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20051007GRGRFR4M1

4mind1

Welcome everybody here to this week end. When we decided to do this retreat, my thought was to do a teaching on the Four Mindfulnesses. I would like to share that with you.

It is interesting. Normally, when you hear about the Four Mindfulnesses, straight away you will think about the mindfulness of body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of mind and mindfulness of all existence, as part of the 37 wings of the Buddha-Dharma.

Teachings on these Four Mindfulnesses [Four Foundations of Mindfulness] are available from many sources, including the Buddhist traditions coming out of South-East Asia.

However, the Four Mindfulnesses I am going to talk about here, are different. They are four points to be mindful of always. It is a secret teaching given by Manjushri to Je Tsongkhapa. Those who are familiar with Buddhist terminology, will know, but in general, the easiest way to tell you who Manjushri is that he is the Buddha of Wisdom. You can talk a lot about whether he is a Buddha, a Bodhisattva, a manifestation or embodiment of wisdom or whatever, but lets just stick with Buddha of Wisdom. He was teaching Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug tradition in Tibet, who lived from 1357 to 1419.

During the earlier period of his study Tsongkhapa was not satisfied with the existing explanations on wisdom that were available in Tibet at that time. He wanted to go to India to do some further study. But by that time, the great Indian Buddhist universities had declined quite a lot. It had also become quite difficult to go there. Further, Je Tsongkhapa had already over a thousand students following him everywhere. If he had gone to India it would have become a great hardship for a lot of people. Actually, Tsongkhapa used to go from place to place to either receive or give teachings and people started following him around. They heard he was going somewhere and just went along. His students were almost like nomads. Sometimes he would stay in a particular place for a few weeks or maybe months and by the time he was leaving, the last people wanting to hear him talk would still just arrive there. There were whole families of people following him. It became very difficult and they really begged him not to go to India. Not only his students, but also some of his teachers asked him not to go, saying that "Even if you go to India, you are not going to find anything better."

Still, Tsongkhapa was not satisfied with the explanations of any living teacher of that period. So he decided to get his questions somehow passed along to Manjushri himself. There happened to be one of his teachers known as Lama Umapa, from the Sakya tradition. He had frequent visions of Manjushri, talked to him, asked questions and brought answers back. This Lama Umapa now acted as a go between for Manjushri and Tsongkhapa. So Manjushri instructed Tsongkhapa not to go to India but rather ask him directly. Manjushri told Tsongkhapa,

Before you can do this, you have to go into retreat to a very quiet, remote area in the mountains. You can't take all your retinue there. I will name the people who should go with you.

There was another teacher of Tsongkhapa known as Lho trak Drub chen Lek she Dorje. I think he was from the Kargyu tradition. He used to have continuous visions of Vajrapani, who also confirmed that Manjushri would teach Tsongkhapa through Lama Umapa. Finally, Manjushri named eight people to go into retreat with Tsongkhapa. They had to go up into the mountains, 15,000 feet high and look for caves to live in. They had to do a lot of purification. Eventually, Tsongkhapa did receive direct visions of Manjushri and other deities. At first he refused to accept them. There were the 35 Buddhas of Purifications appearing over the mountains tops and all kinds of visions. Tsongkhapa's first reaction was to totally ignore all of them, until he was absolutely sure. He received a lot of confirmations, including Manjushri appearing to another person saying that the visions were real and not a trick. Even then Tsongkhapa did not accept. He made sure by asking questions to the visionary appearances, difficult questions that he himself knew the answers of. That way, if the answers were correct, he could be sure the visions were true. So finally, he received direct teachings from Manjushri.

One of these teachings was the Three Principal Aspects of the Path and one of them was this teaching on the Four Mindfulnesses. The Four Mindfulnesses is a slightly secret teaching, more so than the Three Principles. It is not given very often. When I was looking at existing teaching materials, I did not find very much. There was one teaching given by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, on this. It was translated by Jeffrey Hopkins. So that is available in English.

The Four Mindfulnesses are:

1. Mindfulness of Guru

2. Mindfulness of Altruistic Aspiration to Highest Englightenment

- that is Jeffrey Hopkins' translation. Actually he is talking about bodhimind, the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional compassion and love.

