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20051009GRGRFR4M5

4mind 5: 2.02 hours

So far we have completed the first mindfulness of the guru and gone quite far into the mindfulness of Bodhimind. Lets us continue to read what Kyabje Ling Rimpoche says about it:

Day 3

Nagarjuna says: "If we want Enlightenment, then we need to develop compassion, Bodhichitta and a proper understanding of Voidness." The primary cause of Buddhahood is Bodhichitta, for which we need to develop proper compassion. To develop Bodhichitta on a sound basis, it has to be preceded by recognizing all sentient beings as having been our mothers. Then, thinking of their kindness, of all beings' kindness, we engage in practices to repay this. Then comes developing genuine love and compassion, and the pure dedication of working for the benefit of all sentient beings. The root cause of developing actual Bodhichitta is compassion. The nature of compassion is to want all sentient beings to be separated from their sufferings. To develop compassion towards sentient beings, we need a vast understanding of the suffering that sentient beings have to experience. To have a feeling for that, we have to clearly see what our own position is, here in samsara. To develop renunciation of suffering in general, we need to see that there is no ultimate happiness even in the Indra or Brahma heavens - the highest of the deva realms - and to recognize that, we need to see the suffering nature; that there is no happiness in this very life. To work hard at accumulating negative actions for the happiness of this life leads only to countless hellish rebirths, so you have to see that there is no point in such an accumulation. Since there is a very real danger of falling to one of the three lower realms, we need a means of protection, which is Refuge in the Three Gems. So, develop the proper Mahayana attitude and listen to this teaching in order to develop Bodhichitta, to attain Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Every day it is customary to quote from one of the scriptures and explain it. Here Kyabje Rimpoche has chosen to explain the Seven Stages of developing the bodhimind, upwards from recognizing all beings as mother beings, rememering their kindness, repaying, committing, developing love and compasion, the special commitment and the bodhimind. Then he traces back that the bodhimind depends on the root of great compassion, which is understanding of suffering and especially our own sufferings. So he goes through the common with the medium level to the mahayana level and as the basis of the mahayana he is introducing the common with the medium and the common with the lower level. This is understanding the basis of our own suffering and the renunciation.

In the Tibetan tradition that is the system. Teachings are normally done forwards once, backwards once, and forwards again. This is trying to show the link within ourselves. By the reality of our situation also our practice has to go back and forth. The nature of samsara is the continuty of form, which is the product of karma and the delusions. Kyabje Rimpoche always says when you look for samsara you don't look outside, but within you. Also, within, samsara is not physical, not mental, but it is the continuation of the contaminated identity. This translator chooses to call it the continuity of form which is the product of karma and delusion. “Form” is not the only possible translation. In Tibetan the term is pung po, which can be form but also identity.

The nature of samsara is the continuity of form which is the product of karma and delusion. In samsara, which is called "the circle" in Tibetan, we go around and around like the hands of a clock; born over and over again, sometimes high, sometimes low-we keep coming back to the same thing.

The term in Tibetan is kor wa, which really means circling.

In this context, samsara is called "limitless" and in our situation it is limitless, because if we keep accumulating negative actions, making the same mistakes repeatedly, there is no way of telling when we'll put an end to it.

In Tibetan it is called ta me – no limit. There is no beginning and no ending. There is an end to the individual samsara, but otherwise it is limitless.

But in fact there are methods. Samsara is like a jail: once a person is put in, he is watched over by guards and subjected to the torment of mental and physical sufferings. Once you are trapped in samsara, wherever you are born, whether in the highest or the lowest realms, you are always guarded by the samsaric guards -your own delusions and actions, and you have to suffer an endless variety of tortures and sufferings. From the moment a being is born into cyclic existence he is subjected day and night to the three types of sufferings - misery, change and pervasion. To elaborate on these: out of six types, first we have the suffering of uncertainty. Once trapped in samsara there is no way of being sure that a friend will not become an enemy. Also, an enemy can become a friend and an old friend can be tomorrow's enemy. There is also uncertainty as to wealth and status; the rich become poor and beggars become rich.

In ancient India there was a man who liked fishing in the pond behind his house. When he died he was reborn as a fish in that pond. His daughter's enemy, who had committed some form of sexual misconduct with her, was reborn in her womb, out of attachment. His wife, out of fondness for her home and family was reborn as the family dog. One day the son-in-law caught the father in the pond - so that evening the family ate the father, while the dog sat coveting the bones, but it was being kicked away by the daughter who was cuddling her former enemy on her lap. Quite a ridiculous situation! Without going so far, just within this very life we can experience uncertainty, because the friend of the early part of one's life can become one's bitter enemy, even within one day. Starting out on the best of terms, over a small misunderstanding a serious quarrel can develop and we are no longer even on speaking terms. There is no certainty anywhere, no assurance or guarantee either of friends and enemies, or of wealth and status. This experience of going from rich to poor and being friends and enemies in turn is all the fault of remaining in samsara.

