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The Practice of the 35 Buddhas

The root text: The Confession Sutra

Tib: jang chub tung sha (Wylie: byang –chub sems dpa’i ltung-ba bshags-pa) Skt: bodhipattideshana

Namo: The Declaration of an Awakening Warrior’s Downfalls

I, who am called by the name…, throughout all time seek refuge in the

Spiritual Master;

in the Fully Awakened Being I seek refuge;

in his Truth of Dharma I seek refuge;

in the Spiritual Aspirants I seek refuge.

To the Teacher, the Endowed Transcendent Destroyer, the One Thus-Gone,

the Foe Destroyer, the Completely Perfected, Fully Awakened Being, the

Subduer from the Shakya clan, I pay homage.

To the Great Destroyer with the Adamantine Essence I pay homage.

To the Jewel Radiating Light I pay homage.

To the Ruling King of the Serpent Spirits I pay homage.

To the Leader of the Warriors I pay homage.

To the One Pleased to be a Warrior I pay homage.

To the Jewel Fire I pay homage.

To the Jewel Moonlight I pay homage.

To the One with Vision and a Purpose I pay homage.

To the Jewel Moon I pay homage.

To the Stainless One I pay homage.

To the Bestower of Courage I pay homage.

To the Pure One I pay homage.

To the One who Gives out of Purity I pay homage.

To the Water Deity I pay homage.

To the God of the Water Deities I pay homage.

To the Glorious Good I pay homage.

To the Glorious Sandalwood I pay homage.

To the One of Unlimited Splendor I pay homage.

To the Glorious Light I pay homage.

To the Glorious One without Sorrow I pay homage.

To the Son of the Passionless One I pay homage.

To the Glorious Flower I pay homage.

To the One Thus-Gone who Understands Clearly, Enjoying the Radiant

Light of purity I pay homage.

To the One Thus-Gone who Understands Clearly, Enjoying the Radiant

Light of the Lotus I pay homage.

To the Glorious Gem I pay homage.

To the Glorious One who is Mindful I pay homage.

To the Glorious One whose Name is Extremely Renowned I pay homage.

To the King of the Victory Banner of the Pinnacle of Sensory Powers I pay

homage.

To the Glorious One who Vanquishes Utterly Within I pay homage.

To the One who is Utterly Victorious in Battles Within I pay homage.

To the One who has Transcended by Vanquishing Within I pay homage.

To the Glorious One who Enhances and Illuminates Totally I pay homage.

To the One who Subdues with a Jewel and a Lotus I pay homage.

To the One Thus-Gone, the Foe Destroyer, the Completely Perfected Fully

Awakened Being, the King of Powerful Mount Meru who is Firmly Seated

upon a Jewel and Lotus I pay homage.

These Endowed Transcendent Destroyers and the rest, in every sphere of the

universe throughout the ten directions, the Ones Thus Gone, the Foe

Destroyers, the Completely Perfected, Fully Awakened Beings, the

Endowed Transcendent Destroyers, however many exist, such as the Fully

Awakened Beings who are alive and abide, I beseech them all to heed me:

In this birth and throughout births that have endlessly begun, in all places of

birth while spinning through the cycle of existence, I have done wrong deeds

throughout every realm, have provoked them to be done, and have rejoiced

at their being done. I have stolen the wealth from places of offering, the

wealth from Those Intent on Virtue, and the Wealth of those Intent on Virtue

in the ten directions, or have provoked such a theft, or have rejoiced in the

theft. I have committed the five unbounded heinous actions, have provoked

their commitment or have rejoiced at their commitment. I have

involved in actually taking the path of the ten unwholesome actions, have

commanded that it be entered, or have rejoiced at its being entered.

Having been obscured by any obstacles from my previous actions, I shall be

led into a realm of hell denizens, or shall be led to a place of birth as an

animal, or shall be led to a land of the hungry spirits, or shall be born in a

remote irreligious land, or shall be born a barbarian, or shall be born among

long-living celestial beings, or shall become incomplete in sensory organs,

or shall come to hold wrong views, or I shall become displeased with the

presence of a Fully Awakened Being.

But now, before the Fully Awakened Beings, the Endowed Transcendent Destroyers who became primordially aware, who became visionary, who became witnesses, who became valid,

who see by their knowledge, I acknowledge and lay bare whatever such obstacles from my previous actions I have, all of them, without concealing any, without keeping anything secret, and hereafter I pledge to refrain from such actions.

