Archive Result

111

Soundfile 20070721KGRCLDELAM2

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location DELAM

Section 2

Transcriber JOHN THORNTON

Date 8-31-07

Lets look at the outline. We have the root of all development, guru devotional practice and after that how to practice yourself. One follows the other. But guru devotional practice is such a thing that it is very hard to develop. It is recommended not to wait, but to simultaneously start to develop it along with other things. Every subject has also basically the same thing: prerequisite, actual and conclusion. Actually, if you are doing it separately, then you are doing the basic meditation on the field of merit, or Lama Buddha Shakyamuni, or whatever; single pointed, or collection of all refuge-Lama Dorje Chang, Buddha Vajradara. The basic structure of the Lamrim mediation, every subject –whether doing it together or separately-- it is the same. You have refuge, supplication, generation of bodhimind, 7-limb, then starting to talk. Here now, same thing. Then white light comes forth.

Actually, they will tell you the fault is because we do not appreciate our lives. We couldn’t utilize opportunities. That is what they tell you. However, the true reality is why do we have embracing human life?

Number one, we have a tremendous amount of lack of self- confidence. We think this sort of thing is for the great ones to do, not me. Or, I will do it tomorrow, or later in life. Number three, we think yeah, this is true, but it is too late for me now, and hopefully in the next life I can do better. All this reflects our laziness, lack of self-confidence and underestimating ourselves, getting down on ourselves. These are the problems that we face at this moment. So to overcome these problems, actually there are antidotes. Also there is one very important point. Actually, there are three important points here. Life is precious, full of potential and difficult to find. So then by making a strong commitment, the Lama comes to your crown. In the Lamrim the Guru is separate from the Buddha; in the Vajrayana, the Lama is inseparable from the Buddha. So light and liquid come from the Lama Vajradara and purifies and helps you to make this particular development, and especially to gain realization of the importantness and preciousness of human life. So this sort of thing develops.

When you begin to think about it, first even recognizing your life, this is very funny. They call our life hanjo. Han really means rich and full of leisure. We have a lot of time to have leisure. When you look at our life, it is just opposite. We don’t have time and we are not rich. But they label this. Why? Because they probably don’t realize what our life is really like. We think yes I have a life, big deal. And then you have a couple of complications and in addition to that you get some illness and you begin to worry about it. People begin to appreciate the value of life when there is a big crisis. Until then they take it for granted. But the Buddha wants us to remember it all the time. It is a problem of our daily living, so that we really appreciate how valuable life is. That is why we are rich. In reality we make ourselves busy for nothing. In another life, this is a comparatively better time. We are not taking birth in the hell realm where we have no time to do anything because the pain is so sharp. So compared with that, we really have time.

Even among human beings most people do not have time for this type of thing. They don’t have an interest. They don’t want to bother about it. The first and foremost priority is economic, and then leisure, and the last thing is spiritual. Especially when you become old. You think, oh yeah, I have to go some day so what do I do. Even a human being like ourselves, born in the United States, professional, we won’t have time for this. We don’t want to bother. So that is what it is.

In reality the Buddha tells us others don’t have the opportunity or time, so you should think about it. Even if you are curious or not curious, think about it. There are a lot of educated people who think, “I am not convinced there is a future life. I am not convinced there is a future life, but if there is, what will happen to me?” A lot of people are not convinced and say if there is a future life, science will tell us about it. But no scientist can tell us yes or no. They have not done a scientific study on it.

It is interesting. When we are talking on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we are talking about mind and mental faculties. Last Tuesday, I began to think about it and thought it is true. The people in the Western culture look at everything from a physical point of view. Everything, even health is seen this way. If you are sick, try this medicine or that medicine. Then because people have studied it, they studied it and learned and it works. As far as the internal aspect though, they have not studied it. They begin to look at what the brain looks like when you are sad or something, but that is as far as they have looked.

We have studies of the mind in detail-how it functions. The psychologists will look slightly into that, but other than that, there is no study whatsoever done about this mind. It is tremendously sophisticated and detailed. It is much more complex than the physical aspect. For us there is just a dot up in our scull-mind! But there is so much more than that. So far the West has not really looked into the inner mind. When you begin to do that, there is so much to discover. Buddha says it is extremely important. You don’t know what you have. Whatever you have, it has no comparison with the life you have. No one will exchange their life for a billion dollars. No one will do that, unless they are crazy.

