. When Mogelputra took Pegye, in one of the areas he saw a huge amount of bones piled up, almost like a small hill. So he asked Mogelputra, “What is this?” “Don’t you recognize that?” “No.” Mogelputra told Pegye, “Your previous life was a huge animal, living somewhere in the sea. You were feeding yourself on other living beings and kept on eating them. They were your food. Now once there were a couple of human beings who came near your mouth and when you were about to eat them, these people started saying, ‘I take refuge to Buddha’. Somehow you as this animal in the water had some kind of sense from a previous life. (You know, in another previous life you were a king, did some mischief and were reborn as this huge animal.) So when you heard these people taking refuge to Buddha, somehow you instinctively thought, ‘Okay I decide to die rather than to chew living beings.’ So you shut your mouth completely, once and for all, and died. Then you were reborn as this particular person. So, these are your old bones. In three successive lives you were a king, then this animal and then again a human being.” So you cannot really rely on whatever is happening. This is one of the important faults of samsara.

And besides that, friend and enemy is something you can never take for granted. I don’t have to tell you, you people know that better. If you have an enemy, he must have been your friend before. If you had no close contact, that person could not harm you at all, because he wouldn’t know your secret, so he would not become a strong enemy at all. It is always like that: enemies will become friends, friends will become enemies. A lot of people start off as friends, then quarrel about something, break their business, start suing each other and become enemies. Really, there is uncertainty. Similarly, rich and poor changes. The rich may think they will remain rich at least for the rest of their lives; no certainty. The poor may think they will remain poor for the rest of their lives; no certainty. You can definitely win the lottery, right? That was a joke, but there is no certainty. The rich can lose what they got hold of by some wrong decision, so there is no certainty for that. At the same time you also have to recognize the attachment a little bit here. As I have been telling you, Mogelputra took this benefitter around. In one place there was a dead human body, a corpse, and they saw a snake going through the body, coming out of the mouth, going through the eyes where the eyeballs were gone. So Pegye asked Mogelputra, “What is this?” He said, “That is somebody who had a strong attachment to the body. This person thought that her body was the most beautiful and handsome, and couldn’t give it up. When that person died she was reborn as a snake and the snake kept living in that corpse, because of the attachment.” Okay, this is the first problem: uncertainty. b) The fault of dissatisfaction You don’t get satisfied with whatever you do. Butterflies lose themselves because of their body. Wild animals have a strong attachment to beautiful sounds and that is how they get caught. The elephant has a strong attachment for the female and that is how they catch him. (They always take a female elephant to catch a male one.) All what we consider to be joys and pleasures, will never satisfy. If you have one you need two; if you have two you need four; if you have four you need eight. Buddha gave the example of drinking salty water. If you drink salty water to quench your thirst, instead of getting relieved you get more thirsty. Similarly, the things that we consider a pleasure or joy, have the problem of dissatisfaction. In a sutra Buddha says to a king: O King, no matter how many divine pleasures And fine human enjoyments there might be, If a single person were to acquire them all, He would be unsatisfied and still want more.23

22 Skt. Shrijati. Story to be found in Stanley Frye, Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, ch. xvi and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An- thology of Well-Spoken Advice, p. 310-314. 23 Lalitavistara Sutra, The Voice of the Buddha, ch. 16, vs. 23.

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 21

Story of Ngalenu. There is an interesting example. I do not know whether it is a Hindu or Buddhist myth or what. In Buddha’s period there was a universal monarch called Ngalenu. From when he was born he started becoming the ruler of the villages. He had a little kingdom here, a little kingdom there and he was controlling many kingdoms in India. But still he wanted to conquer more and more. And he lived for a very long time. Finally he totally lost the war and had to run to his village all by himself. When he reached the village where he was born, he had become a different person. There was about a hundred-year gap. He was taller than the others, he looked different and he started saying, “There is a family somewhere around here called so and so.” “Yes.” “Have you ever heard of Ngalenu before?” “Yes, he is a great, great father of ours, he is the greatest king and blah blah blah..” He said, “That is me..” But they did not believe him. So when you don’t have satisfaction, you want more and more and finally you lose. The fault is dissatisfaction, you can never be satisfied. That is a fault of samsara in general.

Story of the poorest man. There was a beggar in a village in India. He had found a very precious jewel or a bag of gold or whatever. When he found that, the villagers started chasing him, saying, “You are great, you are wonderful” and this and that. He said, “I don’t need anything, I am very happy as a beggar, I am going to give this precious thing I found to the poorest person here, the poorest of the poor. Let everybody come and I also want the king to be a witness.” Everybody went to the village marketplace. He carried his bag, the precious bag, and was going up, going down, going up, trying to think and look who is the poorest. And everybody was hoping he would get it. Finally he turned around and said, “I’ll give it to the king. You are the poorest person I have seen here, so I will give it to you.” The king said, “How dare you! This is an insult, I am the king.” He said, “You’re the most wanting person, you have the biggest desires, you’ll never be satisfied, whatever you get. So I found you are the poorest person, here you are.” And he gave it to the king. So when you don’t have satisfaction, no matter what you may be, you are poor. You don’t get satisfied, you want more, so you have to work more, you have to make yourself a slave of material [possessions]. Nagarjuna says in his letter: The teacher of gods and men declared that Being satisfied was the greatest of all riches. Remain satisfied always. One knowing satisfaction is truly wealthy, Even without material possessions. Nagarjuna, A Letter to a Friend [Suhrllekha], vs. 34 Please be satisfied with whatever you have. And if you are satisfied with the things that you have, even though you don’t have money or wealth, you are rich. If you are not satisfied, no matter how much you have, you will be poor, because you want more, you need more. So dissatisfaction in life brings a lot of trouble. We are not talking about wealth only. Wealth is an example, but you have to think of other things too. [A lot of] the problems that we experience are not the wealth but other problems. It is all because of dissatisfaction. When I talk about money and wealth, it is very easy for people to see and you can relate to it. It may not be a big problem for America. There are other things you are not satisfied with. You have a lot of dissatisfaction in life. Why are you dissatisfied? Because you wanted something different. You are always seeking something different or something more or something less. That is why you have dissatisfaction. Not only you, but all of us. We have a problem and why do we face this problem? Because we are not satisfied. We always look for something different, something more. That is why. When you don’t get it, you get into trouble. Then you feel bad and you start having all sorts of emotional problems. c) The fault of giving up the body again and again d) The fault of taking on a new existence again and again You change your body very often, you change it very, very often. This quotation I would like to take from Nagarjuna’s letter. This very, very good letter he wrote to a king: Having been Sakra, worthy of the world’s veneration, One falls again to the earth, through the force of karma,

22 Lam Rim Teachings

Or having been a chakravartin monarch, One assumes again in samsara a servant’s status. Nagarjuna, A Letter to a Friend [Suhrllekha], vs. 69 We have obtained the most comfortable life of samsaric gods a number of times, but it did not help us at all, because we are back here again. It did not serve any purpose at all. After being born as the most important samsaric god in the god’s realm, again you are reborn as a human being and even sometimes you go to the hell realm also. So earlier we were born as samsaric gods and we enjoyed all the pleasures, a lot of jewels too. Samsaric gods are supposed to have a jewel house, but they may not have a jewel heart. If they had a jewel heart, they wouldn’t suffer. Let us hope we have jewel hearts and don’t have a jewel house. So we lived in a jewel house and slept on a jewel bed, where blankets were decorated with jewels and our clothes were totally jeweled. Samsaric gods are always like that, you know. But it did not serve any purpose. When we came back here, we had to lie on a hard bed, or no bed or whatever, had to wear ordinary clothes and all this. So it did not serve any purpose at all. Not only that. In the samsaric-gods’ level they have tremendous pleasure. Their pleasure is such a thing that they are always entertained. Samsaric gods are always young. No matter how long they live, they remain young. That is the quality of the god’s realm. They remain young, except for the last seven days before they die. Even in the seven days before they die, they don’t become old-aged like we do at the human level. They remain youthful, about sixteen, even during the seven days of dying. They have natural-born flowers with them and natural-born jewel ornaments. Seven days before they die these flowers start dying and the jewels start becoming dull. That is because of the karma they have. Only that. Other- wise they always remain youthful. Each one of the males is entertained by the females and the females are entertained by the males. I don’t believe they have sex organs like we do, however they are entertained like that for a long, long time. But when you die from there, from such pleasure and harmony and entertainment, you could suddenly become say a pig somewhere in the slums in Bangladesh or Ethiopia. It is very hard to take it; it is really hard. And besides that they know it. The moment their flowers start dying and their jewels stop shin- ing, they say, “What is happening?” They have a karmic power because of which they are called three- timers. They read the past, they know the present and they also see the future. So they start to see themselves being born somewhere and they feel a tremendous pain. And their friends will avoid them. That is another problem. Your friends don’t come close to you, because they think you caught some kind of dirty disease, so they avoid you. Most of them will pay no attention to you. You are sort of sitting in a corner, very depressed, and they just pass by, they don’t bother. Very close friends will bring flowers or flower malas, but they don’t come close to you. They throw them from the top of long sticks. So, even that harmony and pleasure is in the nature of pain. That is what I am trying to say here. When you have to sit in that corner like that and your friends come and don’t want to come near you, they bring a long stick and throw flowers at you, what do you feel? And in addition to that, you enjoyed this tremendous comfort for years and years and years and suddenly now you are going to be a pig in Ethiopia and you see this, you see it every minute, it does not go out of your eyes. And the stupidity that you are going to go through. And the physical handicaps that you are going to go through. And the being abused by the different beings, animals as well as human beings. And your living condition. When you measure that pain, the physical pain, with the hot and cold hells, it is worse than that. The physical pain is hard and difficult, but the mental pain is even harder and more difficult. So what happens is: no matter what comfort you have in samsara, it does not give you any benefit, it does not serve any purpose at all. It does not help you at all. Instead of that, in order to maintain that living standard, in order to maintain that comfort, you have to work harder, you have to put more effort in, you have to create more non-virtues, you have to create bad karma, which in reality makes more sufferings, more pains. Somebody asked one of the great teachers, the teacher of the great Pabongka, just before he passed away, “What is your advice to us now?” He said, “No other advice except don’t rely on the samsaric pleasures.” That was his last advice. So it shows how unreliable samsara is.

Audience: (Discussion about the difference between joy and pleasure: joy regarded as unconditional and as any experience which takes us beyond ourselves. Pleasant experiences related to limited karmic things,

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 23 dualistic things, which have a negative side. About finity and infinity, eternal truth and beauty and joy; about the wonderful things, which are even there in the midst of decay.) Rimpoche: Sure, the wonderful things are there. They bring pleasure or joy – whatever you may call it – as well as pain too. So it depends on what happens to that individual. Also even this joy [taking someone beyond himself] definitely has a lot of faults in it too. I don’t mean that it has a fault in itself, but that it is also in the nature of pain, it also brings discomfort. As long as you are within samsara, whatever you experience does not give you true pleasure, true happiness. The all-pervasive suffering – out of the three sufferings24 – is always in every part of it. Consciousness has it, the things we perceive have it, our experiences have it. Until we switch that, until we switch the root it has it. Suffering remains, really it remains. It may come in the disguise of pleasure or happiness or whatever you call it, it makes the individual happy, makes you feel and think it is great and wonderful, but when it ends – and that is what Buddha really refers to – what happens? When it ends what happens to the individual? Especially what happens to the person who built a relation to it? That really counts. e) The fault of high becoming low again and again What do we do every day? We try to save. We work for money and we save money. Every advertisement you look at says: save this, save that. People advertise that as saving, even though you have to spend. Just now I got a five hundred dollar bonus, provided I buy a car. So you have to spend in order to save. Why do they do this? Because the aim of normal people is to save to become rich and wealthy and so everybody wants to save money. What is the conclusion of the saving? Whatever you save or build up, its end is exhaustion. You keep on saving water and what will happen is that the water will go totally, finished. So no matter what happens, the end of saving is loss. When people save a lot and they don’t spend, they lose it. They lose it in various ways. You put money in the stock-market, the stock-market crashes, gone. You build up a huge company and it collapses, goes bankrupt. You save a lot of money and become rich and wealthy and successful in life, but you die and you lose it. So the conclusion is: Collections in the end disperse, Whatever rises must also fall. All meetings end in separation, The final end of life is death25. No matter what you save, the end of saving is loss, the end of building a body is going down of the body, the end of birth is death, the end of a company is separation, the end of fame is disgrace, the end of going high is coming down low. That is it. That is the conclusion of the fifth point, the changing. Most of the phenomena, the things we look at, have a sad end. The end of company is separation, that is sad. The end of collection is loss, that is sad. The end of living is dying, that is sad. So Buddha drew a conclusion on this. He said, “The four ends meet” All this is natural. This is the real change. But you may think, “At the end of the separation there will be meeting.” Yes, that is also true, at the end of separation we meet again. But again [it separates, it goes] in circles. So it is the changing which makes us miserable and gives us pain. As long as we are in the circle of existence, that problem is there. As long as we have that problem we cannot be happy. After all, everybody is looking for happiness. I am looking for happiness, you are looking for happiness, everybody is looking for happiness. Even the little ants under the ground look for happiness. That is why we are all running here and there; it is all looking for happiness, totally. No other reason. Why are you here? You are looking for happiness. Why am I here? I am looking for happiness. Everybody. Are you or not? You are, yes you are. There is no reason for argumentation. f) The fault of loneliness There is no true friend. People may get upset when they hear this, but all friends are unreliable. They will let you down when you need them most. If they would not do that, they would not be samsaric. It is not

24 Suffering of suffering; suffering of change; all-pervasive suffering. 25 Gareth Sparham, The Tibetan Dhammapada, vs. 22.

24 Lam Rim Teachings done purposely, but circumstances like time pressure or the pressure of life somehow force people. Some people do it just like that too. It happens in that manner. Loneliness is one of the biggest pains that the individual experiences in samsara. Some people are totally helpless, can’t do anything. Many people just don’t put enough effort in to comfort the other person. I am not talking about death; even during your lifetime, even when you are sick. When you need them, they don’t make themselves available. Why? What is the fault? No compassion. When you don’t have enough compassion – everybody will have a bit of compassion – you can’t face it, you can’t handle it. Some don’t care because there is no compassion, some do care but somehow they don’t know how to handle it, somehow they can’t handle it. It is a clear sign. If that is happening to me, I have to acknowledge to myself, “Hey you, you don’t have enough compassion!” If you have enough compassion you can face it. Why don’t you have enough compassion? You don’t have enough understanding for yourself. These pains, sufferings and miseries Buddha is always talking about, why? He is talking about myself: I am suffering, I am in pain, I am changing, I am lonely, I am helpless, I am this, I am that. Why? When you look at yourself, when I look at myself, it makes me think, “Hey, that is bad, I must turn away from that, I must become determined to get free.” When you look at others, “Hey, this is pain, I must build up compassion.” Why are we talking about all these negative points? Actually we try to build a positive base for compassion, if you really want to know what we are doing. We build ourselves almost going into depression, saying how bad, bad, bad, and pain, pain, pain this is. But the moment you transform that, the moment you put your focus out to others, a strong compassion is built. The moment a person does not have a strong compassion, all these things happen. The conclusion on this is in Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara: At birth I was born alone And at death too I shall die alone; As this pain cannot be shared by others, What use are obstacle-making friends? Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life [Bodhisattvacharyavatara], ch. 8, vs. 31-32 When you go you go alone, when you die you die alone. Nobody is going to share your sufferings. What do you worry for? Why are you crying for companions?

The three types of suffering26 The suffering of suffering The suffering of change The all-pervasive suffering [or: suffering of conditional existence].

2) The individual realms and their problems27 a) The sufferings in the lower realms These have been discussed on the initial scope: common with the lower level28 b) The sufferings in the higher realms That has three parts: 1) the sufferings of the humans, 2) the suffering of the demi-gods, 3) the suffering of the samsaric gods.

26 These can be studied from other sources: Gehlek Rimpoche, The Three Principles of the Path, ch. 12; Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 289-292; Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 14-20; Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar, p. 261-264, p. 222-223; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 308- 312; Kathleen McDonald, How to Meditate, p. 81-88. 27 Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 290-308. 28 Chapter X.

Recognising Samsara: its Faults and Sufferings 25 i) The sufferings of human beings – the eight types of suffering29

For the privileged, pain is mental; For common people, it is physical. Day after day both types of pain Afflict this world. Aryadeva, Four Hundred Verses [Catusataka] II, vs. 8 1) The suffering of birth 2) The suffering of aging 3) The suffering of sickness 4) The suffering of death 5) The suffering of meeting the unpleasant 6) The suffering of separation from the pleasant 7) The suffering of seeking what one wishes and not obtaining 8) The suffering of the five skandhas ii) The sufferings of demi-gods30 Demi-gods or jealous gods [Skt. asuras; Tib. lha ma yin], look like gods, act like gods, behave like gods, think like gods, but they are not. That is why they are called jealous gods. They don’t have as much powers as the gods do. In Hindu-Buddhist mythology, it is told a tree is rooted in their land and the fruits of the tree reach up to the samsaric-gods level, so they pick up all the fruits. As the jealous gods only have the roots of the tree, nothing else, they always have a fight with the samsaric gods. They always lose and then are beaten up by the samsaric gods. When individuals are defeated, their heads and hands are chopped off. Also they have some kind of lake and in the water they see – like on television – everything that is happening over there at the samsaric-gods level. When the folks go to the war, the women folks will watch the lake and see their men be killed and all these sorts of things. So they suffer tremendously. iii) The sufferings of samsaric gods The sufferings of the gods of the desire realm: – dying and falling – anxiety – being killed and banished The sufferings of the gods of the form and formless realm

Samsaric gods [Skt. deva; Tib. lha] really enjoy their life all the time, but when the death signs come, their flowers wither and their friends avoid them because they seem to be bad and there is a possibility of affecting them. It is like a contagious disease. Friends avoid coming across to you because of the contagious- ness. Although you may have been playing with them your whole life, all of a sudden, when your flowers start withering, they won’t come near you. Some of the closest friends may bring flowers to you, but they bring them and give them to you on a very long stick; they don’t come near you. You sit in a corner for a very long time, thinking about the present life and what is going to be your future. That is the time when samsaric gods suffer tremendously. They can see that their rebirth will be something like a pig in the slums of somewhere and they feel very bad for a long time.

Conclusion I think we have done enough on the sufferings. We talked about the sufferings for years now. So it should be enough. The whole idea of this talking about pains and suffering is:

29 Je Tsongkhapa counts the eight sufferings as general suffering in samsara. Many Lamrims leave out number eight. Literature on the eight types of suffering: Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 271-280; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 486-505; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, p. 20-38; L.S. Dagyab Rinpoche, Achtsamkeit und Versenkung, p. 204-206; Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar, p. 121- 131, p. 216-220. 30 Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 292-295.

26 Lam Rim Teachings

to build a better idea of looking beyond [i.e. the termination of suffering], to gain compassion.

This is working simultaneously together. And once you’ll be able to concentrate on compassion, the compassion you’re going to build will be different from the ordinary love-compassion we talk. Because you know the true reality situation. When you meditate on the pains of yourself, it is the action for the determination to be free. When you meditate on the pains the other beings are going through, it is [to gain] compassion. But we have not yet reached the level of talking compassion; we are still stuck in this cause of suffering. And I am going to make it a little shorter now to be able to have a little time to talk the dependent origination and how samsara works. And then we move on to love-compassion; that is the next step.

The unawakened state: room for delusions

XV THE CREATION OF SAMSARA: KARMA AND DELUSIONS31

(…) If you do not contemplate the source of suffering, the door to samsara, You will never discover the means of cutting samsara’s root. Base yourself on renunciation of samsara; be tired of it. Cherish knowledge of the chains that bind you to the wheel of cyclic existence. I, a yogi, did that myself; You, O liberation seeker, should do likewise. Je Tsongkhapa, Song of the Stages in Spiritual Practice [Lamrim Dudon], vs. 13

Homework. If you follow these teachings or talks for gaining knowledge only then that is okay, but if you use it as a practice, then you have to meditate! You have to do concentration and analytical meditations. We don’t provide meditation time here. The reason is twofold. First of all it would cause a lot of inconven- ience for everybody, because we would have to meet every day and block one or two hours for that. Sec- ondly, everybody is a grown-up person and everybody has his or her own development. Therefore we expect you to do your meditation in your own time and place. When you come in, we do the Ganden Lha Gyema [or Jewel Heart prayers] with the seven limbs and we say mantras for some time. That is the opportunity for you to review the meditations that you have done in the period in between. As I repeatedly told you: saying prayers and saying mantras is very good and wonderful, but on its own it is not enough. Of course, each mantra carries its own meditation. How- ever, when we sing a hundred Mani mantras and twenty-one Migtsema mantras and twenty-one Muni mantras here, it gives you the opportunity to review the things you have been meditating. If you have been doing your meditations, then you know exactly what we did last time, where we stopped and what we are supposed to do today. When you look at each other and say, “Hey, where are we?” it is an indication you didn’t do much homework. We are trying to be effective for ourselves. It is nice when you meet here and everybody meditates, says mantras, prays and feels good and wonderful, but that is only one hour a week. That is not enough to build something. You have to do it yourself. Every day! That is very important! You have to meditate on the things we talk about. That is very important. And that is what is going to have an effect on you. Not the concentrated meditation, saying mantras and prayers, laying the altar and making offerings. By doing that you’ll accumulate merit but you are not going to build wisdom. Both are needed. If you don’t have the wisdom, any accumulation of merit is good but not enough. And if you do have the wisdom but you don’t have the accumulation of merit, again that won’t work. It will be like a dead body, it won’t serve much purpose. The combination is important. For gaining the wisdom you also need analytical meditation and concentrated meditation both. The concentrated meditation alone will not give you wisdom at all. The analytical meditation alone will not give

31 Literature: Gehlek Rinpoche, Transforming Negativity into Positive Living; Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 297-313; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 506-526; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 43-74; L.S. Dagyab Rinpoche, Achtsamkeit und Versenkung, p. 207-226; Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar, p. 132-134, p. 223-224; Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 30-42, p. 53- 61; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 313-351; Geshe Thubten Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 415- 457. 30 Lam Rim Teachings you stability at all. So the combination is necessary, as I always emphasize. So please do your homework. ii. Establishing the nature of the path that leads to liberation 1) Contemplating how Samsara is created: Karma and Delusions The second noble truth: the truth of the origination of suffering In the previous chapter we discussed the first noble truth, the truth of suffering. When you started thinking about it, what questions did you raise? “If there is terrible misery, pain and suffering like this, where did it come from? What makes that happen?” Isn’t that obvious? Let’s say we are all practitioners, what we call yogis. The moment a yogi sits down and starts thinking, meditating…

Meditation. Thinking is too much of an open word to use, let me be a little romantic and use the word meditation. However, in fact it is thinking; if you don’t think, you’re not meditating either. The moment you start thinking or meditating, you step down and start merging in samsara – then you’ll really experience it. What I mean is this. Normally you do experience every happiness and pain, misery and pleasure that you are merged in. However, until you really start thinking and meditating on it, even though you are merged in samsara, in your mind you are not really merging into it, you sort of keep a separate identity. When you really merge in it, you begin to feel it. So, when I tell you to meditate on suffering, you should never make whatever you are meditating on into an object, something ‘out there’. When you are meditating on the pains of samsara, you merge yourself in it, pick up the experience, perceive it and acknowledge it. That is what meditation really means. And when you begin to do that, your way of understanding becomes totally different. It differs completely from picking up and storing intellectual knowledge.

Cause principle. When you start thinking on the truth of suffering like this, then, naturally, the next mind will automatically be wondering, “What causes this? Where did it begin and how did it come about?” The uninformed or misinformed mind will definitely give you different answers for what the cause of suffering is. Some will say, “I suffered this because he did this or she did that.” Or, “I suffered because I did something wrong.” Others will say, “There is not really a cause as such, it is nature.” Or, “It is only a single little cause and that is my karma.” That is what happens, right? It becomes a single cause or it becomes causeless. And again, some may say, “No, no, it is not one cause, it was made by the creator; Indra or Brahma or God designed it that way.” We get these sort of ideas when we are not informed or not correctly informed. When something is causeless, you can’t correct it. When you experience something bad, you have to correct whatever makes you experience that. That is obvious. Say you are sick and have pain. You experience the symptoms and to correct the symptoms you have to correct the cause. If you don’t, something may temporarily give you relief, but it does not really correct it. The only way to get cured of the symptoms, is to get a cure for the illness. If you cannot correct the illness, you cannot really correct the symptoms. The only thing you can do is to make yourself deaf and dumb. So if there is no cause, there is nothing to correct and no correct result to be had. If there would be only one cause then, as you had already created it, there would be no room for change. What I am trying to say here is: the corrections have to be done at the cause level. If you cannot change something at the cause level, you can’t change much at the result level, because the result follows the cause. If the cause would be created by others than yourself, then you would not have to do much, because it would depend on the other. In that case, the only thing you could do is to try to please the other person as much as possible, and then hope to get it done. If my experience of joy and suffering is not created by me, if it is created by Buddha or Brahma or God, then it is in the hands of Buddha, Brahma or God and then the only thing I could do is butter them up. I am not going into detail, I am not going into the theoretical points, but I am really trying to touch the practical point.

Two causes. When you really start looking for the cause, you should have some good information on it. The cause of suffering, if divided, has two: karma as well as delusions. They work side by side and that is

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 31 why things are happening. Now which of the two is more important for the creation of suffering or the samsaric life: the karma or the delusions? The delusions. Why? The second truth is in Tibetan called kün jung – that means ‘origination’ rather than ‘cause’. The translation ‘cause’ is not necessarily correct, so let’s call it origination. Even if the karmic origination is there for something to happen, there has to be a temporary instigator, a delusion. If there is no delusion acting as the temporary instigator, no matter how much original karma you may have, it will all be like dry seeds. If you have a package of dry rice, lettuce or spinach seeds, and you don’t put the seeds in the soil and water them, this rice, lettuce or spinach are not going to grow. If there is no delusion as instigator, the karma will be like the seed in the package: no matter how many you have in your basement, vegetables or fruits are not going to grow out of them.

Delusion [Skt. klesha; Tib. nyon mongs]. Practically speaking the delusion is a more important cause than karma. Again, in order to reverse it, we have to see how it grows. That is what we will discuss here. What does this word nyon mongs stand for? We translate it as ‘delusion’, but disturbing attitudes is a good word, it really gives the meaning behind it. What are we referring to when we say ‘disturbing attitude’ or ‘delusion’ or ‘afflictive emotion’? It is very easy to say, “Yes, anger, attachment.” That is very easy to say. We simply acknowledge it, but we’re not really investigating it properly. Take anger. Now think for yourself. What does anger do to me the moment it develops? What does it do to me when the mind is peaceful? Let’s say I am sitting peacefully (physically and mentally) and suddenly I get angry, what will that do to me? In what shape will my mind be? My peace is disrupted, my mind becomes rough instead of smooth, mixed up instead of clear. This is what delusions do; your experience will tell you. Some delusions, like anger, will do it the rough way, some will come in a sweet disguise. Anything which makes your mind mixed and disturbed (no peace, no purity, not clear, all this) is a delusion. I am trying to get that into your mind; it is important. Recognizing it is the first step towards reversing it. Delusions are within us, but we don’t recognize them. If you don’t recognize them, there is no way you can attack them. When you recognize a delusion, even if you cannot attack it, the power of the delusion is slightly shaken. That already makes a lot of difference to us. When you try to meditate you have to see, “Hey, this is it.” Try to really recognize the delusion and then hold it and look. Look from here, from there, from every angle. This is important. That is what I am trying to say: be able to recognize it. A lot of people will say, “But this feeling I have now is not a delusion; this is such a peaceful, wonderful feeling.” Okay, that is another face of delusion. None of us will have a problem of recognizing the rough ones as delusions, like the anger-type of thing. But we do have a problem with the sweet ones. Be aware of it. This is some rough idea of what delusion or disturbing attitude is. a) How the delusions develop i) Their actual recognition (1) The Six Root delusions32 How does a delusion develop? Before we go into that, we have to recognize the delusion. That is where we are now. If we do not recognize our nyon mongs, then we really don’t realize what we have to work with, what antidote we should apply. When you are looking for freedom, when you are looking for liberation, first look for nyon mongs and recognize them. Nyon mongs is delusions; ‘muddy water’ is our secret word for it. The first step in looking for liberation is recognizing the muddy water. Out of that we have to know the root-muddy waters. Basically the delusions are divided into two categories. There are six root delusions and twenty secondary delusions. The six root ones are certainly important. The great earlier Indian pandits, like Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakosha, mention the six root muddy waters as the root of samsara,

32 Literature: Gehlek Rinpoche, Good Life, Good Death, ch. 3, 4, 5; Geshe Rabten, Mind and its Functions, p. 74-82; H. Guenther en L. Kawamura, Mind in Buddhist Psychology; p. 64-99. Kathleen McDonald, How to Meditate, p. 97-108; Thubten Chödron, What Color is Your Mind, p. 145-186; Thubten Chödron, Open Heart Clear Mind, p. 25-77; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Under- standing the Mind, p. 195-228; Allen Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up, p. 45-60.

32 Lam Rim Teachings

The six subtle and extensive root delusions of [samsaric] existence are: attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, wrong view and doubt. Though there is one ultimate root, still these six are mentioned as such.

Attachment or desire [Tib. dö chag] How attachment makes the mind impure. What is attachment? We all have it, but do we recognize it? What does attachment do? When you look at something that draws your attention, you become attracted to it, and when you perceive it again you develop a desire, you want it to belong to you. You also have the possessiveness of “It is mine, mine alone and nobody can touch it.” And you don’t want to be separated from that object or person, whatever it is. This is not a definition but it gives you some rough idea. Whether a desire for knowledge is attachment or not, I am not very sure of, because that doesn’t do the muddy business. Something has to do the muddy business. You want to be with it, you want it to belong to you, you want it to be yours, you can’t let go of it. It is not a big problem for us to understand, we do it every day. If you don’t get it, you get angry and do all kinds of funny things. The line between what attachment is and what it is not, is very, very thin. Buddha tries to tell us all the time that whatever we do in samsara, always involves a delusion. Look at our actions. Many times we say, “Oh, I like doing that, I enjoy it” or “I don’t want to do that, I hate it.” To some ears this may sound great, but I hear something different. (In a special voice:) “I like doing it, I enjoy doing it”; in there I hear the attachment. In saying, “I don’t do it because I don’t like it, I hate it!” – I hear the anger. Many people don’t acknowledge that. Think about how we react to our lives, how we talk. See it, hear it, feel it; it really has a delusion in it. Almost every action in samsara has that; it is [samsaric] nature. What we consider to be good has that nature; what we consider to be bad obviously has it as well. I am trying to emphasize what Buddha’s experience is and how true that is when we look into our lives. And how we express it. Attachment is the sweet one. It comes the sweet, very nice way. We like it, we enjoy it, we call it beautiful, wonderful, great, but when we draw the bottom line it makes our mind impure, rough and hard to separate [from the object]. That is the bottom line: hard to separate. The moment you think of separation every point reminds you of it, every point brings pain, and I am sure every one of us here has experience with that. When the attachment acts in the sweet way, every single little act adds up to the sweetness we experience. The environment with the river and the trees, the places you go to, the things you say, the food you eat, the actions you take, all will sort of add up on the sweet side. And when it turns sour – which is its nature – every point will bring you sorrow, sourness. It really can drive you to the point of craziness. That is attachment. That is how it makes the mind impure.

Glue of samsara. That sweetness we experience, is the glue which makes you stick; it makes you, the self, the identity, stick to samsara. Therefore attachment is called ‘the lasso of samsara’. Tibetans make a hole in the yak’s nose and put a rope through it to tie the animal up. Some people tie their horses on a long rope so that the animal can eat a little bit of grass, but cannot go away. This lasso is like that. It is a sweet, sticky thing. We are sticking to something we desire, but in reality we are stuck to ourselves, to our identity, we don’t let ourselves separate from it. That is sticking us to samsara, to being uncontrolled, to pain and miseries. It makes us to get stuck there. And the effect on the individual is terrible. Attachment is the rope which ties you down completely. Even if you want to get away from it, you can’t. It acts like a magnet. Every single thing that you and I consider as pleasure, as enjoyable, is actually a bad thing. I am suffering, while creating more sufferings, and I am tying myself more and more to samsara. When I try to loosen that, it becomes difficult. That is the clear sign that I am tied. When the situation changes, you acknowledge it as suffering, which is a clear sign that by its own nature it is pain you experience, not pleasure. That is suffering of change. Now you may say, “In that case do I have to abandon the family system? Do I have to shave my head and go into the forest?” No. You don’t cut attachment that way. A lot of people also have this funny idea that it has to be cut right now, like cutting a tree. I don’t believe it is something which you can cut like that. It is very hard to cut because you are so used to it and because it gives you a sweet face, which makes it even harder. The ancient masters say,

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 33

All other delusions are like dust on a cloth. Attachment is like oil soaked into a cloth. Dust you can shake off, but oil you can neither remove by shaking nor by washing with soap, nor by dry- cleaning. Whatever you do, it is hard to get it out completely. Like that, attachment really gets you, soaks you in. And it is so difficult to differentiate from beauty, from real love and things like that. It will totally confuse you. It will come under many disguises and it is very difficult to recognize.

If you wouldn’t have any attachment, you probably would not be in samsara at all, you’d be out of samsara. Attachment keeps us in samsaric life and makes us move in there. And unlike the other delusions it is very hard to recognize. Anger for example isn’t so difficult to recognize as a delusion, but attachment is. It confuses people in many ways, because it has so many different faces. Some faces show you, “It is good for you.” Some faces show you, “This is absolutely necessary for you.” Some faces show you, “Well, it may not really be the thing I need, however I have to have it, because it keeps me growing.” So it is very tricky. It is the hardest button we have. Not only does it have the possessiveness, it also develops further and further. That makes Je Tsongkhapa call it ‘the lasso of samsara’, the rope that ties you down, that makes you go round and round and round. This is the mind which prevents us to be determined to be free, what no other mind is able to. It is not the root of samsara, but a very effective weapon of samsara.

