Details
A Comprehensive Guide to Practicing the Buddha Dharma
Teachers:
Collection:
- Heartfelt Advice
Location:
- Kathmandu
Translator:
- Catherine Dalton
Length:
- Full Length Session
Features:
- Subtitles ,
- Transcripts
Excerpt
This talk covers essential key points pertaining to all levels of the path, and includes Rinpoche's heart advice as well as pith instructions.
Description
This talk covers essential key points pertaining to all levels of the path, and includes Rinpoche’s heart advice as well as pith instructions given by Gampopa, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and many other masters. The teaching defines buddha nature as our basic condition, describes the advantages of our precious human life, the importance of meeting a realized master and receiving his or her pith instructions, and finally emphasizes the need to apply these pith instructions with uttermost diligence.
Related Course Info
- Beads of Heartfelt Advice – Unstrung A collection of stand-alone teachings mainly by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, offering heartfelt advice suffused with wisdom. Many of these teachings were given as Saturday Talks—informal sessions Rinpoche offered for decades at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, open to all, both new and old. Each talk is complete in itself, like an unstrung bead—independent yet sharing the same essence, guiding us by means of wisdom and compassion.
Video
Audio
01:13:50
The unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha,
the Bhagwan Buddha.
He has incredible qualities, the quality
of knowing, wisdom, the quality of loving
compassion, his awakened activity,
and his power to protect.
His qualities are inconceivable.
Moreover, the great master Nagarjuna taught
that the Buddha taught the Dharma
in terms of the two truths,
the relative truth, the conventional
and the ultimate truth.
And all of the Buddhas, the Buddhas of the
past, the Buddhas of the present,
the Buddhas of the
future, all of them taught
the sacred Dharma and
teach the sacred Dharma.
What is the sacred Dharma?
Well, we can say it is the two truths,
the truth of the way things appear,
the relative truth, and then the ultimate
truth of the way things actually are.
The word Dharma can have ten meanings,
ten different meanings.
We can understand Dharma
to refer in short, however, to
phenomena in terms of perceived
objects and the perceiving mind.
So, the perceived
objects, outer objects which
appear to the mind and
the inner perceiving mind.
We can say that phenomena or dharmas can
be condensed into these two.
Outer objects include the elements, the
aggregates, the sense sources and so on.
And then the inner
perceiving mind includes the
mind itself as well as
subsidiary mental categories.
Mind also can be divided into impure mind
states and pure mind states.
The impure mind states include attachment
and aversion and stupidity,
these three states. Also, we could extend
these, we could talk about it more broadly
and say that this includes negative
emotions like pride and jealousy,
competitiveness and vanity and so on.
All of these general and specific negative
emotions that are present in our minds.
Sometimes we speak about the six primary
negative emotions and then we
subdivide them into
the twenty-five subsidiary and then we
can divide them even further into
the eighty-four thousand negative emotions.
And those eighty-four thousand
negative emotions have as their
remedy the eighty -four
thousand teachings of the Dharma.
Here, when we talk about the Dharma,
we can say that this can be condensed into
the teachings of the three baskets,
the three Pitikas, which are the Vinaya,
the Sutra teachings and the Abhidharma.
Or we could say that it's also condensed
into the four classes of Tantra.
The Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra,
Yoga Tantra and Yoga Niruttara Tantra.
The Buddha taught the Dharma
all of these teachings are the teachings
that the Buddha taught.
But if we want to condense their meaning,
if we want to speak about the condensed
meaning of all of the Buddha's teachings,
it is expressed in his statement, I have
encountered a Dharma which is profound
and peaceful, which is simplicity,
which is luminous and uncompounded.
So, when the Buddha said profound and
peaceful, this refers to the teachings of
the first turning of the wheel of Dharma,
in which the Buddha taught the four truths.
He taught the four truths and
the sixteen aspects such as
impermanence and so on
that pertain to those four truths.
And it's very important actually for us to
learn and to come to know about these.
In general, it's important that we have
some kind of interest in learning and in
study, because human
beings are actually intelligent
and we have the
capacity to learn things.
We go to school, we can go to school, and
we can learn all sorts of different things.
And this is helpful for us.
There are many topics that
we could learn, but in particular
we often mention the
eighteen topics of knowledge.
All things we could learn about can be fit
into that.
And among these topics,
one of them is the topic
of the inner science,
which is the sacred Dharma.
And that's the context of what we're
studying here now. And here it is taught
profound and peaceful, and then
the Buddha said simplicity.
So, simplicity here refers to the fact
that all phenomena are
free from any type of conceptual complexity.
And this is the teaching according to the
intermediate turning of the wheel of the
Dharma, which is
free from characteristics.
It's taught very clearly
in this teaching, this simplicity.
And then it is said that all phenomena are
luminous and uncompounded.
Here the Buddha taught
all sentient beings are Buddhas,
but they are obscured
by the temporary stains.
When those stains are cleared away,
then their Buddhahood becomes manifest.
And so actually all sentient beings
have Buddha nature.
They have always had Buddha nature.
And it's naturally present within them.
But one has to train in the path,
through training in the path, and one
becomes able to attain accomplishment and
then actually become a Buddha.
All sentient beings have as their most basic nature Buddha nature. It's present within all of us. But without the support of human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, then it's not possible to accomplish the Dharma, to practice the Dharma. And we're not able to do that. We are lacking basically the best condition for practicing the Dharma, without a precious human body. So we're talking about attaining not just an ordinary human body, but among human bodies a particularly unique one. One that, if we talk about it in terms of the numbers, is one that has the 8 freedoms and the 10 advantages. And these 18 freedoms and advantages are extremely difficult to find, a precious human body with these 18 freedoms and advantages. When one does obtain that, we say we have attained a body that is superior to even that of the gods. We talk about the 6 classes of gods in the desire realm. But the human body actually, a precious human body is even superior to the body of a god. Why? Because if we use it well, it can be a ship that carries us across to the far shore of liberation. And that is because if we use this human body well, in this body we can meet a qualified spiritual teacher and in front of that qualified spiritual teacher we can receive the instructions of the sacred dharma. And if we put those into practice genuinely and correctly, then it is possible in this very body to attain the state of an arhat. It is possible in this very body to attain great liberation, awakening. And in particular through the practices of the Vajrayana, the practice of the path of means, the generation stage, the practice of wisdom, which is the perfection stage, through practicing these together as a unity, if we apply the key points of these practices, it is possible in this very body, in this very life, in this body to attain awakening. How do we know that is possible? Because it happened in the past a lot, often. For example, Milarepa. In Tibet the Dharma really spread and so people really have trust in the Buddha Dharma and people think, OK, I want to be like Milarepa. There is this idea, I would like to be like Milarepa among the Tibetan people but of course people get carried away by the sense pleasures, by their getting caught up in the pursuit of various enjoyments and they get caught up in that and don't become like Milarepa or they get carried off by the eight worldly dharmas wanting gain and pleasure and fame and praise at the expense of their opposites. And so that is why people don't... not everyone attains accomplishment in that way. But if we were to practice the Dharma, if we were to actually put the Dharma into practice in accordance with the Dharma teachings, then it would be possible to attain that state just like Milarepa because the teachings are there, the instructions are there, we just have to practice them. Sometimes it is said that, what I need is to be a successful person like Milarepa. He is the example of success and that's why. In Vajrayana practice, one puts like Milarepa did into practice the practice of the path of means, the six yogas of Naropa and the path of liberation, the Mahamudra. That is what Milarepa did and that is how he attained awakening on that basis. But it is not just Milarepa who did that. Countless learned and accomplished masters have done so. And if it were just monks and nuns, that wouldn't be so impressive, so special, because of course they have devoted their lives to the Dharma, they go from living in a home to homelessness, they renounce, they take vows, they spend their lives focused on practice. But it is not just them. In Tibet ordinary people living in their house with a partner, with children, those kind of people through meeting a guru who has experience, great experience in realization and through receiving from such a guru the genuine pith instructions and through practicing them well, waking up early every morning, going to bed late at night, relying upon mindfulness and carefulness and conscientiousness, even when going about their ordinary daily worldly activities, through keeping mindfulness in all those moments, practicing the nature of mind. Many, many, practitioners like that, householders have attained accomplishment. Not just accomplishment, they have attained great accomplishment, they have attained the rainbow body, their bodies have dissolved into rainbow light at the time of death, they left behind only hair and nails. And this has actually happened, this has happened even recently. It's possible that it's continuing to happen right now. And this is because the Dharma is so profound, it is so profound, but we must practice it well.
In the 21st century this world has changed a lot. Science, technology have changed our world. And scientists have really studied a lot about the outer world that appears to us. Scientists use all sorts of technological instruments to examine the outer world and there is a lot to learn from that. And we should pay attention to that, we should learn about that. We Buddhists are interested in reasoning, in logic. Actually it's taught that one can come to realize emptiness through reasoning. And that's true, but it just means a conceptual understanding, it doesn't mean actual direct experience. And through a conceptual understanding we won't be liberated. We need to have a real experience of emptiness and to come to a real experience of emptiness it's essential that we have a direct experience that comes about through the practice of shamatha, for example, through the practice of vipassana, the practice of the generation and perfection stages, we need that. We need to come to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. They appear, but they are not truly real. And this is something that we can come to understand through examining that all of these larger phenomena that appear to us, when we investigate we find that they're actually just made up of a bunch of small particles, but when we investigate those small particles in a very detailed and careful way, we find that they're not there either, and that all of these things actually just appear, but they don't have any true genuine establishment. And so all of these things, the outer objects that appear to us, our inner mind as well as the pleasure and suffering of all sentient beings, these things appear, but they're not truly established. They're just like a dream, they're just like an illusion. Emptiness can be realized through reasoning, on the basis of reasoning. And so generally for Buddhist followers, of course those of us who follow the Buddha Dharma, but also just for ordinary people who are interested in the modern world and coming to know things and learn about them, it's very important to know about emptiness. We need this. Because until we've learned about emptiness, we are actually confused about what there is to know. We lack the knowledge of what there is to know. And so we're confused, we're deluded. And we need to be undiluted about what there is to know. And the way to be undiluted is to learn about emptiness. We sentient beings, or we human beings among sentient beings are intelligent, but we should use our intelligence well. What is the real essence then of the Buddha Dharma? The essence of the Buddha Dharma, it is said, the essence of all the Buddha Dharma is just emptiness and compassion. And realizing emptiness and compassion, a shepherd will be liberated. And without that realization, a pundit will wander in samsara. So emptiness and compassion, we need to learn about these things. When we talk about compassion, we can say there are two types, effortful compassion and effortless compassion. And likewise with emptiness, we can say more or less the same thing. Effortful emptiness in the sense of coming to understand emptiness conceptually through study, through using different types of logical reasoning, through examination, using the different reasonings, arguments of the middle way. Through this we can come to have a conceptual understanding of emptiness, but not an experience. For an experience of emptiness we need to rely upon meditation practices like shamatha and vipassana. If we want to practice the Dharma well, what is it that we need? We need to rely upon the training in discipline, the training in samadhi and the training in wisdom. These three trainings, each one relies upon the other as a support. And if we want to practice the Dharma genuinely, correctly and well, we must rely upon the training in discipline. Like the training of a monk or a nun, a fully ordained monk or a nun, they receive vows and through those vows, on the basis of those vows, they put the Dharma into practice. And there is a lot of commitments associated with becoming a fully ordained monk or a nun. Like a monk has to follow 253 vows and a fully ordained nun follows 360 something. There is quite a lot of vows that are held by monks and nuns. But the real root of these, we can say, it comes down to the five vows, the four main vows and in addition the avoidance of intoxicants. This is what makes up what we call the Pancha Shila or the five precepts. And if we want to talk about the practice of discipline in a slightly more extensive way, we can talk about it in terms of avoiding the ten non-virtues. So we should think about the ten non-virtues as being like poison, poison for our minds. And they bring about pain to oneself and to others, to all beings. So what are these? They are killing and stealing, sexual misconduct. These kind of harsh, very intense negative deeds we are probably not going to engage in. We are unlikely to do these things. But what we have to be careful about is things like lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle gossip or chatter. We need to rely upon mindfulness and vigilance and carefulness, conscientiousness to check. We should actually investigate. When I speak, am I lying? Am I telling a lie? When I speak, am I speaking in a way that would be divisive? Is my speech divisive? Is my speech harsh? Am I pointlessly wasting my time with idle gossip and chatter? When we are speaking, we need to be attentive to these things. We are our own teachers, in fact. The Buddha said, you are your own enemy, but you are also your own protector. For Buddhist practitioners, the enemy is not somewhere outside of us. The enemy is inside of us, within ourselves. It's our own attachment and it's our own anger. But the root of that is our delusion. Delusion with respect to objects of knowledge, not knowing what there is to know. We think all of these things, for example, are real and true, all these appearances around us. But they are not. They are not real. They are not true. They are faults. They are delusions. They are illusory. We think things are solid. We think they are lasting. We think they are real. We think they are pure. We hold on to unreal things as real. We hold on to impermanent things as being lasting. We think that things that are unclean are somehow clean. And we believe we have a self when we don't. This is a confused perception. It is a deluded perception. It's wrong. And the root of this confusion and this delusion, the root is this. But it branches out and it becomes our anger and our attachment. So the root of our attachment and our aversion is actually precisely this kind of delusion. But attachment and aversion are more manifest. But if we really think very carefully, if we just leave our mind for a moment in naturalness and examine carefully, think about, take the example of a flower. When you look at a flower, if it's fresh and beautiful, then you like it, right? And we think, yeah, we like something. But if we investigate a little bit more carefully, that liking is actually a subtle form of attachment. And if that very same flower gets a little bit older and starts to wilt and decay, then we don't really care so much about it anymore. We don't like it, but we don't dislike it really. We just don't really care. We're not so interested. And that actually is a subtle form of stupidity, not caring. And that very same flower, if it starts to rot and gets really old and ugly and smelly, then forget about liking it. We don't like it. That dislike, we start to have a sense of actual aversion, in fact. That dislike is a subtle form of aversion. If it's close to us, we want to throw it away, we want to avoid it, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. And that dislike is a subtle form of aversion. So here then, attachment, aversion and stupidity, basically we are constantly involved in them. Whether it's a subtle form or a kind of slightly stronger or a strong form, our mind is always caught up in these three negative emotions. And that makes our mind unsettled, it's not at ease, it makes our physical bodies not at ease, it disturbs our minds, it disturbs our bodies, our speech, the minds of others, the speech in the bodies of others, makes us uncomfortable, it makes us unhappy, it makes us not get along. And it's an unpleasant experience for all of us. So in that sense we say, you are your own enemy.
You are your own protector. What does that mean? Your own protector actually is the nature that is present within all sentient beings as our most basic nature, suchness, Buddha nature. That is our temporary protector and it is our ultimate protector as well. It's present in all sentient beings as our most basic nature, all beings of the six classes, it's naturally present, it has always been present. However, we don't recognize it and because of not recognizing our own nature, we wander around in samsara among the three realms, among the six classes of beings taking birth again and again. To recognize that nature we need to rely upon some condition. And the condition here is a guru, the outer guru. There are many types, several types of outer guru. One type is what's called the guru of the words of the Buddha, the words of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas who are abiding on the Bhumis. Their speech, their teachings actually, studying that and contemplating it is a teacher for us and then putting that into practice actually. So we talk about the guru which is the words of the Buddha and this is in fact a type of guru for us. And then there is a guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And that means a guru who has received instructions from his or her guru, who has received from their guru a lineage that goes back in an unbroken continuity. And it is not just a lineage of words but we refer to the lineage of realization, the genuine lineage of realization. There is an unbroken continuity of wisdom that has been passed on. So this is what we mean when we talk about the guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And then there is the guru, the symbolic guru of appearances. These are the three outer gurus. The symbolic guru of appearance here refers to things like flowers, water, ponds, even the leaves and the trees. All of these things can act as a condition that brings about an increase in our experience and our realization. And so these things too are called our gurus, the outer guru of appearance. Now these three outer gurus are conditions through which we come to realize the inner guru, the ultimate guru which is our own basic nature. That is the nature of our own mind. And it is the nature of the minds of all beings of the six classes. In the teachings of Mahamudra we call it this present fresh moment of mind. In the Dzogchen teachings we call it rigpa, wakefulness, yeshe, awareness. In the Madhyamaka teachings we call it emptiness, we call it simplicity. In the teachings of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas we call it the two types of absence of self, the lack of self of a person and the lack of the personal self and the self in phenomena. These things all basically come down to the same point. It is just a question of whether that point is clear or less clear, whether it is explained more extensively or less extensively, whether it is explained in more or less detail. The point is actually the same point in all cases, emptiness and the absence of a self. And... we say actually in the Mahayana that all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience are empty and lack a self. And in Vajrayana we talk about the wisdom that pervades all that appears and exists. And we talk about sometimes also the emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all factors and we talk about unchanging supreme great bliss. These three are very important so I will repeat it again. We speak about emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all aspects or all factors. And this is what is taught very clearly in the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the profound emptiness, profound emptiness. This we come to recognize through learning about the sixteen emptinesses and so on. We come to ascertain profound emptiness, emptiness endowed with the supreme of all aspects. Then we speak of unchanging supreme great bliss, supreme unchanging great bliss. This refers to coming to recognize the intent of the fourth empowerment by means of the practices of applying the key points of the winds and energies and the channels, the practice of the blazing and dripping of Tummo that brings about the blissful warmth. And this becomes a condition for us coming to recognize the nature of mind genuinely. It's actually one unsurpassed, one of the most unsurpassed and supreme conditions for coming to recognize that, the practice of Tummo, the blazing and dripping. So here we talk about supreme unchanging great bliss. And then one thing that we find not mentioned in the ordinary teachings of the Buddha, not mentioned in the main Mahayana scriptures, but we find this teaching in the Vajrayana. This is a teaching on the wisdom that pervades everything, all of samsara and nirvana, all of existence and peace. And this we come to realize when a guru who has experience in realization meets a student who has faith and devotion. And that meaning is taught well by the guru to the student and the student asks questions in order to ascertain the meaning, not just in terms of a conceptual understanding and not just being able to talk about the words but actually understand the meaning of that and then put it into practice. How do we practice? Well, all sentient beings, every single one of us, even the tiniest little bug, we all have Buddha nature. But without having the support of a precious human body, it's difficult to practice. Bugs and birds can't, for example, practice the Dharma because they don't have the circumstances that allow them to practice. Some birds are really smart even. They can learn human language but still they can't understand emptiness. So, really that is humans, that's the purvey of humans having this ability to really understand emptiness. Gods also, we don't have to get so much into that. But when we teach the Dharma, we say, and I teach in the language of the gods and the Nagas and all sorts of other kinds of beings, the human languages and so on. Because actually when we teach the Dharma genuinely with real bodhicitta and a real intention to benefit, then it's not just humans that are benefited. Gods and demigods and all kinds of other beings are also listening and benefited through that. More than practicing the Dharma, it's important for us to know how to practice the Dharma. And Tsele Natsok Rangdröl said, there are people without making time to study, they already want to practice meditation. And without making time to practice meditation, they already want to be liberated. And without being liberated themselves, they are already ready to teach the Dharma. They want to be a guru, they want to be a teacher. Teaching the Dharma, of course, is really important. But first, we have to become realized. We have to liberate ourselves through realization. And only then, with compassion, can we teach the Dharma in order to liberate others. So this is very important. First, we actually have to have real knowledge, wisdom, realization of emptiness and compassion, first. Because if we teach the Dharma through that, then we would actually be able to teach in a way that benefits others. Because we are teaching out of our own personal experience. But without that, just talking about emptiness, just talking about the words, just talking about it from a conceptual understanding, that's not something that can really actually be of genuine benefit for others. If we practice the Dharma well, we must actually practice the Dharma well. And how should we do that? Well, in the general vehicle of teachings, it's important that we practice genuinely through, primarily beginning with the reliance on the training and discipline. And we find this practice in places like Thailand and Sri Lanka and Burma, practiced very nicely. It's essential actually to begin by having some kind of vows, even just the vows of a householder. Without that, we are actually not even Buddhist. And in this tradition, then we might take the vows of a novice monk or even of a fully ordained monk, or nun. And keep those vows with a sense of few desires, contentment with what one has, being very careful, very mindful, very vigilant. And through that, training in the training and discipline. And then on top of that, they train in the training in samadhi. They practice the training of samadhi through the practice of shamatha, various types of shamatha. And then training in the training of wisdom, practicing the training in selflessness, coming to understand selflessness. And in this way attain the state of an arhat. I genuinely respect all religions really sincerely from the core of my heart. And that's because in general religions are good. They teach us to do things that are helpful, actually. They all say, help others. They don't talk about harming. For example, the Christians say, if someone hits you on the right cheek, then you turn and you show them your left one, you give them your left one too. And Muslims really emphasize generosity. They give houses to people who don't have homes, they give food to people who don't have food and so on. All this is excellent, actually. Hindu traditions also have such wonderful teachings. There are many, many different religious traditions and I respect all of them. But here in particular we are speaking about different types of Buddhist practitioners, and followers of the Buddha Dharma. And I have so much respect actually for followers of the fundamental vehicle of the Sravaka and Pratyeka Buddha vehicle of the Buddha Dharma. I've been many times to Thailand, I've been to Thai monasteries, I've met Thai teachers and they are incredible, really amazing. Their discipline is so pure and their meditation is amazing. They spend hours and hours and hours in meditation. It's really incredible. They have few desires, they are content with what they have and they follow the Vinaya exactly as it's taught in the Buddhist teachings so properly and correctly. Their discipline is really amazing. I really, truly rejoice in this practice as we see it in Thailand and in Burma. I've received teachings, I've asked questions and talked with some teachers from these places and it's really amazing actually. I genuinely rejoice from the core of my heart. When I have heard from them I feel to myself, wow, it's so amazing that the Buddha Dharma has really been preserved so perfectly and so genuinely. And also in places like Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong and China. I've met teachers, Mahayana teachers. We talk about, they are called Sifu in that tradition, right? In the Chinese tradition. And I've met these kind of teachers and they are really amazing people, really amazing practitioners with few desires, really content with what they have, benefiting sentient beings directly and indirectly. It's really amazing practicing vegetarianism. From the core of my heart I have real genuine respect for this kind of practitioner and teacher and I really genuinely rejoice. When it comes to Tibet, the teachings of both Sutra and Tantra spread in Tibet. But the source of all of the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism actually, all of the different traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, it all goes back to the same place, to Nalanda, Vikramashila, Udyanta Puri and these great monasteries in India, where there were incredible practitioners, great with great learning and great practice. And they are the ones who pass the Dharma on to us in Tibet. That's where all Tibetan Buddhist Dharma came from. In general we say that it is due to the general merit of the Tibetan people that the Buddha Dharma shone like a sun in Tibet. And the real root of that arising for us is the great kindness of the Dharma king and the ministers and also the people. It's due to their kindness that the Buddha Dharma was translated into Tibetan. There of course was some Tibetan language at that time written and spoken but through the efforts of Thonmi Sambhota using the Indian script, maybe a Lippi script and using that as the basis, then the Tibetan written language as we know it came into being. And the first monks took their monastic vows in Tibet, the monastery Samye was built. Through the kindness of the Dharma king, his ministers and the population, the general population, they all put forth a huge amount of effort. And it is due to their kindness, the kindness that great masters were brought from India, like Shantarakshita. Hundreds actually of great learned and accomplished masters were brought, invited from India to bring the Dharma. And because the gods and demons and spirits of Tibet were very strong and resistant and in order to tame the human and non-human inhabitants of Tibet and to establish the Dharma genuinely and correctly, the great master, the great accomplished master Padmasambhava was invited and came to Tibet as well. And was able to establish the Dharma. And the great master Shantarakshita taught the Vinaya, the great vehicle, he taught Madhyamaka, he taught mind only, in particular the pramana. And in this way, the Dharma, the profound and vast Dharma was spread and taught in Tibet. The tradition of empowerment, of reading transmission and of pith instructions came from that time and has been passed on since then. The great master Padmasambhava not only taught the Dharma, but he hid treasures that makes it possible for us now, even in the 20th century, to have access to the most profound teachings of the Vajrayana that can still be practiced in the latest, freshest form. We have access to these teachings because of Padmasambhava, Guru Padmasambhava's kindness. So through the kindness of the great Shantarakshita, the Dharma king, Trisong Detsen, the great master, Padmasambhava, and the great kindness of the king, the ministers, and not just them though, the kindness of the people, the Tibetan people. We have the Buddha Dharma here, the Tibetan Buddha Dharma here, still existing today in the world. And it really is due to the kindness of the Tibetan people on the whole, the masses, if you will, of Tibetan people, not just the kings and ministers. And why do I say this? Because who were the monks and nuns? Who were the practitioners of the Buddha Dharma? They were just ordinary people. Who fed those monks and nuns? They were ordinary people too. Who built the monasteries and the nunneries and the retreat places? Who used their body, their speech and their mind to support the Buddha Dharma? It was the people of Tibet. And so the ancestors of the Tibetan people, modern day Tibetan people, have provided an inconceivable kindness by supporting the Buddha Dharma so that it survives now in the world. And now the Tibetan people are spread all over the world, living all over the world, not just in Tibet. But I want you young Tibetans to remember this and to think, my ancestors did so much to support the Buddha Dharma. This is our legacy. What is the real legacy that has been passed on to me through my ancestors, from my grandparents, my parents? What is that? Our real legacy, the real legacy of the Tibetan people is the Buddha's words, the kangyur, that were translated into Tibetan, the tengyur, the translations of the commentaries on those words, thousands and thousands of volumes of texts that have been passed on, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Tibetan Buddhist scriptures are the most precious legacy of the Tibetan people, these teachings. It's more precious even than a jewel. And so when I talk here about Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan here refers to, or Tibetan Buddhism refers to the Buddhism that uses as its basis the kangyur and the tengyur, the translated words of the Buddha and the translated commentaries that were translated into the Tibetan language. But these are used by the people not just of Tibet, but also Bhutanese and people from Sikkim and from Gangshar and Spiti and Ladakh and Muen Tawang, even as far as Mongolia. And so now all over the world we talk about Tibetan Buddhism and that it's spread all over the world. But actually it refers to the Buddhism that's practiced on the basis of these texts. And in general we can say that the Buddha Dharma is well preserved in the Tibetan language and in particular the Vajrayana. And so if you want to learn all of the Buddha's teachings, all of it, the fullness of the Buddha Dharma, then it's actually very, very important to learn the Tibetan language.
