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Mahamudra

Teaching by Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche

Jewel Heart NY

September 16,2004

Thank you and welcome for tonight. As you remember, we completed the concentrated meditation course we have been doing since January. Two Thursday nights have been missing because of this elephant chart [thangka] which again, those at Gang Nam have very kindly made available to us, from Geshe Rimpoche’s collection. You see this [picture/story] in a lot of books, and many of them give you the wrong explanation. [Our purpose was] to make it quite clear. The elephant chart, along with two Thursday transcripts are available online now. They are only for people who are learning and practicing. We have actually blown up parts of the painting that explain each level. There are nine stages, six powers and four conjunctions, that are made clear page by page [in our booklet]. Thus, the whole meditation course is actually completed.

Now we have six more Thursdays, and I am in the mind of reviewing what we did, in a shorter way that you can remember better. Meditation is something everybody wants to do. The instructions, however, are usually quite limited. They tell you how to sit and how to think and that’s about it.

To tell you the truth, that particular zhi ne meditation is the lowest category of meditation in the Hindu tradition. There are nine stages beyond zhi ne in the Hindu tradition: four form levels and four formless levels and the ultimate level. Buddha calls this ‘the peak of samsara.’ He says there is no point in going through all these stages. The question is, what do you want out of meditation? If your goal is only to sit strongly in meditation, then fine, you can go on through the form and formless stages. If your purpose is to liberate yourself, then zhi ne or shamatha is good enough

A very interesting thing happened today. When I came in, as usual Alex picked me up at the airport. Then he drove me down, and asked me a question. I was saying something about learning. He asked, “Is this the learning of knowledge, or is this spiritual development?” A number of people may have asked me that before, but it didn’t strike me. It did strike me today, that in the Buddhist tradition, particularly the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Tsong Kha Pa, we’re not talking about getting information, but about digesting it.

That is very funny. It’s not a matter of doing research, understanding and learning in the usual way. Here, on the spiritual path, what is learned rightly becomes part of you. It becomes part of your character, part of your personality. It influences your functioning.

I had been talking about zhi ne, and the importance of what your goal is. Zhi ne is a [meditative] tool. If you use it to become enlightened, Buddha said, zhi ne is enough [in terms of concentration ability]. You don’t have to go beyond it. It will give you a stable mind, with which you accomplish the real purpose here, which is to gain good wisdom. Wisdom is the antidote of ignorance, confusion and fear. What is usually called ignorance I like to call ego.

Zhi ne without wisdom does not cut ignorance at all. No matter how stable you may become, that alone will never deliver the goods of liberation. A great Hindu master debated with Aryadeva and lost. According to the traditional Indian system, the loser in a debate then follows the path of his opponent. This master, following Aryadeva, wrote a well-known special praise to Buddha.* In it he clearly mentions,

It is amazing. The moment you really realize the stability of concentration, you then you switch to wisdom. This is fantastic. In the tradition I come from, we can go as far as the highest level, and remain there as long as the karmic consequences of meditation last. When they become exhausted, something else happens and the whole [cycle] starts again.

Even Buddha himself never says ‘what I did is great.’ It is one of his qualities, that even though he might know

something [without a doubt], instead of saying what is, he says ‘it may be.’ [You always find this Buddhist quality] of humility. Buddha even told people to follow that way of saying ‘it may be.’ I learned that way.

So, zhi ne is the lowest meditative level. Yet it has to be done right. You cannot hope to gain wisdom without even this lowest level. The tradition will tell you, ‘Don’t build an ice castle.’ That is what is happening when you try to build wisdom without the basis of zhi ne. It’s not going to stay there. You may put in a lot of effort, but it’s not going to stay. It’s going to melt down. Buddha shared this zhi ne, or samadhi, or concentration as the fifth paramita, and wisdom as the sixth paramita. They add up on top [the sixth is built on the fifth].

