Archive Result

The Three Principles Of The Path

Je Tsongkhapa (Lozang Dragpa) [1357-1419]

NIJMEGEN – 18 APRIL 2009

[00:14:00]

Welcome everybody here and thank you for the beautiful introduction. It is wonderful to see all of you, a lot of old friends, and quite a lot of new that I haven't seen before. If I understood correctly in the introduction, that the Netherlands is the second place. But, you know, Jewel Heart in the Netherlands started first. It's the first Jewel Heart, and the Americans later.

I'm not going to talk too much about it. We because we have only a couple of hours for the main subject, the three principles of the path. It would be great if we could have three, four or even five days for this.

Anyway, so now, dou you all have the text “the three principles” available? Good!

So if you keep on looking, there is a Dutch or English or what do you have?

So it starts with [Tibetan … tsag sel]. First is praising the gurus.

The three principles is actually the Manjushri’s essence teaching giving to Lama Tsong Khapa.

00:21:00

Lama Tsong Khapa expressed the three principles in the form of a letter to one of his disciples and benefiter, knows as the leader of a Tibetan/Mongolian race – “Sha Ro NAME??”. A letter in poetry form.

We presume we all know Tsong Khapa. But let me explain: Lama Tsongkhapa is one of the major Buddhist teachers. He lived from 1357 to 1419.

He was born in the eats of Tibet, western China, now this area is known as Qinghai province, known as Amdo. His holiness the Dalai Lama is born there too.

Then Tsong Khapa went from there to central Tibet, to study Buddhism. He was a monk, a very poor monk. No money. And he became a very good scholar, even an outstanding teacher!

And he was not very happy with certain explanations that the Tibetans are doing in the Buddhist teaching, which originate from Sanskrit Sask. Not the language, but the meaning, certain things he was not very happy about, particularly the wisdom.

So he was searching for a teacher. He had teachers from all different kinds of traditions: Kagyu, Sakya, etc. Particularly there are two or three teachers that he liked the explanations better than others. One of them happens to be talking to Manjushri. Manjushri is a the yidam of wisdom, the embodiment of enlightenment, according to the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

And one of them is talking to Vajrapani. So Tsong Khapa asked a question to his teachers. And they said: “well, I will let you know tomorrow”.

00:28:00

And then, after a little while. The teachers don’t understand the question, nor do they understand the answer. They were only the messengers.

Tsongkhapa at that time had a huge number of followers. Thousands of people traveling with him, in the 14 century in Tibet. So, it must be very difficult to travel those days. You had to carry your stuff yourself etc.

And at that time lama Tsongkhapa wanted to travel to India to visit another teacher.

Then both Vajrapani and Manjushri advised him not to do so, and his teachers also advised him not to do so. Because then thousands of people would be left behind without a spiritual leader.

Then Manjushri encouraged him to go in retreat. With no followers.

But his teachers told not to do it. At the end Manjushri said to his teachers “do you know better than I do?” And finally, he went into retreat in the mountains in Tibet, south of Lhasa. On that mountain, Tsongkhapa did purification, prostrations and mandala offerings. He couldn’t find materials for the mandala offering, so he used a big rock, a flat stone as mandala base.

He has eight disciples. Each one chosen by Manjushri, known as the eight pure disciples.

During that retreat Tsongkhapa has lots of visions of 35 purification buddhas, Manjushri, and many others. Then he started to talk and communicate with these beings. Like person to person.

And Tsongkhapa’s disciples became so fast in Tibet in Tibet, and they grounded a new, slightly revolutionized school, Gelugpa, also called “yellow-red”. Then thousands of his disciples, the senior disciples, went back to their native places. In their native places they started doing practice and started giving teachings. That’s why so many Gelugpa monasteries certainly came up throughout Tibet, like mushrooms.

According to the Chinese, when they came to Tibet, they did surveys, what languages they spoke, what religions they have. The boundaries between India and Tibet and between China and Tibet were not so clear. But the survey learned that at that time almost 90% of Tibetan are Gelugpa. Even after 1959, when we came to India, the boundaries were so unclear. They were used to pay tax. In India they didn’t have to pay tax, but it was so unclear, that they keep on paying tax to the monasteries for two years or so. India people sometimes don’t even know that it is their territory. It is funny, anyway, forget it.

Such a great religions tradition, such a thing was started by Tsongkhapa. Today known as Gelugpa. Out of that, such great monasteries such as the three great monasteries (Sera, Drepung and Ganden), Tashi Lhunpo, and in Amdo area all the monasteries, and all of those. Plus, two tantric colleges. And all of them are huge Gelugpa monasteries. And some of them had over 10.000 monks (in 1930s and 1940s). Some of them had over 10.000 monks.

[00:43:07]

That is the Tsongkhapa we are talking about.

Homage to the Great Masters

So know it says “Homage to the Great Masters”. So he is referring to his own masters and especially Manjushri.

OK, now that also covers certain aspects of the lamrim. Lately I notice some people think not necessarily here, but throughout the western world, people say that lamrim is a sort of usual and nothing very special. It looks like something for young kids to study or so. It looks like a pre-college type of thing; some are thinking that way. But that's not true.

Some of your listening to the online teachings these days. I'm teaching them in Ann Arbor and in New York, on Tuesday and Thursday nights most of those days.

