Day 3 - Review Sessions, 13th March

[Applause] amaya you know of all the different buddhist teachers online i think venom orbina has the best taste in background did you notice she she always whenever she appears on a zoom room she's got this really nice background with like like a yellow cloth and a tonka and a statue of the buddha and a little orchid there like offering to the buddha so i just you know because i set up this new internet connection in the office yesterday i moved to the office instead of my room and then yesterday i was on the other side of the table where there's nothing behind so i moved to the other the the other side of the table today but i'm going to set up i think i'm going to i want to make a nice background here because we have a shelf here right so i'm gonna hang a cloth and put a nice uh statue i think or something makes a difference now it's nice to have in those backgrounds enlightening emily are you in your you're in your apartment right you have a big tibetan flag on the wall yes i'm in my own yes thank you because if i do like this then you wouldn't see my hand oh yeah it's actually um i got it from uh georgia george for me and i got a frame so yeah you can also hang a tank and then it just covers everything if you do what it covers everything if you hang a tanka from the you know from wherever yeah and then it just covers everything and you're like behind the back yeah good but kind of like i like the video style a little better unless you're teaching from a girlfriend about drawing from the gompos we have your llamas on camera you're now in the background in the big statue yeah yeah she has that big altar behind you yeah you know when i did the corset to shoot i would put the throne in front of the the murals on the wall and on lamish's room's wall there's some murals there when you come here were you able to get the floor fixed there in the temple yet come on it's fixed she did an amazing job emma you got really good things it's like a quality it looks really beautiful oh very nice okay good yeah we were falling through it though i can send you yes come back whenever you want to you won't feel in through now it's it's sealed it's safe now okay can you change the whole floor the whole floor um not the whole world but uh the part where it was all returning i think about uh yeah 30 32 by 32 feet we changed okay okay so now you can come in to teach here safe and sound yeah maybe by next autumn please comment below well i'm still supposed to go for the you know the pre-ordination course if that happens next year um all right excellent start time definitely hope i hope everyone will have both gaia just you know dreaming about that i said that earlier you know that if he would he hoped this this one this last blender to be able to teach him so yeah i think if i hope we all have the vaccine by then uh yeah in the monastery the all the monks above 65 were all getting it but now it looks like about 100 monks a day are getting vaccinated yeah well he's already misguided and rinpoche got it and so so so tender [Music] this is a young guy i think they all remember right now anthony how are you i'm fine thanks everything that's right and yourself yeah i'm really enjoying every session i mean a lot of them um i just don't say much at all but since we go way back me you and maya i put the video on for the first time yeah four years ago i didn't realize you came four years ago sure um some of the people i always see them but you know i just like to listen i just yeah yeah well i request you to ask a question today i like better when there's some questions now i didn't know i'm connecting with the audience otherwise i'm not sure you know what happened no i i just i so appreciate the teachings from everyone that i get from toshita and for everyone i was there with you last month at the 15 days of miracles and everything oh you were there no i don't know i don't miss much i just don't say this is just beautiful it's wonderful we need it it's wonderful that's all it's just it's just awesomeness but it's early in the morning are you it's early yeah it's very it's always yeah um usually when i have classes with you i'm up at two three in the morning with you guys but finally like seven o'clock 7 30 here for me in the morning yeah so it's pretty good it just flipped the script but it's it's good any time of the day dahmer is good determination enthusiasm hey and a lot of patience yeah and patience too yeah good well shall we get started hello we're already five minutes into the hour i can't hear you come on yes we can yeah welcome good evening for the last day of this review session so yeah let's get started okay great let's start with generating a positive motivation so yeah check the state of your mind and [Music] try to generate some mental focus and try to remember some of what his holiness said this morning just bring his holiness to mind and if you i hope you're able to watch this one is teaching this morning here in india and yeah bring his holiness to nine so we can try to i mean in general of course we want to try to use our lives use our son use our lives to benefit all sentient beings um so if we're not happy ourselves then we don't really know how to um teach others or lead others or be a good role model for others about how to be a happy healthy person so beginning with ourselves we need to try to learn how to reduce and eliminate suffering and increase and perfect well-being happiness wisdom kindness and we're incredibly fortunate in this life to have met the buddha's teachings [Music] and to have met them you know in the example and role model of his homeless dalai lama and our other teachers who um yeah in actuality are fully enlightened beings emanating or showing the appearance that is exactly suitable to our suited to our needs and our potential so there's no question that by listening to reflecting on meditating on and trying to follow their advice it's the quickest way for us to transform to be of more benefit to others so reflecting on that then let's just try to generate the motivation that by engaging in this review session today then we create causes to um uh to be of the greatest possible to yeah that our lives become of the greatest the most meaningful and most beneficial to others especially