Archive Result

114

20090524GRGR3P5 Sun morning

heart sutra, lineage prayer, mandala offering

0:09:40

Do kindly generate the pure motivation that is normally described in the lam rim tradition or if not think at least that for the benefit of all mother sentient beings one would like to obtain the state of the Buddha for which one would like to listen to this teaching. With that mind do kindly listen.

The teaching you are going to listen to is the path through which all enlightened beings travelled. It is the essence of the lam rim tradition, the "Three Principles of the Path." It is the jam yang nga me men nga - transmission giving by Manjushri to Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa. It has three outlines:

preparation

actual teaching

conclusion

The preparation has:

Praise

Commitment to Write

Asking the Individuals to Listen

The preparation is over and we are on the actual teaching.

That has four parts:

Renunciation

Bodhimind

Wisdom

What to do thereafter

Renunciation

That has three:

1. Reasons why it is needed

2. Actual development of renunciation

3. Measurement of Results

We completed the first, the reason for developing renunciation.

Today we are on the second:

Actual Development of Renunciation

That has two:

1. Dealing with This Life

2. Dealing with Future Lives

1. Dealing with This Life

The root text has 2 lines on that:

4a. DAL JOR NYE KAR TSE LA LONG ME PA

YI LA GOM PAI TSE DI NANG SHE DOK

Wonderful is this life, short its nature.

Don’t cheat yourself with fleeting pleasure

Do we have another translation? Maybe it is confusing. I sometimes like to hear some other translation to compare but people do get confused. It happened with the mind and mental faculties. Later, when I did that teaching again people said, "No, we don't want the chart with alternative translations, just choose one, don't give too many choices." But anyway, let us hear the translation from "The Principal Teachings of Buddhism" (Geshe Lobsang Tharchin and Micheal Roach, a translation also of Pabongka's commentary)

Leisure and Fortune are hard to find;

life is not long;

think it constantly;

stop desire for this life

So they made it into four lines. Well, I will work from the Tibetan directly. dal refers to 'leisure' and jor refers to 'rich'. So this refers to the wonderful life we have. It is enriched with the 10 endowments and has 8 different qualities of leisure. Those of you who know lam rim will know this. Those who pay no attention to lam rim have no idea, honestly. But when you count the 8 leisures you are looking at what you are not. For example, if you were in the hell realms today, would you have any opportunity, no matter whether it hot hells or cold hells? If you were in the hungry ghost realms, would you have any opportunity? If you were an animal, would you have an opportunity? And that's how it goes. And since we are not we have the freedom of not being in that position. As human being you can be educated and intelligent, but if you are a very stubborn, total yuppie you don't have that opportunity either. If you were an extreme hippie you would not have that opportunity either. More or less you don't, because at the yuppie level you are too rigid. You don't want to deal with this, and you think, "That's not for me. I don't know what these crazy people are up to." But then there are lots of open-minded people too.

Just look at Mickey Lemley's film about Ram Dass. There is this crazy Harvard Professor who was just fired, who goes to India and comes back wearing dhoti and sandals and hair tied up in a knot. That is a very strange thing. A number of people were following him up to his estate in New Hampshire. His family is also extremely open-minded and not only tolerated but also entertained all this. So extreme right wing people may not have an opportunity to hear, see and understand. But they have their own way of making a difference in their lives too. Why not? You can make multi-billion dollars and provide some comfort for themselves. But if you really want to make a difference for yourself in life after life, that won't be there. You can be a wonderful human being, very kind and virtuous and even open-minded, but even they won't have that opportunity.

Extreme hippies also may not have that opportunity. They want to experiment with everything. They are too open-minded, I am sorry to say. They think, "It is better that I tried some mushrooms, or some South American Iowasta and maybe I should try a sweatlodge of the Native American; maybe I should go a little bit into Hinduism. Maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that." You may do 18 different things but know nothing and get nowhere. That also doesn't have the opportunity. When this text says "rich" and "leiusre", that is what they are refering to.

