Details
Approaching the Buddha 4
Teachers:
Collection:
- Sadhanas and Prayers
Location:
- Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling
Translator:
- Heidi Koppl
Length:
- Full Length Session
Features:
- Subtitles ,
- Transcripts
Excerpt
Lama Tenzin Sangpo stresses that Dharma practice must blend wisdom with compassion, transforming every aspect of life into meaningful engagement through bodhicitta and mindfulness. He offers detailed guidance on setting up the meditation space, body posture, and mental preparation, underscoring that pure motivation is the foundation for authentic spiritual progress.
Description
Lama Tenzin Sangpo explains how to integrate Rinpoche’s teachings into daily practice, emphasizing that recitations and rituals are not mere worship but gateways to reconnect with ultimate truth and prevent forgetfulness of Dharma instructions. He clarifies that while compassion and loving-kindness are essential, only wisdom realizing the absence of self can sever samsara’s root cause. Lama highlights the importance of making life meaningful through virtuous actions that benefit both self and others, noting that bodhicitta transforms even mundane tasks into profound practice. He provides detailed instructions on setting up the meditation space, maintaining the correct body posture (the sevenfold Vairocana posture), and cultivating the right mindset, underscoring that proper preparation allows the Dharma to deeply affect us rather than remain superficial. Finally, he urges practitioners to act immediately rather than delay Dharma practice, emphasizing that the key to success lies in pure motivation and applying the teachings with sincerity.
Related Course Info
- A Treasury of Blessings – The Liturgy of Shakyamuni A complete guide to practicing A Treasury of Blessings, featuring a chanted sadhana with Tibetan and English subtitles, introductory teachings by Khenpo Pema Namgyal, and a full series of in-depth teachings by Lama Tenzin Sangpo, culminating in a profound session with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche on the inseparability of compassion and emptiness.
Video
Audio
01:24:42
We are receiving instructions from
Rinpoche in the morning.
So now in the afternoon we discuss on how we can practically implement the teachings, the instructions that we have received, how we can practice them, how we can hold daily sessions based on the instructions.
The sādhana that we are here discussing is a sādhana that is extremely powerful and contains so much blessing.
So as we have already discussed, when we recite in the secret mantrayāna, when we do recitations, when we supplicate, it's not a type of worship that we actually do. What it is in fact, these words that we recite are the entrance gate for us to, or the gate for us to recollect the ultimate truth.
When it comes to meditation and meditating, there are so many obstacles that we may, that we may encounter. One of the obstacles, one of the big obstacles that we may encounter, that may challenge us, is that we in fact forget the instructions.
For instance, we all are acutely aware that compassion is so extremely important.
But often it is the case that precisely when we need to feel compassion, to be compassionate, we forget these instructions, don't we?
However, if we recite a lot, do mantra recitations, if we recite the sādhana, the instructions are always in the sādhana, in the recitations. So we repeat them again and we recite the instructions. And this serves the purpose that we stop forgetting the instructions.
So when we now practice the Treasury of Blessings, the Buddha Shakyamuni practice, as Rinpoche has pointed out, everything comes down to the right view.
In the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama always stresses that all religions in fact, they teach about compassion, about loving kindness, about mindfulness, about being content, about patience.
That's kind of the general quality of all religions.
And that's excellent.
But can those aforementioned qualities, can in fact clear away all our suffering? They cannot.
Because as Rinpoche so clearly pointed out today, the root of samsara, the cause of samsara comes down to clinging and fixation.
As the great master Chandrakirti pointed out, as long as you grasp onto the five aggregates, you will cling onto a personal self. You will believe that there is a personal self. When you have the belief that there is a personal self, what happens next is that you give rise to negative emotions. Based on those negative emotions, you engage in negative harmful deeds and these create negative karma. And precisely it is this karma that makes you circle within samsara.
So these qualities, such as loving kindness and compassion, are extremely important. They are extremely beneficial. But since they always entail dualistic fixation, subject and object, the belief of a subject and an object. It cannot counteract samsara. It cannot cut through the cause of samsara.
So therefore the Dalai Lama then continued to say that that which really differs, or what differentiates Buddhism from other religions, is the wisdom... is the wisdom that directly understands and recognizes that there is no personal self. This is what makes Buddhism unique.
In many religions, in many traditions, they believe in a self. The self is not questions. There is a... for instance a creator, there is a soul, there is an Atman. There is the notion of a self.
Also the Dalai Lama always stresses, we need to learn to be kind to ourselves, we need to be loving to ourselves.
If we are not kind to ourselves, loving to ourselves, who will actually be kind to us?
If I cannot be kind to myself, if I can't be loving to myself, how can I feel love for others?
But these days the way that we are kind to ourselves, or loving to us, to ourselves, is a bit turned upside down, is a bit mistaken.
We think of ourselves as so important, and we think of others as not important at all. We actually don't care about others.
In Buddhism one stresses that everything depends on something else, dependent origination, that's the crucial factor in Buddhism. So this is exactly what we have to bring to mind. Everything, we ourselves, we depend on others.
If we... we have so many needs, if we need clothes, we need that from somebody else, from many others, isn't it?
The same with food. These days we go to eat in the restaurants, usually, no?
First of all, there needs to be a place, which is a restaurant. Secondly, there needs to be a cook. Then there needs to be somebody who takes your orders. There needs to be somebody who brings your food. Then finally there has to be somebody to whom you pay.
So we need to be loving to ourselves.
In order to be really loving to ourselves, we need to become happy. And how do we become happy? Do we become happy by only caring for ourselves and not really caring for others? This will not cause happiness, but the opposite of that. So therefore the key point is understanding that all of us, we depend on others. And therefore, if I want to be loving to myself and kind to myself, I need to be equally kind to others and loving to others, this will make me happy.
Forget about traveling the path to liberation. If you just want to enjoy happiness and joy in this very life, then the key point is to care for others, to be loving to others in the same way as you are loving to yourself.
It may be the case that um... When we hear that we have to give rise to the proper motivation, immediately hearing that, because it's being repeated again and again, we really get fed up with it. We feel really bored and tired. We've heard it so many times. And then we think, okay, it's perhaps just merely a method that makes you... that causes us to achieve enlightenment. But we end up really connecting it with ourselves. It's kind of we're separate from that wish, from that motivation.
Buddhahood is a result we will achieve in the future So we are not really connected to Buddhahood right now. And we may also feel, okay, bodhicitta is something that will cause enlightenment in the future. Everything is in the future and right now I'm not a Buddha. So in that way we feel disconnected from bodhicitta, because Buddhahood is not something that we have achieved yet.
So we feel not really connected to bodhicitta in this way. And because of not feeling connected to bodhicitta in this way, also what happens at the same time is that we feel that mundane pursuits, mundane activities are so important, so important. Yet spiritual activities or spiritual endeavors are not really important.
This is precisely why Rinpoche always stresses that we must make our life meaningful. What we do should be meaningful.
We all put a lot of effort to achieve something with our body, speech and mind. But the outcome, the result of our efforts differs. If we look around in this world, we are all different.
So whatever effort we may put in order to achieve our petty little goals, in the end it's just as the Buddha has said, birth ends in death will all have to die.
So now think ahead, after 100 years, who will be left? Nobody of us, no? The billions of people that live on this earth, nobody will be left.
So the... So birth ends in death.
Any meeting ends in separation.
Any building, any production ends in its destruction.
And any accumulation, and that's really important to understand, anything that we try to accumulate and hold ends in depletion, it will become exhausted or we just have to leave it behind.
However much effort we may apply in order to achieve something in this life, in the end we leave empty handed, we have to leave everything behind.
In order to achieve our mundane goals, as mentioned already before, we put a lot of effort with our body, speech and mind. We pursue those goals, those objectives with a... with physical, undergoing a lot of physical, mental and verbal hardship. But in the end, and also in order to achieve them, we do not shy away from engaging in negative deeds and also being influenced by... by negative emotions. So then, when we have to leave everything behind at the time of death, nothing can we take with us. The only thing that will accompany us is our negative karma.
So now when we talk about karma, you know what karma is. Karma is not a thing that we then carry with us after death. That's not karma. So what is karma? Karma are our habitual patterns that are stored in our mind, in our consciousness.
Take, for example, the negative emotion of anger. If you're prone to anger, what happens is that you become angry again and again. And what happens actually when you are angry? What happens to your body? What happens to your well-being? The moment we feel angry, we feel uneasy, we feel unhappy. And this is then extended. That is to say we feel unhappy, we feel angry, and this experience is then continued and solidified.
Just take into account the example when you eat a really delicious meal, then suddenly something makes you so angry. Before you thought, oh it's so tasty, but then when you're overwhelmed by anger, you suddenly think, oh it tastes so awful, you can't enjoy the food anymore.
So from this example of feeling angry, we understand that there's so many different forms in samsara different types of birth that we can take, different types of experiences.
So therefore it's so important that what we do should become meaningful, should be meaningful. It shouldn't be meaningless.
And when we use the term meaningful, what does it really refer to? It means that it should become the cause of happiness for ourselves and for others. It should bring happiness to us and others.
And best, it should cause us to achieve enlightenment.
Second best, we should become a Bodhisattva who abides on the bhumis.
The third best is an arhat, a foe destroyer.
And the fourth best situation is that we become somebody who is acutely aware of karma, cause and effect and acts accordingly, knows what to accept and knows what to reject.
If we become somebody like this, it is certain that we will not be worse off than now, but we'll actually become better and better.
Otherwise, it will be quite a sad situation if we don't live our life meaningfully. That is to say, when we were born, we were quite weak and pitiful. When we die, we don't want to be like that, also no... we don't...
And from a mundane perspective, it is often the case that we also when we die, we die really weak and pitiful. So each moment we are getting older, older, means our body physically, mentally shrinking.
We'll get older, we'll become more and more sick, and everything will become increasingly more difficult and painful.
So when we practice the dharma, everything should from that time then become better and better.
And as Rinpoche stressed today, it's so important that when we practice the dharma that we don't practice it in a superficial way, that we don't just leave the understanding as a mere intellectual understanding.
The um... Practicing the dharma is a part of our life.
And if we understand that, then we'll become much more mindful and careful.
So as mentioned already the days before, as beginners, a session, a meditation session is really important.
And to go about it in a really careful way is crucial.
Yesterday we talked a bit about the shrine, how to arrange the shrine, and also we talked about how to do three prostrations.
And these are not traditions, mere traditions that we need to follow blindly, but they are actually for a good purpose, they are for ourselves, they help us.
Having done three prostrations, the next step is that you sit down on a comfortable seat.
Best if you can arrange your meditation seat just in front of the shrine, opposite the shrine, that you look at the shrine directly.
You should sit down on a comfortable meditation cushion and the meditation cushion shouldn't be too hard and not too soft either.
So whatever is comfortable for us we should choose a meditation cushion that really fits to us.
So we should sit on a meditation cushion so that our back is a bit raised.
So just like we have here, we have a meditation cushion that is flat and on top of that then we have a smaller meditation cushion on which we place our butt.
So first of all we assume the proper key points of the body posture.
Best if you can sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So most of you know the seven fold posture of Vairocana but for those of you who don't, I will demonstrate now. So sit in the... no? OK. So sit in the same way as the Buddha sits. Cross leg, that's the first point in the lotus posture.
So the left one, the left leg you put on your right, um... what is this called, upper, upper leg, whatever.
And then the right one on the left.
So why do you need to sit in this vajra posture?
In our body we have... the reason for why we have to sit in this posture is because in our body we have an inner wind, the prana flow, and the nadi's channels.
If you sit in the right body posture as it was explained now what happens is that the inner wind, the inner prana moves into the central channel and when the inner wind moves into the central channel then naturally all your negative emotions subside and that's a good thing for meditation. And especially jealousy disappears.
Because if we have a lot of jealousy or envy we can't really abide within meditation.
And then we, yeah, so we can't one-pointedly remain meditative absorption.
So that's the reason for why we have to sit in the lotus posture.
If you can't sit in that very posture you can sit in the half crossed posture.
So if that also doesn't work then we should really look what works for us best.
So then the next point is the hand gesture. You put the right on top of the left. Right?
....so it should kind of have the... um... when you touch your your two thumbs together it should look a little bit like a triangle from the front.
Okay, that symbolizes in the secret Mantrayāna the the practice of tummo of the inner heat.
And you place your hands in this very gesture, in this very mudra, four finger width beneath your navel.
So while the first key point of sitting cross-legged diminished our negative emotion of envy and jealousy, now when we fold our hands in this way and place them under the navel center this diminishes our negative emotion of anger.
In the tradition of the Great Perfection there's also a way to relax into the natural ease of the mind, and this posture is a posture where you place your two hands on top of your knees and that's also a possible posture that you may assume if you are instructed by a teacher to do so.
The third key point is that your spine should be straight like an arrow.
So don't bend forward, don't bend backwards, just sit straight.
Then your shoulders should be a little bit raised, but backwardly raised, not to the front, back.
And these two key points eradicate or weaken our stupidity and ignorance.
So that aspect of stupidity, how should we explain it? It's this kind of experience that we have of feeling dull and not very bright.
And the next key point is that your chin, you should press it a little bit against your neck, backward towards your neck.
And this causes our desire and passion to decrease.
