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01:33:58
In the Buddha, the unsurpassable teacher.
In the Dharma, the
unsurpassable protector.
And in the Sangha, the unsurpassable
guide, I take refuge until awakening.
So in the world, there are many teachers,
many teachers who give teachings,
religious and spiritual teachings
that can be applied.
And all of those have some benefit.
When followed, then they
are helpful in various ways.
And because they each have their value,
we should have respect for all the teachers.
whose teachings are present in the world.
That doesn't necessarily mean
that we have to have faith in them,
but respect, respect similar to the
way one would respect good medicine.
When doctors, they make
that diagnosis in different ways
and dispense different types of medicine.
But because it's helpful,
the cure that they prescribe,
because it works as a
remedy against disease,
it is relevant to have genuine
respect and appreciation for all of them.
And in the same way, we can have
genuine respect and appreciation for
spiritual teachers as
they are present in the world
and as their teachings
are present in the world.
Those... The teacher that
we follow here in particular.
is the awakened one, someone who has.
overcome the two obscurations
and let the two wisdoms unfold.
And in this world, at present,
the teaching of such a Buddha
is the teaching of Shakyamuni.
But there have been other
teachers like that in the world before,
like Dipankara, and
there will be others
to come in the future,
such as Maitreya.
But Buddhas appear in the
world and the worlds are numerous.
There are myriads of
worlds and worlds systems,
there's mention of a billion-fold universe.
And in the end, Buddhas appear
wherever there's a need for it.
And so, in accord with
the karmic backgrounds
and aspirations of sentient beings,
Buddhas appear
throughout the world at large.
But here we follow the...
At the present day and time, our
teacher is the Buddha Shakyamuni.
And when we want to be
a follower of that teacher,
then of course what we focus
on is what the teacher taught.
We focus on the teaching.
And ideally we should be able to
do that in a wholehearted endeavor
where nothing else matters.
So we are ready to
give up everything else,
any other pursuit,
any other interest.
We completely let go of and
instead focus all of our time
and all of our energy on
learning, reflecting on the teachings
and applying them in practice.
But who can really do that?
Who really does this?
It's the members of the Sangha.
They are the ones who leave
behind all other mundane pursuits
and focus entirely on
learning the teachings,
on understanding them
through careful reflection
and then applying what they
come to understand in practice.
That is what is the
special thing about
the Sangha, is that
this is how they live.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example.
So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason.
I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example.
So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason.
I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
01:33:57
In the Buddha, the unsurpassable teacher.
In the Dharma, the
unsurpassable protector.
And in the Sangha, the unsurpassable
guide, I take refuge until awakening.
So in the world, there are many teachers,
many teachers who give teachings,
religious and spiritual teachings
that can be applied.
And all of those have some benefit.
When followed, then they
are helpful in various ways.
And because they each have their value,
we should have respect for all the teachers.
whose teachings are present in the world.
That doesn't necessarily mean
that we have to have faith in them,
but respect, respect similar to the
way one would respect good medicine.
When doctors, they make
that diagnosis in different ways
and dispense different types of medicine.
But because it's helpful,
the cure that they prescribe,
because it works as a
remedy against disease,
it is relevant to have genuine
respect and appreciation for all of them.
And in the same way, we can have
genuine respect and appreciation for
spiritual teachers as
they are present in the world
and as their teachings
are present in the world.
Those... The teacher that
we follow here in particular.
is the awakened one, someone who has.
overcome the two obscurations
and let the two wisdoms unfold.
And in this world, at present,
the teaching of such a Buddha
is the teaching of Shakyamuni.
But there have been other
teachers like that in the world before,
like Dipankara, and
there will be others
to come in the future,
such as Maitreya.
But Buddhas appear in the
world and the worlds are numerous.
There are myriads of
worlds and worlds systems,
there's mention of a billion-fold universe.
And in the end, Buddhas appear
wherever there's a need for it.
And so, in accord with
the karmic backgrounds
and aspirations of sentient beings,
Buddhas appear
throughout the world at large.
But here we follow the...
At the present day and time, our
teacher is the Buddha Shakyamuni.
And when we want to be
a follower of that teacher,
then of course what we focus
on is what the teacher taught.
We focus on the teaching.
And ideally we should be able to
do that in a wholehearted endeavor
where nothing else matters.
So we are ready to
give up everything else,
any other pursuit,
any other interest.
