Archive Result

812

20120825GRMLDelam11 (061)

00:00

Summary of Outlines in Tibetan

0:05

Kindly generate pure bodhimind that for the benefit of all beings one would like obtain the state of Buddhahood within the very, very short time and quickly quickly possible.

There are so many methods, so many paths of delivering enlightenment, the ultimate spiritual development. There are so many paths. Everybody will say that every path is the best. Every tradition, wherever you look, will say theirs is the best and perhaps even “this is the only path which will liberate.” All these great religious traditions are there. Then within the Buddhist traditions there are Theravada, Mahayana and the Buddhism that travelled to Tibet and so many. The Theravadan tradition has so many different traditions and so does the Mahayana. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition, vajrayana, has also so many different traditions, basically Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Gelug. These are the four big ones. Within the big ones, if you start dividing, you have within the Nyingma the Southern Treasury and Northern Treasury traditions. Then there are divisions between treasury – and non-treasury traditions. Then in the Sakya, you have the Sakya, Tsarwa and Ngorwa, those three. When you look in the Kagyupa tradition, there are four big ones and eight small ones and four very small ones. So there are 16, without talking about subdivisions. When you are looking at the Gelugpa tradition, each and every different great monastery has their own little tradition, theoretical acceptances, ritual differences and all kinds of things. So divisions are almost limitless. But if you look at the practice, and which one really does what, if you go beyond those sectarian emphases then you are really going to find that all of them come from one Buddha. They are all Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings.

0:10

They are all traditions accepted by the early great Indian saints and scholars and great mahapanditas, such as Nagarjuna and Asanga and they are all coming out of the Nalanda or Vikramalashila traditions. These are accepted by all and not only accepted, but everybody will say that their way of functioning and meditating, their way of accepting reality and truth are the ultimate view or acceptance. Nagarjuna, Asanga, Dharmakirti, Chandrakirti, Kamalashila, Shantideva, they all say the same thing. Then you at the early Tibetan teachers. We all accept Guru Padmasambhava, Atisha, Shantideva, Shankarakshita, Marpa, Milarepa. In conclusion, the author of the Smooth Path or de lam is the First Panchen Lama. According to the official Chinese statements he would be the Fifth Panchen Lama, Panchen Losang Chögyen. The Chinese count Khedrup-je, one of Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s two main disciples, as the First Panchen Lama.

According to the old Tibetan system, the line of the Panchen Lamas starts with Panchen Lozang Chögyen, because the name “Panchen” was obtained by him first.

0:14

So the old Tibetans will say he was the First Panchen Lama, but now officially, he is the Fifth Panchen Lama. Our old reason was that the name of Panchen Lama was given to this lineage in Panchen Losang Chögyen’s time. If that is a valid reason then the First Dalai lama should be called Third Dalai Lama, because the name of Dalai Lama was given to the Third Dalai Lama by the Mongol king Altan Khan. But then history is history. There is nothing to argue or validate. Whatever people accept that’s what it is. History is history. It is interpretation. So that’s that.

In any case the First Panchen Lama said that when you look at it you will see all kinds of different names like the Great Mahamudra, Dzog Chen, Uma, and so on. There are different names and proclamations. Then he says

nam nyung zhen jen nel jor pai – pe na gom pa cheg du pab.

An experienced yogi will see everything as one.

He said this in his Mahamudra text.

0.16

I don’t remember counting all the different views, but that was his conclusion. In short, whether you call it lam rim, like the Gelugpas or ten rim like the Sakyas, or ku zang la me zhel lung like the Nyingmas, etc, but when you look at it the real essence is only one thing and that is what Buddha taught in his Prajnaparamita, the Transcendental Sutra. There is nothing beyond that. When you look in that, the essence is the Four Noble Truth, plus wisdom and compassion. That’s it. The Prajnaparamita is the direct and indirect wisdom teachings and the stages of development. And that is what lam rim is all about. Different names, different styles, a little different ways of presenting, but the bottom line is one. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, while giving teachings, had many living teachers. All those teachers were either Sakya, Kagyu or Nyingma, probably Lhodrag Drubchen Lekshe Dorje was Nyingma.

