LOJONG Mind Training in Eight Verses

Transcription

1 Gelek Rimpoche LOJONG Mind Training in Eight Verses A Commentary on Geshe Langri Tangpa s Famous Root Verses by Gelek Rimpoche Jewel Heart Transcript 2011

2 Gelek Rimpoche, Lojong - Training of the Mind 1992 Ngawang Gelek Extended edition in new format: Jewel Heart Transcripts are lightly to moderately edited transcriptions of the teachings of Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and others teachers who have taught at Jewel Heart. Their purpose is to provide Rimpoche s students, as well as all others who are interested, with these extremely valuable teachings in a way that gives one the feeling of being present at the teachings. JEWEL HEART Boeddhistische Studie en Meditatie Nijmegen Tel

3 Acknowledgements This is the transcript of the teachings Gelek Rimpoche gave during the Spring Retreat of 1996 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, entitled Misfortune as an Ally. The subject is about training of the mind, Lo jong in Tibetan, methods to develop the altruistic mind. These methods are no sinecure as the ego cherishing part of our minds is confronted straight out. From this it may be clear that these teachings are aimed at the Mahayana practitioner. Even though these teachings stem from the eleventh century, they still totally apply to our present-day situation and can be applied very well in our present-day lives. The first text from which is taught is Langri Tangpa's Training of the Mind in Eight Stanzas. These beautiful verses reveal profound yet very practical methods to the development of a real altruistic mind. Rimpoche explains these verses one by one, clarifies the message behind each of them and provides meditations on the two central practices of this training: equalizing and exchanging self and others [Tib. dagzhen nyamje] and the give and take technique [Tib. tonglen]. In these teachings Rimpoche made use of a commentary by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra, a practice in the prayer-form by Geshe Chen-ngawa and a specific analytic meditation on equalizing and exchanging self and others by Gunthang Könchog Tenpei Dronme. The second text Rimpoche taught on is the practice of Lojong as described in the Lama Chöpa verses teaching Ann Arbor in 2005.

4 Two other Lojong texts Rimpoche gave teachings on, the Training of the Mind in Seven Points by Geshe Chekhawa and The Wheel of Sharp Weapons by Dharmarakshita, have been published separately. The transcript is slightly edited to make the text easier to read and outlines have been added. People of Jewel Heart The Netherlands transcribed the teachings after which a thorough language check took place by Anne Warren, USA. The teachings from 2005 were transcribed by Hartmut Sagolla. The drawings of buddha Vajradhara, and of Atisha are by thangka painter Marian van der Horst. The text has been moderately edited. Where thought necessary notes are provided as well as an overview of relevant literature. Full responsibility for any inaccuracies are taken by me. Nijmegen, January 2011 Gelek Rimpoche / Jewel Heart Marianne Soeters

5 Contents I. INTRODUCTION 7 II. GENERAL PRELIMINARIES 17 III. SPECIFIC PRELIMINARIES 67 IV. THE ACTUAL PRACTICE All beings are extremely kind View yourself as lowly and respect others Observe your mind and drive out bad thoughts Cherish those who commit evil or who suffer greatly Accept blame without trying to defend yourself One who harms you is kinder than one who helps you Give help and take on suffering Remain pure and overcome attachment 111 V. GUIDED MEDITATION 125 VI EXCHANGE STAGE 135 VII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 161 VII. THE EIGHT VERSES OF MIND TRAINTING 171 VIII. LITERATURE 175 AFBEELDINGEN: - Atisha 6 - Buddha Vajradhara 16 - Buddha Amitabha 66 - Ngulchu Dharmabhadra 82 - Buddha Amitayus White Tara Langri Tangpa 170

6 Atisha

7 I Introduction Welcome here. As usual, whenever we do any Buddhist and particularly a Mahayana Buddhist activity, the first is developing the right motivation and the end is dedication. We are beginning, so what we have to deal with first, is the motivation. If you have some understanding of the precious bodhimind you should generate that and if you don t, have a mind of learning it. For the time being, you can have a very little thought to substitute the bodhimind, which is: For the benefit of all living beings I would like to become fully enlightened. Maybe you are not familiar with this Buddhist language. It is like saying: I would like to get the best I could get through spiritual practice. From the Buddhist point of view we refer to that as total enlightenment, which means total knowledge. It is the highest measurement one can get in one s spiritual development. For a person like me who spent all life, over 60 years, in the Buddhist field, if I say that total enlightenment means total knowledge, I have an understanding of it. But the language itself [doesn t convey it]. What does total knowledge mean? You may think it means having great knowledge, being very learned, but it is much more than that: it is not only internal and external knowledge, but also internal joy! This is slightly connected with Vajrayana, so it is not wrong to refer to it as: a blissful state of mind, which in addition to that has total knowledge. With my background, it is understood that when you talk about total knowledge, it doesn t mean dry knowledge. Not at all! It means the total blissful ultimate knowledge of everything fully developed, internal as well as external.

8 8 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses In typical language this is known as the buddha state, also called the awakened state. It is the ultimate state of development you can achieve: a wonderful, joyful state of blissful nature along with knowledge. These come together simultaneously, and one does not block the other. In our ordinary level, though we don t have great joy, the joy we do have does block other thoughts, ideas and knowledge. It cannot function simultaneously. Especially if the joy is really great you cannot think of anything else. Don t pretend that you don t know what we are talking about! We all know. That clearly shows that the one blocks the other. In technical Buddhist language that is called seeing as it is (Tib: chi ta wa 1 ) and seeing what it is (Tib: chi nye pa) Seeing what it is blocks seeing as it is ; and seeing as it is, blocks seeing what it is. That is our handicap. When you come to total knowledge, you come to the point where they don t block each other. The traditional example is that of a transparent fruit. If you put that on the palm of your hand you can see the fruit as well as the lines in the palm of your hand. It is a 2600 year old example; they probably didn t have glass at that time. So we can say: if you put a glass in the palm of your hand you can see the glass as well as the lines in the palm of your hand. One does not block the other. That is what we call simultaneous. That is what we call union. We talk about male-female union, but this is what it really represents: one doesn t block the other; you can function simultaneously; you have the joy state as well as total knowledge. Total knowledge that includes past, present and future. That is the state of buddhahood, the state that can be achieved by any great spiritual path. Any individual can achieve it, no matter who you are. Whether you are male or female, black or white, whatever you are, you have the capability. That s why every practice we do is geared towards this: our spiritual goal. There are other goals, ordinary goals, that can be anything, like a better life, better health, a better this and better that. However, the recommended goal is buddhahood. That s how the previous masters have travelled. So when I say, For the benefit of all beings I would like to become a buddha that s what I am talking about. That is the motivation. With this motivation we will learn and practice. The subject requested today is Lojong. That actually means Mind training : lo means

9 Introduction 9 mind and jong means training. But it is not the Silva Mind Training that was popular in the 60s and 70s! The purpose of this training of the mind is to develop a very specific thought, referred as precious thought. In Sanskrit that is known as bodhicitta bodhi refers to the buddha state 2 and citta is mind. So bodhicitta or bodhimind is the mind that seeks the state of total knowledge [by] unlimited, unconditional love and compassion. This is as far as you can go with love and compassion: unlimited and unconditional. That is the most important thing. In our usual mind everything is limited. We have a lot of limitations: natural limits, physical limits and particularly mentally imposed limits. We have a lot of natural physical limits which become worse and worse anyway and also mental limits, like not knowing what to do, not having information. But especially we have self-imposed limits, telling ourselves, I can t do that, I am not capable, I am handicapped, I have been abused, etc. If we want to count our sufferings, no doubt we have a tremendous amount of sufferings that we experienced. Who doesn t? Everyone does. But it depends on the individual whether or not you want to limit yourself because of some excuse of having been exposed to a particular suffering before. These limitations we ourselves create. Natural physical and mental limitations are a little difficult to break through, but the ones specifically imposed on yourself are very easy to break, if you want to. If you don t want to, it is your choice. No one can force you. The Training of the Mind here is breaking any blocks you have. You can think of blocks like I have been. and anything that follows. You can pick up any excuse and tell yourself, I can t do this, because I ve been this, I ve been that. Since this is a lojong teaching I can tell you two things: First, every limitation we have is impermanent; it is not permanent. The meaning of impermanence is that it is changeable. It changes every minute, every second, it keeps on changing. Let us make it absolutely clear to ourselves that every difficulty we have is impermanent in nature and therefore changeable! Let us make that clear in our own mind without any doubt. That is the first thing you can take home. I did not say it is easily changeable. It won t be easy, you know. But it is changeable.

10 10 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Second, there is an absolute reason. Limitations do not exist inherently. They are not established in and out of themselves. They are not in our life all the way from beginning to end. Though they are not inherently existent, nevertheless they do exist within us. What makes them exist? Terms and conditions. That is the interdependent nature of existence. In other words: everything within us arises dependently, meaning: terms and conditions come together to make something existent. That is the absolute reason why they are impermanent. I would like you to take home [today] two things: all our problems are impermanent and therefore they are changeable. The first training of the mind is to defeat the thought, my problem is so big that I can do nothing. Revisit that and think about it. It is a true fact. It is not just that Buddha said so. If you really think carefully you will see that everything is impermanent and subject to change. You are not going to find anything that is not impermanent. Everything we use changes, our clothes, our hair, our body and body-size, our wrinkles, everything. It all arises dependently. If you leave the conditions as they are, you will get wrinkles. But if you go and have a face-lift, the conditions change and so you ll look different: your eyes may go up a little bit, but other than that you have no wrinkles. These are dependently arisen and therefore impermanent. As this is true for external things we see, deal with, eat, wear, etc., internally equally everything can be changed. If nothing exists inherently, all must be arising dependently and therefore our existence is of interdependent nature: our sufferings, our problems, as well as our advantages, privileges and everything! All arises dependently. However, that is not even the purpose of lojong. Lojong. The purpose of lojong is to bring you the precious mind 3. In order to bring that about we cannot remain overwhelmed by our personal internal problems. These can be so much sometimes that they dictate our life completely. For some people it is a nagging pain that they carry continuously. Some people hit the ceiling in temper tantrums and their mind is a typhoon of rainstorm cloudy weather it happens and then goes away. Other people carry their problems with them continuously, year after year after year and suffer tremendous consequences.

11 Introduction 11 I tell you a little bit about the consequences [of such ways of life]. The first is that it completely deprives you of opportunities: of any opportunity in the spiritual field, where you can do something fantastic, and of opportunities in the material field that can make your life reasonably comfortable. It also deprives you of the opportunity to have a good companion. So, this problem has no advantage for whatsoever and a total disadvantage for everything. Yet you are in love with that problem we all are. We cannot let go. We are afraid of letting it go, we are afraid of losing it. Why am I talking about this? The major part of the Lojong is focused on thinking about others. But if you have not established thinking of yourself and then try to think of others, it is not going to do any good. On the contrary. So, it is extremely important to first deal with ourselves, with our own problems. We can blame any conditions. There is no condition that we haven t experienced before. We had every experience of every bad thing. We do, all of us. It happened to us in life after life. So we are carrying the scars of those wounds. But now it is time for us to get ourselves off, and if you cannot, who else will? If you don t do your job yourself, who else will do it? Up to now we spent our lives being stuck with these problems, and if you don t do anything, they will continue and we will even carry them into our next life. This is going happen, even if you don t believe in reincarnation. So our life now is a great opportunity for us, from two important points of view: from the internal, the spiritual point of view and from the external conditions; from both points it is a great opportunity. So one has to take care of that. Lojong is training the mind in the way of the bodhisattvas. As I said earlier, the goal of Buddha s teaching and particularly Mahayana Buddhism is to become a buddha. The genuine question rises within us: why should I become a buddha? Why do I need to become a buddha? We have a good old friend, an African-American lady, who asked me one day, This buddha business, what are we really talking about? I wanted some kind of easy way out and said, It is just like when we talk about God. We were out walking and she thought for a long time and then she said, Rimpoche, if Buddha is God, I have no interest to become God for whatsoever. I was trying to get out of answering that question the easy way, but I got myself more into the soup.

12 12 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses So you have to think about the relevance of why should I become a buddha? Why should that be my goal? It is not really relevant to us right now. Why are we in the spiritual path? We try to get rid of our suffering and what we want is happiness and joy; becoming a buddha is not relevant to us. That may be true, as long as we think we can be completely independent. If I don t depend on anything or anybody, then I can say, I don t care what happens to anybody, as long as I make it. We don t like to admit to thinking that way, but deep down, when the situation forces us we will entertain that idea. It is the dominating idea within us. We call that self-cherishing, some self-centeredness. As long as we don t see the interdependent nature of existence, as long as we don t see how small the world is, we can t really appreciate that. We say that we care about Iraq, but on the other hand we don t. It doesn t matter how many people die there or whatever happens to their country, as long as it is not an American and America. That s a general perception. Or more personal, As long as it is not my home, I am fine. I hate to see my neighbors disadvantaged, but better them than me. We do have that idea, truly speaking. While there is no peace and joy and harmony in Iraq, although there is no gun shooting here, we are also losing our own kids there. That is the interdependent nature. One cannot be independent. We cannot shut our borders, we cannot seal off our territory, we cannot control the environment in our country just by ourselves and be happy and enjoy. It doesn t happen that way. It is very much interdependent. So are we. It is true in the material world and it is true in the spiritual world. Everything is very dependent. The environment is very interconnected. It doesn t have boundaries, with immigration and customs between Mexico and us or Canada and us. Borders are there, but the border guards can t control the environment. They can t control the air and the elements that pass through. They can t even control the diseases that come across. The Asian flu gets here easily; it just gets in. So everything is very much related and interconnected. Even if you don t want to believe what Buddha says, this is true. So there is no point for narrow selfishness. That is very important to remember. My happiness depends on your happiness. Your happiness depends on my happiness. It is that interdependent. If we get that, then everything else to do with others also becomes relevant to us.

13 Introduction 13 To wish that I alone should be free of suffering is not good enough for me. I have to think, What about my family, my fellow country people? We are so related. There is no such thing as independently walking away. When you begin to see this, then the idea of I want to have freedom from suffering, joy, bliss will extend to my family, my extended family, my fellow human beings even if you can t think of all other living beings. That s how it becomes relevant. In order to help all of them, in order to serve them, you need the highest position with the greatest capability and that is the state of a buddha from the Buddhist point of view. In order to help myself and my people I need to become a buddha. If you realize that then the relevancy of becoming a buddha rises a little bit. (Otherwise, when it is not really a goal for me whether or not I become a buddha, what do I care, as long as I don t suffer). The mind that wants to become a buddha is called bodhimind. And in order to bring the relative and absolute bodhimind we do the Lojong training. There are a number of different Lojongs. Today I have been asked to talk to you about the Lojong of Langri Tangpa Dorje Senge 4, his Training of the Mind in Eight Verses. A LITTLE HISTORIC BACKGROUND Langri Tangpa. Langri Tangpa is an early Tibetan Kadampa master, one of the great Kadampa geshes. The word ka in Kadampa stands for the teachings of the Buddha. The fact that every teaching of the Buddha can bring enlightenment to some individual is expressed in the word dam and pa means person. So a Kadampa is a person who follows the Kadam, i.e. every single teaching the Buddha ever taught. That's why we speak of the Kadampas. Their motto is: In essence, every teaching of the Buddha, every single word he taught, is a method for some individual to obtain enlightenment. The reason we emphasize this is a historical matter. Buddhism came to Tibet in the seventh century. Then in the space of about two hundred years, Buddhism became very diversified. Some of it became magic, some of it became purely sutra and had nothing to do with tantra; some of it became all tantra and totally ignored the

14 14 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses sutra rules. At first this went very well, but then later it began to deteriorate terribly. It went so far that by the end of these two hundred years, Tibet almost lost Buddhism. Buddha's teaching is all about his personal experience, his experience of how to overcome negative difficulties and the methods he found to overcome them. For this, Buddha used the sutra path, as well as the tantra or mantra path. He used these together. But during those two hundred years, the Tibetans took everything apart, like tantra that had nothing to do with sutra and sutra that had nothing to do with tantra. 5 If you look in South-east Asia today, the situation is similar. Many of the Chinese Mahayana Sutra followers may not accept Vajrayana. Many of the Theravada teachers do not even accept Chinese Mahayana. Externally they put up a sort of diplomatic show, very polite surely, but in the mean time still that is what's happening. That is similar to what happened in those two hundred years in Tibet. Because of that, the Tibetans thought they really needed a great Buddhist master, one who could truly share what Buddha's teachings really were all about. Atisha 6. So, a delegation of Tibetans went to India to look for teachers. The teachers had to be learned and fully developed, needed to be able to share the teachings and had to be able and willing to spend time in Tibet. They looked for a number of years to find the best possible master before they found one called Atisha. It was not easy to bring Atisha to Tibet. It took a long time. It even cost the life of the Tibetan king 7 [Hlalama Yeshe Oe] of the time. But then, finally, the day that they were able to bring Atisha to Tibet came. By the time Atisha reached Tibet, King Janchub Ö, [who had succeeded his uncle King Hlalama Yeshe Ö to the throne] made a request to Atisha. He said that what he really wanted to learn was the essence of the true practice of Buddha and that followed by the great Indian saints and scholars, and that he was not so much interested in magic or what have you. That didn t mean he had objections to magic or anything, but whether it was magic or teaching or practice, or whatever, he wanted to know what it really was that Buddha did and what the earlier great Indian mahapandits and saints had done. He essentially asked, Could you show us that?

15 Introduction 15 Atisha called this king a great disciple, not because he was a king, and not because he gave lots of gifts. Atisha called him a great disciple because this king had asked exactly the right thing for his people. It was exactly what his people needed at that time. Then Atisha wrote the root of all teachings, called A Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment 8. The essence of his message is that all the teachings of the Buddha are directed toward different levels and that each one of them is in one way or the other of great help for, and of great benefit to each and every individual, each on his or her own level. He also showed there is no contradiction between what is taught in the different levels. And he also pointed out that when you pick up sutra, that you re not supposed to reject or neglect tantra, because both work with one individual, [albeit] at different levels. In short, Atisha said, Every word the Buddha ever shared, always mattered. There's nothing there to be dropped. The Kadampas 9 From the time of Atisha in the 1100 s, up to the late 1300 s or early 1400 s, we speak of the Kadampas Then around 1400 Tsongkhapa came, and with him came the system of the Gelugpa or yellow hat sect. They are known as the new Kadampa. Let s leave it at that for the historical part. So, the teachers from between 1100 and 1400, are normally called Kadampa Geshes 10. Geshe means one who leads to the virtuous path. Note that later Geshe became a title for a degree, but traditionally this is what it is. So when we speak of these Kadampa Geshes, they don't have degrees like today's Geshes do. They truly lead to the practice. Langri Tangpa was one of those Kadampa teachers 11 who, as we saw earlier, take all the teachings of the Buddha as a practice very seriously. Many of the Kadampas specialized in different aspects. Some would specialize in the development of bodhimind, some in the development of seeking freedom. From the different specializations, Langri Tangpa specialized in dealing with everyday life in combination with the principle of bodhimind. The text I want to share with you has only eight very short verses. I will share them with you, orientated towards practice. The teaching system here follows three basic outlines, consisting of a preliminary part, the actual part and a conclusion part.

16 Buddha Vajradhara

17 II. General Preliminaries MOTIVATION: HOW TO HELP MYSELF Preliminaries mean prerequisites. Normally we get the idea that before I get into this I have to do that. It is not really that kind of preliminary. It is a prerequisite, but you are already in it. Here the preliminaries include the generation of the motivation. The bodhimind is precious and wonderful, but it is an almost impossible thought. It requires that all activities of how can I help myself? have to go before I can begin to help others. This is going to be the mind that wants to help others. But in order to know that, one needs to know how to help oneself. We have a teaching series called Odyssey to Freedom, traditionally called Lamrim 12. Before, at the time of the Kadampa, it was called Tenrim 13. Tsongkhapa, who lived in the 14 th century, changed it into Lamrim. In the 11 th century, it was known as Lamp on the Path [to enlightenment] 14. Now we are trying to present that path as Odyssey to Freedom. The basic structure is: first figuring out how to help oneself. That begins with the guru-devotional practice, which is a very important point. Then the path itself begins with looking at our life, how precious, how valuable it is for us. You begin to find that you cannot measure your life in terms of any price. You can get a lifeinsurance, but you cannot measure the value of life in terms of dollars. You can leave your money to the family, but what about your life? It is beyond imagination. Your life has tremendous value, it is important, and it is difficult to find. Also, it doesn t last very long, it is impermanent. It changes and then we die. We don t live forever. We have a manufacturing defect in our physical body. True.

18 18 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses What happens after death? Are we going to disappear or continue? We know we will continue. And when we continue, what s going to happen? Either good or bad both are possible. What is not true is what certain spiritual traditions are saying, that we have reached to this level and we are always going to get better that is not true. This [life] is the junction, from which you are going to go up or down. We have been at that junction a number of times and we will be there again. But now we are here and this is the point at which we have to make a decision of whether we are going to help ourselves or not. That is not mystical. We are trying to make it a mystery but it is not. When you help someone you will get helped. If you hurt someone you will get hurt. That s what we call karma. If we do something good, good things will follow. If we do something bad, bad things will follow. That s the structure into which our lives fall. Karma gives us freedom to do things that help us. Sometimes we can t help ourselves. If we are some kind of animal, we can t do anything. But this is a life in which we can help ourselves! Now a little bit of dogma comes in between: if I can t help myself before my death comes, what can I do? Take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That is Buddhist talk. But, mind you, Buddha is a reliable object of refuge because he went through all this himself. He knows. He is like a guide who knows the path, who has the techniques and tricks and knows how to take us through easily and quickly. The path itself is the dharma and those who can help us is the sangha. So taking refuge to them is a temporary solution until we are able to help ourselves. Other than that, it is we who have to help ourselves. No one else can help. How can we help ourselves? There are two things we need: love-compassion and wisdom. Without those we can do nothing. Can we bring love-compassion to ourselves easily? No; that s because we have addictions. We are addicted to our narrow selfish desires and addicted to our ego-protection. We have addiction for hatred, addiction for obsession. These negative emotions stop us from helping ourselves. We need to deal with this through lovecompassion and through wisdom. Then all our causes of suffering will be finished and we will have no more suffering. But that does not guarantee that my spouse and my family and friends, etc, will have no suffering. Therefore I cannot walk

19 General Preliminiaries 19 away, while my people are suffering. I must help them, just as I know how to help myself. But they are so many! Therefore I need the best possible way to do this. Therefore I need to become a buddha. Seeking buddhahood is what we call bodhimind 15. That is the whole path. Then we dedicate all our efforts for the benefit of all others. Basically, that is the structure of a practice with purpose, which shows us what to do. That is Buddha s wisdom. Buddha s wisdom is not just one single thing. It is all of those things. In this way I brought in the prerequisite level practices of lo jong in the shortest possible way. These are the general prerequisites. I wanted to give you just a brief idea if you are looking at Buddha s spiritual path. That s how it goes. The first step is helping yourself. MOTIVATION: HOW TO HELP OTHERS The second point then is how to help others. Why is that needed? Why should I bother? I can be happy without bothering with others problems. I am not the President of the United States and even if I am I don t care. So why should I bother? Now I have to tell you something from the background of reincarnation. Buddha was asked by his disciples and critics, When did we begin? Buddha didn t answer. He kept silent. The reason he did was because you cannot find a time at which you can say, This is where we began. Therefore, the saying that all souls are old souls is really true. There is no beginning and there is also no end of existence. There can be an end to suffering but there is neither beginning nor end of the individual. The suffering aspect, the cycle of suffering, can be ended and instead we can experience the existence of no suffering, which is called nirvana. That is the idea of samsara being suffering and nirvana being freedom. But we have gone so many times through life after life and conditionally we ve been interconnected with every other living being. Because of the change of birth and rebirth we don t recognize that, because each time we carry a different physical identity. Sometimes our identities have horns and tails, sometimes we are bald headed, sometimes we have a lot of hair. We change and that s why we don t recognize it. Otherwise it is the same old me. Every time when we take rebirth, the whole set of friends, ene-

20 20 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses mies, and couldn t care less -people, is coming up again in each and every life. In other words this is very strange. I am sure you have never heard it but it is going to be the reality there is not a single being in existence that you can point at and say: he or she has not been my mother. You may have heard that. Similarly, you cannot say to any living being that he or she has never been your spouse. There is not a single being that you can say has nothing to do with you. Since lives changed so many times, so many people have acted with us in so many roles. The bottom line is this: Every one of them has been my most nearest and dearest person, without whom I couldn t even live a minute. We have been in that condition many times with every single person. You cannot show me a single person who has never been like that for me. Therefore, caring for all and having compassion and generating love for all living beings is extremely important. Not only have they been that close to me once, but countless numbers of times. It is because of the transition of lives that we don t recognize this; otherwise they have all been my good old friend, the good old person that irritates me, the good old person that I love, the good old person that I could never live without. The condition of those people is the same as mine. They are suffering in nature. What they want is joy and freedom, but what they are creating is negativity and suffering. Their intention is good, but their action is wrong. So I must help them. In order to help them I need some power, so that I will be able to do it. Otherwise, it is impossible and overwhelming. So therefore I like to become a buddha. To become a buddha is not an instant achievement. There is no instant buddha, because all buddhas are great. There is no instant enlightenment, because it can only happen due to causes. The main cause to become a buddha is the bodhimind, the precious, very valuable, wonderful jewel-like mind, the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love-compassion. That is that mind. That also has two: praying form and action form. First we just pray to have that mind, to be able to become like that. Later, we will actually be able to do it.

21 General Preliminiaries 21 LOJONG GENERAL PRELIMINARIES: 1. CREATION OF A GOOD ATMOSPHERE a. Purification of the mind The preliminaries of this practice are very similar to the Lamrim preliminaries. What you do first is purification. We have to purify ourselves internally, i.e. our minds, we purify our external environment and, in particular we purify the place where we meditate. So when you talk about purification, or cleansing, you re looking at these three points. The environment is extremely important, because the personal relationship between the individual person and the external environment is very strong. Basically our self is built in, in a body consisting of four elements: earth, water, air and fire, (i.e. heat). The earth within the body is connected with the external earth. The internal air is obviously very much connected to the external air, because what you breathe, of course, is the normal air. This seems all too clear. We know that if we cannot breathe, we ll die, it s as simple as that. And the same thing goes for internal and external heat. So, first and foremost, the individual has to have his internal elements absolutely pure, but also: pay very much attention to the external elements. Our first basic point is the purification of our own consciousness. If our mind is totally under the influence of negative emotions, then no matter what we try to do, it is not going to work that great. We know very well, that if our mind is heavily influenced by anger or by attachment, no matter what we are trying to say or do, it is not going to be perfect. This is why the earlier teachers have said, The beginning of meditation is observing your consciousness. We re talking about what that means: observing your consciousness or your mind. We re talking about the bottom line, the real ultimate meaning of observing your mind. Some people will interpret it and say, Oh I know, you watch your mind, you focus, you do this and that. All that is correct, there s nothing wrong with that. But the bottom line of observing your mind is that you

22 22 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses observe whether or not your mind is influenced by negative emotions. Recognition and acknowledgement. If you find that your mind is influenced by negative emotions, then what do you do? You must recognize it and you must acknowledge it. If we don t acknowledge it, we will deny it. Tell yourself in honesty, if you are influenced by negative emotions. This is not easy! Even to recognize it, is difficult. And after recognition, acknowledgment is even more difficult. We all have that problem all the time. So here s your first target of meditation. Meditation is not the sitting. It s not the breathing. Of course you can sit and watch your breath. There s no objection to that, it s fine. But the real meditation, that which makes a difference to the individual s life, to the individual s karma is clearly this: observing your thoughts, and trying to see whether your mind is being influenced by the negative emotions or not. That s the real stuff. Two aids. At this level, we cannot get rid of our internal negativities. However, by recognizing, and by acknowledging the negative powers, they are reduced. For the purpose of protecting yourself against negativity, Buddha used two mental faculties: hesitation and shame. You could use hesitation to protect yourself from negativities in situations where you might think, If I ll go through doing this or that, I m sure that I will feel very embarrassed in front of everybody. So you use the hesitation you feel as a breaking point, where you decide not to go through with what you originally wanted to do. The shame that we re talking about here is not necessarily the same shame 16 that we talk about in normal western language. Buddha used it in the sense that, If I do this or that, it will be so shameful to myself! In Buddhism shame is a way of you yourself being the cause of embarrassment to yourself, within yourself. 17 So I don t mean shame in the external sense, as in, How can I show my face to anyone now?! These are a few helpful hints for the individual to improve. They are hints in the sense, that they might not be the direct opponents of those negative emotions, at this moment, at our level, but they are easy to develop and easy to use and they can help.

23 General Preliminiaries 23 b. Purification of environment Cleaning negative emotions sometimes has a connection with maintaining a good atmosphere; I mean the atmosphere of the place where you stay. That place should be neat and tidy, in the sense that the place where you sit and meditate should not be messy. If you meditate in your bedroom, you shouldn t have to walk through bundles of underwear. That s not neat and tidy. Traditional teachers in the traditional Buddhist system will emphasize that you clean the house. They really do! They want you to develop that awareness. They emphasize this very often. This is not just so that you have a clean house, but they point out the fact that cleaning has a corresponding parallel to meditative work. You don t simply vacuum the dust out of your room, but you also vacuum your negative thoughts and emotions. You have to think that way and almost believe that way, and then you have to function that way. I don t say this just to be funny. During the Buddha s lifetime there was a man 18 who was extremely dull [intellectually]. Buddha told this man to start cleaning. He made him clean the temple, clean the room, clean his own room, clean the shoes of all the disciples and all this. Buddha also told every disciple that wherever they saw him they had to say, Clear the dirt, clear the dust. Buddha told him to say these words aloud and to memorize them, Clear the dirt, clear the dust. But somehow he could not do it. When he remembered dirt, he forgot the dust. When he remembered dust, he forgot the dirt. So the Buddha made it a rule for everybody there. Whenever they saw him, they had to say, Clear the dirt, clear the dust. One day he managed to memorize the words. As soon as Buddha noticed that he d begun to memorize the words, Buddha told him, You don t have to clean shoes anymore. Then he replied, Lord, tell me, what can I do now? Buddha said, Now you can sweep the floor. So he started sweeping the floor and kept repeating to himself, Clear the dirt, clear the dust. Buddha played a little trick on him. You see, as soon as he had cleaned one side of a room, Buddha blessed this and made it dirty again. So he had to keep on sweeping all the time. Eventually here s what he came up with. One day it struck him and he said to

24 24 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses himself, What am I saying: clear the dirt, clear the dust? Oh, now I know! When I say clear the dust, now I know it s not ordinary dust that I m talking about, but it s the dust of attachment. Likewise when I say clear the dirt, it s not ordinary dirt I m talking about, but it s the dirt of anger, of hatred, of ignorance. Not ordinary dust, not ordinary dirt! If I d been smart, I should have known that. So Buddha used the purification of the environment as one of the best ways to purify one s negativity. During the Buddha s lifetime there were still no problems with the external environment, like polluted air, or contaminated water and everything. At that time the only problem was dust inside the houses. Today we face the challenge of dealing with the tremendous problems we have with the environment, with the pollution and the polluters. One of the best methods for us to purify our negativity is to be aware of this problem, and to contribute to keeping the environment pure, as much as we can, without going beyond certain limits. If cleaning a temple, cleaning a room and cleaning shoes can purify negativity, then there is no doubt that by protecting the environment we will definitely purify a huge amount of negativity. In one way, when you have to deal with pollution, it s a challenge. In another way maybe, you might even consider it an opportunity for us to take advantage of! So if you are interested in spiritual development, you should also be interested in the protection of the environment because the two are very much interlinked. So again: the first part of the preliminary is cleaning internally as well as externally. 2. SETTING UP A REPRESENTATION OF THE ENLIGHTENED BEINGS After creating a clean and comfortable, good atmosphere we set up an altar or a representation of the objects of refuge. I m not going to talk in too much detail about this subject now. In the Buddhist tradition, followers of the Buddha will always try to keep a

25 General Preliminiaries 25 statue or a photo or an image of the Buddha around. This is not merely a statue or a photo of just the Buddha: this image represents all the enlightened beings. Here is something I d like to emphasize. If you put up a photo of the Buddha and you keep thinking of this as of a photograph, or a poster, then its effect on the individual will be that of a photograph or a poster. However, if you think of it as of a real living Buddha, then its effect will be that of the blessing of a real Buddha. So again we see that it s the internal mind that matters, not the external object. But the internal mind and the external object do have to have a connection. That s why I spoke of a representation that represents the enlightened beings. The enlightened beings are the pure ones, the ones who made it, the ones who ve got it. We are the ones who seek it, who want to be liberated. These two huge different levels combined together meet here: the level of those who have already made it and of those who are seeking it. That is the purpose of the altar. The purpose is not decoration, but this meeting. 3. MAKING OFFERINGS Then once you have such a representation of the enlightened beings in your presence, you can use the opportunity that this function as a meeting-place gives you, as well as using it as a way of showing your respect by making offerings. Offering is very important for a number of reasons. It is great generosity. Offering is also very powerful for cutting down attachment. The laid out offerings, like water, flowers, candlelights are symbolic, but the main offering, the true offering is letting go, letting go of whatever you re holding back. To recapitulate: create a good atmosphere, set up a representation of the enlightened beings and make offerings. Now the next step is: beginning the training of the mind.

26 26 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 4. PRELIMINARY TRAINING OF THE MIND: CORRECTING YOUR MOTI- VATION 1. Guru devotion 1a. Acknowledge the spiritual master. Normally in all Lamrim teachings, in all practices, they will tell you that the guru-devotional practice is the first and foremost step. I m not sure whether you people are ready to hear this or not, but when you go through the Lojong, the eight verses of Langri Tangpa, then this is the traditional way of doing it. It is interesting that the guru devotion practice is normally called the root of all development. Now guru is a very strange word and when you use that word a lot of eye-brows rise and people say, What is that? Big deal! They are not to be blamed, because since the sixties onwards, there have been a lot of guru-trips in the West. For a number of people this has been helpful, but for some of them it has been very heavy and sad and bad indeed. It is important to know a little bit about it. I noticed in the West that some people and groups and organizations, claim, I m your guru or so and so is your guru. They put a claim on the individual. That is absolutely wrong. You select your own guru and nobody can tell you, I m your guru or so and so is your guru. I always say, If anybody tries to tell you, I m your guru, then run away five-hundred miles! Don t even look back, just go. For it s not right! In my personal case, I had a number of gurus, over thirty gurus. Thirty-nine to be precise. I did not select the earlier ones, when I was three or four years old. They were imposed. Most of the later ones became my gurus after I was about eight, nine, ten or eleven. I have selected each and every one of them myself, with exception of his holiness the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the ruler of Tibet and then somehow there s no question of selection. Otherwise I have selected each and every one of them. So that is base number one. But in the West they don t do that. They make claims. And people don t even check, they just follow the claims! I mean: if somebody says, I m your guru, they say, Oh all right: you re my guru. It s unbelievable! That is the basis of trouble number one.