However, it's not only Tibetan that is important, it's also Sanskrit. To study Sanskrit is very good and to study Pali would also be very good, Chinese as well, a huge number of Buddhist texts are preserved in the Chinese language. And in fact if we take the example of Chinese people, they have a tremendous amount of merit. In fact, before the Buddha Dharma spread to Tibet, it was spread in China. It spread throughout China. And primarily on the basis of Sanskrit language texts, maybe also some from the Pali, but mostly from Sanskrit, texts were translated into Chinese language. And so this is also through the kindness of the Chinese kings and ministers and the Chinese populace that these texts were translated and that the Buddha Dharma spread in China. They gave huge support to the Buddha Dharma. And now again in the present time, in the 21st century, we can say that the largest ethnic group of Buddhist practitioners is actually Chinese. There are many, many Chinese people who are studying and practicing the Buddha Dharma and it has been part of their culture already for thousands of years actually. Also the Chinese people tend to have a character that is suited to generosity and offering. As soon as a Chinese person, Dharma practitioner sees somebody who is in need, they immediately are so generous offering some generosity to that person. As soon as they see an image of awakened body, speech and mind or a teacher or a monk, they immediately pull out a red packet full of money and make some kind of offering. Sometimes it actually becomes embarrassing for us because it's too much. It's okay one time, two times to make an offering. But when this happens so much, it actually becomes embarrassing sometimes for us to receive offerings because the Chinese people are so generous. And this kind of, this power of generosity, this power of offering has caused the Chinese people to build so many monasteries. The Chinese people have built a lot of monasteries. Chinese people have supported a lot of monks and nuns. They have a great capacity for generosity. They have a great capacity for offering and giving. And as a result of that, wherever you go, you find that they have good luck, good fortune. So this just goes to show us that we need merit. Merit, it is said that someone who has merit can accomplish whatever he or she wants. How should we understand that? Well, some people just very naturally like to make offerings and to be generous and to give. And when you look at those people, they tend to have just naturally a lot of really good fortune. And there are other people who studied a lot. Maybe they studied even economics and business in great detail and they've studied so much and learned a lot about it, but they still can't seem to ever make any money. Well, they learned a lot, but they still somehow don't manage to make money. Why? We have to think about the fact that merit is so important. Merit, actually. And it's not just the Chinese people here that have been of such benefit to supporting the Buddha Dharma. All over Asia, the Dharma spread in so many countries. And Asian people today should really think about the fact that your ancestors practiced the Dharma. They supported the Dharma through offerings. They built monasteries, they supported the building of representations of the awakened body, speech and mind. They supported monks, they supported nuns. And this is extremely important. In particular, the support of the monastic community is essential. In fact, in the world, if the monastic community remains stably, then the Dharma will remain stably. And if the monastic community kind of continues in a so-so way, that means that the Dharma will continue in a so-so way. And if there are no more monks and nuns, then there's no more Dharma. What good is an empty monastery going to do? It's, of course, nice to have monasteries, but the real root of the stability, the real root and stability of the Buddha Dharma in this world is the monastic community. It's so important. And that's something that all of us need to know. It's so important to support monks and nuns. And supporting them here also just means encouraging them to keep their trainings and uphold their vows. In terms of support, like for food and housing and so on, that's not so difficult these days in the world. There's a lot of people who want to support and who do support the monastic community. That's not so hard. What's more difficult is we need to really encourage monks and nuns to continue on that path. People know that the Buddha Dharma is important. And so they know that it brings benefit to self and other. And so they support, a lot of people these days support the monks and the nuns. That's not so much a problem. The problem is more that, well, as there's more wealth in the world, there's more technology. Everyone has access to these things. The monasteries and nunneries are located not so remotely anymore, but in town. And it's difficult, it's rare to find a monk or a nun who is really purely upholding their practice, who is genuinely studying, reflecting and meditating on the Buddha Dharma. And that's so important actually for the Buddha Dharma. Take the example of just one child. If one child ordains and if that child studies, reflects and meditates, becomes learned, becomes disciplined, becomes good-hearted, kind-hearted. If that person learns to debate, to compose and to teach, if the person has that kind of qualities, and then that person is better than a precious jewel, actually. More precious than a jewel. Because one such person, having really gone through that training and becoming a teacher, can lead countless beings on the path to liberation. Countless beings can be led on the path to liberation. That is so important, actually. And so, offering to the monastic community is so important. The Buddha said, in fact, that it's important to offer to monks and nuns. Why? Well, if you offer to representations of awakened body, speech and mind, you get the merit from offering to them, but you don't get the merit of their receiving the offering, right? A statue can't accept your offering, can't use the offering. You can offer it, you get the merit of offering, but they can't accept it. If you offer to a text, it can't receive the offering. If you offer to a stupa, the stupa doesn't receive and use that offering. But the monks and nuns, they do. You get the merit of offering, and you get the merit of their having received that offering and actually using that offering. And so you're getting double merit there. It's of course important to have monasteries. It's nice to have monasteries, but it's good to have monasteries. But without them, we would still be okay having temples, for example, having representations of awakened body, speech and mind. If we have them, it's very good. But without them, we would be okay. The dharma would be okay. But the thing that we must have, that we cannot do without, are monks and nuns who study, reflect and meditate on the dharma, who uphold their trainings, who uphold what we call these nine qualities. And if we have one person like that, then that person is actually more precious than the most precious jewel. So please, all of you, keep this in your heart. And if there are children who have that interest in becoming monks and nuns and go to the monastery to study, encourage them, tell them, please study, reflect and meditate well. Please uphold your trainings well. Please keep your vows well. Please study well. Please meditate well. Please teach and debate and compose well. A human being, a young person, their minds are so sharp and if a good person, a good young person meets with a good teacher, then that person will do well. And they will become themselves actually a learned teacher, someone who can support others. So monks and nuns are so important. We must respect monks and nuns and we must teach them very well. This is something absolutely essential.
So the cause is buddha nature. The support is a precious human body. And then we come to the condition which is a spiritual teacher. And for those of us, if we want to study and reflect and meditate upon the sacred dharma, it's absolutely essential that we have a qualified spiritual teacher. And what makes a qualified spiritual teacher? Well, this is explained in accordance with the different texts of the different traditions. So for the fundamental vehicle of Buddhism, it's taught in those texts what kind of qualities a teacher should have. And in the Mahayana texts, it's explained the qualities that a Mahayana teacher should have and likewise in the Vajrayana texts, it's explained the kind of qualities that a Vajrayana teacher should have. But from the guru's side, sorry, from the student's side, it's essential that we meet a qualified spiritual teacher. And a qualified spiritual teacher, to be honest with you, is rare, difficult to find. But it's also rare and difficult to find, very rare, to find a student who is genuinely, in a heartfelt way, interested in accomplishing the dharma, who has real renunciation and weariness with samsara, who has genuine love and compassion, and who has genuine faith and devotion and real diligence for and fortitude for practicing the dharma. Finding a student like that is also very rare, and that's why it's rare that there's people who are accomplished, and it's rare that people actually accomplish Buddhahood. It's essential for all of us then to, in the common language we say, shiktim, which has the sense of like, inspire ourselves, like get it together, and inspire ourselves to really practice the dharma. Many great masters have passed away, passed into Parinirvana, these great masters who were born in Tibet, who practiced in Tibet, and who spread, who traveled actually later in their lives throughout the world. And that kind of really unique master from that generation, they're pretty much, they're mostly gone actually. And now we find a new generation of Tibetan teachers, like me for example. I was born in Tibet, but I came out of Tibet when I was still quite young. So I have just some kind of general memory of, vague memory almost, of the previous generation of practitioners, monks and nuns in Tibet, and how they practiced. And as I get older and I really think back on my experiences then, and my memory of that time, I really start to think, wow, actually the Tibetan people really, the dharma really spread very genuinely there. And the way that they practiced in retreat, and did recitation practice and stayed in retreat is incredible. The way the monks and nuns did group practice, doing drupchens in the monasteries in the traditional ways, actually really amazing. And when I think about the faith and the pure perception and the devotion towards the dharma of just the general population of Tibetan people, in those older times, it's actually incredible, if I think about it. As I get older the more and more I think about that, the more and more I feel amazed, in fact, at how beautifully, how genuinely the dharma spread in Tibet. It makes me on one hand quite happy, and on another hand there's some sadness in recalling that. But it's not just Tibetan people. I'm now talking about the Himalayan people actually. We have a lot of merit. I think people from the Himalayan region have accumulated a tremendous amount of merit because the Buddha dharma spread in these regions and through them, through teachers from these places, the Buddha dharma has actually spread like a sun throughout the whole world. And so you Himalayan and Tibetan people should know that this is attributable to your ancestors, actually, their effort, their support. They have brought into the world something that is a shared gem, a shared jewel. The Buddha dharma is something that inspires people and benefits people all over the world. One reason for that is that science is actually very has spread throughout the world. Actually a lot more people believe in science than believe in religion these days. And science, of course, it's done a lot of benefit. We can think about the fact that the scientists have created a lot of technology that are useful, technologies that are helpful for us. We can fly through the sky, we can burrow under the earth. We have medical technologies that... medicine and medical technologies that are of huge benefit. But also, when we think about science and technology, people have created really terrible, frightening weapons. And there's a lot of them in the world. And actually, it's pretty important for us to, I think, destroy some of these very dangerous weapons that have been created. Because if we don't do that, honestly speaking, people have created weapons that can reduce the entire world to dust. That exists, that has been created. And of course, technology and science has done a lot of really nice things, but also they have created some really awful weapons that can destroy the whole world. Who made those? People made them. People. So that's why, you know, the Buddha said, you are your own enemy and you are your own protector. You are your own witness as to whether you have done good or bad. So what the Buddha taught is really true, actually. And we should think about that again and again and again. Our enemy is our attachment and our aversion and our stupidity. Our protector is love and compassion and the wisdom that comes to realize emptiness. And if we want to be able to train in love and compassion and the wisdom that realizes emptiness, in order to do that, we need to meet a genuine teacher. And we need to practice the sacred Dharma that we receive from that genuine teacher. And in the general vehicle of the Buddhist teachings, there is a focus on the three trainings, the training in discipline, the training in meditation and the training in wisdom. In the Mahayana, on top of that basis, using that as the foundation or the basis, then additionally we take up the practice of the six perfections, the four means of magnetizing and so on. The view of the Mahayana is emptiness and compassion joined as a unity. The meditation are the thirty-six factors of awakening. The conduct is the practice of the six perfections. And the result is, through traversing the five paths and ten bhumis, that one eventually comes to arrive at the state of great awakening, in the state of great awakening. In the Vajrayana, again, the basis is always the three trainings, the same three trainings. And on top of that, what I just explained from the Mahayana teachings, the practice of the six perfections as well. But then in the Vajrayana we use the method of the generation stage and the wisdom aspect of the perfection stage, meditating on our body in the form of the deity, meditating on our speech as mantra, our mind as composed in Samadhi. And training in this way then, we traverse the path that leads to awakening. When we think about the practice of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, actually all of Tibetan Buddhist practice is related also to... Vajrayana practice is also connected with the practice of mind training, because the mind otherwise gets caught under the sway, often, of attachment and aversion and stupidity. And so we follow the instructions on mind training, which are presented very clearly and in a very pleasing way in the lojong teachings, the mind training teachings. So I'll share with you a few words of this kind of teachings from the great master Atisha. He said, the supreme learning is to realize the absence of a self. So what if you studied the Buddha Dharma, the sutras and the tantras, and you became very learned, you could explain them, you understood them. Is that what it means to be truly learned? That's not actually the ultimate learning. And to be ultimate, to be learned in an ultimate sense, which we actually need if we want to overcome our negative emotions, to become learned in the ultimate sense, says Atisha, is to realize, genuinely realize the absence of self. And that's why he said the supreme learning is the realization of the absence of a self. And then he said, the supreme discipline, the supreme discipline is to tame your own mind. So a monk, if he is upholding all of his 253 vows, of course that's important. The bodhisattva trainings are of course important. To avoid the root downfalls in the Vajrayana practice, of course this is important in terms of one's discipline. But the real root of discipline, the real essence of discipline, is to tame our own mind. We have to tame our own mind. We must. And until we've done that, if a monk is upholding perfectly all of his 253 vows but he hasn't tamed his mind, that just looks like he's practicing discipline. It's not the real thing. It's not real discipline until the mind is tamed.
And what is the supreme quality? We talk about qualities that are naturally present and qualities that we learn. And here in the context of the qualities that we might come about through the practice of the Buddhist path, what is the supreme one? The best quality is an altruistic mind, the wish to benefit all sentient beings and actually benefiting them through that wish. This is the most important, the best quality that we could give rise to. Best would be to consider others as being even more important than ourselves, but at the very least we should consider ourselves equal with all sentient beings. Think about the fact that all sentient beings have been our own kind parents. And in the Mahayana, for example, whenever we practice, whether we're teaching in the teaching context or the study context or the meditation context, we always begin by saying, I'm doing this on the behalf of or for, for the benefit of all sentient beings, my mothers equal in number to the vastness of space. right? we always say that. So here we say that the supreme positive quality is an altruistic attitude. And then what is the supreme pith instruction? There's a lot of pith instructions. Actually the entire kangyur, the words of the Buddha, is a pith instruction. All of the tengyur, these commentaries on the Buddha's words, these are pith instructions. There are tens of thousands of volumes of scripture in the Tibetan language that survive and these are all actually pith instructions. But what is the best one, the supreme one? It is to always look at your own mind. You might read a lot of texts, you might read volumes and volumes of texts, but if you don't really look at your own mind, you can't really practice. And that's why the supreme pith instruction is to always look at your own mind. What is the supreme remedy? Well, there are many remedies. The remedy to desire is to contemplate the unpleasant nature of the object of desire. The remedy to anger is to contemplate love and compassion. The remedy to stupidity is to contemplate the links of dependent origination in their forward and backwards progression. To train in shamatha, to train in vipassana. This kind of meditation is a remedy. Generation stage, perfection stage, tonglen practice, lojong practice, all of this is important, all of this is absolutely essential. But the supreme remedy actually is to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. And to recognize, to acknowledge that all of this, all of this that appears to us, all these phenomena are not truly real, they're not truly established. To acknowledge that everything that appears to us is emptiness, free from any type of conceptual elaboration. This is really the supreme remedy. And what's the best sign of accomplishment? Sometimes we say, ooh, that person has some signs of accomplishment. He or she has attained accomplishment. That person is really clairvoyant. Actually, the Lama knows my mind, not just once, not just twice, but many, many times I went before this teacher and he or she knew exactly what was going on in my mind and said it to me. That's kind of special. We think that's pretty special. That must be a sign that that person has accomplishment. Or maybe someone is able to display miracles. Actually, we shouldn't hold those kind of things as being so special when we see someone who has those kind of accomplishments. So even if we experience that within ourselves, if we start to gain a little bit of clairvoyance or we have some kind of signs of accomplishment, we shouldn't start to think that we're special. It's actually a big mistake to think that that's something impressive or important. In fact, the real sign of accomplishment is rather the decrease in negative emotions. That's the best sign of accomplishment, a decrease in the negative emotions. The negative emotions in general and in particular attachment, aversion, and especially the decrease in stupidity or confusion. If that happens, that's really good. That's a sign that our practice is really actually going well. So, for a practitioner who is training on the path of the Shravakas, generally, among the three negative emotions, they're mostly concerned with attachment and clinging, craving. They think that this is the most manifest negative emotion which causes a lot of suffering for oneself and creates suffering for others. And for that reason, to try and avoid getting caught up in this kind of attachment, they practice reducing desires and feeling content with whatever they have. That is why the training of a monk or a nun is emphasized in this tradition. That's why holding those vows is emphasized. And in the Mahayana, however, it's taught there is no evil like anger. There is no virtue like love and no austerity like patience. Mahayana emphasizes a lot the aspects of training in love and compassion. Because they say, right, that love and compassion is the remedy towards our anger. And there is no evil like anger. Anger is the root of a lot of other negative emotions and it also causes us to accumulate a lot of negative karma. So, here then, through having attachment, aversion and stupidity, we wander, actually. We wander through the three realms of samsara. We take birth among the six classes of beings. Why is it that beings are born in hell and experience the suffering of heat and cold? Why are we born as hungry ghosts and experience the sufferings of hunger and thirst? Why are we born as animals, experiencing the suffering of one eating the other? That suffering and those rebirths come about through being caught up in attachment and aversion and stupidity, those three negative emotions. In the Vajrayana, we, of course, consider attachment and aggression to be serious poisons, serious mental poisons that cause a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves and others. But in the Vajrayana, we say that the real root of both of these is actually our stupidity, our ignorance. And so we say, if we realize it, if we know, then we are Buddhas. And not knowing, we are sentient beings. So this not knowing, this ignorance, this dualistic ignorance is actually the source of all of our attachment and it's the source of all of our aggression. And so that is why it's essential to come to realize the absence of a self. We need to come to genuinely have this knowing, which is the opposite of our ignorance. It is taught that everything that appears and exists is a magical display of the mind. So we make a prayer, grant your blessings that I may recognize my own nature. Grant your blessings that I may gain stability in the spontaneous presence of the three kayas in my own awareness. That's a prayer that we make. So the three vehicles are actually not in contradiction to one another. Each supports the other. And each has its own presentation of the view, the meditation, the conduct and the result. And in fact, we should follow the practice of whatever vehicle makes most sense to us. So if the Sravaka presentation of the view, meditation and conduct and result makes the most sense to us and just suits us and feels right to us, then we should do that practice. We should practice that path. And if that's the case for the Mahayana, then we should practice the Mahayana path. If rather than the Vajrayana view and meditation and conduct and result, we feel more comfortable, more at ease, more natural in the Mahayana, then practice the Mahayana for sure. It's not that we absolutely have to practice the Vajrayana. It's not like that at all. It actually depends on our own heartfelt connection and inclination. Where is our faith present naturally? What kind of practices really inspire pure perception and trust and conviction in us? Whatever we find that trust and conviction in, that's what we should practice. Because we can practice any of these vehicles and attain an incredible result. If we practice the vehicle of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas, then we become an arhat. If we practice the Mahayana path, we achieve the state of great awakening. If we train in the Vajrayana, then we can achieve, we'll just use the word here, accomplishment, great accomplishment. And so, actually, the most important thing is that the root, the cause is Buddha nature. And even if we have that cause of awakening, it's present in all beings without exception. Without having the excellent support of a precious human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, it's very difficult for us to really be able to practice the Dharma. So, we need to have a precious human body. And just having a precious human body, however, is again not sufficient. It's essential that we meet a qualified teacher. And just meeting a qualified teacher is also not sufficient. We have to receive instructions from that teacher. And receiving instructions from a teacher again is not sufficient. We have to actually practice them. In Tibet, how? How did we practice? How in the snowy land of Tibet do people practice the pith instructions received from a qualified teacher? We begin by turning our mind towards the Dharma with what are called the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma, or the four mind changings. Reflecting on how rare and difficult it is to attain a precious human body. Reflecting on death and impermanence. Reflecting on karmic causality. And reflecting on the faults of samsara. Again and again and again. Until we start to lose our taste for wealth and enjoyment and fame and these kind of pleasures. Our attachment is reduced. We start to think, oh, when I believed that those things were so important, I misplaced my object of trust, actually. That I thought, I spent so much effort physically, verbally and mentally in pursuit of wealth, in pursuit of enjoyment, in pursuit of fame and gain. But actually I have been wasting my time. I have been wasting my time, this doesn't make sense. And then our mind actually changes. Our mind actually transforms and that's when we get to be called a practitioner. That's when we become what is called a practitioner. And so here impermanence is really important for us to contemplate. Contemplating the impermanence of the outer world. Contemplating the impermanence of sentient beings who live in the world. Contemplating the impermanence of the happiness and sadnesses experienced by beings. The Buddha said that everything compounded is impermanent. Everything defiled, all the negative emotions are suffering. All phenomena are empty and lack of self and nirvana is peace. This is what the Buddha said, these are the four seals of the teaching. And he said that everything is changing. All phenomena moment by moment are changing, impermanent. And if we just think about impermanence actually, contemplate permanence and impermanence for some time. This can lead us to a realization of emptiness. Of the perfect simplicity, freedom from conceptual complexity. Like for example in the Madhyamaka teachings the great master Nagarjuna goes through several reasonings. The reasoning about coming and going. The reasoning related to fire and firewood. The reasoning which is an examination of the view. In his text the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, the reasonings are extremely profound there. Like for example Nagarjuna says where there has been going, there is no going at the present. And where it has yet to occur, where there has not been any going yet, there is no going happening there. And aside for where going has already happened and where going has not yet happened, there is no walking, no going that occurs anywhere. And so when we look for it, when we examine, we actually can't find walking, going anywhere. And likewise also Nagarjuna says there in that text that if compounded phenomena are not at all established, then how could uncompounded phenomena be established? And he also says that samsara is nothing other than thought. And when we are free from that, that is liberation. So this is actually contemplating these things, learning and memorizing these verses for example, and then coming to understand the explanation of them and studying the explanation and coming to understand it very genuinely is extremely helpful for our practice. To practice the dharma we need to begin by the common preliminaries, which are the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the dharma, the four mind changings. Then we need to follow through with the uncommon preliminaries, which are the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations, what we call the Ngöndro or the preliminaries. Here we begin with refuge and bodhicitta, together with prostrations through which we purify all negative deeds that we have accumulated with our body since beginningless time in samsara, both ourselves and all sentient beings. Deeds like killing and stealing and sexual misconduct. We purify this, we purify our body through making prostrations. And then the practice of Vajrasattva through which we purify lying and speaking harshly and speaking divisively and speaking in an idle manner, idle gossip and chatter. All the negativity accumulated through speech in this way and all the habit patterns associated with that we purify through Vajrasattva. And then we purify the negative deeds we've accumulated with our mind, covetousness and ill will and wrong view. This is purified through the outer, inner and secret accumulations of the mandala practice. And then we purify all of the negative deeds without any exception of body, speech and mind through the practice of guru yoga. In the guru yoga practice we outwardly supplicate the root and lineage gurus and then we receive the four empowerments and mingle our mind with the mind of the guru. In this way we practice the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations of the preliminary practices. And this is how we practice in the snowy land of Tibet. The root of this of course comes from India. And actually all of these practices, like in India prostrations, we say Danut, mandala is in fact a Sanskrit word. Vajrasattva, the mantra, Om Benza Satva samaya, that is a Om Vajrasatva samaya, that's a Sanskrit mantra. The word guru yoga, guru yoga is a Sanskrit word. So the source of all of these practices is actually India. And this is how we put this into practice. And on top of that, however, then we need the path to clarify confusion. And for the path to clarify confusion, we train in the practice of the generation stage, recitation and the perfection stage. And then we need our delusion to our confusion to dawn as wisdom. And for that we practice Mahamudra, the practice of Mahamudra. We can say that this can be divided into the aspect of method, which is the six yogas of Naropa, and the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. And that refers to the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness or wisdom. We can also talk about the Mahamudra practice in terms of Sutra Mahamudra, Tantra Mahamudra, and Essence Mahamudra. This is how Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen explained it. He said, Sutra Mahamudra refers to Mahamudra in conjunction with the five paths and ten bhumis. The Tantric Mahamudra is Mahamudra practiced by means of the, or through the practices of the winds and the channels and the essences, the bindus. And Essence Mahamudra is the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness, or the ordinary mind, which is recognized when it has been pointed out, and then one sustains that recognition. That's how he explained it. Also, my late father used to explain, our late father, he explained in this way. He said, this present, unfabricated moment of mind is the ultimate Samantabhadra. You have never been separated from it for even a moment. So within that recognition, let go naturally. So we practice, in order for our mind to turn to the Dharma, we practice the four mind changings. In order for the Dharma to become our path, we practice the preliminary practices. In order that the path clarifies confusion, we practice generation, recitation, and perfection stage. In order that confusion dawns as wisdom, we train in the nature of mind. In the Mahayana, in the Mahamudra practice, that refers to the practice of the aspect of method, which are the six yogas of Naropa, or the practice of the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. The four yogas, one, pointedness, simplicity, one, taste, and non-meditation. And in the Dzogchen teachings, we talk then about the view, which is cutting through to primordial purity, and the meditation, which is crossing over into spontaneous presence. Kadak, Trekcho, and Lhundrup, Togyal. In the Mahayana practices, in the Mahayana teachings, we talk about wisdom. And what is the context there? Well, we talk about these six perfections, right? Generosity and discipline, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration. And then wisdom, recognizing the natural state. And when we recognize the natural state, when we are generous, when we are disciplined, when we are patient, when we are diligent, and when we are remaining in meditation, those five practices become perfections. And that's how we train in the genuine six perfections. And each one of these practices supports the other. So, this is how we should practice. This is how you should practice the Dharma. I'm sharing this here with you today because some of my students, some Dharma students who are connected with me, are remaining these days in lockdown. And they've asked me to give some Dharma teachings. And I know that you all have studied the Dharma. And I know that you all know the Dharma. But important things are worth repeating. So, I wanted to remind you. I wanted to share these words with you as a reminder for your practice. Please practice well. And I will leave this here today.