One of the teachers asked him in writing what he was doing these days. He replied, “I am practicing the essence of what Manjushri taught me and teaching people. I found Atisha’s way of teaching is extremely effective and helpful. So I am following in his footsteps.” The message he was delivering was what Manjushri taught and the organization of the path is the way Atisha did it. That is what we call lam rim. Not only that, when Tsongkhapa was writing the huge volume of lam rim chenmo, Manjushri told him jokingly, “It seems that my teaching to you is not good enough. So you have to write this huge volume, ha?” Tsongkhapa got up and bowed down and said, “No. Your teaching of the Three Principles is the backbone and essence of my lam rim. Without that there is no lam rim.” So really, truly, from Buddha onwards, in the Buddhist line, they have practiced this path and obtained enlightenment. It is absolutely real, absolutely profound.

0:22

But we have to break it into pieces. That’s why we have the outlines. To conclude what you have been taught, basically we talked about two important outlines first and the first of these is:

The root of all development, guru devotional practice.

Here we talked about to practice guru devotional practice. We made into session and in between sessions, presuming that people are meditating. Some people will not be meditating. But you have to develop profound respect and a perfect mental - and activity relationship. For that you don’t have to meditate. But a person like me has to meditate and learn. Learning is necessary in the sense not as just information, but gaining the quality. Without learning the information you can’t gain the qualities. Gaining the qualities means that it becomes your character. That is what it means on the spiritual path, in the Buddhist field.

Learning is basically divided into two: learning with effort and learning without effort, effortless.

Learning with effort is meditating and putting all your thoughts in. Effortless learning means it is already there, without questions, as large as life in your character, in you. In one way we call that learning effortlessly. In another way this is called experience. Another way of expression is development. So information has been given, effort was put in to understand that information, then effort was put in to digest that information, then effort was put in to try to merge that within you and whatever you have learnt. When it is merged you will see that it becomes your character and then it becomes automatic or effortless. Truly, that is how all this development takes place. The symptom is the behavior and the capability of the individual. You don’t work for the symptoms. You work for the basic, major thing – unless you are training yourself to be clairvoyant or a healer. In that case it is a different path, a different way of learning and doing it. Other than that, spiritually that is how you go.

The guru devotional practice itself in the session has three: pre – actual and conclusion.

The pre – is with the Lama Buddha Buddha Vajradhara, the seven limbs, mandala offering, requests and then the actual meditation comes. That has the root of development, profound faith. After developing faith, building the relationship. That has the mental relationship and physical action.

After developing the guru devotional practice, training your mind. That also has: reminding ourselves of the importance of life. The tradition calls it del jor, which means leisure and richness. Leisure here means you have a lot of chances. It is rich in the sense that it has so many opportunities. It is rich with opportunity and so many chances. Recognizing this is very important, otherwise we will waste this life. If we realize we have had such a wonderful thing when everything is already a done deal then it is a little too late. Traditional teachers give us the example:

There was a little mentally challenged, very poor person who found a bag full of gold dust. Somehow he understood that this was gold and very valuable. He carried it around and told everybody that he had found gold. What he didn’t know was that there was a hole in the bag. When he was carrying it around the gold dust was leaking out everywhere. By the time he had realized what had happened all the gold dust was gone.

So that should not happen to us. We have this precious life. When we don’t know its value – or we do know but don’t utilize – the time will click and it goes, like the sand in an hour glass. Remember then soap opera “Days of our Lives.”

0:32

That is a true waste. To avoid that, to make an impact in our life, we meditate on recognizing the quality of this life, its importance and the difficulty to find it. These are the preparation for practice, actually.

Then after developing that, the actual practice comes. What do we do?

There are three different layers:

First is: Small Scope – or common with the lower. This one begins with impermanence until what to do at the end of this particular life as an emergency measure, which is taking refuge and following the advice. The advice is to honor karma.

The second layer is seeing everything, seeing what really true samsara is. True samsara is not external, but internal. Not only internal to our physical body, but the deepest “me” in the deepest part of my soul is connected and not only connected by soaked completely with contamination. That’s almost what we are. Recognize what this is and how did we get so soaked in that “samsara”. Look in your own samsara and recognize it and make no mistake: reject it. That means transforming the contaminated identity – making sure our entity is not associated with contaminated identity. The continuation of contaminated identity is samsara. It is called ignorance, confusion and it is the source of all the hatred, obsession, jealousy, superiority-inferiority complex. The meanness of the individual comes from there, showing the temper comes from there. In short all what we don’t want, all that makes my and others’ lives miserable is coming from there. This is the culprit. Recognize that. Transform that. Do both together. Safeguard the immediate future and change this identity.