To counter that, it is recommended to meditate on the ugliness of the thing you are attracted to. If you are over-attached to an individual person, think what the person really consists of; take off the skin, and look. The Theravadin monks in Thailand etc. even keep corpses in water for a long time to meditate on and cut attachment to the body. I had a friend and student, the late Thupten Chophel. He was a hippie from Austria, who was a monk for about twenty years. He had a lot of photographs and slides of a dead body of a human being. And some photos were very much enlarged. He used them to meditate on cutting attachment. If you are very attached to meat, say to pork, then it is recommended to meditate where the meat comes from. What does the pig eat mostly? In America it is slightly different, you feed them properly (if you don’t feed them hormones). But traditionally in India the pigs eat… well, if it is only garbage it is okay, but still, it is more than that. So you meditate on where it comes from, what it does to the individual when you eat it and what happens to you after that. These things are recommended to think about carefully in order to cut attachment. It is also recommended to meditate that the meat is coming from an animal who lost his most precious life for it etc. [Rimpoche mentions the story about a goat, a cow and a sheep, the butter tea story and the shirt story.33] Attachment is very sensitive for us because we confuse it with love and think it is beautiful and great; so it becomes a very sensitive button to push. When that happens we are cheating ourselves. Attachment is not the root of samsara, but it is the lasso or the glue of samsara.

Faces of attachment. Attachment is a delusion which can bring a lot of confusion. It is one of the toughest things you have to deal with. It has so many layers you have to peel off. When you start dealing with attachment, you’ll find it has so many faces with which it shows itself to you. You peel off one face, you peel off another face, and another… You cannot totally cut it until you obtain enlightenment, that’s how many layers it has. It shifts gears too. And every time it does that, it gives you a different face. And different confusions also. Attachments are brought up by attraction. So you have to handle the attraction. When a person’s attraction is drawn, by a physical appearance or a mental attitude, he starts looking. What do we have to do? The individual has to observe it carefully and see where it is leading one’s mind. That is an important point as a practitioner. When it is leading you towards attachment you have to cut it out, because you don’t want that. If it is leading [to a state of mind] which you can handle, however, it is fine, no big deal. Attachment can be developed on anything. A big and complicated problem is that attachment is sometimes confused with spirituality. I believe that for a very highly developed person at a certain level passion can be true spirituality, but at other levels I do not know how true it is. It is very hard to say it is

33 For those stories see volume II, index entry ‘stories’, subheadings ‘death’ and ‘karma’.

34 Lam Rim Teachings totally untrue, because we cannot judge the level of the individual person. At the same time you cannot say it is true, because it could be totally delusion-oriented and one could even get much thicker into it rather than getting more loose and getting out of it. But the way to check this is very hard. One way to look at it is to see whether it affects the individual or not. The example given here is the lotus. The lotus flower grows out of the mud, but the lotus has no fault of mud at all. But every flower is not a lotus flower. I just give you some thoughts of mine and you can think it over, you can judge for yourself. It is very hard to say something in general here. It really depends totally on the individual capacity, the individual level. One’s mind is known to oneself and one’s level is known to oneself, too. One has to judge according to one’s own capacity and according to one’s own level. You cannot acknowledge the use of passion as a spiritual method, as a spiritual development, because it can totally be a delusion. If it is a delusion, then instead of helping you it is harming you. If it is spiritual, then instead of harming you it is helping you. I think that is enough for you people. Just be aware of it and keep your eyes open. Watch yourself.

An important thing here is to check yourself. After these delusions what happens to you? What effects do they have? Does it have the effect on you of feeling good? Or bad? Feeling good and something actually being good may again be different. Something may be bad for you, but you may feel great, which happens to many people. When you hear, “I am wonderful, I am great, I am this and that”, it is a clear sign that something is wrong with that person. Why? Because of the dualistic mind. Watch your mind carefully, particularly over a slightly longer period. Attachment is such a funny thing. Immediately after [you feel the attraction] you feel great, because the attachment bears the sweet face. But when you lose that, what happens? Or when you had too much, what happens? When you have it for too long, what happens? You have to judge it on the long run rather than judging the immediate mind. Anger is very easy to judge. When you get angry you know immediately that your peace is disrupted. But attachment has the sweet face that is very hard. Attachment is not directly harmful like anger, but it is a very bad disadvantage, it catches you. As far as the samsaric working is concerned, as far as this control- less circulation is concerned, out of all these delusions attachment is the most powerful one.

I forgot one important thing. The biggest attachment is self-attachment. I am sorry I forgot about that. I have been facing outside. But facing inside is important, because attachment is also self-attachment, which is very, very hard. Whether that is really attachment or not, the division may slightly change a little later, but it is still there. I’ll come back to this self-attachment a little later.

How to deal with it? So the question is: how do you deal with it? There are a lot of different ways. Those who can practice vajrayana or tantra, have ways and means of transforming it, rather than cutting it. Others, like the bodhisattvas, the pure sutra-mahayanayen, try to use it as a tool or as an aid to render service to others. How do they do that? The sutra-mahayana way tries to change attachment into compassion. However, although it is true that attachment is sometimes used as a tool for development and for rendering service to the others, by nature, no matter what purpose it is used for, it is a delusion. One should not forget that. Hinayana teachings will insist you avoid it totally, you just cut it out, you don’t even give it the opportunity, you turn your body round. You’ll find that in the monks’ rules; monks are not supposed to look beyond [a restricted view area]. I do not know whether anybody does it or not, but that strict discipline is challenging the attachment by not giving the individual the opportunity to get attracted. All these ways are there, but it is very, very hard to cut attachment. And I also question whether it really needs to be cut totally or not. It totally depends on the individual person. I don’t think there is a uniform solution for that. Which method you’re going to pick up totally depends on the individual. It is known to yourself which one is going to suit you best.

How to meditate on attachment. Today I’ll make you meditate on your own attachment. Don’t do a concentrated meditation on attachment, because by that the attachment develops. Instead of that you have to

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 35 analytically see how it has grown within you and see how it influences your mind. If you do the wrong analytical meditation here, it develops. I’ll give you a very interesting example here. Some people may not like it, I am sorry, but it is going to be very effective, because we know it, we are experts on it. Suppose you have an attraction to another person and you want to develop attachment on that person; how do you do that? You look at the person and say how wonderful this person is, what good qualities this person has: a beautiful mind, a beautiful body, straightforward, well-built… – whatever reasons are effective for you. Some individuals may go for richness, a handsome look, or honesty; whatever attracts you. Pick out the quality you want and put that quality on that person, “Hey, yes, he or she has that quality, great, wonderful!” The person is sort of raised up three stories. And it builds up, builds up, builds up and finally your person has become a Cinderella. The person that you produced is presented as ideal for you and then you perceive it as an ideal person for you. You’re convinced. Then you always acknowledge that, you concentrate on that: “This is ideal!” That is the ‘concentrated meditation’ on that. At the end what do you get? You get a ‘realization’ on it, “This person is the most ideal, perfect one.” Even with faults; if you are not totally blind. If you are totally blind, you see no faults and the person becomes a buddha to you. And [that image] develops more and more [within you]. When by that time you watch your mind, [you’ll find] it is absolutely impossible to cut it out. Al- though you may see it is not right, you can’t cut it; you’ll give excuses here and there. And ultimately it may not turn out to be the right ideal person, even though you may decide to let it go on for a while. And when you have to let it go, you cannot. It is painful, terrible, miserable, and you’ll say, “It is cutting a part of my flesh.” Even harder than that; even having to cut your finger is more easy. That is the realization of attachment. Now what you have to do is the opposite. Turn it around. We do have experience on attachment; we know it. We don’t have experience on virtues and spiritual development, so even when we try to give an example, it may not make sense. This makes sense, because we know it, we feel it, we experience it. When you work on development, when you do spiritual work like meditating, that is what you have to do. The subject or the object you are meditating on has to change, you have to change the decorations. Do the analytical meditation in that way. This is how spiritual development will come. Unshakable development! Because you realized it, you gained a realization. When you gain a realization on something, it cannot be shaken. Otherwise, when someone says, “Oh, what you are doing is totally wrong, there is no karma, they tell you total lies…” you think, “Oh, maybe it is true” and a little doubt will come up. And doubt is counted as one of the root delusions rather than as a secondary delusion. It is a root delusion because it kills the life of the spiritual development, remember? In order to avoid that, analytical meditation has become important and [if you do] realization will come. So do kindly meditate. On every teaching we do here, please meditate! If you don’t meditate, it’s no use. We are not making time for meditation here. We are all grown-up, educated persons who can do their meditations in their own time. So please give it some time, meditate on it at least fifteen to twenty minutes a day. And it is much better to give it ten or fifteen minutes every day, than meditating for hours on one day and not doing anything the other days. That won’t do any good. When you come back the next teaching and we say the preliminary prayers, at that time please meditate on each point. It is very important for spiritual growth. If you do not meditate, these points cannot be developed, unless for some extra-ordinary persons with extra-ordinary circumstances, like you read about the maha-siddhas. That is different. We don’t have that much fortune. We have to work hard. So please do. And if anybody says you do not need it, this is a non-virtuous friend.

Anger How anger makes the mind rough. Of course you all know what anger is. For it to be proper anger it has to have a wish of harming: something or someone hurts me, so I want to harm them back. That desire of harming may not necessarily be clear to many people, but in the deeper mind it is always there. Every one of us has something to hide. At the beginning level we always cheat ourselves. You may be angry, but you’ll say, “No, I am not angry at all!” However, if an individual is angry it is very clear by his way of

36 Lam Rim Teachings speaking, by the look in his eye, even by the face, which may totally change into that of a monkey’s but- tock. Excuse my language, but that is what anger does. The person himself never knows. When somebody is very angry it is a good thing to give them a mirror immediately and run away before he or she hits you on the head with it. If you observe it, you’ll see your face has changed totally and you look horrible. But even then you deny it, “I am not angry.” People say that. You may not feel angry, and you are not lying on purpose, but you are deceiving yourself. Deep down you really are very angry. But you like to deny it to yourself and you like to believe that you are not angry. This tricky part of it makes it more difficult for us to see our own purpose. You keep on saying, “I am not angry, but…” Or you hit the words as sharply as possible, because you want to pin the other person down. Where does the desire of pinning down come from? Mostly from anger. A person with anger developed inside may not show his anger. There are some people with whom you’ll see that the more angry they are, the more they’ll show you their kindness. It looks kind, but it is very manipulative and very hard. I think we all know that. The most important thing is to watch yourself and make sure you do not deceive yourself. Deceiving oneself prevents the individual from recognizing that delusion within him- or herself. The moment it is recognized it is a danger for the delusion. So [the delusion] builds up the mechanism of immediately trying to hide, making yourself believe that you are not influenced. One important thing is that anger is rough by nature; it makes the mind very rough, not smooth. Then there are the after-effects, which in the west you call emotions. Emotions are the after-effects of anger and attachment.

In general, most harm done to other beings is somehow influenced by anger or attachment. Most of the problems that we see around us and acknowledge, are the result of anger or attachment or a combination of the two. Because you’re not getting what you want, you play all sorts of monkey-tricks to get it and when you still can’t get it, you get angry. Watch your mind very carefully; even those monkey-tricks could sometimes be influenced by anger.

Faces of anger and attachment. Anger shows itself in different ways. There is anger putting on the mask of sweetness, and there is attachment putting on the mask of wrath or hate or harshness. They switch. When we look into our emotions, I believe most emotions come from those two, are the after-effect or direct result of either anger or attachment. I noticed that in the west you have a tremendous jungle of emotions. And, interestingly, they change from minute to minute; a simple act can switch the gears. These emotions totally take the individual over. That is what I mean by ‘delusions make the mind rough’. The mind is not smooth but rough: you can’t think, you can’t concentrate, you can’t meditate, you can’t read, you can do nothing right, because the mind has been disturbed. These are the after-effects of those delusions. Buddha has said, There is no non-virtue heavy like that of anger; There is no contemplation difficult like that of meditating patience. Anger has another power: it destroys all good virtue. We work hard to apply the four opponent powers to purify the non-virtues. Good and bad are equal: negative forces and positive forces have equal power. The positive forces apply the four antidote powers and purify all negative power; the negative forces apply anger and destroy all positive powers. So anger is a very important tool for the negative forces, because it can wipe out all the good works we have done. Being angry for a minute is very expensive. It costs you so much; you’re probably running into a three-lives deficit. Really, it is very expensive. Anger is also an important cause for taking rebirth into the lower realms. If you want to know it in detail, read Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, chapter 6,34 and its commentaries. And then meditate, think. Ask yourself, “Is it worth for me to get angry?” No matter how much you may think it is a great big thing you get angry for, when you look at the costs for you, it is really not worth it. When you talk about this subject it sounds funny, but when you think about it, you’ll find you don’t

34 Skt. Bodhisattvacharyavatara. Commentaries: Gehlek Rimpoche, Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life [is presently still being taught; new chapters are still coming out]; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 37 have to go and search for it, it is within us. We have it. It is important to recognize it. But it is very hard to recognize. For some people it is easy to recognize, but for some people it is very hard, really hard. When you don’t recognize your own delusions or when you misrecognize them, it gives you terrible results. And it is very hard to help yourself or to be helped by others. When you refuse to acknowledge your own delusions, the growth of your spiritual development is totally brought down to the zero level. We come to that when we talk about doubt, which is also one of the root delusions.

How to handle anger. Recognition is the first step. It doesn’t matter whether it is an hour later or two weeks later. You recognize your anger and try to acknowledge that recognition within you. Then this habit of recognition will build up and become part of your habitual patterns. Then you’ll recognize your anger faster and faster, up to recognizing it while you are angry. After that you’ll even start to recognize the anger when you begin to get angry. If that happens, you can be careful about it and you can avoid the anger completely. Patience will only work when you recognize the anger. It won’t work when you do not. When you are trying to justify [yourself], you are not recognizing that it is your anger, you are not recognizing that it is your fault. In that case anger goes together with pride: you refuse to recognize your anger, you refuse to admit your fault, you refuse to say sorry. Anger, attachment and pride easily link up. Many times for us all six work together and that becomes very difficult, a big jumble.

In short, whether directed at a being or not, anger makes our mind rough and has a desire of harming. Just to work up yourself to “Whooo…!” is not enough for it to be anger; it needs the desire to harm the other person. Suppose you see the someone you hate, and you watch your mind: your mind’s smoothness is immediately gone and the roughness catches you by the throat. That is what anger really is. It is not a big deal like attachment, but it is directly harmful because it destroys our good work, our good karma. Nowa- days some people call it short-tempered. By giving it a nice little name we give it an excuse. We have the habit of excusing anger by calling it being short-tempered, but anger is a very powerful non-virtue. It takes the life of liberation. It is like a fire; it burns. The antidote is patience.

Pride or self-importance What is pride? Pride is, “I am the one.” Right? Pride could be anything. We think, “I am great; I am great because I am wealthy, I am great because I am very learned [Skt. guna], I am great because my family has great ancestors, I am great because I am very pure in morals, I am great because I have a good voice, I am great because I am good at this, that and that.” You can be very good at something – nothing wrong with that. But you cannot be very proud of it; that may not be very useful. Everybody has some kind of pride, be it on their body, their car, their country, anything. You need pride in the sense of self-esteem, but you should not be proud. That is what it is. Pride, again, is a delusion. The example is this. Suppose you go into the high mountains, onto a high peak and you look at the other peaks and see they all are down there and you feel: “Wow!” Pride is: seeing that you are great and others are nothing and recognizing yourself (falsely of course) as: “I am the great one, I know best and you all know nothing. I am the best man and you all are only so-so.” The American culture encourages you to say, “I am the best.” Perhaps it is okay if you say, “I am the best”, as long as you don’t look down on others. This is tricky. You have to deal with this pride and at the same time you don’t want to make yourself so low. You don’t have to feel stupid, like “I am the most humble, I am stupid, I am worse” and all this. That is not right. I do get a lot of letters like this. You don’t have to make yourself low. But never feel that you are greater than others and look down on everyone else. If you keep a low key without involving self- hatred, it can be a good quality. So you do not keep the pride, but at the same time you don’t want to go too extreme. That is what I want to emphasize. Make sure you see the difference. Remember, during the teaching of the Three Principles, particularly at the determination to be free, we did mention this point: “Getting out of the human pride, obtaining the dog's stage and finding the gods place”35

35 The ten innermost jewels of the kadampa masters, ten mental attitudes to let go of the eight worldly dharmas: A) The four entrusting acceptances: 1) Entrusting one’s mind and thoughts to one’s dharma-practice. 2) Entrusting one’s dharma-practice to life as a beggar. 3) Entrusting one’s life as a beggar to death. 4) Entrusting one’s death to a barren caver. B) The three diamond-

38 Lam Rim Teachings

From the Buddhist point of view pride is not considered good. The Kadampa lamas say, Look where at springtime the greens come first; Is it on the peak of the mountain or down in the valley? Of course it is not on the high mountains, The lower plateaus will pick up the green grass first. Later Gungtang Jampelyang pointed out, When the crops are ripening and the ears are filled with grains, Which is taller, the ear with more grains or the ear with the fewer grains in it? The stalk that has a rich crop of wheat doesn’t stand up. It bends down. Some people have little knowledge and like to show it to everybody. They like pointing out things to anybody else. They like to poke their nose in every case, explaining all the pros and cons. Some people carry on interfering like that. It is all due to pride, because the person has the feeling of “I know it and they don’t.” The traditional teachings say, If little birds or little mice, who cannot eat more than seven grains, Have seven grains in their stomach, they make a hell of a noise Because they think the whole world is in their stomach. If you are proud, then even though you may have a lot of information, it may not affect you. For some people it is very hard to pick up information from others, “Yes, yes, I know, I know.” Everything they know already. We nickname them ‘a buddha’. This type of buddha is not the best buddha. Another master has given the example, If you are good in quality and spiritual development, You won’t be standing very much upright, you have some weight on you, You bend a little bit down. Humbleness is a good attitude. But people sometimes go too extreme on that level. The individual has to be really careful in observing it. Some people try to be humble and also some people pretend to be humble. I’ll give one more example. When the water runs through on the fields, Will the water remain where there is a little height Or does it stay where there is a little hole?

Disadvantages of pride. When the spiritual development goes through a proud person, it does not remain there, it goes away. That also goes for the teachers. Say you are teaching spiritual development to a person. If the teacher is proud he will never affect the individuals, no matter how great he or she may talk. You may do great research and you may try to communicate it, but it will never, never affect other persons at all. So if you want to be a spiritual teacher, the first and foremost thing you have to cut, is this! If you cannot, you can’t help anybody at all. It is really full stop on this. You cannot help others. It somehow stands against that.

A person who has pride is very difficult to help, because that person thinks that he or she knows best. Such a person becomes very skeptical, always seeing the faults of anything, always seeing the faults of others, not their own problems or their own faults. Say other people do things and you see the problems that are going to come up – seeing that is not bad, but seeing only the problems of other people, that is what pride does [to you]. And it becomes very difficult to help the person on that. Even spiritually you can’t do anything until the pride has completely been removed. The Kadampa lamas give an example,

strong convictions: 5) The vajra-like conviction to be firm towards any findrances caused by friends or relatives. 6) The vajra- like conviction to disregard the opinion oif worldly people. 7) The vajra-like conviction to firmly guard one’s practice. C) The three mature attitudes: 8) Expulsion from the ranks of men: “Even I get excluded from society because I do not follow their way, I don’t mind”. 9) Finding oneself among the ranks of dogs: “Even I get treated badly, like a street dog, I take it.” 10) Attaining divine ranks: “After all I will reach the level of an enlightened being”. Literature: Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development, pg. 46-48, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An anthology of Well-spoken Advice, pg. 177-181, Tsongkapa, The Principal Teachings of Buddhism, pg. 66-69. Geshe Sonam Rinchen, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, pg 52-59.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 39

A person with pride is like an iron ball. If you pour some knowledge or development, It will flow along its surface; it will never go in. Why pride is a delusion. When you look at pride, it does not look so bad. It is not like anger or attachment or hatred. Then why is it counted as a root delusion? The damage pride does to the individual is very strong. It really locks you in. You can’t listen to anybody else, you’re very hard-headed, you have to learn the hardest way possible, and that also not once, but again and again. That is why as long as pride is not reduced, there will never, never be a way to develop. Even though you have the knowledge, you can never be useful to others, because of your pride. No spiritual development can really go very well with people of pride. Pride is not a non-virtue by nature, but it is very self-destructive and therefore very harmful.

How to handle pride. In order to reduce pride, you don’t have to make yourself humble like, “I am a poor nobody.” No. You have to learn that there are many things you can’t do. You have to learn that there is a limit to what you can or can’t do. Also you have to learn to realize that what you learned is not the real thing. As a kid I had memorized a particular portion of the prayers and I used to shout them in the gather- ing of monks at the top of my voice and my teacher used to tell me, “Oh, that little bird is here; I think that little bird had seven grains to eat.” The direct opponent you can use to reduce pride is looking into the fact that there are a lot of things you don’t know. You have to see and know there is much more that you don’t see. Even the great Ra Lot- sawa had pride, thinking he was the greatest, the most powerful guy in mystical powers and knowledge in Tibet. In the beginning he was very humble, but later he became very proud. Then during his dreams dakinis showed him millions of different books and knowledge that he had never even heard of. That reduced a lot of his pride.

Ignorance / confusion / blindness [Skt. avidya; Tib. marigpa] What ignorance is. In the spiritual path ignorance or not-knowing is one of the biggest obstacles, because you need to know what you are doing. If you do not know what you really have to think, how can you think? How can you do analytical meditation? So knowing is important. But at the same time too much knowing is not good either. Here ignorance is particularly not knowing the true nature [of self and of reality], not knowing the true karmic system, not knowing the true Buddha, the true dharma, the true sangha, not truly knowing the noble truths. Out of the six root delusions ignorance is the most difficult to recognize. Because all ignorant people think, “I know best.” Again, this is natural. We even have a saying here, “A little knowledge is dangerous.” Because by having a little knowledge, a little information, people will immediately build up pride and think, “I know everything.” And that includes you and me. Everyone here thinks, “I know best.” May be not all, but there are very few exceptions. Therefore ignorance is very difficult to recognize. And to some people ignorance does not even exist, is not in their vocabulary at all. Yet it is there; it is the strongest and most difficult root delusion.

Ignorance and identification. A lot of people talk about the dualistic view. The actual cause of the dualistic view is ignorance. This particular ignorance we are talking about, is ignorance of the true nature. As far as I am concerned, I know I am ignorant, because I am told I am ignorant, I am told I don’t know. And when I am going to look deeper into what I know and what I do not know, I do not even know what I do not know. This is the problem, really! I do not even know what I do not know. People use a lot of different terminologies [in connection to ignorance]: inherent existence, self- existence, true existence, I, mine, me, dualism, emptiness. They are all terminologies, borrowed words. I know I am in the nature of emptiness, because I was told this. But when I want to look into it, the question is: I am empty of what? I was told: empty of inherent existence. But what is inherent existence? Inherent means: originally coming from [itself]. Existence means: standing there, big, large as life. Then I understand the words, but I still don’t understand anything. This is our true ignorance. We have to look deeper into it: empty of what? Empty of self, self-less. That does not mean self is not

40 Lam Rim Teachings here. I am here, I am talking, listening, sitting, having pain in my knees, all these sort of things. So we have to go deeper, saying, “What is it, what is that me?” The moment I start calling it me, where do I look? What do I identify with? What is the basis of my identity? What do I hold on to? I think we have to look into this: the basis of identification. On the other hand we get the fear of losing our identity. I am not afraid of losing me, but I am very much afraid of losing my identity! We are always scared of that. There is the fear of losing my identity and there is ignorance. These two are very much interlinked. Actually ignorance is called the root of all delusions. So when you begin to look into the ignorance I think you have to look into the identification. What do I identify with? And where is that me? Do I identify myself with the form, or with the mind, or with a combination of form and mind? This is the first step in looking into it. And also you should look into the fear of losing the identity. What or where is the identity? What am I afraid of losing? Am I afraid of losing my life? Am I afraid of losing my body? Am I afraid of me totally going to disappear? What is the difference between the fear of death and the fear of losing me and my identity? It is very useful to combine these and look into it. This is the beginning of looking into ignorance.

I and I. When we don’t know the ignorance, we begin to project at various different levels of I. The moment you raise the thought of I, you get different levels of understanding. a) When people are not thinking about looking deeper inside, it is like this. The moment you start talking about my shirt, my pen, I am going, I am sitting, I am thinking etc., you get some kind of projection of I; you can perceive something. This is one level of I, which is not the I we’re discussing. This is the common I every sensible person has some kind of understanding of. It is something to hold on to, to point to. This is one way of perceiving: I am doing this, I am doing that. We are not talking about that I at all. When I say, “We are not talking about that I”, you may think, “Is there another I besides this one?” Again, no. It is the same I that we are talking about, but the difference is how we perceive it. The first one we talked about is an ordinary perceiving. That is true perceiving. That has no faults. It is without any thinking, the automatic acknowledgement of a name, the acknowledgement of a person, “Hey you!” That sort of thing is ordinary. There is nothing wrong with that. We are not talking about that. b) The moment we begin to think a little more, when after the ordinary acknowledging: “Miss X, that is me” we take one step deeper inside and think, “Who am I? Who is that me? Who is that so and so?” then our problems will begin to rise. When you ask that question to yourself, “Who am I, who is this Miss X?” the trouble starts. That is the beginning of ignorance. Then you begin to look, “Where is it?” You begin to look for the basis of the name or label, the basis of the identification. “Who is identified with this name? Is it inside of me? Outside of me? Is it the same as me? Or is it somebody else besides me? Who is acknowledging it?” Then we begin to see our ignorance on that. We really don’t know. We can’t. People try to identify it. When you think or when you meditate (which sounds more romantic), you ask yourself, “Who is the identifier of the name? Where am I holding it? Is it me who is observing it? Or is there somebody else? Which is the basis of identification? Is it the mind? Is it the form? Or the senses?”

The masks of ignorance. Now all of you have some idea of the buddha-nature. So you may say, “Oh, let’s go deeper than that. Let’s throw out the body, throw out the name, throw out the senses, throw out the mind, then deeper inside there is some kind of pure beauty nature [of the self]. Now, where is it? And which one is it? Am I able to see it, to perceive it?” Practically: no. Most of us will then lose it, we cannot hold [on to] anything. Probably at that point most of us have nothing to show. The moment we cannot show anything we say, “Oh yes, that is true, there is nothing because it is empty.” If the emptiness were that easy I think everybody would know it. But it is not like that. That is not right. When that is not right and we cannot find what is right, people give you different thoughts, such as, “You cannot go much deeper in there, because if you go deeper you cannot find anything, therefore you have to be satisfied with whatever you’re going to find, and you keep that as a fundamental basis.” That’s not right. That’s wrong again. Then some will say, “When you go deeper into it, you do not find yourself, yet you will encounter all kinds of delusions, you will keep on clearing them and the moment you cleared all the delusions, you’ll find the beauty nature of the self inside there.” I believe that is also not right.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 41

Others may tell you, “The I is something else. It is neither the mind, nor the body. It is some kind of super structure-less ‘being’ inside which does not depend on anything, which is permanently created, the basis of all, yet not recognizable, not catcheable, not communicable.” And that again, I believe, is not right. Why is it not right? I should give you the reasons. If there is a super-permanent part of me, then I have to be super-permanent. When a part of me is super-permanent, then I have to be it, because that part is my part. That part cannot be identified separately from me, therefore it has to be me. And I am impermanent, I am not permanent, therefore it is wrong. The peeling business, as I told you, is also wrong. This may be very hard for you people to accept, because that is somehow normal, people do accept it that way. There are two ways of looking actually. If you look at the pure nature of the mind, that explanation of the peeling business will work. But when you start looking at the I or me as the fundamental basis of identification, then when the peeling goes on and on, finally you cannot find anything in there. There is no such thing as “When the peelings are over, I am face to face with…” That does not exist. There are people who talk like this: “Then I am face to face with the pure gold.” When you say, “I am face to face with the pure gold”, it means you are presenting a per- ceiver and an object you perceive within you. That is creating a division within the individual person. There are no two persons inside, it is only one person. So, again, that is not right. I am sorry, you’re going to hear all that is not right and you’re not going to hear what is right. It is my character. I always tell you what is not right, I never tell you what is right. By eliminating what is not right, you’ll be left with what is right actually. And it is for you to find it. If I would tell you what is right – firstly, I don’t know and secondly, it is meaningless to you because I told you. It does not serve the purpose. You have to find it. Really true. I tell you what is not right, because you might find, “Wow, great, I found it!” But when you find that, remember it is not right! You still have to look into it further. Remember, at this moment we are not presenting the true wisdom. We are presenting the ignorance. But presenting the ignorance will help to understand the true wisdom when it comes. So, all of these are presentations of ignorance. What ignorance does. Ignorance will present you all these different masks. For most people it will present some kind of super-being inside, real deep down there. People satisfy themselves with this and then things start functioning. The moment you look into it and you start finding something somewhere deep, deep down you say there is a me. People are satisfied with this and then think, “Let’s not bother with what is really deep down in there and let’s get on with our lives.” That is what happens. Without knowing, without seeing, deep down inside we produce a basis of identification, a so-called me or I. And that is held on to as the most important part of me, the most important me, the real me. Then that real me has to get satisfied by fulfilling its wishes, by providing it with whatever it wants. And to fulfill the wishes of me you begin to project the desire of me, which wants something. And when you are not getting it, you begin to have displeasure, dissatisfaction, because ‘what I wanted I did not get’. When I get the something that I wanted it makes me happy and it develops the ‘I don’t want to be separated from that’. That, again, is desire. The moment you see the separation, again the dissatisfaction grows. Without knowing what that deeper inside is, it is able to function as the basis of happiness and unhap- piness, of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, of me and my, of me and my closeness, me and my distance, me and my hatred, me and my love. All these are able to function on that. So the ignorance has served its purpose. It has fulfilled its duty: it made us lost, made us confused, made us not see the thing properly, but it served its own purpose totally and so it put us in the so-called life. Maybe that is too big a statement, but almost right. It has put us into the competition, into the pushing, into the ambition. And what does that do? That simultaneously produces: “I am not capable, I cannot do it, I am behind.” This is what it is always accompanied by. The ambition pushes you hard and at the same time the fear will say, “I am not good, I am not good enough, I am far behind.” When the desire is fulfilled, sometimes you feel extremely high and happy. And the moment you cannot get your desires fulfilled, you are down, sad and depressed. These are the results of the ignorance. We don’t know what ignorance really is, but we do know what it does. Why is the work of the ignorance so effective with us? Because we don’t know it. We are simply not seeing the truth deep inside. We have [produced] some kind of superficial ‘hole’ inside with ‘somebody’ down there whom we cannot even identify.

42 Lam Rim Teachings

What wisdom does. Wisdom goes into this; it goes deeper into that ‘hole’ and looks, “Who is down there? Where is it? What does it look like? What is it?” And when you truly see that, then the wisdom works. Until then the wisdom is blocked. The moment the wisdom begins to go deeper into it, begins to see it, [some] people do [see a light] and call that ‘face to face’. Actually I don’t think it is face to face, actually I don’t think it is light.

At this moment we are presenting ignorance, we are not presenting wisdom. The wisdom will follow. But here now we should have some idea about what ignorance really is. In the meanwhile, since we are going to have some gap here till the wisdom presentation comes, if I don’t mention it, it will be a failure. We just simply said: every function of life, pushing, desire, ambition, set-back, fall-down, fear of beyond, feeling of worthlessness – it is all due to the ignorance. All that is an effect of ignorance. You may raise the question, “Should I better not go into it?” Some people have that tendency, “It is the work of ignorance, so why should I get into it?” No, that is wrong. Even if it is the work of ignorance, you should get into it. Why? When you get the wisdom, [your actions and efforts] will be part of the wisdom-functioning; so you don’t lose this now. Whether ignorance pushes it or wisdom pushes it, life is life and you have to go through it. And it is for you to make it into a result of wisdom-functioning. In other words, it is a chance to move from the ignorance-influence into the wisdom-influence. Therefore we don’t want to lose the basic foundation of what is to be transformed. I am glad I mentioned it. Normally in the Tibetan community I don’t mention this, it is taken for granted that you know. But in the west I realize you have to tell everything, you cannot take anything for granted. Now we have ‘somebody’ called ignorance, inside, deep down, somewhere, dark, down in a big place somewhere inside. That is what we have produced so far. In the meantime awareness should be produced. You let life function and at the same time awareness should be there too. Awareness influenced by ignorance is [at the same time] awareness to be transformed into wisdom action. Our functioning has to be transformed from ignorance-functioning into wisdom-functioning. That is how wisdom lights the ignorance. Well, this is our first attempt towards wisdom. More than that will confuse us more, so therefore let us keep it to this.

Study. There is much more. When we go into it in detail it will be tremendous, really tremendous! You should read on this subject36. The Speech of Gold is very good, highly recommended. I do not know how much you will understand by reading it, though; it is very complicated. You can read the introduction. Something short to read on the six root delusions is Geshe Rabten’s Treasury of Dharma. From Life and teachings of Tsongkhapa you may read the wisdom section. Very brief but concise and to the point is the Introduction to Thurman’s The Holy Teachings of Vimalakirti; in there is some discussion on emptiness with very good examples. This reading and your thinking are the simple preliminary preparations for your ignorance (laughs). This forthcoming ignorance will be the preliminary preparation for going into wisdom. So therefore we have to be carefully prepared. Read whatever you can, but please make sure you read authentic authors. Don’t just read anything. There are four different schools of the traditional Indian Buddhist presentation of wisdom. Just do not bother with the three lower levels. Since we are not going to be scholars we simply want a proper understanding. So just go on anything that is the principal view of Chandrakirti and Buddhapalita and carry on with that. Do not bother with the views of Dignaga and Haribhadra. For wisdom do not bother Haribhadra; for other things you should bother Haribhadra. Don’t read just any general thing you can get, because it can create more trouble than help. I think this is enough now, to get a little more in touch with it.

