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Audio
01:16:08
Many of you are students
in the shedra here,
and those of you who
are not are practitioners,
many of you have the
Buddhist teachings,
and so you know how
to listen to Dharma teachings.
But just to mention briefly, in the context
of receiving teachings, it is taught that
that we should avoid
the three faults of the vessel,
the five ways of misapprehending or
misunderstanding and the six stains.
These are to be avoided.
What we should adopt
are the four perceptions,
and in the context of
the Mahayana teachings,
it is important that we bring to mind the
motivation, the vast motivation of bodhicitta.
In the context of
tantric teachings in the Vajrayana,
then it is important
that we bring to mind
the pure perception, that we hold in mind this
pure perception when receiving the teachings.
So, in general, these are the
main points with respect
to the proper motivation when
listening to the Buddhist teachings.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present, and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future, like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics, and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now, but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings, and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams? Who is it? Whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because, in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so, for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth, all of you have this human birth, and in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it is really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it is the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this, because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There's a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara, there is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That's just how it is. That's just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering, and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well. In a sort of larger sense, the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we're closer and closer to the aging process, every second we're closer and closer to death. Because right now we're in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we're closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind's nature. Mind's nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity, free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow, A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. That is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. You do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. and you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride and we feel we're better than others because of our discipline and our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows. Like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. In these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. Resolving in the context of the great vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations, and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those, and we speak also about, again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate, you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so, here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. that's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has its own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice, but what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything, But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage, that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of Shamatha, but with a reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. Point is what?
In teaching mention, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundane again, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, Like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping, our clinging, reduce it, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking, or encouraging, is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, it's also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind, it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant, and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it altogether. Ideally, a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this is this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like oh yes there's a table. Yes, yes there's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure, oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act showing that they... ...I think they have more harder than us. We already confused. No problem They're not confused. They're like they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt. Before they don't know.
Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay thank you. We stop here.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present, and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future, like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics, and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now, but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings, and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams? Who is it? Whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because, in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so, for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth, all of you have this human birth, and in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it is really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it is the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this, because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There's a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara, there is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That's just how it is. That's just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering, and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well. In a sort of larger sense, the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we're closer and closer to the aging process, every second we're closer and closer to death. Because right now we're in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we're closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind's nature. Mind's nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity, free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow, A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. That is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. You do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. and you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride and we feel we're better than others because of our discipline and our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows. Like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. In these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. Resolving in the context of the great vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations, and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those, and we speak also about, again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate, you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so, here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. that's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has its own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice, but what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything, But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage, that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of Shamatha, but with a reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. Point is what?
In teaching mention, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundane again, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, Like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping, our clinging, reduce it, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking, or encouraging, is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, it's also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind, it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant, and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it altogether. Ideally, a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this is this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like oh yes there's a table. Yes, yes there's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure, oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act showing that they... ...I think they have more harder than us. We already confused. No problem They're not confused. They're like they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt. Before they don't know.
Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay thank you. We stop here.
01:16:06
Many of you are students
in the shedra here,
and those of you who
are not are practitioners,
many of you have the
Buddhist teachings,
and so you know how
to listen to Dharma teachings.
But just to mention briefly, in the context
of receiving teachings, it is taught that
that we should avoid
the three faults of the vessel,
the five ways of misapprehending or
misunderstanding and the six stains.
These are to be avoided.
What we should adopt
are the four perceptions,
and in the context of
the Mahayana teachings,
it is important that we bring to mind the
motivation, the vast motivation of bodhicitta.
In the context of
tantric teachings in the Vajrayana,
then it is important
that we bring to mind
the pure perception, that we hold in mind this
pure perception when receiving the teachings.
So, in general, these are the
main points with respect
to the proper motivation when
listening to the Buddhist teachings.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present, and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future, like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics, and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now, but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings, and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams? Who is it? Whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because, in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so, for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth, all of you have this human birth, and in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it is really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it is the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this, because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There's a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara, there is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That's just how it is. That's just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering, and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well. In a sort of larger sense, the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we're closer and closer to the aging process, every second we're closer and closer to death. Because right now we're in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we're closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind's nature. Mind's nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity, free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow, A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. That is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. You do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. and you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride and we feel we're better than others because of our discipline and our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows. Like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. In these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. Resolving in the context of the great vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations, and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those, and we speak also about, again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate, you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so, here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. that's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has its own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice, but what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything, But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage, that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of Shamatha, but with a reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. Point is what?
In teaching mention, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundane again, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, Like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping, our clinging, reduce it, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking, or encouraging, is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, it's also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind, it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant, and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it altogether. Ideally, a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this is this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like oh yes there's a table. Yes, yes there's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure, oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act showing that they... ...I think they have more harder than us. We already confused. No problem They're not confused. They're like they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt. Before they don't know.
Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay thank you. We stop here.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present, and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future, like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics, and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now, but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings, and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams? Who is it? Whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because, in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so, for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth, all of you have this human birth, and in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it is really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it is the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this, because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There's a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara, there is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That's just how it is. That's just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering, and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well. In a sort of larger sense, the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we're closer and closer to the aging process, every second we're closer and closer to death. Because right now we're in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we're closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind's nature. Mind's nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity, free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow, A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. That is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. You do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. and you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride and we feel we're better than others because of our discipline and our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows. Like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. In these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. Resolving in the context of the great vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations, and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those, and we speak also about, again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate, you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so, here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. that's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has its own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice, but what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything, But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage, that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of Shamatha, but with a reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. Point is what?
In teaching mention, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundane again, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, Like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping, our clinging, reduce it, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking, or encouraging, is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, it's also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind, it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant, and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it altogether. Ideally, a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this is this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like oh yes there's a table. Yes, yes there's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure, oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act showing that they... ...I think they have more harder than us. We already confused. No problem They're not confused. They're like they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt. Before they don't know.
Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay thank you. We stop here.
Video
Audio
56:30
Many of you are students
in the shedra here
and those of you who
are not, are practitioners.
Many of you have received the
Buddhist teachings
and so you know how to
listen to Dharma teachings.
But just to mention briefly, in the context
of receiving teachings it is taught that we
should avoid the three
faults of the vessel,
the five ways of misapprehending or
misunderstanding and the six stains.
These are to be avoided.
What we should adopt
are the four perceptions.
And in the context of
the Mahayana teachings
it is important that we bring to mind the
motivation, the vast motivation of bodhicitta.
In the context of
tantric teachings in the Vajrayana,
then it is important
that we bring to mind
the pure perception, that we hold in mind this
pure perception when receiving the teachings.
So, in general, these are the
main points with respect
to the proper motivation when
listening to the Buddhist teachings.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams. Who is it, whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth. All of you have this human birth. And in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it's really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it's the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very, very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha, in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India, consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena, from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana, and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech, and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There is a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings, in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara. There is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That is just how it is, that is just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in Samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well In a sort of larger sense the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a difficult, very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we are closer and closer to the aging process, every second we are closer and closer to death. Because right now we are in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we are closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind-nature. Mind-nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow. A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking well they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride in oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. And that is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. And you do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. And you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride. And we feel we're better than others because of our discipline or our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme. If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. And in these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning, resolving in the context of the Great Vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those. And we speak also about again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. That's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has it's own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice but how does one, what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next, settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything. But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of shamatha but with reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. The point is what?
In teaching it mentions, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundanely gain, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time, it is very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping and our clinging, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking or encouraging is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it all together. Ideally a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like, oh yes, there's a table. Yes. Yes. There's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure. Oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act, showing that they... ... I think they have more harder than us.
We already confused, no problem. They're not confused. They're like, they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general, knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing, and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion, I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt.
Before, they don't know. Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay, thank you. We stop here.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams. Who is it, whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth. All of you have this human birth. And in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it's really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it's the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very, very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha, in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India, consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena, from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana, and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech, and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There is a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings, in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara. There is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That is just how it is, that is just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in Samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well In a sort of larger sense the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a difficult, very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we are closer and closer to the aging process, every second we are closer and closer to death. Because right now we are in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we are closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind-nature. Mind-nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow. A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking well they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride in oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. And that is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. And you do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. And you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride. And we feel we're better than others because of our discipline or our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme. If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. And in these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning, resolving in the context of the Great Vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those. And we speak also about again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. That's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has it's own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice but how does one, what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next, settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything. But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of shamatha but with reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. The point is what?
In teaching it mentions, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundanely gain, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time, it is very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping and our clinging, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking or encouraging is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it all together. Ideally a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like, oh yes, there's a table. Yes. Yes. There's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure. Oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act, showing that they... ... I think they have more harder than us.
We already confused, no problem. They're not confused. They're like, they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general, knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing, and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion, I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt.
Before, they don't know. Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay, thank you. We stop here.
56:29
Many of you are students
in the shedra here
and those of you who
are not, are practitioners.
Many of you have received the
Buddhist teachings
and so you know how to
listen to Dharma teachings.
But just to mention briefly, in the context
of receiving teachings it is taught that we
should avoid the three
faults of the vessel,
the five ways of misapprehending or
misunderstanding and the six stains.
These are to be avoided.
What we should adopt
are the four perceptions.
And in the context of
the Mahayana teachings
it is important that we bring to mind the
motivation, the vast motivation of bodhicitta.
In the context of
tantric teachings in the Vajrayana,
then it is important
that we bring to mind
the pure perception, that we hold in mind this
pure perception when receiving the teachings.