The next key point is the sixth key point and that's your gaze. Don't close your eyes, that's what Rinpoche already mentioned very clearly. Um... Don't raise them, don't open them too much, but just have them kind of half open your eyes.
When you train in samatha meditation, the key point is to look towards the... into the direction of the nose and then you imagine four fingers are here, finger width, under your nose and you look into the space towards that.
So sometimes it says look toward the tip of your nose and that of course feels very uncomfortable. But in most instructions it says that imagine four finger width under your nose and then focus on the space a little bit out of your, not at the tip of your nose, but four finger width out from your nose.
So this is in the context of samatha meditation. However, in the context of Mahāmudrā and the great perfection, the gaze is described again very different.
Now we come to the seventh key point, the seventh vajra point, and that is that you touch the peak of your tongue at your palate.
The last two key points of the seven fold vajra posture they serve the purpose that the inner wind dissolves into the central channel and then our pride disappears.
So this is called the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So these are the key points of the body posture and these are really important because as it says, if the dependent origination in the body is appropriate, if they all come together, realization dawns from within.
If you are able to sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, also blessings enter you um... and that um... that blessing facilitates insight into the nature of the mind of realization.
Sometimes when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, Um... the way we sit is too tight, too tense, and that's not okay.
So when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana it should have certain characteristics. The first is that you should feel at ease, light and relaxed.
So this very posture needs to be endowed with the qualities of feeling at ease, feeling relaxed and feeling light.
So if you don't feel those three characteristics or qualities that should arise from that meditation posture, it means that you are, you are tightening your muscles too much, you are sitting too uptight and too tense.
However, if you meditate and you begin to feel drowsy or dull, then the key point is that you should really tighten your muscles.
So when your body posture is straight, then also the nadis are straight. And when the nadis are straight, then the inner wind moves in a straight way.
And if the inner wind moves in a straight way, then the awareness becomes very bright.
In the past it is said that yogis, beginner yogis and yoginis would... would train for six months only in the meditation posture. That's all what they trained in.
So that's the story... Once upon a time, let's start like this, there was a monkey. And the monkey saw a couple of meditators sitting in the seven fold vajra posture... posture. So what he did then, he copied it. So he sat in the same posture and then he came across, how many rishi's? 500? 500 rishi's, 500 kind of holy people. And then they copied, or he taught the seven fold vajra posture to them. And it is said that they all became arhats based on it.
So when the certain causes and conditions gather and come together, there is a result. You can't stop it.
Even if I don't want to become an arhat, it just happens.
If the certain causes and conditions do not come together, and even though I really want so much to become enlightened, that's all I want. Enlightenment won't happen.
So the key points for the body posture are really, really important. And of course in the beginning they may seem very difficult and complicated, but if you continue to train in them, it will become easier and easier.
For those of you who can't sit on the ground or on the floor and have to sit in a chair, then the key point is to really see or to really check if your spine is straight.
If you train and train in meditation, then sooner or later what will happen is that it doesn't matter in which posture you actually sit. You don't need to rely on the body posture. Everything what you do will become meditation. While you eat food, you'll meditate. While you go to the toilet, you'll meditate.
Imagine you can't sit on the toilet while assuming the seven fold posture of Vairocana. It's impossible, no?
So even when you sleep, you'll meditate?
If we have not yet achieved any kind of stability or mastery in our meditation, the body posture is so, so important. However, when we have attained a certain degree of stability and mastery in our meditation, then really the body posture is not important anymore.
Now that was the key point of the body, now we come to the key point of the speech. And the key point of the speech is to shut up.
I didn't say shut up, yeah? Sorry, I'm a bad translator. Lama la said it much more polite. I said silence.
So when you, when you...
So when you train in the main part of meditation, you even need to give up recitations. So forget about talking to others or speaking to others, even reciting mantras or sādhanas need to be abandoned. Then of course some meditation connected with recitation, then it's different. Otherwise...
So now we come to the key points of the mind and here first of all it says that the body needs a meditation cushion, needs a support, that of a meditation cushion.
So the meditation cushion, what does it need, need? It needs a body, no? That's the need of a meditation cushion, a body needs to sit on it.
And what does the body need? It needs a mind, no?
So what is the meaning of that? It means that sometimes we meditate and the mind is absolutely not in the body. It's everywhere but not in the body. It circles and wanders about everywhere else.
So sometimes we are present in a Dharma teaching, we sit there but our mind is somewhere else. It happens, no? Our mind has wandered off to Boudha, it has wandered off to America, it has wandered off to California, Beijing, Shanghai, Bombay, Lama la said what else?
So we shouldn't be like that. The mind should be in the body. And the mind, how should it be? The mind should be relaxed.
So as I mentioned already in the last, in the previous days, we have taken birth within samsara since time immemorial, again and again. So we have wandered, circled within samsara endlessly.
So we have circled within samsara without any end. And usually what we experienced in all our past lives is very similar to what we are doing, what we experience right now. That is to say that we were born, then slowly we grew older, growing older means that we became more and more sicker, sick, and then finally we died. That's the cause of life, isn't it? And during all our past lives, during all those lives, it was... we had to meet with so many uncertainties. Where we were born was completely uncertain. Who were our friends were completely uncertain. Also, whether we had possessions, what type of possessions, all of that was completely uncertain. In what kind of body we were born was also completely uncertain.
It's not the case that we were always born as a human being.
Probably we were born as a creature with many, many limbs.
Those who crawl on the earth and also fly in the sky, animals like that.
Sometimes we were born as a man, sometimes as a woman.
We have no mastery, we have no control over our birth, don't we?
There is no control, so who is in control? It's karma, isn't it?
But nevertheless, although it is karma, our karma is in our hands. I don't know, I like very much his holiness the Dalai Lama says, it's a very nice kind of presentation. He says, New Year means like just the book, the empty notebook has 360 pages, empty notebook. So it means you can make schedule or program for every day what you want. You want to have a good day or whatever.
So every New Year we have the chance to write notes, good notes in a notebook or bad notes. It's a... It's in our hands. What happens, isn't it?
If the notebook, the empty notebook wouldn't be empty at New Year, but actually already it would be completed and all the notes would be written in there, we have no chance, no? We have then no control.
So as Dudjom Rinpoche pointed out, it's not all dependent on our karma.
Don't blame everything on karma.
Because if everything is karma, why not just lay down in your little room and sleep?
At one point probably somebody will bring me food.
If I have the karma, the food will come, then it will be just like that.
So don't blame everything on karma.
Especially we have to understand that what will happen in the future is in our hands right now.
As all masters continuously point out, this body that we have right now is the borderline for whether we will go up in the future or down.
So what should we think really before we start with the practice? The key point of the mind is that we should bring to mind that we have taken birth, countless births within samsara. We have been born so many times. And um... when we were born and when we lived our lives in the past, we did so many things. We engaged in so many different activities.
But all those deeds that I have done in the past, they did not make me liberated. I am still stuck within samsara.
So what is samsara? Gampopa pointed out that samsara is by its very nature painful.
And what is samsara? Samsara is the experience of a confused mind.
So in brief, if we don't purify our confused experience, we will never be free from samsara.
Since suffering does not truly exist, we can be free from it.
This body that we have achieved, that I have achieved right now, is not an ordinary body. It's a precious human body.
Whether the Buddha has appeared in this world or not appeared?
So first of all, sorry that was a mistake, the Buddha has appeared in this world.
And he taught, not only has he appeared in this world, he taught the Dharma. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the different capabilities and capacities of sentient beings.
The Buddha has taught the Dharma. And when the Buddha taught the Dharma, even while he was alive, countless individuals reached liberation from samsara based on his teachings. Even after the Buddha had passed away into nirvana, the teachings were kept alive and practiced by his followers and they reached liberation. So there is an unbroken transmission of the Buddha's instructions that still exist these days. So we now, we are receiving these instructions and based on these alive instructions, we can then reach Buddhahood, we can become enlightened.
So we all have the freedom to practice the Dharma, don't we?
And we all have the interest to do so.
And we all understand that the Dharma is something so precious, so unique.
And not only that, we also have a teacher who instructs us, who gives us the oral instructions.
So all these good conditions have come together for me right now.
I'm so lucky I have accumulated so much merit.
So although, then consider that although I'm really lucky right now, this life will not last. I may lose all my merit, all my luck again.
The Buddha, he taught us an example for our lifespan. He taught the example of a butter lamp which he put out in the wind.
It is absolutely not certain that we'll all die growing old, no? We'll only... I'll only die when I'm old. That's not true.
As the Bodhisattva Śāntideva pointed out, to think that today I will not die, that's a mistaken thought. That's not correct thinking.
So when it comes to practicing the Dharma, we need to do it immediately.
So in Asia it's not like this, but in the West I come across many people who say that I will practice the Dharma when I go into pension.
But there is no guarantee, there is no certainty whether pension comes before or our death.
And also one thing that we have to be realistic about, now we want to practice the Dharma, but it's not certain that we'll have that wish to practice the Dharma always. It may disappear again.
Our mind is so tricky.
So first we say yes, and then five minutes later we say no.
This is precisely why the masters always point out that don't put your hopes in the future, don't think that I will do a retreat, three years retreat in a couple of years, or I will do longer retreats very very soon. Don't. It's a good thing that you want to do a retreat, there's no question about this. However, the moment you think about practicing the Dharma, do it immediately. Don't let any time lapse immediately practice it then.
So whenever you get time, immediately practice the Dharma. Find time to practice the Dharma.
So for instance if we go to Boudha, and then we will pass the stupa, so why not combine it immediately with one circumambulations, doing one kora, then you immediately practice some virtue.
Or for instance when you eat food and we do that no, then at the beginning you offer some food, offer some food and also at the end you dedicate the merit, so in that way that also then that process of eating becomes virtuous.
When you fall asleep, then fall asleep in the yoga of sleep.
Or when you then wake up in the morning, train in the wake up practice, in the wake up meditation.
So if you practice in this way combining each and every activity with meditation, Then um... then slowly slowly all your activities will turn into meditation, will become practice.
So then we may end up enlightened before we go into, into our retreat, into our long retreat, if you do like that.
So whether or not this happens, um... whether or not we will be successful really is in our hands, depends on us. Then maybe we don't need to make disappointed, upset to friends, and family, parents, kids, without making any upset, disappointed and you will become enlightened. That will be very good news.
So before we start with our meditation we need to think that um... I must make this life meaningful, this precious human body that I have achieved, by no means can I allow myself to let it go to waste. I must make it meaningful, so start your practice with this kind of promise.
So as mentioned already in the days before, there are so many different practices taught in Tibetan Buddhism, but they all are included in the meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
So I will, and this is the next promise, now I will train in these meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
And I am not doing that for my own sake.
I am doing it for all sentient beings.
In the same way as there is no limit to space, there is no limit to sentient beings.
And wherever there are sentient beings, sentient beings are under the sway of negative emotions.
And when we are under the sway of negative emotions, then we suffer. That's just how it is.
All sentient beings, they have the same predicament of myself... a myself, I want to be happy, I don't want to suffer. In the same way, all sentient beings, they don't want to suffer, they want to be happy.
So just taking into account the feeling hot and cold, the temperature change, if we don't want to feel too hot, we don't want to feel too cold, we are all the same in that need.
But when I look at sentient beings, I notice that they are obscured, especially when it comes to skillful methods.
And now when I look at myself, I realize I am only one person, while all sentient beings, there are many, many, so many more than myself.
And also when I take a look at myself, I have been instructed by my spiritual teacher, and therefore I know what to accept and I know what to reject.
So if I don't help sentient beings, who will help them?
Especially when it comes to the teachings of the Mahāyāna of the Great Vehicle, we need to keep in mind that we are connected with each and every single sentient being. They all... They all have been my kind parents, my relatives, my friends, so we are all interconnected.
So if I don't help all sentient beings, who will help them?
So although I really want to help them, I also realize that I need to develop my own qualities so I can really help them, otherwise it will be just like the blind leading the blind.
So then give rise to the pure motivation that I must make sure that I become endowed with the limb-like, skilful methods and the wisdom-like eyesight. I must open the eyes of wisdom so that I can lead all sentient beings out of the misery, that I can lead all blind sentient beings who are left alone on the plain, on the vast plain of samsara. And this is precisely why I'm sitting now here and training in the meditation of samatha and vipassanā in order to liberate each and every single sentient being from samsara. That's the motivation that we should develop and generate.
And the wonderful thing is that if we develop such a supreme motivation, a pure motivation, regardless of what we do, then everything will become virtuous. Even Rinpoche today said very clearly, he said, if you possess bodhicitta, then whatever you do will become virtuous. Any action will become virtuous.
So then if we manage to give rise to such a pure motivation, then even before we have started out on the main part of our meditation practice, our mind has already become so pure and so calm.
And if you then, based on such a pure state of mind, then begin your meditation, your mind will become even better than that.
It's just like when you have already a bundle of fire burning in front of you, and then again you add firewood, what will happen, it will become even bigger, the fire than before.
And then when you get up from your meditation session, you will rise from your meditation cushion with so much happiness and delight.
And then you will think, it's so true what is taught in the Dharma, it's really true that these practices are so beneficial. I'm really experiencing them.
And then if you train in this way, what happens is then if you have a break between your meditation sessions, maybe one hour, two hours, you can't wait anymore, you can't take it to start with your next meditation session, you're becoming really impatient.