We completely let go of and
instead focus all of our time
and all of our energy on
learning, reflecting on the teachings
and applying them in practice.
But who can really do that?
Who really does this?
It's the members of the Sangha.
They are the ones who leave
behind all other mundane pursuits
and focus entirely on
learning the teachings,
on understanding them
through careful reflection
and then applying what they
come to understand in practice.
That is what is the
special thing about
the Sangha, is that
this is how they live.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example.
So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason.
I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example.
So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason.
I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
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Audio
01:05:03
In the Buddha, the unsurpassable teacher.
In the Dharma, the
unsurpassable protector.
And in the Sangha, the unsurpassable
guide, I take refuge until awakening.
So in the world, there are many teachers,
many teachers who give teachings,
religious and spiritual teachings
that can be applied.
And all of those have some benefit.
When followed, then they
are helpful in various ways.
And because they each have their value,
we should have respect for all the teachers.
whose teachings are present in the world.
That doesn't necessarily mean
that we have to have faith in them,
but respect, respect similar to the
way one would respect good medicine.
When doctors, they make
that diagnosis in different ways
and dispense different types of medicine.
But because it's helpful,
the cure that they prescribe,
because it works as a
remedy against disease,
it is relevant to have genuine
respect and appreciation for all of them.
And in the same way, we can have
genuine respect and appreciation for
spiritual teachers as
they are present in the world
and as their teachings
are present in the world.
Those... The teacher that
we follow here in particular.
is the awakened one, someone who has.
overcome the two obscurations
and let the two wisdoms unfold.
And in this world, at present,
the teaching of such a Buddha
is the teaching of Shakyamuni.
But there have been other
teachers like that in the world before,
like Dipankara, and
there will be others
to come in the future,
such as Maitreya.
But Buddhas appear in the
world and the worlds are numerous.
There are myriads of
worlds and worlds systems,
there's mention of a billion-fold universe.
And in the end, Buddhas appear
wherever there's a need for it.
And so, in accord with
the karmic backgrounds
and aspirations of sentient beings,
Buddhas appear
throughout the world at large.
But here we follow the...
At the present day and time, our
teacher is the Buddha Shakyamuni.
And when we want to be
a follower of that teacher,
then of course what we focus
on is what the teacher taught.
We focus on the teaching.
And ideally we should be able to
do that in a wholehearted endeavor
where nothing else matters.
So we are ready to
give up everything else,
any other pursuit,
any other interest.
We completely let go of and
instead focus all of our time
and all of our energy on
learning, reflecting on the teachings
and applying them in practice.
But who can really do that?
Who really does this?
It's the members of the Sangha.
They are the ones who leave
behind all other mundane pursuits
and focus entirely on
learning the teachings,
on understanding them
through careful reflection
and then applying what they
come to understand in practice.
That is what is the
special thing about
the Sangha, is that
this is how they live.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example. So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason. I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example. So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason. I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
01:04:57
In the Buddha, the unsurpassable teacher.
In the Dharma, the
unsurpassable protector.
And in the Sangha, the unsurpassable
guide, I take refuge until awakening.
So in the world, there are many teachers,
many teachers who give teachings,
religious and spiritual teachings
that can be applied.
And all of those have some benefit.
When followed, then they
are helpful in various ways.
And because they each have their value,
we should have respect for all the teachers.
whose teachings are present in the world.
That doesn't necessarily mean
that we have to have faith in them,
but respect, respect similar to the
way one would respect good medicine.
When doctors, they make
that diagnosis in different ways
and dispense different types of medicine.
But because it's helpful,
the cure that they prescribe,
because it works as a
remedy against disease,
it is relevant to have genuine
respect and appreciation for all of them.
And in the same way, we can have
genuine respect and appreciation for
spiritual teachers as
they are present in the world
and as their teachings
are present in the world.
Those... The teacher that
we follow here in particular.
is the awakened one, someone who has.
overcome the two obscurations
and let the two wisdoms unfold.
And in this world, at present,
the teaching of such a Buddha
is the teaching of Shakyamuni.
But there have been other
teachers like that in the world before,
like Dipankara, and
there will be others
to come in the future,
such as Maitreya.
But Buddhas appear in the
world and the worlds are numerous.
There are myriads of
worlds and worlds systems,
there's mention of a billion-fold universe.
And in the end, Buddhas appear
wherever there's a need for it.