So, in general, these are the
main points with respect
to the proper motivation when
listening to the Buddhist teachings.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams. Who is it, whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth. All of you have this human birth. And in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it's really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it's the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very, very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha, in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India, consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena, from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana, and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech, and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There is a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings, in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara. There is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That is just how it is, that is just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in Samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well In a sort of larger sense the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a difficult, very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we are closer and closer to the aging process, every second we are closer and closer to death. Because right now we are in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we are closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind-nature. Mind-nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow. A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking well they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride in oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. And that is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. And you do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. And you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride. And we feel we're better than others because of our discipline or our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme. If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. And in these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning, resolving in the context of the Great Vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those. And we speak also about again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. That's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has it's own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice but how does one, what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next, settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything. But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of shamatha but with reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. The point is what?
In teaching it mentions, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundanely gain, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time, it is very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping and our clinging, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking or encouraging is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it all together. Ideally a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like, oh yes, there's a table. Yes. Yes. There's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure. Oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act, showing that they... ... I think they have more harder than us.
We already confused, no problem. They're not confused. They're like, they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general, knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing, and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion, I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt.
Before, they don't know. Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay, thank you. We stop here.
There have been Buddhas in the past, the Buddhas of the present and there will be Buddhas of the future. The Buddhas of the past like Dīpamkara, the Buddha of the present our Buddha Shakyamuni and then there will be Buddhas in the future like the Buddha Maitreya. These Buddhas have in the present era, the Buddha Shakyamuni came and he taught the Dharma teachings. He turned the wheel of Dharma in three turnings. He taught the fundamental vehicle, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, the vehicle without characteristics and then he also taught the Vajrayana teachings. He taught these teachings in different ways, sometimes taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni himself and other times Buddha Shakyamuni having taken on the form of the Yidam deities and so on like in the tantric teachings. And these teachings that the Buddha taught to us are still present here in the world today. The Buddha Shakyamuni has passed on, he is not here in the world now but the teachings remain. They are practiced, there are those who study, reflect and contemplate these teachings and there are those who have achieved realization in these teachings as well. Not so many, but there still are those who have great realization. And so it is important that we rejoice in this fact and also in the fact that although the Buddha is not present physically here, Shakyamuni Buddha is not present physically here in the world now, the teachings still remain and as long as the teachings are upheld, as long as they are spread, as long as they are present here in the world, as long as there are those who study, reflect and contemplate on those teachings, in fact for us as recipients of the teaching there is actually no big difference in the presence or absence of the Buddha in the world because the teachings, the teachings are still here.
The Buddha gave the teachings of the Dharma, and whose responsibility is it, you can say, who is it for, who is it that must study, who should reflect, and who should contemplate, meditate upon the teachings in order to gain realization, to gain experience in realization in their mind streams. Who is it, whose responsibility is it to uphold the teaching in this way? It is the responsibility of humans, really and truly, it is our responsibility as humans to uphold the Buddha's teaching in this way. Because in fact, for animals, like birds and so on, although it is possible for them to have the habit or the seed of the teachings instilled in them, planted in them, they are not able to actually practice the teachings like we are as humans. It is because the physical support that they have is not sufficient. Although they do have, like all of us, the cause, which is Buddha nature, the support for practicing the teachings is not present in those animals. And so for this reason, it is us humans who must uphold, study, reflect, and meditate upon the teachings.
And so, we have this human birth. All of you have this human birth. And in order to be able to practice the teachings, in order to actually have interest in the teachings, to really be able to study, reflect and meditate on the teachings, just being born as a human, honestly speaking, it's really not enough. To have the interest, the inclination to receive and to actually be able to practice the teachings, the cause for that is having gathered the accumulation. Honestly speaking, it's the accumulation of merit that we have gathered in past lifetimes that allows us to have the opportunity to really have the interest in the inclination towards and the ability to truly practice the teachings. Just having a human birth, honestly speaking, isn't enough. Just being a human isn't enough. We have to have great merit that we have accumulated which allows us to be able to receive and to practice the Buddhist teachings.
So, honestly speaking, we all need to be very happy. We need to rejoice because we have the causes and conditions that allow us to be able to practice the Dharma. Honestly speaking, this life is very short, this human life. And some, if you look at it one way, it's pretty long. But if you look at it another way, it's very, very short. Maybe at most we would live 80, 90, 100 years. It's hard to live beyond that. And if we think about all of the lifetimes that have come before this, and all of the lifetimes that will come after, to be able to have the opportunity to practice, to receive the Dharma teachings and to practice the teachings in this lifetime is an extremely precious opportunity. And so, honestly speaking, we really should rejoice about this because all of you, all of you do have the conditions necessary to be able to practice the Dharma. You do have that.