Here, I am honestly of two minds. I have [covered] everything since January very well. If one really reads the transcripts, and thinks about it, there is really one wonderful complete [teaching]. If I do a little short [review] here (because I said I would do it), I don’t know whether I will be doing you a disservice. On the other hand, we have about six Thursdays from here, and I thought maybe I can [present] Mahamudra. It may be suitable. I still haven’t made up my mind. (Audience members call out for Mahamudra.) There is an advantage to doing Mahamudra now. Next year I want to concentrate on wisdom, and the relative Mahamudra and the absolute Mahamudra is emptiness.

In Tsong Kha Pa’s tradition, the tradition that I come from, Lam Rim is known as father-like and Mahamudra is known as childlike. They are also called father-like and son-like, or mother-like and daughter-like. [The former] is a little more detailed and more elaborate. [The latter] is a little shorter and more specifically focused.

I’m going to be brief, because I don’t want to draw it out so much that I don’t finish it. Then I wouldn’t be able to start the Wisdom part after January. By mid-November, I will be out of the country, so it has to be finished before then.

In this tradition, the Mahamudra is taught according to the First Panchen Lama’s Root Text on the Mahamudra. It begins with Namo Guru Mahamudraya. Namo is respect, prostrating, bowing down. I’m not going to go into much detail, so that’s that. Guru is Master. Guru and Lama are the same thing. Lama is Tibetan, Guru is Sanskrit. The message of Guru or Lama is actually ‘heavy.’ Not fat heavy like me, but heavy with quality, tremendous quality; in normal American language, ‘loaded with quality.’

If you wear monk’s robes a lot of people will call you ‘lama,’ and call all monks ‘lama.’ The Tibetologists who cannot identify the lama easily just say ‘monk.’ Among Tibetans, lama doesn’t mean monk at all. Lama means heavy, loaded with good qualities.

Maha, as you know, is ‘big.’ You know, Mahayana, ‘Big

Vehicle.’ In Namo Guru Mahamudraya, Maha has the same [implication]. Mudra is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘seal’ or ‘commitment.’ In the olden days, you would make a document and put a seal, a stamp on it. Nowadays we sign. A signature is not enough; we also have to have it notarized. Once a document is signed, sealed and notarized, it becomes difficult to change. [That is the meaning of] Mudra.

[Literally], Mudra means ‘hand implement,’ ‘hand measurement,’ ‘hand gesture.’ A hand gesture is giving a message; a message of commitment. The word mudra itself is really a commitment. The direct translation of mudra in Sanskrit is samaya. It really boils down to [commitment]. Mahamudra. Actually the word is mahamudraya. Nobody says it, but the ya is also there. What Panchen Losang Chögyen is doing here, is praising his great big Guru with commitment.

In other words, in mudra, the sense of commitment here is absolute. So I bow to, and I respect the Great, Absolute Lama. What is Absolute Guru, Absolute Lama? It is [being] free from grasping. Do you ever understand what I’m talking about? Do you? Or am I talking some sort of very Greek language? [It means] free of self-grasping, free of grasping itself; or, lack of true existence, lack of true nature. Does that confuse you more? Lack of really solid existence is mudra. Mudra is such a commitment, [it is] true nature. In English, when you say commitment is nature, it doesn’t make sense, I don’t think. With an Asian, particularly a Buddhist background, however, the really unshakeable, unchangeable, signed, sealed, stamped commitment is Absolute Reality. That Absolute Reality is the true Indestructible Mind. Vajra Mind. Such an Indestructible Mind is actually what we call Primordial Mind. That Primordial Mind, which is inseparable from the true nature of the Mind is the true Guru of our own self, of each and every one of us.

When you say ‘Namo Gurubhe,’ you have all of this behind you. When, however, you just say, ‘Namo Gurubhe,’ and think, that’s guru, that’s the guy with the red robe, then it becomes ‘silly guru.’ Actually, when you think about Guru, the absolute true guru of individuals is the True Primordial Mind, the wisdom nature, the pure aspects of yourself.