If this happens, if you become like this, it means you're really becoming a true Dharma practitioner.
And otherwise, the situation will be rather different, you will think, oh, now again, it's time for my meditation session.
And then you hear the meditation gong, oh, no.
And then you say, what, it's really already time? Can't be.
If you... If you become like that, everything will become more and more difficult, until in the end you will become really tired of all of it and give it up.
Just hearing the word meditation, you feel really frustrated.
Whether or not this situation manifests or not really depends on our motivation.
So when we talk about motivation, it's not that we need to visualize some kind of complicated yidam deity or a colorful yidam deity. It's actually just about looking within yourself and then thinking and aspiring in the correct way.
Because when you visualize a deity, a Buddha, then it's not that easy. When you visualize the head, then already at the same time you can't visualize the leg part. Then you focus on the lower part. Again, the upper part has disappeared.
Even if you manage to visualize everything very clearly in front of you, it's not... there is no guarantee that it actually will be beneficial for you.
As Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche always used to say that in the past histories, in the stories of masters, you can't come across one story where somebody gained enlightenment by just gazing at a thangka.
When we look at the picture of a thangka, all the visualization is very clear. It's all there in front of you.
So even if you then can visualize the Buddha or the yidam deity so precisely, so vividly and so clearly, if you lack the proper motivation, it may not help you in any way.
So tomorrow we'll begin then in the text with refuge and bodhicitta.
So now in the afternoon we discuss on how we can practically implement the teachings, the instructions that we have received, how we can practice them, how we can hold daily sessions based on the instructions.
The sādhana that we are here discussing is a sādhana that is extremely powerful and contains so much blessing.
So as we have already discussed, when we recite in the secret mantrayāna, when we do recitations, when we supplicate, it's not a type of worship that we actually do. What it is in fact, these words that we recite are the entrance gate for us to, or the gate for us to recollect the ultimate truth.
When it comes to meditation and meditating, there are so many obstacles that we may, that we may encounter. One of the obstacles, one of the big obstacles that we may encounter, that may challenge us, is that we in fact forget the instructions.
For instance, we all are acutely aware that compassion is so extremely important.
But often it is the case that precisely when we need to feel compassion, to be compassionate, we forget these instructions, don't we?
However, if we recite a lot, do mantra recitations, if we recite the sādhana, the instructions are always in the sādhana, in the recitations. So we repeat them again and we recite the instructions. And this serves the purpose that we stop forgetting the instructions.
So when we now practice the Treasury of Blessings, the Buddha Shakyamuni practice, as Rinpoche has pointed out, everything comes down to the right view.
In the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama always stresses that all religions in fact, they teach about compassion, about loving kindness, about mindfulness, about being content, about patience.
That's kind of the general quality of all religions.
And that's excellent.
But can those aforementioned qualities, can in fact clear away all our suffering? They cannot.
Because as Rinpoche so clearly pointed out today, the root of samsara, the cause of samsara comes down to clinging and fixation.
As the great master Chandrakirti pointed out, as long as you grasp onto the five aggregates, you will cling onto a personal self. You will believe that there is a personal self. When you have the belief that there is a personal self, what happens next is that you give rise to negative emotions. Based on those negative emotions, you engage in negative harmful deeds and these create negative karma. And precisely it is this karma that makes you circle within samsara.
So these qualities, such as loving kindness and compassion, are extremely important. They are extremely beneficial. But since they always entail dualistic fixation, subject and object, the belief of a subject and an object. It cannot counteract samsara. It cannot cut through the cause of samsara.
So therefore the Dalai Lama then continued to say that that which really differs, or what differentiates Buddhism from other religions, is the wisdom... is the wisdom that directly understands and recognizes that there is no personal self. This is what makes Buddhism unique.
In many religions, in many traditions, they believe in a self. The self is not questions. There is a... for instance a creator, there is a soul, there is an Atman. There is the notion of a self.
Also the Dalai Lama always stresses, we need to learn to be kind to ourselves, we need to be loving to ourselves.
If we are not kind to ourselves, loving to ourselves, who will actually be kind to us?
If I cannot be kind to myself, if I can't be loving to myself, how can I feel love for others?
But these days the way that we are kind to ourselves, or loving to us, to ourselves, is a bit turned upside down, is a bit mistaken.
We think of ourselves as so important, and we think of others as not important at all. We actually don't care about others.
In Buddhism one stresses that everything depends on something else, dependent origination, that's the crucial factor in Buddhism. So this is exactly what we have to bring to mind. Everything, we ourselves, we depend on others.
If we... we have so many needs, if we need clothes, we need that from somebody else, from many others, isn't it?
The same with food. These days we go to eat in the restaurants, usually, no?
First of all, there needs to be a place, which is a restaurant. Secondly, there needs to be a cook. Then there needs to be somebody who takes your orders. There needs to be somebody who brings your food. Then finally there has to be somebody to whom you pay.
So we need to be loving to ourselves.
In order to be really loving to ourselves, we need to become happy. And how do we become happy? Do we become happy by only caring for ourselves and not really caring for others? This will not cause happiness, but the opposite of that. So therefore the key point is understanding that all of us, we depend on others. And therefore, if I want to be loving to myself and kind to myself, I need to be equally kind to others and loving to others, this will make me happy.
Forget about traveling the path to liberation. If you just want to enjoy happiness and joy in this very life, then the key point is to care for others, to be loving to others in the same way as you are loving to yourself.
It may be the case that um... When we hear that we have to give rise to the proper motivation, immediately hearing that, because it's being repeated again and again, we really get fed up with it. We feel really bored and tired. We've heard it so many times. And then we think, okay, it's perhaps just merely a method that makes you... that causes us to achieve enlightenment. But we end up really connecting it with ourselves. It's kind of we're separate from that wish, from that motivation.
Buddhahood is a result we will achieve in the future So we are not really connected to Buddhahood right now. And we may also feel, okay, bodhicitta is something that will cause enlightenment in the future. Everything is in the future and right now I'm not a Buddha. So in that way we feel disconnected from bodhicitta, because Buddhahood is not something that we have achieved yet.
So we feel not really connected to bodhicitta in this way. And because of not feeling connected to bodhicitta in this way, also what happens at the same time is that we feel that mundane pursuits, mundane activities are so important, so important. Yet spiritual activities or spiritual endeavors are not really important.
This is precisely why Rinpoche always stresses that we must make our life meaningful. What we do should be meaningful.
We all put a lot of effort to achieve something with our body, speech and mind. But the outcome, the result of our efforts differs. If we look around in this world, we are all different.
So whatever effort we may put in order to achieve our petty little goals, in the end it's just as the Buddha has said, birth ends in death will all have to die.
So now think ahead, after 100 years, who will be left? Nobody of us, no? The billions of people that live on this earth, nobody will be left.
So the... So birth ends in death.
Any meeting ends in separation.
Any building, any production ends in its destruction.
And any accumulation, and that's really important to understand, anything that we try to accumulate and hold ends in depletion, it will become exhausted or we just have to leave it behind.
However much effort we may apply in order to achieve something in this life, in the end we leave empty handed, we have to leave everything behind.
In order to achieve our mundane goals, as mentioned already before, we put a lot of effort with our body, speech and mind. We pursue those goals, those objectives with a... with physical, undergoing a lot of physical, mental and verbal hardship. But in the end, and also in order to achieve them, we do not shy away from engaging in negative deeds and also being influenced by... by negative emotions. So then, when we have to leave everything behind at the time of death, nothing can we take with us. The only thing that will accompany us is our negative karma.
So now when we talk about karma, you know what karma is. Karma is not a thing that we then carry with us after death. That's not karma. So what is karma? Karma are our habitual patterns that are stored in our mind, in our consciousness.
Take, for example, the negative emotion of anger. If you're prone to anger, what happens is that you become angry again and again. And what happens actually when you are angry? What happens to your body? What happens to your well-being? The moment we feel angry, we feel uneasy, we feel unhappy. And this is then extended. That is to say we feel unhappy, we feel angry, and this experience is then continued and solidified.
Just take into account the example when you eat a really delicious meal, then suddenly something makes you so angry. Before you thought, oh it's so tasty, but then when you're overwhelmed by anger, you suddenly think, oh it tastes so awful, you can't enjoy the food anymore.
So from this example of feeling angry, we understand that there's so many different forms in samsara different types of birth that we can take, different types of experiences.
So therefore it's so important that what we do should become meaningful, should be meaningful. It shouldn't be meaningless.
And when we use the term meaningful, what does it really refer to? It means that it should become the cause of happiness for ourselves and for others. It should bring happiness to us and others.
And best, it should cause us to achieve enlightenment.
Second best, we should become a Bodhisattva who abides on the bhumis.
The third best is an arhat, a foe destroyer.
And the fourth best situation is that we become somebody who is acutely aware of karma, cause and effect and acts accordingly, knows what to accept and knows what to reject.
If we become somebody like this, it is certain that we will not be worse off than now, but we'll actually become better and better.
Otherwise, it will be quite a sad situation if we don't live our life meaningfully. That is to say, when we were born, we were quite weak and pitiful. When we die, we don't want to be like that, also no... we don't...
And from a mundane perspective, it is often the case that we also when we die, we die really weak and pitiful. So each moment we are getting older, older, means our body physically, mentally shrinking.
We'll get older, we'll become more and more sick, and everything will become increasingly more difficult and painful.
So when we practice the dharma, everything should from that time then become better and better.
And as Rinpoche stressed today, it's so important that when we practice the dharma that we don't practice it in a superficial way, that we don't just leave the understanding as a mere intellectual understanding.
The um... Practicing the dharma is a part of our life.
And if we understand that, then we'll become much more mindful and careful.
So as mentioned already the days before, as beginners, a session, a meditation session is really important.
And to go about it in a really careful way is crucial.
Yesterday we talked a bit about the shrine, how to arrange the shrine, and also we talked about how to do three prostrations.
And these are not traditions, mere traditions that we need to follow blindly, but they are actually for a good purpose, they are for ourselves, they help us.
Having done three prostrations, the next step is that you sit down on a comfortable seat.
Best if you can arrange your meditation seat just in front of the shrine, opposite the shrine, that you look at the shrine directly.
You should sit down on a comfortable meditation cushion and the meditation cushion shouldn't be too hard and not too soft either.
So whatever is comfortable for us we should choose a meditation cushion that really fits to us.
So we should sit on a meditation cushion so that our back is a bit raised.
So just like we have here, we have a meditation cushion that is flat and on top of that then we have a smaller meditation cushion on which we place our butt.
So first of all we assume the proper key points of the body posture.
Best if you can sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So most of you know the seven fold posture of Vairocana but for those of you who don't, I will demonstrate now. So sit in the... no? OK. So sit in the same way as the Buddha sits. Cross leg, that's the first point in the lotus posture.
So the left one, the left leg you put on your right, um... what is this called, upper, upper leg, whatever.
And then the right one on the left.
So why do you need to sit in this vajra posture?
In our body we have... the reason for why we have to sit in this posture is because in our body we have an inner wind, the prana flow, and the nadi's channels.
If you sit in the right body posture as it was explained now what happens is that the inner wind, the inner prana moves into the central channel and when the inner wind moves into the central channel then naturally all your negative emotions subside and that's a good thing for meditation. And especially jealousy disappears.
Because if we have a lot of jealousy or envy we can't really abide within meditation.
And then we, yeah, so we can't one-pointedly remain meditative absorption.
So that's the reason for why we have to sit in the lotus posture.
If you can't sit in that very posture you can sit in the half crossed posture.
So if that also doesn't work then we should really look what works for us best.
So then the next point is the hand gesture. You put the right on top of the left. Right?
....so it should kind of have the... um... when you touch your your two thumbs together it should look a little bit like a triangle from the front.
Okay, that symbolizes in the secret Mantrayāna the the practice of tummo of the inner heat.
And you place your hands in this very gesture, in this very mudra, four finger width beneath your navel.
So while the first key point of sitting cross-legged diminished our negative emotion of envy and jealousy, now when we fold our hands in this way and place them under the navel center this diminishes our negative emotion of anger.
In the tradition of the Great Perfection there's also a way to relax into the natural ease of the mind, and this posture is a posture where you place your two hands on top of your knees and that's also a possible posture that you may assume if you are instructed by a teacher to do so.
The third key point is that your spine should be straight like an arrow.
So don't bend forward, don't bend backwards, just sit straight.
Then your shoulders should be a little bit raised, but backwardly raised, not to the front, back.
And these two key points eradicate or weaken our stupidity and ignorance.
So that aspect of stupidity, how should we explain it? It's this kind of experience that we have of feeling dull and not very bright.
And the next key point is that your chin, you should press it a little bit against your neck, backward towards your neck.
And this causes our desire and passion to decrease.
The next key point is the sixth key point and that's your gaze. Don't close your eyes, that's what Rinpoche already mentioned very clearly. Um... Don't raise them, don't open them too much, but just have them kind of half open your eyes.
When you train in samatha meditation, the key point is to look towards the... into the direction of the nose and then you imagine four fingers are here, finger width, under your nose and you look into the space towards that.
So sometimes it says look toward the tip of your nose and that of course feels very uncomfortable. But in most instructions it says that imagine four finger width under your nose and then focus on the space a little bit out of your, not at the tip of your nose, but four finger width out from your nose.