This story comes out in many versions. I kept on thinking it is Shariputra's story. I kept on searching throughout the textbooks and in the back of mind I thought it could be Katayana's story, rather than Shariputra's. When I looked in Pabongka's Liberation in the Palm of your Hands, he quoted it as Shariputra's story. Finally, one day I met the Ladakhi scholar Jamspar in Columbia University and asked him about the story of Shariputra. He said to me, “Rimpoche, you Tibetans say it is Shariputra's story, but I read it in Sanskrit and it is Katayana's story.” He sent me the copy of Katayana's story in Sanskrit, which I couldn't read, but then I looked it up in the Tibetan texts under Katyana, and I found it there. That happens. The Liberation in the Palms was an oral teaching. Notes were taken and then it was printed in Tibetan and later in English and now everywhere is has become Shariputra's story.

Then there is the suffering of dissatisfaction. No matter how much happiness we get, we can't satisfy ourselves; we want more. We are insatiable, always craving more joy and happiness and pleasure. Ngalenu was a Cakra King and he became the ruler of many types of worlds, until he became Indra's co-ruler, sharing his realm.

Ngalenu was supposed to have been a chakravartin raja, a universal king. This is mythological, almost like a biblical story.

But he was dissatisfied with sharing and wanted the whole kingdom, at which point his rule and power all fell apart and he became extremely weak and poor. It is very important to be content with your experiences of pleasure and happiness in this life, and to set a limit on how much further you will crave for the pleasures and bliss of this life. Contentment with what you have is very important. A beggar once found a magic wish-fulfilling jewel and said “I’ll give it to the poorest person". So he gave it to the king himself, the person who had no contentment and just wanted more power and wealth. Nagarjuna has said: "The best wealth is contentment."

I am not sure if that was really a wishfulfilling jewel or not. I remember it as being a bag full of gold. In any case when he was looking for the poorest person, it happened to be the king, which was the person with the most craving for more.

Then there is the suffering of having to change your physical form again and again, impelled by your own actions and delusions, forced to take rebirth and die again, over and over, in an endless process. While we wander in samsara there is no certainty as to our rebirth status. Again and again we've shared the bliss of Indra's paradise only to fall to the lowest of hells in the next life, driven by our own actions and delusions, so there is no certainty about one's position. As Nagarjuna points out: it's no great wonder for someone to be reborn in the highest samsaric existence, because you are bound to fall to the lowest if you remain within samsara. In short, as long as we remain in samsara, even pleasures are in the nature of suffering. "Once you are born, the final result is death, once you have a companion, the final result is separation, once you have an accumulation, the final result is loss. This is the nature of your samsaric pleasures and joy."

Then we have the suffering of loneliness, of friendlessness. It is useless to make an ultimate effort to look after and to help your friends and relatives, and to hate and fight against your enemies and those you disagree with; it is useless to make such distinctions, separations and divisions. You are born alone and in the end you will die alone. By making an ultimate effort to help friends and to hate and harm enemies, what can you accomplish? When you are in pain no friend can share your suffering and no one can go along with you when you die. Realize that the best of friends cannot help you in that final act or accompany you into future realms. You will be left alone to die and to be reborn.

Kyabje Rimpoche has given a very detailed explanation of the sufferings in samsara in general. You will normally find these in the common with the medium section of the lam rim, as well as in the Three Principles and everywhere else. These are materials for you to bring about the mindfulness of compassion. As you can see, in order to bring compassion for others, first you have to generate compassion for yourself. Somehow the terminology does not permit to use compassion for oneself, so the translator chose the term “renunciation”.

The reasons why and what is to be renounced are given in these points.

These are the general sufferings common to all sentient beings in samsara and for each realm of existence there are specific sufferings also. Within the three lower realms, in the hells the main sufferings are from heat and cold, the pretas (hungry ghosts) suffer primarily from hunger and thirst and animals suffer mainly from being treated brutally and from their own ignorance.

Kyabje Rimpoche is thinking on the lines of Shantideva's statement that the general sufferings of animals is that they eat each other alive. A recent BBC program shows very graphically how the animals kill and eat each other and the reporter even says, "That's why we call them animals".

There are eight specific sufferings in the human realm. Birth is fraught with pain. Aging comes next: you get old, your youth is gone; although you were handsome in youth, as time goes by the beauty fades, an unpleasant appearance develops, you get wrinkled, weak and frail. "Your crumpled face is not the mask of a monkey, it is that your youthfulness has been taken away from you and you are showing your true nature.”

Kyabje Rimpoche quotes here a remark by Gungtang Jampalyang who wrote a booklet called "Tales of Old Age".

Then sickness, which causes so much pain and discomfort, and you wonder and worry: "When will I be cured? Will I be completely well again? Am I going to die?", thus adding intense mental suffering to the physical. Then comes death. People worry so much about when they are going to die. They wonder how and they get nervous thinking: If I am about to die, where am I going? Will I get a better rebirth or go to a lower realm? There is tremendous mental agony at this time.

In addition we worry at that time whether we will be completely annihilated and will no longer exist at all. The most important pain is not knowing what is going to happen.

