Video
Audio
41:26
Okay.
Chant.
Page number one.
hung orgyen yülgi nupjang tsam
pema gesar dongpo la
yatsen chokgi ngödrup nyé
pema jungné shesu drak
khordu khandro mangpö kor
khyé kyi jesu dak drup kyi
jingyi lapchir sheksu söl
guru pema siddhi hung
HŪM In the northwest of the country of
Uḍḍiyāna, born on the pistil of a lotus,
endowed with the most marvelous attainment,
renowned as the Lotus-born,
surrounded by a retinue of many ḍākinis,
following you,
I will reach accomplishment,
Please come forth to bestow your blessing.
GURU PADMA SIDDHI HŪM
lochö su drowar jingyi laptu söl chölam du drowar jingyi laptu söl lam trülpa selwar jingyi laptu söl trülpa yeshé su charwar jingyi laptu söl Grant your blessings so that my mind may follow the Dharma. Grant your blessings so that my Dharma practice may become the path. Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify my confusion. Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
Page number 14.
okmin chökyi yingkyi phodrang né düsum sangyé kün gyi ngowo nyi rangsem chöku ngönsum tönzé pa tsawai lamai shapla sölwa dep In the dharmadhātu palace of Akaniṣṭha, I suplicate at the feet of the root guru, the essence of all the Buddhas of the three times, who directly shows my mind as Dharmakāya.
chaktsal wadang chöching shakpa dang jesu yirang külshing sölwa yi gewa chung sé dak gi chisak pa thamché dak gi jangchup chir ngo o We prostrate, make offerings, and apologize, rejoice, request and beseech you earnestly. May whatever little goodness we have gathered, all be dedicated to enlightenment.
sashi pöchü juk shing metok tram rirap lingshi nyidé gyenpa di sangyé shingdu mikté phülwa yi drokün namdak shingdu chöpar shok The earth is perfumed with the scented water and strewn with the flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon. Imagining this as a Buddha realm, I offer it so that all beings may enjoy that pure realm.
semchen namki sampa dang loyi jedrak jita war chechung tünmong tekpa yi chökyi khorlo kordu söl In accordance with the activity and the diverse aspiration of sentient beings, I ask you to turn the wheel of Dharma of the greater, lesser or conventional vehicles.
Listen to the teaching with pure motivation. I think when we somehow,
when you encounter with the so-called spiritual path,
I think most of the time, the reason or the condition behind that encountering even, there is a mundane kind of life that we have. And then there is this so-called spiritual life.
Of course, it might possible to become a one, looking from the different aspects. But most of the time, we kind of tend to see this is my so-called normal life, and this is my spiritual life.
And I think, although we call it normal, but I'm not sure how normal it is.
It's a little bit... If you look closely, it's not really normal how we react in our daily life. I mean, from the rarely this point of view, from the appearance point of view, it is normal. But from the reality's point of view,
how we react is quite abnormal state of who we really are.
So,
for example,
when you encounter, when somebody says nasty words to you, you don't get angry. That's supposed to be the normal, but of course it's not. So if you do that, then you will be considered as an abnormal person. You might be a little bit worried about what happened to me, and also probably your friend will also tell you that you should go to the doctor.
If you automatically react anger to the object, that is something that you dislike, then you are considered as a normal, isn't it?
If you react, quite automatically hope and fear, we call it normal. When you don't do that, then you become abnormal.
But from the reality's point of view, actually it's the opposite.
And many times I think when you apply the spiritual path, our ultimate goal is not to make our life spiritual, but our life is quite OK, but something is missing.
You know. The picture of our life is almost complete, but the one piece of puzzle is missing. And we try to pull that piece of puzzle from the spiritual point of view, and then make the complete picture of our mundane life.
I think.
since nobody owns the spiritual path, everybody has a right to do that. I don't think there is anything wrong, but.
if you do that, the one pieces of the puzzle will be always missing, no matter how much you try, that's the problem. It will never become a complete one.
So, from the spiritual point of view,
it's not that something is missing in your mundane life, and then the small piece of puzzles that you are looking,
looking in the spiritual path, and then you wanted to complete your mundane life.
Again, the same problem. So, our intention should be that I want to see the full picture of spiritual picture, but, you know, the small pieces of my mundane life, I want to dedicate to this whole picture of spiritual path. And when you do that, and this is what we call the real renunciation.
I think in Tibetan we call a nge chung. It says that there are three things, renunciation, bodhichitta or compassion, and the right view. These are the three pillars of our path. You start with the renunciation, and you combine with the compassion, and then you rely on the right view so that you have the right meditation and right conduct.
But I think again, many times, although I'm not sure exactly what it really means, renunciation in English, but in Tibetan we use the word nge chung. It means that.
knowing what kind of potential you have
and then knowing very clearly what you really want.
The word nge means having some kind of conviction or certainty.
So when you understand what kind of potential you have, and then when you really know what you really want, and this is having that kind of conviction or determination towards your goal based on your potential, is called nge chung.
So renunciation doesn't really mean that running away from the problems.
Of course there are many different layers of renunciations you can go through.
Sometimes.
so having that kind of determination is called nge chung. And I think it is also for example I think some great lamas, they are translated as.
genuine heart of sadness. Trungpa Rinpoche said that. I think that's a very good translation I guess.
The really wanting to be free not based on emotional but based on the wisdom.
And sometimes.
some of my friends, lay people they say that my life is very hard, difficult, family, job, so many things. And your life is very great. Easy life.
And sometimes they get a little bit jealous. And maybe a little bit of anger I guess. And I say that.
please have some compassion to me, you know. Don't be jealous because what you are doing is accumulating. Holding it more and more tight. What I am trying to do is to let it go.
And trust me letting go is much, much, harder than accumulating it.
Holding more and more stronger is easier but letting go is not easy. So I tell my friends that it's true in a way my life is more easier because I don't have to pay rent I don't have to look after my children's, but... Don't think that this is the easy way. It's not. Of course I am not trying to discourage you but I am just trying to make you that you have to be prepared.
So renunciation is not an easy way to way out from the problems.
If you think that dealing with the outer world is difficult then dealing with the inner world is much much difficult.
And of course ultimately renunciation is not rejecting something but it is accepting everything.
I know maybe I am going a little bit too far but.
Sometimes people think that those who are in the spiritual path they are a little bit crazy they are a little bit stupid from the mundane's point of view doing nothing, not not productive people.
I would say that a little bit crazy I think you can say crazy.
I think we have some definition of that. Of course it depends on the definition of craziness. But stupid I really don't think so.
We are yes crazy but not stupid. A little bit smarter than the mundane people.
Many times I think we hesitate to be that smarter.
I will be outcast what he will say, what she will think.
If you are really worried too much about being a little bit more smarter than the normal people then you don't have the courage to practice Dharma I think.
