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201220120822GRMLDelam6 (rt120302)

00:00 protector prayers: Dharmaraja

0:01

To continue where we left off this morning with the actual practice. The outlines is now the actual practice.

Although it was actual earlier, it is almost like a prerequisite, like the guru devotional practice. It is the fundamental basis of development. Then the appreciation of life, the importance and the difficulty to find it. Although part of practice, it is a prerequisite.

So now the actual practice

The real essence: what to do

That has three outlines:

Common with the lower scope

Common with the medium scope

Mahayana

Officially you would have to say:

Training your mind according to the “Common with the lower level”, but ‘training your mind’ can be misunderstood. Yesterday we said that the moment you use mind training it is bound to be misunderstood in the west. There is ‘silver mind training’ etc. and there are so many. There is something called ‘positive religious thinking’ and there is scientology and you can get confused. We are not even clear and don’t even understand quite well and then we get all this confusion. That is not necessary.

So we have basically these three. ‘Common’ means together, joined. Actually what we are talking about is the Theravada path. It is the basic foundational requirement in order to build the Mahayana path on top. That’s why it is called ‘common with the lower scope’ and ‘common with the medium scope’. Then there is the Mahayana, these three.

‘Common with the lower scope’

During sessions - When you are actually practicing what to do

In between sessions

It is the same outline names as before, but what you do is different.

During sessions

Pre

Actual

Conclusion

Pre is as usual. Kyab ne kun tu la ma lhag pail ha – thub wang dor je chang la sol wa deb…generating the field of merit, Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara, making the 7 limbed offering, mandala offering, making requests and all that. That is the usual practice in every session. In Tibetan practice, the moment you sit down you say

Sang gye chö dang tsog kyi chog nam la……

I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,

until I become fully enlightened,

by practicing generosity and the other perfections,

may I be able to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings

We say that all the time, in any language. Just like that, for every meditation you have to have this. That is the preliminary aspect of each and every individual session.

Now, actually you want to observe why do I have these continuous difficulties? Why do we do dharma practice? Why do we have to follow anything other than making dharma or going for material things? Because they don’t fully answer our curiosity or satisfy us. That’s why we need it. That portion is lacking. So that is because material things, money, wealth, and all of them, even education, although that is great and nothing wrong with it, these are all not ever-lasting. They are not a permanent solution. It is permanent as long as our mind is functioning okay. If we have a problem with our mind or the basis of mind, the brain or heart or anything else, then the relationship between the outer physical body and the inner occupying mind will have a problem. The problem will be that the communication doesn’t work.

0:10

The messages don’t go through, the signals don’t get passed through. You get the wrong signals and all that. Why am I bringing that up today? Because I saw a movie last night. I had jetlag, so I was watching a movie last night.

In that movie I saw two American guys flying up in Alaska somewhere. They lost their plane and crashed but somehow were able to drag themselves through the forest. While doing that, the younger guy was first much stronger and helped the older guy, pulling him up and doing all that. They had no way of communicating to the search party. The search party didn’t go that high up. The parameters for the search was much lower than where these guys were up in the mountains. They were coming down, half walking, half falling, moving in the wrong direction, climbing back and so on. Finally the younger guy who was much stronger had problems of confusion. He got mixed up between south and north and east and west. They began to argue. One said to go this way, the other that way. The older would say, “Why do you want to go south?” and the younger pointed north and said , “This is south.” Then the elder guy realized the younger guy had a brain injury.

When the mind is in the brain and the brain is injured, then if the container has a problem that is reflected to whatever is contained in there. So mental problems are not necessarily because the mind is damaged. Wherever the basis for the mind’s functioning is, nerves, brain or whatever, if that is damaged, it is a very much interdependent relationship the contained and the container.

So whether the mind has a problem or the base on which the mind is functioning has a problem, one of them can be the cause. If there is no problem with either of these, then your education will function well, but then, when that problem comes, even the education will give up. That’s why probably out of all the answers we are looking for the best available is education and that is also limited. That doesn’t mean not to get educated. Don’t misunderstand me. I am just pointing it out rather than critiquing education. I am not. But it is the reality.

