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Good morning to you everybody, welcome today to the continuation of the Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, on the basis of Maitreya Budddha’s synopsis of the Prajnaparamita teachings, known as Abhisamayalankara. These are all Sanskrit words, and whether I read it in Tibetan, Sanskrit or Pali, it will be Greek to you. So they are the Transcendental Wisdom Teachings of Maitreya Buddha.

0:01:01.8 Maitreya Buddha has five small volumes known as Maitreya’s Five Dharmas. Out of these this is the Abhisamayalankara. In the middle of Chapter 1 there are a couple of words

Drub dang den pa nam dang ni Sang ye la sog kön chog sum

Ma zhen yong su mi ngal dang

Lam ni yong su dzin pa dang

Ngön nga dang ni ngön she kyi

Yön ten drub dang thong lam dang

Gom zhe ja la dam ngag ni

Chu yi dag nyi she par ja

[Bodhisattvas] have to know ten pieces of advice to do with practice, truths, the Three Jewels (the buddha and so on), non-attachment, indefatigability, full acceptance of the path, five eyes, six qualities of clairvoyant knowledge, the path of seeing, and the one called meditation. [Ornament 1.21-22]

(Translation: Gareth Sparham)

We talked about the nature of the practice as the Two Truths as well as Bodhimind and the gateway to the Mahayana path is bodhind. Acdording to Maitreya’s words it is nothing but

Sem che pa ne sem chen dün chir

yang dag dzog pai jang chub dö

For the benefit of living beings

To attain total enlightenment

0:02:45.1 Bodhimind is such that it is seeking total enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, for all by me. It is a double-pronged mind. One prong is seeking total enlightenment for oneself and never giving up to seek total enlightenment, no matter whatever it maybe. You know why? Total enlightenment will make a total difference for me and others, for you and others. So that is something we aim for. The purpose of our practice is to become totally enlightenment, nothing less than that. We have the capability, we can do it. From our physical point of view, from our mental point of view, we are capably. Also from the time point of view we are capable. Honestly, it is such a thing. When you don’t think about it, it is no big deal. But when you think about it, we came in such a time, a time in which a Buddha has appeared as official Buddha. He taught us how he managed and he taught all kinds of teachings. He taught the Theravada principles, the Mahayana, the Vajrayana. That is the western way of looking at the three yanas. Traditionally, the three yanas are counted as Shravakayana, Pratyekayana and Buddhayana.

0:05:34.1 But in the west it is more known as Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana and earlier great teachers didn’t object, so it is not for me to say that this is wrong. It is not wrong from the point of view of the practitioner. But officially the three yanas are like that. Then there is another way of looking at it in terms of the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma and the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.

0:06:38.5 The First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma is mostly compassion aspects. Again, I am using western language. Traditionally it is called “method”. It is includes discipline, morality, concentration and all of those. The Second Turning of the Wheel is wisdom-emptiness and the Third Turning can be the Mahayana path. Tibetan Buddhist say that there two Mahayana paths: sutrayana and vajrayana. [All those teachings are about] whatever Buddha gained and experienced, how he overcame the same obstacles we face, our mental obstacles, our negative emotional addictions. He shared these experiences.

0:08:13.2 It is unlike the usual western understanding – and I am sorry if I am wrong – that normally we say that God is somewhere up there and sends Jesus down as his manifestation. But Buddhists look differently. Buddha himself said,

Dang po chö dang na nyi nyam pa la…..

First you and me were totally equal. I was as bad and as good as you are. But I used enthusiasm and I have become Buddha today. You entertained laziness, so you are still stuck there. To who would you like to prostrate? To me the Buddha, or to you, the non-Buddha?

So he put in enthusiastic efforts in. But you have to have a goal. If you put efforts in without a goal, great, you put in efforts, but you get nowhere. You don’t have any measurement of development. You don’t have any achievement. You don’t have anything. So it is almost like people saying, “You are being carried away by the current and you are still thinking that you are swimming and that the situation is under control.” So that’s not really wise. So you must have a goal.

