Lecture One: November 30,1994

REFUGE
Before the talk, we take refuge and generating the bodhicitta.

“I go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until I achieve enlightenment.”

Here it involves two practices, the causal refuge and the resultant refuge. “Until I achieve enlightenment,” that contains resultant refuge. So first begin with the causal refuge, by actualizing the actual refuge, that which actually, directly cures the disease, the medicine. So, Dharma is like the medicine, the actual refuge, that which is remedy to the disease, that which cures, that which stops, the sicknesses. Dharma is the medicine, the remedy to cease completely the suffering, the cycle of death and rebirth and all the problems between, all of that which is contained in the suffering of pain, the suffering of changes—the temporary samsaric pleasures, which if you analyze… when you do not analyze it looks like pleasure but when we analyze, what we discover is only suffering, nothing else than that. Only when we do not analyze, when we let our mind stay under the delusion of the concept of inherent existence, the hallucinated mind, then that which is suffering, we are not realizing that it is suffering, as it appeared as pleasure, and then believing that is true, that it is the reality. So that is another wrong concept.

When we let our mind remain under this wrong concept, the hallucinatory mind, then these feelings appear as pleasure, as pure happiness, as real happiness. But the minute when we analyze what it is exactly, how it arises, when we analyze, when we check, it’s only suffering. Because of that, it doesn’t last. That’s why however much you put effort into that, it doesn’t last.

This feeling that appears as pleasure cannot be developed, it cannot be increased by putting effort, by continuing the action which we normally believe is the cause of the pleasure, is creating this pleasure, what you normally believe as a cause. Instead, the more you continue the action, instead of increasing, the pleasure only decreases. By continuing the action the pleasure is gone, it becomes the suffering of pain. Besides this, the temporary samsaric pleasures, the feeling, the sensation that, “This is suffering,” the duration of this feeling is unnoticeable to one’s own mind because it is subtle or small, very small. During this duration the discomfort is subtle or small. During this duration while it is unnoticeable to one’s own mind then, one’s own mind makes up the label ‘pleasure’ and then, after that, appears as pleasure.

When it appears, first your own mind makes up the label “pleasure” then after that, the result of that, is appearance of pleasure. That after, when the pleasure appears, after the label, then the pleasure does not appear to one’s own mind as if it is merely labeled. “This is just now merely labeled by one’s own mind,” didn’t appear to oneself, the pleasure didn’t appear this way. It appears, even though right now, with this minute, this second, it is a label of your own mind, when it appears to you it doesn’t appear that way. It appears as not merely labeled by the mind. This appearance is the object to be refuted—from the four schools, the Buddhist philosophers, the fourth one Madhyamaka school, the second division of that one, the Prasangika school—for that school this is the subtle object to be refuted. However, it appears like this and then it is believed that is true. So one lets one’s own mind believe that that is true and that is nature, that’s the reality. That is nature means, is not talking about nature of emptiness or dependent arising, that which exist, it is talking about nature which doesn’t exist, the inherent existent nature.

Then, so we let our mind believe, to apprehend, that the pleasure which appears is not merely labeled by the mind, but that is nature, that this is reality. Then on that basis, you see, then one lets one’s own mind believe that this is not suffering, that it is pure happiness, pure pleasure. Then after creating all these, after making all these projections, all these hallucinations, then attachment arises and one grasps or clings on that. That experience of attachment, that experience is very difficult to separate from that object, you see, so painful to separate away from that object. So that is the experience, the nature of the attachment.

While we are experiencing the three types of samsaric sufferings, the suffering of suffering that even animals do not want to experience, besides human beings, the suffering of changes and pervasive compounded sufferings, while we are experiencing these, which are the result of the past disturbing thoughts and karma, constantly emotions such as the attachment, clinging to the feeling that which is suffering but appears as pleasure, clinging to this again becomes the chain to tie oneself to samsara. Again tying ourselves to samsara, with this wrong concept, this disturbing thought, this attachment. The hallucinatory mind, apprehending the suffering as pleasure, as the pure happiness, ties ourselves to samsara, along with the concept of inherently existent pleasure.

While we are experiencing that, these sufferings of suffering, these sufferings of the samsara, at the same time, without guarding our mind, without watching our mind, without protecting our mind, in other words without applying the meditation, without Dharma practice, without living with the mind in Dharma, then there is no protection for ourselves. Without the mind living in, the mind becoming Dharma, without the mind becoming lamrim, there is no protection in our own life. We have no protection. Our mind is completely overpowered or controlled or invaded by the delusions, invaded by delusions, taking it over.

Like Tibet was overtaken or invaded by the communists, by mainland China, our own mind is completely controlled by the disturbing thoughts, leaving no freedom for us, no rest. There is no rest for us from sufferings. There is no rest, no freedom, no holiday, even for a minute, a second, from the suffering of samsara. It is like this without Dharma, without the mind becoming Dharma, without the mind living in lamrim, the steps of path to enlightenment. While we are experiencing these sufferings of the samsara, caused by the past disturbing thought and karma, we are also constantly creating the cause again, the cause of samsara.

By actualizing the actual refuge, Dharma, within our own mental continuum, the true path, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, the true path and the cessation of the sufferings. By actualizing this actual refuge, Dharma, we are able to completely cease the whole, entire suffering, all these sufferings of samsara, by completely ceasing karma and the disturbing thoughts, including the seed of disturbing thought. By having actualized the Dharma, the true path and true cessation of the suffering, that which is the actual refuge, we ourselves become the Sangha. Then, by completing the Dharma, the path, by ceasing even the subtle obscurations, the subtle mistakes of the mind, we ourselves become the Buddha.

So you see, “until I achieve enlightenment,” this contains the wish to actualize the Dharma within our own mental continuum, the actual refuge, Dharma. Then we ourselves become the Sangha, and we become the Buddha. This is the result refuge.

We can’t actualize the resultant refuge alone, therefore we have to rely upon the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, possessed by others’ minds. We rely upon those who have actualized the actual refuge, Dharma, the true path and the true cessation of the sufferings and so forth actualized in others’ minds. In the same way, we rely upon the Sangha and then the Buddha in others’ minds.

It’s like the person who wants to become a qualified doctor. By relying upon other qualified doctors who have perfect education, experience, we learn. Then by completing the study with that person, we become a qualified doctor ourselves.

As a practitioner of the Mahayana path, by looking at our own samsara, we see this is only in the nature of suffering. From that, we develop renunciation, the determination to be free from this, to be liberated from this. Secondly, by looking at how others are, how there are numberless sentient beings and they are also similar, being caught in samsara, experiencing the oceans of sufferings of the samsara, we generate compassion. Then thirdly, we develop full trust, faith, that the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha—and no one else, no others except the Dharma and Sangha— have the power to liberate us and all the mother sentient beings from the whole, entire suffering of samsara, including the cause, karma and delusion. Our own mind becomes perfected with the three causes of refuge; with our whole heart we rely upon the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That is the Mahayana way of taking refuge.

GENERATING BODHICITTA
And then next, generating bodhicitta. “Due to the merits accumulated by making charity, and so forth,” which includes by practicing morality, patience, perseverance and so forth, “all the merits that have been accumulated, may I achieve full enlightenment, in order to benefit all the migratory beings.” We should remember that. Yesterday, or day before yesterday, as you have heard the evolution of the samsara, the twelve dependent related links, we and all other sentient beings being who are under the control of karma and delusion migrate again and again through one of these six realms, again and again. We experience the oceans of suffering in the past and are experiencing them now over and over again. Without freedom these mother sentient beings, being under the control of karma and delusion, always migrate through the six realms, always in one of the realms, again and again continuously experiencing the suffering of samsara, without having any freedom themselves.

When you recite the word “migratory” that contains the whole explanation of the twelve links, the whole evolution of the samsara, how samsara is created. How is samsara created? What causes these aggregates, this body and mind—our own and others—which is in the nature of suffering, which is the nature of problems? That is clearly shown from the teachings of the evolution of samsara, the twelve dependent-related links, when talks about explaining true suffering, then the true cause of suffering, the disturbing thoughts and karma.