So this is in the context of samatha meditation. However, in the context of Mahāmudrā and the great perfection, the gaze is described again very different.
Now we come to the seventh key point, the seventh vajra point, and that is that you touch the peak of your tongue at your palate.
The last two key points of the seven fold vajra posture they serve the purpose that the inner wind dissolves into the central channel and then our pride disappears.
So this is called the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So these are the key points of the body posture and these are really important because as it says, if the dependent origination in the body is appropriate, if they all come together, realization dawns from within.
If you are able to sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, also blessings enter you um... and that um... that blessing facilitates insight into the nature of the mind of realization.
Sometimes when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, Um... the way we sit is too tight, too tense, and that's not okay.
So when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana it should have certain characteristics. The first is that you should feel at ease, light and relaxed.
So this very posture needs to be endowed with the qualities of feeling at ease, feeling relaxed and feeling light.
So if you don't feel those three characteristics or qualities that should arise from that meditation posture, it means that you are, you are tightening your muscles too much, you are sitting too uptight and too tense.
However, if you meditate and you begin to feel drowsy or dull, then the key point is that you should really tighten your muscles.
So when your body posture is straight, then also the nadis are straight. And when the nadis are straight, then the inner wind moves in a straight way.
And if the inner wind moves in a straight way, then the awareness becomes very bright.
In the past it is said that yogis, beginner yogis and yoginis would... would train for six months only in the meditation posture. That's all what they trained in.
So that's the story... Once upon a time, let's start like this, there was a monkey. And the monkey saw a couple of meditators sitting in the seven fold vajra posture... posture. So what he did then, he copied it. So he sat in the same posture and then he came across, how many rishi's? 500? 500 rishi's, 500 kind of holy people. And then they copied, or he taught the seven fold vajra posture to them. And it is said that they all became arhats based on it.
So when the certain causes and conditions gather and come together, there is a result. You can't stop it.
Even if I don't want to become an arhat, it just happens.
If the certain causes and conditions do not come together, and even though I really want so much to become enlightened, that's all I want. Enlightenment won't happen.
So the key points for the body posture are really, really important. And of course in the beginning they may seem very difficult and complicated, but if you continue to train in them, it will become easier and easier.
For those of you who can't sit on the ground or on the floor and have to sit in a chair, then the key point is to really see or to really check if your spine is straight.
If you train and train in meditation, then sooner or later what will happen is that it doesn't matter in which posture you actually sit. You don't need to rely on the body posture. Everything what you do will become meditation. While you eat food, you'll meditate. While you go to the toilet, you'll meditate.
Imagine you can't sit on the toilet while assuming the seven fold posture of Vairocana. It's impossible, no?
So even when you sleep, you'll meditate?
If we have not yet achieved any kind of stability or mastery in our meditation, the body posture is so, so important. However, when we have attained a certain degree of stability and mastery in our meditation, then really the body posture is not important anymore.
Now that was the key point of the body, now we come to the key point of the speech. And the key point of the speech is to shut up.
I didn't say shut up, yeah? Sorry, I'm a bad translator. Lama la said it much more polite. I said silence.
So when you, when you...
So when you train in the main part of meditation, you even need to give up recitations. So forget about talking to others or speaking to others, even reciting mantras or sādhanas need to be abandoned. Then of course some meditation connected with recitation, then it's different. Otherwise...
So now we come to the key points of the mind and here first of all it says that the body needs a meditation cushion, needs a support, that of a meditation cushion.
So the meditation cushion, what does it need, need? It needs a body, no? That's the need of a meditation cushion, a body needs to sit on it.
And what does the body need? It needs a mind, no?
So what is the meaning of that? It means that sometimes we meditate and the mind is absolutely not in the body. It's everywhere but not in the body. It circles and wanders about everywhere else.
So sometimes we are present in a Dharma teaching, we sit there but our mind is somewhere else. It happens, no? Our mind has wandered off to Boudha, it has wandered off to America, it has wandered off to California, Beijing, Shanghai, Bombay, Lama la said what else?
So we shouldn't be like that. The mind should be in the body. And the mind, how should it be? The mind should be relaxed.
So as I mentioned already in the last, in the previous days, we have taken birth within samsara since time immemorial, again and again. So we have wandered, circled within samsara endlessly.
So we have circled within samsara without any end. And usually what we experienced in all our past lives is very similar to what we are doing, what we experience right now. That is to say that we were born, then slowly we grew older, growing older means that we became more and more sicker, sick, and then finally we died. That's the cause of life, isn't it? And during all our past lives, during all those lives, it was... we had to meet with so many uncertainties. Where we were born was completely uncertain. Who were our friends were completely uncertain. Also, whether we had possessions, what type of possessions, all of that was completely uncertain. In what kind of body we were born was also completely uncertain.
It's not the case that we were always born as a human being.
Probably we were born as a creature with many, many limbs.
Those who crawl on the earth and also fly in the sky, animals like that.
Sometimes we were born as a man, sometimes as a woman.
We have no mastery, we have no control over our birth, don't we?
There is no control, so who is in control? It's karma, isn't it?
But nevertheless, although it is karma, our karma is in our hands. I don't know, I like very much his holiness the Dalai Lama says, it's a very nice kind of presentation. He says, New Year means like just the book, the empty notebook has 360 pages, empty notebook. So it means you can make schedule or program for every day what you want. You want to have a good day or whatever.
So every New Year we have the chance to write notes, good notes in a notebook or bad notes. It's a... It's in our hands. What happens, isn't it?
If the notebook, the empty notebook wouldn't be empty at New Year, but actually already it would be completed and all the notes would be written in there, we have no chance, no? We have then no control.
So as Dudjom Rinpoche pointed out, it's not all dependent on our karma.
Don't blame everything on karma.
Because if everything is karma, why not just lay down in your little room and sleep?
At one point probably somebody will bring me food.
If I have the karma, the food will come, then it will be just like that.
So don't blame everything on karma.
Especially we have to understand that what will happen in the future is in our hands right now.
As all masters continuously point out, this body that we have right now is the borderline for whether we will go up in the future or down.
So what should we think really before we start with the practice? The key point of the mind is that we should bring to mind that we have taken birth, countless births within samsara. We have been born so many times. And um... when we were born and when we lived our lives in the past, we did so many things. We engaged in so many different activities.
But all those deeds that I have done in the past, they did not make me liberated. I am still stuck within samsara.
So what is samsara? Gampopa pointed out that samsara is by its very nature painful.
And what is samsara? Samsara is the experience of a confused mind.
So in brief, if we don't purify our confused experience, we will never be free from samsara.
Since suffering does not truly exist, we can be free from it.
This body that we have achieved, that I have achieved right now, is not an ordinary body. It's a precious human body.
Whether the Buddha has appeared in this world or not appeared?
So first of all, sorry that was a mistake, the Buddha has appeared in this world.
And he taught, not only has he appeared in this world, he taught the Dharma. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the different capabilities and capacities of sentient beings.
The Buddha has taught the Dharma. And when the Buddha taught the Dharma, even while he was alive, countless individuals reached liberation from samsara based on his teachings. Even after the Buddha had passed away into nirvana, the teachings were kept alive and practiced by his followers and they reached liberation. So there is an unbroken transmission of the Buddha's instructions that still exist these days. So we now, we are receiving these instructions and based on these alive instructions, we can then reach Buddhahood, we can become enlightened.
So we all have the freedom to practice the Dharma, don't we?
And we all have the interest to do so.
And we all understand that the Dharma is something so precious, so unique.
And not only that, we also have a teacher who instructs us, who gives us the oral instructions.
So all these good conditions have come together for me right now.
I'm so lucky I have accumulated so much merit.
So although, then consider that although I'm really lucky right now, this life will not last. I may lose all my merit, all my luck again.
The Buddha, he taught us an example for our lifespan. He taught the example of a butter lamp which he put out in the wind.
It is absolutely not certain that we'll all die growing old, no? We'll only... I'll only die when I'm old. That's not true.
As the Bodhisattva Śāntideva pointed out, to think that today I will not die, that's a mistaken thought. That's not correct thinking.
So when it comes to practicing the Dharma, we need to do it immediately.
So in Asia it's not like this, but in the West I come across many people who say that I will practice the Dharma when I go into pension.
But there is no guarantee, there is no certainty whether pension comes before or our death.
And also one thing that we have to be realistic about, now we want to practice the Dharma, but it's not certain that we'll have that wish to practice the Dharma always. It may disappear again.
Our mind is so tricky.
So first we say yes, and then five minutes later we say no.
This is precisely why the masters always point out that don't put your hopes in the future, don't think that I will do a retreat, three years retreat in a couple of years, or I will do longer retreats very very soon. Don't. It's a good thing that you want to do a retreat, there's no question about this. However, the moment you think about practicing the Dharma, do it immediately. Don't let any time lapse immediately practice it then.
So whenever you get time, immediately practice the Dharma. Find time to practice the Dharma.
So for instance if we go to Boudha, and then we will pass the stupa, so why not combine it immediately with one circumambulations, doing one kora, then you immediately practice some virtue.
Or for instance when you eat food and we do that no, then at the beginning you offer some food, offer some food and also at the end you dedicate the merit, so in that way that also then that process of eating becomes virtuous.
When you fall asleep, then fall asleep in the yoga of sleep.
Or when you then wake up in the morning, train in the wake up practice, in the wake up meditation.
So if you practice in this way combining each and every activity with meditation, Then um... then slowly slowly all your activities will turn into meditation, will become practice.
So then we may end up enlightened before we go into, into our retreat, into our long retreat, if you do like that.
So whether or not this happens, um... whether or not we will be successful really is in our hands, depends on us. Then maybe we don't need to make disappointed, upset to friends, and family, parents, kids, without making any upset, disappointed and you will become enlightened. That will be very good news.
So before we start with our meditation we need to think that um... I must make this life meaningful, this precious human body that I have achieved, by no means can I allow myself to let it go to waste. I must make it meaningful, so start your practice with this kind of promise.
So as mentioned already in the days before, there are so many different practices taught in Tibetan Buddhism, but they all are included in the meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
So I will, and this is the next promise, now I will train in these meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
And I am not doing that for my own sake.
I am doing it for all sentient beings.
In the same way as there is no limit to space, there is no limit to sentient beings.
And wherever there are sentient beings, sentient beings are under the sway of negative emotions.
And when we are under the sway of negative emotions, then we suffer. That's just how it is.
All sentient beings, they have the same predicament of myself... a myself, I want to be happy, I don't want to suffer. In the same way, all sentient beings, they don't want to suffer, they want to be happy.
So just taking into account the feeling hot and cold, the temperature change, if we don't want to feel too hot, we don't want to feel too cold, we are all the same in that need.
But when I look at sentient beings, I notice that they are obscured, especially when it comes to skillful methods.
And now when I look at myself, I realize I am only one person, while all sentient beings, there are many, many, so many more than myself.
And also when I take a look at myself, I have been instructed by my spiritual teacher, and therefore I know what to accept and I know what to reject.
So if I don't help sentient beings, who will help them?
Especially when it comes to the teachings of the Mahāyāna of the Great Vehicle, we need to keep in mind that we are connected with each and every single sentient being. They all... They all have been my kind parents, my relatives, my friends, so we are all interconnected.
So if I don't help all sentient beings, who will help them?
So although I really want to help them, I also realize that I need to develop my own qualities so I can really help them, otherwise it will be just like the blind leading the blind.
So then give rise to the pure motivation that I must make sure that I become endowed with the limb-like, skilful methods and the wisdom-like eyesight. I must open the eyes of wisdom so that I can lead all sentient beings out of the misery, that I can lead all blind sentient beings who are left alone on the plain, on the vast plain of samsara. And this is precisely why I'm sitting now here and training in the meditation of samatha and vipassanā in order to liberate each and every single sentient being from samsara. That's the motivation that we should develop and generate.
And the wonderful thing is that if we develop such a supreme motivation, a pure motivation, regardless of what we do, then everything will become virtuous. Even Rinpoche today said very clearly, he said, if you possess bodhicitta, then whatever you do will become virtuous. Any action will become virtuous.
So then if we manage to give rise to such a pure motivation, then even before we have started out on the main part of our meditation practice, our mind has already become so pure and so calm.
And if you then, based on such a pure state of mind, then begin your meditation, your mind will become even better than that.
It's just like when you have already a bundle of fire burning in front of you, and then again you add firewood, what will happen, it will become even bigger, the fire than before.
And then when you get up from your meditation session, you will rise from your meditation cushion with so much happiness and delight.
And then you will think, it's so true what is taught in the Dharma, it's really true that these practices are so beneficial. I'm really experiencing them.
And then if you train in this way, what happens is then if you have a break between your meditation sessions, maybe one hour, two hours, you can't wait anymore, you can't take it to start with your next meditation session, you're becoming really impatient.
If this happens, if you become like this, it means you're really becoming a true Dharma practitioner.
And otherwise, the situation will be rather different, you will think, oh, now again, it's time for my meditation session.
And then you hear the meditation gong, oh, no.
And then you say, what, it's really already time? Can't be.
If you... If you become like that, everything will become more and more difficult, until in the end you will become really tired of all of it and give it up.
Just hearing the word meditation, you feel really frustrated.
Whether or not this situation manifests or not really depends on our motivation.