0:10:41.3 Why do you put in efforts and practice? Practice is not easy. You know that. Discipline is not easy, morality is not easy. Especially in the modern age, when even our good old friend Allen Ginsberg used to sing, “Touch what you want to touch, feel what you want to feel, do what you want to do. Suck what you want to suck.” That’s what people’s attitude is. So discipline is not easy. Without a little discipline, morality will be an issue. Without morality we get nowhere. It is the most important. Morality comes with the help of discipline. If you don’t discipline yourself a little bit – not being disciplined by somebody else – by me, for me, then at least you know that you can avoid negativities and build a little virtue and positivity. Why do we do that? To obtain total enlightenment. Anything you do, something that is difficult and you put in efforts you have to know what for and here it is to becoming fully enlightened.

0:12:53.9 Then you do anything, big or small. Don’t ignore it because it is small. Don’t be scared, because it is big. Big or small, you have to move. That’s what you do. That’s how you maintain your discipline. You may say, “This little fly is so irritating, let me smash it” and it is very easy to get one of those rubber things and smash it. But when you think about you will know this fly also has a life. This is a sentient being. It is easy to hit it with a rubber of plastic fly swatter but somebody is losing their life. So then it is bothering you and you try to catch it. Then you can’t catch it by hand, so you get a plastic bag and they are much more intelligent than we think and still fly away.

0:14:30.0

With all these efforts you may be able to catch them and bring them outside, if it is not cold. If it is cold, it is the same thing, almost like discarding. That is the discipline. Whatever it is, discipline is a little important. If you can take a vow, the vow will tell you that you can’t do this and you can’t do that. You should do this and do that. Following vows is not a big deal, it is easy. But maintaining the vows is difficult. I am a bad example, honestly. I was a full-fledge bikshu for quite some time, 20 years or something. Now I have become like this. That explains the lack of discipline. It’s not about the robes, but about protecting vows. That is the important point. That is morality.

0:16:30.9 There are plenty of vows, eight categories, four lay vows and three celibacy vows. There is no point of telling you all that, but lay vows are important too. They keep your morality perfect. Perfect morality is the base on which you can get a great human life. The basis of karma, which gives you a human life, is perfect morality. On top of that, you need the conjunction of great prayers.

0:17:27.6 tsül trim nam par tak pai zhi sung/ mön lam dri ma me pai tsam jar/ je tso pha rol du chin pai tro je/ - so the six perfections will help. That is how the precious human life that we have today is the result of all that. Honestly. Today we have it and we don’t care where it comes from. What makes it possible? We don’t even think about, we don’t even bother with that. If we are sick and facing death, we simply hope that we may come back. That could be attachment to this life or it could be wishing for a good future life, however until then we don’t think. But if you think about it, that’s where it comes from. When that has come before like this, then in future it will be the same thing.

0:18:41.0 Each and every human being we have, the understanding and capability of the mind, that makes human beings different from other beings. It is the relationship between the mind and this physical body that is so very unique. Other lives don’t have it. Look around. There are powerful tigers and elephants, but they don’t have it. The weak insects don’t have it. They neither have the mind nor the coordination and relationship between these two; nor is their body strong. The elephant may be very big, but that’s about it. The beauty of the elephant is the beauty of the elephant. When they get mad they smash you under their feet or catch you with their trunk and throw you away. So their anger can be like that.

0:20:02.9 Some human beings also get angry and can’t control it, like tigers or cats or leopards, coyotes and so on. Some humans behave like coyotes. Coyotes don’t know what is really happening, and they just scream throughout the village, showing their anger and temper. They make a hell of a noise and wake up everybody, if you have them around. So human beings should not behave like coyotes. So you have to think about it, before you get angry. If you can’t think and if anger is controlling you, that means you lost control of your mind and your mind is controlled by anger. Such a person is called angry person and not good person. That person is called bad person, honestly. That person is called horrific person. That is what anger does.