Everything else, whatever we can obtain or manage, is not a 100% satisfactory to suit our needs. Many will say, “There is no satisfaction.” But that’s not true. Buddha says it is not true. There are many great beings who have obtained ultimate development and they do have the satisfaction. Just because we didn’t get it doesn’t mean we can’t have it. We haven’t seen anybody who has got it, but that doesn’t mean there is no answer for it. That’s the reason why we look at Buddhism or the spiritual path. Some people don’t like the word ‘spiritual path’, because the word ‘spiritual’ is associated with some kind of new agey language and some people are allergic to it. But then some people are allergic to the word ‘religion’ too. They will think that ‘religion’ is only the conservative Christianity. They will not think that Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and so on are even included. The core American version of religion is the southern Methodist faith and they think anything else is not even religion. That is just language, however and any terminology we use will have some of these problems.

Even Buddh –ism is something different. Buddha never called his teaching Buddhism. All the –isms are a British invention, including Buddh-ism. They tried to organize all the different faiths and that’s how the –isms came up, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. They did that in order to categorize them. It was not done by Buddha or Buddhists, but by the British. That shows you how unreliable labels are.

But we utilize them today and are satisfied with saying “I am a Buddhist.” People don’t go beyond that and question, “What is it? Who made it? And where is it?” They don’t, they know where to put the full stop. But in our case, sometimes we don’t and we will go even further. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I am just wasting your time.

0:21

The thing is this: There is something beyond our comprehensible, man-made world. However, we also have to see that almost all the religions are also man-made. Even if God made it, it is still man-made. So maybe I shouldn’t use the term ‘beyond man-made’. Last time I was here Colleen was talking to Suan Phaik and calling her Wee Lin. Then someone told her but she said, “You know who you are, anyway.” I may have to follow in her footsteps and say, “You know what I mean.” You come to that point because you lost the base on which you can identify, because the critically analyzing mind is pointing and any name you use and if you are thinking on those lines, will straight away point it out and you lose your base. Then there is no other answer but “you know what I mean”.

We go for the spiritual path to get our fully satisfied answer. Honestly. If some people follow this religion or that religion, because it is the tradition and a family thing, blab la bla then that is indeed just blab la bla, honestly. It is just a bunch of sheep on the same highway. Like where I live in America, everybody is driving on I 94, so that means all the sheep are moving along on 94. But there may be one sheep what is doing in a different direction and wants to find out and doesn’t want to go along with that big group of sheep pushing along. So we happen to be that one. A whole yard of sheep are going in one direction, but one goes in a different direction. That is like the genuine people who are looking for some practice. And that doesn’t have to be Buddhist or any tradition anywhere. The label you put on doesn’t matter for whatsoever, but your mind, your sharp analysis, trying to understand what it really, that does matter. So here, what Buddha and his followers in India and later in Tibet and now everywhere else (whether it is called Tibetan Buddhism or whatever) - shared with us and suggest to us is the path of the three scopes which is easy to organize.

What is ‘scope’? Something like ice cream scoop?

Audience: More like ‘range’.

Rimpoche: Actually, for me ice scream scoop is good enough. You can have a smaller scoop, a medium scoop and a maha – big scoop. That makes three ice cream scoops on top of each other.

The first level is really very fundamental. It is really interesting to see this. How do I meditate on the first scope? People ask, “Where do I begin? I want to do something.” Then you don’t know what to say, maybe meditate on OM MANI PADME HUM or something. We give the answer according to whatever we think we are doing ourselves. Maybe you people have a better answer than I do. Sometimes when people ask me, “Where do I begin?” I don’t even know what to say.

Truly, the beginning is here. The Pre- part, like the 7 limbs, generating the Field of Merit and so on, are definitely absolutely necessary. Without that we will not be much of an effect. Although you repeat the same old thing again and again, but still, it has its own value.

So then we begin to think. Why are we in this samsara? In other words, why do we suffer? Why do we get older and die? Why do we get reborn? Many of us say, “We just get older. That’s it.” And “yes, people die, because the body doesn’t function anymore and there are diseases and organ failures” and whatever other reasons you may give.