3. Mindfulness of your Body as a Divine Body.

4. Mindfulness in the View of Emptiness.

Earlier, we couldn't find any other existing teaching notes in English. I actually did take this teaching from Kyabje Ling Rimpoche, the senior tutor of His Holiness, twice. The last time was in Tibet House in New Dehli. That was in 1980 sometime. That teaching was recorded by tape recorder. Transcripts were made and that came out as part of a book. Since I attended I do know that it was recorded. But I never read the transcript. Yesterday, when I came on the plane to New York, I read that for the first time. It is very good. It may not be the best English but it is an excellent teaching. So I thought that I would make the transcript available to you. I cannot tell you anything better than my guru Kyabje Ling Rimpoche, no way. And this is really great. So it is available to you. There are copies for everyone. There is even a photo of Kyabje Ling Rimpoche on the first page. That is great. So this is going to be very easy, not so much work for me.

We can read straight from the transcript. The only difficulty is for me to read the English. My English is terrible. Normally, when I read something in English I fall asleep after half a page and therefore rather switch to the Tibetan. Kyabje Rimpoche had given this teaching over 5 days in Tibet House, New Dehli. So, in the transcript copy you are looking at, it is divided into Day 1, Day 2, etc. When I am reading this, I remember again exactly what he did. According to Tibetan custom, during teachings we quote from the earlier teachers, at least in the tradition that I belong to. As a teacher you don't just talk about something out of your head. You always quote from the tradition and Kyabje Rimpoche himself does that in this teaching. He begins by quoting Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa tradition. The translation of the quote might not be literally exact, however, the meaning is correct. The direct quote that Kyabje Rimpoche used, is from Tsongkhapa's shortest lam rim. We do sometimes do teachings on that as well.

The quote is about the preciousness of the human life. The transcript says:

Je Tzongkhapa says in his writings how very fortunate we are; we have a fully endowed human body and we have met the teachings. It is essential that we should recognize how auspicious this situation is and how lucky we are to have met the Dharma and to have a chance to practice. How are we fortunate? We have a precious human body.

It is true. We do have this precious body with us, however, our problem is that we don't recognize how precious it really is until we are under threat of losing it. Until then we take it for granted. Talking about mindfulness: one of the points to be mindful of is to recognize the value of our human life. It is not necessarily only the body, but the body is the basis of this human life, so therefore it becomes important. But human life itself is tremendously valuable and important.

We have the habit of ignoring our body, when it comes to health issues. In my own case, the last thing I will attend is looking after my body. That is why I have become a couch potato, as you can see. Likewise, a lot of us will say, "It has become a little cold, but so what, I won't bother". Or, "I am getting a little wet outside, but it doesn't matter." From the wider angle, often we consider our work more important than taking care of ourselves physically. The overriding priority is given to the work. That way we do abuse our body. We shouldn't do that. Human life is very precious and it does depend on our body and our mind. If something is wrong with either of them we lose the value of this life. If we lose the body, the value of this life is totally gone. If we lose our mind, there is also no human value left.

In the past we have been reborn in all possible states. Sometimes in the three higher rebirths, innumerable times in the three lower.

We say that our lives are beginningless and limitless. We have taken a lot of rebirths. We have been born in lower realms "innumerable times", and in the higher rebirths much less often. Still, we continuously take rebirth due to our karma.

To have all the eight qualities and ten endowments of a perfect human rebirth is almost a unique chance.

Those of you who don't know, you have to read about the eight qualities and ten endowments. The information is in all lam rim texts and also in my lam rim transcripts. But just briefly: the ten endowments are divided into two: five from the point of view of time, and five from the point of view of the individual. It is actually very obvious: I can see, I can hear, I can understand. I can communicate. Timewise, Buddha's teaching is still alive. You can still connect with the living tradition and obtain total enlightenment. These ten endowments give us the opportunity.

The eight leisures are also easy to follow. If you are in the hell realms you have no time to practice. As a hungry ghost you are too hungry to practice. In the animal realms you are too dull to have an opportunity to practice. If you are reborn in the samsaric god realms, there is too much pleasure. So you won't be able to pratice. In the demi-gods realms there is too much anger and jealousy. You won't have an opportunity to practice. But in the human realm we do have the opportunity.

…and it is also extremely rare to hear the complete teachings and to have time to put them into practice.

This is true. Lets say this was the 1930s in America or anywhere in Europe. If you were to look for Buddhism then you wouldn't find anything at all. Also, in a couple of decades from now, it won't be here anymore either. So this is really the period in between where you can really gain something. In the second half of the 1900s and now in the 2000s there is a unique opportunity, because something had happened in this country to open it up. We have to thank the people of the 1960s for that. They opened up the human mind to this possibility. It was the beatnik poets and all the others who tried to explore the human mind. If they didn't do that in the 1960s, we wouldn't be doing this today, for sure. The opportunity has come to us just at the right time. This is also in accordance with what the Tibetan teachers and in particular, Kyabje Ling Rimpoche, is saying here.