0:22:38

That's why yesterday we were emphasizing that when you do a dharma you really have to do the right dharma. The right dharma for Buddhists is to follow what Buddha himself has talked. The earlier Indian Buddhist masters have really debated and confirmed and rejected points. Similarly, the Tibetans have done that. Also the mahasiddhas have gained experience on that - not only one or two people, but many of them - and they have expressed their experience. These are the qualities of the teaching that are fit for you to follow. Otherwise, you may know everything but get nowhere. If a person really knows how to incorporate every teaching from every angle, then it can be wonderful. But that is very difficult. If you try to do everything probably you are everythying and nothing. It is difficult to say but that's what it is.

Back in Tibet, up to 1959 and even a few years after that, we used to emphasize that the teachings of Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa are like the essence of refined gold. We used to emphasize that a lot. But after 1959, for whatever reason - maybe political unity, or whatever the reason may be - these things have been dropped among the Gelugpa tradition. We don't emphasize that at all. But on the other hand, when you talk about the life of an individual, making a difference in life after life, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to have a very perfect path or road that can lead you from todays' ordinary level to total enlightenment, without mixing up the steps or stages. That is called "essence of refined gold".

Since life is very precious and rich in methods, it also needs to have leisure. The individual needs to be able to put in time if they want to. You are not under the duress of anyone. You are not mentally challenged. You might be challenged economically, but you are not mentally challenged. Physically, you might be challenged a little bit here and there, but you are okay. You can think, you can walk, you can talk. The best thing is to be walking the walk and talking the talk. So that is important. That is all included in the words dal and jor.

Similarly the next two words: nye kar. That means difficult to find. These are the outlines in the lam rim. You have the recognition of this precious life and within that there are those leisures and endowments.

Then you think about how difficult to find it is. Often we think, "Well, this is all I can do. I can't do that much. Let me do it next time." To counteract this, this this meditation has a double purpose. First it really helps to uplift you and push you in. The second purpose is to cut the laziness and other obstacles. Mostly for us it is laziness.

0:30:35

Laziness can mean doing nothing or keeping oneself overly busy. Both are laziness. They take you away from the need of your life and lives. You are avoiding to do what's necessary and do something else instead. We have a friend who was ready to write her PhD thesis. Somehow that person had a resistance to write that thesis and kep herself completely busy by volunteering for every no-profit organization around town and so she had all these deadlines one after another and had to run here and run there, just so she didn't have to time to sit down and look at the thesis. We used to talk about that ten years ago. That is busy-lazy. The mind wants to avoid it, not completely but for this year, thinking, "I am going to deal with this next year." So you schedule yourself with back to back appointments and have to run everywhere. She avoided the thesis for one year, then two years and finally the whole idea of the thesis just disappeared. Nothing happened.

This is example: somehow we avoid what we need to do for our own benefit of this life and future lives. You don't want to do it this week or next week, this month or next month. That way you keep on delaying and delaying and air evaporates into air and nothing happens. But unfortunately our life and our health is not permanent. Even the level of our intelligent mind is not permanent. Up to age 25 years it goes up; better and better day by day. After age 25 everything starts going down, day by day. Today it is a little worse than yesterday. Tomorrow it will be a little worse than today. That is the actual reality.

Understanding this and thinking of this is important. At the end of this impermanent process is something called death. The grand total of this life is death. Then there is no more punching in. It is over. Are we going to get just 00000 or are we going to get 99999? At that point it is over and that will definitely happen. Each and everyone of us sooner or later will die. I should borrow from the commercial of the "Men's Warehouse" where the guy keeps saying, "I guarantee". It is true, it is guaranteed to happen - by the "Men's Warehouse". That commercial has a very believable Jewish guy who says that. Hopefully it is not Bernie Madoff. At the day of our death are we going to go out with only zeroes or are we going to have some numbers by then and have some idea what happens thereafter?

Busy-lazy is what makes us go out with only zeroes, making yourself purposely busy to avoid doing what is necessary. I told you the example of the person avoiding to her PhD thesis and delayed it again and again. Now 15 years later, it is no longer the talk of the town. Nobody is talking or even thinking about it. So in the end it is going to be zero. Just like that it can happen in our life. The biggest problem we face is attachment, attaching ourselves to this life's interest. We have that very strong attachment to what we call comfort and success. We are overly intrigued by success and "comfort". Whether that is true comfort or not, who knows. To me, joy and happiness is true comfort.