0:22:07.7 Human beings should be better then tigers and coyotes. Our mind has the capability to think and filter, to give yourself time to focus differently. If you are angry about something, do not insist on that. If you do so, your anger will go up and with anybody else you see you will want to talk about that. Not only you want to talk about it, but talk loudly and scream and yell, don’t you? That shows you how bad you are, honestly. So if you see yourself doing that, notice and look back and say, “Shame on me. How shamefully I have behaved.” Everybody can have excuses, even the son who killed his own father will have excuses. That is the Tibetan saying She gyu pa seg pu la yö.

0:23:46.4 Don’t entertain your excuses. Just be the good person you are and recognize and bring out the goodness. Your goodness will bring you happiness and make other comfortable. It gives the opportunity for other people to help you. It gives the opportunity for companionship. All of them come out of goodness. Human beings are definitely good and all of us are very definitely good. Otherwise, no matter whoever you are or whatever you may be, even children of multi-billionaires, so what? If you are a bad person you are a bad person. If you are the son of the king of all kings, even then, if you are a bad person you are a bad person and nothing in the spiritual field.

0:25:20.4 In traditional Indian culture we talk about the king of kings, the lord of lords. But that means nothing if you are not a good person. Goodness is human quality, honestly. So the problem is the addiction to negativities. It is not easy to overcome. It is very difficult. As you know, if you are addicted to smoking cigarettes, how difficult it is to cut that addiction. No matter how cold the weather, you have to be standing outside in the snow, shivering and still puffing the left-over of your American spirit or whatever. You have to keep puffing and coughing. So how difficult it is to get rid of it.

0:26:50.7 If you have to give up the addiction to alcohol, you know how difficult it is. Even though there are 12 steps, how hard it is and how many times people fail. But the important thing is to never give up. If you fall down, get up and move. That is the most important. Seeing that and giving up mental addictions is even more difficult. I do understand that people cannot give up the addiction to anger and hatred. If you have the addiction to anger it will bring hatred with it. Anger brings hatred. Hatred brings violence. Violence brings more violence. You have heard it a million times. This is really true. You have to put the stop right at the point where it begins. As the western saying is: nip it on the butt! The moment anger is coming, that’s it. That’s where you have to nip it. Buddha did that and that’s why he gave us the Three Higher Trainings: morality, Samadhi and wisdom. All three work together. It is the same thing, whether in Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana. All these three are principles in all three yanas.

0:28:41.7 Some people may think, “Well, I am in vajrayana, so I don’t have to have discipline. I don’t have to have morality.” That is very wrong. Very wrong. Honestly. Even in vajrayana it is said that maintaining your vows and commitments is the essential basis. That is the very main thing.

0:29:31.0 The way you achieve Buddhahood is to gain the understanding of the two truths and on the basis of the Noble Truths, we talk about the three refuges. And now, today, the nature of the practice. We already talked about that in the beginning. How it is possible to function? Through enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm nothing can be achieved. Enthusiasm is so important. You have a lot of material about enthusiasm - from all lam rims. In the six perfections there is the perfection of enthusiasm. They will tell you all about it.

0:30:48.7 One thing I have to say here and that is this: in our normal language, any efforts we put in are called enthusiasm. I do not know if you remember, but if you are dumped by your girlfriend who you are very much in love with and she says, “I have nothing to do with you” and you try to do your best to get in touch with her and all that, but you can’t. Then one day she calls you and tells you, “Meet me tomorrow at 2 in the afternoon, at the middle of nowhere, in the desert.” So you will be happy to go enthusiastically, waiting in the middle of the desert, with a bottle of water in your hand. You will waiting there, sweating, till 5 o’clock and nobody shows up. You may call that enthusiasm and diligence. But no, it is self-torture. You just bought another suffering.

0:32:26.4 According to Buddha and Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavatara, enthusiasm is:

tsön gang ge la dro wa o – the nature of enthusiasm is who enjoys virtue

If you enjoy virtuous work that is called enthusiasm. It is not just simple enthusiasm for anything. The example I gave you for waiting in the desert is probably attachment. It may not even be enthusiasm, but attachment or obsession. I wish I knew the exact translation of this verse of Shantideva in the Bodhisattvacharyatara [Ch7, v.2]

BRTZON GANG DGE LA SPRO BA'O

DE YI MI MTHUN PHYOGS BSHAD BYA

LE LO NGAN LA ZHEN PA DANGSKYID LUG BDAG NYID BRNYAS PA'O

What is enthusiasm? It is finding joy in what is wholesome.