Safeguarding the future means following the morality. Changing the identity is following concentration and wisdom. These are the Three Pitakas or Three Higher Trainings or Three Baskets. They are meant for each and every one of us to handle these very chronic problems. I did talk about morality, but not yet much about concentration and focusing, but referred you to the transcript GOM. That is the same as the fifth perfection. Then the wisdom is also the sixth paramita. The bottom line is that whatever we have been seeing and experiencing is not real. It all seems very real, but it is not. It is like we are living within a sorcerer’s performance. Why is it not real? I don’t mean that somebody made up stories and drags us in there. Neither is it somebody putting a spell on us. I don’t mean that at all.

0:42

This is not the bottom line. When all the conditions and terms and when they are right, then things happen. Is this going to be permanent? No. When conditions are not right, things are not happening. That’s why the idea of not being real, of being false, comes in. Some people use the term “dualistic” , some call it confusion. Actually, it is not right, because it just takes all the conditions to be just right for things to materialize. It is materialized. It is happening. Yes it is. Yet, it is not real. It is not the bottom line. Is there a bottom line? Probably not. That is why everything is conditioned.

0:44

And who provides the conditions? We do. I do. When I have made the conditions then things are happening. This is the basic idea of wisdom. Since it is nothing that somebody else made to apply on us it is just the conditions we made being right and then it is happening and it will change.

So we can make it happen a different way. That’s why we do all our practices, trying to make it into a different way, trying to make it uncontaminated, trying to make it non-samsaric. So the possibility is there – and not only the possibility, but it is definite that we can make a difference. We can change. Things are happening because the conditions are right.

Out of the Three Higher Trainings, Morality, Concentration and Wisdom, this is wisdom. After developing that, when you have the basic understanding of that you begin to see that not only is everything transitory, but everything is made. Some people say “it is meant to be”, but there is no such thing. It is all transitory. And who manages that? So far, our own karma, but we would like to take the control in our hands. We would like to be in the driver’s seat and drive ourselves. That is the whole idea.

Then we not only see the possibility, but the probability that we can change the conditions. We can get out of samsara. We can change the contaminated identity into an uncontaminated continuation of “me”. That me is capable of developing perfectly and can become a buddha, because you keep on changing the conditions. So you will reach there. You are moving in that direction. You continuously keep on changing the conditions. Practice to me is all about that. It is not necessarily 2 or 3 hours. But when you have commitments then it does take 2-3 hours, particularly these days for me. Somehow I always wake up around 5, 6 these days, like this morning and start doing my prayers and by the time I am moving out of my bed, Colleen tells me it is 9 o’clock or something. That happens every day for me, not for you, I am sure you don’t have to. I am doing this Guhyasamaja sadhana since I did the retreat. I completed the retreat but didn’t stop saying the sadhana. For 2, 3 days I tried to say the short sadhana, but it felt very uncomfortable. When I first started saying this is took 3 hour by itself. Now it doesn’t take that long, but still, it takes time.

Whether you cut the time of doing your prayers and meditation or not, the whole thing becomes a habit. “Habit” may be cheap language. Try to make it your character so that everything you do will become positive that way.

0:51

Khedrup-je praised Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa

Wang po chö je zhe je u tsam yang

Ta da dro la mem bei gyu gyur na

Tso nyi chö pa zhen ta mö je tse

So sum zhin gyur nye la sol wa deb

If even the intake and out-take of your breath

Becomes extremely beneficial for all living beings,

What need to talk about all your other activities!

In one way Khedrub-je does have perfect guru devotional practice and that’s why he may have mentioned that, but on the other hand, if you yourself are perfectly dedicated, knowing the way, then bodhimind becomes part of your life and then every breath you take, every movement you make, even silly jokes, becomes beneficial, not only to yourself, but to all beings who will become buddhas in future. That’s a very important point.

That is bodhimind. If you develop that with you, that itself purifies your negativities. That itself accumulates merit. It is really the best way to accumulate merit and the best way to purify. It is like a treasure of good fortune. That is totally dedicating yourself for the benefit of all beings, seeking enlightenment for the reason to benefit others. Such a mind either develops either through the seven stage – or the exchange stage development or even taking vows ritually. We have completed all three up to last night.

0:55

Now, you have some treasure within you, honestly. Even if you don’t talk much about it or count exactly all the points, but think very simply about it, even if you don’t think much about guru devotion and the precious human life, that’s fine. You at least need a strong knowledge of it. The bottom line is that you need to practice these three things:

Common with the lower, scope, common with the medium scope and Mahayana path.