32.00

But these are not the deeper reasons. They are just the temporary causes and conditions. The real cause is the continuation of the individual and the problem is there: when you are born you are going to die. It is almost like you are born to die. We are born to live but that is concluded by death. Many of us will say, “How do I know that I will be reborn again?” it is true, we don’t know. We have the idea that we are going to die and we have some idea or perhaps hope that we will not disappear, but appear again. But we don’t really know. This is our true situation. This is one of the major sufferings. Once we are born, our body is such that it decays. No matter whatever you may do, it decays. It is going to fall apart. This is another pain that we go through. No matter how much we try to maintain the youthful look of being 20 or 30 it is not going to work. We try to do all kinds of things. We wash and polish and paint our face. And we don’t use those words. We say, “I am putting on some moisturizer” and “I am putting on some make-up”, but actually we polish and then we paint it. Too much point doesn’t look good and too little paint doesn’t work. If you put on too much it looks like a mask. Why do we all do that? Because we don’t like the reality and want to cover it up. That is our suffering. These are the major sufferings.

On top of that we have the suffering of our wishes not coming true. We would like it to be this way, but things are happening that way. All these struggles we are put through, everything, everywhere, in the house, in the family, in the group, in society, in general, in the office, in the world, in existence everywhere we have all this. This is reality. It is nobody’s individual special problem. It may look like “It is my problem, I have to solve it”, but still it is the true reality.

Yet all of them are truly a joke in comparison to the bigger problems. Imagine you find yourself born in the hell realms and every ground is burning. Forget about being a little too cold or too hot. It is burning or like in the cold hell realms everything is cracking into pieces because it is so cold. That is equally possible. These are our bigger problems. When you compare those problems with the usual man-made problems, then those are very little compared with the major ones.

We are looking to overcome those. These little sufferings we have become unbearable mentally. “I have been bullied”, “I have been undermined”, “I have been ignored”, “They don’t count me in”, “They want to shackle me” – all of those, truly speaking are nothing. In reality it is nothing, if you think of those other problems. Really. So why do we always have them? All these combinations of suffering?

0:40

What did we do wrong? Why are we subject to all this suffering? Well, I feel I did nothing wrong, but what I engaged in was actually the wrong things. I entertained my negative emotions. I acted according to the directions given by my negative emotions. That’s what I did. For me, sometimes it may simply be minding my own business. That’s also true. But that’s what is happening.

Remember Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara on your crown and think, “I want to end my suffering. What did I do wrong? Where do I go from here now?” The ‘Common with the Lower Scope’ teachings tell us that this is because we never think of impermanence. We think of everything else, “if you play this card, I will play that card”, “if this person does that, I will do this”, “I will direct my resources here”, “I will not overspend” etc, We think of everything, except impermanence in general and in particular, dying and death.

That is the reality. It is here and it is everywhere, and can happen anytime. There is no pre-annoucement. If you are in the Northern Continent you are supposed to live for a thousand years. When the time comes they will give you a warning, long enough before. Also, if you are in the samsaric god realms, your flowers will start to deteriorate and die and you will start sweating. So you know something is happening. Actually, in the human land we also have these diseases like cancer and you go through stage 3, stage 4 and at that point that is a big warning. But other than that death can just happen and many people just go. That’s nothing unusual. It is naturally what it is. But we don’t think that. That is a problem.

Another problem is that we don’t think it is possible that we can be reborn in the lower realms, the hell realm, hungry ghost realm or animal realms. We never thought about it and we don’t think about that today. Even when we are talking about it here some minds are thinking, “What??” and some others are thinking, “Oh well, it is part of this dharma teaching, in lam rim they say that all the time anyway, that’s the usual language” and that’s how we begin to dismiss it. Even though your physical body is here or you may be listening to a recording or reading a transcript or book, but still, even though you are hearing and reading about it, still you think it is the usual language, the usual thing. That’s our problem. If we think that is actually possible, then we should do something.

Sometimes people don’t want to think about because that will force them to do something else. So better not think about it. All of these are our problems. If we think about it and even if I can’t immediately do something out of my own power, at least I can take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But we don’t think about that. Many or most of us do take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but only because “I am Buddhist” or “it is my parents’ tradition and religion”.

0.48

The reasons why we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is because we want to. Why? Each and every one of us think about it. Why did I personally first take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha? Because I didn’t know anything else. They just took me there and pushed me through. But why did you? Think about it. Buddha tells us the reason we take refuge in Budhda, Dharma and Sangha is because there is a sense of urgency. In case I die today without having any preparation, at least I can rely on somebody. I can trust Buddha, because Buddha has these qualities. I can trust Dharma and Sangha, because they have these qualities.