And so, in accord with
the karmic backgrounds
and aspirations of sentient beings,
Buddhas appear
throughout the world at large.
But here we follow the...
At the present day and time, our
teacher is the Buddha Shakyamuni.
And when we want to be
a follower of that teacher,
then of course what we focus
on is what the teacher taught.
We focus on the teaching.
And ideally we should be able to
do that in a wholehearted endeavor
where nothing else matters.
So we are ready to
give up everything else,
any other pursuit,
any other interest.
We completely let go of and
instead focus all of our time
and all of our energy on
learning, reflecting on the teachings
and applying them in practice.
But who can really do that?
Who really does this?
It's the members of the Sangha.
They are the ones who leave
behind all other mundane pursuits
and focus entirely on
learning the teachings,
on understanding them
through careful reflection
and then applying what they
come to understand in practice.
That is what is the
special thing about
the Sangha, is that
this is how they live.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example. So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason. I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
So they train in discipline, they observe the vows of the training in discipline, they train in meditative absorption and they train in insight. That is how one lives as a member of the Sangha. But in fact all of us need to be, as it were, members of the Sangha, even if we cannot take up that lifestyle entirely in that same complete and comprehensive fashion, it's certainly still the case that we also need to train in discipline, in meditative absorption and in insight. And we also need a type of foundation for that in the same way as the members of the Sangha have their vows. We also need certain vows. And the novice vow or at least the lay practitioner vow. for a male or female, that's like the basis, the foundation for spiritual practice that we need in order to progress. So we receive the vows of refuge, the vow of a lay practitioner, and on that basis we too can take up and should take up the practice of meditative absorption and insight. That's how we too can commit our lives to the spiritual path of accomplishing the Dharma. And we do that on a daily basis. So if Rinpoche were to share some personal advice based on his own experience, then he could speak a little bit about what he does in the morning when he wakes up. So when he wakes up, Rinpoche says, in the early morning, it's not that he begins to chant right away some mantra or visualize deities, but instead he recollects the teaching that says, "Do no evil, accomplish perfect virtue and tame your own mind. That is the teaching of the Buddha." So in this way we can remember what is all about the teaching of the Buddha by just bringing to mind these four lines. We too, just like the members of the Sangha, need to stay clear of the ten non-virtues, make sure that what we do is not that kind of action. And we too need to do what we can in terms of the opposites of those negative actions, the ten virtues. And we too need to tame our own mind. So when we wake up in the morning, we can recollect that task which remains there as we wake up and say, "Now is a new day. I've just woken up and this is a new opportunity to make sure that I don't engage in any of those negative actions, that whatever I do in my body, in my speech and in my mind is something that is useful and beneficial to sentient beings,
and that I tame my own mind.". So that truly is a daunting task because our minds are in a beginningless state of delusion. Since beginningless time, we have again and again given rise to negative emotions, and negative emotions leave their trace. So countless traces, countless imprints of negative emotion are there in the mind. Again and again it has been the case that some negative emotion arose in our mind and it compelled us to act, to act in a way that was destructive, and so we had to suffer. So that has been our lot since time without beginning, giving rise to one negative emotion after the other, following through on it with no choice, engaging in negative actions, and so being bound to experience the consequences, pain and suffering, again and again. And yet this is what we now have to deal with. Now is the opportunity to tame that mind.
So, yeah, if we wake up with that resolve in mind and bring to mind these words of instruction, then that sets the stage for our practice and for our way of being throughout the whole day.
So when it comes to then taming our own mind, when it comes to taming our own mind, then how to do it? One of the, one excellent way to remedy this deluded, aggravated state of delusion that we find ourselves in is by bringing to mind the seal of the teachings that says that all conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent. Everything that is the outcome of causes and conditions is impermanent down to a momentary transience. Nothing remains for more than a moment. This is something that we can understand by looking carefully at the things of this world. Then we can understand that that is indeed the case, that while we think the opposite, while our impression is that things last, in fact they do not. And because we have overlooked that, then we have been driven by negative emotions. That's how we spend our life, months, years, life after life in a state of ignorant delusion, falling prey to negative emotions that make us act. And so we ripe the consequences of pain, dissatisfaction, misery that follows from negative acts that are caused by negative emotions. So whose fault is all of that? Actually we can't point the finger at anyone but our own deluded mind. It's because we thought differently and because we did differently that all of this happens and not really anything else. But now by understanding that all of these conditioned things don't last, that they are impermanent down to the very impermanent, being impermanent from one moment to the next, then by understanding that we can remedy that otherwise blind drive that we have to just go on. When we see that things are not the way we thought, when we see that where we thought they were actually lasting and permanent things, when we recognize that they are not, then one big lie has been exposed. Now we know that it was false, it was always false, it was never true and yet we thought differently. So just by thinking in this way, understanding that things that are the outcome of causes and conditions are not permanent, a huge problem has been exposed and seen through in many ways.
