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Oral Commentary on Patrul Rinpoche's Words of My Precious Teacher, The

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Oral Commentary on Patrul Rinpoche's Words of My Precious Teacher, The COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL 1 KHENPO NAMDROL RINPOCHE: ORAL COMMENTARY ON PATRUL RINPOCHE’S WORDS OF MY PRECIOUS TEACHER, THE KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 2 KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG Khenchen Namdrol Rinpoche gave this commentary in 2005 to a group of Tibetan and Nepali practitioners entering 3-year retreat at the Palyul Retreat Center in Parphing, Nepal. COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL 3 INTRODUCTION MOTIVATION The Dorje Tsemo Tantra states: Gather your conceptual thoughts and Always listen with wholesome earnest intention. Vajrasattva and the other victorious ones of the three times Cannot shower their blessings on those who neglect mindfulness. In general, we must always abandon nonvirtuous thoughts, including neutral thoughts as well as thoughts of nonvirtue, and try to generate virtuous thoughts, thoughts of good will. We especially need to engender good will when listening to1 the teachings, or when beginning to teach the Dharma, and even more so while practicing the meaning of the Dharma. In particular, we must bring forth a positive attitude before undertaking the practice of meditating on the generation and completion stages. The blessings and compassion of the enlightened ones are impartial, with no difference between those who are near and those who are far. From the point of view of the buddhas, the blessings and compassion are unbiased and flow regardless of distance; from the perspective of the beings to be tamed, however, the buddhas’ blessings appear to flow easily for some and are obstructed for others. The reason that some beings fail to absorb the blessings and compassion of the enlightened ones is not caused by any fault of the blessings and compassion, but results from differences among the beings. Although the king of the gods brings down rain on all seeds equally, spoiled seeds will not sprout while good seeds sprout and make shoots. The rain itself is impartial, but certain seeds cannot sprout. The compassion of the enlightened ones flows into beings who continuously have good and virtuous thoughts, but cannot penetrate those without virtuous thoughts. The difference between receiving or not receiving the blessings and compassion is that the blessings penetrate those with positive intention but not those with nonvirtuous and neutral thoughts. Since we need the blessings and compassion of the enlightened beings to sink into us, we must abandon nonvirtuous and neutral thoughts. Except for periods like deep sleep and fainting, when coarse thoughts of virtue and nonvirtue are blocked, conceptual thoughts flow through our 1 Note that the Tibetan term thos (listening, hearing) carries the sense of “studying” and so also includes reading Dharma texts. 4 KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG minds constantly during our entire lives. Although these thoughts run ceaselessly through our minds, we fail to analyze them to determine whether they are nonvirtuous, neutral or virtuous. One after another, we produce a chain of thoughts, but failing to analyze them, they become lost. Rather than acting like that, however, with the recognition that we need our present conceptual thinking, we should look inward and analyze whether our thoughts are of attachment, anger, ignorance, pride and jealousy2 and so on, or whether they are neutral – neither virtuous or nonvirtuous – but simply thoughts of whether to eat or sleep or walk, thoughts like those of a dog who only follows its master without any intention of its own. The virtuous thoughts are faith, devotion and the thought of developing bodhicitta, a mind that wishes to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. All thoughts that arise are virtuous, nonvirtuous or neutral. Only these three types exist. We need to look within our minds to discover what is going on. We should not let the thoughts stray outwardly; but must bring our attention to them and look inwardly. First, we have to scrutinize to see whether the conceptual thought that is arising is virtuous, nonvirtuous or neutral. If it is a nonvirtuous thought of one of the afflictive emotions, strive to conquer it. At best find an antidote and abandon it. If the antidote doesn’t work, for the time being try to suppress nonvirtuous thoughts and forget about them. Neutral thoughts should also be discarded, although they are not as bad as nonvirtuous thoughts. Nonvirtuous thoughts lead to the fruition of great suffering. Neutral thoughts do not ripen into such fruits of suffering, but they neither lead to attaining liberation nor to the state of enlightenment. Therefore attempt to give up neutral thoughts as well. Seek to produce conceptual thoughts of virtue. Always listen with a positive intention. The thought of attaining rebirth as a human or a god can be considered a positive intention, as are aspiring to achieve liberation or nirvana, and wishing to reach the unsurpassable state of enlightenment. These three are all varieties of virtuous thoughts. THE SPECIFIC TOPIC The topic here concerns Mahayana Dharma,3 of which the teachings of 2 The five major afflictive emotions. 