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The subject of what we are going to be talking here is based on the text composed by a great Tibetan teacher called Tsongkapa, 1357 to 1419 and that’s very short and concise. Well, we choose this particular thing and there’s a number of reasons. The most important is that in my personal opinion, this represents the essence of Tibetan Buddhism, and that’s why I chose this particular point. It is always important to choose certain text that we follow, at least in principle, so that you know what you are doing and we know what we are doing well within the framework. And also the commentaries for these are also available here because one of the earlier, maybe not complete but one of the earlier talks on the three principle paths has been transcribed by the people in Holland and they make a booklet available so the booklets are here. It’s something you can read, if you have something printed and you can read it, you always feel comfortable. I do not know why, doesn’t matter who wrote or whatever it is, if it is in printed form, you feel more comfortable. And also besides that, there is another book also available on three principle path by another teacher called Geshe Lobsang Tarshe with Tsongkhapa’s picture in front in small one too. So you can have one or two different things to read and sort of you feel comfortable to cross check and you feel you did some kind of referral or something. 0:04:18.4

Now I would like to say a little more, the three principle path is actually there are three points that we are going to raise up. Point number one would be dealing with the present situation, our life. It is the conditions and how we deal with our life, what sort of attitude do we take, and why, and what for, and on the basis of the traditional buddhist way of thinking. It is very much similar to Lamrim but it is the essence of Lamrim but outline and the way to talk will be slightly different. So it is going to cover mostly the Lamrim points and we will cover how we deal with our lives, what are the conditions, what is virtue, what is non-virtue, what is the main difference and all this, are the first part. And also it is going to deal with a lot, what does freedom mean, and in life. How do you obtain freedom in our own hand for this life and the future life too, if you accept or if you have doubt, at least, or how you handle those. And how you obtain, we don’t normally call it determination to be free, that’s sort of principle number one. And how does one going to obtain all this, that’s going to be the sort of path principle one. Principle two is going to be love, compassion. Love and compassion, and it is almost going to deal with unlimited, unconditional love and compassion, which normally technically we call it body mind or something like that. So we are going to deal with that as principle number two. The principle number three is going to be technically what they call perfect view, which is dealing with sort of searching the truth. What is really true at the end, beyond all. I do not know how you’re going to handle that perfect view later, there’s quite a lot on the text itself so if you go through those text you can cover quite a lot anyway. So this are the basically, I mean searching the truth behind of a thing which I call, normally it’s call a Buddhist view of emptiness but actually you are really sort of looking deeper, deep down into the mystery of life, that’s what I feel. And when you see the emptiness and reality of total life, when you see it you are supposed to solve the mystery of life, that’s what it is. And where and how you present this, there are a lot of different ways of doing it. Number one, you can present it in a scholarly way and bring in all sorts of different schools and its talks and make an elaborate academic presentation which normally we do for the larger monasteries like Drepung and Sera and Ganden, those types of monasteries, we present this as different viewpoints of different scholars and schools and thoughts and with their arguments and debates, and that’s one way of presenting it. And another way of presenting it is also done in the mediocre monasteries and also with a large number of lay people who are doing it and studying this and we do different way, cutting out all the different thoughts of the schools and bringing to the point and particularly combine with the meditation that you do on that. So that’s one way of doing it, so we hope to make an attempt for that. The reason why we choose this method is because we would like to have some effect of this whatever amount of weeks that we spend together. And you do readings and you will spend time thinking and it will have some effect to the individual being. Our mind which is slightly wild just now in terms of not only concentration but in terms of looking to the reality and dealing with our daily life. So we hope to make slight difference today and that’s why we will use the method of bringing in more meditation points over and talk with that. 0:12:07.8