At least you should have that courage. It's okay.
Otherwise it will be very difficult.
You might, you know, when we say that okay so
during the seminars I am practicing Dharma and when the seminars finish finally it's finished.
Now from tomorrow I am going back to my normal life. Then you are same.
The problem is the more you do that the more harder it will be. Really. It's better to follow one way. It's like really kind of tearing yourself.
That's why you know when we say that meditation and the post meditation always should be there must be some relationship. Means when you are meditating you are meditating. It's a set meditation. And post meditation means when meditation is done when you start to stand up, actual action meditation starts from there. When you are sitting there of course everybody is meditative.
There is a saying that when the sun is shining when your belly is full everybody is practitioner.
But when something goes down you will show your true color.
Even the real practitioners will show their true color. What's the difference?
It is said that when you are happy everybody is. You seem like a spiritual practitioner but when you are struck by the condition you completely become a normal people sometimes even worse than normal people. because you have a lot of arrogance. So you should not be like that. Otherwise when you separate so much about your so-called normal life and the spiritual life you know there is a new disease called.
DPD you know? You don't know? Okay. It's a dual personality disorder.
You might end up really getting that disease because it seems like that I should be a practitioner and then no, no, no I should be a normal and then it goes back and forth and it's difficult.
Of course it's not possible to be like that from the beginning but this is something you should be aspired to. You should try to move step by step towards how you can make this so-called normal life and spiritual life as in one not the two kind of personalities that you developed.
Okay. So I will start with the book.
I will just shortly go through the some points of the books. And it is quite easy book you can read in English. I don't think anything needs to be explained in detail.
Now for those who are new you have to be a little bit patient.
This is a small booklet.
called a brilliant sun.
Sun is somehow symbolized as in wisdom in Buddhism which dispels the darkness that is our suffering and the illusions.
The stage of practice for the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra and it's written by a scholar and practitioners of late Tibetan master called Patrul Rinpoche which is known in general but mostly in Nyingmapa lineage.
And the stage of practice means this book is not a philosophical book. So it's more practical instruction books.
And Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is actually a title of a book written by. again a great mahāsiddha and scholar called Śāntideva and Indian.
this we call the Śāstra or the commentaries. So in Tibetan Buddhism Buddhism in general we have scriptures called the Ka means the actual words of Buddha.
And in Tibetan it is translated from the Sanskrit and we have more than hundred volumes. And this is what we call the Ka or the Buddha's actual words.
And the Tengyur or the Śāstra or the commentaries are the texts or the meditation or philosophical instructions that are written by the practitioners and the mahāsiddhas who came after the Buddha because Buddha's teachings are quite vast, and it's difficult to read, but even if you read it, it's difficult to extract the meaning. So what these mahāsiddha's did was they compiled and extracted all the essence of Buddha's teachings, and reading down as a text. And it's called the Śāstra or the commentaries.
Very nicely, stage by stage. So actually, of course, it is based on Buddha's teachings, but written by the mahāsiddha's or the great saints or the sages.
And this is one of the texts that we have, many many of them, some of them talking about the view, some of them talking about the meditation, some of them talking about the conduct, and so forth.
The word Śāstra means that it will protect you through transforming you. Yeah? So that means when you practice the meaning, it will protect you. How? Through transforming you. When you study, you understand, the understanding will transform into the experience, and experience will transform into the realizations. And once you have a realization, you are 100% protected from the illusion, wrong view, negativity, whatever you can call it. So this is what it means by the Śāstra.
And in that text, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, it's quite detailed text. But basically it talks about the altruism path and the and the six pāramitās, which are Mahāyāna's stages of paths. If you categorize all the Mahāyāna's path, and you put them together, it is called the six pāramitās, or six transcendential paths, something like that. Because through this path, you will be transcend towards the other sort of illusion.
But this text, what Patrul Rinpoche did, was he took the essence from that text, and make it small one, so that people can study and use easily. So this is like a mini Bodhicaryāvatāra, I can say that.
But it's always, as he will be mentioned here, you study this text, and then you read the Bodhicaryāvatāra in detail. That will be very good.
So in this text also, at the beginning, he talks about the compassion, or bodhichitta. And after that, the main part, he talks about these six pāramitās, how to practice them. And at the end, as a meditation, he talks a little bit about the calmness aspect of meditation. As well as the wisdom aspect of meditation.
But again, this text is very much written for the Asian, Tibetan, tsampa eaters. So really, some words you might find a little bit strange, because you live on the other side of the world. And we don't believe that salad is actually human food.
So please be patient, yeah?
And our tea is made out of butter and salt. Can you imagine?
So I think I will... OK. So,
basically it talks about the...
Well, we call it jang chub kyi sem. I think the English translation would be...
Enlightened Mind. I think it's a little bit difficult translation. But anyway, that's the kind of literal. jang chub means the liberation or enlightened. And mind means... sem means the mind.
But I think the awakened mind is also good.
So, here, what we are trying to say is that...
If you really, really want to liberate, and if you really think that enlightenment is something that you really want, and that means, in a way, you can say the enlightened mind.
Of course, there will be emotionally triggered for the enlightenment. There will be some wanting to liberate through wisdom, it depends. But if you really want to be free from illusion, and longing for the enlightenment, and then the next thing is not for oneself, but for everyone. And this is what we call the bodhichitta or jang chub kyi sem.
Of course, it's up to us. Nobody will force us what we want.
Now, you might heard this again and again within the teachings and advertisements, and especially Tibetan Buddhism, compassion this, compassion that.
It almost sounds like the compassion and the bodhichitta became our sort of like tagline for the advertisement. Because I don't think nobody will argue that compassion is a bad thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course, compassion, good.
But trust me, we are so much using this compassion and almost insisting to each other, not because it sounds good or everyone likes it, no. This is very much seriously to do with the very basic Buddhist fundamental view.
Because if you ask the Buddhist, okay, I know suffering, I know illusion, yeah, that's fine. But just point me what is the problem. Yeah. If you ask Buddhist, so what is the main problem? You can say obscuration or the problem. And then Buddhist will always says that self and the self-cherishing is the main problem.
So what is the greatest solution? Bodhichitta. There is no other greater solution than that. Because of course there are many different kinds of solutions. But they are not like universal. Some of them have side effects. Some of them are not accessible. Some of them require so many conditions before you apply. So it's not a universal thing. It's a, how to say, individual thing. But the compassion or the bodhichitta is a universal thing. It's a universal, very eco-friendly, really. And then no side effect. And very, very effective. No matter where you are. Whether you are very beginning or you are very high level.
So that's why no matter who you are, we prescribe this bodhichitta to everyone.
Because this is the most effective, safe and environmentally friendly solutions that we have.