Buddha’s qualities are that he is himself free from all these problems I face. He has kindness and compassion and enough care for others. He has the knowledge how to help and protect. Our problem is that we don’t really think this and don’t really take refuge. Even if we take refuge we don’t buy what the Buddha said. Buddha said that if you do good you get good results and if you do bad you get bad results. He tells us about karma. We don’t buy that at all. We say, yes, yes, yes, it‘s true, but we don’t buy it from our heart. We still think that we can very cleverly manage something in between, rather than truly following. Honestly, all of us will think that. We think there is something special for me, something that I can manage in between. That’s what we do almost all the time. Neither do we want to ignore the karma, nor do we want to pay much attention. We say, “yes, yes, yes, it’s karma.”

We have a friend in Jewel Heart in Cleveland, a child psychologist. The lady herself is interesting and a damn good child psychologist and she had a dog named “Karma”. So often karma becomes like that for us. I don’t mean that she doesn’t pay attention to karma, but many of us will sort of respect karma, but at the same time never think that “I am governed by my own karma.” If you are asked, most of you will say yes. But do we normally think that? No, we don’t. If we did then we begin to realize that every action of ours makes a difference. That very important understanding is coming from our own tradition, whether we are Chinese, Tibetan or whatever. But we are learning that from a western example. We notice that many western educated people are paying attention to actions and deeds of individuals, thinking that will make a difference. Sometimes they emphasize so much the environmental issues or child care. They point out that children are misused, financially, sexually or whatever and those acts are very strongly condemned so that they don’t become habits and don’t repeat. Sometimes their awareness is so much that – forgive me the choice of words, I don’t really mean it, but – they obnoxiously push them through so much. But that awareness actually comes from Buddha and in our own tradition we dismiss it under the umbrella of karma or whatever. Maybe karma is a little dog in Cleveland. We pay no attention. Then we are learning from those people. Sometimes it is definitely worth learning from Mother Theresa or people like that.

1:00

Non-violence is one of the basic principles of karma. Buddha observed those. Many other great earlier Hindu-Buddhist and western scholars have observed it. Gandhi made best use of it. But now we are learning about the importance of non-violence from the western media and leaders. I don’t know what I am talking about. I don’t know where I am going, but these are our problems. It is not that we don’t know. We very much do know. But we don’t consider that this is our problem. We don’t consider that we suffer today because of those. But not religions, not Buddhists, not Hindus, but normal, well-educated people in the west emphasize all that. We ignore them. We pay attention when they pay attention. When they make noise we begin to realize it is important. But truly, why do we suffer today? Because we ignore it.

The black and white guidance Buddha has given is to avoid negatives and build positives as much as you can and watch your mind. We do write that on the walls in our temples, but it is left on the walls of the temples. But the members of the temple don’t associate their minds with that. Yet we will go to a Buddhist scholar and say, “Hey, you are well educated scientist and Buddhist, would you give me a brief statement of a bus stop Buddhism?” What can they tell you? They will say, “Avoid negativities, build positivities and watch your mind.” That’s what Buddha said to us 2600 years ago. That is hanging at various temple doors here and there. But when it is told by western scientists you think it is great and wonderful. But ignoring those is our problem.

Recognizing this problem now, I and all mother sentient beings may have the development of remembering impermanence all the time. I may have the development of a sense of urgency of protecting me and all sentient beings from falling into the lower realms and taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Let me read the oral transmission a little bit: 1:06 – 1:15

The oral transmission now went up to the end of the lower scope. To continue what we have been talking about earlier: the Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara is on your crown and you continuously expressing those thoughts and making requests that ‘I may develop the appropriate way of knowing, managing, functioning in my life’. While making requests the first we have to deal with is impermanence. That is no question. We may not realize the subtle impermanence that we are changing every second but we do know we are changing. We change our physical appearance, we change our mind, we change everything. So we will also change our physical body. It is important that we remember that and think about it. It is definitely going to happen. It has happened before, is happening now and will happen in future. Within that future, I too, each and every one of us will go through that too.

