Details
Approaching the Buddha 5
Teachers:
Collection:
- Sadhanas and Prayers
Location:
- Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling
Translator:
- Catherine Dalton
Length:
- Full Length Session
Features:
- Subtitles ,
- Transcripts
Excerpt
Lama Tenzin Sangpo teaches that daily Dharma practice must be prioritized and structured with clear preliminaries, main practice, and conclusion, guided by faith, compassion, and sincere effort. He explains the deep meaning of refuge, bodhicitta, and the seven-branch practice, showing how they purify obscurations and accumulate merit, forming the foundation for effective samatha and vipashyana meditation.
Description
Lama Tenzin Sangpo emphasizes that daily practice sessions should be seen as the most important activity of the day, not as a side task, reinforcing that consistency and priority are essential for spiritual progress. He outlines the three essential parts of any session—preliminaries, main practice, and conclusion—and begins a detailed commentary on the Treasury of Blessings sādhana, focusing on refuge, bodhicitta, and the visualization of Buddha Shakyamuni. Lama clarifies the deeper meaning of refuge as a return to the natural state of the mind, with faith and compassion being the roots of refuge and bodhicitta, and underscores that proper visualization, even if not perfectly clear, is vital when paired with genuine confidence. He describes the seven-branch practice as a supreme method for accumulating merit and purifying obscurations, providing remedies for pride, stinginess, anger, jealousy, and wrong views. Finally, Lama stresses that faith, sincerity, and careful visualization empower the practice to transform us, turning even ordinary actions into profound spiritual training.
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
01:43:17
So yesterday, in the past days, we've talked
about the key points for the physical body,
and the key points of speech, and
the key points of the mind for practice.
And when we do a practice session, it is really good if we can get in the habit of thinking to ourselves, this is the most important thing I am doing today. If we do a daily session, to really regard that as being the most important of our daily activities.
Because if our practice session becomes some kind of, like something that we just do on the side, some kind of thing that we just have to do on the side, then it's not very powerful actually.
Of course, if we're in retreat, then that's not going to happen. It's kind of clear. But if you're in a normal daily household setting, your regular life in your household, it can become... that our practice session becomes just kind of like something that we have to do on the side. It becomes not the most important thing for us. It could happen like that.
And actually, if we think of our practice as being something that's extremely important, not just for this life, but for lifetime after lifetime, and not only something that's important and beneficial for me personally, but also something that's important and beneficial for other sentient beings, for all sentient beings actually, if we can think about it like that, then it's absolutely certain, like a hundred percent sure, that we will just naturally be very careful about our practice, won't we, if we regard it as being important in those ways.
So if we think about the goal of our practice as being the state of awakening, Buddhahood. And if that's kind of, you know, if we're on a journey, that's where we're heading towards. If we postpone our session, if we skip a session, we are making our journey to that goal that much longer.
So let's say we're on a drive somewhere, and if we go on the highway, normally it's a five hour drive, but if we stop at the rest stop, and we just hang out, and spend hours and hours and hours there, the five hour drive turns into a ten hour trip, or a twelve hour trip, right?
So really, until we achieve Buddhahood, the state of awakening, we have to keep practicing, until we do.
And especially as a beginning practitioner, our practice isn't strong enough that, often, that we can practice very well outside of sessions. So really, for beginning practitioners, our meditation sessions are really important. We have to really kind of think about that as the time where we're really practicing.
So the topic here is the Treasury of Blessings, the Liturgy of Shakyamuni Buddha. So the way that I'm explaining this is as if this is our main practice for this life, this one right here.
And if you have that attitude, if you think to yourself, this is my yidam, this is my samaya, this is my practice, what I will place my trust in for this whole life, for my whole life, I will place my trust in this practice. If you have that kind of feeling towards, and if you have that kind of... attitude towards this practice, you will not be fooled, you will not be deceived.
And so if we really decide that this is my practice, this is the practice I'm doing for my life, this is going to be my main practice, then you have to receive really good instructions on the practice from a qualified teacher. What I'm telling you here is not enough.
I'm trying to just encourage you a little bit here with these teachings, give you some encouragement for the practice, but this is not like the real instruction.
As Rinpoche has said to us, any practice we do has to have the excellent beginning, the excellent main part, and the excellent conclusion. It's essential that these three parts are present. And especially if we are doing Mahāyāna practice, and if we lack somehow these three parts, the excellent beginning, main part, and conclusion, there's some doubt about whether we're really actually practicing the Mahāyāna.
And actually anything that we do, any activity, even if it's a worldly activity, there has to be a beginning, a preliminary. There has to be the main part and there has to be a conclusion. Anything we do has to be structured in that way.
So what I've explained up until now has been kind of the preliminary for the session, right? We have to prepare ourselves for the session. So the key points of the posture, the physical posture, the key points of speech, the key points of the mind, this is all preparatory, preliminary to the session. But then the session itself also has to have these three parts. The preliminary part of the session, the main part of the session, and the conclusion part of the session. So now we'll get into the actual practice of the session itself, and we start with the preliminaries of the practice.
On page three in our sādhana.
So this statement that we find here on page three in our text comes from the Samādhirāja sūtra. And here it says, Since the complexion of his body is like gold, the world protector is extremely beautiful in all respects. Whichever Bodhisattva focuses his mind upon him is in meditative equipoise. So this actually, these are the words of the Buddha himself from the Samādhirāja sūtra that have been put here.
And so this then really is the practice of recollecting the Buddha, the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha that's mentioned here. And then when we come into the preliminaries, we begin first with refuge, and then the generation, the arousing of bodhicitta, and then the four immeasurables. These are the preliminaries in our session.
If we are Buddhists, then it's really important that we understand refuge. That's really important.
And in some texts it's actually mentioned that this is what distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists. This is what makes the distinction, refuge.
And so here this is not about bias, you know...about having a bias towards being something or not being something. Here we're in the context of we want to attain Buddhahood, right? That's our context here. And if we want to attain Buddhahood and if we don't know who or what the Buddha is, then saying that we want to attain Buddhahood is kind of just like blind faith, right? Without even knowing what Buddhahood is, we have to know.
And so actually we can read in the guidance manuals about refuge, what is refuge. And also in the Mahāyāna sūtras, in texts like the Uttaratantra śāstra, Sublime continuum, texts like this, if we can study these kind of texts, then we can find out very clearly what is the Buddha, what is the Dharma, what is the Sangha.
And when we talk about refuge, it's not that we should think about it as...
So we shouldn't think, when we think about refuge that... and some people do sometimes think like this, it's a mistake, to think of oneself as being in a sort of pitiful state, and taking refuge from being, you know, very pitiful, like in a very pitiable state. We shouldn't think about it like that.
What is the ultimate refuge object? It is the Buddha?
And who is the Buddha?
The one who has completely cleared away all flaws and completely perfected all positive qualities, that is the Buddha.
And where is that?
And maybe it sounds a bit presumptuous, but Rinpoche has said lots about this, so I think it's okay to say.
Where is that? It is our own basic nature, the nature of our mind.
Our basic nature, the nature of our mind, is not obscured by negative emotions.
But now we are in a state where that basic state is obscured, right? It is obscured by temporary stains.
And if we remove those temporary stains, then we are awakened, Buddhas. And that is our supreme refuge, that is our lasting refuge, the ultimate refuge is that.
And where do we find an explanation of how to make that basic state manifest? It's explained in the Dharma teachings.
So who practices the Dharma? Me. I practice the Dharma.
So I am the one who has to practice the Dharma. The sangha are my companions who help with the circumstances for making that possible.
But if I don't practice the Dharma myself, then even if the Buddha is right here in front of me, it's not really going to help that much.
So if we think about it like that, actually, then we understand refuge well. And refuge is something that's very good, actually. It's something that we would feel inspired, right? Taking refuge is good. I should do that. It's wonderful. We don't feel in that sense that we are somehow handicapped, that we are somehow pitiful in that sense.
And so the Dharma, then, is something that's extremely important for us now, at this moment. And who teaches the Dharma? Where does the Dharma come from? It comes from spiritual friends, from our spiritual teachers. And in the context of the sūtras, the spiritual teachers are noble beings, noble Bodhisattvas, the noble sangha.
So my mind, the essence of my mind, is the Buddha. But it's obscured. That state is obscured by temporary obscurations. And if I want to clear away those obscurations, the conditions that help me to do that are the Dharma and the sangha.
So we can say that outwardly as kind of a being or a deity who is valid, we can say the Buddha, the Buddha Shakyamuni is a valid, valid teacher. And then when it comes to the Dharma, actually the real, genuine Dharma is the realization that is present in the mind streams of the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, that's the real Dharma. But as a symbol of that, symbolically then, we can say that the scriptures, the texts that contain their teachings, that is kind of the symbolic form of the Dharma for us. And then when it comes to the Sangha, the actual Sangha, the real Sangha, are in the Mahāyāna context, Bodhisattvas on the Bhūmis, from the first to the tenth Bhūmi. That means beings who have a direct realization actually, who have directly realized emptiness. And they are the real Sangha, but kind of as a representative of the Sangha, then that can refer to anyone who has the vows, right? Anyone who holds vows like monks and nuns and so on. But the real Sangha is the Bodhisattvas on the Bhumis.
And so since this practice of the Shakyamuni sādhana is really in the context of the sūtric teachings, since it's a sūtra-based practice, then the refuge objects are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Just those three are the ones that are mentioned here.
And when we want to take refuge, first we have to visualize the objects of refuge, the field of accomplishment, we say.
So we visualize the refuge tree in front of us. The main object of refuge that we visualize is the Buddha, Shakyamuni. But then surrounding him we visualize the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, male and female Bodhisattvas, male and female Arhats, surrounding the Buddha. So these are the objects of refuge that we should visualize.
And so we should imagine that all of them are looking upon me and all sentient beings with hearts full of love.
And so we should then think that from now until I achieve the state of awakening, you are the only source of refuge, the only source of protection for myself and for all sentient beings. I really place all my trust in you fully and completely. We should place our trust in the objects of refuge until the state of awakening.
And out of a sense of fear, I mentioned already before, about fear of samsara and fear of the lower realms. So fearing those things we take refuge in these refuge objects.
And so then we should place our hands together, join our hands at our heart, just like we do every morning when we recite the lines for refuge. And the first two statements here, to the excellent Buddha, Dharma, and Supreme Assembly, I go for refuge until the attainment of awakening. Those two statements, those first two lines of the practice, are the lines for taking refuge.
And in some of the instruction manuals it's mentioned that taking refuge is the root of liberation.
And then the next two lines, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, may I attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. Those two lines then are the lines for arousing bodhicitta.
So because this text is a very short, condensed one, we have the lines for taking refuge, and also generating bodhicitta here together, they're combined. But actually when we take refuge, what we should do is we're imagining that we and all sentient beings together are taking refuge. And that once we do this, then from the bodies of the Buddha and all of the objects in the refuge tree, light rays shine forth when we take refuge. And they touch me and all sentient beings, and they clear away all of our fear and all of our suffering. It's all completely cleared away and purified, and we receive refuge from them, we receive their protection. This is how we should visualize as we take refuge.
And if we really feel that, if we really do this and feel like this, that we've received refuge when we take refuge, then it's not just dry words, right? We're not just repeating the words, but we're actually really taking refuge if we do it this way.
Otherwise it's just like shouting out into empty space.
And doing this becomes actually a type of training or exercise for our mind.
Because honestly, we always have some hope and fear present in our mind, even if we're not immediately in the context of meeting some kind of difficult circumstance, but we just kind of naturally tend to remain within a state of some kind of hope, some kind of fear.
And then when we take refuge, if we then feel, now I'm free from that, then for a few moments we actually get some relief.
And so actually when we do that, if we do it again and again and again, then that naturally helps us to feel more and more relaxed. We actually come to a state of more relaxation and more ease through repeating that over and over and over again, that process. Because it's not like you know, depression, for example, is not something that just shows up out of nowhere all at once. It's a gradual process that builds up and then it becomes something that becomes really hard to fix once it's become very strong like that, no?
And then when we come to generating bodhicitta, then all sentient beings are present there as well, but then here they're like as if they're our guests. That's the way.
And then the refuge objects, the refuge tree in front of us, they are our witnesses. They're acting as our witnesses.
And so in front of those witnesses, I am making a promise.
And so, just like the previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have done, and especially also in particular, Shakyamuni Buddha, and you can find out about it if you read his life story actually, how much love he had for sentient beings, how much love and compassion.
So if you read about all of the previous lives of the Buddha, there's stories about his previous lives. If you read that, then you will know.
So we should think to ourselves, in the same way that you all worked so much for the benefit of beings, I too, just like you, will benefit beings in this way.
In the best case, I'll do it even better than you did.
But even if not that, at least I'm not going to do it in any lesser way than you did. At least as good as you have done.
So then when we're arousing bodhicitta, it should be like a very vast attitude. That's what we're supposed to be generating here.
And then especially this meditation session right here, I'm doing this for all sentient beings.
And so making a promise like that, we can call that generating bodhicitta, making that promise.
And so if we're going to be doing this kind of practice, if we have not yet received what is called the Bodhisattva vow, it's actually really good for us to take that vow, that vow, if this is going to be our practice.
And if we take that vow, it becomes a support for being careful, for our carefulness.
We don't have to start... we don't have to start out our Bodhisattva practice cutting off our arms and legs and offering them to others. We can start just by having a positive attitude, right? Really an altruistic attitude for sentient beings, towards sentient beings. And then gradually we can get to the place where we can chop off our arms and legs and give them. Eventually.
This happened, this was the case for one of Atisha's gurus. Dharmarakṣita Dharmarakṣita, who was one of the gurus of Atisha. He did that actually, gave his flesh. But he was not a Mahāyāna practitioner. At that time he was a teacher of the Hīnayāna in fact. And he, but he had incredible compassion, incredible compassion. And he one time came across a person who was extremely ill. And the doctor had told that person that the only thing that could heal his illness was fresh human flesh. Nothing else would actually be of any benefit. And because he felt such great compassion for that person, he cut a piece of flesh off of his thigh. And gave to the person who then ate it and got much better. But he hadn't realized emptiness. He didn't have that kind of realization. And so it was extremely painful for him. Cutting off your flesh is very painful if you don't have that. And so he was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep all night long. He couldn't sleep. He was just lying awake in pain, excruciating pain from having cut his own flesh to give to someone to heal them. And then he finally at dawn slipped for a brief moment into sleep. And had kind of a dream in which he saw this person who approached him dressed in all white. And said, you know, isn't that painful for you what you've done? And he said, yes, it's extremely painful actually. But I have no regrets whatsoever. Because I was able to be of benefit and help this other person. And so then in the dream this person in white said, oh, that's very good actually. That's um... Dharma practice is like that, to have that kind of compassion. And then he took his hand, this person in the dream, and massaged almost like the leg where the wound was. And then, um... Dharmarakṣita actually had this feeling that the wound had just gone away. It had healed. And then he woke up. And in fact the wound was healed. And then through that he actually kind of all of a sudden gave rise to the realization of the Mahāyāna Dharma. That realization of emptiness has just kind of burst forth from the expanse in his realization. So that kind of thing, yeah, happens here and there. But not so much for most of us.
But he got a really great profit out of that act of generosity, didn't he?
Just give a little piece of his flesh, that's all. Just he gave a little piece of flesh and then without having to study he gave... he realized all the Mahāyāna Dharma. That's a pretty good benefit.
But for us probably, we might not be able to manage that, huh?
We could maybe receive it if somebody gave it to us, but giving like that? No, for us that would be hard, huh?
And so we should think to ourselves that I will practice, I am going to practice now, samatha and vipassanā. And I will do this in order to attain the state of perfect awakening myself, arrive at the state of Buddhahood. So that I then am able to place all sentient beings in that state. And having that kind of really excellent positive attitude, that motivation, that's what's called bodhicitta.
And so it says, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, that's a reference to all of the six perfections, the six pāramitās. And even if we are not out there performing the six pāramitās, in the world out there, actually just through this practice, if we do it correctly and genuinely, all of the six perfections are fully present here within just this practice.
It's actually said that even when we're listening to Dharma teachings, receiving Dharma teachings, if we do it absolutely perfectly, correctly, exactly as it's explained in the texts, then we are practicing all of the six perfections just in the act of receiving the teachings. Likewise, here in this sādhana, if we do it perfectly, correctly, exactly in accordance with the way it is taught, then we are also practicing in full the six perfections just by doing this practice.
Um, the most important, though, is that the root of refuge, the real heart of taking refuge is faith. So we have to have faith. And the real heart of bodhicitta is compassion. So those two things, faith and compassion, are essential.
And then when doing this, even if we're not able to visualize the refuge objects perfectly out there, if we just have the confidence, they are there. That's really important.
If I have the real, sincere confidence that they are present, even if I can't see them, they really actually are there.
And because this is something that's such an important point, we repeat it three times.
And so if we want to recite this in Tibetan, we can do it in Tibetan. But if we feel more interest and more inspiration through reciting it in our own languages, in English, and Chinese, and Nepali, whatever language you speak, if that feels more meaningful to you, great. Do it in your own language, no problem.
The point is that it's really important to do it in a way that feels right to you.
So recite these lines three times with your hands folded at your heart.
And then what follows are the four immeasurables. And this is also part of bodhicitta. Sometimes it's understood to be the applied bodhicitta.
And for this part of the practice, it's also fine, the lamas say, to do tonglen practice, the giving and receiving. But whether or not we make the time to do that as part of the practice, that's a question.
So our main point, the main practice that we're doing here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā. And so if we spend a lot of time on all these other branch practices, and then we end up with not very much time for the main part of practice, then we have to be careful about that. So we just... we just need to make some calculations and kind of pay attention to the time that we spend on the different parts of the practice.
But also, if we really do very well any of the practices that are here in the sādhana then that also actually somehow includes all of the other practices that are there.
So we shouldn't worry like, oh, I didn't really get to spend so much time on refuge, so the visualization wasn't so good, I didn't really get to focus on that. Or like, oh, if I spend too much time on refuge, then I'm not going to have enough time for the other part. Don't worry so much about those kind of things, okay?
And in general, it's said that the practice of the Buddha Dharma is like walking up a staircase, right? Step by step by step.
And so, since our main practice here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā, we can be sure that all of the preliminary parts of the practice also include or contain those aspects.
And so, when we're in the breaks between sessions also, it's very important to be very careful and to train also in, for example, the practices of mind training.
So if we don't have a lot of experience with that otherwise, yeah? So really our main practice is this, sādhana, but then it's good to devote some attention also and put some care also in the breaks between sessions towards mind training practices.
And when we recite the lines for the four immeasurables, we place our hands like this, one on top of the other, in the lap, not folded together at our heart, but like this here.
Not up here, just place your hands together, one on top of the other, in your lap.
I think it's a symbol, a mudra, showing carefulness, because also in the Vinaya when we're doing the sojong practices of the Vinaya, the restoration of the broken vows, we place our hands in the same gesture, so I think that's what it represents, carefulness.
