Archive Result

910

20120823GRMLDelam7 (rt120401)

00:00

Welcome here today. I would like to remind you about the motivation. For the benefit of all living beings one would like to obtain the state of Buddhahood. For this we learn, practice and do this. Up to yesterday we covered the “common with the lower scope.”

To be able to make it clear to you and remain in your mind I think it is also important to talk to you a little bit about this. Remember, the root of all development, guru devotional practice, then developing oneself afterwards. The root of all development, guru devotional practice also has the actual session and in between sessions. The actual session has pre – actual and conclusion.

Actual is guru devotional practice on mental aspects and on physical aspects. The mental aspects also have: root of all development, developing faith, remembering the kindness and then the action relationship, what do you do. And then conclusion.

The whole idea is that all gurus of yours including the root – and other gurus and lineage masters, all really combine together and you see them as fully enlightened beings. People who have no idea, if you show them this first, it will be nothing but someone trying to brainwash them. Then, instead of helping them, we are creating big harm from them. So although this is the root and the beginning, we have to be very aware of it. Someone who is interested and desperately needs this path and the help from it, if you present it to them that way, you may be doing them a big disservice. It may be very harmful for that person – forget about yourself. So be very aware of that.

For me, as part of the teaching, I talk a little bit, but in the west, for about 10, 15 years I didn’t talk much about guru devotional practice, because there is a danger of misunderstanding and that can weigh more than the benefit that one can get. But here in the east the story is slightly different, because eastern culture and customs do have that and do permit that. There is less danger of misunderstanding. But talking about being Buddha maybe a little too much to swallow even in the east, for someone who doesn’t have much of an idea about it.

The bottom line is that if we are looking at Buddha and we are receiving teachings and the opportunity to build merit on the basis of Buddha, then we get much more advantage and if we do it on the basis of a bodhisattva we get the bodhisattva advantage, just not like Buddha.

Similarly, yesterday, it came in between the teaching, the negativity and positivity we build karma-wise, what is going to be most powerful? That depends on what you build: shing dang sam pa dang ngo bo dang jo wa. The base on which you build, the motivation you carry and the actual practice you do – all that makes a difference. For an individual person like me, whatever I could deal with Buddha and a living Buddha I get that much benefit. We all want advantages, no one wants disadvantages. Therefore, for me looking at all my gurus as living buddhas is a total advantage and no disadvantage. That is the reason why this teaching is called “root of development”. Then thereafter, everything becomes a little easier than expected.

0:11

That is because this path, the practice, is really a big struggle, whether you like it or not or accept it or not. The perfect guru devotional practice makes it much, much easier. It uplifts the individual far beyond what we can comprehend. It is very important.

Then after developing guru devotional practice comes the actual practice: recognizing the life, the importance and the difficulty to find it. So with that the base has been established.

Then what does one do? The major things are: ‘common with the lower scope’, ‘common with the medium scope’ and the mahayana path.

So actually three things. The ‘common with the lower scope’ really tells us where we are and what we are. Where we are is actually in samsara. That is what they introduce. Most of you people who will be reading this transcript later or will be listening on the internet if it is put on there, most of you have an idea what samsara is. It is the life we have today, uncontrolled. It has a mind of its own and it has lots of ups and downs. Most of them are pain and suffering. Yet, there are some nice little goodie spots. Otherwise everybody will not be interested. Somehow we can get hooked by this mind. We get addicted to samsaric life. What we get addicted to is the goodie – aspects of samsara and in order to get these goodies we will tolerate so much suffering and pain. We are looking for that tiny, little goodie thing, wherever it is going to show up and that is the only thing that gets us hooked in samsara, honestly.

Like we all know, nicotine gets us addicted. Those who are smokers, know. Likewise, attachment within our life makes us addicted to samsaric life. It is only the attachment. Not anger or hatred, not the misery, but we are looking and are willing to bear the pains and misery, knowingly, because we are hooked on the samsaric goodies by attachment. So this is samsara.

In absolute reality there is nothing good, only suffering. Even the joys that we think are great, are in nature suffering, in their action, in their consequences. It is pain, suffering and misery. Honestly.

Some people may think, “Oh, if that’s the case I am going to just end it.” And lots of people do. They jump from high buildings or take overdoses and do all kinds of things. The pain becomes too severe so they think they can just cut it. But the problem is that by ending this life the pain doesn’t end. That is our biggest problem. If life was the only problem we could just end it, but unfortunately, one life ends and another begins. That’s why it is called samsara. It is the continuation. Nothing good, all misery, continuing and never ending. Sounds like extremely depressing and may be it is. But the truth is that it can end – but not by ending your life and not by torturing yourself, not by the engagement in violence against oneself or others. Instead of ending it, it increases and intensifies it. This is our biggest headache. Somehow we are caught in this. We are in this and that’s why this is samsara and Buddha said that samsara is suffering and nirvana is peace.