There is the suffering of being separated from loved ones, and the sufferings of confronting challenges, meeting unpleasant situations, enemies, competition, dangers. Then the suffering of not reaching goals, instead, meeting disasters on the way, losses, problems, difficulties along with your desire to achieve your goal. Look at merchants and businessmen who want big profits, or farmers, wanting large crops. They often go through the experience of not achieving their goal, and additionally suffer all kinds of disasters while trying to be successful. Realizing all these sufferings which are specific to the human realm, you might think there is a chance of avoiding them by taking a rebirth in the higher realms of existence, say in the non-deva realm.

The highest realm of samsaric existence is the god realms, or deva loka in Sanskrit. Then there is the demi-god realms, human realm, animal realms, hungry ghosts, and then the hot and cold hells. That makes the six realms. So Kyajbe Rimpoche is going through each of the realms.

Yet even if you are reborn there, above humans, you have to go through enormous sufferings of jealousy, which is specific to non-devas. They have tremendous mental anguish and suffering- we can see how people who have strong jealousy are constantly tormented by it and they also suffer from engaging in battles with the devas, in which they are injured and cut up and killed.

The non-devas or demigods are supposed to be jealous all the time. This is again a hindu-buddhist biblical story. The god realms and demi god realms share a tree. It is a wishfulfilling tree. The fruits are supposed to be wishfulfilling jewels. The tree is rooted in the non deva land. It grows high and higher into the deva land and the devas get all the fruit. The non-devas have the root, but that doesn't give them anything. So the non devas are always jealous with the devas and make war on them. Ever since they are born, everybody there gets trained to be a soldier and go to fight against the deva's rule of Indra and Brahma. They are never winning, but always get killed. And there is a lake in the non deva realm where all the other non devas see the scenes of war, in which tjey see their own people getting killed. This is a karmic consequence.

Then there is the suffering of the devas. Although devas enjoy the utmost joy, bliss and long life, they suffer specifically from death. When it approaches, the signs come: perspiration, flowers wilting. Once the physical signs appear there is a torment equal to the worst of the lowest hells. Further, as they are clairvoyant, when they look into the future they can see their place of rebirth, which is usually one of the three lower realms -and this is another torment and cause of intense mental anguish.

I always say that where the gods are going to be reborn is like the slums of Calcutta.

In short, wherever you are born, whether in the three higher or the three lower realms, in whichever of the six samsaric realms, there is no way of escaping the three kinds of suffering: the suffering of misery, the suffering of change and the suffering of pervasiveness. The suffering of misery is the unpleasant feeling of pain, as when one is pricked with a needle. The suffering of change comes with the experiences which we consider joy and pleasure. The pleasures we hold dear are subject to change: samsaric happiness and pleasures have no substantial nature of their own. To give an example: you are shivering in a cold room so you go out into the sun. At first it's a big relief from the cold and very pleasant, but after a while it becomes an unpleasant state of suffering, your attitude changes, and you have to go into the shade to get away from the heat. The suffering of pervasiveness is the continuity of the form which is the product of delusions and karma.

Again here we have the definition of contamination. Here it is given as continuity of form which is the product of karma and delusion. I call it the continuity of contaminated identity. Kyabje Rimpoche defines contamination as being produced by karma and delusion.

That contaminated physical form itself is the suffering of pervasiveness. This third type of suffering is called the suffering of collective pervasiveness and it refers to the continuity of the physical form which is the product of delusions and karma, and it pervades all realms of samsara, from the highest to the lowest. It is called "collective," because this body is like a magnet which attracts, or collects, every type of suffering.

Whatever our consciousness maintains as basis - whatever body we may have - has this suffering. Kyajbe Rimpoche probably used "base" in Tibetan and for some reason that was translated as "collective".

It is no great wonder to be able to understand the misery of suffering, or the suffering of change, since some common practitioners realize that physical pleasures are something which will change into suffering and they can thus become separated from attachment. The third type of suffering, that of collective pervasiveness, is dealt with exclusively in the Buddhist tradition, as it deals with the body, the continuity of form which is the product of karma and delusions. Developing a proper renunciation based on understanding the third type of suffering is what is stressed in Buddhism. Je Tzongkhapa said in reply to questions: our physical form is the basis for all types of experiences of suffering and unpleasant feelings, it collects many types of misery and one should at least try to develop renunciation by realizing this nature of suffering. Renunciation means developing a strong determination and will, from being dissatisfied at seeing all the births in samsara; a feeling of distaste, disgust and frustration with being trapped in this cycle of rebirths. Renunciation is a very important practice. In one of his actual physical appearances to Je Tzongkhapa, Manjushri gave a teaching on the "Three Principles of the Path": Renunciation, Bodhichitta and the View of Voidness. The reason why it is called a principle is because in order to become free of samsara you must have developed full renunciation. To become fully Enlightened, the essential thing is to have developed Bodhichitta. So you really have to see all of samsara as suffering and become determined to set yourself free from it. This is renunciation.