All Fully Awakened Transcendent Destroyers please heed me: In this birth

and throughout births that have endlessly begun in cyclic existence, in other

births while turning in the cycle of existence, whatever source of virtue there

is in my giving even a morsel of food to just one being who is born as an

animal, and whatever source of virtue there is in my maintaining discipline,

and whatever source of virtue there is in my abiding in pure conduct, and

whatever source of virtue there is in my acting to spiritually ripen sentient

beings, and whatever source of virtue there is in activating my mind towards

supreme full awakening, and whatever source of virtue there is in

unsurpassable pristine awareness, having collected them, brought them

together and bound them all fast through dedicating them completely to the

unsurpassable, to that of which there is no higher, to that which is even

higher than the high, to the supreme surmounting even the supreme, I fully

dedicate for the peerless awakening of absolute perfection. Just as the Fully

Awakened Transcendent Destroyers of the past have dedicated, and just as

the Fully Awakened Transcendent Destroyers who are yet to come will

dedicate, and just as the Fully Awakened Transcendent Destroyers living

now are dedicating, in the same way do I make this dedication.

All wrongs I individually confess: in all merit I rejoice. All Fully Awakened Beings, I beseech and request you: may I and other realize the ultimate and supreme primordial awareness that is unsurpassable.

Whoever are the supreme men, the Conquerors living now, those of the past and likely those who are yet to come, praising their excellence, all like a limitless ocean, I join my palms in prayer, going to close to them for refuge.

This completes the Exalted “Three Heaps”, a sutra of the Great Vehicle.

20100327GRCH35B1

00:00 Introduction Megan

I am Megan Rotko and on behalf of Jewel Heart would like to welcome you all to the Ambassador Hotel for these teachings. A lot of you know Rimpoche already, but for those of you who don’t Gelek Rimpoche was born in Lhasa, Tibet and has been recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. He was trained at Drepung monastery and right before the Chinese invasion of Tibet he fled to India in 1959, where he worked editing and printing over 170 rare Tibetan manuscripts. He was also the director of Tibet House and a radio host on All India Radio. He did over 1000 oral interviews comprising a history of the fall of Tibet. In the late 70s Rimpoche was directed to teach western students by his teachers, the junior and senior masters of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and that brought Rimpoche to the United States. In 1988 he started Jewel Heart and there are chapters now in Chicago, Ann Arbor, New York, Cleveland, Nebraska, Malaysia and the Netherlands. His collected works include over 35 transcripts, including a New York bestseller book, Good Life Good Death and the Tara Box. We are very happy and honored to have him here today. So please join me in welcoming Gelek Rimpoche

0:02

Welcome everybody here and thank you Megan for the introduction and making the arrangements here. It is very comfortable in the Ambassador Hotel. That’s very good. The subject we will be focusing on for the next two days is the purification. Let me go back and say it again, because when I say purification, some will know what I am talking about but some people may not. That’s why I want to go back and think about how to say this. When we are working on the spiritual path, what are the most important tasks? What are your goals? You may have your goals on your spiritual path. That’s why we are practicing. We want to achieve something. We don’t want to practice a spiritual path to try to be fancy or funny. Whatever you want to achieve, that will be your spiritual goal. The traditional teachings will give you recommendations on the goals. Whatever your goal may be, why can’t we get there straight away? The moment we decide what our goal is we put the focus on it and start working. But why don’t we get it? There are a number of reason.

A – maybe we are not even focused? Many people do. We want to achieve something, in the heart of hearts. But are we really looking for it whole-heartedly. Many of us don’t. Very few people look for their goals wholeheartedly. So we don’t get to the goal straight away. I can’t say we are not sincere. We do want it, but it is not our first priority. We think, “I have got a lot more things to do, and this is just one of them.” When it is not so important, you won’t get it.

B – even if you think it is necessary and that we have to do it and we are not getting younger and we are willing to put effort it and you begin to put efforts in, yet it is not happening. Why? We want to achieve our goal before we even start to put in efforts. We may put in sincere efforts today but we would like to achieve our goal yesterday. That’s always the case. We all do that. For sure. But forget about yesterday, even today and tomorrow it is not going to happen. There may be indications that something may be happening, and your hopes are rising, but it is not really happening. Why is that so? The Buddha chose to call that “blocks”, rather than obstacles. Obstacles can be very temporary. Blocks there are also temporary but not as temporary as we would like to think. We think it should change in the next couple of hours or minutes. So it is little more than obstacles. They are called blocks and they sort of stand against you.