The Buddha, in his great skill and great compassion, taught the Dharma in the three turnings of the wheel or in the nine different vehicles of teachings. He taught the Dharma in accordance with the capacity of the students, the recipients of the teaching. And in this way, then, the teachings, the Buddhist teachings, are incredibly vast. If we look at the Buddha's word,
the Buddha's word translated into Tibetan, the Kangyur, there are over a hundred volumes. And just the commentaries on those teachings, composed just in India, consist of over 200 volumes translated into Tibetan. And then if we think about the teachings that have been given by the, and composed by the masters in Tibet, there are tens of thousands of volumes of text. The teachings are incredibly vast. But as for a teaching which condenses the meaning, the pith, the essence of all of that, into a very simple, short constructions that are a text, that are easy to understand, that are immediately applicable to our own experience and immediately beneficial to our own experience. Teachings that have been given by great masters who tread the Bodhisattva path and found great realization in that. These are teachings composed by the Kadampa masters. And there are beautiful pith instructions that are very easy to understand, very applicable, immediately beneficial, and so beautifully composed that they delight scholars as well. And the words delight our minds, they inspire us, and not just make us happy and delighted to see what is written, but also that they can be applied. Each and every word, each and every syllable can be immediately applied into our experience in a way that is so beneficial to our minds. And so these teachings by the Kadampa Geshe's are really, really precious and something that you should all pay some attention to. And among the collection of Kadampa teachings, there are some that I taught recently in Bodh Gaya, which is a very holy place. And I thought that it would be nice to also teach this again to you here. And so I will again teach this text that I taught in Bodh Gaya.
The text begins, Namo Guru. So what that means is, I pay homage to all of the realized, the experienced and realized masters. I pay homage, I make prostration to all of the realized, experienced and realized masters. And then the text says, The precious father Che Gom said. So here we have the word father, the precious father. In the context of the teachings of the Mahayana, the guru is likened to a father if he is a man and to a mother if she is a woman. The student is like a son or a daughter. And because of this close relationship in the heart of the teacher and the student, then the teacher is referred to as father or mother. And also because the father or mother represents great, great kindness shown to a child and to show that the teacher has this great kindness of a father or mother towards the disciple, towards the child. For this reason, the text begins, The precious father Che Gom said. And then it says, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. So this is what he said. He said, Know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, this is the ultimate view. And now I will explain what those words mean.
Appearance and existence. Appearance and existence refers to everything, all phenomena, from form up to and including omniscience. Everything, all the phenomena of samsara, nirvana, and the path. All of this. Know this to be your mind. Realize this to be your mind. Experience this as your mind. Know that everything, all happiness, all suffering, is your own mind. Experience and be aware. Know that all of this, all of your happiness, all of your suffering, all of your experience, this is the appearance or the experience of your own mind.
So now about mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So what is this mind that we are talking about here? In the Buddhist context we speak about body, speech, and mind. This body is this physical body of flesh and blood. Speech is our ability to say words, just the words that we say, utterances. And the mind is that which experiences happiness and suffering and neutral feelings, that which experiences everything that we experience. And this mind is an important topic in the Buddhist teachings, mind. And so there is a lot to say about that. We speak about the main mind and subsidiary mental states. There is a lot of detail about these teachings on the main mind and all of the various subsidiary mental states in the Abhidharma teachings, in the Buddhist tradition. But this mind is what experiences all that we experience. And in this world all of our experiences also are changing all the time. This mind is what circles through samsara among the six classes of beings. This mind is what attains liberation. All of this comes down to, comes back to mind. And everything is constantly changing all the time. If we speak about circling through the experiences of the six classes of beings in samsara. There is constantly change going on. Everything is changing moment by moment in a coarse way and also in a subtle way. If we think about impermanence on a coarse level, all of this that we experience, this whole world, the world which is the ground, the foundation upon which every living being lives and exists, all of this eventually will, it is impermanent and it will go away, it will be destroyed. Even the vast oceans will dry up and eventually the world itself will be completely gone and there will be nothing left there. This is on a very coarse level to speak about impermanence. But on a subtle level and a more subtle level, everything is changing all the time, constantly, constantly, every single moment. Every conditioned phenomena is impermanent. And so everything, all of this is constantly, constantly flickering, changing, moving. It is not stable, it is not remaining in any way. Everything that we gather together will be dispersed. Everything that we build up will fall down. Everything, every time that we come together and meet, we will have to separate and everyone who is born will die. That is just how it is, that is just the way it is. And all of this impermanence that is taking place constantly, constantly is that which we experience with our mind. And this impermanence that is constantly around us, this change that is always, always taking place, this is experienced by the mind and by the deluded mind. Our mind is deluded. We are confused, sentient beings. We speak of ourselves as being deluded beings. But what does that mean? When does this delusion happen? From the minute we are born until we die. All of this time we spend our time deluded, confused. And this delusion that we experience encompasses our various experiences of pleasure, of suffering and so on. Although in the world there are perhaps some experiences of pleasure, what we think of as pleasure, it is just seeming pleasure here in Samsara because it is not lasting, because it definitely will change no matter how famous or rich or worthy we are of being honored and venerated here in the world by others. It doesn't matter what kind of great name and fame and wealth and so on we have. All of that is going to change. Definitely it's going to change. And so therefore it is just seeming happiness, it's not genuine happiness. And also in this lifetime we experience so much suffering as well In a sort of larger sense the main experiences of suffering that we have are the experiences of being sick and dying. That's kind of pretty unpleasant experiences. But if we go a little bit more into detail and look further then we also experience aging and that is a difficult experience as well. Certainly we can see that sickness is painful and death is definitely painful. It's a difficult, very difficult experience. And all of these types of suffering plague us here in our conditioned existence. And these types of suffering continue and also we get closer and closer and closer to those moments of illness, of death and so on because this life is running out minute by minute, second by second where every second we are closer to illness, every second we are closer and closer to the aging process, every second we are closer and closer to death. Because right now we are in this experience that we call the Bardo of this life. And this is the period that happens between our birth and our death. And throughout this experience constantly we are going through various experiences, various types of suffering as everything changes moment by moment. Every moment we're closer to sickness, every moment we're closer to being old and every moment we are closer to dying. I'm just telling you the truth here. This is really just how it is. I'm just speaking honestly.