36 Recommended literature on ignorance versus the wisdom of emptiness: Gehlek Rimpoche, Self and Selflessness; Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 55-60; Robert Thurman, The Speech of Gold [new edition called The Central Philosophy of Tibet], only the introduction; Robert Thurman, The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti; the introduction is recommended; Dalai Lama XIV, Bud- dhism of Tibet; Robert Thurman, Life and Teachings of Tsong Khapa, ch. III; Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, ch. 9; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold, ch. 9; Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditations on Emptiness; Lama Yeshe, In- troduction to Tantra, p. 69-93.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 43

Doubt or indecisive wavering Doubt is counted as a root delusion. This is very funny when you just look at it. Are they trying to brain- wash you? Are you told not to doubt, but to have faith? In Tibetan this delusion is called the tsom, which means ‘it is, it is not, it is true, it is not true’. I don’t think this covers all kinds of doubt. You have to make a division within that. There is intelligent doubt and stupid or ignorance-doubt.37 Intelligent doubt is not a delusion, but ignorance-doubt is. How do we draw the line between ignorance-doubt and the intelligent doubt? That is a big question. When we try to look at the ignorance, when we try to look at the identity, when we try to look at the selflessness (the -less of what?), we have partial doubt. We are not really doubting whether there is emptiness or not, but we are doubting how this emptiness comes up and how it is relevant to me and how I see it. When we look at it that way, we have to consider this as intelligent doubt. When you say, “People talk about Buddha but that is a total lie, I can never become a buddha, I am always going down, I am sure when I die I’ll disappear”, it is, I believe, ignorance-doubt. When you look into the teachings of the Buddha, it is very hard to make this distinction. On the one hand the teachings say, Those who are doubting the four noble truths and the nature of emptiness And the existence of the Buddha, have ignorant doubt. On the other hand you are never encouraged to buy something because Buddha said so. You have to use your own judgment. So some kind of dilemma is created. Now ask yourself, What do I do? I am not an intelligent scholar, I am an ordinary being who would like to practice. I would like to develop myself, I do not want to develop delusions, I would like to gain spiritual development, so what do I do? Take for example our usual sutra practice. The first step is: guru-devotional practice is the root of development. You think, Whether the guru is great or not great, the guru is an instrument for me to develop and therefore looking down on that is an obstacle for my practice. If I keep on doubting whether Buddha is there or not, I’ll get nowhere. Following his words becomes instrumental for me to take a step forward. Therefore it is not necessary for me to doubt. If I keep on doubting whether there is a buddha, whether there is such a person who is really fully developed and so forth, then I will still be in doubt when I am dying. I will never be able to understand it, because it is beyond my comprehension. If I keep on doubting whether there is a future life or not, if I have to see it in black and white, then I will keep on doubting till I die and that will be a disadvantage for me. Therefore: I should not doubt things that help me develop. We are aiming at the vajrayana practice. In there the major practice is positive visualization and positive thinking. That is beyond our capacity of comprehension, but if we keep on doubting it, we will never get anywhere. A lot of people keep on doubting karma, they keep on doubting whether every experience of pleasure and pain is the result of a cause or not. Karma, again, is beyond our comprehension. The gross karmic structure is within our comprehension, but the subtle karmic structure is beyond our capacity. So, if we keep on doubting that, we waste our lives. Therefore, certain doubts one has to carry and certain doubts are to be thrown out. I will make a sort of straightforward statement: the doubts that are very strong obstacles for our development are the non-intelligent doubts and we should be getting away from those. They are the gross- level doubts: keep on doubting whether there is a future life or not, keep on doubting whether I really come from previous lives or not, keep on doubting whether there is somebody called Buddha or not. When you go to university you may hear things like: “The latest theory is that the Buddha never ex- isted” or “The collected words of the Buddha are not Buddha’s words, it is a canon.” Yes. Buddha did not

37 Three types of doubt: 1) doubt that tends toward erroneous belief about its object 2) doubt that tends toward right belief about its object, 3) doubt that is completely undecided about the nature of its object. Ref. Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 268.

44 Lam Rim Teachings carry the pen and write it down, but he has shared his knowledge and that was relayed. I am not criticizing the intelligent community of the university – I am not. That kind of research is the university’s job. But if you want to practice Buddhism and you keep on doubting whether there is future life or not, you will never have any practice. If you keep on doubting whether Tara or Vajrayogini or Yamantaka really exist, if you keep on taking initiations and you keep on doubting it, you’ll never have any development at all. Therefore this sort of unintelligent doubt can stand in your way.

What does doubt do? What effect does doubt [or indecisive wavering] have on you? The individual can never progress in the spiritual development. As long as you keep on doubting everything you do, you’ll never get anywhere. So I think this is a big obstacle. It is not like anger, it is not like hatred, it is not like attachment. An- ger, hatred and attachment will have a temporary effect on the mind. But this type of doubt can be a life- long block for your development. If you have an ignorance-doubt on one important point, what will happen? You will start bouncing. You bounce on this path, you bounce on that path and you will be nowhere. Okay, you may follow a certain way to a certain extent, but then you’ll start doubting and you’ll bounce back, you’ll follow another way to a certain extent and you’ll bounce back again. That way you’re not getting anywhere. Affecting the individual takes a hell of a long time, because our delusions have been with us for years and years and for lives and lives. And because it takes time, you’ll develop these doubts and then you’ll quit. Even if you don’t quit and you force yourself, you cannot develop as long as the doubt is there. The Tibetans have a very interesting saying on it: If you have a two-pointed mind you can never achieve anything. The example is a two-pointed needle, with which you can’t make a stitch. If you put a V-pointed needle in cloth and the one point goes through, the other part will be stuck and vice versa. So you can’t proceed unless you break the needle. I’ll tell you, my dear friends, really this block is life-long. Until you remove that doubt, you can never develop anything. And when you don’t develop anything and we pour more information into you, what will happen? The information will have no effect on the individual. When you keep on eating a lot of medicines you develop immunity or tolerance and it does not have any effect any more. Similarly, with a certain block you do not develop and when more information is poured in, it is like a strong tolerance: things that are normally effective can no longer affect the person. The old example here is leather. Tibetans used raw leather a lot: we made clothes and cushions out of it, and put food to store in it because it is air-tight. Now the leather you use to put butter in, is very hard to re-use for other things. You can’t treat it any more, because the major application for treating leather was fat and butter. Because this particular leather is fully soaked with butter, you can’t do anything else with it; there is nothing to add on it. Likewise doubt is one of the strongest blocks on the path; unless you remove it, it is life-long. No matter what you do, a hundred thousand prostrations, one million mantras, it will have no effect whatsoever on the individual’s mind! So we don’t want the ignorant doubt. Really, when they count doubt as a root delusion, this is the reason. Simply because it blocks you totally for the rest of your life. So, this needs a lot of the individual’s attention, individual thinking. These are the two most important things: the doubt and the ignorance. Unfortunately the two last ones left are the heavy ones. I’d like to stop here. Think about it and read, and we should have discussions. I did not even present it to you, neither the ignorance nor the doubt, but both of them I have touched at the preliminary level. Don’t think you got the actual presentation yet.

In short, doubt is not the ordinary doubt. It is doubting the four noble truths, Buddha, dharma and sangha and karma; thinking over and over whether it is there or not there; whether it is true or whether somebody is cheating me. This doubt is not non-virtuous by nature, not at all, but it is harmful; just like the destructive pride. That is why it is counted here. The first Dalai Lama wrote a Praise tot Tara, who protects against eight fears. One of the eight fears is the fear of doubt, in the drawings symbolized as a ghost eating human flesh. The praise says,

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 45

They wander in space of darkest ignorance, sorely tormenting those who strive for truth, Of lethal danger to liberation, the fell, demons of doubt [pishacha] – please save us from this fear! What happens if you doubt the karmic system? It cuts your opportunities. If you keep on doubting your whole life, you can’t get a good future life. Because you are doubtful about it, you won’t create the causes for it; so you like to enjoy what we call material enjoyments. If you are doubtful on the four noble truths, it cuts liberation. You may not be doubtful on the first truth, the truth of suffering, but you could be doubtful on the causes of suffering and the cessation. Intelligent open-minded doubt is okay, but stupid stubborn doubt like: “Oh I don’t want to hear about karma business…” is very harmful.

Those five root delusions are known as the five non-views.

Wrong view What is wrong view? It is the ignorant way of looking. What is the difference between ignorance and wrong view? Some say that ignorance is not different from the fearful view [jigta] or wrong view. Some say it is separate. Those who are taking it as the same, will consider jigta itself as ignorance. But those who are accepting it separately, talk about the ‘fearful view’ or ‘view of impermanence’, indirectly referring to ignorance. They give an example. Let’s say a couple of months ago you brought a rope along, having the colors of a snake. You left it outside and totally forgot about it. Then after some time you go outside, it is a little bit dark, and you see that rope from a distance, “Oh! it looks like a snake there, isn’t that a snake?” So you acknowledge it as a snake and you perceive it as a snake. Then you watch your mind. You’re scared, saying, “Wow, it is going to bite me, I will be poisoned!” The mind of mistakenly acknowledging “there is a snake”, that portion alone they consider as wrong view. Because of the darkness you can’t see the actual nature of the rope clearly; that portion they consider as ignorance. Nagarjuna’s disciples Chandrakirti, Dharmakirti etc. accept the oneness [of ignorance and wrong view]. Asanga etc. accept the two separate ones: “There is a snake” is a mistaken mind [ignorance] and therefore looking at the rope as a snake is wrong view. Even the great maha-pandits, the great scholars from India, have these two different ways, so it is not for us to say which is right and which is wrong. I don’t think anyone is wrong; both philosophical ways of presenting are correct. [Like in the example of the rope and the snake:] when you look into your body, into your mind or into your identity, you don’t see it properly and you fear it. You have a fear of losing your identity, just like you are scared the snake will bite you. If there is a light you’re not going to be afraid of the rope; you can see the rope clearly. When darkness is there, it can’t be seen properly. That is the ignorance, which makes you perceive things wrongly. This is a little difficult. I do not know whether it is making any sense to you or not, but we have to deal with this. And we have to deal with it in a little more detail. We have to observe it very carefully, because it is the source from where that very dictator I comes out. This big I who is the dictator behind all is from here. From I, me is developed. From me, mine is developed. From mine, my friend is developed (so the nearest has come), and from mine, my enemy develops (so my distance has come). Hatred and attachment, the view of nearest and most distant, I and my, me and mine, all come from here. This is one of the most important and most complicated things, the source of all trouble, the source of all delusions, the dualistic view. I do not intend to solve our problem here, it will come much later at the time of the wisdom, but at the same time we have to get a good grasp here. If you don’t get a good grasp here, you will never be able to develop the wisdom later. There is a subdivision of five [afflicted or deluded or wrong] views38.

Five types of wrong view 1) The fearful view or the view of the transitory collection [as the real ‘I’] [Tib. jig ta]. The word jig means: something that can go away, that can be destroyed, that is feared to be lost, that by nature you will

38 Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditations on Emptiness, p. 258-261.

46 Lam Rim Teachings lose. Our collection of skandhas39, the aspects of the person that we look at, recognize, grasp, hold on to and call I or me is not permanent, yet we hold on to it. Let me give you another example. When in general people say something good or bad to us, we immediately react with some strong sense of me inside: “Why me?” We feel there is some strong thing inside, that we can name, recognize and accept as me. That is the root of all faults. This, I believe, exists with everybody, including insects etc. The ancient teachers give the example of ants running around; when you stop them in front they pretend to be dead and after some time they turn around and run the other way, which is the sign that even ants process the wrong view of “Why me?” That is because of the jigta they have.

2) The extreme view. Of whatever the jigta perceives, the extreme view will say, “This is true existence.” Also the view of the person who accepts, “When I die, I will end completely” is counted as an extreme view. This is a rather theoretical viewpoint [accepting true existence (eternalism) or accepting non-existence (nihilism)].

3) The view that one’s own beliefs are supreme. This is: taking whatever wrong view as the best view, as the best point, the best solution. It is also: taking either the nihilistic view or the eternalist view as the best view. Whoever is holding such a view, thinks that his is the best view ever possible. That is a delusion.

4) The view that inferior ethical practices and asceticism are supreme. This point is about ethical conduct, in Tibetan tsrim, in Sanskrit sila. It is wrongly accepting one type of behavior to be the best morality. The examples given here are that certain teachers told that burning one’s body on five different points or jumping onto a trident and dying from that, would liberate the person. These were, I believe, non-Buddhist practices going on during Buddha’s period; that is why these are pointed out. A lot of people at that period thought self-sacrifice belonged to the best practices for liberation. The Angulimala story is another exam- ple40. Also things like this fall under this category: “If you don’t eat meat nor wear leather, you’re going to be liberated.” If you are believing in such things it cuts your opportunity. This point includes sacrifice activities, like e.g. extreme asceticism. Let me give an example. A monk came to Bodhgaya. He put butter on his finger, put a piece of cloth on it and then burned that as an offering. Now, how can you tell this is not good? This fellow had such a strong heart and total dedication, that is why he sacrificed his finger. His motivation was great, he had a pure mind, but he had the wrong view, thinking that hardship of the body would purify him better. Certain religions teach people to beat themselves. I cannot deny that hardship can be good for some, but seeing it as one of the best methods to purify, I think, is a wrong view. Too extreme ascetic practices are not necessarily good. People may think it is a big effort and therefore it is good. There is no doubt that it is a big effort, but you will not necessarily get a big result out of that. So do not be misled on that. We did a fast during the retreat, that is okay, but we don’t want to be too extreme. The sacrifice that you make should balance the result that you want to achieve.

5) Wrong view [Tib. log ta]. We talked about doubt, whether there is karma, God, Three Jewels, four noble truths or not. Here logta confirms that and says, “No, there is not; it is not existing.” Generally speaking logta is: calling anything that is existing non-existing and viewing anything that is not existing as existing. One strong straightforward example given by Buddha is: seeing the whole world as made by Brahma or Buddha. Those kind of views are called logta. In the six root delusions, those five views together are called wrong view.

Briefly these are the very basic ideas of these six root delusions. Ignorance is the basis, like the body is the basis of the body-consciousnesses. You cannot separate body-consciousness from the body; wherever there is body, there is body-consciousness – as long as that body belongs to that person. Similarly, wherever there is root delusion, basically the ignorance is there. Ignorance is the real cause. It is everywhere, it is pervasive. It is very difficult to clarify it here; we will deal with it later.

39 The skandhas, literally ‘heaps’, also called aggregates, are: physical form, feeling (attraction, rejection, neutral), discriminating awareness/thinking, volition/constituting factors and consciousness. 40 See volume II, index entry ‘Angulimala’.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 47

(2) The twenty secondary delusions41 From anger: From anger: 1) aggression or wrath 2) resentment or vengefulness 3) spite 4) jealousy 5) cruelty or harmfulness From attachment: 6) miserliness 7) self-satisfaction 8) mental excitement From ignorance: 9) concealment 10) lethargy or mental dullness 11) non-faith 12) laziness 13) forgetfulness 14) inattentiveness From attachment and ignorance: 15) pretension 16) dishonesty or denial From attachment and anger and ignorance: 17) shamelessness or disrespect 18) inconsideration for others 19) distraction or non-alertness 20) non-conscientiousness

How to meditate on the delusions. Whether it is the six root delusions, the twenty secondary ones or the three poisons (the pig, the snake and the cock)42, everything is leading toward ignorance. Ignorance is the base of all delusions. Some of you talk about your ‘dualistic functioning’. That dualism comes from here. The pig is in the pit we just dug. The cock is the attachment. The snake is the jealousy, hatred and all this. Whether you count them together or separately, does not matter; all of them are there because of the pig. (So this is the reason we should not eat pork – laughs.) Now I want you to look back at all six root delusions and also see how these are related to the pig. Do a little meditation on that. What does the pig do in the pit down there and how is it related to [my attachment, my pride etc.]? And don’t try to develop that, because we are fully developed on [the delusions]. Try to see how a delusion starts growing. And when it is fully grown, trace it back rather than tracing how it is coming. You’re not going to see how it comes. You’ll keep on waiting there and it won’t come. So, when it has come, trace it back. And you won’t find it from the beginning, you will lose it, but keep on tracing it back and that will help you see how it growed. Tracing it back gives you recognition of the problems. Getting the recognition of the problem is one of the better cures of problems: anger recognition, hatred recognition, jealousy recognition, lust recognition. Trace back how they came out of ignorance. Okay, that’s your homework.

41 The division is taken from Geshe Rabten, The Mind and its Functions, p. 82-90. The usual listing is: 1-2-3-4-10-; 5-9-15; 6-13-16- 17-19-20; 7-8; 11-12-14-18. Also see Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 61-67; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Understanding the Mind, p. 229-241. H. Guenther, Mind in Buddhist Psychology, p. 82-98; J. Hopkins, Meditations on Emptiness, p. 261-266. 42 The three poisons: ignorance, desire and hatred are depicted in the Tibetan Wheel of Existence as pig, cock and snake respec- tively. See next chapter.

48 Lam Rim Teachings ii) The order in which the delusions arise I’ll follow the Tanjur system here. Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti will say the jigta itself is wrong view [is ignorance]. Jigta also has two: self-grown jigta and jigta developed by thinking, nature jigta and nurtured jigta. The nature or self-grown jigta is the real cause of trouble, and in tantra the word ‘simultaneously born’ is used for that. That, again, has two portions. One portion will recognize the I and the other portion recognizes the my or mine. Out of these two the I is the most important, the real jigta. An example. When some friend says something about you that you really like, you’ll say, “O, he said this about me, that was good work done.” At that time you see this I. Because of that we hold on to something solid. Because of that we differentiate a possessor, the possessing and something to be possessed. And because of that we feel attached to that so-called I, “O boy, you said this about me, that is great!” Similarly we see the other, the opponent, and immediately we develop hate. “So and so has been kind to me, I like it, I love it”: that mind develops attachment. “So and so did this, said this about me, how horrible, I’ll get him!” From this I at the centre this my business comes in and that mind develops anger or hatred. In between those we don’t bother. That is ignorance. Ignorance, attachment and hatred is what is referred to as the three poisons. Because when we perceive ourselves as a solid self, we will also perceive someone else as a solid other. So we perceive attachment and we perceive hatred. This is how all delusions begin to grow in us. So because of this jigta we grow hatred, attachment, doubt etc. On the basis of those delusions we act and because of that we create karma. Because of that karma we take rebirth, death and rebirth again and the circle of existence, samsara, continues. That is how you see that jigta really is the root of samsara. That is why, if you want to clear all the delusions completely, wisdom has to be developed. Only wisdom can do the job. It is like an aspirin, meaning it is not specific for something, but you can use it for anything. If you destroy the ignorance, all the delusions will automatically go, like the water flood will stop when you can shut off the main water supply. If we have to wait for the wisdom to develop, it is going to be very difficult for us. It is a long way to developing the wisdom. Even recognizing the ignorance is probably going to be a long way. So what shall we do temporarily? In order to stop the delusions we have to look for the [immediate] causes of the delusions. iii) The causes or contributing factors of the delusions There are six causes or factors that make it possible for the delusions to arise.

The basis The basis is a seed or tendency or predisposition. If there is a tendency and it meets a certain condition, things happen immediately. It is something like ‘ready to go’. The seed is given as the example: if the seed is there and the conditions are provided, it can grow. Likewise the delusions are said to have a potential to come into being.

The object Objects are the conditions which stimulate the delusions. Take attachment: if you see the object you are attached to, then the attachment grows. Likewise an object of anger doesn’t cut the anger out; it makes the anger grow. So when you have the tendency and the conditions are there, the attachment will pop up, the hatred will pop up etc. That is why some traditions will separate or drive beginners away from the conditions that put the spark on the tendency and thus will give rise to the delusion.

Social interaction Wrong friends can really create trouble for you. They come and talk to you blah blah blah and as we know, we are so weak and we have so little will-power that whatever little thing we are doing now, can fffft… totally go in one day, just like that. That includes drinking. And gossiping.

Example of the Pembo friends. In earlier days two friends were living together in Pembo. One used to drink and the other one not. The drinker went on holiday to the Kadampa lamas in Retreng monastery and improved. The other one went to Lhasa, were there are certain streets. After the holiday when they came

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 49 back, the non-drinker had become a great drinker and the heavy drinker didn’t drink any more. This is how friends influence each other. There is a saying, If you remain close to a precious golden mountain, Everything nearby will become gold. If you remain close to harmful poison, Everything nearby will get poisoned. You see, friends are so important. They can easily influence you. Something happens, you are a little bit down, there is some problem, a non-virtuous friend pops up at that moment and… Not only drinking, also miserliness or anger – anything goes easily.

Encouragement Be careful about the input. The things you read, the information that you take in, has a lot of influence. In a country like this we have such a bombardment of information, news, entertainment etc. Entertainment is sometimes good, it gives you relaxation, but sometimes it is bad. What are these entertainments really? I noticed they entertain you on: violence, sex, money and power. On the input you have to be really selec- tive. You cannot totally avoid it; you have to read it, watch it etc. But if you cannot cut the delusions completely, then be mindful of the input; that is what this is about.

Habitual pattern You get used to something. And when you are used to it, it becomes habitual. If you get a habitual pattern of bad things, you’ll automatically do bad things without thinking. [If you develop a habitual pattern of positive things, it works too.]

Exaggeration You look at some object with attachment and say, “How wonderful!” You exaggerate. Attachment exag- gerates the object. It may not really be very great, but you make it fantastic. Anger or hatred does the same thing. You exaggerate the good or the bad.

Be aware of these causes of the delusions. Think about them. Don’t think you should cut [the causes of the delusions immediately]. I even think it is not possible, not easy, not possible, no way. This is the beginning. The beginning is to see that these are the [immediate] causes of the delusions. And if you are mindful, you begin to watch it. And it helps you in the long run. iv) The consequences or disadvantages of the delusions What do delusions do? Maitreya’s Mahayanasutralamkara says: The delusions destroy you, destroy your mind, destroy your morality. When the delusions grow, your nature of mind will change immediately from a pure, good mind into an impure mind. From a pure, clean, good thought you go to an impure one straightaway. In other words, the nature of the mind, the mind itself, transforms. We are not talking about the buddha-nature and we are not talking about the deep nature of the individual! If you have a clean and nice good thought and all of a sudden something happens, suddenly your mind changes. That is how delusions destroy the mind. That does not mean it throws the mind completely and you become crazy; it means the good mood and the good, pure and clean thoughts will become bad. What do they do as well? The individual that is taking a step forward will be forced to take a step backwards. Delusions push you a step backwards. Also, it provides a basis on which the seeds of non- virtuous karmas are maintained and nourished. It will also provide hatred, anger, all of them. The seed is really kept in there ready to spark, ready to burst out. It doesn’t need much to push it, it is just ready to come up. Those are consequences of delusions. Then of course, what will happen ultimately is that you will destroy yourself, destroy your own happiness, the happiness of this life and the happiness of future lives. And if you want to hear more than that, it is destroying the total liberation and enlightenment. Instead of going forwards, towards enlightenment or

50 Lam Rim Teachings liberation from samsara, you’re driven backwards. Also it will decrease your good deeds. And it makes yourself and also others impure. Not only does it harm yourself, you also influence others. You make life difficult for others too, for no reason. These are the consequences of the delusions.

How to handle the delusions. When you really look into these delusions that grow within your mind immediately, what can you do? Recognize them. Recognize them as the real enemy. The beings, the people, whoever they may be and whatever they try to do, are not the enemy, but the delusions are. Because the delusions are totally harming either you or the others. The Bodhisattvacharyavatara says here, Should even all the gods and anti-gods Rise up against me as enemies, They could not lead nor place me in The roaring fires of the deepest hell. But the mighty foe, these disturbing conceptions, In a moment can cast me amidst (those flames) Which when met will cause not even the ashes Of the king of mountains to remain. All other enemies are incapable Of remaining for such a length of time As can my disturbing conceptions, The enduring enemy with neither beginning nor end. Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life [Bodhisattvacharyavatara], ch. 4, vs. 30-32 So what you do is: avoid. The moment a delusion grows, immediately recognize it. And don’t just recognize it as a delusion, but as a powerful enemy. Try to get away from it. This is the real enemy. Sometimes we call irritating human beings enemies and if you try to reconcile, with some of them it works. But with the delusions you cannot reconcile at all. If you try, surely you’re going to be the loser. The delusions made us have problems today. We have experienced tremendous amounts of pains, miseries and problems before and we experience them today and we are sure to experience them in future. So ultimately, truly speaking, who makes us be in samsara? Who makes us circle? Our delusions. Not myself as a pure person, as a pure being, but the delusions make us to circle. They come and appear in us in the form of an habitual pattern, in the form of an addiction, in the form of self-protection, in the form of self-respect, in the form of the best solution, in the form of no choice, in any possible excuse! There is a little important teaching on this by the Kadampa lamas. It says, Look sideways to the delusions and try to be as harmful as possible to them. Look straight to the beings and be as helpful as possible. The Kadampa lama Geshe Beng was a very interesting person. He had a family and land and grew crops. Later on he had quarrels with the family, lost his wife and children because he kicked them out, kept the land and the house and became a thief. Later on he said, Earlier, when I did not recognize the delusions as enemy, I used to carry arrows, spear and sword. During the daytime I used to sit on the mountain tops at the difficult paths and rob the travelers; at night I used to go into the villages and steal things, but still I could not feed my one mouth. Later when I recognized the delusions as my enemy and I ran away from these three things, the food could not find my mouth. That means: he got more food from the people than he could eat. Geshe Beng says on this: What do I do? I used to throw the spear to hit the sentient beings. Now I am carrying the spear of awareness. I am waiting at the door of my mind to catch the delusions. When the delusions work hard, I work hard. When they relax, I relax.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 51 b) How these delusions create karma43 How do the delusions develop karma? There is a division in two: mental karma and action karma. The moment you talk about karma, you have to remember not immediately to think of bad karma. No. There are good karmas and neutral karmas too.

Mental karma What is mental karma or karma of thought? A pre-action mind, which you can call motivation or volition, the mind which makes you do something, is called mental karma. If for example you want to direct harsh words at somebody, you have a thought before you use the words, like, “I’d like to do that” or, “I am forced to do that.” That mind, which makes you act through body or speech is of the mental category. Of the mental karmas many are not complete. A lot of bad motivations, like having the desire to harm, do not get completed. However, there are people who keep on thinking funny things and think them to the end. Although nothing physical happens they do the action by thought. That is a slight sign of craziness. In Tibetan we call it ‘growing crops in the open space’. Such thinking is a complete mental karma.

Action karma Because of that mind you either use the harsh words or you hit someone or so; either a physical or speech action follows. Sometimes without any intention some immediate mind just goes, even before thinking. Although we like to call it an automatic reaction, there is a mind immediately before that, even without realizing it. It can be short like a snap of the fingers. The Treasury of Higher Learning says, It is both volition and what that [volition] creates. Volition is the activity of the mind. What it creates are physical and verbal acts. Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakosha, ch. 4, vs. 1 I’m not sure whether in the pre-action there is time for it to become a cause-and-effect functioning or not, but a thought is there, for sure. In mental karma only the mind is involved, there is no physical involve- ment. Mental karma followed by the physical thing becomes karma of body or speech.

Three types of samsaric karma. How does karma grow? We can divide the [samsaric] karma into three categories: unfortunate or unlucky, fortunate or lucky and unshakable or immovable karma. Unfortunate or unlucky karma. Say, for the benefit of this life alone you indulge in killing. That will be the example of unfortunate karma. Why is it called unfortunate? Because the result of this karma will be a birth in the lower realms. Fortunate or lucky karma. That is the karma which seeks the happiness of future lives, like the samsaric-gods life or even a human rebirth. These type of karmas are called fortunate because they will bring a good life. But it is not the right karma for us. Unshakable or immovable karma. That you also have to divide into two: karma producing causes for rebirth in the form realms and karma producing causes for rebirth in the formless realms.

Unshakable karma. We are getting some more divisions now, we are going deeper into it. What does lucky karma aim at? Happiness and pleasure in our future life. That is an external aim. What does unshakable karma do? When aiming at unshakable karma, you even dislike seeking pleasure and happiness in a future life. You are no longer interested in external pleasures, you are interested in internal harmony, meditative pleasure, samadhi. What do unshakable karmas bring as a result? The first three stages of concentrated absorption or samadhi. In the samsaric meditative level we discriminate [four, or in detail] seventeen different stages of the form realm.44 With this here we are going beyond the samsaric-gods level, the level we can possibly see and hear. This is about the first to the third level of the gods in the form realm. They are no longer interested in the external pleasures, they only seek mental harmony. After some time they will even get fed up

43 For this section as well as section C, also see B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up, ch. 6. 44 See chart 4 on page 107

52 Lam Rim Teachings with the mental harmony and mental pleasure. Then they seek a sort of mental stabilization of neither too much pleasure nor problems. That brings the fourth-level samadhi, which is the highest birth in the form realm. After that there are four formless realms. They are all different gods levels. Why are these called unshakable? Because at that level change is very difficult. Unfortunate karma and fortunate karma are possible to change. Let us take unfortunate karma as an example. Say somebody died and that individual is going to take rebirth into the lower realms. Not only is he going to take rebirth into the lower realm, before that the lower-realm bardo is already established. There is a higher-realm bardo and a lower-realm bardo. Even after the bardo has been established, there is still a possibility for change, either by the power of some good yogi or yogini or some great master, or by the power of mantra or ritual. With these it is possible to intervene in that bardo level which the person already established. But, if just before dying a connection is made to unshakable karma, you can’t do anything. That is why the karmas that lead to the form and formless samsaric levels are named unshakable karma.

Drom Rinpoche [or Dromtönpa], later known as Retreng Rinpoche, was Atisha’s disciple, attendant and companion and he was the senior of the Kadampa lamas. His monastery was Retreng monastery. Drom Rinpoche suggested all people living in Retreng, the monks and lay people with vows [Skt. upashekas] to share their wallet, to share all their properties – nobody owning a thing. The whole idea behind that was that when somebody died there, those who were remaining would do some kind of ritual and some virtuous work and that effect would be carried to that person who died, because whatever the wealth in the community was, it belonged to that person. In the Tibetan system you find what is called ngöten, the base of dedication; that is a lot of gifts, money, clothes etc. When someone dies, people give the deceased’s property to the monks to pray for the deceased. If the receiver misuses the gift, it is a tremendous amount of heavy debt for him. If you use it properly, it is very beneficial for the person who died. So Retreng Rinpoche’s suggestion for everybody to share together is that you don’t have to give ngöten to anybody, because everything belongs to everybody. So the whole monastery can pray and you will have the whole effect. During Drom Rinpoche’s life it lasted; it didn’t last very long after that.

Karma to get out of samsara. Now let’s go to the relevant topic. Good work we do brings fortunate karma or unshakable karma; bad work we do brings unfortunate karma. Then how the hell am I going to get out of samsara? That is a relevant question. Where am I going to end the circle? How am I going to get at that after all this? Sometimes I go up, one life-time up there, sometimes I go down, one lifetime down there, sometimes I come here, one life-time here. What is all this leading me to? That is really the question we ask ourselves now. Any good or bad work we do, any good or bad karma we created, if it has no influence of either of the three principles of the path (the determination to be free, the altruistic mind, bodhicitta or the perfect view [shunyata]), then it is not going to be a cause for liberation or enlightenment. This now shows how these Three Principles is a little more than Laurel and Hardy and a third one. When you have that sort of mind, its influence becomes so important in one’s life! This is really relevant now.

Where to place the topic of karma in the outlines. Is it common with the lower or common with the medium level? The general karma comes under the medium level. The karma leading to the lower realms comes under the ‘common with the lower level’ and the karma leading to the upper rebirths, humans and samsaric gods, the lucky karma, has to be covered under the ‘common with the medium level’. c) Dying and rebirth45 i) What happens at death What makes you die?

45 Gehlek Rinpoche, Good Living, Good Dying. Geshe Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 439-457. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Bud- dhism from the Ground Up, ch. 3. Thubten Chödron, Open Heart, Clear Mind, p. 79-111. Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, p. 77-81. Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth.

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 53

1) The cause for your life can be exhausted. 2) Your luck or merit can have run out. 3) You haven’t got rid of dangers that afflict the bodily strength, like dying in an accident. The sutra on this46 will give you nine different causes for this. If the [originally given] life-strength has run out I don’t think you can do much. If your luck has run out, you can rebuild it. If you run out of bodily strength, you can rejuvenate it. I don’t think you can do much about the maximum period you are supposed to be here, the karmically created life-strength. An exception to that are very high-level vajrayana practitioners, who can prolong it [a little].

What is the dying mind? This is a very important question. Some people will tell you the dying mind has to be virtuous or they say, “The person was so angry, he died with anger.” Some say, “He or she died very peaceful.” Actually the dying mind is a very, very subtle mind. It is so subtle that the mind cannot at all be defined as either virtuous or non-virtuous. That is Je Tsongkhapa’s view. He made it very clear that the actual dying mind is so subtle that it cannot be defined as virtuous or as non-virtuous at all. What does that mind do? It connects to the next rebirth. The connection to the next rebirth is built during the period of the very subtle mind. How does that work? How can such a subtle mind, that can’t be defined as virtuous nor as non-virtuous, connect? The dying principle mind is a very subtle mind; however, immediately before death there is a gross mind. In that gross mind both sepa [attraction, attachment, craving] and lenpa [clinging, grasping] are available. These are two of the Twelve Links. Underline that, you have to know it. What is craving? When you are about to die and you know very clearly for yourself that you are going to die, you immediately think, “Oh I am going to be separated from this body, this form, which I use as my identity.” You know that you are going to be separated from this identity, so you can’t let it go, you are holding it back. That is sepa. The second step [lenpa, grasping] is more than that. You want to take something with you. You don’t want to let go of this identity, you are holding it. Let’s say you are going to take rebirth in a hot hell or something. “Oh I feel cold, I need heat, heat, heat”; you seek after it. If you are going to take a cold hell rebirth, you say, “Oh I am too hot, I need to be cool, cool.” Not letting go and chasing after something will connect you to a certain karma. It is like in life: if you want heat, you are going to look for warmth. This is of the foremost importance to each one of us. Very often we like to say, “Let it go, let it go.” But what you have to let go of is a problem, you see, because of the grasping. Some people have problems additional to grasping the identity; they grasp the companion, articles etc., which is even worse; that’s terrible actually. Strong possessiveness has a very negative effect and probably leads to rebirth as a hungry ghost. Look into the outline of karma, there a lot of examples are given.

To what karma does the mind connect? At the time of the death, immediately before death, sepa and lenpa will connect the mind. Connect it to what? To your karma, good or bad. You’ve got a tremendous storage of karma: a tremendous amount of good and a tremendous amount of bad, so to which will they connect? 1) To whichever is more powerful. A perfect i.e. completed karma is the more powerful one. Among the karmas some are weak, some are half-strong, some are strong, some are very strong. If both a good and a bad karma are equally strong enough, then to which one will you be connected? 2) To the one you are more used to, the habitual pattern. If your habitual patterns are equal, then what? 3) Then to whichever is earlier; first comes first47. The Abhidharmakosha says, The karmachakra runs whichever is heavier or most close and one is most used to. The first-comes-first business is almost the last chance, almost impossible; the next possibility is whichever you are more used to; the first possibility is whichever is more powerful. That indirectly tells us we have to make sure our good karmas are powerful and our bad karmas weak.