0:11

It becomes a partition. If you pull these two curtains together the room will be divided into two. Like that, it not only becomes parted, but it blocks you. You can’t go through. It is right in front of you and blocks you. We may call them negative karmas or downfalls or broken vows, broken commitments, we may call them immoralities. We may have different names for different deeds and functions, but they all come into that box entitled “blocks” when they materialize and that’s why we don’t get what we want. It is anything that creates a distance between you and your goal, anything that stands in your way and makes you not to move forward towards your goal. That can be done by anything. It can be done by circumstances, sometimes unavoidable circumstances. Sometimes it can be done by some kind of – you are not going to like it – evil spirit. But mostly it is our own deeds.

The traditional Buddhist teachings give you ways and means of handling those things, depending on what they are. If there are evil spirits or obstacles, there are ways of handling that through some kind of ritual practice. If it is negativity created by the individual, then you do it through purification. If it is a lack of good fortune then you do accumulation of merit. If you look carefully there are so many categories. We may dismiss that by just calling everything “obstacle”. But you have to find out what type of obstacle it is and what to do about it. The most important thing is the negativities that we have committed or created. In general in our understanding, particularly in the west, people think that you have got to suffer and then it’s cleared. That’s true in general, but it is not true in so many cases, particularly for human beings like us. It is really not true. That’s amazing. Why? Of course karma is true and it is definite and fast growing and so on. But if we have to keep on experiencing every negative deed we have committed, it will be never ending. We could never become fully enlightened and never achieve our goals, because there are so many. Every minute of our life we create negative or positive karma, tremendously and we have a huge storage of both. All of them will materialize gradually. It doesn’t happen that you create a karma and experience the result and zoom – it is gone. It all functions gradually. There will be never enough time to pay for it or to enjoy, because we are extremely rich in those storages. Maybe there is a lot of junk in there, but all our storages are full. So if you have to settle them one by one there will never be an end.

0:21

That question was asked to Buddha and he said you don’t have to experience every negative result. You can purify the negativities and you rejoice in and build more of your positives. If you keep on doing that there will be a time when no negativities will be left. There will be a time when you always do positive things. So challenge your negativities, which includes negative karma, obstacles and blocks and build positives, presuming that it is your good karma, your gain, your development and the cause of joy. Looking at other negativities as causes of suffering and at the positivities as causes of joy, we begin to see what we want and how we will be able to get what we want. We have to work at the causal level. You can’t really work at the result level, whether it is suffering or joy.

If we constantly keep on supplying the cause of joy, the joy will remain constant with us. If we keep on supplying causes of suffering, the suffering will remain constant with us. That’s why Buddha says: Samsara is suffering, nirvana is peace.

That’s what we should establish clearly in our minds. Then we will begin to think that engaging in the spiritual path has some kind of purpose. That is also not simply just to be happy but remain happy. Happiness may become constant, and we may be separated from suffering forever. All that has to be achieved on the causal level, not the result level. When you are working on the spiritual path for your happiness, the question is how? Because you create the causes of happiness and joy and discard the causes of suffering and pain. If I just tell the cause of my suffering to get out of here it won’t go. Nor can I take it and wash it. I can’t put it in a washing machine and put detergent in and run it. You may run it for 24 hours, 48 hours or forever. Nothing happens. So the only way to get that out is by purifying. You challenge the negativities through purifying. One of Buddha’s sutras – the words that he spoke – gives the example of a clear sky with sunshine. That can be blocked by clouds. The clouds are temporary. They can move. That is because the nature of the sky is to be empty and clear. The nature of sunshine is to be shining. It is not by nature cloudy. There may be heavy clouds, but still, they are temporary. They can go away.

0:31

The wind will push the clouds. That’s true. When you have stormy weather the air pushes the clouds out. The weather channel shows you it is always moving. What’s chasing the clouds is the air behind. It doesn’t matter here from which direction the wind is blowing. It drives the clouds away. Just like that, all our obstacles and blocks are temporary, because they are not in our nature. Nor are they permanent. So they can change. The way to change them is by changing the circumstances and causes and conditions. They are dependently originated. Everything depends. So when you change the causes and conditions, then no matter whatever happens, but it will change. If you don’t change the causes and conditions, then nothing will change.