So when we talk about motivation, it's not that we need to visualize some kind of complicated yidam deity or a colorful yidam deity. It's actually just about looking within yourself and then thinking and aspiring in the correct way.
Because when you visualize a deity, a Buddha, then it's not that easy. When you visualize the head, then already at the same time you can't visualize the leg part. Then you focus on the lower part. Again, the upper part has disappeared.
Even if you manage to visualize everything very clearly in front of you, it's not... there is no guarantee that it actually will be beneficial for you.
As Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche always used to say that in the past histories, in the stories of masters, you can't come across one story where somebody gained enlightenment by just gazing at a thangka.
When we look at the picture of a thangka, all the visualization is very clear. It's all there in front of you.
So even if you then can visualize the Buddha or the yidam deity so precisely, so vividly and so clearly, if you lack the proper motivation, it may not help you in any way.
So tomorrow we'll begin then in the text with refuge and bodhicitta.
01:24:41
We are receiving instructions from
Rinpoche in the morning.
So now in the afternoon we discuss on how we can practically implement the teachings, the instructions that we have received, how we can practice them, how we can hold daily sessions based on the instructions.
The sādhana that we are here discussing is a sādhana that is extremely powerful and contains so much blessing.
So as we have already discussed, when we recite in the secret mantrayāna, when we do recitations, when we supplicate, it's not a type of worship that we actually do. What it is in fact, these words that we recite are the entrance gate for us to, or the gate for us to recollect the ultimate truth.
When it comes to meditation and meditating, there are so many obstacles that we may, that we may encounter. One of the obstacles, one of the big obstacles that we may encounter, that may challenge us, is that we in fact forget the instructions.
For instance, we all are acutely aware that compassion is so extremely important.
But often it is the case that precisely when we need to feel compassion, to be compassionate, we forget these instructions, don't we?
However, if we recite a lot, do mantra recitations, if we recite the sādhana, the instructions are always in the sādhana, in the recitations. So we repeat them again and we recite the instructions. And this serves the purpose that we stop forgetting the instructions.
So when we now practice the Treasury of Blessings, the Buddha Shakyamuni practice, as Rinpoche has pointed out, everything comes down to the right view.
In the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama always stresses that all religions in fact, they teach about compassion, about loving kindness, about mindfulness, about being content, about patience.
That's kind of the general quality of all religions.
And that's excellent.
But can those aforementioned qualities, can in fact clear away all our suffering? They cannot.
Because as Rinpoche so clearly pointed out today, the root of samsara, the cause of samsara comes down to clinging and fixation.
As the great master Chandrakirti pointed out, as long as you grasp onto the five aggregates, you will cling onto a personal self. You will believe that there is a personal self. When you have the belief that there is a personal self, what happens next is that you give rise to negative emotions. Based on those negative emotions, you engage in negative harmful deeds and these create negative karma. And precisely it is this karma that makes you circle within samsara.
So these qualities, such as loving kindness and compassion, are extremely important. They are extremely beneficial. But since they always entail dualistic fixation, subject and object, the belief of a subject and an object. It cannot counteract samsara. It cannot cut through the cause of samsara.
So therefore the Dalai Lama then continued to say that that which really differs, or what differentiates Buddhism from other religions, is the wisdom... is the wisdom that directly understands and recognizes that there is no personal self. This is what makes Buddhism unique.
In many religions, in many traditions, they believe in a self. The self is not questions. There is a... for instance a creator, there is a soul, there is an Atman. There is the notion of a self.
Also the Dalai Lama always stresses, we need to learn to be kind to ourselves, we need to be loving to ourselves.
If we are not kind to ourselves, loving to ourselves, who will actually be kind to us?
If I cannot be kind to myself, if I can't be loving to myself, how can I feel love for others?
But these days the way that we are kind to ourselves, or loving to us, to ourselves, is a bit turned upside down, is a bit mistaken.
We think of ourselves as so important, and we think of others as not important at all. We actually don't care about others.
In Buddhism one stresses that everything depends on something else, dependent origination, that's the crucial factor in Buddhism. So this is exactly what we have to bring to mind. Everything, we ourselves, we depend on others.
If we... we have so many needs, if we need clothes, we need that from somebody else, from many others, isn't it?
The same with food. These days we go to eat in the restaurants, usually, no?
First of all, there needs to be a place, which is a restaurant. Secondly, there needs to be a cook. Then there needs to be somebody who takes your orders. There needs to be somebody who brings your food. Then finally there has to be somebody to whom you pay.
So we need to be loving to ourselves.
In order to be really loving to ourselves, we need to become happy. And how do we become happy? Do we become happy by only caring for ourselves and not really caring for others? This will not cause happiness, but the opposite of that. So therefore the key point is understanding that all of us, we depend on others. And therefore, if I want to be loving to myself and kind to myself, I need to be equally kind to others and loving to others, this will make me happy.
Forget about traveling the path to liberation. If you just want to enjoy happiness and joy in this very life, then the key point is to care for others, to be loving to others in the same way as you are loving to yourself.
It may be the case that um... When we hear that we have to give rise to the proper motivation, immediately hearing that, because it's being repeated again and again, we really get fed up with it. We feel really bored and tired. We've heard it so many times. And then we think, okay, it's perhaps just merely a method that makes you... that causes us to achieve enlightenment. But we end up really connecting it with ourselves. It's kind of we're separate from that wish, from that motivation.
Buddhahood is a result we will achieve in the future So we are not really connected to Buddhahood right now. And we may also feel, okay, bodhicitta is something that will cause enlightenment in the future. Everything is in the future and right now I'm not a Buddha. So in that way we feel disconnected from bodhicitta, because Buddhahood is not something that we have achieved yet.
So we feel not really connected to bodhicitta in this way. And because of not feeling connected to bodhicitta in this way, also what happens at the same time is that we feel that mundane pursuits, mundane activities are so important, so important. Yet spiritual activities or spiritual endeavors are not really important.
This is precisely why Rinpoche always stresses that we must make our life meaningful. What we do should be meaningful.
We all put a lot of effort to achieve something with our body, speech and mind. But the outcome, the result of our efforts differs. If we look around in this world, we are all different.
So whatever effort we may put in order to achieve our petty little goals, in the end it's just as the Buddha has said, birth ends in death will all have to die.
So now think ahead, after 100 years, who will be left? Nobody of us, no? The billions of people that live on this earth, nobody will be left.
So the... So birth ends in death.
Any meeting ends in separation.
Any building, any production ends in its destruction.
And any accumulation, and that's really important to understand, anything that we try to accumulate and hold ends in depletion, it will become exhausted or we just have to leave it behind.
However much effort we may apply in order to achieve something in this life, in the end we leave empty handed, we have to leave everything behind.
In order to achieve our mundane goals, as mentioned already before, we put a lot of effort with our body, speech and mind. We pursue those goals, those objectives with a... with physical, undergoing a lot of physical, mental and verbal hardship. But in the end, and also in order to achieve them, we do not shy away from engaging in negative deeds and also being influenced by... by negative emotions. So then, when we have to leave everything behind at the time of death, nothing can we take with us. The only thing that will accompany us is our negative karma.
So now when we talk about karma, you know what karma is. Karma is not a thing that we then carry with us after death. That's not karma. So what is karma? Karma are our habitual patterns that are stored in our mind, in our consciousness.
Take, for example, the negative emotion of anger. If you're prone to anger, what happens is that you become angry again and again. And what happens actually when you are angry? What happens to your body? What happens to your well-being? The moment we feel angry, we feel uneasy, we feel unhappy. And this is then extended. That is to say we feel unhappy, we feel angry, and this experience is then continued and solidified.
Just take into account the example when you eat a really delicious meal, then suddenly something makes you so angry. Before you thought, oh it's so tasty, but then when you're overwhelmed by anger, you suddenly think, oh it tastes so awful, you can't enjoy the food anymore.
So from this example of feeling angry, we understand that there's so many different forms in samsara different types of birth that we can take, different types of experiences.
So therefore it's so important that what we do should become meaningful, should be meaningful. It shouldn't be meaningless.
And when we use the term meaningful, what does it really refer to? It means that it should become the cause of happiness for ourselves and for others. It should bring happiness to us and others.
And best, it should cause us to achieve enlightenment.
Second best, we should become a Bodhisattva who abides on the bhumis.
The third best is an arhat, a foe destroyer.
And the fourth best situation is that we become somebody who is acutely aware of karma, cause and effect and acts accordingly, knows what to accept and knows what to reject.
If we become somebody like this, it is certain that we will not be worse off than now, but we'll actually become better and better.
Otherwise, it will be quite a sad situation if we don't live our life meaningfully. That is to say, when we were born, we were quite weak and pitiful. When we die, we don't want to be like that, also no... we don't...
And from a mundane perspective, it is often the case that we also when we die, we die really weak and pitiful. So each moment we are getting older, older, means our body physically, mentally shrinking.
We'll get older, we'll become more and more sick, and everything will become increasingly more difficult and painful.
So when we practice the dharma, everything should from that time then become better and better.
And as Rinpoche stressed today, it's so important that when we practice the dharma that we don't practice it in a superficial way, that we don't just leave the understanding as a mere intellectual understanding.
The um... Practicing the dharma is a part of our life.
And if we understand that, then we'll become much more mindful and careful.
So as mentioned already the days before, as beginners, a session, a meditation session is really important.
And to go about it in a really careful way is crucial.
Yesterday we talked a bit about the shrine, how to arrange the shrine, and also we talked about how to do three prostrations.
And these are not traditions, mere traditions that we need to follow blindly, but they are actually for a good purpose, they are for ourselves, they help us.
Having done three prostrations, the next step is that you sit down on a comfortable seat.
Best if you can arrange your meditation seat just in front of the shrine, opposite the shrine, that you look at the shrine directly.
You should sit down on a comfortable meditation cushion and the meditation cushion shouldn't be too hard and not too soft either.
So whatever is comfortable for us we should choose a meditation cushion that really fits to us.
So we should sit on a meditation cushion so that our back is a bit raised.
So just like we have here, we have a meditation cushion that is flat and on top of that then we have a smaller meditation cushion on which we place our butt.
So first of all we assume the proper key points of the body posture.
Best if you can sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So most of you know the seven fold posture of Vairocana but for those of you who don't, I will demonstrate now. So sit in the... no? OK. So sit in the same way as the Buddha sits. Cross leg, that's the first point in the lotus posture.
So the left one, the left leg you put on your right, um... what is this called, upper, upper leg, whatever.
And then the right one on the left.
So why do you need to sit in this vajra posture?
In our body we have... the reason for why we have to sit in this posture is because in our body we have an inner wind, the prana flow, and the nadi's channels.
If you sit in the right body posture as it was explained now what happens is that the inner wind, the inner prana moves into the central channel and when the inner wind moves into the central channel then naturally all your negative emotions subside and that's a good thing for meditation. And especially jealousy disappears.
Because if we have a lot of jealousy or envy we can't really abide within meditation.
And then we, yeah, so we can't one-pointedly remain meditative absorption.
So that's the reason for why we have to sit in the lotus posture.
If you can't sit in that very posture you can sit in the half crossed posture.
So if that also doesn't work then we should really look what works for us best.
So then the next point is the hand gesture. You put the right on top of the left. Right?
....so it should kind of have the... um... when you touch your your two thumbs together it should look a little bit like a triangle from the front.
Okay, that symbolizes in the secret Mantrayāna the the practice of tummo of the inner heat.
And you place your hands in this very gesture, in this very mudra, four finger width beneath your navel.
So while the first key point of sitting cross-legged diminished our negative emotion of envy and jealousy, now when we fold our hands in this way and place them under the navel center this diminishes our negative emotion of anger.
In the tradition of the Great Perfection there's also a way to relax into the natural ease of the mind, and this posture is a posture where you place your two hands on top of your knees and that's also a possible posture that you may assume if you are instructed by a teacher to do so.
The third key point is that your spine should be straight like an arrow.
So don't bend forward, don't bend backwards, just sit straight.
Then your shoulders should be a little bit raised, but backwardly raised, not to the front, back.
And these two key points eradicate or weaken our stupidity and ignorance.
So that aspect of stupidity, how should we explain it? It's this kind of experience that we have of feeling dull and not very bright.
And the next key point is that your chin, you should press it a little bit against your neck, backward towards your neck.
And this causes our desire and passion to decrease.
The next key point is the sixth key point and that's your gaze. Don't close your eyes, that's what Rinpoche already mentioned very clearly. Um... Don't raise them, don't open them too much, but just have them kind of half open your eyes.
When you train in samatha meditation, the key point is to look towards the... into the direction of the nose and then you imagine four fingers are here, finger width, under your nose and you look into the space towards that.
So sometimes it says look toward the tip of your nose and that of course feels very uncomfortable. But in most instructions it says that imagine four finger width under your nose and then focus on the space a little bit out of your, not at the tip of your nose, but four finger width out from your nose.
So this is in the context of samatha meditation. However, in the context of Mahāmudrā and the great perfection, the gaze is described again very different.
Now we come to the seventh key point, the seventh vajra point, and that is that you touch the peak of your tongue at your palate.
The last two key points of the seven fold vajra posture they serve the purpose that the inner wind dissolves into the central channel and then our pride disappears.
So this is called the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So these are the key points of the body posture and these are really important because as it says, if the dependent origination in the body is appropriate, if they all come together, realization dawns from within.
