07 Winter Retreat 4 Venerable Chodron Sravasti Abbey January 18, 2007 Lets generate our motivation.

The Buddha spoke about three levels of dependent arising. The first one deals with conditioned phenomena, things that arise due to causes and conditions and thus are impermanent. Impermanent phenomena that arise from causes and conditions. In that category is included our body, arising from the causes--the sperm and egg of our parents and the conditions; all the food that we ate. Our mind arises from causesprevious moments of mind, particular consciousnesses are caused by the objects they perceive and the sense organs that spark that cognition or consciousness. The self also is impermanent, changing moment by moment. And so all these things exist only because the causes for them exist. So in our daily life we take these things very much for granted. They seem very solid and realour body, our mind, our self, the external worldbut none of these things exists by their own power. They only exist because their causes existed, because the conditions for them existed. So that means theyre very fragile. They dont last for even a second moment because theyre always in change change, change, change. They dont remain the same to the next moment. Sometimes theyre subject to gross impermanence; for example our body simply ceases as a body and gets recycled in nature. Otherwise its just the subtle impermanence, the human consciousness ceases at the time of death and the consciousness of our next life arises. So all these things exist under the power of other factors, theyre dependent; they exist only because the causes and conditions for them exist. So when we contemplate this, it changes our feeling about ourselves, the world around us, things dont seem quite so solid anymore and we realize that theres nothing to take for granted because its all changing and its all existing only because of its causes, not for any other reason. So its not real, existing under its own power. Because things are dependent on causes and conditions, that also means that we can enhance our good qualities. We can create the causes for bodhicitta, create the causes for the wisdom realizing emptiness, and so lets make a determination to do just thatseeing them also as dependent arising phenomena, but for the benefit of others, having the determination to put our energy into creating the causes for this bodhicitta and wisdom. Before I check in with you, I wanted to read something to youwe got a letter from Khensur Rinpoche. Dear All at Sravasti Abbey, Thank you for having me at your center and giving me an opportunity to share my experiences with you. I was deeply impressed with you all; you all listened to my talk with great interest and enthusiasm. I was most impressed with the depth of understanding you showed, which was quite evident from the questions you asked. Such questions are proofs of many years of personal reflections on the teachings. In your case whats most impressive is that you dont just acquire intellectual knowledge, you do deep personal reflections in a structured retreat situation. What Im saying is that you are doing exactly what Buddha asked of his followers: to hear, contemplate, and meditate. I was moved by your centers program and everybodys effort in practice. Now my request is that you continue on this path of learning and retreat meditation, not just a year or two, but for life. The success you achieve in your practice will go a long way to serve Buddhas teachings and set an example for other Buddhist centers. Please keep doing the same

and lending support of hand to Venerable Thubten Chodron and indeed I will remember you all in my daily practice and pray for your higher spiritual realizations. I take this opportunity to thank Venerable Tarpa for teaching exercises for my health. Please let her know that I am doing these and getting the benefits from them. Ven. Tarpa asked me a question about how to practice Calm Abiding. I didnt have time there or at LMB to write about it. Please tell her that when Steve returns from England, after I get back from New Zealand, Ill dictate and Steve will write out and then send it to her. With Best Wishes to All, Khensur Jampa Tegchog Isnt that amazing? And then he wrote another letter, Ill just read you the first paragraph here. This one was addressed to me: Thank you for having me at your center, which was established for the temporal and ultimate good of the Dharma teachings and living beings. Establishing a center for Buddhist learning and practice, and more important, running it successfully, you are rendering the greatest service to Buddha. I had a great time meeting you and the other people at your center. Isnt that amazing? And Khensur Jampa Tegchog wrote that on January 8, so it was just about ten days after he left for New Zealand. I was really touched because generally, visiting teachers dont write letters afterward, and especially with what he said. Its quite special. A couple of other things to touch base on: About the blessed water that Khensur Rinpoche recommended we do. I didnt explain before, but I think you should take a big container, and put that in, and then after you say your mantra at the end of your session go up and blow on it, and then when somebody is sick, for example Sherrys brother Gary just died, we can give a small bit, maybe one cup, when Tibetans take it you just take a little bit in your hand, so you dont give buckets and buckets, but just a small bit, but if we have a big bottle thats there during the whole retreat, then by the end of the retreat, its had quite a bit of mantra said over it and then we can share it with all the people who come to do the puja with us at the end of the retreat. Then there was a question from Karrie about doing two separate things, she said Reading the label on the cereal box and eating at the same time is utilizing mainly sense consciousnesses, so maybe your taste consciousness or your tactile consciousness moving your spoon. Reading the cereal box thats with your mental consciousness although your visual consciousness is involved as well. So you can do those at the same time but then her question wasand this came up before about saying the mantra and visualizing at the same time, because those are mental consciousnesses. Let me ask you, can you say the mantra and be distracted at the same time? Yes, you can, cant you? The mantra can keep going and your mind can wander ALLLL over the worldtheres no problem. So both of those are mental consciousnesses. Why does it seem hard to say the mantra and do the visualization at the same time? Its because were just much more used to having our distracted mind go on and on. But the two things are possible. But like I said last time, dont squeeze yourself. You might focus more on one and put the other one more in the background.