“In order to benefit all the migrator beings.” We are not the only one suffering in samsara. We are not the only one with problems; it’s not just ourselves alone. There are numberless other mother sentient beings who have similar problems, who have no freedom at all, constantly migrating in samsara, experiencing the oceans of samsaric suffering, being under the control of karma and delusion.

We generate bodhicitta while we are reciting these words, “in order to benefit for all the migratory beings,” by remembering that whole explanation, the migrators, the twelve links, sufferings of samsara, the whole explanation of that. While we are reciting the meditation prayer, it becomes very effective for the mind. There is no choice, compassion has to arise when we look at the numberless others who are completely overwhelmed by sufferings and cause of sufferings. No choice compassion has to rise and no choice we have to do something. We have got to do something for them. We have got to help them. We can’t not help, no choice. And then, whatever method, wisdom, that we have to do something to help all these numberless migratory beings who have been our own mother numberless times and been kind to us like that.

THE KINDNESS OF MOTHER SENTIENT BEINGS
Not only being kind to us by being our mother, but being kind even at other times. Being kind while our mother, that is just one part, but there is much more, there is other much greater, more extensive kindness, that each of the sentient being have given to us. There is more extensive kindness than having been our mother and giving us a human body, giving us the opportunity to practice Dharma. They are being kind to us by giving us hundreds of their lives each day. In other words, by saving our own life, having saved our own life from hundreds of life dangers each and every day. Then having led us in the path to the world, in education. Then, bearing so much hardship in order to take care of us, for our happiness. They have been kind in these four ways, the kindness of being mother and then the kindness of these four ways, numberless times to ourselves in addition to just being our mother. That kindness has been given to us by all migrating beings in samsara,. Think how much they have been suffering continuously since time without beginning, how long they have been suffering. If there is already strong compassion, the bodhicitta that we generate becomes that much stronger.

So now, we’re going to recite the meditation prayer, taking refuge and generating bodhicitta. So as I just explained, even if we can’t remember the more extensive way I’ve just mentioned briefly, at least remember the meaning.

“I go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha until I achieve the full enlightenment. Due to the merits accumulated by me through charity and so forth, may I achieve full enlightenment in order to benefit for all the migratory beings.”

This time, listening to the teaching, to the explanation of of the teaching, dedicating the merits of this. We should think, you should recite or think, “Due to the merits,” from your side, “of listening to the Dharma,” then from my side, “Due to the merits of explaining the Dharma,” “may I achieve full enlightenment in order to benefit for all the migratory beings.”  

SANG GYE CHHÖ DANG TS’HOK KYI CHHOK NAM LA
JANG CHHUP BAR DU DAK NI KYAP SU CHHI
DAK GI JIN SOK GYI PAY SÖ NAM KYI
DRO LA P’HEN CHHIR SANG GYE DRUP PAR SHOK

[Lama Zopa Rinpoche chants in Tibetan]

THE RARITY OF THIS PRECIOUS HUMAN REBIRTH
The great pandit Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavatara says,

These freedoms and richnesses are extremely difficult to find.
[They accomplish what is meaningful for all beings.]
If we don’t achieve the benefit with this body
How can we achieve it in the future?¹

What the great pandit Shantideva says is that at this time we have received the precious human body. Not just a human body but a special human body, which is qualified with eight freedoms and ten richnesses. If we don’t benefit while we have this body, when can we even do it in the future? With this body, in this life, we can achieve the three great meaning: the happiness of future lives, long-term temporal happiness, then ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and finally the great liberation, full enlightenment. There is no question, within one day, within one hour, one minute, even within a second, whatever happiness we wish we can achieve. With this body, we can create however many causes of this happiness we wish to create.

The conclusion, the very bottom reason, the conclusion, is that we wish happiness, whatever one we are looking for, and what we don’t want to experience is suffering. If that is the case, then we must achieve these benefits, we must achieve these great meanings, in this body. In this body, while we have this precious human body qualified with eight freedoms and ten richnesses. For example, to achieve full enlightenment within one life, you know, it is impossible other than with this perfect human body, which happens in this southern continent, this continent where we are now—only in this world, in this southern continent, only with this precious human body can we achieve full enlightenment in one life.

Even though there are other human worlds, the beings there cannot achieve this, cannot achieve full enlightenment in one life. It is impossible to achieve full enlightenment in one life in other human worlds, with human bodies in other worlds. It’s impossible due to heavier obscurations and so forth, due to many obstacles it’s not possible.

In all the six realms, we can achieve full enlightenment in one life only in this southern continent only with the human body that we have now, that we have now received. By realizing this, this special benefit, the qualities or this special benefit, of having this human body of the southern continent, makes us realize how this body that we have now, how it is so precious, so unbelievably precious.

Without talking about this complete enlightenment, even to achieve the happiness of this life, to achieve a deva’s body or a human body and so forth, to achieve liberation from samsara and so forth, we cannot achieve that if we don’t have the benefit of this perfect human body. Without this perfect human body it is extremely difficult. With the body of a lower realm being which is extremely overwhelmed, possessed by very heavy sufferings there is no opportunity to practice Dharma, no opportunity to achieve the benefit that this great, meaningful human body can. Even with other bodies of the happy migratory beings—with a deva’s body or with a body of the human being of the other worlds—it is extremely difficult to achieve this great meaning, this great benefit.

The last line asks, “How can we achieve this perfect human body in the future?” That implies that if we can’t make it meaningful not, it will be very difficult to find again. “How can we find it” tells us we won’t be able to find it again, we won’t receive such a perfect human body again. Why? What Shantideva implies is that to create the cause to receive this perfect human body is extremely difficult. That is, if we did not practice morality, if we did not practice the cause of the body of the happy migratory being, morality, without talking about a perfect human body, just to receive an ordinary human body is not possible. It needs the preliminary cause, having practiced pure morality. Just to receive an ordinary human body, without talking about a perfect human body qualified with eight freedoms and ten richnesses, just to have a human body needs the main cause, pure morality, having practiced pure morality.

Generally speaking, even in the world, by looking outside in the world, seeing beings living purely, even seeing one who has taken the vows, the precepts, living purely, even living in only one vow, even in one precept—there are very few are like this that we see. However, human beings who don’t live in morality, who don’t practice morality, who don’t live even in one morality—there are so many. There is such a small number living purely but so many living without even one vow.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MORALITY
So, now, it is like this. If it is explained how to make preparations for death, and the path to cease the death, to never to have experience the suffering of death and rebirth, while we are experiencing death, how we can use the death on the path to enlightenment. While we are experiencing death, we can use that. How can we use that death on the path to achieve enlightenment? How can we use the death to be free from, to cease death? How can we use death as a path to cease the death, to cease the cycle of the suffering of death and rebirth? Even if the death happens, we don’t have to be afraid, we don’t have to be scared of it. We can enjoy the death. We can use death, the death experience, and transform it into happiness, instead of the death experience becoming terrifying, something to be afraid of. If we can transform it like that at the time of death, we don’t have any worries, any fears, any doubts.

Especially, we can realize that when we die it’s a way to leave this old body and take a fresh, new body that has better conditions to practice Dharma. Therefore, with that new body, we are able to develop the mind more fully on the path to enlightenment. That is the explanation of how we can even achieve the happiness of the future lives. Again, to receive the body of a happy migratory being, the cause is to practice morality, by taking the vows, the precepts, by practicing morality. Even when this is explained, if we are unable to practice morality, unable to take the precepts, that is due to the mind being overwhelmed by delusion. We are unable to practice morality even when this is explained because our mind overwhelmed by desire, clinging to this life and then the concept of permanence, the thought that we are going to live long. Every day, every day we have this concept of permanence, “I am going to live for a long time.” This concept continues even on the same day that we are going to have a heart attack and die. On the same day that we going to have a car accident and die, we still hold this concept, “I am going to live for long time,” that continues even on that day, even in that morning. This wrong concept “I am going to live for a long time” continues even up until the minute before the car accident is happening or just a minute before the airplane crash. This concept of permanence, “I am going to live for many years” continues even in the same day of the death. Even the minute before death, this wrong concept that we will live for a long time happens, even just the minute before death.