So, don't think, we are just using this because it sounds nice. No, we are quite serious about that. But of course I am not saying that all Buddhists have lots of compassion. Yeah. We are trying, struggling. But theoretically this is how it's supposed to be.
lochö su drowar jingyi laptu söl chölam du drowar jingyi laptu söl lam trülpa selwar jingyi laptu söl trülpa yeshé su charwar jingyi laptu söl Grant your blessings so that my mind may follow the Dharma. Grant your blessings so that my Dharma practice may become the path. Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify my confusion. Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
Page number 14.
okmin chökyi yingkyi phodrang né düsum sangyé kün gyi ngowo nyi rangsem chöku ngönsum tönzé pa tsawai lamai shapla sölwa dep In the dharmadhātu palace of Akaniṣṭha, I suplicate at the feet of the root guru, the essence of all the Buddhas of the three times, who directly shows my mind as Dharmakāya.
chaktsal wadang chöching shakpa dang jesu yirang külshing sölwa yi gewa chung sé dak gi chisak pa thamché dak gi jangchup chir ngo o We prostrate, make offerings, and apologize, rejoice, request and beseech you earnestly. May whatever little goodness we have gathered, all be dedicated to enlightenment.
sashi pöchü juk shing metok tram rirap lingshi nyidé gyenpa di sangyé shingdu mikté phülwa yi drokün namdak shingdu chöpar shok The earth is perfumed with the scented water and strewn with the flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon. Imagining this as a Buddha realm, I offer it so that all beings may enjoy that pure realm.
semchen namki sampa dang loyi jedrak jita war chechung tünmong tekpa yi chökyi khorlo kordu söl In accordance with the activity and the diverse aspiration of sentient beings, I ask you to turn the wheel of Dharma of the greater, lesser or conventional vehicles.
Listen to the teaching with pure motivation. I think when we somehow,
when you encounter with the so-called spiritual path,
I think most of the time, the reason or the condition behind that encountering even, there is a mundane kind of life that we have. And then there is this so-called spiritual life.
Of course, it might possible to become a one, looking from the different aspects. But most of the time, we kind of tend to see this is my so-called normal life, and this is my spiritual life.
And I think, although we call it normal, but I'm not sure how normal it is.
It's a little bit... If you look closely, it's not really normal how we react in our daily life. I mean, from the rarely this point of view, from the appearance point of view, it is normal. But from the reality's point of view,
how we react is quite abnormal state of who we really are.
So,
for example,
when you encounter, when somebody says nasty words to you, you don't get angry. That's supposed to be the normal, but of course it's not. So if you do that, then you will be considered as an abnormal person. You might be a little bit worried about what happened to me, and also probably your friend will also tell you that you should go to the doctor.
If you automatically react anger to the object, that is something that you dislike, then you are considered as a normal, isn't it?
If you react, quite automatically hope and fear, we call it normal. When you don't do that, then you become abnormal.
But from the reality's point of view, actually it's the opposite.
And many times I think when you apply the spiritual path, our ultimate goal is not to make our life spiritual, but our life is quite OK, but something is missing.
You know. The picture of our life is almost complete, but the one piece of puzzle is missing. And we try to pull that piece of puzzle from the spiritual point of view, and then make the complete picture of our mundane life.
I think.
since nobody owns the spiritual path, everybody has a right to do that. I don't think there is anything wrong, but.
if you do that, the one pieces of the puzzle will be always missing, no matter how much you try, that's the problem. It will never become a complete one.
So, from the spiritual point of view,
it's not that something is missing in your mundane life, and then the small piece of puzzles that you are looking,
looking in the spiritual path, and then you wanted to complete your mundane life.
Again, the same problem. So, our intention should be that I want to see the full picture of spiritual picture, but, you know, the small pieces of my mundane life, I want to dedicate to this whole picture of spiritual path. And when you do that, and this is what we call the real renunciation.
I think in Tibetan we call a nge chung. It says that there are three things, renunciation, bodhichitta or compassion, and the right view. These are the three pillars of our path. You start with the renunciation, and you combine with the compassion, and then you rely on the right view so that you have the right meditation and right conduct.
But I think again, many times, although I'm not sure exactly what it really means, renunciation in English, but in Tibetan we use the word nge chung. It means that.
knowing what kind of potential you have
and then knowing very clearly what you really want.
The word nge means having some kind of conviction or certainty.
So when you understand what kind of potential you have, and then when you really know what you really want, and this is having that kind of conviction or determination towards your goal based on your potential, is called nge chung.
So renunciation doesn't really mean that running away from the problems.
Of course there are many different layers of renunciations you can go through.
Sometimes.
so having that kind of determination is called nge chung. And I think it is also for example I think some great lamas, they are translated as.
genuine heart of sadness. Trungpa Rinpoche said that. I think that's a very good translation I guess.
The really wanting to be free not based on emotional but based on the wisdom.
And sometimes.
some of my friends, lay people they say that my life is very hard, difficult, family, job, so many things. And your life is very great. Easy life.
And sometimes they get a little bit jealous. And maybe a little bit of anger I guess. And I say that.
please have some compassion to me, you know. Don't be jealous because what you are doing is accumulating. Holding it more and more tight. What I am trying to do is to let it go.
And trust me letting go is much, much, harder than accumulating it.
Holding more and more stronger is easier but letting go is not easy. So I tell my friends that it's true in a way my life is more easier because I don't have to pay rent I don't have to look after my children's, but... Don't think that this is the easy way. It's not. Of course I am not trying to discourage you but I am just trying to make you that you have to be prepared.
So renunciation is not an easy way to way out from the problems.
If you think that dealing with the outer world is difficult then dealing with the inner world is much much difficult.
And of course ultimately renunciation is not rejecting something but it is accepting everything.
I know maybe I am going a little bit too far but.
Sometimes people think that those who are in the spiritual path they are a little bit crazy they are a little bit stupid from the mundane's point of view doing nothing, not not productive people.
I would say that a little bit crazy I think you can say crazy.
I think we have some definition of that. Of course it depends on the definition of craziness. But stupid I really don't think so.
We are yes crazy but not stupid. A little bit smarter than the mundane people.
Many times I think we hesitate to be that smarter.
I will be outcast what he will say, what she will think.
If you are really worried too much about being a little bit more smarter than the normal people then you don't have the courage to practice Dharma I think.
At least you should have that courage. It's okay.
Otherwise it will be very difficult.
You might, you know, when we say that okay so
during the seminars I am practicing Dharma and when the seminars finish finally it's finished.
Now from tomorrow I am going back to my normal life. Then you are same.
The problem is the more you do that the more harder it will be. Really. It's better to follow one way. It's like really kind of tearing yourself.