Life is important because you can do things. You can make things better. You can do things in this life that you cannot do any other way. Just look at material side of life-the heat, the cold the air control alone. How fantastic it is! It may be so hot outside and yet you are cool inside. Air control makes it easy. Then when it is tremendously cold outside, you can maintain heat. That is a great achievement. No doubt about it. Then, who discovered it? All the scientists did; human beings. Or look at the concept of non-violence. Who did that? Gandhi and Mother Teresa and people like that; human beings. We talk about the quality of human life. If we don’t use it, it is our fault because we are lazy and we look down on ourselves. That is our fault, not Gandhi’s or Mother Teresa’s!

The Buddha wants us to remember that we have that life. That’s why our life is important. When you say life is important, we think about somebody else’s life. But we all happen to have that life. That’s what it is, with leisure and rich in opportunity.

We can find time to do anything we want to do, no matter how busy we may be. We may think I have to get up at 430am and get home late at night. But we find the time to go to a bar and have a drink, to find entertainment, to eat to sleep. We are not utilizing our time properly. So everybody says I don’t have time to do spiritual practice because it is very important for me to take care of my kids, my parents, and pay my bills. Sure, but you still find time to go to the movies. I’m sure you find times for all the shows, and we see all the news and “Larry King Live.” We have time to do it. We have time to have a holiday and to come here. We have time to drive hours and hours. This life really is extremely important. We should realize that all the time. Don’t wait to realize that when you are threatened. When you are threatened, then sometime it is too late to take advantage of your precious life.

Buddha achieved Buddhahood because he was a human being. If Buddha had never become a human being, he never would have achieved Buddhahood. This is reality. If you want to end your suffering once and for all, this life is capable of delivering that. If you want to become rich and make money, this life is capable of delivering that. I don’t know ether you are capable of it. The life that Bill Gates and you and I have is the same. Our brains are the same size. Forget Bill Gates, think of Einstein. Actually, Einstein’s brain might be a bit bigger than ours!

When this precious jewel is in our own hands we have to recognize, appreciate and take advantage too. When our life is gone, it is too late to recognize that. We simply meditate and pray to the Lama Buddha that I may realize how important life is and how difficult it is to find. Meditate on that. Give the reasoning. In conclusion if I want a good future life, a long healthy life, cut my sufferings completely and get total freedom, if I want to become a Buddha, this life is capable of giving that. If I want to become a Buddha in this short life, life is capable of giving that. Therefore, I should not waste any time. The way to realize that is to see that life is important and you should not miss opportunity and waste time. That is the most important point. If you keep missing the opportunity, everything moves. Everything comes and goes. So many of you miss the opportunity.

But I did not touch on how difficult it is to find. The fundamental cause of finding this life—I am not sure whether I have emphasized it enough—within this human life, the opportunities we have, others don’t have. There are many wonderful and kind people who are not interested in this at all. Nothing wrong with them, but you have the interest. Even if you try to drag them down, they won’t come. They may come to please you and sit for a few minutes and then go, disappear. That is a clear indication that they do not have the opportunity. From a karmic point of view, that is it. Even if you had the interest in the 30’s and 40’s you would not have been able to find this. It is a wonderful thing we have. That did not come cheaply. It cost a tremendous amount to get to this point according to Buddha. You had to have perfect morality (in our previous life). So when you look in the future, what I will have tomorrow? It will be based on our morality today.

Today what we have is based on what we did in the past. What we will have tomorrow is based on today. My mind is not a mystery for me. So what am I going to hope for tomorrow? It will be based on what I do today. I can hope for a miracle, but it probably won’t happen. We can hope for a miracle. The students hope for a miracle when they take a test and yet they have not studied for the test. Most likely it will not happen. And that is exactly the same thing with our life. So meditate on that, realize its importance and make a very strong mind that you are not going to waste time.

Not only to have a perfect morality is needed. What Buddha tells us is that a good or bad life is not an accident. When we have difficulty it is also our fault. This is very funny. I must share with you the book that I wrote, Good Life Good Death. It came out a month after 9/11. So when I was giving book talks it was connected with 9/11. Everyone asked, what happened? Truly speaking, the people who lost their lives, it was due to their karma. If there were not a karmic connection, they would not have died. But at that moment, I would become a pariah if I said it was their karma. So I had to say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or something like that. And that is also true. However, there is a karmic connection. But karma is so strange; it also depends on conditions. Karma is also dependent arising; it depends on the conditions. When the conditions have gone wrong, what happens is that makes for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Without individual karma, no one will lose his or her life. You could not say at that time, at that moment, that’s your fault. That is the true reality. This is how we are responsible for our life according to the Buddha.