Its opposing factors are explained

As laziness, attraction to what is harmful

And despising oneself out of despondency.

This means that enthusiasm is by nature one who enjoys virtue. Enthusiasm in this case only applies to virtuous work. The other one, opposite of that, is called laziness.

0:34:21.9 Enthusiasm and laziness are focused on one: yourself and your work. But one wants to go one way, the other wants to go the other way. Laziness doesn’t want to move. There are so many types of laziness. I used to say that eastern and western laziness are different. Western laziness is busy. You people keep on constantly, continuously doing something, non-stop, going, going, going, going. That is laziness. Eastern laziness, particularly me, if I get a nice cup of tea and can sit in a nice corner in the warm sunshine, I won’t move. I will sit there. I will have a lid on my butt. I won’t move. That’s what you call a couch potato. That’s eastern laziness. Both, laziness and enthusiasm, are doing something. My laziness is easy: doing nothing and sitting there. But your laziness is doing something that is not so important for you. You say: “ I have this deadline and I have that deadline and have this commitment, I want to be here and do this” and you have go and drive here and drive there and do all this. That’s the laziness called zhe wang nying kyi gi le lo, the diligence of non-adherence.

The Diligence of Non-Adherence: the diligence of non-adherence counteracts the laziness of adhering to non-virtuous actions and assists practitioners in stabilizing their practice

(Translation: IBD)

0:37:22.9 You stuck with something that is not so important and you are stuck on something you shouldn’t be doing. Sometimes, when you are half-awake, half-asleep, you just don’t want to move. That is the example for being stuck to not important activities. If enlightenment is your goal, then anything contributing to enlightenment is in your job description. Especially important things are very important. But this laziness will take you away from that. Thanks to you I learnt a little bit of English here and there. When I look back, in one way I have never been to any English school or teacher. Nobody taught me. Somebody might have taught me the ABC, I don’t remember. So we have to overcome that type of laziness.

0:39:53.9 The second enthusiasm is:

The Diligence of Non-Weariness: the diligence of non-weariness counteracts the laziness of feeling disheartened and assists practitioners in increasing their practice. (Translation: IBD)

Then the third enthusiasm:

The Diligence of Thoroughly Upholding the[Mahayana] Path: the diligence of thoroughly upholding the [Mahayana] path counteracts the laziness of self-contempt/defeatism and assists practitioners in averting the deterioration of their Mahayana practice.

(Translation: IBD)

These are the lazinesses to be defeated by enthusiasm. That is the actual dharma practice. Enthusiasm is actual dharma practice. Understand that enthusiasm only applies to virtuous activities.

0:42:14.0 Panchen Sönam Drakpa says that most laziness is that we are attached to something that is not important to do. Honestly, we all know that. It doesn’t necessarily come in the normal way of Western understanding of laziness. It is something that it is not very important, but you need to do it, you want to do it, you can’t give it up. You must keep on doing it. The Tibetan word is sha wa nyen zhin gi le lo – something not necessarily good, but you have very strong attachment for that activity. So you let it occupy all your time to complete that.

0:43:36.1 Many people ask me, “I am engaged in some not so important works that I am doing so much”. But there are certain things you have to do, even though it may not seem so important in order to become enlightened. For example you have to do your daily chores. You have to clean your house. You can’t be a dirty pig. Your house should not be a dirty pigsty. If you let that happen, not only do you feel unhealthy and dirty, but the people who you like to come, won’t come, even your own kids wont’ like it and what kind of example are you showing them? So it is very important to clean up. That’s your daily chore. You can’t fill up your sink with dirty dishes and never wash them. Or, if you do wash them, not wash them properly, but just throw a little water on them and leave them there. Then the next person who uses them will become unhealthy. So there are certain things you have to do, even though they are not so important, from the academic point of view or spiritual point of view or money point of view or any other point of view. But it is important to do it.