That's why you know when we say that meditation and the post meditation always should be there must be some relationship. Means when you are meditating you are meditating. It's a set meditation. And post meditation means when meditation is done when you start to stand up, actual action meditation starts from there. When you are sitting there of course everybody is meditative.
There is a saying that when the sun is shining when your belly is full everybody is practitioner.
But when something goes down you will show your true color.
Even the real practitioners will show their true color. What's the difference?
It is said that when you are happy everybody is. You seem like a spiritual practitioner but when you are struck by the condition you completely become a normal people sometimes even worse than normal people. because you have a lot of arrogance. So you should not be like that. Otherwise when you separate so much about your so-called normal life and the spiritual life you know there is a new disease called.
DPD you know? You don't know? Okay. It's a dual personality disorder.
You might end up really getting that disease because it seems like that I should be a practitioner and then no, no, no I should be a normal and then it goes back and forth and it's difficult.
Of course it's not possible to be like that from the beginning but this is something you should be aspired to. You should try to move step by step towards how you can make this so-called normal life and spiritual life as in one not the two kind of personalities that you developed.
Okay. So I will start with the book.
I will just shortly go through the some points of the books. And it is quite easy book you can read in English. I don't think anything needs to be explained in detail.
Now for those who are new you have to be a little bit patient.
This is a small booklet.
called a brilliant sun.
Sun is somehow symbolized as in wisdom in Buddhism which dispels the darkness that is our suffering and the illusions.
The stage of practice for the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra and it's written by a scholar and practitioners of late Tibetan master called Patrul Rinpoche which is known in general but mostly in Nyingmapa lineage.
And the stage of practice means this book is not a philosophical book. So it's more practical instruction books.
And Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is actually a title of a book written by. again a great mahāsiddha and scholar called Śāntideva and Indian.
this we call the Śāstra or the commentaries. So in Tibetan Buddhism Buddhism in general we have scriptures called the Ka means the actual words of Buddha.
And in Tibetan it is translated from the Sanskrit and we have more than hundred volumes. And this is what we call the Ka or the Buddha's actual words.
And the Tengyur or the Śāstra or the commentaries are the texts or the meditation or philosophical instructions that are written by the practitioners and the mahāsiddhas who came after the Buddha because Buddha's teachings are quite vast, and it's difficult to read, but even if you read it, it's difficult to extract the meaning. So what these mahāsiddha's did was they compiled and extracted all the essence of Buddha's teachings, and reading down as a text. And it's called the Śāstra or the commentaries.
Very nicely, stage by stage. So actually, of course, it is based on Buddha's teachings, but written by the mahāsiddha's or the great saints or the sages.
And this is one of the texts that we have, many many of them, some of them talking about the view, some of them talking about the meditation, some of them talking about the conduct, and so forth.
The word Śāstra means that it will protect you through transforming you. Yeah? So that means when you practice the meaning, it will protect you. How? Through transforming you. When you study, you understand, the understanding will transform into the experience, and experience will transform into the realizations. And once you have a realization, you are 100% protected from the illusion, wrong view, negativity, whatever you can call it. So this is what it means by the Śāstra.
And in that text, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, it's quite detailed text. But basically it talks about the altruism path and the and the six pāramitās, which are Mahāyāna's stages of paths. If you categorize all the Mahāyāna's path, and you put them together, it is called the six pāramitās, or six transcendential paths, something like that. Because through this path, you will be transcend towards the other sort of illusion.
But this text, what Patrul Rinpoche did, was he took the essence from that text, and make it small one, so that people can study and use easily. So this is like a mini Bodhicaryāvatāra, I can say that.
But it's always, as he will be mentioned here, you study this text, and then you read the Bodhicaryāvatāra in detail. That will be very good.
So in this text also, at the beginning, he talks about the compassion, or bodhichitta. And after that, the main part, he talks about these six pāramitās, how to practice them. And at the end, as a meditation, he talks a little bit about the calmness aspect of meditation. As well as the wisdom aspect of meditation.
But again, this text is very much written for the Asian, Tibetan, tsampa eaters. So really, some words you might find a little bit strange, because you live on the other side of the world. And we don't believe that salad is actually human food.
So please be patient, yeah?
And our tea is made out of butter and salt. Can you imagine?
So I think I will... OK. So,
basically it talks about the...
Well, we call it jang chub kyi sem. I think the English translation would be...
Enlightened Mind. I think it's a little bit difficult translation. But anyway, that's the kind of literal. jang chub means the liberation or enlightened. And mind means... sem means the mind.
But I think the awakened mind is also good.
So, here, what we are trying to say is that...
If you really, really want to liberate, and if you really think that enlightenment is something that you really want, and that means, in a way, you can say the enlightened mind.
Of course, there will be emotionally triggered for the enlightenment. There will be some wanting to liberate through wisdom, it depends. But if you really want to be free from illusion, and longing for the enlightenment, and then the next thing is not for oneself, but for everyone. And this is what we call the bodhichitta or jang chub kyi sem.
Of course, it's up to us. Nobody will force us what we want.
Now, you might heard this again and again within the teachings and advertisements, and especially Tibetan Buddhism, compassion this, compassion that.
It almost sounds like the compassion and the bodhichitta became our sort of like tagline for the advertisement. Because I don't think nobody will argue that compassion is a bad thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course, compassion, good.
But trust me, we are so much using this compassion and almost insisting to each other, not because it sounds good or everyone likes it, no. This is very much seriously to do with the very basic Buddhist fundamental view.
Because if you ask the Buddhist, okay, I know suffering, I know illusion, yeah, that's fine. But just point me what is the problem. Yeah. If you ask Buddhist, so what is the main problem? You can say obscuration or the problem. And then Buddhist will always says that self and the self-cherishing is the main problem.
So what is the greatest solution? Bodhichitta. There is no other greater solution than that. Because of course there are many different kinds of solutions. But they are not like universal. Some of them have side effects. Some of them are not accessible. Some of them require so many conditions before you apply. So it's not a universal thing. It's a, how to say, individual thing. But the compassion or the bodhichitta is a universal thing. It's a universal, very eco-friendly, really. And then no side effect. And very, very effective. No matter where you are. Whether you are very beginning or you are very high level.
So that's why no matter who you are, we prescribe this bodhichitta to everyone.
Because this is the most effective, safe and environmentally friendly solutions that we have.
So, don't think, we are just using this because it sounds nice. No, we are quite serious about that. But of course I am not saying that all Buddhists have lots of compassion. Yeah. We are trying, struggling. But theoretically this is how it's supposed to be.
19:50
Okay.
Chant.