27 General Preliminiaries 27 1b. Investigate qualities of the spiritual master. Trouble number two is that you have no way of judging the guru as right or wrong. Why don t you? Because you don t know the quality requirements of the guru. So naturally you have no way of judging. So you need to know the quality requirements and the qualifications of the guru. Don t confuse the title or the degree with the qualification, because it s not the same. *) The qualification of the guru really lies in what you say in the West: Practice what you preach. Does he or she do so? That s basic requirement number one. *) Basic requirement number two is that he or she has to have kindness and compassion toward the individual. Not an artificial one, but a genuine one. *) Then finally basic requirement number three is the knowledge. Knowledge, plus practice what you preach make the individual guru qualify, and compassion makes it helpful to us. If there is no compassion, then no matter what he does, it s not going to help us much. Compassion and love, in particular, compassion, is absolutely necessary. If that isn t there, you don t connect. Without it, a lecture can still be very impressive, but there won t be the connection between the individual and the enlightened beings. The very purpose of the guru is to constitute a linkage between the enlightened society and ourselves. The guru represents the enlightened beings. The guru is the ambassador of the enlightened society. 1c. Cultivate a pure relationship. What makes spiritual development develop? Professors can go on professing all their knowledge; that may build your knowledge, but not your spiritual development! Well, I ll tell you: the compassion of the guru does. And the continuation of the lineage does. A living tradition does. What constitutes a living tradition? The guru, he or she having received the teaching, maintaining the practice and having some kind of development. That makes it a living tradition. That is very important. It is the backbone of the practice that the practitioner can build up and rely upon. That s why guru devotion is called the root of all development. It is the seed that you get, without which you cannot grow. That s the reason why it s called the root of all development. And then of course, specific masters have specific qualifications. But let s not go into that now. I think, although there are still

28 28 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses a countless number of things to know, for now this is enough to give you some idea about this topic. So, guru devotion is important, even though in the past, it has brought a lot of disadvantages as well as advantages. I say this here because it s in the commentary on the Eight verses of Langri Tangpa by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. And since I m following the commentary, this is where it comes in, as part of the preliminaries. It says, All the great qualities of my spiritual development rely totally upon the qualified guru. Knowing that, may I have both mental and action practice. All this still is part of the preliminaries of this particular text. It s almost a complete Lamrim! That is because it concerns mind training. There is no greater mind training than that of the Lamrim. The earlier teachers used to say that the Lamrim is such a thing, that no matter how wild or dry the leather might be, if you applied butter to it, (remember we don t use chemicals in Tibet!) the leather would become treatable. But the leather that s used to keep the butter in is very difficult to treat! Similarly, the earlier teachers will say that no matter how negative or terrible a person might be, there is no person that cannot be treated by the Lamrim. But if the Lamrim did not work very well with one individual, then he ll be very hard to treat with anything else, similar to the leather in which you keep the butter. So far for the first step, the guru-devotional practice. Remember the importance of the guru, the connection he constitutes. This has to be understood. 2. Embracing human life 2a. Appreciation of life. You may think this is funny, but our life extremely important. What is life? Is it good or bad? We may think of our life as, well, pretty usual, just our life But then, I think we don t really see it very well. According to the Buddha, the life we have is tremendously important. Why? You can achieve anything you want to, because of this life. If our mind can do it, life is capable of giving us what we want. Materially, spiritually or both. We know very well that on a material level we can achieve anything we want. That is abso-

29 General Preliminiaries 29 lutely clear. We call it scientific development; that is a human achievement. Machines don t provide anything, if there s no human mind behind to use them. The combination of the human mind and the human body is capable of giving us anything we want on the material level. Likewise, the same combination of the human mind and body is capable of giving us anything we want on a spiritual level. Let us define what we mean if we say spiritual by looking how Buddha used the word spiritual. His meaning of the word spiritual is: overcoming negativity, negative emotions, negative actions and negative karma. Negative karma gives negative results. When I indulge in negative karma, I m bound to get negative results. Why? Because I m responsible for my actions and nobody else. If I create a negative karma, I get a negative result. Vice versa: if I create a positive karma, I get a positive result. This is so, again, because I am responsible for my own actions. Buddha called spiritual being free from suffering, the position where you can reach freedom from suffering. Freedom from suffering can only be achieved by cutting the cause of suffering. Cutting the cause of suffering can only be achieved by cutting the negative emotions. Life, the combination of the human mind and body, is capable of doing this. And that s why this human life is so tremendously important. Humans are unlike other life-forms, like a dog s or cat s life or something. Inevitably somebody will say, Oh, but my dog, or my cat is very intelligent. Still, it is not as intelligent as you are. I am not trying to make funny remarks here! I am giving you material to meditate on. Meditate in the sense of to think about it. The real meditation is really thinking. Why? Because thinking will change your thoughts. It will make you think differently. And when you think differently, you will act differently. That s how you will cut down the negative actions. That s how you correct your way of life. This is really the bottom line. It does not matter whether you sit this way or that way. Even if you don t sit down, it s okay. So, you have to think; think and recognize and deal with your thoughts properly and try to change how you deal with your life. That is absolutely the key number one! If you don t do that, then no matter how long you sit crossed-legged, no matter if you burn

30 30 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses incense after incense, burn candle after candle, it won t make any difference. Nothing. Take a mole. It would be like that: it goes underground and sits there for six months, all winter and it comes out the same old guy So, as a human being, what is the difference? The thinking ability of the human mind makes a big difference; it is extremely wonderful. A dog, a nice intelligent pet, cannot think that way. It doesn t have the same opportunity. Luckily for us we are not that dog, but the one who keeps the dog. So, embrace life! Embrace it in the sense of accept it, and appreciate it, and enjoy life and take advantage of the opportunity. That is a human quality. Other lifeforms do not have it. If you start to think that way, if you can convince yourself that you have that great quality, that you have that great capability, then you are getting somewhere. Not only are we getting somewhere, but we will appreciate our lives. Life has two purposes. The most important purpose is to put you on the correct spiritual path. The secondary purpose is that you appreciate your life. You don t have to have a long face all the time. Many people have emotional problems and if they find this appreciation of life, it may give them a release from their problems. Try to properly understand this. If you properly acknowledge this and recognize this, it will give you a tremendous amount of encouragement and support. I have met a number of older Buddhist practitioners who tell me there is no encouragement, there is no motivation. A number of people know that this path, this practice can give you something different in your life. But then they start to think it s difficult, and there is no motivation. The problem is that they don t recognize their life and its tremendous value. If you do recognize your life, it is a tremendous source of joy and a motivation and encouragement. 2b. Understanding its value. Earlier Tibetan teachers used to say that life is worth more than a magic lamp. We consider that a million dollars is very precious and important, right? We don t think our life is worth that much. Our life-insurance does not carry a million dollars. We cannot afford the premium and we don t recognize the worth. However, if somebody asked you whether you

31 General Preliminiaries 31 would choose your life or a million dollars, which would you chose? If someone said, I ll give you a million dollars if you let me cut off your head, then who on earth would choose the money? Apparently to us our life is worth more than a million dollars. This example shows you the value. There may be times in our lives that we don t recognize its value, but if we remember the example we just saw, we ll see it. And, as we remember life s value, we should appreciate it and rejoice. But don t agree with me just because I said so. I mean, think about this, meditate about it, make yourself accept this. And if you do that, when you re having difficulties in life, there is a source of joy. It won t be like, Oh, it s difficult, no doubt, but I m still alive It s not that. It s more like, I m still alive! I still have this life, which is capable of delivering material or spiritual achievements, I m still there! Kadampa teachers used to say, If I live to see the next two or three months, I must make sure that I won t fall into the lower realms. If I live for the next two or three years I will attain a permanent state of joy! They mean they will be immune to falling into the lower realms and immune from the sufferings. That is also why, if we embrace our life, we will cut down our laziness in this present life to make full use of it. It also helps us to choose the main priority in life. The priorities in our lives are extremely important. If you don t set priorities, the days will come and the nights will go. It ll be life as usual, sleep as usual, business as usual and that doesn t change our life. That way we don t take advantage of the unique possibilities, of that which makes our life so significant. Combining spiritual and material life. It is so important to set proper priorities and take full advantage of this life. Why? Because we live in the nineteen-nineties! We cannot think as if we still lived in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century. We have to pay our bills; we have to make a living. At the same time we have to build up our spiritual development. It has to go together. This is extremely important. Do not go to any extremes; neither the extreme of ignoring the material side of life completely, nor the extreme of ig-

32 32 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses noring spiritual life completely. Then we are losing it. It is very important to bring the two together. If the individual is not capable of making it in the material aspects of life, chances are he won t be capable of making it in life spiritually either. All the ones who made it through spiritual development were also capable of making it in life materially. Including Milarepa. The point is that the needs of today are both material and spiritual. When I was young, maybe fifteen or twenty years old, the older Tibetans were very proud of the combination of politics and religion. For years I thought, Why were they so proud of this combination? I thought that it probably was because the Dalai Lama is our spiritual as well as our political leader. This is also what is says in the books. But how stupid I have been; that is not what it means at all! What it means is: the combination of both spiritual and material life by each and every individual. That is what it is. But at first I didn t get it. That is the sort of spiritual life that Avalokiteshvara is supposed to have shown to the Tibetan people, and led for them. So this is the key: combine your spiritual and material life together. The way you combine the two together is to have a good, strong and compassionate motivation for your job. And have a firm commitment to your responsibilities. And always put in your best for your material work as it is. And have that compassionmotivation in force. Yet, the compassion should not make you weak in your material work! For too many people, the idiot compassion makes them weak in their job. That is what we call idiot compassion, because under its influence you don t get the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that you have the responsibility for your own work, because a number of people depend on your work. That s why. If someone says, Because I am a spiritual practitioner, I can t do this or that, or, I should not do this and that part of what we do, [he should realize] that it doesn t work that way. We have to do what we have to do. The fifth Dalai Lama said, When you have to beat or kill somebody, you should not have weakness.

33 General Preliminiaries 33 2c. It s difficult to find appreciate the rarity. The traditional teachings will tell you three things about the difficulty of finding a precious human life: the difficulty from the viewpoint of the cause, an example of it and the difficulty seen from the viewpoint of its nature. Let s talk about those three together. The cause. Basically anything that is good in our life is not that easy to come by, it s expensive and it is difficult to sustain. Likewise the human quality, which is a fantastic quality, doesn t just come about without a cause; it takes lots of things before it comes about, a lot of time and energy and lots of other causes. Otherwise every single sentient being would have been a human being. There wouldn t be any cats or dogs anymore; the cockroaches would be the only other beings left! I d like to say that I m talking from the background of reincarnation, because that is what I believe, that is what I have been trained in, that s where I m from. Of course we can see not every sentient being is a human being. There are a lot of other living beings around. Why then, are we human beings? Because in the past we happened to have created enough positive karma for us to become humans. When we talk about karma, we are talking beyond what we can understand with our normal human sense. For that reason we rely on what the enlightened beings see and what they say. And we as Buddhists rely on Buddha to know what they see and what they say. What did Buddha say makes it possible to get a human life? The fundamental base is to have a perfect morality. On top of that a number of different positive karmas are needed to make this human life perfect. If we look within ourselves, we know how much perfect morality we have. We know that, so we can judge from there. As much seed as we sow, in autumn that s how much we can expect the yields to be. We cannot expect anything we didn t sow to grow. Nor will we expect a miracle to happen if we sow chili; we certainly won t hope it to grow sweet fruit! We know that doesn t work. If we compare this to our subject here, it works in a similar fashion. We cannot expect something to yield any result, if we don t first put in something as a cause. To become a human being again we need a perfect morality. The example the blind turtle 19. To illustrate just how difficult it is to find it, the Buddha gave the example of the blind turtle and

34 34 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses the yoke. Somewhere on the vast oceans of the world floats a yoke, and somewhere in these oceans lives a blind turtle. This creature has to come to the surface of the water to breathe once every hundred years. According to the Buddha, the chance that this turtle would emerge from the sea with that yoke around his neck is bigger than the chance that a sentient being will be born a fortunate human being. The nature. There are far more non-humans than humans; from that point of view obtaining a precious human life is very rare. When you meditate on this, try to think of two things. If these [positive karmas, especially perfect morality] are the causes required to become a perfect human being, then how many of these causes are with me already? From that, you can judge whether or not you re going to have a perfect future life. The second point you should meditate on has two aspects. First of all, the thought that can inspire you, and secondly, the thought that sort of reminds you. How lucky I am, that I ve found such a precious life, especially knowing it s so difficult to find! What do I need to do if I want to have such a life again? These are the major points of meditation. You ll have to train your mind to be able to look in these three ways. What it says in the Tibetan commentary [at this point] is, This great body, important, difficult to find. This great body, embodies recognition of this life. Important, means materially as well as spiritually important. Even just to be alive itself is important. Then, difficult to find is explained by the blind turtle parable. 3. Face the inevitability of death The next thing it says in the commentaries is, It is possible to lose it, even at this moment. We all know this is true of our life. It reveals the impermanence of our status, we re transitory. Everything is transitory.

35 General Preliminiaries 35 I remember one morning I was thinking as I was looking out the window of my hotel room. I saw the sign that said, Hotel. Than I thought that sign reminds you that this is not your home! Do you realize what that means, not your home? It means that you are here only temporarily. Then you begin to think, If this is temporary, because I reckon it s not my home, then what about anyone s home? Is anyone s home permanent? Well, it s supposed to be, that s why you go home, right? But again, it is not! Whether we re at home or in a hotel, it doesn t matter, we re all in transition. At most, it s only a matter of how long you re staying. Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a year. But we re all transitory. We never know when we re going to go. And we don t think about it either. Just think, people who died didn t plan to die. People die when they are talking, when they re eating, when they re smoking cigarettes, no time special. When you look around, that s what you see. It s amazing sometimes! This reminds me of when Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche, one of my late teachers, died. That was in It shocked me! Here you had a solid figure, a fatherly figure. You could ask him any question, no matter if it was about spirituality or politics, economics or whatever. You could always rely on him. And then suddenly that body doesn t answer anymore. Really! Not only does that body not answer anymore, no matter what you do, it doesn t even sit up anymore or anything. And not only that, the body will be cremated and nothing will be left of it. It will all have become ashes. And that is everybody s reality. We plan everything. We have to, we do, we need to. However, you can never tell when an interruption - any interruption - will come. You don t know when, where, or what. In reality there s not even the certainty that we ll be here the next day, or the next minute. That s why it says in the commentaries, It is possible to lose it, even right at this moment. What that does imply. When you die, you die; that is not the point we need to discuss. The point is, what will happen to us when we die? It will mean the end of this precious, important life that is capable of so much. Life is going to end anyway. That in itself doesn t matter. But what does matter is that you can get something out of this life. And if you succeed in doing so, life will have been worthwhile.

36 36 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses It s like with a businessman. This businessman goes to some kind of a big show that provides him the opportunity to get orders on his products. He ll go and spend money and energy, he ll work hard and make a fantastic show. Now if he fails to book any orders, or even to generate interest in his products, his work will have failed. The energy and the money would have been wasted. Our situation is very similar to this. We have been given an opportunity, the ability to achieve something. If we pick up on this opportunity, life gives us the capability to achieve liberation. If we die without having done anything, the whole thing will have been wasted. So the purpose [of life and of your practice] is, to make sure that when you go, you will have achieved something. Three levels of achievement. If you can t get to the high or medium levels, at least try to reach the lowest acceptable level. 1. The lowest acceptable level makes sure that at least your next life will be a human life, where you ll have another chance, another opportunity. 2. The second level you can reach is everlasting freedom. 3. And the highest level brings you full enlightenment. These are the three goals of the spiritual path that Buddha has introduced to us. That is how we ourselves measure how far we have come [in our development]. This is also how we focus on our goals. Here is your spiritual goal, and these are the methods. The level you get to is up to you. But, if you don t have anything when you go, then it surely would have been a waste of life. So, to be reminded of impermanence, and, in particular, of death serves a purpose. It tells us not to waste our time, but to use the capability this life has to reach spiritual achievements. In the Lamrim, impermanence is taught in very much detail, through the three roots, the three reasons and the three resolutions. 20 That is why it is called the nine-round of impermanence realization. These steps are very effective. We need to [learn to] look at the world differently. It s up to us to learn to see the transitoriness of life. In normal Western culture, we don t want to be reminded of impermanence. The reason we don t want to be reminded, is that it isn t something happy. Sometimes people only like to hear

37 General Preliminiaries 37 happy things and don t want to look at the serious side of life. That s why people want to joke and live in love and light. That s what some people would like, just to live in love and light. Even the spiritual path they associate with love and light. You keep on singing and dancing (laughs) or whatever it is you re doing, and you try to build a high! Whether you build a high by chanting or by chemicals or by whatever other means you can build up a high, it s all the same thing. And the related problem is the same, too, sooner or later you have to come down When you come down it is hard and painful, but there s no way you can stay up there. When you get high, it is not permanent, unless you reach that high spiritually. But even then, when you reach it spiritually, there are two levels [of which only one gets you there altogether.] Concentrated meditation will get you there, but also will not keep you there forever. Because once the meditative power that gets you there reduces, you fall down. The only way to live there permanently is by cutting out the negative emotions. We call that condition permanent establishment. That is your real home. It can only be reached by cutting down the negative emotions [like anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, etc.] That is the bottom line for spiritual practitioners, cutting out the negative emotions. Why do you meditate on all those topics, life, its importance, its preciousness, its impermanence and the fact that it s so difficult to find? I ll give you two reasons. The first one is to realize the very nature of life itself. The second one is to cut down on laziness. Once this has become part of your life, you won t have those problems. But until then you ll always have problems, particularly if you try to separate your daily life from your spiritual practice and consider them separately. And that is what happens mostly. How to combine spiritual practice with everyday life. We have a problem integrating daily life and spiritual practice. We probably allocate five minutes to half an hour or maybe one to three hours maximum for spiritual practice. The rest of the time is divided up between responsibility to family, daily chores and all that. And then we feel pressurized! We feel there s not enough time to do

38 38 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses everything. And don t forget, laziness comes in also and that, too, takes time! That is how a lot of stress and pressure is built up. The trick is, make your job or your chore or whatever it is you do, make it spiritual! That may seem easy for people who because of their profession, can think they are already doing something to help others. Doctors could think so and nurses or other health-care workers like healers and so on. Artists could, too. But what about those who have regular jobs in the office, in the shop or at a plant? Lawyers, teachers, shopkeepers, scientists, workers, road-builders? They may well think they re not doing anything special. My point is, you can make it spiritual. I mentioned cleaning your house as a spiritual practice before. Doing the laundry or washing the dishes can be spiritual! It all depends on your motivation and on your personality. There are those people who, when you look at them, they ll be totally dedicated to goodness. There are those. If you [build] yourself in that manner, every single day, then even doing the dishes can be very spiritual. That is how you deal with your life. If you don t do that or if you don t know that, you ll feel a lot of pressure. If you just do your laundry, is that spiritual? No! But you can make it spiritual through your motivation. Then, when you re washing, you re no longer just rinsing out ordinary dirt, but then it ll be the dirt of attachment or anger that you re getting rid of. With that understanding, with that motivation, with that presentation of cleaning, you can turn anything into spiritual practice. Milarepa said, While I m eating, I m meditating. Every single piece of food that I eat becomes a tsoh offering. While I m sleeping, I meditate. Every sleep turns into meditation. This human being 21 has this method, the others don t. If others had it, how happy I would be! When Milarepa lived in the mountains, after what was left of his clothes fell apart, he used to sit naked. Then one day his niece came to see him. She became very shy when she saw his total nakedness, so much so that she went back home and worked very hard. Then when she had earned enough money, she went out and bought a piece of woven, woolen cloth to give to Milarepa. When she visited him again, she said, Here you are, make some clothes

39 General Preliminiaries 39 for yourself. I feel so embarrassed when some things are sticking out of your body. So what did he do? He cut this cloth to ribbons and made a case for each finger. Ten for his fingers and ten for his toes plus an eleventh one, too. The next time his niece came he was wearing it. She said, You are so stupid! I worked so hard to get that cloth; I even cut down on my own food. I got you this and now you ve wasted it totally! Milarepa was not stupid, for sure. First, when he was young, he had a hard life, and he took a lot of revenge. But later he purified all negativity and obtained enlightenment. He was wealthy and he was content at the end of his life. That is achievement, material as well as spiritual. We can also see that when he was wealthy [as a child]; he was not contented; his life further demonstrates that wealth is impermanent. (His uncle and aunt took it away and made him and his mother total beggars.) His life-story also shows that you cannot take other s wealth without enduring negative consequences. Some thirty or so some relatives died on that occasion and a big house collapsed. Milarepa s life shows us a lot of things. 22 It s a big melodrama. Our problem is that we have the same life, but we can t do what he did. What he really did when he cut that piece of cloth, putting it around his fingers, was not just cutting a piece of cloth, he cut the attachment and the embarrassment of his niece. That s what he did. Can you see it? When we read Milarepa s life story, and talk about it, it may seem to be a laughing matter. But we re concerned with what was behind it. Something that we all have. We do. Let s each of us look into our own lives; we all have those things to cut. And we have the opportunity to do something about it. We have to find a way to combine spiritual practice with everyday life. Then, once you find that, everything you do turns into spiritual practice. When you eat or sleep or walk, it will all become spiritual practice. When you take a bath, it ll become spiritual practice. When you work, it will become spiritual practice. Even if you can t get a job, that will become a spiritual practice! (Do you know why we don t get a job? Because of our miserliness. Because of that we don t make it, we don t get money, and we don t get a job.) Do you know how we can turn this into spiritual practice? Think to yourself, I m not getting a job. May this purify not just

40 40 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses me but all living beings and particularly those who are connected with me. May any hardship I get because I don t have a job, be used to purify every living being s negativity, and particularly miserliness. Some people do everything and more, and still don t make it; that is because of this. On the other hand, some people don t do anything, but nonetheless all kinds of favorable things happen to them. Those people should appreciate what happens to them, and rejoice in it for them and for those connected with them, and be grateful for their own past generosity [that has resulted in good things happening to them]. In short, we can utilize the difficulties in life to purify negativity. And exciting things in life in general can be used to build up appreciation. This goes for appreciation of the previous you in your former life as well as for appreciation of the good karma [you have met with]. Use it to remind yourself to create more positive karma, and use difficulties as a reminder that you should cut down more negative karma. Sitting straight and cross-legged, carrying a mala in hand, trying to count it, that by itself is not spiritual. It is not. It is show-business. Spirituality comes from the heart. Sometimes in the West, you see those persons who look different from normal Western people. They carry a mala in their hands, and sometimes they dress differently, and they sit differently. I think this can be a problem. The problem I see is that, [in this way], spirituality can become showbusiness. Besides, people should be able to be absolutely normal. I don t mean to say that spiritual people are abnormal; don t misunderstand me. I m not objecting to hippie-ness. If you re a hippie, you re a hippie, that s fine. But be a normal hippie. Otherwise, it is not good for you, it s not good for the future of spiritual practitioners and it s certainly not good for the future of Buddhism, if like that you create a different class. People should be absolutely normal, very yuppie, yet very spiritual. That is the trick. In short, to have less stress in life, to have more benefit in life, to be able to succeed both materially and spiritually, one must know how to unite the spiritual and material life. Death and fear what happens when you die. For spiritual practitioners, it is not so much an issue how you re going do die, or how you

41 General Preliminiaries 41 feel about it. Death is a natural process. It has its beautiful as well as its bad quality. Some people get disturbed when someone touches the badness about dying. This is because of fear. Fear drives you crazy. So you re afraid, all throughout your life. You re afraid of losing, of losing your loved ones and the things that you care about. You re afraid of losing your life. Deep down you re afraid, but you don t know what you re afraid of. Then when death comes, it s the time when all your fears materialize. When you think about that, you get afraid, you get unhappy and disturbed. Everybody tries to build some kind of a positive, smooth line, trying to turn life into a smooth process. Therapists help you with that. Of course they do. It s their job. But the spiritual teacher s job is both to contribute to the smoothness they helped build, and also to share the reality of the bad things that really happen, and to help you to be prepared. Not to be prepared in the passive sense, I m prepared, so now I wait, but to be prepared having gained control. There is no question about it; death does materialize all the fears persons have had throughout their lives. Death means separation from this life, which of course also means leaving our body. It means ending the association with our friends, with our home. In fact, it means ending the association with everything we ever took comfort in. You must look at this bad part of death, too, because it is there, and we all know it. Spiritual teachers know it, therapists know it, patients know it, practitioners know it, and we all know it. But somehow we like to put a little smooth plaster on it, and that s how we try to live with it. The reason why I m raising the issue is not that I m trying to disturb your life; but I m trying to make you think. I m trying to make you look for a solution. I tell you there is a solution. The solution is not to avoid death, but to get death under control. What possibilities does Vajrayana offer us? It offers the opportunity to transform death and turn it into the ultimate mental development. Now if that s not possible, then death will be made smooth through awareness and the possibility to make decisions. And if even that is not possible, we ll cheat death. Those are the solutions that Vajrayana offers. So you don t have to be

42 42 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses scared of death. You don t have to cry and feel helpless and hopeless. Sometimes people feel that they re stuck, whether it s on death or on anything. In my opinion, there is no way anyone can ever be stuck. No one is ever stuck. I very often say that I am a nonbeliever in guilt. No one can lay guilt on me, no matter how strongly they try. I am not going to feel guilty about anything. Don t I make mistakes? Yes, I do. Do I regret them? Yes, I do. But do I feel guilty? No! Because I never feel stuck. Do you want to know why? Because the message of the Buddha is that there is always a way out. That is Buddha s experience. That is Buddhism. I ll tell you more, everything is impermanent. Our life is impermanent. Our being stuck is impermanent. And so are all our feelings of stuck-ness impermanent. Impermanence means that everything changes. It changes by its own nature. It changes by time. It changes according to how you deal with whatever you re dealing with. That is why impermanence is also a good quality. In reality, of course, impermanence has a good as well as a bad quality. The good quality is that all suffering will end, because it too is impermanent. But let s also look into the bad part of it; the two go together. The bad quality is that all good things in life will just as well end since they too are impermanent. How do you prepare for death? Make sure you don t get thrown about by emotions. Make yourself stable. Enjoy the good things and accept the bad things in life. In any case, make best use of what you encounter by turning it into spiritual practice. That is not difficult, it s right in front of you. It s in your own hands. 4. Wonder what happens after death The commentary says, In the lower realms: hot and cold, thirst and hunger, dullness and stupidity and under other people s control. Hot and cold hell realms. What I notice in many parts of the West and in America, is that particularly a lot of former Catholics join Buddhism. They do this hoping there is no hell realm in Buddhism. The unfortunate news for them is that there is a hell realm

43 General Preliminiaries 43 in Buddhism, too. Not only is there a hell realm, but there are eighteen of them! Eight of them have hot sufferings, eight of them cold sufferings, and there are two more around us within this human realm. The division between those hells comes from the intensity of the problems. Basically, in each succeeding one, the suffering is intensified a hundred times. The lowest or deepest vajra hell is ultimate suffering. There it almost looks like your body has no separation from fire. You get burned all the time. The cold hells have similar suffering. In the Lamrim, in the basic divisions, it will say that it is so cold it cracks. Like that only a hundred, a thousand, or even one hundred thousand times worse. It is so cold it will make everything stick together, and then that tightness will also crack, the way we see it too, when it s really cold. First you d see the ground frozen solid and then it is so cold it will crack and break in pieces. The same thing can also happen to our body. 23 Who experiences those sufferings? Beings like us. Only, human beings cannot take that kind of hardship. Why? Because human beings like it to be very comfortable, and when circumstances go beyond the comfort level, we cannot take it and we die. But there are other beings who can survive that level of suffering. Though, if you become one of those beings, it doesn t mean you won t feel the pain. In fact, you ll be experiencing the pain all the time. One thing you have to remember is that those beings are not different from us. Many of the people that we know have been there, too. And there is every possibility that we, too, can be there. The good quality of this life is that we can make sure now not to have those problems. One of the bigger messages that is behind all this, is that we are responsible for our own lives. This means that we can make a difference in terms of what we are going to be in the future. Only we ourselves, and no one else can make that difference. You get it? People like it, when they hear that only they are responsible for themselves. It is right so to be happy with that, because it means that I make a difference to my life, not you. So, when I want to make a difference in my life, it is up to me, what I do. In normal life, what does a friend do, when he or she sees the good and the bad things you do? They will tell you, If you do this, you re going to have that problem. After that it is up to you

44 44 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses whether or not you follow their advice. No one can impose anything on you. It is the same thing on the spiritual path. The teachers are here to tell you, If you do this, then these are the problems you ll face. We ll also tell you that these are the possible solutions. From then on it is up to you, whether you will or you won t meditate, whether you will or won t correct your behavior. Whether you do or don t change your lifestyle, whether you will or won t change your motivations. All that is entirely up to you. The hungry ghosts realm. The realm where hunger and thirst reign is called the realm of the hungry ghosts. The hungry ghosts have a tremendous hunger. The animal realm. The realm of stupidity, dullness and slavery is the realm of the animals. Human beings treat them worse than slaves. Luckily these days we use machines instead. We like to think our pets are intelligent. In a way they are, but only to a certain extent. No matter how intelligent animals may seem to be, they are stupid. People who keep pets, don t like to hear that. But our pets are not as intelligent as we are and people know it. If pets were as intelligent as we are, we could give them the key to our house and let them go out by themselves, and let them cook their own meals. You can t do that and we all know it. So no matter how often you say animals are intelligent, that s the end of it. (Laughs) I ve been bad today, I m sorry. In the animal realm, the nature of suffering is a lack of understanding. There s also a lack of capability, and a lack of expression. They cannot talk to you, they can t explain something to you, and they can only yap or bark or meow. So then, you have to think, Are they happy, are they upset, do they say this or that? You keep on wondering about it all the time, until you think you know what they mean. Ah! Yeah, she said this and that! Only, she didn t say that, she just said, Meow! There is nothing wrong with that, but that s that! Such is their life, such is their nature, and that is also their suffering. The animals may or may not recognize their suffering. Just watch your own pets, how much do they try to express? Their intelligence is limited, even to express to you if they re happy or sad is hard. The way they express their happiness when you walk in, they ll come wagging their tails, getting all over you. And when

45 General Preliminiaries 45 they are not happy, it will show because they won t listen, they won t do what you want them to do. When you call them, they won t come, that s how they express themselves. And beyond that they there s nothing they can do. I have a friend, Geshe Lobsang Tharchin a very, very nice Geshe who lives in New Jersey. One day, many years ago I went to see Geshe-la. He had a little dog and he told me, it knows how to say OM MANI PADME HUM! Geshe-la insisted he would show me. So what he did, he took a thick biscuit with cream cheese and ham on top of it, and then he showed it to his dog. She recognized it, but he didn t give it to her yet. He sat there, and for maybe two or three minutes, told her, Say, OM MANI PADME HUM, OM MANI PADME HUM. He kept saying it to the dog. After a while the dog sat up, and barked, Bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow! six times and Geshe-la added, See, she said, OM MANI PADME HUM! That shows the intelligence! This is their suffering. We human beings call them animals, in Tibetan dun-dro, which expresses something like those who walk bent over. It is not that we look down on animals, but walking bent over is in their nature. Therefore suffering is their nature. The higher realms. Suffering is also the nature of the beings of the three higher realms. Like all beings of the three higher realms, we human beings have death and birth, we have aging, we have illness. People become old, people get sick, people die. That s not looking down on them. That is natural. All three higher realms human beings, demigods, and gods have these sufferings. That s why Buddha called them samsara. That s why Buddha makes a distinction between samsara and nirvana. He called samsara a place in the nature of suffering, and nirvana a place that s free from suffering. There s a big gap in between. It is nature and it is natural. When the Buddha says there is a way out, he means, from here, in samsara, you can go there, into nirvana. Over here, in samsara, you will continue taking rebirth and dying over and over again, but you can get out of that and go over there, into nirvana. The bridge between these two is the practice of liberation. That means, cutting down negativity and negative emotions. When you are cutting down, you re crossing the bridge. Cutting down nega-

46 46 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses tivity is the bridge. When you have cut them down, you will have crossed to the other side. I m using the metaphor of this side and that side of a bridge. However, all this is taking place within ourselves. It is not a geographical division. It s a mental state of division. I want you to remember that these are basically the fundamental principles of the first cycle of the practice. Technically they are known as common with the lower level or as the small scope. 5. Take refuge If you don t have the guarantee that you have crossed the bridge yet, what you do is take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That is the temporary solution; taking refuge is not a permanent resolution. Method and Wisdom. In the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM the lotus, PADME, symbolizes method and represents compassion, compassion for yourself as well as for others. MANI, the jewel, represents wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge, understanding, finding a way out of suffering, mental, emotional, physical and all other kinds of suffering. Where and whenever the Buddha spoke, the message that came out was and is wisdom. That is what MANI stands for. One of those methods that PADME stands for is the method we spoke about earlier. [It s about] finding a way by yourself to get free of all pains. [It s the step by step method of] recognizing life, appreciating it, realizing that it s difficult to find, [seeing] impermanence, particularly [in the shape of] death, and [learning] that after death the individual does not disappear. This last point is important. In the West we have to talk about this a lot, because basic Western culture will give you a different understanding about this issue, different from the understanding you find in traditional Buddhist countries. I m not here to talk to you about basic Western culture; you know it better than I do. But somehow Western culture does not give you much information of what happens after your death. It s almost left in the hands, or in the good care of God. Am I right or wrong? I see almost every head is moving up and down, so maybe it s right. The problem is that we like to be responsible for ourselves. That contradicts leav-

47 General Preliminiaries 47 ing this in the good hands of God. Does it or doesn t it contradict? I m not sure. What do you think? Audience: I think you are responsible for yourself and I think even in Christianity and Judaism it is like that. It is your own responsibility what is going to happen. Rimpoche: What you are going to get [after death,] who s responsibility is that? Audience: That depends on yourself, on what you do or don t do. Rimpoche: Even after death? Audience: Yes, I think so. Audience: (Short general discussion about common and orthodox Christian religious currents, in particular about the orthodox concept of predestination, where one feels it does not count what you do during your lifetime, as far as influence on what s going to happen after you die is concerned. So in that case one does put one s fate in Gods hands.) Rimpoche: We do something similar in Buddhism. First, we take refuge. That is a very similar thing. Except, we look a little bit more to whom, why and how we take refuge, and what refuge is for. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Buddhism came out with three objects of refuge: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Out of these three, technically speaking, the true refuge is not Buddha. In previous teachings, when I d say, You don t take refuge to Buddha, students would freak out. Traditionally, the teachings will tell you that Buddha is like a doctor, the Dharma is like medicine, the Sangha is like a helper. Who or what is it that really cures you when you are sick? It s not so much the doctor, it s the medicine, the treatment. That is what gets us better, right? But you need the right doctor to come to the right diagnosis and to give the right medication. So the real refuge, the ultimate refuge, is the Dharma, because that s what cures you. And that goes along well with you being responsible for yourself. The Buddha is like a doctor, but also like a guide and like a driver or a pilot. The real journey is the Dharma. Let me explain that. Even if you had a car and a driver, but you refused to go, you wouldn t get anywhere. Even if you had a ticket, if you don t get on the plane you won t get anywhere. You can keep buying every

48 48 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses available ticket, but still get nowhere. To actually get to your destination, you have to make the journey. Likewise, you have Buddha everywhere, you have all these great religions, their founders and leaders, but if you don t do anything, you won t get anywhere. So the real refuge is refuge to the Dharma. In short, taking refuge to the Dharma is the true, the ultimate refuge. Then recognizing the Buddha as a guide, who shows you the way and shares the journey that is truly taking refuge to Buddha. And then, acknowledging the companions who are helping and benefiting you and who support you, making it possible for you to move forwards that is taking true refuge to the Sangha. It s not just because we are Buddhists that we take refuge in Buddha. There are reasons why Buddha is fit to be the object of refuge. The reasons are as simple as this: 1. Buddha himself is free from all sufferings 2. Moreover: he knows the way how others can be free. 3. Besides that, he has great compassion. Therefore to him there is no such thing as nearness or distance to anybody. In other words, Buddha doesn t just help Buddhists. He doesn t hold back his help from those that don t follow him, or from those who don t ask for it, or from someone who is not a friend. For Buddha, there is neither distance nor nearness at all. For Buddha, whose mind-training has been completely perfected, everyone is a friend. These are the reasons that make him fit to be our refuge. He himself is free, he knows the way out, and whether you know him or not, whether you re close to him or not, whether you please him or not, he will help. The Dharma definitely is fit to be an object of refuge, no question there. Dharma is the real medicine. What is Dharma? This is extremely important. Technically they give you two kinds of Dharma. Dharma as knowledge and Dharma as quality. Dharma knowledge is the way to obtain the Dharma quality. The Dharma quality is being free of negativity. It s the spiritual development gained by cutting down negativities. How well you have cut down negativities determines the quality of your individual Dharma. So the true refuge to the Dharma leaving out philosophical viewpoints and technical presentations comes from recognizing its

49 General Preliminiaries 49 quality and admiring it, and from the wish to gain that quality yourself. Or, said somewhat differently, from seeking to be with that quality. When you know Dharma works, then no matter who tries to tell you that this is not true, that it s bullshit, you won t buy it. Because you know it works. Then we call that unshakable faith in Buddhadharma. The reason why you have unshakable respect for and faith in Buddha is because of his Dharma work. Unshakable faith in Buddha, Dharma and, naturally, in the Sangha. As for the Sangha; you need support, you need assistance, the Sangha provides it. Sangha is the actual companion, giving support and help. The ultimate Sangha within you, is your mental faculty, your knowledge, are your thoughts; it gives you support so you can proceed on your path. This is your ultimate Sangha, believe it or not. Your wisdom within you is your true Sangha. Other people, around are also called Sangha, but we call them artificial Sangha. For example, in Jewel Heart we call everybody Sangha, but we are all artificial, (laughs) we are all fake, all phony. The real Sangha is the wisdom within ourselves. The real Buddha is our own future Buddha. I m not going to go into extremes and say a representation of the Buddha is fake or phony, I am not going as far as that! We can make a joke about the Sangha, but not about the Buddha. So, that s why there are three objects of refuge. At the same time, in the case of a buddha, you see his body as the Sangha, his mind as the Buddha and his speech as the Dharma. So then you have all three: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha all in one person. That may be easier for people to relate to. Unshakable faith. Unshakable faith in your Buddha, your Dharma, your Sangha, and relying on the method you re following, is the true refuge. Don t ever think that blind faith is true refuge! It is not true refuge. When I go somewhere I will always make sure, wherever it is, that the procedures, the protocols are not important. I mean things like that you are not supposed to stretch out your legs in front of you, or folding your hands. I make sure that that doesn t take place, because we don t want anything artificial at all. Artificial gestures, which are linked to the artificial faith, are useless.