Before you can develop sympathetic consideration for sentient beings, to the point of not being able to endure the types of suffering that beings have to undergo, it is very important first for oneself to develop a comprehensive understanding of one's own situation, and the suffering oneself has to go through. It is not sufficient to be like a spectator watching a show; there will not be real intensity watching others, if you have not developed a realization of your own state of suffering in samsara. Thinking of one's own suffering here in samsara will induce renunciation. Then, when you develop a sympathetic consideration for others' suffering, you can develop compassion. From realizing our own position in samsara, from renunciation of our own suffering, we fear falling into the three lower realms and go for Refuge. This is the lowest level of motivation. We cannot remain at that level, but have to develop the intermediate motivation. By developing proper renunciation, seeing the suffering nature of all samsara, we have to develop an ardent desire to liberate oneself and achieve nirvana, which is freedom from all delusions and states of suffering. Having generated that desire, the way to achieve our wish is to practice the Three Higher Trainings: Morality or Ethics, Meditation and Wisdom.

The main point of the teachings on Day 3 were really geared to developing renunciation. What you really need to renounce is the samsara, not the samsaric picnic spots. Actually, those too, but if you don’t want to right now, you don't. The samsaric picnic spots are the glue that keeps us in samsara, a tiny, little joy you are given, making you tremendously happy and willing to go on in samsara. We don't know that this tiny joy is suffering in nature anyway. It comes out as a pleasant feeling. It is the carrot that samsara shows us, but of course there is the stick behind it. This is attachment and obsession. That is the real thing that binds us.

Ego is the root of samsara. That produces hatred, putting fire under us, so we fight. Then of course you will get tired and that's when ego produces attachment and obsession. You feel a slight relief compared to the push of hatred. The way we are engaged in samsara is all ego's tricks and manifestations. It is the manifestation of evil. I don't look at the evil as an external being with horns and a tail, like we see sometimes on television. The real evil is the ego within ourselves. It completely misuses the individual. The ego makes sure we remain in samsara as its slaves. We don't see that. Otherwise nobody would stay. That's why we say in Buddhism that we are confused and deluded and have dualistic view. The whole idea is coming because of that. I still think that Kyajbe Rimpoche has not yet finished the second mindfulness, the mindfulness of compassion or bodhimind.

Although it says compassion, it refers to great compassion, the root of bodhimind. From the great compassion the bodhimind is bound to develop. It is certain to develop. Great compassion is so strong and powerful. It cannot get off track at all. It pushes the individual tremendously to help. You constantly think, "What can I do? Whatever I can do, I will commit myself and definitely do." This will shift you from the great compassion to the seventh stage: commitment. You give a solemn commitment from yourself to all sentient beings to solve their problem, to help them and bring joy.

Then the question will come in: How? You realize, 'I cannot do anything right now. Forget all living beings, I cannot even help one living being, myself. Therefore it is necessary to achieve the highest possible position, Buddhahood. Then I will know what to do to help." Just wishing to gain total enlightenment on the basis of that commitment is actually the precious bodhimind. This wish will be followed by actions. Bodhimind is a two-pronged mind. One prong seeks enlightenment for oneself: I have to do the work. The other prong is the commitment to others. The whole purpose of doing all this is to help and serve. We over-use the phrase: for the benefit of all beings. It is becoming what Allen Ginsberg used to call a buzzword. It starts to lose its value. It doesn't touch us anymore. Allen had recognized that compassion had become a buzzword. Now "benefit" is becoming a buzz word for us too. We use it so much everywhere. If we don't think carefully then it becomes cho tib, something that is always used and has no value. That is very harmful to us. The earlier masters used to give an example for that:

In old Tibet one of the major economic resources are animal products, including animal skins. When the animal skin is left untreated it becomes very hard and rough and useless. In Tibet there were no chemicals and machines. So the only way to treat the skins was by using the animal fats. In Tibet again, there were no plastic containers, so they used animal skins to keep butter and fat. The metaphor here is: no matter how terrible an individual may be, even if they have committed the five heinous non-virtues and so on, they can still become wonderful persons. It is like the raw skins that can be made into all kinds of leather. But the leather that keeps the butter cannot be treated again with butter. Since it has already soaked up a lot of butter, it has become stale and nothing else can be done. So, even people like Hitler and Stalin, Saddam and George Bush (sorry) can be helped by dharma. But if you have heard a lot of dharma and dharma has become a buzz word to you, it becomes extremely difficult to make use of it. You have become immune to the best method of cure. We always have to be aware of that. The words we say so often are in essence very helpful. They have been put together by the early masters. When you say these words think along with them. Then it will be very helpful. But if just the words come from your mouth and you think nothing, after a while they won't mean anything any more. By the fourth and fifth time they are just words and meaningless and it becomes very difficult. Therefore, use fewer words. As for commitments, choose the shorter ones. It is hard to think along with the words in them, especially all these long sadhanas. Whenever you can focus, focus a little bit. Even when all this terminology is becoming buzz words, try to connect heart and mouth and thoughts and it will no longer be buzz words and then it can help.

The wish and the commitment to help, to serve, to lead, to guide, to push myself and all living beings to full enlightenment, and overcome all the sufferings, the obvious, vivid ones and the pervasive suffering and even the imprint of the sufferings once and for all - such a strong commitment and wish will bring about the bodhimind.