When I said the meditation points bring over and talk, it’s not going to be now you sit like this and now you think like this, I’m not going to do that. Here what we give you is that I keep on talking to you and you keep on listening and try not to forget what we talk about and then use that and think about it, that’s what it really is. Think about it, and then when things happen in your life, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes things work, sometimes don’t work, and when that situation comes, whatever you could and you will think about it and try to have that effort to you so that it helps to handle the problems we face in our lives and also the attitude we show to different people, that’s called improvement on the individual. So that’s basically what we would like to do and so I’m going to talk more from that angle rather than thoughts of the school, different views and the reason we have and debate and arguments and counter arguments and try to see what thoughts are right, I’m not going to do that way. And also the principle of Buddhism and particularly that of Tibetan Buddhism, is that the object of Tibetan Buddhism is not here and to benefit the individual and improve the individual’s spiritual standing. Anyway, improve the person and make the person better. And the person better in the sense here is the person is able to deal with problems better than before. Another word is not let your problems overtake you completely and you can handle it a bit better. And also when you deal with other people, you have some kind of soft attitude and gentleness, kindness, compassion nature rather than trying to win your point over or make my point across and make it understand clearly or something, you know. Try to be soft and gentle and accommodating and a little caring and loving and also think the other side is also a human being just like ourselves and be able to deal that way. That would be an improvement of the individual from the point of love and compassion. And these are the main goals of Tibetan Buddhism. 0:16:31.0

And those are the few who are sort of really going out of their way and totally dedicate your life and improve yourself and improve others, then the goal introduced is total enlightenment which is sort of a long shot for a lot of people. It is true that it is a very long shot. That is the goal but it’s a very long shot. Sooner or later, one thing or another, according to the Buddha, and according to Buddhism, one has to go through that, one has to reach that point. And that is the destiny when you reach and that’s what it is. And that is really what Buddhism tells you, that’s what Buddha tells you, and that’s what I find and what I experienced. It is a long shot but that’s not the only goal. And on the way there are a lot of things so whatever, wherever we can get and that’s the thing. Now when I say destiny, means somewhere you’re going and when you’re going to reach. If you look at the spiritual journey that we are taking, or even if you don’t take it, but we’re already moving, whether backwards or forwards, whatever it might be, all beings are in that journey, according to the Buddha. 0:19:20.3 And Buddha says Buddha’s teachings are based on the Buddha’s experiences, nothing else. So that’s what his experience found until certain when you break through. And how does that happen. So Buddha gives this interesting picture called wheel of life. So when you sail backwards and forwards, according to the Buddha, we’ve been sort of travelling all the time, went round all the time, really moving all the time, and you don’t read anywhere, so Buddha called it [recite in Tibetan]0:20:38.3, means the traveller who never reaches anywhere. [recite in Tibetan]0:20:49.2 meaning the patient who never gets better. Sort of you take the medicine till you die, and you keep on taking it. So the traveller who keeps on travelling and never reaches anywhere. So sometimes you get better, sometimes you get worse. Sometimes you’re OK, sometimes not OK. That is what Buddha really describe life. So that’s why this wheel came in, the circle that comes up. Sometimes it’s better because you go to a higher level and you have a comfortable life and a comfortable rebirth and not so much problems, not so much difficulties. Whether it is physical or mental or emotional. And sometimes it’s worse, it’s terrible, it is very difficult. Sometimes it goes down and when it goes down, it is very difficult. Problem is mental, physical, whatever difficult it comes to. Actually it is true, you know, when you have one problem, all the problems will come together. It is true, no matter whatever it is, it is always like that. And when something is going right, and it always gets right. The reason is from the karmic point of view, the positive karmas have started to give their effects. So everything gets OK and things will go smoothly. And when things are going wrong, the negative karmas starts to affect and everything have problems, and that’s what it is.0:23:04.3

Basically this circle is that.The circle to doing sort of comfort in difficulty. And the joy in the circle, you circle it. And that is what really the circle of life is if you look within individual one life. If you look into life in the broader base of counting the different lives together, then they give you the different realms here and all this, I don’t know, whatever the reason is, is they give you those different realms representing truly the joyness and misery point of life so that it’s depicted in the different lives so they talk about hell and suffering hot and cold and this and that and then there’s samsaric gathering full of joy, happiness and you never hear pain or problem or anything till the seven days before you die and then it is miserable. So that is really that Buddha give you that picture of how life goes around, and good and bad, and suffering and joy, and sort of continuously running through. And also very interesting, inside that circle there is an external circle where you are experiencing in the life. So inside, there’s an internal circle which goes around. When this internal circle goes around, then you have the external effort. The internal circle, you know the Tibetan used to draw, it’s very interesting, they used to draw a peacock type of bird and a snake and a pig together, sort of one eating the other one. Anyway a bird is a bird, whether it is a peacock or rooster or whatever it is or hen or cock or whatever it is, which represents attachment. If you wanted to make an elaborate one, you can make it like a phoenix too so it is very elaborate bird to draw a lot of attraction, that represents attachment. And the pig represents ignorance. I don’t know why but don’t ask me the reason. And the snake, they used the snake as jealous and hatred, and all of them combine together. And because the snake is capable of hiding in little places and suddenly be able to spit poison and then affect others so that’s why they draw the circle of three of them together. So that when one chewing another’s tail or whatever it is, whatever it is depends on the artist, whatever they draw. The whole idea is the circle between the hatred, jealous and ignorance. 0:27:51.0