that when they quickly achieve we create causes to quickly become enlightened for that purpose [Music] and especially in light of all the suffering that sentient beings experience from moment to moment that may we quickly become enlightened in order to know benefit awesome [Music] okay so then let's go through what this woman said um and someone just didn't make many opening remarks you pretty much went right into this this prayer the three principal aspects of the path uh lam and so couple which is a short presentation of the long run the graduated path to enlightenment so the three principal aspects of the path um yeah which was just pasted in the chat now um so the path means the path to enlightenment right the path to transform what are the different um kinds of meditation the different questions and issues we need to contemplate and think about um and the different kinds of mental uh qualities that we need to develop on the path to enlightenment and what's the order the sequence and the number of those different um uh issues topics so that's what in this the title of the prayer the three principle aspects of the path the path refers to you know the path to enlightenment right so when we talk about the graduated stages of the path it's the same thing same path um but here instead of talking you know so much about all the different stages of the path laminster baba emphasizes these three main aspects of the path the three principal aspects so this is really helpful it's a really helpful way to remember well what are the essential things i need to pay attention to in buddhist practice because especially in the sanskrit tradition you know there's so many different kinds of practices so many you know there's descriptions of millions of different buddha fields you know millions of different buddhas and then all kinds of different practices there's many different sutras there's many different texts you know the last couple days we've been talking about the great treaties the five great treaties each with multiple commentaries by indian commentary indian indian pundits and then many commentators commentaries composed by later tibetan scholars so you know sometimes it can feel really overwhelming like there's so much to do you know we need to purify we need to accumulate karma we need to make prostrations offer mandalas you know build holy objects meditate on emptiness and then there's the four tenets schools they each have a different presentation of emptiness and then learn about logic and it can seem kind of it can be a little overwhelming you know the whole especially the sanskrit buddhist tradition the london tradition so it's really helpful to have you know this concept of the three principal aspects right renunciation and emptiness so if we can just keep those three in mind and have a little understanding of those three and meditate a little bit on those three again and again then that then we're doing enough basically right then everything else can become part of that but we need to have some kind of central idea of the essence the core essence of the buddhist path to coalesce everything else around um yeah so then his holiness actually just like yesterday remember when we went over the the requesting prayer to the seventeen nalanda scholars his holiness began with the colophon today again his holiness began with the colophon of the prayer and then went to the beginning so i'll share my screen now and we'll look at the color phone first so this color phone is very short so remember this this prayer is composed by lama tsum kapa in who lived from [Music] 1357 to 1419 um so it was composed probably in the mid to later part of his life so probably around you know late 1300s anyway so but it's composed by allah who's the founder of the gillett tradition and remember llamas teachers mostly from the shakia tradition many also from the kayaki tradition and then some nima at least one ningmah llama but at that time also in tibet i think the the kadam lineage is considered kind of mixed with and a little bit separate from also the other um the kagyu and sakya yeah so here's the colophon this advice was given by the monk losong so that's islamos [Music] so this advice was given by the mom lausanne [Music] the glorious los angeles to now on so this is the student of lama tsunkata for whom he composed this advice now and drachma a leading person of taco region in tibet so i guess sakura region is a is the area of tibet i don't really know but uh nalandra powell was like a political leader i don't think he's ordained i think he's a lay person i'm pretty sure i'm not a hundred percent but um um but he's he's like a you know a political leader kind of a wealthy powerful kind of person from the taco region of tibet who is a very close disciple of songkapa so in this verse 14 which i don't know is it large enough for you to read on your laptop's screen the verses are they large enough you can see yeah yes okay okay so verse 14. thus when you have understood as they are these essential the essentials of the three principle aspects of the path of some seek solitude and by enhancing the power of perseverance swiftly accomplish your ultimate aspiration so especially these words it's kind of uncommon this osan seeks solitude it's a it's quite an uncommon phrase in you know classical um you know tibetan and indian buddhist works to have a phrase that's so intimate so this is what his wholeness was speaking about at the beginning this is why he brought up the colophon because it's addressed he was just saying that so addressed this prayer to this person sakura who's a very close disciple and his i mean uh expressed that by saying basically oh son once you realize once you have a good understanding of these three principle aspects of the path then go into solitude seek solitude and put effort into meditation basically but the way he addresses him osan is very personal and it shows affection son kappa's great affection for his student and so at this point um his holiness was saying that you know that that phrase oh son um [Music] [Music] [Music] anyway it means oh my child actually oh my child my son so um so as holy so saying we should consider ourselves all as the object of that phrase when son kappa says you know oh my child or oh my son when