0:21

So we have to introduce that to us and recognize where we are. This is samsara and knowing the samsara’s problems and truly disliking it, building that mind that is really working against attachment. Building that up is the purpose of the ‘common with the lower scope’. At the same time recognize the value, importance and capability of life and also know that it is impermanent and that there is continuation even after death. One life ends, another begins and the same old stuff continues, sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, sometimes much worse, sometimes much better, yet the same old thing continuing. That’s what we call samsara.

Yes, we have a life, this beautiful mind, which is very capable. But that mind is not going to be there all the time. It is impermanent and even afterwards continues, but it is not certain that whatever we have now we will have in future. Chances are not likely. How much virtue do we have within ourselves and how much non-virtue? We begin to see that. You don’t need a rocket engineer to figure out how it’s going to be. Knowing our own mind, our own positive and negative karma, how much we build and how pure it is, it is quite clear that we have difficulties. So what is really needed is liberation, liberation from samsara. That’s it. But the ‘common with the lower’ will say that in case I don’t make it and death comes before, right now immediately what should I do? So the answer is to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. After taking refuge, follow the advice, which is karma. That much is the ‘common with the lower level.’

0:27

Today we are moving to the ‘Common with the Medium Level’.

Now I first will do the oral transmission of “Common with the Medium Scope.”

0:36

So I have read the oral transmission up to the second outline. Now we are on “Common with the Medium Level”. The “Common with the Lower Level” has brought us up to the refuge and understanding of karma. They also introduced you to how horrible samsara is. But the emphasis is not so much on getting out of samsara in “common with the lower level”, but more or less emergency measures like taking refuge and then following karma.

It is actually very important as the fundamental basis. Even if you look at Buddha’s teaching of the Four Noble Truths, Buddha taught first suffering, then the cause of suffering. That really shows the two circles of negative noble truths: the result, suffering and the cause. That is more clearly used as principle to show how our life really is. Both the lower and medium scope do that, but the lower scope shows the suffering more. And then the cause of suffering. It doesn’t come without cause, it doesn’t pop up from nowhere. It is not that somebody somehow decided to give it to you. It is not. It is our own deeds. We created the causes through our own deeds. We are responsible. Without spelling it out, it is clearly shown there.

The “common with the medium” level asks: is there some way out of this? Is there something outside that? And basically they tell you: yes. How they present that here is this way: There are two basic outlines:

Generating the desire to obtain liberation

Actual way to obtain liberation

Generating the desire to obtain liberation

In order to generate that interest they have to tell us: yes, there is something beyond this samsara. There is something called ‘nirvana’. That is a Sanskrit word for the continuation of life. That’s about it. Nirvana is also a Sanskrit word, which really means peace, free of those sufferings. When there is violence, misery and problems it is not peace. When you are free of that it is peace. So nirvana is peace. So the Buddha tells us: I found out that this is what we are. I also found out that there is another state called peace and we can get it and here is how.

These are basically the two outlines. Looking at the time we have left and how much more I have to get through I am going to make it a little shorter. But please remember the prerequisite meditation of Lama Lhag pai Lha, Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara on your crown, making the seven limbed offering, including the mandala offering, making requests, light and liquid are coming and purify me and all mother sentient beings and purify all negativities in general and particularly obstacles to this development.

Now the actual session is the thought process – meditation. Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang is staying with us as witness, guide and leader. So we keep on meditating him in our crown and then engage in the thought process. Meditation is thought process, right? We are thinking. Not thinking and just sitting there may or may not be meditation. That is a different story. If we have time, we can talk more when we get to the level of the perfection of concentration. If there is no time to talk, I have a very good transcript called GOM. That is meditation. That is a really good one. It is available in Jewel Heart everywhere, even here. That really tells you about meditation. It is a really good one.