So ignorance play a very important role here. Why? Because if ignorance is less, we are not going to have much attachment, not going to have much hatred, because you begin to understand there is no sort of problem, you really don’t have it, you’ve cleared the problem. That’s why I said from the beginning, if you really have the wisdom developed, understanding the true matter, the truth, when you have that the ignorance cut down. When the ignorance is cut down, the attachment and all this group will not have effect to the individual mind and it will sort of die out by itself. Or even it becomes a positive. People are very interested when the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism talks transformation of attachment into path and transformation of anger into path, people are very interested and they would like to hear more. But when they have an idea of a white shirt dipping into colour, you know like yellow red colour and dip it and then bring it out and the white shirt becomes yellow shirt or red shirt or green shirt or pink, whatever it is, and they get the idea of that, it’s not. So that’s why they’re interested, instant turnout, have all the best fun of the samsaric world and not have the joy of spiritual path right? That’s what we want, that’s why we’re looking for that. That’s why people talk when there’s transformation, the ear goes up. So that’s what it is. But unfortunately it does not work that way because of the pig in between, and the ignorance is heavy and we have to pull it out. And the ignorance is there so the ignorance will not let you do that. So when you reduce the ignorance, when you cut out the ignorance completely, when the wisdom is taking over, both anger as well as the attachment can become a positive part, can become a positive result, it can affect individual even can move the individual’s spiritual path. All are possible. It is possible only if you cut ignorance. As long as you have the ignorance, attachment will be attachment. It is no matter whatever nice name you may give it, but it is clinging, it is possessing, it is whatever the price you have of attachment, it brings jealousy. As long as you have ignorance within you, no matter whatever you may claim or pretend to be, a lot of people do pretend to be, we all know that. Not possible. So ignorance is the biggest problem. So this internal circle is within the external circle, so sometimes it’s a joy sometimes it’s not a joy, sometimes it’s suffering sometimes it’s not a suffering, but it’s constantly going around, it’s always we have it’s because of that. I’m not talking about from the Buddhist point. Buddhist also believed very strongly in the karma, it is cause and effect. So what does that mean, cause and effect? Means every event that you pass through or you experience or whatever is happening is a result of something else. That’s what cause and effect means. You did something which caused this. It is only the individual responsible to individual, nobody else. No second or third person did anything except collective karma. 0:33:03.9

