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77

20120527GRGRHS06

00:00 Recitation of Gelek Rimpoche’s and HH Dalai Lama’s long life prayer

0:09

Welcome back after lunch. We have come to page 11 in the Heart Sutra root text. We talked about “There is also no eye constituent, no mind constituent, up to no mind constituent.”

Then,

ma rik pa me/ ma rik pa ze pa me pa ne/ ga shi me/ ga shi ze pei bar du yang me do

There is no ignorance, no termination of ignorance, up to no aging and death, nor any termination of aging and death.

Everywhere you are talking about it, within the emptiness this is not there and that is not there. They even go beyond by saying that there is no Four Noble Truths:

de zhin du duk ngel wa dang/ kün jung wa dang/ gok pa dang/ lam me/ ye she me/ top pa me/ma top pa yang me do

Similarly, there is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, and no path. There is no ultimate wisdom, there is no attainment, there is no lack of attainment.

So what are we talking about here? In essence make this the bottom line: when you are totally focused on emptiness that very focusing mind is non-dual. Non-dual means that you are completely locked into the subject of wisdom-emptiness. There is no separation of the subject you perceive and the observer who is observing. In Tibetan you say yu yul chen tag me do me pa sung wa re. In Tibetan language they give you different terminology. They talk about the observer and the subject you are observing. They don’t say “you and what you look at”, but rather that there is no separation between observer and the subject you are observing. In other words, when you really get into the total focusing point of emptiness, at that moment the awareness of that individual is only the wisdom, the emptiness itself, no other relativities, nothing. That’s totally blank and you see emptiness alone, nothing else.

The moment you begin to see the relative truth aspect, then it becomes dualistic. When it says ‘non-dual’ it means there is no two. At that moment, in that presence, normally we say that the person is on the path of seeing. That is also divided into three: pre- actual and aftermath. So this happens on the actual path of seeing.

0:15

So in that meditative, totally focused state there is no subject-object separation. At that moment, for that person who is engaging in that very specific category, the direct meditative state, the third path, the path of seeing, in that person’s mind at that moment there is nothing else. Nothing else exists. No matter how important spiritual points there may be, like the Four Noble Truths, or physical points like your skandhas or your mental aspects of eye, ear, nose, etc, or even consciousness itself, they don’t exist at that time. What does “not exist” mean? They are not objects of observation. The meditator is not focused on them, so they don’t see it. So in that focusing perception there is none of them. That is the bottom line, I think. No matter wherever you go, important points like the Four Noble Truths, when they say that’s not there, that there is no nose, nor this and nor that, that is what it means.

Some people get confused. The confusion comes like this: if it is the wisdom of the meditative state, that wisdom should see everything, because it is the special Arya meditative mind. If they don’t see it, it may not be there. So people get confused on that. The whole bottom line is that at that moment, in the mind of that person, nothing exists except emptiness. That is non-duality, no two. That’s about it.

When you get to that level, when you see that, when you reach there and are able to maintain that, then there is no obstacle, no fear. You are gone beyond wrong things.

sha rii pu de ta we na/chang chub sem pa nam top pa me pei chir/ she rap kyi pa röl tu chin pa la ten ching ne te/ sem la drip pa me ching trak pa me do/ chin chi lok le shin tu de ne/ nya ngen le de pei tar chin to

Because of that, O Shariputra, since there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas abide in reliance upon the Perfection of Wisdom. Because they abide thus, their minds have no obscuration and they have no fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they arrive at ultimate nirvana.

Whether that reaches you actually to nirvana already that’s a different story. But in order to deliver the individual to nirvana the vehicle is the wisdom of emptiness. That wisdom delivers the individual to go beyond samsara and to nirvana.

0:23

dü sum du nam par zhuk pei/ sang gye tam che kyang/ she rap kyi pa röl tu chin pa la ten ne/

la na me pa yang dak par/ dzok pei chan chup tu ngön par dzok par sang gye so

All the Buddhas who abide in the three times also fully awaken to the highest, the completely perfected enlightenment through reliance on the Perfection of Wisdom.