So, realizing the uniqueness of this opportunity, determine to take advantage of it and make full use of it

Even if the opportunity is there, you need the capable life to make use of it. You not only need the basic quality of a human life but also the quality of an open mind. There are a great number of people around us, yet they don't have this unique opportunity. Their mind may not be that open. Perhaps they are too conservative or maybe they are too liberal. Very few people will really explore spirititualiy deeply and truly. Many people show a superficial interest and a lot of people may have no interest at all. Only very few will deeply go into it. Even among them, only very few will really have the opportunity.

On the one hand we say, "Oh this is because we don't do enough good publicity". That maybe true, but at the same time, it is really the karmic connection of the individual which needs to be there in the first place. Many people simply don't have the karma to be able to take advantage of this unique possibility. The opportunity may pass by under your nose very close by and you won't have any idea at all. It happens.

Right now, right here, we are in a different position. We do take a deep interest and we have come across a profound teaching. This teaching on the Four Mindfulnesses which Manjushri taught to Tsongkhapa has been kept quite secret under the cover of the general Four Mindfulness teaching. Curious people may do a google search on the computer, but they are first going to come across the Four Mindfulnesses of body, feelings, mind and phenomena. Reading about them they will be fully satisfied.

Realize the preciousness of a human body and the rarity of hearing the teachings.

First we have to realize the preciousness of our human body. This is not me talking but Kyabje Ling Rimpoche, the senior guru of the present Dalai Lama.

This is still not enough: we must take the essence of this opportunity by striving for Enlightenment or for liberation from suffering, or at the very least refrain from taking a lower rebirth.

He is here introducing the three different goals of what you can hope to achieve in spiritual practice. Best is to become a fully enlightened Buddha. The second goal is to at least liberate yourself from suffering and at the very least you should make sure that your future rebirth will be okay. These are the goals. Spiritual practice is not just so that you feel good or to solve your depression. Yes, it does help with that too, but that is not the purpose at all. If that is your only purpose you are not on a good path at all. The little man-made problems can be solved in a variety of ways. The traditional teachers would say

You don't need an axe to cut a louse into two pieces

Many Tibetans, while talking a lot about compassion, used to pick up the lice, torture them and squeeze them between the fingers. That is why during the teachings the teachers will always point that out as an example of perfect negativity. There is anger as motivation, then you torture thelice as much as you can and finally you squeeze a little blood out of their little body and then say with satisfaction, "ha". This is the example of a perfect bad karma. Anyway, to get a little temporary relief for right now is not the purpose of spiritual practice. Full enlightenment is the best goal. If not, at least free yourself from the sufferings of samsara. If you can't achieve that, at least make sure your next rebirth is okay.

This is talking from the background of reincarnation, not from the view that our life ends at death. Normally, I wouldn't get into these points too much, but since it is written here, it gives me the opportunity to emphasize it more. I might as well add:

The traditional teachings like this one by Kyabje Ling Rimpoche will make the division of a good spiritual path and a bad spiritual path on the basis of what the goal of that path is. Seeking total enlightenment is great. Are you simply seeking freedom from your own suffering? If the path you are practicing can deliver that, that would be the second rating gaol. Then at least such a path should deliver you a positive next rebirth. Can your path do that? Then that would be third class, C- goal. Normally I can't say that because it might disturb what so many other people might say. But since I have the basis here by Kyabje Rimpoche, where he outlines these three goals, I can say it clearly.

To accomplish these purposes we need a sincere practice of the Dharma, and for this we need a proper understanding of the Dharma, proper teachings and the blessings of the unbroken lineage of the Gurus' oral teachings. We cannot rely only on books; although an intelligent person can learn something from books, to really practice we need the blessings of the lineage. So now, out of a great rejoicing state of mind, think how you are going to receive the teachings from a Mahayana teacher.

I can't say that for myself. I never think I am a good teacher, forget about being a great one. I am repeating what Kyabje Rimpoche is saying and at least pretend to be a mahayana teacher.