3 Generally speaking, the three yanas or vehicles are the Hinayana (the “lesser” vehicle), the Mahayana (the “greater” vehicle) and the Vajrayana (the COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL 5 Dzogpa Chenpo, the Great Perfection, are the pinnacle. In particular, we are discussing the Dzogchen preliminary practices. We must try to engender a motivation that accords with the teachings being studied, in this case the great open-minded Mahayana motivation of bodhicitta and the particular Vajrayana motivation of the vast methods. Therefore, we should generate the overall motivation of the Mahayana teaching; within that we need to produce the motivation of the Vajrayana. The method for developing these thoughts will be taught later. The main point here is to always listen to the teachings with a good motivation. Will the blessings of the glorious Vajrasattva and the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times penetrate the mind of someone who neglects to generate virtuous thoughts and only fosters nonvirtuous and neutral thoughts, even when physically present in the teachings? They will not. The enlightened ones’ blessings cannot penetrate those whose minds are creating negative thoughts. Thus, listen to the teachings with a good motivation right now. Later, when practicing the teachings, the buddhas of the three times and their heirs will always protect you, just as someone with sight cares for and protects someone who is blind. Whether or not persons with this virtuous mindset specifically supplicate the buddhas and bodhisattvas, their blessings flow spontaneously. That is why you must listen to the present teaching with a good motivation in mind. The text being taught is called “The Words of My Perfect Teacher,” in Tibetan, “Kunzang Lama’i Zhalung,” and it describes the Dzogchen preliminary practices. The buddhas teach in accordance with the capacities, sense faculties, and thoughts of each individual being. Because these capacities, faculties, and thoughts are inconceivable in number and type, inconceivable numbers of teachings are taught. If we ask which among all these numerous teachings is the unsurpassable actual cause for attaining enlightenment, the answer would be the unsurpassable teaching of Dzogpa Chenpo. The “Secret Essence Tantra”4 states that although the buddhas have taught countless levels of teachings, they are all taught as a stairway to reach the level of Dzogchen. Dzogchen itself is the actual cause for attaining buddhahood. Without relying on Dzogchen’s definitive teachings, we will not succeed in accomplishing the ultimate goal, enlightenment. Dzogpa Chenpo is the supreme path. “diamond” vehicle), also called the Mantrayana (the vehicle of mantra). 4 Guhyagarbha (Skt); Sangwa Nyingpo (Tib). 6 KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG The Dzogchen teachings are classified into three: the outer division of semde – the mind category – the teachings on clarity; the inner division of longde – the expanse category – the teachings on emptiness; and the secret teachings of mengagde – pith instructions that teach the indivisibility of clarity and emptiness, or in other words the indivisibility of intrinsic awareness and emptiness (rigtong zung jug). Mengagde contains Dzogchen’s two main subdivisions: kadag trekchod – cutting through to primordial purity – and lhundrub togal – spontaneously crossing over. Of these two, Trekchod is the more general teaching. All of the four divisions of the pith instruction section – the outer, inner, secret and most secret, known as the four cycles of pith instruction – equally teach the path of Trekchod. The difference concerns the teaching of Togal, which is not taught as explicitly in the outer, inner and secret cycles. The ground, path and fruition of Togal are clearly and explicitly taught in the most secret cycle. The highest teaching of Dzogpa Chenpo is yangsang nyingtik – the most secret heart essence drop, also called Longchen Nyingtik. In this case, the teaching is named after a person; it was Omniscient Longchenpa who propagated these teachings. They are also known as the teachings of the luminous Dzogpa Chenpo (osal dzogpa chenpo). To enter into the main part of the path of Longchen Nyingtik we must undertake the preliminary practices described here, practices that are taught as well within the teachings common to all the yanas. The preliminary practices can be divided into outer and inner. The paths taught in the common vehicles are known as the outer common preliminary practices, while those from the Mahayana and unsurpassable secret Mantrayana are called the uncommon inner preliminary practices. A practitioner needs to complete these preliminary practices to follow the path of the actual ultimate luminous Dzogpa Chenpo. Both the outer common preliminary practice and the uncommon inne preliminary practice mainly train the mind. These practices help dispel obstacles that prevent us from bringing forth the real nature of the actual luminous Dzogpa Chenpo, and they create favorable conditions through the accumulation of enormous merit. The practices constitute a special method to give rise to actualizing the reality of the main Dzogchen teaching.
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