Practicing the lower and medium scope you will know who you are and what you are and where you are. Clearly knowing and understanding where the real source of the problems is and clearly making up your mind to reject that with a variety of reasons, clearly knowing the circumstances and conditions, you are the master of the very conditions you want to build. If I say the word I am dying to say now some people may get offended, but truly speaking you have to look at yourself as your own creator. Your future is created by you, not anybody else. Then I will know that everything I do today makes a difference in me and the people who are associated with me and the people who are connected with me, who share the air I breathe, the ground I walk on, and they are all connected with me and truly they are all my mother sentient beings. Then it is really true. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense to say that your father is your mother and your son and daughter is your mother.

1.00

Then comes love, compassion, caring and concern. Then the temporary things in life come and go and come and go. They are the true melodramas of samsara. Sometimes you are very much involved, physically, mentally and emotionally. Sometimes not only that, but it is life and death. But again the reality is that it is not. Only time will tell you that it is not. The melodrama of life happens. It is human character. We go along with that, we suffer a bit and a wise person will understand that this is part of a melodrama and won’t totally fall into it, yet move along with it. If you don’t move along with it you become crazy. If you move completely into it you become stupid. Life can be managed in that way. The total mind and the total efforts are put into this, plus a few vajrayana practices of this and that sadhana and mantra here and there, keeping your commitments. That will deliver you to total enlightenment, particularly if you are connected to extraordinary yidams.

When I think back to the days when we started Jewel Heart, there were a number of wonderful people. I am talking about those who are gone, who have passed away. It began with Helen from Holland, then Gelong-la, Octavio, Mama Nancy, and we lost Peng Khong. From those who are connected with Jewel Heart, as far as I know, no one is lost. They are all connected with the Lama Yidam. Hopefully everyone will be. Plus, our own efforts contribute to work with these three scopes. Bottom-line them, make them into bullets and swallow them so they become part of your character. This is real practice, whether you sit there will rolling eyes or folding hands or not. I mentioned a few names and a few others I didn’t mention, but that doesn’t mean I am letting them down. I don’t know what I am talking about, sorry, I better switch.

1:07

After developing the bodhimind through whatever you do, then you practice the six perfections. They are very simple. Generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom.

So after bodhimind development, the actual bodhisattva activities. Do kindly listen to the oral transmission for this portion first.

Generosity

1:09 (Rimpoche reads oral transmission)

1:10

I will give you a little explanation of the perfection of generosity. The meditation is the same format, pre – actual and conclusion. Pre – is generating the Lama, doing seven limbs and mandala offering and then do the actual meditation.

The actual meditation is: in order to ripen your own personality, the six perfections, to help others, four other perfections. These are the two main outlines. We are now more concerned with ourselves. So the first is generosity.

We have to think there are three types of generosity:

Generosity of dharma, of the way the individual can develop and become perfectly enlightened. Sharing that, leading people, that is the first and foremost and wonderful generosity.

Protecting individuals from threat and fear, etc. Fear comes in because there is a threat.

Material generosity, like giving medicine to the sick, shelter to the homeless, food to the hungry, helping kids with their education, helping old people who need help and so forth.

Practice for us is all three generosities. What is true generosity? It is the mind of giving and sharing, mentally sharing and giving. But if you just think, “Mentally I give, literally I won’t give”, then it is not generosity. You have to mean what you say. But in essence it is the mental activity. We as a society understand and appreciate people’s generosity, not only in terms of giving money or wealth, but sharing. That includes appreciation, rejoicing and all of those.

The concluding meditation for this is to get light and liquid from the Lama, purifying negativities in general and particularly the negativities that cause poverty, and not only the poverty of wealth, but also the poverty of dharma, of life and whatever is lacking in any way. All is purified. Thinking only of money-generosity alone is not worthwhile. You have to think of all three. That will be helpful.

Morality

The meditation works the same way. Morality has also three types. (1:17 oral transmission)

Okay, now this one says: the morality that has not grown before will be grown, that already grown with us will remain and increase. The three moralities are:

Protecting yourself from wrong doing

Accumulating positive karma

Commitment and action to help all beings

The meditation is the same thing.

Patience:

(1:20 oral transmission)

1:23

The request and the meditation is the same as before, particularly, while meditating, keep the Lama Lhagpai La Thubwang Dorje Chang on your crown and say that even if not only one or two people, but every living being on earth and every enlightened being in heaven became my enemy, if everyone looked down on me and treated me like an enemy, even then I will not return their meanness. Of course enlightened beings never look down and never treat you meanly, but as a way of talking, I will not return any meanness and will not react with anger. I will not measure that with hatred. No matter whatever happens I will not do it. On the contrary, if I can, I will develop compassion and love and care. The sufferings that I have, even a headache or toothache or a slight inconvenience or discomfort that I may have, all are the results of my negativities that I committed from the beginning. Especially for the sake of dharma, if I have to take a lot of hardship, this will bring me closer total enlightenment. So I welcome it. This is my opportunity to cut the cause of samsara and the causes for falling into the lower realms.