Then, how are you? Whats happening in your meditation this week? Retreatant 1: I dont know. I like the practice. Its new to me, actually; I hadnt really done the self-generation before, maybe a couple times, but Id never read enough about it to understand it so I feel like Im really just getting acquainted. Its easy to want to do the self-generation; I think I just had a little experiences this week of I used to chant with people for a couple of years and this chanting was actually kind of helpful in a way. But this is so much different, theres a part of me that was thinking You know, you can do this visualization; its very expansive; it feels very peaceful. But its going to end. Its not enough so I was kind of thinking that imagining non-dual is pretty different from realizing non-dual. I dont want to have another experience ofI know how to make my mind go expansive in a way, and I think its useful because to have a practice that has to do with Chenresig, I think its good but theres a part of me thats a little leery, just because Ive done things before where Ive gotten my mind to go out there andI dont knowI want the problems to be cut. I think this depends a lot on understanding the purpose of the visualization. So one of the purposes is that we meditate on emptiness and we dissolve this very reified feeling of self and then we reappear as Chenresig, and that helps us to gain the confidence that we can change, that we arent stuck with our old attitudes and some concrete personality, but that we have the basic factors necessary to become a fully enlightened being. So it pulls us out of what Lama Yeshe used to call our poor quality view of ourselves. Im just little old me; I cant do anything. Thats one purpose of it. Second purpose is when youre Chenresig and youre sending out this light, enlightening sentient beings, its not just a fun visualization to make us feel good, its designed to help us feel connected to others. We contemplate their kindness; we contemplate their misery. And we practice in our imagination giving our body, possessions, and positive potential to them. By imagining it, what it does is it increases our ability to actually give, so that hopefully, in post-meditation time and in our regular life, when somebody needs something, because we spent a lot of time already imagining giving, this inclination and desire to give is strong enough and so that will have a carry-over effect to actual be able to give and to be more compassionate in our daily life. The purpose of the meditation isnt just to feel good and make our mind expansive, but its actually to help us rehearse for things that we actually want to be able to do. So like you said, imagining non-duality is very different from realizing it. But if you can imagine it, it gives you some lead into maybe what realizing it is. Its kind of like when youre a kid and you play dress up. Why do kids play dress up? Because it gives you a feeling of what you can become. If you cant imagine becoming something, then youll never become it. This is really one of the basic purposes of the visualization, to actually help us become Chenresig and act like Chenresig and then when distractions come in my mind, instead of just thinking Oh little old me, what should I do in this situation?, you think, how would Chenresig think in this situation? How would he regard all these different people and all thats going on? So again it draws you into a dharma perspective. I think its important to understand what the purpose of this is. That way you can meditate in such a way that it has that effect. Retreatant 1: I think one day I had kind of that feeling of expansiveness I also was using meditation, I just had had that experience in my life of using meditation and getting really disconnected, so I had some apprehension also, so it was nice what you just said, it has the Dharma in it, and also to think about that the result is to be more connected. Right, and what were getting disconnected from is our attachment and our self-centeredness and our very limited self-image. And were getting disconnected from this feeling of being bound to this body that gets old and sick and dies and thinking Its me. So theres some things were trying to develop detachment towards and other things were trying to connect more to, like sentient beings, compassion, wisdom.

Retreatant 1: Im thinking about what James wrote, about the sense of feeling broken and is that just the poor image? Thats the poor me! That sense we have of being broken, of being not worthwhile, of being not a whole person, I need something or someone else, thats just all part of the poor quality view, and weve made it very, very solid and we think thats who I am, Im that broken person. Most people feel that and its total delusion. Thats why even doing the self-generation can be challenging, because sometimes to think of ourselves as not broken is too unnervingwell, who am I if Im not this horrible, broken, stupid person? Were so attached to this awful image that we get scared of not being it even though were miserable holding onto it! Yeah, I had the thought today that I wasnt even sure if I wanted to be happy. I really thought about this, do I really want to be happy? I know we say beings want to be happy: dont want to suffer and I could say, yeah, maybe I dont want to suffer, but I wasnt so convinced at that moment that I wanted to be happy. Yeah, because you can see exactly how the deluded mind feels so comfortable in being miserable. Its totally nuts. One person once said to me because he had problems with depressionhe was also a therapistbut he said if youre depressed, theres a certain security because you know what tomorrows going to be like. On one hand we laughed at it, on the other hand we cried because isnt that something; that we want security so badly that were willing to be depressed because at least we have the security of knowing how were going to feel tomorrow. You can see how powerful ignorance is in terms of making us miserable and how we buy into it again and again and how its really, really unnerving to think of letting go of all these awful impressions we have of ourselves and letting go of these stories. Its like if I give up being this abused person, who am I going to be? If I give up being a stupid person, who am I going to be? If I give up being a bad person, an unlovable person, whatever it is, who am I going to be? So this kind of fear and attachment you can see so clearly the ignorance grasping at true existence. It just wants to hold onto an identityany identity! Doesnt matter, youre happy, doesnt matter, youre miserable, its an identity. This is the same thing that comes up at death time, its like give me an identity!, so what do we do? Any identity will do(clap) hell being. (clap) hungry ghost. Its powerful how much this craving for existence, this grasping at being a person, how much suffering it causes us. I understand that intellectually but this is the same as when you were talking about the twelve links, what leads to becoming, theres a moment where I could see it, I had a little sense of it. So thinking about security is an interesting way. Yeah, the security of knowing who I am. Im this horrible, unlovable, unworthy, evil, stupid person. Ah, I know who I am. I feel secure. Thats what ignorance does. Totally ridiculous and so painful, because here we have the Buddha potential, and we dont even let ourselves see it. Its too scary for our sense of self to even think that we could be a fully compassionate, wise being. Retreatant 2: Ive been doing a lot of work with impermanence and death. And I was almost getting to the end of transcribing and I thought, OK, Venerables going to be ending here, and its like theres this paragraph after paragraph of all these nitty gritty in-your-face questions that we need to ask ourselves about and I just have been fighting all those questions this week. Its about- forget about your emotions that youre dealing with, what about the emotions of your friends, what about the emotions of your family? What about all the projections when they start? You should do this, you should do this, and you should do that. And what about