And maybe you are familiar with this, but the first line here, may all beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness, this statement represents here the practice of love, immeasurable love.
And then the next line, may they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering, this line is the line for immeasurable compassion.
And then, may they never be separated from the supreme happiness devoid of suffering, this line represents immeasurable joy.
And then the next line, may they remain in boundless equanimity beyond attachment and aversion to those near and far, this line here indicates immeasurable equanimity.
And so immeasurable, why do we call these the four immeasurables? Because there is no limit to the beings to whom we extend them, these four thoughts are extended for friends, enemies, strangers, everyone.
And so when we do these practices, like the practice of reciting the lines for bodhicitta and reciting these lines for the four immeasurables, it's really good if we can think to ourselves, okay, I have really generated genuine bodhicitta, I have truly aroused genuine bodhicitta, if we can have that kind of confidence.
And so then it's fine actually, after reciting all of these verses, including the ones for the four immeasurables, after repeating them three times, then we could remain for a little while and go through in our mind the visualization for refuge and bodhicitta, and this one, yeah, if we, yeah, we can do it that way. Like maybe leave a five minutes and then go through the visualization and the contemplation for each of them at this point.
And so then at the conclusion of that, we can visualize that from the objects of refuge, light rays radiate forth and dissolve into myself and all sentient beings, and that in this way all of our obscurations and negativities are completely purified, and we attain all empowerments and accomplishments. Good if we can think like that.
And so these are not explained doing like this, this kind of visualization is not explained in great detail in the instruction manuals, but this is just a normal practice during sādhana. So it makes perfect sense and it's perfectly fine to apply that here as well.
So then that's the preliminaries, we've gone through the preliminaries.
The main part of the practice is the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha.
And it says here, all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this, recite the following.
And in the best-case scenario, if we are somebody who has the realization of emptiness, then it's quite easy to do this.
And if that's not the case, then at least we can here bring to mind our understanding or some kind of experience that we may have.
Um... or at least if we have some kind of degree of understanding of dependent origination, right? Honestly, if we don't have some kind of understanding there, then it becomes difficult to do the practice like it's explained in the text. That's true. But at least if we have trust, if we have faith, then for sure we're going to get some blessings, even if we're not practicing exactly in the way that it's explained in the text.
Faith is like a seed that brings about the flourishing of all positive things, all positive qualities.
So without faith, then it's difficult. Everything, basically anything, actually, in terms of our practice, is difficult.
And when does faith arise in us? Well, Rinpoche said, actually, right? Once we hear the teachings of the Dharma, if we put them into practice ourselves, and then through that practice we come to some personal experience that comes from our practice, when we give rise to that kind of experience, then we have trust. And that's the best kind of faith, that trust that comes from our own practice experience.
And then it's not just like some story we heard, right? Because when we practice, right when we practice, actually we have some kind of experience, no? It happens right then, whenever we practice.
So all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this recite, the following. So the first part of our practice of the recollection of the Buddha is to recollect his form, his bodily form. And so we begin with the visualization. And we do this with the lines of the text that say, Ah, like the magical display of the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. In the sky in front of me, amidst an ocean like cloud banks of offerings, is the peerless teacher. So here, Rinpoche talked actually a lot this morning about this, about emptiness, no? And it's important that we understand this point because normally we have this kind of childish perspective on emptiness that we think that if there's something there, then there can't be emptiness, right? But emptiness it doesn't mean destroying something, getting rid of something so that it's gone and then it's empty. That's not actually what emptiness means. That's kind of a childish perspective. Emptiness actually means things appear, but they naturally lack inherent existence. That's what emptiness is. They appear, but their nature is that they are not truly established, not truly real. That's emptiness. We have this childish idea, if there's something there, if something is still there, then we feel like it can't be empty. That's our own childish perspective. That's not how the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas see things from their awakened perspective. It's totally fine. Everything can stay. It can appear just as it does. All of these various things just can continue going on appearing. No problem. Their essence is empty. Their essence, they lack a truly established nature, and that is what emptiness is. But again, we have this kind of um... idea that we have to get rid of something in order for it to be empty. No? We think if there's something still there, then that can't possibly be emptiness. But this is a mistaken childish perspective.
And so just like it's explained here, in fact, all phenomena, their essence is in fact emptiness. That is the essence, the nature, the real nature of all phenomena. But when causes and conditions come together, um... then through interdependence, in fact, things appear.
So as it says here, right, the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. So again, here emptiness and appearance are not two separate things. It's important that we understand that. While things appear, they are empty. And while being empty, phenomena appear. They're a unity, actually. It's the unity of emptiness and appearance.
And so we visualize then in front of ourselves a very excellent, beautiful, perfect, pure realm.
And in the center of this, then, a throne, a lion throne that is held up... yea throne held up by lions, this excellent, bejeweled lion throne.
And so then on top of this seat, then, on the throne, we visualize a lotus. And if you want to do it in a detailed way, you can visualize a multicolored lotus with all different colored petals, having even 100,000 petals, if you want.
And then we visualize that there are these pistils of the lotus flower that are um...we never know how to translate that word. I don't know if there's a botanist in here, but anyway, the pistils of the lotus flower that are a... they fill the whole lotus, the same size as the lotus. Yeah.
Not exactly the same size, yeah, but filling the space, right?
So these pistils should be in correct proportion to the size of the lotus, right? If you're visualizing a big lotus, you don't visualize tiny pistils. It should be proportional. And then on top of the lotus, the sun, and then on top of that, the moon, you visualize these discs.
And here, actually, in the sūtric context, it's not really set out there like that, but in general, when we talk about the generation stage, visualizing the deity, it's said that the moon represents method and the sun represents wisdom, and these then... this is kind of the qualities, basically, the qualities of a Buddha that are appearing in symbolic form.
And the lotus symbolizes being free from any kind of stain or fault.
And the bejeweled throne isn't just there to look pretty. It's there because it's a representation of the spontaneous accomplishment, the spontaneous presence of all sorts of positive qualities.
And then the throne is upheld by lions, right? Lions on all four sides. And that represents freedom from fear, actually, freedom from the four fears. So again, that's the symbolic representation that's being made.
It's not actually that the Buddha is riding on lions. That never actually happened.
When he was still living at home, he rode horses, right? And chariots and so on. Not lions. Not lions. He did not ride a lion.
But then after he renounced, then he didn't use any kind of vehicles. So, no lions.
So, really we shouldn't think like, what? The Buddha riding, sitting on these lions, you know, he's looking down on these beings, putting them in a difficult situation. It's not like that. Yeah. It's a symbolic representation of the qualities of awakening. That's what all of this is about.
One lion would be enough. How come there have to be eight lions holding him up?
So, here, these are all representations of the qualities of awakening, the qualities of a Buddha. And where is the Buddha? Remember, we just talked about it. Those qualities are present within ourselves. Those qualities are present as our own basic nature. And so, this should give us some courage that we can accomplish Buddhahood, that we can accomplish awakening. We should feel courage because of that. And faith and rejoicing in the practices that lead to that state.
And it says here the peerless teacher, the lion of the Shakyas on this bejeweled lotus, a lion throne lotus on a moon. So why is the Buddha Shakyamuni referred to here as the peerless teacher? Well, because of the unique prayers that he made and aspirations that he made to benefit the beings of our time. It actually comes later in the text. It's explained in more detail. But during this time, this time when the lifespan of humans is not more than a hundred years usually, when we're very busy, we're full of negative emotions, we have all sorts of doubts, we have all sorts of wrong views, this is called a degenerate time. And we are beings who are difficult to tame. And so, for us beings in this time, when there are beings who are difficult to tame, the Buddha Shakyamuni especially made prayers and aspirations to benefit beings like us in this time. And so, that's why we call him the peerless teacher. In fact, okay, all Buddhas, it's not that one Buddha is better than another Buddha, but from the perspective of the fact that he made specific prayers and aspirations to benefit beings in our time, beings like us, we consider him a unique and peerless teacher.
So why did the Buddha come actually in this world? Think about it for a minute. For us, especially for us, that's why the Buddha appeared in the world.
So we have a lot of merit.
But we have to know that we have merit, great merit.
It's not that the Buddha just came because he didn't have anything else to do, it was for us.
Samsara is limitless. The worlds are countless in number. The Buddha came here, at this time. Why? For us, that's why.
And the Dharma teachings that he gave, all of these different Dharma teachings that he gave, it's for us.
So what if mom makes a really, really nice dinner, spends a lot of effort for the child, and then the kid doesn't eat it?
So with love, with so much love, the mother makes a meal for her child, and if the child doesn't eat it? It's like that. With so much love and compassion, the Buddha taught so many different Dharma teachings for us. He gave pith instructions that can allow us to attain awakening in one life, in this life, in this body. And if we don't use them, then what?
So then if we really think about it, it changes actually how we feel, right? We feel like, oh, okay, this is really... I can do something with this life, with this human birth.
Then we can feel like, okay, I actually am a person. I have the qualifications, the qualities that make me a human being.
Otherwise, what differentiates us from animals? We don't really put the Dharma into practice.
Okay, so we kind of got off on another topic there. But here, back to the image of the Buddha. It says he's golden-hued with the major signs and minor marks. Golden-hued doesn't mean that he looks like gold, but it means that he's radiant, actually. Golden color and very, very radiant. And that radiance of the Buddha's body is something that could be perceived, is something that can be perceived by everyone, by all beings. Um, even, uh... it's mentioned that there are some people, like one of his relatives and a few other students, who had very wrong views about the Buddha. And so they all thought, oh, you know, what? The Buddha, he's not so much different from anybody else except that he's radiant. So even they could see this kind of light radiating out from the Buddha. So that's what we should understand here by this golden hue, is that he was really radiant.
Some people don't like thinking, I don't want to think about the Buddha being golden-colored. They find that kind of annoying for some reason. Don't worry about it. Just have this sense of radiance, shining, radiant form. That's how you should understand it.
He has the major signs and minor marks, the thirty-two major signs and eighty minor marks of an awakened being.
And so he's wearing the three Dharma robes. That's describing his clothing, a lower robe, an upper top and then the upper robe. And very simple, that's the idea. His clothing is very simple. He's in the form of the nirmāṇakāya, with very simple attire.
His legs are in vajra posture, so he's seated in vajra posture. That's easy to understand.
His right hand is fully outstretched in the earth-touching gesture. You can see that up there, in some of the images of the Buddha. Not that one.
And his left hand is in the gesture of meditative equipoise, like this, in his lap. And in that hand is an alms bowl and it's filled with nectar.
And so his body has all of these major and minor marks and his speech has the sixty qualities.
And his awakened mind has the qualities of wisdom and love and capacity.
And so he's splendorous.
He's radiating glory and splendor, like a golden mountain. Nets of wisdom light rays fill the sky around him. And he's completely surrounded by an ocean-like retinue of noble ones, such as the eight close sons. Actually, that's what these images, these statues, eight statues here, are the eight close sons. These are the eight Bodhisattva, close Bodhisattva disciples. The sixteen elders, represented by these thangkas along the side here, and the like. So he's surrounded by the eight close sons, the sixteen elders, male and female bodhisattvas, male and female arhats. You should visualize him surrounded by this kind of retinue.
The sixteen elders are, in fact, Mahāyāna practitioners that take on the form of the Śrāvakayāna practitioners.
And merely by recollecting him liberation from the two extremes of existence and peace, the glory of supreme bliss is bestowed. He is present as the great embodiment of all refuges. So he, his form, his presence is as the embodiment of all refuge objects together.
As Rinpoche mentioned already, earlier we visualized the form as empty form, empty appearance.
It's very important that when we visualize the Buddha and retinue, we visualize that they are actually there, and they are looking upon me with great love. That's important.
And then what follows actually is in order to gather the accumulations and purify the obscurations, we gather the accumulations and purify our obscurations in order that our meditative concentration, our samadhi will go well, that we'll be able to do that well. And that's really important actually. It's that if you purify your obscurations, then realization just naturally arises and naturally unfolds. And so it's not that we shouldn't think that these practices are pointless somehow. They're not pointless. They really have an important function. It is through gathering the accumulations and purifying our obscurations that we create a circumstance that allows us to remain well in meditation.
And this seven-branch practice which comes next in the sādhana, this is a very... an excellent way, like the supreme way of gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations. It's mentioned in the sūtra context as well as in the tantric context as being an excellent supreme way of doing this.
These seven-branch practices, these seven-branches are said to be a very unique method through which one can gather tremendous amounts of merit in a very short time, just in an instant, in a moment.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says that um... all of the methods for attaining full awakening can be found in the seven-branches.
Because in the seven-branches we have methods for gathering the accumulations, for purifying our obscurations, and for bringing about the flourishing of our virtue.
Tomorrow is the last, no? Day after tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Then...
Okay, I'll be careful now. I said a lot of pointless things before, but now... I spend a lot of time on useless things in the previous day. Then...
So now we come to the seven-branches which begins on page fifteen of our sādhana.
At this point in the sādhana, we again place our palms together at our heart. During the part of the sādhana that came before this for the visualization of the deity, then we can just keep our hands down in our lap. But here, when we start with the seven-branches, we again put our palms together at our heart.
So here, during these practices, we should think, I and all sentient beings together, we are doing this together. We're prostrating, we're making offerings, confessing and so on. All of us joining together to do this.
So here, these first lines are the lines for paying homage or making prostrations. And I already explained a little bit before about paying homage, so the same idea applies here.
So here it mentions um... that the Buddha accepted this degenerate world and made five hundred aspirations. I mentioned to you before about these aspirations that the Buddha made. And there's more information on them, if you're curious, in the White Lotus Sutra. And also in the Mipham Rinpoche's text that is the supportive background text for this sādhana. So if you're curious, you can find more detail in those sources about these five hundred aspirations.
Like there actually are five hundred different aspirations. It's not just kind of a random statement. Oh yeah, there's five hundred of them. If you want to know what the five hundred are, you can find a list of each of them. Yeah? It's actually like that. So he's very emotional, yeah? He understands, I have so suffering, everybody must suffering. That time he's not enlightened, so he can be like us.
And so here we pay homage and make prostrations, but at this point doing the sādhana, we don't actually physically prostrate, but mentally in our mind we visualize making prostrations.
And then on the next page, page sixteen, where it says visualizing the accumulations of merit through the three doors of the enjoyments of myself and others as Samantabhadra's offering cloud, I offer it. And so this is the practice of making offerings.
And this is a remedy to stinginess.
Then where it says all of my misdeeds and transgressions accumulated since time immemorial, I confess one by one with fervent heartfelt repentance. This is the branch of confession.
And so how do we ensure that our negative deeds are purified? What makes it possible to purify them? Well, if we have regret for having done something negative in the past, and we make a commitment not to do that negative thing in the future, then that is what allows us to purify the negativity that we've done.
Without these two aspects, whatever kind of confession practice we do, even if we're doing Vajrasattva practice, reciting the one hundred syllable mantra or whatever it is, without these two aspects, doing any kind of confession practice, sure, it helps a little, maybe reduces a little bit the strength of that negative deed, but you can't completely purify it without those two aspects.
And so really, um... confession is very important, and Vajrasattva we say usually is the best confession, and even doing that without those two aspects doesn't purify a negative deed. So really, it's important that we understand what confession is. We understand what it is and what it does. That's important. A lot of Westerners, otherwise, don't really like confession. There's some kind of discomfort. They're not into it. We have to know what we're doing and why, then it makes more sense.
So basically, we have to acknowledge that we did something wrong in the past. That's really important, right? Acknowledging that we have done something that was wrong. Somebody who is able to acknowledge that he or she has done something wrong is a very honest, sincere person, right? To be able to simply acknowledge wrongdoing.
And actually somebody who then feels regret and says, I'm not going to do that again, right? I will not, in the future, engage in that same negative deed. That's a very honest, sincere, straightforward person, no?
So then there's no need for us to feel any hesitation about doing those things, is there?
If somebody said, unless you offer lots and lots and lots of things, you can't purify your negative deeds through confession, then maybe we could feel some hesitation.
My feeling is very, very healthy. Number one, we feel now purified. So you feel like you are in normal shape. And so you don't need to feel bad. Otherwise you always need to hide, you know? You did something bad, so all the time you need to know and the whole life you need to do, this is painful. But society accepts. You do something wrong, you accept, and you apologize, everybody accepts. And then so you don't need to feel always some kind of yourself...
So if we spend our whole lives feeling bad about having done something wrong, our lives are miserable, no?
This is the international law. You apologize and people forgive you.
Then our life becomes new, fresh again, no? Like Milarepa. Milarepa. Beginning time everybody was very, very upset with him. But later on he felt bad about what he had done. And he confessed and he did commitment not to do again stupid this kind things. And he practiced, he gained, and now everybody in Tibet admire him. Everybody respects him. And all came because of regret. And... making a promise.
So we say that confession has positive qualities. These are them, right there. I just told you what they are. So it is very, very healthy. So don't hesitate to do this.
And if we say like, oh I don't do anything bad, I never do bad deeds. Okay, maybe if you are like a very high level Bodhisattva, that's a different story. But apart from that, you are probably not telling the truth.
Okay, maybe there is a difference between like really severe negative deeds and minor ones. We can talk about it like that, but you know, we are all doing bad things.
And here with the confession, it is not just me. I and all sentient beings together, we are confessing our negative deeds.
But then after we are done with the confession, it is important that we have confidence. Okay, I am purified. That's important.
And this also is said to be a remedy towards our anger.
And then on page seventeen, the next lines, In all the merit of the noble ones and... In all the merit, the noble ones and ordinary beings have accumulated throughout the three times I rejoice. This is the branch of rejoicing.
And Rinpoche actually mentioned already a little bit about rejoicing, right?
So we are supposed to rejoice when things that are virtuous have been done, not when things that are bad have been done.
And so be careful, because whether if I rejoice in something good or in something bad, I get the same results as having done that thing. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, so careful.
And rejoicing is also said to be a remedy for our jealousy.
And then what follows is the supplication to turn the wheel of Dharma, supplication for the request of teachings.
And so here in the sūtric teaching context, always we have to request for the teachings to be given, request for the turning of the wheel of Dharma. In the tantric context, we do in practice make a request, but actually it's said in the tantra’s that the saṃbhogakāya form of the deities are constantly teaching. Whether... there's no need to request, it's just constantly teaching is being given. But here, because this is the sūtric context, here we always have to make a request for teachings. And actually in practice we do this as well. Like every day in the seminar we offer a mandala to Rinpoche and we make a request for him to teach. This is our tradition that we always make this kind of request for the teaching.
And so here, with the visualization, we imagine that we emanate bodies equal in number to the dust motes filling all of space. And our emanations go off to every world system where there is a Buddha remaining present but not teaching. And we make the supplication to them to teach the Dharma, to all of them to teach the Dharma in accordance precisely with the minds of beings who will be benefited by that.
And it is said that this is a remedy for stupidity.
