Meditation Practice

My most dear, most kind, most wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. My conclusion is that it’s very good that you are able to experience bliss—that you are able to shoot bliss up to the crown, that you are able to experience the four blisses, and that you can do that by going through the channels inside. So now what you should try is generally more meditation on emptiness—the fourth bliss and emptiness.

Don't let the I be lost totally, don’t escape from that or lose that. To go through that, to accomplish that, is like climbing Mount Everest or winning gold. The way the I has appeared from beginningless rebirth—what we believe as the true, real I—see the emptiness and abide in that. You should attend to that as the main object of meditation.

That’s the false I. What you believe real is the false I in reality, so try to look at that. After discovering that, then seeing it as empty, by thinking it does not exist at all and meditating on that. Meditate on that as long as you can last. Aim for four hours without disturbances, without break.

Otherwise without emptiness, then Hindus can also generate bliss, but not in the central channel. They can actualize the clear light, but not the extremely subtle mind understanding emptiness, realizing emptiness. General bliss, kundalini, Hindus also have that; it is not particular to Buddhists, but emptiness is not in Hinduism.

You need total renunciation, including of the form realm, the desire realm, and the formless realm, then these four: infinite consciousnesses, infinite space, nothingness, and the tip of samsara. In Hinduism they have the desire realm, the form and formless realm, and they see their suffering nature—these three categories they see are suffering in nature, but they don't see the tip of samsara as samsara, because the way to realize it is by looking at a higher level, with more peace, then looking at the present stage, more suffering nature.

So the way the Hindus do meditation and realize the nature of suffering is different from the way Buddhists do it, therefore they see there is no higher realm than the tip of samsara, so that is how they get stuck. When the karma of that realm is finished, then they see that they have to be reborn in the lower realms, the desire realm and so forth. Then sometimes they get heresy because they believed before that they had achieved nirvana, but because the delusions are so subtle, at the end they realize they did not achieve that, so when they see that they have to be reborn in the lower realms, they generate heresy and then they have to be reborn in the hell realm.

When you do Vajrayogini sadhana, it's good to keep the bliss if it happens easily. Keep it during the sadhana—while reciting the sadhana and doing generation stage meditation.

Follow the outline of the Six Yogas of Naropa, and try to have realizations one-by-one.

The most important thing is to have bodhicitta realizations, so every experience of bliss becomes the direct cause of enlightenment for sentient beings, so that means all your experiences become beneficial for sentient beings.

Of course, bodhicitta realization, but before that you also need total renunciation—seeing the whole entire samsara as suffering in nature, and you can't wait [to be free from samsara.] Just as a prisoner doesn’t want to be in prison for even one second, or like being in the center of the fire, you don’t have the attraction to be in the fire even for one second, you only want to be free from the fire, without delay of a second, so like that, have the wish to be free from samsara.

Then there is the unmistaken realization of emptiness, for example, being able to see the I as empty. That means as a result you see the I exists in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, so that means it does not exist at all from its own side. It is totally empty of existing from its own side, so oneness, emptiness and dependent arising, that is Buddha’s, Nagarjuna’s and Lama Tsongkhapa’s way of examining emptiness. It is supportive to realize how the I is existing, not non-existing, it’s a subtle dependent arising. Thinking that way, realizing that way, helps you to see emptiness, that it is empty.

Then to have the realization of guru devotion, by meditating on that for however many weeks, months or years it takes to have realizations that your guru, who you have a Dharma connection with, is numberless buddhas, and one buddha is all the gurus. To have the effortless experience, without any difficulties to be able to see that, one hundred per cent, from your own heart.

That becomes the root, the success of all the realizations, which should be done by following the lamrim outline, with the meditations. Here I'm talking about the result of the meditation, training the mind in the gradual path of lower capable being, for as many weeks, months or years it takes to train the mind, to have no attachment at all to this life, to the food, clothing, and reputation. So the most important thing is the happiness of the next life, not this life. Most important is the next life, so totally change from the previous thinking, that this life’s happiness is more important than the next life, totally change this.

That’s why Nagarjuna is saying comfort and discomfort are equalized, praise and criticism are equalized, good reputation and bad reputation are equalized, to receive material or not receive material is equalized. You should have that realization.

You can meditate on the perfect human rebirth and its usefulness, how it is difficult to find again, also meditate on impermanence and death, the nine stages of death, the lower realm sufferings and refuge and karma. Try to have realizations one-by-one. This is the gradual path of the lower capable being.