your body? This body that Ive had thats been so healthy all of my life. When it finally starts losing all this strength that Ive been told I have, and these questions just kept lining themselves up in this transcription, paragraph after paragraph, and I would take them into the meditation hall and be like, Nancy, this is the food that you need to kick yourself into deepening the practice. You are so afraid of looking at how terrified you are of losing this body, of losing control of your mind, which you think you have control of in the first place, but when you get sick or you have the flu, diarrhea, or you have a horse step on you, your mind gets weak. Can you imagine when youre dying? It just brought this sense of; I dont want to say panic because I am looking at them and Im bringing them into the meditation hall and addressing them a little bit at a time, but theyre getting to some kind of core of me thats really, really afraid. So what I try to do is I put this in there, but when Im going through those six days, and thinking, this is the part of you thats really, really holding on and if you really want to see yourself as Chenresig, this is the grasping that you have to look at, to say what are you grasping at? This body that youve identified as who you are, this mind, this personality, these people in your life, and thats why the visualization has been very, very difficult this year, because Im really holding on to myself more this year. Im seeing it more. You may not be holding on more but youre seeing it clearer. I think meditating on impermanence and death automatically leads us into meditation on emptiness. Theres no other way to go, I mean your mind cant wrap itself around it. And I think, too, its a very powerful antidote for my complaining, whining, negative state of mind that I get myself into because when youre sitting there, and you realize that this is not a cold, this is not a flu, this is not something that youre having a little health crisis that youre going to get out of, youre in there and youre dying and there is no reverse on this gear. Im really trying to put my body and my whole nitty gritty, my being into what would that feel like, Nancy, knowing you were in a bed somewhere saying, This is not a cold; this is not a flu, youre not going to get better. How will you deal with that? And Im separating from all these people and its all going to go on without me and it all, too, is one day going to go out of existence. You know what you should trysome of you told me about thisas part of imagining what it would be like to be old, feed each other. Just try this at lunch one day. And you have to feed each other. How do you feel being fed? And you cant verbalize so much, I want this and I dont want that and not such a big piece. How do you feel with someone feeding you? Retreatant 3: Well, Ive actually been having a lot of fun with Chenresig. I love His Holiness and I see Chenresig as his deity and I love visualizations. Im visual, not verbal, you may have noticed. Ive made him very beautiful and I can get him up ___ very quickly now. But Ive realized its very important when we have our motivationIm not really used to doing motivations very much but Ive been getting a crash course in motivation and that its important to include everyone everyone worldwide, all sentient beings in your motivation, youre doing this for all of them. So this week Ive been more specific with familymy own family and my birth family. About a dozen individuals each session is all I can handle but I hope to get more. Anyway, during the counting of the malas. that Ive been visualizing Chenresig sending the light down and then putting him on the head of all my family and its been just really beautiful. The first part of the long mantra is sending the light and Ive been doing with the short one the lesson of the day, yesterday it was karma and the four opponent powers, so first of all they all get a dose of purification and then they get the lesson in karma and the four opponent powers and as I was telling someone, I really had to smile at my ex-husband, putting Chenresig on his head because hes very anti-religious, and so hes getting his karma, his negativities I think he needs of course, hes getting them purified