The four lines on page eighteen of our text are a prayer for the teacher to remain and not pass into nirvana.
And so here there are many accounts of the Buddha passing into nirvana, right? The Buddha Shakyamuni passed into nirvana. We don't have to get into all of those here, but the idea is that when a nirmāṇakāya Buddha appears, eventually at some point they go on to a pure land. And the making of a prayer for the teacher to remain can sometimes be a condition for them to wait a little while before that happens to remain longer in the world. And so that's the idea behind making this kind of prayer for the teacher to remain. And likewise we do this for our teachers, right? When we have a big program, always at the end of a program like this, we make a request for the teacher to remain.
And the visualization here is the same as the visualization for requesting the teacher to turn the wheel of Dharma. We imagine emanating bodies to all of the realms, to all of the Buddhas and requesting them not to pass into nirvana.
And it is said that this is a remedy also for our wrong views.
And then on page nineteen is the dedication, dedication and aspiration prayers coming together here.
And this is said to be a remedy for doubts.
And then on page twenty and twenty-one we have a supplication for in which we ask, we supplicate for what we want.
So I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. Um... today I think we've gone a little past our time already. And now it's time to take a bathroom break.
And when we do a practice session, it is really good if we can get in the habit of thinking to ourselves, this is the most important thing I am doing today. If we do a daily session, to really regard that as being the most important of our daily activities.
Because if our practice session becomes some kind of, like something that we just do on the side, some kind of thing that we just have to do on the side, then it's not very powerful actually.
Of course, if we're in retreat, then that's not going to happen. It's kind of clear. But if you're in a normal daily household setting, your regular life in your household, it can become... that our practice session becomes just kind of like something that we have to do on the side. It becomes not the most important thing for us. It could happen like that.
And actually, if we think of our practice as being something that's extremely important, not just for this life, but for lifetime after lifetime, and not only something that's important and beneficial for me personally, but also something that's important and beneficial for other sentient beings, for all sentient beings actually, if we can think about it like that, then it's absolutely certain, like a hundred percent sure, that we will just naturally be very careful about our practice, won't we, if we regard it as being important in those ways.
So if we think about the goal of our practice as being the state of awakening, Buddhahood. And if that's kind of, you know, if we're on a journey, that's where we're heading towards. If we postpone our session, if we skip a session, we are making our journey to that goal that much longer.
So let's say we're on a drive somewhere, and if we go on the highway, normally it's a five hour drive, but if we stop at the rest stop, and we just hang out, and spend hours and hours and hours there, the five hour drive turns into a ten hour trip, or a twelve hour trip, right?
So really, until we achieve Buddhahood, the state of awakening, we have to keep practicing, until we do.
And especially as a beginning practitioner, our practice isn't strong enough that, often, that we can practice very well outside of sessions. So really, for beginning practitioners, our meditation sessions are really important. We have to really kind of think about that as the time where we're really practicing.
So the topic here is the Treasury of Blessings, the Liturgy of Shakyamuni Buddha. So the way that I'm explaining this is as if this is our main practice for this life, this one right here.
And if you have that attitude, if you think to yourself, this is my yidam, this is my samaya, this is my practice, what I will place my trust in for this whole life, for my whole life, I will place my trust in this practice. If you have that kind of feeling towards, and if you have that kind of... attitude towards this practice, you will not be fooled, you will not be deceived.
And so if we really decide that this is my practice, this is the practice I'm doing for my life, this is going to be my main practice, then you have to receive really good instructions on the practice from a qualified teacher. What I'm telling you here is not enough.
I'm trying to just encourage you a little bit here with these teachings, give you some encouragement for the practice, but this is not like the real instruction.
As Rinpoche has said to us, any practice we do has to have the excellent beginning, the excellent main part, and the excellent conclusion. It's essential that these three parts are present. And especially if we are doing Mahāyāna practice, and if we lack somehow these three parts, the excellent beginning, main part, and conclusion, there's some doubt about whether we're really actually practicing the Mahāyāna.
And actually anything that we do, any activity, even if it's a worldly activity, there has to be a beginning, a preliminary. There has to be the main part and there has to be a conclusion. Anything we do has to be structured in that way.
So what I've explained up until now has been kind of the preliminary for the session, right? We have to prepare ourselves for the session. So the key points of the posture, the physical posture, the key points of speech, the key points of the mind, this is all preparatory, preliminary to the session. But then the session itself also has to have these three parts. The preliminary part of the session, the main part of the session, and the conclusion part of the session. So now we'll get into the actual practice of the session itself, and we start with the preliminaries of the practice.
On page three in our sādhana.
So this statement that we find here on page three in our text comes from the Samādhirāja sūtra. And here it says, Since the complexion of his body is like gold, the world protector is extremely beautiful in all respects. Whichever Bodhisattva focuses his mind upon him is in meditative equipoise. So this actually, these are the words of the Buddha himself from the Samādhirāja sūtra that have been put here.
And so this then really is the practice of recollecting the Buddha, the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha that's mentioned here. And then when we come into the preliminaries, we begin first with refuge, and then the generation, the arousing of bodhicitta, and then the four immeasurables. These are the preliminaries in our session.
If we are Buddhists, then it's really important that we understand refuge. That's really important.
And in some texts it's actually mentioned that this is what distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists. This is what makes the distinction, refuge.
And so here this is not about bias, you know...about having a bias towards being something or not being something. Here we're in the context of we want to attain Buddhahood, right? That's our context here. And if we want to attain Buddhahood and if we don't know who or what the Buddha is, then saying that we want to attain Buddhahood is kind of just like blind faith, right? Without even knowing what Buddhahood is, we have to know.
And so actually we can read in the guidance manuals about refuge, what is refuge. And also in the Mahāyāna sūtras, in texts like the Uttaratantra śāstra, Sublime continuum, texts like this, if we can study these kind of texts, then we can find out very clearly what is the Buddha, what is the Dharma, what is the Sangha.
And when we talk about refuge, it's not that we should think about it as...
So we shouldn't think, when we think about refuge that... and some people do sometimes think like this, it's a mistake, to think of oneself as being in a sort of pitiful state, and taking refuge from being, you know, very pitiful, like in a very pitiable state. We shouldn't think about it like that.
What is the ultimate refuge object? It is the Buddha?
And who is the Buddha?
The one who has completely cleared away all flaws and completely perfected all positive qualities, that is the Buddha.
And where is that?
And maybe it sounds a bit presumptuous, but Rinpoche has said lots about this, so I think it's okay to say.
Where is that? It is our own basic nature, the nature of our mind.
Our basic nature, the nature of our mind, is not obscured by negative emotions.
But now we are in a state where that basic state is obscured, right? It is obscured by temporary stains.
And if we remove those temporary stains, then we are awakened, Buddhas. And that is our supreme refuge, that is our lasting refuge, the ultimate refuge is that.
And where do we find an explanation of how to make that basic state manifest? It's explained in the Dharma teachings.
So who practices the Dharma? Me. I practice the Dharma.
So I am the one who has to practice the Dharma. The sangha are my companions who help with the circumstances for making that possible.
But if I don't practice the Dharma myself, then even if the Buddha is right here in front of me, it's not really going to help that much.
So if we think about it like that, actually, then we understand refuge well. And refuge is something that's very good, actually. It's something that we would feel inspired, right? Taking refuge is good. I should do that. It's wonderful. We don't feel in that sense that we are somehow handicapped, that we are somehow pitiful in that sense.
And so the Dharma, then, is something that's extremely important for us now, at this moment. And who teaches the Dharma? Where does the Dharma come from? It comes from spiritual friends, from our spiritual teachers. And in the context of the sūtras, the spiritual teachers are noble beings, noble Bodhisattvas, the noble sangha.
So my mind, the essence of my mind, is the Buddha. But it's obscured. That state is obscured by temporary obscurations. And if I want to clear away those obscurations, the conditions that help me to do that are the Dharma and the sangha.
So we can say that outwardly as kind of a being or a deity who is valid, we can say the Buddha, the Buddha Shakyamuni is a valid, valid teacher. And then when it comes to the Dharma, actually the real, genuine Dharma is the realization that is present in the mind streams of the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, that's the real Dharma. But as a symbol of that, symbolically then, we can say that the scriptures, the texts that contain their teachings, that is kind of the symbolic form of the Dharma for us. And then when it comes to the Sangha, the actual Sangha, the real Sangha, are in the Mahāyāna context, Bodhisattvas on the Bhūmis, from the first to the tenth Bhūmi. That means beings who have a direct realization actually, who have directly realized emptiness. And they are the real Sangha, but kind of as a representative of the Sangha, then that can refer to anyone who has the vows, right? Anyone who holds vows like monks and nuns and so on. But the real Sangha is the Bodhisattvas on the Bhumis.
And so since this practice of the Shakyamuni sādhana is really in the context of the sūtric teachings, since it's a sūtra-based practice, then the refuge objects are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Just those three are the ones that are mentioned here.
And when we want to take refuge, first we have to visualize the objects of refuge, the field of accomplishment, we say.
So we visualize the refuge tree in front of us. The main object of refuge that we visualize is the Buddha, Shakyamuni. But then surrounding him we visualize the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, male and female Bodhisattvas, male and female Arhats, surrounding the Buddha. So these are the objects of refuge that we should visualize.
And so we should imagine that all of them are looking upon me and all sentient beings with hearts full of love.
And so we should then think that from now until I achieve the state of awakening, you are the only source of refuge, the only source of protection for myself and for all sentient beings. I really place all my trust in you fully and completely. We should place our trust in the objects of refuge until the state of awakening.
And out of a sense of fear, I mentioned already before, about fear of samsara and fear of the lower realms. So fearing those things we take refuge in these refuge objects.
And so then we should place our hands together, join our hands at our heart, just like we do every morning when we recite the lines for refuge. And the first two statements here, to the excellent Buddha, Dharma, and Supreme Assembly, I go for refuge until the attainment of awakening. Those two statements, those first two lines of the practice, are the lines for taking refuge.
And in some of the instruction manuals it's mentioned that taking refuge is the root of liberation.
And then the next two lines, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, may I attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. Those two lines then are the lines for arousing bodhicitta.
So because this text is a very short, condensed one, we have the lines for taking refuge, and also generating bodhicitta here together, they're combined. But actually when we take refuge, what we should do is we're imagining that we and all sentient beings together are taking refuge. And that once we do this, then from the bodies of the Buddha and all of the objects in the refuge tree, light rays shine forth when we take refuge. And they touch me and all sentient beings, and they clear away all of our fear and all of our suffering. It's all completely cleared away and purified, and we receive refuge from them, we receive their protection. This is how we should visualize as we take refuge.
And if we really feel that, if we really do this and feel like this, that we've received refuge when we take refuge, then it's not just dry words, right? We're not just repeating the words, but we're actually really taking refuge if we do it this way.
Otherwise it's just like shouting out into empty space.
And doing this becomes actually a type of training or exercise for our mind.
Because honestly, we always have some hope and fear present in our mind, even if we're not immediately in the context of meeting some kind of difficult circumstance, but we just kind of naturally tend to remain within a state of some kind of hope, some kind of fear.
And then when we take refuge, if we then feel, now I'm free from that, then for a few moments we actually get some relief.
And so actually when we do that, if we do it again and again and again, then that naturally helps us to feel more and more relaxed. We actually come to a state of more relaxation and more ease through repeating that over and over and over again, that process. Because it's not like you know, depression, for example, is not something that just shows up out of nowhere all at once. It's a gradual process that builds up and then it becomes something that becomes really hard to fix once it's become very strong like that, no?
And then when we come to generating bodhicitta, then all sentient beings are present there as well, but then here they're like as if they're our guests. That's the way.
And then the refuge objects, the refuge tree in front of us, they are our witnesses. They're acting as our witnesses.
And so in front of those witnesses, I am making a promise.
And so, just like the previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have done, and especially also in particular, Shakyamuni Buddha, and you can find out about it if you read his life story actually, how much love he had for sentient beings, how much love and compassion.
So if you read about all of the previous lives of the Buddha, there's stories about his previous lives. If you read that, then you will know.
So we should think to ourselves, in the same way that you all worked so much for the benefit of beings, I too, just like you, will benefit beings in this way.
In the best case, I'll do it even better than you did.
But even if not that, at least I'm not going to do it in any lesser way than you did. At least as good as you have done.
So then when we're arousing bodhicitta, it should be like a very vast attitude. That's what we're supposed to be generating here.
And then especially this meditation session right here, I'm doing this for all sentient beings.
And so making a promise like that, we can call that generating bodhicitta, making that promise.
And so if we're going to be doing this kind of practice, if we have not yet received what is called the Bodhisattva vow, it's actually really good for us to take that vow, that vow, if this is going to be our practice.
And if we take that vow, it becomes a support for being careful, for our carefulness.
We don't have to start... we don't have to start out our Bodhisattva practice cutting off our arms and legs and offering them to others. We can start just by having a positive attitude, right? Really an altruistic attitude for sentient beings, towards sentient beings. And then gradually we can get to the place where we can chop off our arms and legs and give them. Eventually.
This happened, this was the case for one of Atisha's gurus. Dharmarakṣita Dharmarakṣita, who was one of the gurus of Atisha. He did that actually, gave his flesh. But he was not a Mahāyāna practitioner. At that time he was a teacher of the Hīnayāna in fact. And he, but he had incredible compassion, incredible compassion. And he one time came across a person who was extremely ill. And the doctor had told that person that the only thing that could heal his illness was fresh human flesh. Nothing else would actually be of any benefit. And because he felt such great compassion for that person, he cut a piece of flesh off of his thigh. And gave to the person who then ate it and got much better. But he hadn't realized emptiness. He didn't have that kind of realization. And so it was extremely painful for him. Cutting off your flesh is very painful if you don't have that. And so he was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep all night long. He couldn't sleep. He was just lying awake in pain, excruciating pain from having cut his own flesh to give to someone to heal them. And then he finally at dawn slipped for a brief moment into sleep. And had kind of a dream in which he saw this person who approached him dressed in all white. And said, you know, isn't that painful for you what you've done? And he said, yes, it's extremely painful actually. But I have no regrets whatsoever. Because I was able to be of benefit and help this other person. And so then in the dream this person in white said, oh, that's very good actually. That's um... Dharma practice is like that, to have that kind of compassion. And then he took his hand, this person in the dream, and massaged almost like the leg where the wound was. And then, um... Dharmarakṣita actually had this feeling that the wound had just gone away. It had healed. And then he woke up. And in fact the wound was healed. And then through that he actually kind of all of a sudden gave rise to the realization of the Mahāyāna Dharma. That realization of emptiness has just kind of burst forth from the expanse in his realization. So that kind of thing, yeah, happens here and there. But not so much for most of us.
But he got a really great profit out of that act of generosity, didn't he?
Just give a little piece of his flesh, that's all. Just he gave a little piece of flesh and then without having to study he gave... he realized all the Mahāyāna Dharma. That's a pretty good benefit.
But for us probably, we might not be able to manage that, huh?
We could maybe receive it if somebody gave it to us, but giving like that? No, for us that would be hard, huh?
And so we should think to ourselves that I will practice, I am going to practice now, samatha and vipassanā. And I will do this in order to attain the state of perfect awakening myself, arrive at the state of Buddhahood. So that I then am able to place all sentient beings in that state. And having that kind of really excellent positive attitude, that motivation, that's what's called bodhicitta.
And so it says, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, that's a reference to all of the six perfections, the six pāramitās. And even if we are not out there performing the six pāramitās, in the world out there, actually just through this practice, if we do it correctly and genuinely, all of the six perfections are fully present here within just this practice.
It's actually said that even when we're listening to Dharma teachings, receiving Dharma teachings, if we do it absolutely perfectly, correctly, exactly as it's explained in the texts, then we are practicing all of the six perfections just in the act of receiving the teachings. Likewise, here in this sādhana, if we do it perfectly, correctly, exactly in accordance with the way it is taught, then we are also practicing in full the six perfections just by doing this practice.
Um, the most important, though, is that the root of refuge, the real heart of taking refuge is faith. So we have to have faith. And the real heart of bodhicitta is compassion. So those two things, faith and compassion, are essential.
And then when doing this, even if we're not able to visualize the refuge objects perfectly out there, if we just have the confidence, they are there. That's really important.
If I have the real, sincere confidence that they are present, even if I can't see them, they really actually are there.
And because this is something that's such an important point, we repeat it three times.
And so if we want to recite this in Tibetan, we can do it in Tibetan. But if we feel more interest and more inspiration through reciting it in our own languages, in English, and Chinese, and Nepali, whatever language you speak, if that feels more meaningful to you, great. Do it in your own language, no problem.
The point is that it's really important to do it in a way that feels right to you.
So recite these lines three times with your hands folded at your heart.
And then what follows are the four immeasurables. And this is also part of bodhicitta. Sometimes it's understood to be the applied bodhicitta.
And for this part of the practice, it's also fine, the lamas say, to do tonglen practice, the giving and receiving. But whether or not we make the time to do that as part of the practice, that's a question.
So our main point, the main practice that we're doing here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā. And so if we spend a lot of time on all these other branch practices, and then we end up with not very much time for the main part of practice, then we have to be careful about that. So we just... we just need to make some calculations and kind of pay attention to the time that we spend on the different parts of the practice.
But also, if we really do very well any of the practices that are here in the sādhana then that also actually somehow includes all of the other practices that are there.
So we shouldn't worry like, oh, I didn't really get to spend so much time on refuge, so the visualization wasn't so good, I didn't really get to focus on that. Or like, oh, if I spend too much time on refuge, then I'm not going to have enough time for the other part. Don't worry so much about those kind of things, okay?
And in general, it's said that the practice of the Buddha Dharma is like walking up a staircase, right? Step by step by step.
And so, since our main practice here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā, we can be sure that all of the preliminary parts of the practice also include or contain those aspects.
And so, when we're in the breaks between sessions also, it's very important to be very careful and to train also in, for example, the practices of mind training.
So if we don't have a lot of experience with that otherwise, yeah? So really our main practice is this, sādhana, but then it's good to devote some attention also and put some care also in the breaks between sessions towards mind training practices.
And when we recite the lines for the four immeasurables, we place our hands like this, one on top of the other, in the lap, not folded together at our heart, but like this here.
Not up here, just place your hands together, one on top of the other, in your lap.
I think it's a symbol, a mudra, showing carefulness, because also in the Vinaya when we're doing the sojong practices of the Vinaya, the restoration of the broken vows, we place our hands in the same gesture, so I think that's what it represents, carefulness.
And maybe you are familiar with this, but the first line here, may all beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness, this statement represents here the practice of love, immeasurable love.
And then the next line, may they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering, this line is the line for immeasurable compassion.
And then, may they never be separated from the supreme happiness devoid of suffering, this line represents immeasurable joy.
And then the next line, may they remain in boundless equanimity beyond attachment and aversion to those near and far, this line here indicates immeasurable equanimity.