you yeah oh my child when you when you realize the essential points of the three principle aspects of the path seek solitude and generate the power of perseverance or powerful perseverance then we can we should consider that song but speaking to us personally um not just to this person [Music] um so then um uh has always mentioned that yeah this is this prayer is found in the miscellaneous kind of compositions part of the collected works of songkapa um oh and then so his holiness was i mean yeah his holiness was emphasizing that in this last verse the way son kappa says once you you know have a good intellectual understanding of the main three principle aspects of the path then seek solitude and generate strong perseverance so he's showing that you know it's up to us ourselves actually to put the buddha's teachings into practice and then he quoted this famous verse by the buddha from a sutra i forget what to say buddhas don't wash away sins like washing off stains with water buddhas don't pull sentient beings out of suffering like lifting someone up by the hand buddhas do not transfer they cannot transfer their realizations into the minds of others rather they benefit sentient beings by teaching the truth right so so really the buddha's teachings are like medicine that's given by a doctor you know a wise doctor they can analyze our condition uh identify the cause of our illness and then they know and then prescribe a medicine which they know will alleviate the signals the illness but we have to take the medicine it's up to us to take the medicine you know as prescribed so the buddhist teachings are just like that the buddha you know he's he's generated wisdom he sees the suffering we experience he's correctly analyzed precisely the causes of the suffering experience and he's explained to us how to eliminate the causes of the suffering that we've experienced and how to create causes of happiness but it's totally up to us to actually put that put that advice into practice the buddha can't do that for us right otherwise of course they would right but it's totally up to us to to practice what they would have taught you know in accordance with our own interest and proclivity and disposition and ability we just do the best we can and then we we check to see whether whether we get good results or not right so that's how we analyze the buddhist teachings um so um yeah so in that last verse then son kapoor is encouraging his close disciple then you know once you get a good understanding of the path then find solitude and put you know put effort into actually practicing and then you'll quickly reach you'll quickly attain your goal um and then yeah his holiness said how long mainly based his teachings on you know the naland tradition in general especially the view of emptiness he he based his explanations on texts by nagarjuna deva um buddha polita and chandikuti as instructed by you know this pure vision of manjushri who told him how to study about emptiness and then as holiness mentioned again the third day in a row that every day he reads chandi kirti's auto commentary on entering the middle way which is not translated yet into english unfortunately but the the the main prayer by china guilty and during the middleweight is translated by english and earlier in the years hello or in 2020 and autumn i think his wholeness cut it so there's a free copy of it floating around but if you just read that that it's a verse prayer you won't understand that it's not so helpful just on its own so you really need a commentary but the commentary um by its own so okay let's just get this straight right there's a root uh versus on emptiness called the fundamental wisdom or rude wisdom by nagarjuna then chandi kirti wrote a verse commentary on the main meaning of that right and combined it with the presentation of the ten perfections usually we talk about the six perfections that bodhisattvas practice but actually there's ten there's an additional four we don't usually talk about um but anyway so there's six there's eleven chapters the ten perfections and then uh but the longest chapter is the sixth about the sixth perfection the perfection of wisdom that's the main part of that prayer um and that's yeah so that's the one i was saying is freely available entering the middle lane right and then chandi kirti wrote an auto commentary on that so auto commentary always means it's a commentary on us on a prayer or a text composed by the same author as the original text right so so chandra kirti wrote this verse yeah text called entering the middle way and then he himself wrote an explanation of his own text um so that's called auto commentary on entering the middleweight by china so that's what his wholeness that that commentary that his wholeness is saying he reads a little bit every day and finds very beneficial for his own contemplation on emptiness um and that's the one that's not translated into english yet right but um but then laman song right the author of this prayer we're looking at now he wrote an extensive commentary on chandra kirki's entering the middle way and the auto commentary so large parts probably half or more of chandra kyrgy's auto commentary on entering the middleweight is quoted you know word by word in songkapa's commentary on that which is called illumination of the thought and which has just been published in english a translation by tipton jimbo it's just been published in the last six months by wisdom but it's really expensive it's like 75 or something i haven't seen it yet but it will soon um yeah um but yeah i mean i'm sure there's a kindle version or something for last room um digital copy um [Music] so yeah anyway it's also saying again for the third day in a row that he reads that auto commentary by chinese turkey every day uses databases as his main basis uses it as his main basis for contemplating emptiness every day and then it's always saying the best text to use as your main basis for mere entity on bodhichitta is the bodhisattva's way of life right or entering the the path of the bodhisattvas and people transformed but by by shanti shantideva's um bodhisattva's way of life um and then yeah i don't know my mind wondered a little bit i i i'm not sure how the next thing connects but um there's always i think talking about