Avoid mistakes in the way of listening and generate the proper attitudes. The wrong attitudes are described by analogy with three pots: a leaky pot which can't hold its contents, from not concentrating; an upside-down pot, if there are many distracting thoughts, nothing can go inside: be mindful and reflect on the meaning of the teaching; a defiled pot, a stained pot: this is listening to the teaching with the wrong motivation, wanting to gain some benefit from it for this life.

A leaky pot is a problem. No matter how much water you pour in, it will all go out again. We often say that it goes into one ear and comes out the other, straight through, nothing remains. A tea pot with a hole can't hold anything. If the pot is upside down, no matter how much you pour in, it will never go inside. This is like coming here and listening but thinking something else. That never works. The traditional teachings give you an interesting example. We always make fun of the Tibetan nobility. We can always make jokes about them.

So one noble person told his attendant: "When I go to sit in meditation, make sure you leave a piece of paper and a pen next to my cushion." During that time then he would actually write down how much he owed and how much money he had to collect from whom, how much rent to collect and so on. That is what he did in his meditation sessions! When he came out he would give the list to his attendant and give instructions what to do.

This is the example of the upside down pot. You are there and listening but not really listening. You are occupied with something else.

The third mistake is that of a stained pot. Kyabje Rimpoche may or may not have said it at that time. When you want to make that example really vivid you say: you bring a cup which firstly is not of good quality and secondly is totally dirty, stained by some rotten shit. You can never use such a cup to pour in lion's milk. It will spoil the lion's milk.

This example illustrates coming to teachings with prefabricated ideas. You are not open-minded, but you are looking for certain things to be said. When you hear those you are happy, if you don't you are not happy. That is the stained pot. Whatever you hear is not going to help you, it will be affected by your preconceived ideas of what it should be. If your ideas are confirmed you are happy, otherwise you are unhappy. This would not be a good way to pick up this teaching.

Another thing is listening to the teachings with wrong motivation. This is most important. If the motivation is right, everything can be right. If we don't have the right motivation, no matter how much you try, it can go wrong. Kyabje Rimpoche mentions it here: wanting to gain some benefit for this life. This is considered a wrong motivation. If we say that today people won't like it. We would like to have something good for our life right now. But the traditional Tibetan teachings will tell you that this is wrong. Why? Because to try to get something good for this life is a very short term goal. The life we have will last at the most for 90 to 100 years. If you waste the dharma practice for such a short term gain it is not worth it. Dharma practice can give you much better than that.

Also, to pray for material benefits is not proper. You could pray that your next lottery ticket may win or that your business may be successful. A lot of people, especially the Chinese in South East Asia, actually do this. It is somehow in their culture. They will be very generous to people like me, but the purpose of their generosity is to double and triple their business.

The motivation has to be: to become enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. The proper attitude is that I myself am like a sick person.

Buddha himself taught that. He said: Behave like a sick person who is seeking a doctor who can treat you. Take the dharma like medicine.

Afflicted since beginningless time by emotions and delusions

That means we are afflicted by negative emotions since beginningless time. You may think that you are perfectly healthy, but Buddha says you are sick. You are sick with negative emotions and that also for a very long time, since beginningless time.

"a patient who never gets cured, a traveler who never reaches his destination".

This is really what we are. We are locked in samsara life after life, like a patient who never gets cured, a traveler who never reaches his destination.

I was talking with Geshe Sopa once, the great teacher from Wisconsin. He was telling me that I should do more exercise, because I was getting too fat. I said, "I am trying to walk". He said, "Well, I don't think that is enough. Get an exercise bike, a stationary one. That's very good." Then I said, "Oh yeah, you mean I should be like the traveler who, no matter how much he keeps on going, never gets anywhere?" Geshe-la laughed. After a while we met again and found out that we both had knee pains. I couldn't do much exercise, so instead I lay down and put my legs in the air and moved as if I was riding a bicycle. I told Geshe-la that this was helpful for me. He said, "Right, that is easy for you, because you wear pants. For me, wearing robes, if I did that…." We had to laugh.

We keep returning again and again to samsara, never getting anywhere, we are like a prisoner who can never finish any sentence.

This is absolutely true. We come back again and again, not necessarily as human beings, but sometimes with horns on our heads and hairy bodies, sometimes in crazy ways. That happens continuously, again and again. I don't know whether we are prisoners who can never get out or if, even when we get out for a while, we end up going back in all the time. Because of our habitual patterns, addictions, lack of facilities and lack of help we go back to prison straight away. If you can stay outside for a few months, you are lucky. Then you are back. That is exactly our situation.