This is why Buddhism, and other eastern traditions say, ‘Pure nature is within you.’ Development is [from] within you. There is nothing you can grasp from outside. It is all within you, it is all internal. That’s what you hear all the time, right? That is Mahamudra, that is Guru. That is Maha Guru, Mahamudra.

So Namo Guru Mahamudraya are the first words. With this, the first Panchen Lama himself is making his prostrations, paying his respects to his one Guru.

Now the second verse. I just realized there is a translation of the Mahamudra available in English. Next week that root text will be available here; otherwise, I’ll be reading in Tibetan and explaining it, and it will sound like I am talking to myself.

It’s interesting. I have to tell you a funny story. Today I picked up this particular book, written by a friend of mine who is also a great teacher known as Lam rim pa in Tibet. His collected works were [published] after the Chinese [invasion]. There are four or five volumes. They are very good ones. He sent me this copy of his commentary on the Mahamudra text. It is exactly [on this subject]. I had this teaching from my great master, Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche in the summer of 1954. This guy Lam rim pa and I were together. He sent this copy to me, and I got it very recently, though he passed away one or two years ago. In it, he wrote in his own hand, “They give you the choice between meditating on an image or on mind – mind is better, because we are thinking inside.”

I had this book in my hand, and went to Garrison for the Mind-Life Institute. On the train, I was looking through it (it also talks about the mind). Somehow I got on the wrong train, and at the end of a long story, I lost the book. Poor Jonathan had to drive to two, three or four different train stations and couldn’t find it.

I had had this book in the New York apartment. I used the envelope from a piece of junk mail to mark my place. Then, when I dropped the book [on the train], somebody very kindly picked it up and mailed it [to the address on the junk-mail envelope]. So I picked it up today, and was thinking, maybe I should do this Mahamudra rather than reviewing the Meditation course, so I grabbed it and came here. It’s interesting and fun.

[The first Panchen Lama] is making his praises to his own Guru in four verses. It’s interesting. He makes his praise (Rimpoche recites Tibetan) by saying Mahamudra is pervasive. It is everywhere. And it is the nature of all. The nature of every existence is Mahamudra. Sounds Greek to you? Or is it OK? Pervasive means there is no place where the Mahamudra, which is wisdom, which is emptiness, is not. There is no place, no thing, no anything; no beings, human beings or any beings, or [material] articles, no houses, pillars, monuments, whatever. No cows, bottles, clothes, watches, anything. In short, there is no place or environment, not any inhabitants that are anything but wisdom alone, which is emptiness in nature.

So when he praised his Guru, the first word he used is ‘Kun khyab.’ It means ‘pervasive,’ everywhere. [Then follows] ‘Kun dre zhing,’ the nature of all, which is Mahamudra. ‘Yer me chu de simje dorje ying.’ Again, that is inseparable from the nature of mind. Actually, what he is writing here is exactly what I explained, Namo Guru Mahamudraya. With that, Panchen Losang Chögyen is making praise to his Guru. He is clearly introducing the real nature of the mind, the mind itself, which cannot be explained, as ‘my great Guru. I [pay my] respect to you.’ In talking about his own Guru, he is talking about absolute Guru and also relative Guru, that Guru who is personally teaching him. He also calls this ‘Creator of All,’ ‘Kun jye kun jye rang zhin.’

In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, when we hear Creator, we think of God. Right? And God is wisdom. That’s what I like to say. Wisdom is God. God is Wisdom. Therefore, it is Creator. From the Judaeo-Christian point of view, God created us. From the Buddha’s point of view, the Nature of Reality has created us. Everything is born out of wisdom. Everything has come out of emptiness. When there is no emptiness, nothing can exist. That is wisdom. Some people think wisdom is like a third eye. Suddenly it just ‘boom’ opens up and sees everything. That is incorrect. The third eye, seeing everything, is a metaphor. If you had a regular third eye its vision would still be limited. The walls will block it, everything will block it. But wisdom is unlimited. No walls, no distance, no mountains will block it; it can clearly see. The third eye is really a metaphor for wisdom. You do see a third eye in some pictures of enlightened beings. When we represent Buddha, we don’t show a third eye, but there is a little extra thing there. In the Hindu, Kalsad and Sikh religions, [you are taught] to focus on that. They are indications to look for wisdom. Wisdom is unlimited. The eye sees, that’s why it is a [useful] metaphor. It is the third, because it’s more than two. That may not be the true reason. There is the thousand-eyed, thousand-armed Avolokitesvara, for example.