Isn't it?
No choice, you need to admit.
So it's called the delusional perception of sentient beings. This is one way of understanding why the experience and the perceptions of sentient beings are delusional.
Can we accept, can you accept that the belief that things last is a delusion? Is that acceptable?
The whole world is impermanent.
And all of us who inhabit the world, everyone who has a mind are also impermanent.
So everything changes from one moment to the next, and it's the whole world that is like that. Nothing remains. The world right now is in this state of change from one moment to the next. And as a whole, world systems, they undergo change. They form to begin with, then they remain, then they disintegrate, and then finally there's nothing left of the whole world system that once was. But then, innumerable many of these also there's this mention of a billion-fold world system. So they individually go through these stages of formation, remaining, disintegration and voidness. And in this way, nothing remains the same. It's not that we are not aware of impermanence. We know impermanence, but it is at a very crude level. We don't realize the momentary impermanence. We are as if blind to that. We don't know of it unless we are told we will never figure it out, unless up until now we never got the idea. We couldn't have gotten the idea that this is how the whole world is. Instead, we believe that it's not. That we believe that in fact these things last, that I last, that all of this, that we have a duration and that the world remains. So, similarly, we think that what actually has no reality is perfectly real. And we think where there is no self, indeed this is me, this is myself and so on. Things that are not clean, we think are perfectly clean. And in this way, our beliefs and our perceptions of things are really in complete opposition to the way they actually are. So, in that way we somehow succeed going through all of this and completely ignoring, misunderstanding what actually is the case. Because whereas things don't last, whereas things that otherwise seem clean are not so, whereas things that seem real are not real, and whereas that which seems to be a self is not a self, we think that here I am and actually I know things pretty well. I am someone whom you can count on and what I do makes sense. Right? That's what we think. And yet when we think more carefully, having been introduced to these facts like the fact of impermanence, then we cannot acknowledge that all of this is false. Our basic orientation is out of touch.
So the understanding of impermanence is an inspiration for Dharma practice. It motivates towards Dharma practice because when we understand that the things that we otherwise take to be so solidly there, present, enduring, real, when we understand that those are not so, then the grip of the mind loosens. It cannot help but when we understand that these things aren't really something that we can hold onto, then the natural reaction is to relax and be much more at ease. So that grasping that we otherwise have in terms of holding onto the idea that things last, that they're real, clean, self and so on, those graspings that otherwise happen automatically, they can begin to relax and loosen. And that is the case, but if we don't really acknowledge that all of these perceptions are false, that our beliefs are false and that our orientation runs counter to the way things actually are, then what to think about the wish for freedom? Like we may say, "Okay, I'm here, it's all real, I last, things last, it's all pretty durable and I want to be free. I want to become enlightened. I want also to feel much better. I want to be very calm and I want to be happy, free from negative emotions." Isn't that a joke, like a mega joke, a big joke?
Cheating, fooling, if we fool others, cheat others, that is one issue. If we cheat ourselves, fool ourselves, is another case. If we fool ourselves, if we cheat ourselves and same time we're not fooling, we're not cheating, then how to solve the problem? A serious subject, Dharma, knowledge is a serious issue or subject. We must take seriously. We shouldn't just take lightly, "Oh, something up there, I hear, oh, manjushri, Avalok, oh, chanting, oh, forget that.". First, be realistic. Use your intelligent brain for good purpose, ever helpful purpose, not just short, beneficial reason. Long-term helpful. So for that reasons we are lucky, we are human. We have very good brain. If we use our brain proper way, not only good for self, good for many other sentients, we can help and serve and guide. If we use our brain wrong way, harm to use terribly and harm to countless other sentient beings, this human brain is...
creating world like paradise. Same time this whole world made by human's brain using technology and make this world is paradise. Even you can build unbelievable buildings in the ocean. Hundreds of floors. Same time, you're making terrible technology to make everything ash.