In other words, the Buddhas of past, present and future, all of them became Buddha because of this. So really, truly, the true path which leads the individual to enlightenment, is the wisdom. That is the direct encounter with emptiness itself. Many people will refer to this as the direct encounter with the mind. I don’t know whether that is right or wrong. I don’t think I shouldn’t make any statement on this, but according to Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, encountering with the mind and encountering with emptiness may be two different things. People may be labeling encountering with emptiness as encountering with the mind. But on the other hand, if you look from the mahamudra point of view, the meditation itself is beginning to meditate on the mind itself rather than on object or anything.

Remember, in the lam rim tradition they begin to teach us that the beginning of our meditation is a subject such as an image of the Buddha. Then on that subject we are taught to have both, investigative meditation and concentrated meditation. Both are introduced when looking at the image of the Buddha. You mentally build the image. You don’t physically put it there. You are not looking at a picture or image. That is what the lam rim tradition normally teaches you. But when you look in the mahamudra from the Gelugpa point of view – like even within the lama chöpa the mahamudra comes in or else it is the mahamudra by itself – the meditation is introduced on the mind. Mind is the subject rather than an image of the Buddha or something, and learning both, investigative as well as focusing both. In that case people could easily label seeing the nature of the mind as seeing emptiness.

Actually, the nature of the mind is emptiness, no doubt about it. If the nature of the mind is not emptiness, then there has to be inherent existence. If there is inherent existence of the mind you have to be able to catch something and say, “This is mind.” There has to be something that you can hold by the horns and say, “This is mind.” But you don’t get that. So the nature of mind is no doubt emptiness. But by seeing the emptiness, by seeing the ultimate reality of the relative mind, whether you are really seeing emptiness, is a question. Different teachers and different schools will have different viewpoints.

Even within the Gelugpa school itself alone the viewpoint of mind, whether seeing the mind is seeing emptiness or not, differs even between the two tantric colleges. The upper tantric college, Guytö, and the lower tantric college, Gyüme, differ on that. Guytö will say that seeing the mind is seeing the emptiness. Gyüme will say that is not the case. They give you a contraction, saying that if seeing the mind is seeing the emptiness, then at the time of death, you would encounter with your own ultimate mind. I don’t want to say that is the primordial mind, but it is the deepest mind and you encounter with that. If that is so, then everybody who dies encounters with emptiness. That is their argument.

The tradition of Gyutö says, “Yes, they do see emptiness, but they don’t get it. They see it, they encounter it, but they don’t get it. They don’t recognize it. ”

0:31

Whatever it is, it has gone beyond us. But what we really know is that encountering emptiness is the only key to deliver us to liberation, honestly. It is not compassion or love. They are great, absolutely necessary, but they don’t deliver these goods. These goods are only delivered by the wisdom alone.

That’s why the Heart Sutra says that all the past, present and future buddhas have gone through with this.

Then,

de ta we na/ she rap kyi par röl tu chin pei ngak/ rik pa chen pö ngak/ la na me pei ngak/ mi nyam pa dang nyam pei ngak/ duk ngel tam che rap tu zhi war che pei ngak/ mi dzün pe na den par she par cha te

Therefore, the mantra of the Perfection of Wisdom, the mantra of vast awareness, the highest mantra, the mantra is equal to that which has no equal, the mantra that pacifies all suffering; because it is not false, know it to be true –

she rap kyi pa röl tu chin pei ngak/ me pa

The mantra of the Perfection of Wisdom is proclaimed:

ཏདྱ་ཐཱ། ག་ཏེ་ག་ཏེ་པཱ་ར་ག་ཏེ་པཱ་ར་སཾ་ག་ཏེ་བོ་དྷི་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།

tadyata gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

Man - tra means mind protection. Commonly people’s understanding is that it is something to repeat. If you watch television, a lot of the yuppers on television say that the mantra is… - meaning whatever you repeat. But truly mantra means protection of mind. Man means mind, even in Hindi. It is either in the brain or the heart or wherever you go, but it refers to mind. Then tra means protection. So mantra is mental protection.