If you are able to sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, also blessings enter you um... and that um... that blessing facilitates insight into the nature of the mind of realization.
Sometimes when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, Um... the way we sit is too tight, too tense, and that's not okay.
So when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana it should have certain characteristics. The first is that you should feel at ease, light and relaxed.
So this very posture needs to be endowed with the qualities of feeling at ease, feeling relaxed and feeling light.
So if you don't feel those three characteristics or qualities that should arise from that meditation posture, it means that you are, you are tightening your muscles too much, you are sitting too uptight and too tense.
However, if you meditate and you begin to feel drowsy or dull, then the key point is that you should really tighten your muscles.
So when your body posture is straight, then also the nadis are straight. And when the nadis are straight, then the inner wind moves in a straight way.
And if the inner wind moves in a straight way, then the awareness becomes very bright.
In the past it is said that yogis, beginner yogis and yoginis would... would train for six months only in the meditation posture. That's all what they trained in.
So that's the story... Once upon a time, let's start like this, there was a monkey. And the monkey saw a couple of meditators sitting in the seven fold vajra posture... posture. So what he did then, he copied it. So he sat in the same posture and then he came across, how many rishi's? 500? 500 rishi's, 500 kind of holy people. And then they copied, or he taught the seven fold vajra posture to them. And it is said that they all became arhats based on it.
So when the certain causes and conditions gather and come together, there is a result. You can't stop it.
Even if I don't want to become an arhat, it just happens.
If the certain causes and conditions do not come together, and even though I really want so much to become enlightened, that's all I want. Enlightenment won't happen.
So the key points for the body posture are really, really important. And of course in the beginning they may seem very difficult and complicated, but if you continue to train in them, it will become easier and easier.
For those of you who can't sit on the ground or on the floor and have to sit in a chair, then the key point is to really see or to really check if your spine is straight.
If you train and train in meditation, then sooner or later what will happen is that it doesn't matter in which posture you actually sit. You don't need to rely on the body posture. Everything what you do will become meditation. While you eat food, you'll meditate. While you go to the toilet, you'll meditate.
Imagine you can't sit on the toilet while assuming the seven fold posture of Vairocana. It's impossible, no?
So even when you sleep, you'll meditate?
If we have not yet achieved any kind of stability or mastery in our meditation, the body posture is so, so important. However, when we have attained a certain degree of stability and mastery in our meditation, then really the body posture is not important anymore.
Now that was the key point of the body, now we come to the key point of the speech. And the key point of the speech is to shut up.
I didn't say shut up, yeah? Sorry, I'm a bad translator. Lama la said it much more polite. I said silence.
So when you, when you...
So when you train in the main part of meditation, you even need to give up recitations. So forget about talking to others or speaking to others, even reciting mantras or sādhanas need to be abandoned. Then of course some meditation connected with recitation, then it's different. Otherwise...
So now we come to the key points of the mind and here first of all it says that the body needs a meditation cushion, needs a support, that of a meditation cushion.
So the meditation cushion, what does it need, need? It needs a body, no? That's the need of a meditation cushion, a body needs to sit on it.
And what does the body need? It needs a mind, no?
So what is the meaning of that? It means that sometimes we meditate and the mind is absolutely not in the body. It's everywhere but not in the body. It circles and wanders about everywhere else.
So sometimes we are present in a Dharma teaching, we sit there but our mind is somewhere else. It happens, no? Our mind has wandered off to Boudha, it has wandered off to America, it has wandered off to California, Beijing, Shanghai, Bombay, Lama la said what else?
So we shouldn't be like that. The mind should be in the body. And the mind, how should it be? The mind should be relaxed.
So as I mentioned already in the last, in the previous days, we have taken birth within samsara since time immemorial, again and again. So we have wandered, circled within samsara endlessly.
So we have circled within samsara without any end. And usually what we experienced in all our past lives is very similar to what we are doing, what we experience right now. That is to say that we were born, then slowly we grew older, growing older means that we became more and more sicker, sick, and then finally we died. That's the cause of life, isn't it? And during all our past lives, during all those lives, it was... we had to meet with so many uncertainties. Where we were born was completely uncertain. Who were our friends were completely uncertain. Also, whether we had possessions, what type of possessions, all of that was completely uncertain. In what kind of body we were born was also completely uncertain.
It's not the case that we were always born as a human being.
Probably we were born as a creature with many, many limbs.
Those who crawl on the earth and also fly in the sky, animals like that.
Sometimes we were born as a man, sometimes as a woman.
We have no mastery, we have no control over our birth, don't we?
There is no control, so who is in control? It's karma, isn't it?
But nevertheless, although it is karma, our karma is in our hands. I don't know, I like very much his holiness the Dalai Lama says, it's a very nice kind of presentation. He says, New Year means like just the book, the empty notebook has 360 pages, empty notebook. So it means you can make schedule or program for every day what you want. You want to have a good day or whatever.
So every New Year we have the chance to write notes, good notes in a notebook or bad notes. It's a... It's in our hands. What happens, isn't it?
If the notebook, the empty notebook wouldn't be empty at New Year, but actually already it would be completed and all the notes would be written in there, we have no chance, no? We have then no control.
So as Dudjom Rinpoche pointed out, it's not all dependent on our karma.
Don't blame everything on karma.
Because if everything is karma, why not just lay down in your little room and sleep?
At one point probably somebody will bring me food.
If I have the karma, the food will come, then it will be just like that.
So don't blame everything on karma.
Especially we have to understand that what will happen in the future is in our hands right now.
As all masters continuously point out, this body that we have right now is the borderline for whether we will go up in the future or down.
So what should we think really before we start with the practice? The key point of the mind is that we should bring to mind that we have taken birth, countless births within samsara. We have been born so many times. And um... when we were born and when we lived our lives in the past, we did so many things. We engaged in so many different activities.
But all those deeds that I have done in the past, they did not make me liberated. I am still stuck within samsara.
So what is samsara? Gampopa pointed out that samsara is by its very nature painful.
And what is samsara? Samsara is the experience of a confused mind.
So in brief, if we don't purify our confused experience, we will never be free from samsara.
Since suffering does not truly exist, we can be free from it.
This body that we have achieved, that I have achieved right now, is not an ordinary body. It's a precious human body.
Whether the Buddha has appeared in this world or not appeared?
So first of all, sorry that was a mistake, the Buddha has appeared in this world.
And he taught, not only has he appeared in this world, he taught the Dharma. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the different capabilities and capacities of sentient beings.
The Buddha has taught the Dharma. And when the Buddha taught the Dharma, even while he was alive, countless individuals reached liberation from samsara based on his teachings. Even after the Buddha had passed away into nirvana, the teachings were kept alive and practiced by his followers and they reached liberation. So there is an unbroken transmission of the Buddha's instructions that still exist these days. So we now, we are receiving these instructions and based on these alive instructions, we can then reach Buddhahood, we can become enlightened.
So we all have the freedom to practice the Dharma, don't we?
And we all have the interest to do so.
And we all understand that the Dharma is something so precious, so unique.
And not only that, we also have a teacher who instructs us, who gives us the oral instructions.
So all these good conditions have come together for me right now.
I'm so lucky I have accumulated so much merit.
So although, then consider that although I'm really lucky right now, this life will not last. I may lose all my merit, all my luck again.
The Buddha, he taught us an example for our lifespan. He taught the example of a butter lamp which he put out in the wind.
It is absolutely not certain that we'll all die growing old, no? We'll only... I'll only die when I'm old. That's not true.
As the Bodhisattva Śāntideva pointed out, to think that today I will not die, that's a mistaken thought. That's not correct thinking.
So when it comes to practicing the Dharma, we need to do it immediately.
So in Asia it's not like this, but in the West I come across many people who say that I will practice the Dharma when I go into pension.
But there is no guarantee, there is no certainty whether pension comes before or our death.
And also one thing that we have to be realistic about, now we want to practice the Dharma, but it's not certain that we'll have that wish to practice the Dharma always. It may disappear again.
Our mind is so tricky.
So first we say yes, and then five minutes later we say no.
This is precisely why the masters always point out that don't put your hopes in the future, don't think that I will do a retreat, three years retreat in a couple of years, or I will do longer retreats very very soon. Don't. It's a good thing that you want to do a retreat, there's no question about this. However, the moment you think about practicing the Dharma, do it immediately. Don't let any time lapse immediately practice it then.
So whenever you get time, immediately practice the Dharma. Find time to practice the Dharma.
So for instance if we go to Boudha, and then we will pass the stupa, so why not combine it immediately with one circumambulations, doing one kora, then you immediately practice some virtue.
Or for instance when you eat food and we do that no, then at the beginning you offer some food, offer some food and also at the end you dedicate the merit, so in that way that also then that process of eating becomes virtuous.
When you fall asleep, then fall asleep in the yoga of sleep.
Or when you then wake up in the morning, train in the wake up practice, in the wake up meditation.
So if you practice in this way combining each and every activity with meditation, Then um... then slowly slowly all your activities will turn into meditation, will become practice.
So then we may end up enlightened before we go into, into our retreat, into our long retreat, if you do like that.
So whether or not this happens, um... whether or not we will be successful really is in our hands, depends on us. Then maybe we don't need to make disappointed, upset to friends, and family, parents, kids, without making any upset, disappointed and you will become enlightened. That will be very good news.
So before we start with our meditation we need to think that um... I must make this life meaningful, this precious human body that I have achieved, by no means can I allow myself to let it go to waste. I must make it meaningful, so start your practice with this kind of promise.
So as mentioned already in the days before, there are so many different practices taught in Tibetan Buddhism, but they all are included in the meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
So I will, and this is the next promise, now I will train in these meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
And I am not doing that for my own sake.
I am doing it for all sentient beings.
In the same way as there is no limit to space, there is no limit to sentient beings.
And wherever there are sentient beings, sentient beings are under the sway of negative emotions.
And when we are under the sway of negative emotions, then we suffer. That's just how it is.
All sentient beings, they have the same predicament of myself... a myself, I want to be happy, I don't want to suffer. In the same way, all sentient beings, they don't want to suffer, they want to be happy.
So just taking into account the feeling hot and cold, the temperature change, if we don't want to feel too hot, we don't want to feel too cold, we are all the same in that need.
But when I look at sentient beings, I notice that they are obscured, especially when it comes to skillful methods.
And now when I look at myself, I realize I am only one person, while all sentient beings, there are many, many, so many more than myself.
And also when I take a look at myself, I have been instructed by my spiritual teacher, and therefore I know what to accept and I know what to reject.
So if I don't help sentient beings, who will help them?
Especially when it comes to the teachings of the Mahāyāna of the Great Vehicle, we need to keep in mind that we are connected with each and every single sentient being. They all... They all have been my kind parents, my relatives, my friends, so we are all interconnected.
So if I don't help all sentient beings, who will help them?
So although I really want to help them, I also realize that I need to develop my own qualities so I can really help them, otherwise it will be just like the blind leading the blind.
So then give rise to the pure motivation that I must make sure that I become endowed with the limb-like, skilful methods and the wisdom-like eyesight. I must open the eyes of wisdom so that I can lead all sentient beings out of the misery, that I can lead all blind sentient beings who are left alone on the plain, on the vast plain of samsara. And this is precisely why I'm sitting now here and training in the meditation of samatha and vipassanā in order to liberate each and every single sentient being from samsara. That's the motivation that we should develop and generate.
And the wonderful thing is that if we develop such a supreme motivation, a pure motivation, regardless of what we do, then everything will become virtuous. Even Rinpoche today said very clearly, he said, if you possess bodhicitta, then whatever you do will become virtuous. Any action will become virtuous.
So then if we manage to give rise to such a pure motivation, then even before we have started out on the main part of our meditation practice, our mind has already become so pure and so calm.
And if you then, based on such a pure state of mind, then begin your meditation, your mind will become even better than that.
It's just like when you have already a bundle of fire burning in front of you, and then again you add firewood, what will happen, it will become even bigger, the fire than before.
And then when you get up from your meditation session, you will rise from your meditation cushion with so much happiness and delight.
And then you will think, it's so true what is taught in the Dharma, it's really true that these practices are so beneficial. I'm really experiencing them.
And then if you train in this way, what happens is then if you have a break between your meditation sessions, maybe one hour, two hours, you can't wait anymore, you can't take it to start with your next meditation session, you're becoming really impatient.
If this happens, if you become like this, it means you're really becoming a true Dharma practitioner.
And otherwise, the situation will be rather different, you will think, oh, now again, it's time for my meditation session.
And then you hear the meditation gong, oh, no.
And then you say, what, it's really already time? Can't be.
If you... If you become like that, everything will become more and more difficult, until in the end you will become really tired of all of it and give it up.
Just hearing the word meditation, you feel really frustrated.
Whether or not this situation manifests or not really depends on our motivation.
So when we talk about motivation, it's not that we need to visualize some kind of complicated yidam deity or a colorful yidam deity. It's actually just about looking within yourself and then thinking and aspiring in the correct way.
Because when you visualize a deity, a Buddha, then it's not that easy. When you visualize the head, then already at the same time you can't visualize the leg part. Then you focus on the lower part. Again, the upper part has disappeared.
Even if you manage to visualize everything very clearly in front of you, it's not... there is no guarantee that it actually will be beneficial for you.
As Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche always used to say that in the past histories, in the stories of masters, you can't come across one story where somebody gained enlightenment by just gazing at a thangka.
When we look at the picture of a thangka, all the visualization is very clear. It's all there in front of you.
So even if you then can visualize the Buddha or the yidam deity so precisely, so vividly and so clearly, if you lack the proper motivation, it may not help you in any way.
So tomorrow we'll begin then in the text with refuge and bodhicitta.
So now in the afternoon we discuss on how we can practically implement the teachings, the instructions that we have received, how we can practice them, how we can hold daily sessions based on the instructions.
The sādhana that we are here discussing is a sādhana that is extremely powerful and contains so much blessing.
So as we have already discussed, when we recite in the secret mantrayāna, when we do recitations, when we supplicate, it's not a type of worship that we actually do. What it is in fact, these words that we recite are the entrance gate for us to, or the gate for us to recollect the ultimate truth.
When it comes to meditation and meditating, there are so many obstacles that we may, that we may encounter. One of the obstacles, one of the big obstacles that we may encounter, that may challenge us, is that we in fact forget the instructions.
For instance, we all are acutely aware that compassion is so extremely important.
But often it is the case that precisely when we need to feel compassion, to be compassionate, we forget these instructions, don't we?
However, if we recite a lot, do mantra recitations, if we recite the sādhana, the instructions are always in the sādhana, in the recitations. So we repeat them again and we recite the instructions. And this serves the purpose that we stop forgetting the instructions.
So when we now practice the Treasury of Blessings, the Buddha Shakyamuni practice, as Rinpoche has pointed out, everything comes down to the right view.
In the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama always stresses that all religions in fact, they teach about compassion, about loving kindness, about mindfulness, about being content, about patience.
That's kind of the general quality of all religions.
And that's excellent.
But can those aforementioned qualities, can in fact clear away all our suffering? They cannot.
Because as Rinpoche so clearly pointed out today, the root of samsara, the cause of samsara comes down to clinging and fixation.
As the great master Chandrakirti pointed out, as long as you grasp onto the five aggregates, you will cling onto a personal self. You will believe that there is a personal self. When you have the belief that there is a personal self, what happens next is that you give rise to negative emotions. Based on those negative emotions, you engage in negative harmful deeds and these create negative karma. And precisely it is this karma that makes you circle within samsara.
So these qualities, such as loving kindness and compassion, are extremely important. They are extremely beneficial. But since they always entail dualistic fixation, subject and object, the belief of a subject and an object. It cannot counteract samsara. It cannot cut through the cause of samsara.
So therefore the Dalai Lama then continued to say that that which really differs, or what differentiates Buddhism from other religions, is the wisdom... is the wisdom that directly understands and recognizes that there is no personal self. This is what makes Buddhism unique.
In many religions, in many traditions, they believe in a self. The self is not questions. There is a... for instance a creator, there is a soul, there is an Atman. There is the notion of a self.
Also the Dalai Lama always stresses, we need to learn to be kind to ourselves, we need to be loving to ourselves.
If we are not kind to ourselves, loving to ourselves, who will actually be kind to us?
If I cannot be kind to myself, if I can't be loving to myself, how can I feel love for others?
But these days the way that we are kind to ourselves, or loving to us, to ourselves, is a bit turned upside down, is a bit mistaken.
We think of ourselves as so important, and we think of others as not important at all. We actually don't care about others.
In Buddhism one stresses that everything depends on something else, dependent origination, that's the crucial factor in Buddhism. So this is exactly what we have to bring to mind. Everything, we ourselves, we depend on others.
If we... we have so many needs, if we need clothes, we need that from somebody else, from many others, isn't it?
The same with food. These days we go to eat in the restaurants, usually, no?
First of all, there needs to be a place, which is a restaurant. Secondly, there needs to be a cook. Then there needs to be somebody who takes your orders. There needs to be somebody who brings your food. Then finally there has to be somebody to whom you pay.
So we need to be loving to ourselves.
In order to be really loving to ourselves, we need to become happy. And how do we become happy? Do we become happy by only caring for ourselves and not really caring for others? This will not cause happiness, but the opposite of that. So therefore the key point is understanding that all of us, we depend on others. And therefore, if I want to be loving to myself and kind to myself, I need to be equally kind to others and loving to others, this will make me happy.
Forget about traveling the path to liberation. If you just want to enjoy happiness and joy in this very life, then the key point is to care for others, to be loving to others in the same way as you are loving to yourself.
It may be the case that um... When we hear that we have to give rise to the proper motivation, immediately hearing that, because it's being repeated again and again, we really get fed up with it. We feel really bored and tired. We've heard it so many times. And then we think, okay, it's perhaps just merely a method that makes you... that causes us to achieve enlightenment. But we end up really connecting it with ourselves. It's kind of we're separate from that wish, from that motivation.
Buddhahood is a result we will achieve in the future So we are not really connected to Buddhahood right now. And we may also feel, okay, bodhicitta is something that will cause enlightenment in the future. Everything is in the future and right now I'm not a Buddha. So in that way we feel disconnected from bodhicitta, because Buddhahood is not something that we have achieved yet.
So we feel not really connected to bodhicitta in this way. And because of not feeling connected to bodhicitta in this way, also what happens at the same time is that we feel that mundane pursuits, mundane activities are so important, so important. Yet spiritual activities or spiritual endeavors are not really important.
This is precisely why Rinpoche always stresses that we must make our life meaningful. What we do should be meaningful.
We all put a lot of effort to achieve something with our body, speech and mind. But the outcome, the result of our efforts differs. If we look around in this world, we are all different.
So whatever effort we may put in order to achieve our petty little goals, in the end it's just as the Buddha has said, birth ends in death will all have to die.
So now think ahead, after 100 years, who will be left? Nobody of us, no? The billions of people that live on this earth, nobody will be left.
So the... So birth ends in death.
Any meeting ends in separation.
Any building, any production ends in its destruction.
And any accumulation, and that's really important to understand, anything that we try to accumulate and hold ends in depletion, it will become exhausted or we just have to leave it behind.
However much effort we may apply in order to achieve something in this life, in the end we leave empty handed, we have to leave everything behind.
In order to achieve our mundane goals, as mentioned already before, we put a lot of effort with our body, speech and mind. We pursue those goals, those objectives with a... with physical, undergoing a lot of physical, mental and verbal hardship. But in the end, and also in order to achieve them, we do not shy away from engaging in negative deeds and also being influenced by... by negative emotions. So then, when we have to leave everything behind at the time of death, nothing can we take with us. The only thing that will accompany us is our negative karma.
So now when we talk about karma, you know what karma is. Karma is not a thing that we then carry with us after death. That's not karma. So what is karma? Karma are our habitual patterns that are stored in our mind, in our consciousness.
Take, for example, the negative emotion of anger. If you're prone to anger, what happens is that you become angry again and again. And what happens actually when you are angry? What happens to your body? What happens to your well-being? The moment we feel angry, we feel uneasy, we feel unhappy. And this is then extended. That is to say we feel unhappy, we feel angry, and this experience is then continued and solidified.
Just take into account the example when you eat a really delicious meal, then suddenly something makes you so angry. Before you thought, oh it's so tasty, but then when you're overwhelmed by anger, you suddenly think, oh it tastes so awful, you can't enjoy the food anymore.
So from this example of feeling angry, we understand that there's so many different forms in samsara different types of birth that we can take, different types of experiences.
So therefore it's so important that what we do should become meaningful, should be meaningful. It shouldn't be meaningless.
And when we use the term meaningful, what does it really refer to? It means that it should become the cause of happiness for ourselves and for others. It should bring happiness to us and others.
And best, it should cause us to achieve enlightenment.
Second best, we should become a Bodhisattva who abides on the bhumis.
The third best is an arhat, a foe destroyer.
And the fourth best situation is that we become somebody who is acutely aware of karma, cause and effect and acts accordingly, knows what to accept and knows what to reject.
If we become somebody like this, it is certain that we will not be worse off than now, but we'll actually become better and better.
Otherwise, it will be quite a sad situation if we don't live our life meaningfully. That is to say, when we were born, we were quite weak and pitiful. When we die, we don't want to be like that, also no... we don't...
And from a mundane perspective, it is often the case that we also when we die, we die really weak and pitiful. So each moment we are getting older, older, means our body physically, mentally shrinking.
We'll get older, we'll become more and more sick, and everything will become increasingly more difficult and painful.
So when we practice the dharma, everything should from that time then become better and better.
And as Rinpoche stressed today, it's so important that when we practice the dharma that we don't practice it in a superficial way, that we don't just leave the understanding as a mere intellectual understanding.
The um... Practicing the dharma is a part of our life.
And if we understand that, then we'll become much more mindful and careful.
So as mentioned already the days before, as beginners, a session, a meditation session is really important.
And to go about it in a really careful way is crucial.
Yesterday we talked a bit about the shrine, how to arrange the shrine, and also we talked about how to do three prostrations.
And these are not traditions, mere traditions that we need to follow blindly, but they are actually for a good purpose, they are for ourselves, they help us.
Having done three prostrations, the next step is that you sit down on a comfortable seat.
Best if you can arrange your meditation seat just in front of the shrine, opposite the shrine, that you look at the shrine directly.
You should sit down on a comfortable meditation cushion and the meditation cushion shouldn't be too hard and not too soft either.
So whatever is comfortable for us we should choose a meditation cushion that really fits to us.
So we should sit on a meditation cushion so that our back is a bit raised.
So just like we have here, we have a meditation cushion that is flat and on top of that then we have a smaller meditation cushion on which we place our butt.
So first of all we assume the proper key points of the body posture.
Best if you can sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So most of you know the seven fold posture of Vairocana but for those of you who don't, I will demonstrate now. So sit in the... no? OK. So sit in the same way as the Buddha sits. Cross leg, that's the first point in the lotus posture.
So the left one, the left leg you put on your right, um... what is this called, upper, upper leg, whatever.
And then the right one on the left.
So why do you need to sit in this vajra posture?
In our body we have... the reason for why we have to sit in this posture is because in our body we have an inner wind, the prana flow, and the nadi's channels.
If you sit in the right body posture as it was explained now what happens is that the inner wind, the inner prana moves into the central channel and when the inner wind moves into the central channel then naturally all your negative emotions subside and that's a good thing for meditation. And especially jealousy disappears.
Because if we have a lot of jealousy or envy we can't really abide within meditation.
And then we, yeah, so we can't one-pointedly remain meditative absorption.
So that's the reason for why we have to sit in the lotus posture.
If you can't sit in that very posture you can sit in the half crossed posture.
So if that also doesn't work then we should really look what works for us best.
So then the next point is the hand gesture. You put the right on top of the left. Right?
....so it should kind of have the... um... when you touch your your two thumbs together it should look a little bit like a triangle from the front.
Okay, that symbolizes in the secret Mantrayāna the the practice of tummo of the inner heat.
And you place your hands in this very gesture, in this very mudra, four finger width beneath your navel.
So while the first key point of sitting cross-legged diminished our negative emotion of envy and jealousy, now when we fold our hands in this way and place them under the navel center this diminishes our negative emotion of anger.
In the tradition of the Great Perfection there's also a way to relax into the natural ease of the mind, and this posture is a posture where you place your two hands on top of your knees and that's also a possible posture that you may assume if you are instructed by a teacher to do so.
The third key point is that your spine should be straight like an arrow.
So don't bend forward, don't bend backwards, just sit straight.
Then your shoulders should be a little bit raised, but backwardly raised, not to the front, back.
And these two key points eradicate or weaken our stupidity and ignorance.
So that aspect of stupidity, how should we explain it? It's this kind of experience that we have of feeling dull and not very bright.
And the next key point is that your chin, you should press it a little bit against your neck, backward towards your neck.
And this causes our desire and passion to decrease.
The next key point is the sixth key point and that's your gaze. Don't close your eyes, that's what Rinpoche already mentioned very clearly. Um... Don't raise them, don't open them too much, but just have them kind of half open your eyes.
When you train in samatha meditation, the key point is to look towards the... into the direction of the nose and then you imagine four fingers are here, finger width, under your nose and you look into the space towards that.
So sometimes it says look toward the tip of your nose and that of course feels very uncomfortable. But in most instructions it says that imagine four finger width under your nose and then focus on the space a little bit out of your, not at the tip of your nose, but four finger width out from your nose.
So this is in the context of samatha meditation. However, in the context of Mahāmudrā and the great perfection, the gaze is described again very different.
Now we come to the seventh key point, the seventh vajra point, and that is that you touch the peak of your tongue at your palate.
The last two key points of the seven fold vajra posture they serve the purpose that the inner wind dissolves into the central channel and then our pride disappears.
So this is called the seven fold posture of Vairocana.
So these are the key points of the body posture and these are really important because as it says, if the dependent origination in the body is appropriate, if they all come together, realization dawns from within.
If you are able to sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, also blessings enter you um... and that um... that blessing facilitates insight into the nature of the mind of realization.
Sometimes when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana, Um... the way we sit is too tight, too tense, and that's not okay.
So when you sit in the seven fold posture of Vairocana it should have certain characteristics. The first is that you should feel at ease, light and relaxed.
So this very posture needs to be endowed with the qualities of feeling at ease, feeling relaxed and feeling light.