It affects everything. If you are hot and a cool breeze comes along and cools you, you deserved it. When you sit down in the wrong place and someone comes along and kicks your butt, you deserved that too. Every minute, whatever we are doing, we are making decisions for our future, every deed we do. When suddenly we help someone with love and compassion, we make a good life for ourselves in the future. When we sit here and make a decision that I will not bother with that person, I will ignore them, then we are making karma for us to be ignored in our future life. That is why this life is important.

But as a human being we understand and we can change and we can correct. That is why this life is important. This life is more valuable than a million dollars. Better use it nicely. If you can’t use it, it is gone. It will go one day, one day for sure. Every day minute by minute and hour by hour we are getting older, no doubt about it. There is nothing to hide. So that is so important to realize. This is called first development. Why? Once you gain this you will not waste your time. You will know how to choose your priorities. So when we tell you not to waste your time, what shall we do? Basically it is quite clear, every deed of ours makes a difference in our future life. No one out there makes a decision that this person should go up and that person should go down. No one really does that according to the Buddha. No one is capable of doing that and no one else does.

Who really makes the decision? Ourselves, no one but ourselves. Our lives are in our hands, nobody else’s. So you should know that this is extremely important. Once we know this we can make a difference for ourselves. What Buddha recommends us to do is that once you realize this, and as we established guru devotional practice, follow Lama Buddha. We are not referring here to Buddha himself, but to following the lamas who have become enlightened.

You know sometimes people may think we talk Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, and you think it is only Buddhists who can become enlightened. I don’t believe it. Any good Christian can become enlightened. There are many wonderful Christians and people in other religions. They can become buddhas too. The reality is that the enlightened beings and buddhas are the same thing, whatever the name you call it or whatever you look like, that is not the point. The point is the mental level, the mind level, and the spiritual level. That is the difference.

It is not reserved for Buddhists only; It is not reserved for Asians only, or Caucasians, or African Americans or Yellow only. It is available to everybody. That’s what it is. So since we have said that, we have a continuing wonderful relationship to the enlightened ones through the lama Buddha and their guidance. Since this is Buddhism, we talk to you about Mahayana practice. Why Mahayana practice? Because it is the only one that tells us how to become a buddha. Theravadin tradition tells you about liberation, but not how to become a buddha. Even the Mahayana Sutra tradition tells you that you can become a Buddha only after eons and eons. Vajrayana tells you that you can try to become a buddha now. A little rough, a little difficult, but they tell you that. And that is why this is important. The total goal is be totally enlightened, which means there is nothing you don’t know. You not only have totally knowledge, you know future and past as present. Knowing the past as present is not difficult. But knowing what will be tomorrow, next year or in the next life is difficult. It is very easy to know what happened to you last year, your childhood, even what happened to you in your previous life. But it is very difficult to know what you will be tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or in your future life. Even if you are a psychic, that is harder to understand, harder to get it

Why was Buddha emphasizing, total knowledge, total knowledge, and total knowledge? That’s the reason why. The goal is that spiritual practice is capable of giving you total knowledge and total enlightenment. Spiritual practice is capable of giving you this. You can get it. Why settle for less than the best? If you don’t get it, that is a different story, but why do we have to settle (for not getting it.). You may think, “Oh you know I just wanted to get going.” That is a good thought, but it may not be good enough. That is why Buddha always recommended to us the goal should be the best achievement.

So again, then you pray. Light and liquid come from the Lama Buddha, purifying negativities, particularly developing these points. It is important to do this on each of the points. According to this I am supposed to do each one of them separately, but I put them together: recognition of life, importantness and difficult to find. I put these three together.

Now I have to read a little more oral transmission.

(Rimpoche gives more of the oral transmission).

To continue, light and liquid come from the Lama and then purify all negativities. In conclusion is just like before, dedicating and all that. One thing I forgot earlier to mention in-between sessions. In between sessions, you have to have awareness and read about information on whatever you are practicing. Then having awareness. And then when you eat food, reasonable quantities, and not over eating. And not over sleeping. Reasonable eating and reasonable sleeping.

Don’t do like me! A person like me abuses food all the time and I get completely lopsided. As a consequence you can have difficulty and all this. The teachings tell you to eat what you need. So the food to be maintained like medicine to sustain your life. It is not to develop attachment or to insult others or for abuse. It is simply to maintain life. That is what Buddha really told us. I memorized that, but afterwards I never paid any attention. But you should treat the food like medicine to sustain the body, not for abuse. If you overeat, it disturbs your practice, your meditation.