46 The Sutra on the Factors Contributing to Death. 47 Also see Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 69, Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 524.

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What to do at the time of death? What time do they connect? Just before dying. That is why we say that the mind immediately before death is important. It is because at this time you make the connection. If at the moment immediately before death you are very much influenced by anger or by attachment, then it is bad luck. If your mind immediately before death has a profound mind of relying on Buddha, dharma and sangha, compassion etc. you have good luck. A lot of people ask us, “When so and so is dying what can I do?” Here is the answer. What you can do is, try to influence the thought at that time, try to get the mind away from undesirable thoughts and try to put in those desirable thoughts. It is recommended at the time of dying to try to hear the names of the buddhas, try to remember to have good thoughts, love-compassion etc. If a practitioner is dying, then you try to remind him on the level that person is practicing. If that person has not been able to develop any path or bhumi, then refuge and remembering the yidams, gurus, or saying mantras. If one departs within that, it will carry the person through the whole period. I am sure many of you have experience with this. Sometimes when we get a very light sleep, or when we are sort of half asleep and half awake, funny things or images, thoughts and feelings go on. If you are meditating or saying prayers and you fall asleep within that period, then when you wake up you are still doing the same thing. That is the clear example for us to understand how the dying stage can be influenced by external influences or your own pre-influence. If somebody is normally putting so much effort in his or her practice, and at the time of the death something happens and the person gets upset or angry, even that is very dangerous. Although you have put in a lot of efforts for a whole lifetime, due to the influence of that little anger, there is the possibility of the person taking rebirth in the lower realms. It sounds very unfair, doesn’t it? But it happens. The families in Tibet who have the tradition of a lot of practice, what will they do? If somebody is dying they try not to send everybody there, even though a lot of people have come out of love, respect, to express their sorrow etc. They may come but it is not a very good idea to let everybody in, because some people may remind the dying person of undesirable things. If that happens it becomes a very big disservice to the dying person. Therefore it is a very good idea to restrict the visitors at those times. Just to observe whether the person is going to take an upper rebirth or a lower rebirth, sometimes they check which way they collect the heat. If the heat goes from the lower part up to the heart level, then they will say it will probably be a higher rebirth. Sometimes the heat goes the other way round and then they say the person is probably going to the lower realms. And also sometimes just before people die, they get some kind of hallucinations. In those hallucinations you will see it. It is not a picture of your future rebirth, no. [Rimpoche retells the story about a smuggler of images who had visions of buddhas jumping on him and of the one that heard a choir of monks48]. At this point we were very short on the death stage. The reason is: we have covered the death stage much earlier in Lamrim. We covered it in detail – with the nine-round meditation and the meditation on the dying stage – at the chapter on death/impermanence. So look there.49 ii) The way one achieves the bardo or intermediate stage There are four stages of life: death stage, intermediate stage, birth stage and living stage. These are called sipa in Tibetan. From death to intermediate stage is just like a fingersnap. The bardo is not simple. Some have a tremendous amount of fearfulness, e.g. [the experience of] the tremendous waterflow of a dam bursting and you’re under that, or a very strong wind that blows you away, or mountains collapsing and you are buried under them, or a huge fire burning. The moment the person dies, the bardo starts. What does the bardo being, the bardowa, look like? The Abhidharmakosha says the person looks like aged from his early twenties to his late sixties. The Abhi- dharmakosha itself does not say whether it resembles the person from the past life or the previous life, but all the commentaries sort of agree it will look like the future person. The body of the bardowa is not physical, which is why we may call it a mental body. The presence of the body is connected with mind rather than with a physical form. As we see, we have no limitations as to mind. We are sitting in this room, we can think of downtown New York and we can even project the street

48 For the full stories see volume II, index entry ‘stories - death - smuggler’ and ‘stories - death – choir of monks’. 49 See chapter IX (volume II).

The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 55 lights and things like that. Likewise, the mental body is present there at the moment you think of it. Bar- dowas have all the five senses intact. They have an extra-ordinary sense of knowing past, present and future and of reading others’ minds. They also have magical power, which is not spiritual, but karmic power. They don’t get stuck anywhere, except where they have to take rebirth, as well as, according to the Bud- dhist myth, underneath Bodhgaya, because this is the place where a lot of buddhas obtained enlightenment. Somehow they cannot go. Under the Bodhgaya tree, the so-called vajra-seat, which is supposed to be a very sacred place. A bardowa that is going to be reborn in a hot hell realm looks like a log of wood that has been burned in the fire. Hungry-ghost bardowas look watery like a little running river. In the white bardo the bardowa has a whitish feeling, a sort of sign of rebirth in higher realms. Here it says there is no bardo for the formless realm, but I would like to say even the formless has a bardo. Persons with heavy non-virtues will have the feeling and perception of the bardo as dark, cold; the persons heavy with virtues will perceive it as light, like moonlight. There are a lot of different systems on the life-span of a bardowa. More or less everybody will tell you seven days is the maximum they can live. Now which seventh day, the previous life’s seventh day or the future-life’s seventh day? Many will tell you the future-life’s, many will tell you the previous-life’s, but for what we are concerned with, living people trying to help the dead person, we count our days. When you think carefully, a person who is almost in the living period of the next life is already beginning to have the symptoms of that future life, so it could be the days of the future life. But as we have no way of counting them, we stick to our days. So every seventh day they die. That can happen seven times, so the maximum period is 49 days. Whether our or their 49 days, is a different question altogether. iii) The way one is conceived and reborn Let us say you are a bardowa who would like to take rebirth in the human life. What to do? By that time your karma will force you to look for parents. You go round and see the parents in bed, in action. The moment you see that, you develop attachment and hatred both. Why? You see the male and you see the female. If you are going to be born as a female, you feel attached to the male and hate the female, want to push her away. And if you are going the be a male, you want the female and want to push the male out. So you run right down. When you reach over there you see nothing except the organs. Then you get upset, you can do nothing. That shock will raise a strong emotion and that will cause the death of the bardowa. So then you are stuck there in rebirth. This completes how the causes of suffering create samsara.

56 Lam Rim Teachings

The Wheel of Existence Skt. bhavachakra; Tib. srid pa ‘khor lo

XVI THE TWELVE LINKS OF INTERDEPENDENT ORIGINATION50

The real cause of suffering The pains of samsara are not created without a cause. They are not permanent. They are impermanent and are subject to change. They are created and anything that is created can also be ended. We talked about samsara being full of misery. That is true. When it is too hot we suffer and when it is cold we suffer as well. It is the nature of samsara. You could say, “But it can be taken care of, there is air- conditioning.” However, the air-conditioning which takes care of the problem temporarily is only a relief of the symptoms. If your air-conditioning is too strong, it will be cold again. This itself is a clear sign of samsara. It shows that the samsaric nature definitely has a lot of pains. We don’t look into it, we don’t even bother. We know it of course, but we don’t want to look into it, we don’t want to feel it. “It is nature”, we say. It is the nature of samsara. In winter we have to keep everything warm and put three of four jackets on, and in summer it changes completely. And every change brings us an effect, brings pain. When you look at this, the question rises: what creates this, what causes it? We talked about the second noble truth, the cause of suffering. This is divided in two: the karmic cause and the delusion cause. We don’t have to talk much on the karmic cause, because the delusion is the actual cause. Every delusion can help create a karma and even when there is not a single karma left, as long as you have delusions you’ll create new karma again and you’ll continue. So, the delusions cause painful and miserable experiences for us.

Outlines You cannot afford to lose the basic outlines. If you lose them, you are losing the essence and you will miss steps. You have to know the steps, the divisions. And it is the duty of the sangha members to fill in gaps that people who couldn’t come, might have. On each one of the outlines you have certain meditations and when you meditate, you have to think along these outlines. On each point you should have the essence on which you can meditate. And if possible, remember the examples and stories which help a lot to bring you to the point, and then you add up quotations to support it.51

The Twelve Links Like what was discussed in the last chapter, this topic is also about how the circle of existence (samsara) is functioning. Tsongkhapa has three different Lamrims, the great, the medium and the shorter one. The shorter52 and the medium53 Lamrim, as well as the First Panchen Lama’s Easy Path54 and the Second

50 Also called: The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising. Literature: Denma Lochö Rinpoche, The Wheel of Existence; Tarab Tulku, Unity in Duality; Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 315-325; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 74-82; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 526-534; L.S. Dagyab Rinpoche, Achtsamkeit und Versenkung, p. 227-234; Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, ch. 4; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 352-371; Geshe Thubten Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 459-474; Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development, p. 100-104; The Dalai Lama, The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective, p. 3-41; Alex Kennedy, The Buddhist Vision, p. 80-112. 51 The Index carries these as entries. 52 Lamrim Dudon. 58 Lam Rim Teachings

Panchen Lama’s Quick Path55, do not mention these twelve links. But Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo and the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Manjushri’s Own Words56 do mention them. Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of your Hand also deals with it. Sources. What happened was this. At the time of the Buddha the Udrayana king sent one of Buddha’s benefactors, a king, a very, very valuable gift and he didn’t know what to send in return. Then Buddha suggested to him to send a picture of these twelve links57. What does the sutra source, The Rice Seedling Sutra58, say? Briefly it says: Because you have this, you get that. You have grown that, so you got this. That is dependent arising. When you grow the seed, you will get the fruit. When you have ignorance, you get all the other links as a result. Because you have ignorance, you create karma. Because you have the first, you get the second. The ignorance is the root of all.59] The twelve links talk about life-giving karma. It talks about how a life-existence develops.

Link 1: Ignorance60 [Skt. avidya; Tib. ma-rig-pa] (Picture: a blind person) Unmistakably, the number one is ignorance. Ignorance is the root or the source of all problems. In Tibet we call it ‘the small young monk who is creating all the trouble’. The ignorance here is not the ignorance of not knowing, but the ignorance of wrong knowing: both wrong knowing of karmic functioning and wrong knowing of the true nature of reality. Because of the wrong knowing you create [samsaric] karma. [In the picture of the Wheel of Life] this marigpa is compared to a blind person. The blind have the problem of not seeing and likewise ignorance makes you unable to see the true reality or wisdom. Wisdom will understand the selflessness, but ignorance will hold the opposite: the self-existence. A Hindu will accept a self, called atma. Nagarjuna’s viewpoint is that the atma does not exist, that [every person and every phenomenon] is selfless. That is what emptiness is about. We call [the conception of] self-existence the root of samsara. It is called ignorance because it is the direct opposite to the wisdom- perception. This is one of the differences between Buddhists and non-Buddhists. If you look into the refuge, to the way Buddha shows us, you’ll see another difference between those. Buddha’s way is not to go too much into the samadhis of the form and formless stages; you can still cut the root of samsara and get out of samsara. When you don’t cut the root of samsara [by the wisdom of selflessness and you just go on meditating and concentrating], you’ll continuously go into higher and higher realms up to the seventeenth stage61 and then after some time you will be like a vegetable: peaceful, joyful, relaxed, but making no sense. We call it ‘sleeping on a cloud’. And you remain there for a long, long time. You need food nor clothes, because you have the food of samadhi. Then suddenly you will realize something happening. The Buddha gave the example that your hair grows and grows to under your feet and suddenly you will see mice eating your hair and you will get upset. Because of that reconnection with anger or attachment – it reconnects to the seed which has not been cleared – the power of samadhi, which has its limitations, is exhausted and you will be reborn. And when you are reborn from that vegetable level, you won’t have a very high rebirth. You may go from the highest level down to the lowest level, because the karmic seed [to go there] has not been exhausted or cleared but simply postponed, and you are now connecting to it. So you were having a nice little vacation only. This

53 Lamrim Chungba. 54 De Lam . 55 Myur Lam. 56 Jampel Zhalung. 57 This story can be found in: Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, King Udrayana and the Wheel of Life. 58 The Rice Seedling Sutra is called the Sutra of the Shalu tree or Salistamba Sutra. English translation to be found in the Ap- pendices to this work. 59 Rinpoche notes: “Because we haven’t found proper and consistent names yet, for the time being we will call them by the num- bers only.” For the reader’s convenience a variety of names used are given at each link. 60 Link 1: Pabongka: ignorance; Geshe Rabten: ignorance; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: unawareness; Dagyab Rinpoche: Unwissenheit. 61 See chart 4 on p. 107.

The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 59 may be shocking but it is true. That is what we call a fall-back. From the beginning Buddha emphasized very much that there is no fall-back [of this kind] in this path. In this path the wisdom becomes so important! Here you see we cannot throw out the Three Princi- ples of the Path! Wisdom is really a principle. There is no way you can skip it.

Link 2: Karmic creation / compositional factors / volition62 [Skt. samskara; Tib. du-j’e] (Picture: a potter making pots, good as well as bad pots) What does number two do? It creates. This is the creating stage. The ignorance influences and on that basis you create karma. So it is karmic creation.

Fortunate, unfortunate and unshakable karma. Because of wrong knowing of karma (actions and their consequences) we create unfortunate karma. Because of wrong knowing of the true nature [of reality] we create fortunate or lucky karma, unfortunate karma and unshakable karma. How is lucky or fortunate karma created and how is unfortunate karma created? Because you know nothing about the karmic functioning you totally misunderstand the functioning of cause and effect. (Don’t even say karma; that is Buddhist terminology.) Because of wrong knowing of cause and effect you’re not bothered about creating bad karma. E.g., people who don’t know anything about killing being bad, have no hesitation to go hunting; it is fun. That is because of ignorance. The ignorance of not knowing that killing is bad and going out killing animals not only causes problems for the environment and the animals, but also for yourself. As you don’t know that, you enjoy the shooting. This is a clear example of how wrong knowledge of the karmic system creates unfortunate karma. Wrong knowledge of the true nature [of reality] will create lucky karma as well as unshakable karma. That is because you don’t understand. When there is no true knowledge of the functioning of samsara and [therefore] samsara is full of suffering and we don’t have a dislike for it, then any good thing we do will go towards creating a samsaric joyful life. That means, it becomes lucky karma: you are lucky because it becomes a comfortable life, yet it will not get you out of samsara. Unshakable karma is even more powerful than that. It gives you a much better higher life, like a life in the realm of the form or formless gods, yet it is still within samsara. Those three are samsaric karmas, not karmas directly leading towards enlightenment, even though some of these fortunate karmas could go as a [supporting] force to enlightenment. Even dharma karmas are not necessarily a direct cause for enlightenment. Why? If your aim is to become an arhat, it will be a cause for arhatship. If your aim is a good future life, it will become a cause for a good future life. Those are dharma causes, but they might not be getting [you] to enlightenment. So enlightenment karma and dharma karma are slightly different. (Mind you, these are our own thoughts, not an official division.) What happens is: all virtue, all good efforts, all good works that are aimed at and used to gain a comfortable life within samsara, instead of liberating yourself from the circle of samsara, are in fact wasted. Somehow that happens because of this ignorance of the true nature.

You see, one link leads straight to another. The second link is how the future is shaped on the basis of the influence of the first link. According to the way the first one influences the second one you take the action at the second level. By acting you complete the karma, the karmic cause, and an imprint is left [on your consciousness], the ‘I owe you’-note. So the second link is the creation.

Link 3: Consciousness63 [Skt. vijnana; Tib. nam-she] (Picture: a monkey going restlessly up and down a tree or an empty house) The third link you have to divide into two: 3a: causal consciousness and

62 Link 2: Pabongka: compositional factors; Geshe Rabten: volition; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: affecting impulses; Dagyab Rinpoche: Gestaltungskräfte. 63 Link 3: Pabongka: consciousness; Geshe Rabten: consciousness; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: consciousness; Dagyab Rinpoche: Bewusstsein.

60 Lam Rim Teachings

3b: result consciousness. Though we count link no. 3 as one, in reality these two consciousnesses don’t occur together. There is a big time gap. Link 3a is happening whenever you created a [life-giving] karma, complete or incomplete.64 When you created the karma the imprint was left on your consciousness. (The examples are putting your seal or signature on a document or putting a drop of oil on rice paper.) This is the first part of the third link. The result karma 3b will only happen when the result takes place. In between 3a and 3b there could be a gap of a lifetime. In short, causal consciousness is available at the time when you are creating karma; the result consciousness is only available when the result is getting through.

Link 4: Name and form65 [Skt. nama-rupa; Tib. ming-zug] (Picture: a man rowing a boat) Your consciousness enters into the base of the body [the beginning cells of the parents], and the new body starts growing. Name and form are counted as one link. This link is divided into two again: 4a: name 4b: form. It is called ‘name’ only for births in a formless realm, because formless existence has no form. The physical part becomes form. This is the level in which the mixture from the father and the mother, the sperm and egg, become harder. The form starts taking shape; head and arms and legs get shaped. In a human being, feeling, perceiving/acknowledging, volition and some kind of consciousness are called name.66 (It has nothing to do with our idea of a name of someone.) At this stage there is a kind of individuation. There is a beginning of awareness of what is happening, but it is very, very subtle; a beginning of adjusting after the consciousness got stuck. It is not possible yet to give any responses. It is definitely after conception, it is when the form begins to function. It has no senses yet. The consciousness at this time begins to be aware. So, at this time you already entered into the mother’s womb and the consciousness is already stuck. The form is starting to take shape and the consciousness that has the capability of acknowledging, is there [but doesn’t function yet].

Link 5: The six senses67 [Skt. sadayatana; Tib. kye ch’e dr’ug] (Picture: an empty house) This is about the development of the senses: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mental sense. The consciousness is already there. The senses and the consciousness get the ability to combine, but do not function yet. At this point the consciousness is there, the object is there, the senses are there, but the link has only just been established; you may not be able to differentiate much. In other words, you cannot connect the perception of the object with the consciousness, and you cannot connect the feeling with the consciousness.

Last night I looked into Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Tsongkhapa gave an interesting comment on the fourth link, the moment when the name and form are developed. He says that when name and form are taking shape, it is the beginning of establishing a body, body consciousness, although it has nothing to feel or acknowledge. And when you move from there and go to the fifth level, it says that by the time you reach the fifth link, this body not only sort of begins to think, it can also make sense of it. And at that time

64 For a complete karma, see chapter XII. 65 Link 4: Pabongka: name and form; Geshe Rabten: name and form; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: nameable mental factors with and without form; Dagyab Rinpoche: Name und Form. 66 In terms of the five skandhas: the body is the skandha of the form [Skt. rupa, Tib. zuk], the other four are feeling [Skt. vedana, Tib. tsor wa], discrimination [Skt samnja, Tib du she], volition/compositional factors [Skt. samskara, Tib. du je], consciousness [Skt. vijnana, Tib. nam she]. 67 Link 5: Pabongka: six senses or sense bases; Geshe Rabten: six senses; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: stimulators of cognition; Dagyab Rinpoche: Sinneskräfte.

The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 61 the inner person, the person who is acknowledging, the experiencer – we are going to experience joys and sufferings throughout our lives – is established. That person is called the person ‘who is the user’. Je Tsongkhapa says, At the fourth level the outer body and at the fifth the inner person [the experiencer] are established. This is a clear statement. However, I have a lot of personal questions. Although the consciousness is supposed to get stuck at the time of conception, I don’t think it is really a person until this moment [link five]. I cannot make a strong statement, but all along, I keep saying it is not a human being. It is a being, but not a human being. On the other hand I heard a very brief talk by His Holiness on this. In that talk he seemed to imply – he didn’t say it in so many words, but it was the way he was saying it – that from the beginning of the time of conception there is a human being. He seemed to be thinking in that manner. Somehow, reading between the lines, I got the impression that His Holiness was taking it for granted that at the time of conception the being is the beginning of a human being. But in the Lamrim Chenmo here the point is quite clear.68

Link 6: Contact69 [Skt. sparsha; Tib. reg-pa] (Picture: a man and a woman kissing) At the sixth level the senses, the object of the senses and the consciousness are not only linked, but the contact between them is developed. The principle consciousness develops and the communication or connection between the principle consciousness and all things is developed. [You may distinguish attraction, rejection and neutral] but you may not yet be able to feel and acknowledge pleasure, pain and indifference at this level. The moment you experience that, it becomes the seventh level. In the picture it is represented by a couple, a man and a woman embracing.

Link 7: Feeling70 [Skt. vedana; Tib. tsor-wa] (Picture: an arrow in the eye) At the seventh level, just by making contact you get the feeling of good, bad and neutral; of pleasure, harm and indifference. When you develop these feelings you don’t have desire yet, you just feel it, you just begin to feel it. In the picture it is represented by an arrow in the eye.

Link 8: Attachment / attraction / craving71 [Skt. trishna; Tib. se-pa] (Picture: a man drinking) Attraction. You like the pleasure and you develop attachment to it. You don’t want to be separated from this pleasure. Also you develop experiencing the pain and you develop the desire of separation from the pain. We talked about that before: not letting go. Now since you begin to feel it, you don’t like to let the good feelings go, you don’t want to be separated from them. And on the other hand there is the desire of not wanting the bad feelings. In the picture it is represented by a man drinking beer.

Link 9: Grasping72 [Skt. upadana; Tib. len-pa] (Picture: a monkey collecting fruit) I am going to call this attachment; this is really attachment. There is a division of four: a) attachment to luxurious things, to whatever you are attached to; grasping them; b) attachment to wrong view;

68 Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 317-318. 69 Link 6: Pabongka: contact; Geshe Rabten: contact; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: contacting awareness; Dagyab Rinpoche: Kontakt. 70 Link 7: Pabongka: feeling; Geshe Rabten: feeling; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: feeling a level of happiness or suffering; Dagyab Rin- poche: Empfindung. 71 Link 8: Pabongka: craving; Geshe Rabten: attachment; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: craving; Dagyab Rinpoche: Durst. 72 Link 9: Pabongka: grasping; Geshe Rabten: grasping; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: grasping; Dagyab Rinpoche: Anhaftung.

62 Lam Rim Teachings c) attachment to wrong morality – like what we discussed before on wrong behaviors originating from narrow psychic powers; d) attachment to ego or self, atman. This is being actually attached, even though I think the link should not be named attachment. It is called grasping. When you reach the ninth level, not only don’t you want to be separated from the sensa- tions, not only do you have attachment, but the craving grows, you are going out of your way to get this thing: “I need it, this is a need of mine!”

Link 10: Becoming73 [Skt. bhava; Tib. si-pa] (Picture: a woman about to give birth.) You remember, [in the past] at link 3a an imprint was left on your consciousness. This remains as an imprint until number eight and number nine touch them. Number eight and number nine make them ripen. At this level it becomes perfect for giving a result. That imprint no longer remains as a seed, but has become perfectly capable of giving a result. That level is number ten: becoming powerful. The karma becomes very strong and powerful; it becomes active and your future life is definitely going to manifest. It becomes a certainty that it is going to be developed. That goes further and develops more at the eleventh stage.

Link 11: Birth / rebirth / conception74 [Skt. jati; Tib. kye-wäi ten-drel] (Picture: a woman giving birth.) Because of being capable of giving a result you take rebirth, the conception.

Link 12: Ageing and death75 [Skt. marana; Tib. ga-shii ten-drel] (Picture: a man carrying a corpse) After taking birth you become older. Becoming old is: the minute you are born you start becoming older and coming closer to death. And you die. Therefore it is called ageing and death. (…) These are roughly, very basically, the twelve links: the one pushes the other.

Categories You can divide the twelve links into four different categories: Section A: [p’en-j’e-kyi yän-lag] throwing; the part which creates Section B: [drub-j’e-kyi yän-lag] things which make it happen Section C: [p’ang-.drä] happening, result level Section D: [dr’ub-drä] completion Section A: 1) Ignorance; 2) Karmic creation; 3a) Causal consciousness or imprint. Section B: 8) Attraction; 9) Actually attached or grasping; 10) Becoming powerful. Section C: 3b) Result consciousness; 4) Name and form; 5) Six senses; 6) Touching; 7) Feeling. Section D: 11) Birth; 12) Ageing and death.

The order of development The A-B-C-D order is how it actually works.

Section A. Why are link 1, 2 and 3a in section A? The ignorance is the base; because of the ignorance you create karma and after creating karma you leave an imprint on the consciousness. It is the very first beginning [of a life-giving karma].

73 Link 10: Pabongka: becoming or existence; Geshe Rabten: becoming; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: compulsive impulse to continue living; Dagyab Rinpoche: Werden. 74 Link 11: Pabongka: rebirth; Geshe Rabten: birth; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: conception; Dagyab Rinpoche: Geburt. 75 Link 12: Pabongka: ageing and death; Geshe Rabten: ageing and death; Dalai Lama/A. Berzin: ageing and dying; Dagyab Rin- poche: Alter und Tod.

The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 63

Section B. This is like what a seed needs when you want to grow a crop. You sow the seed, you put it in the ground, but if you want to grow food, just putting the seed on dry earth is not enough. You need water, heat and some fertilizer. Just like that you need the links 8, 9 and 10 to make it grow. These make it work, because 8 is attachment, 9 is craving and 10 is becoming. Tsongkhapa says on link eight: At the time of link eight you feel attached; you don’t want to be separated from the feeling of joy and any unpleasant feelings like feelings of suffering or pain, which you are seeking to be separated from. On number nine Tsongkhapa says [in the Lamrim Chenmo] that actually there is an attachment. Because you have the feeling, you develop attachment. Tsongkhapa argues here: If you don’t have ignorance, then even when you have the feeling, you don’t have attachment to the feeling. You don’t only have the feeling here, but you also have attachment to the feeling. That is why some translators put the word attachment at link eight and others put it at link nine. Actually both [link eight and link nine] are attachment. Conclusion: link eight is not really attachment, but a sort of seeking. The word attraction is okay. But then at the time of link nine it develops further and becomes stronger; it becomes a real need. Like we talk about ‘the needs of my life’. This happens at link nine. All our usual desires of samsara, the pleasures, come under this. In addition to that there is attachment to the wrong view and to some wrong behaviors. Wrong morals, like in the Angulimala story.76 You know, some people guide others in the wrong direction because of not knowing. You keep on doing the wrong thing and so instead of liberating yourself, getting out of samsara, you are creating causes for getting deeper into samsara. Some people think that physical sex will get you out of samsara, that it will somehow provide eternal happiness. Things like that are what this ninth link is about. At the tenth link it is becoming powerful. It all totally works up and you are ready to materialize it. All conditions are ripe: the seed has been sown, link nine and ten provided the warmth, water and fertilizer and [the result] is nearly ready to pop up. At the tenth stage you cannot change [things any more]. You are going to go in there; that particular life is going to be materialized now. In the links eight, nine and ten there are very small differences. Each following one of these three is a little more powerful, a little stronger than the previous one.

Section C. Category B will go on to category C. The first thing is 3b. Link 3b will acknowledge that you get in there, and then link 4, 5, 6 and 7 will make it happen. It is already there, you are there, you are functioning. I don’t know what level of functioning it is, but you are there. Now it becomes the present time, because you are there now. The fetus is there, the limbs are forming. they are all there. Links 3b, 4, 5, 6 and 7 put together are category C. We don’t want to make it more complicated.

Section D. Now category D: Pow! It comes out and it grows, grows, and then it dies. That completes it.

Example of completion in two lives. Let us say we want to be reborn as a samsaric god in the next life. We have ignorance [link 1]. That is not the ignorance of not knowing the karmic laws, but ignorance of not knowing the true reality. Therefore all our good works will become samsara-creating works rather then works taking us out of samsara. [Link 2.] All our good work, taking vows, prayers, helping others, any good effort we put in, all these particular karmas will go and become a seed for rebirth as a samsaric god. Then the seed is laid. The action itself is the second link and the imprint is left on the consciousness [link 3a]. So the preliminary work has been done. [Life A, section A.] And when we go on we say, “Oh it will be very nice if I could take rebirth in a samsaric-gods’ realm, it would be wonderful and I pray that I may be reborn in the samsaric gods’ realm.” We pray. That is developing link 8. Then we become a little older, time almost goes, and we put a little more effort in it. We really feel the need: “I have to make sure I will get over there.” With that type of putting more effort in, we

76 See volume II, index entry ‘Angulimala’.

64 Lam Rim Teachings are shifting to link 9. So because of our true efforts of link 8 and link 9 during our lifetime, just before we die we sort of connect to link 10, which you can call a causal dependent relation. [Life A, section B.] And then, when you are born in the next life [life B], these 3b to 7 [life B, section C] start developing [and it will end with link 11 and 12, Section D].

It is also possible to explain the completion of a life-giving karma over three lifetimes. I won’t discuss that now. Forget about it, it will just be more confusing.

Diagrams of dependent arising in twelve links77

Explicit explanation Buddha’s Explicit Teaching in the Rice Seedling Sutra One round of a twelve-linked dependent arising.

1. ignorance 2. karmic creation projecting causes: life A 3. consciousness 3a. causal consciousness

3b. result consciousness 4. name and form 5. the six senses projected effects: life B 6. contact 7. feeling

8. attachment 9. grasping actualizing causes: life B 10. becoming/existence

11. birth actualized effects: life C 12. ageing and death

Life A precedes life B at any time, and life B precedes life C with no interval.

77 Charts from: Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, p. 279, p. 708, p. 709, resp. The second chart represents the explanation Rimpoche gave. Also see Chart 5 on p. 108.

The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 65

Explanation over two lives A Version of Buddha’s Implicit Teaching according to Asanga Completion of the twelve links in at least two lives, with one round of cause and effect.

1. ignorance 2. karmic creation projecting causes: life A 3. consciousness 3a. causal consciousness

3b. result consciousness 4. name and form 5. the six senses projected effects: life B 6. contact 7. feeling

8. attachment 9. grasping actualizing causes: life A 10. becoming/existence

11. birth actualized effects: life B 12. ageing and death

Life A and life B are successive.

Explanation over three lives A Version of Buddha’s Implicit Teaching according to Asanga Completion of the twelve links in three lives at the most, with one round of cause and effect.

1. ignorance 2. karmic creation projecting causes: life A 3. consciousness 3a. causal consciousness

3b. result consciousness 4. name and form 5. the six senses projected effects: life C 6. contact 7. feeling

8. attachment 9. grasping actualizing causes: life B 10. becoming/existence

11. birth actualized effects: life C 12. ageing and death

Life A precedes life B at any time, and life B and life C are successive.

Emotions: horses without a master don’t make a willing span

XVII WALKING THE PATH TO LIBERATION: TRAINING OF MORALITY78

The third noble truth: the truth of the cessation of suffering Out of the Four Noble Truths we talked about the first two. We have talked about how bad samsara is and how much we suffer being in samsara. We learned what causes this suffering; we looked into the karmic causes and the delusion causes. The picture you are supposed to have now is that you see the black hole within us and what creates it. Now it is time to look at how to get out of there. Now the actual path is coming: the path of liberation, of moving towards nirvana. In order to get to this third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, we now move on to the fourth.

The fourth noble truth: the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering You may very vaguely have heard about the five paths79. Mahayana is divided into five paths and ten stages [Skt. bhumis]80. Theravada or Hinayana is divided into five paths and eight stages81.

2) Establishing the path to liberation a) The physical basis we need in order to attain liberation82 [Geshe Potowa said, For as long as we have wandered through cyclic existence in the past it has not stopped by itself. Given this, it will not stop by itself now either. Hence, we must put a stop to it, and the time to stop it is now that you have obtained leisure and fortune.] b) The path we need to practice in order to attain liberation In practice, what you have to do here, on the medium level is: to link up the Four Noble Truths and the Three Higher Trainings. These two are the basis and are needed before going into the Mahayana. (Some- times people link this up with the Eightfold Path83 and the Thirty-Seven Paths of Practice84.)

78 Literature: Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lamrim Chenmo, vol. I, p. 333-353; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. III, p. 82-97; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 534- 543; L.S. Dagyab Rinpoche, Achtsamkeit und Versenkung, p. 235-238; Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar, p. 134-136, p. 223-224; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, p. 372-383; Geshe Thubten Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 477-485. 79 Literature: Gehlek Rimpoche, The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra. 80 A chart of the five paths and ten stages can be found in the Appendices of volume IV. Literature: Nagarjuna, The Precious Gar- land, stanza 440-460; Chandrakirti, Guide to the Middle Way. Translation and commentary: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Ocean of Nectar. Root text of the first five chapters in the Appendices of volume IV. 81 For the result levels of Hinayana Hearers and Solitary Realizers, see Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, p. 106-108 and chart 4 (volume II). 82 See literature in note 78, particularly the Lamrim Chenmo. 83 Right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. 84 Also called the Thirty-seven Buddhadharmas, or the Thirty-seven Wings of Enlightenment. See chart 7 (volume IV). Note: these thirty-seven realizations conducive to enlightenment are not to be confused with a text of Togme Zangpo, called The Thirty- seven Bodhisattva Practices. 68 Lam Rim Teachings

The Three Higher Trainings In practical form, the path we need to practice in order to attain liberation is: the three higher trainings of the mind. We are not going to touch much on the training of meditation. What we are talking about is meditation material from beginning to end, although we are not talking about the techniques. We are also not talking about the training of wisdom.85 So the only one left to look into at this level is the training of morality.

The training of Moral Discipline This is the training on how to behave. It is: how we create non-virtue and how we can create virtue, and then behave accordingly. Morality is becoming the base, the foundation. In a well-known, very interesting book, A Letter to a Friend, it says: You should practice a morality unbroken, not debased, Undefiled, untainted, uncorrupted, Morality was declared the foundation for all virtue Just as the earth is for all things moving and unmoving. Nagarjuna, A Letter to a Friend [Suhrllekha], vs. 7 Morality is the foundation of everything that grows. We talked about guru devotion as the foundation of all development. And now at this second-stage level, morality has become a foundation too, the foundation on which you can grow.

Basic morality As we discussed before86, the most basic morality for Buddhists is: avoiding non-virtues, accumulating good works as much as possible, watching (or rather controlling, smoothening, softening, improving) your mind. I think that is the basic Buddhist morality – dealing with your own mind. People have different ways of looking at morality. Some people will try to make this morality very disciplined: you can do this, you can’t do that. Another approach to the discipline business is bringing the habitual delusions down, changing them by yourself within reasonable freedom, within reasonable adjustment.

The three vows: pratimoksha, bodhisattva and vajrayana vows If you look into the monks’ vows, it sometimes goes as far as that they can’t even look beyond five feet, like a horse in training that wears blinkers to go straight. That is narrowing your view, that is trying to force you in one direction. I don’t think these rules are a question of good or bad, but of what is suitable and what is not suitable to me. To some people it is suitable; they like to be told what to do and what not to do. But other people don’t like to be told what to do and what not to do, they like to act by themselves. That is individual.