This very important mind depends on the strong commitment, which depends on the compassion. This again depends on love. If you don't love the person you don't really care that much. Therefore it is true that compassion is based on love. If you love someone you will be prepared to tolerate all their nonsense, no matter how much pain in the neck they may be. Love makes it easy to transit to compassion. Again, you don't love someone unless you have a reason. It could be attraction, attachment or desire or something else. Here in the seven stages love evolves from the wish to repay the kindness of others. For that purpose you have to first see all beings as kind mother beings and that is not possible without first developing equanimity.

Even if you have equanimity, if you can't see your own suffering and pain, how could you recognize the pain and suffering of others? This is a very simple, complete and compact Buddhist practice.

Seeing pain and suffering, there are basically three: suffering of misery, suffering of change and the hardest to see is the pervasive suffering. It is everywhere, it is cause of all negativities and the result of all negativities. It is almost like the basis of ego. Seeing ourselves in that suffering, disliking it, wanting to get away from it, wanting to be completely free of it – that very thought in our personal experience has to be then focused on other people, transferred to their situation and then it becomes compassion. This is the mindfulness of bodhimind. Bodhimind can be developed in two ways: the seven stages development and the exchange stage development. In Tsongkhapa's tradition, the very special way of developing bodhimind is the eleven stage development, which is the combination of the seven stage and the exchange stage systems. Pabongka describes this in the “Liberation in the Palm of your Hand.”

In normal cases, when you don't have much understanding of bodhimind, even ordinary compassion and caring is better than nothing.

Day 4

As the great Je Tzongkhapa has said: It is extremely rare to have an opportunity to attain a human body with the eight freedoms and the ten endowments and to meet the Buddhadharma. At such a time we should not waste our time with trivial matters, with struggling for gain or positions. Instead of wasting this opportunity we should take the essence of this achievement. Taking the essence doesn't mean wealth, good clothes, power and status. The good things of this life are not the essence; we have been born in such situations again and again and have failed to take the true essence. Taking advantage of this opportunity means engaging in sincere Dharma practice.

There are three levels of practice. The best is to achieve Enlightenment, to become free of all obstacles to omniscience, to attain the state of Buddhahood for the benefit of all beings. The next best is at least to free oneself from cyclic existence. The very least is freedom from rebirth in the three lower realms, which prevents us from achieving this human body with its opportunities to meet the Dharma, the wisdom to practice it, and happiness and joy. We should take the essence through the practice of Dharma, which doesn't mean just circumambulating temples, doing prostrations or recitations, or repeating mantras. The true practice of Dharma is done in the mind. The word Dharma means "to hold back", but from what? Either from lower rebirths, from falling into samsara, or from obstacles to full Enlightenment.

Among all types of teachings, this is the supreme teaching of the Mahayana, so we should listen with the highest intention of attaining Enlightenment for the benefit of all, and with the determination and affirmation not to leave these teachings at the merely intellectual level, but to sincerely put them into practice, and strive to attain for the benefit of all beings.

You see he is repeating the same information several times, in shorter and in longer form. Everywhere it is repeated. That is what dharma is all about.

Yesterday, within the context of the verse which is “In the prison of the suffering of limitless cyclic existence," I explained the faults of samsara, the suffering that each being is conditioned to undergo at all levels, in all realms, as well as the specific sufferings for each type of rebirth. Then we saw how we need to have an accurate understanding of our own position as individuals in samsara before we can start to genuinely generate compassion and love for other sentient beings. While we stand around as spectators, as if we have nothing to do with the show, there is no way of generating proper compassion for others. Just as we individuals will have to wander aimlessly and endlessly in this cycle, all other beings who have been our parents time and again, are similarly trapped. We must contemplate and meditate on the love that cherishes all others without partiality. We are overly attracted to our friends and get angry with our enemies, and usually we do our utmost to help our friends and go to great lengths to hurt the beings who are our enemies. The rest, those who don't fall into either of these categories, we just ignore. That is a partial attitude, and it is wrong. It is said that all sentient beings without exception have been parents to each of us. We might feel that since there are limitless beings, there is a likelihood that some in fact have not, but that is incorrect. As we have been born endless times, our samsaric existence is limitless, so their existence is limitless also, as well as their number of births. There are four types of birth: from a womb, from an egg, from heat and moisture, and by penetration. Most births require parents.

Before developing compassion it is very important to have equanimity. If you want to draw a picture on the ground, you clear away the stones and obstacles first to get a level surface without bumps. We need the smooth surface of equanimity to develop compassion free of the great obstacles of attraction, repulsion and indifference to beings. When we contemplate our friends we generate love and affection towards those who have been kind and friendly, then when we think of our enemies or those who have been unpleasant, we generate repulsion and anger, and towards those who have been neither kind nor unkind we feel indifference. As the thought of affinity and affection towards friends occurs, think: has it always been so, maybe this was an enemy before, in previous lives? When aversion develops towards an enemy, wonder whether he was not once our good, kind friend. When indifferent, also think that maybe before this person has been very, very kind to us. You can also use a shorter time factor, say over the past few years.