involuntarily. And with so many of my family, some of my brothers that Ive not been close to, a couple of them, I feel close to them now. That really is an amazing thing. Its a really good practice for seeing people in a totally different way and re-forming our relationships with them. And its good that youve seen the importance of motivation, because thats really the key to the whole thing. The practice is really about motivation because the karmic value of our action and the kind of result it brings depends on our motivation, what were doing it for. So its so much this process of expanding our motivation and really thinking long-term in the future and very expansive for many sentient beings. It pulls us out of our usual MO, which is my happiness now. One of my teachers when he gives dharma talks, he will spend three quarters of the time on the motivation and then the last little bit you get the topic. Retreatant 4: You know what you just said about you have a teacher that does that? I find that when I do the meditation, if I dont have a particular type of feel in my mind, its almost like theres no point in doing meditation, so I kind of do that, too, spend a lot of time on that first part. But right now I have this feeling of not being familiar enough with not just the sadhana but with my own mind, so Im really looking at what its doing and trying toand maybe this is not a good thing to dobut trying to label the things and saying thats mindfulness and introspective awareness and kind of looking for things and trying to label them. Like, its interesting what you were saying, that they talk about the three different types of laziness. One of them that comes up while youre trying to develop calm abiding is one of a sense of inferiority, which just naturally comes up, and another one is attachment to bad activities, just stuff thats non-Dharma that youre distracted by and a lack of wanting to even try. Its interesting, so those are the three main ones that come up and even different storylines, but its been interesting reading that book and then looking for these things and trying to find an antidote. Sometimes you lose a lot. Thats exactly why these books are written; its like anything we read we should try and find it in our own mind. We say, oh laziness this, blah blah blah, three kinds of laziness, first kind is, second kind is, but its like, How does laziness manifest in my life? What are the mental factors I need to call up to dispel it? Retreatant 4: Can I ask you a question about something in the book? When you talk about mindfulness, the section on mindfulness, you talk about mindfulness like theres three or four different typesare you just redefining mindfulness for different things, or are there different types of mindfulness? No, mindfulness is one mental factor. How it manifests lets say when youre trying to keep precepts is a little bit different from how it manifests when youre doing lets say serenity or calm abiding meditation. But in the sense that youre mindfulyou hold your precepts in your mind so you remember them and you remember how you want to act. When youre meditating, youre mindful of the object, youre remembering the object in such a way that you dont forget it. You can apply it to many different thingsyou could be mindful of impermanence, you can be mindful of the kindness of others. Retreatant 1: I have a question. I was reading that book about feelings. Ive just done a little meditation on that sporadically. Im wondering, is the object your feelings when you do meditation?

When you do mindfulness, the feelings, yes. But feeling here doesnt mean feeling like an emotion. It means feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. So youre mindful of those three feelings as they appear and then, as an extension, your mindfulness of how you react to them. Its very interesting watching when theres an unpleasant physical sensation and when theres an unpleasant mental feeling, when theres a pleasant mental feeling, when theres a pleasant physical feeling, and to be able to identify these in our experience, and then especially just observing how reactive we are to these things, how controlled we are by our reaction to just the feelings of unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral. When you do thatyou do breathing meditation and you do it for a period of time, is that how you do this, too, you do it for a period of time, just focus on it? Yes, right. Because I feel like there are two levels going on when I do that. One is the feeling and the sense of sensation, and sensation isnt the feeling. Yes, thats exactly it. When I try and hang out above it, I feel like youre kind of hanging out above it. Its very good because we often confuse the sensation with feeling and then we make up stories about everything, but we can see the sensation, look in our body, the sensation is just a sensation, and then the feeling, its a little bit different. I find it an interesting question to ask myselfIll have a certain sensation in my mind and Ill say oh, that ones nice and Ill say, what is it that feels good about that? Or what is it that feels unpleasant about that? Its really Kind of hard to put your finger on! Yeah! I mean what is this unpleasantness or what is this pleasantness, and you start looking and its like, were so reactive to everything, and its like Do you think its possiblehe says in thisDachen Rinpoche, when we did this brief little silent meditation in our Sunday practice he always said, Watch your thoughts. So Ive spent some time doing that, the arising abiding and Ive never really seen the arising. Theyre just there. Yeah, and I dont really stress about it; theres something good about doing that particular meditation so I do it sometimes but in this book they actually say you can watch the feeling arise, abide, and cease. This is how your concentration gets refined. As your mind gets more and more still, then youre able to see more of that.

I can relate to that, being more and more still, seeing the possibilities. Although they actually arise, abide, and cease all at the same time. Yes, that was the disintegrating thing. Yeah. But you can still sense them? Thats what they say; Im not at that level of concentration but thats what they say. You can make your attention and mindfulness acute enough so that you can be aware of those things. Do you think thats really true what he says in there, that thats the weakest link? I mean they talk about cutting at the two places and he actually says this is the weakest link. You cut it either between feeling and craving or you cut it at the time of death and not grasping. But if you look, like I was saying, how reactive we are to our feelings, how totally reactive and if instead of reacting, because thats what Khensur Rinpoche was talking aboutyou have something, theres the ignorance that grasps at true existence, theres the inappropriate attention that exaggerates something about it and then theres the attachment or the aversion or however else we respond to it emotionally. This all comes about because of contact with an object and principally what kind of feeling that we get from it. If we can stop being so reactive then we stop creating so much karma. You just have the feeling and you dont go into the craving. Once you get into the craving, you know, I crave to have this more and I crave to be free of it, and I crave to exist or I crave for the neutral feelings. So I think thats the weakest link and then also between ignorance and karma, to be able to cut it there and then if you dont have the ignorance, you dont have the karma. And the inappropriate attentionis that why we do mantra? Because were so obsessive? It just seems like the mind is obsessive. Oh, yeah, the minds totally obsessive. Thats what I mean, how reactive we are; were off and running. And I think one of the ideas of saying mantra is it takes that tendency of the mind to tell the story again and again and say this whole thing again and then go through it again and again, its like all that mental chatter, that tendency, by saying mantra it puts it in a useful direction so that youre not obsessing and inventing more and more stories. Because this is whats interesting, to try and just watch the feeling because the mind doesnt want to watch the feeling; the mind wants to tell the story. It starts to tell the story and you have to say, no, were not focusing on the story of why this person did this and this bad thing they had no right doing and Ive got to retaliate, blah blah, were focusing on the feeling of what this feels like. No story here, just what is my experience. Then you can see like you said the mind wants to make up a story and obsess.