But it is really thinking. There are people who teach you meditation – I saw that in the west. It is a very famous, huge group of people. They really have this meditation thing that lets the thoughts take you, rather than you guiding the thoughts. You can think anything. Let the thoughts go and they take you wherever they go. You sit there for hours and then they say, “I have gone very far today.” Actually, the thoughts have just been taking you. That is John Rogers and another teacher who teach that. They have seminars all over the world. Every time you look at their seminars they are completely oversold. You can’t get in. They are sold out two, three years ahead of time. I know some people within Jewel Heart who do that too. They enjoy doing that. Not only that, the people that I know and who a very strongly part of Jewel Heart are also the person responsible for John Rogers’ organization too. They will sit on the roof garden of their apartment in New York and come out and say, “I have gone very far away today” or something. That is where the thoughts take you. I have no idea what you get from that. It is not for me to criticize or anything, but what Buddha told us is that we shouldn’t let our thoughts take us but we should take our thoughts. We should lead our thoughts.

Buddha introduced the subjects we should think about. If people can’t manage their minds then of course they tell you to concentrate on the mind or on a Buddha image or something. That is the training of mind to be able to focus. You know these meditations are very useful for health too. Jon Kabat Zinn is a Buddhist from Zen background. He is very famous and you can’t get hold of him. His meditations are very helpful. Now they are used by many hospitals.

0:50

He himself is extremely busy and he said that he is very famous here in the United States but he says that he is more active in China than anywhere else. If the mind didn’t manage, you have those things. There are lots of benefits, because of the meditation. It is part of meditation, that’s why. It is not so much a blessing or anything, but the mental relaxation will make a huge difference. The way the Buddha taught this is making mind more active than doing nothing. Relaxing is one thing. Not being active is another thing. So here the Buddhist meditation tells you to be more active. We guide the mind. We introduce the subject. We give the direction to mind to think. The subject introduced here is to make a very strong impact.

Again, the emphasis is that as long as we have attachment to samsara we are not going to be interested in liberation at all, because attachment is going to hold us back. We dislike suffering and we have plenty of them, but we don’t think about suffering, we think a lot about joy and happiness. That is the true reality and many think that thinking about joy and happiness is a good thing. It is really true. It also is a good thing. But thereby the thinking about suffering and dislike of samsara will be weakened. Attachment for samsara is automatically there and the feeling is very comfortable for us and we like to remain there. Somehow we have to make that change. If we can’t change that we are not going to have desire for liberation at all. If we don’t have that, then we don’t seek liberation. When we don’t seek liberation we are not going to get liberated. And then our suffering will continue life after life. Not only our suffering will continue, but the wonderful, effective and very efficient life we have gotten, that opportunity will all be wasted.

So this is the reality. We have to change it. It is not something we are telling ourselves which is untrue. We are pointing out the truth of suffering within us. So, first is thinking about suffering in general in samsara and specifically different realms.

When we have all the time we can go through suffering in general and specifically human suffering and the suffering of samsaric gods, demigods, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings. All of them we can do. We can also think about the three types of suffering, eight types of suffering and sixteen types of suffering. But we are limited with time. And if you read the transcripts read all the lam rim transcripts you can, not only de lam. So I am going to cut it short here and put all suffering of samsara together. The meditative state, thinking about the lama, light and liquid come, purify and you obtain blessings to be able to develop the “common with the medium level” scope.

Then think this way: as we see in samsara, whenever, whatever, as long as we remain in samsara there is so much pain and so much difficulty. There is so much change, change between the relationships between individuals. For me, personally, my friends, my enemies, those who care and those who don’t care, we have so many sufferings, losing our friends, companions and friends become enemies. It changes. There is no valid or solid reason. Sometimes a simple little thing happens and a friend becomes an enemy or an enemy becomes a friend. When you lose a friend it is the suffering of losing a friend. When you build more enemies it is the suffering of having more enemies. Either way it gives you suffering. Not only that.

1:02

Even if you obtain a little bit of joy in samsara there is no satisfaction. Continuously we are looking for more. In order to get that we sacrifice so much and experience so much misery, hoping that some little joy that we are addicted to will come back. But instead, so many sufferings will come and we go through with them. Every good thing we have, including our physical body, changes and we will lose them and they will go away. So today I have this wonderful life, this wonderful opportunity. I have the teachings of Buddha. I have guidance. If today I cannot completely eradicate the samsara out of my system then when can I do it? I would like to do it and do it now. I may be blessed to be able to do it. Again, light and liquid come from the body of Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang, enter me and all mother sentient beings, purify negativities committed from the limitless beginning and particularly become free of samsara’s suffering and obtain the state of Lama Buddha. If there are any obstacles may they be cleared. Our physical body becomes light nature and luck, fortune and all qualities and knowledge totally increase. I may be able to obtain the development stage of seeking and obtaining the Lama Buddha’s stage, free of samsara.

