Part Two
Since with this precious human birth we have the capacity for intellectual understanding, we really have to contemplate what is the best benefit that we can achieve within this lifetime. We might just focus on our worldly activities, but that would just be cultivating the causes and conditions to cycle in samsara again, and we will not achieve ultimate happiness. Even if we have achieved a high status or we have all kinds of luxuries and material belongings, or we have fame, very good friends and many devotees or attendants, still there is no real essence from which any real benefit might be derived. So, if we spend our whole lifetime just striving for success, we will find that there is nothing that we can rely upon. Everything is impermanent and changeable.
You all have intellectual understanding, so you can think and examine for yourselves and understand what is really going on. You should examine and reflect on what you have done and what benefits you are getting in your life. Even if one is very rich, powerful, knowledgeable and wise, one still has to reflect upon one’s own mind, and only then can one understand how much peace or happiness one is experiencing.
Within this universe, the most powerful obscuration or negativity is the grasping to self, or ‘I’. If we just think of ‘I’ and have that kind of strong ego and pride, it is impossible to receive Dharma teachings in that kind of mindstream. Pride or ego is like an iron ball which pulls us down. If we carefully investigate ourselves, we will not find an ‘I’ existing in reality. We think ‘I am’, ‘he is’, or ‘she is’ but when we truly examine these, they don’t exist in an absolute sense. For example, we may think of our body as ‘I’. We say ‘I’ feel happy, ‘I’ have pain and sickness, and then ‘I’ die. When the so-called ‘I’ dies, our external body is still there, but it doesn’t have all those kind of experiences. For example, when the dead body is burned, it does not feel the heat at all. When it is buried under the ground, there is no feeling then either. Even when it is eaten by dogs and vultures, there is no pain at all. When death happens, all pain and suffering associated with the body are no longer there.
Even if we try to find this ‘I’ within our body right now—searching from top to bottom—we cannot find it. When we investigate, asking, “Is the head ‘I’? Are the eyes ‘I’? Is the nose ‘I’? Is the chest ‘I’?” we cannot find what we call ‘I’ in any part of our body.
In relative bodily existence, it is our mind’s grasping at subject and object through which we think there is this ‘I’, and through which we experience things. This is just the creation of the conceptual mind. Also, regarding our speech, when we scrutinize and divide past, present and future, we cannot find what is called ‘speech’. It is just in our mind. Does the mind need to be something which we can see? If we think that what is experiencing pain, suffering, problems, and so forth, is the mind, we have to perceive the mind as something like a ball. There is no one who can really perceive a mind no matter what way he or she tries to investigate it. At the same time, this mind does not die either. From beginningless lifetimes until now, the mind has just been experiencing rebirth over and over again. The mind that has been conceptualized by generating the notion of subject and object is the one that binds us here. It is that which projects the external world, one’s body, and so forth. But no matter how much we analyse, there is no way anyone can perceive this mind.
All the past buddhas have explained that there is no way one can perceive the mind in the past, present or future. If it is self-existing, we would be able to see it like a round pill or something! So why do we think that it has to be perceived as some ‘thing’? All these ‘things’ are created by mind. All the experiences of happiness and suffering of nirvana and samsara—everything is just created by the mind itself. If we think about the absolute nature of mind, we find nothing in its essence. Some people say, “Oh, my mind is multicoloured!” I wonder if this is so. (laughing) Or somebody says, “My mind is white.” However, it does not really exist in that way. When we don’t control the mind and just let it run freely, it starts to create all these negative actions and thoughts. That is why these practices that we call meditation—although there are many levels of meditation—and any of the Dharma teachings that have been taught by the enlightened buddhas, are mainly to subdue and tame such a mind. The aim is to recognize that the fault of the mind is conceptual thought, a dualism in which there is always subject and object, and which binds us to samsara. At the same time we try to understand its absolute nature; to realize this is the most important part of our practice.
When a lama gives teachings, the practitioner receiving them tries to put them into practice and then may say, “Oh! I recognize the nature of the mind!” However, just by recognizing the conceptual mind, it is very difficult to attain enlightenment. It is mind that creates all our emotions and conceptual thoughts. In order to achieve ultimate happiness we have to recognise the wisdom mind that is beyond conception. There are many kinds of practices that aim at pacifying negative thoughts and controlling afflicted mind by purifying and abandoning those thoughts. When we do these practices and achieve some tranquillity that enables us to make our mind stable, perhaps then we can concentrate our mind on the emptiness through which we may achieve some realization. Thus, when we practice meditation and manage to accomplish a settled and stable mind, even having just a little bit of experience of emptiness is not like just remaining there without having thoughts or anything at all. It has been said in the texts that a wrongly perceived emptiness ruins a person of meagre intelligence. So one has to examine the nature of the mind in order to establish its absolute nature as emptiness, and this must be maintained through the practice of meditation.
The emptiness that is ‘merely empty’, and the emptiness that is the actual nature of mind, are different. The former is mere nothingness. This kind of emptiness is explained in the Dharma teachings by the example of a rabbit’s horn, something that does not exist at all, whereas the emptiness of the mind, which has neither form, nor colour, nor shape is in certain ways non-existing, but at the same time this mind creates all the goodness and badness of nirvana and samsara. It is good to remain in meditation by cutting all of these conceptual thoughts. This is mainly achieved by the practice of shamatha or calm-abiding meditation. If one continues this practice for a while, it is easy to achieve vipashyana or insight meditation. All Dharma teachings and practices must be derived from a proper lineage and an authentic master, and the disciples themselves should have sublime faith in order to understand the essence of Dharma. There is no way other than this to make progress. The master must also have the quality of being able to read the disciple’s mind. If the master can do so, he can perfectly introduce the nature of mind.