Can I avoid that? We always think that we will manage somehow. We think, “Maybe it’s okay today. Maybe I will manage today and escape.” We always do that. It reminds me of some very funny poetry that Allen Ginsberg wrote. I saw the performance of this poetry. With a huge noise someone is coming and the individual says, “He is coming, he is the Lord of Death.” The individual runs into the toilet and hides there, even lifting up his feet so they cannot be seen from underneath. So Death comes and catches an innocent kid. Then the man on the toilet says, “I escaped but he killed an innocent kid. And he is coming back for me.” That reminds me how we can think that we can avoid death. Running in the toilet and hiding, maybe death will come and get somebody else. But that’s not true, because neither death is blind or doesn’t recognize the person, nor can you avoid it. Buddha said,

“There is no such a place where you can hide from death, not in space, not in the ocean or under the ocean, not behind the mountains. Wherever you are, when the time comes you go.” We all go. That is nature. That is reality. If you don’t go that is funny. But we all go. The problem is we don’t know when. There is no certainty at all. The Northern Continent’s people are supposed to have a 1000 year guarantee or something. Other than that there is no certainty at all. Not only that: we have so many conditions for death and many less for living. Honestly, we consider taking care of ourselves physically a good way of living. But then sometimes that turns out to be a cause of death. People exercise, taking care of themselves physically. But exercises are not necessarily accident-free. Even the method of healthy living can change into a cause for dying. But the cause for death doesn’t change into living much. We can see that. It is clear. In one way our physical body is nice and strong, but it is very weak. If only a tiny little thing happens you can die. Even Nagarjuna, the great early Indian sage and master, who is supposed to have lived for 600 years, is supposed to have died from having his throat cut with some little blade of grass.

Somebody tried to kill him and they couldn’t do it at all. So they asked him why. He said, “I don’t have a karma of dying, except one. If you use a little blade of grass you can cut my throat and I will die.” So that’s what happened. So really, death is something very definite. It will come and there is no way you can avoid it at all. Also when it is going to come you never know.

What difference does it make if I knew? The difference would be if I have the impact of death in my mind I would not have much attachment, forget about obsession. I wouldn’t have attachment for samsaric goodies. Our problem is the samsaric goodies. If I knew that death is definite and there is no certainty then I would not develop such attachment. It could even happen tonight or in the next minute or hour. I don’t want to frighten you, but that is the reality. So what do I do? Well, give up attachment, honestly. Give up attachment to the samsaric goodies. That is our problem. Samsaric goodies can be anything. Making that strong request to the lama, light and liquid are coming from the body of the lama, washing our negativities in general and particularly attachment. They purify it and extend the longevity, luck and fortune, etc, as usual.

The attachment-free mental state is the perfect ground of dharma practice. Think that you have developed that through the blessings of the Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara. That is dealing with impermanence.

The second point now is this: requesting the lama: kayb ne kun tu lama lhag pai lha thubwang dor je chang la sol wa deb – the lama who is the nature of all Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and every object of refuge, making strong requests. The purpose of that request is: I have found the life which is important, with all the opportunities and capabilities and which is difficult to find. I have the understanding that this is impermanent and I can lose it any minute. What will happen if I lose it? What will happen to me after death?

Begin to think about it. Am I going to be completely void and disappear? I don’t think we would like to accept that. As an intelligent person I don’t think anyone of us will accept that we are going to be void. No. Many of you may say, “I don’t know.” It is true, we don’t know, but most probably a void is not going to happen. So something else will happen. That can only be the same old thing: taking rebirth, what else? What type of rebirth? We have no way of telling. It can be good, it can be bad. All right, if it is bad what can it be? Hell realms, hungry ghost realm or animal realms. Wherever, whatever, in all these three we have tremendous pain. Hot, cold, hungry and dull. If I happen to fall into that it is tremendous suffering. I will not be able to bear it. So let’s try not to be there. Try now. It is not too late. This is nothing but the perfect position in life to get if possible, even the Buddha stage. I may be blessed to be able to do that. I make up my mind that I am going to become a fully enlightened Buddha so that I don’t go into those suffering states. I can be immune from those sufferings. I rely on Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara not to go there. Light and liquid come from the physical body of the Lama, reach to me and all living beings, purify all negativities in general and particularly the negativities of getting reborn in the lower realms are completely purified. The possibility of obtaining the perfect Lama Buddha state has been established.

1:37

Now, let’s talk about the refuge. Meditating Lama Lhag pai Lha on your crown, he manifests Lama, yidams, buddhs, bodhisattvas, dakas, dakinis and dharmapalas, like earlier in the refuge field. They all settle around the Lama Lhag pai Lha. Look very carefully. These are the objects of my refuge. I remember their physical, mental and emotional qualities and their knowledge. I make strong requests that “I and all mother sentient beings may not have samsaric suffering in general and especially not have the threat of falling into the lower realms. Please protect me, help me this very minute. With that mind you can say the refuge. Either you can say

Namo Gurube, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya

Or

Buddha Charama Gacchami….