The Ann Arbor teachings are also available via webcast to Cleveland, Chicago, Nebraska, and Philadelphia too. But not over here in the Netherlands live, right? So you can listen afterward because of the timing.

I call the lamrim the roadmap to enlightenment. Roadmap to the Buddhahood. It exactly tells you where you are, what you are doing and where you are going. What are you trying, what the possibility of your problems are? How to handle, you know. The GPS tells you, turn right, turn left. Such a thing you put it in the car, a TomTom, right. So it's like that. It tells you exactly how you think, what you meditate, where you go. Here, they tell you that you probably have this problem or that problem. It looks like a personal listening to the traffic announcement.

[00:48:23]

In lamrim when you look at it, it divides into three: Pre, Actual and Conclusion. Pre are “the six preliminaries”. Actual can be divided in two. First: the root of all development is the Guru devotional practice. And second: with this Guru devotional practice, how to develop yourself.

The guru devotional practise in the lamrim, depending on what lamrim you look, some of them have hundreds of pages, some of them have 2 or 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20 pages. And this one is equivalent to that; homage to the masters is equivalent to that.

When you say lama you use it often for a monk, right. That is correct, but the real lama referred to here is the Guru, or the master.

That word “Guru” is a Sanskrit word. And the meaning, it is a person with the huge quality, loaded with quality. So the qualities of the spiritual masters are extremely important. You just can't claim “I am a master”. But you must have the master quality.

Masters qualities: give you a number of different areas, and a number of different qualities they will tell you. However, the most important are three things that you have to remember.

One: if the master has good spiritual knowledge – like information type of knowledge – the sign that an individual person has this is, he or she will be humble, kind and caring. And the second quality, if that person has spiritual development. Within that individual with spiritual development, negative emotions, the delusions, are much less. There won’t be hatred, maybe a bit of short temper. That person may be angry, but very weak. Weak in the sense that it won’t last, it is very weak. Also, attachment or obsession is much less, it is there. But it is not powerful enough that it will torture us. And rich with knowledge and compassion, and wisdom. That’s it.

Normally known as sign of informational development, that person is well developed and well behaved. And the sign of internal development is lack of negative emotions. At least that much qualities are needed. There 10 qualities, 5 qualities and all that. That is the criteria you are looking for. Okay, so. Then of course knowledgeable, right. If not knowledgeable, how can he teach? And on top of that, important is that whatever he or she is teaching, he must have received it from his teacher. This is called the living tradition, that is why it is alive. It is a living tradition! Plus, the requirements needed, for example in Vajrayana you must have completed the retreat. All that is needed. You must fulfill all criteria. These are mandatory qualities for any master.

Along the qualities of the spiritual master, you must look at the qualities of the disciples too.

The qualities of the disciples. Most important, the person must have interest. And intelligence, not influenced by your side / my side, these kinds of things. Open minded. And respecting to the teachings, the master, and the lineage. These are few things I just remember.

Traditional teachings tell you that if there is a good qualities master, and good qualified students, then you can make a buddha, like one makes sculptures. And out of the three principles, let us hope we can make some buddhas today.

The next verse will say:

1 Heart of the Buddha's teachings,

Path praised by Bodhisattvas,

Gateway to liberation,

This I will explain as best I can.

Essence of all buddhas teachings. That refers to ... well this refers to all three principles. So let us do that today. The essence of all Buddha’s teachings is self-liberation. Praised by the Bodhisattvas, the path of the Bodhisattvas, which is Bodhimind, the unlimited and unconditioned love and compassion. The last part, the gateway to liberation. That gateway is wisdom. Anyway, in Tibetan you can use all three of the 3 principles. Anyway, that is an issue with translation. And I will explain as best as I can. He is making his commitment and introduce you to the three principles. And it also tells you he quality point of the masters, who can explain those.

Next verse:

2 Not addicted to samsara's delights,

Fulfilling the mission of this precious life,

Pursuing the fully reliable path,

Listen with a clear mind, you fortunate ones.

I am paraphrasing, those who are not overly attached to the samsaric joys. So lesser strong obsession. That refers to attachment – only named – and to all negative emotions. So which means, traditionally we call it renouncing samsara, seeking freedom; and not overly involved in samsaric affairs.

The second line says one would like to make the life worthwhile. Samsara’s delights are like the little goody things in samsara. That is some very funny things were get attached to, right. Like anything, like coffee. If you don’t have coffee in the morning, you get a headache. Anyway, overly indulged in samsaric things. People get addicted. People get addicted in substances, addicted in alcolhol, people get addicted in sex. People get addicted for abuse, anything. These are called samsaric’s delights. That people who are abusing kids, you know, they are addicted. So, if you are addicted to these things, it is a big obstacle for spiritual practice.

The second line: One would like to fulfill the mission of this precious life. If you are addicted, you cannot fulfill the mission of life, because you are addicted. Right. You are stuck, you freeze, you cannot do anything. Some people don’t want to talk about it. They are stuck. No way for that person to fulfill the mission of life. So, the mission of life, is to overcome all our problems. Overcome samsara, which is the wisdom. That is what it tells us.

The last part, the path that pleases the Buddha’s, is the path of love and compassion, bodhimind. So not only the masters have the qualities of explaining the three principles. But the students, who would like to learn about it, who like to practice it, should also have interest for those things. So they ask them to listen with a clear mind, and bodhimind.