Buddha gave different vows: the pratimoksha vow, the bodhisattva vow and the vajrayana vow. Out of these three, the bodhisattva vow and the vajrayana vow are, as far as we are concerned, considered more important than the pratimoksha vow. But as far as the general public is concerned the pratimoksha vow is more important than the bodhisattva and the vajrayana vows. Because bodhisattva and vajrayana vows have no visibility at all. That is your own individual private business, not a public thing.

The self-liberation vows or pratimoksha vows Monks’ and nuns’ vows These vows are categorized as morality with a very strict discipline. They are very strict. If you really try

85 Meditation and wisdom are taught in chapter XXIV (volume IV). 86 In chapter XIII.

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 69 to follow it one hundred percent correctly, you’ll probably not look anywhere. What happens is this. If there is a monk in the house there should not be a woman around and if there is a nun in the house there should not be any man. Actually, it is not where there is a monk there should not be a woman, but the idea is that the monk should not be where a woman is. And vice versa. Nowadays people are interpreting it as: if there is a monk, women can’t be there. This is a total misinterpretation. The reason for imposing such strict rules is to avoid the habitual delusions coming up. Vinaya rules.87 Monks and nuns are supposed to be willing to take all strict discipline. Whether they do it or not, is a total different story. According to certain vinaya rules you are not supposed to eat after noon. Tibetan monks do eat in the afternoon, which they are not supposed to. What is really meant, is: eat two meals, don’t eat three. The whole reason why one cannot eat in the afternoon or evening is because people will become fat and lazy. Vinaya is not based on non-virtue or virtue, but purely on the rules Buddha imposed as a strong discipline for those people who were willing to go in that direction. And so he could change his rules. There are over a couple of hundred vinaya rules and each one of them was developed by one incident or another in Buddha’s lifetime. An incident happened, people went to Buddha and Buddha said, “No, you can’t do that.” That became rule number one and so on. The pratimoksha vow concerning monks and nuns is public. They dress differently, they shave their heads differently. You know why? Different looks, different behavior. It is a sign and a reminder for them: change your habitual pattern. And also, to the public they represent the Buddha, dharma and sangha. That is why even the bodhisattva and vajrayana people will put monks and nuns,88 those with pratimoksha vows, above themselves. Although spiritually the vajrayana and the bodhisattva vow holders are far higher and better than some of those pratimoksha-vow holders, they respect them because they represent the Buddha’s way and by that they remind people of changing their habitual patterns. That is why the pratimoksha vow is considered important. To tell you the truth: if you are following that, the best thing is to follow it perfectly and not make a half and half business.

Buddha is so kind. He gave a tremendous amount of discounts. So, finally it boiled down to the four root vows for monks and nuns, the four root non-virtues: not killing human beings not stealing things of a certain value not falling into sexual misconduct not lying a big lie – the white lies are not even counted. If you are not involved with any one of those and if you have a hesitation to any non-virtue, then you are considered a perfect moral-based pure one. All this discount made it possible to survive as a monk, otherwise you’re not going to survive at all.

Audience: Isn’t the reason for giving such a discount that people would otherwise not be able to reach enlightenment? Rimpoche: No. I think the reason for the discount is Buddha’s compassionate nature. Wherever he can he likes to adjust. Buddha’s best gift to society is the dharma plus the community. If you lose the community it may not be good for a lot of people. So, balancing in between and being compassionate made him give all the discount, I think. And he also doesn’t see that much fault in it, because first he made a lot of rules and later he gave discounts. Also, a lot of rules he had to give because of his cousin, who accused Bud- dha’s followers of being a disgrace all the time. Then Buddha said, “Alright, if it is a disgrace, change it.” The rules were built in that way, you know. The whole idea of it is to change the habitual pattern, not to fall into the wrong habits.

87 Rules of moral discipline. 88 Skt. bikshus, bikshunis; Tib. gelong, gelongma.

70 Lam Rim Teachings

Lay morality Now what is relevant to us? That is the question we have to raise. For us the relevance is almost similar to today’s monks. We protect ourselves from the basic four non-virtues. You see, the morality here for us lay people is not a big deal. It is just simply five basic precepts, five little things you try to keep: not to kill not to steal not to indulge in sexual misconduct not to lie not to use intoxicants. And don’t over-interpret it. It is so simple, even as a respectable human being in today’s society you do that. On top of that we have a hesitation to committing other non-virtues. Hesitation here means: if you have committed non-virtues, make sure you purify them. Don’t enjoy it and do it all the time. With the power of the delusions that we have and with the conditions that we are living in, we are bound to commit non-virtues. There is no way to escape that. But don’t get a kick out of it, don’t take it as fun! That sort of thing will make you do it more, so don’t. Non-virtue will happen. It will keep on happening – doesn’t matter – but whenever it has happened, make sure you purify it. I think that is the definition of hesitation or reservation for non-virtues.

Lay vows There are vows for lay practitioners, ge-nyen, and there are one-day ordination vows, nye-ne. Both are lay vows. The one-day ordination vow is very, very similar to the eight Mahayana precepts. The only difference is that with the one-day ordination vows you can eat meat and the day you take the eight Mahayana precepts you can have no meat whatsoever.89 There are persons who take four or three or even one of the five basic precepts as a vow. They’ll be considered as ge-nyen90, for sure. If you want to take two, take two; three or four is also possible.

Audience: When you gave everyone refuge in the group a year and a half ago, you talked about the five precepts. I thought you gave them as a vow and so I tried to keep them. Rimpoche: Very good. You can call it refuge vow, even though nobody ever calls it that. In the luggage of the refuge are the five basic precepts. That is the basic thing we have to follow, which gives us enough material to observe ourselves and to change ourselves.

Purification Applying the four powers. As we have been discussing, practice hesitation. Non-virtues will come, whatever you do, there is no way to avoid them completely. But don’t feel bad about it; purify it and don’t carry it around all the time. The purification point is applying the four powers.91

Vajrayana purification. The vajrayana has a very interesting technique for purifying, which is the application of mantra power. Vajrasattva is the enlightened being specialized in purification. Therefore the Vajra- sattva mantra is considered a very important, very good purification. It helps to build your foundation of morality. There is a long mantra, called the hundred-syllable mantra. That is hard for beginners. When you are about to get or just had your first introduction into Vajrayana, the shorter form (OM VAJRASATTVA AH) is supposed to serve the purpose as well. So, before you go to bed, you say this mantra twenty-one times. That probably does the job. I am not sure whether it is completely purifying or not, but it definitely cuts the increase and the multiplication.92 Some people say OM VAJRASATTVA HUNG. Normally a lot of mantras end with HUNG, so some peo-

89 Literature: Kathleen McDonald, How to Meditate, p. 187-195. 90 Skt. upasaka. For the eight levels of the pratimoksha vows (this includes monks’ and nuns’ vows as well as lay vows), see Geshe Loden, Path to Enlightenment, p. 686. 91 See chapter XII. 92 For the Vajrasattva practice, see Gehlek Rinpoche, Ganden Lha Gyema.

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 71 ple think that has to be the last word. But AH is the more important one here, so I think OM VAJRASATTVA AH is the correct mantra. HUNG is union, combination. AH is the basis or foundation of emptiness and it is the base of all mantras. It is a very powerful mantra93. Whether you say OM VAJRASATTVA AH or OM VAJRASATTVA HUNG, I really think it doesn’t make much difference. Song Rinpoche emphasized using the AH, so that is good. Different lamas may have different ways of telling and you can’t say this is wrong and that is right. I don’t think you can say , HUNG is wrong, but HUMM is wrong. Yes, the letter is round and round can be translated as base, the base can be translated as female, so the O can become equal to MA. So people may say HUM, but I don’t think there is a mm-sound. It should be pronounced HUNG.

In short, what do we look for as our morality? 1) We try to keep the basic precepts. 2) We don’t enjoy doing the non-virtuous. 3) Whatever we were involved in, we purify. I think that is the basic guideline we can take, easily, simply. And if we don’t go beyond that, we are okay. You can’t be strict, don’t even try to be. But once you take the bodhisattva vow there are fixed things you have to follow, and in the vajrayana vow there are fixed things too. You have to learn them and follow them.

The bodhisattva vow94 What is a bodhisattva vow? The Mahayana path is called bodhisattva path and the people who are sort of committed to becoming a buddha are called bodhisattvas. This is a technical name. This is the badge of the club (laughs). The members of the club are known as bodhisattvas. They have their ways and rules. To get into the bodhisattva ‘club’ you will be initiated. The way of initiating is either taking vows or developing them. The true way is: just getting yourself developed to be a bodhisattva without depending on a vow, without depending on the ritual of taking vows. The other way is taking the vows and putting a label on them and trying to develop with the help of the vow. So taking the vow is a sort of initiation. When you take this sort of vow, a certain luggage comes with it. Within the bodhisattva luggage and the vajrayana luggage there are more heavy and less heavy commitments, but there is not as much discount as in the pratimoksha vows. These are more strict, yet very liberal. There is no such thing as ‘breaking vows’ in here, like in the pratimoksha vow there is. That is how it is loose. But in true reality, in actual practice, the commitments are much more strict and much more heavy. But at the same time it is loose too. These are becoming relevant to us now.

To be or not to be a bodhisattva – a discussion Audience: I have a question on changing our habitual patterns from the Mahayana point of view. Is it the mere fact of thinking about others before thinking of ourselves which goes against our habitual pattern of always thinking selfishly? That small turn or change, which is an internal thing rather than the pratimoksha which is external, can it change the patterns? Rimpoche: A very important question, very interesting. I see two ways of looking at it. Do bodhisattvas really make the change? (I am a funny person, so I get funny questions in my head, which should not be here, but…) Do bodhisattvas really change? I am not doubting the intention of the bodhisattvas, but do they really put other people before their own personal gain? Or do the bodhisattvas consider love and compassion for other people important to gain something themselves? Is it for gaining something yourself? Really, these are the big questions. It bothers me a lot sometimes. Somehow it is focused back, you know: “For the benefit of all sentient beings I would like to obtain enlightenment.” There is a big I that jumps in here. So it is really a fundamental question: do bodhisattvas really put others before themselves? “Not to benefit myself, but to serve others, I would like to obtain enlightenment” they say.

93 The AH is also the secret mission statement of Jewel Heart. As Rinpoche says, “AH is the principle of the life of sound. If you cannot say AH, there is no sound. All the letters, all sound-expressions are based on AH. So AH is the fundamental basis. And AH expresses emptiness.” 94 Literature on the bodhisattva vow: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, The Bodhisattva Vow.

72 Lam Rim Teachings

Audience: I know what ‘me, me, me’ feels like, but I would like to know what it is from the point of view of the opposite of that, of really putting other people before oneself. Rimpoche: I understand what you say, but my question is, do they really put others before me? Audience: I thought this was what it is all about. Rimpoche: I thought so too, but is it really the case? That is what I am asking. Audience: I guess I want some experiential taste of what it is I really like to do. Rimpoche: To me it looks like administrators who need power to serve the institution, don’t you think so? You know, the bodhisattva goes and says, “Look, I would like to serve all sentient beings, I would like to take total responsibility of liberating every sentient being, I would like to do this, but I am short of capability, I need the capacity to do it, so Í have to become a Buddha first.” It looks to me like an administrator who comes and says, “Look, I want to make this institution run correctly, but in order to do that I have to have the power to say and do this, this, this, otherwise I cannot manage, I cannot administer, the institution will not run well.” Audience: From the point of view of really developing bodhicitta or bodhimind, without realizing emptiness, without true seeing of the nature of phenomena, it would definitely be impossible. Rimpoche: You are mixing up method and wisdom. We are talking about method here, so just talk about method. When we are talking about method you totally stick to method; when we come to wisdom you stick to wisdom. Absolute bodhimind is not bodhimind, so the wisdom doesn’t count here at all. I am trying to bring in that negative question before we get into the bodhisattva path. I want to make that clear first. I am raising a doubt whether the bodhisattva is really committed. What does the bodhicitta actually do on that? You think the wisdom does something here. What does the wisdom do here? Audience: The wisdom cuts ignorance, which is the root cause of self-cherishing. Rimpoche: Oh, I see, you are taking three steps, okay. Audience: If you cut ignorance you see yourself completely differently from when you are seeing yourself through the experience of ignorance. Rimpoche: So? Audience: So true bodhicitta is not really possible in more than just an aspiration. Rimpoche: What do you mean by true bodhicitta? Audience: Really completely cherishing others more than cherishing yourself. Rimpoche: That is not true bodhicitta. Audience: In the relative sense. Rimpoche: In the relative sense, yes, but not in the absolute sense. Audience: We are talking about true bodhicitta in the relative sense. Rimpoche: Now we may be confusing a lot of people. So we said: do bodhisattvas really cherish others? Audience: Changing the habit from putting yourself first all the time to making a habit of putting everyone else first seems to be a change from one unbalanced habit to another unbalanced habit, because if you are putting everyone else first all the time then you are sacrificing yourself and you can’t keep up sacrificing in the long run. Rimpoche: That is right. That’s fine. Audience: You have to balance. Rimpoche: So, let fifty percent of the people go ahead and then you go. Audience: The balance is in taking care of yourself and everyone else at the same time. Rimpoche: Here you come! But can you do that, is it possible? Audience: Yes! Rimpoche: Really? Is there time for everybody to become a buddha? Will there be a time that samsara is totally emptied? Will there be a time that everybody becomes a buddha? In your balance you have to go up to that time. We are not going to agree with fifty percent, so you have to go to that point, everybody together, on a magic carpet everybody going together. Audience: No, not everybody has to go, from my point of view. Rimpoche: Who is to be left out?

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 73

Audience: Everybody can be benefited without being a buddha. Rimpoche: Okay, you can benefit by becoming a buddha and the others can be benefited a little less than that, that is your balance. Audience: Then you also can play absolute truth: everybody is already enlightened. Rimpoche: I am sorry, no. How can that be possible? Audience: Everybody is a buddha, in absolute sense? Rimpoche: Not at all, not at all. Then why should we be here? Don’t misunderstand that; that is a big mistake! A lot of people say, “For Buddhists it does not matter, everybody is a buddha anyway, it is only their mind.” That is totally mistaken. If you are an absolute buddha, what are you doing here? Get out. True. That is why I always use words like: everybody has the seed of the buddha, everybody has the buddha- nature, everybody has a baby-buddha. Audience: It is not either/or. It is not that you have to sacrifice yourself in order to do something for someone else. As a matter of fact, when you do something for other people it feels better than when you do things for yourself, you do both together. Rimpoche: That is the idea, that is good. The first questioner also had that in mind from the beginning, I knew, but I refuted her, I pushed her around, you know. And also I pushed one of you around on the absolute bodhimind (laughs). Audience: (…) Rimpoche: I am not doubting whether the bodhisattva can take care of herself or not. I am doubting whether the bodhisattva really wants to put others before him- or herself. Because: “I am the servant, I want to serve everybody, so I need the capacity to serve everybody, so you people wait. I quickly become a buddha and then I come back to serve you.” That is the idea, so actually I want to become a buddha first. Audience: Not for selfish reasons necessarily. Rimpoche: That may be the excuse. How do you know it is not an excuse? Audience: Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, but… Rimpoche: Are you sure you’re going to do that? Audience: Yes! Rimpoche: Hm, you’ve got a lot of witnesses. Audience: From a method point of view you strive for an idea which really is not possible until you have given up the striving; you have to chase your tail; it is selfish in a sense, but it is in order to come to selflessness. Rimpoche: Selflessness and not being selfish are two different things, I think they are totally two different things. Audience: You use the techniques of not being selfish, like generosity etc., but the ultimate goal is selflessness. Rimpoche: No, the ultimate goal is selfish. Why do I give? I want to be rich. Why do I have morality? I want to be pure. Audience: Who is that I, who is that person that wants to get somewhere? Rimpoche: That is me, the continuation of me. Sometimes I have the name of Gehlek, sometimes I have the name of Rimpoche, sometimes it is Mr. Gehlek. Audience: These are just labels. Rimpoche: No, no. Audience: Are they real? Rimpoche: Yes. Audience: They are not ultimately real. Rimpoche: Ultimately they may not be real, that doesn’t matter. I am real enough. The main point is: if you exist relatively it is good enough to exist, if you do not exist absolutely it doesn’t matter. If you lose the basic fundamental ‘I’ with the selflessness, then what will happen? You become nihilistic. There are Bud- dhist schools that do accept that, I can’t say it is wrong, but I am presenting the argument from the other side. They will say, “At the beginning you didn’t really exist, but you only realize you didn’t exist by the time you see emptiness. Then you only have a little left over and that also goes. And then you’re gone in

74 Lam Rim Teachings the empty, you disappear, like the flame of a candle that is blown out.” I don’t say that is wrong; but that is the viewpoint one school presents. 95 The Mahayana viewpoint refutes more than that. They say, “No that is not the case, if you exist relatively it is good enough to exist. But there is something in it. It is not an empty house, there is somebody living in there. There is somebody called I which is a continuation of this continuity from the point of view of impermanence; from the point of view of existence it is somebody who came from samsara, who will go into nirvana and still exist and become a buddha.” Audience: But you are free? Rimpoche: Yes, totally. Being free does not depend on not existing. There is a fundamental difference there.

Debate. Well, we did work out the foundations on morality. You can still think and we can discuss and argue and get some point. The trick of argumentation is pushing the person, not letting them continue the idea they wanted to follow – debate actually. I cried so much once, I remember it was between my father and Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche and I had to say, “The abbot of Loseling has no lower skirt on.” I had to say it, because the argument was coming in that way. You know, when you study in Loseling, the abbot is the symbol of it. So I was very proud. And my father started debating with me and then Kyabje Lhatsun Rin- poche also joined in and I had to say, “The Loseling abbot has no clothes underneath.” I didn’t want to say it, but I was forced to say it, because when you are wrong somewhere, that is pushing you into the wrong direction and ultimately you come to that point where you really see you are wrong. So I cried and cried. I was sixteen. The trick is not to let the people go on the way they want to.

The vajrayana vow The initiations have their own luggage. When you take an initiation, it carries some kind of vows. And each different initiation that you take carries its own commitments.96

Taking vows. If a person has a desire to take the vows [whether pratimoksha-, bodhicitta- or vajrayana vows] and there is a person who is qualified to give them and the ritual is performed and you follow it, then you are taking the vows; that is all and that counts. For acting against the vow it does not matter whether you are conscious about it or not; it always stands. Once you have taken the vow, till you give back the vow, it stands. For bodhisattva vows and vajrayana vows there is no way to give them back. When we took it we did it until enlightenment, we did not say: ‘until tomorrow’. Whether you carry it to a next life or not, who knows? But it goes at least till the end of this life. It is almost like being a jew; when you are born as a jew you remain a jew. Pratimoksha vows [vows of individual liberation] you can give back.

Honoring your vows To honor a vow means: not to indulge in the opposite of the vow. If you get one of those downfalls, it doesn’t break a vow but it becomes imperfect, a downfall. You don’t lose the vow, but it becomes imperfect, like something covered in dust. It does not damage the vow, but like silverware needs polishing, similarly the downfalls do. The whole purpose of having a vow is to protect yourself from indulging in the downfalls. So the first and foremost step over here is to learn about the downfalls. It is not very advisable to go and take vows straightaway. First learn about the vows, learn about the downfalls and then decide about it. A vow is really a serious thing to get. When His Holiness gave a Kalachakra initiation in Los Angeles for a couple of thousand people, at the end he looked around and said, “Well, my guess is that among all these, about twenty-five people have obtained the initiation, no more than twenty-five.” He stated that and that is a true fact. People like to go there, attend the teachings, and then it comes to a point where they can’t stop and then the vajra master decides, “Okay, let them go in, it doesn’t matter, let them sit there and see what is going on.” So does every lama. When we do initiations and somebody comes and asks, “Can I be there?” it is very difficult for

95 Hinayana or Theravada viewpoint 96 Will be taught at the Vajrayana level.

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 75 you to say “no”, so you say, “Alright, let it be there, it doesn’t matter whether you get it or do not get it.” That is what happens. Just be aware of those things. Especially you people who are sort of serious about it, be aware of it. That is important.

Broken vows. If you have broken the pratimoksha vows [i.e. vows of individual liberation] taken from the lama or group of monks, you have to clear it there. If you have broken the bodhisattva vows, then, as the bodhisattva vows are taken from the Lama Buddha and the bodhisattvas, it has to be cleared there. If you have broken the vajrayana vows they have to be cleared at the Lama Yidam mandala. You have to create a mandala and clear it there.

In short, it is so important to keep one’s mind very carefully determined to follow your commitments. And if you break a commitment, don’t say, “Oh I broke it so I am finished.” Don’t do that! If you break it one day, you say “Okay, I broke it. It doesn’t matter, let me try again.” That is a very important point. Cutting yourself completely off: “I made a mistake so I am finished so it does not matter now” does not work. That is bad. If there is something that can be pointed out as bad, this is it. You have to use any pressure you can to get that idea out of your system completely. You are not going to find anybody completely pure. Even if Buddha would come down, you would find some faults in him, at least from our viewpoint. For an awak- ened one everything is pure; they can kill an animal, eat the meat and make the animal walk again. We don’t have that. So when we talk about morality, I think we are talking about the different levels of the people and of the different practices. That is important to know, to keep at the back of your mind, rather than looking at morality as a blanket set of rules.

Four doorways to downfalls on vows The first thing to know is: what are these downfalls and how do I retain myself? And then you go from there. The number one doorway to getting downfalls on any vows is not knowing them; the next doorway is having too many delusions; the third is not watching your mind, and the fourth one is disrespect.

– Ignorance This is not knowing what the vow is about. You just take the vow without knowing anything, you repeated the words that were said, it became a vow, but you know nothing about it and so you get all the downfalls. If you take a vow without knowing anything about it, are you responsible for the downfalls? Sure. So, don’t do something of which you do not know what you are doing. That is really the point, the bottom line – particularly in the vajrayana vows, where you have equally tremendous advantages and tremendous disadvantages. Not knowing what you are doing is the first door to downfalls. If you don’t know what you are doing, you will get into trouble. Then you will start looking for the information, but by that time you already made a mess out of it. So, first get to know about it.

– Having too many delusions Having too many delusions too often, is another way of getting downfalls. Of course, it happens by attrac- tions here and there, developing attachment and hatred etc. We have to be especially careful on whatever is strongest in ourselves. That is our real enemy! Delusions are an enemy, because delusions make us remain in these terrible, miserable conditions, constantly, life after life. If we had so many lives, why are we stuck here today? Just because of these delusions. So, if you look for an enemy, you should definitely look for the delusions as the enemy, nobody else. Any delusion that grows strong within us, become a weakness in us. So these are the ones you have to be most aware of. The traditional teachings give this example: if you are fighting a group of people, you don’t waste your energy by just hitting yourself across; you first look who of the other group is the more powerful one. Then everybody puts their efforts together to get that powerful one first. Then afterwards, when your energy is low, they are also weak and you have a chance to win. Similarly, when you are fighting a war with the delusions, first pay attention to whichever is stronger within yourself and try to get that

76 Lam Rim Teachings one first. However, each one of these delusions has its own antidote. Attachment. If you have strong attachment, then look at the faults of the thing you are attached to; that is the direct antidote. If you are attached to the body, look at the problems of the body: what is the nature of it, what is it made out of, what do you see underneath the skin and all this. If you are attached to material possessions like jewellery, look at the problems that brings in. Whatever your strongest attachment is, look at it from the other side. What you normally do in life, is: if you start looking from the point of view of the problem, you see everything as difficult; if you start looking from the point of view of the quality you see everything as good. That is why if you look from the positive viewpoint you become positive and patient and if you start looking from the side of problems and impatience, then it becomes problems and impatience. That is how the personality reflects your mind. As an individual who looks from the positive viewpoint, even if someone slaps you, you see something positive in it; you see: be patient. And if you start looking from the negative angle, you think, “This is going to happen and that is going to happen, because of this and that” and you get completely nervous. It is like what one of you here told me about when they had an accident: “One: it was not my fault, I wasn’t speeding. Two: I can’t argue with him because I have no time to go to court. Three: I have no money and I have to take the warrant ticket and – like it or not – I have to pay it. So again I am paying for no fault of my own whatsoever! And four: my insurance is going to go up because they think I was speeding, which I was not!!” That way you get a whole circle worked out and you start getting nervous. From this example you can see how the pattern works. If you start looking from the point of view of a fault, you see faults everywhere and even though they may not materialize, you get nervous; it works completely out on the person. That is how a pattern works within the individual: if you start looking positively, you start seeing everything positive; if you start looking for faults, you see everything as faulty. And that goes between everybody, also in one-on-one relations. The moment you start looking at things as a problem you see everything as a problem and the moment you start looking positive, you see everything as positive. However, you don’t want to be over-positive and act like stupid, you don’t want to be over-negative and act picky – you have to be balanced. When you really start looking into the delusions from the point of view of their faults, they will reduce. Usually, instead of looking at the faults points of our delusions, we look at the faults points of individual persons. That is the problem. When we want to be critical, we should pick on the delusions, not on the persons, not on our relations, not person-to-person, heart-to-heart; we should not pick on that. We should pick on the delusions. Hatred. If you have hatred, the antidote is love. Pride. If you have pride, the antidote is thinking of getting ill, getting old and dying; all of this will cut down your pride. And it is good to practice this very often when you are young and healthy. You don’t want them to come as a surprise, you sort of get used to the idea, because it is bound to happen. We are proud: “I am young, I am healthy, I am beautiful and handsome, I know everything, I can do everything, I am the best.” That sort of pride you challenge sometimes. Don’t over-challenge it, otherwise you will get: “I can do nothing, I am helpless, I am hopeless.” Balance your mind. You see how important this balancing business is. Isn’t it terrible? Life is almost like walking on a rope. It is like acrobats in the circus walking the high rope, with only a pole in their hands for balance. That is a real example of life. If pride takes over it is not good for you. Big pride is going to hit you one day. Suddenly you can’t do anything and you are confused and you feel terribly bad about yourself. So, we should not be helpless and hopeless, nor should we be overproud, but balance. This is Buddha’s famous middle path. Normally the Middle Way is talked about as having neither nihilism nor existentialism, but being the centre. But I think in every part of life we have a middle path and we really have to go on that, otherwise we’ll be off balance. The moment you’re off balance you’re in trouble. That is why Buddha says that samsara is the ocean of trouble. We have a little rope to walk on, so only by balancing we can do it. Isn’t that funny? Also the uncertainty of samsaric life, the changing nature of samsara, will reduce the pride. Ignorance. Then the ignorance. . The opponent of the ignorance is dependent arising, which is known as the king of logic. Your existence is totally dependent on other conditions. That is called interdependent

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 77 origination. It is like a house of cards, totally depending on each other. Everything is dependent. Anyway, that is something we’ll discuss at the end, much later. In general meditating on emptiness is the direct opponent, not only of ignorance but of all the delusions.

– Inattentiveness Even if you don’t have too many delusions, if you are not paying much attention, if you are being inattentive, you will get downfalls. The vows are like that. Why? If you have a commitment, downfalls are bound to come. If you have no commitment and you do the same thing, then that is no downfall.97 Downfalls are related to the vow. But then, one way or another everybody has a vow or commitment. There is at least the refuge vow and then many of you have the bodhisattva vow and on top of that a number of you have the vajrayana vow. Four mental faculties work on as an antidote to not paying attention. Remembrance or mindfulness98. Actually, what happens is this: when a problem is near you forget your commitments and only when it is over you remember them again. That happens very often and to many people. So: try to keep them in mind. Awareness or alertness, watching the mind99. Normally in the concentration meditation you have a little part of your mind watching your own mind, seeing whether it is concentrating or not. You have some kind of guard on duty moving around all the time, watching what you are doing. That is what you try to keep regarding your vows, too. Self-respect100. That is the thought, “Whether people know about it or not, if I do this, I will feel ashamed of myself.” Consideration for others101. That is, “If other people would know I would really be embarrassed and ashamed.” Protecting yourself from breaking a vow or commitment by using the embarrassment that you would feel if other people would know you did that, is a way to help yourself. These last two are two different mental faculties that will help us to refrain from doing the wrong thing. Both, self-respect and consideration for others will help you to discipline yourself in proper behavior. What you need is an excuse to avoid doing certain things and the best to think is, “Buddha is everywhere.” If you are doing some cheating, a little or a big thing, you may think, “I am the only person who knows this; I can do whatever I want in my mind, nobody is able to know it.” That is not true. The enlightened beings, having no obstacles, will always see it. The individual thinking of each one of us in every single minute is known to the Buddha and he is there as a witness, always. So whenever you try to do something bad, think Buddha is watching you. It may sound very funny like ‘big brother is watching you over your shoulder’, but it is not. It is just always known, nothing can be hidden. Buddha is always there, because wherever the body is, the mind is and wherever the mind is, the body is. That combination is the extra- ordinary quality of enlightened beings.

– Disrespect The respect goes to Buddha, his rules (because this is related to the pratimoksha vows) and the sangha members. Especially you respect the vow within you, your own vow, which is representing the buddha within you, or in vajrayana is representing buddha Vajradhara within you. So, your personal representation of buddha Vajradhara is your vajrayana vow and your personal representation of the Buddha is your bodhisattva vow or pratimoksha vow (if you have any). You should not

97 A downfall does not necessarily have to be a negativity. For example: eating after noon can be a downfall but it is not a negativity. 98 Tib. dre npa; Skt. smrti. This is not to let what one knows slip away from one’s mind. Its function is not to be distracted. It is part of the five object detemining mental events, to be found in: Geshe Rabten, The Mind and its Functions, p. 60-64; H. Guenther, Mind in Buddhist Psychology, p. 29-38; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Understanding the Mind, p. 11-140. 99 Tib. she zhin; Skt. samprajanyam. The mental state in which one examnines and maintains a constant awareness of one’s activities of body, speech and mind. These first two are the very factors used in any mindfulness meditation. Also see, Pabongka Rin- poche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. II, p. 69, note 41. 100 Tib. ngo tsa she pa. This is avoidance of inappropriate actions from making oneself the norm. Also called shame. 101 Tib. trel yö pa. This is avoidance of inappropriate actions from making others the norm [whether it be out of fear for loss of decorum or out of concern for others]. The two last ones are part of the eleven virtuous states of mind, to be found in: Geshe Rabten, The Mind and its Functions, p. 66-73; H. Guenther, Mind in Buddhist Psychology, p. 38-63; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Understanding the Mind, p. 141-177.

78 Lam Rim Teachings be disrespectful to your own vow. That means, you must respect yourself, because you have the vow. And also you respect others, because everybody is a sangha member. Not only that. Everybody has a buddha nature, everybody has his good qualities. And in addition to that, remember everybody is a member of ‘all sentient beings’.

Audience: I was remembering what His Holiness said when he was asked about his feelings towards the Chinese. He said, “Well, we always pray for the benefit of all sentient beings and since there are so many Chinese a lot of our prayers go to the Chinese.” Rimpoche: That is true. Recently I met Stephen Bachelor who told me a joke. When he was studying with Geshe Rabten in Switzerland, he was going through these things and they developed a joke among themselves. When getting irritated by different people, they would say, “Well, we are committed to all sentient beings and you are not all sentient beings, so get out of my way.” (Laughter.)

This is in general what we can use in keeping a vow or in keeping any delusions away from us. We have four mental faculties which will help us to be alert and to be aware; four ways of paying attention, preventing ourselves from being inattentive. But even then you cannot protect yourself completely. You are bound to have some downfalls here and there, so make sure you purify it. Being alert or attentive means you combine all these things. That becomes real alertness. So purification is needed. Persons like us cannot expect to be perfect at all. However, we should protect ourselves from the four root non-virtues plus from over-intoxication; I purposely use the prefix ‘over’. The whole idea of intoxication here is that you lose control. The problem with this is that you always think, “I can control it.” Even if you lose control you still think, “I am in control.” That is a problem, so we have to be aware of that too. And then, any non-virtue that comes on us we should be able to purify as much as possible. That is important.

Human rebirth The traditional Tibetan teachers used to give the example of making a good lunch. For a good lunch you need butter, meat, dairy products, salt, ghee, etc. You need a variety of good quality materials, you cannot make a good lunch with only a little tsampa. Similarly, when we have to provide a good future life we need a lot of different things. Morality is the fundamental base to at least be reborn as a human being. And then being a human being, if you don’t have any wealth at all, that is another problem. So that human life should have some wealth. Otherwise you would be like a coolie on an Indian railway station, whose total property is probably worth less than a dollar and who has only a little piece of cloth to put around underneath, while officially issued a red overcoat. And day and night, twenty-four hours, you are living on the railway station running after every car that passes by, trying to pick up their luggage and carrying tons of loads on your head, running just for a rupee or two and the people scolding you to move faster. So you run and when you have pushed through everything and put the luggage inside the car, you have to argue with the person and he will not give you what you are supposed to get. But also the coolies are bad; if you don’t argue and give them what they ask for, they will still fight with you, saying they want more. That is how their karma works, very funny. And whatever they earn somebody else collects again. All these coolies belong to somebody who issued the red uniforms. So if you become a human being like that, it is almost like not worth being one. So Buddha said that if you don’t have any wealth at all, you won’t have any peace, you can’t have any joy, you can’t even have artificial happiness. So it is necessary to have some kind of wealth. The cause for getting that wealth is generosity. So Buddha recommended generosity as the first act of the bodhisattva. In order to have a dish, you need rice, green vegetables or garlic, tamari, spice etc. Similarly, in order to get a proper human life, you need the foundation of morality as rice and as a green you need a little bit of wealth, which is caused by the generosity, etcetera. You need a variety of things; morality alone is not enough. Therefore the idea, “I’ll do this practice and that is it” will not work. Rice alone doesn’t work as a good dinner.

Warning. Now there is a warning here, a warning against the thought: “We will be vajrayana practitioners, so we will have a method of transforming our anger, hatred, jealousy and especially attachment. We will

Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 79 have a method of transforming those delusions after some time, so let us not worry about it.” That is not right. We may or may not have a method of transforming it and even if we do, we may or may or may not be able to use it. And even if we would be able to use it, it may or may not be able to work. You never know. It is not a scientifically guaranteed working mechanism. It totally depends on the individual’s capacity and so and forth. So, thinking that as we, or a number of us, are vajrayana practitioners and because we will have some kind of transformation at some time we can ignore everything, can create trouble. That is something to be aware of. This is a warning, a red-light warning, really.