And so, all of appearance and existence, all of this experience, know this to be your mind. This is important. All of this, we don't think it is, right? We don't think that that is the case. We don't experience it that way. But all of appearance and existence, all of the experience that we have, we should know this to be the miraculous manifestation, the display of our mind. It is, all of it, it is the display of mind. It's important that we know this. So it says here, know appearance and existence to be your mind. Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. So mind and the nature of mind. Mind is dualistic. Mind is a dualistic experience in which the negative emotions, attachment, aversion, stupidity and so on are present. That is what mind is. Dualistic mind. Mind is dualistic. And the nature of mind is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration. The nature of mind is Dharmakaya. And so it says, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is freedom from elaboration. It is perfect simplicity. Mind's nature is emptiness. And please notice the distinction here between mind, what mind, dualistic mind is, and mind-nature. Mind-nature is emptiness. Mind's nature is Dharmakaya. Mind's nature is perfect simplicity free from elaboration. And it says here to realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. This is important. It doesn't say understand. It doesn't say understand the nature of your mind to be emptiness. Realize means direct experience. It means experience this directly. It doesn't just mean know it. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and realizing it is kind of like this. If someone were to tell you about a place, to describe it is like this, and the mountains are like this, and the trees are like this, and then there are these forests and there are these fields and then the harvest is like this and there are these houses like this and to describe the place. And you listen very carefully and you say, yes, yes, yes, I get it. I understand now. Now I know what it's like. This is understanding. Realization means experience. It means you actually have direct experience of that. It doesn't mean you just heard it and you got it. It doesn't mean someone just explained it. It means you really directly experienced it. And so here it says, Realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That means directly experience that your mind nature is Dharmakaya. Directly experience that the nature of your mind is perfect simplicity, free from conceptual elaboration. Directly experience that. Realize this. It doesn't say know it. It doesn't say learn it. It doesn't say understand it. It says realize it. It means we have to have this direct experience of the nature of mind as emptiness.
If you do not cling to this realization as being supreme. So we speak about grasping to the view as being supreme and grasping to conduct as being supreme. These are two faults that can come about. If we take for example first this grasping to one's conduct as being supreme. For example if someone takes a vow. A vow of being a lay person, a householder, Buddhist householder, or of being a novice monk or nun, or a fully ordained monk or nun. There are these various vows. We can be a male or female householder, a novice monk, a novice nun, a fully ordained monk, a fully ordained nun. In the context of taking these vows and keeping the discipline, it is possible that one takes such a vow and then thinks I'm really being very disciplined. I'm holding my vow. I'm practicing the discipline. And this is so good and this is so important. And look at them, They're not practicing discipline. They're not being disciplined. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And has a sense of pride with respect to oneself. And the pride of having the perfect discipline of keeping one's vow. And then looking down on others. Looking down on them and thinking well they're not practicing correctly. They're not holding their vows. This type of pride and this type of looking down on others is called holding to one's discipline as being supreme. Of course we have to practice discipline, but it is a fault or a flaw to hold that as being so supreme and to get a sense of pride, to have pride in oneself and to look down on others. This is a fault or a flaw. So similar to this we have this grasping to one's view as being supreme. And that is what is referred to directly in this passage. That would be like if you did actually know that appearance and existence are your own mind. And you do actually directly realize the nature of mind to be completely free from conceptual elaboration. Perfectly simple, and to realize the nature of mind to be emptiness. And then you think I got it. I have the view. I know and they don't. Nobody else has realized this. Nobody else can realize this. They're not capable. It is just me. I am the one. And you get this really strong sense of pride with respect to your own view. And you look down on others and their view. This is what is called grasping to the view as being supreme. And this is a fault. This is a flaw. Having proper discipline is good. Realizing the view is important. But holding on to that in a way so that we generate a sense of pride. And we feel we're better than others because of our discipline or our view. That is the problem. That is the fault. And so here in this text it says don't cling to this realization as being supreme. That would be holding on to the view as being supreme. And again if we take the example of holding on to discipline as being supreme, the great master Dza Patrul Rinpoche, he said, rather than a proud vow holder, I would much prefer a repentant vow breaker. So better to be someone, better than being someone who holds the vow very properly. Again this could be any of the vows like I gave you the example before of a householder, a novice monk or a nun or a fully ordained monk or nun. Rather to hold that vow with pride. Patrul Rinpoche says I would actually prefer, I think it's better to be somebody who broke the vow and really feels badly about it, really regrets having broken it. So this is a point that indicates it's important not to hold on to one's discipline or one's view as being supreme, as being so important. So if you do not cling to this realization as being supreme, if you don't hold your view in this way, then this is the ultimate view. So that means this is a really good authentic view if you are free from this clinging and holding on to it as being something so precious, the best, the most supreme. If you are free from that clinging, then you have the ultimate view, the right view, the correct view.