Earlier I said that we have to work on the causal level. That’s because we are dependently arising or originated. Everything is, the events in our life and lives and everything. They depend on causes and conditions. And who provides the causes and conditions? We ourselves, very definitely. No one makes the causes “up there” and allocates them to you. Some people tell me about the “akashic records” that provide everything. I don’t know. I have not seen it. I am 70 years old and if I don’t see it now I may not see it at all. So I don’t know. But what I do know is that the causes, conditions and circumstances change everything in our life. It happens day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. We go from joy to misery and from there to happiness – it’s all changing. That’s because of circumstances. We do know that very well, but we don’t want to know. Honestly. It is much easier to think that somebody else is managing. So we go and hire somebody who manages everything. Some people say that God manages. Some people say that karma manages. So we are hiding behind somebody, avoiding our own personal responsibility. Avoiding seems to be easier for us. We don’t want to be responsible. How many of us will say, “I will be happy to help but I am not responsible.”

But in reality it is totally in our own hands. That’s the honest truth. The older I get the more I am convinced that it is really in our own hands, nobody else’s. Some of you may think: what a strange thing to say, but I think it is the reality. Particularly human beings have much more opportunity to handle the causal level. And we do know that. In our deep, deep mind we really know that. How many of us tell the young ones, “If you don’t get a good education, you are not going to have a good life.” If you don’t have a degree you are not going to get paid well. So we put ourselves through school and do all kinds of things, in order to get paid well.

Let’s say that money makes us happy for the time being. So to bring that money in you have to get yourself educated. Education not only brings you money but also more understanding and that can make the human being better – tough it can also make you worse. Nobody wants to hear it but it does. So we do know that, otherwise why put ourselves through school with all these difficulties for so many years? You almost put in 20 years of school. That’s one third of our life. We do it because we have that understanding and that’s commonly accepted. Nobody raises a question or an eye brow. Everybody will agree. But we don’t want to acknowledge it. Education? Yes, but shaping your future? Then we say, “Maybe somebody else is doing it.” In reality it is ourselves.

One of the things how we can shape ourselves is by challenging the negativities. How can we do that? That goes a little beyond our normal sense, although our normal sense can tell us. We do know that if our clothes, our sweaters, shirts and socks become dirty, they have to be washed and they can be washed. Sometimes we know they can’t be washed by water, so we send them to the dry-cleaner’s. Sometimes we know it can be washed with water and that’s better. We know it can be clean. Purification is almost like cleaning. I don’t think it is making it new.

I get a lot of food stains on my shirts, sweaters and jackets. It’s oil, fat and so on. But you can clean it. That doesn’t make my sweater new, but it becomes clean. Similarly, all these stains we have, which we call blocks, we can clean them.

0:44

When it is clean, whether new or old, it serves the purpose. Just like that, cleaning serves the purpose. One most important thing here is this: can you clean? Buddha’s answer is: yes, we can. Because it is not permanent. Nothing is permanent. So it is changeable. Something maybe clean and pick up a stain and become dirty. So the clean clothes change into dirty. They can be cleaned and become clean. That is called impermanent. If it is permanent, dirty will remain dirty forever and clean will remain clean forever. That doesn’t work. We all know that. The solution is cleaning. I don’t know if purification is technical language. Maybe spiritual people talk about it. But on the other hand you can drink purified water and purify the air. So there can be human and spiritual purification too.

There are many ways of purification. Almost every spiritual tradition talks about it, whether it is the Judeo-Christian or Hindu-Buddhist tradition. Sometimes it is a little severe and sometimes a little gentler. In the old Hindu traditions sometimes purification was so severe that people would burn themselves physically. Some would jump on a trident. I am wondering about that old Hindu tradition earlier on where they sacrified a woman when her husband died. They would burn her alive and cremate them together even though the woman was not dead. I don’t know if that has anything to do with purification or if it is something else. In the European medieval culture, if a woman didn’t weigh enough they would burn you and call you a witch. That’s European culture. I have been to Europe and saw these things in the museums. Why did they call them witches? Why was it bad to be a witch? Does it mean a wise woman or something else? Maybe they looked at it as purification. They didn’t know what to do with them, so they burnt them. I don’t know. There are all these funny things in our culture.