50 50 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Therefore, for true faith in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you should understand the quality: what makes it different for me. And then, build your own interest. That is unshakable faith. That will make a difference in our lives. When you say: Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya, or whatever the words you use are, when you have this understanding within you, then even if you don t say the words, it doesn t matter. There are people who keep saying these words a million times, counting the malas. That does no good. You may gain some merit by saying: Buddha, Buddha, Buddha... but what about it? With the proper understanding, proper reasoning, even if you say it once, it will make a hell of a difference in your life and in the lives of people with whom we are connected. That is refuge. Shantideva said, For him who has perfectly seized this mind with the thought never to turn away, from totally liberating the infinite forms of life from that time hence, even while asleep or unconcerned a force of merit equal to the sky will perpetually ensure. 24 It says, With the proper refuge, if the merit and the positive karma could have some kind of a physical shape, the whole of space would be too small to put it in. The reason [for a proper refuge] is that you understand how the negative and positive things function within ourselves. But not only the understanding; the understanding will be followed by practice. The practice will be followed by the actualization, its coming into being. That is the ultimate difference people can make in their lives. Are you with me? That is how you make a difference in your life. That is why you get such merit, such benefit. If you think that just by saying: Namo Buddha, Namo Dharma.. and sitting there counting your mala, you are going to make any difference whatsoever, you are wrong. You will only look funnier. The Dharma does not depend on external looks, but on the internal thought. Refuge is an internal action, not an external thing. It s not a Tibetan name, and not a ceremony. The ceremony helps, but it s not the real refuge. The real refuge is to truly rely on yourself to do the right thing. Buddha is the example, he who made it. Dharma is the actual medicine. It s not a pill you can swallow, it is practice. So you study, you think and you act accordingly. Buddhism is a way of life, a way of functioning, a way of

51 General Preliminiaries 51 thinking; not a worship. But we do give room for worship, too. Don t think there is no room for worship. There is, but eventually it is you doing it by yourself. You are responsible for your own life to go in the right direction. That is true refuge. The Kadampas and refuge. Accepting Buddha as an extraordinary being, and having respect for him, is no problem. Everybody will accept that. Understanding that Buddha leads one onto a perfect path is also not a problem. But understanding that any path that Buddha shows you is a perfect path, that is difficult. Some people will say that some of the paths that Buddha showed are good, and that some are not necessarily that good. They think we can select, pick up and throw away whatever we want. From the viewpoint of the Kadampas, every single word of the Buddha is meant for something, there is no selection possible. That is what kadam is, whether you re a traditional Kadampa or a new Kadampa. The traditional Kadampas go up to Tsongkhapa. After Tsongkhapa, they are called the new Kadampas. The word kadam means that all the teachings of the Buddha are perfect [means] to lead an individual to enlightenment. That is a little difficult for us [to understand], but it works! During the Buddha s lifetime, there were no Buddhist groups, no monk s vows, no rituals, nothing. Many of the monks or nuns who were following Buddha simply became monks or nuns because Buddha said, Come here. If today we would just tell you to come here, and that became a vow, you wouldn t accept it. But the Kadampas do accept that, because of a reason: it works. It might not be very scientific. If it were scientific, it would work for anybody, no matter where or when. Then with the conditions being right, this method should work. For Buddha, it worked to say, Come here. For us, even saying, Come here a million times might not work. So it s not scientific. Buddhism comes very close to science, but not in everything. Sometimes religions have a different quality, which cannot really be proven scientifically. I think there is room for both. Intelligent faith. Dharma works because it enables you to cut the cause of negativity. We all know this. We don t need scientists to prove that, nor do we need astrologers to predict it. When we do something good, [in the end] we are going to get a good result.

52 52 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses So, a proper, unshakable understanding of that, is a requirement for taking refuge. Buddhists call this intelligent faith : faith and intelligence, both. I don t know how it works language-wise. Faith is more or less a belief-system, if I understand English well. Intelligence does not give you belief, but proof. So maybe we try to borrow some understanding from the Judeo-Christian tradition using faith, and try to add a bit of Buddhist logical ideas plus intelligence. This way two almost contradictory words are put together. You do need faith, but not faith alone. You also have to think carefully, reason with yourself, make sure you understand. In the Tibetan tradition, we divide faith into three categories:1) faith faith, 2) faith that seeks quality, 3) faith that understands how something functions, and what it does. In Tibetan depa 25 works perfectly, but when you just translate depa into faith we get into these difficulties. You have to have faith, but it s not faith, it s understanding; it s not just understanding, you also have to have reliability; all sorts of things come up together The bottom line is that one has to try hard to find out whether Dharma works with you or not. That means cutting down your negative emotions. Does it cut down your negative actions and thoughts? If it does, you understand that cutting down negativity helps to cut down negative actions. If you understand that, you have understanding of how Dharma works. Then it s a matter of gaining positivity by cutting down negativity. When you understand this, it ll work well within you. That is what is called the true Dharma. It means that the Dharma is working. Some time ago, I visited Lincoln, Nebraska, where we have a Jewel Heart Center, too. It s really [in the middle of the] Mid-West Bible Belt. I was giving a talk, very similar to this one, in one of the lecture halls at the University of Nebraska. After the talk, a gentleman got up and said, I agree with you a hundred percent, but my difficulty is, why do you attribute this to Buddhism? The Judeo- Christian tradition will teach you the same, and so do the Hindu and Muslim traditions. Muslims and Hindus will practice it, good old Christians will certainly do the same. My reply to that was, My knowledge is Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, that is all I know and I am talking from that background. So, no matter what a tradition is telling you, and no matter what they do, when negativity is cut

53 General Preliminiaries 53 down and positivity is gained, it is Dharma. Whether it is Buddhist Dharma or Christian Dharma or Judaic Dharma or Muslim Dharma, it is real Dharma. For me, it is Tibetan Buddhism. So, by developing a proper understanding that Dharma works, you gain a real belief in Dharma. That is not blind faith, nor is it the fear, If you don t believe this, you ll go to hell! It s not that. Because you understand this by yourself, and it has become your own knowledge. That is what we call reliable depa. Reliable depa to Dharma is the cause of taking refuge. How do I develop belief in Buddha? I don t believe him because he is a buddha, nor because he looks different on pictures, nor because my teacher says he is different, that he s great, that he has all these qualities. The Dharma that the Buddha shares, works; that is what makes me have respect and faith and belief in Buddha. That is why I think Buddha is reliable, because the teachings that he shares, the experience that he gives, helps. That is what we know. When you look deep into it, it doesn t just help, it liberates people. That makes me believe in Buddha. That is reliable belief. I have reasons to believe, and the reasons are unshakable. I don t think that if I did not rely on Buddha, I would become a non-buddhist or an outcast or that I would go to hell or all this. I don t think like that at all. Even if I were kicked out of the Buddhist order, it does not matter. What would matter to me is being kicked out of liberation. Then it s a big loss for me. The rest doesn t matter. The Ten Great Treasures of the Kadampa 26. As a matter of fact, the Kadampa Lama s said you should be kicked out. Not only out of the religious order, but out, away from any human respect [you normally receive]. If you are kicked out, away from normal human respect, you gain your place with the dogs. When you get a place with the dogs, you get a place with the gods. Kadampas consider that to be a great treasure. Kadampas really totally ignore what people think. If you are kicked out of a religious order, people think it is terrible for you, but it doesn t matter, as long as you can remain perfect. No matter who thinks what. Even if people acknowledge you as crazy, it doesn t matter, as long as you don t

54 54 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses wind up in the psychiatric institutions, because if you get in there they may inject you and do all sorts of things. Why did the Kadampas take such an extreme step? Because in our usual habit we like praise. We don t like people saying bad things about us. Right? If you gain respect from people, you like it. If you don t, you dislike it. Similar to that, there are eight of these kinds of things [that we react to with like and dislike]. They are called the eight worldly dharmas. 27 When these are very strong within you, one of the best ways to cut them is to take the extreme step of the Kadampa. We have an instruction called: the Ten Great Treasures of the Kadampa. 28 Three of them are: Being thrown out from the ranks of men. Reaching the ranks of dogs. Attaining the ranks of the gods. You are out of society s respect and what you find is a place among the dogs. That doesn t mean that you become a dog, but that you re like a dog. You run around and get whatever you can, and you don t worry about what people think. Stray dogs don t worry about what people think about them. I m not referring to kept dogs. I m not going to use the word pet dogs. I am going to use the word kept dogs. Kept dogs have no freedom. They have to think, How is my masters feeling? And they have to express accordingly. Their freedom has been reduced. It s very nice for the human beings who keep pet dogs. They give them food, shelter, medication and take care of them very nicely, no doubt, but you also train them, meaning: you cut down their freedom. Stray dogs don t care as long as they don t get shot or caught by dogcatchers. They will mess up everything. They will go in the middle of your flowers to shit. They don t worry about what society is going to think about it if they shit there. (laughs.) So that is what finding a place among the dogs means. This is too extreme a teaching, but still, that s how it is. By doing so you have not lost your principles, so you will find a place among the gods. That s why it is called: pö nye tob: pö, out of human society; nye, found a place among the dogs and tob, obtained the stage of the gods. What is this practice for? This practice is done when your negative emotions are extremely strong and can t be controlled or cut by normal means. Then they adopt these methods. Is this a crazy wisdom, we re talking about? No. That is something differ-

55 General Preliminiaries 55 ent. This is the fundamental basis of crazy wisdom, but it is not crazy wisdom itself. But we re not discussing crazy wisdom. 29 This was done in good old Tibet, in the good old 1100s, 1200s and 1300s. I don t think you can do it in the 1900s. It might not be acceptable in society, even in Tibet or India. So naturally it s not going to be acceptable in the Netherlands. So you have to come down from there and to practice this to a less extreme degree. I have to tell you a little bit about the Kadampa style of the Dharma, because the Kadampa tradition of the teachings is sometimes a little very, very strong. If you read Langri Tangpa, the first verse says: With a determination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who surpass even a wish-granting jewel, I will learn to hold them supremely dear. Originally, in Tibetan it says they will look upon all sentient beings as more precious and more important than all the enlightened beings. Probably the translators have tried to water it down a little. The first words Langri Tangpa originally says are, I look upon all sentient beings as more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel and all the enlightened beings. The translator probably thought that might be too strong, so he didn t use the words and all the enlightened beings. They probably tried to make it more acceptable to society this way. So they didn t want to go out of society [after all]. Why am I talking about this? Because, when we go through Langri Tangpa s thoughts a lot of shocking things will come along. Causal refuge and result refuge. Let s go back to our topic refuge. At the ultimate bottom line you find your own Buddha, your own Dharma and your own Sangha. That s the real thing. It s so simple. As I said, Dharma is like medicine. What do you do with it? You take it, you put it in your system and then it will work. Similarly you have to practice and then, when you do and overcome negativity, it becomes your own Dharma. That is how Dharma really protects the individual. It is not an external force, not like an external shield or shelter, like you might see parents shielding a little baby, covering it. Not in that manner. The way the Dharma protects is that it is part of your system, it is inside you; don t think of

56 56 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses an external system. By practicing Dharma yourself, and making it part of your mind, you overcome the negativity, which is also part of your mind. That is how the real protection, the ultimate protection comes about. That is why early Tibetan teachers call the external historical Buddha that you take refuge to, the causal refuge and that what you realize within yourself result refuge. The most important one is the result refuge. When now you take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, look at it as your own support. As something you can rely on. In other words, bring in all the enlightened beings as your support. Visualize the open space filled up with all objects of Refuge: Buddha Vajradhara inseparable from your root guru 30 and The Three Jewels. Then you may say: O Three Jewels, filling up all of space, be the protector, helper, supporter of all beings. What does that mean: O Three Jewels, which fill up all space, all the Buddha s, all the enlightened beings? Don t think of Buddha Shakyamuni only. The word Buddha in Tibetan is Sanggye. Sang means one who has cleared all obstacles. The reason why we use the word all is because it is not only the obstacles themselves, but also [even] the imprints of these obstacles that have been removed. Gye means one who developed, reached the awakened stage. Think of all the enlightened beings, regardless of what tradition. If they are totally enlightened beings, they are Buddhas, whether they are labeled as such or not. That is why they say all of space is filled up. It is not one person, but zillions of them. So all of space is full of protectors, helpers and supporters, for me and for all beings. So the metaphor 31 here is the protectors fill up the space, and the seekers for help and refuge, fill up the entire ground. Understand that these protectors have a special quality. They can show you, they can guide you. They have ways of doing this. I and all beings here need help. We seek help. We are looking for a way to liberate ourselves. And then you say, I take refuge in the Lamas, refuge in the Buddha, refuge in the Dharma and refuge in the Sangha.

57 General Preliminiaries 57 In Vajrayana 32, we take refuge in the Lama or Guru. The Tibetan word Lama translates into Sanskrit as Guru. Lama means heavy. Not heavy in weight, but heavy in quality. Lama means loaded with quality. So a Lama isn t what Western people think, who call any monk in red robes a lama. I already told you something about the quality of the Lama before. Such a quality is the object of refuge. That is the same as Buddha, the same as Yidam. As a matter of fact, it s inseparable from Buddha and inseparable from the Yidam. It is the connection between ourselves and the Enlightened Society. It s the linkage. The great Naropa, who was a mahasiddha, mahapandit and poet in India, said, Where there is no Lama, there is not even the name of a buddha. Yet thousands of different Buddhas have grown out of Lamas. Every Yidam, every mandala is actually a manifestation of the Lama. Do you understand the words Yidam and mandala? The Vajrayana deities are called Yidams. We don t like to use the word deities, because it is overused. Any non-human spirit or ghost might be called a deity. This happens in Malaysia, where they have a deity for everything, enlightened or not. The Yidam is a perfect enlightened being. This is why we rather say Yidam. Another reason to use Yidam is its meaning mental commitment. A Yidam is a manifestation of a perfect quality which you admire very much, and which you want to become yourself; you exchange your commitment to each other. We, ordinary beings, cannot manifest that perfect quality. In the case of Buddhist Vajrayana we look at manifestations of a buddha. When we say mental commitment, we indicate that the Yidam is even more than an object that you admire. In Vajrayana you sometimes find taking refuge to the Guru, to the Yidam, to Buddha, to the Dharma, and to the Sangha. Five rounds. Sometimes four rounds. Basically three rounds. Sometimes six rounds. 33 So, taking refuge in the Guru also is important, in particular in the Vajrayana tradition. The Guru is the Buddha, the Guru is the Dharma, the Guru is the Sangha. The Guru manifests total enlightenment to the practitioner. When talking about the Guru,

58 58 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses basically what I do is create a mental picture of the collection of all the different teachers that I had, combined in one person; a collection that looks like a Tsongkhapa look-alike. I label them as my Guru. In reality of course, they are all different teachers. But the Tsongkhapa look-alike image really is inseparable from my own Gurus. The Guru is inseparable in the sense that he is the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, he is all the different Yidams you might visualize. He also in a sense is the creator of your own enlightenment because your own enlightenment is absolutely dependent on him. That may sound very confusing to a lot of people. But what happens is ultimately, when you become enlightened, your individual mind-stream will merge into the mind-stream of the Guru, without losing your separate identity. That s how you obtain enlightenment, that s why it is important and that is why it s dependent upon the Guru. That is the bottom line of why it s important, why you take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Sometimes, the Guru is even more important, like the first Panchen Lama says: I m an individual. Countless numbers of Buddhas have appeared but somehow I ve not been connected so far. Now here s the opportunity for me to connect. You, the Guru, have provided that. You are more important for me than the countless past Buddhas. Some people go to that extreme. That is how you relate to the Guru mentally. And as far as action is concerned: give the highest respect you can, in your own way. In this mental treatment and in this kind of action lies the essence of the Guru devotional practice. Taking refuge is like an emergency solution. I begin to realize how much suffering people undergo, and that I myself am not immune to it either. And if, say, a future life would start today, then what could I do at this moment? I have no control over anything! Then I d take refuge to the enlightened beings; in that way it is sort of an emergency solution. That is also why taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha is considered to be the doorway to Buddhism.

59 General Preliminiaries 59 Offer salutations and seek the qualities Visualize the Objects of Refuge filling up all of space. And you re not alone anymore. You represent all human beings seeking refuge. Since you are representing them, you are leading them. You become their spokesperson. So you speak for all sentient beings. What do you say? I respectfully bow to you. In the English language the verb to bow doesn t entirely cover the sense of the Tibetan word. The Tibetan word chag tsel is sometimes translated as prostrations or as bowing down. Neither of them is right. Chag is admiring the qualities. The word tsel expresses seeking. What you really say is, I see your qualities, I like them and I seek them. That is actually praying in the sense of I like your quality and I want it. That is real prayer. They can t give away that quality we like. Normally when we pray we say We are seeking, help me to do this, give me this, give me that That is our deluded mind, not a clear mind. I hate to say it, but it is a stupid way of praying. Except for miracles, there is nothing to give. So you can t go on with Give me, give me, give me. Of course you can say Help me. Because there is help. But help for what? It s important to know clearly what it is that you want. Normally we don t have a clear idea of what we want when we ask for help. If the image would turn around and say to us, What do you want? Then what do we answer? Probably we would say, Help me in everything. So what are you looking for? A robot servant? It s not clear for us. Many people go to temple or church services and say, Help, help, help. Help with what? In our ordinary human life, in society, if you seek help from somebody, you have to be clear about what you need help for. And then you go and seek help. I was told that if you have to apply for a grant you have to know exactly what you are going to do, why you want it, how much you want and what can you do with it that s different from what others can. In our normal society, when you seek help, you have to write all of this down. People think and plan and make their project, and then they seek help.

60 60 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses But when we go to seek help from the enlightened beings, whether we go to church or to the temple, nobody has anything planned. You just go and seek help. But here you have to define what you are seeking. Buddhists will definitely say you need to define what you are seeking. I respectfully bow down. I take refuge, because I seek your blessing. Please, bless our mind-streams right now. Bless our mind-streams, mine and all beings, perform miracles, help, correct our mind-stream. As you ask that, a tremendous amount of light comes from the body of those enlightened beings. Receiving this light, we receive the blessing. That [receiving light] is a little bit of Vajrayana influence. In reality their love, their compassion, their power and capability perform a miracle on us. They are performing the purification of our negativity. How? We take refuge, we generate love and compassion, we regret our wrongdoings. We are taking action, i.e. we are thinking, meditating, and praying. That is why we have the four powers built in here. They are the power of foundation, the power of action, the power of regret and the power of not repeating. We apply the four powers. 34 That is what purifying is. Again the light is the representation. Our action is the main thing. So purifying all our negativity makes our mind perfect. That is the blessing. Don t think of blessing in the sense that some kind of light comes and hits you and changes you. Because you work by applying the four powers, you get it. That goes well with responsibility for your own deeds, it also leaves room to get help from enlightened beings and it also leaves room for miracles to happen. This is how it functions. 5. Generate a pure motivation bodhimind All sentient beings. The next step, after taking refuge, still on the preliminary level, is making up your mind [or learning to evoke bodhimind]. In the first of the eight verses Langri Tangpa speaks of all sentient beings. When I think of all sentient beings, do I have any connection with them? Unfortunately thoughts like, What have I got to do with them? come up.

61 General Preliminiaries 61 If you don t think and you just simply follow blindly [and just say] all sentient beings, then it s a different matter. Actually, Buddhism has room for both. Buddhism has room for just simply following something blindly, as well as room to think and understand and make things happen. Today let s simply follow it, let s not argue. I ll tell you why we are connected. Simply, because the world is very small too small. We are all connected, by drinking milk, by eating cheese. True. Where does cheese come from? Cheese isn t made out of air, is it? It s made from milk. Where does milk come from? From cows and sheep This shows we are connected, very strongly connected. Even through meat we are connected, including mad cow meat. Where does the mad cow disease come from? From England, yes, but at the same time it comes from pollution. Poor cows, who eat grass and drink water and are fed with meat! Anything is put together in their food, even meat. They mix everything in a machine. And the poor cow, how does it know what is edible and what not? After all there s a grass smell... This is really true! How do you expect a cow to know what is edible or not after all the processing they did on the food? And mind you, they probably are fed their own parents as meat put in that food. What else do you expect of all that? That goes to show that purification is so important. We talked about cleaning the environment; we can see how extremely important it is. It is the human beings capacity, which can do all this, good and bad, both. So if you think about connections with all beings, you ll find we always have connections. We have connection with the air and with everything living out there. We have a connection with all the elements. We are very much connected. Therefore, you d better be a good spokesperson for them. Because we, by chance, happen to have an opportunity to speak in front of enlightened beings. And don t ever doubt whether the enlightened beings are present or not! Enlightened beings are everywhere. They don t have limitations. We do. So here you are now, speaking in the presence of all the enlightened beings. And for the first time, you are saying the right thing, because you know what you want. In normal Western language, if you ask Where is God?, you say God is everywhere. You do not say, God is in the temple or the church, and you lock Him in at night.

62 62 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses We have a joke amongst Tibetans. Avalokiteshvara is known as Chenrezig the one who sees through your own eyes. There is a lot of meaning behind that. The temple keeper says during the night, Since Avalokiteshvara looks by one s own eyes, I will put out the candlelight. Do you get it? This means that if they would be limited to a temple or a house or to ordinary light, then their power would be gone as soon as the light is put out. And it isn t. So God is everywhere. Enlightened beings are not locked in in temples or churches. Do you know why enlightened beings are everywhere? There is a very important reason: they don t have limitations, like we have. We have physical and mental limitations. For one, we have to be present physically. That is why we have to fly back and forth across the Atlantic in an airplane. This is a form of physical limitation. Enlightened beings don t have these physical limitations, because their body is what we call an illusion body. It s a pure body, free of all limitations. Their mind is like this also. We have limitations of mind, but it s a little bit better compared to the limitations of our body. We can sit here and think about what is happening in Tokyo or Beijing or New York. We don t have a limit there. Enlightened beings are situated even better. They don t even have to think about it, because they know everything, their knowledge is limitless. On top of that, their body and their mind function on the same level. They are a union, they are together. (Unlike our situation where they are separated.) Theirs is an ultimate union of body and mind. So, their body is wherever their mind is. Not a union like a companion union, or a husband and wife union, but oneness. Mind is body and body is mind. That is why they are everywhere. When you become a spokesperson for all sentient beings, mentally create a proper atmosphere by yourself and truly address the enlightened beings. Don t even doubt. They don t have limitations. Never think I may pray or say this, but who is going to hear me? Don t worry about that. No matter what we do, they know it. So when you teach, you teach. I always think that way. All the enlightened beings are watching here, helping, supporting, correcting, everything. So make sure you don t mislead. You have to be careful because you are in their presence. That is why, whatever you do, try your best. If you take refuge to them, try your best. If you

63 General Preliminiaries 63 present Dharma, try your best. Whatever you do, try your best. This is how it works. That is why visualization works, why everything works. You speak the right way; you talk to them please give me support, be of help, give me all of that. What is my connection with all beings? I ve always been connected with them, at one time or another. Everybody is my concern, I am connected. That is why I care for them. Caring is extremely important. A husband cares for his wife, a wife cares for her husband, vice versa, very convenient. Because you re connected, you love. That is why you care. That goes for us. When you talk about all sentient beings our limitations won t let us see to what extent we are connected to them. But if we manage to go beyond our limitations, we ll see our connection all the time. Buddha tells us we should care for all beings and look at all beings as mother-beings. Buddhism will give you mother-beings as one of the greatest examples of love and kindness there is. I m not sure if that is a good example in the West, because there are always a number of people who say, Oh, my mother... Not one, or two or three, but almost everybody has or has had that problem. But if you yourself are a mother you see how much you care for your children. There is a big difference there. It s surprising, the difference you see when you look from the mother s window to her children, or when you look from the children s window to the mothers, there s a big surprise. That will show you mothers love and care for children. Look from the mother s window, not from the children s window. I can t tell, because I haven t been a mother myself [in this life]. But I watched it, I ve seen it. This is a big thing. And you will know better than I do, because many of you have had the experience of being a mother.. We receive so much love and care when we are their children. Unlimited. Actually, so is the connection between all the sentient beings, it s absolutely unlimited. When we meet somebody we say, Very nice meeting you. But we have always met, we should say nice seeing you instead of nice meeting you. We look different, we speak a different language, but we are not strangers. It is always like that, with everybody. Buddhist tradition teachings always recommend bodhimind as the perfect motivation. For lay people like us, in the beginning it s quite difficult to generate the bodhimind. But still it s not impossi-

64 64 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses ble to generate some kind of semi-bodhimind. Not exactly bodhimind, but semi-bodhimind. Generate it for the benefit of all beings, i.e. all those who were connected with me at one time or another. Or rather, they were not merely connected with me, but they have also been tremendously kind to me. To see that, is the recognition of [the mutual] relationship between me and all sentient beings. [Seeing this], I should care about those people, for all those beings. When I care about them, I like to see them happy. But where does such happiness come from? It comes from the cause of happiness, not from the cause of suffering. When I look at the attitude, the addiction of all beings, I see that they have been attracted or addicted to negativity and to negative emotions. That s why happiness evades them. But what can I do? If I could become a buddha I might be able to do something, because a buddha is supposed to have unconditioned, unlimited power. In order to become a buddha, to serve all beings, I would like to train my mind in the way Langri Tangpa suggests. The thing you really train your mind in here, is what we call bodhimind. This is what it s all about. That is how you generate bodhimind. In this little practice, it is called a profound practice. Summing up What we really have done so far, is to take refuge and to generate a pure motivation. Taking refuge and generating pure motivation is what we are talking about for everyday life. So up to here it is daily practice, even without doing the Langri Tangpa training or any other practice you do in the morning. If you do this practice of taking refuge and generating bodhimind, your life will become worthwhile. Taking refuge with the thoughts we shared the last two days, will be very good. Rather than simply saying, I take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you can say it with those previous thoughts leading to that conclusion. The same goes for [the refuge combined with bodhimind]:

65 I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until I obtain enlightenment. By practicing generosity and the other perfections May I be able to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. General Preliminiaries 65 You can say the same thing with the thoughts you have concerning your relations with all beings. Who are they, all beings? Why are you concerned, why do you care? If all these thoughts come up, then even if you simply say, May I be able to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, it will have become a proper motivation. Otherwise, the words will just be artificial. There s something else I want to mention. During the meditation period it is okay to use your mala and say your mantras. This is normally permitted. But, speaking in a strict way, according to the traditional custom, it is not permitted to do this during the teaching. If you keep using your mala and saying mantras and things like this during the teaching, as a matter of fact is considered to be an insult to the teacher. I thought I d mention it, because some people have been using their malas. I'm sure they were not aware of this. If you do so, you're not paying attention to what the teacher is saying. It is as if you re saying to the teacher: Go ahead, say whatever you want to say, meanwhile I'll say my own OM MANI PADME HUM In what I ve mentioned so far I have provided material for you to think about. That is, if you want to call it thinking material. If you d rather like to call it meditation, then it is material for meditation. I ll tell you something. It is a continuation of the lineage. It comes through the tradition, particularly from the Buddha through an unbroken lineage to my late masters. So it is bound to make a difference in your life. Now if you want to sit cross-legged and fold your hands, that s all right, do it. But the main thing is the mind!

66 Buddha Amitabha

67 III Specific Preliminaries Langri Tangpa s Mind Training teaching has three outlines: 1) a preliminary part, 2) the main body of these specific teachings and 3) a conclusion. We are at the preliminary level. Basically the preliminary part corresponds with the preliminary of the normal Lamrim practice. 35 We discussed this because, if you want to take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the preliminary of the common with the lower level part of the Lamrim is absolutely required. In other words, we re not so much talking from a Lamrim point of view, rather these similar preliminaries are here because you have to take refuge. Now, still at the preliminary level, we ll focus on this particular practice. This is mind training and it has three points to attend to. 1. To make this work perfect, we invoke and request the enlightened beings for their support and their blessings. The lojong has its own little guru-yoga; it requires meditation. 2. The actual training of the mind. (chapter 4) 3. How do you behave after training your mind? ENVISION THE SUPREME FIELD OF MERIT The basis here, again, is generating the Supreme Field of Merit. In your visualization, right in front of you, there is open space. In the center of that open space suddenly appear a huge, wonderful lotus cushion with a flat moon disc on it. In this practice, we generate the Lama in the form of Buddha Amitabha 36. In reality it is your own spiritual master, but in the form of a totally enlightened buddha.

68 68 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Buddha Amitabha 37 is red in color and carries a begging bowl in his two hands in the meditation posture. That s slightly different from Buddha Shakyamuni [whose right hand is touching the earth]. Amitabha is also the third Buddha of the thousand Buddha s there are supposed to be in this fortunate eon. Shakyamuni is the fourth one. He is surrounded by a number of Bodhisattvas. In his retinue is Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of compassion and also Vajrapani, to the left and right of him, respectively. There are also millions of other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Arhats and Dharma protectors filling up all of space, but you focus on Lama Amitabha. Why do you say Lama Amitabha? Because in this practice, which is connected with the Vajrayana, the Lama is inseparable from the object of Refuge. 38 Your root guru is your main connection with the enlightened beings. Therefore, no matter which enlightened being you focus on, or which ones you seek, they are always inseparable from your root master. This may not pose a difficulty for those who have studied Vajrayana, but it may be slightly difficult for those who hear this for the first time. We said before, The root of all development is guru devotional practice. 39 Whatever the teaching tradition emphasizes at the beginning level and what is emphasized at the Vajrayana level, it s all connected together here in this practice. That is why it works. In our normal rational, Western orientated mind we may say, Well, I d really rather deal directly with the enlightened beings than through a guru. When I was younger, I used to think the same way. But I understood later that that doesn t work. This is the reason why any tradition, Tibetan Buddhism or Hindu tantra, will always show you the Lama or Guru inseparable from the Buddha or the Yidam. That s the whole trick, the point, the key. The Merit Field that we have visualized, that we have created, is our own mind manifestation, or our own imagination. To make it more official, in this root text here, it says, Three points, marked by three vajras.