Page number one.
hung orgyen yülgi nupjang tsam
pema gesar dongpo la
yatsen chokgi ngödrup nyé
pema jungné shesu drak
khordu khandro mangpö kor
khyé kyi jesu dak drup kyi
jingyi lapchir sheksu söl
guru pema siddhi hung
HŪM In the northwest of the country of
Uḍḍiyāna, born on the pistil of a lotus,
endowed with the most marvelous attainment,
renowned as the Lotus-born,
surrounded by a retinue of many ḍākinis,
following you,
I will reach accomplishment,
Please come forth to bestow your blessing.
GURU PADMA SIDDHI HŪM
lochö su drowar jingyi laptu söl chölam du drowar jingyi laptu söl lam trülpa selwar jingyi laptu söl trülpa yeshé su charwar jingyi laptu söl Grant your blessings so that my mind may follow the Dharma. Grant your blessings so that my Dharma practice may become the path. Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify my confusion. Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
Page number 14.
okmin chökyi yingkyi phodrang né düsum sangyé kün gyi ngowo nyi rangsem chöku ngönsum tönzé pa tsawai lamai shapla sölwa dep In the dharmadhātu palace of Akaniṣṭha, I suplicate at the feet of the root guru, the essence of all the Buddhas of the three times, who directly shows my mind as Dharmakāya.
chaktsal wadang chöching shakpa dang jesu yirang külshing sölwa yi gewa chung sé dak gi chisak pa thamché dak gi jangchup chir ngo o We prostrate, make offerings, and apologize, rejoice, request and beseech you earnestly. May whatever little goodness we have gathered, all be dedicated to enlightenment.
sashi pöchü juk shing metok tram rirap lingshi nyidé gyenpa di sangyé shingdu mikté phülwa yi drokün namdak shingdu chöpar shok The earth is perfumed with the scented water and strewn with the flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon. Imagining this as a Buddha realm, I offer it so that all beings may enjoy that pure realm.
semchen namki sampa dang loyi jedrak jita war chechung tünmong tekpa yi chökyi khorlo kordu söl In accordance with the activity and the diverse aspiration of sentient beings, I ask you to turn the wheel of Dharma of the greater, lesser or conventional vehicles.
Listen to the teaching with pure motivation. I think when we somehow,
when you encounter with the so-called spiritual path,
I think most of the time, the reason or the condition behind that encountering even, there is a mundane kind of life that we have. And then there is this so-called spiritual life.
Of course, it might possible to become a one, looking from the different aspects. But most of the time, we kind of tend to see this is my so-called normal life, and this is my spiritual life.
And I think, although we call it normal, but I'm not sure how normal it is.
It's a little bit... If you look closely, it's not really normal how we react in our daily life. I mean, from the rarely this point of view, from the appearance point of view, it is normal. But from the reality's point of view,
how we react is quite abnormal state of who we really are.
So,
for example,
when you encounter, when somebody says nasty words to you, you don't get angry. That's supposed to be the normal, but of course it's not. So if you do that, then you will be considered as an abnormal person. You might be a little bit worried about what happened to me, and also probably your friend will also tell you that you should go to the doctor.
If you automatically react anger to the object, that is something that you dislike, then you are considered as a normal, isn't it?
If you react, quite automatically hope and fear, we call it normal. When you don't do that, then you become abnormal.
But from the reality's point of view, actually it's the opposite.
And many times I think when you apply the spiritual path, our ultimate goal is not to make our life spiritual, but our life is quite OK, but something is missing.
You know. The picture of our life is almost complete, but the one piece of puzzle is missing. And we try to pull that piece of puzzle from the spiritual point of view, and then make the complete picture of our mundane life.
I think.
since nobody owns the spiritual path, everybody has a right to do that. I don't think there is anything wrong, but.
if you do that, the one pieces of the puzzle will be always missing, no matter how much you try, that's the problem. It will never become a complete one.
So, from the spiritual point of view,
it's not that something is missing in your mundane life, and then the small piece of puzzles that you are looking,
looking in the spiritual path, and then you wanted to complete your mundane life.
Again, the same problem. So, our intention should be that I want to see the full picture of spiritual picture, but, you know, the small pieces of my mundane life, I want to dedicate to this whole picture of spiritual path. And when you do that, and this is what we call the real renunciation.
I think in Tibetan we call a nge chung. It says that there are three things, renunciation, bodhichitta or compassion, and the right view. These are the three pillars of our path. You start with the renunciation, and you combine with the compassion, and then you rely on the right view so that you have the right meditation and right conduct.
But I think again, many times, although I'm not sure exactly what it really means, renunciation in English, but in Tibetan we use the word nge chung. It means that.
knowing what kind of potential you have
and then knowing very clearly what you really want.
The word nge means having some kind of conviction or certainty.
So when you understand what kind of potential you have, and then when you really know what you really want, and this is having that kind of conviction or determination towards your goal based on your potential, is called nge chung.
So renunciation doesn't really mean that running away from the problems.
Of course there are many different layers of renunciations you can go through.
Sometimes.
so having that kind of determination is called nge chung. And I think it is also for example I think some great lamas, they are translated as.
genuine heart of sadness. Trungpa Rinpoche said that. I think that's a very good translation I guess.
The really wanting to be free not based on emotional but based on the wisdom.
And sometimes.
some of my friends, lay people they say that my life is very hard, difficult, family, job, so many things. And your life is very great. Easy life.
And sometimes they get a little bit jealous. And maybe a little bit of anger I guess. And I say that.
please have some compassion to me, you know. Don't be jealous because what you are doing is accumulating. Holding it more and more tight. What I am trying to do is to let it go.
And trust me letting go is much, much, harder than accumulating it.
Holding more and more stronger is easier but letting go is not easy. So I tell my friends that it's true in a way my life is more easier because I don't have to pay rent I don't have to look after my children's, but... Don't think that this is the easy way. It's not. Of course I am not trying to discourage you but I am just trying to make you that you have to be prepared.
So renunciation is not an easy way to way out from the problems.
If you think that dealing with the outer world is difficult then dealing with the inner world is much much difficult.
And of course ultimately renunciation is not rejecting something but it is accepting everything.
I know maybe I am going a little bit too far but.
Sometimes people think that those who are in the spiritual path they are a little bit crazy they are a little bit stupid from the mundane's point of view doing nothing, not not productive people.
I would say that a little bit crazy I think you can say crazy.
I think we have some definition of that. Of course it depends on the definition of craziness. But stupid I really don't think so.
We are yes crazy but not stupid. A little bit smarter than the mundane people.
Many times I think we hesitate to be that smarter.
I will be outcast what he will say, what she will think.
If you are really worried too much about being a little bit more smarter than the normal people then you don't have the courage to practice Dharma I think.
At least you should have that courage. It's okay.
Otherwise it will be very difficult.
You might, you know, when we say that okay so
during the seminars I am practicing Dharma and when the seminars finish finally it's finished.
Now from tomorrow I am going back to my normal life. Then you are same.
