LAM RIM TEACHINGS VOLUME II INITIAL SCOPE thoroughly revised edition Gehlek Rimpoche teachings 1987 - 1991 Jewel Heart Transcripts 2005 Jewel Heart First edition 1993; revised 2005 © Ngawang Gehlek All rights reserved. CONTENTS HOW TO TAKE THE ESSENCE OUT OF LIFE: INITIAL SCOPE VIII Precious Human Life: Embracing Our Life 5 IX Mindfulness of Death: Facing Death Realistically 25 X What will follow Death: The Sufferings of the Lower Realms 55 XI Going for Refuge: Taking a Safe Direction in Life 65 XII Karma: Actions and Their Consequenses 97 APPENDICES 125 Questions and Answers 127 Outlines 135 Charts 142 - Chart 3: Six Desire Realms - Chart 4: Form- and Formless Realms Root Texts 145 - The Three Principles of the Path – by Tsongkhapa - The Foundation of All Perfections – by Tsongkhapa - Odyssey to Freedom in 64 Steps – by Gehlek Rimpoche - Lines of Experience – Lamrim Dudon – by Tsongkhapa - Lamrim von Je Tsongkhapa – Lamrim Dudon (German) - Seeking Inspiration to Realize the Stages of the Lam Rim – from Lama Chöpa LITERATURE 163 INDEX 175 Crossroad VIII PRECIOUS HUMAN LIFE: EMBRACING OUR LIFE Introduction Human life, found but this one time, More precious than the wish-fulfilling gem, So hard to regain and so easily lost, Is brief as a flash of lightning. Seeing this, discard worldly activity like the husk of a grain And strife day and night to take life’s essence. 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. 10 When you are going through this particular path, three most important steps are involved.1 Step one is: knowing the difficulties of samsara and the qualities of nirvana. Samsara. Samsara means the circle of life: going through one life after another, birth followed by death and death followed by an intermediate state [Tib. bardo] and then by birth again. The continuation of that is what is basically referred to as samsara. If you ask yourself what my samsara really is, it is again the con- tinuation of that. Not only of me as this person, but the continuation of taking one identity after another. Samsara is: the continuation of taking an identity by the forceful power of karma and delusions. That indicates that we don’t have the control. There are beings who have control over their future rebirth: those who really have a true recognition of the true nature, of emptiness, but are not free from samsara yet [Skt. aryas]. That continuation of one life running after another, like the arms of a clock, is samsara; the discon- tinuation is nirvana. Basically you could say: samsara is suffering and nirvana is peace. The wish for freedom. The first thing here is seeing the circle of life, seeing what problems we face, what sufferings we have. Suffering is almost the nature of the life we have. By seeing that carefully and by also seeing the qualities of nirvana, one develops a certain important wish to be able to obtain nirvana. We have a basic feeling of seeking peace and we recognize that having sufferings and pains is not having peace. We seek peace; not having peace is feeling miserable and difficult, and having peace is feel- ing nice and relaxed. Take that idea into a broader picture. See how far the difficulties that we face cover our life, and how far peace covers our life. Try to distinguish the area of suffering from the peaceful area. See the problems here and see the qualities over there. Then raise the question, “What do I want to do now?” Look carefully and then say, “Hey, that is great. I want to end this, I want to end the pains and prob- lems that I constantly experience. If there is another state, I would like to have that state.” You develop that by an intelligent way, which means: balancing and judging what is here and what is over there and then making the decision on the basis of: what is good for me. That is the first step. 1 Rimpoche most probably refers to the three principles of the path: 1) determination to be free, renunciation, seeking freedom or love for oneself; 2) bodhicitta or altruistic mind; 3) wisdom or the right view. 6 Lam Rim Teachings What blocks us from freedom. When we try to get that first step, what problems will block us to reach it? The problem that blocks the first step, is nothing but attachment: the attachment to the comforts we ex- perience, not necessarily the material comforts alone. How do they become obstacles? We probably spend a tremendous amount of time fulfilling the desires of the physical, mental and spiritual comfort feeling, or at least we spend a tremendous amount of energy and time on maintaining its status quo. We put a lot of time and energy into material comforts, which is probably meaningless. Not because in the end it is emptiness; it is meaningless even just as it is. On top of that we want mental comfort. And we also seek spiritual comfort. We think we are working for spiritual benefit, but if you dig deep into it, it could be simply attachment. Attachment of bringing me to either state of comfort, material or spiritual or emotional. That is how attachment blocks the true comfort the individual can really get at the end. These states somehow pull all your attention. By knowing that, by thinking about it and meditating on it, you’ll finally be able to see what is really good and what is really bad, what is really suffering and what is really a cessation of suffering. From there one can make the decision of seeking true peace, nirvana. Renunciation. Somehow in the Buddhist tradition what you seek is presented the other way round; instead of presenting what you want, things are presented in terms of what you don’t want. Instead of say- ing: seeking nirvana, we say: renouncing samsara. Instead of saying, “You can be happy and great this way and that way”, Buddha goes on saying, “Hey, this is suffering, that is suffering!” That is the way Buddhism introduces things. Glued to samsara. Attachment to this life is easier to renounce than attachment to the future lives. Par- ticularly those of us who claim to be seeking a spiritual path, seek a future-life benefit. To Buddha attach- ment, whether for this life or future life, is attachment. It is bad, it is an obstacle, it is a delusion, it is the glue of the continuation of suffering. If there is no attachment, there will not be a continuation; if there is no con- tinuation, the individual will not stick to samsara. There are two major glues to samsara: one is attachment for this life, the other one, even bigger and more difficult to separate, is attachment for future lives. Embracing our life. That is, accepting our life with its qualities. What makes it possible to have such a for- tunate, precious life? How is such a precious life found, by what cause and by what circumstances? And how long will it last? Meditating on these points will make you loosen your attachment for the comfort of this life. Precious human life, gained but once, Has great potential, but is easily lost. Empower me to remember this constantly And to think day and night of taking its essence. Je Tsongkhapa, Foundation of All Perfections Precious human life. When you read here ‘precious human life’; what does it mean? Obviously we are not talking about the mere fact that human life is precious. It is true, human life is precious, but we are talking here about much more than that. We are talking about the value of the life that we, you and I, have here to- day. We have to see the specific qualities of such a life as we have, the capability and the opportunity, in the traditional way counted as eighteen different qualities2 of a precious human life. Not only seeing it, but seeing it well, will help to recognize it preciousness. We all know how precious human life normally is. In addition to that we have extra-ordinary quali- ties, mixed with opportunity. We have the opportunity to end the continuation and the sufferings of having one life after another. We can end that for good and achieve something greater, the greatest stage [buddha- hood]. That is the real quality. And that quality is not shared by every human being; it is not shared by all our educated colleagues and friends – even your roommates may not share that. We do have that quality, and that is really important, but it is very fragile. This is the basis of the opportunity, counted in these eighteen qualities. This is the key. Gained but once. You may not be able to take advantage of all these qualities if you don’t have the oppor- tunity. Even if you have the opportunity right in front of you, somehow you may not be able to take it; just 2 Eight leisures and ten opportunities. See page 9ff. Precious Human Life: Embracing our Life 7 because your priority is different, because you are not interested, because you don’t believe it. That is what I mean by: it is very fragile. On top of that we have a very shaky ground. We don’t see the qualities of nirvana, because that is something to be experienced. You can’t talk much about how nirvana is; it would be like a blind person describing to another blind one what white looks like.