The Guru is like a doctor, he has the method, and by following his teaching we can actually get out of cyclic existence. The teachings are the medicine that we have to take to get cured. Among all the types of teachings there are, this is a Mahayana teaching, so you need a Mahayana attitude. You need the Enlightened motivation which is an ardent desire for oneself to attain enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings.

We always say during all our prayers, "For the benefit of all sentient beings, I would like to become a fully enlightened Buddha."

Please try to have this motivation of Bodhichitta. Today the teaching is on dbu mai lta hkrid dran pa bzhi ldan. It was received by the great Je Tzongkhapa directly from Manjushri, from whom he often received vast and profound teachings directly, as he was constantly in his presence. Basically this is a text on the Madhyamika philosophy of Voidness, explained through mindfulness of the four following points:

1. Regarding one's own Guru as a truly enlightened being; the admiration for one who shows the method for achieving Buddhahood.

2. Having compassion for all sentient beings and generating the Enlightened Motivation.

3. The simultaneous collection of merit and wisdom through imagining oneself as a deity.

4. The Realization of Emptiness which is coupled with its application to the world of

appearances.

Kyabje Rimpoche talks about the vast and profound teachings. The vast teachings are those related to compassion and love. The profound teachings are about wisdom. The third one, imagining oneself as a deity is slightly secret, but we will talk.

This teaching is a Mahayana teaching, a precious teaching for the purpose of nothing but obtaining enlightenment. It needs the highest motivation: to become a Buddha for the benefit of all beings. When taking these teachings, try to be free of the three faults: not listening - upside down cup, listening but not paying attention - the cup has a hole, using a dirty cup, meaning that whatever you are listening to will not be useful because your attitude is stained. Therefore, have an open mind, not pre-fabricated. Don't expect that the teaching should say what you have in mind and not talk about anything you would object to. In that case you would be the teacher and you would not need to attend any teachings, because you already know better. A lot of us do that. So don't have all these three faults and then, with a perfect motivation, listen to the teaching.

We are really very fortunate. This is what Manjushri directly taught to Tsongkhapa, patted him on the back and said, "Keep this in your mind and think about it all the time." This is not a very public teaching. Even the teachings on the guru we don't put out into the public very easily. It is extremely important, but it can be misunderstood very easily, especially after some unfortunate incidents of the guru-business took place in the 60s and 70s. I normally try to avoid talking about gurus, unless the text we follow demands that. Even then, I try to treat it as carefully or soft as possible. Now here Kyabje Rimpoche gave this teaching in the 80s, it is in English and so it is easy for me to repeat what he said. He really went through with it. I remember it. After the teaching I was holding his hand. I was young then and he was leaning on me, as I helped him go down the steps from the Third Floor of Tibet House in New Dehli. It was a big hall and it was packed. I don't remember who was the translator. There were a couple of professors there, but I don't think Profesor Thurman was there at that teaching. Jeffry Hopkins might have been there. Jose Cabezon was there for sure. This may be his translation that we are reading from. There was a Tibetan translator as well.

When Kyabje Rimpoche was coming down the steps after this teaching he said to me, "Everybody is trying to avoid the subject of guru devotion. Today I have said it - everything. It needs to be said because it helps people. If you never say it how can you expect them to know?" That is what he told me when he came down the steps from the Third Floor. His room was on the Second Floor. The house had a funny lay out. His room was one of those mezzanines on the Second Floor. It was like an apartment.

So he really said a lot about the guru devotion and we will go through it tomorrow.

In between sessions there will be discussion groups. This is done for a number of reasons. You may not understand me very well. I have a heavy accent. Actually, I never really learnt English. The very little English I talk to you today is mostly street language. I learnt mostly from the television programs, like Days of Our Lives. When I first came to this country I didn't have that much to do, so I watched a lot of television. The characters from "Days of Our Lives" are still there. Two years ago, I looked back once, and most of the characters are still there and the same old subjects are still going on. You may understand my words wrongly or not completely. That's why we have made small discussion groups. There you can discuss. You came here to learn something. You could have gone on holidays, but you didn't. You paid money for this. So you have to gain something. To make sure you do, there are these groups, where you can clarify your questions.

And if there is no satisfactory answer we can bring those questions back to our afternoon sessions. Also at the end of the section on each of the Four Mindfulnesses I will introduce a guided meditation. I don't think that Kyabje Rimpoche did that in his teaching in New Dehli.

end of 4mind1