Purification – recommended days and times You do have enough background on purification, we have been discussing that again and again.102 It is very important to do purification every evening before going to bed. If you do it through Vajrasattva, your negative karma will not multiply; even though it may not completely purify, it doesn’t multiply. That in itself is a great achievement. Then occasional purifications are also very important. The recommended days are the day of the full moon, the quarters and the new moon. And then Wesach day, the day we celebrate Buddha’s birth, death and enlightenment, is considered very important, too. There are three different Wesach days in this world. I believe that Ceylon, Burma and Thailand use the full moon in May; that is considered more or less the official Wesach day in the world. The Chinese Mahayana have another day. The Tibetans, the Mongolians and the people of Northern India use the full moon day of the fourth lunar month of the Tibetan calendar, which falls somewhere in June. [They call it Saka Dawa.] Then personally, the death anniversary of your own spiritual master is really considered very, very important to the individual. For us, as we follow the Tsongkhapa tradition, the anniversary of Tsongkhapa’s death becomes very important.103

Conclusion on the second practice of the Lamrim: common with the medium level Okay, that is about ‘Common with the medium level’. We emphasized the Four Noble Truths, the Twelve Links of interdependent origination, and out of the Three Higher Trainings of the Mind: the training of the mind in moral discipline, including the warning on the transformation business. Please pay attention to the warning. A lot of people say, “We are vajrayana practitioners, we don’t have to worry about it, we will transform it.” But when you get into the hell realm down there you will know how you transformed. Really, it is a too risky thing, so please, be aware of it.

102 See chapter XII. 103 The 25th of the tenth lunar month of the Tibetan calendar, usually in December.

APPENDICES

Questions and Answers 83 - Chapter XIII: How to Meditate 83 - Chapter XIV: Suffering 84 - Chapter XV: The Creation of Samsara: Karma and Delusions 87 - Chapter XVI: The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 92 - Chapter XVII: Walking the Path to Liberation: Training of Morality 94

Outlines - Basic Lamrim Outlines 99 - Detailed Lamrim Outline 100

Charts - Chart 3: Six Desire Realms 106 - Chart 4: Form- and Formless Realms 107 - Chart 5: The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination 108

Root texts - The Rice Seedling Sutra 109

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Chapter XIII: How to Meditate Audience: (About lying out of politeness and being dishonest to yourself, like saying, “I enjoyed the meal” when you did not at all.) Rimpoche: You yourself said it clearly, ‘to have harmony’. But as I told you: it is bound to be non- virtuous, there is no way you can avoid it. However, what do we do? If the person is going to listen to your remark and is going to improve whatever they are doing, then you should say, “I like it, but in my opinion this, this, this are the problems.” If the person is likely to improve it. If the person is not likely to improve then it is only simply a matter of creating another disharmony or even jealousy or anger, then it is not wanted to say it. In the case of spiritual practice however, you should always criticize, always criticize the point. I mean: if you think something is wrong you should always point it out because the cause is too expensive to the other person. You should point it out. In the spiritual practice you don’t say much, “You are great, you are wonderful.” In other words: don’t butter. Buttering does not help, it does not really help at all and it can also create a lot of problems instead, pride, so and forth. You should always say the critical points. The good points you see, if you want to mention it you mention it, they appreciate it and rejoice. But the wrong points also you always have to show. Particularly among the friends, for that is the purpose of the dharma-friend. But that does not mean you get angry, “So and so said this to me” etc. Then it is not a dharma-community, a sangha-community. And again, the dharma-community discussion, whatever it is, , remains with the dharma, within the dharma-room. Don’t take it outside, do not misuse it outside, it should remain.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: We didn’t even raise the tantric questions just now. Whether you are Buddhist or not is the refuge. Refuge taking is the door to being Buddhist. If you want to be Buddhist, to follow Buddhist practice, then the refuge taking has to influence every practice. Tantric initiation is totally a different matter, for tantra the doorway is initiation. Why tantra [or vajrayana] is important? Because of its quickness. Let us not bring that in here just now.

Audience: Can you say something about how long one sits and has practice every day? Rimpoche: As long as you can and as long as you want to. If you can sit there and practice eight hours I’ll be more than happy (laughs), but if you can do six, two, one, half an hour, whatever.

Audience: Is it possible to have mindfulness for twenty-four hours a day? Rimpoche: Of course it is possible, it is definitely possible. There are four different levels, four mindfulnesses. If you really talk mindfulness properly and go through the whole practice, the whole path from this ordinary level up to the enlightenment level is included in each of the four mindfulnesses. Mindful- ness will become very much possible in every individual when you become developed; it will become. The level of mindfulness will change from level to level; it changes but it remains mindful. Even up to this level, the level we talked, it changes. The meaning of the subject of mindfulness also changes and what you really keep in mind will also change, even at this level. For example: when you have a better 84 Lam Rim Teachings understanding of the importance of life your mind will be full of regret wasting time. If you have developed a proper understanding connected with impermanence and death, then your mindfulness will change from this wasting time. Not only change but it will build up seeking a better development for the future life. In things like that mindfulness goes side by side, up to the ultimate vajrayana or tantric level, where after some time the mindfulness is concentrating on everything as enlightened, all male and female – like Tara – enlightened beings, and all sounds into the mantra. Mindfulness will go into that level totally different, but it does go. It starts from here and it goes up to that level, yes sir.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Subject meditation will bring the spiritual development; the step by step development has to come out of subject meditation. Object meditation is only stabilizing and tranquillizing the mind. The mental stages [of concentrated object-meditation] can bring you up to the seventeenth stage[of the Form Realm]104. But even you reach the top of the seventeenth stage, what would you do? In Maitreya’s Ornament to Clear Realization [Abhisamayalankara] these seventeen stages are talked. The top of the seventeenth stage will bring you a stage of half-recognition, like half your senses are working, half your senses are not working. You remain there a long, long time, eons. This is if you don’t use a subject meditation, but only object meditation; then you reach this level. What happens there after? That is the big question. You go up to the seventeenth stage and reach a sort of ultimate level and then what do you do? You remain there very tranquil for a number of eons, not years but lives, eons. You remain there and after some , time the power of the samadhi, the concentration power – and concentration has a tremendous power, we all know that – gets exhausted and people come back. That is why Buddha recommends to switch over; not going to the seventeenth stage of concentration, but switch over to [subject meditation] when you gain the control, when you gain stability of mind. A stable mind like that we call zhinay [shamatha], you can put the mind wherever you want and as long as you want to. You develop that level. You say, “I’m going to sit and concentrate on this particular point for two hours” and you sit and during these two hours no matter whatever happens you will not be shaken up at all, even a ring of a bell at your ear you won’t hear. At that level it is recommended to switch [to subject meditation], don’t go beyond that [in concentration meditation], because after that you will build up stages and stages and reach the seventeenth stage and then, what else would you do?

Audience: In a practice like that of ourselves, what would it be best to do? Rimpoche: The combination; that is why combination is absolutely necessary. You may do a little bit of object meditation and then you try to find your subject. Subject, object, subject, object, you have to do, in combination. If you don’t do it in combination then you get nothing. If you do the subject-meditation in a combination of analytical and concentrated meditation each one will build up something and you will get it. That is the most recommended way to go.

Chapter XIV: Suffering Formless form sounds funny. In Tibetan that is totally foolish. I don’t say it without reason, but with reason. I give you an interesting story behind it. When in English you say formless form, selfless self, identity and identity-lessness, it makes it some romantic interesting thing you can hide in. What happened is this. The fifth Dalai Lama was a great person, really a great person. Not only he was able to establish a rule over Tibet, gain political power, but he was a great spiritual master and wrote a lot of books. His collective works count twenty-five volumes dealing with all sorts of different things, a great master. His reincarnation, the sixth Dalai Lama, became a wild chap, tremendously wild. So the prime minister of the Dalai Lama’s administration was trying to protect him and they could not, he was so wild. He did not stay in Potala, he ran away into Lhasa city and tried to spend the night with different ladies everywhere. The next day the prime minister tried to send somebody with the money to buy it off. After some time he could not control it any more. Then he said sort of internally: “Whenever the Dalai Lama spends the night, you paint your house yellow the next day.” Then he would send somebody there to pay money

104 See chart 4 on p. 107

Appendices: Questions and Answers 85 or negotiate. So half the city became yellow. At about that time a big rumor went on about whether this was the true reincarnation or not. About that time the Mongolians also attacked Tibet and tried to take the sixth Dalai Lama away; all sorts of things happened. He was hiding in Drepung monastery, the monastery where I belonged to, a monastery with at that time about seven thousand monks. Then the oracle was consulted and oracles are normally referred to as formless. All the incarnate lamas, abbots and monks came together, the oracle went into trance and was told, “Now you have to state here clearly whether this is the true reincarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama or not.” It was so serious, you know. The oracle said, “If he is not the true reincarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama may my head crack into a thousand pieces.” Protectors have this commitment: “If something is so and so may my head crack into a thousand pieces and may I die.” So he said that. One incarnate lama started laughing right in the middle of the serious thing and said, “How can your head crack into a thousand pieces, you don’t have a head, because you are formless. How can formless have a form?” The oracle had no answer and everybody started looking around. So formless form really does not make sense in Tibetan.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: There is difference, definitely. I make a statement: it is a true fact, it will be different, otherwise yesterday would be the same as today. No. Today will not be the same as tomorrow, no, that would be wrong; today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow, they are different. Otherwise the whole principle of the impermanence will be lost. It will be different, true.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Actually some early Indian pandits raised this question. It is a very important question: Why should we always talk the bad part of it? Why can’t we be positive, because if you try to be positive you can develop positive results. Here we are mostly trying to stop the negative. When you stop the negative, the positive automatically develops. Positivity doesn’t need efforts to be put in; the moment you stop the negativity you gain the positivity. Buddha will, according to his experience, even introduce you how the things we consider joyful in samsara, are painful too. He will show you that. Wherever you deal with it, wherever you look into joy, by nature it becomes pain. That is one of the reasons, I believe, you cannot really talk about joy. We don’t have it. I believe so, we really don’t have it. But, as I am telling you, it is very difficult to recognize it as pain. We always make a joke on the nagpas, the people who say mantras, blow things, stop the rain, make the rain fall, start the fire, make a fireball go here and there and so forth. There was a nagpa who had a wife and kids. He always told his family, “For me it is okay, I can go to the Pure Land straightaway, but it is for you that I care. For me it is easy, the moment I feel discomfort here, I can go to the greatest Vajra Pure Land, I can go there straightaway, but it is for you people that I always feel.” One day this man got really badly sick and he was going to die. So his wife and kids said, “Well, for you it is very easy to go, but for us, poor us!” He said, “Well that is true, however I don’t have the power to remain. If I had the power I’d rather choose to remain with you, people, than to go to the Pure Land.” That is an example. He said he would choose to remain here rather than to go to the Pure Land, which is again wrong recognition. The samsaric set-up is in the nature of pain, but he didn’t recognize it. He chose it over the Pure Land, which in other words is not recognizing the pain. So, it is important to recognize.

Audience: (About being complete within the moment.) Rimpoche: Buddhahood is total permanent happiness, you may like to call it oneness or completeness or whatever. You don’t have to go to the buddha-level; even the arhat-level is what you are describing. Below the arhat-level I don’t think there is. You do have an experience here and there, that what I call a spark. The sparks are indications.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: There is no way for me not to identify with death and birth – I change and go – until I am gone beyond [samsara]. The moment I go beyond I will have death and I will have birth, but that death and birth

86 Lam Rim Teachings are different from death and birth we are getting now. It is not unwanted death, it is not unwanted birth; it is choice and selection. If you want to take it, you can take it; and if you don’t want to take it, you don’t have to take it; selected choice of birth and death has come. It cannot be out of individuality, it has to be within the individuality. In other words, what happened to Buddha Sakyamuni when he obtained buddhahood? He was within his individuality. He has gone beyond his individual [existence] controlled by karma and the imprints of karma. Who controls? He controls. The control is gone out of the hands of the delusions and imprints of delusions, is gone into the right karma and is gone into his own choice.

Audience: (About Krishnamurti saying, “You are the world” and Mother Theresa identifying with the cos- mos.) Rimpoche: I do not know what mother Theresa said and what she meant, but I do know what Krishnamurti means by this. When Krishnamurti says “You are the world,” what does that mean? That does not mean you are the world, neither does it mean the world is you. I means: you created a world of your own. That world whatever you created, is your own world. What is this world? It is not the world we look at as world. It is a totally different world. Now if you read the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, in there it is clarified very clearly. It is available in English105. Shariputra, one of the disciples of the Buddha, goes and tells the Buddha, “It is said that Bud- dha’s world is an all pure world and I see you here and this world is not pure, it is a terrible dirty world, how come?” Buddha says, “My world is pure, I created my world and my world is pure. If you like to see it I’ll show you.” Then he put his toe down. When he had put his toe down, Shariputra perceived a totally different world. Now this is the world you created. You are one with this world. Where is this world? This world is wherever that person is. Is that oneness with that [pure] world? No, it is separate from that world. When you become totally enlightened, you create your own total environment, you create your own individual pure land and that very pure land, that very world is yours. You share do it with others but it’s not others’ world, it is your world. Is there any other person in that world? Yes. There a lot of levels come. If you look into the sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya – it is one person – one person goes through the different levels. One buddha has a buddha sambhogakaya and a buddha nirmanakaya, both are one buddha. The sambhogakaya has a totally pure world. You share it with persons, but the persons are extra-ordinary persons only, because only extra-ordinary persons have the power to perceive that world, to hear that world, to use that world, to walk in that world. And no others can. So it is cut there. The nirmanakaya buddha has the pure part and the impure part we all share. This is what happens. So my opinion is: ‘oneness with the world’ is your created world. How does really a person become enlightened? When you become enlightened not only you get a pure body, but you get a pure environment, you get a pure mandala, you get a pure retinue, you get a pure whole thing. Even the whole environment, the whole universe. When we talk about the mandala, , what are we talking about? What is really a mandala? People look at it as a four squared thing, a little better explanation is that a mandala is nothing than an architectural blueprint of some god. No. It is not, really not. It is the particular pure world of oneness with that particular deity or yidam. His or her world is a mandala, there is nothing else separate from the mandala.

Audience: Is this consciousness? Rimpoche: It is a part of consciousness, the mandala is a universe. There is a mountain, there is a tree, there is a house, there are is people going up, there is the road, there is the river flowing, there is the ceme- tery, there is the death, there is the birth, all in there. Audience: It must be a process of passing through consciousness of a human being; it can’t be something separate from where we’re now, it has to be something that roads from where , we’re now. Rimpoche: We can go up to there, we can develop. Are we there? No. Are we linked there? Yes! Are we there? No. Can we reach there? Yes. Can we create it? Yes. Are we connected? Yes. When we say: there is pain here, misery here, problems here, what are we talking about? We are talking for people to create: “Hey, this is the wrong place to be!” Why has Buddha been talking bad, bad, bad

105 The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, a mahayana scripture, transl. Robert Thurman. Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, transl.Charles Luk.

Appendices: Questions and Answers 87 and sad, sad, sad? We want to create the mind that says, “Hey, this is not a good place, it is not the best place to be and there is something beyond that.” What is beyond that? That is really what we are talking about. That is what this pure land is. It is separated from this world. It is not this world. This world will not transform, this world will be destroyed, this world will be burned, this world will be carried away by air, this world will be totally gone and after some time it will be like the moon, left with nothing but ashes.

Audience: (About looking deeper… you just said it: when you look deeper into the suffering…) Rimpoche: Looking deeper does not mean looking into this world. It means: look deeper into your connection with this circle. Even you think something is a great pleasure, a wonderful thing, it is pain, because if you have too much of it your pain is here. If you are cold and there is heat you will say, “Hey wonderful,” you will think it a pleasure but it is not, because when you have too much of it, it will be too hot. That is the suffering of change that Buddha introduced. Why all these bad things? Because then you say, “Hey, this is not the right thing to do and there is something else beyond that to look at.” You cannot look until you build the determination to be free. That is what I mean with the whole thing.

Audience: We can be friends but by nature of samsara ultimately friends are unreliable, unable because of own limitations. Ultimately they can’t help. At the bottom-line of arrival, the point of death, when you really need someone to help, your friend cannot be there. Rimpoche: That is right. At the time when you die, somehow they can’t be there. Or some don’t want to be there. And as a result what happens? That individual left lonely has to suffer, to experience the pain of not having [friends].

Audience: What is compassion in action? Rimpoche: Compassion in action briefly means: the behavior of the individual will force the individual to render service, to help others. This is a big question, to help others, to render service. “I must render service to the poor, do this, do that” is not rendering service for whatsoever. Because “I must do it.” Just because of I, the big ego boosted up. No matter whatever you do, even if you give your life accidentally, and – you’re not going to give it unaccidentally because I must do it – it is not service. Because I am the one that has to do it, I am the committed one, I am the chosen one. That is why it does not work, it just does not work. You have to act without saying me, without even thinking of me and my name and my company or my society or my association or my whatever; without even thinking. Simply the need of the person, simply the need of the being. Totally forgetting your own and you go out; that is service. Where to draw the line is very delicate; it is a very thin line. And certainly not doing anything but talking big talk is totally nothing, we all know that. It is very hard. This is the translation of compassion in action. Since you raised the question, I am sorry to say it, but it is. A person with compassion and a person without compassion, even by touch, by look, are different. Even by seeing it is different. Just the encounter will be different. In the normal sense in the West they will say, “Oh, the energy is great, the energy is different” etc. I do not know what energy it is, but compassion really does make a difference.

Chapter XV: Creation of samsara Audience: (…) Rimpoche: “Work out karma” are the words you used. I said this: In order to create sufferings, in order to create samsaric [experiences], you need these two causes. Every karmic result we experience needs the immediate instigator. If the delusion is not there, no matter how much karma you have, it is not going to give any result at all. That does not mean your karma cannot work out. It is not going to give result, good or bad, pain or joy, pleasure, harmony, whatever. The result, negative or positive, is not going to materialize, because the instigator is not provided. That is the reason why for practical reasons – mark my words, I said for practical reasons and I don’t mean it otherwise! – the delusion is more important than karma. In order to get the suffering result, the delusion is more important. Another reason why it is more important. Say you don’t have any karma at all, but you have delusions. It will create karma immediately. And the continuation will continue. And it makes you to be carried round in samsara. Which means, it makes you continuously hold on to identity.

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Audience: Does karma cause delusion? Rimpoche: Good question. Is delusion result or cause? What do you think? It is actually a cause, really. What we are experiencing, the joys and miseries, are the results actually. Therefore the delusion causes karma, I don’t think karma causes delusion.

Audience: (About the photographs.) Rimpoche: It is so terrible you can’t even look at it – really terrible things. Gelongla106 found some somewhere in Thailand where they use them for monks. They keep a dead body in the water for months and then it is in a sort of terrible stage, blown up. This is recommenced in the Thai tradition; they use it mostly for monks, I don’t think they share it with lay-people.

Audience: (About yelling at and being furious with a child that has run out on the street while a car is coming.) Rimpoche: Is allowed. The example is beating up little monks with the desire of helping; it is allowed because it is not wanting to harm. It may not be allowed by the social workers over here… [discussion on anger. Dharma practice is looking into one’s own anger. , In helping others on anger, the right time and the right place is important] Audience: Anger doesn’t stand on its own. Sadness and layer after layer of hurt feelings are underneath. Somehow you have to let that anger out in a controlled way – like on mattress or boxing-ball – instead of working it out on other persons. Rimpoche: I would not call that anger. That is letting out the frustrations that you built up by anger. It is the impact of the anger that is going out. That is not bad. I don’t think that is getting angry even. I don’t think it is anger at all. If you can let the frustrations out, let them out, that is good. Because you are not getting angry; you just let it go, you scream, yell, shout, beat the mattress or wall. That has no desire of harming.

Audience: If you have the thought “I am going to speak harsh words,” that has created karma in itself, mental karma. But if then you don’t in fact speak the harsh words, you created mental karma but no physical karma. Is my statement correct? Rimpoche: It is. Audience: And is the one category more serious than the other one? Rimpoche: No, just different. Mental karmas are equally heavy.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Karma is definite. Once karma started giving the result, no matter whatever you do, you can’t change it at all. That is the general karmic rule. There are four karmic rules, remember. Now within that there is room to change. Let us say I died and I am to take rebirth into the lower realms and I established and experienced my bardo, a lower realm bardo, even then there is room for me to change. Audience: It would be by the virtue of someone else doing rituals? Can someone else change my karma? Rimpoche: That is not changing the karma. There is room for reconnecting the different karmas, by pray- ing, by your teachers or by a powerful person through a ritual or by the great yidams. That is why we do a lot of these yidam practices and we pray that at the time when the bardo comes, you will meet them there and may they take you…, these sort of things. So even after forming the lower realm bardo you can still change it and the next immediate birth could be different. There is room to change. That is one of the reasons why this forty-nine-day period after death has become important and every seventh day has become important. Because every seventh day there is a small death; the bardowa, the one in the bardo, dies. That is why every seventh day becomes important for the person who died. If in the Tibetan culture somebody dies in the house, you try to indulge in some kind of good activities for forty- nine days and every seventh day has become a special day. If the person passed away on Saturday that is the next Friday. If there is a small death and let us say the deceased had a lower realm bardo, then due to certain prayers etc. it is possible to influence and change that and then if the bardowa is reborn, it may be a different bardo. So there is room. Not necessarily everybody will spend forty-nine days in the bardo. But it

106 Late Gelong Thubten Chöpel

Appendices: Questions and Answers 89 is necessary to have a bardo. The bardo could be as short as a snap of the fingers or bardo could be forty- nine days; not more than forty-nine, not shorter than the 75th part of one second.

Audience: I heard with the limitless heinous crimes there would be no bardo at all. Rimpoche: Always there is a bardo. Audience: Even with the unshakable karma there is a bardo? Rimpoche: Yes, there is a gzugs med bardo, formless bardo there, but that bardo is not interchangeable with other bardos. Audience: What about these five limitless crimes? Rimpoche: Well, technically there is a bardo. Sometimes they say there is not even time to have a bardo, one goes straightway to hell. That’s a forceful way of presenting it, but technically there is.

Audience: Is the state of samadhi the only way to connect with unshakable karma? Rimpoche: These big long sitting meditations, dhyanis, bring those things; it is the result of these long sitting meditations. Audience: Do you have to die in samadhi to connect with the unshakable karma? Rimpoche: No. The person has a very strong samadhi karma and when that person dies, then the result of those samadhis will give you good result. It has to give good result, because it is good work, but it doesn’t take you out of samsara. It will give you a very high hierarchy birth in samsara.

Audience: (Discussion on bodhicitta or the altruistic mind.) It is the motivation for the action that transforms the action into a cause for enlightenment. You gave the example of giving food to an animal. If you are a selfish person and give food to an animal, that action does not lead to the result of enlightenment, but if you are a bodhisattva and you did exactly the same thing, that action could be a cause leading to the result of enlightenment; it is the motivation, the mind that perceives, the reason you do it – bodhicitta – that determines it. Rimpoche: Maitreya’s Ornament to Clear Realization [Abhisamayalankara] says, “Bodhicitta is seeking enlightenment for the others.”

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: You gave a heart-answer. That is far better than a technical answer. Forget about the perfect view, we don’t know yet. If we have the influence of this determination to be free or the bodhimind or both, then whatever we do, -generosity, meditation etc.-, whatever karma we create with this influence, will completely change the category of the karma. It will neither become unfortunate karma nor fortunate karma nor unshakable karma. It is going to be karma that brings you to liberation. Now you see how important these three principles of the path are.

Audience: Is there a name for that karma, like karma of liberation? Rimpoche: No. It says leading out of samsara. But if there is no influence of either of the three, then you can chant, sing, breathe, do whatever you do, it will lead you nowhere, it becomes a samsaric cause. You do generosity, you give whatever you have, share everything, it will lead you to another samsaric life. The key is the three principles. Now you begin to see it is so important and so relevant to one’s life.

Audience: If you have bodhicitta and not emptiness, do you create causes for out of samsara? Rimpoche: Yes. If you have the influence of bodhicitta, no matter whatever you do, any virtuous work, will lead to enlightenment. The moment you have the influence of bodhicitta, anything whatever you do, any karma will become a direct cause for enlightenment. In other words, if you are depositing that karma in the bank, in what account will you deposit it? In the account for enlightenment; it will go in that.

Audience: What is the aiding influence of emptiness then? Rimpoche: Aiding of the emptiness will directly cutting the samsara root.

Audience: If you have emptiness without the altruistic intention, can it be a cause for enlightenment?

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Rimpoche: No. Then you go to the arhat-level. You go out of samsara, for sure. It becomes a cause to become an arhat. That is what we call the ordinary-enlightenment stage. If you divide the three yanas, the sravaka-yana, the pratyekabuddha-yana, the bodhisattva-yana, the first two also have the no-more- learning path; that is called arhat. So each one of them leads you out of samsara.

Audience: At the moment of death is it the collection of all your actions throughout all incarnations [that will influence your rebirth]? Rimpoche: Yes. What will happen is this. The fresher ones are closer to you, so they are likely to be more powerful and among them the perfect ones, the completed karmas, are much more powerful.

Audience: That mind immediately before death you were talking about, is that when the elements are dissolving? Rimpoche: After the elements have gone and ultimately the last-moment energy is dissolving into the consciousness, about that period. When you get the feeling of darknesses, the actual dying stage has started already. It could last very long, it could be a short period. The darkness stage is the actual dying stage. So the connection is a little before that. The more and more you are dissolving in it, the more and more the gross body is giving up and things become more and more subtle. The more subtle it becomes, the weaker the mind is, yet it is clear too. It is clear but also weaker. So any influence coming is easier to be put in and after some time will be carried over. Because the mind will be so subtle that it will not have much restric- tions and selections, whatever suggestions come up about the end, are most likely to go through.

Audience: Are we talking about the three days I may be actually dead but before I enter the bardo? Rimpoche: Where did you get the three day picture? Audience: From some of the books I read. Rimpoche: Be careful with what you read. You are dead when you died. What is death? I do not know whether the heartbeat stopping or the brain waves stopping is death or not, but what really death is, is the separation of this body and the mind, the consciousness no longer being feasible in a particular body; when you have to leave the body, then it is really death. Whether brain death or clinical death I don’t know, but it is really when the mind leaves the body.

Audience: The influences that cause the selection to take place can be from the outside as well? Rimpoche: Yes definitely. Audience: So if somebody is sitting next to you when you are dying and reading to you the Tibetan book of the dead, is doing practices in your presence, can it help? Rimpoche: Well, I am not very sure about the Tibetan book of the dead. Good thoughts, meditating on love-compassion, bodhimind, emptiness or refuge or remembering yidams or spiritual masters, saying mantras, if you go within that sort of things, it helps. Somehow there is some kind of influence. Even if you can’t send the garlic, you can put the garlic smell. Actual bodhicitta might not be developed, but some influence is there and that will help, tremendously help actually.

Audience: A lot of [dying] people get drugged. Does it affect the capacity to be clear at that moment? Rimpoche: Well, you can’t be really clear; when you are dying you get these hallucinations, your mind is not very clear, you are losing control.

Audience: Where does it come from? Rimpoche: It is your karma, definitely. This is what is happening, but it is your illusionary view. You experience that. In some bardos you may be staying in nice little places too, visit your old home, try to talk to your old friends, yet they won’t acknowledge you, you try to sit on the table and they won’t serve you. So in some cultures, for example in Bhutan, they put an extra plate [for the deceased].

Audience: What about feelings and thoughts you have, getting angry and so forth, are they karma? Rimpoche: When you are very angry in the bardo, you die. You can’t take emotions, that is why bardo has so many small deaths. We say every seventh day they die, but that is the maximum they can live. Bar-

Appendices: Questions and Answers 91 dowas could have a thousand different deaths. With every emotion that takes over, they get a shock and die. And it doesn’t serve any purpose.

Audience: (Some discussion on ghosts.) Rimpoche: There are ghosts around; your ghost and my ghost too. Ghosts are ghost-realm people. We call them simultaneously born spirits; they are not me, they are my ghost. Who do mediums or channeling people speak to? The simultaneously-born spirits. In other words, at the time we take our incarnation there can be other conversions of us incarnated in other realms; those can be contacted by channels and mediums. Audience: Is that like out-of-body travel? Rimpoche: No, definitely not. A simultaneously-born spirit is a completely different being who assumes your identity. They hang around you, take shelter under you. You can have more then one, a lot of them. They identify themselves with you; they borrow your identity. When mediums contact your dead relatives, they contact the ghosts of your dead relatives. There is no mixture of theirs and your karma. As the human life is so valuable and many of them could not get a human life but got a hungry-ghost life, they take shelter under a human life. They are not bardowas. A problem is that they don’t die when you die. They have a little longer life-span, a couple of hundred years more. They may have karmic deals with you, like you and I have, but whatever you do is your karma and their karma is their karma; the karmas don’t get mixed up. Some ghosts can definitely read your mind, some cannot. I have a lot of dealings with ghosts, so I know. If you categorize them they fall under the hungry ghost realm. Audience: Can they influence your life? Rimpoche: I don’t think they get involved in anything physically. Sometimes if you are too low, they may enter your body, but that is a very, very rare case. The channeling people I think get them in. Audience: Do they leave the bardo at the same time you leave the bardo? Rimpoche: Yes. They take rebirth as a ghost with you, that is why they are called simultaneously born. You don’t cross a path with them, you cross a life. Some of them like me, some hate me, doesn’t matter, I am not afraid of them, I am good at destroying them. Audience: Why would you need to destroy them? Rimpoche: Well, if they don’t behave; these so-called ghosts and gods cannot be spoiled, you have to control them, really. If you don’t control them, they do all sorts of funny things. I am not bad in controlling them, really. More or less when you see somebody that looks physically or sounds like the dead person, according to Song Rinpoche, almost ninety percent you can be sure it is a simultaneously born ghost rather than the individual person. They assume your identity because they have no identity.

Audience: I can understand how your karma propels you to take rebirth in a particular realm, but how does your karma make you take rebirth to a particular set of parents? Rimpoche: There is a lot of activity involved. Both parents have to have the relation to that particular being, to you, and if not it is not possible to get stuck there. Audience: It is not volitional at your part? You don’t have any choice? Rimpoche: No. Why you don’t have choice? By the time you see what is happening you are out of control; that is why you have no choice. You don’t see it and you get at the right time to the right place and the right persons you have a karmic relation with. It is common karma of these persons. If you don’t have the karma, there is no karmic connection; if there is a karmic connection but you cannot link to the karmic connection, sometimes you can’t see it; sometimes even you see it, you can’t get stuck there, but you die and are reborn as another bardowa. That is what happens. That is how you get into it.

Audience: Is there no hope for overcoming [doubt]? Rimpoche: Yes you can but then the person has to be very hard, because everything he will be doubting, thinking it is an intelligent way of handling. And actually it is not.

Audience: Aren’t buddhas and bodhisattvas incapable of disliking? Rimpoche: That is a tricky question. The delusions make the person behave a certain way, the behavior of the individual person could cause dislike. Audience: I thought they are beyond aversion.

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Rimpoche: They are beyond attachment and anger – buddhas particularly, not necessarily all bodhisattvas. However, they have likes and dislikes, why not? I don’t think they make a division among the sentient beings, making some people close and some distant. However, we have a saying in Tibetan: ‘They are not don- keys’. You don’t understand? If you have a handful of gold-dust and a handful of sand-dust and you pour it in the donkey’s ear, the donkey will shake his ear, whether gold or sand. [Further discussion: buddhas and bodhisattvas are not committed to liberate all, are committed to try to liberate all sentient beings.]

What is bardo or intermediate stage? Aura: It is the stage the consciousness goes through after the death experience, in which you take on a formless form that reflects your future incarnation, is a period of time where you have tremendous ‘magical powers’, like wherever your mind is you body is, so you travel all over the universe as your mind travels around. You can see everything and there is no limitation of the physical world and a lot of times you might hang around on places you have a particular attachment to. You can’t be seen or experienced in those places, but essentially you do a tremendous amount of traveling around depending on your mental activity, your mind moving you from place to place as there is no separation between mind and body. Then at times you have small shocks. If you are in the bardo for this forty-nine days period you experience small shocks, creating a death experience, you die and come back again and are still in the bardo. Or that shock may be rebirth; that is one of these shocks too. When they give the idea of forty-nine days they are talking in relative terms.

What happens at the time of death? For us, in the Buddhist philosophy, the consciousness is at the heart- level. Now at the actual time of death you do get a black-out; that has to do with the essence of the drops you have obtained from your parents. The white ‘genes’ or semen from the father, which has the size of half a sesame-seed, is as the source of all our ‘genes’ at the crown-level. And the drop, also half a sesame- seed size, coming from the mother, is as the source of red ‘genes’ or blood at the navel-level. The central channel is straight. While we are in life those are separated, because there is a knot on the central channel and that holds it separate. One of the practices is to try to release that knot, but the actual release comes at the death period. What happens? This semen, that is separated by nature, starts running up and down; the red semen runs up, the white semen runs down, so the consciousness is sort of caught in that and that is why you get the black-out. You see the reddish [vision], the whitish one and then you get the black-out. When you get the black-out, you get suffocated and you want to go out. When you’re going out this time, you are really going out. This [suffocation] is why you want to leave the body and go, the desire of getting out will come that way.

Chapter XVI: The Twelve links of Interdependent Origination Audience: Is being in a state of samadhi creating virtue or is it not virtue by nature? Rimpoche: It is virtue by nature; it could be unshakable or it could be fortunate karma. There is no influence of the three principles of the path, therefore all these virtues do not throw you out of samsara, they keep you within it. It is good virtue, no doubt, so it gives you a vacation.

Audience: So you are creating virtue but not merit? Rimpoche: No. It is merit, but it does not take you out of samsara. I do not know what is the difference between virtue and merit.

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: It is not dying in samadhi. As a result of samadhi you’ll be up there. Audience: In the twelve links birth and death comes at the end, so who is the being that creates karma here? Rimpoche: The twelve links are never completed in one life. Each karma, each life-giving karma, carries twelve links, but the twelve links are never completed in one life. It completes in two lives or more. Audience: I am still looking for the link. Because we have ignorance, therefore we create karma. Because we create karma, we have imprints on the consciousness. That is it? Rimpoche: That is it. Then when you leave the imprint on the consciousness, it is causal consciousness. Then when that gives a result, the ripened fruit, it is the result consciousness. But other links will come be-

Appendices: Questions and Answers 93 tween the causal consciousness and the result consciousness. A bridge has to be built in between.