Paradise. So human is visible God. Because we not see God. Human we see. Human's brain, if it go to good purpose, it's God. So powerful, if we say God is so powerful, human is God. If human use their brain too wrong, human is the worst devil or ghost or devil. Why? Destroying everything. You, other, planet, everything ash. We know what happened past. We know what going on now. The symptoms are here, they are here, here, there. So for that reasons, urgently, emergently we need to learn how to save ourselves. How to save all sentients. Save. Each of we have our own saver. Each of us, each of us, we have saver, saver is within ourselves. Destroyer is also ourselves. The super saver also with ourselves. Super, how you say, damager also ourselves. So for that reasons, each of us, if we apply at least, at least, there's another terminology about shil or precepts. Panca shila, panc a shila.
In the world, every human beings, if we want peace now and ever, and we all have living situation comfortably, then what we need to do? We need to keep the natural law, five precepts. If we keep these five precepts, no need army, no need any kind of weapons, no need police, no need judge, no need court. So, how you say, so harmony, so beautiful. Human is smart, human is extremely danger.
There's so many different type of sentients. Only human need police. Only human need the handcuffs and gun. Even in small city, even small, 3 - 400 humans living area, they need police. What police carrying? Gun and stick and handcuffs? To whom? Demon? There's no demon. There's other awful animals coming? No. For whom? For human. For human, by human, need to watch. Why? They will break these panca shila The five precepts, if they break one of these, come on, two, three, dung. Natural law. We humans know that. We know very clearly. But we give so much power to the emotion. We give so much power to negative emotion. That is foolish. If we give our power for positive emotion, smart. But we not want to give our power to positive emotion. We like to give to negative. If you show movie or iPhone or whatever, if there's peaceful, gentle, not many people will watch, they get bored. Bored. You will not sell. That gun, gun, gun, ding, ding, boom, boom, boom, jing, ah, looking.
Singing or dancing or any kind of entertainment, peaceful entertainment, kind entertainment. It not go to brain. Why? You like to pollute your mind. One hand you not want to pollute your mind. Another hand, you really want to pollute. You like to give your power to the negative emotion. So negative emotion will suck your body, your mind. These days there's new diseases going here, there. I think you all know, yeah? Watching too much iPhone, iPad, brain not working. You know, you heard that? Extremely sad, a frozen.
iPhone, iPad, if battery down. Okay, good, good news. Okay? Why? You can recharge. Why? It's better to, better to run down the battery, it give your, your, your some, sometimes peace. Now, if your brain, battery down, if there's no recharge, then what to do? What to do? This is urgent problem. This is very scare, scare cases. So anyway, now point is,
If we can understand that all of those things that before I thought were permanent and lasting, all of those things that, produced by causes and conditions, which I would have thought last and remain, they actually don't. They're completely impermanent. Then that's, our intelligence has really increased. Now we, we are capable in a much different way than before.
But there's much room for improvement because we can also understand that all of the things that come across as real that we tend to think of as real and true are not so. It's just our grasping that is of that kind, believing in the reality of things, investing them with that sense of reality. But in fact, they are not. That's also possible to see.
And our tendency to think that things that aren't clean, are clean, is something that we can notice ourselves quite readily, no? That tendency.
Then the fourth issue, self, we think, yeah, I am.
Very tightly we hold that idea: I am.
If someone calls my name, I think yes, that's me.
I think my body is me.
It's a constant theme in our mind. I.
But it is actually just an idea and when we look for that self, we don't find any.
So it is said that it is easy to understand emtpiness, through, even just through reasoning. I mean, not even just through reasoning. Through reasoning, it is easy to understand emptiness. It doesn't take all that much effort and perseverance to understand that the things that we otherwise take to be permanent are not, and that they are impermanent even down to a momentary level, that the things that we otherwise think are clean are not clean, and that things that give an appearance of reality that we take for granted are real are actually not real, and that the self-I idea that we have is actually not founded in anything. That is something that can be understood quite easily through just thinking carefully about things, to understand that all of this is like one great illusion. It's not that hard to come to that kind of understanding, or to think that all of this is like a magical display. It is something that we can understand. And understanding that is really important and impactful if we have that kind of understanding, because otherwise in this life, that's the way we will be going through life, taking things that are not permanent to be permanent, falling for the illusion of reality again and again, and believing that there is this self that needs to be taken care of and protected and so on. And so we will have this very ingrown and rigid orientation that really drives us into action, action that is not helpful for anyone and creates misery for ourselves. That's the natural cause of events in this life, otherwise. And so this period of the present life will be spent that way, and otherwise within this present life there are periods where it can be different, a different kind of orientation. For example, if we become meditators, then the yogi has a different kind of experience during meditation practice.