That will be one general samsara-renouncing meditation. Specifically, you can renounce the suffering of cold and heat in the hell realms, in the hungry ghost realms the suffering of hunger, in the animal realm the suffering of dullness, in the human realm the suffering of all the three poisons. In the samsaric gods’ realm you can renounce the suffering of the signs of death and the knowledge and the clarity of seeing your next rebirth, etc. Other than that there is no direct pain in the god realms. The demi-gods have their own suffering too. So purify that. In short, the basic identity of our own identity, the physical body, combined with this mind that is occupying it, this body, not necessarily as a human, but sometimes as an animal or hell realm person, sometimes samsaric god, but that continuation of identity is the real problem of samsara.

If you really want to know what samsara is don’t look outside, like the place where you live. The true samsara is the continuation of the identity and its continued relationship with the entity. The physical identity whatever it may be and the occupying self within that – that is the problem.

1:11

That is the base for all other sufferings. This provides the base for the suffering of birth, aging, illness, death. This provides us with the possibility to get tormented by the suffering of suffering, the changing suffering, not only in this live, but even in future lives. This entity-identity, just by establishing itself we have all the pains attached to us, completely. They become inseparable from us. It is not like some new program attached to your cell phone. This you can throw out and separate out. But these sufferings are not separable. They are strongly put in there. As long as we have that entity-identity we are going to have the continuation of these sufferings. That’s the problem. When we want to liberate ourselves we really want to liberate the basis of suffering. That is the continuation of contaminated identity. That is our samsara and that is what we have to be free of.

In the “common with the lower” level you know that not only is there something called samsara and nirvana, and we talk about samsara, but you really have to know what samsara is. You know, if you keep on thinking that the human land has suffering and the human beings and animals, etc, are suffering, it is circling. But it is good to pinpoint what it is. That is sometimes the advantage of shorter teachings. In the longer teaching, when you have time, you go around, pointing out everything. But when you don’t have the time and you want to get to the bottom line, the bare bones, that’s what it is. What you are renouncing is the contaminated continuation of identity. That is your samsara, honestly. I have my samsara, you have your samsara. I have my object of renouncing and you have your object of renouncing. That is your samsara, my samsara. My samsara is my object of renunciation and your samsara is your object of renunciation. My samsara is the continuation of identity which is contaminated. That is the total samsara. Don’t look for something else. That’s it. When you want to renounce, that’s what you renounce – not a place, not a house, not the food, companion or anything else, but that one, that contaminated identity which is continuing. As a continuation it doesn’t necessarily even continue as form. Sometimes it is so subtle. When it goes from one life to another, it becomes so subtle that it almost doesn’t exist. And sometimes it is so huge. You have such a huge ego. But that’s it.

1:18

I am thinking about a funny thing. Remember, years ago there was a movie called “Little Buddha”. A group of people were looking for the reincarnation of somebody. They found a boy in Nepal, one in Seattle and one in India or somewhere. Then there is a Chinese movie actor who really looks like some senior Tibetan geshe. So he was sitting there, dressed up. He was trying to explain to the Seattle kid’s parents about the reincarnation. Tea was being poured into a cup.

1:20

I don’t know whether he broke the tea cup or the tea pot, but he broke something purposely in the movie. So the tea fell on the table and he got a towel to soak up the tea. Then he squeezed the towel and the tea came out of the towel. At that moment I didn’t get much impact from that. But later I thought about it and actually somebody who knew what they are talking about made that. When I say “continuation”, it is the hot tea in the tea pot, drinkable and good. Then tea pot went into the tea cup. The tea cup broke and the tea went on the table, got soaked up by the towel and then squeezed out of the towel. It is no longer the nice, hot drinkable tea, but still the continuation of the tea. By now maybe dirty and no longer drinkable, but still it is tea. So the transition, the identity, it continues. The continuation is not like carrying the tea pot with the nice, hot tea from here to there and pour it into another nice tea pot. The tea pot broke, the tea fell on the table, but continued, got soaked up in the towel and squeezed out of the towel and still, tea comes out. That’s how the transition goes. Sometimes it is so subtle.

Buddha gave an example that is almost very questionable. The transition from life to another he described as being like transferring a flame from candle to another. You touch the new candle to the old candle and the flame goes to the new candle. They are two different candles. How can the new candle be the continuation of the old one? But think about the Olympic torch. There are so many torches being carried, but they are all lit from one and then carried out through the different areas and then [to the Olympic Stadium]. By the next Olympics they will light new torches from that one. So everybody calls that the “Olympic Torch” being carried around. Nobody says that it is no longer the original Greek torch. So sometimes it is so subtle, just the continuation. It is not the same tea pot and likewise, it is not the same physical body, not even the same personality, but still the continuation.