The second line:

YI LA GOM PAI TSE DI NANG SHE DOK

Thurman once translated that with: turn of the interest to this life. That is a rather strong translation. The words nang she

Pabongka quotes here one of the Sakya Lamas, Lojong Shen pa She de, who wrote "Four Points for Reversing Attachment" in which it says: tse de la chö pa min....

If you have strong obsession for this life then you are not a dharma practitioner.

If you have strong obsession for samsara you don't have renuncation.

It is interesting to know that we could say prayers and pretend to be spiritual practitioners and take a deep and keen interest in building a material life. But if you have really strong renunciation then emphasizing buidling a material life that might not be going together. Maybe sometimes that is difficult.

Drom Rimpoche, Atisha's disciple, after Atisha had passed away was talking with Atisha's other disciples. Some were doing circumambulations around stupas. So Drom Rimpoche told them, "It is very nice that you are doing circumambulations. But I wish you could do some dharma practice." He gave the same answer to people who were doing mandala offerings, prostrations and many other things.

There was a famous Kadampa master called Shang Na Chungpa. He asked Atisha for teachings and Atisha told him, "Let your keen interest for this life go." Shang Na Chungpa wondered what Atisha was talking about. He really thought there must have been a problem with the interpretation, because Atisha spoke Bengali. Another Kadampa teacher later told Drom Rimpoche, "Shang Na Chungpa said that whenever he asked Atisha for a teaching, the asnwer was: let your interest for this life go." What does that mean?" Drom Rimpoche said, "I am surprised. A person like Shang, at his capacity, couldn't understand this. This is the cream of Atisha's teaching. And that a person like Shang does not know how to receive it is a big surprise."

You have to think: right now what is the number one priority in my life? Check within yourself. Many people will have different priorities.

0:46:43

Everybody will have their well being and that of their family on top of the agenda. Most of us may not necessarily have "me" as top priority. We will say, "I will be okay, but the family, the children." Think about it. What do you mean by "I will be okay"? Do you mean that you are going to be fine for the rest of your life with having food, medical care? What about thereafter?

The most important thing is that we must have a good, rich stock of virtue. Unless we have that we will never know anything. Our calculated assessment may or may not be right. It has been proven again and again that our estimated calculation was wrong. All these economic depressions that we have seen, one after another, year after year, decade after decade, particularly the latest one, showed us that our basic calculations can be very wrong. Are you going to have a basic collection of virtue that you can definitely count on and be able to cash out in the time of need? That's where the karma kicks in. Traditional teachings will tell you that the human-built life is wonderful, no doubt, but not reliable. The day you die you have to leave all that behind. That is all true. Today it is particularly clear. You don't even have to die. You can lose your 401 K without dying. Some wrong policies, some misfortune somewhere and millions of people's 401 K's are wiped out in a matter of minutes.

Human beings are interesting. We give this interesting description: a bubble has been busted. We have all these bubbles: the dot.com bubble is gone, the housing bubble is gone and we give these nice names and adjust. That is a wonderful human quality. It also shows that human beings are very capable and so wonderful to give reasonable mental comfort to ourselves. But at the same time it shows how many difficulties we are going through. We still have the question: What is our priority going to be?

People get so afraid of thinking, "I will be left alone. I will be left with no money. I will be left without house. I will become this and that." All the worst scenarios you can ever project will come up and build up your fears. It is very true, there is every possibility of this happening. It is very real and it does happen in the world - because it is samsara, because it is suffering in nature. But at the same time that is not the total purpose of being here. That is not the mission of life. Your own happiness, your own joy, and that of your family, your extended family and every human being and finally all living being, that should be the priority. That's how Buddha thinks and that's how he assigns the priorities.

"Me, me, me" and "my, my, my" is all attachment. Traditionally, they talk about food, clothes and fame. Food and clothes are easy. Lots of people can cut the food without much difficulty.