And when falling asleep, then also our perceptions are somewhat unlike what we see during the day. In any case, the period of this life will come to an end. when the death process begins to set in, and when the death process has run its course, then we die and what follows is the appearance of the intrinsic nature. And that then will give way to the period of becoming. And in this way we can talk about four or six types of appearances, or four or six types of periods, bardos, that we continue to relive and go through, again and again. Falling asleep is a special event which in many ways is similar to death. When the death process begins, it culminates with a complete collapse of consciousness into the all-ground state. And something similar to that happens at the point of falling asleep, when our thinking begins to fade and we slip into a deeper state of relaxation. Then finally, the framework of the six collections collapses into the all-ground state. And so out of that we can begin to dream, and we do begin to dream, new appearances manifest while we sleep, and so dreams take place during the night and whenever we are asleep until we wake up again. And just as it is really important what kind of frame of mind we die in, it is also very important what frame of mind we fall asleep in. If we can fall asleep in a If we fall asleep in a negative frame of mind, a very agitated or aggressive state of mind, then our sleep will be disturbed, we might have bad dreams. And also the whole state of dream and of being asleep will have a negative character and have some negative consequences as well, be an afflicted state. And instead if we can fall asleep in a very relaxed and carefree state of mind, then we may sleep much better and we will not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams and we won't be accumulating negativity for no reason going through our dreams. But in particular if we can fall asleep with bodhicitta, with loving kindness and compassion, then the whole period of our sleep will be virtuous and the entire duration will have this goodness of the awakened mind. So if we can fall asleep with that resolve to be of benefit for all sentient beings and achieve awakening for all sentient beings, then that is an excellent way to fall asleep, just as it is an excellent way to pass away when finally this life is over. So it's important which way we condition our minds when we...
And how do we do it? How do we tame our mind when it has all of these very strong tendencies to believe, perceive things in ways that are out of touch and when we are so used to acting on those perceptions, those emotions that arise within us? We need help, that's true. And of course we can call on the guru, please help me, we can call on the Yidam deity, Dharma protectors, come and help, save me. But really, what is the sort of decisive issue? It certainly is a good thing to ask for help in the right places and it's meaningful to do. But what really matters, if we can change our basic perception, if we can begin to see things in a different way, then it follows much more easily what we will then do next will also be different. And if we can understand that things are impermanent, then with that comes a natural sense of sadness, because all of this effort that we then invest in achieving things, becoming wealthy, becoming respected, becoming famous, having a lot of enjoyments, all of that is futile, that can be seen very clearly. And that recognition that whatever we do it's all futile is accompanied by a profound sense of sadness and disenchantment. But it is also a sadness that opens up for something much more profound than what we are used to. Because when we can recognize the futility of all of that, then we can also let go of the grasping. that otherwise runs the show. We can see through the delusions that otherwise determine what we do, and so genuine freedom is beginning to surface there by the force of that understanding of impermanence. And when we begin to feel that and recognize that, then there is a great sense of ease and satisfaction that is available right there. But whenever we look at sentient beings, the same kind of sadness can be noticed when we see them, because we see that they suffer for no reason at all by their own doing. They are the creators of their own misery. So seeing that, the natural reaction, the unavoidable reaction is also sadness, but it is a compassionate sadness that one wishes to do something to help them get rid of that self-inflicted suffering. So great care and compassion manifest naturally through this insight that one has come to. Sadness gives way to great compassion, and compassion drives insight into the nature of reality.