The problem is the more you do that the more harder it will be. Really. It's better to follow one way. It's like really kind of tearing yourself.
That's why you know when we say that meditation and the post meditation always should be there must be some relationship. Means when you are meditating you are meditating. It's a set meditation. And post meditation means when meditation is done when you start to stand up, actual action meditation starts from there. When you are sitting there of course everybody is meditative.
There is a saying that when the sun is shining when your belly is full everybody is practitioner.
But when something goes down you will show your true color.
Even the real practitioners will show their true color. What's the difference?
It is said that when you are happy everybody is. You seem like a spiritual practitioner but when you are struck by the condition you completely become a normal people sometimes even worse than normal people. because you have a lot of arrogance. So you should not be like that. Otherwise when you separate so much about your so-called normal life and the spiritual life you know there is a new disease called.
DPD you know? You don't know? Okay. It's a dual personality disorder.
You might end up really getting that disease because it seems like that I should be a practitioner and then no, no, no I should be a normal and then it goes back and forth and it's difficult.
Of course it's not possible to be like that from the beginning but this is something you should be aspired to. You should try to move step by step towards how you can make this so-called normal life and spiritual life as in one not the two kind of personalities that you developed.
Okay. So I will start with the book.
I will just shortly go through the some points of the books. And it is quite easy book you can read in English. I don't think anything needs to be explained in detail.
Now for those who are new you have to be a little bit patient.
This is a small booklet.
called a brilliant sun.
Sun is somehow symbolized as in wisdom in Buddhism which dispels the darkness that is our suffering and the illusions.
The stage of practice for the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra and it's written by a scholar and practitioners of late Tibetan master called Patrul Rinpoche which is known in general but mostly in Nyingmapa lineage.
And the stage of practice means this book is not a philosophical book. So it's more practical instruction books.
And Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is actually a title of a book written by. again a great mahāsiddha and scholar called Śāntideva and Indian.
this we call the Śāstra or the commentaries. So in Tibetan Buddhism Buddhism in general we have scriptures called the Ka means the actual words of Buddha.
And in Tibetan it is translated from the Sanskrit and we have more than hundred volumes. And this is what we call the Ka or the Buddha's actual words.
And the Tengyur or the Śāstra or the commentaries are the texts or the meditation or philosophical instructions that are written by the practitioners and the mahāsiddhas who came after the Buddha because Buddha's teachings are quite vast, and it's difficult to read, but even if you read it, it's difficult to extract the meaning. So what these mahāsiddha's did was they compiled and extracted all the essence of Buddha's teachings, and reading down as a text. And it's called the Śāstra or the commentaries.
Very nicely, stage by stage. So actually, of course, it is based on Buddha's teachings, but written by the mahāsiddha's or the great saints or the sages.
And this is one of the texts that we have, many many of them, some of them talking about the view, some of them talking about the meditation, some of them talking about the conduct, and so forth.
The word Śāstra means that it will protect you through transforming you. Yeah? So that means when you practice the meaning, it will protect you. How? Through transforming you. When you study, you understand, the understanding will transform into the experience, and experience will transform into the realizations. And once you have a realization, you are 100% protected from the illusion, wrong view, negativity, whatever you can call it. So this is what it means by the Śāstra.
And in that text, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, it's quite detailed text. But basically it talks about the altruism path and the and the six pāramitās, which are Mahāyāna's stages of paths. If you categorize all the Mahāyāna's path, and you put them together, it is called the six pāramitās, or six transcendential paths, something like that. Because through this path, you will be transcend towards the other sort of illusion.
But this text, what Patrul Rinpoche did, was he took the essence from that text, and make it small one, so that people can study and use easily. So this is like a mini Bodhicaryāvatāra, I can say that.
But it's always, as he will be mentioned here, you study this text, and then you read the Bodhicaryāvatāra in detail. That will be very good.
So in this text also, at the beginning, he talks about the compassion, or bodhichitta. And after that, the main part, he talks about these six pāramitās, how to practice them. And at the end, as a meditation, he talks a little bit about the calmness aspect of meditation. As well as the wisdom aspect of meditation.
But again, this text is very much written for the Asian, Tibetan, tsampa eaters. So really, some words you might find a little bit strange, because you live on the other side of the world. And we don't believe that salad is actually human food.
So please be patient, yeah?
And our tea is made out of butter and salt. Can you imagine?
So I think I will... OK. So,
basically it talks about the...
Well, we call it jang chub kyi sem. I think the English translation would be...
Enlightened Mind. I think it's a little bit difficult translation. But anyway, that's the kind of literal. jang chub means the liberation or enlightened. And mind means... sem means the mind.
But I think the awakened mind is also good.
So, here, what we are trying to say is that...
If you really, really want to liberate, and if you really think that enlightenment is something that you really want, and that means, in a way, you can say the enlightened mind.
Of course, there will be emotionally triggered for the enlightenment. There will be some wanting to liberate through wisdom, it depends. But if you really want to be free from illusion, and longing for the enlightenment, and then the next thing is not for oneself, but for everyone. And this is what we call the bodhichitta or jang chub kyi sem.
Of course, it's up to us. Nobody will force us what we want.
Now, you might heard this again and again within the teachings and advertisements, and especially Tibetan Buddhism, compassion this, compassion that.
It almost sounds like the compassion and the bodhichitta became our sort of like tagline for the advertisement. Because I don't think nobody will argue that compassion is a bad thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course, compassion, good.
But trust me, we are so much using this compassion and almost insisting to each other, not because it sounds good or everyone likes it, no. This is very much seriously to do with the very basic Buddhist fundamental view.
Because if you ask the Buddhist, okay, I know suffering, I know illusion, yeah, that's fine. But just point me what is the problem. Yeah. If you ask Buddhist, so what is the main problem? You can say obscuration or the problem. And then Buddhist will always says that self and the self-cherishing is the main problem.
So what is the greatest solution? Bodhichitta. There is no other greater solution than that. Because of course there are many different kinds of solutions. But they are not like universal. Some of them have side effects. Some of them are not accessible. Some of them require so many conditions before you apply. So it's not a universal thing. It's a, how to say, individual thing. But the compassion or the bodhichitta is a universal thing. It's a universal, very eco-friendly, really. And then no side effect. And very, very effective. No matter where you are. Whether you are very beginning or you are very high level.
So that's why no matter who you are, we prescribe this bodhichitta to everyone.
Because this is the most effective, safe and environmentally friendly solutions that we have.