0:45:50.1 Also you have to clean your house. You have to cut your lawn. If you don’t, the city will give you a red ticket. But you can make these things important. Cleaning is one of the first preliminaries in lam rim, right? The first thing is cleaning the place and laying the altar. That’s the first of the six preliminaries. Remember Ne ten lam chung pa, the Arhat called Small Road. There was a family and all their new-born children died. When another child was born they took it to a sooth-sayer, who said, “Take it to the road and any sage who comes through, ask them to pray for this child.” So they did and all these great teachers, including Buddha, came and each of them prayed for the child and said, “Join my order and become a perfect, great master.” Buddha was the last to come by and also said, “Join my order and become a perfect master.”

0:47:48.8 This kid became a great arhat, most learned in all three pitakas. The same thing happened with the next kid, his younger brother. But this time the maid servant who took him to the road, was lazy. She didn’t take him to the big road, but jus to a small path, where nobody passed through the whole day. Finally Buddha came and blessed him and said, “He may join my order and become a perfect arhat.” Later this kid, like his brother, entered all kinds of different non-Buddhist schools and he couldn’t learn anything. They all kicked him out, unlike his brother who became a master and went to another school. His brother was kicked out from one school, went to another one, got kicked out there too, went into another one and the same thing happened.

0:49:02.8 Finally he went to Buddha. This guy couldn’t learn anything. He couldn’t remember anything. Buddha took him to his ashram and told all his bikshus and bikshunies, “Whenever he comes, let him clean your shoes. Whenever he appears in your meditation hall, you have to say dü pang dri ma pang – clear the dust, clear the dirt. Finally, one day he realized, “the dust I am clearing is not the usual dust, but the dust of attachment, the dust of hatred and the dust of ignorance.” That is how even cleaning the house alone change into a practice for achieving enlightenment.

0:50:14.3 You don’t have to think of a vajrayana technique of transforming something. Here you have a method, an easy way, where cleaning the house can be changed to obtaining enlightenment, just like Arhat Small Road. That is transformation. It doesn’t have to be that magically attachment will change into passion. Attachment is passion anyway. It doesn’t have to be hatred being transformed into compassion. We always look for something like that. But let us transform something on a small level that you can easily do. These sorts of daily chores and our responsibilities can do that, even though they may not be that important. But you have to do them anyway, unless you become a monk or nun and go into the forests and mountains and then it is different. Other than that, as long as long as you have to live a normal life and live within society, you have family and you have children and you have responsibilities.

0:51:46.2 The trick is: you have to learn how to change each one of them into a positive way. Nobody calls that transformation, but it is transforming.

So with the first laziness you have strong attachment to things you need not to. So you have to get away from there. I must give you the Prajnaparamita text source for this

Ma zhen yong su ming gna dal

Lam ne yong su zin pa dang

There are just these two lines. Don’t get attached; don’t get too tired; have a complete practice and path. Ma zhen is the first laziness they are talking about. So don’t have attachment to that. It is not being attracted to a person or thing. In this case you are stuck with some unimportant work. Simple. But there are certain things you have to do. So the trick remains on the time management. The western mind will tell you the same thing here: time management. You really have to manage your time well and then you can do a lot. If you can’t, then nothing will happen. When I started my dialysis first, I had to do it five times a day. It seemed like I could do nothing else. Every day, morning till midnight was occupied by that. But when you begin to get used to it, you can do everything. You can travel, teach, read and think and do your prayers and everything. So time management is the key.

0:54:36.4 I don’t think I can go into the second and third laziness. It is already 11.20 am. So better stop, because you people are having time management concerns, not like me.

I guess that’s it and thank you so much and I will probably talk to you next Sunday through video. And the Sunday after that I will be in New York. So the next two Sundays I will be talking to you either live or recorded. Thank you.

And I will see those who are coming in the afternoon – before the weather gets cold, in the evening. So better come early, okay?

0:55:48.4 May all beings……… 0:57:20.3

end