And no wonder we say that we feel out of touch with ourselves because we always look at what other people are doing and have the opinion factory about it. Total waste of time. Retreatant 1: And its mostly mistaken. Yes, exactly. We never bother to ask the other people whats going on with them. Its mostly just mistaken. Thats why answering machines were kind of helpful for me because when people leave you a message, I learned from that that if I have something going on with them the first time I hear the message, I dont hear them very correctly because then Ill go back and listen to the message again when Im feeling differently and its like a completely different experience. It happens a lot. And this relates to what you were saying about thinking about death, separating from these people and whats going to happen to them when Im not here, are they going to miss me, and how the mind just amplifies and writes books about all of it. And it has nothing to do with anything. Retreatant 4: You know when you start thinking like that, and I had this happen this last year a lot, when you start thinking about your situation in terms of death and impermanence, a lot of really deep grief and fear come up really strongly for me. And then I think about the people Im attached to and I think, what if something happens to them and I cant imagine what Ill do, and I just have to stop thinking about it because it just gets to this really strong fear or grief. When you think about the people that you love dying then your mind just gets completely tense. I think its an important thing to imagine, though, to just role-play that because someday its going to happen. And then you see the fear and grief and you can stop and say why, why am I afraid? Who is this person that Im holding on to? Theyre a karmic bubble. They only exist because the causes exist. Their ignorance and karmathink about the twelve links. Theyre just a life appearing temporarily and then theyre gone. Its funny, because I can see that, is it more that you have to cut that attachment now, is that what you have to do? I think its really important to try and imagine that and start letting go of the attachment now because youre not going to be able to let go of it when they die. In the same way we have to prepare for own death now, we cant let everything go at the time of death, the minds too constricted. In the same way with the peopleI find it very helpful to go through the people I know, the people I rely on, the people Im fond of, whatever, the people I respect, and think that theyre all going to die. And lifes going to go on, and what it does it is actually makes us ask ourselves whats the purpose of my relationship with this person? Whats the purpose? Here I am and if they die Ill just have so much fear and grief! Until now what has been my purpose in having this relationship? And then you see how far away we are from bodhicitta, that our relationship has nothing to do with I wish them happiness and its causes and enlightenment and instead the relationship has everything to do with they make me feel good and they meet some kind of internal need that I have and they give some kind of security or something that I think I need. But what is that, whats it all about, and can they actually give to my life what Im thinking that theyre giving? And so its very provocative in the sense that it makes us

rethink our relationships with people. And why do I want to be special to this person? Well, what is the person I want to be special to? Somebody who exists under the power of the twelve links. Whos going around in samsara under the power of ignorance and afflictions and karma. Somebody whose mind is unclear, somebody whose mind oppressed by the four distortions. This is who I want to be special to. Huh? Like huh? Who do I need to put my attention on? Beings like this? Or the three jewels? Wheres my refuge? Retreatant 3: I think it gets in the way of equanimity, too, so attached to just a few people. It just takes so much energy and attention and then we cant disperse it out for all beings. Because its going for a few, and you can see how thats all based on thinking that theres a real person there. Theres a real person with such and such a personality in there, definitely, for sure, different from everybody else, and thats why theyre worthy of my love. But theyre just karmic blips, and we know them for a few years, and then all our mind streams are recycled and I find it very helpful to think, in my previous lives Ive been incredibly attached to different people, and Ive been separated from all these people at death time in all these previous lives, and I meet them again and I dont even recognize them. Weve all had connection in previous lives, weve all known each other in previous lives, who were we? What kind of relationshipwere we friends, were we parents, were we enemies, were we lovers, were we colleagues, what were we, what kind of personality did we have, what kind of relationship did we have? Who cares? Its all gone and the only thing of any lasting endurance was the karma you created with those people. And if I was attached to them in my previous lives, did I create any kind of worthwhile karma for myself or for them? No, nothing! So here I got so attached to something that was just, its like getting attached to an appearance of a person on a TV screen. Theres nobody there, theres no solid person there to fight with or hold on to, theres just this karmic blip who is under the influence of their own afflictions and karmas, so theyre not worthy of being attached to but theyre certainly worthy of having compassion for. If I have some compassion for them, that might do some good for them and for me. I see that theres nobody really there. I think its very interesting with the emptiness meditationtry it out on somebody youre attached to. Are they their body? Are they their mind? I dont watchwhats the one called with Dr. Spock? Star Trek, yeah. Someone was telling me about one version where somebody in the show fell in love with somebody but then they got zapped into another body, so instead of beingit was somebody they were sexually attracted to, and around the same age, and they had this relationshipand then this person got zapped into another body of somebody who was their own gender or who was old or I dont know, or some body that was a square box or something like that and, do you feel the same way about them? Are you still in love with them if they look different? Do you still hate them if they look different? Retreatant 4: That kind of relationship is all attachment, but some relationships are important and its harder to see that as much. We start with whats obvious, and we go to whats more subtle. For me, the most painful deaths Ive gone through is when my spiritual teachers have died. But then I say, well whats the purpose of it? What was the purpose of this relationship? And am I acting in accordance with the purpose of this relationship, now when theyre alive, and then after they pass away? And when you think of it that way, that brings sort of a nice pleasant sense of relating to that person, but you have to catch it right there. Otherwise it can go into this extreme of Im going to DIE, and then Im not going to KNOW anything! So its hard to catch it at that point.