So, don't think, we are just using this because it sounds nice. No, we are quite serious about that. But of course I am not saying that all Buddhists have lots of compassion. Yeah. We are trying, struggling. But theoretically this is how it's supposed to be.
lochö su drowar jingyi laptu söl chölam du drowar jingyi laptu söl lam trülpa selwar jingyi laptu söl trülpa yeshé su charwar jingyi laptu söl Grant your blessings so that my mind may follow the Dharma. Grant your blessings so that my Dharma practice may become the path. Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify my confusion. Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
Page number 14.
okmin chökyi yingkyi phodrang né düsum sangyé kün gyi ngowo nyi rangsem chöku ngönsum tönzé pa tsawai lamai shapla sölwa dep In the dharmadhātu palace of Akaniṣṭha, I suplicate at the feet of the root guru, the essence of all the Buddhas of the three times, who directly shows my mind as Dharmakāya.
chaktsal wadang chöching shakpa dang jesu yirang külshing sölwa yi gewa chung sé dak gi chisak pa thamché dak gi jangchup chir ngo o We prostrate, make offerings, and apologize, rejoice, request and beseech you earnestly. May whatever little goodness we have gathered, all be dedicated to enlightenment.
sashi pöchü juk shing metok tram rirap lingshi nyidé gyenpa di sangyé shingdu mikté phülwa yi drokün namdak shingdu chöpar shok The earth is perfumed with the scented water and strewn with the flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon. Imagining this as a Buddha realm, I offer it so that all beings may enjoy that pure realm.
semchen namki sampa dang loyi jedrak jita war chechung tünmong tekpa yi chökyi khorlo kordu söl In accordance with the activity and the diverse aspiration of sentient beings, I ask you to turn the wheel of Dharma of the greater, lesser or conventional vehicles.
Listen to the teaching with pure motivation. I think when we somehow,
when you encounter with the so-called spiritual path,
I think most of the time, the reason or the condition behind that encountering even, there is a mundane kind of life that we have. And then there is this so-called spiritual life.
Of course, it might possible to become a one, looking from the different aspects. But most of the time, we kind of tend to see this is my so-called normal life, and this is my spiritual life.
And I think, although we call it normal, but I'm not sure how normal it is.
It's a little bit... If you look closely, it's not really normal how we react in our daily life. I mean, from the rarely this point of view, from the appearance point of view, it is normal. But from the reality's point of view,
how we react is quite abnormal state of who we really are.
So,
for example,
when you encounter, when somebody says nasty words to you, you don't get angry. That's supposed to be the normal, but of course it's not. So if you do that, then you will be considered as an abnormal person. You might be a little bit worried about what happened to me, and also probably your friend will also tell you that you should go to the doctor.
If you automatically react anger to the object, that is something that you dislike, then you are considered as a normal, isn't it?
If you react, quite automatically hope and fear, we call it normal. When you don't do that, then you become abnormal.
But from the reality's point of view, actually it's the opposite.
And many times I think when you apply the spiritual path, our ultimate goal is not to make our life spiritual, but our life is quite OK, but something is missing.
You know. The picture of our life is almost complete, but the one piece of puzzle is missing. And we try to pull that piece of puzzle from the spiritual point of view, and then make the complete picture of our mundane life.
I think.
since nobody owns the spiritual path, everybody has a right to do that. I don't think there is anything wrong, but.
if you do that, the one pieces of the puzzle will be always missing, no matter how much you try, that's the problem. It will never become a complete one.
So, from the spiritual point of view,
it's not that something is missing in your mundane life, and then the small piece of puzzles that you are looking,
looking in the spiritual path, and then you wanted to complete your mundane life.
Again, the same problem. So, our intention should be that I want to see the full picture of spiritual picture, but, you know, the small pieces of my mundane life, I want to dedicate to this whole picture of spiritual path. And when you do that, and this is what we call the real renunciation.
I think in Tibetan we call a nge chung. It says that there are three things, renunciation, bodhichitta or compassion, and the right view. These are the three pillars of our path. You start with the renunciation, and you combine with the compassion, and then you rely on the right view so that you have the right meditation and right conduct.
But I think again, many times, although I'm not sure exactly what it really means, renunciation in English, but in Tibetan we use the word nge chung. It means that.
knowing what kind of potential you have
and then knowing very clearly what you really want.
The word nge means having some kind of conviction or certainty.
So when you understand what kind of potential you have, and then when you really know what you really want, and this is having that kind of conviction or determination towards your goal based on your potential, is called nge chung.
So renunciation doesn't really mean that running away from the problems.
Of course there are many different layers of renunciations you can go through.
Sometimes.
so having that kind of determination is called nge chung. And I think it is also for example I think some great lamas, they are translated as.
genuine heart of sadness. Trungpa Rinpoche said that. I think that's a very good translation I guess.
The really wanting to be free not based on emotional but based on the wisdom.
And sometimes.
some of my friends, lay people they say that my life is very hard, difficult, family, job, so many things. And your life is very great. Easy life.
And sometimes they get a little bit jealous. And maybe a little bit of anger I guess. And I say that.
please have some compassion to me, you know. Don't be jealous because what you are doing is accumulating. Holding it more and more tight. What I am trying to do is to let it go.
And trust me letting go is much, much, harder than accumulating it.
Holding more and more stronger is easier but letting go is not easy. So I tell my friends that it's true in a way my life is more easier because I don't have to pay rent I don't have to look after my children's, but... Don't think that this is the easy way. It's not. Of course I am not trying to discourage you but I am just trying to make you that you have to be prepared.
So renunciation is not an easy way to way out from the problems.
If you think that dealing with the outer world is difficult then dealing with the inner world is much much difficult.
And of course ultimately renunciation is not rejecting something but it is accepting everything.
I know maybe I am going a little bit too far but.
Sometimes people think that those who are in the spiritual path they are a little bit crazy they are a little bit stupid from the mundane's point of view doing nothing, not not productive people.
I would say that a little bit crazy I think you can say crazy.
I think we have some definition of that. Of course it depends on the definition of craziness. But stupid I really don't think so.
We are yes crazy but not stupid. A little bit smarter than the mundane people.
Many times I think we hesitate to be that smarter.
I will be outcast what he will say, what she will think.
If you are really worried too much about being a little bit more smarter than the normal people then you don't have the courage to practice Dharma I think.
At least you should have that courage. It's okay.
Otherwise it will be very difficult.
You might, you know, when we say that okay so
during the seminars I am practicing Dharma and when the seminars finish finally it's finished.
Now from tomorrow I am going back to my normal life. Then you are same.
The problem is the more you do that the more harder it will be. Really. It's better to follow one way. It's like really kind of tearing yourself.
That's why you know when we say that meditation and the post meditation always should be there must be some relationship. Means when you are meditating you are meditating. It's a set meditation. And post meditation means when meditation is done when you start to stand up, actual action meditation starts from there. When you are sitting there of course everybody is meditative.
There is a saying that when the sun is shining when your belly is full everybody is practitioner.
But when something goes down you will show your true color.
Even the real practitioners will show their true color. What's the difference?