So in this way, what actually can really make a tremendous difference is if we are able to change our own basic perspective. And how can we do that? By thinking carefully. If we examine and investigate things carefully, and we see that something is the case that we didn't kow. If we understand that it isn't the way we thought, but different, then everything is different. So when we talk about something that really helps, then that's an example. So what I said today, so many things to hear, to many of you intensively listening Uma, Uma Tsawa Sherab. You are all extremely fortunate. How much you understood, I don't know. But monks, this is,... It is like an advanced topic, up to 5 - 6 years, something like that, in their curriculum. And for months and months, the teaching continues. This is one of the difficult subject, listening again and again from Kenpo, from Cholpon, then they read different commentaries whole day, hour and hour. Then they debate, debate. And then morning they need to exam, exam. They do a lot of this, name comes. So whose name comes, they don't know. So all names put here. Tag comes, they all, me, me, me, so. So because thanks for ordained monks and nuns, they put their whole heart to study, living very simple life, eating simple food. In pocket there's not much money. But putting one-pointedly studying, because of that the Dharma knowledge is still very rich and genuine in the monastery. You can feel in, Thomas Doctor spent over 30 years closely with Shadra and monks, so how he got knowledge. He asked me, please guide me, help me. I'm teaching this subject, it's very profound. So it's okay or not, how we do, please help me. So I'm saying generally who study Uma, what they need to do, number one, they need to take refuge. Why? They want to give up 10 non-virtues. Then, on top of that, they take bodhisattva vow. Why? Not only give up 10 non-virtues, want to apply 10 virtues and 6 paramitas. Why 6 paramitas? In Uma, if we want to realize the view of Uma, the five things are so important. Generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, shamatha. Without these 5 methods, it's not possible to realize the emptiness. If you understand emptiness, it's only based in theory, or it's based on intellectually. We will not get experience. So studying Uma is not just giving to theory or intellectually. We need to experience this realization. So if we want to experience this high realization, then what to do? This five methods, five supreme methods, is very important. This five supreme method, inside one is extremely important, is mahakaruna, the great loving kindness, great compassion, great compassion is extremely important. Without great compassion, experience, without this practice, no way to realize the shunyata ghyan. Does it make sense? If you want to have a fire, big fire, what do we need to do? More firewood. More firewood, then more fire. If we want to get more realization, we need this five, it is extremely important. So for that reasons, I know time is going very fast. So I will give first refuge.
So in order to change our perception of things, in order to change our perspective, then there are various things that we can do. And we can talk about three approaches that we can take. There's the approach of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then gaining experience with meditation instruction, and then there's a third approach which is the transfer of blessings. So the approach of the transfer of blessings, that's an approach that is accessible for the most gifted. And what does it mean the most gifted? It means someone who is just spontaneously disenchanted with samsara, cyclic existence. It's someone who spontaneously and naturally is very compassionate and has this loving outlook towards all sentient beings. And it is someone who has pure perception and someone who has great diligence. Just like that, naturally, that's the character of this person. So it's a very unusual type of individual who doesn't really need to learn and train in order to be in that way. For someone who just already is that way, it's possible without having to go through any particular other way of training to arrive at perfect insight just through, as it is called, the transfer of blessings. So an instance of this transfer of blessings is in the instruction given by Tilo Prajnabadra to his disciple, Naro Jnana Siddhi. And Tilopa he said, "When the mind is free from reference point, that is Mahamudra. When you become well accustomed to this, you achieve complete awakening, unsurpassable awakening." So when the mind is free of reference point, that is Mahamudra. Becoming well accustomed to this is the path to complete awakening.
So that is the key insight that is transmitted right there. And all of that which we otherwise have to struggle to understand and accomplish. can be delivered right there just in the meeting of the two minds and is contained in that line of instruction. All of what Naropa was aiming to accomplish, all of the great efforts and trials that he had undergone in order to progress on the path, everything was fulfilled in the moment of the transfer of blessings. That is what it's like with this special approach. Once the conditions are there, then there is no effort involved and thus perfect realization dawns in that moment. But if it's not enough, if we think, "Well, okay, that's the instruction." But we don't really get it, so to speak. Then there's another approach of becoming a meditator, receiving instructions for how to change one's mind in a very practical way through the practice of meditation. So one begins with the four thoughts that change one's orientation, precious human life, impermanence and so on, taking those to heart as a preparation and then going through the preliminary practices, the inner preliminary practices of the four or five times 100,000 spiritual exercises. Then one can receive empowerment to practice the development and completion stage, development, recitation and completion. And that's a very comprehensive path that one can take up in this way. And it's a path of meditation, whereas the Mahamudra