Why are you seeing everything? The reason is everything is your own production. It all comes out of you, you produced it. That’s why wisdom is even called ‘Great Mother.’ It gives birth to all; to both the inhabitants and the environment; to everything. Sometimes wisdom is even called ‘Creator.’ It is free of existence. Free of solid existence. If it’s free of existence, it has to be non-existent, right? If it’s non-existent, it’s not there. That’s my mistake. It slipped out of my mouth. I should say free of solid existence.

What does ‘free of solid existence’ mean? It means you exist dependently. The interdependent nature of existence is free of solid existence. What does wisdom mean? What does empty mean? It is the interdependent nature of existence. It is the nature of non-existence. (Rimpoche recites Tibetan.) The essence of emptiness is interdependence. The essence of dependent existence is emptiness. If you can’t put that together, then you will always have difficulties. Then what you have is faulty wisdom.

There are people who will say, ‘Emptiness is emptiness, existence is existence. Existence has nothing to do with emptiness, emptiness has nothing to do with existence.’ If you have that [understanding], then we are in trouble. Then we are separating compassion and wisdom. We are separating individual beings and wisdom. The moment you have separation, it is a problem. It is all inclusion. Nothing is excluded. You cannot exclude the interdependent nature of existence from emptiness; emptiness cannot be excluded from the interdependent nature of existence. Emptiness cannot be excluded from the subject of compassion. I don’t mean compassion and emptiness are the same. The absolute nature of emptiness is compassion. The absolute nature of compassion is emptiness. Am I giving you trouble?

That’s the reason for the words ‘pervasive’ and ‘Creator.’ That’s the reason for the first word, ‘Kun khyab Kun jye rang zhin.’

The first Panchen Lama is praising not only his own master from whom he took this teaching, he is also praising the great Mahasiddha Dharmavajra. What I am going to explain here, says the first Panchen Lama, is Dharmavajra’s system of Mahamudra. What the Panchen Lama means is that all the Buddha’s teachings, both sutra and tantra’s essence are explained to the fortunate ones by his own master, Dharmavajra, and the great Ganden Kagyupa masters. He says, "I will explain Ensapa’s system of Mahamudra. That is his first praise. Then he says, ‘I will write this.’ This is the Tibetan system of composition. First you praise something, then you give your [presentation]. It is unlike Western books, where you make everything as simple, easy to read and straightforward as possible.

In the Tibetan approach, the first words, Namo Guru Mahamudra, should contain all that you are going to talk about. Here, it is the essence of the subject, Mahamudra. Every syllable has to carry a special meaning. Then it becomes a loaded book. Otherwise, it will be just a simple storybook. That is the old system of writing.

The first Panchen Lama says, "To explain this, there’s preparation, actual and conclusion." I’m in the bad habit of saying ‘preparation.’ I’ve been repeatedly told to use the word ‘pre-requisite.’

The pre-requisites consist of three things. First is taking refuge and generating bodhi-mind. I’m not going to talk about this very long, because when you reach the fifth paramita, it means you have already covered those. Taking refuge makes it a Buddhist practice, and generating bodhi-mind makes it a Mahayana practice. The Panchen Lama says here that it is not just the moving of your mouth, not just the words alone. Taking refuge and generating bodhi-mind are the first of the three pre-requisites. Second is purification and accumulation of merit, and third is Guru Yoga. Guru Yoga is very important, extremely important.