In essence, we should develop complete equanimity. This is highly emphasized here, as it is only then that you can embark on the proper procedure for developing compassion. The first step is realizing that for each birth we have needed a mother, so all sentient beings have been our mother at some point, and in fact, each single one has been our parent many times. Once we are fully convinced that all have been our mothers, the rest will come quite easily: remembering their kindness, wanting to repay it, admiring love, compassion and the dedicated wish will all follow automatically. When trying to recall the kindness of all sentient beings, first we should think of the kindness of our own mother. After carrying us in her womb for nine months, after birth she held us as though she had found a precious jewel. When we were as helpless as a worm, she taught us our first steps, shared all her time and energy and food and love, educated us and prepared us for life in this world. Even animals, although limited by their ignorance, when rearing their young will sacrifice their lives to protect them, as a bird instead of flying away will cover her little ones with her wings to protect them. They also spend much time licking and cleaning their young. Similarly our mothers have been extremely kind to us every time. This is called "Remembering their kindness", so we should try to understand the love we have received from our mothers since beginningless time.

After recalling their kindness, the next step is to engage in ways to repay it. To know how they have been without taking steps to repay it, just ignoring them, is shameless behavior totally lacking in nobility. Now, although there are plenty of beggars, feeding and clothing them is not the best way of repaying them, as we can never satisfy them or make them all rich, but only a few. The best way of repaying the kindness of sentient beings is to have the determination and the ardent desire to separate all beings from suffering and to stabilize their happiness. The desire to separate beings from suffering is called compassion, and the aspiration to stabilize their happiness is called love. But it is not sufficient just to have these thoughts; as it is the children's responsibility to take care of their parents, so we have to take responsibility for separating them from their sufferings and take positive action to stabilize their happiness, which is the dedicated intention.

We take this responsibility of helping all sentient beings, without depending on the help of others, with determination and dedicated intention. Then, if you examine yourself: do I really have such abilities? You will see that not only are you incapable of helping all sentient beings, you are quite helpless yourself. Although your goal is very noble, you simply lack the means and the methods to attain it. If you look around, you will see that only Buddhas can actually do this -by emitting just one ray of light they give ultimate benefit to all beings. So determine to become a Buddha to reach your goal of helping others. This method is called the six causes and one result: recognizing all beings as mothers, remembering their kindness, wanting to repay it, admiring love, dedicated intention and compassion are the causes; the result is Bodhichitta, the determination to become fully-Enlightened. In the context of this verse the emphasis is on compassion, which is the main cause and basis for developing Bodhicitta. Once you recognize all beings as having been your mothers, the admiring, happy love will occur without effort; then compassion, then dedicated intention and finally Bodhichitta will arise.

This method was given directly by Buddha Shakyamuni to Maitreya Buddha, who gave it to Arya Asanga. Through Je Tzongkhapa it has been passed through our present lineage of Gurus. If you want to practice, this method is quite sufficient for developing Bodhichitta. There is an alternative method called "equalizing and exchanging self for others". This second, alternate method also came from the Buddha who gave it to Manjushri, and it reached our present lineage of Gurus through Pandit Shantideva. This method of exchanging self for others also requires the preliminary development of equanimity -there is a slight difference, as in the first case what is important is to stop attraction and repulsion, whereas here what is important is to equalize, not to make any difference in the way of producing happiness and joy for sentient beings.

That is why we talk about four types of equanimity. One is the equanimity of the seven stages, the other is exchange stage and so on.

We take one being as our object of analysis; see how he has sometimes been kind, sometimes unkind, but we see how the kindness prevails. The kindness of beings is not restricted to when they have been our mothers, they have also been kind when they were not. The eight and ten special conditions of a human rebirth are the result of the kindness of other beings, and our precious human rebirth is based on morality, refraining from harming others, being patient, generating love and compassion towards others. Without sentient beings we could not practice morality, or develop good qualities, and they are the force behind our development of Bodhichitta, attainment of the state of Nirvana or Liberation, and of highest Enlightenment. So it is through their kindness that we reach all the stages of spiritual development. They also produce all our food and clothing, housing, entertainment and pleasures. Most of us can't even weave or sew, let alone produce all the other conveniences we enjoy, so we owe all our comfort to others.

Cherishing others impartially, not ignoring or neglecting them is very important. One should disregard oneself, not consider oneself important, and instead hold others very dear, more dear than oneself. Cherishing oneself is the cause of all downfalls, whereas cherishing others is the source of all happiness. We should develop the realization of actually cherishing others more than oneself. First of all, contemplate the advantages of cherishing others and the disadvantages of cherishing oneself, which is selfishness. As Acharya Shantideva has said: all misfortunes and unpleasantness come from selfishness and ignoring others; all wars, epidemics, famines, catastrophes, even quarrels between neighbors and arguments in a small room are caused by that attitude. The great Geshe Thogme Sangpo in his training of the mind text has emphatically said that all unpleasantness in life comes from one attitude, which is self-cherishing. He also said that holding others more dear than oneself not only gives all happiness and bliss in this life and is the cause of all good qualities and joy, it even produces Buddhahood. In the context of exchanging self and others there shouldn't be the misunderstanding that you are the other person and that he is you: the point isn't trading places. What has to change is the attitude within oneself: no longer holding oneself most dear, from now on cherish others more.