69 Specific Preliminaries 69 The focus point of the body is the crown, marked by OM, for the speech it is the throat marked by AH, and for the mind it is at the heart level marked by HUM. Three vajras refers to: the vajra-body, represented by the syllable OM at the crown, the vajra speech, represented by the syllable AH at the throat and the vajra mind represented by the syllable HUM at the heart-level. This is the usual system. Vajra is perfection, indestructible, the ultimate level. That is why we talk about vajra body, vajra sound, vajra mind. There are millions of reasons why OM represents the body, AH represents the sound and HUM represents the mind. If I keep on talking about these reasons, it would probably not make much sense to you. I d better avoid talking about that, except for one little thing. OM AH HUM. O M is the seed syllable of Vairochana buddha. Basically we consist of five aggregates. 40 When the five aggregates become pure, each one of them becomes a Dhyani Buddha. When our physical body, the aggregate of the form, becomes absolutely pure, that purity is called Vairochana buddha. You may think Five Dhyani Buddhas? Did five God-like Buddhas come and land? No, that s not the case. It is what becomes of you when you become a fully enlightened being. Your physical body becomes Vairochana buddha. That is why it is called the pure part of physical appearance as Vairochana buddha. Again, OM is the seed syllable of Vairochana buddha, like an initial. It s the sign of Vairochana buddha. Like if we initial, sign an official paper. When you sign something it means somehow you ve seen it, acknowledged it and you agreed. This is what a seed syllable is. That is why OM represents the body. Similarly AH represents the sound or speech. That is why AH is called vajra sound. You can look at it in two ways. Another one of the five Buddhas, Amitabha buddha, represents the pure part of sound. Here is why AH represents the sound. AH 41 is the base of every sound, for without AH, you cannot make any sound. Any sound we make from the highest music to the lowest roar has to have the AH within it, otherwise it has no life. In the Manjushri namasangiti, the root text of Manjushri who is the wisdom aspect of all the enlightened beings it says,

70 70 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses AH is the most important letter, the most important sound and expression. It comes from the nature of the individual, deep down within. It is the life of sound, without which we cannot make any sense. Similarly the HUM. HUM in Tibetan script consists of five parts and represents the five wisdoms. When our terrible neuroses or delusions, our ignorance, hatred, attachment and so forth, are transformed and become pure, they become the five wisdoms, the components which combined together become the enlightened mind, the all-knowing mind. On our ordinary level, they are neuroses, negative emotions we try to get rid of, but in the process of practice, the continuation of those [neuroses] becomes wisdom. That is what the Vajrayana way of transforming negative emotions is all about. Every negative emotion goes through a tremendous process. Process number one is cutting down its gross level. Process number two works on the medium level of the neuroses, trying to see them very carefully, to look through them and process them, which is compared to putting a white piece of cloth in a dye-vat: when it comes out, it has the colour you want. On the final level, when a negative emotion has gone through the final processes, it becomes one of the most precious mental components. This is why Vajrayana is so important. Vajrayana s way of dealing with our neuroses is different from the sutra way of dealing with them, whether Hinayana or Mahayana sutra. On the Hinayana level, you will simply [try to] avoid the negativity; Hinayana is the way of discipline, disconnecting, cutting yourself off. On the Mahayana level you may make some good use of your neuroses, here and there. On the Vajrayana level, they are transformed into wisdoms. That is the reason why Vajrayana has quick development, why it is both powerful and also dangerous. That is why you have HUM at the heart level. Since HUM represents the mind and this is a mental activity, the HUM has more work to do than the other two letters. A tremendous amount of light radiates from the HUM at the heart-level of Buddha Amitabha in front of you. It invites from their natural abode all enlightened beings in the form of Buddha Amitabha, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Buddha Shakya-

71 Specific Preliminaries 71 muni or any other enlightened being. All different enlightened beings come in and dissolve and become oneness with what we have imagined. forms dissolve into Lama Amitabha, and in reality become one being in front of you. The beings you have imaginatively produced and the enlightened beings you have invited become inseparable. What we imagine is called commitment beings and what we invite is called wisdom beings. So the commitment beings and wisdom beings become one. Why we invite the supreme Field of Merit here? Because we would like to do some activities, such as the Seven Limbs. THE SEVEN LIMB PRACTICE Now we have invited the Supreme Field of Merit, we take the opportunity of offering a brief seven limb practice. This is a very, very important practice, yet very, very simple. It is extremely important, you won t find anything better, anywhere. Shantideva even went to the extent of saying that when the enlightened beings had a conference, lasting for eons, they came to the conclusion that it would be best for people to do the seven limb prayer, because it s simple and easy you can go step by step through all of them or just a few. There is nothing better than this practice. You can t manage without it. I bow down in body, speech and mind [and seek your qualities]. The first limb is prostration or praising the enlightened beings. In the Judeo-Christian tradition you also know that. You say Praise the Lord!, right? It is very similar here, we also praise them. The way we praise them is admiring their qualities, their quality of body, quality of speech, quality of mind, quality of capability, quality of knowledge, quality of activity. We praise them and at the same time, we express that we, too, would like to have those qualities. Admiring the qualities of the enlightened beings and seeking those qualities for yourself, is extremely important. If you re not interested in a spiritual path, then it s a different question. Even in the material world, even in your own everyday profession, you have role models. Whether you re a politician or an economist or

72 72 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses an actor or whatever it is you do, you have role models that make you interested, that make you look up to them. They fill you with excitement, they give you something to work towards. Similarly, the enlightened beings, whether it s Buddha or Tsongkhapa or Atisha, can be your role models. They can get you excited, give you something to look up to, give you something to work towards. That s why you admire their quality. You would like to have those qualities, you want to become someone like that. This is the first step of the seven limb prayer: the prostration. Don t take prostration literally, because in that case, to us, it doesn t mean much. For us, it really means: looking at those qualities, admiring them and wanting to have them. Of course, people in general respect other people. Why? Because they see the goodness of the other people. But especially in the case where you admire someone, you see the qualities of that individual and that s why you respect them. It works similarly with regard to the enlightened beings. People usually listen to others because they are interested in what the other tells them, because they like the other person, because they admire them. Look here today. Fifty people have come to listen for five days, even though it s Easter holiday. I think this is amazing, because the qualities of the person teaching and the path being taught aren t that evident, and the need for admiration and devotion has not been discussed. And it s not that people have nothing to do. Neither are you illiterate or uneducated. Normally, the situation would have been that the quality of the person teaching, or the quality of the teaching, or the quality of the path, were known to people. Because then you d admire it, then you d follow it. Right? Since you ve been here listening for five days, this shows there must definitely be a sort of a karmic link, that we were connected in many previous lives, otherwise there is no reason why you would be here. And since we do have a karmic link, and you have spent five days of time and money and efforts, you apparently do expect to get something out of this. What we can get out of this is a simple introduction to our own personal neuroses, so that we can learn to recognize these as negative emotions. By recognizing them, we are urged to disassociate ourselves from the negative emotions. This it is easy for me to say, but difficult for you to do. What I do expect from you is

73 Specific Preliminaries 73 this: though you will fall into the negative emotions, don t give up! There is no way, that you won t fall, unless you re enlightened. Then you don t have to sit here. But if not, you re bound to fall. Not only will you fall, you will fall 300 times a day, but it doesn t matter. Make sure you get up 300 times a day! That is how you train yourself. And when you do this, gradually you ll fall less often. At the beginning level, you will realize only after you have already fallen. Even then, it doesn t matter. When you finally realize it, get up. And then, later, you will realize while you re falling. And afterwards when it s about to come, you ll begin to realize that it s about to come. And then you can protect yourself. If you could do that, if anybody could do that, the time you have spent, the money you have spent, the efforts you have put in, all of that will have been worth it. I believe that is how we deal with our lives. So, first you see the object of refuge or merit, who is free of all these neuroses, and then you admire that quality, and you express the wish to acquire it. Who praises? Me. But not me as one person, me multiplied millions of times, filling up all of space. The Buddhist tradition includes something called Samantabhadra activities. Samantabhadra is a bodhisattva who generates himself ten times over and again; and each of them multiplies by ten, and each one of them again multiplies him- or herself by ten and so on. Moreover each head multiplies itself by ten, each tongue multiplies by ten, etc. In short, the one who is praising is zillions of beings, in reality your own manifestation. All of the open ground is filled up by your own manifestations praising together. I present offerings both actually arranged and mentally created. In this limb, offering, we do the same. We offer limitless wonderful things of good quality. When you offer a glass of water, you do not offer one glass of water, you offer a glass of water multiplied by a countless number, you offer a bouquet of flowers multiplied by a countless number. Like that you offer light, endless amounts of sunlight, moonlight, electric light, any light, anything that illuminates. Likewise, you offer incense, food, etc. You can offer a dollar multiplied by zillions too. This is the Vajrayana practice of gen-

74 74 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses erosity, making best use of the capacity of the human mind to build up limitless merit. So, you make offerings - actually arranged and mentally created ones - to Buddha Amitabha. Actually arranged means what you directly put out. Let s say you buy $1000 worth of offerings and put them up. Even then it is nothing much. Mentally created offerings, on the other hand, are unlimited. Nobody has a budget on the mind. There is no limitation; you can create all kinds of different offerings that fill the space and that s what you should visualize and mentally give. That is an act of generosity too. You may have a glass of water and one little flower and a broken piece of incense, burning or not burning, but in your mental exercise it is the best, most beautiful gardens in the world and all their flowers. There is most beautiful, nourishing food there and all other stuff that is available in all the world. There is the most beautiful environment. Then you offer also your fortune, your virtue, without attachment, without hesitation. That is a true act of generosity. Attachment is very hard to cut. When you want to offer something, the question comes up, But what do I do tomorrow? When do I pay my next month s bill? But in reality, generosity is free of true existence, is emptiness in nature. That really cuts everything. If you are looking from the angle of absolute reality, what is there to hesitate about, what is there to be attached to, what is there to be let go of? What s there to hold on to? Nothing. That s how emptiness in reality becomes everything. Why offering? Offering creates tremendous amounts of good merit. You can also take the opportunity to purify. In our absolute reality we have no faults, we are pure, no doubt about it. But false delusions and impure things have infected us so much. That s why purification is so important. It is not just things like eating meat that we want to purify. The focus is not so much on that level of purity, but on the pure nature which has no fault. However, in connection with those delusions we are affected and impure things do happen. It is like a contagious disease. The person may be healthy and pure, nothing wrong with them. But then they come in contact with a contagious disease and become sick. If you don t treat that you die. I purify all deluded actions

75 Specific Preliminaries 75 Basically we are pure, however we have come in contact with impure things and if we don t purify those, it could destroy us completely, we ll have continuous suffering. That s why purification is important. Anything we did wrong can be purified, because it is impermanent, it is changeable, it is dependently arising. So everything can be purified. Here we have an opportunity to purify all negativities. Buddha repeatedly said and we certainly believe that every negative karma that we have produced, every negative action we have created, is capable of purification, can definitely be purified. There are two reasons for this. 1. The most important reason is: in the nature of reality, all negativities that we have created, we who created them as well as the action, are in the nature of emptiness. In ultimate reality they are empty, yet relatively they function perfectly. Whatever is happening, happens on a relative level. On the relative level, we can create and purify, we can accumulate and dismiss, all of those. The Buddhist principle is, in [absolute] nature it is empty; yet in relative nature karma functions strictly according to its rules. When I say rule or Buddhist principle it doesn t mean rules made up by someone, no. It means, Buddha found that this is the way things function within our life. That is why there is room for everything to function. Nagarjuna, one of the earlier great Buddhist saints and scholars, has said, One who can accept emptiness, can accept every existence. One who cannot establish emptiness, can t establish anything. 2. Because of emptiness, every single thing is impermanent. This is very important. Think about it. If anything were not empty, it would be static. If something is static, it cannot change. We change, we become older, year by year, week by week, day by day, hour by hour. We grow fatter, we grow thinner; all these changes can happen because of emptiness. We can go on a diet and lose weight, we can get sick, take medicines and get better. If we were one of these big monumental statues you see in Europe, it wouldn t happen. These are static. In reality they are not static, but from our point of view they are. We create negativity and that becomes a cause of suffering, but we can purify those negativities. When we purify them, they are neutralized, no longer capable of giving the result they were

76 76 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses supposed to give. That is the lowest purification. The best purification is to transform them into something positive. However, we are not at that level yet. What we can do is to purify them. There is no negative action one cannot purify. Every negativity can be purified. Do you know the story of Angulimala? Read it. These are true stories which happened during Buddha s lifetime. Stories can give you understanding. The story of Angulimala. 42 In Buddha s time, someone had a bad spiritual guide, who told him, Kill one thousand human beings in one week, cut their thumbs off, put them on a string like a mala and wear it. Then when you have done this, come back to me and I will liberate you. So he went and killed nine hundred and ninetynine human beings and wore his macabre necklace. Hence his name, Angulimala, means necklace of thumbs. But then he had difficulty finding his last victim. You see, he didn t want to kill his mother for this purpose, and everyone else ran away as soon as they spotted him. Then Buddha appeared as an ordinary monk, moving about slowly. When Angulimala saw him, he started chasing him, because if he could kill this monk, there d be no need to kill his mother. But no matter how hard he tried he couldn t succeed in catching the monk, in spite of the fact that this monk seemed to be moving ever so slowly. He even called after him, Wait! And Buddha replied, I am waiting, come after me, faster! I m coming, you just wait! Finally, he started slowing down Well, this is how it started, until finally Buddha was able to help him purify all his non-virtues of killing nine hundred ninety-nine human beings in one week! And Angulimala eventually obtained the arhat level. Buddha also gives the example of a cloud. A cloud can block the sunshine temporarily, but the wind will blow the cloud away and the sunshine will appear again. It is like that. The nature of our being is not affected by negativities. All negativities are transitory, functioning only temporarily. So they can be moved away, pushed away, blown away. Even the negative results that we experience, even they are transitory. Like sadness, regret, feeling bad, everything can change. Sickness can get better, all this is transitory, because it does not affect our nature. Coming back to the point, no matter what kind of negativity we have produced, no matter how

77 Specific Preliminaries 77 many countless limitless negativities we have no doubt produced, everything can be purified. Purification. Here is the opportunity to purify. You purify by the application of the four powers. 1. By going through this practice, you produce the power of the base or foundation 43 on which we have created the negativities. Basically, what is negativity? Hurting somebody produces negativity. Causing pain is causing pain to a being. So living beings including yourself are the fundamental basis on which you create negativity. To substitute for the harm done to them, you generate love-compassion. If the beings towards whom you created negativity happen to be enlightened beings, you take refuge to the enlightened ones. To non-enlightened ones, you generate lovecompassion; that is the best compensation you can give. 2. Then, of course, the power of regret, which is extremely important. If you don t regret what you did, you are bound to repeat it. You can only regret if you realize you have done something wrong. So it is extremely important to recognize negativity and to acknowledge negative thoughts. If you don t acknowledge, you will keep on denying. You say, I am not angry but... That is denial. Denial provides room for the negativities to grow. It is like providing a swamp and heat to the mosquitoes. They will definitely grow! 3. First acknowledge, recognize the wrong done, then regret and purify, and be strongly convinced not to do it again. This is the basic process of dealing with negativities. Applying this process on the negativities, also affects even the negative thoughts. So, strong regret is necessary. However, that regret should not go as far as thinking, I m hopeless, helpless, I am stuck, there is no way out for me. That is guilt. You should not go as far as that. The line to be drawn is right between regret and guilt. If I understand guilt correctly, guilt will kill you; giving you a sense of being hopeless, stuck, or helpless. Stuck does not occur in my vocabulary, because everything is impermanent, because of emptiness. This is the strongest reason. 4. Then there is the power of the antidote action, such as training your mind. When you purify with these powers properly built up in your mind, and you say, I purify, that is a strong and powerful and effective purification. You probably won t have to

78 78 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses say it to anybody else, however you yourself have to remember it because you have to acknowledge it as well as regret it. I rejoice in all pure activities. Rejoice in the positive actions that anybody, you yourself and others, have done. It makes you gain merit. We need quick cash, otherwise we can t function. Where can we get good karma from quickly? From rejoicing. These are like little tricks. When someone does something good, you rejoice. When the Dalai Lama does good work, we rejoice. When Mother Theresa did great work, we rejoice. When Dr. King did good work, we rejoice. When Nelson Mandela did good work we rejoice. But if we keep on being jealous, we are not going to get anything. There is no point in saying, It should not have been Mother Theresa, it should be me. It should not have been Dr. King, it should have been me. That doesn t work. But these thoughts do come up in our minds. We are addicted to jealousy. It doesn t have to make any sense. When you are addicted, what you do doesn t make any sense at all. Look at people addicted to hot chili. They keep on eating these hot peppers no matter how much it is burning. The nose is dripping, we are sweating, but we still keep on eating it, right? Does that make sense? No. What blocks rejoicing is jealousy. When you see your neighbours doing something good you will say, Yes, it s great and wonderful, but So there is always a but, like but they have an ulterior motivation and all kinds of things. That s jealousy. But if you rejoice you lose nothing; you gain everything. According to the Buddha, if the person is spiritually higher than you and you rejoice in their work, you get at least half of their benefit. If they are equal to you and you rejoice, you get equal the benefit. If they are lower than you and you rejoice, you get double the benefit. This is very profitable business, no investment, no risk, very straight forward and the yield is guaranteed. So why not? I request wise and compassionate guidance. At the same time we also request the enlightened beings to remain forever, not to walk away from us, not to leave us alone. They won t, but you gain by asking them. Also you ask them for continuous teaching information, whenever and whatever you need. I request you to remain until total enlightenment.

79 Specific Preliminaries 79 Then next is a request to Lama Amitabha, here to give continuous guidance, timely guidance, because you need it. Next is the request to the enlightened beings to remain with you forever. I dedicate my merit for the benefit of all beings. Finally you dedicate all your good activities, because it safeguards your good work. You dedicate all your virtues to developing these two types of bodhimind, the prayer form and action form, or the relative and the absolute bodhimind 44. These divisions are not the same. Just to let you know that when you hear two types of bodhimind it can be either of these two sets. Develop these two precious minds and decide: For the benefit of all mother sentient beings, I would like to become a buddha. And I would like to dedicate all my virtues to that. This is called the seven limbs [prayer], since it has seven steps. There are simply seven little activities you can easily do every day, anytime, anywhere, including when you re sitting on the pot, or are taking a shower. It s a nice way to handle our neuroses. If you re seeking a simple little daily practice, this is it. These most powerful, most helpful seven activities were selected by the enlightened beings, given to us to use for our benefit. You will encounter the seven limb prayer in the normal Lamrim teachings as well as in many other Buddhist practices. All the different Buddhist traditions have it, (though maybe there won t always be exactly seven limbs,) because it is effective, profitable and important. The Tibetan Buddhism teaching tradition sometimes is interesting. As the teachings are given you have to pick up the things while you re listening, while the teaching is given. In the Western style of teaching, they ll give you a little piece of paper [with the text you need], and tell you to read it. We never did that in Tibet. We used to go to the teachings, and we d have to search for our own book. And if we got it, we got it, and if we didn t get it, we didn t get it. And they were these big, heavy teachings, and afterwards they d tell you: You have a commitment or a sadhana. So it was your job to find that sadhana and do it. Nobody would give you a sadhana book or anything. Then more recently, in the late nineteen-fifties, somebody volunteered a couple of times to print those sadhanas and distribute them, and it was a big treat.

80 80 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Like that, while we re talking here, you can pick up the seven limb prayer, and do it yourself. It is a very good practice! It has purification, it has building up merit, it has building up inspiration. It dedicates and there s also a motivation process. There is refuge taking if you want to, and there is generation of love and compassion if you want to. What else do you want? It s very easy to take a big commitment of something, but that big commitment will always break. Those who have a commitment, they always break it, and then you ll take another initiation or a self initiation to purify it, and then you ll break it again, and so on. But this is simple, it s easy, it has no commitment. You can do it, even if you don t have a separate time, when you re waiting in line at the grocery counter; or when you re waiting in the parking-lot. But I don t recommend it when you re driving; when you re driving, you better focus on driving. If you don t do it for a couple of days, it doesn t matter. If you pick it up again, it is good. It s a good little practice for everybody. SPECIAL REQUEST TO ATTAIN REALIZATION OF THE PURPOSE OF THIS PRACTICE To the Lama and all Three Jewels, I respectfully request that I and all sentient beings may develop the great bodhimind. Please, bless me and give your help. Lama Buddha Amitabha, may my and all sentient beings mind be influenced by dharma. May that dharma go straightforward and not take a zig-zag course. May our dharma practice not be met by any obstacles. May all wrong thoughts completely be stopped in our minds. May perfect thoughts may grow completely, especially the love-compassion and bodhimind. May those immediately develop within us. When I make such a request I am not simply saying it, I m saying it from the bottom of my heart and I think about what it means.

81 Specific Preliminaries 81 Now in your visualization, the whole retinue of Lama Amitabha Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani and all other enlightened beings melt into light and dissolve to Lama Amitabha. This is the first step. The second step is similar, only there is no retinue now. You now specifically focus on Lama Amitabha only. Lama Amitabha becomes very happy. He is happy because we are doing something right. It is like parents who care tremendously for their children, yet have one child who is always doing something wrong. Imagine how happy these parents will be when at some time this child tries to do something good. Likewise, Lama Amitabha is happy with our action, because we are trying to do something positive right now. It is also a good omen for us to think that Lama Amitabha is happy and joyful. Why? It is because of interdependent relationship. All that exists, exists relatively. So if, within that interdependent relationship, we visualize the Lama as joyful, in a happy mood, it helps to bring us a happy and joyful mood. That is why from our point of view we should always meditate on or visualize the object of refuge in a joyful mood. Even the wrathful ones. We visualize them in the showbiz of wrath, yet full of joy and compassion. Lama Amitabha is so happy that he comes and sits on your crown. The whole collection of refuge and merit, has become one, in the form of Lama Amitabha, right here on my head. [facing the way I face]. Repeat the Seven Limb prayer, and at the end of it, again make a specific request: All collection of refuge, Lama Amitabha, I now make a strong supplication to you that I and all beings may develop [bodhimind]. Please help us, make that great mind develop within us. The text here is, Kundu lama Öpame. Kundu means, all the enlightened ones have become one single being. Lama is root master, Öpame is Buddha Amitabha. This ends the preliminaries.

82 Ngulchu Dharmabhadra

83 IV The Actual practice The actual practice has eight different points [covered in 8 verses]. 1. ALL BEINGS ARE EXTREMELY KIND 45 With a determination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who surpass even a wish-granting jewel, I will learn to hold them supremely dear. The first verse says to look at all sentient beings as more important than a wish-fulfilling jewel. Langri Tangpa himself has said: All sentient beings are the creators of all enlightened beings. And I recognize that. That s why we should consider everybody else as more important than ourselves. Because of that, no matter who you re going with, no matter who you re dealing with, no matter where you go, you will consider yourself to be of lesser importance than they. Because they are the creators of all the enlightened beings. If we could do that, there wouldn t be any problems for us any longer, because we would no longer get angry with anybody, we would no longer get jealous of anybody, we would no longer hurt or harm anybody, because we d respect everybody. Our problems are our negative emotions. Our negative emotions make us very competitive, very jealous, very mean, all of these. Even tiny little ants can be jealous and competitive with a huge elephant and bite him on the trunk. This is a good reflection of our mind and its dealing with negative emotions. So far we have been cherishing ourselves. Self-cherishing is our habit. Now we try to change that; instead of cherishing our-

84 84 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses selves, we not only cherish others, but we consider them more important than a wish fulfilling jewel. What we do here is observe our habitual thoughts, that say, I am more important than anybody else. My well-being is more important than anybody else s. I am willing to sacrifice everybody else for me. Such thoughts are our normal habit, because our concern for others is limited. Some people we don t even care about at all, some we do care about, but our caring is limited. Now Langri Tangpa suggests that we should replace these old habitual thoughts by caring for all beings and seeing them as more important than we are. Think, Whatever I have now, I have because of the kindness of other beings. My material comfort is the result of the labor of many, many beings and my spiritual development is the result of the kindness of many beings. Other sentient beings also provide me with a base on which to generate compassion, for which I should be very grateful and totally indebted to them. I would like to look at all living beings my friends, enemies and the persons in between that I seemingly don t care about and develop love and compassion for them. I don t want to leave it at the level of just love and compassion, but I would like to lead them to the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion. If I can meditate on and develop this, then I can achieve something more than praying to a wishfulfilling jewel. A wishfulfilling jewel is something very serious in the Tibetan culture. When you talk about a genius coming out of the bottle, it is sound like a kids story. But actually, the wishfulfilling jewel is supposed to do the same thing. If you have a magic lamp you can do anything you want, but what you cannot do is get freedom from suffering. You can have a magic carpet and fly and have lots of jewels - similar to Ali Baba and the 40 robbers - but not freedom from suffering. Nor can a wishfulfilling jewel give you ultimate enlightenment. Our problem is not just the delusions as causes of sufferings, but also the imprints of it. Now this [practice] can give you much more than a wishfulfilling jewel. It can give you nirvana, meaning freedom from suffering, and ultimately even total enlightenment. It is supposed to give us inspiration: if you can obtain enlightenment, then everything, whatever you wish to do, for yourself and for all

85 The Actual Practice 85 other living beings, you can achieve, without going through a lot of hardship. It s possible. To fulfil that motivation, what action do we need? Generating love to all living beings always. Not just develop not just ordinary love, but a love that is completely and totally dedicated to protect all living beings like you protect your own eye ball. May I develop that much love to all beings. That is what he first verse tells you. [So, we pray] In order to achieve the ultimate goal, may I always cherish all sentient beings. I will not only cherish them but consider them supremely dear. I will develop love, look after all sentient beings, help them, protect and serve them, more than I would my own eye balls. May I be able to do so. I pray to Lama Amitabha that I may be able to develop such a mind. Upon doing this, light and liquid comes from the body of Lama Amitabha, purifies all negativities in general and particularly the obstacles to develop this. All obstacles, whatever they may be, are separated from my body, washed away by that light and liquid and get out of your body in form of dirty laundry water or in the form of scorpions and spiders. All that is purified, and cherishing others replaces the self-cherishing thoughts in my mind. May my own life quality, luck, fortune, knowledge and especially cherishing all living beings equally to myself be accomplished. Light and liquid comes from the body of Lama Amitabha and build positivity. Think that this really happened, I gained the power to be able to do this. Even though you didn t, you tell yourself for a minute that you can do it. Don t say, I don t think I can or I am supposed to say that, but I don t know. These are unwelcome thoughts at least for a few minutes here. Afterwards you can whatever you want. If you want to generate compassion and there is no object on which to generate it, then you even cannot generate compassion. Without others, there would be no compassion, without which there would be no bodhimind, without which there would be no buddha. All this comes from the kindness and compassion of all beings. Therefore, it is so important for us to acknowledge that we are indebted to all beings.

86 86 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses This [purifying visualization] is recommended to practice, especially at the beginning level. To develop caring about all beings over caring about yourself is quite an extreme thought, but the bodhisattvas definitely do carry that thought. We will definitely be able to do it too, if we train our minds properly. What I have been talking to you about here basically is meditation. This is how you are supposed to meditate. This particular training of the mind in eight points is actually giving a very important and powerful message to our mind. You persistently repeat the message, give it again and again and see whether our mental capacity adopts it. Once the message is adopted, it becomes part of the way of thinking of the individual. 2. VIEW YOURSELF AS LOWLY AND RESPECT OTHERS Whenever I associate with others, I will learn to think of myself as the lowest of all, and respectfully hold others as being supreme from the depth of my heart. This doesn t need much explanation of the words; they are quite clear, but, we need a little explanation behind the words. Why do I have to look at myself as the lowest of all, when dealing with others? Do I have to entertain defeating my self-esteem or what? That s the question here. The answer is that all the lojongs try to reduce or subdue or defeat the ego. Not the self! There is a big difference between my ego and my self. That goes for everyone of us. Our egos and our selves are two different things. I have to clarify how I use the word ego. It is not the term ego that psychologists use to explain how you have to build yourself up and rather than defeat it. I am using it in the way it is used by the public, for example when we say, Oh, that is your ego talking. We don t want to entertain that at all. Ego is such that it doesn t give you the good pride; it gives you the bad pride. That is the pride we wouldn t even call pride in American language. It is the behavior of I know, I did that, I am aware of that, I have read that, I have experience. All this I, I, I. In that way a number of us will say I fifteen times in one sentence. That particular I is not self-esteem; it is unwanted pride. It is the feeling of being superior. People suffer tremendously from the

87 The Actual Practice 87 superiority-inferiority complex. People do try to adjust that by showing off, wearing more expensive jewels, driving more expensive cars, dress up more. We have seen that. Time changes of course, but we have seen that. Mr. Know-it All will answer to anything you say with I know. Some people think they know everything, although they don t know much. That is the pride we are talking about here. What does that do? It deprives you of a great deal of opportunity to learn. Because you think you know all, you don t want to listen. It is very similar to having preconceived ideas. I am quite sure many of us came here with preconceived ideas. You would like to hear certain things and I would like to say certain things. These are the preconceived ideas we have. In the Tara practice that pride is given the metaphor of the lion. The lion thinks, I am the king of all animals. The old Tibetan earlier masters said, One who has the heap of pride will never collect the water of knowledge and quality. No matter how much they pour on that heap, the water is going to drip down from every corner. Because you know all, you don t want to listen to anybody, you don t want to think about it. Whatever information you have, right or wrong, you are going to hold that and nothing else is going to go inside. That sort of pride not only deprives you of opportunity but also makes you feel superior to others. A number of people do think that. Almost all politicians think that way Democrats as well as Republicans. But what we don t know is what the reality is. We are living in a completely artificial world. If you look deeply, it is all artificial: the house, the cars, the beings, the whole economic system we are caught in. It is a totally man-made circle in which we find ourselves. That doesn t mean it is wrong. I am not saying that; don t misunderstand me. But, the whole economic system in reality is totally made up. Because of that it can collapse. Because of that it fluctuates. The fluctuation has both, advantages and disadvantages in the economy. The system is made in such a way that everybody has to work their butts off. Look at it very carefully. The United States is a wonderful country, fantastic and beautiful. But when the kids come out of university, how much debt are they coming out with? All the

88 88 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses luxury items are presented to draw your attraction, so that you buy them and you pay with something called money, something that you don t actually have. It is everybody s money. It is circulating in society. It is really made that way. Some have less, some have more if you know how to play with it. It is totally playing. That doesn t mean you don t have to have it; don t misunderstand. But that is the reality we are in. The life that is presented to us, the life we spend, is all false. It is circumstantial, man-made. Because of the circumstances we will perceive it as reality and it functions as reality, it serves as reality, but it is not really the reality. Can you do without it? No, you can t. Society is built in such a way you cannot go against that current,. But you can go with it, without getting caught in it. I remember, about years back. I was giving a talk in Hongkong, in Kowloon, in the Peninsula Hotel. It was very well attended by rich Chinese and British business people. I was talking about the faults of samsara and some guy at the back raised his hand and asked, What should I do with my Rolls Royce? I said, As long as you drive your Rolls Royce you are fine. But as soon as the Rolls Royce starts driving you, you are in trouble. If you really look, we are all driven by the economic system. There are a few lucky ones here and there, but mostly everybody is caught in it. This is a dualistic life we have. I am not saying it is something wrong; it is the way it is. But I am saying that it is not true reality. True reality goes beyond that. What we see is the conditioned world, but what we don t see is the reality, honestly speaking. In order not to have this false perception influence and control you completely the best is to keep yourself in humility. We have a saying in Tibet, an advice from our parents, Don t wear the sky as your hat and use the clouds as the string that keeps your hat on. That refers putting yourself up much higher than you really are. That is troublesome. Better maintain humility. A person with quality never thinks, I am superior. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a perfect example. Mind you, he is the Dalai Lama. Even though he is not at home in Tibet any more he is in exile he is still the Dalai Lama. He goes round with folded hands, almost touching everybody s feet, bending down completely. That is humility. Look at Gandhi, who did the same thing, just wearing a little dhoti, walking barefoot. He minded his

89 The Actual Practice 89 business, going around with his goat and drinking the goat s milk. Look at Mother Theresa, an internationally known figure, she never went with her nose up in the air. When you look at quality, this is the quality I am talking about. That is the humility I am talking about. You can gain that humility. It depends on the thoughts within you. If you keep on thinking that you are superior, you will become a Mr. Dictator, like Hitler or Chairman Mao, Stalin or Saddam Hussein. There are lots of examples. That behavior, that character shows the superiority feeling. It uses that to build up excitement within the people, when they don t have such feelings. Hitler used to create that superior feeling among the Germans by using the Jews as objects to be beaten up. Saddam used the Kurdish people and Chairman Mao used all the minorities, everybody other than the Han Chinese. 46 So, think that others have good qualities and hold them as supreme. Think, They are better than me. They have great qualities. Pray to respect everybody, including the so-called enemies. Look for qualities rather than for faults. Langri Tangpa tries to train our minds not to think the competitive way, but to gain a tremendous amount of respect for everybody, and see them as even more important than Buddha. He goes to that extent. Because, Langri Tangpa says, All beings are creators of enlightened beings. There is truth in that. It s not simply that he is saying it, but it has truth in it. The truth is: buddhas are born out of bodhisattvas, while bodhisattvas are born out of compassion. That way, the bodhisattva is the mother of a buddha. And the mother of the buddha-mind 47 is compassion. Compassion is based on sentient beings. If you don t have a subject of compassion, where are you going to direct your compassion? Onto the rocks? That s why there is truth in that saying. All is dependent arising. Enlightened beings depend on nonenlightened beings to become enlightened. And non-enlightened beings depend on the enlightened beings to be guided. It is all interdependent origination. Whoever you meet, whenever, wherever, you should always consider yourself less important or lower than the other. Not only you should consider yourself the less important one, you should also

90 90 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses gain respect for the other, whether they are high, medium or low. When you gain respect for others, it should not only be mental, but also physical and verbal respect. When you do that, any disagreement with anybody will be no problem, because you give the person highest respect. Then the question rises, when others want you to do a negative action, what should you do? Agree with them and do whatever they say? Probably not. You don t have to agree with them, but you don t have to disagree with them either. The way these Kadampa lamas used to live their lives was very quiet and remote, they would retreat from the group. What they would probably do is neither agree nor disagree with you. They just wouldn t do what you say. They go their way and you go yours. It is very strange, not normal social etiquette. But then, this group of people who practiced in that manner did not live according to the normal social etiquette. They went out of society, obtained a place among the dogs and thus a place among the gods. 48 Therefore, they didn t really have to follow social etiquette. We can learn interesting lessons from that. The interesting lesson we can take from there into our everyday life is, that when we have a difficulty with people in society, we don t have to disagree with them, we can still do whatever we have to do. That may work in general society, but if you are two people living together, it won t. With two people living together, you have to compromise. So, we have to know exactly where it is applicable and where not. And I don t think we can say, We have to do it that way because Langri Tangpa said to do it that way. At that period, for those people and that environment it worked. Even now, if you live alone by yourself, it may work. But if you are two together, it won t work. Now the question rises, what will happen to my self-esteem? Will I lose that? Will I become a doormat for others? I don t think so. When you gain respect for others, honor others, it doesn t mean you have to act as a doormat. Without losing your selfesteem you can give highest respect to others. I think you can have a balanced way of looking, respecting others over yourself yet not losing your self-esteem. We strongly pray to Lama Amitabha. No matter who I deal with, may I be able to see myself of lesser importance than them. May I be able to ignore myself and

91 The Actual Practice 91 hold others in the highest respect, and because of that, do whatever I can to please and satisfy them. By doing so, in my mind-stream I will hold other people more important, more worthy of respect than myself. Until now we have been holding on to self-cherishing. Yet that self-cherishing hasn t given us anything except trouble. If we can change that and cherish others, it may benefit us. The reason? By self-cherishing, we created a lot of trouble. Considering ourselves to be the most important one makes us very sensitive. At every single thing that happens, we ll be worried that I am going to get hurt, I am going to lose, I am going to be discriminated. All these fears and doubts will rise, and at every action we ll try to protect or defend ourselves from all those. In society, the professional legal people try to protect themselves and their clients from a legal point of view. We do something very similar to that all the time. To protect yourself you create doubt, you create hatred, you keep yourself at a distance. All of the difficulties we experience later, we ourselves created. To protect my interest, we insult others, to protect my right, we ignore others, to protect my gain, we make others lose. So naturally, others react to us in the same way and then we get into trouble. On the other hand, if we consider others to be more important than ourselves, others interest more valuable than ours, no grounds for disagreement can rise. Also, cherishing others according to the Lojong tradition is the foundation for developing good qualities in the individual. The Lojong tradition, especially the first Panchen Lama, tells you:. the naive work for their aims alone; While Buddhas work solely to benefit others. Having weighed those faults against Buddhas excellence, Inspire me to change self-absorption to concern for others. 49 The Panchen Lama says, for those of us who are simply thinking of self-interest, self-cherishing is our ultimate goal. Buddha gave up his self-interest and cherished the interest of others as supreme. Compare those two, what did he get and what did we get? Two thousand five hundred years ago the Buddha was just an ordinary being like us, with self-interest, with negative emotions, with all sorts of consequences of anger, jealousy, attachment, etc., with ups and downs like us. However, the Buddha somehow connected

92 92 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses with this precious mind called the mind of cherishing others over one s own personal interest. Since then things have been improving for Buddha. By that [reasoning], try to convince yourself that cherishing others is more important than cherishing yourself. If you look into the Jataka, the stories of Buddha s previous lives according to the Mahayana, Buddha once was in the hell realm. He was pulling a horse-cart together with another person. That person, however, was weak, and could not pull as much as he was supposed to. It was slavery work there in the hell-realm. Buddha suddenly noticed that his friend could not pull anymore, so he tried to pull the cart by himself. He did not want his friend to suffer, since he had that mind of cherishing the other person over himself. The hell-official got very angry, Why are you trying to do somebody else s job?! and he hit Buddha on the head with a hammer. That s how Buddha died in that realm. Dying with this very thought, he purified a tremendous amount of negativities and since there were no negativities left he no longer stayed in the hell realm. After that, everything became perfectly okay for him. He became better and better and finally became a fully enlightened buddha. That is what he attained by cherishing others interest over his self-interest. In the Bodhisattva s way of life it says: (Hence) virtue is perpetually feeble, The great strength of evil being extremely intense; And except for a Fully Awakening Mind By what other virtue will it be overcome? Bodhisattvacaryavatara I, vs. 6 No other action can purify such heavy negativities, except bodhimind. When we talk about bodhimind, we are talking about ultimate love, ultimate compassion, unconditioned. Ultimate unconditioned love and compassion enables you to go out of your way to serve the people that you care for. To meet our personal needs alone, we don t have to become a buddha; to meet our personal needs, we don t need to cherish others interest over our own selfinterest. But ultimate unconditioned compassion will make us go out of our way, because we care, because we want to make a difference for other people. The only way to make a difference is to help people understand this. And the best way to communicate is to speak to each other. So it is really important to be able to talk skilfully to people.