And so immeasurable, why do we call these the four immeasurables? Because there is no limit to the beings to whom we extend them, these four thoughts are extended for friends, enemies, strangers, everyone.
And so when we do these practices, like the practice of reciting the lines for bodhicitta and reciting these lines for the four immeasurables, it's really good if we can think to ourselves, okay, I have really generated genuine bodhicitta, I have truly aroused genuine bodhicitta, if we can have that kind of confidence.
And so then it's fine actually, after reciting all of these verses, including the ones for the four immeasurables, after repeating them three times, then we could remain for a little while and go through in our mind the visualization for refuge and bodhicitta, and this one, yeah, if we, yeah, we can do it that way. Like maybe leave a five minutes and then go through the visualization and the contemplation for each of them at this point.
And so then at the conclusion of that, we can visualize that from the objects of refuge, light rays radiate forth and dissolve into myself and all sentient beings, and that in this way all of our obscurations and negativities are completely purified, and we attain all empowerments and accomplishments. Good if we can think like that.
And so these are not explained doing like this, this kind of visualization is not explained in great detail in the instruction manuals, but this is just a normal practice during sādhana. So it makes perfect sense and it's perfectly fine to apply that here as well.
So then that's the preliminaries, we've gone through the preliminaries.
The main part of the practice is the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha.
And it says here, all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this, recite the following.
And in the best-case scenario, if we are somebody who has the realization of emptiness, then it's quite easy to do this.
And if that's not the case, then at least we can here bring to mind our understanding or some kind of experience that we may have.
Um... or at least if we have some kind of degree of understanding of dependent origination, right? Honestly, if we don't have some kind of understanding there, then it becomes difficult to do the practice like it's explained in the text. That's true. But at least if we have trust, if we have faith, then for sure we're going to get some blessings, even if we're not practicing exactly in the way that it's explained in the text.
Faith is like a seed that brings about the flourishing of all positive things, all positive qualities.
So without faith, then it's difficult. Everything, basically anything, actually, in terms of our practice, is difficult.
And when does faith arise in us? Well, Rinpoche said, actually, right? Once we hear the teachings of the Dharma, if we put them into practice ourselves, and then through that practice we come to some personal experience that comes from our practice, when we give rise to that kind of experience, then we have trust. And that's the best kind of faith, that trust that comes from our own practice experience.
And then it's not just like some story we heard, right? Because when we practice, right when we practice, actually we have some kind of experience, no? It happens right then, whenever we practice.
So all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this recite, the following. So the first part of our practice of the recollection of the Buddha is to recollect his form, his bodily form. And so we begin with the visualization. And we do this with the lines of the text that say, Ah, like the magical display of the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. In the sky in front of me, amidst an ocean like cloud banks of offerings, is the peerless teacher. So here, Rinpoche talked actually a lot this morning about this, about emptiness, no? And it's important that we understand this point because normally we have this kind of childish perspective on emptiness that we think that if there's something there, then there can't be emptiness, right? But emptiness it doesn't mean destroying something, getting rid of something so that it's gone and then it's empty. That's not actually what emptiness means. That's kind of a childish perspective. Emptiness actually means things appear, but they naturally lack inherent existence. That's what emptiness is. They appear, but their nature is that they are not truly established, not truly real. That's emptiness. We have this childish idea, if there's something there, if something is still there, then we feel like it can't be empty. That's our own childish perspective. That's not how the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas see things from their awakened perspective. It's totally fine. Everything can stay. It can appear just as it does. All of these various things just can continue going on appearing. No problem. Their essence is empty. Their essence, they lack a truly established nature, and that is what emptiness is. But again, we have this kind of um... idea that we have to get rid of something in order for it to be empty. No? We think if there's something still there, then that can't possibly be emptiness. But this is a mistaken childish perspective.
And so just like it's explained here, in fact, all phenomena, their essence is in fact emptiness. That is the essence, the nature, the real nature of all phenomena. But when causes and conditions come together, um... then through interdependence, in fact, things appear.
So as it says here, right, the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. So again, here emptiness and appearance are not two separate things. It's important that we understand that. While things appear, they are empty. And while being empty, phenomena appear. They're a unity, actually. It's the unity of emptiness and appearance.
And so we visualize then in front of ourselves a very excellent, beautiful, perfect, pure realm.
And in the center of this, then, a throne, a lion throne that is held up... yea throne held up by lions, this excellent, bejeweled lion throne.
And so then on top of this seat, then, on the throne, we visualize a lotus. And if you want to do it in a detailed way, you can visualize a multicolored lotus with all different colored petals, having even 100,000 petals, if you want.
And then we visualize that there are these pistils of the lotus flower that are um...we never know how to translate that word. I don't know if there's a botanist in here, but anyway, the pistils of the lotus flower that are a... they fill the whole lotus, the same size as the lotus. Yeah.
Not exactly the same size, yeah, but filling the space, right?
So these pistils should be in correct proportion to the size of the lotus, right? If you're visualizing a big lotus, you don't visualize tiny pistils. It should be proportional. And then on top of the lotus, the sun, and then on top of that, the moon, you visualize these discs.
And here, actually, in the sūtric context, it's not really set out there like that, but in general, when we talk about the generation stage, visualizing the deity, it's said that the moon represents method and the sun represents wisdom, and these then... this is kind of the qualities, basically, the qualities of a Buddha that are appearing in symbolic form.
And the lotus symbolizes being free from any kind of stain or fault.
And the bejeweled throne isn't just there to look pretty. It's there because it's a representation of the spontaneous accomplishment, the spontaneous presence of all sorts of positive qualities.
And then the throne is upheld by lions, right? Lions on all four sides. And that represents freedom from fear, actually, freedom from the four fears. So again, that's the symbolic representation that's being made.
It's not actually that the Buddha is riding on lions. That never actually happened.
When he was still living at home, he rode horses, right? And chariots and so on. Not lions. Not lions. He did not ride a lion.
But then after he renounced, then he didn't use any kind of vehicles. So, no lions.
So, really we shouldn't think like, what? The Buddha riding, sitting on these lions, you know, he's looking down on these beings, putting them in a difficult situation. It's not like that. Yeah. It's a symbolic representation of the qualities of awakening. That's what all of this is about.
One lion would be enough. How come there have to be eight lions holding him up?
So, here, these are all representations of the qualities of awakening, the qualities of a Buddha. And where is the Buddha? Remember, we just talked about it. Those qualities are present within ourselves. Those qualities are present as our own basic nature. And so, this should give us some courage that we can accomplish Buddhahood, that we can accomplish awakening. We should feel courage because of that. And faith and rejoicing in the practices that lead to that state.
And it says here the peerless teacher, the lion of the Shakyas on this bejeweled lotus, a lion throne lotus on a moon. So why is the Buddha Shakyamuni referred to here as the peerless teacher? Well, because of the unique prayers that he made and aspirations that he made to benefit the beings of our time. It actually comes later in the text. It's explained in more detail. But during this time, this time when the lifespan of humans is not more than a hundred years usually, when we're very busy, we're full of negative emotions, we have all sorts of doubts, we have all sorts of wrong views, this is called a degenerate time. And we are beings who are difficult to tame. And so, for us beings in this time, when there are beings who are difficult to tame, the Buddha Shakyamuni especially made prayers and aspirations to benefit beings like us in this time. And so, that's why we call him the peerless teacher. In fact, okay, all Buddhas, it's not that one Buddha is better than another Buddha, but from the perspective of the fact that he made specific prayers and aspirations to benefit beings in our time, beings like us, we consider him a unique and peerless teacher.
So why did the Buddha come actually in this world? Think about it for a minute. For us, especially for us, that's why the Buddha appeared in the world.
So we have a lot of merit.
But we have to know that we have merit, great merit.
It's not that the Buddha just came because he didn't have anything else to do, it was for us.
Samsara is limitless. The worlds are countless in number. The Buddha came here, at this time. Why? For us, that's why.
And the Dharma teachings that he gave, all of these different Dharma teachings that he gave, it's for us.
So what if mom makes a really, really nice dinner, spends a lot of effort for the child, and then the kid doesn't eat it?
So with love, with so much love, the mother makes a meal for her child, and if the child doesn't eat it? It's like that. With so much love and compassion, the Buddha taught so many different Dharma teachings for us. He gave pith instructions that can allow us to attain awakening in one life, in this life, in this body. And if we don't use them, then what?
So then if we really think about it, it changes actually how we feel, right? We feel like, oh, okay, this is really... I can do something with this life, with this human birth.
Then we can feel like, okay, I actually am a person. I have the qualifications, the qualities that make me a human being.
Otherwise, what differentiates us from animals? We don't really put the Dharma into practice.
Okay, so we kind of got off on another topic there. But here, back to the image of the Buddha. It says he's golden-hued with the major signs and minor marks. Golden-hued doesn't mean that he looks like gold, but it means that he's radiant, actually. Golden color and very, very radiant. And that radiance of the Buddha's body is something that could be perceived, is something that can be perceived by everyone, by all beings. Um, even, uh... it's mentioned that there are some people, like one of his relatives and a few other students, who had very wrong views about the Buddha. And so they all thought, oh, you know, what? The Buddha, he's not so much different from anybody else except that he's radiant. So even they could see this kind of light radiating out from the Buddha. So that's what we should understand here by this golden hue, is that he was really radiant.
Some people don't like thinking, I don't want to think about the Buddha being golden-colored. They find that kind of annoying for some reason. Don't worry about it. Just have this sense of radiance, shining, radiant form. That's how you should understand it.
He has the major signs and minor marks, the thirty-two major signs and eighty minor marks of an awakened being.
And so he's wearing the three Dharma robes. That's describing his clothing, a lower robe, an upper top and then the upper robe. And very simple, that's the idea. His clothing is very simple. He's in the form of the nirmāṇakāya, with very simple attire.
His legs are in vajra posture, so he's seated in vajra posture. That's easy to understand.
His right hand is fully outstretched in the earth-touching gesture. You can see that up there, in some of the images of the Buddha. Not that one.
And his left hand is in the gesture of meditative equipoise, like this, in his lap. And in that hand is an alms bowl and it's filled with nectar.
And so his body has all of these major and minor marks and his speech has the sixty qualities.
And his awakened mind has the qualities of wisdom and love and capacity.
And so he's splendorous.
He's radiating glory and splendor, like a golden mountain. Nets of wisdom light rays fill the sky around him. And he's completely surrounded by an ocean-like retinue of noble ones, such as the eight close sons. Actually, that's what these images, these statues, eight statues here, are the eight close sons. These are the eight Bodhisattva, close Bodhisattva disciples. The sixteen elders, represented by these thangkas along the side here, and the like. So he's surrounded by the eight close sons, the sixteen elders, male and female bodhisattvas, male and female arhats. You should visualize him surrounded by this kind of retinue.
The sixteen elders are, in fact, Mahāyāna practitioners that take on the form of the Śrāvakayāna practitioners.
And merely by recollecting him liberation from the two extremes of existence and peace, the glory of supreme bliss is bestowed. He is present as the great embodiment of all refuges. So he, his form, his presence is as the embodiment of all refuge objects together.
As Rinpoche mentioned already, earlier we visualized the form as empty form, empty appearance.
It's very important that when we visualize the Buddha and retinue, we visualize that they are actually there, and they are looking upon me with great love. That's important.
And then what follows actually is in order to gather the accumulations and purify the obscurations, we gather the accumulations and purify our obscurations in order that our meditative concentration, our samadhi will go well, that we'll be able to do that well. And that's really important actually. It's that if you purify your obscurations, then realization just naturally arises and naturally unfolds. And so it's not that we shouldn't think that these practices are pointless somehow. They're not pointless. They really have an important function. It is through gathering the accumulations and purifying our obscurations that we create a circumstance that allows us to remain well in meditation.
And this seven-branch practice which comes next in the sādhana, this is a very... an excellent way, like the supreme way of gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations. It's mentioned in the sūtra context as well as in the tantric context as being an excellent supreme way of doing this.
These seven-branch practices, these seven-branches are said to be a very unique method through which one can gather tremendous amounts of merit in a very short time, just in an instant, in a moment.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says that um... all of the methods for attaining full awakening can be found in the seven-branches.
Because in the seven-branches we have methods for gathering the accumulations, for purifying our obscurations, and for bringing about the flourishing of our virtue.
Tomorrow is the last, no? Day after tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Then...
Okay, I'll be careful now. I said a lot of pointless things before, but now... I spend a lot of time on useless things in the previous day. Then...
So now we come to the seven-branches which begins on page fifteen of our sādhana.
At this point in the sādhana, we again place our palms together at our heart. During the part of the sādhana that came before this for the visualization of the deity, then we can just keep our hands down in our lap. But here, when we start with the seven-branches, we again put our palms together at our heart.
So here, during these practices, we should think, I and all sentient beings together, we are doing this together. We're prostrating, we're making offerings, confessing and so on. All of us joining together to do this.
So here, these first lines are the lines for paying homage or making prostrations. And I already explained a little bit before about paying homage, so the same idea applies here.
So here it mentions um... that the Buddha accepted this degenerate world and made five hundred aspirations. I mentioned to you before about these aspirations that the Buddha made. And there's more information on them, if you're curious, in the White Lotus Sutra. And also in the Mipham Rinpoche's text that is the supportive background text for this sādhana. So if you're curious, you can find more detail in those sources about these five hundred aspirations.
Like there actually are five hundred different aspirations. It's not just kind of a random statement. Oh yeah, there's five hundred of them. If you want to know what the five hundred are, you can find a list of each of them. Yeah? It's actually like that. So he's very emotional, yeah? He understands, I have so suffering, everybody must suffering. That time he's not enlightened, so he can be like us.
And so here we pay homage and make prostrations, but at this point doing the sādhana, we don't actually physically prostrate, but mentally in our mind we visualize making prostrations.
And then on the next page, page sixteen, where it says visualizing the accumulations of merit through the three doors of the enjoyments of myself and others as Samantabhadra's offering cloud, I offer it. And so this is the practice of making offerings.
And this is a remedy to stinginess.
Then where it says all of my misdeeds and transgressions accumulated since time immemorial, I confess one by one with fervent heartfelt repentance. This is the branch of confession.
And so how do we ensure that our negative deeds are purified? What makes it possible to purify them? Well, if we have regret for having done something negative in the past, and we make a commitment not to do that negative thing in the future, then that is what allows us to purify the negativity that we've done.
Without these two aspects, whatever kind of confession practice we do, even if we're doing Vajrasattva practice, reciting the one hundred syllable mantra or whatever it is, without these two aspects, doing any kind of confession practice, sure, it helps a little, maybe reduces a little bit the strength of that negative deed, but you can't completely purify it without those two aspects.
And so really, um... confession is very important, and Vajrasattva we say usually is the best confession, and even doing that without those two aspects doesn't purify a negative deed. So really, it's important that we understand what confession is. We understand what it is and what it does. That's important. A lot of Westerners, otherwise, don't really like confession. There's some kind of discomfort. They're not into it. We have to know what we're doing and why, then it makes more sense.
So basically, we have to acknowledge that we did something wrong in the past. That's really important, right? Acknowledging that we have done something that was wrong. Somebody who is able to acknowledge that he or she has done something wrong is a very honest, sincere person, right? To be able to simply acknowledge wrongdoing.
And actually somebody who then feels regret and says, I'm not going to do that again, right? I will not, in the future, engage in that same negative deed. That's a very honest, sincere, straightforward person, no?
So then there's no need for us to feel any hesitation about doing those things, is there?
If somebody said, unless you offer lots and lots and lots of things, you can't purify your negative deeds through confession, then maybe we could feel some hesitation.
My feeling is very, very healthy. Number one, we feel now purified. So you feel like you are in normal shape. And so you don't need to feel bad. Otherwise you always need to hide, you know? You did something bad, so all the time you need to know and the whole life you need to do, this is painful. But society accepts. You do something wrong, you accept, and you apologize, everybody accepts. And then so you don't need to feel always some kind of yourself...
So if we spend our whole lives feeling bad about having done something wrong, our lives are miserable, no?
This is the international law. You apologize and people forgive you.
Then our life becomes new, fresh again, no? Like Milarepa. Milarepa. Beginning time everybody was very, very upset with him. But later on he felt bad about what he had done. And he confessed and he did commitment not to do again stupid this kind things. And he practiced, he gained, and now everybody in Tibet admire him. Everybody respects him. And all came because of regret. And... making a promise.
So we say that confession has positive qualities. These are them, right there. I just told you what they are. So it is very, very healthy. So don't hesitate to do this.
And if we say like, oh I don't do anything bad, I never do bad deeds. Okay, maybe if you are like a very high level Bodhisattva, that's a different story. But apart from that, you are probably not telling the truth.
Okay, maybe there is a difference between like really severe negative deeds and minor ones. We can talk about it like that, but you know, we are all doing bad things.
And here with the confession, it is not just me. I and all sentient beings together, we are confessing our negative deeds.
But then after we are done with the confession, it is important that we have confidence. Okay, I am purified. That's important.
And this also is said to be a remedy towards our anger.
And then on page seventeen, the next lines, In all the merit of the noble ones and... In all the merit, the noble ones and ordinary beings have accumulated throughout the three times I rejoice. This is the branch of rejoicing.
And Rinpoche actually mentioned already a little bit about rejoicing, right?
So we are supposed to rejoice when things that are virtuous have been done, not when things that are bad have been done.
And so be careful, because whether if I rejoice in something good or in something bad, I get the same results as having done that thing. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, so careful.
And rejoicing is also said to be a remedy for our jealousy.
And then what follows is the supplication to turn the wheel of Dharma, supplication for the request of teachings.
And so here in the sūtric teaching context, always we have to request for the teachings to be given, request for the turning of the wheel of Dharma. In the tantric context, we do in practice make a request, but actually it's said in the tantra’s that the saṃbhogakāya form of the deities are constantly teaching. Whether... there's no need to request, it's just constantly teaching is being given. But here, because this is the sūtric context, here we always have to make a request for teachings. And actually in practice we do this as well. Like every day in the seminar we offer a mandala to Rinpoche and we make a request for him to teach. This is our tradition that we always make this kind of request for the teaching.
And so here, with the visualization, we imagine that we emanate bodies equal in number to the dust motes filling all of space. And our emanations go off to every world system where there is a Buddha remaining present but not teaching. And we make the supplication to them to teach the Dharma, to all of them to teach the Dharma in accordance precisely with the minds of beings who will be benefited by that.
And it is said that this is a remedy for stupidity.
The four lines on page eighteen of our text are a prayer for the teacher to remain and not pass into nirvana.
And so here there are many accounts of the Buddha passing into nirvana, right? The Buddha Shakyamuni passed into nirvana. We don't have to get into all of those here, but the idea is that when a nirmāṇakāya Buddha appears, eventually at some point they go on to a pure land. And the making of a prayer for the teacher to remain can sometimes be a condition for them to wait a little while before that happens to remain longer in the world. And so that's the idea behind making this kind of prayer for the teacher to remain. And likewise we do this for our teachers, right? When we have a big program, always at the end of a program like this, we make a request for the teacher to remain.