bodhichitta was saying for us when we think about becoming enlightened to benefit other sentient beings our main objective should be to achieve you know from the buddhist holy mind and the buddha's holy body i think he said it should be the buddha's body because it's the buddha's body that that directly appears to other sentient beings and thereby they can relate they can see relate to and benefits them the buddha's holy mind doesn't actually appear to other sentient beings you know although it's it's through the force of the buddhist mind that the buddha's body appears to sense but you know that was just a short comment i heard i heard but i might have gotten something not quite right there i'm not sure um and that is holiness yeah someone spoke here quite a while about his own personal practice uh try to generate the mind of buddhism think about the suffering of sentient beings generate the aspiration to achieve full enlightenment and i use some verses from from nagarjuna's i think it's the precious garland just like the earth uh water fire and air just like a medicinal forest and the wood of the monastery so may all sensus use me just as they like in any way that's beneficial to them um and so forth uh thinks about these verses and then there's three verses from the bodhisattvas way of life that is wholeness quotes sorry i didn't get the chance to pull all the verses together uh today i had some other things going on so uh yeah maybe next time but they're all verses that i put up in documents before during those review sessions so and i think yeah i don't know if those those resources might still be available on to she's web page if you go back they're probably in the google forward or somewhere um and i mean also just to promote actually i'm i have a plan to to um to put together some of the essential verses that his holiness mentions again and again and again and and sort of indicates that we should be using in our daily practice uh so i've already put together somewhat of a document i'm not finished but i want to put together all those verses in like a nice document one document with just the verses so we can use in our daily make it very easy for people to use in the daily practice and then another document with some of his wholeness explanations of those verses right and then and then i'm thinking maybe actually um to like i think it'd be a nice offering to his holiness like for his birthday to have if people want they can like sign up to make a pledge like to recite those and contemplate on verses every day and then offer it to his holiness right somehow it would be a nice kind of offering i think first homes to show that actually we hear what he's saying and we're actually trying to do that otherwise i'm not sure if you know if he really knows i mean he knows right ultimately but anyway it's it's maybe nice to do um and then it's also saying how important it is to study again and again okay so these five major treaties by lamazon kappa on emptiness i mean so he's actually his homelessness was talking about how one of his own teachers um told him how important it is to study these five trees um and then someone else finds yeah it's very true so there's five major texts by lama tsunkapa on emptiness so the five are the first i just mentioned illumina illumination of the thought all right which has just been translated the second is in the in the the emptiness section of the lamrin channel of the great treaties on the stages of the path to enlightenment which is published by snow lion and three volumes so in the third volume there's a there's a big section on actually the well half of the third volume which is the biggest of the three is all about um this perfection of wisdom which is a very extensive explanation on emptiness so that's the second one and then the um sao kappa's explanation of meditation and emptiness in the middle stages the middle length lamrim right so there's a middle link lamrim which is also just about to be published by wisdom i don't think it's published yet but it'll come out within the next year um and it's already been published and used in fpmt masters program from several years ago but they're just kind of cleaning it up and editing it down a little bit better and it's going to be published by wisdom soon so that's the third one then the fourth one is some cables commentary on [Music] nagarjuna's root wisdom which is called ocean of reasoning it's translated in english but it's like a phd thesis kind of translation so i haven't moved that much i think it's not so reader friendly but it's it's published uh who translated it i don't remember who translated it but i think it's called ocean of reasoning um and then there's and then the the fifth one is called essence of eloquence um and it's not completely translated yet the first part of it is about the mind only school that's translated by jeffrey hopkins um but the the second part of it is about the middleweight schools that part's not been published for transition yet so anyway there's these five treaties illumination of the thought the special insight part of the great treaties on the stage of the path to enlightenment the special insight section on the middle length stages of the path enlightenment um the it's called ocean of reasoning um in tibetan it's called sachet or it's like the great commentary on root wisdom or fundamental wisdom by nagarjuna and then the essence of eloquence distinguishing the um interpretive and definitive intention so those are the five um yeah those homelessness said it's important to study this again and again um oh and then and then so by doing so by getting a good understanding of broad understanding detailed understanding of emptiness in that way then we gain confidence and conviction in our understanding of emptiness and dependent rising and thereby once we can recognize clearly that all phenomena are dependent arisings and empty of any you know ultimate existence or any any um empty of existing from their own side then it becomes very easy to transform any experience into the path right so any anything that happens especially bad things that happen any no matter how difficult kind of experiences or challenges we face if we have a stable understanding that they're empty of inherent systems then that's the