0:56:14

They will love to cut the food under the name of "diet", such as "South Beach Diet" or whatever other diet. It is not only difficult but enjoyable and it is a good thing. The same thing with clothes. Traditionally, people like to dress a certain way and now it is differnt. It is so funny. You know those rappers who wear these loose pants? I won't wear what they are wearing, even if someone gives me these clothes for free, even if they give me ten sets or hundred sets. I will not wear a single one of them. But then it becomes fashion, it becomes very expensive. That is how the human mind keeps human beings busy. I don't want to go into that much detail. You know better than I do, honestly. That is never ending, continuously going on, making you totally busy, circling round with this and our lives are going day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, trying to correct that. By the time you have corrected it, the fashion has changed. You are out of fashion again. This shows how samsara tricks us, honestly. Satisfaction is one of the best gifts of the Buddha, at least for the Buddha's monks and nuns community.

Buddha went to the extent - it is so funny - to cut obsession and attachment by cutting the monks and nuns's dresses. You probably have seen the the nice yellow robes they wear and the Tibetan ones have that little flip that you throw over and that looks like decoration. The Thai monks have stitches all over the robes, going this way and that way. The way that came in was because Buddha tried to cut the monks' attachment.

1:00:21

Traditionally at that time yellow was the color for women. It was a male chauvinist society and the women were considered less important. That's why Buddha chose that color for the monks - to cut their pride down. He had them dressed up like women in a male chauvinist society. Then they started gaining respect and people started to give them offerings. One monk had a piece of cloth for his dress; something which cost a thousand coins of whatever currency they had at that time. He had very strong attachment. One day he asked Buddha, "I have strong attachment to this dress. What do I do?" Buddha said, "Cut it." Then he said, "But then I have nothing to wear." Buddha said, "Cut it in such a way that you can wear it as well as it is not looking so great. Look at the people making their fields. According to that, take these measurements and cut your dress up that way [ and stitch it back together[[ So all these stitches and flaps are actually pieces of cloths that had been cut. Then later, instead of cutting it and putting it back together, the patches became added up. So then it had more value, more show effect and more dignified. That's how it happened. In Buddha's time that was done to cut attachment. I don't know if anyone was really obsessed with a piece of cloth but increased attachment is obsession. That obsession keeps people busy and doing things. Until we had this economic bust, people, in order to pay their bills, did not only work one job, but two and sometimes three. They had to pay for their extra car, of the extension of their house, for the extra television and so on. If we really look at our attachment and obsession many of us have several televisions in our house. Everyone will have a justification, no doubt. "We need it here, because of the kids", "Because of guests" and so on. These are all justifications. That is how attraction to the material world makes us busy. It makes us slaves of work.

Many of us know how to work hard. We are hard-working people, for sure. But many of us don't know how to work smart. But hard working will get you how much? Working smart would be different, but we don't know that. Some people work hours and hours and hours and get 50 cents at the end, or not even that. Maybe you just get a nickel in the end, and that happens to be wooden.

We keep ourselves busy all the time. The attraction to these extra things makes you work so hard. Otherwise, Americans would not work that way. If you tell someone, "Would you work that way?" you would probably get the "F" word or the middle finger. But that attraction for these extra, unnecessary things make you helplessly work more. Then you run your own business and can't control the expenses. That happens. So at the end you almost work for 24 hours and at the end you have just a wooden nickel left. That is exactly how intriguing these samsaric things are. When we are obsessed and attached, that is how it happens. Wisdom definitely tells us that there is nothing at the end. Honestly. But we are not dealing with wisdom right now.

We have very limited time. None of us is getting younger. We know. We look at each other and we know. Everybody is changing, for sure. If you want change, you got it. You are changing all the time, no doubt. Especially if we don't see each other for a while we can see the change. That clearly indicates that our limited time is not going to be expanded, but shrunk. That is the time we have. How much of what are we going to waste? The choice is ours. But the attachment pulls us the other way.