And the visualization here is the same as the visualization for requesting the teacher to turn the wheel of Dharma. We imagine emanating bodies to all of the realms, to all of the Buddhas and requesting them not to pass into nirvana.
And it is said that this is a remedy also for our wrong views.
And then on page nineteen is the dedication, dedication and aspiration prayers coming together here.
And this is said to be a remedy for doubts.
And then on page twenty and twenty-one we have a supplication for in which we ask, we supplicate for what we want.
So I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. Um... today I think we've gone a little past our time already. And now it's time to take a bathroom break.
01:43:15
So yesterday, in the past days, we've talked
about the key points for the physical body,
and the key points of speech, and
the key points of the mind for practice.
And when we do a practice session, it is really good if we can get in the habit of thinking to ourselves, this is the most important thing I am doing today. If we do a daily session, to really regard that as being the most important of our daily activities.
Because if our practice session becomes some kind of, like something that we just do on the side, some kind of thing that we just have to do on the side, then it's not very powerful actually.
Of course, if we're in retreat, then that's not going to happen. It's kind of clear. But if you're in a normal daily household setting, your regular life in your household, it can become... that our practice session becomes just kind of like something that we have to do on the side. It becomes not the most important thing for us. It could happen like that.
And actually, if we think of our practice as being something that's extremely important, not just for this life, but for lifetime after lifetime, and not only something that's important and beneficial for me personally, but also something that's important and beneficial for other sentient beings, for all sentient beings actually, if we can think about it like that, then it's absolutely certain, like a hundred percent sure, that we will just naturally be very careful about our practice, won't we, if we regard it as being important in those ways.
So if we think about the goal of our practice as being the state of awakening, Buddhahood. And if that's kind of, you know, if we're on a journey, that's where we're heading towards. If we postpone our session, if we skip a session, we are making our journey to that goal that much longer.
So let's say we're on a drive somewhere, and if we go on the highway, normally it's a five hour drive, but if we stop at the rest stop, and we just hang out, and spend hours and hours and hours there, the five hour drive turns into a ten hour trip, or a twelve hour trip, right?
So really, until we achieve Buddhahood, the state of awakening, we have to keep practicing, until we do.
And especially as a beginning practitioner, our practice isn't strong enough that, often, that we can practice very well outside of sessions. So really, for beginning practitioners, our meditation sessions are really important. We have to really kind of think about that as the time where we're really practicing.
So the topic here is the Treasury of Blessings, the Liturgy of Shakyamuni Buddha. So the way that I'm explaining this is as if this is our main practice for this life, this one right here.
And if you have that attitude, if you think to yourself, this is my yidam, this is my samaya, this is my practice, what I will place my trust in for this whole life, for my whole life, I will place my trust in this practice. If you have that kind of feeling towards, and if you have that kind of... attitude towards this practice, you will not be fooled, you will not be deceived.
And so if we really decide that this is my practice, this is the practice I'm doing for my life, this is going to be my main practice, then you have to receive really good instructions on the practice from a qualified teacher. What I'm telling you here is not enough.
I'm trying to just encourage you a little bit here with these teachings, give you some encouragement for the practice, but this is not like the real instruction.
As Rinpoche has said to us, any practice we do has to have the excellent beginning, the excellent main part, and the excellent conclusion. It's essential that these three parts are present. And especially if we are doing Mahāyāna practice, and if we lack somehow these three parts, the excellent beginning, main part, and conclusion, there's some doubt about whether we're really actually practicing the Mahāyāna.
And actually anything that we do, any activity, even if it's a worldly activity, there has to be a beginning, a preliminary. There has to be the main part and there has to be a conclusion. Anything we do has to be structured in that way.
So what I've explained up until now has been kind of the preliminary for the session, right? We have to prepare ourselves for the session. So the key points of the posture, the physical posture, the key points of speech, the key points of the mind, this is all preparatory, preliminary to the session. But then the session itself also has to have these three parts. The preliminary part of the session, the main part of the session, and the conclusion part of the session. So now we'll get into the actual practice of the session itself, and we start with the preliminaries of the practice.
On page three in our sādhana.
So this statement that we find here on page three in our text comes from the Samādhirāja sūtra. And here it says, Since the complexion of his body is like gold, the world protector is extremely beautiful in all respects. Whichever Bodhisattva focuses his mind upon him is in meditative equipoise. So this actually, these are the words of the Buddha himself from the Samādhirāja sūtra that have been put here.
And so this then really is the practice of recollecting the Buddha, the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha that's mentioned here. And then when we come into the preliminaries, we begin first with refuge, and then the generation, the arousing of bodhicitta, and then the four immeasurables. These are the preliminaries in our session.
If we are Buddhists, then it's really important that we understand refuge. That's really important.
And in some texts it's actually mentioned that this is what distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists. This is what makes the distinction, refuge.
And so here this is not about bias, you know...about having a bias towards being something or not being something. Here we're in the context of we want to attain Buddhahood, right? That's our context here. And if we want to attain Buddhahood and if we don't know who or what the Buddha is, then saying that we want to attain Buddhahood is kind of just like blind faith, right? Without even knowing what Buddhahood is, we have to know.
And so actually we can read in the guidance manuals about refuge, what is refuge. And also in the Mahāyāna sūtras, in texts like the Uttaratantra śāstra, Sublime continuum, texts like this, if we can study these kind of texts, then we can find out very clearly what is the Buddha, what is the Dharma, what is the Sangha.
And when we talk about refuge, it's not that we should think about it as...
So we shouldn't think, when we think about refuge that... and some people do sometimes think like this, it's a mistake, to think of oneself as being in a sort of pitiful state, and taking refuge from being, you know, very pitiful, like in a very pitiable state. We shouldn't think about it like that.
What is the ultimate refuge object? It is the Buddha?
And who is the Buddha?
The one who has completely cleared away all flaws and completely perfected all positive qualities, that is the Buddha.
And where is that?
And maybe it sounds a bit presumptuous, but Rinpoche has said lots about this, so I think it's okay to say.
Where is that? It is our own basic nature, the nature of our mind.
Our basic nature, the nature of our mind, is not obscured by negative emotions.
But now we are in a state where that basic state is obscured, right? It is obscured by temporary stains.
And if we remove those temporary stains, then we are awakened, Buddhas. And that is our supreme refuge, that is our lasting refuge, the ultimate refuge is that.
And where do we find an explanation of how to make that basic state manifest? It's explained in the Dharma teachings.
So who practices the Dharma? Me. I practice the Dharma.
So I am the one who has to practice the Dharma. The sangha are my companions who help with the circumstances for making that possible.
But if I don't practice the Dharma myself, then even if the Buddha is right here in front of me, it's not really going to help that much.
So if we think about it like that, actually, then we understand refuge well. And refuge is something that's very good, actually. It's something that we would feel inspired, right? Taking refuge is good. I should do that. It's wonderful. We don't feel in that sense that we are somehow handicapped, that we are somehow pitiful in that sense.
And so the Dharma, then, is something that's extremely important for us now, at this moment. And who teaches the Dharma? Where does the Dharma come from? It comes from spiritual friends, from our spiritual teachers. And in the context of the sūtras, the spiritual teachers are noble beings, noble Bodhisattvas, the noble sangha.
So my mind, the essence of my mind, is the Buddha. But it's obscured. That state is obscured by temporary obscurations. And if I want to clear away those obscurations, the conditions that help me to do that are the Dharma and the sangha.
So we can say that outwardly as kind of a being or a deity who is valid, we can say the Buddha, the Buddha Shakyamuni is a valid, valid teacher. And then when it comes to the Dharma, actually the real, genuine Dharma is the realization that is present in the mind streams of the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, that's the real Dharma. But as a symbol of that, symbolically then, we can say that the scriptures, the texts that contain their teachings, that is kind of the symbolic form of the Dharma for us. And then when it comes to the Sangha, the actual Sangha, the real Sangha, are in the Mahāyāna context, Bodhisattvas on the Bhūmis, from the first to the tenth Bhūmi. That means beings who have a direct realization actually, who have directly realized emptiness. And they are the real Sangha, but kind of as a representative of the Sangha, then that can refer to anyone who has the vows, right? Anyone who holds vows like monks and nuns and so on. But the real Sangha is the Bodhisattvas on the Bhumis.
And so since this practice of the Shakyamuni sādhana is really in the context of the sūtric teachings, since it's a sūtra-based practice, then the refuge objects are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Just those three are the ones that are mentioned here.
And when we want to take refuge, first we have to visualize the objects of refuge, the field of accomplishment, we say.
So we visualize the refuge tree in front of us. The main object of refuge that we visualize is the Buddha, Shakyamuni. But then surrounding him we visualize the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, male and female Bodhisattvas, male and female Arhats, surrounding the Buddha. So these are the objects of refuge that we should visualize.
And so we should imagine that all of them are looking upon me and all sentient beings with hearts full of love.
And so we should then think that from now until I achieve the state of awakening, you are the only source of refuge, the only source of protection for myself and for all sentient beings. I really place all my trust in you fully and completely. We should place our trust in the objects of refuge until the state of awakening.
And out of a sense of fear, I mentioned already before, about fear of samsara and fear of the lower realms. So fearing those things we take refuge in these refuge objects.
And so then we should place our hands together, join our hands at our heart, just like we do every morning when we recite the lines for refuge. And the first two statements here, to the excellent Buddha, Dharma, and Supreme Assembly, I go for refuge until the attainment of awakening. Those two statements, those first two lines of the practice, are the lines for taking refuge.
And in some of the instruction manuals it's mentioned that taking refuge is the root of liberation.
And then the next two lines, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, may I attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. Those two lines then are the lines for arousing bodhicitta.
So because this text is a very short, condensed one, we have the lines for taking refuge, and also generating bodhicitta here together, they're combined. But actually when we take refuge, what we should do is we're imagining that we and all sentient beings together are taking refuge. And that once we do this, then from the bodies of the Buddha and all of the objects in the refuge tree, light rays shine forth when we take refuge. And they touch me and all sentient beings, and they clear away all of our fear and all of our suffering. It's all completely cleared away and purified, and we receive refuge from them, we receive their protection. This is how we should visualize as we take refuge.
And if we really feel that, if we really do this and feel like this, that we've received refuge when we take refuge, then it's not just dry words, right? We're not just repeating the words, but we're actually really taking refuge if we do it this way.
Otherwise it's just like shouting out into empty space.
And doing this becomes actually a type of training or exercise for our mind.
Because honestly, we always have some hope and fear present in our mind, even if we're not immediately in the context of meeting some kind of difficult circumstance, but we just kind of naturally tend to remain within a state of some kind of hope, some kind of fear.
And then when we take refuge, if we then feel, now I'm free from that, then for a few moments we actually get some relief.
And so actually when we do that, if we do it again and again and again, then that naturally helps us to feel more and more relaxed. We actually come to a state of more relaxation and more ease through repeating that over and over and over again, that process. Because it's not like you know, depression, for example, is not something that just shows up out of nowhere all at once. It's a gradual process that builds up and then it becomes something that becomes really hard to fix once it's become very strong like that, no?
And then when we come to generating bodhicitta, then all sentient beings are present there as well, but then here they're like as if they're our guests. That's the way.
And then the refuge objects, the refuge tree in front of us, they are our witnesses. They're acting as our witnesses.
And so in front of those witnesses, I am making a promise.
And so, just like the previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have done, and especially also in particular, Shakyamuni Buddha, and you can find out about it if you read his life story actually, how much love he had for sentient beings, how much love and compassion.
So if you read about all of the previous lives of the Buddha, there's stories about his previous lives. If you read that, then you will know.
So we should think to ourselves, in the same way that you all worked so much for the benefit of beings, I too, just like you, will benefit beings in this way.
In the best case, I'll do it even better than you did.
But even if not that, at least I'm not going to do it in any lesser way than you did. At least as good as you have done.
So then when we're arousing bodhicitta, it should be like a very vast attitude. That's what we're supposed to be generating here.
And then especially this meditation session right here, I'm doing this for all sentient beings.
And so making a promise like that, we can call that generating bodhicitta, making that promise.
And so if we're going to be doing this kind of practice, if we have not yet received what is called the Bodhisattva vow, it's actually really good for us to take that vow, that vow, if this is going to be our practice.
And if we take that vow, it becomes a support for being careful, for our carefulness.
We don't have to start... we don't have to start out our Bodhisattva practice cutting off our arms and legs and offering them to others. We can start just by having a positive attitude, right? Really an altruistic attitude for sentient beings, towards sentient beings. And then gradually we can get to the place where we can chop off our arms and legs and give them. Eventually.
This happened, this was the case for one of Atisha's gurus. Dharmarakṣita Dharmarakṣita, who was one of the gurus of Atisha. He did that actually, gave his flesh. But he was not a Mahāyāna practitioner. At that time he was a teacher of the Hīnayāna in fact. And he, but he had incredible compassion, incredible compassion. And he one time came across a person who was extremely ill. And the doctor had told that person that the only thing that could heal his illness was fresh human flesh. Nothing else would actually be of any benefit. And because he felt such great compassion for that person, he cut a piece of flesh off of his thigh. And gave to the person who then ate it and got much better. But he hadn't realized emptiness. He didn't have that kind of realization. And so it was extremely painful for him. Cutting off your flesh is very painful if you don't have that. And so he was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep all night long. He couldn't sleep. He was just lying awake in pain, excruciating pain from having cut his own flesh to give to someone to heal them. And then he finally at dawn slipped for a brief moment into sleep. And had kind of a dream in which he saw this person who approached him dressed in all white. And said, you know, isn't that painful for you what you've done? And he said, yes, it's extremely painful actually. But I have no regrets whatsoever. Because I was able to be of benefit and help this other person. And so then in the dream this person in white said, oh, that's very good actually. That's um... Dharma practice is like that, to have that kind of compassion. And then he took his hand, this person in the dream, and massaged almost like the leg where the wound was. And then, um... Dharmarakṣita actually had this feeling that the wound had just gone away. It had healed. And then he woke up. And in fact the wound was healed. And then through that he actually kind of all of a sudden gave rise to the realization of the Mahāyāna Dharma. That realization of emptiness has just kind of burst forth from the expanse in his realization. So that kind of thing, yeah, happens here and there. But not so much for most of us.
But he got a really great profit out of that act of generosity, didn't he?
Just give a little piece of his flesh, that's all. Just he gave a little piece of flesh and then without having to study he gave... he realized all the Mahāyāna Dharma. That's a pretty good benefit.
But for us probably, we might not be able to manage that, huh?
We could maybe receive it if somebody gave it to us, but giving like that? No, for us that would be hard, huh?
And so we should think to ourselves that I will practice, I am going to practice now, samatha and vipassanā. And I will do this in order to attain the state of perfect awakening myself, arrive at the state of Buddhahood. So that I then am able to place all sentient beings in that state. And having that kind of really excellent positive attitude, that motivation, that's what's called bodhicitta.
And so it says, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, that's a reference to all of the six perfections, the six pāramitās. And even if we are not out there performing the six pāramitās, in the world out there, actually just through this practice, if we do it correctly and genuinely, all of the six perfections are fully present here within just this practice.
It's actually said that even when we're listening to Dharma teachings, receiving Dharma teachings, if we do it absolutely perfectly, correctly, exactly as it's explained in the texts, then we are practicing all of the six perfections just in the act of receiving the teachings. Likewise, here in this sādhana, if we do it perfectly, correctly, exactly in accordance with the way it is taught, then we are also practicing in full the six perfections just by doing this practice.
Um, the most important, though, is that the root of refuge, the real heart of taking refuge is faith. So we have to have faith. And the real heart of bodhicitta is compassion. So those two things, faith and compassion, are essential.
And then when doing this, even if we're not able to visualize the refuge objects perfectly out there, if we just have the confidence, they are there. That's really important.
If I have the real, sincere confidence that they are present, even if I can't see them, they really actually are there.
And because this is something that's such an important point, we repeat it three times.
And so if we want to recite this in Tibetan, we can do it in Tibetan. But if we feel more interest and more inspiration through reciting it in our own languages, in English, and Chinese, and Nepali, whatever language you speak, if that feels more meaningful to you, great. Do it in your own language, no problem.
The point is that it's really important to do it in a way that feels right to you.
So recite these lines three times with your hands folded at your heart.
And then what follows are the four immeasurables. And this is also part of bodhicitta. Sometimes it's understood to be the applied bodhicitta.
And for this part of the practice, it's also fine, the lamas say, to do tonglen practice, the giving and receiving. But whether or not we make the time to do that as part of the practice, that's a question.
So our main point, the main practice that we're doing here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā. And so if we spend a lot of time on all these other branch practices, and then we end up with not very much time for the main part of practice, then we have to be careful about that. So we just... we just need to make some calculations and kind of pay attention to the time that we spend on the different parts of the practice.
But also, if we really do very well any of the practices that are here in the sādhana then that also actually somehow includes all of the other practices that are there.
So we shouldn't worry like, oh, I didn't really get to spend so much time on refuge, so the visualization wasn't so good, I didn't really get to focus on that. Or like, oh, if I spend too much time on refuge, then I'm not going to have enough time for the other part. Don't worry so much about those kind of things, okay?
And in general, it's said that the practice of the Buddha Dharma is like walking up a staircase, right? Step by step by step.
And so, since our main practice here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā, we can be sure that all of the preliminary parts of the practice also include or contain those aspects.
And so, when we're in the breaks between sessions also, it's very important to be very careful and to train also in, for example, the practices of mind training.
So if we don't have a lot of experience with that otherwise, yeah? So really our main practice is this, sādhana, but then it's good to devote some attention also and put some care also in the breaks between sessions towards mind training practices.
And when we recite the lines for the four immeasurables, we place our hands like this, one on top of the other, in the lap, not folded together at our heart, but like this here.
Not up here, just place your hands together, one on top of the other, in your lap.
I think it's a symbol, a mudra, showing carefulness, because also in the Vinaya when we're doing the sojong practices of the Vinaya, the restoration of the broken vows, we place our hands in the same gesture, so I think that's what it represents, carefulness.
And maybe you are familiar with this, but the first line here, may all beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness, this statement represents here the practice of love, immeasurable love.
And then the next line, may they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering, this line is the line for immeasurable compassion.
And then, may they never be separated from the supreme happiness devoid of suffering, this line represents immeasurable joy.
And then the next line, may they remain in boundless equanimity beyond attachment and aversion to those near and far, this line here indicates immeasurable equanimity.
And so immeasurable, why do we call these the four immeasurables? Because there is no limit to the beings to whom we extend them, these four thoughts are extended for friends, enemies, strangers, everyone.
And so when we do these practices, like the practice of reciting the lines for bodhicitta and reciting these lines for the four immeasurables, it's really good if we can think to ourselves, okay, I have really generated genuine bodhicitta, I have truly aroused genuine bodhicitta, if we can have that kind of confidence.