93 The Actual Practice 93 When you have to talk to all people skilfully, you need great skills or ability. So, at this point, the need to become enlightened arises. It is for this reason. In short, you seek enlightenment because you care about others. If you only care about yourself, you don t need enlightenment. You can simply become free from negative actions that is good enough for self-interest. But when you look beyond that, when you look at others interest, then enlightenment becomes necessary. Look at it in this way: how difficult it can be if we have to convince even a single person. For example, how difficult it can be to get the message across when talking to our mother-in-law, or to a conservative politician, or even to our own daughter. So you have to obtain all the communication skills to be able to communicate well. To lead people to enlightenment requires a tremendous amount of skill. And that is why becoming a buddha becomes relevant and necessary for me. Tibetan Buddhism tells you right from the beginning that you have to become a buddha, but the real relevance of it rises at this level. Because you care for others. What is bodhimind? Ultimately, it is the mind of serving others. Serving others automatically means that you care for others more than for yourself, so you ll do anything for them. So you go out of your way to become enlightened, because at the enlightened level you have unlimited, unconditioned, immeasurable capabilities. Therefore, you pray to Lama Amitabha: May I be able to ignore my self-interest and may I supremely cherish the interest of others. May such a mind develop within me naturally. Why naturally? We have developed our mind artificially by making up the mind, by artificially inducing a simulated state of love and compassion, rather than naturally and spontaneously having it within us. When it becomes part of our life, part of the way we function, then it has become natural. So naturally-grown here means that it is not made up artificially. I hope you get that message: naturally grown within us. So do whatever you need to do, meditate, learn or pray, apply whatever method you need to apply. The main purpose is to grow that mind within ourselves. [Light and liquid comes from the body of Lama Amitabha, purifies all negativities and obstacles to develop this, and cherishing others replaces the self-cherishing thoughts in my mind.]

94 94 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 3. OBSERVE YOUR MIND AND DRIVE OUT BAD THOUGHTS In all actions I will learn to search into my own mind, and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises, endangering myself and others, I will firmly face and avert it. Dealing with the afflictive emotions means dealing with the three poisons. We don t know when they come. They can arise any time. Then what to do? The solution is to use the mental faculties of mindfulness and alertness. We have our principal mind and fiftyone secondary minds, which we call in Tibetan sem sem jung - mind and mental faculties. Out of the fifty-one, ten are always active. But mindfulness and awareness are not in that group of ten; they are not always active. When trouble arises we may not notice it until long after the fact. It is like a thief has bolted before the police arrives. However, it is never too late to bring awareness in. The gap will be less and less long and after a while you will be able to catch yourself while it is happening. Then eventually, we will catch the negative emotions before they become full-blown. Often you may feel stuck, making no progress, falling into the same traps again and again. Acknowledge that, but neither excuse nor blame yourself, otherwise you go in circles. Think: it does not inherently exist; it is impermanent. With wisdom you can see that the afflictive emotions are nothing but false perceptions, circumstance-driven, empty in nature. The Heart Sutra says: there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue.., etc. So, wisdom knows that negative emotions are false and that compassion cares. Therefore face them, don t run away, and don t hide in a cocoon. Hit the negative emotions on the head with a hammer. If you have respect and great admiration for all beings, then your negative emotions are not going to grow at all. But even then, if you notice something negative is coming up, then, Langri Tangpa says, nip it in the bud. Where our English text says: I will firmly face and avert it, the Tibetan text says: hammer it down. That really means: nip it in the bud. Don t let it go, but catch it and destroy it. Every day during the four activities, of sleeping, walking, eating and sitting, and when you re casually functioning i.e. during daily chores such as washing dishes, or going to the bathroom, tak-

95 The Actual Practice 95 ing a shower, that sort of thing, always be alert in your mind and see whether your mind remains pure or if it is influenced by what is called here afflictive emotions, or delusions, or negative thoughts or your natural neurosis. Keep on watching that all the time. Be alert; be on your guard that is what it says. There was a Kadampa geshe, Geshe Ben Kungyal. He always said: I stand at the doorway of negative emotions with a spear in hand. When the negative emotions are active, I will be alert When the negative emotions are relaxed, I will take a rest. Probably this is how the Kadampa lamas used to practice. And it is important, because our negative emotions overtake us when we are not alert. Let s say you re aware that you re getting angry with awareness, it is more difficult for anger to grow. When there is no awareness, anger grows much easier. So, alertness really [can supply you a] blocking point of negative emotions. Langri Tangpa suggests to us the following: The moment the negative emotion arises I say: Hey, here you are. I know who you are, you have spoiled my lives, one after the other. When you come up, you don t create trouble for me alone, but for everybody. You are my real enemy. Not only have you created trouble, but you have destroyed my life and will destroy my future lives and also others past, present and future lives. Therefore, I can no longer entertain you. I must block you. I will nip you in the bud. Then, naturally, you pray to Lama Amitabha: The moment the negative emotions are about to arise, may the opponent mind, the opponent thoughts, strongly grow within me and may the negative emotions never raise their heads within me, ever again. Light and liquid come from the body of Lama Amitabha and wash away all negativities in general and in particular the selfcherishing, the self-interest, and the negative emotions that are around to entertain the self-cherishing. They are washed away from our emotional system completely, leaving our body and mind as a dirty-colored stream of water going out via the lower doors, the pores and so on, completely. They become completely separated from our existence.

96 96 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Then, when you are empty of negativity, think that now you become pure and all your good qualities grow. You get filled up with cherishing others, dedication and submission. And this time, the submission is not to enlightened beings or gods or Buddhas, but submission to all beings, committing yourself to the service of all other beings. That is how you meditate on this. In actual practice, at every verse of Langri Tangpa s text, you meditate on the essential point, followed by the visualization of light and liquid coming from Lama Amitabha s body. 4. CHERISH THOSE WHO COMMIT EVIL OR WHO SUFFER GREATLY I will cherish beings of bad nature, and those oppressed by strong negativities and sufferings, as if I had found a precious treasure very difficult to find. This talks about cherishing beings of bad nature. Are there beings of bad nature? Actually not, they just got a bad character; they are misguided. Buddha nature is always pure, but it can be clouded by the negative emotions. I have a story: One day I was in New York in a taxi and the cab driver was talking about President Clinton, saying that he murdered nineteen people and also all the witnesses! Such preconceived ideas and negative emotions overshadow the pure nature mind. Therefore make sure your own mind is free from preconceived ideas and negative emotions. The Kadampa lamas have a saying: Generally we live in a degenerate age and there is not much we can do about that. Specifically, we can make sure that the degenerate age does not occupy us. When suffering hits us we always ask: Why me? But you can send 10 million s with why me? but it won t help. Instead think, I have found a great treasure. Let s say you got a speeding ticket. Then think, May my getting this ticket prevent others from getting a ticket. When you get sick think, May my disease substitute for millions of people to have this. You can also think, May this disease purify the karma that would otherwise keep me in a hell realm for eons. This way we can use unlucky circumstan-

97 The Actual Practice 97 ces for practice and make best use of them. The Tibetans kicked the camels out of the country, thinking they were bad omens. But the Mongolians welcomed them, because they were very helpful in the desert. Don t look down on suffering people. For example, homeless people are not dirty, they are unlucky. Actually they provide a good opportunity for us to help. Even if you can t help, have compassion. In that way we should follow in the footsteps of the great bodhisattvas. And if you find a mean, horrible person, look at him as someone very precious to you, because this is the genuine basis of compassion, compassion not drawn from sympathy, compassion not drawn from pity; the real challenge for you. It really is a challenge! That s why a difficult person is precious, because you don t get much of a chance to have a challenge on this level Langri Tangpa is referring to. When Atisha was in Tibet, he had a friend or companion, some sort of a strange Indian fellow who was always bad. He didn t pay any respect to Atisha, and was always insulting him and arguing and fighting with him, and screaming at him. The Tibetan teachers around him thought, Well that is not that great. We must send this guy back to India. They discussed how to go about it, just sending him away or taking him back to India forcefully. Then they all thought Atisha might get very upset by that, so they d better not do that. They thought, Let s talk to Atisha and let him send the guy back himself. We ll convince Atisha to give him a large amount of gold so to bribe him 50 to go. They went and talked to Atisha and Atisha said, No way! Over my dead body! He is here to help me. He provides me a basis for generating patience, he makes me recognize my negative emotions, so no amount of Tibetan gold will be able to buy him! This sort of thing may not be possible for beginning people like us, but for developed persons, persons who are in that stage, it is sometimes necessary to have such a strange fellow around. Langri Tangpa says: It is very rare to find such a terrible person, who is mean, who is ruthless, who doesn t hesitate to have any negative emotion and who is terribly suffering him- or herself. To find that all together in one person is very rare. It is so important to find an

98 98 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses object of compassion. And when we find such a person, acknowledge him as a precious jewel and be very happy, as though you have met a long lost friend. Cherish this as your supreme joy. Therefore, instead of looking down on such a person, gain respect for him or her, because you benefit from this. You benefit because you have somebody towards whom you can really grow compassion. We are able to feel and develop compassion for people who have physical difficulties because we can see it. People who have mental difficulties people with mental problems, or the half crazy type of people also provide a basis of compassion. That is because these types of compassion are drawn from sympathy or pity for physical or mental handicaps. But such a ruthless, mean fellow, capable of doing anything you can ever dream of in your worst nightmares, is not a natural subject of pity, nor a subject of sympathy. But someone like that is a true object of compassion, because such a person is capable of creating a perfect negativity, is capable of creating perfect suffering for him- or herself and for others who associate with him. A CIA type of person. Such a person is a genuine object of compassion not drawn from sympathy, not drawn from pity, but the real compassion. That is why they say that people like that are so rare, so hard to find, that you should cherish them the best way you can. But what do we do? Get out of the way. Don t ever talk to him, don t ever associate with him. that s our normal thinking. Compassion is for the physically and mentally handicapped people, not for this type of calculating mean one. That s what we do in our normal everyday life. Langri Tangpa and those like him do the opposite: these are the real persons on which you can really develop compassion. Then we pray to Lama Amitabha: May I develop great strong compassion for all sentient beings in general and particularly for those who are capable of creating strong negativities, which are capable of creating strong sufferings for themselves and for others. May I develop very, very strong compassion. So here we have been talking about self-cherishing and cherishing the other and exchanging self for others; this has actually been a real

99 The Actual Practice 99 exchange between the place where the self is and the place where the other is. To get that background established a little bit more, we need to look into another subject first: equanimity or equality. Normally, when you talk about Langri Tangpa s eight verses, the subject [of equality] doesn t come up. But in most other teachings you d talk about it, even before establishing the exchange of the importance of self and others within our mind. It is also interesting to see how closely related equanimity is to the exchange between selfcherishing and cherishing others. Before we start to exchange, it is important to see what equanimity does, which is equalizing self and others. Earlier the traditional teachers would call this: dagzhen nyamje 51 self and others; equal and exchanged. What does equal mean? The bottom line of equality is, what I want and what others want is equal and the same. So I contemplate: All beings and myself are equal, because everyone wants happiness and joy; they want it, and I want it. And what I don t want is suffering; in that respect we are also equal. Others don t want suffering and neither do I; so that s equal. The practice of self-cherishing versus cherishing others 52 You could imagine a dialogue between the self-cherishing thought and the thought that cherishes others. 1.The self-cherishing thought will say, Well, that may be true, but I have to create my own happiness and others will have to create their own. What have I got to do with their happiness? What s more, I created my causes for happiness or suffering differently than all others did; also all the other people created their own separate causes. Besides, I can t create their cause, and they cannot create my cause; we are different people. Then comes the reply: It is true, we are different people; but I can do something for you and you can do something for me! Like a mother can do something for her children and children can do something for their mother. 2. Then the self-cherishing thought will say, I think mothers and children are a different matter, because they care for each

100 100 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses other, while you other people and I, what have we got to do with each other? We ve got nothing in common! Then the thought that cherishes the other replies, Well that s just how you see it now, but I see it differently. Among all the sentient beings there has always existed a continuing mother and child relationship. Just imagine: if we were to collect the but at this moment you don t know who those beings that were your mothers are! Not only that, many of them have started harming you. They look at you as their enemy. How many times have they tried to harm and destroy you already? So, I m not going to listen to your argument that they did me some good so many million years ago. Then the thought that cherishes others will reply: You are so shameless! Don t you want to give gratitude for whatever anyone has given you in the past? You only look at your immediate friends! The way you behave is as shameless as if you ve had a good lifelong relationship with someone who went crazy at the end of his life. If out of his delusions, he started arguing with you, you would say, Oh, that means you don t mothers milk that I have drunk from beings who have been my mothers throughout time, it would fill an area bigger than an ocean! 3. The self-cherishing interest will say: That may be true from your point of view, care for me anymore, and you d walk away. You are so shameless! 4. The self-cherishing thought then says: Okay, I ll buy that. Let s say you care for them and that they care for you. But your caring for them is not going to make any difference to them at all. Not only does it make no difference to them; it will bring you difficulties. So, it is not a good idea to think that way! The thought that cherishes others then replies, Generating a caring mind toward others is not going to remove their suffering immediately. It s not necessarily like, for instance, when you give a thirsty person a glass of water, and that immediately satisfies their thirst. Caring for others might not work that way. However, if they knew what you did, they d surely appreciate it, they d enjoy it, they d like you for it. And what s more, if you can generate the thought of caring for others, that thought can bring goodness to you yourself and to others. Do you want to

101 The Actual Practice 101 know how? Because this thought, this idea is there, you will follow up on it and you will take action. So thought and action evoke and support each other. That is the method the Buddha followed. And that made a difference for Buddha, and then Buddha s life made a difference for millions of others. So if I can do that, I may be able to follow in the footsteps of a buddha, and then there may be some help for others as well as for myself. 5. Then the self-cherishing thought says: Well, now you re bringing Buddha in the picture and then in the end, you say, something will happen; who knows? When is that going to happen? But I am talking about right now, at this moment. If I generate a helpful or a caring thought for others at this moment, how is that going to help me? The reply to this: Of course it helps you if you generate a good thought. Suppose something good happened to you, and other people would show they enjoy it; wouldn t you like to see they appreciate it? When something good has happened to you, and somebody else appreciates it, that makes you happy. Also, when you care for other sentient beings and they know it, that makes you happy. And if you can bring happiness to the people, from anywhere, that s help! 6. The self-cherishing thought: All right! You go on and care for others; how will they know you care for them? They have no way of knowing you care, now have they? The thought that cherishes others then says: Don t be stupid! If you care for others, your look will show that you care for others. Not only that; when they see you, they will like you. What makes people like Buddha? What makes people like bodhisattvas, when they see them? When you see a bodhisattva or a person with a bodhisattva-mind you feel happy. It brings joy within you. And what makes that happen? They care. When you see a snake, do you like it? You don t; you re afraid, because it raises doubt. Because you were taught that they always have a hostile thought and they are ready to throw their poison. That makes people worry about it. Therefore, they don t like to see them. 7. Now the self-cherishing person says: That thought of yours is not going to help anybody, physically or mentally, at all.

102 102 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses There are millions of reasons we can think of why we shouldn t care for others, why our self-cherishing is more important. The most important argument you hear is, If I don t care for myself, then who will care for me? The ultimate reply to this from the thought that cherishes others is, From the limitless beginning until now, I have kept on cherishing myself and it never has brought me anything good, instead it brought nothing but suffering. That s one thing I know for sure. Now s the time for me to change that, and to see if when I switch the thoughts around, if that would make any difference. Cherishing others is actually serving your own interest. If you truly love yourself, you have to cherish others, for your own benefit and for the benefit of others. This is a basic dialogue between the self-cherishing thought and the thought that cherishes others. What did we establish in the process? We have established that we all want happiness and joy. Me too. But the point here is: Not only are we equal in that we want happiness and joy but, by changing my self-cherishing into cherishing others, I may be able to bring happiness and joy to others. Keeping that selfish interest won t help me. We established that in the dialogue. If you really keep meditating and thinking and arguing within yourself, you will see that. Actually, I m supposed to be presenting Langri Tangpa s thoughts here, but I added this dialogue for a better understanding. I m sure this will raise a lot of questions and doubts and miscommunications, but nonetheless let me go on with the next point, which brings up another dangerous point. 5. ACCEPT BLAME WITHOUT TRYING TO DEFEND YOURSELF When others, out of jealousy, treat me badly with abuse, slander and so on, I will learn to take all loss and offer the victory to them. Out of jealousy, some people may abuse you and give you the M- word or the F-word. Geshe Langri Tangpa says: if that happens, take all the losses and offer victory to them. Don t insist on being

103 The Actual Practice 103 right. It doesn t matter. Let them win. Take the loss and don t argue. But can you do that in this society? No. Here you do have to defend your integrity, otherwise you could even end up in jail and mess up your precious human life; you have to defend your rights. Don t take it so serious. Let it go. Actually, taking false accusations and blame purifies strong negativities. If we can t do it now, we should pray to be able to do it later. You need a very strong mind for that. Truly speaking, I believe the bodhisattvas are able to do that, but we can t. It is very hard for us to do that. The essence of Lojong or training of the mind is that whenever you meet with loss, whenever you suffer defeat, you should accept it. And whenever there is victory or profit you should offer it to others without any hesitation, without any regret, with great joy. Take the loss. Why this is the essence of Lojong? Because, if you really care very much for someone, you are willing to do that. If you are a mother and you have to protect your children, you re willing to do the impossible. If you look at a situation as if you were a mother, you can see that you are willing to step in front of your children if someone is shooting at them. You also see mothers getting their children together in front of their chest to protect them when there is an accident like maybe a car crash or a plane crash. You see them save lives that way. Sometimes they can t. But we have seen this happening repeatedly in our normal everyday reality. That s because mothers care for their children. So when you care, you can do that. When you don t care enough, you can t do that. We see this everywhere. Offer the victory. Buddhist teachers very often do that. I have a number of recollections where this would happen when I was a student, but at that moment I didn t notice it. I only noticed it later, looking back. At such a moment I would point out the little knowledge that I had, I would raise a big alert when something was taught a little bit differently or when something was read, or commented on slightly differently, I would raise my red flag. And the reaction of many of the teachers, they d look at me and smile and agree, and they d let it go. Later, when I had read more, I began to realize how foolish I had been, because there are many ways of interpreting or explaining. But back then, they would just let you have your right! Maybe it was their

104 104 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses kindness. That s what they do. Here s another funny recollection I have, that happened maybe ten or fifteen years ago, when Kyabje Gomo Rimpoche passed away. In the memory of Kyabje Gomo Rimpoche, Lochö Rimpoche gave a Vajrayogini teaching in Mussori 53. And at the end of the Vajrayogini teaching, the Mussori School decided to ask Lochö Rimpoche to give a long life initiation. There were some two thousand students there. And Rimpoche also decided to give another initiation that someone had asked for, the Vajrapani and Garuda combined initiation. Then maybe forty-five minutes or half an hour before the initiation I walked by and I looked at the tormas they had made. Normally Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche and Kyabje Ling Rimpoche would use triangular red tormas for this initiation. But this one was white with an umbrella. All the preparations had been made and Rimpoche was about to give the initiation, in half an hour, forty-five minutes at most. I thought, That torma looks funny. So I asked the person that had made the torma (because Lochö Rimpoche was not around there), How come it is white today? And he only replied, yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn t say anything. Then I paid no more attention to it and went to the toilet. And when I came out, this guy was busy taking down the torma! There were only forty minutes left, there were two to three thousand people attending this initiation. What had happened is, that this man had told Lochö Rimpoche, that I had asked him, Why is this torma white? Then Lochö Rimpoche told him to take the white torma, smash it and make a blue one. And he had to make a blue one, a blue round one. What happened was that even though it was only forty minutes or so, he let me have my way, changing the torma. But then, during the teaching Lochö Rimpoche explained that it was Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche that had a system of making the torma blue! So it served two purposes; now I know there s also a system of making the torma blue and on the other hand he let the white torma go. That meant that he gave me the victory of saying the white torma was wrong. In reality, there is nothing wrong with a white torma. It s just a white torma, so what? What s the big deal what color it was? It is symbolic anyway. But when you re young, with a young mind you always think that it has to be precise. That s not right, it should be like this. You know? So a number of times, you

105 The Actual Practice 105 see, they let you have the victory. In reality, it doesn t change anything, but you ve got your victory. And they didn t lose anything. Like parents sometimes do, telling their children, Yeah, you re right. We ll hand it to them, but we do it with the thought, that we re half-sure that they re wrong, somewhere in the back of our head. Right? It might not be right, but you really did hand it to them. And in the long run, they ll learn that you are wrong, too! Well it s been helpful and appreciative. And that s maybe how they say: I will learn to take all loss and offer the victory to them. I think this is more a mental state, I don t think it s a financial state, and I don t think it s a physical state. When the time is right, then I think you ll be able to accept it physically or financially, too. There are a number of stories about the lifetime of Buddha, for instance, a story about a previous life, when he gave his life to save a tiger family, first by cutting his wrists and letting the weakened tigers lick his blood and finally by letting them eat him. Normally we blame other people. We say, If so and so hadn t done that, this would have been different, We always blame failure on somebody else, there s always some excuse. Our usual personal failures will never count. That s why we need scapegoats, right? To blame somebody else. That is our way. When you re training your mind in a positive way, you re training yourself to accept your faults. That is important. Normally we try our best not to accept our faults. Every lawyer can tell you that. But it is extremely important to accept our faults. It might not be important in the material world. Sometimes there may be some advantage in your not accepting them but at the same time you may also have the disadvantage of not accepting them. But, in the spiritual world, you cannot cheat. Maybe there is no such thing called judgment, but if there is, judgments will be based on true reflections. There s a children s story among the Tibetans that I was told when I was a kid. It says that when you die, you will be lined up, and there will be a white line and a black line. The very heavily loaded ones in line loaded with either negativity or positivity will be dealt with with overriding priority. There will be dakas and dakinis. And whether you can hear them or not, damarus and bells are singing and ringing, and the sound of OM

106 106 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses MANI PADME HUM is filling the whole world. And then a great being flies over [traveling to a pure land or some great rebirth] Zoooom!! At the same time there is crying, and howling sounds fill up the whole universe. There! [Hell beings] drag away the greatest sinners. As I said, overriding priority on both sides. Then it s the turn of the average ones. They get in line and reach the place of judgment. (Do remember, this is a kid s story, okay?) And then they will tell them, Here is the final calculation, the big total of your positive and negative karma. The judge who is a staff member or the representative of the Lord of Death, holds a mirror in his hand. It is a karmic mirror 54, it has no limitations. It is supposed to have registered your thoughts and ideas and actions, everything. So you can t lie there. Black or white pebbles are then put on a balance, according to one s bad and good karma, to see which side is heavier. You ll be sent away accordingly. That is what I mean: you cannot lie to yourself. Most of our negativities are mental negativities, rather than actions. So they re only known to ourselves, at this moment. But this karmic mirror reads everything, all the time, so you cannot lie to it. That s why training the mind is important. So, have compassion, have care, have respect. 6. ONE WHO HARMS YOU IS KINDER THAN ONE WHO HELPS YOU When one whom I have benefited with great hope unreasonably hurts me very badly I will learn to view that person as an excellent spiritual guide. Parents invest a lot of hope in the children and then get disappointed. They might have too high expectations. Likewise, children may expect too much from the parents. In your relationships that can also happen. We hear that sometimes, I helped when he was sick and now he has left me... Actually, expectations are the problem. True generosity is free of charge. On the level of this mind training you reverse that. You don t develop hatred towards those who disappoint you. Hurt brings hatred and hatred brings violence. Don t insist. Be a hero and not a wimp. That is the opposite reaction to what we normally have. Patience helps. It removes you from acts of violence and gives you a strong will. As Shantideva has said, There is no such hardship as patience. So for this level of practice a steady, comfortable personality is needed.

107 The Actual Practice 107 The way you normally treat anyone, for example your own family, your own children, your own companion, is that you sort of take their love, their affection, and their support towards you for granted. And if they betray you, if they put you into trouble, if they hurt you, you get hurt worse than if anybody else did it, because you trusted them. It is very hard for us to reconcile with that condition. It s another one of the harder points of our usual mental habits. Let us take, for example, people you have helped, that you brought up, for whom you did everything possible and in whom you had great hopes, like one s own children, for whom you put in whatever efforts you could to bring them ahead, to make them better persons, to make their life better. If they would come back and harm you, how terrible. What should you do? Normally, we ll want nothing more to do with that person. We d want to dissociate ourselves from that person. That s our normal attitude, if you don t give them a big punch. But here the suggestion is different: Langri Tangpa goes to the extreme. He says: They are your teachers. Look at them as a great teacher, a teacher who can show you how unreliable samsaric thoughts are. In a way, it is a teaching, no doubt. It is the reality of the unreliable samsaric nature. It also shows you, that negative actions cause great pain. So we can use this to our own advantage to drive toward positive actions or virtuous actions. Appreciate that and treat that person with great love rather than hate. Moreover, it also shows you that you can rely on yourself alone, on nobody or nothing else. It is a lesson, no doubt, but it is hard for us to do this. But we ll try. That s what it is. Of many of those bodhisattva ways we have to say, We ll try. (Laughs) And we hope and we pray. That is also why you ll find most of the commentaries on Langri Tangpa s eight verses to be in the prayer form rather than in the action form. I pray to Lama Amitabha that I may be able to do it that way. Light and liquid comes from the heart of Lama Amitabha, purifies all hatred and develops patience. The most important point of verses five and six is that any faults and any blame there might be, I will take on me, myself; while I will offer any profit or gain, or any victory to all beings. This is the basic Lojong. Really. This is the true Lojong.

108 108 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 7. GIVE HELP AND TAKE ON SUFFERING In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception All help and happiness directly and indirectly And secretly take upon myself All the harms and sufferings of my mothers. This is the actual tong len practice: you give your happiness and take the suffering. You are supposed to do that for every sentient being, not only now but also in past and future. Why secret? There is nothing to hide, but if you suddenly tell people to take the suffering of all others, people may get afraid. That s why you keep it a little secret. You only tell them when they are ready, not at the beginning. If you say in the beginning that you take all their sufferings, like pain and illness, in the form of this and that horrible thing, they might think, What the hell am I doing here? Why should I want to do this? They may even get afraid of it. That s why there is the advice to keep it a little secret and don t talk about it very openly. It might not suit some people. In the Tibetan tradition however, when you give teachings you give them openly, otherwise how can it benefit? There may be some disadvantages, but there will be more advantages. So we ignore the disadvantages and try to keep in mind the advantages. So, this verse tells you to develop respect and caring to such an extent, that you will have no hesitation to give your life to help or to benefit someone. And that is possible. If you really care, it is possible. We ve seen it in our normal lives, that if people really care, they could even die for you. People have sacrificed their lives for the sake of their loved ones. People sacrificed their lives for their country, for a cause. We ve seen that, right? That goes to show that if you care, you can do that. So Langri Tangpa is not talking unreasonably. If our mind builds up to that level, it is possible. I was told that when bodhisattvas at that level give their lives, they don t have any pain. It s as though you were giving a vegetable out of a freezer. There are zillions of different stories about persons who gave an eye or their hand, or this and that and everything. And among the more well known stories about Buddha s previous lives is the one where he cut his wrist to let a starving tiger lick his blood.

109 The Actual Practice 109 You can read stories about how Buddha, [in a previous life as a king] when the time was right for it to be beneficial for all, let everything go: any wealth, elephants and horses and so forth and even his sons and daughters, his queens and ministers, giving it all away. He did even that. This is a patriarchal story of a King who owned everything. It is an old story. I don t think in Europe they have a problem with it, but in America you ll hear a huge outcry when you tell it. How can he give his wife away? What right does he think he has? All kinds of this sort of questions arise; but, at that time, it was like that, where a King owned everything and could give away anything he wanted. That was that culture, in that period. The point here is: he did this without causing any difficulties. It is said that when bodhisattvas develop such a perfection of generosity, and they give their lives, for them, it s just like giving vegetables out of a freezer. Not only do they not have any pain or difficulties; they give their lives and everything they have joyfully! All these stories are very commonly known. We can t do that, and it is not right for us to do that. Neither the time nor the conditions are right, so it is not for us. However, we can pray that it may become suitable for us, that we may be able to do that some day. So, as we now read all those things from Langri Tangpa, it functions mainly as a prayer. In short we can say here: May I give all the benefits to others, and take all the difficulties and sufferings upon myself. Light and liquid come from the heart of Lama Amitabha, removing all the obstacles for being able to do that. When the time comes, then our bodies, wealth and virtues of the three times 55 will actually be given. All of that will be given to all beings. And secretly we will take all their difficulties, sufferings, delusions and emotional thoughts upon ourselves. Secretly! Because if you did it openly, you d create an inconvenience for them; that s why you take it upon yourself without letting them know. This is also the point of view of Langri Tangpa; even at that level. We can t do this literally. Langri Tangpa recommends to do this practice together with a breath-exercise. It is called tonglen, the technique of give and take.

110 110 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses The practice of tonglen take and give You breathe in through your left nostril. When you breathe in, without any hesitation, without any fear you take upon you every, suffering, every difficulty, everything miserable. Breathe in all the difficulties, the sufferings and the negative emotions of all beings in the form of smoke with an unwanted dirty color. Take it in and dump it on the self-cherishing mind. Following this, through the right nostril breathe out white light or light in the color that you like most. This represents all your virtues, your positive karma, your positive deeds, your positive energies and good thoughts, reaching out to all sentient beings. They receive it and they are happy and joyful. You do this repeatedly. The practice op tonglen from self tonglen to tonglen for others 56 Sometimes, when you do this practice, you ll be scared. You re scared of catching some disease, you re scared of taking their cuts and wounds and illnesses. It happens. When this is the case, what should you do? The answer is to practice beginning with yourself. While breathing in you take your own suffering from yourself. For example, say to yourself, I ll take my own sufferings of this evening on me now, and tomorrow s suffering, and next week s, next month s, next year s, next life s, and the sufferings of my lives thereafter. Take your own future suffering upon you now, and get it over with. Then 57 you take upon yourself the suffering of a person you care for. Then gradually extend it to all human beings, then to all sentient beings. The same goes for giving. While breathing out, give to yourself your own virtues, all your good karma. Give it to your tomorrow, or rather: save it for your tomorrow, save it for your next week, save it for your next life.

111 Then give your virtues to the person you care for. Then gradually extend it to all human beings, then to all sentient beings. The Actual Practice 111 Both give [away] and take [upon yourself]; that is how you train your mind. Rather than taking right from the beginning all sick persons illnesses, the cancer patient s cancer, all AIDS patient s AIDS or whatever suffering, you take up your own suffering, the next minute, the next hour, the next evening, the next day and so on. Taking on suffering for yourself is easier than taking somebody else s suffering upon you. Actually taking is more important than giving. But even giving is very hard for some people. 8. REMAIN PURE AND OVERCOME ATTACHMENT I will learn to keep all these practices undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions, and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions, I will be released from the bondage of attachment. The essence of the eighth point is wisdom. This English text also mentions the eight worldly dharmas. The eight worldly dharmas 58. Whatever practice you may do, you have to make sure they are not influenced by the eight worldly dharmas. A number of you have heard about them and a number of you might not have heard. Our usual things are mostly worldly dharmas: If we gain we are happy; if we lose we get upset. If somebody gives us respect we like it; if somebody puts us down, we don t like it. If we re praised by somebody we like it; if we re insulted or somebody talks bad about us behind our back we dislike it. If we get pleasure, it makes us happy; if we get pain, we dislike it.