realization that is imparted through the transfer of blessings, that's not a meditation practice. There's nothing there to meditate on. This, however, is a way of meditating. It's a way of cultivating qualities so that one becomes more and more capable. of connecting with that profound insight which is beyond transferer and transferred. And which does not contain anything, not even a speck of a meditation practice. But if one wants it still more elaborate, then one can learn and reflect and resolve the view through that scholarly approach. And so we have this relationship that there is between the three approaches. Whatever we do to educate ourselves in one context and make ourselves more able in one context will also make us more capable in the other. There's this sort of mutually supportive relation between them. In the context of resolving the view through learning and reflection, then the key there is really the Madhyamaka insight. But Madhyamaka insight is something that is supported by a lot of necessary factors. It's not just something that dawns experientially, unassisted. Even the process of learning and gaining intellectual understanding of this. is something that needs support. So there's vows and commitments that one takes, there are... There's a discipline that one abides by. But in particular when we talk about methods, then the king of all methods is great compassion, that is Maha Karuna. Maha Karuna is the royal method for achieving insight into the nature of reality. The Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the knowledge of great emptiness, is brought about through Maha Karuna, the great compassion. So those are the supreme means, because if we give rise to great compassion for all sentient beings without any exception, equally genuine for everyone, then we will do good naturally and we will avoid doing anything wrong naturally. We won't harm others because that's our basic orientation, our state of mind, our whole being is Maha Karuna, so how could we hurt anyone? We would never do so on purpose. And on the contrary, we will do whatever we can to be of help and genuine assistance. We will do what is virtuous, also without being told. In fact, if someone tells us, "Why don't you take a break today, please?". "Now, don't do anything wholesome and beneficial today." We'll still do it. And if someone tries to bribe us and say, "I'll buy you this and that if you don't," it won't be attractive either. It's just because the mind is of that kind, it has that Maha Karuna quality, and so virtue happens spontaneously. And so also the process of taming the mind, of calming the negative emotions, will be facilitated naturally in this way. And then the five qualities that Rinpoche mentioned before, those five special qualities will manifest naturally. There's no insight that is more powerful, more significant and more impactful than insight into great emptiness. That is why it is called the Maha Shunyata Ghyan, the supreme insight. And in terms of methods, there is nothing superior to this Maha Karuna. So that is what one will emphasize in the context of learning and reflecting on the view. That is the framework for bringing about realization. Then the more capable we become in that context, the more able to benefit we become in terms of benefiting from meditation instructions. And so also accessing that third path of the transfer of blessings.
Studying of Madhyamika for what? For enlightenment. Only one reason. I told a few times studying Uma is for, not for fun, not hobby, not for fun, not just get some kind of unusual knowledge and share and talk and play around here, there and show up your peacock feather. This is not for that. This is for enlightenment. We need to take seriously. To take seriously, we need to follow the ethics. It makes total sense. Then we need to take refuge. We need to take refuge. Not enough, (also) bodhisattva vow. Then we need to apply. Bodhisattva vow means what? To apply.
Then for what? There is no use. I need to apply. Marriage. I got marriage, then you can do in office or desk. No, you need to seriously, putting ring here, putting ring there, then serious. Even you shouldn't look, your eye here - there.
This is the commitment. If you look eye so much, then the other one goes, "Ohh." So, please take seriously. Okay? Study seriously. Apply seriously. And please continue to make, make how you say? You make, how you say?
Make time. Next year, from what to what month? We have Thomas, Doctor, so you're all very fortunate, because he can teach directly and make very nice package, understandable package, intelligent, understandable package. So that's extremely lucky, to learn this takes so many years, so many years, so much effort. Now you just need to make. You have time to do a hobby, hobby. So, you can make many times vacation, holiday, here, there. So take seriously. Ever helpful knowledge is this knowledge. Please take seriously and study.
Committing to the Dharma on a Daily Basis pt1
Teacher:
Location:
- Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling
- Date: March 25, 2023
Description >>
The teaching begins by emphasizing the incomparable qualities of the Buddha as teacher, the Dharma as protector, and the Sangha as guide, highlighting the importance of taking genuine refuge. Rinpoche encourages respectful appreciation for all spiritual traditions while focusing on the unique path of Shakyamuni Buddha, especially through study, reflection, and disciplined practice as modeled by the Sangha. He introduces impermanence as a key contemplation to counteract deluded perceptions, pointing out that misunderstanding permanence, reality, cleanliness, and selfhood lies at the root of our suffering. He explains three approaches to realization—study and reflection, meditation, and the transfer of blessings—while stressing that great compassion (mahākaruṇā) is the supreme method supporting true insight into emptiness. Ultimately, he calls on students to take the Dharma seriously—not as a hobby but as the most profound and transformative pursuit, aimed solely at achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