But you practice catching it and thats where the whole guru yoga practice is very important because then you realize that your spiritual teacher isnt that personality. Your spiritual mentor is something much, much greater and you start tuning into that. Shall we do something on the text now? [prayers] We were talking about last week the four special great qualities of the Lam Rim. We talked about the first two: how all the various doctrines of the Buddha are noncontradictory, and how we will take the various teachings as personal advice. So now were going to go on to the third and fourth one. So the text says The thought of Buddha will easily be found. Of course, the original words of Buddha and those of the later commentators are perfect teachings, but for a beginner they are overwhelmingly numerous and, consequently, their meaning is difficult to fathom. Hence, although you may study and contemplate them, you probably will not gain experience of their actual essence; or, even if you should gain it, a tremendous effort and extent of time would be required. However, because the Lam-rim tradition has its source in Atishas A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which incorporates all the various oral teachings of the supreme Indian masters, even someone like you could easily and quickly arrive at the thought of the Buddha through it. So the Buddha, when he was alive, he spent forty-five years teaching all over India and he gave so many teachings and those were just the ones recorded in the Pali canon. Then you have all the ones in the Mahayana canon when he was speaking not only to people on this earth but also to the bodhisattvas, so theres such a huge spectrum of teachings. The order of the Lam Rim systematizes all these teachings so you know how they fit together and that enables us to see what exactly the important points are in the teachings. So were able to more quickly see what the Buddhas thought is, why he taught this, what he was trying to get across by teaching this, how this relates to that. If we can study the great Indian commentaries, its very good. His Holiness was saying the person whos the most perfect vessel for Lam Rim has studied all those Indian commentaries and then uses the Lam Rim as a summary of them. What were doing is were studying the Lam Rim as the summary with the hope of then learning some of the great Indian treatises. Well understand them better and how they fit together and what the major points are in them if we understand the Lam Rim. For example, in Abhisamyaankara hell go into a lot of description about the various bodhisattvas and their levels and what they attain and so on and so forth. If youve studied Lam Rim, then you know oh when you study that, oh well that goes in the refuge section, its telling you what the Sangha jewel is. Knowing the qualities of the bodhisattvas, it gives me deeper refuge in the Sangha jewel and knowing what they practice and what they realize at what time also lets me know how to meditate on emptiness and gives me a roadmap for how I should expect to gain realizations in the future. You understand that better if you have a Lam Rim layout. Then the fourth great quality: The great negativity of abandoning a lineage of Dharma will spontaneously be arrested. When you realize the intent of Buddha, you will see all his direct and indirect teachings as wise and skillful means for satisfying the diverse spiritual needs of the variety of beings. To say that some lineages of Dharma are perfect methods and should be practiced, whereas other lineages are imperfect and should be ignored, is the karma called abandoning Dharma, a

