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CD of 06-04-02

First teaching on chapter Seven of Bodhisattvacharyavatara

We are starting on a new chapter, the chapter on Enthusiasm. I hope we all have great enthusiasm to move into it. Don’t tell me it is going to be another two years to complete the chapter! I do have to raise the question whether the word ‘Enthusiasm’ is really the best for what we are talking about. I don’t have a better choice of words. The reason why I question this is that anybody can be enthusiastic about anything. In this particular case, however, being interested in anything doesn’t fall under the category of ‘enthusiasm’. The area is more restricted. It becomes a selective thing.

Verse 1

Having patience I should develop enthusiasm;

For Awakening will dwell only in those who exert

Themselves.

Just as there is no movement without wind,

So merit does not occur without enthusiasm.

Earlier we have explained how important patience is. I have given you the example of when your girlfriend dumps you and then calls you to meet her in the middle of nowhere in the desert at two in the afternoon. You go and wait there until five or six, but no matter how long you are willing to wait there it is not considered to be patience.

Patience means helping yourself, protecting yourself from engaging in actions that hurt other people. That is what sö pa is in Tibetan. Somebody who has that patience then needs enthusiasm. They should exert themselves in order to become a Buddha.

This first verse is trying to join the chapters of patience and enthusiasm together. In Tibetan you don’t have to use personal pronouns. You don’t have to say ‘I’ or ‘you’. In English you always have to. That sometimes becomes difficult.

Without the kind of patience we have been talking about working hard is not very useful. You can be very enthusiastic about learning, but you won’t get that much done without patience. It will not serve the purpose.

Without patience enthusiasm is difficult. We all know that. It is very clear to us. If, without patience, you work hard, it is not certain how far you get with that. It is questionable. Once more even this chapter emphasizes patience as the base.

Then you may think, ‘All right, if I have patience, I may not need enthusiasm. It will do.’ Actually, it won’t. The reason is given in the second line of the first verse:

For Awakening will dwell only in those who exert

Themselves.

In other words, Buddhahood is only going to be available for those who have enthusiasm. Those who are not prepared to work are not going to get enlightened at all. Patience is fine. But if you don’t have enthusiasm you are not going to get anywhere.

Just as there is no movement without wind,

So merit does not occur without enthusiasm

This tells you that enthusiasm is the cause of two things, not only merit. It is actually the merit and the wisdom merit. I like to make it clear here. Nagarjuna has said in a dedication verse,

Ge wa di yi ge bo kün

Sö nam ye she tso sor ye

Sö nam ye she lä jung wai

Dam pa ku nyi tob par gyur

By this virtue

May all beings accumulate the two types of merit,

The wisdom merit and the merit merit.

Because of these may they attain

the physical and mental aspects of enlightenment.

We always talk about the two kayas or two forms, the physical and the mental form. That is true for every person. We all have physical and mental aspects. These have to go together. If they don’t, we don’t become people. If you only have the physical, without the mental aspect, there is only a dead body. If you have the mental aspect without the physical, you become a spirit. You may become a free spirit, but I don’t know about that. Just like that, at the level of enlightenment you will also have physical and mental aspects. Both of those don’t just pop up from nowhere. It is not like popcorn. But even popcorn needs to have the corn first. Similarly, a piece of toast that pops out from the toaster needs the bread as well as the toaster. It doesn’t pop up out of nowhere. No enlightened being just arises from nowhere. No human being is born out of nowhere. No living beings are. Where do they come from?

The easy answer is that they come from the parents’ genes. Do the parents give you a mind too? No, they give you only the physical genes. We are capable of producing physical genes. But the physical genes, without mind, don’t become a person. There are so many sperm cells and most of them don’t become living beings, even if they actually meet the egg. The reason for that is the presence or absence of mind. The physical aspects are provided by the parents and the mental aspects are provided by yourself. The combination of that produces life. When you become enlightened it will be the same thing. Where does the pure body we are talking about so much come from? I am talking about the body of a fully enlightened being with the 32 major signs and 80 minor marks. They are coming from the merit we have accumulated.

What really is merit? The answer I am going to give you is technically not correct. But for the time being, we can think that it is our positive karma, which is capable of giving the Buddha result. Not every positive karma is capable of giving you the body of a Buddha. Within karma, we have positive and negative karma and immovable karma. The immovable karmas are capable of giving you a good result, but not a spiritually good result. So, the positive karmas that are capable of giving you a physical result of the Buddha level are called merit.

The mind part is wisdom merit. That is merit, which is connected with wisdom. The other merit is merit, which is not directly connected with wisdom. Remember, the bodhimind has the relative bodhimind, which is actually the true bodhimind. Then there is the absolute bodhimind, which is not the true bodhimind. But it is capable of giving you the mind aspects of the Buddha. The relative bodhimind is capable of giving you the physical aspects of the Buddha. This is very similar to how it works with the merit.