0:35

This mantra is the Perfection of Wisdom. When you talk about the essence of the Perfection of Wisdom, the sutra we read and the meaning of this mantra: Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha is the same thing. Why is it double? According to the teaching, the earlier long explanations with no nose, no ear, etc, are meant for the less intelligent persons. The mantra is supposed to be for the very intelligent persons. The very intelligent person doesn’t need much explanation, simply saying da da da is good enough. It is almost the same thing.

What type of mantra is it? It is she rap kyi pa röl tu chin pei ngak – thing, a wisdom mantra and not only wisdom mantra, but a mantra of rig pa chen po ngak - a mantra of vast awareness, as this translation says.

Why is it rig pa chen po? The word ripga, vast awareness, is important. The perfection path is absolutely understanding clearly. The mantra that makes you understand it clearly is rig pa chen po. Although in the English translation it says ‘the mantra of vast awareness’ in Tibetan the word rig pa is taking it as absolute. Thus it is the mantra that presents the absolute reality – rig pa chen po ngak. Then la na me pey ngak, translated here as the ‘highest mantra’. In that it is the ultimate. According to this commentary there is nothing better or higher than this. There is no better path that delivers enlightenment to you. Then mi nyam pa dang nyam pei ngak.

And that is as the translation says ‘the mantra which is equal to that which has no equal’.

Then duk ngel tam che rap tu zhi war che pei ngak, the mantra that pacifies all sufferings.

Then this famous mantra is: Tayata Gate Gate Paragate Parasamamgate Bodhi Soha.

Sometimes you find OM in there and sometimes you don’t. Nothing is wrong if you have OM, and if you don’t have OM nothing is missing. Some versions say tayata om gate gate…and some will say OM tayata gate gate…. It doesn’t matter. OM has its own quality and its own meaning and purpose. The word OM alone is known as the jewel mantra. It is everywhere, wherever you look. All OMs are the same, whether you spell is OM or A-O-M. It is three syllables combined together, which makes one. That represents body, speech and mind of the object whom you worship or the subject from whom you are receiving blessings.

0:45

Many mantras go: OM something something HUM. HUM means becoming union, oneness. The subject of body, speech and mind of the object of refuge and the subject of body, speech and mind of the object, the practitioner, join together. Thereby the individual practitioner’s body, speech and mind becomes the nature of the worshipped subject’s body, speech and mind. OM and HUM does that. Many people will say that OM is the beginning of the mantra and HUM is the ending of the mantra. That’s true, but that explanation does not do any good justification. Whether you are going to say OM or not, it is okay. There is a general rule: If you say OM it becomes a mantra. If you don’t say OM but tayata alone we normally count as a dharani rather than a mantra. What is the difference between mantra and dharani? It is within the vajrayana level. Normally, the highest yoga tantra utilizes mantra and many of the other tantras utilize dharanis. But if I keep talking too much about that it’s not that good. So I better shut that point here.

Anway, tayata here just means: like this – and that’s about it. Like this – like what? Like the enlightened beings see and perceive the ultimate achievement – like this. So what do they see? They see the direct explanation of the Buddha of the absolute truth, the indirect explanation of the Buddha’s teaching, like compassion and love. Both, compassion and love are the truth path. Both are put in that way. So that’s all included in like this.

0:50

Then you would have OM. This commentary talks about OM, as I said earlier.