112 112 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses In short, what do the eight worldly dharmas do? Destroy all the good efforts we put in. Some little stain comes into our motivation, our actions and thoughts and that spoils the whole thing. The essence of the eight worldly dharmas, the real deep down point of it is attachment, particularly attachment to name and fame. For example, if you re praised, you like it, if you re not praised, you don t like it. And if bad things are said to you, you dislike it; if good things are said to you, you won t dislike it. We talked about that before. A very well know Kadampa lama, called Geshe Beng, was a very interesting guy. He had been a thief. He used to go out to steal people s property in the night. Then he became bigger, that is he became a robber. There is a mountain passage between Lhasa and Pembo. Those who go to Tibet, can see a big mountain north of Lhasa that you have to cross to go to Pembo. That s where he went. Most of these Kadampa Geshes came from this northern part of Lhasa, from the other side of the mountain, the Pembo and Reting area. Besides being a farmer, Geshe Beng used to block the narrow passage on the mountain top and rob travelers. Later he became a practitioner, and he gave up robbing and thievery. And he said: When I was younger, I had all these weapons. I had a sword, a knife, a spear, a sling-shot and a lasso. During the day I grew food, during the night I went into the towns to steal people s things. During other days I went to the mountain passages to rob travellers. But I still couldn t feed my one mouth with my two hands. Finally I gave up everything and went into retreat, practicing and doing nothing. Now the food cannot find my mouth; there is so much of it coming. This was not because he didn t rob anyone anymore, but because when he started meditating he became the well-known Geshe Beng, and everybody gave him food. He got tea, butter and the good old gur, very nice hard, pure brown sugar. He got different biscuits, breads, tsampa, barley, wheat, vegetables and fruit, too many to find their way into his mouth.

113 The Actual Practice 113 That means, at the time he was cherishing himself used every method to get rich the easy way, by stealing, robbing etc., and still his hands couldn t feed his mouth, but when he gave up everything, the food couldn t reach his mouth. By this time Geshe Ben had many benefactors. Everybody in the villages of Pembo area north of Lhasa across the mountains, became his benefactor. One day one of his strongest benefactors announced that he was coming to visit him. So Geshe Beng thought, I should look good today, he s my big benefactor, I must impress him! Here s what he did. He got up early and cleaned his place thoroughly. He dusted the altar completely, and put a lot of offerings on it. Then he cleaned himself, and looked like a very prestigious Lama, and sat himself down nicely. Then he suddenly thought to himself: What am I doing? I m maintaining my attachment! He got up, went outside, picked up a handful of dust, and spread it everywhere, on the altar, on the offerings, on himself, and then he sat waiting for his benefactor to come. At that moment another great teacher was giving a teaching in a group somewhere else, in the south-western part of Tibet, near the Indian border in a place called Yardong. He burst out laughing. The things he was talking about didn t call for this laughing. So somebody asked him later, What happened? Why did you laugh so much? He said, Geshe Beng made such a wonderful offering, I couldn t help laughing. Today Geshe Beng threw dust into the mouth of the eight worldly dharmas! That is the best offering. That is what is meant by not having any influence or motivation of any of the eight worldly dharmas. The moment you have the influence of the eight worldly dharmas, what you do may look wonderful, healthy, happy and well-organized, however, it is nothing but feeding the worldly dharmas. That s how you handle the eight worldly dharmas. Don t think too much what other people might think. We can t do like Geshe Beng, but what we can do about the eight worldly dharmas today is, be yourself. Don t try to be somebody else. Be what you are, act the way you want to act, and say what you want to say. This is our way of handling the eight worldly dharmas. People may tell you, you are a little bit extreme, a little eccentric, but we know a couple of our screws are loose anyway. Make sure though they re not too loose!

114 114 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Wisdom. The essence of the eighth point is wisdom. Let s now look very carefully at what it is. Bodhimind or bodhicitta can be divided into two. One is called relative bodhimind, the other is called absolute bodhimind. The relative bodhimind is [what we usually refer to as bodhimind; this is the] true bodhimind. The absolute bodhimind is the wisdom-oriented bodhimind. Sometimes people develop wisdom first and bodhimind later, sometimes people develop bodhimind first and wisdom later. Whenever they join together, [relative bodhimind] becomes absolute bodhimind. What does absolute bodhimind see more than relative bodhimind? Absolute bodhimind is focused on absolute reality rather than on aspects [of reality], or subjects or objects in reality. Absolute bodhimind searches for a real point of which we can say: This is it. But the absolute bodhimind won t find any point where you can say: This is it. Since it doesn t find a this is it, [then the insight can be gained] there is no growth, there s nothing to be born, nor anything to stop. Neither will it see the extreme [of substantialism 59 ], nor of nihilism 60, neither coming nor going. That s what it says in the Heart Sutra, Not born, not annihilated, not tainted, not pure, does not increase, does not decrease. That is called the Central path or the Middle path, or the Middle Way. Middle here means: free of the two extremist views, the extremes of absolute existence and of nihilism. Most of you have had some short teachings on the Three Principles of the Path. 61 That gives you quite good information on that issue. What does wisdom do? Wisdom negates something. What does it negate? Not our usual view of what we accept as me and you, or John, or Mary that is not to be negated. It is slightly more than that. The John within John, the Mary within Mary, the sort of deep down identification which functions separate from the label, name and object, that which even goes beyond your body and consciousness, and that of which we normally presume we have it there, that is what is to be negated. If you just don t think about it, you just call someone John, and John says: Yeah. This is okay. There is nothing wrong with that. Still, Buddhists call that non-analyzed thought, because you never thought about who is John, what is he? You simply called

115 The Actual Practice 115 John and he acknowledged. From the philosophical point of view we call this the usual lay view acceptance. And that s okay. But the moment you begin to think: Who is the real John? Which [part of him] is John? Is it the face, is it the body, the mind? What exactly? The moment you begin to think like this, you begin to get confused. That confusion is what we have to negate. Wisdom is free of confusion. So first we have to find the point of confusion, and then we have to negate that. The point of confusion will only come [when we start thinking:] Which is the real John, the body, the mind, the speech, the shape, or all of it together, or something separate from that? You begin to get the confusion when you begin to analyze it. Because from our habitual patterns or from our usual viewpoints we do expect we will find something called John, - beyond his body, beyond his mind, [we expect] something to be there. There lies the confusion and that is what we re looking for: the confusion. When you search for where John really is - in the head, in the brain, in the heart - and you think you found John in the brain cells, then it s not the true John. They re just his brain cells. And if you find him in the heart, it s also not the true John. Again, normally when we look for something, we do expect to find something. What Buddha tells you is, emptiness is nothing to be found. In that case, you may say, why do we search for it? We do need to search for it, because we have to satisfy our mind to see that it s not there. And if you tell me, Then there is no John, that s not true, because John is there. There is no John who does not depend on his body and mind. John rises on the dependent situation of a body and a mind together, on that combination. If one of them is missing, we lose John. If there is no body, we cannot identify him. If there is no mind, he cannot function. So John exists in dependence on that combination, to which the father and the mother gave the name John. And we acknowledge this. One has to be satisfied with that. And one needs to learn not to go beyond that. That is the way in which he exists. Naturally, when you talk about emptiness of John, and when you talk about John, it looks like they are two separate things. This is, again, confusion, because there is no separation, they are together.

116 116 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses If you search too much, sometimes you begin to feel as if there is nothing left. If you mentally take off the hands, the legs, the head, taking the body apart in separate pieces, then you begin to find or feel that he s not there, really. Then probably your answer is, Of course he is not the body, his mind is [the real John.] And then you start looking into the mental faculties, all fifty-two of them, taking each and every emotion apart, like anger, faith, attachment, all of them. But still you will not find John. The emotions are part and parcel of the mind. Also feeling, perception, conceptualization, all of them are. When you start taking them apart like you did with John s hands and legs, and so forth, you re not going to find a point where you can say: Hey! This is it! This is very funny. Buddha says, well, whether it was actually Buddha or the Indian metaphysical scholars who followed Buddha who said it, the Buddhist viewpoint is that no matter how deep you go, no matter how subtle the particles you observe might be, you will never find the point where you cannot go on dividing them. They always have parts, they are never single. There s always the possibility of dividing them into parts, because each particle always has directions or sides like east and west. If a particle was not divisible, east and west would touch [and more than one particle could fit in the same space], which is never the case. That is the bottom line of this. No matter how subtle anything may become, it can always be divided into parts. Because of this, it can never become singular. Are you with me? You are educated people. By telling you this, [I know] you know this. Then some people may think: Oh, when I say east and west can never touch, because there is always a division, east will forever be east and west will forever be west. That is also not true. There is another [particle] on the other side, which will change what is east and west in relation to that. From the material point of view, or from the point of view of chemistry or physics, that s how they establish the theory of emptiness. Everything is always dependent, never independent. The non-existence of anything independent might not be emptiness, but it is the best way we can see it. In Pabongka s Liberation in the Palm of your Hand 62, it will tell you that subtle impermanence or constant change at all levels is not true emptiness, however this is

117 The Actual Practice 117 the best way we can see the emptiness. That s why they call it naturally empty : it is empty in nature. All those similar expressions exist because there is not a single point where we say: This is it. The understanding of emptiness, I think, is something that you have to keep building up little by little, and then after a little while you ll gain it. The extremes. Then two points are always mentioned, the left and the right extreme. There is the fear that when you go on searching, that suddenly you ll begin to realize: I am not there, I do not exist at all! Sometimes people go to extremes, and say, Everything is a total illusion, there s nothing there, I am dreaming, nothing is happening, there s nothing there! People do go to such extremes. Don t go that far. Sometimes there is also fear that [if everything is empty] there is no cause and effect. If cause and effect were not real, then you would have neither negative emotions and their consequences nor positive emotions and their consequences. And if you don t have those, you lose our principle [of functioning]. And it s important not to lose that. That s why they say: don t go to the extreme of nihilism 63. There is also the other extreme of existentialism 64. By that I mean the attitude that everything is totally static, the often subtle [or unrecognized] view that, once something is done, there s nothing you can do to alter it, for all eternity. As a matter of fact, to me the Western notion of guilt is a good example of this extreme existentialistic view. For example, you think, I have done something wrong, so I am stuck. Or, I have been bad and I cannot correct that. You think, I can t change, I m a bad person, I am stuck there. Let me just await my judgment. That [belief that nothing can be changed] is bound to be a bad sort of thing. To me, that is [a clear example of this sort of] an extreme view. It is being too harsh on ourselves. There is no such thing as a done deal. Even those signed documents we call a done deal will change. Even at the relative truth level [where they are supposedly sound], they change. At the absolute truth level there is no such thing [as an unchangeable done deal]. And when you do think such a thing exists, when you have the I can t help it, I am doomed -view, that is an extreme viewpoint. You may not realize you hold extreme viewpoints. You don t think you have extreme viewpoints; you may think you re very lib-

118 118 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses eral, but you re really functioning like an extremist, at least with regards to yourself. Therefore, somehow we need to recognize and acknowledge this as an extreme view. And then the view needs to be relaxed. The view changes, definitely, no question about it. Even your thoughts, even your attitudes on your own treatment of yourself will change year by year, even week by week, day by day, hour by hour; you know it yourself, for sure! One moment you might think, Oh, I m terrible, I could kill myself! But then the next hour [that thought may have vanished completely]. But you still believe that you re sort of guilty. Guilty may not be the right word, maybe you believe you re a sinner. You think nothing can be done until you have been punished or something. To me, that is an extreme view, whereas if you believe in the middle path, [you look for] the balancing point. When we talked about whether I do exist or not, and whether he exists or not, that was different. But when we talked about my own thoughts and feelings towards myself, [we saw how differently you will feel and function if you think you have permanent attributes, i.e. I am guilty and there is nothing I can do except await my punishment, versus understanding that you are changing and can take steps to improve yourself and your circumstances.] When you re able to see that, you re wise, you have wisdom. And when you don t see that, then you still lack wisdom. I don t want to say you re stupid, but it is a lack of wisdom. This is the one main point that I urge all of you to remember. Stop thinking, I m a bad person. Don t think, Everything is my fault. That s another stupid, extreme viewpoint. How could that be possible? How can everything be my fault? If you want to clap, you need two hands. One hand never makes a sound. All these extreme viewpoints that we hold are the cause of our suffering. I am not saying there is no negativity. Yes, we do have negativities. And we do make mistakes. And we do create problems, but that s not permanent. The problem is not permanent, the negativity is not permanent, your creation is not permanent. It is changeable. Remember that. It will change. So, wisdom is free of extremes. This is [a] very unusual [way to speak about] emptiness anyway.

119 The Actual Practice 119 Begin by trying to see the emptiness of our own thoughts; not the emptiness of self, but the emptiness of your attitude toward self. Move from there. If you think about the emptiness of your selfattitude, then it relieves you, sometimes it can relieve you quite a lot. And it will also help you to understand the real emptiness of yourselves better. Right now, how can we think about the emptiness of the self, as long as we still think the work that we have done is permanent, that it cannot change; then how can you think of the self as empty? How? No way! So, As I begin to look into emptiness free of extremes, I will first look at my thoughts about myself, my attitude and my feelings towards myself, and I ll progress from there in freeing myself from extremes. Karma and avoiding extreme views. It s a dependent relationship. The actions that we have taken wrongly, the negative qualities we have, the sins we have committed, and their consequences, all of them are relative; relative meaning conditioned [or dependent on conditions], dependent on the relationship, on the relativity. (In Buddhist terminology sin isn t used at all. It s rather called negativity or non-virtue, but it s the same thing.) So we use it, because we think in those terms. That s another example of relative existence, which means it depends on its components parts. It [also] depends on conditions and conditions are changeable. I have a karma to get a stomach-ache; for sure, no question about it. But if I look after myself and eat the right food, I m not going to get a stomach-ache, because I don t provide the conditions for one to occur. Do you ever think that way? It depends very much on the conditions. Everyone of us has [every] different karma there is. Who has the karma to produce anything whatsoever? Everybody. Everyone of us has a karma to become a king or a queen or to get ill with AIDS or anything else. But if we don t provide the conditions [for it to actualize], we re not going to get it. We aren t kings, because we don t have subjects. If we avoid the necessary conditions; no matter whether the [karmic] cause is there or not, it won t materialize, because of the dependent arising. This is the freedom we have. And we must enjoy that. We must acknowledge that. There is no reason why we should torture ourselves, virtually for nothing. People go to such extremes, It s because of everything I did, it s all my fault, I am

120 120 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses terrible! They might even believe they have caused the Bosnian war or something similar. And that is ignorance. If you want to cut out ignorance, cut that out! Here is your object of negation. What you really need to understand is that nothing exists truly, naturally, inherently, yet everything functions, like an illusion. However, to say like an illusion does not mean to say, like a total hallucination. There s a difference between hallucination and illusion 65. This is about illusion. Here [in this commentary] it says: When you re free of extreme viewpoints of right and left, you re on the way to get to enlightenment. How do we liberate [ourselves from] our own extreme [views which] are really within our mind: [on the one side in] our attitude towards ourselves, viewing ourselves as terrible sinners, helpless, [in a hopeless condition; or in the case of the other extreme, if we are] careless, [thinking] nothing will happen; [thinking] nothing is right and nothing is wrong, when the attitude is extremely happy go lucky. Some people are not even aware that they have gone to extremes. Balance that first. That s your centralization. And then, after that, we begin to see. Then we can begin to see whether we truly exist or not, and how we exist, and what dependent origination means. I have talked to you about karma, and that it depends on the conditions whether karma can function or not. These are the basic ideas of dependent arising. And we talked about John, and about John s existence. That was to give you an idea of how to look for the balancing point. Then it also doesn t really matter whether John exists on the head or in the heart. But what does matter is ourselves; you yourself and the way you treat yourself based on your own deeds. Remember that, it s important. Even if you have negativities. Who doesn t have negativities? Give me one person who is free of negativities. Forget about the enlightened beings, okay? Apart from them, give me one single person who doesn t have a negativity? Everybody has done something wrong at some time or another, even those enlightened beings have done wrong [before they became enlightened]. How to deal with karma So the trick is to apply purification, and not to provide the conditions [for bad karma to actualize]. That s how you drive your car. Do not provide the conditions, avoid them,

121 The Actual Practice 121 and keep on purifying. And don t create more [negativity]. That s how you get free. It s simple, very simple. That s how you manage your karma. Don t ever create the conditions for negative karma [to actualize]. Avoid [negativity and giving rise to conditions] as much as you can. But sometimes you lose. It doesn t matter. So you lose. It s not a big deal. I mean it. As long as you don t lose in a big way. That s what it is [all about]. We try our best not to provide the conditions. So I try not to eat too many sweets. But sometimes you lose [and you do eat too many sweets. Then your sugar level will go up, so you try to do your best again, to take walks, to eat less, and the sugar level will come down again. Who knows how long it will go up and down? That s how you handle it. Even if you lose a little bit here and there, it is no big deal. You may give up [for a while], or lose your temper, you may get upset, or you may get caught up in attachment. All this happens, you suffer a little bit, and you get out of it, [and maybe again] you suffer a little bit; it s part of life. What s the big deal? It s the same thing with all our karma. As long as we remain in a human life, as long as we don t fall in the lower realms, as long as we can take the essence out of life these are the main points as long as we can do all that, [it s okay]. Keep your principles straight! These are kindness, compassion and love towards yourself and others. Also, always try to do your best, and never be mean. And try as much as possible not to harm. Sometimes you can t avoid negative actions. When you drive a car, insects will die under the wheels. Sometimes when you drive in the middle of a street, a cat or a bird will cross the street. You try to avoid hitting it, you put the brake on, but [it may be too late]. These things happen, you can t help it. Didn t we create a negativity by hitting a bird on the road? Sure we did. But is that the end of the world? Certainly not! So what do you do with that negativity? You purify it. You can purify it because it is impermanent, because it is empty, because of emptiness. This is the freedom. Don t relax on purification, try not to create new negativity and avoid the conditions [that cause the results of negative karma to manifest]. That s how you live. Reflect on everything in your past days, weeks, months and years, on whatever you have done, and think this way. This is the eight viewpoint of Langri Tangpa: it s about emptiness; emptiness [with regard to] our life, and to our daily activities.

122 122 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses We now pray to Lama Amitabha that we may at this moment see the true nature and thus solve the mystery of life. When you see the true nature, you solve the mystery of life! In response to our prayer light and liquid come from the body of Lama Amitabha, washing away all our negativities in general, and particularly all self-cherishing selfish thoughts. And the blessing-bringing nectars fill up your body completely, rejuvenating your life, increasing your luck and your knowledge, and in particular developing the two types of bodhimind. CONCLUSION Now Lama Amitabha transforms into Lama Amitayus and dissolves into you. Those of you who have obtained initiation, you become Lama Amitayus. Those who have not obtained initiation, you remain as yourself but you have obtained the blessing of Lama Amitabha and Lama Amitayus. The change of the Lama here is extremely easy. You may think, what is going on? How is this possible, first it was Amitabha, then it became Amitayus? It is the nature of emptiness [which makes it possible]. It can become Yamantaka, it can become Vajrayogini, Shakyamuni, Amitabha, Amitayus, Avalokiteshvara, you name it, any yidam, because it is in the nature of emptiness. It can either become a male or a female yidam, because [the state of enlightenment is a state of] union. Unlike what a number of the people will say, the state of union is not a neutral or neuter state. They will say that enlightenment is neutral, neither male, nor female. That s not right. When it is male, it is proper male, and when it is female, it is really female. It is not half male or half female, or neither male nor female. To think that way is not right. Never think of enlightenment as neither this nor that, or as something in between. Enlightenment is the union quality within itself.

123 The Actual Practice 123 DEDICATION We dedicate whatever virtuous activities we have undertaken: May the precious bodhimind not yet born arise and grow, and may that already born have no decline but increase for evermore. I think Jewel Heart people should say it all the time; you ll find this in your normal prayer books. You really dedicate for everybody to obtain enlightenment, and in particular for the bodhimind to grow. This is the Mind Training in Eight Verses according to Langri Tangpa. There are other lojongs, like Geshe Chekawa s Seven Point Mind Training, the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, the Peacock Digesting Poisons and so on. There are 108 lojongs 66 and they are all there to develop bodhimind. They can be practiced in conjunction with the Seven-stages development of the bodhimind, but mostly they are combined with the Exchange stage system of developing the bodhimind or the combination, which is Je Tsongkhapa s Eleven Stages system.

124 Buddha Vajradhara Buddha Amitabha

125 V Guided Meditation 67 General preliminaries [First create a sacred environment and arrange symbolic offerings.] Sit on your cushion or chair and put your hands together, or put them on your knees, whatever way you want to. Then envision the Supreme Field of Refuge, Lama buddha Vajradhara 68. First and foremost, check your mind, observe your thoughts. What are you thinking? Is it positive? Negative? If it s negative, let it go; if it is positive, see what kind, and begin to correct your motivation. We would like to obtain the state of a buddha, for the benefit of all beings and for this purpose we would like to do this practice. When I look at my life, not only do I have a human life this time, but a precious human life with the eighteen qualities of leisure and endowment. I m particularly lucky because I was born in a time when sharing Buddha s experiences was still very much alive, not only as mere information, but as actual practice. How fortunate am I to have this opportunity, rare as it is; by chance I happened to have it! Now I want to make best use of it; I d like to commit myself right at this moment to build up a spiritual development within me.

126 126 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses If not My life is not permanent. That all of us will die is definite. Death is definite; no one ever has lived forever, nor will anybody ever live forever, so why should I be different? I m not; so my death is definite. The only question that s left is when will death come? Nobody knows; there is no certain time, it can be any moment, even right now. If death were to come right now, would I be prepared? That s very shaky and uncertain indeed though I have nothing in the way of strong, standing, negative karma, as far as I remember. However I don t have anything solid in terms of a very positive karma either. So where will I be reborn? It is possible that I will take rebirth in one of the lower realms, maybe in the hell realm. If I take rebirth in the hell realm I will have a tremendous amount of pain, there will be the terrible heat, the awful cold; will I be able to bear it? No. So I must make sure, that I will not take rebirth in the hell realm by cutting down powerful negative karmas, such as powerful killing. I realize these karmas will cause me to take rebirth in the lower realm; therefore I must avoid it, and I must purify all the negative karmas I ve already accumulated. Even if I don t take rebirth in the hell realm, I could be born as a hungry ghost. Hungry ghosts suffer tremendously from hunger. Could I bear it? Even from one day without food we suffer tremendously, then how would I be able to bear years of getting no food? I must avoid taking rebirth in that realm, by cutting down the miserliness, and I must purify already existing miserliness karma. Even if I don t take rebirth in the realm of the hungry ghosts, if I were born as an animal, what limitations [I would have]: a limited ability to communicate, a limited ability to understand, all very limited. I must make sure that I won t be reborn there; I must cut down ignorance. Just as I myself do not want to take rebirth in those lower realms, so also I don t want all the people that I care for, and all beings that were ever connected with me ever to have to take a

127 Guided Meditation 127 lower rebirth. If that would happen, it would be terrible! I must make sure it won t happen. I have no control right now. I have no power now, power lies with the Lama, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha; I m here to take refuge in the Lama, together with all beings seeking protection against falling in the lower realms. O Three Jewels, filling up all of space, be the protector, helper, supporter of all beings. I take refuge in the Lamas, refuge in the Buddha, refuge in the Dharma and refuge in the Sangha. NAMO GURUBYE ( x) Because of my making a sincere request, Lama buddha Vajradhara accepts my request, and light and liquid are coming from Lama buddha Vajradhara s body filling all sentient beings, washing all their negativities away, particularly those which cause beings to fall into the lower realms, and the blessings of Lama Vajradhara remain with all beings. NAMO GURUBYE ( x) Light and liquid are coming from the body of the Lama, reaching to all of us, washing all the negativities in general, and particularly those heavy negativities which cause falling into the lower realms, [also] particularly all obstacles to guru-devotional development; all are cleanly, clearly washed away from our system completely. All our bodies become of light nature, clean, clear, crystal like; especially I and all sentient beings remain under the protection of a great Guru. Now I focus on the Buddha in the same way: NAMO BUDDHAYA (..x) Light and liquid come from the bodies of all the enlightened beings, washing all the negativities of all sentient beings including myself. NAMO BUDDHAYA ( x)

128 128 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses All sentient beings including myself, remain under the great protection of the Buddha. We are now seeking the quality within the Buddha and the enlightened beings, which is Dharma. NAMO DHARMAYA ( x). [We are seeking the help of all Aryas and Arya Bodhisattvas]. NAMO SANGHAYA ( x) All of us remain under the protection of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. I respectfully bow down. I take refuge, because I seek your blessing. Bless our mind-streams right now. Specific preliminaries We now offer the Seven Limb prayer 69. I bow down in body, speech and mind [and seek your qualities]. We admire the qualities of the Guru Buddha, the quality of body, the quality of mind, the quality of speech. We particularly admire the kindness, the compassion, the knowledge, the awareness. Also we express that we would like to receive these qualities. I present offerings both actually arranged and mentally created. We would also like to make offerings actually arranged and offerings mentally created. We ve created so many offerings that space is totally filled up by a variety of a wonderful delights filling entire realms. Not only are we making the offerings, I am happy to acknowledge that Guru Buddha, Dharma, Sangha have accepted our offerings, and these offerings have brought joy and pleasure within the body and within the mind-stream of the enlightened beings. How fortunate we are! I purify all deluded actions. I also want to remember here whatever negativities I can remember having committed as well as countless other negativ-

129 Guided Meditation 129 ities which I was unaware of committing. I am here to purify all of them with regret, knowing that if I don t do anything, [my negativities] will bring about a lower rebirth. So I am here to cut down my negativities by purification. I have already taken refuge, I have already generated the bodhimind, I have regret so I shall not repeat; I ll try not to repeat [my negative actions]. I m also working on it. I m putting in efforts not to backslide, so I m taking antidote action. The conclusion of these four powers: I regret and purify all the negativities that knowingly or unknowingly I created limitless times without beginning. I rejoice in all pure activities I also rejoice in the great activities of great beings. I also rejoice in the great work of all beings. I request wise and compassionate guidance. I request you to remain until total enlightenment. I request Guru Buddha to give timely guidance, suitable teaching whenever it is needed. And I request you to remain with me I dedicate my merit for the benefit of all beings. I dedicate all the good works that I have done to benefit all beings, and in order to benefit all beings I would like to become a buddha as quickly as possible. I dedicate all my positive karma for that purpose. To the Lama and all Three Jewels, I respectfully request that I and all sentient beings may develop the great bodhimind. Please, bless me and give your help. Actual practice Now Lama buddha Vajradhara becomes Buddha Amitabha, 70 [who comes to the crown of my head, facing the way I face.] Again offer the Seven-limb prayer: I bow down.. All collection of refuge, Lama Amitabha, I now make a strong supplication to you that I and all beings may develop the bodhimind. Please help us, make that great mind develop within us.

130 130 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 1. With a determination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who surpass even a wish-granting jewel, I will learn to hold them supremely dear. In the presence of Buddha Amitabha I would like to pray, that I may be able to see all beings as great precious beings, so much so that I will see all beings as even more important than the Enlightened Beings. May Lama Amitabha bless me to be able to see that way and to act accordingly Whenever I associate with others, I will learn to think of myself as the lowest of all, and respectfully hold others as being supreme from the depth of my heart. Since I hold all sentient beings in such high esteem, may I have highest respect for whoever I m dealing with and look upon myself as a humble assistant, considering all others to be more important than me. 3. In all actions I will learn to search into my own mind, and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises, endangering myself and others, I will firmly face and avert it. In doing so, I pray to Lama Amitabha, that I may be able to recognize any negative thought that may rise within me, anytime, anywhere, that I may be able to recognize it and cut it down straightaway, right at that moment. That I may be able to no longer entertain negative emotions. 4. I will cherish beings of bad nature, and those oppressed by strong negativities and sufferings, as if I had found a precious treasure very difficult to find. Even if I would come in contact with the most mean, horrible being - may I be able to take that event as a great opportunity to develop compassion, care and dedication. 5. When others, out of jealousy, treat me badly with abuse, slander and so on,

131 I will learn to take all loss and offer the victory to them. Guided Meditation 131 If I have helped other beings a little bit here or there, and I expect reciprocation from them, and if instead of reciprocation I receive bad treatment from them, may I never raise any negative thought against them, and may I as a matter of fact see this as an opportunity to recognize the unreliability of samsaric nature. 6. When one whom I have benefited with great hope unreasonably hurts me very badly I will learn to view that person as an excellent spiritual guide. Even if people attack me or hate me, due to their jealousy or any other means, whatever demand comes, may I be able to give all the gains and the profit and the victory to them, and may I receive all the losses, and defeat, and humiliation. 7. In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception all help and happiness directly and indirectly And secretly take upon myself All the harms and sufferings of my mothers. May there soon be a good time to be able to give my life - without any hesitation, without any attachment, without any holding back, joyfully, for the benefit of other beings. 8. I will learn to keep all these practices undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions, and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions, I will be released from the bondage of attachment. May I be able to see that in each and every one of them: the practitioner and the object and the practice itself, are in the nature of emptiness. It s only dependently existent. May Lama Amitabha bless me to be able be to see this clearly, directly. And using that wisdom, may I be able to eliminate the total negativity within me. Light and liquid comes from the body of Lama Amitabha, washing away all negativities in general and particularly the

132 132 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses negativity of self-cherishing, ego-grasping, ego itself, all of them completely washed away. No ignorance is left within me. I become a clean, clear, clearly illuminated, enlightened, wisdomoriented being. May all sentient beings be like me, with all the joy, free of suffering, with equanimity, with the illumination of wisdom. Conclusion Now Lama Amitabha changes into Amitayus, and a siddhihood or accomplishments of longevity, health, strength, energy, positive awareness, all of them in the form of nectar, come through the body of the Lama, and fill up all sentient beings including myself. It builds the life-strength, luck, fortune, wisdom. OM AMARANA ZIWENTIYE SOHA ( x) Lama Amitayus and Tara become oneness Amitayus sits on the crown of Tara. We now focus on Tara. Light and liquid come from Tara s body filling all sentient beings - including us - washing away all negativity in general and in particular the sort of negativity which causes shortening of life span, untimely death, illness and causes of illness. This is all washed away, rebuilding the life strength, energy, luck, fortune all of those. OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA ( x) OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA, MANU PALAYA, VAJRASATTVA TENOPA, TISHTA DRIDO ME BHAVA, SUTOKAYO ME BHAVA, SUPOKAYO ME BHAVA, ANURAKTO ME BHAVA, SARVA SIDDHI ME PRAYATCHA, SARVA KARMA SUTSA ME, CITTAM SHRIYAM KURU HUM, HA HA HA HA HO, BHAGAWAN, SARVA TATHAGATA, VAJRA MA ME MUCHA, VAJRA BHAVA MAHA SAMAYA SATTVA AH HUM PHAT We dedicate all our positive karmas to the development of bodhimind, that a mind which has not developed bodhimind yet may still do so. May those minds which have been developed

133 Guided Meditation 133 be maintained and increase, and may all ultimately reach the level of enlightenment. May the precious bodhimind, which is not yet born, arise and grow. And which has been born have no decline and increase for ever more. May my venerable lama s life be firm, His white divine actions spread in the ten directions, And may the torch of Lozang s teachings, Dispelling the three worlds beings darkness, always remain. MIG-ME TZE-WE TER CHEN-RE-ZIG DRI-ME KYEN-PE WANG-PO JAM-PEL-YANG DU-PUNG MA-LU JOM-DZE SANG-WE-DAG GANG-CHEN KE-PE TZUG-GYEN TSONG KA-PA LO-ZANG DRAG-PE ZHAB-LA SOL-WA DEB (3x) [You are Avalokiteshvara, great treasure of compassion not aimed at true existence, And Manjushri, master of flawless wisdom, As well as Vajrapani, destroyer of hords of demons without exception. O Tsong Khapa, crown jewel of the sages of the Land of Snows Lozang Dragpa, I make requests at your feet.]

134 Buddha Amitayus

135 VI Exchange Stage of developing the bodhimind There are two ways to develop the bodhimind 72 : either through the seven-stages development 73 or through the exchange-stage of development. You have to learn what these methods are. I can t give that to you in two days. That s why we have courses running. Not only for the Seven Stages and the Exchange Stage, but for also the Prerequisites. The way we present these classes is by opening with a course called Creating Space, followed by a course on my book Good Life; Good Death. 74 That deals with the fundamental basis of the spiritual path: why one needs it, what one should do, what one hopes to get. I introduced the basic goals of the spiritual path and what makes something a spiritual path. That way, after Creating Space you see with Good Life Good Death the basic foundation on which to practice. Then comes the Three Principle Aspects of the Path. That tells you what the three most important things are: help yourself, help others, get wisdom. That is a very brief introduction. Then in some more detail we have the Odyssey to Freedom course. These are the basic points; they come up with a structure. Along with that the guru-practice is covered in the Ganden Lha Gyema practice. Then there is White Tara for longevity, health and healing. Being in the courses you will see how that works with you. It builds up your spiritual foundation and with that you can make yourself independent in the spiritual field. That s the goal: to function independently and manage by yourself in the spiritual field. That s how we try to serve people.

136 136 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses If you want to do better than that, you can try to help others and guide them through. You can do so as a dharma-facilitator and later as a dharma-instructor. That is our structure of working. Ultimately, of course there is the Vajrayana practice which really delivers the goods. But Vajrayana without a good foundation of the Mahayana is very good as well as very dangerous. The example is this: [you are] a blind crippled person that happens to be on a tree branch that falls off the tree and you land on a running tiger. It is your only chance: you are sitting on the back of the tiger and try to make best use of it; try not to fall. That is the example of the Vajrayana. The Three Principles of the Path. Within the foundational prerequisite courses I mentioned the Three Principle Aspects of the Path and the first principle is: how to help yourself. Why do you need to help yourself? If you don t help yourself, who else is going to help you? Every external source, Buddha or any other enlightened beings, teachers, spiritual masters, great beings, all can only assist you. They cannot be you. There is no instant enlightenment, no instant development. There is instant coffee, but as I said yesterday, it s not that great. If you have your own coffee beans and roast them yourself you get very good coffee: organic and roasted to just the right level, so that coffee tastes great. Like that, you have to do everything by yourself. Spiritual development is organic. There is no miracle grow for it. Actually, Vajrayana is like miracle grow. It really pushes all the plants to bloom quickly and be there longer and so on. So the first principle how to help yourself shows you what to do. The bus stop Buddhism is: help yourself, help others, get wisdom. Out of these three, the helping others is a great thing, no doubt about it. But just helping others is very different from helping them with the great precious bodhimind: the mind that confirms you to become a buddha. Don t think of a buddha just as the Buddhist Buddha alone. Every enlightened being, all the great beings, are buddhas. Buddha happens to be a technical name used by Buddhists to refer to the ultimate achievement. There may be some technical differences, but it is basically the same thing. The difference is like between Apple and Microsoft they have different systems, but both work. The ultimate purpose is to get your work done with speed and capability. Likewise on the spiri-

137 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 137 tual path. You may come through the Judeo-Christian or the Hindu-Buddhist tradition, but the ultimate goal and level will be the same thing. There is no way that any reasonable person could say that Jesus is not a buddha. Buddha is just a technical name, referring to an enlightened being. From the Buddhist point of view the mind that earmarks you to become a buddha is called bodhimind. Why are you earmarked? Until you have generated this bodhimind every positive virtue will not necessarily confirm you to become a buddha. It can give you the result of a good life, or a good future life. Lots of virtuous karmas can give you the joys of samsaric picnic spots. Those virtues are not necessarily earmarked for you to become a buddha. Many do go out of samsara, but even then they are only given nirvana, which is great. Buddha said: samsara is suffering; nirvana is peace. One of the four buddhist logos or mission statement says so. The four Buddhist logos are: 1. All created things are impermanent. 2. All contaminated things are suffering. 3. All phenomena are the nature of emptiness. 4. Nirvana is peace. Nirvana is peace, no doubt about it. But from the Mahayana point of view, nirvana is considered a source of fear. There are two fears: the fear of samsara and the fear of nirvana. We want to be free from the fears of samsara and nirvana, both. In the Mahayana there is only one ultimate yana. From whatever level you come, ultimately everybody should get totally enlightened. That is the total achievement. Yana means vehicle. So whatever vehicle you take will ultimately get to the right place. When you desire to become a buddha, then all the positive virtues you accumulate are earmarked for that purpose that s why I said they confirm you to become a buddha. When you develop the bodhimind, which is extremely precious and important, you will be a bodhisattva. Shantideva says in his Bodhisattvacharyavatara 75 The moment an Awakening Mind arises In those fettered in the jail of cyclic existence, They will be named a Child of the Sugatas, And will be revered by both humans and gods of the world. ch. 1, vs 9.