1:10:25

Even if you put in so much efforts what will happen? Can I say something funny that I think very often? Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken - every time I see that human size picture of him I always think, "O that poor guy; he created so much negativity. They are still continuously killing so many chickens in his name." That is stupid of me, but I always think that. I try to say a few prayers here and there all the time. It has become almost a habit with me. That tells you: killing chickens and having successful restaurant businesses, - restaurants are not that bad - but the meat market and all of those. People may deny that this is obsession. They may say it is simply the reality and responsibility; that they have to do it. Maybe there is truth in it. But that is the problem with samsara. Thinking on those lines helps us. Whatever responsiblities you may have, whatever the conditions might be, that gives us opportunity to choose your own first priority. Not so many people will choose dharma as first priority. It will only be some "crazy" people. Most will choose dharma as the first priority - if you decided to count upside down. If there are 8 priorities we will count from 8 upwards and dharma would be the first then. [meaning acually the last out of 8[[[

That is what you have to think about renunciation. Mahasiddha Lingrepa said,

kor wa nang du trong kyer nang gi jigten chö i kyi ro lang gyur.....

In samsara, the city of thoughts and doubts, the zombies of the 8 worldly dharmas are running round. This is a fearful cemetery. A lama who would like to do a ro nyam (- that means equalization) - should do it here.

Tharchin/Roach:

In the city of daily concerns in our circle of life

scury the waked cadavers of eight worldly toughts.

This is where you can find the most frightening cemetery of all.

this is where you lamas should keep your midnight vigil among the dead.

Liberation in the Palm:

The zombies of the eight wordly dharmas

wander in samsara's city of thoughts.

There's your terrifying cemetery.

Guru, practice equanimity there.

Geshe Loden (Path to Enlightenment)

In samsara, the city of superstition,

wander the zombies of the eight wordly dharmas.

It is a terrifying charnel ground.

Have your guru perform an exorcism there.

Samsara is described as 'city of thoughts and doubts'. You have a lot of zombies of the eight worldly dharmas running around. This is a fearful cemetery. If you want to do some equalizing you should do it here.

When you talk about renunciation and cutting attachment, what is that all about? The bottom line comes down to the 8 wordly dharmas. They are very much our own character.

If people respect you, you like it

If they don't, you don't like it.

If you get some comfort, you like it.

If you don't get it, you don't like it.

If you have a little fame, you like it.

If you don't have it, you don't like it.

If people praise you, you like it,

if they say bad things about you, you dislike it.

Likes and dislikes - that is the 8 worldly dharmas. Truly speaking, whatever say or do it really doesn't matter. But we have a strong attachment to this. Letting that go is not easy. But if you make it through the difficulty, you will find a city of joy.

1:21:32

Many of those sharp weapons of negative emotions don't get you then, even if they hit you. Fortunately in my case, the Tibetans, my contemporaries know that I never get angry. But I have to pretend to get angry to protect myself. Especially in India I had to pretend that I was angry, otherwise even the gardeners and kulis that carry the luggage at the railway stations would take advantage of me. I had to be screaming and shouting all the time. Truly, it is not easy for me to get angry. It is rather difficult, no matter whatever happens. Many call me "happy-go-lucky". It is true. I am. Neither hatred nor obsession bother me. On the contrary, when I was a kid, when people got angry, I was so scared. I am sure all kids are. I would do anything to avoid getting a temper. My younger brother used to chase me and I ran away. I am not crediting that to spiritual development, but I am telling you it is joy. It is wonderful. When you see people suffering so much from these emotional sufferings, when you think about it, it really doesn't make any difference the way they react, but you can't tell that person, "Doesn't matter, there is nothing at the end". If you did they would probably freak out and get even worse. But the true reality is that nothing makes any difference, whether you are angry or not. What difference will that make! Whether or not you develop hatred is not going to make a difference.

But those who are entertaining hatred suffer. The same goes for obsession and anger. All these negative emotions - whoever is entertaining them, that person suffers, not the other person. They will probably make fun of you, "Oh, so you got angry, ha ha ha". If they do that and think, "I got you", then it is probably playing [an anger game[ again. But that is the reality. Somehow we are caught in these emotional games and false systems. We work so hard for the whole of our life and at the end when the grand total is there, we get zero, zero, zero. That should not be and it is in our own hands to change, nobody else's. You have to make a choice. To me, cutting attachment is that.