0:52

Buddhism came a little later. Maybe they were just lucky and times were a little more civilized. I didn’t see anything about burning anyone in that way. But purification is always the case. In the Buddhist tradition Buddha taught many things. Many of you are very familiar. Purification is among the prerequisites of any practice you do. There are 6 prerequisites. Out of these the 5th is the Seven Limbed practice, the essence of purification and accumulation of merit. What you are accumulating is positive karma and positive deeds and what you are purifying is negative karma and negative deeds. When you have the Seven Limbs one of them, the 3rd, is purification. The essence of purification, the bottom line, according to Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa lhak par lä drip jung wa ne chö pe is especially purifying the - lä nyin gye drib pa – the bad karma that became a block. That is the most important point out of all purifications. Yes, I hurt somebody and I purify that. I compensate and do something. That is all fine. But the most important thing to purify is the bad karma that becomes a block – lhak par lä drip – lä stand for karma, and drip is short for dri pa, which is block. Nying gye means negative. Lhak par lä drip jung wa ne chö pe… especially this is the most important and it is important to always use the four powers. When you are challenging these blocks or obstacles you use the four powers.

There are many ways of purifying. One of them is to say the names of Enlightened Beings. Another is to do perfect deeds. That will come when we go through.

1:00

The subject I would like to talk about today is the Purification of the 35 Buddhas. It is known as jang chub tung sha in Tibetan for short – or jang chub sem pei tung wa la sha pa. The specialty is the purification of bodhisattvas. It is the Mahayana method of purification. Jang chub is the perfection of purifying downfalls. Tung means probably falling and sha is clearing, cutting through. So it is cutting through the downfalls.

Most of you know the four powers: the power of the base or foundation, the power of the antidote, the power of repentance and the power of non-repetition. In Tibetan these are teng gi thob, nying po kun tu zhe pei thob, nam pa sün gye pai thob, nyi pa le lar dö pei thob.

1:03

The first power is the power of base or foundation. The foundation we are talking about here is actually talking about ourselves. There are two things: the base on which we function. Which base are we talking about? The base you focus to or yourself as the base? Both are accepted. However, here you can use yourself as the base. That means if you have any vows, then every deed you do becomes much more powerful than without having vows. The person with vows and commitments or the person without vows and commitments – which becomes more effective? The person with commitments and vows. That’s not because of what they did but who they are. When you say: base – in normal teachings I say that the base is the foundation on which you work, in this case you have the objects of either enlightened ones or non-enlightened ones. That’s one way and this is another way. Both are fine. But here today it makes more sense to focus on who you are, rather than what you do. It is a little hard for Americans – or the scientific world – to hear it, but it is the reality, actually even in science. It matters who you are. Educated people can make more money; lesser educated people make less money. That’s commonly accepted. It’s not what you do, isn’t it?

Here it is the same thing. If you have vows you are much more effective than if you don’t have vows. When the educated person works, they may work less but achieve more and work more organized. The lesser educated will struggle more but achieve less. So sometimes it is not what you do, but who you are. If you have a spiritual practice then it is very powerful. If you don’t have a spiritual practice, then even if you just try to do a little purification here and there it may not be that powerful. There are some people who would like to emphasize just doing purification. They say, “Purification is most important, that’s why I like to do that.” That’s fine, but that may not be as efficient as when you have not only vows but also a spiritual practice.

From a Buddhist point of view a spiritual practice always begins with taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Now, let’s look into the tung sha text itself. There are several translations.

I think it begins with “I, so and so” always take refuge in Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

I, who am called by the name…, throughout all time seek refuge in the

Spiritual Master;

in the Fully Awakened Being I seek refuge;

in his Truth of Dharma I seek refuge;

in the Spiritual Aspirants I seek refuge.

1:16

“Throughout all time” or “always” means from today onwards we take refuge, until we become fully enlightened buddhas. We are talking about that very specific period. That tells you the time when you take refuge: from today till becoming fully enlightened Buddha. So any time, throughout. That indicates the time. Particularly practitioners like yourselves, are lam rim practitioners. Some of you may not be but most of you are. As lam rim practitioners you have the perfect circumstances, the perfection of refuge, the perfection of generating bodhimind. You do have that. Just simply practicing lam rim provided you with the perfect point of taking refuge and generating bodhimind. Thereby you have perfectly established within you the power of base. Not only have you set yourself in perfect condition but also taking refuge is entering into Buddhism, Buddha’s way of doing it and therefore you automatically have a vow too. Not only do you have the perfect base from the practice point of view but also from the point of view of who you are. So from both angles you have the total advantage, if you are a lam rim practitioner.