Thank you very much.
All sentient beings have as their most basic nature Buddha nature. It's present within all of us. But without the support of human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, then it's not possible to accomplish the Dharma, to practice the Dharma. And we're not able to do that. We are lacking basically the best condition for practicing the Dharma, without a precious human body. So we're talking about attaining not just an ordinary human body, but among human bodies a particularly unique one. One that, if we talk about it in terms of the numbers, is one that has the 8 freedoms and the 10 advantages. And these 18 freedoms and advantages are extremely difficult to find, a precious human body with these 18 freedoms and advantages. When one does obtain that, we say we have attained a body that is superior to even that of the gods. We talk about the 6 classes of gods in the desire realm. But the human body actually, a precious human body is even superior to the body of a god. Why? Because if we use it well, it can be a ship that carries us across to the far shore of liberation. And that is because if we use this human body well, in this body we can meet a qualified spiritual teacher and in front of that qualified spiritual teacher we can receive the instructions of the sacred dharma. And if we put those into practice genuinely and correctly, then it is possible in this very body to attain the state of an arhat. It is possible in this very body to attain great liberation, awakening. And in particular through the practices of the Vajrayana, the practice of the path of means, the generation stage, the practice of wisdom, which is the perfection stage, through practicing these together as a unity, if we apply the key points of these practices, it is possible in this very body, in this very life, in this body to attain awakening. How do we know that is possible? Because it happened in the past a lot, often. For example, Milarepa. In Tibet the Dharma really spread and so people really have trust in the Buddha Dharma and people think, OK, I want to be like Milarepa. There is this idea, I would like to be like Milarepa among the Tibetan people but of course people get carried away by the sense pleasures, by their getting caught up in the pursuit of various enjoyments and they get caught up in that and don't become like Milarepa or they get carried off by the eight worldly dharmas wanting gain and pleasure and fame and praise at the expense of their opposites. And so that is why people don't... not everyone attains accomplishment in that way. But if we were to practice the Dharma, if we were to actually put the Dharma into practice in accordance with the Dharma teachings, then it would be possible to attain that state just like Milarepa because the teachings are there, the instructions are there, we just have to practice them. Sometimes it is said that, what I need is to be a successful person like Milarepa. He is the example of success and that's why. In Vajrayana practice, one puts like Milarepa did into practice the practice of the path of means, the six yogas of Naropa and the path of liberation, the Mahamudra. That is what Milarepa did and that is how he attained awakening on that basis. But it is not just Milarepa who did that. Countless learned and accomplished masters have done so. And if it were just monks and nuns, that wouldn't be so impressive, so special, because of course they have devoted their lives to the Dharma, they go from living in a home to homelessness, they renounce, they take vows, they spend their lives focused on practice. But it is not just them. In Tibet ordinary people living in their house with a partner, with children, those kind of people through meeting a guru who has experience, great experience in realization and through receiving from such a guru the genuine pith instructions and through practicing them well, waking up early every morning, going to bed late at night, relying upon mindfulness and carefulness and conscientiousness, even when going about their ordinary daily worldly activities, through keeping mindfulness in all those moments, practicing the nature of mind. Many, many, practitioners like that, householders have attained accomplishment. Not just accomplishment, they have attained great accomplishment, they have attained the rainbow body, their bodies have dissolved into rainbow light at the time of death, they left behind only hair and nails. And this has actually happened, this has happened even recently. It's possible that it's continuing to happen right now. And this is because the Dharma is so profound, it is so profound, but we must practice it well.
In the 21st century this world has changed a lot. Science, technology have changed our world. And scientists have really studied a lot about the outer world that appears to us. Scientists use all sorts of technological instruments to examine the outer world and there is a lot to learn from that. And we should pay attention to that, we should learn about that. We Buddhists are interested in reasoning, in logic. Actually it's taught that one can come to realize emptiness through reasoning. And that's true, but it just means a conceptual understanding, it doesn't mean actual direct experience. And through a conceptual understanding we won't be liberated. We need to have a real experience of emptiness and to come to a real experience of emptiness it's essential that we have a direct experience that comes about through the practice of shamatha, for example, through the practice of vipassana, the practice of the generation and perfection stages, we need that. We need to come to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. They appear, but they are not truly real. And this is something that we can come to understand through examining that all of these larger phenomena that appear to us, when we investigate we find that they're actually just made up of a bunch of small particles, but when we investigate those small particles in a very detailed and careful way, we find that they're not there either, and that all of these things actually just appear, but they don't have any true genuine establishment. And so all of these things, the outer objects that appear to us, our inner mind as well as the pleasure and suffering of all sentient beings, these things appear, but they're not truly established. They're just like a dream, they're just like an illusion. Emptiness can be realized through reasoning, on the basis of reasoning. And so generally for Buddhist followers, of course those of us who follow the Buddha Dharma, but also just for ordinary people who are interested in the modern world and coming to know things and learn about them, it's very important to know about emptiness. We need this. Because until we've learned about emptiness, we are actually confused about what there is to know. We lack the knowledge of what there is to know. And so we're confused, we're deluded. And we need to be undiluted about what there is to know. And the way to be undiluted is to learn about emptiness. We sentient beings, or we human beings among sentient beings are intelligent, but we should use our intelligence well. What is the real essence then of the Buddha Dharma? The essence of the Buddha Dharma, it is said, the essence of all the Buddha Dharma is just emptiness and compassion. And realizing emptiness and compassion, a shepherd will be liberated. And without that realization, a pundit will wander in samsara. So emptiness and compassion, we need to learn about these things. When we talk about compassion, we can say there are two types, effortful compassion and effortless compassion. And likewise with emptiness, we can say more or less the same thing. Effortful emptiness in the sense of coming to understand emptiness conceptually through study, through using different types of logical reasoning, through examination, using the different reasonings, arguments of the middle way. Through this we can come to have a conceptual understanding of emptiness, but not an experience. For an experience of emptiness we need to rely upon meditation practices like shamatha and vipassana. If we want to practice the Dharma well, what is it that we need? We need to rely upon the training in discipline, the training in samadhi and the training in wisdom. These three trainings, each one relies upon the other as a support. And if we want to practice the Dharma genuinely, correctly and well, we must rely upon the training in discipline. Like the training of a monk or a nun, a fully ordained monk or a nun, they receive vows and through those vows, on the basis of those vows, they put the Dharma into practice. And there is a lot of commitments associated with becoming a fully ordained monk or a nun. Like a monk has to follow 253 vows and a fully ordained nun follows 360 something. There is quite a lot of vows that are held by monks and nuns. But the real root of these, we can say, it comes down to the five vows, the four main vows and in addition the avoidance of intoxicants. This is what makes up what we call the Pancha Shila or the five precepts. And if we want to talk about the practice of discipline in a slightly more extensive way, we can talk about it in terms of avoiding the ten non-virtues. So we should think about the ten non-virtues as being like poison, poison for our minds. And they bring about pain to oneself and to others, to all beings. So what are these? They are killing and stealing, sexual misconduct. These kind of harsh, very intense negative deeds we are probably not going to engage in. We are unlikely to do these things. But what we have to be careful about is things like lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle gossip or chatter. We need to rely upon mindfulness and vigilance and carefulness, conscientiousness to check. We should actually investigate. When I speak, am I lying? Am I telling a lie? When I speak, am I speaking in a way that would be divisive? Is my speech divisive? Is my speech harsh? Am I pointlessly wasting my time with idle gossip and chatter? When we are speaking, we need to be attentive to these things. We are our own teachers, in fact. The Buddha said, you are your own enemy, but you are also your own protector. For Buddhist practitioners, the enemy is not somewhere outside of us. The enemy is inside of us, within ourselves. It's our own attachment and it's our own anger. But the root of that is our delusion. Delusion with respect to objects of knowledge, not knowing what there is to know. We think all of these things, for example, are real and true, all these appearances around us. But they are not. They are not real. They are not true. They are faults. They are delusions. They are illusory. We think things are solid. We think they are lasting. We think they are real. We think they are pure. We hold on to unreal things as real. We hold on to impermanent things as being lasting. We think that things that are unclean are somehow clean. And we believe we have a self when we don't. This is a confused perception. It is a deluded perception. It's wrong. And the root of this confusion and this delusion, the root is this. But it branches out and it becomes our anger and our attachment. So the root of our attachment and our aversion is actually precisely this kind of delusion. But attachment and aversion are more manifest. But if we really think very carefully, if we just leave our mind for a moment in naturalness and examine carefully, think about, take the example of a flower. When you look at a flower, if it's fresh and beautiful, then you like it, right? And we think, yeah, we like something. But if we investigate a little bit more carefully, that liking is actually a subtle form of attachment. And if that very same flower gets a little bit older and starts to wilt and decay, then we don't really care so much about it anymore. We don't like it, but we don't dislike it really. We just don't really care. We're not so interested. And that actually is a subtle form of stupidity, not caring. And that very same flower, if it starts to rot and gets really old and ugly and smelly, then forget about liking it. We don't like it. That dislike, we start to have a sense of actual aversion, in fact. That dislike is a subtle form of aversion. If it's close to us, we want to throw it away, we want to avoid it, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. And that dislike is a subtle form of aversion. So here then, attachment, aversion and stupidity, basically we are constantly involved in them. Whether it's a subtle form or a kind of slightly stronger or a strong form, our mind is always caught up in these three negative emotions. And that makes our mind unsettled, it's not at ease, it makes our physical bodies not at ease, it disturbs our minds, it disturbs our bodies, our speech, the minds of others, the speech in the bodies of others, makes us uncomfortable, it makes us unhappy, it makes us not get along. And it's an unpleasant experience for all of us. So in that sense we say, you are your own enemy.
You are your own protector. What does that mean? Your own protector actually is the nature that is present within all sentient beings as our most basic nature, suchness, Buddha nature. That is our temporary protector and it is our ultimate protector as well. It's present in all sentient beings as our most basic nature, all beings of the six classes, it's naturally present, it has always been present. However, we don't recognize it and because of not recognizing our own nature, we wander around in samsara among the three realms, among the six classes of beings taking birth again and again. To recognize that nature we need to rely upon some condition. And the condition here is a guru, the outer guru. There are many types, several types of outer guru. One type is what's called the guru of the words of the Buddha, the words of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas who are abiding on the Bhumis. Their speech, their teachings actually, studying that and contemplating it is a teacher for us and then putting that into practice actually. So we talk about the guru which is the words of the Buddha and this is in fact a type of guru for us. And then there is a guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And that means a guru who has received instructions from his or her guru, who has received from their guru a lineage that goes back in an unbroken continuity. And it is not just a lineage of words but we refer to the lineage of realization, the genuine lineage of realization. There is an unbroken continuity of wisdom that has been passed on. So this is what we mean when we talk about the guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And then there is the guru, the symbolic guru of appearances. These are the three outer gurus. The symbolic guru of appearance here refers to things like flowers, water, ponds, even the leaves and the trees. All of these things can act as a condition that brings about an increase in our experience and our realization. And so these things too are called our gurus, the outer guru of appearance. Now these three outer gurus are conditions through which we come to realize the inner guru, the ultimate guru which is our own basic nature. That is the nature of our own mind. And it is the nature of the minds of all beings of the six classes. In the teachings of Mahamudra we call it this present fresh moment of mind. In the Dzogchen teachings we call it rigpa, wakefulness, yeshe, awareness. In the Madhyamaka teachings we call it emptiness, we call it simplicity. In the teachings of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas we call it the two types of absence of self, the lack of self of a person and the lack of the personal self and the self in phenomena. These things all basically come down to the same point. It is just a question of whether that point is clear or less clear, whether it is explained more extensively or less extensively, whether it is explained in more or less detail. The point is actually the same point in all cases, emptiness and the absence of a self. And... we say actually in the Mahayana that all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience are empty and lack a self. And in Vajrayana we talk about the wisdom that pervades all that appears and exists. And we talk about sometimes also the emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all factors and we talk about unchanging supreme great bliss. These three are very important so I will repeat it again. We speak about emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all aspects or all factors. And this is what is taught very clearly in the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the profound emptiness, profound emptiness. This we come to recognize through learning about the sixteen emptinesses and so on. We come to ascertain profound emptiness, emptiness endowed with the supreme of all aspects. Then we speak of unchanging supreme great bliss, supreme unchanging great bliss. This refers to coming to recognize the intent of the fourth empowerment by means of the practices of applying the key points of the winds and energies and the channels, the practice of the blazing and dripping of Tummo that brings about the blissful warmth. And this becomes a condition for us coming to recognize the nature of mind genuinely. It's actually one unsurpassed, one of the most unsurpassed and supreme conditions for coming to recognize that, the practice of Tummo, the blazing and dripping. So here we talk about supreme unchanging great bliss. And then one thing that we find not mentioned in the ordinary teachings of the Buddha, not mentioned in the main Mahayana scriptures, but we find this teaching in the Vajrayana. This is a teaching on the wisdom that pervades everything, all of samsara and nirvana, all of existence and peace. And this we come to realize when a guru who has experience in realization meets a student who has faith and devotion. And that meaning is taught well by the guru to the student and the student asks questions in order to ascertain the meaning, not just in terms of a conceptual understanding and not just being able to talk about the words but actually understand the meaning of that and then put it into practice. How do we practice? Well, all sentient beings, every single one of us, even the tiniest little bug, we all have Buddha nature. But without having the support of a precious human body, it's difficult to practice. Bugs and birds can't, for example, practice the Dharma because they don't have the circumstances that allow them to practice. Some birds are really smart even. They can learn human language but still they can't understand emptiness. So, really that is humans, that's the purvey of humans having this ability to really understand emptiness. Gods also, we don't have to get so much into that. But when we teach the Dharma, we say, and I teach in the language of the gods and the Nagas and all sorts of other kinds of beings, the human languages and so on. Because actually when we teach the Dharma genuinely with real bodhicitta and a real intention to benefit, then it's not just humans that are benefited. Gods and demigods and all kinds of other beings are also listening and benefited through that. More than practicing the Dharma, it's important for us to know how to practice the Dharma. And Tsele Natsok Rangdröl said, there are people without making time to study, they already want to practice meditation. And without making time to practice meditation, they already want to be liberated. And without being liberated themselves, they are already ready to teach the Dharma. They want to be a guru, they want to be a teacher. Teaching the Dharma, of course, is really important. But first, we have to become realized. We have to liberate ourselves through realization. And only then, with compassion, can we teach the Dharma in order to liberate others. So this is very important. First, we actually have to have real knowledge, wisdom, realization of emptiness and compassion, first. Because if we teach the Dharma through that, then we would actually be able to teach in a way that benefits others. Because we are teaching out of our own personal experience. But without that, just talking about emptiness, just talking about the words, just talking about it from a conceptual understanding, that's not something that can really actually be of genuine benefit for others. If we practice the Dharma well, we must actually practice the Dharma well. And how should we do that? Well, in the general vehicle of teachings, it's important that we practice genuinely through, primarily beginning with the reliance on the training and discipline. And we find this practice in places like Thailand and Sri Lanka and Burma, practiced very nicely. It's essential actually to begin by having some kind of vows, even just the vows of a householder. Without that, we are actually not even Buddhist. And in this tradition, then we might take the vows of a novice monk or even of a fully ordained monk, or nun. And keep those vows with a sense of few desires, contentment with what one has, being very careful, very mindful, very vigilant. And through that, training in the training and discipline. And then on top of that, they train in the training in samadhi. They practice the training of samadhi through the practice of shamatha, various types of shamatha. And then training in the training of wisdom, practicing the training in selflessness, coming to understand selflessness. And in this way attain the state of an arhat. I genuinely respect all religions really sincerely from the core of my heart. And that's because in general religions are good. They teach us to do things that are helpful, actually. They all say, help others. They don't talk about harming. For example, the Christians say, if someone hits you on the right cheek, then you turn and you show them your left one, you give them your left one too. And Muslims really emphasize generosity. They give houses to people who don't have homes, they give food to people who don't have food and so on. All this is excellent, actually. Hindu traditions also have such wonderful teachings. There are many, many different religious traditions and I respect all of them. But here in particular we are speaking about different types of Buddhist practitioners, and followers of the Buddha Dharma. And I have so much respect actually for followers of the fundamental vehicle of the Sravaka and Pratyeka Buddha vehicle of the Buddha Dharma. I've been many times to Thailand, I've been to Thai monasteries, I've met Thai teachers and they are incredible, really amazing. Their discipline is so pure and their meditation is amazing. They spend hours and hours and hours in meditation. It's really incredible. They have few desires, they are content with what they have and they follow the Vinaya exactly as it's taught in the Buddhist teachings so properly and correctly. Their discipline is really amazing. I really, truly rejoice in this practice as we see it in Thailand and in Burma. I've received teachings, I've asked questions and talked with some teachers from these places and it's really amazing actually. I genuinely rejoice from the core of my heart. When I have heard from them I feel to myself, wow, it's so amazing that the Buddha Dharma has really been preserved so perfectly and so genuinely. And also in places like Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong and China. I've met teachers, Mahayana teachers. We talk about, they are called Sifu in that tradition, right? In the Chinese tradition. And I've met these kind of teachers and they are really amazing people, really amazing practitioners with few desires, really content with what they have, benefiting sentient beings directly and indirectly. It's really amazing practicing vegetarianism. From the core of my heart I have real genuine respect for this kind of practitioner and teacher and I really genuinely rejoice. When it comes to Tibet, the teachings of both Sutra and Tantra spread in Tibet. But the source of all of the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism actually, all of the different traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, it all goes back to the same place, to Nalanda, Vikramashila, Udyanta Puri and these great monasteries in India, where there were incredible practitioners, great with great learning and great practice. And they are the ones who pass the Dharma on to us in Tibet. That's where all Tibetan Buddhist Dharma came from. In general we say that it is due to the general merit of the Tibetan people that the Buddha Dharma shone like a sun in Tibet. And the real root of that arising for us is the great kindness of the Dharma king and the ministers and also the people. It's due to their kindness that the Buddha Dharma was translated into Tibetan. There of course was some Tibetan language at that time written and spoken but through the efforts of Thonmi Sambhota using the Indian script, maybe a Lippi script and using that as the basis, then the Tibetan written language as we know it came into being. And the first monks took their monastic vows in Tibet, the monastery Samye was built. Through the kindness of the Dharma king, his ministers and the population, the general population, they all put forth a huge amount of effort. And it is due to their kindness, the kindness that great masters were brought from India, like Shantarakshita. Hundreds actually of great learned and accomplished masters were brought, invited from India to bring the Dharma. And because the gods and demons and spirits of Tibet were very strong and resistant and in order to tame the human and non-human inhabitants of Tibet and to establish the Dharma genuinely and correctly, the great master, the great accomplished master Padmasambhava was invited and came to Tibet as well. And was able to establish the Dharma. And the great master Shantarakshita taught the Vinaya, the great vehicle, he taught Madhyamaka, he taught mind only, in particular the pramana. And in this way, the Dharma, the profound and vast Dharma was spread and taught in Tibet. The tradition of empowerment, of reading transmission and of pith instructions came from that time and has been passed on since then. The great master Padmasambhava not only taught the Dharma, but he hid treasures that makes it possible for us now, even in the 20th century, to have access to the most profound teachings of the Vajrayana that can still be practiced in the latest, freshest form. We have access to these teachings because of Padmasambhava, Guru Padmasambhava's kindness. So through the kindness of the great Shantarakshita, the Dharma king, Trisong Detsen, the great master, Padmasambhava, and the great kindness of the king, the ministers, and not just them though, the kindness of the people, the Tibetan people. We have the Buddha Dharma here, the Tibetan Buddha Dharma here, still existing today in the world. And it really is due to the kindness of the Tibetan people on the whole, the masses, if you will, of Tibetan people, not just the kings and ministers. And why do I say this? Because who were the monks and nuns? Who were the practitioners of the Buddha Dharma? They were just ordinary people. Who fed those monks and nuns? They were ordinary people too. Who built the monasteries and the nunneries and the retreat places? Who used their body, their speech and their mind to support the Buddha Dharma? It was the people of Tibet. And so the ancestors of the Tibetan people, modern day Tibetan people, have provided an inconceivable kindness by supporting the Buddha Dharma so that it survives now in the world. And now the Tibetan people are spread all over the world, living all over the world, not just in Tibet. But I want you young Tibetans to remember this and to think, my ancestors did so much to support the Buddha Dharma. This is our legacy. What is the real legacy that has been passed on to me through my ancestors, from my grandparents, my parents? What is that? Our real legacy, the real legacy of the Tibetan people is the Buddha's words, the kangyur, that were translated into Tibetan, the tengyur, the translations of the commentaries on those words, thousands and thousands of volumes of texts that have been passed on, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Tibetan Buddhist scriptures are the most precious legacy of the Tibetan people, these teachings. It's more precious even than a jewel. And so when I talk here about Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan here refers to, or Tibetan Buddhism refers to the Buddhism that uses as its basis the kangyur and the tengyur, the translated words of the Buddha and the translated commentaries that were translated into the Tibetan language. But these are used by the people not just of Tibet, but also Bhutanese and people from Sikkim and from Gangshar and Spiti and Ladakh and Muen Tawang, even as far as Mongolia. And so now all over the world we talk about Tibetan Buddhism and that it's spread all over the world. But actually it refers to the Buddhism that's practiced on the basis of these texts. And in general we can say that the Buddha Dharma is well preserved in the Tibetan language and in particular the Vajrayana. And so if you want to learn all of the Buddha's teachings, all of it, the fullness of the Buddha Dharma, then it's actually very, very important to learn the Tibetan language.