It is said that when you are happy everybody is. You seem like a spiritual practitioner but when you are struck by the condition you completely become a normal people sometimes even worse than normal people. because you have a lot of arrogance. So you should not be like that. Otherwise when you separate so much about your so-called normal life and the spiritual life you know there is a new disease called.
DPD you know? You don't know? Okay. It's a dual personality disorder.
You might end up really getting that disease because it seems like that I should be a practitioner and then no, no, no I should be a normal and then it goes back and forth and it's difficult.
Of course it's not possible to be like that from the beginning but this is something you should be aspired to. You should try to move step by step towards how you can make this so-called normal life and spiritual life as in one not the two kind of personalities that you developed.
Okay. So I will start with the book.
I will just shortly go through the some points of the books. And it is quite easy book you can read in English. I don't think anything needs to be explained in detail.
Now for those who are new you have to be a little bit patient.
This is a small booklet.
called a brilliant sun.
Sun is somehow symbolized as in wisdom in Buddhism which dispels the darkness that is our suffering and the illusions.
The stage of practice for the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra and it's written by a scholar and practitioners of late Tibetan master called Patrul Rinpoche which is known in general but mostly in Nyingmapa lineage.
And the stage of practice means this book is not a philosophical book. So it's more practical instruction books.
And Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is actually a title of a book written by. again a great mahāsiddha and scholar called Śāntideva and Indian.
this we call the Śāstra or the commentaries. So in Tibetan Buddhism Buddhism in general we have scriptures called the Ka means the actual words of Buddha.
And in Tibetan it is translated from the Sanskrit and we have more than hundred volumes. And this is what we call the Ka or the Buddha's actual words.
And the Tengyur or the Śāstra or the commentaries are the texts or the meditation or philosophical instructions that are written by the practitioners and the mahāsiddhas who came after the Buddha because Buddha's teachings are quite vast, and it's difficult to read, but even if you read it, it's difficult to extract the meaning. So what these mahāsiddha's did was they compiled and extracted all the essence of Buddha's teachings, and reading down as a text. And it's called the Śāstra or the commentaries.
Very nicely, stage by stage. So actually, of course, it is based on Buddha's teachings, but written by the mahāsiddha's or the great saints or the sages.
And this is one of the texts that we have, many many of them, some of them talking about the view, some of them talking about the meditation, some of them talking about the conduct, and so forth.
The word Śāstra means that it will protect you through transforming you. Yeah? So that means when you practice the meaning, it will protect you. How? Through transforming you. When you study, you understand, the understanding will transform into the experience, and experience will transform into the realizations. And once you have a realization, you are 100% protected from the illusion, wrong view, negativity, whatever you can call it. So this is what it means by the Śāstra.
And in that text, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, it's quite detailed text. But basically it talks about the altruism path and the and the six pāramitās, which are Mahāyāna's stages of paths. If you categorize all the Mahāyāna's path, and you put them together, it is called the six pāramitās, or six transcendential paths, something like that. Because through this path, you will be transcend towards the other sort of illusion.
But this text, what Patrul Rinpoche did, was he took the essence from that text, and make it small one, so that people can study and use easily. So this is like a mini Bodhicaryāvatāra, I can say that.
But it's always, as he will be mentioned here, you study this text, and then you read the Bodhicaryāvatāra in detail. That will be very good.
So in this text also, at the beginning, he talks about the compassion, or bodhichitta. And after that, the main part, he talks about these six pāramitās, how to practice them. And at the end, as a meditation, he talks a little bit about the calmness aspect of meditation. As well as the wisdom aspect of meditation.
But again, this text is very much written for the Asian, Tibetan, tsampa eaters. So really, some words you might find a little bit strange, because you live on the other side of the world. And we don't believe that salad is actually human food.
So please be patient, yeah?
And our tea is made out of butter and salt. Can you imagine?
So I think I will... OK. So,
basically it talks about the...
Well, we call it jang chub kyi sem. I think the English translation would be...
Enlightened Mind. I think it's a little bit difficult translation. But anyway, that's the kind of literal. jang chub means the liberation or enlightened. And mind means... sem means the mind.
But I think the awakened mind is also good.
So, here, what we are trying to say is that...
If you really, really want to liberate, and if you really think that enlightenment is something that you really want, and that means, in a way, you can say the enlightened mind.
Of course, there will be emotionally triggered for the enlightenment. There will be some wanting to liberate through wisdom, it depends. But if you really want to be free from illusion, and longing for the enlightenment, and then the next thing is not for oneself, but for everyone. And this is what we call the bodhichitta or jang chub kyi sem.
Of course, it's up to us. Nobody will force us what we want.
Now, you might heard this again and again within the teachings and advertisements, and especially Tibetan Buddhism, compassion this, compassion that.
It almost sounds like the compassion and the bodhichitta became our sort of like tagline for the advertisement. Because I don't think nobody will argue that compassion is a bad thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course, compassion, good.
But trust me, we are so much using this compassion and almost insisting to each other, not because it sounds good or everyone likes it, no. This is very much seriously to do with the very basic Buddhist fundamental view.
Because if you ask the Buddhist, okay, I know suffering, I know illusion, yeah, that's fine. But just point me what is the problem. Yeah. If you ask Buddhist, so what is the main problem? You can say obscuration or the problem. And then Buddhist will always says that self and the self-cherishing is the main problem.
So what is the greatest solution? Bodhichitta. There is no other greater solution than that. Because of course there are many different kinds of solutions. But they are not like universal. Some of them have side effects. Some of them are not accessible. Some of them require so many conditions before you apply. So it's not a universal thing. It's a, how to say, individual thing. But the compassion or the bodhichitta is a universal thing. It's a universal, very eco-friendly, really. And then no side effect. And very, very effective. No matter where you are. Whether you are very beginning or you are very high level.
So that's why no matter who you are, we prescribe this bodhichitta to everyone.
Because this is the most effective, safe and environmentally friendly solutions that we have.
So, don't think, we are just using this because it sounds nice. No, we are quite serious about that. But of course I am not saying that all Buddhists have lots of compassion. Yeah. We are trying, struggling. But theoretically this is how it's supposed to be.
How Does Buddhism Transform Us? 4a
Teacher:
Location:
- Gomde Germany-Austria
- Date: July 22, 2018
Description >>
Khenpo Karma Gyurmey focuses on refining meditation techniques to deepen self-awareness and align with Dharma principles. The teachings emphasize the importance of introspection and self-accountability in overcoming habitual patterns of thought and behavior. Ethical discipline is portrayed as a stabilizing force that nurtures clarity and resilience in the face of challenges. Participants are introduced to advanced mindfulness practices designed to cultivate equanimity and insight into the nature of reality. The session reiterates the transformative potential of consistent practice in achieving liberation.