Then [meditate on] the gradual path of the middle capable being: the suffering of humans and the deva realm, etc, the six types of suffering, the three types of general suffering of samsara, then [develop] renunciation of samsara, as I explained before, thinking that being in samsara is like being in prison or being in the center of a fire.

When you have bodhicitta realizations without any effort, day and night, continuously, there is the thought to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, even for each sentient being. It is explained in the texts by meditators, that generally when bodhicitta is actualized, then you can put your main effort into tantra—the generation and completion stages—that is general.

With much love and prayers...

So, the studies have been done—lo-jong [mind training], philosophy and lamrim, have been done. So I thought the next thing is to actualize this; not to leave it in the book, but to have it here [Rinpoche points to his heart.] To have renunciation, bodhicitta, the realization of emptiness, the generation stage and the completion stage, to have it here. To really experience realization. The next thing is that. So I said like this. Now, no other centers have this; no other organization has a program like this.

Meditate for two or three months on guru devotion following the outlines. Meditate on that. How long you do it for is up to the individual, as some people are very busy, but spend two or three months on guru devotion. Then meditate on the usefulness of the perfect human rebirth for either one month or two months, you can decide. How precious it is maybe for one month, then how it is useful in three ways maybe for one month. The time is not sure, just as an example, one month. Meditate on that for one month.

Then meditate on impermanence and death, renunciation, the lower realms, refuge and karma. Meditate on renunciation of this life, then on renunciation of the future lives, then the path of the higher capable being, bodhicitta. Then meditate on emptiness for one month. So, in a whole year you can do all the lamrim.

You can also do generation stage and completion stage of your own deity. You can either do that or maybe just leave it now for some years and just do lamrim, guru devotion and the three principal aspects, then leave tantra for some years. The time for meditation is up to each individual.

That would be very, very, very good. That is really, really, really, really, really [good]. Wow. That will please His Holiness the Dalai Lama; he will appreciate it so much because there is no other organization, no other center doing this. I heard from a Drepung geshe in Taichung, after a scientific meeting in a monastery that His Holiness does every year—I think this time in Drepung—after that His Holiness invited all the abbots and emphasized very much that they must do meditation.

When monks gather for cho-ra, debate, they must do meditation in silence, as much as possible, on lamrim. Since coming from Tibet there has been no such announcement, but now His Holiness said they must meditate even in the monastery. Those monasteries mainly emphasize the study of philosophy, learning Buddhism in an extensive way. So the geshe said they have to meditate for fifteen minutes when they come for prayer and cho-ra. They meditate for fifteen minutes, and keep silence. Someone must have told His Holiness, I don’t know what the story is.

I will tell you one thing. When the first Masters Program finished, I said do one year retreat after that. What they studied, I said to do one year retreat on those subjects and on lamrim. The Masters Program didn’t have lamrim, but I said do one year. Some students, they talked. I think Geshe Jampa Gyatso didn’t have much interest in meditation, because they don’t have such thing in the monastery, to do it in public. I think he didn’t have much interest in that, so I think some students didn’t listen to what I said, but those who followed my advice went to Spain and did nine months’ retreat and found it very beneficial and said must do retreat. They found it so beneficial. You went to Kopan to do retreat, that was very good. So just to let you know like that.

So this is my suggestion here, but it is up to you, it is not for everybody. I give the idea, the suggestion, but to do it or not is up to you. It is up to you. To do it with everybody or not is up to you. That is your choice. It is like that. So, really bring your mind close, even if not to an actual realization but at least close to that, so after a year of meditation you are coming closer and closer to realization. Then also you are subduing the mind. Every single teaching of the Buddha, every word, is to subdue the mind. Then you have no worries about wasting your life. At the end of your life, whenever is the end of life, you are satisfied. You can think, “I spent my life practicing Dharma.” There is satisfaction and happiness.

My very dear Tim,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, I am very sorry for the many eons it took to reply.

My advice is that even though this may not be the exact, correct experience, we can use this experience when we practice tantra, generation stage. We can use this experience to generate bliss. For example, when we meditate, we are able to see emptiness and experience infinite bliss—skies of bliss, non-dual with emptiness—so then we generate ourselves as the deity. The mandala, oneself, everything, is the experience of bliss.