And so then it's fine actually, after reciting all of these verses, including the ones for the four immeasurables, after repeating them three times, then we could remain for a little while and go through in our mind the visualization for refuge and bodhicitta, and this one, yeah, if we, yeah, we can do it that way. Like maybe leave a five minutes and then go through the visualization and the contemplation for each of them at this point.
And so then at the conclusion of that, we can visualize that from the objects of refuge, light rays radiate forth and dissolve into myself and all sentient beings, and that in this way all of our obscurations and negativities are completely purified, and we attain all empowerments and accomplishments. Good if we can think like that.
And so these are not explained doing like this, this kind of visualization is not explained in great detail in the instruction manuals, but this is just a normal practice during sādhana. So it makes perfect sense and it's perfectly fine to apply that here as well.
So then that's the preliminaries, we've gone through the preliminaries.
The main part of the practice is the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha.
And it says here, all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this, recite the following.
And in the best-case scenario, if we are somebody who has the realization of emptiness, then it's quite easy to do this.
And if that's not the case, then at least we can here bring to mind our understanding or some kind of experience that we may have.
Um... or at least if we have some kind of degree of understanding of dependent origination, right? Honestly, if we don't have some kind of understanding there, then it becomes difficult to do the practice like it's explained in the text. That's true. But at least if we have trust, if we have faith, then for sure we're going to get some blessings, even if we're not practicing exactly in the way that it's explained in the text.
Faith is like a seed that brings about the flourishing of all positive things, all positive qualities.
So without faith, then it's difficult. Everything, basically anything, actually, in terms of our practice, is difficult.
And when does faith arise in us? Well, Rinpoche said, actually, right? Once we hear the teachings of the Dharma, if we put them into practice ourselves, and then through that practice we come to some personal experience that comes from our practice, when we give rise to that kind of experience, then we have trust. And that's the best kind of faith, that trust that comes from our own practice experience.
And then it's not just like some story we heard, right? Because when we practice, right when we practice, actually we have some kind of experience, no? It happens right then, whenever we practice.
So all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this recite, the following. So the first part of our practice of the recollection of the Buddha is to recollect his form, his bodily form. And so we begin with the visualization. And we do this with the lines of the text that say, Ah, like the magical display of the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. In the sky in front of me, amidst an ocean like cloud banks of offerings, is the peerless teacher. So here, Rinpoche talked actually a lot this morning about this, about emptiness, no? And it's important that we understand this point because normally we have this kind of childish perspective on emptiness that we think that if there's something there, then there can't be emptiness, right? But emptiness it doesn't mean destroying something, getting rid of something so that it's gone and then it's empty. That's not actually what emptiness means. That's kind of a childish perspective. Emptiness actually means things appear, but they naturally lack inherent existence. That's what emptiness is. They appear, but their nature is that they are not truly established, not truly real. That's emptiness. We have this childish idea, if there's something there, if something is still there, then we feel like it can't be empty. That's our own childish perspective. That's not how the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas see things from their awakened perspective. It's totally fine. Everything can stay. It can appear just as it does. All of these various things just can continue going on appearing. No problem. Their essence is empty. Their essence, they lack a truly established nature, and that is what emptiness is. But again, we have this kind of um... idea that we have to get rid of something in order for it to be empty. No? We think if there's something still there, then that can't possibly be emptiness. But this is a mistaken childish perspective.
And so just like it's explained here, in fact, all phenomena, their essence is in fact emptiness. That is the essence, the nature, the real nature of all phenomena. But when causes and conditions come together, um... then through interdependence, in fact, things appear.
So as it says here, right, the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. So again, here emptiness and appearance are not two separate things. It's important that we understand that. While things appear, they are empty. And while being empty, phenomena appear. They're a unity, actually. It's the unity of emptiness and appearance.
And so we visualize then in front of ourselves a very excellent, beautiful, perfect, pure realm.
And in the center of this, then, a throne, a lion throne that is held up... yea throne held up by lions, this excellent, bejeweled lion throne.
And so then on top of this seat, then, on the throne, we visualize a lotus. And if you want to do it in a detailed way, you can visualize a multicolored lotus with all different colored petals, having even 100,000 petals, if you want.
And then we visualize that there are these pistils of the lotus flower that are um...we never know how to translate that word. I don't know if there's a botanist in here, but anyway, the pistils of the lotus flower that are a... they fill the whole lotus, the same size as the lotus. Yeah.
Not exactly the same size, yeah, but filling the space, right?
So these pistils should be in correct proportion to the size of the lotus, right? If you're visualizing a big lotus, you don't visualize tiny pistils. It should be proportional. And then on top of the lotus, the sun, and then on top of that, the moon, you visualize these discs.
And here, actually, in the sūtric context, it's not really set out there like that, but in general, when we talk about the generation stage, visualizing the deity, it's said that the moon represents method and the sun represents wisdom, and these then... this is kind of the qualities, basically, the qualities of a Buddha that are appearing in symbolic form.
And the lotus symbolizes being free from any kind of stain or fault.
And the bejeweled throne isn't just there to look pretty. It's there because it's a representation of the spontaneous accomplishment, the spontaneous presence of all sorts of positive qualities.
And then the throne is upheld by lions, right? Lions on all four sides. And that represents freedom from fear, actually, freedom from the four fears. So again, that's the symbolic representation that's being made.
It's not actually that the Buddha is riding on lions. That never actually happened.
When he was still living at home, he rode horses, right? And chariots and so on. Not lions. Not lions. He did not ride a lion.
But then after he renounced, then he didn't use any kind of vehicles. So, no lions.
So, really we shouldn't think like, what? The Buddha riding, sitting on these lions, you know, he's looking down on these beings, putting them in a difficult situation. It's not like that. Yeah. It's a symbolic representation of the qualities of awakening. That's what all of this is about.
One lion would be enough. How come there have to be eight lions holding him up?
So, here, these are all representations of the qualities of awakening, the qualities of a Buddha. And where is the Buddha? Remember, we just talked about it. Those qualities are present within ourselves. Those qualities are present as our own basic nature. And so, this should give us some courage that we can accomplish Buddhahood, that we can accomplish awakening. We should feel courage because of that. And faith and rejoicing in the practices that lead to that state.
And it says here the peerless teacher, the lion of the Shakyas on this bejeweled lotus, a lion throne lotus on a moon. So why is the Buddha Shakyamuni referred to here as the peerless teacher? Well, because of the unique prayers that he made and aspirations that he made to benefit the beings of our time. It actually comes later in the text. It's explained in more detail. But during this time, this time when the lifespan of humans is not more than a hundred years usually, when we're very busy, we're full of negative emotions, we have all sorts of doubts, we have all sorts of wrong views, this is called a degenerate time. And we are beings who are difficult to tame. And so, for us beings in this time, when there are beings who are difficult to tame, the Buddha Shakyamuni especially made prayers and aspirations to benefit beings like us in this time. And so, that's why we call him the peerless teacher. In fact, okay, all Buddhas, it's not that one Buddha is better than another Buddha, but from the perspective of the fact that he made specific prayers and aspirations to benefit beings in our time, beings like us, we consider him a unique and peerless teacher.
So why did the Buddha come actually in this world? Think about it for a minute. For us, especially for us, that's why the Buddha appeared in the world.
So we have a lot of merit.
But we have to know that we have merit, great merit.
It's not that the Buddha just came because he didn't have anything else to do, it was for us.
Samsara is limitless. The worlds are countless in number. The Buddha came here, at this time. Why? For us, that's why.
And the Dharma teachings that he gave, all of these different Dharma teachings that he gave, it's for us.
So what if mom makes a really, really nice dinner, spends a lot of effort for the child, and then the kid doesn't eat it?
So with love, with so much love, the mother makes a meal for her child, and if the child doesn't eat it? It's like that. With so much love and compassion, the Buddha taught so many different Dharma teachings for us. He gave pith instructions that can allow us to attain awakening in one life, in this life, in this body. And if we don't use them, then what?
So then if we really think about it, it changes actually how we feel, right? We feel like, oh, okay, this is really... I can do something with this life, with this human birth.
Then we can feel like, okay, I actually am a person. I have the qualifications, the qualities that make me a human being.
Otherwise, what differentiates us from animals? We don't really put the Dharma into practice.
Okay, so we kind of got off on another topic there. But here, back to the image of the Buddha. It says he's golden-hued with the major signs and minor marks. Golden-hued doesn't mean that he looks like gold, but it means that he's radiant, actually. Golden color and very, very radiant. And that radiance of the Buddha's body is something that could be perceived, is something that can be perceived by everyone, by all beings. Um, even, uh... it's mentioned that there are some people, like one of his relatives and a few other students, who had very wrong views about the Buddha. And so they all thought, oh, you know, what? The Buddha, he's not so much different from anybody else except that he's radiant. So even they could see this kind of light radiating out from the Buddha. So that's what we should understand here by this golden hue, is that he was really radiant.
Some people don't like thinking, I don't want to think about the Buddha being golden-colored. They find that kind of annoying for some reason. Don't worry about it. Just have this sense of radiance, shining, radiant form. That's how you should understand it.
He has the major signs and minor marks, the thirty-two major signs and eighty minor marks of an awakened being.
And so he's wearing the three Dharma robes. That's describing his clothing, a lower robe, an upper top and then the upper robe. And very simple, that's the idea. His clothing is very simple. He's in the form of the nirmāṇakāya, with very simple attire.
His legs are in vajra posture, so he's seated in vajra posture. That's easy to understand.
His right hand is fully outstretched in the earth-touching gesture. You can see that up there, in some of the images of the Buddha. Not that one.
And his left hand is in the gesture of meditative equipoise, like this, in his lap. And in that hand is an alms bowl and it's filled with nectar.
And so his body has all of these major and minor marks and his speech has the sixty qualities.
And his awakened mind has the qualities of wisdom and love and capacity.
And so he's splendorous.
He's radiating glory and splendor, like a golden mountain. Nets of wisdom light rays fill the sky around him. And he's completely surrounded by an ocean-like retinue of noble ones, such as the eight close sons. Actually, that's what these images, these statues, eight statues here, are the eight close sons. These are the eight Bodhisattva, close Bodhisattva disciples. The sixteen elders, represented by these thangkas along the side here, and the like. So he's surrounded by the eight close sons, the sixteen elders, male and female bodhisattvas, male and female arhats. You should visualize him surrounded by this kind of retinue.
The sixteen elders are, in fact, Mahāyāna practitioners that take on the form of the Śrāvakayāna practitioners.
And merely by recollecting him liberation from the two extremes of existence and peace, the glory of supreme bliss is bestowed. He is present as the great embodiment of all refuges. So he, his form, his presence is as the embodiment of all refuge objects together.
As Rinpoche mentioned already, earlier we visualized the form as empty form, empty appearance.
It's very important that when we visualize the Buddha and retinue, we visualize that they are actually there, and they are looking upon me with great love. That's important.
And then what follows actually is in order to gather the accumulations and purify the obscurations, we gather the accumulations and purify our obscurations in order that our meditative concentration, our samadhi will go well, that we'll be able to do that well. And that's really important actually. It's that if you purify your obscurations, then realization just naturally arises and naturally unfolds. And so it's not that we shouldn't think that these practices are pointless somehow. They're not pointless. They really have an important function. It is through gathering the accumulations and purifying our obscurations that we create a circumstance that allows us to remain well in meditation.
And this seven-branch practice which comes next in the sādhana, this is a very... an excellent way, like the supreme way of gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations. It's mentioned in the sūtra context as well as in the tantric context as being an excellent supreme way of doing this.
These seven-branch practices, these seven-branches are said to be a very unique method through which one can gather tremendous amounts of merit in a very short time, just in an instant, in a moment.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says that um... all of the methods for attaining full awakening can be found in the seven-branches.
Because in the seven-branches we have methods for gathering the accumulations, for purifying our obscurations, and for bringing about the flourishing of our virtue.
Tomorrow is the last, no? Day after tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Then...
Okay, I'll be careful now. I said a lot of pointless things before, but now... I spend a lot of time on useless things in the previous day. Then...
So now we come to the seven-branches which begins on page fifteen of our sādhana.
At this point in the sādhana, we again place our palms together at our heart. During the part of the sādhana that came before this for the visualization of the deity, then we can just keep our hands down in our lap. But here, when we start with the seven-branches, we again put our palms together at our heart.
So here, during these practices, we should think, I and all sentient beings together, we are doing this together. We're prostrating, we're making offerings, confessing and so on. All of us joining together to do this.
So here, these first lines are the lines for paying homage or making prostrations. And I already explained a little bit before about paying homage, so the same idea applies here.
So here it mentions um... that the Buddha accepted this degenerate world and made five hundred aspirations. I mentioned to you before about these aspirations that the Buddha made. And there's more information on them, if you're curious, in the White Lotus Sutra. And also in the Mipham Rinpoche's text that is the supportive background text for this sādhana. So if you're curious, you can find more detail in those sources about these five hundred aspirations.
Like there actually are five hundred different aspirations. It's not just kind of a random statement. Oh yeah, there's five hundred of them. If you want to know what the five hundred are, you can find a list of each of them. Yeah? It's actually like that. So he's very emotional, yeah? He understands, I have so suffering, everybody must suffering. That time he's not enlightened, so he can be like us.
And so here we pay homage and make prostrations, but at this point doing the sādhana, we don't actually physically prostrate, but mentally in our mind we visualize making prostrations.
And then on the next page, page sixteen, where it says visualizing the accumulations of merit through the three doors of the enjoyments of myself and others as Samantabhadra's offering cloud, I offer it. And so this is the practice of making offerings.
And this is a remedy to stinginess.
Then where it says all of my misdeeds and transgressions accumulated since time immemorial, I confess one by one with fervent heartfelt repentance. This is the branch of confession.
And so how do we ensure that our negative deeds are purified? What makes it possible to purify them? Well, if we have regret for having done something negative in the past, and we make a commitment not to do that negative thing in the future, then that is what allows us to purify the negativity that we've done.
Without these two aspects, whatever kind of confession practice we do, even if we're doing Vajrasattva practice, reciting the one hundred syllable mantra or whatever it is, without these two aspects, doing any kind of confession practice, sure, it helps a little, maybe reduces a little bit the strength of that negative deed, but you can't completely purify it without those two aspects.
And so really, um... confession is very important, and Vajrasattva we say usually is the best confession, and even doing that without those two aspects doesn't purify a negative deed. So really, it's important that we understand what confession is. We understand what it is and what it does. That's important. A lot of Westerners, otherwise, don't really like confession. There's some kind of discomfort. They're not into it. We have to know what we're doing and why, then it makes more sense.
So basically, we have to acknowledge that we did something wrong in the past. That's really important, right? Acknowledging that we have done something that was wrong. Somebody who is able to acknowledge that he or she has done something wrong is a very honest, sincere person, right? To be able to simply acknowledge wrongdoing.
And actually somebody who then feels regret and says, I'm not going to do that again, right? I will not, in the future, engage in that same negative deed. That's a very honest, sincere, straightforward person, no?
So then there's no need for us to feel any hesitation about doing those things, is there?
If somebody said, unless you offer lots and lots and lots of things, you can't purify your negative deeds through confession, then maybe we could feel some hesitation.
My feeling is very, very healthy. Number one, we feel now purified. So you feel like you are in normal shape. And so you don't need to feel bad. Otherwise you always need to hide, you know? You did something bad, so all the time you need to know and the whole life you need to do, this is painful. But society accepts. You do something wrong, you accept, and you apologize, everybody accepts. And then so you don't need to feel always some kind of yourself...
So if we spend our whole lives feeling bad about having done something wrong, our lives are miserable, no?
This is the international law. You apologize and people forgive you.
Then our life becomes new, fresh again, no? Like Milarepa. Milarepa. Beginning time everybody was very, very upset with him. But later on he felt bad about what he had done. And he confessed and he did commitment not to do again stupid this kind things. And he practiced, he gained, and now everybody in Tibet admire him. Everybody respects him. And all came because of regret. And... making a promise.
So we say that confession has positive qualities. These are them, right there. I just told you what they are. So it is very, very healthy. So don't hesitate to do this.
And if we say like, oh I don't do anything bad, I never do bad deeds. Okay, maybe if you are like a very high level Bodhisattva, that's a different story. But apart from that, you are probably not telling the truth.
Okay, maybe there is a difference between like really severe negative deeds and minor ones. We can talk about it like that, but you know, we are all doing bad things.
And here with the confession, it is not just me. I and all sentient beings together, we are confessing our negative deeds.
But then after we are done with the confession, it is important that we have confidence. Okay, I am purified. That's important.
And this also is said to be a remedy towards our anger.
And then on page seventeen, the next lines, In all the merit of the noble ones and... In all the merit, the noble ones and ordinary beings have accumulated throughout the three times I rejoice. This is the branch of rejoicing.
And Rinpoche actually mentioned already a little bit about rejoicing, right?
So we are supposed to rejoice when things that are virtuous have been done, not when things that are bad have been done.
And so be careful, because whether if I rejoice in something good or in something bad, I get the same results as having done that thing. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, so careful.
And rejoicing is also said to be a remedy for our jealousy.
And then what follows is the supplication to turn the wheel of Dharma, supplication for the request of teachings.
And so here in the sūtric teaching context, always we have to request for the teachings to be given, request for the turning of the wheel of Dharma. In the tantric context, we do in practice make a request, but actually it's said in the tantra’s that the saṃbhogakāya form of the deities are constantly teaching. Whether... there's no need to request, it's just constantly teaching is being given. But here, because this is the sūtric context, here we always have to make a request for teachings. And actually in practice we do this as well. Like every day in the seminar we offer a mandala to Rinpoche and we make a request for him to teach. This is our tradition that we always make this kind of request for the teaching.
And so here, with the visualization, we imagine that we emanate bodies equal in number to the dust motes filling all of space. And our emanations go off to every world system where there is a Buddha remaining present but not teaching. And we make the supplication to them to teach the Dharma, to all of them to teach the Dharma in accordance precisely with the minds of beings who will be benefited by that.
And it is said that this is a remedy for stupidity.
The four lines on page eighteen of our text are a prayer for the teacher to remain and not pass into nirvana.
And so here there are many accounts of the Buddha passing into nirvana, right? The Buddha Shakyamuni passed into nirvana. We don't have to get into all of those here, but the idea is that when a nirmāṇakāya Buddha appears, eventually at some point they go on to a pure land. And the making of a prayer for the teacher to remain can sometimes be a condition for them to wait a little while before that happens to remain longer in the world. And so that's the idea behind making this kind of prayer for the teacher to remain. And likewise we do this for our teachers, right? When we have a big program, always at the end of a program like this, we make a request for the teacher to remain.
And the visualization here is the same as the visualization for requesting the teacher to turn the wheel of Dharma. We imagine emanating bodies to all of the realms, to all of the Buddhas and requesting them not to pass into nirvana.
And it is said that this is a remedy also for our wrong views.