Audience: What is the difference between the base or seed that is mentioned as the number one of the six causes or contributing factors of the delusions, the number two of the twelve links, duje, and this one, number three of the twelve links? Rimpoche: The imprint of number three is bagchag107. That imprint – the subtle thing what is left on the consciousness after the work is done – will become later the base or seed or tendency mentioned as the first one of the six causes of delusions. The moment you leave something on your consciousness, you leave the imprint and that will become a seed, that will develop as a tendency.

Audience: Is the time-distance between causal consciousness and result consciousness a lifetime? Rimpoche: Sure, it has to be. It could be many lives too. Audience: You mean you can leave off this karma in one life and pick it up in another? Rimpoche: O yeah, sure. That is why it is a problem. You leave the tendency and it may connect or it may not connect for a long time. Audience: Did you say it has to be a gap of a life-time? Rimpoche: It has to be, naturally. Audience: There is no instant-karma? Rimpoche: Well, I know instant-coffee. Audience: Can’t you rape the result of karma you created in this life, within this life-time? Rimpoche: Excuse me. We are talking about life-giving karma here, you must not forget, it was already asked. The basic principle we are talking here is how we came into the samsaric life; please pay attention. You may do something here today and you may get the result tomorrow; each karma is not necessarily a life-giving karma. We must not take teachings out of the context, you know, which people easily do. You have to take it within the whole context. We are talking here about the whole of samsaric life, how it starts. There is linkage of twelve in that. We link the creation of a karma from the ignorance to the end of one karmic result. That may be linked up in circles of different lives. And each of those karmas has its own circle. In between there may be two or three things together here, previous things going round, who knows?

Audience: Could you talk a little more on link four: name and form? Brenda: It talks about the fact that in the womb the minute chap is developing a little consciousness, begins to understand and know there is something outside of the self; that will be name. It does not mean it will know what the name of the thing is, but the fact that there is something different from what there is developing. And form is the physical part, the idea of perceiving the thing, not yet the six senses, just the very beginning. So the name is the mental part of the perception of something other than the Developing foetus, and the form is the physical notion that there is something out there. But at this level of the twelve links there is no touching of it. There is not even the glimpse of the mental faculties in terms of eye consciousness etc. It is just like the pre-disposition to know that there is something other than the self. There is a beautiful description of it in one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s books, I believe in his Myth of Freedom. It is the notion of a grain of sand on the beach that notices there are other grains of sands; that is a nice little metaphor for this very pre-level of knowing there is something else out there.

Audience: What is the difference between eight and nine? You see something that you want and you get it first and then you get attached? Rimpoche: No, you already have good and bad feelings at link seven. You don’t want to let the pleasurable feelings go away from you and neither you want the bad feelings, feelings of suffering and pain, come in; that is number eight. Number nine: you sort of develop a lot of desire to have the comfort, really going down to get it; also you have strong attachment to the wrong views, wrong morality etc.

On emptiness Audience: (…)

107 Transliteration: b’ag-ch’ag (potential power). Geshe Ngawang Dhargey, Tibetan tradition of mental development, p. 101.

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Rimpoche: A phenomenon has no inherent existence, but we perceive it as sort of inherently existing. That is why Thurman during a lecture drew on the blackboard an A and calling it ‘something with a long nose’. You know there is no A; it is only the combination of the left line and the right line and the linking one; just on this combination you draw an A. If one of them is missing it won’t be an A, if you put the lining line underneath it becomes a triangle etc. This shows that it is made up, that t is only the combination which produces the A. If there would be an inherent A, then if you would take the parts out one by one, you would still have an A; but you don’t. That is the clear sign [that it doesn’t exist from its own side.] But is you lose the relative A you are lost, you become crazy, illiterate. So the relative A should be able to serve the purpose of A and the absolute A doesn’t exist, which doesn’t matter. If you have this sort of understanding, even artificially, then any good work you do, generosity, enthusiasm, prostrations, mandala offerings, saying mantras, helping people, cutting the ignorance or making it weak, getting away from attachment, anger, and jealousy, all of these become absolute merit. Íf you have the ‘A with the long nose’ [i.e. if you understand the lack of inherent existence of all phenomena].

Audience: (…) Rimpoche: Indulging yourself in both, method and wisdom, is how you are led to it. In other words: you will find out the meaning of what really shunyata or emptiness is, you concentrate on that and that concentration will lead you. But concentration alone won’t do, you have to be a lucky person, otherwise you can’t do it. If you are an unlucky person, no matter how much opportunity is provided, you blow it. In order to become lucky you need accumulation of merit. When you have accumulated the relative merit, it backs you up, a lot of other things are put together and then your searching for the truth will really work. That is how you are actually searching for the truth in a meditative way.

Chapter XVII: The Training of Morality Discussion Rimpoche: What does morality mean? Audience: Morality is keeping one’s vows and commitments. It is the observance and maintenance of the ten virtuous actions and avoidance of the ten non-virtuous actions and the maintenance of vows and commitments that individuals have in addition. That is the base of the morality.

Audience: (On honoring your vows and commitments.) Rimpoche: You made a semi-intellectual statement. Honoring your commitments. Yes. Are all commitments vows? That is another question. Audience: I thought about what you told us in the retreat on what is the difference between vow and commitment: a vow being something of the nature of life, which will grow within you and a commitment being a guideline that will help one to keep the vow from becoming damaged. Rimpoche: My problem is that I sometimes use too simple words to try to get some kind of idea across. That gets me in difficulties sometimes, because afterwards they quote me back. Again here on the vow. There are two points on this. Vows and commitments. You know, traditionally there are four Buddhist schools [of tenets]. Two and a half school will say that a vow is something ‘physical’ which grows within you, so they use words as ‘breaking the vows’ and speak in terms of some sort of physical, even tangible shape. As Buddha said [honoring your vows] is the base of all development, they try to get the idea of base across by using words like food bowls; when you pour something into it, it can crack or break. That sort of picture is given by these lower schools. The higher schools will tell you it is not tangible, nothing shaped, nothing of that sort, but something which grows within the individual. Commitment is commitment.

Audience 1: You said morality means watching your mind. I have a practically based question. I sometimes find that I can watch my mind really clearly and still I can see myself doing a lot of things that don’t make me very happy. It seems to me there is a step missing in here, a real practical step that is in between watching your mind and changing your actions. And it is the linking between those two [I miss]. I can see myself doing things or acting things or thinking things or saying things and I know it is non- virtuous, getting angry for example, and yet even though I know it, and even though I am aware of it, and

Appendices: Questions and Answers 95 even though I see how I am in and I don’t want to be in, there is a step that is not letting me go from there to the stage of really acting differently. Rimpoche: Good.

Audience 1: You said, “Watch your mind and you’re going to act differently.” Rimpoche: I did not say that; this is a problem with you. I said: Watching your mind is morality. I did not say ‘act’ thereafter. We are talking about basic morality: watching the mind is becoming morality, is the basis of morality. Full stop. Don’t put any implications. Yes, you do have a problem, everybody has that problem. We haven’t talked that yet, we didn’t give the linkage. The linkage will come when we talk about wisdom. Here we have introduced: this is morality. And we leave it there. What you are doing is jumping a step ahead. You said it is a practical problem. Sure it is a practical problem. But it is also a practical problem for a lot of people to even watch it and see the wrong things. A lot of people can’t even watch it. They are not aware of it or they don’t like to watch it. Some people may not be aware of it at all and some people may be aware of it but don’t like to pay attention to it. Now you are jumping a step ahead: “Okay, I watch it, I recognize it, I want to switch it but I can’t switch it, I can see it is going round but there is a missing piece.” Sure there is a missing piece, no doubt about it. We have to find where the piece is. That is the mystery of the Tibetan Buddhism (laughs). We have to solve the mystery.

Audience: (discussion on the technique being to change the baggage into luggage.) Rimpoche: We have a saying in the Tibetan tradition that the monks hear every day: Whatever you have to do, don’t make it something you have to carry, Make it your decoration, your ornament. This is probably the way to look at it, not as baggage, but as luggage. But when you see that watching is the base, when you see what is going wrong, you already know you have to change. So, what to change? What do you actually change?

Audience 1: You can change how you act and you can change how you think. Rimpoche: Earlier you said, “I see it is wrong I can’t change it, I can’t find the missing piece” and now you are giving the key to yourself, but still you tell me it is missing.

Audience 1: I guess I want to know how. Rimpoche: Is there an easy way? Maybe not. It is difficult. To new studygroup-people we often talk about changing our habitual patterns. Where do you apply that? Over here.

Audience 2: (Remarks on positive thinkers in the audience.) Rimpoche: The positive attitude will work for things like that: changing the baggage into luggage. That is really what it is. We talk about changing our habitual patterns. We even tell the new people of the study- groups: changing your habitual pattern is not easy. We even go to the extent of saying that it is swimming against the current. I said that, right? And I am sure probably all of you will say that. Swimming against the current is not going to be easy, we know that. You can manage when you are well, but it is not easy.

Audience 3: Rimpoche, I keep asking myself the question: Why am I doing this? Rimpoche: Do you need to know why? There is no reason. You always do that way because you are used to it. If you search for a reason, probably there is none. If you have some reason, maybe it is not a valid reason. Maybe you find some excuse, but you are not going to find a reasoning there. Habitual patterns do not have any valid reasons. It is a habitual pattern, you do it, you like to do it, you know it is wrong but you are still doing it.

Audience 3: And even if it causes pain you still do it. Rimpoche: Because it is a habitual pattern. We haven’t learned how to look the other way round. Sam- saric events are caused by delusions. If you keep on digging, digging, finally it leads to delusions.

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Audience 4: I think the things that come up in terms of reason, are not likely to be a good reason or a rational reason. The aim in therapy is that you find what the feelings are that are being satisfied by that behavior. In that behavior there is something you desire, even though you know you are not getting what you want. Sometimes it helps to identify what that need is and find there are better ways to take care of that. That is something you can do by self-examination or in therapy: “The reason I do this is because there is some emotional need.” Once I recognize that, I can find more productive or healthier ways to take care of it while not harming other people. That sense of “Why do I do this?” I think, does help to make the changes. Rimpoche: Ah. That is very good, actually really very good. That is a thing we should pay attention to and get into. I think this will really incorporate very well in it. You gave a very good suggestion. It is true; there is some need. The need is there, really deeply, because our desire is there. If you dig and find the need and you stop there, you have one point. If you still go beyond that, “Why is this need coming up?” then you’re going beyond again. That is a good point, very good. That is really how the delusions are working with us. It is interwoven: the delusions and their effects on the individual.

Audience 5: (About no representations of the Buddha with shaven head; all representations are with ushnisha and the monks have shaven heads) Rimpoche: Are you sure Buddha was a monk? Audience: No. Rimpoche: Good, there you go. If you tell Buddha is not a monk, everybody will laugh at you. Buddha is a monk. The sangha are the other followers of the Buddha. That story is totally different. Today when they become a bikshu they have certain rules and rituals to do. Earlier in Buddha’s time Buddha said: ‘Come here’ and that was it; that made a full-fledged bikshu, and that became a vow. That is ordination, that is initiation, that is full-fledged.

Audience: The scriptures say that in those days the hair and beard of the virtuous ones would just fall out. Rimpoche: No, it did not say that. They had to cut it. That also became a funny rule. They used to keep long hair. Then something was going wrong in the public places and they said: Oh, these are the followers of the Buddha. Then they had to have some idea and said, “Alright, Buddha said to shave the hair off.” So everybody cut their hair off. Then the rule came: you cannot keep your hair longer than this much. Even in the protection for sexual misconduct, for every different incident that came up they went to the Buddha and he said, “This is the first time, let’s examine this, from now on you can’t do this…” This is exactly how every single rule of those 253 [for full-fledged monks] or 364 [for nuns] developed.

Audience: (About the ease being protected by vows and the need of it being tested in ordinary daily life.) Rimpoche: Do you want to know my true feeling about it? Yes, it is true they need that, but if you give the test, ninety-eight percent will fail. Don’t misunderstand me; I am not criticizing. Actually, the pratimoksha vows and particularly the monks’ and nuns’ vows are considered as a fundamental basis of the Buddhist practice. So don’t misunderstand me about what I am going to say! I think it is not suitable for the twentieth century practice. Not at all, unless you are willing to live the rest of your live you’re going locked in the forest or a sort of retreat area… Don’t think of a retreat in our American sense. Our sense of retreat is that everybody goes in some area where you are not involved in the normal daily activities, have some nice food, some good environment and meditate a little bit. This particular retreat I am talking about is: you retreat yourself completely out of the world, you are not in there, you are just surviving on physical needs of food, clothes and shelter, and not having any contact with anybody – no talking, no listening, completely excommunicated of the general society.

Audience: Are you saying that earlier people, say in the nineteenth century, who were practicing that sort of restricted lifestyle with the benefit of the vows, if they would come back in society they would not have failed? Rimpoche: I would not say nineteenth century. I would go back to the 10th or 11th century. I think then it was a little easier. I don’t know, may not be. That is why it is very rare and only a very small percentage, and maybe only even two percent of all whoever tried, may have been able to survive too. That is why in

Appendices: Questions and Answers 97 the Buddhist tradition you have a very strong respect for the monks. In Tibet we had too many monks, maybe three quarters of the population, so we didn’t respect that much,

Audience: I don’t mean this as disrespect for monasticism, but I don’t understand. If that is really the case what does that say about the method working? Rimpoche: I think the method is working, because you completely and forcefully cut off the conditions for the delusions to rise. During whatever time you pass there, at least you are not accumulating any more non-virtues. And in that period you are building up a different habitual way of working forcefully. The longer you go the better it may become for you. In that way it works. That is my simple straightforward way of looking, not bringing the mystical part of it in the picture.

Audience: What about maintaining that vows, seeing what is possible and then be able to take it into the world and really develop the strength to be aware and to deal with everything in life, in any situation? Rimpoche: You will never be able to do it in any situation unless you really fully changed your habit. Then you can go down into the red-light area or whatever and nothing will happen. That is one way of enforcing discipline. Now, another way is: looking into it and trying to change reasonably whatever we can by falling, getting up, walking across, falling, getting up, walking across, falling, walking across, completely not falling, fall again, walk, fall, walk, fall, walk, fall, walk. That is the way we go and move and move and move on. Because of falling and then again continuing, we have the purification coming in.

Audience: (About thinking afterwards and recognizing you’re doing something bad, recognizing that it is causing karma, that it is going to cause you suffering unless you do some kind of purification.) Rimpoche: Yes. Our problem is to recognize it first.

Audience: (About feeling that non-virtue is depriving you of something, realizing it is not for your benefit.) Rimpoche: Depriving is not a good thing to do; you have to really look in that way. Depriving yourself to do anything, good or bad, is not positive, it is not in your vocabulary. Even you do something good, with the attitude and thought of depriving yourself, you will create another problem, so it is not good. There is no reason why you have to deprive. Whatever you do, you have to do with thinking; don’t let it go without thinking, without knowing what you are doing. I think it comes to that point.

Audience: What are lay pratimoksha vows and is that important for us? Rimpoche: If you have the bodhisattva vow, you have a higher vow actually than the pratimoksha [or morality] vow. The bodhisattva vow and the vajrayana vow are from the vow point of view higher and more important. But still you can take the pratimoksha vow, the lay vow, it is there. There are several different lay vows which are known as ge-nyen (Tibetan) or upasaka (Sanskrit). I think there are eight different types. I forgot. One of those even wears a total monk robe.

Audience: (Discussion on sexuality rules in these vows.) Is there any real benefit in having those vows in addition to bodhisattva vows? Rimpoche: I am sure there is, but I don’t know exactly what, really. Maybe sometimes there are some differences in the things that you are not supposed to do. I am sure they are quite different on the sexual misconduct. And in drinking alcohol too I think there is some difference. Ge-nyen are not supposed to drink but a lot of them drink, saying they are managing that. I don’t know whether you can or not, but people do that, these days, managing the alcohol. I really don’t think it is allowed in the rules.

Audience: (Some discussion on sex.) Rimpoche: Well, I paid no attention for a long time, but I began to open my vinaya, bodhisattva and vajrayana rules again, looked and it is very, very funny. Sometimes you find certain important points, what you call punch-lines. And what I found as punch-line on sexual misconduct, is: sexually hurting other people. But the books take completely for granted people observe that and then go on top of that: full moon day, this or that place, a very long listing on top. But those long listings overlook the hurting other

98 Lam Rim Teachings people, which is the fundamental basis of sexual misconduct Audience: (Discussion on adultery.) Rimpoche: The hurting is the very important point.

Rimpoche: I found very recently two or three punch-lines like this. I was looking through some old books which I memorized completely a number of years ago, probably when I was seven or eight. I completely forgot about it and now I started looking back I found a punch-line on suffering, completely by coinci- dence. I like to share that. It says, “It is suffering, because you have no freedom.” Isn’t that funny? Be- cause you have no freedom it is suffering. I mean, the word suffering maybe wrong. They are not talking about pains and problems like shortages you have, but it is simply talking about: you are not totally free. There are a lot of important punch-lines you can discover sometimes. I am happy to have found that. I memorized that when I was six or seven, never found it. When I closed the book and started saying it, the words came on my mouth tip: “You have no freedom so you are under control of somebody else.” Audience: Delusions? Rimpoche: Come on! Somebody else can be delusions, can be karma, it does not have to be another person! It does not matter whether you are controlled by a robot, or controlled by a machine or controlled by another person; it doesn’t matter, you are controlled. You have no freedom, you can’t go, you can’t move. Isn’t that important? Audience: (Remark about zen having only the punch-lines.)

Audience: Can you commit non-virtues in dreams? Rimpoche: No. You can’t do anything in dreams. You have no control in acting and therefore no effects.

BASIC LAMRIM OUTLINES

Lamrim is: the complete Mahayana dharma system that leads the fortunate person to enlightenment the path re-opened and reconfirmed by the great masters Nagarjuna and Asanga the essence of the heart practice of the great Atisha and Tsongkhapa the container of the essence of all teachings of the Buddha, laid out in order and easy to follow

I. Quality of the source II. Quality of the teachings III. How to listen and how to teach IV. How to practice: actual methods for spiritual development A. The root of all development [foundation of the path]: WHOLEHEARTED COMMITMENT TO A SPIRITUAL GUIDE B. How to train the mind from that development basis: 1. Taking the essence out of life: PRECIOUS HUMAN LIFE: EMBRACING OUR LIFE 2. How to take the essence out of life: a. Training common with the lower level: seeking happiness for the future life How to develop the motivation CONTEMPLATING DEATH CONTEMPLATING THE SUFFERINGS OF THE LOWER REALMS Actual method to obtain happiness in future life: TAKING REFUGE TO BUDDHA, DHARMA AND SANGHA DEVELOPING FAITH IN THE LAW OF KARMA b. Training common with the medium level: seeking liberation How to develop the motivation CONTEMPLATING THE SUFFERINGS OF SAMSARA Actual method to get liberated SEEING THE CREATION OF SAMSARA: KARMA AND DELUSIONS WALKING THE PATH TO LIBERATION c. Training on the Mahayana path, highest level: aspiration to enlightenment How to develop the motivation DEVELOPING THE AWAKENING MIND [bodhicitta] Actual method to become enlightened: TRAINING IN THE PARAMITAS THE UNBIASED OUTLOOK ON REALITY [shunyata] 100 Lam Rim Teachings

DETAILED LAMRIM OUTLINES

Lamrim is: The sublime Mahayana teaching, the complete dharma system that leads the fortunate to enlightenment. It is re-opened and reconfirmed by the great maha-pandits Nagarjuna and Asanga. It is a profound teaching containing the essence of the wisdom of the great Atisha and the Dharma king of the three worlds, Je Tsongkhapa. In this the eighty-four thousand teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha without exception have been concentrated into a graduate practice that enables any individual to achieve enlightenment. This is the one path all the buddhas have taught.

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I. Quality of the source: presentation of the outstanding development of the Lamrim masters, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this teaching tradition A. Buddha 1. Qualities of a Buddha 2. The Life of Sakyamuni Buddha B. The lineages from Buddha to Atisha 1. The Indian Masters 2. Atisha’s life story a. Where and how Atisha was born b. The qualities that Atisha developed during his lifetime c. After developing those qualities what service Atisha gave i. in India ii. in Tibet C. The Lamrim lineage 1. The lives of the Kadampa masters 2 The life of Je Tsongkhapa 3. The Lamrim lineage masters from Tsongkhapa onwards via Pabongka Rinpoche, Kyabje Trijang and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche to Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche.

II. Quality of the teachings: the presentation of the exceptional qualities of the Lamrim teachings in order to generate appreciation A. Four main qualities of Lamrim 1. All the teachings are realized to be free of contradiction 2. All the teachings are recognized as personal instruction 3. The Conqueror's underlying thought is easily comprehended 4. Harmful behaviors will stop B. Three additional qualities of Lamrim 1. It is the essence of all the Buddha’s teachings, with nothing left out 2. Lamrim is laid out in such a way that it is easy to practice 3. It brings together all the Buddhist traditions

III. How to listen to and how to teach the dharma, that has these two qualities [of source and teaching] A. How to listen to the dharma 1. Thinking of the benefits of listening to and studying the dharma 2. Generating respect for the dharma and the dharma teacher 3. Avoiding the three faults of listening and studying 4. Cultivating the six helpful attitudes B. How to teach the dharma 1. Thinking of the benefits of giving the teachings 2. Being respectful to the Master and the dharma 3. Developing proper thoughts and actions 4. Knowing whom to teach and whom not to teach

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IV. How to practice; actual methods for spiritual development A. The root of the path – wholehearted commitment to a spiritual guide 1. What to do during meditation periods a. Preliminary activities: the six preliminaries i. Creating the environment 1) Cleaning the place 2) Stetting up the altar ii. Preparing the offerings 1) Laying out the offerings 2) Blessing the offerings iii. Correcting the motivation 1) Taking a comfortable meditation seat 2) Taking a comfortable meditation posture 3) Creating mental space 4) Generating the right motivation 5) Visualizing the objects of refuge and taking refuge 6) Generating the bodhimind [bodhicitta] 7) Enhancing the bodhimind by the four immeasurables iv. Creating the Supreme Field of Merit v. The practice of the seven limbs and mandala-offering vi. Supplication tot the Field of Merit for instruction b. Actual session: meditation on the subject - Need for a spiritual master - Qualities of the teacher: Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana - Qualities of the student - Proper relationship i. The benefits of relying on a spiritual guide 1) It brings us closer to enlightenment. 2) The enlightened ones are pleased. 3) You get protection from anti-spiritual friends and spirits/demons. 4) Harmful behaviors will stop. 5) Your insight and realization of the paths and stages will increase. 6) Life after life you will be guided and protected. 7) You will not fall into the lower realms. 8) All your temporary (future lives) and permanent aims (enlightenment) will be achieved. ii. The disadvantages of not nor relying on or improperly following a spiritual guide 1) By insulting your guru, you insult the enlightened ones. 2) If the relationship has been damaged through anger it destroys eons of virtue. 3) Even with Vajrayana practice you can’t achieve anything. 4) Even with the most intensive Vajrayana practice you are simply creating the cause for rebirth in the hell. 5) Your prior spiritual development will decrease. 6) You will experience mental misery 7) You go towards a future in the lower realms. 8) Life after life you will never meet a spiritual guide. iii. How to treat the spiritual guide through the mind 1) The root practice of cultivating faith a) Why we should regard our spiritual master as a Buddha b) Why it is possible to regard our spiritual master as a Buddha c) How to regard our spiritual master as a Buddha i) Vajradhara affirmed that my spiritual master is a Buddha ii) The spiritual master is the agent for all Buddhas’ activities iii Even nowadays Buddhas and bodhisattvas are acting on behalf of all sentient beings iv) Our perceptions are unreliable 2) Developing respect for the spiritual master by remembering his kindness a) Remember the spiritual master is kinder than all the Buddhas b) Remember his kindness of teaching dharma

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c) Remember his kindness in blessing our mindstream d) Remember his kindness in attracting us into his circle iv. How to treat the spiritual guide through action 1) Offering material things 2) Showing honor and respect 3) Following the instructions exactly c. Conclusion: dedication 2. What to do between meditation periods a. Consolidation b. Conditions for concentration and insight to develop B. How to train the mind from the basis of relying on a spiritual guide 1. Taking the essence out of life a. Embracing our life – recognizing our precious human life i. Eight leisures 1) Not being a hell-being 2) Not being a hungry ghost 3) Not being an animal 4) Not being a longevity god 5) Not being born in a place without dharma 6) Not being born in a place where you can’t practice 7) Not being mentally disabled 8) Not having wrong views 9) Ninth leisure ii. Ten opportunities or favorable conditions 1) Being a human being 2) Being born in a central region, where the dharma is flourishing 3) Having complete sensory faculties 4) Having reversible karma 5) Having faith in the sources 6) Being born in the time of the Buddha 7) Being born in a time that the teachings are available 8) Being born in a time that the teachings still remain 9) Being born in a time that practitioners of the dharma are available 10) Being born in a time that there is caring for others and results are available b. Understanding its value – contemplating the importance of this life i. Ultimate benefit ii. Temporary benefit iii. Moment to moment benefit c. Appreciating the rarity – contemplating how it is difficult to find i. By cause ii. By example iii. By nature 2. How to take the essence out of life a Initial scope: training the mind in the stages of the path common with the lower level i. How to develop the motivation: seeking happiness for future lives 1) Mindfulness of death: facing death realistically a) The disadvantages of not remembering death i) Our mind won’t turn towards the dharma ii) Even we remember the dharma, we’ll fail to practice it iii) Even if we practice it won’t be a solid practice iv) There is no perseverance v) We will be ruined by focusing on this life vi) We will have regret at the time of death b) The advantages of remembering death i) Death meditation leaves the strongest imprint ii) It is a powerful antidote to attachment and anger iii) We will turn towards the dharma – important in the beginning iv) During the stages of development you won’t fall back – important in the

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middle v) We will attain the goal of enlightenment – important at the end vi) We will have no regret at the time of death c) The actual meditation on death i) The nine-round meditation on death (1) First root: death is definite (a) No power can stop it (b) We can’t add to the lifespan (c) Even while we live we don’t have time to practice (2) Second root: The time of death is uncertain (a) On the Southern continent there is no fixed lifespan (b) There are many more things that contribute to dying than to living (c) Our body is very fragile (3) Third root: At the time of death only the dharma is useful (a) Our possessions can’t help (b) Our family and friends can’t help (c) Even the body cannot help ii) Meditating on the aspects of death 2) The suffering of the lower realms a) The sufferings of a life in hell b) The suffering of a life as a hungry ghost c) The sufferings of a life as an animal ii. Actual method for achieving happiness in future lives 1) Going for refuge: taking a safe direction in life a) The causes for refuge b) Who to take refuge to: the objects of refuge i) Identifying the objects of refuge ii) Why the objects of refuge are fit for refuge c) How to take refuge i) Taking refuge by knowing the qualities of each of the Three Jewels ii) Taking refuge by knowing the distinctions within the Three Jewels iii) Taking refuge by accepting the objects of refuge iv) Taking refuge by not choosing false objects of refuge d) The benefits of taking refuge i) We become Buddhists ii) We establish the foundation for all vows iii) We can purify negative karma iv) We accumulate a great amount of merit v) We are protected from harm inflicted by humans and non-humans vi) We are prevented from taking rebirth in lower realms vii) All our temporary and ultimate wishes will be fulfilled viii) It helps us obtain enlightenment as quickly as possible e) The advices when having taken refuge i) General advices (1) Rely on a proper object of refuge (2) Discipline yourself (3) Have a compassion-oriented attitude (4) Remember Buddha, Dharma and Sangha ii) Advices concerning each of the Three Jewels in turn (1) Negative advices (a) Do not take refuge to worldly gods – Buddha (b) Avoid causing harm to other sentient beings – Dharma (c) Avoid getting influenced by non-virtuous or irreligious friends – Sangha (2) Positive advices (a) Pay respect to the Buddha (b) Pay respect to the Dharma (c) Pay respect to the Sangha

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ii) Advice concerning all Three Jewels in common (1) Take refuge repeatedly, remember the qualities of Buddha, dharma and sangha (2) Remember the kindness of Buddha, dharma and sangha and offer from your food (3) Encourage others to take refuge (4) Remember the benefits and take refuge three times each morning and each night (5) Rely on Buddha, dharma and sangha in all your activities (6) Do not give up the Three Jewels, not for the sake of life or merely as a joke 2) Karma: actions and their consequences a) Karma and its results in general i) The four general characteristics of karma (1) Karma is definite (2) Karma is fast-growing (3) We cannot meet with a karma that we did not perform (4) A karma that we did perform does not lose its power to bear fruit ii) Divisions of karma (1) Four constituents for a complete karma (a) The base (b) The thought (c) The actions (d) The completion (2) Black karma: the ten non-virtuous actions (a) The actual presentation of the non-virtuous actions (b) Factors that attribute to their heaviness or lightness (i) The nature of the action (ii) The thought or motivation (iii) The preliminary action (iv) The base (v) The frequency (vi) The absence of antidotes (c) The results of non-virtuous actions (i) Direct or ripened result (ii) Corresponding results (iii) Environmental results (3) White karma: the ten virtuous actions (a) The actual presentation of the white karmic paths (b) The results of the white karmic paths b) Some specific teachings - aside effects i) Four factors affecting the strength of the results ii) Throwing karma and completing karma iii) A higher rebirth with eight special attributes c) After thinking about actions and their consequences, how to practice i) General practice: behaving properly ii) Particular practice: Purification by the four powers (1) The power of the base or recognition or reliance (2) The power of regret (3) The power of non-repetition or restraint (4) The power of the antidote or redirection b Medium scope: training the mind in the stages of the path common with the medium level i How to develop the motivation to seek liberation: recognizing samsara, its faults and sufferings 1) The general faults of samsara (The six types of suffering) a) The fault of uncertainty b) The fault of dissatisfaction c) The fault of giving up the body again and again

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d) The fault of taking on a new existence again and again e) The fault of high becoming low again and again f) The fault of loneliness (The three types of suffering) 2) The individual realms and their problems a) The sufferings in the lower realms b) The sufferings in the higher realms i) The sufferings of human beings: (The eight types of suffering) (1) The suffering of birth (2) The suffering of aging (3) The suffering of sickness (4) The suffering of death (5) The suffering of meeting the unpleasant (6) The suffering of separation from the pleasant (7) The suffering of seeking what one wishes and not obtaining (8) The suffering of the five skandhas ii) The sufferings of demi-gods iii) The sufferings of samsaric gods ii. Establishing the nature of the path that leads to liberation 1) Contemplating how Samsara is created: Karma and Delusions a) How the delusions develop i) Their actual recognition (1) The Six Root delusions (2) The twenty secondary delusions ii) The order in which the delusions arise iii) The causes or contributing factors of the delusions iv) The consequences or disadvantages of the delusions b) How these delusions create karma c) Dying and rebirth i) What happens at death ii) The way one achieves the bardo or intermediate stage iii) The way one is conceived and reborn 2) Establishing the path to liberation a) The physical basis we need in order to attain liberation b) The path we need to practice in order to attain liberation c. Mahayana scope: training the mind in the Mahayana stages of the path

I. A. 1. a. i. 1) a) i) (1) (a) (i)

106 Lam Rim Teachings CHART 3

Appendices: Charts 107 CHART 4

108 Lam Rim Teachings

CHART 5 The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination

ROOT TEXTS

THE RICE SEEDLING SUTRA Sublime Sutra of the Great Vehicle [Skt. Salistamba Sutra; Tib. Shalu Sutra]108:

Homage to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas! Thus have I heard. The Lord was residing on Vulture Peak in Rajagrha with a great assembly of twelve hundred and fifty monks and many bodhisattvas-mahasattvas. Upon a certain occasion the Noble Shariputra went to the terrace where the bodhisattva-mahasattva Maitreya walked and after exchanging many friendly greetings they both sat down on a slab of rock. Thereupon the Noble Shariputra said, “Maitreya, recently when the Lord saw some rice plants, he taught this maxim to the monks: Monks, whoever sees dependent arising sees the Dharma. Whoever sees the Dharma sees the Buddha.” “Maitreya, since, when saying this, the Buddha did not say anything else, what is the meaning here as the Sugata has taught in the Sutras? What is dependent arising? What is the Dharma? What is the Buddha? How is it that when one sees dependent arising one sees the Dharma and when one sees the Dharma one sees the Buddha?” Maitreya replied, “Monk Shariputra, dependent arising which the Lord, the Master of the Dharma, the Omniscient One, mentioned to the monks when he said that he who sees dependent arising sees the dharma, and he who sees the dharma sees the Buddha, is this: This being, that exists. Through the arising of this, that arises. In dependence upon ignorance – the karma-formations. In dependence upon the karma-formations – consciousness. In dependence upon consciousness – corporeality and mentality. In dependence upon corporeality and mentality – the six sense bases. In dependence upon the six sense bases – contact. In dependence upon contact – sensation. In dependence upon sensation – craving. In dependence upon craving – grasping. In dependence upon grasping – becoming. In dependence upon becoming – birth. In dependence upon birth – decay and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. Thus arises this whole mass of suffering. By the cessation of ignorance – the cessation of karma-formations. By the cessation of karma-formations – the cessation of consciousness. By the cessation of consciousness – the cessation of corporeality and mentality. By the cessation of corporeality and mentality – the cessation of the six sense bases. By the cessation of the six sense bases – the cessation of contact.