great negativity indeed. However, if you study the Lam-rim you will see how all doctrines of Buddha and lineages coming from him are non-contradictory. Then the great negativity of abandoning an aspect of Dharma will never occur. So this is a very, very important point. We see this all the timesometimes well be talking with somebody and theyll practice a different kind of Buddhism and people will go, Oh you know the Tibetan tradition, it has all this tantra, its not really the word of the Buddha, and its just not that and then you say Oh but you know your tradition you dont have the correct view of emptiness and you dont have the bodhicitta, and Oh no, Buddha didnt teach about rebirth, come on, he didnt really teach about that, youre too idealistic if you believe in bodhicitta and you know if you talk to people who call themselves Buddhists, you will hear them criticize other traditions a lot. If you criticize another Buddhist tradition, its like criticizing the Buddha, whereas if you understand the Lam Rim and you understand the three levels of spiritual capacity: the initial level, the intermediate level, the advanced level, and you understand how each being thinkshow does an initial level practitioner think? Whats their goal? What do they think about to want to have that goal? What do they practice to get that goal? And you think the same way about the intermediate and the same way about the advanced, then you understand all these different dispositions of sentient beings, all their different interests, all their different levels of capacity, and then you see why the Buddha gave different teachings to different people at different times. And you see how they can all fit together, and then you dont criticize any of the other traditions. What comes to you most strongly is how incredibly skillful of a teacher the Buddha was. He was so skillful in knowing how to address different peoples needs and concerns and spiritual capabilities. It really makes you respect the Buddha a lot. In that way, I tell you sometimes when I go to these conferences with the monastics from the different Buddhist traditions, its so rich because I really see people who have different interests than me and different ways of practicing and I can also see how it all fits in to the Lam Rim. For example, some of my Theravada friends, they do reflections. Basically, its what we call analytic meditation. But when you talk to them you say Oh yeah, theyre doing a practice of mindfulness of death, just like we do. You can see that and how that fits in, the practice of mindfulness of the body when youre looking at what the bodys made out of, and then you understand Oh yeah, goes here in the Lam Rim, right here in the Middle Scope under understanding true suffering. Then you see the people who are doing Zen-style meditation, where they just sit, and thats a style of a meditationI could never get it. I know its not for me, but wow for those people, it really helps them. And they can trace it back to a sutra the Buddha taught and you can see how that kind of meditation is so good for their mind. It doesnt fit mine, but that doesnt matter, its good for them. The purpose of the Buddhas teachings isnt just what makes sense to me and what I like to hear and what I like to meditate on, its what benefits all sentient beings. Or you discuss with people in the different traditions maybe about the meaning of selflessness, how you meditate on selflessness, and you see that they have really different ways of meditating on selflessness. But when you understand Lam Rim, you understand why and you understand these different methods, because theyre all actually outlined within the Lam Rim, the different methods of meditating on selflessness. Or youll talk to your friends and how theyre developing concentration. Ones meditating on the breath at the navel, the hara in the Zen tradition. Another ones meditating on metta, and somebody else is meditating on Vajrayogini, but if you know the Lam Rim, you know that these are all valid meditation objects for the development of serenity. If you understand the Lam Rim then you know that vipassana is found in all the different Buddhist traditions, that its not just the name of some school, its an actual meditation technique thats found in all the traditions. So in that way you dont criticize any traditions. You still can debate, because you see that this whole process of debatein the Tibetan tradition we do it and ever since Buddhism in India they were all debating with each otherbut debating is very different than criticizing. In debating, youre asking

questions and youre saying, Well, you believe in that, how come and does this really make sense? Did the Buddha really teach that, show me the sutra in which he said that or validate your point logically. So youre really testing the teachings, its fine to challenge things like that and ask questions. But thats very different than saying, Oh the Buddha didnt teach that or That traditions badthose are two very different things. And it can be delicate because sometimes we think Oh if Im not going to criticize then I cant ask any questions because then just makes it looks like Im criticizing and to not criticize I have to say everythings the same. But everythings not the same. They are saying different things, and the difference is OK and we can debate. And even the Buddha himself, he debated and had a lot of these kind of philosophical discussions with the Brahmins and all the other shramanas at his time. But it doesnt have to mean that youre criticizing, thats the important thing. This really helps you understand the big picture. And then if you hear somebody say Oh the Buddha didnt teach rebirth, you can go Oh ho! No, I dont think thats quite accurate because you can find it right here in the scriptures that he taught rebirth and theres valid reasonings for doing it, so you dont criticize the person but you can definitely challenge that kind of thing, somebodys calling something Buddhism when it isnt, when its their personal opinions. You can also see the broader picture and how the different traditions are really how the Buddha was so incredibly skillful about teaching all these different methods so people can find something that made sense to them. So it makes you much more appreciative of the Buddha, much more tolerant of other people. You can also extend it to other religious traditions. You can see these other religious traditionsthey teach about ethics, they teach about kindness, they teach about compassion. So I have to respect those teachings in the other traditions. It doesnt matter if they came out of the Buddhas mouth or somebody elses mouthif this teaching is something beneficial for sentient beings, then I should practice it and this other teachingyou can see the theistic traditions, people believing in God we refute the existence of a permanent, absolute creator, but still you can have an appreciation how for some people, that view is very good for them. Its really suited for them and it helps them along the path. You dont want to take that away from them because they might just go into nihilism. So what you want to do is encourage them in the positive aspects of what theyre doing, and speak the language that they speak when you talk to them so you can communicate the points. For example theres been times when Ive been asked to teach meditation to Christians. I remember at this one conference we had and I led a whole morning workshop teaching Catholic monks and nuns about meditation, so I was saying, visualize Jesus, visualize Mary, led them through the four opponent powers. And theyre saying Hail Mary and the Lords Prayer. But the thing is, the symbols are different for them, but the whole thing of the four opponent powers of what you go throughwow, thats something really beneficial that they could resonate with them. I also did something about patience, the different meditations we have about patience. They really got it. It just makes you much more respectful of people of other faiths, and seeing how to actually talk to them, how to explain Buddhist principles in a way they understand. You remember a few years ago when we went to the Mennonite fair around the corner and the ministers wifedo you remember that?the ministers wife didnt know anything about Buddhism and she said What is your idea about God? So I said, We practice ethical conduct and we have precepts not to kill and not to steal and no unwise sexual behavior and no lying and the Buddha taught so much about kindness and compassion and forgiveness and thinking of others and diminishing our self-centeredness. I gave her a whole talk about Buddhadharma, didnt mention God once, but at the end she said Oh thats very nice. Why not? So understanding the Lam Rim makes your mind much more global, much more tolerant. So then he goes on, These are the four great qualities of the Lam-rim tradition. Who with any common sense would not be benefited by hearing a discourse on it, a thing the fortunate of India and Tibet have long relied upon, a generously high teaching to delight the heart, the tradition known as the Stages on the Path for Beings of the Three Capacities. So those are the initial, the middle, and the highest capacity and well get into that. Regarding these four effects, arising from hearing, contemplating, and meditating upon a Lam-rim discourse, Je Rinpoche said