So the way Buddha tells Buddha presents what Buddha calls spiritual path, what Buddha calls meditation, what Buddha calls practice, is to work with cause, not through the symptom. If you cut the cause, symptom will automatically stop. If you don’t cut the cause, no matter how much you treat the symptom, it will keep on going. It will keep on going. So working through the cause rather than through the symptom. So most of the Buddhist ideas will be directed against anger, attachment and ignorance, basically. So these three are recognised as obstacles in Buddhism. And what they affect is obstruct the individual going beyond that, individual to be getting free of problems. Our holding it back, the journey going back and forth, rather than going straight, is because of those three things. And that’s why we call them obstacles, problems, in the spiritual path. So that’s why every meditation is sort of aimed almost against that. If you look into a lot of Buddhist things, you always call them as enemy too [recite in Tibetan]0:35:19.1. So it is the enemy within ourselves. Why? Because they always would like to harm us. Why do they want to harm us? Because they want to hold you back as our obstacles. So then the question rises, what do you mean by going through, going beyond, and what do you mean going out of those attachment, anger and ignorance, particularly. What will happen? Then what is it? And we call that freedom. And then we’ll be free. Because there is nobody controlling us. Nobody is really controlling. Until then, we’ve been controlled by anger, attachment. It is so simple, if you just watch our daily life and see taking an example how anger rises within us and what is there to do. How attachment rises within us, how does that do. Don’t have to watch outside, just watch yourself, just watch within your mind. Each one of them is capable of using ourselves so badly. And also all sorts of funny disguises. To tell you the truth, both anger and attachment is capable of making ourselves a real slave. No one can make us a slave today, right? That period is over. All are liberated and everywhere throughout the world if anybody is using anybody as a slave or something, the Pentagon will go and liberate anyway (laughs). So it is over. But each one of us, if you think carefully within ourselves that the attachment of ourselves and anger of ourselves, will make ourselves total slaves. Now take the example of anger, if you are really angry with something, it will force you to take revenge, make you do anything to get some kind of revenge. And that is what anger can do. And jealousy does that too. Along with attachment, attachment makes you totally, this is my aim, I have to have it, I will do anything, whatever it takes. And that makes you a slave. No one can do it but you can do to yourself. It might not be you, it is the enemy within ourselves, these three will make the individual a slave throughout the rest of our lives, if we don’t know how to handle it. Not a couple of years but the rest of our lives. 0:41:49.5

And not only that, it will have another effect, the effect afterwards which is the karmic effect. So these thoughts and actions will have a karmic effect even afterwards. The karmic effect is also direct effect like you kill someone and lose one life and it’s paid off, that is the direct effect, which is not considered that bad. When you are looking at the broad picture of life after life, it’s not that bad. But there’s another effect, because you’re used to it or would like to do it, it’s now karmic imprint. Because I’m used to it, I did kill so I like to kill. [audience inaudible]0:43:07.4 And I think the experience of the individual will make the individual do the same thing. If you look at certain kids, no matter how much you try to be, certain kids will like to be good and certain kids will like to shoot and kill. The kids are innocent, you can almost say they don’t have a mind of their own, they do but at the same time it almost look like that. By nature some people are very compassionate, when they see some bird being hurt or some frog being hurt, they would go out of their way to help but some kids will hit and kill it. This is what I’m talking about, the experiential karmic thing. That is considered even worse according to the Buddha because that makes you continue to do the same thing, you repeat the same thing because you’re so used to it. That’s why we talk about the importance of habits of the individual and the habitual patterns become important in the spiritual path. All of the reasons are based on this. Because experience show karmic thing. So all of them are, if you root it, it is not rooted to anybody else, it is not the fault of a third person or second person or the parent or anybody else, even not yourself. It is the fault of the three things, not the peacock, not the snake , not the pig, but what they are representing. So that is the real sort of the obstacles, internal enemy, that’s what it is. So when you get a feel of that, than that individual is totally in your own control, there’s nothing else controlling you and it is in your own free will you can do it. Until then, your free will is limited, according to the Buddha. And that’s why the first principle here is focus on how to cut control of those three and how you go beyond that. When I say go beyond that, that is called liberated stage or stage of freedom. It’s not the stage of enlightenment, no no no, enlightenment is far beyond that. So that is the stage of liberated or free or going beyond the internal obstacle. Get it? When we say free, it’s easy, but free of what, now you see it right? It is free of anger, attachment and ignorance. That’s really what we are talking about. So if we confuse ourselves, then our second problem, a lot of people get confused, we’re confused, as part of attachment is presented to us not as a problem but as a pleasure. You know what I mean? You get it? Didn’t get it. Lot of part of attachment, like you know, when you look at people, good life, I don’t know what good life really is but when we talk about good life right? Even the idea of good life is two different things right? Most Asians, from the Asian point of when you look at good life, particularly today, when you talk about good life, somebody who has a lot of money and comfortable, and driving a Mercedes car or BMW or something, and they may project that as good life. And on the other hand if you look here, and somebody who doesn’t have to worry about it, not really a happy go lucky but, and some sort of comfort and not so much worried about it and that sort of thing you may call that as good life. You know, depends on the people what they call as good life. But anyway whatever the object you may call as good life, that seems to be representing and giving you pleasant and joy and comfort, which we may read that as some kind of joyful life or something. Which will bring attachment to it, which attachment is sort of confusing the individual from the true freedom into a certain little comfort. Right? 0:51:27.9