In the context of the Buddhist teachings, we have the view of the mind-only school and the Madhyamaka school of the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. And in these contexts we speak about different views according to different schools. There is the way of coming to realize the view through scripture, relying upon scripture and reasoning, and in this way resolving the view through scripture and reasoning, resolving in the context of the Great Vehicle the fact that all phenomena are empty through the practice of following scripture and reasoning, resolving that phenomena are free from the four extremes, the eight conceptual elaborations and so on. There are ways of arriving at this view through elaborate scripture and reasoning. But here in this text, this is the tradition of the oral instructions and it is a very unelaborate method. There are a lot of elaborate methods in the tradition, but this is the very unelaborate, the simple method of expressing the view. And so it says just here in this text, realize the nature of your mind to be emptiness. That is the expression of the view, just very simply and straightforward right there. And in these various contexts as well, there are the meditation and so on of the various vehicles. in the context of the practice of the Great Vehicle we speak about, the practice of the 37 points or factors of enlightenment and contemplating, meditating upon those. And we speak also about again, resolving the view through scripture and reasoning and so on. There are these more elaborate methods, but here in the context of the oral instructions, the tradition of the oral instructions, the meditation is explained in a way that is much more simple, a way that is much more straightforward and unelaborate you can say, an extremely unelaborate way of expressing. And so here the meditation is explained like this, it says, Embrace this with non-distraction, settle within the state of non-fabrication, this absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So this is the very simple, very unelaborate expression of the practice of meditation. And there are benefits, this has it's own special characteristics actually, but so do the other traditions. Practicing in an elaborate way, meditating on each and every single one of the 37 aspects of enlightenment. That's a really wonderful type of practice, that's a wonderful meditation, it's great, it has it's own excellent characteristics and then using, following the method of resolving the view through scripture and reasoning. This is a very important method, that's also really, it has its own special characteristics. But here, again, in the context of the extremely unelaborate, the extremely simple presentation, this expression of the meditation, a very simple presentation of the meditation is also, it has its own special characteristics, it's very precious and important in its own way. So each of these traditions have their own virtues, you can say.
Embrace this with non-distraction. So here the main practice is the practice of the nature of mind. And in this context we speak about realizing the nature of mind to be empty, emptiness, not empty, not like some complete absence, nothing whatsoever, it's not that. Emptiness, freedom from the four extremes, freedom from the eight elaborations. Another way that we can express it is the emptiness with a core of compassion. This emptiness with a core of compassion is the view, this is the main practice. And somebody who does not strive on the path will not realize this emptiness with a core of compassion. It is through taking up the view of and the practice of the Bodhisattva path and putting one's effort into study and reflection, it is through doing this that by means of meditation one will realize the experience of emptiness with a core of compassion that one will gain this realization, this direct experience of mind's nature, this emptiness with a core of compassion. And so this is the main practice but how does one, what does one do with that? It says embrace this with non-distraction. So if we want to practice the main practice of emptiness with a core of compassion then there has to be something that allows us to take up the practice. And what it is that does that, basically it's interest, being interested in that. And in this context interest means not being distracted, it means non-distraction. And so with mindfulness and vigilant attention to the practice being, not getting caught up in distraction it is through this that one is able to engage in to basically, to sustain without being distracted the experience of this emptiness with a core of compassion. This is basically the main practice here. And so it says embrace this with non-distraction. It also says next, settle within the state of non-fabrication. So what is it that we do here? Well, non-fabrication means don't do anything, don't make anything, don't fabricate anything, don't block anything, don't hold on to anything, don't do anything. But simply settle within the state, allow oneself to sustain the state in which this state, this experience of emptiness with a core of compassion without doing anything, without making any change, without doing, without changing, without stopping, without blocking, but simply let it be just as it is. So in this way settle within the state of non-fabrication.