If you are not a lam rim practitioner, if you are like a one-yidam practitioner or that type, then you have to work for this. It is coming out of the Buddhist practice, so therefore you have the refuge. It is coming out of Mahayana practice. So you have the generating of the bodhimind. And that is the essence of lam rim anyway. Through that it becomes the strongest and most powerful power of the base.

What does taking refuge mean? It really must have two causes. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa asked the question: tem dro ngo woi i te wa – what is the solid refuge? He asked that in 13 hundred and something. The answer came by the First Panchen Lama 200 years later. He said that you need a sense of urgency, thinking, “If I don’t have a refuge and I suddenly die or there are circumstances where I cannot do anything, what will I do?” And there is the fear of having to suffer in samsara in general and in particular, in the lower realms. I am afraid that I may fall into the pit of samsara and down into the hell realms. So I am really afraid. How to protect myself? Here I realize that Buddha, Dharma and Sangha have the power to protect me. When you raise the question, “what is i te wa? Or what is the solid point of refuge?” the answer is that there is not one solid point but two. One is the fear and the other is the certainty that Buddha, Dharma and Sangha have the power to protect. We have to know this clearly and put in our efforts.

1:25

So there is the fear of samsara in general and particular the lower realms. We call it fear, but actually it is compassion. It is compassion for yourself and others. In case we are caught in there, how difficult it will be! So we have to make sure that we don’t fall in there. This explanation is very suitable to us, because we don’t like fear. We don’t like to entertain fear. We want our mind to entertain compassion. But the traditional teachings use the word “fear”, rather than compassion. You know why? It is more a sense of urgency than compassion. For us compassion is something we can entertain if we have time. But the sense of urgency has to be there.

Every Tibetan Buddhist practice will say: “I would like to obtain the perfect state of the Lama-Buddha So and so.” The whole idea of attaining the state of perfect liberation, the Lama-Buddha stage, is because of the sense of urgency and compassion. That is the essence of taking refuge. Honestly. You may begin to think, “Hey, he is talking about taking refuge and developing compassion and bodhimind and it all becomes one gray thing.” Yes, it is one within the individual practitioner. It is categorized separately as refuge, compassion and bodhimind. But within one practitioner these go together at the same time. Subject-wise you may categorize, but when you sit and think they all go together. You don’t go and say, “Now we on this subject and Now we close that off and go to that subject.” It goes through. For practitioners it is interlinked. To clarify the subject it is presented separately. But for practitioners it is all interlinked. First we make a lot of effort to understand them separately. Now I am putting effort for you to put them together. Funny, first you separate them and then you put them together.

So the fear is of falling into the lower realms and samsara’s suffering. We want to help and protect and liberate ourselves and also for others. So both, one’s own and others’ purpose are addressed. In Buddhist teachings you often hear about the “Two purposes”. That means the purpose of oneself and that of others. What you want for yourself is the purpose of self and if you want the same thing happening for others, that’s the purpose of others. That’s what it means to benefit others.

Trusting in and relying on the objects of refuge is important. Tibetan Buddhist take refuge in Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. First comes the guru. The power to help is with you, the Lama and Three Jewels. Taking refuge means: whatever is happening, good or bad, I rely on you. That is true refuge to Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Then again there is this hidden thing. You not only have purification but also taking refuge. Not only refuge, but also bodhimind, in action – as well as in prayer form. You say,”In order to desire to become a Buddha I will like to engage in the activities of those who are seeking Buddhahood – the bodhisattvas.” That becomes action-bodhimind. With refuge and bodhimind together you have the perfect power of the base or foundation. That is the first power.

The second power according to this commentary is the power of antidote. In different texts you have the four powers in different orders. In order to purify negativities in general all virtuous activities are purification. However, Buddha strongly and specifically recommended a number of things. Sometimes you can read scriptures. I don’t know whether that is so familiar to you in the west. But in the Tibetan – and particularly in the Chinese and Japanese traditions – they read and chant the sutras.