Similarly sleep. Sleep yes. Every individual requires sleep, but not overuse sleep because that is a waste of time. Unless you use sleep as a practice. Milarapa says, “ I know how to meditate while I am asleep. How wonderful it would be if others could know how to do this.” If you can know how to do this or use dreams to meditate, then do it. But other than that, it just becomes dullness. To simply oversleep has been objected to by the Buddha.

Then Buddha had very strong advice to take showers. It is not for me to tell you that, because Tibetans don’t take many showers. Normal Buddhist practitioners will look into the showerhead and see light and liquid coming from Buddha Shakyamuni and completely purifies our negativities. But still there are ways and methods. Normal Buddhist practitioners will look into the showerhead and light and liquid come and purify. If you are a Vajrayana practitioner, each yidam has its own practice. So that is how you can take a shower.

And also the food. You can also take food as an inner offering. It is not only medicine and just sustaining. So that way if you utilize, that is how you can utilize food. Even dresses and clothes can be used that way. Every good thing we have we are paying off our good karma-soft cloth, good tasting food. All of them are karmic consequences. Karma pays for it. But you can use them that way you not only pay for it ,but you use it to rebuild fortunate karma. Taking shower and eating food.

Some of the earlier Lamas in Tibet took snuff. It’s the culture. They used to say when I take in snuff I am taking in the suffering of the people and when I breathe out the snuff, I give the virtues to them of my good karma. Some of the great practitioners did that. And for them it works. For us we should not do that. So these are what to do during in between sessions.

Basically, making use of your life is done and now comes the actual practice of how. Each session has preliminaries and conclusions. So each time, make requests to Lama Buddha.

Now me and all sentient beings, ever since we took rebirth in Samsara have these sufferings. So now Samsara, taking rebirth and karma, I will take them together here. We have a wonderful life, but we take it for granted. We never think what happens thereafter, the suffering of the different realms, and developing faith in karmic consequences and avoid all wrongdoing and building positive deeds. So may we be blessed to do that, that I and all sentient beings may be able to build a life of understanding impermanence, recognize the sufferings and karmic consequences and take refuge.

The light and liquid comes as before. You can meditate with the Buddha in front or on your crown. I have been talking of the front. So light and liquid comes from the front or down from your crown. Whatever you do is fine. Now either on your crown, or sometimes you can also meditate Buddha in the palm of your hand and hold it at your heart level. So these are the important points.

Because you know here the point is that Guru Buddha Shakyamuni is your ultimate goal. So that is why you should have it around. It is important. So thoughts follow this. I did find this wonderful life. I did find life that is worthwhile, but there is no certainty that it will last forever. On the contrary, it is totally impermanent because death will definitely come.

And when death comes, it cannot be stopped by anything internal or external. We cannot add to our lives. Remember the traditional story of nine lives. We don’t have that. If one head goes, it goes. It decreases all the time. Even while we have our life, death comes without time to do any practice. So these are the three important reasons. Death is definite because nothing can stop. We cannot add to our life. Even when we are alive death will come at a time when there is no time to do anything. Hey, don’t kid yourself. Death can come just like that. So far so good. It hasn’t come, but it will definitely come.

Not only it comes, but when it comes it is time to go. Allen Ginsberg had a poem; death came for me when I was in the toilet. Death went to the toilet too. The kid in the toilet, screamed you got the wrong person! I am in the toilet!

You can’t hide. There is nothing to block. When death comes, nothing can be done. Until that time you can use drugs and other things, but when it really comes nothing works. Every doctor will tell you, there is nothing I can do. We just can’t kid around. Honestly.