Therefore, there is nothing to trust in this belief. Believing, following, this concept of permanence, that we will live for many years, only becomes the basis for the arising of the delusions of anger, attachment and so forth. It becomes the basis for laziness. This concept of permanence causes us to put off the practice. It only delays the practice. Even when we think of Dharma, even if we think that to practice meditation is a good thing to do, even while we have an understanding that practicing Dharma is a good thing to do in life, still it is always put off. It is always put off, until next year, or in the future or next life, including practicing morality by taking precepts. This concept of permanence, that “I am going to live for a long time,” this causes laziness and so forth; it is the basis for delusions, basis for the desire, the clinging to this life, the clinging to the comfort of this life and so forth. It doesn’t let us practice Dharma. So now, even when we accept or understand that it is a good thing to do, we are still unable to practice.

Relating to oneself, even for one who has taken the vows, the precepts, it is extremely difficult to show one vow that is pure. Keeping one vow purely is difficult to find; very few really keep it purely. What’s kept pure is only a very little number, if there are even any kept pure. Even after hearing the Dharma, the cause of happiness, the cause of the future life, the good rebirth, the body of the happy migratory being, even after hearing that, protecting morality, making charity, which is the support for that, and then dedicating the merit, which connects our future life to the body of the happy migratory being, by listening to the teaching, by studying Dharma—even when we understand all this, that doesn’t mean we are immediately able to practice. Even if we have the understanding, it is still difficult to take even the five precepts for a lifetime, even difficult to take even one precept for a lifetime. And difficult to take eight precepts for one day! So, people are unable to practice pure morality. Even relating to our own experience, it’s difficult to practice morality, even if we have taken a vow, it’s difficult to keep it pure. Leaving aside a perfect human body, without pure morality we cannot even receive an ordinary human body, a body that is just enough to receive the name “human” or “human body.” To even receive an ordinary human body depends on creating the cause, pure morality.

Even if we have practiced so much charity, giving things to other sentient beings, but not practiced morality, then without that morality, even though we have accumulated much merit by making charity to other sentient beings, the body that we will have to take after this life will be a body of a suffering migratory being: an animal rebirth as naga, a wealthy naga. Even though we have accumulated a lot of merit by making charity, without having practiced morality, this is what will happen in the future rebirth. Even having accumulated a lot of merit by having made charity, if we have taken a vow but let it degenerate, being unable to keep it purely, then this is also what happens, an animal rebirth in the next life, an animal rebirth such as naga, a wealthy naga, having lots of enjoyment, having lots of wealth, but still an animal body, which is not like our present body that has this unbelievable opportunity to achieve all these three great meanings, which is the basis for doing whatever we wish, attaining all these different levels of happiness; whatever we wish we can achieve.

Therefore, Shantideva is asking if we don’t get to obtain benefit in this life then how can we find this perfect human body in the future life, which implies that we won’t be able to achieve it.

In conclusion, as is mentioned in the teachings by the holy beings, to know what we have done in our past life has done, we should look at this present body. And to know where we will go in our next life, we should look at our present karma, our present actions. We can understand what have done in the past life by looking at the present human body. This precious human body we have received is a result of what we did in our own past life one. That means in the past life we have done a good job.

Having practiced pure morality and having practiced charity as we just spoke about, we dedicated the merits and that made it possible to have this precious human body, this perfect human body, in this life time. That means, in our past life we created the eighteen causes, as we have received a perfect human body this time. In our own past life we have created the eighteen causes, so in our past life we have done good, practicing Dharma. In our past life we succeeded, we did a good job. Now the question is what will happen to us in the next life? Where will we go? Will we go to the realms of the happy migratory beings or the suffering migratory realms? Where will we go? That is up to us. We can understand the answer to that question by examining the present karma, the present actions of our everyday life, our day to day life actions of body, speech and mind.

WHAT IS NONVIRTUOUS?
First, we must define the meaning of a nonvirtuous action, an action that brings a suffering result, such as the body of the suffering migratory being, a narak or hell being, a hungry ghost or preta, an animal—an action that brings one of these suffering rebirths. The definition of a nonvirtue, of a nonvirtuous action is any action that brings the result of suffering, motivated by ignorance, desire or anger.

If you examine your actions as you are getting up and dressing in the morning, what motivation do you have? If you are just like me, whose mind has been so habituated to always living life under the control of delusion, then when you get up and dress in the morning, if you examine your motivation, you’ll find your motivation is of attachment, clinging to this life’s comfort. When you are washing, again the motivation is desire, attachment, clinging to this life, to this life’s comfort. There is no renunciation; there is no bodhicitta, no right view. There is no Dharma, no lamrim. There is neither the common path nor a tantra meditation. When you have breakfast the motivation is again the desire clinging to this life, nonvirtuous thoughts. Then when you go to work, again the motivation is not Dharma; again it’s attachment, clinging to this life, clinging to this life’s comfort, to pleasure, to this life’s enjoyment. Again it becomes nonvirtuous. Because the motivation is nonvirtue, the action becomes nonvirtuous. For four hours or eight hours, how many hours you spend at work, it is like that. Talking to people in that day, again the motivation is not a Dharma motivation; there is no renunciation, no bodhicitta, no right view. There’s no Dharma motivation. Again the motivation is desire, clinging to this life’s comfort, which is nonvirtuous. So again all the actions of speech, talking, all become nonvirtue. Then every action of the body, wherever you go, shopping or going back to home or whatever, wherever you go, again the motivation is not Dharma, but the opposite. The motivation is not Dharma, the mind free mind from anger and attachment, clinging to this life; it’s not a healthy mind. Instead it is the opposite to holy Dharma. The motivation is worldly dharma, that which receives the name “nonvirtue.”

Why does it receive the name “nonvirtue?” Not simply anger, ignorance and desire clinging to this life, not simply that, but these actions make the mental continuum unpeaceful; the effect is unpeaceful, disturbing, obscuring. The effect we get from these thoughts in the mental continuum is not peace, not happiness. An action motivated by this results only in suffering. That’s why this attitude receives the label “nonvirtue,” by the function, by the effect, by the negative consequence. It has the negative effect, one opposite to peace and happiness. How many actions of eating and drinking that are done, all these are motivated by the desire clinging to this life, and so they’re nonvirtue; all these actions become nonvirtue.

All the actions of the body, such as eating, drinking or walking, become nonvirtue. All the actions of eating become nonvirtue. Even going to bed at the end of day again the motivation is difficult to find it becoming Dharma. It’s difficult to find it becoming Dharma. The attitude we have when we go to bed, we go to sleep, it’s difficult to find that which is Dharma. It is the desire clinging to this life’s comfort, happiness, is that which is nonvirtue. So how many hours we sleep, eight hours or how many hours we sleep, it all becomes nonvirtue. All this resting, because the motivation is like this, one of the poisonous minds, most of the motivation is desire clinging to this life, for that many hours, with this motivation that many hours of even resting, becomes nonvirtue. Then, even if we try to practice Dharma, it is difficult to become pure Dharma practice. Even if we try to practice Dharma, the motivation is nonvirtue because of not having bodhicitta, not having right view, not even remembering impermanence and death. Again, the motivation is attachment, clinging to this life. Even when we try to practice Dharma it doesn’t become pure. Even though we try to practice Dharma, it doesn’t become holy Dharma.

Even if we try to accumulate virtue, there’s no virtuous motivation, or even if there is a virtuous motivation at the beginning, the actual body, the meditation or whatever it is, is not perfect, not correctly done, because the motivation becomes lost. Then, even if that is done well there is no dedication, there is no completion, there is a dedication but it is not pure. Even if there is some merit accumulated, it is destroyed by anger and heresy. If we have created some merit at least, it is destroyed by anger and heresy, and also pride. The power of the merit is made much weaker by pride. It is so difficult to create a perfect action, to make everything perfect: the preliminary, actual body and the completion. It’s very rare for everything to be perfect.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult to find a body of a happy migratory being, without talking about a perfect human body. Now, the purpose of listening to the Dharma, of understanding the Dharma, is to practice, to generate the realizations of path to enlightenment within our own mental continuum as much as possible.

FEARLESSNESS AT THE TIME OF DEATH
Now what is the fundamental practice, what is the fundamental practice of Dharma? What is the fundamental practice of Dharma? What is the beginning of Dharma practice? It is protecting karma. Protecting karma, abandoning nonvirtuous actions, negative karma, and practicing good karma. Protecting the karma is the fundamental Dharma. Protecting karma is the beginning of Dharma practice.