1:25

When we talk about samsara, the identity, that’s what we are talking about. When you want to renounce, that’s what you want to renounce. When we are talking about liberation, we want to be totally free of contamination, yet continuing. We need to be free of all contamination, a real, good, brand new one. That’s what we are seeking liberation for, that’s what we mean when we talk about nirvana.

This mediation should be enough for us to find what we want to seek and what we want to renounce. That should be good enough for the first outline: seeing samsara as suffering and developing the desire for liberation.

1:28

How to establish the liberation

That also has pre- actual and conclusion, as usual.

What gets one individual liberated? What makes an individual change the identity from contaminated nature to uncontaminated nature? That is truly what liberates you. We are looking at our mind. We as a person exist as outer physical body and inner mind. The outer physical body changes. Now we look at the inner mind. What is that mind? Is it virtue, non-virtue, black, white or neutral? What is it? The nature of the mind is not virtue, not non-virtue, but it is neutral. But when we begin to think and look we see “I” and “my”. I begin to feel close to me and my. Naturally I feel distance from others and others’. When I feel close to me and my I develop attachment. When I feel distance from others and others’ – with that I mean other people’s hands, legs, desires, wishes – the distance pushes me and my away from others and others’. That will bring dislike. That brings ultimately hatred. So we develop the pull of attachment and obsession and push of anger and hatred. Then you have the superior feeling of self. Everything about me and my is right and everything about others and others’ is wrong. So I am looking down. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition describes this as pride.

1:34

From the western language point of view that is not pride. I think it is some kind of superioric and inferioric complex. We have that. The less educated we are the more we have the superioric and inferioric complex. If you are well educated you won’t have those. You have much less. Both usual education and spiritual knowledge help with recognizing this. The superioric-inferioric complex is so much that sometimes we ignore Buddha and his teachings on karma, Four Noble Truths, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, etc. We have wrong understanding and wrong doubt and that provides the basis for us to grow all our negative emotions. Because of that we create all sorts of negative karmas. Because of that we create all sufferings. So if I trace all my sufferings I am going to trace them to the root of all of them, which is traditionally called ignorance. It is this ego – superioric complex, combined with hatred, obsession, confusion and fear. This is the root of samsara. I must not give myself to this. If I do I will continuously suffer. I don’t want to. This is the time for me to cut it. So I am here to proclaim my own independence from my own ignorance. That’s how we really proclaim our liberation. We will trace where it is coming from and how we manage them. It is quite simple, actually. Buddha gave us the three baskets of teachings. Each of them is also called a Higher Trainings. So Buddha gave us Three Higher Trainings: Higher Training in Morality, Higher Training in Sutra and Higher Training in Metaphysics.

1:41

First and foremost is morality. Vows and commitments are given a lot in Buddhism. Each and every vow we have, if we protect them, it is helpful. If we don’t, it is harmful. Really maintaining my own vows and commitments is important in general and particularly the basic 10 non-virtues. Each of them says: not killing, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct, not lying, etc. The opposites are the 10 virtues. Simply following these straight will establish the Higher Training of Morality very well. That is the essence of Buddha’s basket teaching on morality. Vows and commitments, following the karmic advice in short, avoid all negativities, build positivities as much as you can and watch your mind. This is Buddhism. Buddha himself said that. That is basic morality.

The real path which delivers liberation to us is these three things: morality, wisdom and concentration. So I pray to the Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara that I may be having the perfect Three Higher Trainings in my life every day, every minute. I may live with these Three Higher Trainings. I will sleep with these Three Higher Trainings. I walk with these Three Higher Trainings. I will think and I will die with these Three Higher Trainings. If you can put that much effort and emphasis and that much mind in principle, then liberation is not only not impossible, but possible and not that far away.

These are the advantages of Buddha’s teaching. If we do nothing, think nothing, if we submit ourselves totally to laziness, wandering, entertainment, then it is our problem. I guess that should be enough for this part. If I go in more detail here it is going to take a long time.

1:47

The conclusion will be the same thing: Focus on the Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara single pointedly or say mantras and think about it. That should be enough for the medium scope.

Now we have the Mahayana path left. That is development of the bodhimind and its practice.

To develop the bodhimind there are the seven stages and the exchange stages. Either of them work. Many of them are familiar, but still, let’s see what happens this afternoon and then I still have tomorrow. The tenzhuk is the day after tomorrow. That’s good, otherwise I can’t finish the teaching. I guess I have nothing more to say for this session. How was yesterday’s discussion group? Good? Then we should have it again today.

1:48 mandala offering end of file