The next step in this tradition is giving and accepting. We've seen the various extensive sufferings both general and specific which beings have to undergo. Developing strong compassion towards them, we accept their many great sufferings in the form of black rays of light which come towards us and into ourselves, thus "taking" their suffering. This practice consists of first accepting, then giving; accepting all suffering on oneself, with compassion, then giving with the emphasis on love. We give our bodies, wealth and accumulation of virtuous actions which become whatever sentient beings wish for. Whatever they desire, their wish is fulfilled: you visualize that they are fully satisfied, that you prepared them and brought them almost to the point of Buddhahood. It says in "Guru Puja” that we should accept all beings' unpleasant experiences, their misery and their suffering, and take them into ourselves, thus practicing acceptance with compassion. Then practice giving with love, with the thought of stabilizing beings' happiness by giving them our own happiness and pleasure, our bodies, wealth and virtuous actions which are the cause of all happiness. According to the teachings on the training of the mind, these practices should be alternated.

The next step in this method is dedicated intention. Taking suffering and giving happiness is limited to a state of mind, as we cannot really take their sufferings or give them happiness. Only Buddhas can actually do this. So we have to develop the determination to become Buddhas ourselves, since only they have the power and capability to actually do what we have decided merely at the mental level. This dedicated intention is the same as in the other tradition, and so is the Bodhichitta. The only difference is in thinking of the respective disadvantages and advantages of cherishing oneself and others. Remembering that compassion is the main force behind the development of Bodhichitta, never forgetting this, engage in the practice of compassion.

With that, Kyajbe Rimpoche completes the compassion aspects of the path. He revisited here the seven stage method as well as touched on the exchange stage method. He even quoted the Guru Puja (tib: Lama Chopa). If you are familiar, there are five verses out of the lama chopa that are used to develop the exchange stage bodhimind. I am not going to repeat that here, because I have done that a number of times. There are transcripts available and you have heard it a number of times, learnt and practiced it, so we don't have to repeat that.

(Rimpoche reads oral transmission in Tibetan)

Meditation on Mindfulness of Altruistic Aspiration

Last night we did the first meditation. We meditated the guru on our crown, sitting on lotus and moon and sun. The guru is in the form of Manjushri, because the fourth mindfulness is wisdom. It was also Manjushri who gave this teaching to Tsongkhapa who himself happens to be Manjushri. It is sort of an exchange between two Manjushris for our benefit. That doesn't mean that you cannot use the guru as Avalokitesvara or Vajrapani. We did a teaching on the Ganden Lha Gyema on the Labor Day week end and there you could see that the trintiy of Avalokitesvara, Manjushri and Vajrapani are all interchangeable.

Talking about trinities. It was brought to my attention that the exhibition on the Female Buddhas at the Rubin museum has a presentation of a female trinity. Glenn Mullin wrote the accompanying book to it. I don't know whether the book is based on the collection but it goes hand in hand with it. So Glenn presented Tara, Ralchigma and Marichi as a female trinitiy. Glenn Mullin quotes from the First Dalai Lama's Praise to Tara as reference to that trinity. I was a little surprised because that prayer talks about Tara and her two retinues, and not about a trinity that represents compassion, wisdom and power. I don't know if Glenn has other sources, such as a commentary on that Tara Praise of the First Dalai Lama. So I don't know if the trinity of Avalokitesvara, Manjushri and Vajrapani is also expressed in female aspects. I am not very sure.

In any case, altough the aspects of Avalokitesvara, Manjushri and Vajrapani are interchangeable, here it is recommended to choose Manjushri for the reasons given above. Perhaps, if you want to, you could choose Avalokitesvara for the mindfulness of compassion, if you do that separately. For wisdom you could use Manjushri and for the mindfulness of the guru you can use the guru.

How can we integrate this teaching with our regular practice, like the lama chopa? This teaching has been taught separately, on its own. So you can always practice it separately on its own. But on the other hand, if you look at the lama chopa and the ganden lha gyema, they are both guru devotional practices to start with and the guru is the same guru. The guru can appear in the form of Tsongkhapa or Manjushri or in the form of Vajradhara, as in the Six Session Yoga, or sometimes in the form of Heruka or Vajrayogini during some of the mother tantra commitments. So the appearance of the guru is interchangable. So that part is compatible. Then the offering of the seven limbs, generating bodhimind, the four immeasurables, etc, it is all the same too.

At the time of request, in the ganden lha gye ma you bring the guru to your crown and say the verse:

O precious and kind root guru, come take your lotus and moon seat on my crown.......

You may not have to verbally say that, because you have already generated the guru on your crown. Then, reciting migtsemas, obtaining the blessings of the gurus, that is all the same thing.

The teaching tradition will recommend to make prayers and requests to each of the lineage lamas. But this morning I lead the visualization of seeing Manjushri on lotus, moon and sun on your crown and then for the first migtsema I focused on the root guru as guru Manjushri. Light and liquid came from Manjushri and purified everything. The second time we said the migtsema I jumped from Kyajbe Ling Rimpoche in form of Manjushri straight above to Tsongkhapa. In that way, with one migtsema I covered the whole lineage. For example, in Yamantaka there are 34 lineage lamas. It would be very difficult to make requests to each and every one of them separately. We just think they are there. And they are the objects of refuge and light and liquid come from their bodies and we obtain blessings.