And then on page nineteen is the dedication, dedication and aspiration prayers coming together here.
And this is said to be a remedy for doubts.
And then on page twenty and twenty-one we have a supplication for in which we ask, we supplicate for what we want.
So I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. Um... today I think we've gone a little past our time already. And now it's time to take a bathroom break.
And when we do a practice session, it is really good if we can get in the habit of thinking to ourselves, this is the most important thing I am doing today. If we do a daily session, to really regard that as being the most important of our daily activities.
Because if our practice session becomes some kind of, like something that we just do on the side, some kind of thing that we just have to do on the side, then it's not very powerful actually.
Of course, if we're in retreat, then that's not going to happen. It's kind of clear. But if you're in a normal daily household setting, your regular life in your household, it can become... that our practice session becomes just kind of like something that we have to do on the side. It becomes not the most important thing for us. It could happen like that.
And actually, if we think of our practice as being something that's extremely important, not just for this life, but for lifetime after lifetime, and not only something that's important and beneficial for me personally, but also something that's important and beneficial for other sentient beings, for all sentient beings actually, if we can think about it like that, then it's absolutely certain, like a hundred percent sure, that we will just naturally be very careful about our practice, won't we, if we regard it as being important in those ways.
So if we think about the goal of our practice as being the state of awakening, Buddhahood. And if that's kind of, you know, if we're on a journey, that's where we're heading towards. If we postpone our session, if we skip a session, we are making our journey to that goal that much longer.
So let's say we're on a drive somewhere, and if we go on the highway, normally it's a five hour drive, but if we stop at the rest stop, and we just hang out, and spend hours and hours and hours there, the five hour drive turns into a ten hour trip, or a twelve hour trip, right?
So really, until we achieve Buddhahood, the state of awakening, we have to keep practicing, until we do.
And especially as a beginning practitioner, our practice isn't strong enough that, often, that we can practice very well outside of sessions. So really, for beginning practitioners, our meditation sessions are really important. We have to really kind of think about that as the time where we're really practicing.
So the topic here is the Treasury of Blessings, the Liturgy of Shakyamuni Buddha. So the way that I'm explaining this is as if this is our main practice for this life, this one right here.
And if you have that attitude, if you think to yourself, this is my yidam, this is my samaya, this is my practice, what I will place my trust in for this whole life, for my whole life, I will place my trust in this practice. If you have that kind of feeling towards, and if you have that kind of... attitude towards this practice, you will not be fooled, you will not be deceived.
And so if we really decide that this is my practice, this is the practice I'm doing for my life, this is going to be my main practice, then you have to receive really good instructions on the practice from a qualified teacher. What I'm telling you here is not enough.
I'm trying to just encourage you a little bit here with these teachings, give you some encouragement for the practice, but this is not like the real instruction.
As Rinpoche has said to us, any practice we do has to have the excellent beginning, the excellent main part, and the excellent conclusion. It's essential that these three parts are present. And especially if we are doing Mahāyāna practice, and if we lack somehow these three parts, the excellent beginning, main part, and conclusion, there's some doubt about whether we're really actually practicing the Mahāyāna.
And actually anything that we do, any activity, even if it's a worldly activity, there has to be a beginning, a preliminary. There has to be the main part and there has to be a conclusion. Anything we do has to be structured in that way.
So what I've explained up until now has been kind of the preliminary for the session, right? We have to prepare ourselves for the session. So the key points of the posture, the physical posture, the key points of speech, the key points of the mind, this is all preparatory, preliminary to the session. But then the session itself also has to have these three parts. The preliminary part of the session, the main part of the session, and the conclusion part of the session. So now we'll get into the actual practice of the session itself, and we start with the preliminaries of the practice.
On page three in our sādhana.
So this statement that we find here on page three in our text comes from the Samādhirāja sūtra. And here it says, Since the complexion of his body is like gold, the world protector is extremely beautiful in all respects. Whichever Bodhisattva focuses his mind upon him is in meditative equipoise. So this actually, these are the words of the Buddha himself from the Samādhirāja sūtra that have been put here.
And so this then really is the practice of recollecting the Buddha, the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha that's mentioned here. And then when we come into the preliminaries, we begin first with refuge, and then the generation, the arousing of bodhicitta, and then the four immeasurables. These are the preliminaries in our session.
If we are Buddhists, then it's really important that we understand refuge. That's really important.
And in some texts it's actually mentioned that this is what distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists. This is what makes the distinction, refuge.
And so here this is not about bias, you know...about having a bias towards being something or not being something. Here we're in the context of we want to attain Buddhahood, right? That's our context here. And if we want to attain Buddhahood and if we don't know who or what the Buddha is, then saying that we want to attain Buddhahood is kind of just like blind faith, right? Without even knowing what Buddhahood is, we have to know.
And so actually we can read in the guidance manuals about refuge, what is refuge. And also in the Mahāyāna sūtras, in texts like the Uttaratantra śāstra, Sublime continuum, texts like this, if we can study these kind of texts, then we can find out very clearly what is the Buddha, what is the Dharma, what is the Sangha.
And when we talk about refuge, it's not that we should think about it as...
So we shouldn't think, when we think about refuge that... and some people do sometimes think like this, it's a mistake, to think of oneself as being in a sort of pitiful state, and taking refuge from being, you know, very pitiful, like in a very pitiable state. We shouldn't think about it like that.
What is the ultimate refuge object? It is the Buddha?
And who is the Buddha?
The one who has completely cleared away all flaws and completely perfected all positive qualities, that is the Buddha.
And where is that?
And maybe it sounds a bit presumptuous, but Rinpoche has said lots about this, so I think it's okay to say.
Where is that? It is our own basic nature, the nature of our mind.
Our basic nature, the nature of our mind, is not obscured by negative emotions.
But now we are in a state where that basic state is obscured, right? It is obscured by temporary stains.
And if we remove those temporary stains, then we are awakened, Buddhas. And that is our supreme refuge, that is our lasting refuge, the ultimate refuge is that.
And where do we find an explanation of how to make that basic state manifest? It's explained in the Dharma teachings.
So who practices the Dharma? Me. I practice the Dharma.
So I am the one who has to practice the Dharma. The sangha are my companions who help with the circumstances for making that possible.
But if I don't practice the Dharma myself, then even if the Buddha is right here in front of me, it's not really going to help that much.
So if we think about it like that, actually, then we understand refuge well. And refuge is something that's very good, actually. It's something that we would feel inspired, right? Taking refuge is good. I should do that. It's wonderful. We don't feel in that sense that we are somehow handicapped, that we are somehow pitiful in that sense.
And so the Dharma, then, is something that's extremely important for us now, at this moment. And who teaches the Dharma? Where does the Dharma come from? It comes from spiritual friends, from our spiritual teachers. And in the context of the sūtras, the spiritual teachers are noble beings, noble Bodhisattvas, the noble sangha.
So my mind, the essence of my mind, is the Buddha. But it's obscured. That state is obscured by temporary obscurations. And if I want to clear away those obscurations, the conditions that help me to do that are the Dharma and the sangha.
So we can say that outwardly as kind of a being or a deity who is valid, we can say the Buddha, the Buddha Shakyamuni is a valid, valid teacher. And then when it comes to the Dharma, actually the real, genuine Dharma is the realization that is present in the mind streams of the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, that's the real Dharma. But as a symbol of that, symbolically then, we can say that the scriptures, the texts that contain their teachings, that is kind of the symbolic form of the Dharma for us. And then when it comes to the Sangha, the actual Sangha, the real Sangha, are in the Mahāyāna context, Bodhisattvas on the Bhūmis, from the first to the tenth Bhūmi. That means beings who have a direct realization actually, who have directly realized emptiness. And they are the real Sangha, but kind of as a representative of the Sangha, then that can refer to anyone who has the vows, right? Anyone who holds vows like monks and nuns and so on. But the real Sangha is the Bodhisattvas on the Bhumis.
And so since this practice of the Shakyamuni sādhana is really in the context of the sūtric teachings, since it's a sūtra-based practice, then the refuge objects are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Just those three are the ones that are mentioned here.
And when we want to take refuge, first we have to visualize the objects of refuge, the field of accomplishment, we say.
So we visualize the refuge tree in front of us. The main object of refuge that we visualize is the Buddha, Shakyamuni. But then surrounding him we visualize the Bodhisattvas, the Arhats, male and female Bodhisattvas, male and female Arhats, surrounding the Buddha. So these are the objects of refuge that we should visualize.
And so we should imagine that all of them are looking upon me and all sentient beings with hearts full of love.
And so we should then think that from now until I achieve the state of awakening, you are the only source of refuge, the only source of protection for myself and for all sentient beings. I really place all my trust in you fully and completely. We should place our trust in the objects of refuge until the state of awakening.
And out of a sense of fear, I mentioned already before, about fear of samsara and fear of the lower realms. So fearing those things we take refuge in these refuge objects.
And so then we should place our hands together, join our hands at our heart, just like we do every morning when we recite the lines for refuge. And the first two statements here, to the excellent Buddha, Dharma, and Supreme Assembly, I go for refuge until the attainment of awakening. Those two statements, those first two lines of the practice, are the lines for taking refuge.
And in some of the instruction manuals it's mentioned that taking refuge is the root of liberation.
And then the next two lines, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, may I attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. Those two lines then are the lines for arousing bodhicitta.
So because this text is a very short, condensed one, we have the lines for taking refuge, and also generating bodhicitta here together, they're combined. But actually when we take refuge, what we should do is we're imagining that we and all sentient beings together are taking refuge. And that once we do this, then from the bodies of the Buddha and all of the objects in the refuge tree, light rays shine forth when we take refuge. And they touch me and all sentient beings, and they clear away all of our fear and all of our suffering. It's all completely cleared away and purified, and we receive refuge from them, we receive their protection. This is how we should visualize as we take refuge.
And if we really feel that, if we really do this and feel like this, that we've received refuge when we take refuge, then it's not just dry words, right? We're not just repeating the words, but we're actually really taking refuge if we do it this way.
Otherwise it's just like shouting out into empty space.
And doing this becomes actually a type of training or exercise for our mind.
Because honestly, we always have some hope and fear present in our mind, even if we're not immediately in the context of meeting some kind of difficult circumstance, but we just kind of naturally tend to remain within a state of some kind of hope, some kind of fear.
And then when we take refuge, if we then feel, now I'm free from that, then for a few moments we actually get some relief.
And so actually when we do that, if we do it again and again and again, then that naturally helps us to feel more and more relaxed. We actually come to a state of more relaxation and more ease through repeating that over and over and over again, that process. Because it's not like you know, depression, for example, is not something that just shows up out of nowhere all at once. It's a gradual process that builds up and then it becomes something that becomes really hard to fix once it's become very strong like that, no?
And then when we come to generating bodhicitta, then all sentient beings are present there as well, but then here they're like as if they're our guests. That's the way.
And then the refuge objects, the refuge tree in front of us, they are our witnesses. They're acting as our witnesses.
And so in front of those witnesses, I am making a promise.
And so, just like the previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have done, and especially also in particular, Shakyamuni Buddha, and you can find out about it if you read his life story actually, how much love he had for sentient beings, how much love and compassion.
So if you read about all of the previous lives of the Buddha, there's stories about his previous lives. If you read that, then you will know.
So we should think to ourselves, in the same way that you all worked so much for the benefit of beings, I too, just like you, will benefit beings in this way.
In the best case, I'll do it even better than you did.
But even if not that, at least I'm not going to do it in any lesser way than you did. At least as good as you have done.
So then when we're arousing bodhicitta, it should be like a very vast attitude. That's what we're supposed to be generating here.
And then especially this meditation session right here, I'm doing this for all sentient beings.
And so making a promise like that, we can call that generating bodhicitta, making that promise.
And so if we're going to be doing this kind of practice, if we have not yet received what is called the Bodhisattva vow, it's actually really good for us to take that vow, that vow, if this is going to be our practice.
And if we take that vow, it becomes a support for being careful, for our carefulness.
We don't have to start... we don't have to start out our Bodhisattva practice cutting off our arms and legs and offering them to others. We can start just by having a positive attitude, right? Really an altruistic attitude for sentient beings, towards sentient beings. And then gradually we can get to the place where we can chop off our arms and legs and give them. Eventually.
This happened, this was the case for one of Atisha's gurus. Dharmarakṣita Dharmarakṣita, who was one of the gurus of Atisha. He did that actually, gave his flesh. But he was not a Mahāyāna practitioner. At that time he was a teacher of the Hīnayāna in fact. And he, but he had incredible compassion, incredible compassion. And he one time came across a person who was extremely ill. And the doctor had told that person that the only thing that could heal his illness was fresh human flesh. Nothing else would actually be of any benefit. And because he felt such great compassion for that person, he cut a piece of flesh off of his thigh. And gave to the person who then ate it and got much better. But he hadn't realized emptiness. He didn't have that kind of realization. And so it was extremely painful for him. Cutting off your flesh is very painful if you don't have that. And so he was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep all night long. He couldn't sleep. He was just lying awake in pain, excruciating pain from having cut his own flesh to give to someone to heal them. And then he finally at dawn slipped for a brief moment into sleep. And had kind of a dream in which he saw this person who approached him dressed in all white. And said, you know, isn't that painful for you what you've done? And he said, yes, it's extremely painful actually. But I have no regrets whatsoever. Because I was able to be of benefit and help this other person. And so then in the dream this person in white said, oh, that's very good actually. That's um... Dharma practice is like that, to have that kind of compassion. And then he took his hand, this person in the dream, and massaged almost like the leg where the wound was. And then, um... Dharmarakṣita actually had this feeling that the wound had just gone away. It had healed. And then he woke up. And in fact the wound was healed. And then through that he actually kind of all of a sudden gave rise to the realization of the Mahāyāna Dharma. That realization of emptiness has just kind of burst forth from the expanse in his realization. So that kind of thing, yeah, happens here and there. But not so much for most of us.
But he got a really great profit out of that act of generosity, didn't he?
Just give a little piece of his flesh, that's all. Just he gave a little piece of flesh and then without having to study he gave... he realized all the Mahāyāna Dharma. That's a pretty good benefit.
But for us probably, we might not be able to manage that, huh?
We could maybe receive it if somebody gave it to us, but giving like that? No, for us that would be hard, huh?
And so we should think to ourselves that I will practice, I am going to practice now, samatha and vipassanā. And I will do this in order to attain the state of perfect awakening myself, arrive at the state of Buddhahood. So that I then am able to place all sentient beings in that state. And having that kind of really excellent positive attitude, that motivation, that's what's called bodhicitta.
And so it says, through the merit of my generosity and so forth, that's a reference to all of the six perfections, the six pāramitās. And even if we are not out there performing the six pāramitās, in the world out there, actually just through this practice, if we do it correctly and genuinely, all of the six perfections are fully present here within just this practice.
It's actually said that even when we're listening to Dharma teachings, receiving Dharma teachings, if we do it absolutely perfectly, correctly, exactly as it's explained in the texts, then we are practicing all of the six perfections just in the act of receiving the teachings. Likewise, here in this sādhana, if we do it perfectly, correctly, exactly in accordance with the way it is taught, then we are also practicing in full the six perfections just by doing this practice.
Um, the most important, though, is that the root of refuge, the real heart of taking refuge is faith. So we have to have faith. And the real heart of bodhicitta is compassion. So those two things, faith and compassion, are essential.
And then when doing this, even if we're not able to visualize the refuge objects perfectly out there, if we just have the confidence, they are there. That's really important.
If I have the real, sincere confidence that they are present, even if I can't see them, they really actually are there.
And because this is something that's such an important point, we repeat it three times.
And so if we want to recite this in Tibetan, we can do it in Tibetan. But if we feel more interest and more inspiration through reciting it in our own languages, in English, and Chinese, and Nepali, whatever language you speak, if that feels more meaningful to you, great. Do it in your own language, no problem.
The point is that it's really important to do it in a way that feels right to you.
So recite these lines three times with your hands folded at your heart.
And then what follows are the four immeasurables. And this is also part of bodhicitta. Sometimes it's understood to be the applied bodhicitta.
And for this part of the practice, it's also fine, the lamas say, to do tonglen practice, the giving and receiving. But whether or not we make the time to do that as part of the practice, that's a question.
So our main point, the main practice that we're doing here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā. And so if we spend a lot of time on all these other branch practices, and then we end up with not very much time for the main part of practice, then we have to be careful about that. So we just... we just need to make some calculations and kind of pay attention to the time that we spend on the different parts of the practice.
But also, if we really do very well any of the practices that are here in the sādhana then that also actually somehow includes all of the other practices that are there.
So we shouldn't worry like, oh, I didn't really get to spend so much time on refuge, so the visualization wasn't so good, I didn't really get to focus on that. Or like, oh, if I spend too much time on refuge, then I'm not going to have enough time for the other part. Don't worry so much about those kind of things, okay?
And in general, it's said that the practice of the Buddha Dharma is like walking up a staircase, right? Step by step by step.
And so, since our main practice here is the practice of samatha and vipassanā, we can be sure that all of the preliminary parts of the practice also include or contain those aspects.
And so, when we're in the breaks between sessions also, it's very important to be very careful and to train also in, for example, the practices of mind training.
So if we don't have a lot of experience with that otherwise, yeah? So really our main practice is this, sādhana, but then it's good to devote some attention also and put some care also in the breaks between sessions towards mind training practices.
And when we recite the lines for the four immeasurables, we place our hands like this, one on top of the other, in the lap, not folded together at our heart, but like this here.
Not up here, just place your hands together, one on top of the other, in your lap.
I think it's a symbol, a mudra, showing carefulness, because also in the Vinaya when we're doing the sojong practices of the Vinaya, the restoration of the broken vows, we place our hands in the same gesture, so I think that's what it represents, carefulness.
And maybe you are familiar with this, but the first line here, may all beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness, this statement represents here the practice of love, immeasurable love.
And then the next line, may they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering, this line is the line for immeasurable compassion.
And then, may they never be separated from the supreme happiness devoid of suffering, this line represents immeasurable joy.
And then the next line, may they remain in boundless equanimity beyond attachment and aversion to those near and far, this line here indicates immeasurable equanimity.
And so immeasurable, why do we call these the four immeasurables? Because there is no limit to the beings to whom we extend them, these four thoughts are extended for friends, enemies, strangers, everyone.
And so when we do these practices, like the practice of reciting the lines for bodhicitta and reciting these lines for the four immeasurables, it's really good if we can think to ourselves, okay, I have really generated genuine bodhicitta, I have truly aroused genuine bodhicitta, if we can have that kind of confidence.
And so then it's fine actually, after reciting all of these verses, including the ones for the four immeasurables, after repeating them three times, then we could remain for a little while and go through in our mind the visualization for refuge and bodhicitta, and this one, yeah, if we, yeah, we can do it that way. Like maybe leave a five minutes and then go through the visualization and the contemplation for each of them at this point.