Taking the eight Mahayana precepts is abstaining from the eight negative karmas. Abandoning the eight negative karmas and accumulating or creating of the eight virtues, the eight good karmas, the eight causes of happiness. The eight causes of happiness of future lives, of the body of the happy migratory beings, the perfect human body, the eight causes of the liberation from samsara. Because we take the eight precepts with a bodhicitta motivation, we create eight causes of enlightenment. We create eight causes to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. In other words, we create eight causes, the eight precepts, the eight good karmas, in order to free the numberless sentient beings from all the sufferings, the obscurations, and especially to lead them to full enlightenment.

This is the best preparation for death. This is how to live life and how to die, living and dying. This is best way of living, the best way to live life, and the best way to die, the best preparation for death. When death comes, the day death comes to us, when it’s our own turn to experience death, if we have been living our life this way, protecting our karma, practicing morality, then the day death happens, we doesn’t need to take refuge in somebody else. We don’t have to rely on a hospice, we don’t need help. We don’t need to take refuge in some other people when we are dying, because, during our own life, by protecting our karma, by living in morality, we have purified so many obscurations, purified so much negative karma, accumulated so much merit, that we have guided ourselves without the need to rely upon others. We have made preparations for our death already in our own life. Therefore, the day death comes there is no regret. There is no regret; there is much satisfaction in our own heart, that we have done good, that we have lived a good life, that we have abandoned so many negative karmas and accumulated so much good karma by living in pure morality.

There is so much satisfaction in our own heart and there is so much confidence. It gives us so much confidence, and we have no worry, no doubt, no fear. There is no fear of death. Even while we are experiencing death, there is no fear. There’s a happy mind, there’s confidence. We feel secure. There is no danger, no risk to reincarnate in the lower realms. We have full confidence that we will receive the body of a happy migratory being, even higher than our current body, even better than that, like going to pure realm, the pure realm of Amitabha and so forth. Those different buddhas’, those different deity’s pure lands where is no suffering, where there is no suffering of death, of rebirth, old age or sicknesses. Where there is opportunity to practice tantra and to become enlightened by receiving teachings directly from the deity of the pure lands, such as from Amitabha Buddha if it is Amitabha’s pure land.

As it is mentioned in the teachings, at the time of death the mind of the best Dharma practitioner is so happy, like the mind of one so happy to be going to a picnic. Like returning home to meet the family, the mind is extremely happy. The middle Dharma practitioner doesn’t have any difficulties at the time of death; experiencing death doesn’t bother him. Death does not disturb the mind. He’s happy, comfortable. Then, for the last practitioner of Dharma at time of death there is no regret, no sense of being upset in the mind.

Therefore, what we are doing here, taking the eight Mahayana precepts and doing meditation, all these things, is so worthwhile, even though something the mind finds it difficult, getting up early in the morning, shortening the sleep and so forth. But even though we might finds it uncomfortable, actually it is not the whole mind that finds it difficult. The desire, clinging to this life—that is what finds it difficult. That mind, the attachment, clinging to this life, that is the one that finds it difficult to do these things. It is not the whole mind, our compassion, our loving kindness and so forth don’t find it difficult to take precepts, to do the meditation practice. Our compassion, our loving kindness don’t find it difficult, our bodhicitta doesn’t find it difficult, our right view doesn’t find it difficult. Of course, it looks at everything as empty. With the right view in the mind, that mind looks at everything as empty. So of course there’s no question. However, just this one delusion, desire, clinging, attachment to this life, that mind finds it difficult to do these practices. It is not the whole mind. It looks like the whole mind is finding it difficult, but it is not the whole mind.

What we are doing here, the very last thing, even the very last thing, is something for which there will be no regret in the future. Even if we find discomfort, hunger, thirst, pain in the body, hot and cold, all these things, even though they appear difficult, all these things are to do with the mind, to do with the way of thinking and how much understanding of Dharma we have. How much understanding of karma we have and our way thinking decide whether all these things become something to enjoy, becomes something extremely worthwhile, or whether we find them difficult. It depends on how much understanding of Dharma we have, especially karma, how much understanding of karma, having the faith in karma. This is something to enjoy. Besides having no regret in the long run, it is something that brings no regret now. There is no regret now and in future. There is no regret anytime. Then, on top of that, there’s something to enjoy. To enjoy and rejoice in now and in the future. It is something which has the results of infinite merit.

I’ll mention one story then I’ll stop there. [Rinpoche laughs] This is comparing the merit of a person who doesn’t live in any vow, any precept. Three galaxies of the worlds filled with precious jewels, even the number of jewels that is equaling number of the sand grains of the River Ganges, the very long, very large Indian river, equaling even that, equaling number of the sand grains of the River Ganges. If we make offering of that number of jewels to the buddhas, and another person not living in any vow makes that offering. The texts also mention a person who doesn’t live in any vows, but who then offers oceans of butter, Atlantic Oceans of butter, and Mt. Merus of wax to makes light offering of this great size to the buddhas. Then a second person, who does live in the vows, in the precepts, who makes light offering with wax the size of a hair and butter the size of a mustard seed, and butter, like that making light offerings to the buddhas. The merit that this person accumulates is far greater, so much more than the first person who makes unbelievable extensive offering to buddhas but without living in the vows, who hasn’t taken any precepts. So there are huge differences in the merit. Even though the second person’s offering is so tiny, the merit is like the sky, so much. Therefore it is extremely worthwhile to attempt, as much as possible, to practice morality by taking the eight Mahayana precepts. Here it’s not just one vow but eight. It’s unbelievably fortunate that at this time that we have this opportunity to practice morality with these eight Mahayana precepts. Each precept, as it’s taken with bodhicitta, has the merit infinite like the sky.

I heard that in some countries, in this country New Guinea, there are people who live in the forest, like Red Indians or like this. Anyway, some white people, a family went there to learn their native culture. They were missionaries. In order to test their trust, to find out if the missionary family were sincere, that they sincerely wanted to learn their life, the native life, the native people made the whole family—the father, mother and children—eat mice. If everybody could eat mice, living mice not dead mice, [Rinpoche laughs] if they were able to eat living mice, the natives would be convinced they were sincere. So, you see, in the world, they had to eat mice in order to learn the natives’ culture.

Anyway, in the world people do all sorts of things. [Rinpoche laughs] People give up their life, they sacrifice their life, in order to have a name. Even if the person cannot tell whether he will come back, he will return back home or not, even if the person cannot guarantee it. No matter how much risk there is to climb snow mountains, to climb the very dangerous peaks, for example, no matter how much danger there is to life and he cannot tell whether he will ever return home or not, to see his family again [he will still do it to get a name]. No matter how much danger there is, even if he has to climb the mountain by taking the most difficult route, the one that no other people cannot climb, some people especially put effort in that way. People sacrifice their life, they give up their life, they risk their life, no matter how much danger there is, just to get this reputation, this name, for their own name to become famous, to have fame in the world.

Even if the person doesn’t die, he succeeds with many hardships, he is able to climb to the top and succeed, and he get a big reputation in the world and some wealth, some money, what does it benefit? The day the person dies—and sooner or later he has to since he not free from the nature of impermanence and death—after some months, some years, on the day of his death all this reputation, even the person had succeeded, what can it do to help? Nothing.

The day of the death all this becomes completely empty. All this wealth is completely empty; all this reputation is nothing on the day of the death, nothing. There is no one single benefit for the next life, to receive good rebirth or to not to be born in the lower realm. There is not a single benefit. It cannot stop rebirth in the lower rebirth; it cannot make him receive deva’s or a human body, to achieve liberation from samsara, to achieve full enlightenment, nothing. For people in general, the motivation is simply attachment, clinging to this life, so everything becomes nonvirtue. All the actions that person puts effort into, climbing mountains and all these things, all the expenses that person spends, the many millions of dollars that he spends, all the travelling, everything, becomes nonvirtue because of the motivation. If the person dies, he dies by following nonvirtue. In other words, person has sacrificed his life for negative karma. In reality, his life becomes completely empty, completely empty. And, on top of that, he accumulates all the negative karmas. There are many examples like this.