[Through it] one perceives all doctrines as non-contradictory, All teachings arise as personal advice, The intent of Buddha is easily found And one is protected from the cliff of the greatest evil; Therefore the wise and fortunate of India and Tibet Have thoroughly relied upon this excellent legacy [Known as] the stages in the practices of the three spiritual beings; Who of powerful mind would not be intrigued by it? So hes also making the point here that the stages of the path, the Lam Rim teaching, is a direct outcome of Buddhism as it was studied and practiced in India. And this is a point that His Holiness really makes a lot now, too. He talks about the Nalanda tradition, and these great Indian sages of the previous centuries and hes really emphasizing how Tibetan Buddhism is an extension of - its in the continuity from the Nalanda tradition. So you can see those in these verses here that thats really emphasized. And that the Nalanda tradition is in continuity from the Buddha, from the development of Buddhadharma starting in the Buddhas life and then all the various sages who commented on it in succeeding generations. Then the text says Possessing such strength and impact, this tradition takes the heart of all the teachings of Buddha and structures it into steps for gradual evolution through the successive experiences of the path, running through the three levels of spiritual capacity. What an approach to Dharma! How can its greatness ever be described? So the three levels of spiritual application, the three levels of capacity, just as a brief outlinethe initial level practitioner is basically someone whos trying for temporal happiness. Temporal happiness is happiness within cyclic existence. So it could mean somebody whos looking for happiness in this life or it could mean someone whos looking towards their next rebirth and trying to find happiness in future lives. And the Buddha definitely talked to both of those beings. If you look at the Buddhas teachings, he gave a lot of teachings just to people on how to live this life. He talked about how couples should get along and how parents and children should get along and how employer and employees should relate to each other. He talked to kings and told them how to govern. He talked to people of all different walks of life and he told them how to live their life in a better way. He taught basic ethical principles, he taught how to live a good livelihood. He also was an original conflict mediator, there were lots of different clans who were about to attack each other and destroy each other and he would step in and mediate conflict. So the Buddha dealt a lot with people just in resolving the problems they had in this life and gave very useful teachings to them about how to have a good life this life. The thing was that by instructing them how to live a more ethical life and kind life this life, what he was doing was preparing them to have a better

rebirth by creating more good karma now, and not creating so much negative karma. So even though they didnt necessarily have the intention of working for their future life, because they were living this life better, they avoided negative karma and they created positive karma so that was something very beneficial to them. Then he also taught for the people who were interested in future lives, he often gave teachings to them, too, and then he went into ethical conduct in more depth. He taught more about the minds role in ethical conduct. He talked a lot about generosity and the importance of generosity and how being generous creates the causes for wealth in your future life, how ethical conducts creates the cause to have a good body, he taught about the value of making dedication prayers so that you can steer your positive potential to ripen in the kind of rebirth that you want to get. He talked about the value of being patient so you can have an attractive body in a future life - all sorts of things involving karma and its effects, so people who their main focus was having a good rebirth so that they would know how to practice to achieve their aim. Thats the initial level practitioner. Then there were other people who said, Ive had a lot of good rebirths all throughout cyclic existence. Ive been everywhere, done everything. Cyclic existence is beginningless. Theres no sense in continuing to live in it anymore. This is just ridiculous. I dont want to be born in a body that gets old and sick and dies anymore. I dont want to be born with a mind thats so confused. I want out of this. So those people are people who have really understood the first two noble truths, the truth of dukkha and the truth of the origin of dukkha, and they wanted a path out of cyclic existence. So the Buddha taught to them the Eightfold Noble Path, he taught the Thirty-Seven Harmonies with Enlightenment; he taught about how to realize selflessness, how to actualize the true cessation, so that those people could actualize their aim. Then there were other people, who were concerned not only with their own future life and their own liberation, but they really wanted to be able to be of the greatest benefit to all sentient beings and help all sentient beings out of samsara, so they aimed for the highest full enlightenment. And they did this because they had done all the meditations for developing bodhicitta and now they were going to practice the six far-reaching attitudes, four ways of gathering disciples, some of them were going to go on and practice the tantra, and so the Buddha taught also for those more advanced level practitioners. He wasnt just teaching for three distinct groups; he realized that the people who were initial level practitioners now, if he taught to them well, he could get them to the point where they would become middle-level practitioners in the future. And if he taught to the middle-level practitioners and gave them what they needed to do now and taught them well, then he could inspire them to become higher-level practitioners in the future. So he had this aim to get everyone to full enlightenment, but he was dealing with them where they were at. So he wasnt just teaching distinct paths that were unrelated, but he was gradually leading even one particular person all the way through all of those paths for the different levels of spiritual capability. So really see how skillful the Buddha was, and how the Lam Rim really works to do that, and we can see how that works on our own mind for enlarging the scope of our own mind. We start out as an initial-level practitioner, at least most of us, and then just stretching our mind to think about future lives and about liberation, and then enlightenment. Its quite a beautiful teaching. Thats as far as we got this week.