This absence of reference point or fixation is the ultimate meditation. So absence of reference point and absence of fixation. When we practice there's either practice with a reference point and with some sort of fixation or practice without a reference point and without fixation. There are these two. And if we're practicing with a reference point that is like the practice of shamatha. The practice of shamatha with an object definitely has a reference point. But even the practice of shamatha without an object does have a subtle reference point as well. Also the practice of the development stage that also is practiced with a reference point. We have something that we are focusing on. There is a focus in our practice there. And so in the context of the practice of mantrayana, in the Vajrayana practice, actually the development stage practice is Vajrayana shamatha. That's really what it is. It is actually a practice of shamatha but with reference point. And then we speak about the development stage and the completion stage, both of these two aspects of the Vajrayana practice. So the development stage is a practice of shamatha in the context of the Vajrayana. And then the completion stage would be the practice of vipassana in the context of the Vajrayana. But here we're talking about reference point or the absence of reference point and fixation. So here it says that this absence of reference point, not having any sort of focus, not having any sort of reference point that one holds onto. Being completely free from something to which one's mind is directed, and being free from fixation, being free from holding onto something as being that way. Being completely free from this fixation and completely free from this reference point, this is said to be the ultimate meditation. If you can do it, if you are able to actually practice in a way that is completely free from even the slightest bit of a reference point, without the slightest bit of fixation, if we can practice, rest our mind in a way that is absolutely and completely free from this, then that is the ultimate meditation. It is the supreme meditation. It is the best way of practicing meditation if we can practice in a way that is completely and totally free of the slightest, even the slightest reference point, focus or fixation.
Take uncomfortable circumstances as the path. What are uncomfortable circumstances? Being physically ill, being mentally unhappy, any type of unpleasant circumstance for those who are wealthy, losing their wealth, for those who are famous, losing their fame, their renown. These type of uncomfortable circumstances, anything that is inauspicious, unpleasant, not nice, what should we do with all of that? Take it as the path. Take that as the path. So, the great Kadampa masters of the past, when, if we speak about in general, people like to be praised and they don't like it when people sort of deprecate them, say negative things about them. But the great Kadampa masters, their practice is very much in discord with ordinary people. So, they are those who would be afraid of praise. Oh, please, if someone praises me, I might become proud. That's not helpful for my practice. That's good. They would prefer to have someone say something bad about them than to be praised. This is the practice of the Kadampa masters. So, taking uncomfortable circumstances as a path, any type of difficult, unpleasant circumstance that happens, we should take that as the path. And how is it that we can actually take uncomfortable, unpleasant circumstances as the path? Well, in general, through acknowledging that everything is impermanent and that it's changing all the time, that is one way. But in particular, really, it is due to the kindness of the view. It is through realizing the view, through realizing this nature of mind, which is completely free from any type of conceptual elaboration that is perfect simplicity, it is through realizing this that one is able to really take uncomfortable circumstances on the path. Because honestly speaking, when one has that realization, then any type of unpleasant circumstance, physical illness, mental difficulties, things that make us unhappy, or whatever kind of experience that comes about, it doesn't really make things that difficult. If one really has realized the view, it's not like us, we get so caught up in these difficult circumstances, it's so hard for us to bear. But someone who has realization of the view through that realization doesn't really get that disturbed, doesn't really get that bothered by even the most difficult of circumstances. And so someone like these great masters, when they were ill, normally we say, I'm sick, and a master would say, Oh, well, this body part of mine is not doing so well. It's a little bit different from our perspective. The point is what?
In teaching it mentions, it's logical. When we're sick, also when we're a little bit sad or mental uneasy, it's very helpful for practice. Or when we have some bad circumstances, that makes us encouraged to practice. That makes us to wake up. And if things go so well, healthy, happy, sort of mundanely gain, you see, name, fame, and whatever mundane gains are gaining at a high level, at that time, it is very dangerous, the mind becomes very drunk, like worse than LSD.
Mentally very disturbed, very proud, and not see the fact, and mentally become more screwed up.
So watch. That makes us fool. That makes us to go wrong direction. Rather than that, when we have a little sick, or a little unhappy, or some kind of problem facing, and also if people criticizing, it's great teacher. If people talk good, we don't know. Number one, is really they mean it? That's also we need to check, or they need something? So that reason nice words to say you. Or, fooling you, you know. And even not, we need to watch. Because that make us mind very funny. And that make us mind become more proud, and more confused, and might be we do more wrong.
Cut your clinging to comfortable circumstances. What does that mean? Comfortable circumstances are things that are pleasant, right? Like being praised, like becoming wealthy, like becoming famous, like getting a lot of material gain. And when these kind of circumstances happen, we normally have some sort of clinging and attachment and holding on to that. And so the instruction here is to cut your clinging to those comfortable circumstances. In the best case scenario, it means completely cut it. Just give it up entirely. But at least if you can reduce it, at least if we can reduce, sort of put down our grasping and our clinging, reduce it, cause it to decrease a little bit, then as much as we can do that, that much more our mind will be benefited, actually. It will be very beneficial to do this. So to give up our clinging, our holding on to circumstances that are otherwise considered comfortable or pleasant and so on, this is the best. And this absence of accepting or rejecting, blocking or encouraging is the ultimate conduct.