Also there is the truth of karma and the truth of Buddha, Dharma Sangha and there is something called the blessings of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This is actually inconceivable. So I strongly focus on that. I will also read the messages of Buddha, the development of bodhimind, particularly I may be able to be blessed to be able to do that. So then I purify all negativities, particularly the obstacles to the three types of patience.

The three types of patience are when people are hurting you, don’t take it personally. Even little sufferings like like, for the sake of dharma and the benefit of others I welcome them. And I develop the patience to understand. These are the three.

Enthusiasm

(1:28 oral transmission)

1:29

The meditation here is the same way, generating the Lama, purifying negativities in general and in particular impatience. If there is no enthusiasm, then no matter how much intelligence you may have, it is just like a dead body. You get no success at all. If you don’t have enthusiasm, then even a huge intelligence is almost useless. It is like having a dead body around, an additional problem, rather than help. So clear the obstacles to develop enthusiasm and think of developing the three types of enthusiasm. They are not mentioned here, but they are:

1.Armor-like enthusiasm – no matter how many people may attack you, the armor will protect you.

2. Collecting virtues

3. Helping others

The second and third are same as in morality. In the lama chöpa there is a verse:

SEM CHEN RE REI CHIR YANG NAR MEI PEI

MAY NANG KEL PA GYA TSOR NAY GÖ KYANG

NYING JEY MI KYO JHANG CHUP CHOG TSÖN PAY

TSÖN DRÜ PHAR CHIN DZOK PAR JIN GYI LOP

Inspire me to perfect transcendent joyous effort,

By striving with tireless compassion for supreme enlightenment,

Even if I must remain for many aeons

In the deepest hell fires for the sake of each being.

For the sake of one sentient being, even if I have to remain for hundreds of eons in a hell realm, my compassion and enthusiasm is strong enough to continue. That is the example of enthusiasm.

Concentration

(1:35 oral transmission)

1:36

I do remember the six perfections in the delam are very short, but I didn’t remember them being that short. Without any concentration one can never get the results.

If you focus then you get it done. If you are not focused, then even I notice myself, when I say my prayers and I am not focusing but talking to somebody or watching TV or reading a book, then it doesn’t work very well, although it is permitted, particularly it is permitted to read a book about the same subject, but my practice then never finishes. Three hours will become nine hours. It will go into the evening and still not be finished. So clearly, focusing is necessary. We all know that. There are a variety of types of focusing. There is samsaric focusing and non-samsaric focusing. There is focus of shamata and the focus of vipasyana and there is the focus of the combination of these.

It is interesting to know that Tibetan Buddhism is the one that talks about the combination of shamata and vipasyana. Shamata is single-pointed focusing and vipasyana is critical analysis, sometimes called ‘insight’. So it is the combination together. All the Tibetan traditions talk about that combination. Focusing is like the horse and analysis is like the man on the horse. So the combination is a horse man. A horseman can fight better than a man on foot or a horse without rider.

From the result – point of view, in order to have physical and mental comfort, there is meditation. Most of the meditations known to us in the west are for physical and mental comfort. That’s why these meditations are now almost used in many hospitals in the west. They spend huge amounts of money to treat patients to have meditation. A number of people even get jobs in the hospital doing that.

Audience: Some of them are called “bio feedback”.

Rimpoche: Many doctors hire people to teach you to meditate. Especially famous doctors, before you get to see them, you see those people first. There are the dieticians and the meditation instructors. The dieticians will give you long lectures that you don’t want to hear. Before you see the doctor, the dietician takes about 45 minutes to give her input.

For the quality of the individual you can do many more meditations, meditations for helping and serving living beings and most importantly, the bodhisattvas meditations. There are so many varieties of meditation given by Buddha and the Buddhist teachings for different purposes.

The big meditations in various hospitals like those of Jon Kabat – Zinn, are very much part of Buddhism. Then the practice of light and liquid from the lama is as usual.