The Panchen Lama says this should not come only from your mouth. Don’t just pay lip service. You have to move from the bottom of your heart. If you just say the words, and there’s nothing [behind them], then what is the use? If you teach a parrot, the parrot will definitely say ‘Namo Gurubhe.’ Maybe not exactly, but it will say it, if you have good nuts to give to the parrot.

It reminds me of Geshe Lobsang Tarchin, in New Jersey, who is now called Kensur Rimpoche. I went to visit Geshe-la many years ago. At that time Geshe-la was staying in a Mongolian monastery somewhere, Tashi Rabten Ling, or something. Geshe-la told me that his Lhasa Apso, the dog can say, ‘Om mani peme hum.’ I said, ‘No, no,’ and he said ‘Yes, I’ll show you. Definitely he can.’ He had to have a cream puff biscuit and cream cheese, and I don’t know, was it bacon, or something slimy? Then he would bring the dog, and the dog would stand up and bark, ‘Wa wa wa wa wa wa’ six times. Then Geshe-la would say, ‘See? Om mani peme hum!’ So, saying by mouth even the Pekinese or Lhasa Apsos can do.

It is interesting. I repeat again and again, when you say ‘meditate’ in the west, more or less everybody will know. I don’t think the pure yuppies will know, but most open-minded people will know what meditate means, that you have to sit down and all that. Saying the prayers out loud and meditating together is quite new here. This is very important because what you meditate on is joined with simple words that you can say. So you say the words, think about the meaning, and meditate, which really becomes powerful. Otherwise, the words become just words, meditation becomes something else, and the body, mind and speech are separating. If they are, then how can you hope to achieve something together?

If we want to achieve something we have to bring our body, mind and speech together and push forward. This is something you have to pick up. Say the words, think the meaning and it becomes meditation. Before you can think about the essence of the words, it is important to hear them, understand and then learn [the meaning].

The first Panchen Lama here says,"[To gain the ability] to see the reality and the nature of your mind totally depends on purification and the accumulation of merit. So I recommend that you do one hundred thousand Vajrasattva recitations and one hundred thousand prostrations." That is what the Panchen Lama says. Also [you need to make] mandala offerings and the Guru prayers. You normally hear this in [the context of] ngöndro. The first Panchen Lama is saying, ‘the ngöndro instructions are good.’

Here he places a special emphasis on guru yoga: "To your own spiritual master, your own root Guru who is inseparable from the Buddhas of past, present and future, from the bottom of your heart, you must make supplications as often as possible."

Now, the actual level comes in. What are the divisions of the Mahamudra? What different names are involved? What doubts [will I encounter] and what are the answers? How do I meditate on Mahamudra?

I would like to go a little fast. The divisions are two: the Vajrayana Mahamudra and the Sutrayana Mahamudra. This book will tell you a little bit, but in absolute reality, the pure clear light is Vajrayana Mahamudra. I’ll tell you straightaway. There’s impure clear light and pure clear light, impure illusion body and pure illusion body. Pure clear light is Mahamudra. Simple. Period.

Sutra Mahamudra is wisdom. It is emptiness itself. Sorry, I am doing you a disservice. You must divide that into two; absolute and relative. The relative is the introduction of the mind and the absolute is wisdom. The Panchen Lama says there are a lot of different ways of explaining the actual Mahamudra, [but the way he chooses is to distinguish] the Vajra part from the Sutra part.

I may have to stop here, because the time is quite late. I will divide the rest of the material between the Thursdays we have left.

Audience: Rimpoche, earlier in the meditation course, you referred to a book that your friend wrote. [The author] said that instead of meditating on the Guru, just meditate on your mind. Do you have any further thought on that?

Rimpoche: I think what I said is that Mahamudra is Guru. The absolute Guru is the Guru within you. It is your own mind. It is not this contaminated mind, it is your uncontaminated pure mind, which is free of grasping, and is of the nature of emptiness. I hope I said that.

Thank you.

9/27/2004