138 138 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses In other words, if you develop bodhimind you will be like a Prince of Wales, who is going to become King of England if the Queen ever steps down! There are many thrones of enlightenment and they can all be occupied simultaneously it is not in one person s control at all. So you have been earmarked to become a fully enlightened one. This is 2600 years old wisdom. They say that no matter how immature a prince you may be, you are superior to the most learned, capable ministers. It is true. In kingdoms, the members of the royal family are earmarked for the throne. No matter how learned the ministers may be they are going to be superseded by the royal family. We just saw in the last two weeks what happened in Saudi Arabia. That s how it works in the system of the old kingdoms. Buddha came in that period and that s why they gave that example. If you look into the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, the first chapter is all about the benefits of the bodhimind. For example, normally for purification we are told to say Vajrasattva purification or do prostrations, circumambulations or mandala offerings. They are great, no doubt about it, but according to the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Hence virtue is perpetually feeble, The great strength of immorality being extremely intense, And except for a Fully Awakened Mind By what other virtue will it be overcome? ch. 1, vs 6. If you develop the bodhimind, then even if you don t do anything but be a couch potato, the bodhimind itself is active for purification and accumulation of merit. It is like a great investment; when you are done, you can lie down and sleep, yet your money is working for you. It is exactly the same thing here. Once you have developed the bodhimind, you have a great investment. You may do nothing and be a couch potato, but your virtues are working for you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. These are the benefits of the bodhimind. As I told you yesterday, there are two types of bodhimind: the relative and the absolute bodhimind. You are going to hear this terminology quite often. What is the true bodhimind? The relative bodhimind. When that relative bodhimind joins with wisdom then it become the absolute bodhimind. Let s not have a misunder-

139 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 139 standing here. In this particular case, the relative bodhimind is the true bodhimind. Bodhimind, the great unlimited, unconditional, ultimate love and compassion, combined with wisdom becomes the absolute bodhimind. There is another division of the bodhimind: prayer form and action form. We begin with the prayer form, with wishing; then we act according to those wishes. So there is wishing- and there is action-bodhimind. Whether the prayer or the action form, it has to come through either the seven stages or the exchange stages. The Seven Stages: 1. Recognize all sentient beings as the closest and dearest mother-like beings. 2. Remember their kindness 3. Repay their kindness. 4. Develop love. 5. Develop great compassion. 6. Develop the special mind. 7. The result is the bodhimind. So, first is seeing everyone as close and connected and not only close, but very close. Because of reincarnation no one can say that anybody has not been their mother in one life time or another. Then, every time they were the closest, they have saved our life and helped us tremendously. When you know you are indebted to their kindness, you like to repay them in whatever way you can. You can t just take everything and give nothing back. That doesn t work. Then you develop great love for all beings and great compassion for all beings. It is great because the object you focus on, with either love or compassion, is not just one or two people, but all beings. That s great compassion. The special mind is thinking, Whether I can do it or not, I don t care, but I am going to do it. I m going to help them, serve them, because they need it badly. They are like a blind mother who is about to fall into the fire pit. I am over here, watching and I just can t stand here and watch and do nothing. I have to run and grab her and pull her out of that danger. I am going to do it, whatever it may take! That s the good old American attitude, I am going to do it!

140 140 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses When you want to really do it and you don t know what to do, then you realize there is so much suffering for so many people and you are just one single person and what can you do? Therefore you need the best tools possible and that is ultimate enlightenment. When you have total knowledge, you don t have to ask, What can do for you? You know exactly what to do. That s what total knowledge is all about. The moment you wish to develop total enlightenment, that is the wishing bodhimind: wishing to become a fully enlightened Buddha. Very briefly, that is the Seven Stages System. I will talk about the Exchange System later. But whether it is the seven stages or the exchange system, the basis on which you work is equanimity. Equanimity. Equanimity is a funny word. But all the lojongs come out of Buddha s short sutra called bad ö pa. In that sutra Buddha says: You should have equal feelings to all living beings and see all of them as your nearest and dearest, l like your own parents or children. Always have love for all. With the attitude of love and helping, develop your mind. That equanimity is known in Tibetan as tang nyong 76. What does that mean? In the Four Immeasurables (Tib: tse me zhi) 77 we say for the immeasurable of equanimity (Tib: tse me tang nyom): May all beings be free from attachment and hatred. That equanimity and the equanimity before developing bodhimind has the same name, but they are two different things. They are both called equanimity, but they are different. Within the Four Immeasurables you look at all living beings and see why they are suffering. They are suffering, because their minds have been influenced by hatred or obsession. Therefore, I would like them to be balanced and free of that hatred and obsession. I am simply wishing and praying that they will be free of obsession and hatred. You are looking at all sentient beings, seeing their suffering caused by hatred and obsession and wishing them to be balanced between these and free from these. At the preliminary stage to the Seven Stages of Developing the Bodhimind you go one more step [in developing equanimity].

141 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 141 In my mind, the practitioner s mind, I would like to block the hatred to my enemy and the obsession to my so-called friends. My mind should be free of obsession and hatred. I want to block these and be free of these. I want equanimity within me, so that I won t be fooled by hatred and obsession. I don t want that pull and push within me. You see the difference? The first is looking at them, the second is looking at my own mind. When you look at the Exchange Stage of developing the Bodhimind then the equanimity goes even beyond that level: Here it is not only blocking the hatred and obsession in my mind. I take one more step: to serve and help and bring joy to the people and to remove their suffering. In other words, my love and compassion to all living beings has to be equally weighted. So, even within equanimity you see three different levels. Let s call the first one superficial though it s not. The second one is deeper than that and the third one is much deeper than that. Before we talk about any steps leading to bodhimind we have to see that equanimity already has three different levels. You be the judge of which one of them you would like to become. Normally, you get accustomed with the first level of the Four Immeasurables, then you go a little deeper and finally, on the third you go down as deep as possible. That s normally recommended. But it s entirely your choice. How do you do it? That is a meditation for training your mind. In the usual meditation we look at someone who is labeled enemy. Maybe Saddam or Bush or whoever. Somebody called friend is there too. Now that could also be Bush or Saddam or Clinton or whoever it is for you. Those labels are impermanent anyway. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. That can change between morning and evening. It can change between the beginning of your life and the end of your life. You can see big changes. It that didn t happen, there would be no divorces and no court cases and company break ups. It does happen. That s obvious. It happens all the time.

142 142 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses So take someone you like very much at the moment your best partner, who you have good feelings towards. Then think of someone who at this moment you hate. Observe your own mental behavior towards these different people. a) What do you do? b) Then see why you do it. c) Then see, whether your reasons are valid or invalid. You don t do such a thing without reason. If you follow Buddhism and especially Tibetan Buddhism, you don t do things randomly. For every step you take you have to have solid, valid reasons. Then you take the step. You don t do something just because I felt good this morning and thought I might do this today. You don t just do that. Most importantly, don t do your spiritual practice like that. The gurus and yidams that you take, you take with good reasons. If your reasoning is solid then it is fine. If you don t have reasons and you do things just because you feel like it, then that is what Trungpa Rimpoche called Love and Light. It is wonderful terminology. Trungpa Rimpoche said a lot of beautiful things. When I got in this country what he said didn t make any sense to me, neither love and light, nor spiritual materialism. So when you begin to work with the fellow citizens of the United States and the Western Europeans then everything he talks about begins to make sense. So every step I took I discovered that he already did it and we came to the same conclusions in the end. Trungpa wrote a book called Cutting through Spiritual Materialism. It is fantastic when you know what that really is. Now I have to write an article on spiritual materialism, because the Shambhala people keep on asking me. If Trungpa Rimpoche were still alive I would talk to him, but anyway it is great. I found three different layers of spiritual materialism and wrote a short article on it in the Shambhala magazine. That is Trungpa s magazine. So everything you do has to have a valid reason. What not to do is this: don t do anything if you don t know what you are doing. You are better off not doing it. Look for reasons. Find good reasons and follow them. What are good reasons? Valid reasons. A number of spiritual people would like to ask their guru what they should do. Some gurus like to entertain that and tell everybody to do this and that just like the European ambulance di too di too di too

143 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 143 I don t entertain that at all. You have a beautiful mind, so use it. If you want suggestions, maybe we can offer one or two here and there. Guidance we offer during the teaching. The teaching is well established and authentic. It comes from 2600 years old wisdom, followed by a continuing line of people who were successful with it. That cannot be wrong, unless you are giving a teaching that you just cook up by picking up things from here and there. I am not criticizing New Age, but that is how it is done and that s not right. I have been saying to my editor, That sounds like picking up the head of a lion and the tail of a dog and trying to join them. It doesn t work. You have to have the body in between that matches. So use your own wonderful mind of intuition and reasoning and don t rely too much on your intuition, because that can be wrong. Valid reasoning is solid. That will be right. Even today, a lot of scientists are now picking up Tibetan Buddhism and try to see how the mind works and what it is. They are finding it extremely helpful. You can read lots of articles that show the Dalai Lama participating here and there. That s all because of using valid reasons for confirmation of the work you are doing. This is not Tibetan thought this is Buddha s teaching. Buddha himself said: Just don t buy it because I said so. Investigate just like when you are buying gold. You cut the gold, burn it, rub it, and make sure it is gold, before you pay a lot of money for it. Buddha says we should do the same thing with his teachings. So don t ever underestimate your own intelligence and your own mind and use reasons. Don t do something because he said so or she said so. That is never right and can mislead your life. All these incidents we had with Jim Jones, Heaven s Gate and so on have come because of he said so she said so. Here we are talking about something almost impossible: equally having love for all and not having hatred for anyone, including Saddam Hussein or whoever. The enemy changes from time to time. The first that we remember is Hitler, then all kinds of different dictators came, like Chairman Mao, Stalin and others. Here it says: hate no one, love all. It is impossible to do. You have to ask

144 144 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses yourself and whoever tells you that: why? Then you will begin to see the reasons. In my book Good Life Good Death I mentioned that if you have the panoramic view of life you will see differently than through the usual limited window. We look through the limited window between birth and death of this life. We think we begin here and end here. Then it opens up. It is a panoramic view of life that you see. When you see that then whatever tiny little reasons you had you will see that they are no longer valid. When you have a child of yours, let s say a teenage boy of 16 or 17. When they say, I don t like that person, I love that person, etc, they think they have very valid reasons. But as a parent you see more than that, right? You know the reason he likes some guy is because we are buddies. And the reason he hates that girl is because she stood me up last night. These are not really valid reasons to hate someone or be obsessed with someone. As a grown up person we see differently. Likewise, when you have the panoramic view of life after life, the reasons you give that apply to only this life are not really valid. You hate a person so much today because he insulted you yesterday in public. Your hot temper is boiling today. But that is not reason enough to hate him. He can become a very useful good friend tomorrow. Don t forget. Don t be so obsessed with a person today, because he or she will know all your secrets and can turn against you tomorrow. The most important point is impermanence for every perspective on friend, enemy or stranger. Secondly, they are all arising interdependently. Therefore, terms and conditions make a difference. Our view of so much black and white, enemies and friends, hatred and obsession are truly not that valid. Similarly, red states, blue states are most impermanent and unreliable. People change and so they should. Someone told me yesterday that if Ohio can become blue then Michigan can become red. Sure, why not? You might see it in the next election. You never know. It is possible, not impossible. No one can be taken for granted, not anyone and not anything. So therefore, the mind of obsession and hatred, the reasons we have for them are not really valid. You may say, It s because I like him or her. That s wonderful, but sometimes pigs fall in love with the person who looks after the pigs. That s really true!

145 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 145 That s how you establish the equanimity between the socalled enemy and friend and the one you couldn t care less about. The reasons coming from our mind are really not that valid. I can t tell you so much, because we have a time limit. We do have a transcript on Lojong 78. I did that quite well. Still, there is going to be more additions and clarifications, and it will come out some day, but still even now it gives you quite good reasons. Do read it and you will know more. There are nine different reasons: because of you, because of them, etc. With all these reasons, finally you have to have conclusions. You will find all this in the Lojong transcripts 79. Yesterday we have generated Lama Amitabha 80 in front and then we pray: I would like to be perfect like this. I may be blessed to be able to do this. Light and liquid come from the body of the Lama Ö pa me, purify negativities in general, and particularly self-cherishing. That means all my s are great and all yours are horrible. That should not be there. Then there are five resolutions. The Exchange Stages Let s go to the Lama Chöpa text on The Exchange Method of development of the Bodhimind. 56 duk ngel tra mo tsam yang mi dhö ching dhe la nam yang choh shey mey par ni dag dang zhan la kye par yö min zhen zhan dhe ga wa kye par jin gyi lop No one wants even the slightest suffering, Or is ever content with the happiness they have; In this we are all alike. Inspire me to find joy in making others happy. 81 Equalizing self and others I don t have to explain the words. I and others look at ourselves first we don t want even the slightest sufferings. We don t welcome any suffering. I will think the same thing and so will you and everyone. If there is joy, we are never satisfied neither me, nor you or anybody. There is no difference between me and others in what we want and what we don t want. We fight and quarrel and do all kinds of things, just because we want to get our value over the others. That s what all the wars are about. You want oil, I want

146 146 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses oil, we all want oil. So we all go there and fight for oil. That s human nature. However, according to Buddha that is wrong. We all want the same thing, so why don t we share? Why should my demands be pushed through? Why should others demands go over mine? You have to bring up your mind in that way. And you make the first resolution: I pray that I will honor their demands more than mine. I pray that I may be able to do this. 57 rang nyi chë par dzin pei chong ne di mi dhö duk ngel kye pei gyur thong nay le len dey la khön du zung je te dag dzin dhön chen jom par jin gyi lop Seeing that the chronic disease of self-cherishing Is the cause of my unwanted suffering, Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self. Faults of self-cherishing. The second resolution will tell you why. It is because self-cherishing causes a lot of trouble. I can t give it up, I don t want to be the loser, I love myself. If I don t do it, who else is going to do it? All these are valid reasons, but what we don t realize is that this selfcherishing causes tremendous amounts of pain. Wars between nations, small quarrels in families, divorce, fighting, breaking up families, breaking up companies, are due to self-cherishing: I have been overpowered, I have been ignored, I have been bullied, I have been dismissed. These are the reasons we use. That s all because of self-cherishing. Here we see self-cherishing as our own chronic disease. It makes us miserable, it causes trouble. If you are diabetic, there are all kinds of complications and if you get any other disease on top, it makes it difficult. That s a chronic disease. Likewise, selfcherishing causes all these problems, from not having peace in the home to not having peace in the world. And more than that: selfcherishing brings obsession for those we are attached to and hatred for others. If there is such a thing called hell, what makes us go there is not God, but self-cherishing. Self-cherishing creates negative emotions, which then create negative actions, which then

147 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 147 create negative karmic [results]. That negative karma delivers the goods it sends us to the hell realms. So self-cherishing is our chronic disease and that s the point where we are. Even if you have unavoidable suffering, if you keep on thinking why me? you are going to get more problem. Your mental or physical suffering is bound to continue. Let s say you did something wrong and you get arrested. You accept that you are being arrested and try to put your energy into getting out, rather than putting the energy into complaining about why me? That doesn t make sense. You are not going to find the reason why me? Perhaps you already know. You made a mistake and that s why you got caught. We don t want to accept that and deny it and still try to find the reason why. If I want to find out what mistakes I made I have to look what happened ten years ago. You are never going to find what you are looking for. The real reason that you don t want to accept and instead look for another reason, is because you are actually looking for someone to be blamed. That s not going to help though. Traditional Tibetan teachers say, There is no one with horns on their head, wearing a black knitted yak hair dress. But what you really find is that inside yourself there is that me that is not satisfied. It is me that has been the problem all along. There was a great Tibetan master called Drukpa Kunleg. He is the founder of the Drukpa Kargyu tradition. He was known as a great yogi during his life time. There was a ruler in a little Tibetan province who wanted to have an exorcism done on behalf of his sick son, who was going to become the next ruler. Or maybe the father himself was sick. So he tried to get Drukpa Kunleg to do an exorcism, and because he was a crazy yogi running around everywhere, he was hard to find. Finally they were able to invite him, maybe even with force, and he came. Drukpa Kunleg did all the ritual and created a big torma that was to be thrown out in the exorcism. Normally the torma is getting carried away far from the house and burnt in a fire made of some kind of hay. That symbolizes all the evil getting roasted in there. And if the torma in that fire falls towards the direction of the house even slightly, it is considered to be a bad omen and they have to do so many things to avert them. So Drukpa Kunleg went out of the house with that torma, but he didn t throw it in the fire. He said, I didn t find the object of the exorcism yet. So he kept on carrying the torma

148 148 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses around and finally brought it back into the home. Everybody said that was a terrible thing to do! Drukpa Kunleg went up in the sick king s or prince s bedroom with the torma and shouted, Here is the object of the exorcism and he threw the torma on top of that guy! Socially, that was completely the wrong thing to do, however, what he found was the self-cherishing within that person. That s why he shouted, Here is the object that I have to exorcise. Knowing the enemy or devil within us is necessary. So if you really want to have hatred for someone, develop hatred for this one. Destroy the evil force of self-cherishing within yourself. As the verse of the Lama Chöpa says in verse 57, Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self. This translation is really good, excellent! Put the blame where blame is due. We always want to blame somebody other than ourselves. That is our ego talking. The real blame goes to the ego within ourselves. Here we are thinking, meditating and recognizing the faults of self-cherishing. Self-cherishing creates hatred and obsession and that will make us suffer in the animal realms, the hungry ghost realms, the hell realms, the human realm and demi-god realms or samsaric gods realms. Self-cherishing makes even arhats; those who have gained nirvana remain there. There is the extreme of samsara and there is the extreme of nirvana. In Theravada Buddhism and even at Level 1 of the Mahayana Buddhism the arhat stage is the ultimate goal. But within that, you have the problem of being in an extreme state of peace. Some states of meditation, even within samsara, do bring people so deeply into the meditative level that those people keep on meditating and do nothing but that, for eons. Some yogis develop a meditative state that goes up all the seventeen levels of meditation. If you go in more detail, there even are fifty-two levels. So you sit for eons, meditating, however, you have not cut the root of samsara; you have not dealt with your ego. You have reduced your negative emotions, but not eradicated them. Sooner or later some incident will take place and you will have a fall-back. The example given by Buddha is of some meditator who meditated for eons in a cave and his hair grew longer and longer. Then mice came, made their home in this hair, and went to his

149 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 149 head and bit it. That woke him up and the thought came, There are mice on my head and immediately he developed hatred. With that he fell out of that high level of meditation. The incident took place in the Buddha s life time. The meditator asked why that happened to him and Buddha gave that answer. He became a great arhat later. That is an example of extreme peace. Also arhats have that extreme peace, yet they don t have the fall-back into samsara. They are free of samsara, but they are not active; they remain in an extreme of peace. And even some bodhisattvas, while on the path, go off the track by self-cherishing. In short, think: Self-cherishing is the cause of suffering in this life and in future lives. It has done tremendous amounts of damage before and if I don t deal with it now it will continuously do so. This is the root of poison within me. So from now on I will not entertain this horrible demon within me for even a single minute. I may be blessed to be able to do this. Benefits of cherishing others: The third resolution is recognizing the qualities or advantages of cherishing others: 58 ma nam che zung dhe la gö pei lo tha yei yön ten jung wei gor thong nay dro wa dhi dha dha gi drar lang kyang soh lay chei par dzin par jin gyi lop Cherishing beings and securing their happiness Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence. Inspire me to hold other s more dear than my life, Even when I see them as enemies. If you begin to realize that self-cherishing is the source of all problems, then the exact opposite of that is cherishing others. So what does that do to me? If you cherish others and worry about them, no one can really hate you, because you always want everybody to have happiness. In short, from the mundane, ordinary level of happiness in our life up to ultimate enlightenment, whatever the qualities there are within samsara and beyond, all are coming from cherishing others. All great things are based on cherishing others. The great path and practice you do is cherishing others. The result you hope to gain is total enlightenment. [So think,]

150 150 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses No matter whether a few individuals to something against me in order to hurt me, from my point of view, anybody who tries to hurt me, may I see him or here as a teacher giving me lessons. May I see them as buddhas who are giving me messages. May I see the hurting as an opportunity for me to be able to practice cherishing others. I will not miss such a great opportunity that was given to me. May I be blessed to be able to do this. The last line of this verse says even when I see them as enemies, but in our thinking it should be especially when I see them as enemies. Actual Exchange of self and others We have now seen the faults of self-cherishing and the qualities of cherishing others. What we have is self-cherishing. What we don t have is cherishing others. Now we have to exchange that. Throw away what you have and pick up what you don t have. We have a habitual pattern of addiction to self-cherishing, cherishing our own ego. Any threat to that becomes a big deal. It makes me, the individual person, almost into a porcupine, ready to shoot at anything. So think, Now I have to forcefully exchange my usual feelings of selfcherishing for cherishing others, securing their happiness. I normally try to secure just my own happiness. Now I need to change that. I am giving up cherishing myself and securing my happiness. For what? For cherishing others and securing their happiness. Exchanging does not mean that I get up and sit over there and you get up and sit over here. Nor are we talking about Buddha coming down here and we going up there. Our thoughts, habits and addictions, that s what we need to change. But then you ll think, Oh my, I am not ready to do that not yet. Forgive me! Then the suggestion comes: just look and see the difference between Buddha and yourself. Buddha, before he became a buddha, was just an ordinary, normal human being like us, except that he happened to be an Indian prince. Apart from that, he was just a normal human being.

151 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 151 Remember, there was a poem by Allen Ginsberg, saying Everybody has to go to the toilet. The King of Japan goes to the toilet and takes off whatever layers of robes he is wearing. The emperor of China goes to toilet taking off all the layers of brocade and taking his pants down. So, whether you are covered up by Chinese brocades, Japanese brocades or by blue jeans, when you have to go to the toilet you have to take all of them off. That s the idea. Buddha happened to be an Indian prince, other than that he was a normal human being. He realized and recognized that being a prince doesn t give you a spiritual advantage at all. So he gave up his princely life and ran into the forest, cut his long hair off, took off his gold-brocade, jewel-ornamented dress, put on a dhoti or sarong and sent the horse back to the palace. Thus he found peace and happiness. That s because he was able to kick the devil out of his mind. We on the other hand have become a slave of that devil. Everything we do is working for that devil. The door opened for Buddha when he kicked the devil out. As the verse says: Cherishing beings and securing their happiness Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence. Buddha is the vivid example. So is Mahatma Gandhi. He was a good lawyer, and he could have easily copied a snobbish British lawyer and wear a three-piece suit, remaining at the end of the White Caucasian lane. Thank God some guard beat him up on a train and threw him off the white only carriage. That put sense in his head. At that time, cherishing himself and trying to be somebody was trying to be like a Caucasian male. Such ideals change from time to time, from place to place and show how unreliable the world is. It happened to be in South Africa at that time. Gandhi was an Oxford London graduate. Then he practiced law in South Africa, trying to be a fake white. The conductor in the train saw him in the white only carriage. He beat him, picked him up and threw him off the train. That s how he realized what was going on. Until then he thought trying to be white was the great thing to do. But after that incident he gave up cherishing himself in that manner. Instead he chose the well being of millions of others everywhere, but particularly in India and Pakistan. That was the beginning of the revolution against the British empire. That is the

152 152 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses result of giving up self-cherishing and instead cherishing the well being of others. Dr. Martin Luther King s mission was also giving up his personal self-cherishing and well being for that of millions of African Americans. Mother Theresa could have remained a nice, kind nun in some beautiful European chapel and have a comfortable life. But she chose to remain in the slums of Calcutta. The Dalai Lama could have become a Chinese puppet and kept his nice old life, but he chose to give all that up and become a refugee. I am not talking about things that happened 2600 ago, but things that have happened in our life time. There are millions of others who have done similarly, on a small scale, on a bigger scale. That lady from Africa received the Nobel Peace Prize for growing trees and looking after the environment 82. She could have instead been instrumental for the dictator in her country, but she chose to give up that comfort for the well being of all people and particularly women in that area. Every great being throughout has done that. By giving up self-cherishing and exchanging that for cherishing others they have become heroes. They have become warriors and their whole nation respects that. All is because of that. When we look deep within us we see that we have capacity too. So that is not wrong, though it looks as if it is wrong. That s what we call delusion. Some people may turn out to be our strongest enemies, but even then we should cherish them and protect their happiness even more than our own lives. It is hard to do that; it is a tough nut to crack. It is hard because our feelings will not let us go easily. You have to train your mind and you can change. You see the spiritual historic facts and even recent incidents of these great leaders. Where does Saddam fit in there? He is cherishing himself in the name of the people of Iraq. Finally he landed in a little pit. Similarly, Hitler. Whether he committed suicide or was killed, his self-cherishing lead to that. Though Gandhi and Dr. King both lost their lives, people today almost worship them because of their deeds. Nelson Mandela is another one. And there are many. These are the reasons. You can think about what the Buddha said and read the historical accounts and see what is going on in today s life. History unfolding in front of our own eyes, what does that do? The fear that I cannot exchange is superficial and invalid.

153 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 153 I can do it, I should do it, I will do it. That s how you make this fourth resolution: 59 dhor na ji pa rang dhön kho na dhang thup wang zhan dhön ba zhih zey pa yi kyön dhang yön ten yer wa tog pei lö dhag zhan nyam je nü par jin gyi lop In short, the naive work for their aims alone; While Buddhas work solely to benefit others. Comparing the faults against the benefits, Inspire me to be able to exchange myself for others. This doesn t mean exchanging myself for others, but exchanging cherishing myself for cherishing others. We are talking about the benefit of cherishing others values and protecting others interest more than our own and that our natural habits are going in the opposite direction. When we want to exchange, how will we do that? Now comes almost the final decision. Shantideva s Bodhisattvacharyavatara also tells us: There is not so much to talk. The naïve work for themselves. Buddhas work for the benefit of others. Who has got the better deal? By thinking about that you can make a decision. We don t know exactly what is happening. But if you keep thinking and studying, you ll begin to know. Now you have to make a choice and make a wise choice. And ask to blessed to choose wisely. That means to be able to exchange. There is one more verse that tells us advantages and disadvantages both together. 60 rang nyi chei dzin gü pa kun gyi go ma nam chei dzin yön ten kün gyi zhi dhe chir dag zhan je wei nel jor la nyam len nying por jey par jin gyi lop Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all downfalls, And cherishing others is the foundation of everything good, Inspire me to practice from my heart The yoga of exchanging self and others.

154 154 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses I don t think we have to add up much here. We see the problems of self-cherishing. We have been doing this until now and where did that get us? Cherishing others is what the buddhas have done and we can see what they got. Both, benefits and disadvantages are shown here together. Therefore the yoga of exchange is the perfect yoga and May I be able to do this. It is true that selfcherishing causes all the trouble. For example, in order to protect ourselves we kill others. We do. We have that instinct within us. In order to have more happiness for ourselves we kill others. Because of killing others, we take rebirth in the lower realms and particularly in the hell realms. Even if reborn in the human land the result is to have a short life and a life that has lots of illnesses. By cherishing others, by giving up killing others, we will take a better rebirth in the samsaric gods realms and have great longevity. In short, if you look the ten virtues and ten non-virtues, you ll see all positive ones follow from cherishing others and all negative ones come from cherishing oneself. We kill others, because we want to protect ourselves. We steal other s goods, because we like to have them. We hurt people sexually, just because we want to, because it satisfies whatever neuroses we have. That s what rape is. These are the three negativities of the body. If you cherish others you don t kill, you don t steal and you don t commit sexual misconduct. So you don t hurt other people. Thus you get the positive karma of not doing it and you don t get the negative karma for doing it. That includes hurting yourself. You are a human being yourself, a good human being. You may say, It is my body. I know what I want to do. I have the right to do with it what I want to do. Sometimes you may just feel something and thus hurt yourself. People do all kinds of things. These are all coming from self-cherishing. All positive ones are coming from cherishing others. The same goes for the four negativities of speech: lying, harsh speech, etc. You use harsh speech because you want to hurt the other person. You want to hurt them as hard as possible. You want to cut the heart of the other person in two pieces. Your sharpest weapon is your tongue. But if you are cherishing others you won t do that. Because you are cherishing yourself you want to see that they get hurt and that they regret and that they agree with you. That s what you want. That s what self-cherishing does.

155 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 155 Me, personally and that is not Buddhism, just me have a problem with the notion of justice being done. That s a big question I have. I don t really think anyone is seeking justice, but they are seeking punishment. You want to prove your point that you are right and give the other person punishment, so that this person will know. That could mean taking their life, or lock them up or beat them up or whatever. That s just my personal question, not necessarily a spiritual point here. Divisive speech, we don t have to talk much about. The British taught us: divide and rule. Everyone of our own administrations does that too. Everybody who comes into power does it, Republicans and Democrats. That s because of self-cherishing. One party would like to remain in power, the other wants them to lose power. So they do what they can, redirecting districts, anything, whatever easy tricks they can play. Idle gossip is wasting time. And mostly it is talking about whatever other people do wrong and what we do right. That s what people enjoy talking about. A lot of our usual entertainment is like that. Someone is acting and becoming like a hero and somebody is beating them up and losing them. That is exactly what it is: cashing in on the self-cherishing as much as possible. Then there are three non-virtues by mind. Hatred is obvious. That s malice. You want to hurt others and make sure they constantly suffer. We do it between individuals, between nations, between political parties. We want to make sure the other party doesn t come to power for another fifty years. Between individuals we do it too. Because of self-cherishing we believe in the wrong things. As I told you: the taxi driver in New York told me. These are the ten negativities. The opposite of these, the ten virtues, follow from cherishing others. In short, self-cherishing brings all negativities; cherishing others brings all positivities. Therefore, May I have the yoga of exchanging as essence of my practice. May I be blessed to be able to do this. The first is the need for exchange. Secondly, self-cherishing is the source of all trouble. Thirdly, cherishing others is the source of all benefits. The fourth is to compare them against each other. The fifth point summarizes that self-cherishing brings these results and

156 156 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses cherishing others brings those results. Therefore one should have the yoga of exchange. Then comes: The actual practice of give and take - tong len. 61 dey na je tsün la ma thuh je chen ma gyur dro wei dik drip duk ngal kun ma lü dha ta dag la meen pa dang dhag gi dhe ge zhan la tang wa yi dro kun dhe dang dhan par jin gyi lop (3x) Therefore, supremely compassionate Lama, Inspire me to take the bad deeds, imprints, and sufferings Of all beings to ripen upon me right now, And to give to them my happiness and virtue So that all beings may be happy.(3x) Whether you are going to say this or just think about it, whether you chanting it or whatever, it has to be done three times from the bottom of your heart. First, see all mother sentient beings right in front of you. You imagine you are taking all their mental, physical and emotional sufferings through the medium of black light. It is almost like stormy weather huge cloud black light. This is coming to us, entering us through the left nostril. All undesirable misery, pain and blood and pus are coming in, including your own suffering, that of this evening, that of next morning, next night, next day. All these enter through your left nostril; go right into the middle of your heart, where you have your own inner demon of self-cherishing. It is a collection of strong, powerful selfcherishing. You throw all the things you are taking in at them. There are a few examples. If you have a dusty place, you collect all the dirt. The Tibetans have a habit of sweeping and keeping the dust behind the door. That s a bad habit. If you have accumulated dust in some area and bring a bucket full of water and pour it over that, all the dust will be wiped away and you can t see where it has gone. The water has wiped it away. Likewise, you collect all the undesirable, miserable things and throw them at the demon of self-cherishing that lives at your heart level and destroy it completely.

157 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 157 You do this on the breath. You breathe in take, breathe out give. That is tong len giving and taking. First you take and then you give. Through that your body itself transforms into something like a wish-fulfilling jewel. In appearance wonderful, soothing white light comes out of your right nostril, entering the left nostrils of all mother sentient beings. They dissolve completely into their system. Every fault they have, physical problems and so on, completely disappear. Their body becomes perfect, wonderful and healthy and especially fit to have a great practice. When you say that verse the second time, what you take in is the cause of their suffering, the cause of samsara, which is karma and delusion. In other words, the Second Noble Truth causes the First Noble Truth and you take all of those and see them as undesirable laundry water type of dirty light. It comes out of their right nostrils, enters through your own left nostril and the moment it reaches within you, it is like lightning and thunder or other strong weather events, like storms, tornadoes, etc,. That lightning is going to hit our own demon within ourselves. It comes in like a Rocky Mountain type of storm, hitting the source of suffering of all sentient beings. It completely destroys it, shatters it into atoms. That happens when you are taking in the suffering. What do you send out? All the virtues, like those accumulated through generosity. They transform into beautiful soothing light and into whatever sentient beings need, their spiritual needs and medicine, food, shelter, information and whatever they need, particularly spiritual information. They all become very wealthy, enjoying the sky treasure of benefits. They have a tremendous amount of wealth, which you provided through your positive karma in general and particularly actions of generosity, etc. Thirdly, you are now taking the imprints of delusions. Earlier you took the delusions themselves. Again you say dey na je tsün la ma thuh je chen.. So this time you only have to take the imprints of the delusions. They also come out of their right nostrils in the form of undesirable light and enter through your left nostril and they become some kind of powerful, undesirable insects, and other animals like spiders, scorpions, alligators, etc. They enter into your mind stream and there they see this demon in your mind and immediately eat it up and nothing is left. That s how you take it in.