1:34

It is one of their major activities. Tibetans do it too. The Chinese and Japanese, particularly the Chinese, they do read the sutras a lot. It has become one of the major practices, actually. So Buddha recommends to read those. Then equally, Buddha recommends wisdom, the meditation on the wisdom of emptiness. Then offering. Then saying mantras. You can do the Vajrasattva recitation. A lot of people do that. Even in the west it is now well known. Then one can build Buddha images. We, in Jewel Heart, did that. We sponsored a big Buddha image in Drepung Loseling in India 2,3 years ago. Then you can say the names of the buddhas. You may say, “What’s the difference between saying mantras and saying names?” Mantra can sometimes be a name, but there are differences. All names are not mantras and all mantras are not names. Then there is a difference between sung nga and ring nga. Sung nga always starts with OM and usually ends with Soha or Phat or HUM HUM PHAT PHAT or something. That becomes a mantra. Then ring nga I think is called dharani in Sanskrit. Dharanis and mantras are very close, but dharanis normally begin with TAYATA…, but then the TAYATE GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA- that may be an exception. There are always things like that.

1:38 Then we have saying the names of the buddhas. Here we have the 35 purification buddhas that Buddha manifested with the purpose of purification in 35 different forms. Each one of those is very special for purification. Just simply saying their names alone supposed to be purification. And not only you say their names but you do a prostration to each of them. That becomes even more powerful purification. As for prostrations, there is a good way which has benefits and a wrong way which has disadvantages. Normal teachings will tell you, so here I don’t have to emphasize this specifically.

Prostration does not have to be done by standing up and putting your body totally down on the ground, like in the long and short prostrations. You can also just sit down and fold your hands. Whom are you prostrating to? That’s important. You are prostrating to the field of merit. Lam rim practitioners have a field of merit and most Buddhist practices include a field of merit, whether it is lam rim or guru yoga or a sadhana. They have their own fields of merit. So one prostrates to the field of merit in general and in particular to these 35 buddhas. At the same time you simply say their names. You have all the translations there.

First comes Buddha Shakyamuni. The words in Tibetans are tön pa chom.dän.de de.zhin.sheg pa dra.chom pa yang.dag.pa dzog.pa sang.gyä pal.gyal.wa shakya tub.pa la chag tsal lo (Wylie: ston pa bcom ldan 'das de bzhin gshegs dgra bcom yang dag pa rdzogs pa sangs rgyas dpal rgyal ba sha kya thub pa)

To the Founder, the Transcendent Destroyer, the One Thus Gone(1), the Foe Destroyer, the Fully Enlightened One, the Glorious Conqueror from the Shakyas I bow down.

Alternative translation:

To the Teacher, the Endowed Transcendent Destroyer, the One Thus-Gone,

the Foe Destroyer, the Completely Perfected, Fully Awakened Being, the

Subduer from the Shakya clan, I pay homage.

The English translation says: to the founder, the Bhagawan, Tathagata, Arhat, etc, I don’t know why it says “founder”. The Tibetan says ton pa. Then comes Bhagawan (Tib: dra chom pa). That means enlightened. That has two points. One is the purpose of self, which is to be perfectly purified. The purpose for others is to be fully developed. So it is the quality of purification and the quality of perfection of spiritual development. The quality of purification is that a Buddha has purified both, blocks or obstacles, as well as the imprints of blocks. The Tibetan says dra chom pa, meaning someone who destroyed the enemies, in this case the blocks. Sometimes you see it as Victory, Victory, Greater Victory – MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNI…That comes from this angle. Yang dag par dzog pai – that means “perfectly accumulated”. One has accumulated positive karma, positive deeds and attained all total qualities. Bhagavan refers to that as well. Rajneesh was also called “Bhagavan”, this is traditional Sanskrit and Pali language, referring to these important points.

1:48

Then comes Tathagata – in Tibetan de zhin sheg pa – sometimes translated as “gone beyond”, but that looks like he is gone from here and went, but it is not only that. He smoothly left from here to there, but also smoothly returned from there to here. He went perfectly and came back perfectly. Perfectly gone - you have to think in terms of the dharmakaya. And came back perfectly – you have to think in terms of Sambogakaya and Nirmanakaya. Dharmakaya is dissolving into the nature of reality and Sambogakaya and Nirmanakaya is appearing out of emptiness. You have to understand that’s how it is. Then arhat is one who destroys the evil forces, which are the delusions.

Then I don’t know if “conqueror” is the best translation. The other translation says “subduer”.

Looks like it is time for lunch break. We didn’t do much work yet. We are back at 2 pm. 1:53