Buddha demonstrated that. One of his disciples was Mahamoggallana. Buddha belonged to the Shakya caste. That’s why he is called Shakyamuni. So another caste attacked the Shakya caste. They were fighting then. In early India it was always there. It is not only the Sunnis and Shia that fight. All the casts fought thousands of years ago. Buddha’s disciple said, “I can put our people 500,000 miles backwards. Should I do that?” Buddha said, “Would you like to do that?” “Yes,” he said. Buddha said, "They will all die because it is their karma to die now." "Are your sure," said the disciple? “Yes,” said Buddha, “but you can try.” So Buddha’s disciple decided to take three kids and hide them. He took one kid and put the kid on the 33rd heaven. Another kid he put in their Ashram. The third one, the textbook tells you, he put in his begging bowl. Maybe they did. I don’t know. So at the end of the day when the war was over, the kid on the 33rd heaven died, the kid in the Ashram is also dead and the third kid, wherever he was, he died also. And the Buddha said, “ See, it was their karma to die and that’s what happened”

Not only that. There was a disciple of the Buddha and 500 women who are quite developed, almost Arhat level. They stayed in the palace. Suddenly the palace caught on fire and each of them was developed and they flew away. They could not fly far and they all got sucked back into the fire. The chief disciple meditated and saw that it was their karma to die this way. So she told the others and they all jumped in the fire and died. All 500 died. They were great ones. There was one who had no development whatever, sort of a hunchbacked woman who was helping them, she jumped in the toilet and got out that way and did not die! Yet the ones who had all the development and magical powers, they all died.

Shariputra is the wisdom disciple of the Buddha. This is about magical power. He was beat up and died. What happened is that Mahamoggallana had magical power and followed people around, even after they died. There was a teacher who always insulted Buddha. Mahamoggallana went and found him in the hell realms, and he said I am so sorry that you ended up here. The person said, that is fine, but please go back and tell people not to worship me, because when they worship me I get extra suffering. So Mahamoggallana went back to their Ashram without thinking and said, “Hey, I saw your teacher down in the hell realms and he sent this message.” And they said, “How dare you insult our teacher,” and they beat him up. Finally the other disciple, the wisdom disciple, picked him up in his robe and said, “Why did you do that?” ” I didn’t remember anything,“ he said. So sometimes when the karmic conditions come, that is what happens, despite having great powers.

Nagarjuna, there are lots of stories. At the end of 600 times he did not die. Someone tried to kill him, hitting him and he did not die. He said, “I have one karma left. If you tie my neck with a hair, I will die, because I have one karma left.” He said, “One time I killed an ant, and this is my last karma, so I will die if you do that”. So the guy tied Nagarjuna’s neck with a hair and Nagarjuna died. So things like that are strange. Even Buddha said to understand karma is very difficult, more difficult than to understand wisdom.

When the karma comes and then ripens, nothing can be done. When people survive, like the holocaust teacher who survived and then was shot by this crazy Korean guy. He was part of the green movement. So you never know when that is going to happen. Certainly in general, life has no certainty, particularly our life. Beside that we have so many causes of dieing. All the causes for living, such as food and medicine can go wrong. Food can go wrong and kill us. In one way our life is so strong, but on the other hand it is so weak.

If death comes, nothing can help. No one can help. Life insurance doesn’t pay you in your future life. No friends or relatives can help. No matter how many friends and relatives we have surrounding our body, we can’t take a single one. No matter how much wealth you have, you can’t take it with you. Not only that, this body that has lived with us and of which we take so much care, cannot go with us. So this is reality, honestly. That is true for all of us. True for me, and true for each and every one of you.

If you realize this is the truth, then we have to think through our priorities. Our priorities, right now, are based on financial ideas, and then second our family relations, and last, if at all, on ourselves. It is true in a way because we don’t know there is life after life. And number two; there is a gate in between. We don’t see our future. The wall will come down, and we will go over. It is time we realize the wall will come down. We can make a difference in our life. We only see the wall when we get to the other side. It is not hard to get back, but others don’t see you at that time. So this is the difficulty at that time. So knowing this and making a good choice on the priorities is important. Yes living, paying our bills and taking care of our family is important. But if you don’t take care of yourself who will. Ginsberg was right when he said, I don’t know if there is a future life, but if there is, I don’t want to deprive myself of the opportunity. Such intelligence there.

That is our problem. We don’t see our future life. So it is better not to deprive ourselves. Life is impermanent. Don’t waste you life. So you make a buck. So you get a million dollars, it is short lived. By the time you go, you can’t take it with you. But karma goes with you all the time. It sort of follows. So it is very important to gain the realization that death is definite. When it’s going to come, no one knows.

And we cannot change it. Life continuously goes down. You know when I first came to the United States, a good entertainment for me was soap operas. I would watch the TV show “Days of Our Lives.” It is just exactly the way our lives go. The traditional teaching will give us a funny example. They tell you a story. The story was about a person who found a bag of gold dust. He carried it around and kept on going everywhere showing off his gold dust, but there was a hole in the bag. He did not know thee was a hole in the bag. He did not realize the gold was going out the hole and the gold kept on going down through the hole. By the time he realized it, the bag was empty. That’s the traditional story. You don’t have to depend on the traditional story because the “Day of Our Lives “ gives you the same moral. That is the point. The point here is don’t waste time. Don’t waste time here means don’t let slip the opportunity to make a difference in our lives, now. So when we are crossing to the other side, we will regret not doing that.