158 158 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses When you give, you give your own virtues of learning, thinking and meditating, your moral qualities like the vows you have protected. All the virtues that we have accumulated so many times and those we will accumulate in the future, you can give, even though the future has not yet materialized. They go out of your right nostril in the form of soothing beautiful light, enter in the mother sentient beings left nostril and they completely actualize the spiritual development, everything from guru devotional practice up to total enlightenment. That means you have delivered them to the total level of enlightenment. In short, whatever you are taking is the results and sufferings of samsara and causes of samsara and their imprints. Whatever you giving is your body, wealth and virtues. That way there are three rounds of giving and taking. When you take you breathe in and when you give you breathe out. So this is probably very easy, short way. It is not the normal way of doing it. For specially developed persons there are different levels of practice, bodhisattvas and arhats have different ways of what they give and take. It is not even necessary right now to mention it. I guess what I have said so far for us that is the major practice of tong len. I just like to read something that Dza Patrul Rimpoche 83 has said: While burning with the fire of delusions trying to tell others how to be better is a disgrace. However, there may be some help for some people at some time in future. So I pray it may work that way. That is how Dza Patrul Rimpoche concluded his teaching. That s what I wanted to talk to you about. All phenomena are like illusions. Whatever we see we see as solid, permanent. In reality it is totally illusion, everything. Even in The Matrix they know it, but we don t. It is all illusion. It is true, because it is interdependent. Nothing is solid or permanent. Whatever we see is necessary to know that it is illusion. We very strongly have that solidness of doing things right. It has to be right, My way is the right way and all those things are shattered into pieces the moment you know it is all illusion. That doesn t mean you ignore everything. You do the best you can. But remember, it is illusion. Since it is in the nature

159 Exchange Stage of Developing the Bodhimind 159 of illusion, you cannot accept it as it appears. The appearance is not the problem. The problem is accepting the appearing things as they appear. So, the great mahasiddha Tilopa advised Naropa: Nang wai mi ching zhen bai ching, zhen pa tong shig Naropa Appearance will not tie you, but accepting appearance as it is will hold you. So let that go, Naropa. So let it appear, but don t accept the appearance. As verse eight of Langri Tangpa s root text says: by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions, I will be released from the bondage of attachment. The translation attachment may not be right. It should say acceptance. This is the very strong importance essence of the teaching. It might be a little too hard for some people, but it is important

160 White Tara

161 VII Questions and Answers Short Review The preliminaries of course are no different from the usual preliminaries for any practice or meditation, such as cleansing the environment and the personal atmosphere, setting up the object of refuge and the altar, laying out offerings, etc. You sit just as you would for normal meditation. You correct your thoughts. You perform the guru devotion practice with emphasis both on mental attitude and on action. You remember the recognition of the importance of this life; remember how difficult it is to find. You remember impermanence and you ponder on the sufferings in the lower realms such as the hell realms, both hot and cold; the hungry ghost realm and the realm of the animals. From this, you might think that the higher realms are better, with less suffering. But even in the higher realms of the humans, of the semi-gods or of the samsaric gods there are the sufferings of birth, aging, illness and death. Then seeing that we are not the only ones, but that every being is in that condition, helps us to develop more compassion. But even though you might have strong compassion, you still wouldn t be able to do much, if you don t gain the capacity to do anything. We can generate good thoughts, but that doesn t guarantee anything. That s why we need to seek reliable help from someone who can indeed help us. That is taking [Mahayana] refuge. In the case of Buddhism we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But just saying that you take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, does that protect you? Probably not. There is a lot of benefit in this, but I don t think that just taking

162 162 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses refuge in itself protects you that much. It is like going to a doctor and telling her, This and this is the trouble. And the reply would be, Take this or that medication. If you follow her instructions, you will benefit. If you don t, the doctor won t be harmed. Likewise, taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; the medication they give you is the Dharma. And instead of saying, Don t eat too many sweets, they ll tell you, Don t indulge in negativity. And then of course, because you don t indulge in negativity, you re not going to have any problems, because there is no cause. That s the straightforward bottom-line of taking refuge; that is how it protects. If you think it s done through mystical powers that put you in a glass case or something, I don t think it works that way at all. What it is, is: following the advice Then you offer the seven limb prayer. 1. First you see the object of refuge, who is free of all these neuroses, and then you admire that quality, and you express the wish to acquire it. 2. You then make offerings to this object of refuge, so that you can accumulate merit. 3. You purify negativities, because that will make you pure. 4. You rejoice in their and all in all beings good activities. [This makes you gain] merit. 5. Then you request timely guidance, because you need it. 6. Then you request the objects of refuge to remain with you 7. And finally you dedicate all your good activities, because it safeguards your good work. Then follows the actual practice: the eight verses of Langri Tangpa, the training of the mind, lojong.

163 Questions and Answers 163 Questions and answers Audience: Rimpoche, is it really possible for bodhimind to decrease? Rimpoche: Yes, that s definitely possible. Audience: Cutting the negativities is the only thing which is permanent, isn t it? How come? Rimpoche: I didn t say it s permanent, did I? Audience: I think you did. Rimpoche: I don t recall it 84. Audience: If it s not, my question is: what is permanent in development? Rimpoche: That s a good question! You know why? It is possible for bodhimind to decrease. Let s look at the five bodhisattva paths: the path of accumulation, the path of merit, the path of seeing, the path of meditation, and the path of no more learning. At the level of the path of accumulation of merit, you can lose bodhimind. The path of accumulation of merit is further divided into three levels: a lower level, a medium level, and a highest level. Here it is still possible to lose bodhimind. The next path, the path of action, is divided into four categories. When you get to the second stage of that path 85 you gain immunity to negativities that would cause you to fall into the lower realms. Thereafter - whether it s permanent or not- you no longer lose [bodhimind] to the negativity. There is no fall back [anymore]; that doesn t mean it s permanent. 86. It is impermanent but it doesn t change from yes to no. It changes within the yes itself. Audience: Could you please explain once more which changes take place when Amitabha changes into Amitayus? Rimpoche: Both Amitabha and Amitayus are normally red in color; sometimes, however, Amitayus is gold in color. That s why I said red turns into gold, and while that is okay, you can leave them both as red in color. The only difference is the life vase Amitayus carries, where Amitabha doesn t have a life vase but a begging bowl instead. Audience: Aren t the clothes different as well? Rimpoche: Of course Amitayus has the sambhogakaya style 87 and Amitabha has the nirmanakaya style 88, there is that difference for sure. But people don t think in that much detail pertaining the

164 164 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses clothes and all this. Thangka painters will, but I don t think most other people will think in that much detail. They will probably imagine some kind of a little red body, a little red piece up there, and they may even think the hands support a begging bowl, then that s quite good thinking. Audience: What is the difference in quality between Lama Amitabha and Lama Amitayus? Rimpoche: It s a matter of specialization. Amitayus specialization is longevity; Amitabha is Amitabha. Audience: When doing the tonglen, give and take on the breath, do you have to close the other nostril when you do this? Rimpoche: You can. You don t have to. If you want to do so, you block the right nostril with the right index-finger while breathing in. While breathing out, you move the same finger to the other side to block the left nostril. [This blocking is usually done in the nine-round breathing exercise, in which case] once you ve done with one side and you switch to the other nostril to breathe in, you start using your left hand index-finger. This corresponds with how you use your hands in the Six Yogas of Naropa. 89 Audience: When we talked about giving the victory to others and cherishing others, putting one s own interest last and seeing others as more important, where would you draw the line for that behavior? What I mean is, what to do if you are active in let s say environmental groups or in political parties: where you do want to get your ideas and opinions across to defend human rights, or what if you are educating children, there are certain situations where you have to act differently for educational reasons. So it seems there are those situations where you can t seem to afford to put yourself in the back. What would you say to that? Rimpoche: I am not even sure whether I have an answer for that. Most of what the Kadampa Lamas have talked about and what they present us, for us comes in the prayer form rather then really in the action form. 90 Before I came here, I looked at a number of commentaries on these Langri Tangpa s Eight Verses by different scholars. I found these two, by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra and Chenngawa, to be the most convenient and easy. Both of them are in the prayer form i.e. both of them are praying. So practically

165 Questions and Answers 165 speaking, at our level, we really pray for that, and so we don t draw the line that much. But on the other hand, which is basically the balancing of a commitment, there is a traditional answer there: Go all the way, but don t have idiot compassion. In other words: the point is, use a lot of common sense, don t be stubborn, and don t have idiot compassion. Idiot compassion and stubbornness often hold you back. So it s up to me to try to find out whether I have been stubborn or not. The older you become, the more stubborn you become. Basically if you ve been a stubborn person, it becomes even worse, year by year. There is also a delicate process of learning to balance between your right to make a suggestion, the right to push your own view, and accepting the other persons right of acceptance. You should always have a delicate way of picking that up, nothing is very similar to that. It is very simple, it is like in normal every day life. In everyday life you know you do have certain limitations in how much you can push and where to draw the line, when you want your dear one to do a certain thing right way. Because if you don t see the limitations, if you try to be insistent, and have to be very stubborn, then it is not right. I think the same thing applies here too. And as to political parties, they have their own agendas, and their own purpose, and sometimes the agendas exceed the purpose. And so that s where you draw the line. Audience: Could you tell us a bit about having too much compassion, about the idiot compassion? Rimpoche: It is not too much compassion. It is idiot compassion. Idiot in the sense that you don t know where to draw the line. It is a little hard to clarify. It has to do with not seeing the bigger picture. If you see only a limited, one-sided picture and fall for that and try to go out of your way to comfort or protect based on that limited understanding, it will probably be idiot compassion. Let s say somebody committed a murder, and the police are chasing him or her. Now this person comes to you saying, They are after me but I ve done nothing wrong! And the person paints you a tremendous picture of how he or she is innocent. You just buy it and try to protect this person. This would be an act of idiot compassion. Because you didn t understand. You have been cheated. Then you showed compassion. This is one example of idiot compassion.

166 166 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Another example of idiot compassion would be when you see true genuine suffering, but it is beyond your control, there s nothing you can do about it. You neither have the time, nor the energy, nor ways and means of dealing with it, but still you go and take responsibility - in the process causing harm and difficulties to yourself. It is compassion but it is idiot. Knowing where to draw the line where your own capabilities are concerned is truly an [important] point. It is also a very delicate point. A funny example just came to mind. Picture somebody who doesn t know how to handle machines or appliances but still, out of compassion, he goes to someone who has trouble with a boiler and tries to do the job. But he doesn t know what he s doing, and he blows it. The boiler is broken for good and everybody will say: idiot! And no one will say: compassionate! Right? That tells you, when something is beyond your capacity, beyond your limits, if you try to do something without knowing what you re doing, or without the ways and means of doing it, it will probably fall under the heading of idiot compassion. Audience: Can you tell us how to distinguish negativity? Rimpoche: The practice of the individual is to avoid negativities. Negativities are actions caused by negative thoughts. Sometimes people say, I don t recognize negativity, what is negativity?. Negativity basically is any action, whether physical, mental or verbal, influenced by negative thoughts, such as anger, jealousy, or sometimes even doubt. It is also indulging in causing harm or hurt, or thinking of causing pain to other beings. Traditional teachings will tell you that basically there are ten negativities 91, three of the mind, four of speech and three of the body. I think these are very similar to the Western idea of the ten commandments. But the bottom line as far as what is negativity is concerned is: any action influenced by the negative emotions, and aimed at causing pain. Sometimes you may even just sit, not actually doing anything, but you keep on thinking, Well, someday things will happen, and those people will feel the pain, and then they will come back and understand how they should have acted. Or, you know, you sit there with your children for whom you care so much and you keep telling them off, but they don t listen. You sit there and think, Well if they get hurt a little bit, it is good, I don t want to do them any real

167 Questions and Answers 167 harm, but a little bit of pinch would be good, because then they will learn it. This sort of thing could be a negative thought. So your question is right, it is very hard to distinguish what is negative and what is positive. I think everybody has that problem, not just one or two individuals. But basically, if something causes pain to others, and the thoughts are influenced by the negative emotions, it s negative; you should sort of draw the line there. Audience: The other day we were talking about going parallel in both material and spiritual development. Would you please elaborate on that? When you say: try to be a normal person in the sense of try to do what everybody is doing [it made me think.]. When I look back to my situation maybe five years ago, I didn t need much money. In a way, my life was easier than it is now, without being too integrated. Now I have a family and a job and I see this brings restrictions. I have to work for money, because I need a car, which I need because I have a business and in order to have a business, I have to keep materials in stock. So now I am in a mechanism which restricts me, which gives me obligations, and in a way peace of mind is not anymore that peaceful When someone in my situation wants to attend teachings, they have to see who is going and who is staying at home, so life is not that easy anymore. That s why I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on the point concerning the material level. In how far does one have to do this? Or what s the advantage of it? Where do you draw a line, how much should I go into, let s say, business. Rimpoche: This is a very good question. If you remember what I have been saying about combining material and spiritual life, I said: if you can remain satisfied as a genuine monk, or a genuine nun, then that s what you should do, because that is what Buddha recommended as the best option. If you cannot do that, doing it sort of half and half, being neither monk nor layperson, is not that great. When you get into it, you get into it, and somehow you have to fulfill your commitments. I think that s where you draw the line: you must fulfill your commitment, or fulfill your responsibility, whatever it takes; It differs from person to person, and it depends on the situation, so when you were single and running around with limited money, it fulfilled your commitment and your responsibilities; and now that you have a family and your responsibilities have expanded, obviously the fulfilment [of these] also expanded; that s

168 168 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses one part of it. The other side of it is that it does cut your possibilities for attending teachings or for meditating or all this. Here s another funny thing that just came into my head. There s a proverb: in certain areas where there is shortage of iodine, they say, If you want to have a neck, you have to have a goiter, too 92. Having said that, what is necessary for an individual practitioner? It is necessary to receive a teaching, but not necessarily every teaching, repeatedly. If you can, you should get it. If you cannot make it well, it depends on the practice of the individual, rather than on the number of times attending the same teaching. If it is possible it s always a good thing to attend the same teachings again and again, but when you have limitations, you will have to see what you can and what you cannot do. That s where you draw the line. As to the material side of things, not only do you have to fulfill your present needs, but sometimes you have to think about your future needs as well, unfortunately this is part of life. You also have to think of the responsibility. It is a responsibility. My suggestion is don t lean too much toward the material side, but when you have to meet your material needs, you do your best to turn that into a spiritual practice. You get me? I m not here to tell you, You have to make money! I m not telling you that. My point is, when you re making money, when you re working for that, try to make that your spiritual practice [as much as you can]. When I was saying material and spiritual development combined together, this is what I meant. Combine it. Audience: Is the economy not intrinsically existent? Rimpoche: It is man-made to get most work out of people for the least cost. I am not talking from the wisdom level but from the relative level. Audience: Can the practice of tong len be dangerous for our self esteem? Rimpoche: Yes, we must not lower our self-esteem. Some people submit gladly to lowering their self-esteem. Take responsibility and make your best judgment. You have to work hard and get enlightened. Self-esteem is important, yet you also can t let ego run your life. Actually: the more ego, the less self-esteem. The more ego is

169 Questions and Answers 169 reduced, the more the self can pick up. Therefore, the practice of tong len should even help to build you self-esteem. If we are getting hurt, it is pushing ego s buttons. We should be glad to discover that. It is very important to differentiate between ego and self. Ego is fear-driven, but truth transcends fear. If ego is too strong truth goes to sleep. Fearful deities are there to cut down ego. Concluding the workshop What I did is give you teachings on Langri Tangpa s Eight Verses, along with the commentary on the Eight Verses of Langri Tangpa by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. I also used the prayer by Geshe Chen-ngawa and of course the English translation of Thought transformation in Eight Stanzas. The teaching was given on the basis of these four texts. Then, on top of that, I took out the short note by Gunthang Könchog Tenpei Dronme and used his dialogue between the self-cherishing thought and the thought which cherishes others, speaking on the subject of equanimity, about the equality between oneself and the other. I am happy that Anne as dharma-coordinator along with the sangha council executive have asked me to do this teaching. They gave me a couple of other options as well, but I accepted this one. I hope it is helpful to you all. For some people it may be a little hard to chew, as I said in the beginning. But if there is a will there is a way. You can do it. The most important thing is to have your practice, to be who you are, what you are, and to cut down the self-cherishing, and try to build up cherishing others. It is not going to happen overnight, I tell you. Nor is it going to happen within a day or two. It is process of month after month, year after year, decade after decade. The constant effort will give you results later. I am happy that we could contribute whatever we could. The mission is that you reach enlightenment by you, for you. And we seek your cooperation to assist others.

170 Langri Tangpa

171 VIII The Eight Verses of Mind Training Langri Tangpa Dorje Senge With a determination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who surpass even a wish-granting jewel, I will learn to hold them supremely dear. Whenever I associate with others, I will learn to think of myself as the lowest of all, and respectfully hold others as being supreme from the depth of my heart. In all actions I will learn to search into my own mind, and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises, endangering myself and others, I will firmly face and avert it. I will cherish beings of bad nature, and those oppressed by strong negativities and sufferings, as if I had found a precious treasure very difficult to find. When others, out of jealousy, treat me badly with abuse, slander and so on, I will learn to take all loss and offer the victory to them. When one whom I have benefited with great hope unreasonably hurts me very badly I will learn to view that person as an excellent spiritual guide.

172 172 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception All help and happiness directly and indirectly And secretly take upon myself All the harms and sufferings of my mothers. I will learn to keep all these practices undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions, and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions, I will be released from the bondage of attachment.

173 IX Verses of the Exchange Stages for developing the bodhimind No one wants even the slightest suffering, Or is ever content with the happiness they have; In this we are all alike. Inspire me to find joy in making others happy 57 Seeing that the chronic disease of self-cherishing Is the cause of my unwanted suffering, Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self. 58 Cherishing beings and securing their happiness Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence. Inspire me to hold others more dear than my life, Even when I see them as enemies. 59 In short, the naive work for their aims alone; While buddhas work solely to benefit others. Comparing the faults against the benefits, Inspire me to be able to exchange myself for others 60 Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all downfalls, And cherishing others is the foundation of everything good, Inspire me to practice from my heart The yoga of exchanging self and others. 61 Therefore, supremely compassionate lama, Inspire me to take the bad deeds, imprints and sufferings Of all beings to ripen upon me right now, And to give to them my happiness and virtue So that all beings may be happy. (3x)

174

175 IX Literature Langri Tangpa s Eight Verses of Mind Training: Dagyab Kyabgon Rimpoche, Aus dem Leben der alten Kadam-Meister. Heft 3 Dalai Lama XIV, Kindness, Clarity and Insight. NW Snow Lion Publ Dalai Lama, The Union of bliss and emptiness, pp Leisner, Regine, Das Denken umwandeln, Chödzong, Langenfeld, McDonald, Kathleen. How to Meditate, Wisdom Publ. London (the eight verses within the practice of Avalokiteshvara, pp ). Tharchin, Geshe Lobsang. The Essence of Mahayana Lojong Practice; a commentary to Geshe Langri Tangpa s Mind training in Eight Verses. Howell, Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Press Tsultrim Gyeltsen, Geshe. Keys to Great Enlightenment LA, Thubten Dhargyey Ling, (pp ) Other Lojong Texts and Commentaries: Chödron, Pema. Start where you are. Shambhala, 1994 (7-point mind training) Dalai Lama XIV, Awakening the mind, lightening the heart. HarperCollins Dhargyey, Geshe Ngawang. The Wheel of sharp weapons, by Dharmarakshita. Dharamsala, LTWA, 1976 (lojong in connection with Yamantaka.) Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche, Enlightened Courage; an explanation of Atisha s seven point mind training.peyzac-le-moustier, Editions Padmakara Rimpoche Nawang Gelek, Good Life; Good Death, Gelek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, Ch. XXII, Jewel Heart Transcript Gelek Rimpoche, Lojong; Training of the Mind in 7 Points, JH Transcript Gelek Rimpoche, The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, JH Transcript Gendun Drup (1 st Dalai Lama), Bridging the sutras and tantras, Snow Lion Gendun Drup (First Dalai Lama), Training the Mind in the Great Way. Snow Lion Publ Gomo Tulku, Becoming a Child of the Buddhas; a simple clarification of the Root Verses of Seven Point Mind Training. Wisdom Publ Gyatso, Tenzin (Dalai Lama XIV) Kindness, Clarity and Insight. Snow Lion Jinpa, Geshe. Mind Training: The Great Collection (Theg-pa chen-po blo-sbyong rgya-rtsa). Wisdom Publications, 2006

176 176 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses Kelsang Gyatso. Geshe. Universal Compassion; a commentary to Bodhisattva Chekhawa s Training the Mind in Seven Points. London. Tharpa Publ Kongtrul, Jamgon. The Great Path of Awakening;a commentary on the Mahayana teaching of the seven points of mind training. Boston, Shambhala, Nampkha Pel, Mind training like the rays of the sun. Dharamsala, LTWA 1992 (7- points mind training) Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand. Boston, Wisdom Publications, 1991, pg (seven points mind training). Rabten and Geshe Ngwang Dhargyey, Geshe. Advice from a spiritual Friend. London, Wisdom Publ Tharchin, Geshe Lobsang. Achieving Bodhicitta; instructions of two great lineages combined into a unique system of eleven categories. Howell, Mah Sutra & Tantra Pr, 1999, pg : seven point mind training. Trungpa, Chögyam. Training the mind. Boston, Shambhala, Wallace, Alan B. A Passage from Solitude: Training the Mind in a Life Embracing the World. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ (seven point mind training) Other books used: Batchelor, Stephen. The Jewel in the Lotus. London, Wisdom Publ Batchelor, Stephen. A Guide to the Bodhisattva s Way of Life, by Shantideva [Bodhisattvacharyavatara], Dharamsala, LTWA Chang, Garma C.C. The hundred thousand songs of Milarepa. Shambhala, 1999 Chattopadhyaya, Aloka. Atisha and Tibet, Delhi Motilal Banarsidass Dagyab Loden Sherab, Tibetan Religious art, vol. A. Wiesbaden Dante, Divina Commedia Dhargyey, Geshe Ngawang. Anthology of Well-spoken advice. Dhargyey, Geshe Ngawang. Tibetan tradition of Mental deveopment, pg Doboom Tulku and Glenn Mullin, Atisha and Tibet. Tibet House Gelek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings. Gelek Rimpoche, The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra. Gelek Rimpoche, The Three Principles, a short commentary. Kelsang Gyatso. Geshe. Joyful Path of Good Fortune. Lobsang Lhalungpa, Evans-Wentz, Life of Milarepa South Asia Books Merton, Thomas. The wisdom of the desert father. NY, New Dir Books 1970 Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in our hands. Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand. Wisdom P.1991 Rabten, Geshe. Treasury of Dharma, London, Tharpa Publ (Ch. 7). Shantideva, Bodhisattvacharyavatara: many translations; see: Batchelor Sherburne, R. A lamp for the Path and commentary, by Atisha. Allen&Unwin Sogyal Rimpoche, The Tibetan book of living and dying, San Francisco, Harper 92. Sonam Rinchen, Geshe. Atisha s Lamp for the path to enlightenment. SnowLion 97. Tsongkapa, The principal Teachings of Buddhism, Mah. Sutra&Tantra Press Wangyal, Geshe. The door of liberation, London. Wisdom Publ

177 Notes 177 Notes 1 ci lta ba - just, exactly, as it is. syn {ji lta ba bzhin} 2 Also called the awakened state 3 Skt. Bodhimind, bodhicitta For a little history, see Geshe Wangyal, The door of liberation, pg Dipamkara Shrijnana or Jowo Palden Atisha [ ]. Biographies: Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pp ; Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in our hands pp 43-57; Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An anthology of well-spoken advice, pg. 8-21; Doboom Tulku, Atisha and Buddhism in Tibet; Dagyab Kyabgön Rimpoche, Atisha, sries Aus dem Leben der alten Kadam-Meister. For Atisha and the lojong legacy, see Gendun Druppa (First Dalai Lama), Training the Mind in the Great Way, pg The Tibetan king held captive by the Khan of Garlog told his nephew who had come to pay the enormous ransom for his release the king's weight in gold not to pay the Khan anything but rather to go to Atisha in order to bring him to Tibet. For the whole story of how the Tibetan king gave up his life so Atisha could come to Tibet, see: Gelek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, Chapter. VII; How Atisha came to Tibet ; Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pp ; Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in our hands pp 43-51; Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An anthology of well-spoken advice, pp ; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, pp This text is the root of all Lamrim teachings. Lit. Geshe Sonam Rinchen, Atisha s Lamp for the path to enlightenment 9 The Kadampa lineage was founded by Atisha s chief disciple Dromtönpa [ ]. His chief disciples were the Kadampa Brothers : Potowa Rinchen Sel [ ], Puchumwa Shönu Gyeltsen [ , and Chen-ngawa Tsultrim Bar [ ]. The next generation had Langri Tangpa [ ] and Sharawa [ ]. After that

178 178 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses came Geshe Chekawa [ ], who wrote the Seven point mind training, another famous lojong text.. 10 For biographies of the Kadampa geshes, see L.S. Dagyab Kyabgön Rimpoche, Aus dem Leben der alten Kadam-Meister, Heft 1, 2 and 3. For stories about and teachings of the Kadampa, see Geshe Wangyal, The door of liberation, pp An abbreviation of this text to be found in: Stephen Batchelor, The Jewel in the Lotus, pg For Western collegues of the Kadampa geshes, see Thomas Merton, The wisdom of the desert fathers. 11 The life of Langri Thangpa plus a short commentary on the eight verses is found in Dagyab Kyabgön Rimpoche, Aus dem Leben der alten Kadam-Meister, Heft 3, pp Another short biography is found in Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, The Essence of Mahayana Lojong Practice. 12 Lam rim stages of the path 13 bstan rim stages of teachings 14 byang chub lam gyi sgron me by Atisha. 15 Skt. bodhicitta; bodhi = enlightenment; citta = mind 16 Rimpoche uses the Tibetan word which is translated as shame to mean something like conscience. 17 You feel the reticence because of the shame you felt within yourself, when you only thought about what you were planning to do and you use it as a breaking point to decide to act differently. 18 For the story of Chuda, also called Panthaka [Tib. Lam Chumpa] see Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand pp 134 ff. Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, pp 116ff, Gelek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, Ch. V, 1.Cleaning the place. 19 Also see Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the Palm of your Hand, pp ; Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in Pour Hands, vol. II, pp ; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good fortune, p Literature: Gelek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, Ch. IX. 21 Milarepa himself 22 Literature: Lobsang P. Lhalungpa and W.Y.Evans-Wentz, Life of Milarepa. Garma C.C. Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. 23 For a description of the hell realms, see Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pg Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in your hands, vol. II, pp Western equivalent: Dante, Divina Commedia, part Shantideva, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, ch. 1, vs It s the chapter of the benefits of the awakening mind [Skt. Bodhicitta]. 25 Depa can mean reasonable or reasoned trust or confidence. 26 For literature about the Kadampa, see note 10.

179 Notes The eight worldly concerns, also called the eight childish attitudes: 1) being happy when you gain of find something, or make profit; 2) being unhappy when you loose or do not find what you are looking for; 3) being happy with fame or a good reputation; 4) being unhappy with dishonor, disrepute and infamy; 5) being happy when praised; 6) being unhappy when blamed; 7) being happy when experiencing well-being, prosperity and pleasure; 8) being unhappy when experiencing misery, pain, distress and trouble. 28 Literature: Tsongkapa, The principal Teachings of Buddhism, pg Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Anthology of Well-spoken Advice, pg ; Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition of Mental development, pg Crazy wisdom refers to the wisdom of yogis at a certain high level of vajrayana. 30 Buddha Vajradhara is the tantric form of the Buddha. Vajradhara is the source of all secret mantra (i.e. vajrayana teachings). Vajra means indestructible and dhara means holder. Seeing your root-guru inseparable from Vajradhara is expressed in the words Lama buddha Vajradhara or Guru Buddha Vajradhara. 31 Going for refuge is actually a metaphor for an shift or change in our minds. Protector is a metaphor for what helps to hold us back from negativities, and so forth. 32 Vajrayana: the vehicle of advanced means to quickly achieve buddhahood - within one lifetime - for the sake of all sentient beings. Its method is bringing the result into the path. It is also called: tantrayana. It is part of the mahayana. 33 These ways of taking refuge illustrate how important the Guru and Yidam are for Buddhist practice. It is recommended to say the refuge formula three times. 34 For the four powers, see pg See the refuge meditation in Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in our hands,vol. I pg. 250 and Pabongka Rimpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pg If you generated before the Field of Refuge in the form of Buddha Vajradhara, switch Lama Vajradhara into Lama Amitabha. 37 Buddha Amitabha [Tib. ö pa me] is the head of one of the five Buddha families, of the lotus family, the family to which Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of compassion, belongs. His pure land is Sukhavati, the Pure Land Blissful, also called the Western Paradise. He is also one of the Buddha s of longevity, together with Ushnishavijaya and Chintachakra Tara.

180 180 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 38 That is always the case in Vajrayana. 39 See page Skr. Skandhas; Tib. Pungpo. Literally meaning pile or heap which has the connotation of an utter lack of internal structure. These 5 systems are the 5 basic constituents of psycho-physical existence, of great importance as a scheme for introspective meditation. They are: 1) matter or form (Skt. rupa), 2) feeling or sensation (Skt. vedana), 3) perception or discrimination - the sense of verbal, conceptual intelligence (Skt. samnja), 4) volition, motivation, habits, compositional factors, or conditioned activities (Skt. samskara) and 5) consciousness, primary mind or pure awareness (Skt. vijnana). 41 In Tibetan AH is implied to be present in every letter of the alphabet 42 The complete story can be read in Stanley Frye's "Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish" 43 Also called the power of recognition and acknowledgement. 44 Relative bodhimind: the mind of love-compassion. Absolute bodhimind: the former combined with wisdom. 45 The verse headings are taken from 9 short aphorisms by Langri Tangpa himself, of which the ninth is Make supplications and aspirational prayers. Ref. Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin, The Essence of Mahayana Lojong Practice, pg End of recording dd About one hour of teaching was not recorded. Rest of this session was restored from this transcriber s own notes of having attended this teaching. 47 also known as bodhicitta or bodhimind. 48 See page Lama Chöpa, verse This peculiar friend. 51 bdag gzhan mnyam brje. Dag is self, zhen is others, nyam is make equal, je is exchange. 52 This dialogue is after Gungtang Könchok Tenpei Dromne, also called Gungtang Jampelyang [ ]. 53 Mussori in Uttar Pradesh, India 54 Rimpoche: This is very similar to the western idea of the akashic record. In the western mystical tradition, they ll tell you you have akashic records; Something is written in your record, therefore it has to happen 55 Past, present and future. 56 For the stages of tonglen also see Sogyal Rimpoche, The Tibetan book of living and dying, Ch. 12.

181 Notes This need not be in the same session. Once you got a little acquainted to taking upon you your own future sufferings, you ll naturally want to expand that, and you take the next step. 58 For the listing of the eight worldly dharmas see note The mistaken view that things exist inherently, from their own side. 60 The mistaken view that nothing exists at all. 61 See Gelek Rimpoche, The Three Principles, a short commentary. 62 Liberation in the Palm of your Hand Pabongka Rimpoche, Wisdom Publ Nihilism here is used to mean: the mistaken view that nothing exists, that emptiness would equal nothing. 64 Existentialism [or absolutism or substantialism ] here is used to mean: the mistaken view that holds things to be lasting. 65 Illusion means that something appears to exist in one way, but actually exists in another way. For example, things appear to us to have independent existence, but they are actually empty. A hallucination is something that appears to exist, but does not actually exist at all. 66 In 2006, Wisdom Publications, published the work Mind Training: The Great Collection (Theg-pa chen-po blo-sbyong rgya-rtsa), translated by Thupten Jinpa. This is a translation of a traditional Tibetan compilation, dating from the fifteenth century, which contains altogether forty-three texts related to the practice of mind training. Among these texts are several different versions of the root verses, along with important early commentaries by Se Chilbu, Sangye Gompa, Konchok Gyaltsen, and others. 67 Rimpoche leads the meditation. Very worthwhile listening to: tape In your visualization it s Buddha Vajradhara, in essence oneness with your root-guru and all enlightened beings. See note It s possible to visualize already here Lama buddha Vajradhara taking the form of Amitabha, according to the explanation in Chapter III. 70 If you have switched them before, stay here with Lama Amithaba, i.e. your root master in the form of Buddha Amithaba. 71 Each meditation on a verse was followed by a short period of silence. One may practice here the visualisation of light and nectar as described on page Also called the awakening mind 73 Gelek Rimpoche, Lojong, Training of the mind in seven points. Also see Gelek Rimpoche, Lamrim Teachings, vol. IV. Chapter XXII 74 The course title is the Art of Living, 75 Tib: spyod 'jug,

182 182 Lojong: Training of the Mind in Eight Verses 76 btang snyoms: equanimity, impartiality, evenmindedness. 77 tshad med pa bzhi 78 Gelek Rimpoche, Lojong Training of the Mind in Seven Points, See Ch. IX. literature 80 'Od dpag med - Amitabha; Boundless Light 81 Numbering adjusted to the Guru Devotion Transcript. 82 Wangari Muta Maathai, born April 1,1940, Kenya. Nobel Prize Nyingmapa teacher; The confusion here may be because a true cessation is permanent and the questioner probably remembered this from somewhere. 85 For a teaching on the five paths, see Gelek Rimpoche, The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra. 86 The confusion here comes because permanent in Tibetan means unchanging. Bodhimind with no fallback still changes, ie it can grow from the Bodhimind of a Bodhisattva to that of a buddha (and even then it still changes as it moves from object to object). So a Tibetan would say it is impermanent yet in English, impermanent usually means it will come to an end or cease to be. 87 With ornaments. See page Monk s style, like Buddha Shakyamuni. See page For the nine-round breathing exercise, see Geshe Rabten, Treasury of Dharma, pg We pray we may accomplish this some day rather than try to make it our daily practice. 91 Body: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. Speech: lying, slandering, speaking harshly, speaking senselessly. Mind: coveting, bearing ill will, holding wrong views. 92 Meaning, if you put yourself in a certain circumstance, you have to accept what comes along with it. Cf You made your bed, now lie in it. 93 Verses from the Lama Chöpa.

183 About Gelek Rimpoche Born in Lhasa, Tibet, Kyabje Gelek 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 Drepung Monastery, the nation s largest monastery. In 1959, Gelek Rimpoche was among those forced into exile, fleeing the Communist Chinese who had occupied Tibet since 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 monastic life. In the mid-70 s, Gelek 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, Gelek Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his understanding of contemporary society and his skill as a teacher of Buddhism in the West. He is now an American citizen. Gelek Rimpoche s first book, the national bestseller, Good Life, Good Death, was published in 2001.

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