Also sometimes people like to say 100x I take refuge in Guru, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha. You can say 100 each, or 1000 each or 100,000 each. The whole idea is that I and all mother sentient beings shall be protected from this very moment onwards from falling into the lower realms. Now again light and liquid. The delam has so much light and liquid coming. Light and liquid come from the physical body of the objects of refuge, dissolve to me and all sentient beings. Just by dissolving the light all our negativities are purified and the blessings of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are obtained, our life is made worthwhile and our fortune, quality, etc, is built.

1:45

We truly take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and follow the advice of the refuge. So that is the refuge aspect. Then the karma aspect comes. Not only do we take refuge. When we go to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, they will tell us, “Yes, we will help you, but you have to follow the karma, you are responsible for yourself.”

What do you mean by that? Buddha tells us that if we create positive deeds we get positive results. If we create negative deeds we get negative consequences. Both, good and bad karma, how small they may be, they can be huge, provided it is not neutralized. So the consequences of joy and suffering will very definitely be given. That also on what basis? On the basis of very a very important field. If we do positive deeds based on that field, they will be much more powerful. Whatever you make it, that makes karma stronger. Karmic detail is important but difficult to know.

Buddha himself said that karma is more difficult to understand than the wisdom of emptiness. Sometimes karma gives its result definitely, but it also depends on the base on which it is committed, what is your motivation, the actual deeds, for whom you do it – all these make a big difference. Karma is very sophisticated and complicated. The most important thing is the faith that relying on karma is very definitely an intelligent faith and you have to develop this. Otherwise, we will lose the fundamental basis of virtue within us. By doing this we should be avoiding even the subtlest and smallest of the 10 non-virtues and building even the smallest, subtlest of the 10 virtues. I may be able to do this and blessed to be able to do this. I make strong requests to Lama Lhagpai Lha and their physical body will give light and liquid and purify all negativities in general and in particular negativities of not trusting, not believing in karma. It is not that karma is another person over there that you have to believe in. Believing in karma means taking your own personal responsibility.

1:50

I take my own responsibility. I do good things for me and I don’t do bad things for me. Really trusting karma and believing in karma means to take responsibility. In one way we will pray that way. On the other hand what you are really building is taking responsibility for yourself. That is an important impact in one’s mind. Always remember the negative causes of suffering, the positive causes of good things. I don’t want suffering. I want positivity. I want good things.

Even if you do that, negative things will happen. Even though you don’t want to do them, sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes negative things are impossible to avoid. Our life is such that it cannot be completely right, very definitely not. Righteousness is not necessarily possible. If something goes wrong, make sure you purify. Purification is the modification of your negativities. If you leave the negativity as it is it will give you its negative result. But if you deal with it, if you purify it, that is the only answer for us. Otherwise we carry a tremendous amount of negativities and positivities and each one of them is richer than the royal treasury – as the traditional teachings say. That is supposed to be the biggest and richest.

Always remember. I might not be able to tell you here in detail how to purify, but you know. Even in our Jewel Heart 7 limbed prayer there is a line about purification: I purify all my transgressions. This is important. It is not that when something is done it is a done deal and you can do nothing. You can do something and that is purification. That basically covers the “Common with the Lower Level.” Here you establish your purpose to get freedom from suffering. You apply the prerequisites, guru devotional practice, importance of the life, the difficulty to find it, impermanence, death, and what happens after death and karma. All these thoughts are applied. First learn it, second you comprehend it and third you keep on thinking about it. Fourth, make that your own character. When you are able to do that you have done this “common with the lower level” practice. The goal is to get freedom. The objects to throw out are the negativities. What you are building is positivities. And don’t forget impermanence. Don’t forget what happens after death. Don’t forget our life is managed by our own karma. Especially, don’t forget that our karma is managed by us. That means each and every individual: by yourself.

Avoid the wrong, build the positive, whenever negative comes, purify it. Then go home and sleep.

1:58 da gi ji ni sag pei ge wa di….mandala offering, lam rim dedication – 11.59