We cannot say how much longer we will have this opportunity to practice like this. We cannot say, we cannot know how long we have this opportunity to take the eight Mahayana precepts, to practice lamrim, the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment. Therefore, it is extremely worthwhile to put every effort, as much as possible, as I mentioned before, that what we are doing here is something which has no regret now and none in the future. And on top of that, is only a cause to be even happier in the future, even to rejoice to be happier.

[Rinpoche Chants]

Due to the three times’ merits accumulated by myself, by the bodhisattvas and sentient beings, may the bodhicitta be generated within my own mind, the mind of other sentient beings, those who have never developed it.

[Rinpoche Chants]

Due to all the three times’ merit accumulated by myself, by the bodhisattvas, sentient beings from now on may my actions of body, speech and mind, never become the slightest harm to any sentient being and become greatest benefit for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Whatever I have experienced in life, happiness, suffering, living or dying, even rebirth in hell, or rebirth in the deva, human body, whatever I experience, whatever rebirth I experience, may all these became only the greatest benefit for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Due to all the past, present and future merits accumulated by myself, by bodhisattvas, sentient beings, that which are empty, may the I, who is empty, achieve the Buddha’s enlightenment, which is empty, and lead all the sentient beings, who are empty, to that enlightenment as quickly as possible by myself alone.

[Rinpoche Chants]

When I was talking about living in the precepts, I think I made one mistake. One quotation, I made mistake about three galaxies filled with the precious jewels and the making offering equaling the number of sand grains of the River Ganges, making offering to the buddhas, that one I got mixed up. The quotation was from the Heap of Jewels Sutra. There are three galaxies of sentient beings, they all reincarnate as wheel turning kings. “Wheel turning king” means a king who has no other king at the same level as competition in the same world. If there is then that’s not a wheel turning king. In that world there is no other king that can compete with that king. In other words, he is the one who controls the whole world. There is no other king who can compete with power, wealth and so forth, with that king.

So there is a wheel turning king who controls one continent, two continents, like deva realm an so forth There are different types of wheel turning kings, the one who has most control and most power, wealth. So three galaxies, that many worlds of sentient beings reincarnate as wheel turning kings, every one of them reincarnates as a wheel turning king, and then every one of them offers oceans of butter and Mt. Merus of wax, makes offering to the stupas, representing the Buddha’s holy mind. It can be said to be symbolic, or, in other words, a manifestation. To a person, towards sentient beings who have the karma to, who have the merit that they, that can see holy object, stupa, and with that their mind can be purified and they can accumulate merit. So, it is symbolic of the Buddha’s holy mind or, in other words, a manifestation to those sentient beings who have the merit, the level of mind, to see these holy objects.

So the three galaxies of sentient beings reincarnate as wheel turning kings and make that many offerings of oceans of butter, that many Mt. Merus of wax, each of them—not the whole group but each of them—making offerings to stupas. The length of time this lasts, I don’t remember clearly, is the same number of eons equaling the number of drops of water in an ocean. This last part I’m not a hundred percent sure about, I’m not clear, but might be something like that.

However, this one person who living in the vow, in ordination, with renunciation, makes a tiny offering of butter the size of a mustard seed and a tiny amount of wax size of a hair, making offering to the Buddha. This person accumulated far more greater merit than all those three galaxies of sentient beings who have each reincarnated as wheel turning kings and have made such inconceivable extensive offering to the holy objects, the very powerful holy objects, such as stupas. So that is the quotation from the sutra. What I mentioned before wasn’t correct. That wasn’t exactly what I explained.

The reason why I was emphasizing so much about precepts, the conclusion, because yesterday, the other morning, when I gave precepts, there were not that many. There were many of you, but there are quite a number, and according to number how many there are total, not that many there during the precepts. So I felt sort of unbearable that it’s something, a place where you can get a wish-granting jewel, you are in a place where you can get a wish-granting jewel, that which fulfills all your wishes. In a place where you can pick up a wish-granting jewel, but you are not picking it up. There are wish-granting jewels and you can pick up as many as you want by being in this place, but by not taking it, by not taking opportunity, you are losing so much, missing so much, missing so much opportunity. You are missing out on something that is extremely worthwhile, to practice, to benefit, even without thinking about happiness of others, even just only your own happiness, now and in the future, so much benefit.

THE TIME OF DEATH IS UNCERTAIN
If we are already enlightened, then we have already finished the work of accumulating merit, and ceased purifying the mistakes of the mind, the obscurations. If we have finished the work, if we have completed all this, then we are enlightened. Then there is nothing more, there are no more qualities to achieve, no more realizations to achieve, no more compassion to be developed; it’s completed. There’s no more understanding to achieve, no more power to benefit others to achieve; everything is completed, all the qualities. Then we don’t need to practice. There is no need to practice.

But we are not even free from the samsara. We are not free, we are not liberated even from the cycle of death and rebirth, old age and sicknesses, we haven’t overcome even death. We haven’t even overcome death and rebirth. Death is riding on us, we are not riding over death. Instead of us riding over the death, death is riding over us. Instead of death being under our control, it is controlling us. We are under the control of the Lord of Death. So we are not even liberated from this. Death could happen tonight, death could happen tonight in the middle of our sleep, suddenly death could happen in the middle of our sleep, in the tent or in the room or in the sleeping bag. Warm death! [Rinpoche laughs] Anyway, I am joking. But if it happened suddenly now, right at this hour, some may have full confidence, no fear at all about reincarnating, no danger of being reborn in the suffering realms—the hell, hungry ghost or animal realm—but for most of us it may not be like that.

What is the protection? What is the protection to guard us, to save us, to guide us from the unimaginable sufferings of the lower realms? How do we make sure if the death happens right now, this hour, this moment, how do we make sure not to fall into the lower suffering realms? Death is like the deep ocean, like once we throw a stone into the very deep ocean, we’re not sure when the stone will come back to the shore. We’re not sure when. There is no security, and this security is the most important. Security is what we should achieve immediately, we should have it without delay of even a second. The security, this is the confidence we need so there is no need to fear.

People in the world make plans. People plan to build a house, to have property, to have a means of living. For that, they work so hard, besides just in the day time, even at the night they work so hard for the happiness of the coming years, the future coming years. They work so hard, they work so hard to make sure they survive, to not have difficulties, to have comfort and happiness. All those coming years—the next year, next month, next week, tomorrow—they work so hard for that from the time they were in kindergarten, from childhood. By going to kindergarten, in the form of play, learning—starting from there for twenty years, there are many years of education, school, college, university, however many years of education, and then after getting a degree they work so hard in order to not have difficulties in the present life, especially the coming future years of this present life.

However, until we are liberated from death, until we have control over death, either by achieving the lesser vehicle path, those arya paths, by having wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, by achieving the right-seeing path, the arya path, the path of meditation and so forth, or the bodhisattvas’ arya path, or according to tantra, by having achieved the completion stage clear light—until we reach those levels of the path, there is no freedom, there is no control over death. We have no freedom from death. Until we are able to develop the mind in the path and achieve those levels, since we are still under the control of death, what’s definitely going to happen is death. And that can happen any time. That can happen any day, any hour, any moment of life.

There is future life, the same as there was past life. That will still be from parents, whose body and mind is the nature of suffering, but we still may be born a child, a living being to that family whose body and mind is not like that of the parents, is of different quality. Even the parents’ minds are of an impatient nature, an angry nature, we may be born as a child who has no anger, only patience, not having anger at all. That child is born so much in the nature of patience, with no anger at all. The nature of the parents’ minds is still very egotistic, very ordinary, motived by selfishness, but the child born to that family is child without ego, with the good heart cherishing others, concerned for others as themselves, for all other living beings, a very compassionate nature. A child which may have unbelievable wisdom that the parents did not have, might be born with that quality of mind. So many experiences like this have happened, not only in the East but also in the West. This kind of story, this experience, has happened in many different places. The child has a very different personality from the parents and from the other children from the same parents. There are so many young and old who are able to remember past lives and even who are able to see future lives then able to tell others, other people’s past and future lives. Even in the West there are many people who are able to tell this, many who are born with that power of mind. Some develop it in this life.