The offerings, the deity, the mandala—everything is in the nature of non-dual bliss, as much as we can generate. Then also there is the dharmakaya example, the great bliss mind seeing emptiness. That experience we can enlarge; that bliss, non-dual with emptiness. So think this is the future result time, the future deity, so it is something unbelievable, skies of great bliss. Meditate what we can.

Samsara and nirvana are in reality in that experience of great bliss, non-dual emptiness. Every small piece of the mandala is in that nature. Unbelievable!

Also then we can use this experience for the completion stage, but for now continue to develop and stabilize guru devotion.

This is the causative phenomenon to realize emptiness, that’s what we need to realize emptiness, so however it exists, appearing here, but totally empty from its own side, appearing as totally non-existent. Not that it is non-existent, but appearing, otherwise that is contradictory, so it is merely imputed by the mind; it is a subtle dependent arising. If we come to this conclusion, it’s correct; if we do not, then it’s not correct.

Develop your mind on the path by following the lamrim outlines, then later the generation stage and then completion stage.

You asked me to be your guru—you already attended my teachings, so this has already happened. Anyway, I accept, ok. But I am not qualified.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear Lucy,
Thank you for your very kind letter, which I read. What is happening to you is a definite sign that you are receiving blessings from the Guru Deity. This means you are doing the practice correctly; it shows that and it is proof of that.

Now, this needs to not degenerate and for you to develop it. It is very important for you to practice tantra based on the lamrim and especially on the root of the path—guru devotion—as strongly as possible, as well as renunciation and bodhicitta. I mention this because you need this to have realizations of tantra.

I checked and it comes out very good for you to slowly learn the Six Yogas of Naropa. This might be very good to do, so you can start to make preparations for it.

With much love and prayers...

The mind is like dough, which means you can make it into any shape: emotional, non-emotional, happy, not happy.

Mind is like a child, so you should become the parents, like the father and mother watching and guiding the child. If you follow the child, if you become the child, it makes you crazy. Then, you always create obstacles and life becomes suffering.

Or you become the guru and the mind is like the disciple—you watch and guide it. Or you are like a spy. You should be like a spy with your mind, always watching and blocking it when it is being negative and doing harm. It is like spying on a political person, examining what the person is thinking and planning, whether the person is performing positive actions or negative actions.

Also, it is like you are the captain and the mind is the boat. Or you are the driver and the mind is the car, therefore you have to always watch the car, and pay attention that you are traveling on the right road.

If you don’t behave like this, then you are controlled by the mind.

At my house in Aptos, I was telling one of the nuns at Kachoe Dechen Ling that when someone says something to you that really hurts your mind, then that is the most beneficial thing for your mind, because it goes straight to your ego and your heart, and touches your ego. This is what shows you, like a mirror, like a teaching from the Buddha, your own mistaken thoughts, especially the ego. It shows that there is ego and because there is ego it hurts.

If there is no ego then it would never hurt. So, these words hurt the ego, the self-cherishing thought. When people tell you your shortcomings or say words that hurt you, that is the real chöd practice. These hurtful words make you see your “I,” in Western psychological terms—the emotional “I,” and the object of ignorance, the root of samsara, which is ignorance believing the “I” is truly existent.

Normally one is not aware of this, but by doing chöd practice, inviting spirits to come, they create disturbances, and these make you see the “I,” the object of ignorance, the object to be refuted—the truly existent “I,” clearly. They show you the “I” very clearly, and then you are able to recognize that it is false, an object of ignorance, and you are able to use logical reasoning to see that it doesn’t exist because the “I” is a dependent arising, or merely imputed on the aggregates, the base, etc. There are many other refutations; however, you recognize the object to be refuted at that moment, that it doesn’t exist at all, is totally non-existent.

So, those who use harsh words and show you your mistakes are helpful; this is similar to chöd.

In Iraq and other places where there is a lot of killing and many enemies, there are two sides attacking each other, killing an external enemy. Our practice here is killing the inner enemy. In Iraq they are killing the external enemies, who are sentient beings, the most precious, most kind sentient beings, from whom we receive all our past, present, and future happiness, liberation and enlightenment, everything; they are the most precious, kind ones.

What we should practice is killing the inner enemy, the delusions, and the only way to do that is with Dharma practice. This is the way to achieve ultimate, everlasting happiness; liberation for oneself; cessation of all the sufferings; no more rebirth, old age, sickness, and death; and cessation of all the sufferings of each of the six realms, of karma, and delusions. Not only can you achieve liberation for yourself, but also enlightenment—great liberation for the benefit of all sentient beings.