And that is what I call confusing. So that’s why Buddha sort of blanketly call whatever is happening in samsara, it is all suffering. That’s what Buddha calls suffering. And he gave three different sufferings, changing suffering, suffering suffering and progressive suffering, we call that all suffering. Buddha does that. If you really look through these three sufferings, through the changing suffering, and the progressive suffering, are not necessary sufferings. Sometimes it is a joy too, it is a pleasure too, particularly changing suffering, a lot of pleasure too. But Buddha categorises them into suffering because it is natural, it is sort of maybe the confused people, and bring confusion and all these. He categorised them under suffering, but it is not a total suffering , don’t read it that way, though the Buddhist text will tell you that way and Buddhist way of teaching will do that way, that’s how they talk about it. But all of them are not suffering. Some of them enjoy too. So what does that mean, so that tells us a purpose of our life, a purpose of our spiritual life. Now if you think we don’t have any purpose, we don’t have any aim, we don’t have any goal, that’s not true. Purpose of our life, particularly this valuable life, I’ll come back to it later within next couple of weeks. I use the word valuable life, this particular human life, far better than any other life that we see on earth. Much superior life that we have. The purpose of each individual is to help ourselves, and the way of helping ourselves is cutting down to the knee this anger, attachment, particularly the ignorance. And that is our purpose of life. Our spiritual goal. If you cut your ignorance, you get your wisdom. And just like that the more you cut the ignorance the more the wisdom you are getting. Ultimately you have the total wisdom, you have totally cut ignorance, that goes together. The more light you bring in, the more the darkness will die, as we know. And ultimately when you bring the true light with you, the total darkness goes out. That’s what it is. The total wisdom when you bring it in, total ignorance cut out. That is the purpose. 0:55:53.7

Why? It helps. It helps to cut. In a way, it’s true, if you keep on walking yourself, try to cut your attachment, try to cut your ignorance, one point by point. Right? You can cut your attachment to coffee, you can cut your attachment to cigarettes, you can cut your attachment to a joint, or whatever. You can do it. But then you have to keep on doing it at every point, every single point. And there are countless points. You have no idea, attachment is such a funny thing, sometimes you are attached to some totally useless senseless object. Totally you have attachment. You really do. That’s the funny and tricky part of the human mind, you never know which will have attachment. So if you try to cut attachment one by one, they will not end today. If you are able to get yourself out of attachment to this grass, then you are going to get attachment to this grass, and if you cut that out you get another one, it’s countless. So where and how you work with this is more against ignorance, bring the wisdom up. So then [recites in Tibetan] 0:59:11.9, when you really see the true reality of one thing, you will cut out all others automatically. It is the better way of dealing with it. Get it? So because of the way you try to cut attachment point by point, object by object, subject by subject, there’s no end. We don’t have enough time for that, we don’t have life for that. We don’t have opportunity for that. So that’s why ignorance is the biggest enemy within ourselves, our biggest obstacle. The weapon to fight against that is wisdom. So, another question is how are we going to get it. It is the true three steps. Learning, contemplating and meditating. This are possible to do if you know it, if you don’t know it you can’t do anything right? 1:00:59.9