So if you don't feel those three characteristics or qualities that should arise from that meditation posture, it means that you are, you are tightening your muscles too much, you are sitting too uptight and too tense.
However, if you meditate and you begin to feel drowsy or dull, then the key point is that you should really tighten your muscles.
So when your body posture is straight, then also the nadis are straight. And when the nadis are straight, then the inner wind moves in a straight way.
And if the inner wind moves in a straight way, then the awareness becomes very bright.
In the past it is said that yogis, beginner yogis and yoginis would... would train for six months only in the meditation posture. That's all what they trained in.
So that's the story... Once upon a time, let's start like this, there was a monkey. And the monkey saw a couple of meditators sitting in the seven fold vajra posture... posture. So what he did then, he copied it. So he sat in the same posture and then he came across, how many rishi's? 500? 500 rishi's, 500 kind of holy people. And then they copied, or he taught the seven fold vajra posture to them. And it is said that they all became arhats based on it.
So when the certain causes and conditions gather and come together, there is a result. You can't stop it.
Even if I don't want to become an arhat, it just happens.
If the certain causes and conditions do not come together, and even though I really want so much to become enlightened, that's all I want. Enlightenment won't happen.
So the key points for the body posture are really, really important. And of course in the beginning they may seem very difficult and complicated, but if you continue to train in them, it will become easier and easier.
For those of you who can't sit on the ground or on the floor and have to sit in a chair, then the key point is to really see or to really check if your spine is straight.
If you train and train in meditation, then sooner or later what will happen is that it doesn't matter in which posture you actually sit. You don't need to rely on the body posture. Everything what you do will become meditation. While you eat food, you'll meditate. While you go to the toilet, you'll meditate.
Imagine you can't sit on the toilet while assuming the seven fold posture of Vairocana. It's impossible, no?
So even when you sleep, you'll meditate?
If we have not yet achieved any kind of stability or mastery in our meditation, the body posture is so, so important. However, when we have attained a certain degree of stability and mastery in our meditation, then really the body posture is not important anymore.
Now that was the key point of the body, now we come to the key point of the speech. And the key point of the speech is to shut up.
I didn't say shut up, yeah? Sorry, I'm a bad translator. Lama la said it much more polite. I said silence.
So when you, when you...
So when you train in the main part of meditation, you even need to give up recitations. So forget about talking to others or speaking to others, even reciting mantras or sādhanas need to be abandoned. Then of course some meditation connected with recitation, then it's different. Otherwise...
So now we come to the key points of the mind and here first of all it says that the body needs a meditation cushion, needs a support, that of a meditation cushion.
So the meditation cushion, what does it need, need? It needs a body, no? That's the need of a meditation cushion, a body needs to sit on it.
And what does the body need? It needs a mind, no?
So what is the meaning of that? It means that sometimes we meditate and the mind is absolutely not in the body. It's everywhere but not in the body. It circles and wanders about everywhere else.
So sometimes we are present in a Dharma teaching, we sit there but our mind is somewhere else. It happens, no? Our mind has wandered off to Boudha, it has wandered off to America, it has wandered off to California, Beijing, Shanghai, Bombay, Lama la said what else?
So we shouldn't be like that. The mind should be in the body. And the mind, how should it be? The mind should be relaxed.
So as I mentioned already in the last, in the previous days, we have taken birth within samsara since time immemorial, again and again. So we have wandered, circled within samsara endlessly.
So we have circled within samsara without any end. And usually what we experienced in all our past lives is very similar to what we are doing, what we experience right now. That is to say that we were born, then slowly we grew older, growing older means that we became more and more sicker, sick, and then finally we died. That's the cause of life, isn't it? And during all our past lives, during all those lives, it was... we had to meet with so many uncertainties. Where we were born was completely uncertain. Who were our friends were completely uncertain. Also, whether we had possessions, what type of possessions, all of that was completely uncertain. In what kind of body we were born was also completely uncertain.
It's not the case that we were always born as a human being.
Probably we were born as a creature with many, many limbs.
Those who crawl on the earth and also fly in the sky, animals like that.
Sometimes we were born as a man, sometimes as a woman.
We have no mastery, we have no control over our birth, don't we?
There is no control, so who is in control? It's karma, isn't it?
But nevertheless, although it is karma, our karma is in our hands. I don't know, I like very much his holiness the Dalai Lama says, it's a very nice kind of presentation. He says, New Year means like just the book, the empty notebook has 360 pages, empty notebook. So it means you can make schedule or program for every day what you want. You want to have a good day or whatever.
So every New Year we have the chance to write notes, good notes in a notebook or bad notes. It's a... It's in our hands. What happens, isn't it?
If the notebook, the empty notebook wouldn't be empty at New Year, but actually already it would be completed and all the notes would be written in there, we have no chance, no? We have then no control.
So as Dudjom Rinpoche pointed out, it's not all dependent on our karma.
Don't blame everything on karma.
Because if everything is karma, why not just lay down in your little room and sleep?
At one point probably somebody will bring me food.
If I have the karma, the food will come, then it will be just like that.
So don't blame everything on karma.
Especially we have to understand that what will happen in the future is in our hands right now.
As all masters continuously point out, this body that we have right now is the borderline for whether we will go up in the future or down.
So what should we think really before we start with the practice? The key point of the mind is that we should bring to mind that we have taken birth, countless births within samsara. We have been born so many times. And um... when we were born and when we lived our lives in the past, we did so many things. We engaged in so many different activities.
But all those deeds that I have done in the past, they did not make me liberated. I am still stuck within samsara.
So what is samsara? Gampopa pointed out that samsara is by its very nature painful.
And what is samsara? Samsara is the experience of a confused mind.
So in brief, if we don't purify our confused experience, we will never be free from samsara.
Since suffering does not truly exist, we can be free from it.
This body that we have achieved, that I have achieved right now, is not an ordinary body. It's a precious human body.
Whether the Buddha has appeared in this world or not appeared?
So first of all, sorry that was a mistake, the Buddha has appeared in this world.
And he taught, not only has he appeared in this world, he taught the Dharma. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the different capabilities and capacities of sentient beings.
The Buddha has taught the Dharma. And when the Buddha taught the Dharma, even while he was alive, countless individuals reached liberation from samsara based on his teachings. Even after the Buddha had passed away into nirvana, the teachings were kept alive and practiced by his followers and they reached liberation. So there is an unbroken transmission of the Buddha's instructions that still exist these days. So we now, we are receiving these instructions and based on these alive instructions, we can then reach Buddhahood, we can become enlightened.
So we all have the freedom to practice the Dharma, don't we?
And we all have the interest to do so.
And we all understand that the Dharma is something so precious, so unique.
And not only that, we also have a teacher who instructs us, who gives us the oral instructions.
So all these good conditions have come together for me right now.
I'm so lucky I have accumulated so much merit.
So although, then consider that although I'm really lucky right now, this life will not last. I may lose all my merit, all my luck again.
The Buddha, he taught us an example for our lifespan. He taught the example of a butter lamp which he put out in the wind.
It is absolutely not certain that we'll all die growing old, no? We'll only... I'll only die when I'm old. That's not true.
As the Bodhisattva Śāntideva pointed out, to think that today I will not die, that's a mistaken thought. That's not correct thinking.
So when it comes to practicing the Dharma, we need to do it immediately.
So in Asia it's not like this, but in the West I come across many people who say that I will practice the Dharma when I go into pension.
But there is no guarantee, there is no certainty whether pension comes before or our death.
And also one thing that we have to be realistic about, now we want to practice the Dharma, but it's not certain that we'll have that wish to practice the Dharma always. It may disappear again.
Our mind is so tricky.
So first we say yes, and then five minutes later we say no.
This is precisely why the masters always point out that don't put your hopes in the future, don't think that I will do a retreat, three years retreat in a couple of years, or I will do longer retreats very very soon. Don't. It's a good thing that you want to do a retreat, there's no question about this. However, the moment you think about practicing the Dharma, do it immediately. Don't let any time lapse immediately practice it then.
So whenever you get time, immediately practice the Dharma. Find time to practice the Dharma.
So for instance if we go to Boudha, and then we will pass the stupa, so why not combine it immediately with one circumambulations, doing one kora, then you immediately practice some virtue.
Or for instance when you eat food and we do that no, then at the beginning you offer some food, offer some food and also at the end you dedicate the merit, so in that way that also then that process of eating becomes virtuous.
When you fall asleep, then fall asleep in the yoga of sleep.
Or when you then wake up in the morning, train in the wake up practice, in the wake up meditation.
So if you practice in this way combining each and every activity with meditation, Then um... then slowly slowly all your activities will turn into meditation, will become practice.
So then we may end up enlightened before we go into, into our retreat, into our long retreat, if you do like that.
So whether or not this happens, um... whether or not we will be successful really is in our hands, depends on us. Then maybe we don't need to make disappointed, upset to friends, and family, parents, kids, without making any upset, disappointed and you will become enlightened. That will be very good news.
So before we start with our meditation we need to think that um... I must make this life meaningful, this precious human body that I have achieved, by no means can I allow myself to let it go to waste. I must make it meaningful, so start your practice with this kind of promise.
So as mentioned already in the days before, there are so many different practices taught in Tibetan Buddhism, but they all are included in the meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
So I will, and this is the next promise, now I will train in these meditations of samatha and vipassanā.
And I am not doing that for my own sake.
I am doing it for all sentient beings.
In the same way as there is no limit to space, there is no limit to sentient beings.
And wherever there are sentient beings, sentient beings are under the sway of negative emotions.
And when we are under the sway of negative emotions, then we suffer. That's just how it is.
All sentient beings, they have the same predicament of myself... a myself, I want to be happy, I don't want to suffer. In the same way, all sentient beings, they don't want to suffer, they want to be happy.
So just taking into account the feeling hot and cold, the temperature change, if we don't want to feel too hot, we don't want to feel too cold, we are all the same in that need.
But when I look at sentient beings, I notice that they are obscured, especially when it comes to skillful methods.
And now when I look at myself, I realize I am only one person, while all sentient beings, there are many, many, so many more than myself.
And also when I take a look at myself, I have been instructed by my spiritual teacher, and therefore I know what to accept and I know what to reject.
So if I don't help sentient beings, who will help them?
Especially when it comes to the teachings of the Mahāyāna of the Great Vehicle, we need to keep in mind that we are connected with each and every single sentient being. They all... They all have been my kind parents, my relatives, my friends, so we are all interconnected.
So if I don't help all sentient beings, who will help them?
So although I really want to help them, I also realize that I need to develop my own qualities so I can really help them, otherwise it will be just like the blind leading the blind.
So then give rise to the pure motivation that I must make sure that I become endowed with the limb-like, skilful methods and the wisdom-like eyesight. I must open the eyes of wisdom so that I can lead all sentient beings out of the misery, that I can lead all blind sentient beings who are left alone on the plain, on the vast plain of samsara. And this is precisely why I'm sitting now here and training in the meditation of samatha and vipassanā in order to liberate each and every single sentient being from samsara. That's the motivation that we should develop and generate.
And the wonderful thing is that if we develop such a supreme motivation, a pure motivation, regardless of what we do, then everything will become virtuous. Even Rinpoche today said very clearly, he said, if you possess bodhicitta, then whatever you do will become virtuous. Any action will become virtuous.
So then if we manage to give rise to such a pure motivation, then even before we have started out on the main part of our meditation practice, our mind has already become so pure and so calm.
And if you then, based on such a pure state of mind, then begin your meditation, your mind will become even better than that.
It's just like when you have already a bundle of fire burning in front of you, and then again you add firewood, what will happen, it will become even bigger, the fire than before.
And then when you get up from your meditation session, you will rise from your meditation cushion with so much happiness and delight.
And then you will think, it's so true what is taught in the Dharma, it's really true that these practices are so beneficial. I'm really experiencing them.
And then if you train in this way, what happens is then if you have a break between your meditation sessions, maybe one hour, two hours, you can't wait anymore, you can't take it to start with your next meditation session, you're becoming really impatient.
If this happens, if you become like this, it means you're really becoming a true Dharma practitioner.
And otherwise, the situation will be rather different, you will think, oh, now again, it's time for my meditation session.
And then you hear the meditation gong, oh, no.
And then you say, what, it's really already time? Can't be.
If you... If you become like that, everything will become more and more difficult, until in the end you will become really tired of all of it and give it up.
Just hearing the word meditation, you feel really frustrated.
Whether or not this situation manifests or not really depends on our motivation.
So when we talk about motivation, it's not that we need to visualize some kind of complicated yidam deity or a colorful yidam deity. It's actually just about looking within yourself and then thinking and aspiring in the correct way.
Because when you visualize a deity, a Buddha, then it's not that easy. When you visualize the head, then already at the same time you can't visualize the leg part. Then you focus on the lower part. Again, the upper part has disappeared.
Even if you manage to visualize everything very clearly in front of you, it's not... there is no guarantee that it actually will be beneficial for you.
As Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche always used to say that in the past histories, in the stories of masters, you can't come across one story where somebody gained enlightenment by just gazing at a thangka.
When we look at the picture of a thangka, all the visualization is very clear. It's all there in front of you.
So even if you then can visualize the Buddha or the yidam deity so precisely, so vividly and so clearly, if you lack the proper motivation, it may not help you in any way.
So tomorrow we'll begin then in the text with refuge and bodhicitta.