Know that whatever happens is not real, something good happens, it's not really real, something bad happens, also not real. Knowing that whatever happens, that whatever takes place, all of this is just the display of my mind. It's just my mind it has no substantial existence, not even an atom's worth of substantial existence whatsoever. Whatever happens, none of it has any real reality. All it is, is the experience, the manifestation of my mind. So knowing whatever happens is not real. Do not accept the good and reject the bad. When something good happens don't think, yes I want that good thing. And when something bad happens don't think, no I have to get rid of this bad thing. This accepting, taking up, trying to take up that which is good and pleasant and rejecting, pushing away that which is bad and unpleasant. This is something that we should avoid. Ideally, we should just completely stop it all together. Ideally a practitioner doesn't accept, doesn't reject at all. But if that's not possible, at least just try and reduce it. As much as we can reduce that, as much as we can avoid all of this accepting, wanting and rejecting, pushing away, to the degree, to whatever degree we can reduce that, to that degree our practice will improve and it will be much better for our experience. And so don't accept the good and reject the bad. The ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be too concerned about anything and to accept whatever happens. There's all this talk about clearing obstacles. How do I get rid of my obstacles? What do I do to get rid of my obstacles? Well, the best way to do it is just don't be so concerned about what happens. This is the ultimate way to get rid of obstacles. Appearances become insubstantial, confusion wavers and collapses. We turn away in revulsion from our attachments. These are the ultimate signs of progress.
Appearances become insubstantial. What does this mean? If we think about the great masters, the great accomplished siddhas of the past. There's for example, a story of a master sitting outside with his students teaching and he would say to the students, I experience the same thing that you do. I see just what you see. I see all of you guys sitting around here. I see you and you. I'm able to distinguish you. The appearances are perfectly clear, all of what's taking place around, I see it, I experience it, it's not mixed up or anything. I see it just like you do. All of this experience that you have. I have it too. The only thing is this rock behind me, it's not really there. Then he would just get up and walk through the rock. So this is what is meant by appearances becoming insubstantial. This experience of, on a conventional level, everything appears just fine, but ultimately realizing that it has no substantiality, then the experience of the great masters is like that. Confusion wavers and collapses. You know, the great masters, when they're around people like us, they sort of pretend to be just as confused as we are. Like, oh yes, there's a table. Yes. Yes. There's a door. Yes. Yes. This is like this. Yes. Yes. This is like that. Oh sure. Oh sure. Just kind of like acting like we act, showing that they... ... I think they have more harder than us.
We already confused, no problem. They're not confused. They're like, they need to match with us. So they need to try to so hard to be confused. Is my mind is very hard. Harder than us.
So although they actually have no confusion whatsoever, they show, they pretend if you like to be confused, they make a show of having these same ordinary confused experiences that we do. So although they in fact have absolutely no confusion whatsoever, they sort of make it make a show of confusion, but the confusion is really not there at all. So as it says here, confusion wavers and collapses. Confusion completely is collapsed. And then we turn away in revulsion from our attachments. In general, knowing that everything is impermanent and also knowing that all these phenomena have no reality, that they're insubstantial and unreal. Knowing this, one does not become attached to or cling on to anything. And so the great masters have no grasping, no attachment, no clinging whatsoever to phenomena because of having realized that they have no inherent existence whatsoever anyway. So these experiences of appearance becoming insubstantial confusion, wavering, collapsing, and turning away in revulsion, giving up, completely giving up all attachments, these are the ultimate signs of progress. Rinpoche says we'll stop here today, but it will be nice if we can continue with the rest of these lines. It's very, very, very beautiful teaching, very beautiful line. So about that confusion, I have a few experiences, some monks or some nuns, practitioner, you say practitioner, good practitioner. Yeah, so when we eat together and sometimes, of course, food has no salt, yeah, it's possible, sometimes they forget, yeah. So they eat very nicely. Then I say, oh, there's no salt. Then they say, oh, there's no salt.
Before, they don't know. Yeah, they say, oh, it's so hot. Oh, yeah, very hot.
Really, very. Yeah, I try to find out, I really try how their mind works. So sometimes we feel so interested in things. Also, we go together, so, you know, Hot, hot time. If we say oh very cool yeah. They says yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool.
Mind very interesting, totally different than us. Anyway, I will stop here.
Okay, thank you. We stop here.
Chegom’s Instructions pt1
Teacher:
Location:
- Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling
- Date: November 6, 2010
Description >>
In this Saturday teaching based on Che Gom’s pith instruction, Rinpoche first explains the proper motivation for receiving Dharma and rejoices in the rare human opportunity and responsibility to uphold the Buddha’s teachings. He then unfolds the text systematically, clarifying that all appearances are the display of mind and that the nature of mind is emptiness (Dharmakaya), which must be directly realized rather than merely understood, while avoiding pride in one’s view or discipline. Moving to meditation, he explains resting without distraction, without fabrication, and without even the slightest reference point or fixation as the ultimate meditation. He continues with conduct, teaching how to take adversity as the path, cut attachment to comfort, and abandon accepting and rejecting, explaining that the ultimate way to clear obstacles is not to be overly concerned with circumstances. Finally, he describes the signs of genuine progress: appearances becoming insubstantial, confusion collapsing, and attachment naturally falling away.