And so then at the conclusion of that, we can visualize that from the objects of refuge, light rays radiate forth and dissolve into myself and all sentient beings, and that in this way all of our obscurations and negativities are completely purified, and we attain all empowerments and accomplishments. Good if we can think like that.
And so these are not explained doing like this, this kind of visualization is not explained in great detail in the instruction manuals, but this is just a normal practice during sādhana. So it makes perfect sense and it's perfectly fine to apply that here as well.
So then that's the preliminaries, we've gone through the preliminaries.
The main part of the practice is the yoga of the recollection of the Buddha.
And it says here, all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this, recite the following.
And in the best-case scenario, if we are somebody who has the realization of emptiness, then it's quite easy to do this.
And if that's not the case, then at least we can here bring to mind our understanding or some kind of experience that we may have.
Um... or at least if we have some kind of degree of understanding of dependent origination, right? Honestly, if we don't have some kind of understanding there, then it becomes difficult to do the practice like it's explained in the text. That's true. But at least if we have trust, if we have faith, then for sure we're going to get some blessings, even if we're not practicing exactly in the way that it's explained in the text.
Faith is like a seed that brings about the flourishing of all positive things, all positive qualities.
So without faith, then it's difficult. Everything, basically anything, actually, in terms of our practice, is difficult.
And when does faith arise in us? Well, Rinpoche said, actually, right? Once we hear the teachings of the Dharma, if we put them into practice ourselves, and then through that practice we come to some personal experience that comes from our practice, when we give rise to that kind of experience, then we have trust. And that's the best kind of faith, that trust that comes from our own practice experience.
And then it's not just like some story we heard, right? Because when we practice, right when we practice, actually we have some kind of experience, no? It happens right then, whenever we practice.
So all things appear but lack intrinsic nature, while reflecting on this recite, the following. So the first part of our practice of the recollection of the Buddha is to recollect his form, his bodily form. And so we begin with the visualization. And we do this with the lines of the text that say, Ah, like the magical display of the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. In the sky in front of me, amidst an ocean like cloud banks of offerings, is the peerless teacher. So here, Rinpoche talked actually a lot this morning about this, about emptiness, no? And it's important that we understand this point because normally we have this kind of childish perspective on emptiness that we think that if there's something there, then there can't be emptiness, right? But emptiness it doesn't mean destroying something, getting rid of something so that it's gone and then it's empty. That's not actually what emptiness means. That's kind of a childish perspective. Emptiness actually means things appear, but they naturally lack inherent existence. That's what emptiness is. They appear, but their nature is that they are not truly established, not truly real. That's emptiness. We have this childish idea, if there's something there, if something is still there, then we feel like it can't be empty. That's our own childish perspective. That's not how the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas see things from their awakened perspective. It's totally fine. Everything can stay. It can appear just as it does. All of these various things just can continue going on appearing. No problem. Their essence is empty. Their essence, they lack a truly established nature, and that is what emptiness is. But again, we have this kind of um... idea that we have to get rid of something in order for it to be empty. No? We think if there's something still there, then that can't possibly be emptiness. But this is a mistaken childish perspective.
And so just like it's explained here, in fact, all phenomena, their essence is in fact emptiness. That is the essence, the nature, the real nature of all phenomena. But when causes and conditions come together, um... then through interdependence, in fact, things appear.
So as it says here, right, the union of unborn emptiness and unceasing interdependent appearances. So again, here emptiness and appearance are not two separate things. It's important that we understand that. While things appear, they are empty. And while being empty, phenomena appear. They're a unity, actually. It's the unity of emptiness and appearance.
And so we visualize then in front of ourselves a very excellent, beautiful, perfect, pure realm.
And in the center of this, then, a throne, a lion throne that is held up... yea throne held up by lions, this excellent, bejeweled lion throne.
And so then on top of this seat, then, on the throne, we visualize a lotus. And if you want to do it in a detailed way, you can visualize a multicolored lotus with all different colored petals, having even 100,000 petals, if you want.
And then we visualize that there are these pistils of the lotus flower that are um...we never know how to translate that word. I don't know if there's a botanist in here, but anyway, the pistils of the lotus flower that are a... they fill the whole lotus, the same size as the lotus. Yeah.
Not exactly the same size, yeah, but filling the space, right?
So these pistils should be in correct proportion to the size of the lotus, right? If you're visualizing a big lotus, you don't visualize tiny pistils. It should be proportional. And then on top of the lotus, the sun, and then on top of that, the moon, you visualize these discs.
And here, actually, in the sūtric context, it's not really set out there like that, but in general, when we talk about the generation stage, visualizing the deity, it's said that the moon represents method and the sun represents wisdom, and these then... this is kind of the qualities, basically, the qualities of a Buddha that are appearing in symbolic form.
And the lotus symbolizes being free from any kind of stain or fault.
And the bejeweled throne isn't just there to look pretty. It's there because it's a representation of the spontaneous accomplishment, the spontaneous presence of all sorts of positive qualities.
And then the throne is upheld by lions, right? Lions on all four sides. And that represents freedom from fear, actually, freedom from the four fears. So again, that's the symbolic representation that's being made.
It's not actually that the Buddha is riding on lions. That never actually happened.
When he was still living at home, he rode horses, right? And chariots and so on. Not lions. Not lions. He did not ride a lion.
But then after he renounced, then he didn't use any kind of vehicles. So, no lions.
So, really we shouldn't think like, what? The Buddha riding, sitting on these lions, you know, he's looking down on these beings, putting them in a difficult situation. It's not like that. Yeah. It's a symbolic representation of the qualities of awakening. That's what all of this is about.
One lion would be enough. How come there have to be eight lions holding him up?
So, here, these are all representations of the qualities of awakening, the qualities of a Buddha. And where is the Buddha? Remember, we just talked about it. Those qualities are present within ourselves. Those qualities are present as our own basic nature. And so, this should give us some courage that we can accomplish Buddhahood, that we can accomplish awakening. We should feel courage because of that. And faith and rejoicing in the practices that lead to that state.
And it says here the peerless teacher, the lion of the Shakyas on this bejeweled lotus, a lion throne lotus on a moon. So why is the Buddha Shakyamuni referred to here as the peerless teacher? Well, because of the unique prayers that he made and aspirations that he made to benefit the beings of our time. It actually comes later in the text. It's explained in more detail. But during this time, this time when the lifespan of humans is not more than a hundred years usually, when we're very busy, we're full of negative emotions, we have all sorts of doubts, we have all sorts of wrong views, this is called a degenerate time. And we are beings who are difficult to tame. And so, for us beings in this time, when there are beings who are difficult to tame, the Buddha Shakyamuni especially made prayers and aspirations to benefit beings like us in this time. And so, that's why we call him the peerless teacher. In fact, okay, all Buddhas, it's not that one Buddha is better than another Buddha, but from the perspective of the fact that he made specific prayers and aspirations to benefit beings in our time, beings like us, we consider him a unique and peerless teacher.
So why did the Buddha come actually in this world? Think about it for a minute. For us, especially for us, that's why the Buddha appeared in the world.
So we have a lot of merit.
But we have to know that we have merit, great merit.
It's not that the Buddha just came because he didn't have anything else to do, it was for us.
Samsara is limitless. The worlds are countless in number. The Buddha came here, at this time. Why? For us, that's why.
And the Dharma teachings that he gave, all of these different Dharma teachings that he gave, it's for us.
So what if mom makes a really, really nice dinner, spends a lot of effort for the child, and then the kid doesn't eat it?
So with love, with so much love, the mother makes a meal for her child, and if the child doesn't eat it? It's like that. With so much love and compassion, the Buddha taught so many different Dharma teachings for us. He gave pith instructions that can allow us to attain awakening in one life, in this life, in this body. And if we don't use them, then what?
So then if we really think about it, it changes actually how we feel, right? We feel like, oh, okay, this is really... I can do something with this life, with this human birth.
Then we can feel like, okay, I actually am a person. I have the qualifications, the qualities that make me a human being.
Otherwise, what differentiates us from animals? We don't really put the Dharma into practice.
Okay, so we kind of got off on another topic there. But here, back to the image of the Buddha. It says he's golden-hued with the major signs and minor marks. Golden-hued doesn't mean that he looks like gold, but it means that he's radiant, actually. Golden color and very, very radiant. And that radiance of the Buddha's body is something that could be perceived, is something that can be perceived by everyone, by all beings. Um, even, uh... it's mentioned that there are some people, like one of his relatives and a few other students, who had very wrong views about the Buddha. And so they all thought, oh, you know, what? The Buddha, he's not so much different from anybody else except that he's radiant. So even they could see this kind of light radiating out from the Buddha. So that's what we should understand here by this golden hue, is that he was really radiant.
Some people don't like thinking, I don't want to think about the Buddha being golden-colored. They find that kind of annoying for some reason. Don't worry about it. Just have this sense of radiance, shining, radiant form. That's how you should understand it.
He has the major signs and minor marks, the thirty-two major signs and eighty minor marks of an awakened being.
And so he's wearing the three Dharma robes. That's describing his clothing, a lower robe, an upper top and then the upper robe. And very simple, that's the idea. His clothing is very simple. He's in the form of the nirmāṇakāya, with very simple attire.
His legs are in vajra posture, so he's seated in vajra posture. That's easy to understand.
His right hand is fully outstretched in the earth-touching gesture. You can see that up there, in some of the images of the Buddha. Not that one.
And his left hand is in the gesture of meditative equipoise, like this, in his lap. And in that hand is an alms bowl and it's filled with nectar.
And so his body has all of these major and minor marks and his speech has the sixty qualities.
And his awakened mind has the qualities of wisdom and love and capacity.
And so he's splendorous.
He's radiating glory and splendor, like a golden mountain. Nets of wisdom light rays fill the sky around him. And he's completely surrounded by an ocean-like retinue of noble ones, such as the eight close sons. Actually, that's what these images, these statues, eight statues here, are the eight close sons. These are the eight Bodhisattva, close Bodhisattva disciples. The sixteen elders, represented by these thangkas along the side here, and the like. So he's surrounded by the eight close sons, the sixteen elders, male and female bodhisattvas, male and female arhats. You should visualize him surrounded by this kind of retinue.
The sixteen elders are, in fact, Mahāyāna practitioners that take on the form of the Śrāvakayāna practitioners.
And merely by recollecting him liberation from the two extremes of existence and peace, the glory of supreme bliss is bestowed. He is present as the great embodiment of all refuges. So he, his form, his presence is as the embodiment of all refuge objects together.
As Rinpoche mentioned already, earlier we visualized the form as empty form, empty appearance.
It's very important that when we visualize the Buddha and retinue, we visualize that they are actually there, and they are looking upon me with great love. That's important.
And then what follows actually is in order to gather the accumulations and purify the obscurations, we gather the accumulations and purify our obscurations in order that our meditative concentration, our samadhi will go well, that we'll be able to do that well. And that's really important actually. It's that if you purify your obscurations, then realization just naturally arises and naturally unfolds. And so it's not that we shouldn't think that these practices are pointless somehow. They're not pointless. They really have an important function. It is through gathering the accumulations and purifying our obscurations that we create a circumstance that allows us to remain well in meditation.
And this seven-branch practice which comes next in the sādhana, this is a very... an excellent way, like the supreme way of gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations. It's mentioned in the sūtra context as well as in the tantric context as being an excellent supreme way of doing this.
These seven-branch practices, these seven-branches are said to be a very unique method through which one can gather tremendous amounts of merit in a very short time, just in an instant, in a moment.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche says that um... all of the methods for attaining full awakening can be found in the seven-branches.
Because in the seven-branches we have methods for gathering the accumulations, for purifying our obscurations, and for bringing about the flourishing of our virtue.
Tomorrow is the last, no? Day after tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Then...
Okay, I'll be careful now. I said a lot of pointless things before, but now... I spend a lot of time on useless things in the previous day. Then...
So now we come to the seven-branches which begins on page fifteen of our sādhana.
At this point in the sādhana, we again place our palms together at our heart. During the part of the sādhana that came before this for the visualization of the deity, then we can just keep our hands down in our lap. But here, when we start with the seven-branches, we again put our palms together at our heart.
So here, during these practices, we should think, I and all sentient beings together, we are doing this together. We're prostrating, we're making offerings, confessing and so on. All of us joining together to do this.
So here, these first lines are the lines for paying homage or making prostrations. And I already explained a little bit before about paying homage, so the same idea applies here.
So here it mentions um... that the Buddha accepted this degenerate world and made five hundred aspirations. I mentioned to you before about these aspirations that the Buddha made. And there's more information on them, if you're curious, in the White Lotus Sutra. And also in the Mipham Rinpoche's text that is the supportive background text for this sādhana. So if you're curious, you can find more detail in those sources about these five hundred aspirations.
Like there actually are five hundred different aspirations. It's not just kind of a random statement. Oh yeah, there's five hundred of them. If you want to know what the five hundred are, you can find a list of each of them. Yeah? It's actually like that. So he's very emotional, yeah? He understands, I have so suffering, everybody must suffering. That time he's not enlightened, so he can be like us.
And so here we pay homage and make prostrations, but at this point doing the sādhana, we don't actually physically prostrate, but mentally in our mind we visualize making prostrations.
And then on the next page, page sixteen, where it says visualizing the accumulations of merit through the three doors of the enjoyments of myself and others as Samantabhadra's offering cloud, I offer it. And so this is the practice of making offerings.
And this is a remedy to stinginess.
Then where it says all of my misdeeds and transgressions accumulated since time immemorial, I confess one by one with fervent heartfelt repentance. This is the branch of confession.
And so how do we ensure that our negative deeds are purified? What makes it possible to purify them? Well, if we have regret for having done something negative in the past, and we make a commitment not to do that negative thing in the future, then that is what allows us to purify the negativity that we've done.
Without these two aspects, whatever kind of confession practice we do, even if we're doing Vajrasattva practice, reciting the one hundred syllable mantra or whatever it is, without these two aspects, doing any kind of confession practice, sure, it helps a little, maybe reduces a little bit the strength of that negative deed, but you can't completely purify it without those two aspects.
And so really, um... confession is very important, and Vajrasattva we say usually is the best confession, and even doing that without those two aspects doesn't purify a negative deed. So really, it's important that we understand what confession is. We understand what it is and what it does. That's important. A lot of Westerners, otherwise, don't really like confession. There's some kind of discomfort. They're not into it. We have to know what we're doing and why, then it makes more sense.
So basically, we have to acknowledge that we did something wrong in the past. That's really important, right? Acknowledging that we have done something that was wrong. Somebody who is able to acknowledge that he or she has done something wrong is a very honest, sincere person, right? To be able to simply acknowledge wrongdoing.
And actually somebody who then feels regret and says, I'm not going to do that again, right? I will not, in the future, engage in that same negative deed. That's a very honest, sincere, straightforward person, no?
So then there's no need for us to feel any hesitation about doing those things, is there?
If somebody said, unless you offer lots and lots and lots of things, you can't purify your negative deeds through confession, then maybe we could feel some hesitation.
My feeling is very, very healthy. Number one, we feel now purified. So you feel like you are in normal shape. And so you don't need to feel bad. Otherwise you always need to hide, you know? You did something bad, so all the time you need to know and the whole life you need to do, this is painful. But society accepts. You do something wrong, you accept, and you apologize, everybody accepts. And then so you don't need to feel always some kind of yourself...
So if we spend our whole lives feeling bad about having done something wrong, our lives are miserable, no?
This is the international law. You apologize and people forgive you.
Then our life becomes new, fresh again, no? Like Milarepa. Milarepa. Beginning time everybody was very, very upset with him. But later on he felt bad about what he had done. And he confessed and he did commitment not to do again stupid this kind things. And he practiced, he gained, and now everybody in Tibet admire him. Everybody respects him. And all came because of regret. And... making a promise.
So we say that confession has positive qualities. These are them, right there. I just told you what they are. So it is very, very healthy. So don't hesitate to do this.
And if we say like, oh I don't do anything bad, I never do bad deeds. Okay, maybe if you are like a very high level Bodhisattva, that's a different story. But apart from that, you are probably not telling the truth.
Okay, maybe there is a difference between like really severe negative deeds and minor ones. We can talk about it like that, but you know, we are all doing bad things.
And here with the confession, it is not just me. I and all sentient beings together, we are confessing our negative deeds.
But then after we are done with the confession, it is important that we have confidence. Okay, I am purified. That's important.
And this also is said to be a remedy towards our anger.
And then on page seventeen, the next lines, In all the merit of the noble ones and... In all the merit, the noble ones and ordinary beings have accumulated throughout the three times I rejoice. This is the branch of rejoicing.
And Rinpoche actually mentioned already a little bit about rejoicing, right?
So we are supposed to rejoice when things that are virtuous have been done, not when things that are bad have been done.
And so be careful, because whether if I rejoice in something good or in something bad, I get the same results as having done that thing. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, so careful.
And rejoicing is also said to be a remedy for our jealousy.
And then what follows is the supplication to turn the wheel of Dharma, supplication for the request of teachings.
And so here in the sūtric teaching context, always we have to request for the teachings to be given, request for the turning of the wheel of Dharma. In the tantric context, we do in practice make a request, but actually it's said in the tantra’s that the saṃbhogakāya form of the deities are constantly teaching. Whether... there's no need to request, it's just constantly teaching is being given. But here, because this is the sūtric context, here we always have to make a request for teachings. And actually in practice we do this as well. Like every day in the seminar we offer a mandala to Rinpoche and we make a request for him to teach. This is our tradition that we always make this kind of request for the teaching.
And so here, with the visualization, we imagine that we emanate bodies equal in number to the dust motes filling all of space. And our emanations go off to every world system where there is a Buddha remaining present but not teaching. And we make the supplication to them to teach the Dharma, to all of them to teach the Dharma in accordance precisely with the minds of beings who will be benefited by that.
And it is said that this is a remedy for stupidity.
The four lines on page eighteen of our text are a prayer for the teacher to remain and not pass into nirvana.
And so here there are many accounts of the Buddha passing into nirvana, right? The Buddha Shakyamuni passed into nirvana. We don't have to get into all of those here, but the idea is that when a nirmāṇakāya Buddha appears, eventually at some point they go on to a pure land. And the making of a prayer for the teacher to remain can sometimes be a condition for them to wait a little while before that happens to remain longer in the world. And so that's the idea behind making this kind of prayer for the teacher to remain. And likewise we do this for our teachers, right? When we have a big program, always at the end of a program like this, we make a request for the teacher to remain.
And the visualization here is the same as the visualization for requesting the teacher to turn the wheel of Dharma. We imagine emanating bodies to all of the realms, to all of the Buddhas and requesting them not to pass into nirvana.
And it is said that this is a remedy also for our wrong views.
And then on page nineteen is the dedication, dedication and aspiration prayers coming together here.
And this is said to be a remedy for doubts.
And then on page twenty and twenty-one we have a supplication for in which we ask, we supplicate for what we want.
So I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. Um... today I think we've gone a little past our time already. And now it's time to take a bathroom break.