However, it's not only Tibetan that is important, it's also Sanskrit. To study Sanskrit is very good and to study Pali would also be very good, Chinese as well, a huge number of Buddhist texts are preserved in the Chinese language. And in fact if we take the example of Chinese people, they have a tremendous amount of merit. In fact, before the Buddha Dharma spread to Tibet, it was spread in China. It spread throughout China. And primarily on the basis of Sanskrit language texts, maybe also some from the Pali, but mostly from Sanskrit, texts were translated into Chinese language. And so this is also through the kindness of the Chinese kings and ministers and the Chinese populace that these texts were translated and that the Buddha Dharma spread in China. They gave huge support to the Buddha Dharma. And now again in the present time, in the 21st century, we can say that the largest ethnic group of Buddhist practitioners is actually Chinese. There are many, many Chinese people who are studying and practicing the Buddha Dharma and it has been part of their culture already for thousands of years actually. Also the Chinese people tend to have a character that is suited to generosity and offering. As soon as a Chinese person, Dharma practitioner sees somebody who is in need, they immediately are so generous offering some generosity to that person. As soon as they see an image of awakened body, speech and mind or a teacher or a monk, they immediately pull out a red packet full of money and make some kind of offering. Sometimes it actually becomes embarrassing for us because it's too much. It's okay one time, two times to make an offering. But when this happens so much, it actually becomes embarrassing sometimes for us to receive offerings because the Chinese people are so generous. And this kind of, this power of generosity, this power of offering has caused the Chinese people to build so many monasteries. The Chinese people have built a lot of monasteries. Chinese people have supported a lot of monks and nuns. They have a great capacity for generosity. They have a great capacity for offering and giving. And as a result of that, wherever you go, you find that they have good luck, good fortune. So this just goes to show us that we need merit. Merit, it is said that someone who has merit can accomplish whatever he or she wants. How should we understand that? Well, some people just very naturally like to make offerings and to be generous and to give. And when you look at those people, they tend to have just naturally a lot of really good fortune. And there are other people who studied a lot. Maybe they studied even economics and business in great detail and they've studied so much and learned a lot about it, but they still can't seem to ever make any money. Well, they learned a lot, but they still somehow don't manage to make money. Why? We have to think about the fact that merit is so important. Merit, actually. And it's not just the Chinese people here that have been of such benefit to supporting the Buddha Dharma. All over Asia, the Dharma spread in so many countries. And Asian people today should really think about the fact that your ancestors practiced the Dharma. They supported the Dharma through offerings. They built monasteries, they supported the building of representations of the awakened body, speech and mind. They supported monks, they supported nuns. And this is extremely important. In particular, the support of the monastic community is essential. In fact, in the world, if the monastic community remains stably, then the Dharma will remain stably. And if the monastic community kind of continues in a so-so way, that means that the Dharma will continue in a so-so way. And if there are no more monks and nuns, then there's no more Dharma. What good is an empty monastery going to do? It's, of course, nice to have monasteries, but the real root of the stability, the real root and stability of the Buddha Dharma in this world is the monastic community. It's so important. And that's something that all of us need to know. It's so important to support monks and nuns. And supporting them here also just means encouraging them to keep their trainings and uphold their vows. In terms of support, like for food and housing and so on, that's not so difficult these days in the world. There's a lot of people who want to support and who do support the monastic community. That's not so hard. What's more difficult is we need to really encourage monks and nuns to continue on that path. People know that the Buddha Dharma is important. And so they know that it brings benefit to self and other. And so they support, a lot of people these days support the monks and the nuns. That's not so much a problem. The problem is more that, well, as there's more wealth in the world, there's more technology. Everyone has access to these things. The monasteries and nunneries are located not so remotely anymore, but in town. And it's difficult, it's rare to find a monk or a nun who is really purely upholding their practice, who is genuinely studying, reflecting and meditating on the Buddha Dharma. And that's so important actually for the Buddha Dharma. Take the example of just one child. If one child ordains and if that child studies, reflects and meditates, becomes learned, becomes disciplined, becomes good-hearted, kind-hearted. If that person learns to debate, to compose and to teach, if the person has that kind of qualities, and then that person is better than a precious jewel, actually. More precious than a jewel. Because one such person, having really gone through that training and becoming a teacher, can lead countless beings on the path to liberation. Countless beings can be led on the path to liberation. That is so important, actually. And so, offering to the monastic community is so important. The Buddha said, in fact, that it's important to offer to monks and nuns. Why? Well, if you offer to representations of awakened body, speech and mind, you get the merit from offering to them, but you don't get the merit of their receiving the offering, right? A statue can't accept your offering, can't use the offering. You can offer it, you get the merit of offering, but they can't accept it. If you offer to a text, it can't receive the offering. If you offer to a stupa, the stupa doesn't receive and use that offering. But the monks and nuns, they do. You get the merit of offering, and you get the merit of their having received that offering and actually using that offering. And so you're getting double merit there. It's of course important to have monasteries. It's nice to have monasteries, but it's good to have monasteries. But without them, we would still be okay having temples, for example, having representations of awakened body, speech and mind. If we have them, it's very good. But without them, we would be okay. The dharma would be okay. But the thing that we must have, that we cannot do without, are monks and nuns who study, reflect and meditate on the dharma, who uphold their trainings, who uphold what we call these nine qualities. And if we have one person like that, then that person is actually more precious than the most precious jewel. So please, all of you, keep this in your heart. And if there are children who have that interest in becoming monks and nuns and go to the monastery to study, encourage them, tell them, please study, reflect and meditate well. Please uphold your trainings well. Please keep your vows well. Please study well. Please meditate well. Please teach and debate and compose well. A human being, a young person, their minds are so sharp and if a good person, a good young person meets with a good teacher, then that person will do well. And they will become themselves actually a learned teacher, someone who can support others. So monks and nuns are so important. We must respect monks and nuns and we must teach them very well. This is something absolutely essential.
So the cause is buddha nature. The support is a precious human body. And then we come to the condition which is a spiritual teacher. And for those of us, if we want to study and reflect and meditate upon the sacred dharma, it's absolutely essential that we have a qualified spiritual teacher. And what makes a qualified spiritual teacher? Well, this is explained in accordance with the different texts of the different traditions. So for the fundamental vehicle of Buddhism, it's taught in those texts what kind of qualities a teacher should have. And in the Mahayana texts, it's explained the qualities that a Mahayana teacher should have and likewise in the Vajrayana texts, it's explained the kind of qualities that a Vajrayana teacher should have. But from the guru's side, sorry, from the student's side, it's essential that we meet a qualified spiritual teacher. And a qualified spiritual teacher, to be honest with you, is rare, difficult to find. But it's also rare and difficult to find, very rare, to find a student who is genuinely, in a heartfelt way, interested in accomplishing the dharma, who has real renunciation and weariness with samsara, who has genuine love and compassion, and who has genuine faith and devotion and real diligence for and fortitude for practicing the dharma. Finding a student like that is also very rare, and that's why it's rare that there's people who are accomplished, and it's rare that people actually accomplish Buddhahood. It's essential for all of us then to, in the common language we say, shiktim, which has the sense of like, inspire ourselves, like get it together, and inspire ourselves to really practice the dharma. Many great masters have passed away, passed into Parinirvana, these great masters who were born in Tibet, who practiced in Tibet, and who spread, who traveled actually later in their lives throughout the world. And that kind of really unique master from that generation, they're pretty much, they're mostly gone actually. And now we find a new generation of Tibetan teachers, like me for example. I was born in Tibet, but I came out of Tibet when I was still quite young. So I have just some kind of general memory of, vague memory almost, of the previous generation of practitioners, monks and nuns in Tibet, and how they practiced. And as I get older and I really think back on my experiences then, and my memory of that time, I really start to think, wow, actually the Tibetan people really, the dharma really spread very genuinely there. And the way that they practiced in retreat, and did recitation practice and stayed in retreat is incredible. The way the monks and nuns did group practice, doing drupchens in the monasteries in the traditional ways, actually really amazing. And when I think about the faith and the pure perception and the devotion towards the dharma of just the general population of Tibetan people, in those older times, it's actually incredible, if I think about it. As I get older the more and more I think about that, the more and more I feel amazed, in fact, at how beautifully, how genuinely the dharma spread in Tibet. It makes me on one hand quite happy, and on another hand there's some sadness in recalling that. But it's not just Tibetan people. I'm now talking about the Himalayan people actually. We have a lot of merit. I think people from the Himalayan region have accumulated a tremendous amount of merit because the Buddha dharma spread in these regions and through them, through teachers from these places, the Buddha dharma has actually spread like a sun throughout the whole world. And so you Himalayan and Tibetan people should know that this is attributable to your ancestors, actually, their effort, their support. They have brought into the world something that is a shared gem, a shared jewel. The Buddha dharma is something that inspires people and benefits people all over the world. One reason for that is that science is actually very has spread throughout the world. Actually a lot more people believe in science than believe in religion these days. And science, of course, it's done a lot of benefit. We can think about the fact that the scientists have created a lot of technology that are useful, technologies that are helpful for us. We can fly through the sky, we can burrow under the earth. We have medical technologies that... medicine and medical technologies that are of huge benefit. But also, when we think about science and technology, people have created really terrible, frightening weapons. And there's a lot of them in the world. And actually, it's pretty important for us to, I think, destroy some of these very dangerous weapons that have been created. Because if we don't do that, honestly speaking, people have created weapons that can reduce the entire world to dust. That exists, that has been created. And of course, technology and science has done a lot of really nice things, but also they have created some really awful weapons that can destroy the whole world. Who made those? People made them. People. So that's why, you know, the Buddha said, you are your own enemy and you are your own protector. You are your own witness as to whether you have done good or bad. So what the Buddha taught is really true, actually. And we should think about that again and again and again. Our enemy is our attachment and our aversion and our stupidity. Our protector is love and compassion and the wisdom that comes to realize emptiness. And if we want to be able to train in love and compassion and the wisdom that realizes emptiness, in order to do that, we need to meet a genuine teacher. And we need to practice the sacred Dharma that we receive from that genuine teacher. And in the general vehicle of the Buddhist teachings, there is a focus on the three trainings, the training in discipline, the training in meditation and the training in wisdom. In the Mahayana, on top of that basis, using that as the foundation or the basis, then additionally we take up the practice of the six perfections, the four means of magnetizing and so on. The view of the Mahayana is emptiness and compassion joined as a unity. The meditation are the thirty-six factors of awakening. The conduct is the practice of the six perfections. And the result is, through traversing the five paths and ten bhumis, that one eventually comes to arrive at the state of great awakening, in the state of great awakening. In the Vajrayana, again, the basis is always the three trainings, the same three trainings. And on top of that, what I just explained from the Mahayana teachings, the practice of the six perfections as well. But then in the Vajrayana we use the method of the generation stage and the wisdom aspect of the perfection stage, meditating on our body in the form of the deity, meditating on our speech as mantra, our mind as composed in Samadhi. And training in this way then, we traverse the path that leads to awakening. When we think about the practice of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, actually all of Tibetan Buddhist practice is related also to... Vajrayana practice is also connected with the practice of mind training, because the mind otherwise gets caught under the sway, often, of attachment and aversion and stupidity. And so we follow the instructions on mind training, which are presented very clearly and in a very pleasing way in the lojong teachings, the mind training teachings. So I'll share with you a few words of this kind of teachings from the great master Atisha. He said, the supreme learning is to realize the absence of a self. So what if you studied the Buddha Dharma, the sutras and the tantras, and you became very learned, you could explain them, you understood them. Is that what it means to be truly learned? That's not actually the ultimate learning. And to be ultimate, to be learned in an ultimate sense, which we actually need if we want to overcome our negative emotions, to become learned in the ultimate sense, says Atisha, is to realize, genuinely realize the absence of self. And that's why he said the supreme learning is the realization of the absence of a self. And then he said, the supreme discipline, the supreme discipline is to tame your own mind. So a monk, if he is upholding all of his 253 vows, of course that's important. The bodhisattva trainings are of course important. To avoid the root downfalls in the Vajrayana practice, of course this is important in terms of one's discipline. But the real root of discipline, the real essence of discipline, is to tame our own mind. We have to tame our own mind. We must. And until we've done that, if a monk is upholding perfectly all of his 253 vows but he hasn't tamed his mind, that just looks like he's practicing discipline. It's not the real thing. It's not real discipline until the mind is tamed.
And what is the supreme quality? We talk about qualities that are naturally present and qualities that we learn. And here in the context of the qualities that we might come about through the practice of the Buddhist path, what is the supreme one? The best quality is an altruistic mind, the wish to benefit all sentient beings and actually benefiting them through that wish. This is the most important, the best quality that we could give rise to. Best would be to consider others as being even more important than ourselves, but at the very least we should consider ourselves equal with all sentient beings. Think about the fact that all sentient beings have been our own kind parents. And in the Mahayana, for example, whenever we practice, whether we're teaching in the teaching context or the study context or the meditation context, we always begin by saying, I'm doing this on the behalf of or for, for the benefit of all sentient beings, my mothers equal in number to the vastness of space. right? we always say that. So here we say that the supreme positive quality is an altruistic attitude. And then what is the supreme pith instruction? There's a lot of pith instructions. Actually the entire kangyur, the words of the Buddha, is a pith instruction. All of the tengyur, these commentaries on the Buddha's words, these are pith instructions. There are tens of thousands of volumes of scripture in the Tibetan language that survive and these are all actually pith instructions. But what is the best one, the supreme one? It is to always look at your own mind. You might read a lot of texts, you might read volumes and volumes of texts, but if you don't really look at your own mind, you can't really practice. And that's why the supreme pith instruction is to always look at your own mind. What is the supreme remedy? Well, there are many remedies. The remedy to desire is to contemplate the unpleasant nature of the object of desire. The remedy to anger is to contemplate love and compassion. The remedy to stupidity is to contemplate the links of dependent origination in their forward and backwards progression. To train in shamatha, to train in vipassana. This kind of meditation is a remedy. Generation stage, perfection stage, tonglen practice, lojong practice, all of this is important, all of this is absolutely essential. But the supreme remedy actually is to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. And to recognize, to acknowledge that all of this, all of this that appears to us, all these phenomena are not truly real, they're not truly established. To acknowledge that everything that appears to us is emptiness, free from any type of conceptual elaboration. This is really the supreme remedy. And what's the best sign of accomplishment? Sometimes we say, ooh, that person has some signs of accomplishment. He or she has attained accomplishment. That person is really clairvoyant. Actually, the Lama knows my mind, not just once, not just twice, but many, many times I went before this teacher and he or she knew exactly what was going on in my mind and said it to me. That's kind of special. We think that's pretty special. That must be a sign that that person has accomplishment. Or maybe someone is able to display miracles. Actually, we shouldn't hold those kind of things as being so special when we see someone who has those kind of accomplishments. So even if we experience that within ourselves, if we start to gain a little bit of clairvoyance or we have some kind of signs of accomplishment, we shouldn't start to think that we're special. It's actually a big mistake to think that that's something impressive or important. In fact, the real sign of accomplishment is rather the decrease in negative emotions. That's the best sign of accomplishment, a decrease in the negative emotions. The negative emotions in general and in particular attachment, aversion, and especially the decrease in stupidity or confusion. If that happens, that's really good. That's a sign that our practice is really actually going well. So, for a practitioner who is training on the path of the Shravakas, generally, among the three negative emotions, they're mostly concerned with attachment and clinging, craving. They think that this is the most manifest negative emotion which causes a lot of suffering for oneself and creates suffering for others. And for that reason, to try and avoid getting caught up in this kind of attachment, they practice reducing desires and feeling content with whatever they have. That is why the training of a monk or a nun is emphasized in this tradition. That's why holding those vows is emphasized. And in the Mahayana, however, it's taught there is no evil like anger. There is no virtue like love and no austerity like patience. Mahayana emphasizes a lot the aspects of training in love and compassion. Because they say, right, that love and compassion is the remedy towards our anger. And there is no evil like anger. Anger is the root of a lot of other negative emotions and it also causes us to accumulate a lot of negative karma. So, here then, through having attachment, aversion and stupidity, we wander, actually. We wander through the three realms of samsara. We take birth among the six classes of beings. Why is it that beings are born in hell and experience the suffering of heat and cold? Why are we born as hungry ghosts and experience the sufferings of hunger and thirst? Why are we born as animals, experiencing the suffering of one eating the other? That suffering and those rebirths come about through being caught up in attachment and aversion and stupidity, those three negative emotions. In the Vajrayana, we, of course, consider attachment and aggression to be serious poisons, serious mental poisons that cause a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves and others. But in the Vajrayana, we say that the real root of both of these is actually our stupidity, our ignorance. And so we say, if we realize it, if we know, then we are Buddhas. And not knowing, we are sentient beings. So this not knowing, this ignorance, this dualistic ignorance is actually the source of all of our attachment and it's the source of all of our aggression. And so that is why it's essential to come to realize the absence of a self. We need to come to genuinely have this knowing, which is the opposite of our ignorance. It is taught that everything that appears and exists is a magical display of the mind. So we make a prayer, grant your blessings that I may recognize my own nature. Grant your blessings that I may gain stability in the spontaneous presence of the three kayas in my own awareness. That's a prayer that we make. So the three vehicles are actually not in contradiction to one another. Each supports the other. And each has its own presentation of the view, the meditation, the conduct and the result. And in fact, we should follow the practice of whatever vehicle makes most sense to us. So if the Sravaka presentation of the view, meditation and conduct and result makes the most sense to us and just suits us and feels right to us, then we should do that practice. We should practice that path. And if that's the case for the Mahayana, then we should practice the Mahayana path. If rather than the Vajrayana view and meditation and conduct and result, we feel more comfortable, more at ease, more natural in the Mahayana, then practice the Mahayana for sure. It's not that we absolutely have to practice the Vajrayana. It's not like that at all. It actually depends on our own heartfelt connection and inclination. Where is our faith present naturally? What kind of practices really inspire pure perception and trust and conviction in us? Whatever we find that trust and conviction in, that's what we should practice. Because we can practice any of these vehicles and attain an incredible result. If we practice the vehicle of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas, then we become an arhat. If we practice the Mahayana path, we achieve the state of great awakening. If we train in the Vajrayana, then we can achieve, we'll just use the word here, accomplishment, great accomplishment. And so, actually, the most important thing is that the root, the cause is Buddha nature. And even if we have that cause of awakening, it's present in all beings without exception. Without having the excellent support of a precious human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, it's very difficult for us to really be able to practice the Dharma. So, we need to have a precious human body. And just having a precious human body, however, is again not sufficient. It's essential that we meet a qualified teacher. And just meeting a qualified teacher is also not sufficient. We have to receive instructions from that teacher. And receiving instructions from a teacher again is not sufficient. We have to actually practice them. In Tibet, how? How did we practice? How in the snowy land of Tibet do people practice the pith instructions received from a qualified teacher? We begin by turning our mind towards the Dharma with what are called the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma, or the four mind changings. Reflecting on how rare and difficult it is to attain a precious human body. Reflecting on death and impermanence. Reflecting on karmic causality. And reflecting on the faults of samsara. Again and again and again. Until we start to lose our taste for wealth and enjoyment and fame and these kind of pleasures. Our attachment is reduced. We start to think, oh, when I believed that those things were so important, I misplaced my object of trust, actually. That I thought, I spent so much effort physically, verbally and mentally in pursuit of wealth, in pursuit of enjoyment, in pursuit of fame and gain. But actually I have been wasting my time. I have been wasting my time, this doesn't make sense. And then our mind actually changes. Our mind actually transforms and that's when we get to be called a practitioner. That's when we become what is called a practitioner. And so here impermanence is really important for us to contemplate. Contemplating the impermanence of the outer world. Contemplating the impermanence of sentient beings who live in the world. Contemplating the impermanence of the happiness and sadnesses experienced by beings. The Buddha said that everything compounded is impermanent. Everything defiled, all the negative emotions are suffering. All phenomena are empty and lack of self and nirvana is peace. This is what the Buddha said, these are the four seals of the teaching. And he said that everything is changing. All phenomena moment by moment are changing, impermanent. And if we just think about impermanence actually, contemplate permanence and impermanence for some time. This can lead us to a realization of emptiness. Of the perfect simplicity, freedom from conceptual complexity. Like for example in the Madhyamaka teachings the great master Nagarjuna goes through several reasonings. The reasoning about coming and going. The reasoning related to fire and firewood. The reasoning which is an examination of the view. In his text the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, the reasonings are extremely profound there. Like for example Nagarjuna says where there has been going, there is no going at the present. And where it has yet to occur, where there has not been any going yet, there is no going happening there. And aside for where going has already happened and where going has not yet happened, there is no walking, no going that occurs anywhere. And so when we look for it, when we examine, we actually can't find walking, going anywhere. And likewise also Nagarjuna says there in that text that if compounded phenomena are not at all established, then how could uncompounded phenomena be established? And he also says that samsara is nothing other than thought. And when we are free from that, that is liberation. So this is actually contemplating these things, learning and memorizing these verses for example, and then coming to understand the explanation of them and studying the explanation and coming to understand it very genuinely is extremely helpful for our practice. To practice the dharma we need to begin by the common preliminaries, which are the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the dharma, the four mind changings. Then we need to follow through with the uncommon preliminaries, which are the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations, what we call the Ngöndro or the preliminaries. Here we begin with refuge and bodhicitta, together with prostrations through which we purify all negative deeds that we have accumulated with our body since beginningless time in samsara, both ourselves and all sentient beings. Deeds like killing and stealing and sexual misconduct. We purify this, we purify our body through making prostrations. And then the practice of Vajrasattva through which we purify lying and speaking harshly and speaking divisively and speaking in an idle manner, idle gossip and chatter. All the negativity accumulated through speech in this way and all the habit patterns associated with that we purify through Vajrasattva. And then we purify the negative deeds we've accumulated with our mind, covetousness and ill will and wrong view. This is purified through the outer, inner and secret accumulations of the mandala practice. And then we purify all of the negative deeds without any exception of body, speech and mind through the practice of guru yoga. In the guru yoga practice we outwardly supplicate the root and lineage gurus and then we receive the four empowerments and mingle our mind with the mind of the guru. In this way we practice the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations of the preliminary practices. And this is how we practice in the snowy land of Tibet. The root of this of course comes from India. And actually all of these practices, like in India prostrations, we say Danut, mandala is in fact a Sanskrit word. Vajrasattva, the mantra, Om Benza Satva samaya, that is a Om Vajrasatva samaya, that's a Sanskrit mantra. The word guru yoga, guru yoga is a Sanskrit word. So the source of all of these practices is actually India. And this is how we put this into practice. And on top of that, however, then we need the path to clarify confusion. And for the path to clarify confusion, we train in the practice of the generation stage, recitation and the perfection stage. And then we need our delusion to our confusion to dawn as wisdom. And for that we practice Mahamudra, the practice of Mahamudra. We can say that this can be divided into the aspect of method, which is the six yogas of Naropa, and the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. And that refers to the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness or wisdom. We can also talk about the Mahamudra practice in terms of Sutra Mahamudra, Tantra Mahamudra, and Essence Mahamudra. This is how Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen explained it. He said, Sutra Mahamudra refers to Mahamudra in conjunction with the five paths and ten bhumis. The Tantric Mahamudra is Mahamudra practiced by means of the, or through the practices of the winds and the channels and the essences, the bindus. And Essence Mahamudra is the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness, or the ordinary mind, which is recognized when it has been pointed out, and then one sustains that recognition. That's how he explained it. Also, my late father used to explain, our late father, he explained in this way. He said, this present, unfabricated moment of mind is the ultimate Samantabhadra. You have never been separated from it for even a moment. So within that recognition, let go naturally. So we practice, in order for our mind to turn to the Dharma, we practice the four mind changings. In order for the Dharma to become our path, we practice the preliminary practices. In order that the path clarifies confusion, we practice generation, recitation, and perfection stage. In order that confusion dawns as wisdom, we train in the nature of mind. In the Mahayana, in the Mahamudra practice, that refers to the practice of the aspect of method, which are the six yogas of Naropa, or the practice of the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. The four yogas, one, pointedness, simplicity, one, taste, and non-meditation. And in the Dzogchen teachings, we talk then about the view, which is cutting through to primordial purity, and the meditation, which is crossing over into spontaneous presence. Kadak, Trekcho, and Lhundrup, Togyal. In the Mahayana practices, in the Mahayana teachings, we talk about wisdom. And what is the context there? Well, we talk about these six perfections, right? Generosity and discipline, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration. And then wisdom, recognizing the natural state. And when we recognize the natural state, when we are generous, when we are disciplined, when we are patient, when we are diligent, and when we are remaining in meditation, those five practices become perfections. And that's how we train in the genuine six perfections. And each one of these practices supports the other. So, this is how we should practice. This is how you should practice the Dharma. I'm sharing this here with you today because some of my students, some Dharma students who are connected with me, are remaining these days in lockdown. And they've asked me to give some Dharma teachings. And I know that you all have studied the Dharma. And I know that you all know the Dharma. But important things are worth repeating. So, I wanted to remind you. I wanted to share these words with you as a reminder for your practice. Please practice well. And I will leave this here today.