WE CAN’T PROVE THERE ARE NO PAST OR FUTURE LIVES
Perhaps we believe all these stories, those of His Holiness Dalai Lama remembering his past or so forth. There are many stories of great holy beings and other ordinary beings who can remember so many of their past life stories. Those are explained, written, in books. However, if we think all these are not true, they’re just imagined, what happened is this and this and that it’s all just imagined, it actually didn’t happen, in that case, it’s the same thing. The person who believes there is one life, who thinks there is no past or future life, that it’s just imagined, in that case, it’s the same thing as the other person who says this. It is the same debate back to that person who believes in only one life, no past or future life, As far as that argument goes it is the same thing, that is also not true because that’s just imagined, just visualized, just imagined that there is no past or future life, just this one life. That’s also just imagined.

However the very bottom line is any individual person who says there is no past or future life, any person who comes to that conclusion, it is because past and future lives are not that person’s experience. That’s the basic reason that person can’t accept this. That means that anything he doesn’t know, anything he hasn’t realized, anything he hasn’t had the experience of, he cannot believe. Then everything becomes nonexistent. Anything that the person doesn’t know, anything he hasn’t discovered, all the rest of the phenomena he hasn’t discovered, hasn’t realized, doesn’t know—these are objects that are discovered, that are object of knowledge to other living beings, other sentient beings, other enlightened beings who have completely ceased the two obscurations, completely ceased all the defilements of the mind. There are many other phenomena, like limitless sky, that are not the object of that person’s knowledge now, but are objects of knowledge of many other sentient beings, object of many of other sentient beings’ valid minds, true minds, unbetrayable minds, as well as those fully enlightened beings who have completely ceased all the two obscurations.

By checking, it comes down to the basic reason for his disbelief is whatever that person hasn’t realized or hasn’t experienced—all the rest of phenomena he doesn’t see—do not exist. By questioning, it comes down to this bottom reason, the reason underneath is very simple. In that case, according to this, why shouldn’t he learn? In the same way, whatever the person doesn’t know, all the other objects of knowledge wouldn’t exist, for example, knowledge of past and future lives, karma and so forth. Like the knowledge that by practicing morality we can receive a deva’s body or a human body, a good rebirth and so forth. Or the knowledge that by not practicing morality, by engaging in the ten nonvirtuous actions and so forth, we create rebirths in the lower realms, in the body of a suffering migratory being.

Simply because all these things that he can’t see are not part of his own experience, they are not already his knowledge, that means anything that person doesn’t know, there is nothing to learn. There is nothing more to learn for that person because anything that person doesn’t know already doesn’t exist. It simply comes to this point.

It also means all these holy beings who talk about others or our own past and future, if all these are just not realized with this valid mind, they have just imagined it, just visualized it. If it is just a visualization, then the conclusion is that His Holiness and all the holy beings who talk about these experiences, they are all telling lies. If all these holy beings are telling lies then there is nobody in the world we can trust. There is nobody, there is no one living being we can trust. There is nobody in existence we can trust.

Then in this case, if the person himself doesn’t know what is the truth and what is false, if he doesn’t have the wisdom, then how can he trust even himself? If he doesn’t know the difference between what’s false and what’s reality, if he doesn’t have wisdom, then nothing can be trusted. According to this point of view there is nobody in the world who can be trusted—even that person. How can he have trust even in himself?

Following this line of argument, there is great danger that we cheat ourselves. If we don’t have wisdom then there is a great danger that we cheat ourselves. We hallucinate ourselves. If we don’t have the wisdom to discriminate what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s right and to be practiced and what’s wrong and to be abandoned, if we don’t have this wisdom, it becomes questionable that we can have trust even ourselves.

According to that person’s philosophy, the bottom line becomes like saying if karma, past lives, reincarnation and so forth actually exist then we should be able to discover them. The person is not saying exactly like this but the way he argues he implies this.

This line of argument doesn’t work, however. As His Holiness Zong Rinpoche often said, assuming past and future lives don’t exist or karma isn’t infallible—from positive karma the resultant happiness in the future is experienced and from nonvirtue suffering is experienced—when you assume something doesn’t exist simply because you don’t see it, then you have to deny that the back of your own head exists. If we ask that person to demonstrate conclusively that he won’t die tomorrow, he won’t be able to tell, except to say with a sincere mind, with straight mind, “I don’t know.” With a sincere, straight mind, the very bottom answer would be, “I don’t know.”

Generally speaking this kind of explanation, of philosophy, comes during childhood. Generally speaking, a child’s mind is a fresh mind, it’s like white fog; it’s a fresh mind. During childhood the mind is fresh. Then, depending on what society believes, society shapes that fresh mind that way. That fresh mind doesn’t have a particular philosophy, doesn’t believe in this and that. Depending on what kind of society that we are born in, the culture or society, the philosophy, this way of believing, having this philosophy, is what is taught first, what is introduced to the mind first. Then, because there was no other knowledge before that, since we don’t have the wisdom to be able to discriminate what is right and wrong, what is the false and what is the truth, whatever philosophy is taught, whatever belief the culture introduces, then of course we accept it. This is what happens. This is why people can assert things like this.

I think the clock can go to bed. [Rinpoche laughs]

Anyway, there is no wisdom from that person’s own side to analyze, to realize what is false and what is truth, what is right and wrong. Then, he accepts whatever is introduced first, the culture or belief, the philosophy. This doesn’t happen in every case but generally it’s like that.

In reality, there is nobody who has realized that there are no past or future lives. There is no one who has realized this, who has discovered this. There is nobody who, through meditation, by developing the mind, who has discovered, who has realized there is no past or future lives, nobody. By developing the power of mind, by purifying the mind, by developing the mental capacity, those who have realized there are past and future lives are numberless. And even through, according to our own experiences, by opening the heart, by opening the mind to learn different cultures…

[An alarm goes off marking midnight] [Rinpoche laughs]

…especially the Buddhadharma, the unmistaken path, the peace revealed by the kind, compassionate Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. Especially by studying and through meditation practice we get experiences and discover things we didn’t believe in the past, we didn’t believe before, new experiences.

There are great differences, effects to the mind, between just visualizing, just imagining, and our own mind actually being able to recollect past lives or able to see future lives. There are great differences in the effect. There are huge differences in the effect and in the experience of these two minds. Just visualizing, just imagining, or realizing, actually seeing, there are huge differences.

WE CAN HAVE FAITH IN THE BUDDHA’S WORDS
The way of discovering the phenomena is explained in three ways. First, some phenomena can be discovered through direct perception. Some phenomena are able to be discovered through direct perception, but some phenomena can’t be discovered through direct perception. The way to discover some phenomena is by the inferential, valid cognition. And, since we have neither the common attainment, clairvoyance, nor the omniscient mind, the sublime realization, the third way to discover phenomena is only by having faith in the quotations. Not just anybody’s quotations, not just quotations by anybody who says something, but quotations by the Omniscient One. We have faith in the quotations said by the one who has ceased all the obscurations and has completed all the qualities, who has all the realizations, where there is not the slightest mistake, not the slightest defilement. There’s not one slightest resistance, that mind can see every single existence directly, all the past, present and future times all at the same time. That mind can see everything all at the same time, directly.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha explained karma. The Buddha explained that by practicing morality we will achieve the result of a human body in future lives and by practicing charity we will achieve the result of wealth and so forth. In the beginning, in the past, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha himself was like us, having all the mistakes, like us having all the delusions, having all the mistakes, having all the suffering of samsara.

But, in time, he met the virtuous friend who revealed the unmistaken path, and by depending on that he changed the attitude from cherishing oneself into cherishing other sentient beings. Then, with this attitude, for so many eons, innumerable number of eons, by following the path, he accumulated extensive merits. By bearing many hardships for the benefit of sentient beings, he achieved full enlightenment, the state of the omniscient mind. Then, exactly as he himself proceeded on the path to enlightenment, how he himself actualized the path, the Buddha revealed that method exactly to sentient beings.

Then, innumerable numbers of sentient beings, those who practiced correctly as the Buddha has shown, had the same experience, ceased all the obscurations and achieved full enlightenment, the state that has the complete quality of cessation and realizations. Those innumerable numbers of yogis, pandits, those who experienced this, they analyzed those teachings. They put them into practice and so reached enlightenment. What the Buddha actualized, innumerable numbers of living beings have also reached that same goal. Like this, the Buddha’s teachings are valid, undeceiving. They don’t cheat us; they are undeceiving. Therefore, the Buddha is the true founder, the valid founder that we can trust. He is the true founder, one in whom we can take refuge without danger.