The statement merit does not occur without enthusiasm shows that both, merit merit and wisdom merit are results of enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm there is no cause. Without cause there is no movement. If no wind is blowing a candle light won’t move or flicker.

This is telling us that yes, we need patience, but that is not enough. You need to combine that with enthusiasm. That is why enthusiasm is called ‘great virtuous stage’.

Chandrakirti has said,

All good qualities follow from enthusiasm.

Without enthusiasm you won’t have good qualities. Merit and wisdom are the causes for enlightenment. Both, wisdom merit and merit merit, are caused by enthusiasm. A person who doesn’t work will get virtually nothing. You can have a wonderful mind and you can catch so many things. You can cover up and just manage, if you have quite a brilliant mind. But you don’t achieve so much. You have the right mind, but you don’t work. And that is why you only just manage to get by.

Somebody who has a very good wisdom mind may only put in 45 minutes worth of effort and achieve the same as somebody who puts in 24 hours in. But it is not going to be a solid result. You know the subject, you can manage and you are able to cover it up. The efforts you have really put in are just too little.

When I was young, there was a rimpoche by the name of Minyang Kujang. He was really very brilliant. You couldn’t find a mind more brilliant than that. He was brilliant at reading and understanding books, good a debate, poetry, drawing art – everything. He passed his exams within a very short period. One day he was talking with Lochö Rimpoche who is also brilliant but worked very hard. Kujang Rimpoche said to him, ‘If I were to read books and study like you do, I would already be enlightened now. You are putting in so many hours of work. If you do two hours I only would have to put in 2 minutes to get the same result.’ The solidness of the achievement, however, only comes with hard work. That is the difference. A very intelligent person, who doesn’t works very hard, may know the same thing as another person who got there through a lot of effort, but the value of these two will be very different.

We know that more or less, though we like to ignore it. It is like that in school, college, research and any other field, even mathematics. A person who totally has to depend on machines to figure something out and a person who only needs his brain, can come to the same conclusion, but the way they got there will be different.

Enthusiasm is the cause of all good qualities. Buddha himself said,

For those who have good enthusiasm, Buddhahood is not difficult. For those who enjoy being lazy, Buddhahood is very far away. Enthusiasm maintains good qualities and develops further good qualities. Such people will find the treasure of buddhahood.

Asanga, one of the great Indian masters, one of the founders of the Mahayana, said,

The most important, outstanding cause of Buddhahood is enthusiasm. Without it is very difficult to get it, with it, it is most definite.

What kind of enthusiasm are we talking about? What is enthusiasm and what is its opposite? The opposite of east is west. The opposite of virtue is non-virtue.

The next verse is telling us.

Verse 2

What is enthusiasm? It is finding joy in what is

Wholesome.

Its opposing factors are explained

As laziness, attraction to what is bad

And despising oneself out of despondency.

The word- by- word translation of tsön dru is something like diligent work. In the context of spiritual practice it really means the mental faculty that is focused on positive work. It has to be positive work. If you are very focused on doing something negative, that may be enthusiasm, but not the kind we are talking about here. It has to be focused on the creation of positive karma. Its aspect has be joyful nature. You have to be happily working. If you get burnt out, there is no enthusiasm. Burnout is not something that is to be encouraged in spiritual practice. Some people are happy to say, ‘I am burnt out. Everybody is burning out.’ But that is your problem. You shouldn’t create the idea of burnout in the Sangha at all. If you do so, you even create a negative karma, although it may be true. There is no room for burnout in the spiritual path.

Tsön dru has to have two aspects: what it is focused on and what kind of aspect that mind has. In other words: what is this mind looking at and how does this mind feel? This particular mental faculty is focusing on virtuous work. It feels joyful, happy and enthusiastic about it. The moment you lose enthusiasm you lose the urge or the edge in your work. When that happens you don’t have power. It does not become forceful. You become like the dead-tired donkey, dragging a heavy load uphill in the Himalayas. It is the metaphor of being impossible to function, impossible to achieve. Enthusiasm should be focused on positive work and joy. As the verse says, ‘finding joy in what is wholesome’. That is not ‘holy-some’.

That reminds me of when I was in Dharamsala last time. There is a very interesting gentleman, quite well educated, well-versed. He is also very radical. He had done his PhD in Central Michigan University. He does come round to the United States and talks. He was telling me, ‘These days there are so many His Holinesses in the world.’ I was thinking he was talking about the pope and that therefore we should call the Dalai Lama something else like ‘His Presence’ or something. But he said, ‘I went to a couple of Dharma Centers and they were all talking about this or that His Holiness. In a lecture I said there are many His Hollow-nesses around.’ It was not a pronunciation mistake. He knew exactly what he was saying.

On the Mahayana path, enthusiasm should not only be focused on any positive work alone, but on developing the positive karma that is capable of giving you the Buddha level. The line ‘What is enthusiasm?’ is not contained in the Tibetan. The translator must have added it up so that the verse makes sense in English.