That way not only you are happy for the rest of your life, but even thereafter. When the time comes to leave you can leave easily. shab do to pur dra bo - like a bird flying from a rock.

It is easy for him to fly. So this helps not only in this life but also for the transition to the future life. It is in our own hands.

That is the essence message of the leisure-enriched, difficult to find life, which is short. Think that and do not cheat yourself.

Wonderful is this life, short its nature.

Don’t cheat yourself with fleeting pleasure

That doesn't mean you should right to the other extreme and not care, not take responsibility. I told you not to be an extreme yuppie, but that doesn't mean you should be an extreme hippie either. You have to go according to how society functions, how the world functions. You have to adjust.

In the aftermath of the understanding of wisdom people need to adjust. Over here you also need adjustment. Your basic interest, your basic priority, has shifted. That doesn't mean that you should run down the other side of your life. Some people do that. That's not right. You have to maintain that and shift the balance. You can do these two together easily. When you become enlightened you will do millions of things together. So even now, you have to begin to do two things together.

4b. LE DRE MI LU KOR WEY DUK NGEL NAM

YANG YANG SAM NA SHI MI NANG SHE DOK

Deeply contemplate the certainty of karma

and the constant suffering of samsara.

See beyond the cycle of lives.

In Pabongka'a commentary now he explains the 10 richnesses of the Kadam tradition but I won't get into that here. There are some quotations by Milarepa. He composed so many songs. Lets read particularly this one:

If in your heart you wish to keep the holy practice, son,

within the very depths of it then this thing first - faith,

never turn and look back once gain upon this life.

If in truth you'll follow after me,

your loved ones turn to demons, hold you back;

Do not think them true - cut all the ties.

Food and money are the demons' advance guards;

the closer the worse, give up all want from them.

The objects of the senses ar the demons' snare;

"They will entrap me!" stop your craving them.

Your young love is the daughter of the demons;

"She will mislead me!" so be on your guard.

The place you grew up is the demons' prison;

hard to free yourself from, flee it quick.

You will have to leave it all behind and go on - later,

why not make it meaningful and leave it all - right now?

It will fall down one day anyway, this mannequin apparition;

better to use this body now, get off to a good quick start.

The skittish bird of mind will anyway fly from the corpse one day;

better now to soar across some wide expanse of sky.

If you listen and act upon this one man's words - of mine,

then the grace to keep the holy practice,

my boy - is yours.

Milarepa said too:

No way my loved ones know I'm glad,

no way my enemies know I'm sad;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

No way my friends know I've got old,

no way my sister knows I'm sick;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

No way that people know I've died;

no rotting corpse that vultures spy;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

Flies will suck my meat and bones,

maggots eat tendons, ligament;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

No footprints leading from my door,

no bloodstains left here on the floor;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

No one to hold a deathbed vigil,

no one to weep when I am gone;

if I can die here in this case

my hermit's wishes have come true.

No one to wonder where I went

no one who knows where I am found;

if I can die here in this cave

my hermit's wishes have come true.

May this death prayer of a beggar

in the wild of a mountain cave

come to help all living beings;

then my wishes have come true.

This is the Milarepa. His way of looking at this is rather extreme. I don't think it is applicable for us today. But at least see how he thought about it. In reality the 8 worldly dharmas, our material world, is the first priority for us. When I use the word "material world", many of us will think, "I am not materialistic." I think almost all of us will think that. True, you may not be. But at the same time each one of us does have certain strong attachments for materials things. We are not able to let them go. That is the difficult aspect.

1:39:50

Now I would like to conclude this by saying: If you look into Tsongkhapa's short lam rim (Lines of Experience) he says:

(10)

This working basis (of a human form endowed) with liberties is superior to a wish- granting gem. Moreover, such is only obtained this very one time. Difficult to acquire and easily lost, (it passes in a flash) like lightning in the sky. Considering how (easily this can happen at any time) and realizing that all worldly activities are as (immaterial as) chaff, you must try to take advantage of its essential significance at all times, day and night. I, the yogi, have practiced in the same way.