One more reason we can have faith in the Buddha’s teachings, or quotes or quotations about the teachings on karma and these things: if what the Buddha explained on karma received harm from another omniscient one, if it could be negated or harmed by another omniscient one, by another buddha, only then can it become a subject to question or doubt. But if there’s no opposing quotation, there’s no negation from another omniscient one, it doesn’t receive harm. There may be other quotations denying or opposing the Buddha’s teachings from other beings, from other pandits, but there is no opposite quotation from another omniscient one. Therefore this is the reason we can have faith in the Buddha’s teachings, faith in karma, in these quotations. However, the basic reason to trust him, maybe not so much even the knowledge itself, I think, is how the Buddha has completed the mind of compassion; the Buddha has completed the mind training in compassion towards all sentient beings, without leaving even one, without exception.

I think that this compassion is the most important thing. Even if there’s knowledge but there is no compassion, somebody can cheat us. A person who has so much education, so much knowledge, but who doesn’t have compassion, he can still cheat us, he can give us a lot of harm. I think the main reason we can trust the Buddha is because of his compassion. The main thing is that the Buddha has completed the mind training in compassion. This is my own thinking. So, however, this third of the types of phenomena, such as past and future lives, karma and so forth—by practicing morality we can achieve deva body in next life or that actions opposite to morality, such as ten nonvirtuous actions and so forth, cause us to receive the body of a suffering migrating being—these types of phenomena, if we doesn’t have either clairvoyance or the omniscient mind, then the way to discover these phenomena is by having faith in the Omniscient One’s quotations. That’s the only way.

ONLY TWO WAYS TO GO AFTER DEATH—PRACTICE MORALITY
What I was saying before is that if death happened, [Rinpoche laughs] if death happened, if death happened tonight or right now, there are only two ways to go, there’s no third way. Either we go to the lower realms or to the realms of the happy migrator being. The cause of the lower realms is nonvirtue, as Nagarjuna explained. The action born from the ignorance, anger and attachment is a nonvirtue. From that, all the evil migrator beings, all the suffering migrations arise. The action born from non-attachment, non-anger, non-ignorance, that is a virtue. From that all the happy migrator beings arise. The Second Buddha, the savior, the glorious Nagarjuna, explained this.

Therefore, from this moment, from this second, until death, each day, each hour, each minute, each second, is a time to decide, a time we have the opportunity to choose where to go. Whether to go to the lower realms or whether to go to the realms of the happy migrator being. Where to go? It is time to choose. Each moment of life, each second of life, is so crucial, very crucial, an unbelievably important time to decide this, and we have the opportunity.

So, therefore now, coming back, [Rinpoche laughs] we need to accumulate merit, to create good karma. That especially means practicing morality. Even if we can’t take all the eight precepts, due to health and so forth, even if we can’t take all eight, we should take even seven, six, even five, whatever number, as many as possible to take, to practice. It becomes so crucial, it becomes the unbelievably important answer, the solution.

LABELING PHENOMENA
I just want to mention tomorrow’s meditation, then I’ll stop there. I’m not going to go like last night. But, I think that last night can cover all those past week’s teachings. [Rinpoche laughs] Anyway, yesterday’s long teaching becomes a double teaching on the basis of the great Geshe Pende’s teachings. Anyway, it becomes double. From tomorrow, I think it is very good maybe each day to practice strong mindfulness, not only during meditation, but especially, also in break times, on the three principal aspects of the path. Then it becomes real research or real, deep analysis. So, especially during the break time.

I often give, the same example. A person who comes here but has not been introduced, “This is Kopan,” a person who is not introduced, somebody telling him, “This is Kopan.” He comes from this tent or from there, but he doesn’t know that this is Kopan. Until that person is introduced by somebody, “This is Kopan,” he has the appearance of the buildings, the mountains, the hill, all these things, but he doesn’t have the appearance that “This is Kopan.” That is because the person hasn’t labeled it; his own mind has not labeled this is Kopan and believed in that. That is because he has not been introduced by somebody else. It has not been taught by somebody else that this is Kopan.

So there’s no appearance that this is Kopan. Even if the person has the appearance of the hill and the monastery, there is no appearance of this “Kopan,” and that person doesn’t see that this is Kopan at that time. The minute that person is introduced by somebody else, “This is Kopan,” then his own mind makes up the label “Kopan” and then believes in that.

Then, after the belief, there’s the appearance. By believing in that, as a result, then there’s an appearance of Kopan. Only after that, then he sees this as Kopan. So, you see now, having the appearance of Kopan and seeing Kopan, “This is Kopan,” so you can see now where it came from. This came from that person’s own mind by labeling it, by believing in that.

In the same way, before, when we were a child, before knowing the alphabet, before we were taught the letter W, [Rinpoche writes a W in the air with his finger] before we were taught that by others, before we were introduced that by somebody, “That is a W,” there was no thought. We didn’t have the thought at that time, labeling that shape W and believing in that. Because we didn’t have this, there was no appearance of W. We saw the design, the shape, but we didn’t have the appearance that this is W, and we didn’t see that this is W at that time. What we saw was just a design, a shape, like this.

But from the day somebody taught us, “This is W,” then our mind has looked forward to that label, our mind has made up the label W and believed in that. Your mind makes up the label and we believe in that. Then, as a result, there’s appearance of W. Then, after that appearance of W, we sees that this is W.

Before seeing that this is a W, there’s a whole creation, there’s a whole evolution that has come before that—what makes it to see that this is W. So what we’re seeing as this W, it came from our own mind. What we see and the label—“This is W”—it came from our own mind.

Through this analysis it is clear. Through this analysis, we can check our own experiences and see how it happened, how we see before we are taught and how we see afterward. After we are taught, and our mind labels in the same way, we believe in that. By examining our own experiences, now, it is clear that all these things that we see, including W and so forth, come from our own mind. Therefore, this is the reality. This is the reality, but in our own view, there is the appearance.

In our own perception there is a W that it didn’t come from our own mind; it has nothing to do with our own concept of “W.” A real W, nothing to do with our own concept, nothing has come from our own mind. This is the false view. This is false. This W is false. “W” comes from our own perception. The real W has nothing to do with our own concept, that never came from our own mind, this is false. This doesn’t exist at all there; it’s empty of existing like that. But the W which comes from our own mind, which is labeled by our own mind, that exists. It exists, one can see it, one can read it. So, now, like this, the whole alphabet starting from the A down to the Z, all this we see in our own perception, it all comes from our own mind.

MIND TRAINING: OUR ENEMY IS OUR BEST FRIEND
Similarly, when our mind interprets a friend, the way the friend thinks of us, the way the friend looks at us, our own mind interpreting, “That friend doesn’t love me.” The minute our own mind interprets it like that, labels it in that way—“she doesn’t love me, she wants to hurt me”—the minute we makes up this label, this interpretation, we aren’t practicing patience. Instead of practicing patience, we’re generating anger. And with an angry mind we label it, “This is bad.” Having made up the label that “this is bad” there is now the appearance “bad.” We have the appearance of harm, of bad. There is a person who performs an action, and then we make up the label, “this person is bad,” and there’s the appearance of bad.

This is the view of the anger. Again all this has come from our own mind. All this appearance,—harmful and bad—is the appearance of the anger. We make up the label “enemy” and by believing in that, we have the appearance that it’s an enemy. All this has come from our own mind. From which mind? From the angry mind.

We have labeled that person our enemy because he thinks of us this way, he looks at us this way, seeing us as his enemy, and maybe he does have the thought to hurt us. But in the next hour, or next minute, we can practice patience with this person. In the next minute we can practice patience with this person by thinking of the benefits we can receive due to that person having anger towards us. We can see that because of the anger of that person we can complete the path, the paramita of patience, and we can achieve full enlightenment, which has infinite qualities. Because of this person we can free all sentient beings from all the sufferings and can lead all beings to full enlightenment.