The aspect of enthusiasm is joy nature. You are happy to be doing it. In Tibetan this is ge la tro. That indirectly says that it doesn’t enjoy doing things other than virtuous work. It doesn’t enjoy doing non-virtuous or even neutral things. If you enjoy doing non-virtuous and neutral actions, that is called ‘laziness’. That is the opposite of enthusiasm, just like west is the opposite of the east. As the verse says,

Its opposing factors are explained

As laziness, attraction to what is bad

And despising oneself out of despondency.

In a sutra Buddha also says,

Enthusiasm is the direct opposing factor of laziness

What does enthusiasm do? Asanga says that it is about

Anything that you are able to complete and accomplish.

That tells you clearly that if you are enthusiastic about doing something other than positive work, that is not becoming this particular kind of enthusiasm.

Buddha said,

Those who are engaged in laziness are far away from Buddhahood.

Those who are engaged in laziness don’t have the six perfections,

From generosity to wisdom.

Those who are engaged in laziness don’t accomplish the purpose of others.

Those who are engaged in laziness don’t accomplish their own purpose.

Buddha’s statements can be quite short and direct, like the good old American language.

The mindfulness sutra says,

The basis of negative emotions is laziness.

One who has a lot of laziness has no qualities whatsoever.

Without enthusiasm a person is completely controlled by laziness and thereby loses all positive karma and all their short term and long term goals.

The mindfulness sutra further says,

The benefit of enthusiasm makes the individual achieve Buddhahood and goes directly against laziness. Thus you collect tremendous amounts of virtuous, positive karma.

The mindfulness sutra goes on,

Every laziness can be destroyed by a single-pointed bullet. And that is enthusiasm.

If there is complete darkness in a room, as soon as you let light in, all darkness will be completely destroyed. Just like that, the single bullet of enthusiasm will destroy all laziness.

In another sutra Buddha says,

All the Buddhas have praised enthusiasm, because it capable of clearing the darkness of suffering and the causes of suffering. It destroys the causes of rebirth in lower realms. Whatever the achievements inside or outside of samsara are, they are all following from enthusiasm. If you are not stupid, why be afraid of enthusiasm?

One who likes to follow me should not entertain laziness. Do not entertain oversleeping. See it as fault and always have enthusiasm. This is my suggestion to my followers.

In Buddhism we object very strongly to oversleeping. It is a waste of time. You should get as much sleep as it is necessary for you. It could be four, five, six or seven hours – maybe eight hours. Nine or ten hours is too much and certainly not seventeen hours.

Maitreya Buddha said,

Enthusiasm is the best virtue. It is what brings results, joy, and samsaric as well as non-samsaric accomplishments. It will even meet your needs in material life. It will make you pure. I will destroy your fear. It will give you Buddhahood.

Buddha says,

For one who has great enthusiasm there is nothing that they cannot achieve. There is nothing they cannot obtain, nothing they cannot do, nothing they can claim to be incapable of.

There are more statements like that, but that should be good enough to make us enthusiastic about enthusiasm. What I have said so far makes it clear that for everything you do you need enthusiasm. From my own personal experience I can tell you that I do have quite a good, sharp wisdom mind. If I can manage to put in time, I can achieve tremendous results. I just cannot put in the time. I am so overpowered by laziness. My weakness is enthusiasm. Yet I am here talking to you about enthusiasm. That is funny. But it is part of this textbook. I happen to be the preacher reading the Holy Bible and that talks about enthusiasm. Actually I am the wrong person to talk about it. I am very good at wasting time. I find any excuse I can get. I can get out of anything, except what I am supposed to do. So laziness will take you away from your achievements. You may enjoy your life. You sleep, watch TV, have a drink, have a good time and at the end of the day you have hardly any time left to do your commitment. So you just rush through. All the words are just mumble-jumble. That is how I waste my life.

There is this story of one of the outstanding 18th century Tibetan masters. His disciples asked him for his biography. He replied that he had nothing to say. They kept on asking and finally he gave in and said, ‘All right, I am going to tell you my biography.’ When he announced that, many people came from everywhere and wanted to hear it. He then said,

For the first 20 years of my life I kept on thinking, ‘I am a kid, I am a kid.’

Then for the next 20 years I kept on thinking, ‘I should do something, I should do something. Then the next 20 years I spent on thinking, ‘I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it. That is how I wasted 60 years. That is how I wasted my life. That is my biography.

I don’t think he really had any laziness. His collect works go into 12 volumes. But that is how he said it and it was probably meant for people like me. That is how we can waste our life. Laziness takes over and lack of enthusiasm makes laziness enjoyable. You sleep a lot and lie down, make yourself fatter than ever and waste all your time. Those who care for themselves, who want to do something useful for themselves and others, should go in the opposite direction. Don’t surrender to laziness. Build up enthusiasm. Never indulge in or entertain the idea of burnout. Never even think about it. When someone starts talking to you about how burnt-out they are, just says ‘Shhhh, keep your mouth shut, I don’t want to hear it’.

I am going to stop here.