Thank you very much.
17:28
The unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha,
the Bhagwan Buddha.
He has incredible qualities, the quality
of knowing, wisdom, the quality of loving
compassion, his awakened activity,
and his power to protect.
His qualities are inconceivable.
Moreover, the great master Nagarjuna taught
that the Buddha taught the Dharma
in terms of the two truths,
the relative truth, the conventional
and the ultimate truth.
And all of the Buddhas, the Buddhas of the
past, the Buddhas of the present,
the Buddhas of the
future, all of them taught
the sacred Dharma and
teach the sacred Dharma.
What is the sacred Dharma?
Well, we can say it is the two truths,
the truth of the way things appear,
the relative truth, and then the ultimate
truth of the way things actually are.
The word Dharma can have ten meanings,
ten different meanings.
We can understand Dharma
to refer in short, however, to
phenomena in terms of perceived
objects and the perceiving mind.
So, the perceived
objects, outer objects which
appear to the mind and
the inner perceiving mind.
We can say that phenomena or dharmas can
be condensed into these two.
Outer objects include the elements, the
aggregates, the sense sources and so on.
And then the inner
perceiving mind includes the
mind itself as well as
subsidiary mental categories.
Mind also can be divided into impure mind
states and pure mind states.
The impure mind states include attachment
and aversion and stupidity,
these three states. Also, we could extend
these, we could talk about it more broadly
and say that this includes negative
emotions like pride and jealousy,
competitiveness and vanity and so on.
All of these general and specific negative
emotions that are present in our minds.
Sometimes we speak about the six primary
negative emotions and then we
subdivide them into
the twenty-five subsidiary and then we
can divide them even further into
the eighty-four thousand negative emotions.
And those eighty-four thousand
negative emotions have as their
remedy the eighty -four
thousand teachings of the Dharma.
Here, when we talk about the Dharma,
we can say that this can be condensed into
the teachings of the three baskets,
the three Pitikas, which are the Vinaya,
the Sutra teachings and the Abhidharma.
Or we could say that it's also condensed
into the four classes of Tantra.
The Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra,
Yoga Tantra and Yoga Niruttara Tantra.
The Buddha taught the Dharma
all of these teachings are the teachings
that the Buddha taught.
But if we want to condense their meaning,
if we want to speak about the condensed
meaning of all of the Buddha's teachings,
it is expressed in his statement, I have
encountered a Dharma which is profound
and peaceful, which is simplicity,
which is luminous and uncompounded.
So, when the Buddha said profound and
peaceful, this refers to the teachings of
the first turning of the wheel of Dharma,
in which the Buddha taught the four truths.
He taught the four truths and
the sixteen aspects such as
impermanence and so on
that pertain to those four truths.
And it's very important actually for us to
learn and to come to know about these.
In general, it's important that we have
some kind of interest in learning and in
study, because human
beings are actually intelligent
and we have the
capacity to learn things.
We go to school, we can go to school, and
we can learn all sorts of different things.
And this is helpful for us.
There are many topics that
we could learn, but in particular
we often mention the
eighteen topics of knowledge.
All things we could learn about can be fit
into that.
And among these topics,
one of them is the topic
of the inner science,
which is the sacred Dharma.
And that's the context of what we're
studying here now. And here it is taught
profound and peaceful, and then
the Buddha said simplicity.
So, simplicity here refers to the fact
that all phenomena are
free from any type of conceptual complexity.
And this is the teaching according to the
intermediate turning of the wheel of the
Dharma, which is
free from characteristics.
It's taught very clearly
in this teaching, this simplicity.
And then it is said that all phenomena are
luminous and uncompounded.
Here the Buddha taught
all sentient beings are Buddhas,
but they are obscured
by the temporary stains.
When those stains are cleared away,
then their Buddhahood becomes manifest.
And so actually all sentient beings
have Buddha nature.
They have always had Buddha nature.
And it's naturally present within them.
But one has to train in the path,
through training in the path, and one
becomes able to attain accomplishment and
then actually become a Buddha.
All sentient beings have as their most basic nature Buddha nature. It's present within all of us. But without the support of human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, then it's not possible to accomplish the Dharma, to practice the Dharma. And we're not able to do that. We are lacking basically the best condition for practicing the Dharma, without a precious human body. So we're talking about attaining not just an ordinary human body, but among human bodies a particularly unique one. One that, if we talk about it in terms of the numbers, is one that has the 8 freedoms and the 10 advantages. And these 18 freedoms and advantages are extremely difficult to find, a precious human body with these 18 freedoms and advantages. When one does obtain that, we say we have attained a body that is superior to even that of the gods. We talk about the 6 classes of gods in the desire realm. But the human body actually, a precious human body is even superior to the body of a god. Why? Because if we use it well, it can be a ship that carries us across to the far shore of liberation. And that is because if we use this human body well, in this body we can meet a qualified spiritual teacher and in front of that qualified spiritual teacher we can receive the instructions of the sacred dharma. And if we put those into practice genuinely and correctly, then it is possible in this very body to attain the state of an arhat. It is possible in this very body to attain great liberation, awakening. And in particular through the practices of the Vajrayana, the practice of the path of means, the generation stage, the practice of wisdom, which is the perfection stage, through practicing these together as a unity, if we apply the key points of these practices, it is possible in this very body, in this very life, in this body to attain awakening. How do we know that is possible? Because it happened in the past a lot, often. For example, Milarepa. In Tibet the Dharma really spread and so people really have trust in the Buddha Dharma and people think, OK, I want to be like Milarepa. There is this idea, I would like to be like Milarepa among the Tibetan people but of course people get carried away by the sense pleasures, by their getting caught up in the pursuit of various enjoyments and they get caught up in that and don't become like Milarepa or they get carried off by the eight worldly dharmas wanting gain and pleasure and fame and praise at the expense of their opposites. And so that is why people don't... not everyone attains accomplishment in that way. But if we were to practice the Dharma, if we were to actually put the Dharma into practice in accordance with the Dharma teachings, then it would be possible to attain that state just like Milarepa because the teachings are there, the instructions are there, we just have to practice them. Sometimes it is said that, what I need is to be a successful person like Milarepa. He is the example of success and that's why. In Vajrayana practice, one puts like Milarepa did into practice the practice of the path of means, the six yogas of Naropa and the path of liberation, the Mahamudra. That is what Milarepa did and that is how he attained awakening on that basis. But it is not just Milarepa who did that. Countless learned and accomplished masters have done so. And if it were just monks and nuns, that wouldn't be so impressive, so special, because of course they have devoted their lives to the Dharma, they go from living in a home to homelessness, they renounce, they take vows, they spend their lives focused on practice. But it is not just them. In Tibet ordinary people living in their house with a partner, with children, those kind of people through meeting a guru who has experience, great experience in realization and through receiving from such a guru the genuine pith instructions and through practicing them well, waking up early every morning, going to bed late at night, relying upon mindfulness and carefulness and conscientiousness, even when going about their ordinary daily worldly activities, through keeping mindfulness in all those moments, practicing the nature of mind. Many, many, practitioners like that, householders have attained accomplishment. Not just accomplishment, they have attained great accomplishment, they have attained the rainbow body, their bodies have dissolved into rainbow light at the time of death, they left behind only hair and nails. And this has actually happened, this has happened even recently. It's possible that it's continuing to happen right now. And this is because the Dharma is so profound, it is so profound, but we must practice it well.
In the 21st century this world has changed a lot. Science, technology have changed our world. And scientists have really studied a lot about the outer world that appears to us. Scientists use all sorts of technological instruments to examine the outer world and there is a lot to learn from that. And we should pay attention to that, we should learn about that. We Buddhists are interested in reasoning, in logic. Actually it's taught that one can come to realize emptiness through reasoning. And that's true, but it just means a conceptual understanding, it doesn't mean actual direct experience. And through a conceptual understanding we won't be liberated. We need to have a real experience of emptiness and to come to a real experience of emptiness it's essential that we have a direct experience that comes about through the practice of shamatha, for example, through the practice of vipassana, the practice of the generation and perfection stages, we need that. We need to come to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. They appear, but they are not truly real. And this is something that we can come to understand through examining that all of these larger phenomena that appear to us, when we investigate we find that they're actually just made up of a bunch of small particles, but when we investigate those small particles in a very detailed and careful way, we find that they're not there either, and that all of these things actually just appear, but they don't have any true genuine establishment. And so all of these things, the outer objects that appear to us, our inner mind as well as the pleasure and suffering of all sentient beings, these things appear, but they're not truly established. They're just like a dream, they're just like an illusion. Emptiness can be realized through reasoning, on the basis of reasoning. And so generally for Buddhist followers, of course those of us who follow the Buddha Dharma, but also just for ordinary people who are interested in the modern world and coming to know things and learn about them, it's very important to know about emptiness. We need this. Because until we've learned about emptiness, we are actually confused about what there is to know. We lack the knowledge of what there is to know. And so we're confused, we're deluded. And we need to be undiluted about what there is to know. And the way to be undiluted is to learn about emptiness. We sentient beings, or we human beings among sentient beings are intelligent, but we should use our intelligence well. What is the real essence then of the Buddha Dharma? The essence of the Buddha Dharma, it is said, the essence of all the Buddha Dharma is just emptiness and compassion. And realizing emptiness and compassion, a shepherd will be liberated. And without that realization, a pundit will wander in samsara. So emptiness and compassion, we need to learn about these things. When we talk about compassion, we can say there are two types, effortful compassion and effortless compassion. And likewise with emptiness, we can say more or less the same thing. Effortful emptiness in the sense of coming to understand emptiness conceptually through study, through using different types of logical reasoning, through examination, using the different reasonings, arguments of the middle way. Through this we can come to have a conceptual understanding of emptiness, but not an experience. For an experience of emptiness we need to rely upon meditation practices like shamatha and vipassana. If we want to practice the Dharma well, what is it that we need? We need to rely upon the training in discipline, the training in samadhi and the training in wisdom. These three trainings, each one relies upon the other as a support. And if we want to practice the Dharma genuinely, correctly and well, we must rely upon the training in discipline. Like the training of a monk or a nun, a fully ordained monk or a nun, they receive vows and through those vows, on the basis of those vows, they put the Dharma into practice. And there is a lot of commitments associated with becoming a fully ordained monk or a nun. Like a monk has to follow 253 vows and a fully ordained nun follows 360 something. There is quite a lot of vows that are held by monks and nuns. But the real root of these, we can say, it comes down to the five vows, the four main vows and in addition the avoidance of intoxicants. This is what makes up what we call the Pancha Shila or the five precepts. And if we want to talk about the practice of discipline in a slightly more extensive way, we can talk about it in terms of avoiding the ten non-virtues. So we should think about the ten non-virtues as being like poison, poison for our minds. And they bring about pain to oneself and to others, to all beings. So what are these? They are killing and stealing, sexual misconduct. These kind of harsh, very intense negative deeds we are probably not going to engage in. We are unlikely to do these things. But what we have to be careful about is things like lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle gossip or chatter. We need to rely upon mindfulness and vigilance and carefulness, conscientiousness to check. We should actually investigate. When I speak, am I lying? Am I telling a lie? When I speak, am I speaking in a way that would be divisive? Is my speech divisive? Is my speech harsh? Am I pointlessly wasting my time with idle gossip and chatter? When we are speaking, we need to be attentive to these things. We are our own teachers, in fact. The Buddha said, you are your own enemy, but you are also your own protector. For Buddhist practitioners, the enemy is not somewhere outside of us. The enemy is inside of us, within ourselves. It's our own attachment and it's our own anger. But the root of that is our delusion. Delusion with respect to objects of knowledge, not knowing what there is to know. We think all of these things, for example, are real and true, all these appearances around us. But they are not. They are not real. They are not true. They are faults. They are delusions. They are illusory. We think things are solid. We think they are lasting. We think they are real. We think they are pure. We hold on to unreal things as real. We hold on to impermanent things as being lasting. We think that things that are unclean are somehow clean. And we believe we have a self when we don't. This is a confused perception. It is a deluded perception. It's wrong. And the root of this confusion and this delusion, the root is this. But it branches out and it becomes our anger and our attachment. So the root of our attachment and our aversion is actually precisely this kind of delusion. But attachment and aversion are more manifest. But if we really think very carefully, if we just leave our mind for a moment in naturalness and examine carefully, think about, take the example of a flower. When you look at a flower, if it's fresh and beautiful, then you like it, right? And we think, yeah, we like something. But if we investigate a little bit more carefully, that liking is actually a subtle form of attachment. And if that very same flower gets a little bit older and starts to wilt and decay, then we don't really care so much about it anymore. We don't like it, but we don't dislike it really. We just don't really care. We're not so interested. And that actually is a subtle form of stupidity, not caring. And that very same flower, if it starts to rot and gets really old and ugly and smelly, then forget about liking it. We don't like it. That dislike, we start to have a sense of actual aversion, in fact. That dislike is a subtle form of aversion. If it's close to us, we want to throw it away, we want to avoid it, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. And that dislike is a subtle form of aversion. So here then, attachment, aversion and stupidity, basically we are constantly involved in them. Whether it's a subtle form or a kind of slightly stronger or a strong form, our mind is always caught up in these three negative emotions. And that makes our mind unsettled, it's not at ease, it makes our physical bodies not at ease, it disturbs our minds, it disturbs our bodies, our speech, the minds of others, the speech in the bodies of others, makes us uncomfortable, it makes us unhappy, it makes us not get along. And it's an unpleasant experience for all of us. So in that sense we say, you are your own enemy.
You are your own protector. What does that mean? Your own protector actually is the nature that is present within all sentient beings as our most basic nature, suchness, Buddha nature. That is our temporary protector and it is our ultimate protector as well. It's present in all sentient beings as our most basic nature, all beings of the six classes, it's naturally present, it has always been present. However, we don't recognize it and because of not recognizing our own nature, we wander around in samsara among the three realms, among the six classes of beings taking birth again and again. To recognize that nature we need to rely upon some condition. And the condition here is a guru, the outer guru. There are many types, several types of outer guru. One type is what's called the guru of the words of the Buddha, the words of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas who are abiding on the Bhumis. Their speech, their teachings actually, studying that and contemplating it is a teacher for us and then putting that into practice actually. So we talk about the guru which is the words of the Buddha and this is in fact a type of guru for us. And then there is a guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And that means a guru who has received instructions from his or her guru, who has received from their guru a lineage that goes back in an unbroken continuity. And it is not just a lineage of words but we refer to the lineage of realization, the genuine lineage of realization. There is an unbroken continuity of wisdom that has been passed on. So this is what we mean when we talk about the guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And then there is the guru, the symbolic guru of appearances. These are the three outer gurus. The symbolic guru of appearance here refers to things like flowers, water, ponds, even the leaves and the trees. All of these things can act as a condition that brings about an increase in our experience and our realization. And so these things too are called our gurus, the outer guru of appearance. Now these three outer gurus are conditions through which we come to realize the inner guru, the ultimate guru which is our own basic nature. That is the nature of our own mind. And it is the nature of the minds of all beings of the six classes. In the teachings of Mahamudra we call it this present fresh moment of mind. In the Dzogchen teachings we call it rigpa, wakefulness, yeshe, awareness. In the Madhyamaka teachings we call it emptiness, we call it simplicity. In the teachings of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas we call it the two types of absence of self, the lack of self of a person and the lack of the personal self and the self in phenomena. These things all basically come down to the same point. It is just a question of whether that point is clear or less clear, whether it is explained more extensively or less extensively, whether it is explained in more or less detail. The point is actually the same point in all cases, emptiness and the absence of a self. And... we say actually in the Mahayana that all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience are empty and lack a self. And in Vajrayana we talk about the wisdom that pervades all that appears and exists. And we talk about sometimes also the emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all factors and we talk about unchanging supreme great bliss. These three are very important so I will repeat it again. We speak about emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all aspects or all factors. And this is what is taught very clearly in the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the profound emptiness, profound emptiness. This we come to recognize through learning about the sixteen emptinesses and so on. We come to ascertain profound emptiness, emptiness endowed with the supreme of all aspects. Then we speak of unchanging supreme great bliss, supreme unchanging great bliss. This refers to coming to recognize the intent of the fourth empowerment by means of the practices of applying the key points of the winds and energies and the channels, the practice of the blazing and dripping of Tummo that brings about the blissful warmth. And this becomes a condition for us coming to recognize the nature of mind genuinely. It's actually one unsurpassed, one of the most unsurpassed and supreme conditions for coming to recognize that, the practice of Tummo, the blazing and dripping. So here we talk about supreme unchanging great bliss. And then one thing that we find not mentioned in the ordinary teachings of the Buddha, not mentioned in the main Mahayana scriptures, but we find this teaching in the Vajrayana. This is a teaching on the wisdom that pervades everything, all of samsara and nirvana, all of existence and peace. And this we come to realize when a guru who has experience in realization meets a student who has faith and devotion. And that meaning is taught well by the guru to the student and the student asks questions in order to ascertain the meaning, not just in terms of a conceptual understanding and not just being able to talk about the words but actually understand the meaning of that and then put it into practice. How do we practice? Well, all sentient beings, every single one of us, even the tiniest little bug, we all have Buddha nature. But without having the support of a precious human body, it's difficult to practice. Bugs and birds can't, for example, practice the Dharma because they don't have the circumstances that allow them to practice. Some birds are really smart even. They can learn human language but still they can't understand emptiness. So, really that is humans, that's the purvey of humans having this ability to really understand emptiness. Gods also, we don't have to get so much into that. But when we teach the Dharma, we say, and I teach in the language of the gods and the Nagas and all sorts of other kinds of beings, the human languages and so on. Because actually when we teach the Dharma genuinely with real bodhicitta and a real intention to benefit, then it's not just humans that are benefited. Gods and demigods and all kinds of other beings are also listening and benefited through that. More than practicing the Dharma, it's important for us to know how to practice the Dharma. And Tsele Natsok Rangdröl said, there are people without making time to study, they already want to practice meditation. And without making time to practice meditation, they already want to be liberated. And without being liberated themselves, they are already ready to teach the Dharma. They want to be a guru, they want to be a teacher. Teaching the Dharma, of course, is really important. But first, we have to become realized. We have to liberate ourselves through realization. And only then, with compassion, can we teach the Dharma in order to liberate others. So this is very important. First, we actually have to have real knowledge, wisdom, realization of emptiness and compassion, first. Because if we teach the Dharma through that, then we would actually be able to teach in a way that benefits others. Because we are teaching out of our own personal experience. But without that, just talking about emptiness, just talking about the words, just talking about it from a conceptual understanding, that's not something that can really actually be of genuine benefit for others. If we practice the Dharma well, we must actually practice the Dharma well. And how should we do that? Well, in the general vehicle of teachings, it's important that we practice genuinely through, primarily beginning with the reliance on the training and discipline. And we find this practice in places like Thailand and Sri Lanka and Burma, practiced very nicely. It's essential actually to begin by having some kind of vows, even just the vows of a householder. Without that, we are actually not even Buddhist. And in this tradition, then we might take the vows of a novice monk or even of a fully ordained monk, or nun. And keep those vows with a sense of few desires, contentment with what one has, being very careful, very mindful, very vigilant. And through that, training in the training and discipline. And then on top of that, they train in the training in samadhi. They practice the training of samadhi through the practice of shamatha, various types of shamatha. And then training in the training of wisdom, practicing the training in selflessness, coming to understand selflessness. And in this way attain the state of an arhat. I genuinely respect all religions really sincerely from the core of my heart. And that's because in general religions are good. They teach us to do things that are helpful, actually. They all say, help others. They don't talk about harming. For example, the Christians say, if someone hits you on the right cheek, then you turn and you show them your left one, you give them your left one too. And Muslims really emphasize generosity. They give houses to people who don't have homes, they give food to people who don't have food and so on. All this is excellent, actually. Hindu traditions also have such wonderful teachings. There are many, many different religious traditions and I respect all of them. But here in particular we are speaking about different types of Buddhist practitioners, and followers of the Buddha Dharma. And I have so much respect actually for followers of the fundamental vehicle of the Sravaka and Pratyeka Buddha vehicle of the Buddha Dharma. I've been many times to Thailand, I've been to Thai monasteries, I've met Thai teachers and they are incredible, really amazing. Their discipline is so pure and their meditation is amazing. They spend hours and hours and hours in meditation. It's really incredible. They have few desires, they are content with what they have and they follow the Vinaya exactly as it's taught in the Buddhist teachings so properly and correctly. Their discipline is really amazing. I really, truly rejoice in this practice as we see it in Thailand and in Burma. I've received teachings, I've asked questions and talked with some teachers from these places and it's really amazing actually. I genuinely rejoice from the core of my heart. When I have heard from them I feel to myself, wow, it's so amazing that the Buddha Dharma has really been preserved so perfectly and so genuinely. And also in places like Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong and China. I've met teachers, Mahayana teachers. We talk about, they are called Sifu in that tradition, right? In the Chinese tradition. And I've met these kind of teachers and they are really amazing people, really amazing practitioners with few desires, really content with what they have, benefiting sentient beings directly and indirectly. It's really amazing practicing vegetarianism. From the core of my heart I have real genuine respect for this kind of practitioner and teacher and I really genuinely rejoice. When it comes to Tibet, the teachings of both Sutra and Tantra spread in Tibet. But the source of all of the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism actually, all of the different traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, it all goes back to the same place, to Nalanda, Vikramashila, Udyanta Puri and these great monasteries in India, where there were incredible practitioners, great with great learning and great practice. And they are the ones who pass the Dharma on to us in Tibet. That's where all Tibetan Buddhist Dharma came from. In general we say that it is due to the general merit of the Tibetan people that the Buddha Dharma shone like a sun in Tibet. And the real root of that arising for us is the great kindness of the Dharma king and the ministers and also the people. It's due to their kindness that the Buddha Dharma was translated into Tibetan. There of course was some Tibetan language at that time written and spoken but through the efforts of Thonmi Sambhota using the Indian script, maybe a Lippi script and using that as the basis, then the Tibetan written language as we know it came into being. And the first monks took their monastic vows in Tibet, the monastery Samye was built. Through the kindness of the Dharma king, his ministers and the population, the general population, they all put forth a huge amount of effort. And it is due to their kindness, the kindness that great masters were brought from India, like Shantarakshita. Hundreds actually of great learned and accomplished masters were brought, invited from India to bring the Dharma. And because the gods and demons and spirits of Tibet were very strong and resistant and in order to tame the human and non-human inhabitants of Tibet and to establish the Dharma genuinely and correctly, the great master, the great accomplished master Padmasambhava was invited and came to Tibet as well. And was able to establish the Dharma. And the great master Shantarakshita taught the Vinaya, the great vehicle, he taught Madhyamaka, he taught mind only, in particular the pramana. And in this way, the Dharma, the profound and vast Dharma was spread and taught in Tibet. The tradition of empowerment, of reading transmission and of pith instructions came from that time and has been passed on since then. The great master Padmasambhava not only taught the Dharma, but he hid treasures that makes it possible for us now, even in the 20th century, to have access to the most profound teachings of the Vajrayana that can still be practiced in the latest, freshest form. We have access to these teachings because of Padmasambhava, Guru Padmasambhava's kindness. So through the kindness of the great Shantarakshita, the Dharma king, Trisong Detsen, the great master, Padmasambhava, and the great kindness of the king, the ministers, and not just them though, the kindness of the people, the Tibetan people. We have the Buddha Dharma here, the Tibetan Buddha Dharma here, still existing today in the world. And it really is due to the kindness of the Tibetan people on the whole, the masses, if you will, of Tibetan people, not just the kings and ministers. And why do I say this? Because who were the monks and nuns? Who were the practitioners of the Buddha Dharma? They were just ordinary people. Who fed those monks and nuns? They were ordinary people too. Who built the monasteries and the nunneries and the retreat places? Who used their body, their speech and their mind to support the Buddha Dharma? It was the people of Tibet. And so the ancestors of the Tibetan people, modern day Tibetan people, have provided an inconceivable kindness by supporting the Buddha Dharma so that it survives now in the world. And now the Tibetan people are spread all over the world, living all over the world, not just in Tibet. But I want you young Tibetans to remember this and to think, my ancestors did so much to support the Buddha Dharma. This is our legacy. What is the real legacy that has been passed on to me through my ancestors, from my grandparents, my parents? What is that? Our real legacy, the real legacy of the Tibetan people is the Buddha's words, the kangyur, that were translated into Tibetan, the tengyur, the translations of the commentaries on those words, thousands and thousands of volumes of texts that have been passed on, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Tibetan Buddhist scriptures are the most precious legacy of the Tibetan people, these teachings. It's more precious even than a jewel. And so when I talk here about Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan here refers to, or Tibetan Buddhism refers to the Buddhism that uses as its basis the kangyur and the tengyur, the translated words of the Buddha and the translated commentaries that were translated into the Tibetan language. But these are used by the people not just of Tibet, but also Bhutanese and people from Sikkim and from Gangshar and Spiti and Ladakh and Muen Tawang, even as far as Mongolia. And so now all over the world we talk about Tibetan Buddhism and that it's spread all over the world. But actually it refers to the Buddhism that's practiced on the basis of these texts. And in general we can say that the Buddha Dharma is well preserved in the Tibetan language and in particular the Vajrayana. And so if you want to learn all of the Buddha's teachings, all of it, the fullness of the Buddha Dharma, then it's actually very, very important to learn the Tibetan language.