For instance, when the disciple remains in proper practice and examines his or her mind, the master knows whether the disciple has realized the nature of mind or not. Other than this there is no way to describe the mind, like, “Oh, the nature of mind is something like this and that.” It is impossible to hand over the mind to others. If this were possible, then we could draw a diagram of it and hand it over, saying, “Here is the nature of mind.” But this is not possible. Thus, in this way everyone should reflect upon what I just mentioned and abide in the practice of shamatha for a long period. If one could improve this practice, it would help in finding the perfect path towards the true recognition of mind.
Generally, you may be aware of the literal meaning of the word ‘lama’. Having unsurpassable wisdom and mother-like loving kindness is what is called ‘lama’. All the buddhas of the three times achieved enlightenment by relying upon a lama. There is not a single buddha who attained enlightenment on their own. As I mentioned earlier, ‘lama’ refers to someone who has unsurpassed excellent knowledge. However, not all who wear red robes are lamas, and those who wear yellow robes are not necessarily lamas either. Someone who is internally purified and realized is who is known as a lama. Moreover, the lama’s mindstream must have genuine bodhichitta aimed at benefitting all sentient beings.
Nowadays many disciples request me, “Please explain to us little bit about the Dzogchen teachings.” But even I myself don’t know what Dzogchen is, so I have nothing to explain to you! Anyway, as I explained, please practice mainly bodhichitta, and based upon this, practice shamatha. If you contemplate and practice these perfectly, you will realize the Dzogchen gradually. If we are unable to cultivate bodhichitta within our mindstream, we have strayed from the path of enlightenment. Bodhichitta is free of favouritism. We have to identify that all beings as far as space pervades are our parents, and they nurtured us with great loving care. So we have to stay aware their graciousness, and based upon that we have to consider all beings, including our present parents. For example, it is said time and again that parents are the ones to whom we should be most grateful. Our body is formed with the help of our parents. If there were no parents, there would have been no chance to form this body. If there were no body we could not perform any religious or worldly activities. In short, parents are very kind indeed. In this world, there are various kinds of people, and according to their inclinations, some go against their parents and some care for them. But our body wouldn’t be formed if there were no parents, so we should be grateful!
So beginners should really concentrate on generating bodhichitta based on their gratefulness to their mother of this life, and from that they can extend this bodhichitta to all sentient beings equally. It is important to generate faith in and devotion to the Dharma, and then it would be better to engage in practicing bodhichitta, compassion and emptiness all the time.
Don’t think that practicing Dharma is to benefit the lama or the Buddha. Don’t even think it’s to benefit others. We have to practice the Dharma on our own as every individual has to attain buddhahood. If we attain enlightenment in the future, it will be ourselves, and not the lama or the Buddha, who will attain it. Buddhas have already attained enlightenment. But if we do not practice Dharma appropriately it is we who will have to take birth in samsara; neither the lama nor the Buddha can take our place. Hence, for our own benefit we must contemplate this.
Though it is important to think spiritually about one’s own benefit and how one can attain enlightenment, still the achievement of that kind of liberation is through the path of benefiting all sentient beings. Without that, one cannot achieve complete enlightenment. The bodhichitta that we can generate right now—no matter how much—is beneficial in the future. When one attains enlightenment, according to the vastness of the bodhichitta, that will bring benefit to many sentient beings and they will be able to liberate themselves from the suffering of samsara. Right now the fruition may not be accomplished, but if we continue this practice, it will definitely ripen in the future.
For example, Buddha Amitabha performed great deeds. He gathered the accumulation of merit and purified his obscurations over countless great eons. He could have attained enlightenment but he made the aspiration not to do so until all his prayers had been fulfilled. Then he remained on the path of learning, practicing the six perfections and benefitted beings through such practice. He aspired that whoever even just heard his name and made supplication prayers to him would instantly be born in his pure land. He accomplished the enlightened activities of a buddha by generating aspiration prayers for many eons. Although there are countless buddhafields, Amitabha Buddha’s pure land is unique because of these reasons. If we have single-pointed devotion to Buddha Amitabha, recite his name, and make supplication prayers all the time, then even an ordinary person with an afflicted mind can take birth in his pure land. This is all because of the power of Buddha Amitabha’s special aspirational prayers.
Therefore, when we are on the path of learning, it would be immensely beneficial for other beings if we could generate bodhichitta extensively, as much as we can. We should not be faint-hearted, thinking that I cannot do that, nor could I attain that kind of enlightenment. We should not discourage ourselves. Instead, think that all the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the past had not attained enlightenment and ultimate realization in the beginning, so why can’t we? They also started out as an ordinary being who later got enlightened.
Everyone should generate unwavering faith in the Three Jewels and practice bodhichitta. There’s nothing other than these. I will pray for the attainment of enlightenment in the future through the Dzogchen teachings within a single mandala, just as in times gone by Dzogchen masters like Garab Dorje, Shri Singha and so forth attained rainbow body manifesting millions and millions of mandalas practicing the Dzogchen teachings. Similarly, we should also pray that we might become like them.
By Rigzod Editors