108 The entire sutra is to be found on p. 109 110 Lam Rim Teachings

By the cessation of contact – the cessation of craving. By the cessation of craving – the cessation of grasping. By the cessation of grasping – the cessation of becoming. By the cessation of becoming – the cessation of birth. By the cessation of birth – the cessation of decay and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. Thus ceases this whole mass of suffering. This is the dependent arising that the Lord has taught.” What is the Dharma? It is the eight branches of the path of the saint which are: right views, right inten- tions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Together with the attainment of fruition and nirvana, this is the dharma as the Lord has taught it. What, then, is the Buddha, the Lord? He who knows all dharmas is called a buddha. Such a one is endowed with the vision of the aryas and the dharma-body and sees the dharmas which are to be trained in and those which are not to be trained in. How does one see dependent arising? The Lord has taught that who sees dependent arising sees impermanence, no soul, absence of a soul, the real, the non-false, the unborn, the unbecome, the unmade, the uncompounded, the unobstructed, the supportless, cessation, non-fear, that which cannot be taken away, that which is not liable to change, the non-ceasing, that which has no self-nature. He who sees the dharma in this way will perfectly comprehend the dharma of the aryas. Endowed with true knowledge, he sees the supreme dharma-body. He sees the Buddha. Why is it called dependent arising? Because it functions because of causes and conditions, not without causes and conditions. Thus it is called dependent arising. The Lord has summarized the characteristics of dependent arising thus: “It is the fruition of causation. Whether Tathagatas appear or do not appear, there remains that true nature of dharmas, the dharma nature, the relatedness of dharmas, the regularity of dharmas which are identical with dependent arising, thusness, unerring thusness, identical thusness, reality, truth, the certain, that which cannot be overturned.” Thus dependent arising is produced for two reasons. What two? Causal relationship and conditional relationship and these are to be viewed as of two kinds: impersonal and personal. What is the impersonal causal relationship of dependent arising? It is as follows: from the seed – the sprout; from the sprout – the leaves; from the leaves – the stem; from the stem – the stalk; from the stalk – the pith; from the pith – the bloom; from the bloom – the fruit. If there is no seed, no sprout will come forth, etcetera, up to: if there is no bloom there will be no fruit. But if there is a seed a sprout will be produced, etcetera, up to: if there is a bloom there will be fruit. But the seed does not think, “I produced the sprout.” The sprout does not think, “I was produced by the seed.” The bloom does not think, “I produced the fruit,” nor does the fruit think, “I was produced by the bloom.” Nevertheless, if there is a seed a sprout is produced and there is manifestation. It is the same when there is a bloom and fruit is produced, etc., there is manifestation. It is in this way that the impersonal causal relationship of dependent arising should be viewed. How should the conditional relationship of impersonal dependent arising be viewed? By the union of the six elements. How from the union of the six elements? Because from the union of earth, water, fire, air, space and time the conditional relationship of impersonal dependent arising is to be seen. The earth element supports the seed. The water element moistens the seed. The fire element matures the seed. The air element develops the seed. The space element prevents the seed from being obstructed. The time element brings the seed to fruition. Unless these conditions are present no fruit will come forth from the seed. If the earth element is unimpaired and the elements of water, fire, air, space and time are also unimpaired, by their union when the seed dies the sprout comes forth. But the earth element does not think, “I was the seed’s support”; the water element does not think, “I moistened the seed”; the fire element does not think, “I matured the seed”; the air element does not think, “I developed the seed”; the space element does not think, “I prevented the seed from being obstructed”; nor does the time element think, “I brought the sprout to fruition”; the sprout

Appendices: Root Texts 111 does not think, “When I destroy the seed by means of these conditions a sprout comes forth.” And so down to the bloom and the fruit. The sprout was not self-produced, produced by another, nor by both. It was not produced by a creator-god, not manifested by time, did not come forth from a primary substance, nor did grow without a cause. But when a union of earth, water, fire, air, space and time elements destroyed the seed, a sprout was produced. Thus should the conditional relationship of internal depending arising be viewed. This dependent arising should be seen as five-fold: as impermanence, non-annihilation, non-transmigration, as the production of a great result from a minute cause, and as an uninterrupted series. How impermanence? Because the sprout is one thing and the seed another. That which is the sprout is not the seed. The sprout is not produced from the destruction of the seed nor from the non-destruction of the seed. However when the seed is destroyed the sprout comes forth at the appropriate time. Therefore impermanence. How non-annihilation? From a previously destroyed seed no sprout comes forth nor does it come forth from a non-destroyed seed. When the seed is destroyed, at that very time, like the balance of a pair of scales, the sprout is produced. Thus there is no annihilation. How no transmigration? Because the sprout is one thing and the seed another and because that which is the sprout is not the seed. Thus no transmigration. How a great result from a minute cause? Because when a tiny seed is sown a large fruit will be produced. And, as the fruit will come forth in accordance with the way the seed is planted, there is thus an uninterrupted series. Thus this dependent arising should be seen as five-fold. Personal dependent arising is produced by two factors; causal relationship and conditional relationship. What is personal causal relationship? It is that which is called the karma-formation up to decay and death which are conditioned by birth. If ignorance does not arise there will be no karma-formations. In the same way when rebirth ceases no decay or death will be produced. But when there is ignorance the karma- formations arise, etc., down to: when there is birth decay and death arise. But ignorance does not think, “I produced the karma-formations,” nor do the karma-formations think, “We were produced by ignorance.” Birth does not think, “I produced decay and death,” nor do decay and death think, “We were produced by birth.” Nevertheless, when there is ignorance the karma-formations arise, up to: there being birth, decay and death arise. Thus should personal causal relationship be viewed. What is the personal conditional relationship of dependent arising? It is the union of the six elements: earth, water, fire, air, space and consciousness. What is the earth element of dependent arising? That which produces solidity of the aggregates of the body is called the earth element. That which produces cohesion in the body is called the water element. That which produces digestion of what is eaten or drunk by the body is called the fire element. That which produces inhalation and exhalation in the body is called the air element. That which produces porosity within the body is called the space element. That which produces the sprout of corporeality and mentality of the body is like a bundle of reeds, linking together the five kinds of consciousness, and that which mind-consciousness joins is the consciousness element. Should these conditions be absent, no body will arise, but when the personal earth element as well as the water, fire, air, space and consciousness elements are present a body is produced from their union. But the earth element does not think, “I, by union, produce solidity”; the water element does not think, “I, by union, produce cohesion”; the fire element does not think, “I produce digestion”; the air element does not think, “I produce inhalation and exhalation”; the space element does not think, “I produce porosity”, nor does the consciousness element think, “I produce corporeality and mentality.” The body does not think, “I was produced by these conditions.” Nevertheless, when these conditions are present a body comes into being. But the earth element is not a self, a being, a soul, a person, a man, a youth, a male or female or neuter; it is not an ‘I’, a ‘mine’ or ‘another’s’. The same is true of the water, fire, air, space and consciousness elements. What, now, is ignorance? It is the notion that in these six elements there is a unity, substance, permanence,

112 Lam Rim Teachings stability, enduringness, happiness, a self, a being, a soul, a living being, an individuality, a human being, a person, a man, a youth, an ‘I’ or a ‘mine’. These various kinds of misperception are called ignorance. When there is ignorance lust, ill-will and bewilderment are set in motion within the objective field of consciousness. Whatever is lust, ill-will and bewilderment in the objective field of consciousness is known as the karma-formations that arise in dependence upon ignorance. Consciousness is the specific recognition of objects. Consciousness together with the four groups of clinging which simultaneously arise, is corporeality and mentality. The faculties supported by corporeality and mentality are the six sense bases. Contact is when the three dharmas come together. Contact-experience is sensation. Attachment to sensation is craving. Increase of craving is grasping. That which arises from grasping is action which produces further becoming. This is becoming. The aggregates which arise from that cause are rebirth. Following birth the maturing of the aggregates is decay. The aggregates decay and perish. This is death. Dying, bewilderment and the internal mental anguish connected with intense attachment are sorrow. The verbal expression of that sorrow is lamentation. The experience of sorrow connected with the aggregates of the five kind of consciousness is pain. The mental pain connected with attention is grief. All depravities of this kind are despair. Therefore Because of great darkness there is ignorance. Because of accumulation there are karma-formations. Because of transmission there is consciousness. Because of support there is corporeality and mentality. Because of the doors of entrance there are the six bases. Because of contact there is contact. Because of experience there is sensation. Because of longing there is craving. Because of clinging there is grasping. Because of again-becoming and birth there is becoming. Because the aggregates manifest there is birth. Because the aggregates mature there is decay. Because the aggregates perish there is death. Because of the action sorrow there is grief. Because of mourning there is lamentation. Because of trouble in the body there is suffering. Because there is pain in the mind there is grief. Because of defilements there is despair. Not perceiving all this, not knowing it, and wrong understanding it is ignorance. When there is ignorance the threefold division of volitional activity, i.e. of body, speech and mind, arise: those that tend towards the meritorious, the demeritorious, and the imperturbable. From formations which tend towards the meritorious a consciousness arises which tends towards the meritorious. From the formations which tend towards the demeritorious a consciousness arises which tends towards the demeritorious.

Appendices: Root Texts 113

From the formations which tend towards the imperturbable consciousness arises which tends towards the imperturbable. This is called consciousness dependent upon the formations. The four immaterial groups and whatever is corporeality which arise together with consciousness are called corporeality and mentality dependent upon consciousness. Through the arising of corporeality and mentality the activities of consciousness come about through the six doors of the six sense-bases. This is called the six bases dependent upon corporeality and mentality. From the six sense-bases the six groups of sense-impression arise. This is ‘in dependence on the six sense- bases-contact’. As contact arises so does sensation. This is ‘in dependence upon contact-sensation’. The characteristics of sensation are enjoyment, delight, intense attachment, abiding, being fixed in the state of intense attachment. This is ‘in dependence upon sensation-craving’. The desire that one never be deprived of enjoyment, delight, intense attachment, that one will abide in intense attachment and happiness, that one will never abandon them is ‘in dependence upon craving- clinging’. The inciting, by body, speech and mind, to action which gives birth to desire and again-becoming is ‘in dependence upon clinging-becoming’. That which the five aggregates which arise from that action produce is ‘in dependence upon becoming-rebirth’. The assembling, maturation and disintegration of the aggregates which result from birth are called ‘in dependence on rebirth-decay and death’. Thus it is that these twelve links of dependent arising arise from mutually-related causes and from mutually-related conditions. They are neither permanent nor impermanent, neither conditioned nor uncondi- tioned. They are not without cause nor without condition. They are not perceived. They are not extinction. They are not destruction. Existing since beginningless time, they continue without interruption like the flow of a river. Of these twelve links four are the cause for cooperative action. These are ignorance, craving, action and consciousness. Consciousness is a cause by being like a seed. Action is a cause by being a field. Ignorance and craving are causes by being the defilements. Action and the defilements produce the seed which is consciousness. Action prepares the soil for the seed- consciousness. Craving moistens the seed-consciousness. Ignorance sows the seed-consciousness. If these conditions are not present the seed-consciousness will not be produced. But action does not think “I do the work of preparing the soil for the seed-consciousness.” Craving does not think “I moisten the seed-consciousness.” Ignorance does not think “I sow the seed-consciousness”, nor does the seed-consciousness think “I am produced by the conditions.” Nevertheless, if the seed- consciousness grows, grows in the field of action, is moistened by craving and sown by ignorance, rebirth- linking occurs and the sprout of corporeality and mentality is produced in this or that mother’s womb. That sprout of corporeality and mentality was not self-made, made by another, nor by both. It was not made by an creator-god, nor developed by time, did not originate from a self-nature, was not dependent upon an act, nor did it arise without a cause. When the father and the mother have cohabited in the period following the menses, other conditions com- bining and causes and conditions not lacking, the sprout of corporeality and mentality is produced in the masterless dharma, the non-mine, the non-obstructed, that which is like space, that of self-nature with the mark of illusion, endowed with enjoyment, in this or that mother’s womb. It is like the eye-consciousness which arises from the five causes: the eye, the visual object, apprehension, space and mental engagement. Here the eye provides the basis of eye-consciousness. Form provides the object. Apprehension provides the appearance. Space provides non-obstruction. The mental engagement which arises focuses the attention. The mental engagement which arises focuses the attention. Should these causes not be presented no eye-consciousness will arise. When the internal base, the eye, is unimpaired, so are form, apprehension, space and mental engagement

114 Lam Rim Teachings and from the union of all these eye-consciousness arises. But the eye does not think, “I provide the object”; apprehension does not think, “I provide the appearance”; space does not think; “I provide the non- obstruction of eye-consciousness”; the mental engagement arising therewith does not think, “I provide the focusing of the attention”, nor does the eye-consciousness think, “I am produced by these conditions.” Nevertheless, from the presence of these conditions eye-consciousness arises. The same applies to the other faculties each in its own way. Thus no single dharma transmigrates from this world to the next but when causes and conditions are unimpaired action-result is manifested. It is exactly as when the image of a face appears and is visible in a well-polished mirror. The face does not transmigrate into the mirror, but if causes and conditions are unimpaired the face appears and is seen. In the same way, there is no one who dies or passes on here nor does birth arise in another place. But when causes and conditions are unimpaired action-result is manifested. I is like the light of the moon which travels forty thousand leagues and appears in a tiny vessel of water. The moon does not transmigrate nor enter the vessel of water. Nevertheless, when causes and conditions are unimpaired an image of the moon is seen. In the same way there is no one who dies here and is reborn there. But when causes and conditions are unimpaired action-result is manifested. It is like fire. If causes and conditions are unimpaired no fire is kindled, but when they are unimpaired, it is. It is the same when causes and conditions are unimpaired in the masterless dharma, the non-self, the non- possessed, that which is like unto space, that which has the self-nature of illusion. Rebirth-linking occurs and the seed-consciousness and the sprout of corporeality and mentality brought about by the defilements appear in a mother’s womb. Personal dependent arising is seen as arising from conditions. Here dependent arising should be viewed as five-fold: non-eternal, non-annihilation, non-transmigration, a great result from a minute cause, and a continuous series. How non-eternal? Because the aggregates with death as their final end are not the aggregates relating to birth. When the former cease, the latter arise. Thus non-eternal. How non-annihilation? Because from the ceasing of the aggregates relating to death the aggregates relating to birth do not arise nor do they arise from their non ceasing. Nevertheless when the former cease the latter do arise like the beam of a scale which rises and falls. Thus non-annihilation. How non-transmigration? Because birth arises in like birth from an unlike class of beings. Thus non- transmigration. How a great result from a minute cause? Because we actually see the maturation of a great result from the action of a small cause. Thus a great result from a minute cause. How a continuous series? Because we experience the maturation of action performed. Thus a continuous series. Monk Shariputra, he who in true wisdom sees this dependent arising as perfectly taught by the Lord, sees it as it truly is and always as no soul, absence of soul, as real, non-false, unborn, unbecome, unmade, uncompounded, unobstructed, supportless, stopping, fearlessness, what cannot be taken away, not liable to change, as that which has no self nature and no cessation; he who actually sees it as unreal, empty, void, worthless, as a disease, a boil, a thorn, an evil, as impermanent, ill, empty, unsubstantial, such a one does not attend to the part, “Did I exist in the past, did I not exist in the past, who was I in the past, what was I in the past?”; he does not attend to the future, “Will I exist in the future, who will I be in the future, what will I be in the future?” nor does he attend to the present, “What is this, how is this, how does this exist, where have these living beings come from, when they die and pass on where will they go?” The various beings in this world who follow the views of worldly monks and brahmins, those attached to

Appendices: Root Texts 115 the doctrine of a self, of a being, of a soul, of a person, to the efficacy of rites and ceremonies,-when they abandon these beginnings and endings will have full understanding and like the fronds of a palm tree which has been cut down at the root will belong to that Dharma that is never more reborn or obstructed. Monk Shariputra, he who has patient endurance in the Dharma and a perfect understanding of dependent arising, of him has perfect Buddhahood in perfect Enlightenment been foretold by the Tathagata, the Arhat, the Fully Enlightened Buddha, He who is endowed with wisdom and virtue, the Sugata, the knower of the worlds, the leader of men to be tamed, the supreme one, the teacher of gods and men.” When the great being, the being of enlightenment, had thus spoken the Noble Shariputra and the entire world of men and gods, asuras and gandharvas rejoiced and lauded what Maitreya, the great being, the enlightenment-being, had expounded. Here ends the Sublime Sutra of the Great Vehicle entitled: ‘The Rice Plants’.

Translation: Stanley Frye Dreloma; nr. XIII, jan. 1985, p. 35-44

INDEX g refers to the Glossary in volume I lit refers to the Literature in volume II

Avalokiteshvara. g Buddhapalita. g Avatamsaka sutra. g, lit Buddhism A Avici hell. g in a nutshell, 5 abhidharma. g awakening. g Buddhist cosmology. g Abhidharmakosha (Vasubandhu), 51, 53, g, lit B C on bardo, 54 on delusions, 31 bagchag, 93 Catuhsataka (Aryadeva). See Four Abhisamayalankara (Maitreya), 84, bardo, 54–55, 88, 92, g Hunderd Verses 89, lit and unshakable karma, 89 chakras. g absolute and relative, 16 bardowa, 54, 88, g Changeless Nature (Maitreya). lit Acarya. g Beng, Geshe. g channels. g Aggregates. g quoted, 50 charts Ajatashatru. g bhumi. g 1 Historical Overview. vol. I Akanishta. g, g bikshu. g 2 Basis, Path and Result. vol. I alertness, 77 birth, 62, See rebirth 3 Desire Realms, 106 Amitabha. g bliss. g 4 Form- and Formless Realms, analytical meditation. See meditation Bodhgaya. g 107 Ananda. g bodhi. g 5 The Twelve Links of anger, 35–37, 88 bodhi tree. g Interdependent Origination, exaggeration, 49 bodhicitta. See bodhimind 108 faces of, 36–37 cause for out of samsara, 89 6 Bodhisattva Paths and Stages. how to handle, 37 bodhisattva. g vol. IV making the mind rough, 35–36 likes and dislikes, 91 7 Bodhisattva Paths, Stages and animal. g stages. g Practices. vol. IV arhat. g to be or not to be, 71–74 Cittamatra. g arya, 17, g vows. g clear light. g Aryadeva bodhisattva vow, 71 commitments. g quoted, 25 Bodhisattvabhumi (Asanga). lit compassion. g Asanga. g Bodhisattvacharyavatara compassion in action, 87 and wrong view, 45 (Shantideva), 10, lit completion stage. g Ashoka. g death, 24 concentrated analytical meditation. asura. g delusions, 50 See meditation Atisha. g Brahma. g concentrated meditation. See attachment, 20, 32–35, 76 and Indra, 17 meditation and spirituality, 33 breathing meditation. See meditation concentration. g at the time of death, 53, 54 buddha conception, 61 exaggeration, 49 families. g Conqueror. g faces of, 33–34, 36–37 like and dislike, 91 consciousness, 59 four types, 61 Buddha. g causal and result, 93 glue of samsara, 32 gone beyond, 86 consideration for others, 77 how to deal with, 34 quoted, 23 contact, 61 how to meditate on, 33, 34–35 anger, 36 contaminated. g to self, 34 directly after elightenment, 17 control of mind, 6 twelve links, 61, 63 buddha nature, 78, g council. See three councils wrong meditation, 35 buddhahood, 85 118 Lam Rim Teachings D E Four Hundred Verses (Aryadeva), 25, lit dakas en dakinis. g Easy Path, 57 four immeasurables. g Dalai Lama. g eight stages, 67 four mindfulnesses. g fifth, 84 eight worldly dharmas, 37, g four Noble Truths, 17–67, 18, g sixth, 84 eightfold path, 67, g Tibetan words, 17 De Lam. See Easy Path emotions, 36, 66 truth of cessation, 67 death, 62, Also see dying emptiness, 16, 89, 94, g truth of suffering, 18–25 49 days period, 88 and dependent origination, 16 truth of the origination of and attachment, 53 cause for out of samsara, 89 suffering, 30–65 elements dissolving, 90 enlightenment. g truth of the path, 67–74 upper or lower rebirth, 54 eon. g four reliances. g what happens at the time of, 92 equanimity. g four root non-virtues, 69 what karma connect to, 53 eternalism. g four schools of tenets. g what to do at the time of, 54 examples four stages of life, 54 debate, 74 aryas four ways of birth. g dedication. g hair in eye, 17 four ways of ripening others mind. g degenerated age. g attachment future life. See next life delusion glue of samsara, 32 result or cause, 88 like oil, 33 delusions, 31–52, 96, g, g lotus, 34 G after-effects, 36 delusions Gampopa, 17, g consequenses, 49–50 golden mountatin, 49 Ganden Lha Gyema. g contributing factors, 48–49 doubt Gelugpa. g definition, 14 leather, 44 generation stage. g having too many, 75 two-pointed needle, 44 generosity, 78 how they create karma, 51–52 pride geshe. g how they develop, 31–50 crops, 38 ghandharvas. g how to handle, 50 greens, 38 ghosts, 91 how to meditate on, 47 iron ball, 39 gods. g six root delusions, 31–46 seven-grain bird, 38 suffering, 25 twenty secondary delusions, 47 wrong view Gom Rim (Kamalashila). See Stages dependent arising/existence, 109–15, rope, 45 of Meditation g, Also see interdependent grasping, 61 origination F Great Treatise on the Stages of the and ignorance, 76 Path to Enlightenment king of logic, 76 faith. Also see stories (Tsongkhapa). See Lamrim desire. g fear Chenmo desire realms of losing identity, 40 Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of chart, 106 fearful view, 45 Life (Shantideva). See determination to be free. g feeling, 34, 61 Bodhisattvacharyavatara Dharma. g Field of Merit. g Guide to the Middle Way dharma protector. g fifth Dalai Lama, 84 (Chandrakirti). lit dharma-community discussion, 83 five aim-levels, 7 Gungtang Jampelyang. g Dharmakirti, 16, g five basic precepts, 70, g guru. Also see spiritual master dhyana. g as vow, 70 guru devotion. Also see stories disrespect, 77 five great subjects. g guru yoga. g dissatisfaction, 14, 18, 20–21 five limitless non-virtues. g Gyeltsab Je. g dissturbing attitudes. See delusions five main philosophical texts. g doubt, 43–45, 91 five paths, 67, g examples, 44 five skandhas. g H ignorance or intelligence?, 43 form- and formless realms habitual patterns, 49 three types of, 43 chart, 107 Mahayana point of view, 71 what it does, 44 Foundation of All Perfections hatred, 76 dreams, 98 (Tsongkhapa). lit hearers. g Drepung. g four antidote powers. g Heart Sutra. g Drom Rinpoche, 52 four antidotes to inattentiveness, 77 higher realms dying four Buddhist seals. g suffering, 24 and rebirth, 52–55 four classes of tantra. g Hinayana, 7, g mind at the time of, 53 four continents. g HUM, 71 sepa and lenpa, 53 four doorways to downfalls on human life. Also see precious human what happens at death, 45–46 vows, 75–78 life four form levels/realms, 51, 107 human rebirth, 78–79 four formless levels/realms, 52, 107 and generosity, 78

Index 119

and morality, 78 mental karma, 51 mantra. g hungry ghost. g three types of, 51 Mara. g to get out of samsara, 52 meditation, 8, 30, g unshakable karma, 51 concentrated and analytical, 9–11 I and bardo, 89 daily practice, 11 I, 40, 45, 73, g, Also see self and samadhi, 89 insight meditation. g identification what mind connects to at death, nine rounds breathing, 8–9 and ignorance, 39 53 object meditation, 84 identity kaya. g subject meditation, 84 and samsara, 13–16, 18 Kedrub Je. g mental abiding. See zhinay fear of losing, 40 klesha. See delusions merit. g ignorance, 39–42, 75, 76, g Krishnamurti, 86 merit field. See Field of Merit and I, 40 Meru. g and identification, 39 L method. g masks of, 40 Middle Way, 76, g recommended literature, 42 Lalitavistara Sutra, 17 Migtsema. g twelve links, 58–59 Lam Don (Atisha). See Lamp for the Milarepa. g what it does, 41 Path to Enlightenment mind what it is, 39 Lama Chöpa. g control, 6 what wisdom does, 42 Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment watch your mind, 95 illusory body. g (Atisha). lit mindfulness, 77, 83 imprint, 93, g, Also see delusions Lamrim. g monks and nuns inattentiveness, 77 thee categories, 7 rules, 96 four antidotes, 77 Lamrim Chenmo (Tsongkhapa). lit moral discipline, 78 indestructible drop. g and twelve links, 58 training of, 68–71 individuation, 60 Lamrim Chungba (Tsongkhapa), 58 morality Indra. g Lamrim Dudon (Tsongkhapa). lit and human rebirth, 78 inherent existence, 94, g Also see Song of the Stages or basic, 68 initiation. g Lines of Experience in short, 71 interdependent origination, 16, 57– Lamrim meditation, 11 lay morality, 70 64, 77 Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom. See watch your mind, 94 chart, 108 Prajnaparamita sutra what it is, 94 Ishvara. g lay morality, 70 mudra. g learning thinking meditating, 6 Myur Lam, 58, See Quick Path J Letter to a Friend (Nagarjuna), 15, 21, 22, 68, lit N Jambudvipa. g lhagtong. g Jampel Zhalung. See Manjushri’s Lhatsun Rinpoche, 74 naga. g Own Words likes and dislikes, 92 Nagarjuna. g Jewel Ornament of Liberation Ling Rinpoche. g and wrong view, 45, 48 (Gampopa), 17, lit Literature, list of. See vol. II quoted, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 68 jigta, 45, 48 Loseling, 74 Nalanda. g two types, 48 lotus, 34 name and form, 60, 93 love, 29 Naropa. g lung. g nectar. g K lying, 83 next life. Also see rebirth, Kadampa masters. g reincarnation quoted, 7 M ngondro. g Kagyu. g nihilism. g Kanjur. g Madhyamakavarata. See Guide to nirmanakaya, 86, g karma, 15, g the Middle Way nirvana. g action karma, 51 Madhyamakavatara (Chandrakirti). non-virtue, 83, g and parents, 91 See Guide to the Middle Way non-virtues cause and effect, 59 Mahakarmavibhanga Sutra, 19 avoid, 5 cause of delusion, 88 mahamudra. g Nyingma. g definite, 88 mahasiddha. g nyon mongs, 14 dharma, 59 Mahayana. g fortunate unfortunate unshakable, Mahayanasutralamkara, 49 O 59 Maitreya, 18, g how delusions create it, 51 quoted, 49 obscurations. g karmic creation, 59 mandala, 86, g OM MUNI MUNI…, 11 leading our of samsara, 89 Manjushri. g omniscience. g life-giving, 58, 93 Manjushri’s Own Words ordinary perceiving, 40 mental and physical, 88 and twelve links, 58 outlines, 57

120 Lam Rim Teachings

detailed, 100 realms. g shunyata, 99, See emptiness overview, 99 realm of the form, 59 siddha. g rebirth. g siddhi. g and dying, 52–55 six desire realms P how one is reborn, 55 chart, 106 Pabongka. g human, 78–79 six paramitas. g Padmasambhava. g refuge. g, Also see stories six realms, 19 Panchen Lama refuge taking, 83 six root delusions, 31–46 first, 57 renunciation. g six senses, 60–61 second, 58 respect, 77 six types of suffering, 19–24 pandit. g Rice Seedling Sutra, 58, 109–15 sixth Dalai Lama person root texts reincarnation, 84 ordinary and extra-ordinary, 17 Foundation of All Perfections. vol. skandhas, 25, 46, 60, g Potowa, Geshe II Solitary realizer. g quoted, 67 Guide to the Middle Way. vol. IV Song of the Stages, 13, 29 practice. See sprititual practice Lamrim - Kurzfassung für die spiritual development prajnaparamita. g Praxis. vol. II ordinary and extra-ordinary, 17 Prajnaparamita Sutra. g, lit Lines of Experience. vol. II spiritual master. Also see guru Prasangika. g Odyssey to Freedom. vol. II and purification, 79 pratimoksha. g Rice Seedling Sutra, 109–15 death anniversary, 79 Pratyeka buddha. See solitary Seeking Inspiration to Realize the Stages of Meditation (Kamalashila). realizer Stages of the Lamrim. vol. II lit Precious Garland (Nagarjuna). lit Seven Point Mind Training. vol. IV stories previous life. See reincarnation Thought Transformation in Eight attachment pride, 37–39, 76 Stanzas. vol. IV king is poorest man, 21 disadvantages, 38 Three Principles of the Path. vol. II Buddha divine. g showed pure world, 86 examples, 37 S debate, 74 how to handle, 39 samsara why a delusion, 39 Saka Dawa, 79 enemy reborn as son, 19 pure land. g Sakya. g Ngalenu, 21 pure world, 86 Sakyamuni. g, See Buddha Pegye and his old bones, 20 purification, 70–71, Also see stories samadhi, 84, g stupa. g recommended days, 79 and three principles of the path, suffering vajrayana, 70 92 change body, 21–23 and unshakable karma, 89 dissatisfaction, 20–21 Samantabhadra. g eight types of, 25 Q sambhogakaya, 86, g high and low, 23 Quick Path, 58 samsara. g of change, 87 quotations functioning of of demi-gods, 25 anger, 36 two ways to know, 17 of human beings, 25 Buddha general faults of, 19–24 of samsaric gods, 25 after enlightenment, 17 individual realms and their origination of, 30–65 delusions problems, 24–25 six types of, 19–24 Geshe Beng, 50 our individual, 13 three types of, 24 Kadampa, 50 six types of suffering, 19–24 truth of, 18–25 dependent arising unawakened state, 28 two causes, 30 who sees…sees the Dharma, what it is, 13–15 uncertainty, 19–20 109 Sangha. g Suhrllekha (Nagarjuna). See Letter doubt, 43 self, 58 to a Friend patience, 36 and ordinary perceiving, 40 sutra. g practice self-cherishing. g Sutra of the White Lotus. lit five years only, 7 self-existence, 16, 39, g Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish. lit samsara self-grasping. g sutras, 18 four ends meet, 23 selflessness, 58 meetings end in separation, 23 versus being selfish, 73 T suffering self-respect, 77 all-pervasive, 17 sentient being. g tantra. g loneliness, 23–24 Seven Point Mind Training tantrayana. g (Chekawa). lit Tara. g sexual misconduct, 98 Tathagata. g R Shantideva. g ten bodhisattva stages. g Ratnavali (Nagarjuna). See Precious shastra. g ten directions. g Garland Sherab Senge. g ten innermost jewels of the

Index 121

Kadampa, 37 two accumulations. g honouring your vows, 74–75 ten non-virtues. g two selflesses. g lay vows, 70 ten stages, 67 two truths. g maintining, 97 Theravada, 7, g monks and nuns, 68–69 thirty-seven practices, 67, g our century, 96 three higher trainings, 68, g U pratimoskha vows, 68–70 three poisons, 47 ushnisha. g taking vows, 74 three poisons. g Uttara Tantra (Maitreya). See vajrayana vow, 74 three principles of the path, 14, 89, Changeless Nature vows and commitments 92 honouring, 94 and karma, 52 V Three Principles of the Path W (Tsongkhapa), 37, 52, 59, lit Vairochana, 4 three realms. g Vajradhara. g Wesach day, 79 three scopes vajra-master. g Wheel of Existence, 56 aims, 7 Vajrapani. g Wheel of Sharp Weapons five scopes, 7 Vajrasattva. g (Dharmarakshita). lit three types of suffering, 24 mantra, 70 wisdom. g three vows, 68–69, 71, 74 Vajrayana and samsara, 15 three yanas, 90 doorway, 83 wisdom being. g Tibetan book of the dead, 90 two stages. g wrong view, 45–46, Also see jigta Treasury of Metaphisics vow, 68, 74 and Nagarjuna, 45 (Vasubandhu). See vajrayana practitioners fearful view, 45 Abhidharmakosha warning, 78, 79 five types, 45–46 Trijang Rinpoche. g Vajrayogini. g Tripitaka. g, g Vasubandhu. g Y Tsongkhapa, 79, g quoted, 31 quoted, 63 vegetable level, 58 yaksha. g Tushita. g Vikramashila. g Yamantaka. g twelve links, 56, 57–62, 113 Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, 86, lit yidam, 88, g and Lamrim Chenmo, 58 vinaya. g yongdzin. g and Manjushri's own words, 58 vinaya rules, 69 chart, 108 visualization. g diagram, 64, 65 vows Z order of development, 57–62 bodhisattva vow, 71 zhinay, 84, g twelve principle events. g clear broken vows, 75 twenty secondary delusions, 47 four doorways to downsfalls on, twenty-two bodhicittas. g 75–78

GEHLEK RIMPOCHE

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. Carefully tutored by Tibet’s greatest living masters, he received specialized individual teaching at Dre- pung Monastery, the nation’s largest monastery. In 1959, Gehlek Rimpoche was among those forced into exile, fleeing the Communist Chinese who had occupied Tibet since 1951. While in India, Rimpoche as a member of a group of sixteen monks, was chosen to continue specific studies with the great masters who had escaped Tibet, including the Dalai Lama’s personal tutors. At the age of twenty-five, Rimpoche gave up monas- tic life. In the mid-70’s, Gehlek Rimpoche was encouraged by his teachers to begin teaching in English. Since that time he has gained a large following throughout the world. Coming to the U.S. in the mid- 80’s, Rimpoche later moved to Ann Arbor, MI and in 1987 founded Jewel Heart, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture and Buddhism. Today, Jewel Heart has chapters throughout the U.S. and in Malaysia, Singapore and the Netherlands. A member of the last generation of lamas to be born and fully educated in Tibet, Gehlek Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his understanding of con- temporary society and his skill as a teacher of Bud- dhism in the West. He is now an American citizen. Gehlek Rimpoche’s first book, the national bestseller, Good Life, Good Death, was published in 2001.

124

JEWEL HEART

Jewel Heart is an educational and cultural center whose doors are open to all. Its purpose is to transmit the essence of Tibetan Bud- dhism in an authentic and accessible form. Jewel Heart provides guidance and practical methods to anyone interested in spiritual development, as well as to those who wish to follow the traditional Buddhist path.

The name Jewel Heart was chosen to represent the organization because the heart is the essence of the human being, and the jewel something of great value – considered precious. Through embracing the preciousness of our life and developing our qualities, inner peace will grow, and our actions will be influenced by compassionate concern for others. It is to this end that Jewel Heart dedicated its efforts.

The Jewel heart logo contains three graphic elements: the spinning jewel wheel, the lotus, and the flame. The central wheel symbolizes the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The Buddha represents our potential for enlightenment. The Dharma is the spiritual development within each individual. The Sangha is the community of those individuals, who have developed wisdom, act as guides. In nature, the lotus rises from the mud, yet remains pure. Similarly, we are capable of rising above ordinary conceptions and putting love and compassion into action in daily life. The flame that surrounds the jewel wheel represents the fire of wisdom, consuming all obstacles and bringing insight.

JEWEL HEART Head Office: 207 East Washington Street, Ann Arbor MI 48104, USA. Tel. (1) 313 994 3387 Fax: (1) 313 994 5577. Homepage: jewelheart.org

JEWEL HEART Chapters are to be found: • In USA in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Cleveland OH, Lincoln NE, New York, and San Francisco. • In The Netherlands in Nijmegen, Den Bosch, Tilburg, Arnhem and Utrecht. • In Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Gerik and Panang, and in Muar. • In Singapore.

JEWEL HEART P.O BOX 7933 ANN ARBOR, MI 48107 www.jewelheart.org