However, it's not only Tibetan that is important, it's also Sanskrit. To study Sanskrit is very good and to study Pali would also be very good, Chinese as well, a huge number of Buddhist texts are preserved in the Chinese language. And in fact if we take the example of Chinese people, they have a tremendous amount of merit. In fact, before the Buddha Dharma spread to Tibet, it was spread in China. It spread throughout China. And primarily on the basis of Sanskrit language texts, maybe also some from the Pali, but mostly from Sanskrit, texts were translated into Chinese language. And so this is also through the kindness of the Chinese kings and ministers and the Chinese populace that these texts were translated and that the Buddha Dharma spread in China. They gave huge support to the Buddha Dharma. And now again in the present time, in the 21st century, we can say that the largest ethnic group of Buddhist practitioners is actually Chinese. There are many, many Chinese people who are studying and practicing the Buddha Dharma and it has been part of their culture already for thousands of years actually. Also the Chinese people tend to have a character that is suited to generosity and offering. As soon as a Chinese person, Dharma practitioner sees somebody who is in need, they immediately are so generous offering some generosity to that person. As soon as they see an image of awakened body, speech and mind or a teacher or a monk, they immediately pull out a red packet full of money and make some kind of offering. Sometimes it actually becomes embarrassing for us because it's too much. It's okay one time, two times to make an offering. But when this happens so much, it actually becomes embarrassing sometimes for us to receive offerings because the Chinese people are so generous. And this kind of, this power of generosity, this power of offering has caused the Chinese people to build so many monasteries. The Chinese people have built a lot of monasteries. Chinese people have supported a lot of monks and nuns. They have a great capacity for generosity. They have a great capacity for offering and giving. And as a result of that, wherever you go, you find that they have good luck, good fortune. So this just goes to show us that we need merit. Merit, it is said that someone who has merit can accomplish whatever he or she wants. How should we understand that? Well, some people just very naturally like to make offerings and to be generous and to give. And when you look at those people, they tend to have just naturally a lot of really good fortune. And there are other people who studied a lot. Maybe they studied even economics and business in great detail and they've studied so much and learned a lot about it, but they still can't seem to ever make any money. Well, they learned a lot, but they still somehow don't manage to make money. Why? We have to think about the fact that merit is so important. Merit, actually. And it's not just the Chinese people here that have been of such benefit to supporting the Buddha Dharma. All over Asia, the Dharma spread in so many countries. And Asian people today should really think about the fact that your ancestors practiced the Dharma. They supported the Dharma through offerings. They built monasteries, they supported the building of representations of the awakened body, speech and mind. They supported monks, they supported nuns. And this is extremely important. In particular, the support of the monastic community is essential. In fact, in the world, if the monastic community remains stably, then the Dharma will remain stably. And if the monastic community kind of continues in a so-so way, that means that the Dharma will continue in a so-so way. And if there are no more monks and nuns, then there's no more Dharma. What good is an empty monastery going to do? It's, of course, nice to have monasteries, but the real root of the stability, the real root and stability of the Buddha Dharma in this world is the monastic community. It's so important. And that's something that all of us need to know. It's so important to support monks and nuns. And supporting them here also just means encouraging them to keep their trainings and uphold their vows. In terms of support, like for food and housing and so on, that's not so difficult these days in the world. There's a lot of people who want to support and who do support the monastic community. That's not so hard. What's more difficult is we need to really encourage monks and nuns to continue on that path. People know that the Buddha Dharma is important. And so they know that it brings benefit to self and other. And so they support, a lot of people these days support the monks and the nuns. That's not so much a problem. The problem is more that, well, as there's more wealth in the world, there's more technology. Everyone has access to these things. The monasteries and nunneries are located not so remotely anymore, but in town. And it's difficult, it's rare to find a monk or a nun who is really purely upholding their practice, who is genuinely studying, reflecting and meditating on the Buddha Dharma. And that's so important actually for the Buddha Dharma. Take the example of just one child. If one child ordains and if that child studies, reflects and meditates, becomes learned, becomes disciplined, becomes good-hearted, kind-hearted. If that person learns to debate, to compose and to teach, if the person has that kind of qualities, and then that person is better than a precious jewel, actually. More precious than a jewel. Because one such person, having really gone through that training and becoming a teacher, can lead countless beings on the path to liberation. Countless beings can be led on the path to liberation. That is so important, actually. And so, offering to the monastic community is so important. The Buddha said, in fact, that it's important to offer to monks and nuns. Why? Well, if you offer to representations of awakened body, speech and mind, you get the merit from offering to them, but you don't get the merit of their receiving the offering, right? A statue can't accept your offering, can't use the offering. You can offer it, you get the merit of offering, but they can't accept it. If you offer to a text, it can't receive the offering. If you offer to a stupa, the stupa doesn't receive and use that offering. But the monks and nuns, they do. You get the merit of offering, and you get the merit of their having received that offering and actually using that offering. And so you're getting double merit there. It's of course important to have monasteries. It's nice to have monasteries, but it's good to have monasteries. But without them, we would still be okay having temples, for example, having representations of awakened body, speech and mind. If we have them, it's very good. But without them, we would be okay. The dharma would be okay. But the thing that we must have, that we cannot do without, are monks and nuns who study, reflect and meditate on the dharma, who uphold their trainings, who uphold what we call these nine qualities. And if we have one person like that, then that person is actually more precious than the most precious jewel. So please, all of you, keep this in your heart. And if there are children who have that interest in becoming monks and nuns and go to the monastery to study, encourage them, tell them, please study, reflect and meditate well. Please uphold your trainings well. Please keep your vows well. Please study well. Please meditate well. Please teach and debate and compose well. A human being, a young person, their minds are so sharp and if a good person, a good young person meets with a good teacher, then that person will do well. And they will become themselves actually a learned teacher, someone who can support others. So monks and nuns are so important. We must respect monks and nuns and we must teach them very well. This is something absolutely essential.
So the cause is buddha nature. The support is a precious human body. And then we come to the condition which is a spiritual teacher. And for those of us, if we want to study and reflect and meditate upon the sacred dharma, it's absolutely essential that we have a qualified spiritual teacher. And what makes a qualified spiritual teacher? Well, this is explained in accordance with the different texts of the different traditions. So for the fundamental vehicle of Buddhism, it's taught in those texts what kind of qualities a teacher should have. And in the Mahayana texts, it's explained the qualities that a Mahayana teacher should have and likewise in the Vajrayana texts, it's explained the kind of qualities that a Vajrayana teacher should have. But from the guru's side, sorry, from the student's side, it's essential that we meet a qualified spiritual teacher. And a qualified spiritual teacher, to be honest with you, is rare, difficult to find. But it's also rare and difficult to find, very rare, to find a student who is genuinely, in a heartfelt way, interested in accomplishing the dharma, who has real renunciation and weariness with samsara, who has genuine love and compassion, and who has genuine faith and devotion and real diligence for and fortitude for practicing the dharma. Finding a student like that is also very rare, and that's why it's rare that there's people who are accomplished, and it's rare that people actually accomplish Buddhahood. It's essential for all of us then to, in the common language we say, shiktim, which has the sense of like, inspire ourselves, like get it together, and inspire ourselves to really practice the dharma. Many great masters have passed away, passed into Parinirvana, these great masters who were born in Tibet, who practiced in Tibet, and who spread, who traveled actually later in their lives throughout the world. And that kind of really unique master from that generation, they're pretty much, they're mostly gone actually. And now we find a new generation of Tibetan teachers, like me for example. I was born in Tibet, but I came out of Tibet when I was still quite young. So I have just some kind of general memory of, vague memory almost, of the previous generation of practitioners, monks and nuns in Tibet, and how they practiced. And as I get older and I really think back on my experiences then, and my memory of that time, I really start to think, wow, actually the Tibetan people really, the dharma really spread very genuinely there. And the way that they practiced in retreat, and did recitation practice and stayed in retreat is incredible. The way the monks and nuns did group practice, doing drupchens in the monasteries in the traditional ways, actually really amazing. And when I think about the faith and the pure perception and the devotion towards the dharma of just the general population of Tibetan people, in those older times, it's actually incredible, if I think about it. As I get older the more and more I think about that, the more and more I feel amazed, in fact, at how beautifully, how genuinely the dharma spread in Tibet. It makes me on one hand quite happy, and on another hand there's some sadness in recalling that. But it's not just Tibetan people. I'm now talking about the Himalayan people actually. We have a lot of merit. I think people from the Himalayan region have accumulated a tremendous amount of merit because the Buddha dharma spread in these regions and through them, through teachers from these places, the Buddha dharma has actually spread like a sun throughout the whole world. And so you Himalayan and Tibetan people should know that this is attributable to your ancestors, actually, their effort, their support. They have brought into the world something that is a shared gem, a shared jewel. The Buddha dharma is something that inspires people and benefits people all over the world. One reason for that is that science is actually very has spread throughout the world. Actually a lot more people believe in science than believe in religion these days. And science, of course, it's done a lot of benefit. We can think about the fact that the scientists have created a lot of technology that are useful, technologies that are helpful for us. We can fly through the sky, we can burrow under the earth. We have medical technologies that... medicine and medical technologies that are of huge benefit. But also, when we think about science and technology, people have created really terrible, frightening weapons. And there's a lot of them in the world. And actually, it's pretty important for us to, I think, destroy some of these very dangerous weapons that have been created. Because if we don't do that, honestly speaking, people have created weapons that can reduce the entire world to dust. That exists, that has been created. And of course, technology and science has done a lot of really nice things, but also they have created some really awful weapons that can destroy the whole world. Who made those? People made them. People. So that's why, you know, the Buddha said, you are your own enemy and you are your own protector. You are your own witness as to whether you have done good or bad. So what the Buddha taught is really true, actually. And we should think about that again and again and again. Our enemy is our attachment and our aversion and our stupidity. Our protector is love and compassion and the wisdom that comes to realize emptiness. And if we want to be able to train in love and compassion and the wisdom that realizes emptiness, in order to do that, we need to meet a genuine teacher. And we need to practice the sacred Dharma that we receive from that genuine teacher. And in the general vehicle of the Buddhist teachings, there is a focus on the three trainings, the training in discipline, the training in meditation and the training in wisdom. In the Mahayana, on top of that basis, using that as the foundation or the basis, then additionally we take up the practice of the six perfections, the four means of magnetizing and so on. The view of the Mahayana is emptiness and compassion joined as a unity. The meditation are the thirty-six factors of awakening. The conduct is the practice of the six perfections. And the result is, through traversing the five paths and ten bhumis, that one eventually comes to arrive at the state of great awakening, in the state of great awakening. In the Vajrayana, again, the basis is always the three trainings, the same three trainings. And on top of that, what I just explained from the Mahayana teachings, the practice of the six perfections as well. But then in the Vajrayana we use the method of the generation stage and the wisdom aspect of the perfection stage, meditating on our body in the form of the deity, meditating on our speech as mantra, our mind as composed in Samadhi. And training in this way then, we traverse the path that leads to awakening. When we think about the practice of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, actually all of Tibetan Buddhist practice is related also to... Vajrayana practice is also connected with the practice of mind training, because the mind otherwise gets caught under the sway, often, of attachment and aversion and stupidity. And so we follow the instructions on mind training, which are presented very clearly and in a very pleasing way in the lojong teachings, the mind training teachings. So I'll share with you a few words of this kind of teachings from the great master Atisha. He said, the supreme learning is to realize the absence of a self. So what if you studied the Buddha Dharma, the sutras and the tantras, and you became very learned, you could explain them, you understood them. Is that what it means to be truly learned? That's not actually the ultimate learning. And to be ultimate, to be learned in an ultimate sense, which we actually need if we want to overcome our negative emotions, to become learned in the ultimate sense, says Atisha, is to realize, genuinely realize the absence of self. And that's why he said the supreme learning is the realization of the absence of a self. And then he said, the supreme discipline, the supreme discipline is to tame your own mind. So a monk, if he is upholding all of his 253 vows, of course that's important. The bodhisattva trainings are of course important. To avoid the root downfalls in the Vajrayana practice, of course this is important in terms of one's discipline. But the real root of discipline, the real essence of discipline, is to tame our own mind. We have to tame our own mind. We must. And until we've done that, if a monk is upholding perfectly all of his 253 vows but he hasn't tamed his mind, that just looks like he's practicing discipline. It's not the real thing. It's not real discipline until the mind is tamed.
And what is the supreme quality? We talk about qualities that are naturally present and qualities that we learn. And here in the context of the qualities that we might come about through the practice of the Buddhist path, what is the supreme one? The best quality is an altruistic mind, the wish to benefit all sentient beings and actually benefiting them through that wish. This is the most important, the best quality that we could give rise to. Best would be to consider others as being even more important than ourselves, but at the very least we should consider ourselves equal with all sentient beings. Think about the fact that all sentient beings have been our own kind parents. And in the Mahayana, for example, whenever we practice, whether we're teaching in the teaching context or the study context or the meditation context, we always begin by saying, I'm doing this on the behalf of or for, for the benefit of all sentient beings, my mothers equal in number to the vastness of space. right? we always say that. So here we say that the supreme positive quality is an altruistic attitude. And then what is the supreme pith instruction? There's a lot of pith instructions. Actually the entire kangyur, the words of the Buddha, is a pith instruction. All of the tengyur, these commentaries on the Buddha's words, these are pith instructions. There are tens of thousands of volumes of scripture in the Tibetan language that survive and these are all actually pith instructions. But what is the best one, the supreme one? It is to always look at your own mind. You might read a lot of texts, you might read volumes and volumes of texts, but if you don't really look at your own mind, you can't really practice. And that's why the supreme pith instruction is to always look at your own mind. What is the supreme remedy? Well, there are many remedies. The remedy to desire is to contemplate the unpleasant nature of the object of desire. The remedy to anger is to contemplate love and compassion. The remedy to stupidity is to contemplate the links of dependent origination in their forward and backwards progression. To train in shamatha, to train in vipassana. This kind of meditation is a remedy. Generation stage, perfection stage, tonglen practice, lojong practice, all of this is important, all of this is absolutely essential. But the supreme remedy actually is to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. And to recognize, to acknowledge that all of this, all of this that appears to us, all these phenomena are not truly real, they're not truly established. To acknowledge that everything that appears to us is emptiness, free from any type of conceptual elaboration. This is really the supreme remedy. And what's the best sign of accomplishment? Sometimes we say, ooh, that person has some signs of accomplishment. He or she has attained accomplishment. That person is really clairvoyant. Actually, the Lama knows my mind, not just once, not just twice, but many, many times I went before this teacher and he or she knew exactly what was going on in my mind and said it to me. That's kind of special. We think that's pretty special. That must be a sign that that person has accomplishment. Or maybe someone is able to display miracles. Actually, we shouldn't hold those kind of things as being so special when we see someone who has those kind of accomplishments. So even if we experience that within ourselves, if we start to gain a little bit of clairvoyance or we have some kind of signs of accomplishment, we shouldn't start to think that we're special. It's actually a big mistake to think that that's something impressive or important. In fact, the real sign of accomplishment is rather the decrease in negative emotions. That's the best sign of accomplishment, a decrease in the negative emotions. The negative emotions in general and in particular attachment, aversion, and especially the decrease in stupidity or confusion. If that happens, that's really good. That's a sign that our practice is really actually going well. So, for a practitioner who is training on the path of the Shravakas, generally, among the three negative emotions, they're mostly concerned with attachment and clinging, craving. They think that this is the most manifest negative emotion which causes a lot of suffering for oneself and creates suffering for others. And for that reason, to try and avoid getting caught up in this kind of attachment, they practice reducing desires and feeling content with whatever they have. That is why the training of a monk or a nun is emphasized in this tradition. That's why holding those vows is emphasized. And in the Mahayana, however, it's taught there is no evil like anger. There is no virtue like love and no austerity like patience. Mahayana emphasizes a lot the aspects of training in love and compassion. Because they say, right, that love and compassion is the remedy towards our anger. And there is no evil like anger. Anger is the root of a lot of other negative emotions and it also causes us to accumulate a lot of negative karma. So, here then, through having attachment, aversion and stupidity, we wander, actually. We wander through the three realms of samsara. We take birth among the six classes of beings. Why is it that beings are born in hell and experience the suffering of heat and cold? Why are we born as hungry ghosts and experience the sufferings of hunger and thirst? Why are we born as animals, experiencing the suffering of one eating the other? That suffering and those rebirths come about through being caught up in attachment and aversion and stupidity, those three negative emotions. In the Vajrayana, we, of course, consider attachment and aggression to be serious poisons, serious mental poisons that cause a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves and others. But in the Vajrayana, we say that the real root of both of these is actually our stupidity, our ignorance. And so we say, if we realize it, if we know, then we are Buddhas. And not knowing, we are sentient beings. So this not knowing, this ignorance, this dualistic ignorance is actually the source of all of our attachment and it's the source of all of our aggression. And so that is why it's essential to come to realize the absence of a self. We need to come to genuinely have this knowing, which is the opposite of our ignorance. It is taught that everything that appears and exists is a magical display of the mind. So we make a prayer, grant your blessings that I may recognize my own nature. Grant your blessings that I may gain stability in the spontaneous presence of the three kayas in my own awareness. That's a prayer that we make. So the three vehicles are actually not in contradiction to one another. Each supports the other. And each has its own presentation of the view, the meditation, the conduct and the result. And in fact, we should follow the practice of whatever vehicle makes most sense to us. So if the Sravaka presentation of the view, meditation and conduct and result makes the most sense to us and just suits us and feels right to us, then we should do that practice. We should practice that path. And if that's the case for the Mahayana, then we should practice the Mahayana path. If rather than the Vajrayana view and meditation and conduct and result, we feel more comfortable, more at ease, more natural in the Mahayana, then practice the Mahayana for sure. It's not that we absolutely have to practice the Vajrayana. It's not like that at all. It actually depends on our own heartfelt connection and inclination. Where is our faith present naturally? What kind of practices really inspire pure perception and trust and conviction in us? Whatever we find that trust and conviction in, that's what we should practice. Because we can practice any of these vehicles and attain an incredible result. If we practice the vehicle of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas, then we become an arhat. If we practice the Mahayana path, we achieve the state of great awakening. If we train in the Vajrayana, then we can achieve, we'll just use the word here, accomplishment, great accomplishment. And so, actually, the most important thing is that the root, the cause is Buddha nature. And even if we have that cause of awakening, it's present in all beings without exception. Without having the excellent support of a precious human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, it's very difficult for us to really be able to practice the Dharma. So, we need to have a precious human body. And just having a precious human body, however, is again not sufficient. It's essential that we meet a qualified teacher. And just meeting a qualified teacher is also not sufficient. We have to receive instructions from that teacher. And receiving instructions from a teacher again is not sufficient. We have to actually practice them. In Tibet, how? How did we practice? How in the snowy land of Tibet do people practice the pith instructions received from a qualified teacher? We begin by turning our mind towards the Dharma with what are called the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma, or the four mind changings. Reflecting on how rare and difficult it is to attain a precious human body. Reflecting on death and impermanence. Reflecting on karmic causality. And reflecting on the faults of samsara. Again and again and again. Until we start to lose our taste for wealth and enjoyment and fame and these kind of pleasures. Our attachment is reduced. We start to think, oh, when I believed that those things were so important, I misplaced my object of trust, actually. That I thought, I spent so much effort physically, verbally and mentally in pursuit of wealth, in pursuit of enjoyment, in pursuit of fame and gain. But actually I have been wasting my time. I have been wasting my time, this doesn't make sense. And then our mind actually changes. Our mind actually transforms and that's when we get to be called a practitioner. That's when we become what is called a practitioner. And so here impermanence is really important for us to contemplate. Contemplating the impermanence of the outer world. Contemplating the impermanence of sentient beings who live in the world. Contemplating the impermanence of the happiness and sadnesses experienced by beings. The Buddha said that everything compounded is impermanent. Everything defiled, all the negative emotions are suffering. All phenomena are empty and lack of self and nirvana is peace. This is what the Buddha said, these are the four seals of the teaching. And he said that everything is changing. All phenomena moment by moment are changing, impermanent. And if we just think about impermanence actually, contemplate permanence and impermanence for some time. This can lead us to a realization of emptiness. Of the perfect simplicity, freedom from conceptual complexity. Like for example in the Madhyamaka teachings the great master Nagarjuna goes through several reasonings. The reasoning about coming and going. The reasoning related to fire and firewood. The reasoning which is an examination of the view. In his text the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, the reasonings are extremely profound there. Like for example Nagarjuna says where there has been going, there is no going at the present. And where it has yet to occur, where there has not been any going yet, there is no going happening there. And aside for where going has already happened and where going has not yet happened, there is no walking, no going that occurs anywhere. And so when we look for it, when we examine, we actually can't find walking, going anywhere. And likewise also Nagarjuna says there in that text that if compounded phenomena are not at all established, then how could uncompounded phenomena be established? And he also says that samsara is nothing other than thought. And when we are free from that, that is liberation. So this is actually contemplating these things, learning and memorizing these verses for example, and then coming to understand the explanation of them and studying the explanation and coming to understand it very genuinely is extremely helpful for our practice. To practice the dharma we need to begin by the common preliminaries, which are the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the dharma, the four mind changings. Then we need to follow through with the uncommon preliminaries, which are the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations, what we call the Ngöndro or the preliminaries. Here we begin with refuge and bodhicitta, together with prostrations through which we purify all negative deeds that we have accumulated with our body since beginningless time in samsara, both ourselves and all sentient beings. Deeds like killing and stealing and sexual misconduct. We purify this, we purify our body through making prostrations. And then the practice of Vajrasattva through which we purify lying and speaking harshly and speaking divisively and speaking in an idle manner, idle gossip and chatter. All the negativity accumulated through speech in this way and all the habit patterns associated with that we purify through Vajrasattva. And then we purify the negative deeds we've accumulated with our mind, covetousness and ill will and wrong view. This is purified through the outer, inner and secret accumulations of the mandala practice. And then we purify all of the negative deeds without any exception of body, speech and mind through the practice of guru yoga. In the guru yoga practice we outwardly supplicate the root and lineage gurus and then we receive the four empowerments and mingle our mind with the mind of the guru. In this way we practice the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations of the preliminary practices. And this is how we practice in the snowy land of Tibet. The root of this of course comes from India. And actually all of these practices, like in India prostrations, we say Danut, mandala is in fact a Sanskrit word. Vajrasattva, the mantra, Om Benza Satva samaya, that is a Om Vajrasatva samaya, that's a Sanskrit mantra. The word guru yoga, guru yoga is a Sanskrit word. So the source of all of these practices is actually India. And this is how we put this into practice. And on top of that, however, then we need the path to clarify confusion. And for the path to clarify confusion, we train in the practice of the generation stage, recitation and the perfection stage. And then we need our delusion to our confusion to dawn as wisdom. And for that we practice Mahamudra, the practice of Mahamudra. We can say that this can be divided into the aspect of method, which is the six yogas of Naropa, and the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. And that refers to the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness or wisdom. We can also talk about the Mahamudra practice in terms of Sutra Mahamudra, Tantra Mahamudra, and Essence Mahamudra. This is how Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen explained it. He said, Sutra Mahamudra refers to Mahamudra in conjunction with the five paths and ten bhumis. The Tantric Mahamudra is Mahamudra practiced by means of the, or through the practices of the winds and the channels and the essences, the bindus. And Essence Mahamudra is the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness, or the ordinary mind, which is recognized when it has been pointed out, and then one sustains that recognition. That's how he explained it. Also, my late father used to explain, our late father, he explained in this way. He said, this present, unfabricated moment of mind is the ultimate Samantabhadra. You have never been separated from it for even a moment. So within that recognition, let go naturally. So we practice, in order for our mind to turn to the Dharma, we practice the four mind changings. In order for the Dharma to become our path, we practice the preliminary practices. In order that the path clarifies confusion, we practice generation, recitation, and perfection stage. In order that confusion dawns as wisdom, we train in the nature of mind. In the Mahayana, in the Mahamudra practice, that refers to the practice of the aspect of method, which are the six yogas of Naropa, or the practice of the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. The four yogas, one, pointedness, simplicity, one, taste, and non-meditation. And in the Dzogchen teachings, we talk then about the view, which is cutting through to primordial purity, and the meditation, which is crossing over into spontaneous presence. Kadak, Trekcho, and Lhundrup, Togyal. In the Mahayana practices, in the Mahayana teachings, we talk about wisdom. And what is the context there? Well, we talk about these six perfections, right? Generosity and discipline, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration. And then wisdom, recognizing the natural state. And when we recognize the natural state, when we are generous, when we are disciplined, when we are patient, when we are diligent, and when we are remaining in meditation, those five practices become perfections. And that's how we train in the genuine six perfections. And each one of these practices supports the other. So, this is how we should practice. This is how you should practice the Dharma. I'm sharing this here with you today because some of my students, some Dharma students who are connected with me, are remaining these days in lockdown. And they've asked me to give some Dharma teachings. And I know that you all have studied the Dharma. And I know that you all know the Dharma. But important things are worth repeating. So, I wanted to remind you. I wanted to share these words with you as a reminder for your practice. Please practice well. And I will leave this here today.