In fact, completing the paramita of patience, this training, can only be done if somebody has anger towards to us. If somebody doesn’t have anger to us, completing this path can never ever happen. That means ultimately us freeing all sentient beings from all the sufferings and leading them to full enlightenment doesn’t happen. We can’t do any of this, we can’t achieve perfect work for all sentient beings. Therefore the anger of this other person becomes extremely precious. Somebody having anger towards to us becomes so precious, like jewels, like a wish-granting jewel. It’s like we have found a wish-granting jewel, a jewel that fulfills all us wishes. Somebody having anger to us becomes so precious, so precious. This is an incredible moment to develop our mind. There is an incredible need, it is so crucial that somebody has anger towards us; it’s so crucial, so urgent, so important for our practice. It becomes so precious for us. Not precious for that person, but precious for us, for our mind training.

This person becomes unbelievably kind, so precious, much more precious than the whole sky filled with gold, or billions of dollars or wish-granting jewels. This much value, this much value of material things is nothing, nothing at all compared to all this infinite benefit that we can achieve from this person having anger towards us. Ultimately, that anger of other person can bring us the benefit that we are able to liberate every sentient being from all the oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring them to full enlightenment. All this benefit which we receive by the kindness of this person with anger comes from our own mind training. All this benefit, all this infinite benefit, we cannot get, all this infinite profit or benefit we cannot achieve, even if we have skies filled with billions of dollars of gold or wish-granting jewels. Just from this we cannot achieve all this profit, this benefit. But, even if we don’t have even one dollar or one tiny piece of gold, if we practice the path, if we train our own mind on the path to enlightenment, then we can achieve all this infinite profit or benefit. In the view of patience, now this person becomes the most kind, the most helpful, the best friend. We become best friends. That person is the most helpful in developing our own mind on the path to enlightenment, to exhaust our own anger.

In the view of patience, we see this person as positive, not negative; as friend, not enemy. We see him as the opposite [to what our normal mind would see him]. I just brought this up, but anyway, what I was saying, both “enemy” and “friend” come from our own mind. This is the same thing; they come from our own mind, because of our mind’s labeling.

THE MERELY-LABELED I
In the same way, our own mind even labels the self, the I, “me.” Our own mind labels that thing over there to be a table, but the parts of the table are not its essence, the “I” of the table. Even the whole table, even the collections of all the parts, is not the “I.” Just like this, this is exactly the same, the body is not I, not “me.” Our own mind makes up the label “I,” and the reason is similar. Using this as an example, relating this to the aggregates, it is clear our own mind makes up the label, “I.” The body is not I, the mind is not I. Even the association of both, the whole body and mind aggregates combined is not I. Nothing is I. It’s clear. As there is no I on this table, as there’s no self, I, me, on this table, there’s no I, self, me, on these aggregates. There is nowhere it exists. It is exactly the same.

I started the talk by saying we even label “I” on this table. If you miss that point, then it doesn’t help when I start the meditation that way. Therefore, be clear it’s exactly the same. It’s clear that nothing of this is I, there is no I at all that exists on these aggregates. The mind, relating to the aggregates, makes up the label “I.” Because of that, then there’s appearance of I. Our own mind makes up the label “I” and believes in that. Because of that, then there is the appearance of I. First of all, now it’s clear, that the I, the appearance of I, comes from our own mind. The appearance of I comes from our own mind. It doesn’t come from outside. It doesn’t come from somewhere else. It comes from our own mind, by making up the label and believing in that. So you see, even this, the appearance of I, first we should see that the appearance of I comes from our own mind.

Just to clarify, the second point is that even though the I is merely labeled, merely imputed by our own mind, when it appears it doesn’t appear as merely labeled by the mind. The I appearing to us, although being merely labeled by the mind, as if it is what exists. That I is the truth, that what exists. After our own mind merely imputes, “I,” when it appears to our own mind, it is appearing as not merely labeled, which means there’s something from its own side. There’s something there from its own side., existing from its own side, it appears like this. However, this is false. This is the false I. This is the hallucination, this is the object to be refuted, this is what doesn’t exist, what is empty. This is what we have to realize as empty, that which is empty.

Just a few examples. At least one meditation session, meditate on this, how everything, including the I, the aggregates, the body and mind, everything—all the sense objects: forms, sounds, smells, taste, tangible objects—how these all come from the mind. Then, try to realize that whatever you are looking at—people, places, flowers, even kaka—whatever you see—ugly things, beautiful things, clean things, dirty things—whatever you see, whatever you look at, these all come from your mind. Whatever you are looking at, whatever you are seeing, it all comes from your mind. Whatever sounds you are hearing, it all comes from your own mind. Whatever taste you are experiencing is something that comes from your own mind. If you are tasting something, it comes from your mind. You’re not tasting something that comes from the outside, or which exists from its own side.

In other words, whatever tangibles, whatever you are experiencing with the body, is something that comes from your own mind, not something that comes from outside. Not something that came from the outside, without depending on your mind, without merely labeling. As I mentioned, with friend and enemy it is the same thing. How you see people, the people you are looking at, that comes from your mind. Even the sky, the clouds, all that you see, where you’re looking at, comes from your mind. It comes from your own mind by merely labeling.

This is especially important to recognize, to practice, in break times. It’s important to practice very intensively while you are eating, drinking, talking, walking, even going to the bathroom. However, especially in break time, practice by remembering the reasons, the evolution, that causes all this, that causes what you see, what is appearing. It comes from your own mind, from your own mind by labeling the thought. Do very strong concentration of this. Do this mindfulness, especially in break time, constantly being mindful that everything you experience, including the I—everything that has appearance of being in this life—is that which comes from your own mind. It comes from nowhere, but it comes from your own mind.

So this helps. This meditation, this practice of mindfulness during this meditation session and at break time, practicing mindfulness, helps. This itself becomes the practice of patience. In this way, even if somebody is angry at us, if somebody complains to us, there’s nothing to blame. There’s nothing to blame on the outside. We find nothing to blame outside because everything comes from the mind. All these appearances we experience are by our own mind labeling. So, naturally, it becomes a practice of patience. That very profound meditation doesn’t give any opportunity for anger to arise, because we don’t blame, there’s nothing to blame outside. And then also, this meditation also helps us to understand dependent arising, which means it helps us to realize emptiness.

This meditation also helps us to develop compassion, because this is the reality, this is the evolution, how we discover it, how we see it. The animals, insects, even the human beings, all these sentient beings—even though this is the reality, that whatever we see, we hear, we touch, we taste, everything, all this, everything comes from our own mind and what we see in our own view is by the merely labeling the mind—they’re not aware, they don’t see this way. And they believe that everything comes from outside, that everything is something real coming from outside, that nothing has to do with their own concept, nothing to do with their mind. Nothing to do with their concept, with their mind, but everything came from outside and on top of that, everything is something real, not merely labeled by the mind. So here it becomes even deeper, that they are suffering this hallucination, that sentient beings are trapped in the hallucination. Their lives are completely hallucinated, believing the false as a reality. Like this, it becomes a fundamental problem of their life, suffering. Therefore, when we meditate like this, when we look at other beings and see how they are hallucinated, it becomes a cause to develop compassion. So, this meditation helps us develop the three principal aspects of the path.

I’ll stop here.

Due to all the past, present and future merits accumulated by me, by bodhisattvas, by sentient beings, may all the sentient beings who touch me, who remember me, who think about me, who talk about me, may all those sentient beings never to be reborn in the lower realms from now on, and may they be liberated immediately from all the delusions, the three times’ negative karma, obscurations, and may they fully achieve enlightenment.

Due to all these three times’ merits accumulated by me, by bodhisattvas and sentient beings, may all the father-mother sentient beings have happiness, may all the three lower realms be empty forever and may all the bodhisattvas’ prayers succeed immediately. May I be able to cause this by myself alone.

[Chanting, dedication prayers]

Now, the last dedication: Due to all the past, present, and future merits accumulated by myself, by bodhisattvas and sentient beings, due to all this merit, which is merely labeled by the mind, may I, which is merely labeled by the mind, achieve perfect, complete enlightenment, which is merely labeled by the mind, and lead all sentient beings, who are merely labeled by the mind, to that enlightenment by myself alone.  

Notes

¹ Ch. 1, v. 4. [Return to text]