When you don’t know what meditation really is, so you meditate, you start straight away, you copy the other person, how to sit and do this sort of thing, you do it. All kinds of meditation are available. There is concentrated meditation, and analytical meditation. Both are available. Particularly concentrated meditation where you try to focus on certain things. Meditation is mostly used for relaxing or reducing your blood pressure or whatever it is. Some people do that right? We will do that because that is the type of meditation we call concentrated meditation. This concentrated meditation can definitely give you calm and quietness and relaxing and slow down your blood pressure. Definitely possible by simply concentrating on anything. Which is relaxing your mind, the mind has been busy thinking and doing all sorts including dreaming when you sleep. So the mind is busy and you give a little time for the mind so the mind can relax a little so as a result of this and the mind and body relation so reduce your blood pressure, all this are definitely there. We treat that as a side effect. Like if the doctor these days give you a drug and treat some illness, they give you a little side effect on that problem and this problem too. Similarly, this is the benefit, side effect benefit of meditating. It is relaxing the mind and slowing down and reducing your heart beat and blood pressure, and it affects your body, it is the body and mind relation, that’s why it works. So all of them are the mind affect the body and it helps the individual to cope and giving you better health and all this. And that is the side effect, side benefit of meditation. But the main purpose, the main focus of meditation here, meditation is a very important tool to people. I would rather call it as a tool you use. Use for what? For cutting those ignorance and gaining wisdom. So that attachment and anger will be both left. And then it can be used for other purposes. One day when I remember I should say, some days I’m allowed to say but it’s always irrelevant, becomes irrelevant and I keep on forgetting things. You know sometimes people say I don’t get angry, I don’t get angry but, and people were allowed to say that, you know why? We were allowed to do that, we were allowed to say I don’t get angry. You clearly get a different angry but you’re allowed to deny all this because of the sign of ignorance. And because of the strong sign of ignorance, it is stronger than those who are really somebody who is bursting with anger and breaking glasses and plates and utensils. And then there’s somebody who sits very nicely and gentle, smiling with dark glasses, it is the clear sign of a stronger ignorance. At least the person that’s getting busted down and breaking everything is actually showing straightforward lesser ignorance. So in order to do that meditation, you do need learning first. So learning the right thing you have to learn, otherwise how do you do it, right? Learning you can do it a lot of ways. You can read and get good information, you can talk to people, and you can listen this, talking like this. And the most important and basic thing that Buddha recommends is the learning of things like this and this should be your back bone. Why? It is not only the information you’re getting, there’s guru’s teachings, unbroken lineage. The lineage which is from the Buddha to here, Buddha to your teacher and there’s an unbroken lineage which also has a certain amount of force behind that. Which will help, that’s what they say, there’s no scientific proof, that’s what it is. That will be sort of the back bone. And on top of that you add a lot of correct information by reading, by listening, by particularly discussing among your sangas. Discuss with each other, talk about it. And if you don’t talk about it, you’re not going to pick up anything. You talk among yourselves, and you may have different viewpoints, these are all part of learning, part of step number one. [Recite in Tibetan] 1:08:50.2

The benefit is that is the light which you will clear the darkness. [Recite in Tibetan]1:08:57.5 This is the light which will clear the darkness of ignorance. [Recite in Tibetan] 1:09:12.8 This is the best wealth. It cannot be stolen by anybody else. You don’t need to insure that, it is within you, nobody can take it away. [Recite in Tibetan]1:09:36.0 The best of friends, who will not let you down, even when you’re weak or lost, a friend who remains with you under all conditions. Ordinary friends, very few will stick with you if you’re in trouble. They all like to help you but they’re busy. They have commitments. It’s too short notice. Or whatever it is, you know all of them are available because that shows the sign of ordinary friends. [Recite in Tibetan] 1:10:25.6 This is all of the best weapons which you can destroy the enemy of ignorance. Anyway, there’s a long thing, if I keep on saying it, I would not be doing anything else. So there’s a lot of benefits in that. So the most important benefit, it will be your friend, it will be your guide, it is your source of information, at least you know what to do. Right? You know what to do. That’s what it is. That’s the first step. So learning through this sort of thing also has its three obstacles. Three obstacles. This is the sort of historical thing when you say, sometimes you see some movies where the Chinese wiseguy try to, you try to learn from the wiseguy and he brought some kind of tea and he keeps on pouring in the cup and started going everything outside, still keep on pouring, you’ve seen that right? Sometime they put the cup upside down and they keep on pouring and all the tea is going outside, in the cup you don’t get anything. And another one is that the cup is dirty and there’s some kind of terrible piece of shit or something in there. And if you keep on pouring your nectar in there but you can’t use it because it’s dirty. So these are the three obstacles of learning. So out of which is the most, the most, the most important obstacle is the dirt inside. Even if upside down, doesn’t matter you can put it up and you can still get it. Still get it, right? And even if there is a hole, it will go everything down but still you have something left always and put in our hand and drink it all, it’s possible. But if dirty, unless you clean it, it is very difficult to use it. So the dirtiness here is the narrow selfish interest, is the dirt here. We will talk about it next Tuesday. Thank you. 1:13:11.6