Now GATE. The word gate in Tibetan becomes sung zhin and that means actually ‘gone’. So there are two GATE. The first GATE is about the first of the five paths. Whether in Theravada or Mahayana, there are five paths. Whether Sravaka - , Pratyeka – or Buddha yana, all three talk about the five paths. The first is the path of accumulation of merit, the second is the path of action, the third the path of seeing, the fourth the path of meditation and the fifth is the path of no more learning. These are the five paths. That’s the basic framework. Another reference is stream enterer, one time returner, no more returning and arhat. That’s a different thing. Here we talk from the point of view of the five paths. So the first GATE refers to the path of accumulation. The second GATE refers to the path of action. The third one PARAGATE, the bigger way, is the path of sseing. PARASAMGATE is the path of meditation. So the five paths are known in all the yanas or vehicles, such as Hinayana, Mahayana and even Vajrayana.

The first path, the path of accumulation of merit has as its major purpose to accumulate merit at that level. I won’t go into detail, otherwise you divide that into three categories, small, medium and big. It looks like shirt sizes: small, medium and large. For me it is XX. Some people need a couple of SS. I am just joking. But the level of the intensified work the individual will do, that’s why there are three categories.

The path of action, jor lam, the second GATE, has four categories, trö, tsemo, söpa, chö chok. Maybe that’s good enough. I am not sure if I am communicating to you or not. Half I am and half I am not. The levels of the path of action are based on a funny traditional example. It is about making a fire just by rubbing twigs against each other. In those days there were no lighters, matches or laser guns. So if you wanted to make fire you had to rub twigs together. I don’t think they even had flint stones. When you keep rubbing the twigs together you create a little heat. That is why that level is called trö, heat. Then the heat becomes very strong. That’s how it becomes tsemo, peak or top of the heat, almost burning your hands. But then you have to be patient to continue. That is söpa. The finally the fire will spark. That is the very traditional, 2600 year old example of these four categories of the path of action.

PARAGATE – that is the path of seeing. That has three divisions. In the direct encounter with emptiness (Tib: nam shak ye she) there is no other vision at all. There is nothing in your view. It is totally nothing. That is what we are talking about with the path of seeing.

That has an aftermath stage. (Tib: je thob ye she). That aftermath is difficult to adjust. On the path of seeing you see nothing and because of your complete focus on that you sometimes go outside of the law of physics. So the aftermath has a difficult adjustment. Within that path of seeing itself is the aftermath and after that adjustment you come to the path of meditation - PARASAMGATE. What you are meditating on is again the same good old emptiness. And that leads to perfection – BODHI SOHA or no more learning, the fifth path. The five paths are the total Buddhist path.

1:00

Wherever, whoever, says whatever, it is the five paths. Normally they are even known as the sa chö lam nga. The 10 stages or bhumis and five paths. Bhumi means land and in Malaysia that becomes owner of land. They use the Sanskrit language. If you from Malay origin you are an owner of land. If you are an immigrant from China even 10 generations back, you are still not a land owner. So you are either a ‘bhumi putra’ or a non-bhumi. But the Buddhists use the bhumi business differently. In the Mahayana they give you the 10 bhumis and 5 paths. So these are the five paths, corresponding to the GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA. The purpose of all these five paths is to see emptiness directly. The first two, the path of accumulation and the path of actions, are working towards seeing emptiness. The path of seeing itself is the seeing but it has pre – actual – and aftermath and then it goes to the path of meditation, meaning that when you have adjusted you meditate on emptiness, which will deliver the path of no more learning – the BODHI SOHA. That’s about it. The real essence of the Heart Sutra is this mantra. That much mentioning is good enough for a very intelligent individual to awaken on their path.

Then there is a little conclusion of who says what and how Buddha agrees with them and all of that. We will do that a little later, maybe later in the evening as well as tomorrow.

1:03

Okay, you know Carole and Nancy, our Jewel Heart directors, who work tirelessly and tremendously and there is a great improvement in Jewel Heart as you can see. I am requesting Carole to speak so that we know where we are and what we are.

1:04 Carole’s speech……………1:27 –

1:27 – Rimpoche: Thank you, I guess it is dinner time. 1:27 end of file.