Thank you very much.
All sentient beings have as their most basic nature Buddha nature. It's present within all of us. But without the support of human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, then it's not possible to accomplish the Dharma, to practice the Dharma. And we're not able to do that. We are lacking basically the best condition for practicing the Dharma, without a precious human body. So we're talking about attaining not just an ordinary human body, but among human bodies a particularly unique one. One that, if we talk about it in terms of the numbers, is one that has the 8 freedoms and the 10 advantages. And these 18 freedoms and advantages are extremely difficult to find, a precious human body with these 18 freedoms and advantages. When one does obtain that, we say we have attained a body that is superior to even that of the gods. We talk about the 6 classes of gods in the desire realm. But the human body actually, a precious human body is even superior to the body of a god. Why? Because if we use it well, it can be a ship that carries us across to the far shore of liberation. And that is because if we use this human body well, in this body we can meet a qualified spiritual teacher and in front of that qualified spiritual teacher we can receive the instructions of the sacred dharma. And if we put those into practice genuinely and correctly, then it is possible in this very body to attain the state of an arhat. It is possible in this very body to attain great liberation, awakening. And in particular through the practices of the Vajrayana, the practice of the path of means, the generation stage, the practice of wisdom, which is the perfection stage, through practicing these together as a unity, if we apply the key points of these practices, it is possible in this very body, in this very life, in this body to attain awakening. How do we know that is possible? Because it happened in the past a lot, often. For example, Milarepa. In Tibet the Dharma really spread and so people really have trust in the Buddha Dharma and people think, OK, I want to be like Milarepa. There is this idea, I would like to be like Milarepa among the Tibetan people but of course people get carried away by the sense pleasures, by their getting caught up in the pursuit of various enjoyments and they get caught up in that and don't become like Milarepa or they get carried off by the eight worldly dharmas wanting gain and pleasure and fame and praise at the expense of their opposites. And so that is why people don't... not everyone attains accomplishment in that way. But if we were to practice the Dharma, if we were to actually put the Dharma into practice in accordance with the Dharma teachings, then it would be possible to attain that state just like Milarepa because the teachings are there, the instructions are there, we just have to practice them. Sometimes it is said that, what I need is to be a successful person like Milarepa. He is the example of success and that's why. In Vajrayana practice, one puts like Milarepa did into practice the practice of the path of means, the six yogas of Naropa and the path of liberation, the Mahamudra. That is what Milarepa did and that is how he attained awakening on that basis. But it is not just Milarepa who did that. Countless learned and accomplished masters have done so. And if it were just monks and nuns, that wouldn't be so impressive, so special, because of course they have devoted their lives to the Dharma, they go from living in a home to homelessness, they renounce, they take vows, they spend their lives focused on practice. But it is not just them. In Tibet ordinary people living in their house with a partner, with children, those kind of people through meeting a guru who has experience, great experience in realization and through receiving from such a guru the genuine pith instructions and through practicing them well, waking up early every morning, going to bed late at night, relying upon mindfulness and carefulness and conscientiousness, even when going about their ordinary daily worldly activities, through keeping mindfulness in all those moments, practicing the nature of mind. Many, many, practitioners like that, householders have attained accomplishment. Not just accomplishment, they have attained great accomplishment, they have attained the rainbow body, their bodies have dissolved into rainbow light at the time of death, they left behind only hair and nails. And this has actually happened, this has happened even recently. It's possible that it's continuing to happen right now. And this is because the Dharma is so profound, it is so profound, but we must practice it well.
In the 21st century this world has changed a lot. Science, technology have changed our world. And scientists have really studied a lot about the outer world that appears to us. Scientists use all sorts of technological instruments to examine the outer world and there is a lot to learn from that. And we should pay attention to that, we should learn about that. We Buddhists are interested in reasoning, in logic. Actually it's taught that one can come to realize emptiness through reasoning. And that's true, but it just means a conceptual understanding, it doesn't mean actual direct experience. And through a conceptual understanding we won't be liberated. We need to have a real experience of emptiness and to come to a real experience of emptiness it's essential that we have a direct experience that comes about through the practice of shamatha, for example, through the practice of vipassana, the practice of the generation and perfection stages, we need that. We need to come to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. They appear, but they are not truly real. And this is something that we can come to understand through examining that all of these larger phenomena that appear to us, when we investigate we find that they're actually just made up of a bunch of small particles, but when we investigate those small particles in a very detailed and careful way, we find that they're not there either, and that all of these things actually just appear, but they don't have any true genuine establishment. And so all of these things, the outer objects that appear to us, our inner mind as well as the pleasure and suffering of all sentient beings, these things appear, but they're not truly established. They're just like a dream, they're just like an illusion. Emptiness can be realized through reasoning, on the basis of reasoning. And so generally for Buddhist followers, of course those of us who follow the Buddha Dharma, but also just for ordinary people who are interested in the modern world and coming to know things and learn about them, it's very important to know about emptiness. We need this. Because until we've learned about emptiness, we are actually confused about what there is to know. We lack the knowledge of what there is to know. And so we're confused, we're deluded. And we need to be undiluted about what there is to know. And the way to be undiluted is to learn about emptiness. We sentient beings, or we human beings among sentient beings are intelligent, but we should use our intelligence well. What is the real essence then of the Buddha Dharma? The essence of the Buddha Dharma, it is said, the essence of all the Buddha Dharma is just emptiness and compassion. And realizing emptiness and compassion, a shepherd will be liberated. And without that realization, a pundit will wander in samsara. So emptiness and compassion, we need to learn about these things. When we talk about compassion, we can say there are two types, effortful compassion and effortless compassion. And likewise with emptiness, we can say more or less the same thing. Effortful emptiness in the sense of coming to understand emptiness conceptually through study, through using different types of logical reasoning, through examination, using the different reasonings, arguments of the middle way. Through this we can come to have a conceptual understanding of emptiness, but not an experience. For an experience of emptiness we need to rely upon meditation practices like shamatha and vipassana. If we want to practice the Dharma well, what is it that we need? We need to rely upon the training in discipline, the training in samadhi and the training in wisdom. These three trainings, each one relies upon the other as a support. And if we want to practice the Dharma genuinely, correctly and well, we must rely upon the training in discipline. Like the training of a monk or a nun, a fully ordained monk or a nun, they receive vows and through those vows, on the basis of those vows, they put the Dharma into practice. And there is a lot of commitments associated with becoming a fully ordained monk or a nun. Like a monk has to follow 253 vows and a fully ordained nun follows 360 something. There is quite a lot of vows that are held by monks and nuns. But the real root of these, we can say, it comes down to the five vows, the four main vows and in addition the avoidance of intoxicants. This is what makes up what we call the Pancha Shila or the five precepts. And if we want to talk about the practice of discipline in a slightly more extensive way, we can talk about it in terms of avoiding the ten non-virtues. So we should think about the ten non-virtues as being like poison, poison for our minds. And they bring about pain to oneself and to others, to all beings. So what are these? They are killing and stealing, sexual misconduct. These kind of harsh, very intense negative deeds we are probably not going to engage in. We are unlikely to do these things. But what we have to be careful about is things like lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle gossip or chatter. We need to rely upon mindfulness and vigilance and carefulness, conscientiousness to check. We should actually investigate. When I speak, am I lying? Am I telling a lie? When I speak, am I speaking in a way that would be divisive? Is my speech divisive? Is my speech harsh? Am I pointlessly wasting my time with idle gossip and chatter? When we are speaking, we need to be attentive to these things. We are our own teachers, in fact. The Buddha said, you are your own enemy, but you are also your own protector. For Buddhist practitioners, the enemy is not somewhere outside of us. The enemy is inside of us, within ourselves. It's our own attachment and it's our own anger. But the root of that is our delusion. Delusion with respect to objects of knowledge, not knowing what there is to know. We think all of these things, for example, are real and true, all these appearances around us. But they are not. They are not real. They are not true. They are faults. They are delusions. They are illusory. We think things are solid. We think they are lasting. We think they are real. We think they are pure. We hold on to unreal things as real. We hold on to impermanent things as being lasting. We think that things that are unclean are somehow clean. And we believe we have a self when we don't. This is a confused perception. It is a deluded perception. It's wrong. And the root of this confusion and this delusion, the root is this. But it branches out and it becomes our anger and our attachment. So the root of our attachment and our aversion is actually precisely this kind of delusion. But attachment and aversion are more manifest. But if we really think very carefully, if we just leave our mind for a moment in naturalness and examine carefully, think about, take the example of a flower. When you look at a flower, if it's fresh and beautiful, then you like it, right? And we think, yeah, we like something. But if we investigate a little bit more carefully, that liking is actually a subtle form of attachment. And if that very same flower gets a little bit older and starts to wilt and decay, then we don't really care so much about it anymore. We don't like it, but we don't dislike it really. We just don't really care. We're not so interested. And that actually is a subtle form of stupidity, not caring. And that very same flower, if it starts to rot and gets really old and ugly and smelly, then forget about liking it. We don't like it. That dislike, we start to have a sense of actual aversion, in fact. That dislike is a subtle form of aversion. If it's close to us, we want to throw it away, we want to avoid it, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. And that dislike is a subtle form of aversion. So here then, attachment, aversion and stupidity, basically we are constantly involved in them. Whether it's a subtle form or a kind of slightly stronger or a strong form, our mind is always caught up in these three negative emotions. And that makes our mind unsettled, it's not at ease, it makes our physical bodies not at ease, it disturbs our minds, it disturbs our bodies, our speech, the minds of others, the speech in the bodies of others, makes us uncomfortable, it makes us unhappy, it makes us not get along. And it's an unpleasant experience for all of us. So in that sense we say, you are your own enemy.
You are your own protector. What does that mean? Your own protector actually is the nature that is present within all sentient beings as our most basic nature, suchness, Buddha nature. That is our temporary protector and it is our ultimate protector as well. It's present in all sentient beings as our most basic nature, all beings of the six classes, it's naturally present, it has always been present. However, we don't recognize it and because of not recognizing our own nature, we wander around in samsara among the three realms, among the six classes of beings taking birth again and again. To recognize that nature we need to rely upon some condition. And the condition here is a guru, the outer guru. There are many types, several types of outer guru. One type is what's called the guru of the words of the Buddha, the words of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas who are abiding on the Bhumis. Their speech, their teachings actually, studying that and contemplating it is a teacher for us and then putting that into practice actually. So we talk about the guru which is the words of the Buddha and this is in fact a type of guru for us. And then there is a guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And that means a guru who has received instructions from his or her guru, who has received from their guru a lineage that goes back in an unbroken continuity. And it is not just a lineage of words but we refer to the lineage of realization, the genuine lineage of realization. There is an unbroken continuity of wisdom that has been passed on. So this is what we mean when we talk about the guru who is a person who holds the lineage. And then there is the guru, the symbolic guru of appearances. These are the three outer gurus. The symbolic guru of appearance here refers to things like flowers, water, ponds, even the leaves and the trees. All of these things can act as a condition that brings about an increase in our experience and our realization. And so these things too are called our gurus, the outer guru of appearance. Now these three outer gurus are conditions through which we come to realize the inner guru, the ultimate guru which is our own basic nature. That is the nature of our own mind. And it is the nature of the minds of all beings of the six classes. In the teachings of Mahamudra we call it this present fresh moment of mind. In the Dzogchen teachings we call it rigpa, wakefulness, yeshe, awareness. In the Madhyamaka teachings we call it emptiness, we call it simplicity. In the teachings of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas we call it the two types of absence of self, the lack of self of a person and the lack of the personal self and the self in phenomena. These things all basically come down to the same point. It is just a question of whether that point is clear or less clear, whether it is explained more extensively or less extensively, whether it is explained in more or less detail. The point is actually the same point in all cases, emptiness and the absence of a self. And... we say actually in the Mahayana that all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience are empty and lack a self. And in Vajrayana we talk about the wisdom that pervades all that appears and exists. And we talk about sometimes also the emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all factors and we talk about unchanging supreme great bliss. These three are very important so I will repeat it again. We speak about emptiness which is endowed with the supreme of all aspects or all factors. And this is what is taught very clearly in the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the profound emptiness, profound emptiness. This we come to recognize through learning about the sixteen emptinesses and so on. We come to ascertain profound emptiness, emptiness endowed with the supreme of all aspects. Then we speak of unchanging supreme great bliss, supreme unchanging great bliss. This refers to coming to recognize the intent of the fourth empowerment by means of the practices of applying the key points of the winds and energies and the channels, the practice of the blazing and dripping of Tummo that brings about the blissful warmth. And this becomes a condition for us coming to recognize the nature of mind genuinely. It's actually one unsurpassed, one of the most unsurpassed and supreme conditions for coming to recognize that, the practice of Tummo, the blazing and dripping. So here we talk about supreme unchanging great bliss. And then one thing that we find not mentioned in the ordinary teachings of the Buddha, not mentioned in the main Mahayana scriptures, but we find this teaching in the Vajrayana. This is a teaching on the wisdom that pervades everything, all of samsara and nirvana, all of existence and peace. And this we come to realize when a guru who has experience in realization meets a student who has faith and devotion. And that meaning is taught well by the guru to the student and the student asks questions in order to ascertain the meaning, not just in terms of a conceptual understanding and not just being able to talk about the words but actually understand the meaning of that and then put it into practice. How do we practice? Well, all sentient beings, every single one of us, even the tiniest little bug, we all have Buddha nature. But without having the support of a precious human body, it's difficult to practice. Bugs and birds can't, for example, practice the Dharma because they don't have the circumstances that allow them to practice. Some birds are really smart even. They can learn human language but still they can't understand emptiness. So, really that is humans, that's the purvey of humans having this ability to really understand emptiness. Gods also, we don't have to get so much into that. But when we teach the Dharma, we say, and I teach in the language of the gods and the Nagas and all sorts of other kinds of beings, the human languages and so on. Because actually when we teach the Dharma genuinely with real bodhicitta and a real intention to benefit, then it's not just humans that are benefited. Gods and demigods and all kinds of other beings are also listening and benefited through that. More than practicing the Dharma, it's important for us to know how to practice the Dharma. And Tsele Natsok Rangdröl said, there are people without making time to study, they already want to practice meditation. And without making time to practice meditation, they already want to be liberated. And without being liberated themselves, they are already ready to teach the Dharma. They want to be a guru, they want to be a teacher. Teaching the Dharma, of course, is really important. But first, we have to become realized. We have to liberate ourselves through realization. And only then, with compassion, can we teach the Dharma in order to liberate others. So this is very important. First, we actually have to have real knowledge, wisdom, realization of emptiness and compassion, first. Because if we teach the Dharma through that, then we would actually be able to teach in a way that benefits others. Because we are teaching out of our own personal experience. But without that, just talking about emptiness, just talking about the words, just talking about it from a conceptual understanding, that's not something that can really actually be of genuine benefit for others. If we practice the Dharma well, we must actually practice the Dharma well. And how should we do that? Well, in the general vehicle of teachings, it's important that we practice genuinely through, primarily beginning with the reliance on the training and discipline. And we find this practice in places like Thailand and Sri Lanka and Burma, practiced very nicely. It's essential actually to begin by having some kind of vows, even just the vows of a householder. Without that, we are actually not even Buddhist. And in this tradition, then we might take the vows of a novice monk or even of a fully ordained monk, or nun. And keep those vows with a sense of few desires, contentment with what one has, being very careful, very mindful, very vigilant. And through that, training in the training and discipline. And then on top of that, they train in the training in samadhi. They practice the training of samadhi through the practice of shamatha, various types of shamatha. And then training in the training of wisdom, practicing the training in selflessness, coming to understand selflessness. And in this way attain the state of an arhat. I genuinely respect all religions really sincerely from the core of my heart. And that's because in general religions are good. They teach us to do things that are helpful, actually. They all say, help others. They don't talk about harming. For example, the Christians say, if someone hits you on the right cheek, then you turn and you show them your left one, you give them your left one too. And Muslims really emphasize generosity. They give houses to people who don't have homes, they give food to people who don't have food and so on. All this is excellent, actually. Hindu traditions also have such wonderful teachings. There are many, many different religious traditions and I respect all of them. But here in particular we are speaking about different types of Buddhist practitioners, and followers of the Buddha Dharma. And I have so much respect actually for followers of the fundamental vehicle of the Sravaka and Pratyeka Buddha vehicle of the Buddha Dharma. I've been many times to Thailand, I've been to Thai monasteries, I've met Thai teachers and they are incredible, really amazing. Their discipline is so pure and their meditation is amazing. They spend hours and hours and hours in meditation. It's really incredible. They have few desires, they are content with what they have and they follow the Vinaya exactly as it's taught in the Buddhist teachings so properly and correctly. Their discipline is really amazing. I really, truly rejoice in this practice as we see it in Thailand and in Burma. I've received teachings, I've asked questions and talked with some teachers from these places and it's really amazing actually. I genuinely rejoice from the core of my heart. When I have heard from them I feel to myself, wow, it's so amazing that the Buddha Dharma has really been preserved so perfectly and so genuinely. And also in places like Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong and China. I've met teachers, Mahayana teachers. We talk about, they are called Sifu in that tradition, right? In the Chinese tradition. And I've met these kind of teachers and they are really amazing people, really amazing practitioners with few desires, really content with what they have, benefiting sentient beings directly and indirectly. It's really amazing practicing vegetarianism. From the core of my heart I have real genuine respect for this kind of practitioner and teacher and I really genuinely rejoice. When it comes to Tibet, the teachings of both Sutra and Tantra spread in Tibet. But the source of all of the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism actually, all of the different traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, it all goes back to the same place, to Nalanda, Vikramashila, Udyanta Puri and these great monasteries in India, where there were incredible practitioners, great with great learning and great practice. And they are the ones who pass the Dharma on to us in Tibet. That's where all Tibetan Buddhist Dharma came from. In general we say that it is due to the general merit of the Tibetan people that the Buddha Dharma shone like a sun in Tibet. And the real root of that arising for us is the great kindness of the Dharma king and the ministers and also the people. It's due to their kindness that the Buddha Dharma was translated into Tibetan. There of course was some Tibetan language at that time written and spoken but through the efforts of Thonmi Sambhota using the Indian script, maybe a Lippi script and using that as the basis, then the Tibetan written language as we know it came into being. And the first monks took their monastic vows in Tibet, the monastery Samye was built. Through the kindness of the Dharma king, his ministers and the population, the general population, they all put forth a huge amount of effort. And it is due to their kindness, the kindness that great masters were brought from India, like Shantarakshita. Hundreds actually of great learned and accomplished masters were brought, invited from India to bring the Dharma. And because the gods and demons and spirits of Tibet were very strong and resistant and in order to tame the human and non-human inhabitants of Tibet and to establish the Dharma genuinely and correctly, the great master, the great accomplished master Padmasambhava was invited and came to Tibet as well. And was able to establish the Dharma. And the great master Shantarakshita taught the Vinaya, the great vehicle, he taught Madhyamaka, he taught mind only, in particular the pramana. And in this way, the Dharma, the profound and vast Dharma was spread and taught in Tibet. The tradition of empowerment, of reading transmission and of pith instructions came from that time and has been passed on since then. The great master Padmasambhava not only taught the Dharma, but he hid treasures that makes it possible for us now, even in the 20th century, to have access to the most profound teachings of the Vajrayana that can still be practiced in the latest, freshest form. We have access to these teachings because of Padmasambhava, Guru Padmasambhava's kindness. So through the kindness of the great Shantarakshita, the Dharma king, Trisong Detsen, the great master, Padmasambhava, and the great kindness of the king, the ministers, and not just them though, the kindness of the people, the Tibetan people. We have the Buddha Dharma here, the Tibetan Buddha Dharma here, still existing today in the world. And it really is due to the kindness of the Tibetan people on the whole, the masses, if you will, of Tibetan people, not just the kings and ministers. And why do I say this? Because who were the monks and nuns? Who were the practitioners of the Buddha Dharma? They were just ordinary people. Who fed those monks and nuns? They were ordinary people too. Who built the monasteries and the nunneries and the retreat places? Who used their body, their speech and their mind to support the Buddha Dharma? It was the people of Tibet. And so the ancestors of the Tibetan people, modern day Tibetan people, have provided an inconceivable kindness by supporting the Buddha Dharma so that it survives now in the world. And now the Tibetan people are spread all over the world, living all over the world, not just in Tibet. But I want you young Tibetans to remember this and to think, my ancestors did so much to support the Buddha Dharma. This is our legacy. What is the real legacy that has been passed on to me through my ancestors, from my grandparents, my parents? What is that? Our real legacy, the real legacy of the Tibetan people is the Buddha's words, the kangyur, that were translated into Tibetan, the tengyur, the translations of the commentaries on those words, thousands and thousands of volumes of texts that have been passed on, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Tibetan Buddhist scriptures are the most precious legacy of the Tibetan people, these teachings. It's more precious even than a jewel. And so when I talk here about Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan here refers to, or Tibetan Buddhism refers to the Buddhism that uses as its basis the kangyur and the tengyur, the translated words of the Buddha and the translated commentaries that were translated into the Tibetan language. But these are used by the people not just of Tibet, but also Bhutanese and people from Sikkim and from Gangshar and Spiti and Ladakh and Muen Tawang, even as far as Mongolia. And so now all over the world we talk about Tibetan Buddhism and that it's spread all over the world. But actually it refers to the Buddhism that's practiced on the basis of these texts. And in general we can say that the Buddha Dharma is well preserved in the Tibetan language and in particular the Vajrayana. And so if you want to learn all of the Buddha's teachings, all of it, the fullness of the Buddha Dharma, then it's actually very, very important to learn the Tibetan language.