It is so simple. How do I make a difference? Nothing but follow the karma! That is it. We are not telling you to go to temple or give a benefit or give money to monks. That may be good, follow your own karma. Be good and follow your own karma. Good karma gives you good results. Bad karma leads to bad results. That’s it. What is bad karma? If you hurt other people and/or yourself it is bad karma. If you help yourself and others, it is good karma. Help is good; hurt is bad. Simple. That is really what it is.

And when you cannot manage, what do I do? Take refuge. So here, if death comes today, what do I have to prepare: what you need and what you don’t need? It is the same thing as when you are traveling. When you are traveling you think what do you have to take, what will you need. You don’t want carry unnecessary things because your bag will be unnecessarily heavy, but necessary things you carry along because you will need it. Just like that. What you don’t want is the negative karma that you have, but you do want all the positive karma that you have. That is the only thing that goes with us. Nothing else.

So if you sit down and say, hey I am going to die today. If I received the information that I am going to die today, what do I have to do? First you clear the unwanted karma. That is negative karma. You do that through purification. Then you build all the positive karma that you can. That is what they call preparation. Pray simply that you may be able to do this, that you may be blessed that you may be able to do this. So make request to Lama Buddha and light and liquid comes from the body of the Lama Buddha purifying negativities. And particularly pray that you may remember that death is definite, that there is not certainty as to when death will come, and nothing can help at the time of the death except good and bad karma. So all of them are purified.

In case I die and I am taken to the lower realms, what do I to? If I go to the hungry ghost realm or animal realm what will I do? I hope I will not go there. So what happens is when you think that way, you have a sense of urgency, a fear of falling into one of those categories. And then realizing that Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are free of that. Seek their help to pull me out. The fear of going to one of those places is the cause of taking refuge. All that, and then you take refuge. Whatever you say, Namo Gurubye, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sangaya., or whatever you say it doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to say, 100,000, 200,000 a million million. Numbers are not that important. Whatever you say, the words and thoughts should come together, uplifting your own concentration to that level. You sincerely rely on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Not only taking refuge will help. Taking refuge is fine, but if you don’t follow their advice, they can’t make a difference. They can guide us but they cannot change me inside. So the karma is the only thing that can make a difference, honestly. If you have the karma, you will have no problem. If you don’t have the karma then you have a problem with Dharma.

One time I was in upstate New York in a retreat, a weekend retreat. And we were scheduled from 1 to 5pm or something like that. Someone was late. It happens to be Rabbi Zomen Shaka, and he was talking to me. He is a very good rabbi, a wonderful guy. He was in a boat and somehow his oars were going in the water. And he was going and talking to me and the oars were slipping away. I said, “One your oars slipped,” and he said, “Oh, I’d better go after it. Otherwise I will be left with karma without the dharma.” He would have been carried by the boat and could do nothing.

It is not that difficult. Positive deeds are virtuous and negative deeds are non-virtuous. That’s it. You know there is no secret magic that Buddha/Dharma will perform and get you out of your problem. It doesn’t work that way. It is the individual following the karma system. So you try to be a good person, kind, compassionate loving for yourself and for others. Don’t you ever ignore yourself. And don’t ignore anybody else either. You can become a buddha without becoming a Buddhist. But if you don’t do it and the take refuge and have talismans, nothing will happen. So essence of Dharma is good karma. Essence of good karma, is helping, not hurting, not harming. The moment you hurt, yourself included, you have created negative karma. So we say karmic advice. Positive is: do this, do that. Negative is: don’t do this, don’t do that. Bottom line is don’t hurt anyone, including yourself. You can help as much as you can. Especially, if you don’t help yourself, who else will? That is the essence of karmic virtue.

Then from the Lama in front of you, or on your forehead, light and liquid comes. The light and liquid are symbolic. The most important part of this is the thought and the mind. Mind makes the individual person build habits. That causes actions. Action causes deeds and that leads to karma. Lama Buddha is used here not so much as a magical power system, but as a witness.

That is the first segment of three layers. This is the first layer. Whatever we have taught up to here, please put into practice.