Then the last one focused particularly on Tsongkhapa. Light and liquid came and purified and we obtained blessings.

Next it is Manjushri himself and purification is done and blessings are obtained. Then next it is Buddha Vajradhara above him. Then we made requests after which he dissolved into the one below him and so on, the whole line of lineage masters dissolved into the root guru.

Then we went into the Foundation of Perfections. This is the very root of the practice. Kyajbe Rimpoche repeatedely said that this prayer is the essence of the path, the essence of the lam rim, the stages of the path. It really is the foundation of perfection.

Pabongka too, in the Liberation in the Palm of your Hands, while talking on a different subject, always comes round to that sequence of the stages of the path. Even Tsongkhapa's lam rim chen mo follows the same steps.

For the first verse, light and liquid came and purified negativity in genearl and specifically developed the guru devotional practice and purified obstacles. The state of the mindfulness of the guru has been obtained.

Then the second verse was about the precious life and impermanence all together. The third verse: this is particularly about the impermanence of this life. The teachings repeatedly say: don't get attached to the samsaric goodies. Literally it says not to have attachment to the pleasures of this life. It really means: don't be fooled by the samsaric goodies. The best way not to get fooled by samsaric goodies is thinking about death, particularly our own future death. With that, particularly the uncertainty of death will cut that attachment to samsaric goodies.

Then contemplate karma and so on. At each verse you think that you have purified obstacles to this stage and that you now have obtained this stage. this is including the vajaryana practices. At the end you pray that you may never be separated in life after life from the precious teachings of Tsongkapa.

Then we stopped at the dissolving point at the ganden lha gye ma. Let us do that now. There is this verse you say three times:

Come take your lotus and moon seat at my crown....and then finally Come take your lotus and moon seat at the heart. At that, the guru Vajradhara dissolves to Manjushri, who dissolves to Tsongkhapa, who dissolves to all the lineage masters, finally to the root master in form of Manjushri, who then dissolves to yourself.

Now it is slightly different from the ganden lha gyema. There the guru dissolves to you and remains at the heart level. This is the system of the pure sutra practice. Here, at the Four Mindfulnesses, it is mixed with vajrayana practice. By dissolving the guru within you, you generate tremendous bliss.

If you have the background of the mahamudra, this is the place to use it. In the lama chopa teachings, at the final dissolution, the whole tree dissolves to the guru and the guru dissolves to you. In the lama chopa, although it has vajrayana influence, the guru, when dissolving to you, remains in the guru form at your heart level. Mahamudra is actually emptiness practice, dharmakaya practice. All the dissolving systems that we teach in the sadhanas can be used at this level. That dharmakaya state is the actual mahamudra stage, the actual emptiness.

In the sadhanas you arise in sambogakaya and then in nirmanakaya. But here the guru remains at the heart level. If you do the guru mindfulness separately you conclude here with the guru at your heart. That is if you are not combining it with the divine body mindfulness. Within that state you can generate compassion and develop wisdom, which is already included with the mahamudra aspect.

If you are authorized to arise as a deity you can do that in whatever form that maybe, but recommended in this case is the form of Manjushri.

The compassion meditation is easy here. As Kyabje Rimpoche has said and as we said last night, Shakyamuni and all enlightened beings have said with one voice that all sentient beings have been our mother. They are not lying. To say that is a short cut. We can't really see that clearly, no matter how much analysis we might go through. Until we really make a breakthrough we can't see it directly. So even if one Buddha could be wrong, all of them can't be. This is just to satisfy our rational mind.

Every time these beings have been our mothers they have been very kind like our own mother in this life who has saved our life a number of times each day. Also her other expressions of kindness have brought us up to this level of a human functioning.

All beings have thus been extremely kind and I am indebted to their kindness and compassion. I am not a bad person, so therefore I will not forget their kindness. My pride will not allow me to be a bad person. I must remember their kindness. However, being greatful alone is not good enough. I must try to repay their kindness. I owe them. To be a good person means to pay what you owe. Yes, right now I can give a little service, by giving medicine to the sick and food and shelter to the poor. But I have this great opportunity -once in a blue moon – to help them completely, once and for all, to liberate them from their suffering, along with myself. I cannot and will not lose this opportunity.

I see their sufferings. I see how intense they are. they are tortured and tormented just like me. I just can't keep watching it. I canot bear it and must do something. I must completely remove their suffering. For that I must commit myself. I wish I could liberate them immediately, but I cannot. Not only I cannot liberate them all. I can't even liberate myself. For that I must become a fully enlightened Buddha. That is a must. The urgency of the suffering is so great. I am suffering myself and all others, one after another, from right, from left, inside, outside, up and down and everywhere. I will not forget that and I vow to remove their suffeirng. May I be blessed by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and by Buddha Manjushri to be able to do that.

That was the second meditation.

end of 4mind5