However, it's not only Tibetan that is important, it's also Sanskrit. To study Sanskrit is very good and to study Pali would also be very good, Chinese as well, a huge number of Buddhist texts are preserved in the Chinese language. And in fact if we take the example of Chinese people, they have a tremendous amount of merit. In fact, before the Buddha Dharma spread to Tibet, it was spread in China. It spread throughout China. And primarily on the basis of Sanskrit language texts, maybe also some from the Pali, but mostly from Sanskrit, texts were translated into Chinese language. And so this is also through the kindness of the Chinese kings and ministers and the Chinese populace that these texts were translated and that the Buddha Dharma spread in China. They gave huge support to the Buddha Dharma. And now again in the present time, in the 21st century, we can say that the largest ethnic group of Buddhist practitioners is actually Chinese. There are many, many Chinese people who are studying and practicing the Buddha Dharma and it has been part of their culture already for thousands of years actually. Also the Chinese people tend to have a character that is suited to generosity and offering. As soon as a Chinese person, Dharma practitioner sees somebody who is in need, they immediately are so generous offering some generosity to that person. As soon as they see an image of awakened body, speech and mind or a teacher or a monk, they immediately pull out a red packet full of money and make some kind of offering. Sometimes it actually becomes embarrassing for us because it's too much. It's okay one time, two times to make an offering. But when this happens so much, it actually becomes embarrassing sometimes for us to receive offerings because the Chinese people are so generous. And this kind of, this power of generosity, this power of offering has caused the Chinese people to build so many monasteries. The Chinese people have built a lot of monasteries. Chinese people have supported a lot of monks and nuns. They have a great capacity for generosity. They have a great capacity for offering and giving. And as a result of that, wherever you go, you find that they have good luck, good fortune. So this just goes to show us that we need merit. Merit, it is said that someone who has merit can accomplish whatever he or she wants. How should we understand that? Well, some people just very naturally like to make offerings and to be generous and to give. And when you look at those people, they tend to have just naturally a lot of really good fortune. And there are other people who studied a lot. Maybe they studied even economics and business in great detail and they've studied so much and learned a lot about it, but they still can't seem to ever make any money. Well, they learned a lot, but they still somehow don't manage to make money. Why? We have to think about the fact that merit is so important. Merit, actually. And it's not just the Chinese people here that have been of such benefit to supporting the Buddha Dharma. All over Asia, the Dharma spread in so many countries. And Asian people today should really think about the fact that your ancestors practiced the Dharma. They supported the Dharma through offerings. They built monasteries, they supported the building of representations of the awakened body, speech and mind. They supported monks, they supported nuns. And this is extremely important. In particular, the support of the monastic community is essential. In fact, in the world, if the monastic community remains stably, then the Dharma will remain stably. And if the monastic community kind of continues in a so-so way, that means that the Dharma will continue in a so-so way. And if there are no more monks and nuns, then there's no more Dharma. What good is an empty monastery going to do? It's, of course, nice to have monasteries, but the real root of the stability, the real root and stability of the Buddha Dharma in this world is the monastic community. It's so important. And that's something that all of us need to know. It's so important to support monks and nuns. And supporting them here also just means encouraging them to keep their trainings and uphold their vows. In terms of support, like for food and housing and so on, that's not so difficult these days in the world. There's a lot of people who want to support and who do support the monastic community. That's not so hard. What's more difficult is we need to really encourage monks and nuns to continue on that path. People know that the Buddha Dharma is important. And so they know that it brings benefit to self and other. And so they support, a lot of people these days support the monks and the nuns. That's not so much a problem. The problem is more that, well, as there's more wealth in the world, there's more technology. Everyone has access to these things. The monasteries and nunneries are located not so remotely anymore, but in town. And it's difficult, it's rare to find a monk or a nun who is really purely upholding their practice, who is genuinely studying, reflecting and meditating on the Buddha Dharma. And that's so important actually for the Buddha Dharma. Take the example of just one child. If one child ordains and if that child studies, reflects and meditates, becomes learned, becomes disciplined, becomes good-hearted, kind-hearted. If that person learns to debate, to compose and to teach, if the person has that kind of qualities, and then that person is better than a precious jewel, actually. More precious than a jewel. Because one such person, having really gone through that training and becoming a teacher, can lead countless beings on the path to liberation. Countless beings can be led on the path to liberation. That is so important, actually. And so, offering to the monastic community is so important. The Buddha said, in fact, that it's important to offer to monks and nuns. Why? Well, if you offer to representations of awakened body, speech and mind, you get the merit from offering to them, but you don't get the merit of their receiving the offering, right? A statue can't accept your offering, can't use the offering. You can offer it, you get the merit of offering, but they can't accept it. If you offer to a text, it can't receive the offering. If you offer to a stupa, the stupa doesn't receive and use that offering. But the monks and nuns, they do. You get the merit of offering, and you get the merit of their having received that offering and actually using that offering. And so you're getting double merit there. It's of course important to have monasteries. It's nice to have monasteries, but it's good to have monasteries. But without them, we would still be okay having temples, for example, having representations of awakened body, speech and mind. If we have them, it's very good. But without them, we would be okay. The dharma would be okay. But the thing that we must have, that we cannot do without, are monks and nuns who study, reflect and meditate on the dharma, who uphold their trainings, who uphold what we call these nine qualities. And if we have one person like that, then that person is actually more precious than the most precious jewel. So please, all of you, keep this in your heart. And if there are children who have that interest in becoming monks and nuns and go to the monastery to study, encourage them, tell them, please study, reflect and meditate well. Please uphold your trainings well. Please keep your vows well. Please study well. Please meditate well. Please teach and debate and compose well. A human being, a young person, their minds are so sharp and if a good person, a good young person meets with a good teacher, then that person will do well. And they will become themselves actually a learned teacher, someone who can support others. So monks and nuns are so important. We must respect monks and nuns and we must teach them very well. This is something absolutely essential.
So the cause is buddha nature. The support is a precious human body. And then we come to the condition which is a spiritual teacher. And for those of us, if we want to study and reflect and meditate upon the sacred dharma, it's absolutely essential that we have a qualified spiritual teacher. And what makes a qualified spiritual teacher? Well, this is explained in accordance with the different texts of the different traditions. So for the fundamental vehicle of Buddhism, it's taught in those texts what kind of qualities a teacher should have. And in the Mahayana texts, it's explained the qualities that a Mahayana teacher should have and likewise in the Vajrayana texts, it's explained the kind of qualities that a Vajrayana teacher should have. But from the guru's side, sorry, from the student's side, it's essential that we meet a qualified spiritual teacher. And a qualified spiritual teacher, to be honest with you, is rare, difficult to find. But it's also rare and difficult to find, very rare, to find a student who is genuinely, in a heartfelt way, interested in accomplishing the dharma, who has real renunciation and weariness with samsara, who has genuine love and compassion, and who has genuine faith and devotion and real diligence for and fortitude for practicing the dharma. Finding a student like that is also very rare, and that's why it's rare that there's people who are accomplished, and it's rare that people actually accomplish Buddhahood. It's essential for all of us then to, in the common language we say, shiktim, which has the sense of like, inspire ourselves, like get it together, and inspire ourselves to really practice the dharma. Many great masters have passed away, passed into Parinirvana, these great masters who were born in Tibet, who practiced in Tibet, and who spread, who traveled actually later in their lives throughout the world. And that kind of really unique master from that generation, they're pretty much, they're mostly gone actually. And now we find a new generation of Tibetan teachers, like me for example. I was born in Tibet, but I came out of Tibet when I was still quite young. So I have just some kind of general memory of, vague memory almost, of the previous generation of practitioners, monks and nuns in Tibet, and how they practiced. And as I get older and I really think back on my experiences then, and my memory of that time, I really start to think, wow, actually the Tibetan people really, the dharma really spread very genuinely there. And the way that they practiced in retreat, and did recitation practice and stayed in retreat is incredible. The way the monks and nuns did group practice, doing drupchens in the monasteries in the traditional ways, actually really amazing. And when I think about the faith and the pure perception and the devotion towards the dharma of just the general population of Tibetan people, in those older times, it's actually incredible, if I think about it. As I get older the more and more I think about that, the more and more I feel amazed, in fact, at how beautifully, how genuinely the dharma spread in Tibet. It makes me on one hand quite happy, and on another hand there's some sadness in recalling that. But it's not just Tibetan people. I'm now talking about the Himalayan people actually. We have a lot of merit. I think people from the Himalayan region have accumulated a tremendous amount of merit because the Buddha dharma spread in these regions and through them, through teachers from these places, the Buddha dharma has actually spread like a sun throughout the whole world. And so you Himalayan and Tibetan people should know that this is attributable to your ancestors, actually, their effort, their support. They have brought into the world something that is a shared gem, a shared jewel. The Buddha dharma is something that inspires people and benefits people all over the world. One reason for that is that science is actually very has spread throughout the world. Actually a lot more people believe in science than believe in religion these days. And science, of course, it's done a lot of benefit. We can think about the fact that the scientists have created a lot of technology that are useful, technologies that are helpful for us. We can fly through the sky, we can burrow under the earth. We have medical technologies that... medicine and medical technologies that are of huge benefit. But also, when we think about science and technology, people have created really terrible, frightening weapons. And there's a lot of them in the world. And actually, it's pretty important for us to, I think, destroy some of these very dangerous weapons that have been created. Because if we don't do that, honestly speaking, people have created weapons that can reduce the entire world to dust. That exists, that has been created. And of course, technology and science has done a lot of really nice things, but also they have created some really awful weapons that can destroy the whole world. Who made those? People made them. People. So that's why, you know, the Buddha said, you are your own enemy and you are your own protector. You are your own witness as to whether you have done good or bad. So what the Buddha taught is really true, actually. And we should think about that again and again and again. Our enemy is our attachment and our aversion and our stupidity. Our protector is love and compassion and the wisdom that comes to realize emptiness. And if we want to be able to train in love and compassion and the wisdom that realizes emptiness, in order to do that, we need to meet a genuine teacher. And we need to practice the sacred Dharma that we receive from that genuine teacher. And in the general vehicle of the Buddhist teachings, there is a focus on the three trainings, the training in discipline, the training in meditation and the training in wisdom. In the Mahayana, on top of that basis, using that as the foundation or the basis, then additionally we take up the practice of the six perfections, the four means of magnetizing and so on. The view of the Mahayana is emptiness and compassion joined as a unity. The meditation are the thirty-six factors of awakening. The conduct is the practice of the six perfections. And the result is, through traversing the five paths and ten bhumis, that one eventually comes to arrive at the state of great awakening, in the state of great awakening. In the Vajrayana, again, the basis is always the three trainings, the same three trainings. And on top of that, what I just explained from the Mahayana teachings, the practice of the six perfections as well. But then in the Vajrayana we use the method of the generation stage and the wisdom aspect of the perfection stage, meditating on our body in the form of the deity, meditating on our speech as mantra, our mind as composed in Samadhi. And training in this way then, we traverse the path that leads to awakening. When we think about the practice of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, actually all of Tibetan Buddhist practice is related also to... Vajrayana practice is also connected with the practice of mind training, because the mind otherwise gets caught under the sway, often, of attachment and aversion and stupidity. And so we follow the instructions on mind training, which are presented very clearly and in a very pleasing way in the lojong teachings, the mind training teachings. So I'll share with you a few words of this kind of teachings from the great master Atisha. He said, the supreme learning is to realize the absence of a self. So what if you studied the Buddha Dharma, the sutras and the tantras, and you became very learned, you could explain them, you understood them. Is that what it means to be truly learned? That's not actually the ultimate learning. And to be ultimate, to be learned in an ultimate sense, which we actually need if we want to overcome our negative emotions, to become learned in the ultimate sense, says Atisha, is to realize, genuinely realize the absence of self. And that's why he said the supreme learning is the realization of the absence of a self. And then he said, the supreme discipline, the supreme discipline is to tame your own mind. So a monk, if he is upholding all of his 253 vows, of course that's important. The bodhisattva trainings are of course important. To avoid the root downfalls in the Vajrayana practice, of course this is important in terms of one's discipline. But the real root of discipline, the real essence of discipline, is to tame our own mind. We have to tame our own mind. We must. And until we've done that, if a monk is upholding perfectly all of his 253 vows but he hasn't tamed his mind, that just looks like he's practicing discipline. It's not the real thing. It's not real discipline until the mind is tamed.
And what is the supreme quality? We talk about qualities that are naturally present and qualities that we learn. And here in the context of the qualities that we might come about through the practice of the Buddhist path, what is the supreme one? The best quality is an altruistic mind, the wish to benefit all sentient beings and actually benefiting them through that wish. This is the most important, the best quality that we could give rise to. Best would be to consider others as being even more important than ourselves, but at the very least we should consider ourselves equal with all sentient beings. Think about the fact that all sentient beings have been our own kind parents. And in the Mahayana, for example, whenever we practice, whether we're teaching in the teaching context or the study context or the meditation context, we always begin by saying, I'm doing this on the behalf of or for, for the benefit of all sentient beings, my mothers equal in number to the vastness of space. right? we always say that. So here we say that the supreme positive quality is an altruistic attitude. And then what is the supreme pith instruction? There's a lot of pith instructions. Actually the entire kangyur, the words of the Buddha, is a pith instruction. All of the tengyur, these commentaries on the Buddha's words, these are pith instructions. There are tens of thousands of volumes of scripture in the Tibetan language that survive and these are all actually pith instructions. But what is the best one, the supreme one? It is to always look at your own mind. You might read a lot of texts, you might read volumes and volumes of texts, but if you don't really look at your own mind, you can't really practice. And that's why the supreme pith instruction is to always look at your own mind. What is the supreme remedy? Well, there are many remedies. The remedy to desire is to contemplate the unpleasant nature of the object of desire. The remedy to anger is to contemplate love and compassion. The remedy to stupidity is to contemplate the links of dependent origination in their forward and backwards progression. To train in shamatha, to train in vipassana. This kind of meditation is a remedy. Generation stage, perfection stage, tonglen practice, lojong practice, all of this is important, all of this is absolutely essential. But the supreme remedy actually is to recognize that all phenomena are not truly established. And to recognize, to acknowledge that all of this, all of this that appears to us, all these phenomena are not truly real, they're not truly established. To acknowledge that everything that appears to us is emptiness, free from any type of conceptual elaboration. This is really the supreme remedy. And what's the best sign of accomplishment? Sometimes we say, ooh, that person has some signs of accomplishment. He or she has attained accomplishment. That person is really clairvoyant. Actually, the Lama knows my mind, not just once, not just twice, but many, many times I went before this teacher and he or she knew exactly what was going on in my mind and said it to me. That's kind of special. We think that's pretty special. That must be a sign that that person has accomplishment. Or maybe someone is able to display miracles. Actually, we shouldn't hold those kind of things as being so special when we see someone who has those kind of accomplishments. So even if we experience that within ourselves, if we start to gain a little bit of clairvoyance or we have some kind of signs of accomplishment, we shouldn't start to think that we're special. It's actually a big mistake to think that that's something impressive or important. In fact, the real sign of accomplishment is rather the decrease in negative emotions. That's the best sign of accomplishment, a decrease in the negative emotions. The negative emotions in general and in particular attachment, aversion, and especially the decrease in stupidity or confusion. If that happens, that's really good. That's a sign that our practice is really actually going well. So, for a practitioner who is training on the path of the Shravakas, generally, among the three negative emotions, they're mostly concerned with attachment and clinging, craving. They think that this is the most manifest negative emotion which causes a lot of suffering for oneself and creates suffering for others. And for that reason, to try and avoid getting caught up in this kind of attachment, they practice reducing desires and feeling content with whatever they have. That is why the training of a monk or a nun is emphasized in this tradition. That's why holding those vows is emphasized. And in the Mahayana, however, it's taught there is no evil like anger. There is no virtue like love and no austerity like patience. Mahayana emphasizes a lot the aspects of training in love and compassion. Because they say, right, that love and compassion is the remedy towards our anger. And there is no evil like anger. Anger is the root of a lot of other negative emotions and it also causes us to accumulate a lot of negative karma. So, here then, through having attachment, aversion and stupidity, we wander, actually. We wander through the three realms of samsara. We take birth among the six classes of beings. Why is it that beings are born in hell and experience the suffering of heat and cold? Why are we born as hungry ghosts and experience the sufferings of hunger and thirst? Why are we born as animals, experiencing the suffering of one eating the other? That suffering and those rebirths come about through being caught up in attachment and aversion and stupidity, those three negative emotions. In the Vajrayana, we, of course, consider attachment and aggression to be serious poisons, serious mental poisons that cause a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves and others. But in the Vajrayana, we say that the real root of both of these is actually our stupidity, our ignorance. And so we say, if we realize it, if we know, then we are Buddhas. And not knowing, we are sentient beings. So this not knowing, this ignorance, this dualistic ignorance is actually the source of all of our attachment and it's the source of all of our aggression. And so that is why it's essential to come to realize the absence of a self. We need to come to genuinely have this knowing, which is the opposite of our ignorance. It is taught that everything that appears and exists is a magical display of the mind. So we make a prayer, grant your blessings that I may recognize my own nature. Grant your blessings that I may gain stability in the spontaneous presence of the three kayas in my own awareness. That's a prayer that we make. So the three vehicles are actually not in contradiction to one another. Each supports the other. And each has its own presentation of the view, the meditation, the conduct and the result. And in fact, we should follow the practice of whatever vehicle makes most sense to us. So if the Sravaka presentation of the view, meditation and conduct and result makes the most sense to us and just suits us and feels right to us, then we should do that practice. We should practice that path. And if that's the case for the Mahayana, then we should practice the Mahayana path. If rather than the Vajrayana view and meditation and conduct and result, we feel more comfortable, more at ease, more natural in the Mahayana, then practice the Mahayana for sure. It's not that we absolutely have to practice the Vajrayana. It's not like that at all. It actually depends on our own heartfelt connection and inclination. Where is our faith present naturally? What kind of practices really inspire pure perception and trust and conviction in us? Whatever we find that trust and conviction in, that's what we should practice. Because we can practice any of these vehicles and attain an incredible result. If we practice the vehicle of the Sravakas and Pratyeka Buddhas, then we become an arhat. If we practice the Mahayana path, we achieve the state of great awakening. If we train in the Vajrayana, then we can achieve, we'll just use the word here, accomplishment, great accomplishment. And so, actually, the most important thing is that the root, the cause is Buddha nature. And even if we have that cause of awakening, it's present in all beings without exception. Without having the excellent support of a precious human body with the 18 freedoms and advantages, it's very difficult for us to really be able to practice the Dharma. So, we need to have a precious human body. And just having a precious human body, however, is again not sufficient. It's essential that we meet a qualified teacher. And just meeting a qualified teacher is also not sufficient. We have to receive instructions from that teacher. And receiving instructions from a teacher again is not sufficient. We have to actually practice them. In Tibet, how? How did we practice? How in the snowy land of Tibet do people practice the pith instructions received from a qualified teacher? We begin by turning our mind towards the Dharma with what are called the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma, or the four mind changings. Reflecting on how rare and difficult it is to attain a precious human body. Reflecting on death and impermanence. Reflecting on karmic causality. And reflecting on the faults of samsara. Again and again and again. Until we start to lose our taste for wealth and enjoyment and fame and these kind of pleasures. Our attachment is reduced. We start to think, oh, when I believed that those things were so important, I misplaced my object of trust, actually. That I thought, I spent so much effort physically, verbally and mentally in pursuit of wealth, in pursuit of enjoyment, in pursuit of fame and gain. But actually I have been wasting my time. I have been wasting my time, this doesn't make sense. And then our mind actually changes. Our mind actually transforms and that's when we get to be called a practitioner. That's when we become what is called a practitioner. And so here impermanence is really important for us to contemplate. Contemplating the impermanence of the outer world. Contemplating the impermanence of sentient beings who live in the world. Contemplating the impermanence of the happiness and sadnesses experienced by beings. The Buddha said that everything compounded is impermanent. Everything defiled, all the negative emotions are suffering. All phenomena are empty and lack of self and nirvana is peace. This is what the Buddha said, these are the four seals of the teaching. And he said that everything is changing. All phenomena moment by moment are changing, impermanent. And if we just think about impermanence actually, contemplate permanence and impermanence for some time. This can lead us to a realization of emptiness. Of the perfect simplicity, freedom from conceptual complexity. Like for example in the Madhyamaka teachings the great master Nagarjuna goes through several reasonings. The reasoning about coming and going. The reasoning related to fire and firewood. The reasoning which is an examination of the view. In his text the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, the reasonings are extremely profound there. Like for example Nagarjuna says where there has been going, there is no going at the present. And where it has yet to occur, where there has not been any going yet, there is no going happening there. And aside for where going has already happened and where going has not yet happened, there is no walking, no going that occurs anywhere. And so when we look for it, when we examine, we actually can't find walking, going anywhere. And likewise also Nagarjuna says there in that text that if compounded phenomena are not at all established, then how could uncompounded phenomena be established? And he also says that samsara is nothing other than thought. And when we are free from that, that is liberation. So this is actually contemplating these things, learning and memorizing these verses for example, and then coming to understand the explanation of them and studying the explanation and coming to understand it very genuinely is extremely helpful for our practice. To practice the dharma we need to begin by the common preliminaries, which are the four thoughts that turn the mind towards the dharma, the four mind changings. Then we need to follow through with the uncommon preliminaries, which are the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations, what we call the Ngöndro or the preliminaries. Here we begin with refuge and bodhicitta, together with prostrations through which we purify all negative deeds that we have accumulated with our body since beginningless time in samsara, both ourselves and all sentient beings. Deeds like killing and stealing and sexual misconduct. We purify this, we purify our body through making prostrations. And then the practice of Vajrasattva through which we purify lying and speaking harshly and speaking divisively and speaking in an idle manner, idle gossip and chatter. All the negativity accumulated through speech in this way and all the habit patterns associated with that we purify through Vajrasattva. And then we purify the negative deeds we've accumulated with our mind, covetousness and ill will and wrong view. This is purified through the outer, inner and secret accumulations of the mandala practice. And then we purify all of the negative deeds without any exception of body, speech and mind through the practice of guru yoga. In the guru yoga practice we outwardly supplicate the root and lineage gurus and then we receive the four empowerments and mingle our mind with the mind of the guru. In this way we practice the four or five times one hundred thousand accumulations of the preliminary practices. And this is how we practice in the snowy land of Tibet. The root of this of course comes from India. And actually all of these practices, like in India prostrations, we say Danut, mandala is in fact a Sanskrit word. Vajrasattva, the mantra, Om Benza Satva samaya, that is a Om Vajrasatva samaya, that's a Sanskrit mantra. The word guru yoga, guru yoga is a Sanskrit word. So the source of all of these practices is actually India. And this is how we put this into practice. And on top of that, however, then we need the path to clarify confusion. And for the path to clarify confusion, we train in the practice of the generation stage, recitation and the perfection stage. And then we need our delusion to our confusion to dawn as wisdom. And for that we practice Mahamudra, the practice of Mahamudra. We can say that this can be divided into the aspect of method, which is the six yogas of Naropa, and the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. And that refers to the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness or wisdom. We can also talk about the Mahamudra practice in terms of Sutra Mahamudra, Tantra Mahamudra, and Essence Mahamudra. This is how Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen explained it. He said, Sutra Mahamudra refers to Mahamudra in conjunction with the five paths and ten bhumis. The Tantric Mahamudra is Mahamudra practiced by means of the, or through the practices of the winds and the channels and the essences, the bindus. And Essence Mahamudra is the practice of innate co-emergent wakefulness, or the ordinary mind, which is recognized when it has been pointed out, and then one sustains that recognition. That's how he explained it. Also, my late father used to explain, our late father, he explained in this way. He said, this present, unfabricated moment of mind is the ultimate Samantabhadra. You have never been separated from it for even a moment. So within that recognition, let go naturally. So we practice, in order for our mind to turn to the Dharma, we practice the four mind changings. In order for the Dharma to become our path, we practice the preliminary practices. In order that the path clarifies confusion, we practice generation, recitation, and perfection stage. In order that confusion dawns as wisdom, we train in the nature of mind. In the Mahayana, in the Mahamudra practice, that refers to the practice of the aspect of method, which are the six yogas of Naropa, or the practice of the aspect of wisdom, which is Mahamudra itself. The four yogas, one, pointedness, simplicity, one, taste, and non-meditation. And in the Dzogchen teachings, we talk then about the view, which is cutting through to primordial purity, and the meditation, which is crossing over into spontaneous presence. Kadak, Trekcho, and Lhundrup, Togyal. In the Mahayana practices, in the Mahayana teachings, we talk about wisdom. And what is the context there? Well, we talk about these six perfections, right? Generosity and discipline, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration. And then wisdom, recognizing the natural state. And when we recognize the natural state, when we are generous, when we are disciplined, when we are patient, when we are diligent, and when we are remaining in meditation, those five practices become perfections. And that's how we train in the genuine six perfections. And each one of these practices supports the other. So, this is how we should practice. This is how you should practice the Dharma. I'm sharing this here with you today because some of my students, some Dharma students who are connected with me, are remaining these days in lockdown. And they've asked me to give some Dharma teachings. And I know that you all have studied the Dharma. And I know that you all know the Dharma. But important things are worth repeating. So, I wanted to remind you. I wanted to share these words with you as a reminder for your practice. Please practice well. And I will leave this here today.
Thank you very much.
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