So the conclusion is: the precious human life is much more valuable than a wishfulfilling jewel. I am not talking about monetary value. People's mind is such that the moment we use the word "value" we think of monetary value. Sometimes it is not necessarily monetary. But then you don't have a very refined point of value. Individually, yes it is true. But for the purpose of our life after life's well being this is extremely valuable. No one every doubts the value of life. We all know it is tremendous. Actually, we are willing to spend any amount of money - if we have it - to save our life. But we don't truly know the extent of hte value, because here you can make a difference. We also know truly that we cannot stay here forever. It never happens. Whatever the time we have, we have to use to fulfill the mission: making a difference for our future lives.

What is blocking us in doing that? The wrong priority in our life. Make the right choice of priority. Such a life we cannot get very often. Whatever we have might not last very long. We know it is going to end. It is going to happen. The young people will think, "I have all the time in the world." The older ones will think, "I may go soon." To a certain extent that is true, but it is not definite. Many times we see the great grandparents attending the funeral of very young ones. So realizations like

death is definite

there is nothing that can stop death

no life has any addition

At the time of death nothing can help you except your dharma practice.

are described in the lam rim outlines. All these points you have to combine together and think about. Then make a decision of prioritzing. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa said that because of that the material activities are going to fade away, just like during the autumn the farmers will discard the skin of the grains in the air. This is the old Tibetan farming system. Every material thing is going to fade away from us sooner or later. That's for sure. We only need enough for the rest of this life. Thereafter it is a different story, isn't it?

This life is difficult to find from different angles:

nature or cause

example

We always think, "I will come back", as though we are just going to the bathroom. But it is not certain that we even get a similar life again. What is this life really made of? We know it is the genes of the parents and that our consciousness enters into that. But what causes my consciousness to enter into this particular collection of genes? Do I have a choice? Did I do it by myself or is it coincedence? It is more or less determined by incidents. Most of us don't choose. We don't get to choose. We are supposed to choose, but we couldn't. What is the incidents that push us into another rebirth? Karmic incidents. What karma causes individuals to have a human life such as this? The basis of this is perfect morality, supported by proper prayers in conjunction with working on the Six Perfections, generosity, morality, and so on. That gives us this type of life. The morality within ourselves is not a secret to me. I know about my own morality. So does each one of us. You make a judgment yourself: am I easily going to get another life like this or will it be difficult? You don't have to look far. Look back at your life from a morality point of view. That itself will make it clear. That the natural, causal point of view.

Looking at finding a life such as this from the example point of view is very interesting. Buddha gives this example:

a blind tortoise is popping up from the depth of the ocean once every 500 years. The number of years differs according to which of the old sutras you read. Sometimes it is 100 or 500 or 1000 years. So when this blind turtoise pops up once every 500 years to the surface of the ocean, what are the chances it's head will stick through the neck of a slowly floating yoke at that time? It is almost impossible. I don't know whether Buddha himself said 500 years or 50 years or 100 years or whatever, but it doesn't matter whether it is 5, 50 or 500 years. It is almost impossible in any case.

So saying, "When I come back in my next life" has big questions. There are lots of "if's". It is not really "when I get back" but "if I get back". If you acknowlede that "if" then you won't count so much on the next life but do something now. If you keep on thinking "when I get back" then laziness will tend to leave everything for the next life.

To make it short, one of the earlier Tibetan teachers said,

nga me den sang rimpoche

de ten mi lü tuk je che

da ten gelong rimpoche

chi ma ya lang ma gyur ang

The previous good life of mine,

I thank you for the wonderful life I received today.

The precious spiritual practitioner of today

don't let me down in my future

The first step of not letting ourselves down for the future life is to make all our virtues into dharma. To make the virtues dharma we have to cut obsession and attachment for samsara's delights. That's where you begin, making sure you are not attracted here and there and derail your motivation. Once you do that you are already moving on the first step of renuncitation.

When we come back we will do the second portion of renuncation and bodhimind and wisdom. Today is Sunday, so we have to do all of them. Every time we do a teaching it is longer than I think. I thought we can cover the Pabongka commentary, but it is not really possible. I will do the oral transmision later.

sa zhi pökyi