Wisdom

1:42

(oral transmission)

1:43

I did mention to you what wisdom is all about. But over here they talk about three wisdoms:

Nyi lu rig pa don dam tob pai sherab – ultimate reality-knowing, absolute wisdom

Ne nga rig pu kun dzob tob pai sherab – knowing all kinds of relative information, relative wisdom

Sem chen che dön she su tob pai sherab – wisdom of helping all beings

Mostly we refer to the ultimate reality-knowing, absolute wisdom. That covers the six perfections.

In order to help all other beings, the four other perfections

(1:45 oral transmission)

1:46

First: in order to accumulate the subject you can help, the presenter should not only be generous, but also should be able to talk very nicely and present the subject. “Very nicely” does not mean sweet talk only. Sometimes you may be able to show your temper and push. When you need temper, you are able to show temper. When you need sweet talk you should be able to give sweet talk. If they are doing wrong you should be able to point it out and correct. That is the first.

The second is: whatever you talk you have to make sure they practice.

The third: whatever you teach others you have to do the same thing. So if you teach others something and you yourself do something else that’s not right.

Then you make requests to the lama to be able to do this and be able to deliver all living beings to total enlightenment and particularly those who are following you.

Light and liquid from the Lama reaches all living beings. Everybody develops understanding and particularly this understanding.

(1:49 more oral transmission….) There is another outline emphasizing the last 2 paramitas, which I will probably do tomorrow after the White Tara initiation, otherwise it will be late today. I am sure it is time to close now.

So basically, this is the de lam, a very brief lam rim. You can do this every day. You don’t have to have all these outlines. It is good if you can, but otherwise, as I told you, the three scopes, the essence of ‘common with the lower’, ‘common with the medium’ and Mahayana. Then Generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration are the way of life and you should pick it up. Generosity is commonly accepted as virtue, even by non-Buddhists. Everybody accepts that as virtue. But you have to know that true generosity is a mental activity. That has to tally with your actions. Morality again is a mental activity. That mental activity, again has to tally with your actions, particularly actions like pretending will not be good morality. It is more harmful than helpful if it is only a performance. Then patience and enthusiasm, focusing and wisdom. The absolute wisdom is the knowledge of absolute reality, knowing other artistic things is relative wisdom. The wisdom of helping other beings is the third type of wisdom.

Then one has to be very good to be able to present whatever little one knows to the people. It has to be suitable to their minds, to their culture, to their style or skill. That’s really nyem pa ma wa. Whatever you say, make them do it, make them learn. The third is that you do whatever you are teaching. These are the ten perfections.

First and foremost to develop are the three scopes, then maintain them with the 10 perfections, but at least the 6 perfections within you.

1:55

- I guess that’s it. But I would like to thank everybody for having me here, to make it possible by working hard, by doing everything, by organizing, making arrangements and sometimes, when you do those, you have a little difficulty. This is great purification and I am sorry, but I am glad you have the opportunity. Make the best use of it. That doesn’t mean continue [with the difficulties]. Then many people have supported this financially, to be able to get me here to do these teachings. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Not only me, but also Lagön Rinpoche, Sonam and all of us are here. Thank you. You paid for it, you brought us here, you fed us, you have given us a nice place to stay and then we bully you and say, “this is not right, that is not right”, “No, I won’t do it” – particularly, if you put the throne here or not, whether I am going to sit on it or not – I am so sorry, I have been bullying you. Maybe I bullied too much.

Whenever I succeed I think I push too much. And whenever I get pushed off I think I am not strong enough. Whatever it is, my apologies. I want to thank all of you attending, because if you are not here there will be no teaching. You made all this possible.

Whatever you learnt take it with you. Don’t waste it. Even if you don’t get it completely, whatever you do get, bite what you can chew and chew it well. It will nourish you and your spiritual path.

Finally, all of your kindness and generosity, time, money, efforts and everything, we dedicate for all of us obtaining total enlightenment together. Like Milarepa said,

Pu drub par che pai lama dang

Da tso wa pö bei yön tang nyi

Sa nyam pa gye pei teng de yö

The person who is meditating in the cave,

The family providing the needs from the towns and cities

have omens to obtain enlightenment together.

We dedicate as Milarepa did and follow the same footsteps and thank you. In the afternoon I am not saying anything. Whatever they told me to do I will do. I will be like a guinea pig. But I fought very strongly not to have a throne. I don’t know why you have dakinis and all that, but it is great, wonderful. I hope you will able to say the prayers properly. That is more important. Then we all pray for the longevity of all of us and that we will be able to do the lam rim and vajrayana teachings together again and again.

Thank you and sorry for the delay and have a good break and we will start again at 3.30 pm.

2:01 - End of session