best basis for transforming those experiences into things from which we can develop compassion patience you know joyful enthusiasm and dharma practice um um and so forth so we can transform those difficult experiences into the path uh to enlightenment as well and then someone has said how he at the end of the day how important it is to make this prayer which we we commonly recite in fpmt um in all my lives may i never be separated from the perfect group and by enjoying the stages and the listen by enjoying the magnificent dharma may i quickly um i don't know something like traverse the stages and paths and quickly achieve enlightenment you know it's very common uh [Music] by quickly competing the status in the past may equivalent something like that so you're saying if you actually do this if you actually you know read again and again the buddhist teachings think about them meditate them meditate on them then that is the best cause that's the best way to never be separated from the dharma and quickly complete the status and pounce um and and quickly achieve enlightenment you know if we just make prayers and and do nothing do no study no contemplation no meditation we just pray that's just like it's just like dry words right so he's saying this you know we're recollecting the essential teachings of the buddha reading a little bit of buddhist teachings contemplating meditating on every day that's the way to create the causes to never be separated from the guru never be separated from the dharma and to be able to quickly progress through the stages and paths and become enlightened okay so that was those were his whole preliminary comments and then he went to the actual prayer so why don't yeah i'll share my screen again and then we um yeah we'll look at this three principle access to the path okay here we go the three principles of the path by jitsukapa so this is a translation by tipton jimbo it's not the same that's as the one in the fpnt prayer book where there's the translation by lamazo brimbouche um together with a few other people so different that's fine homage to the most vulnerable teachers um yeah so usually in the lam rim the very first topic is um guru devotion but in in llamas prayer this is the only reference to the teacher right so this this homage actually kind of stands in for contemplation on guru devotion how much are the most vulnerable teachers i shall explain here to the best of my ability the essential points of all the scriptures of the congress so the conqueror with the capital c always means to put us the buddha the path acclaimed by all excellent bodhisattvas the gateway for the fortunate ones aspiring for liberation so here actually the what what appears as the first line in english here in the tibetan actually this is the last line of the verse um so it reads more like in the tibetan reads more like just a match just put this line last right like the essential points of all the scriptures of the conquer the path were acclaimed by excellent bodhisattvas the gateway for the fortunate ones aspiring for liberation uh this i shall explain here to the best of my ability but as holis made a comment i never heard before an explanation of this um [Music] that this this this line actually on one hand yes it means being humble and he's he's kind of saying yeah my ability to explain the path to enlightenment is limited so i'll do the best i can that's one way to interpret it but this line can also be interpreted as meaning that i will explain this path in accordance with the abilities and the disposition of the of the audience right and you know in an inappropriate way for the audience um and uh and like and by explaining this way i'm kind of showing my ability and my you know to explain this path or to guide you on this path something like that um okay so the essential points of all the scriptures of the conquerors so means all the sutras spoken by the buddha and the tantras what are the essential points of all of those and what is the path you know claimed by praised by all the bodhisattvas what is the gateway for the fortunate one so aspiring you know understanding these three um you know central um ideas or um realizations um is kind of the the gateway for the fortunate one so those who aspire to liberation from samsara well actually here liberation means more like enlightenment right because bodhichitta is um you know especially for those seeking enlightenment so he'll explain this um so and this is also the usually in the beginning of a classical indian or tibetan text there's a a homage which is here and then a promise to compose right um so this this is the promise to compose the text and then two those who are not attached to the joys of cycling resistance who strive to make meaningful this life of leisure and opportunity and to place their trust in the path that pleases the conquerors or fortunate ones listen with an open heart with an open mind so this this verse is called it's another classical kind of feature that occurs at the beginning of most texts is imploring the audience to listen carefully right so so who's there the appropriate audience for this teaching those who are not you know overcome with attachment to the joys of sexual existence it means you know the especially the sense pleasures and attachment to fame you know the eight worldly concerns we spoke about yesterday attachment to praise attachment to fame sense pleasures you know obsession with wealth um and so forth so those who are not attached to the joys of secular existence and those who straight strive to make their lives meaningful you know this life which is of leisure and opportunity means the precious human rebirth where we you know we're not born into hell we're not born as a hungry ghost as an animal as a long life god or um with wrong views and then we have the sense faculties um complete we're born not born in a remote land where we have no access to you know education whatsoever we're not rewards a person who has a strong um anti-buddhist views um and then we have a healthy body healthy mind where uh born of the time when the buddha came to the earth they would have taught the tgs still exist and there's people who give us access to the teachings and generally people have kindness in their hearts and so forth um so all those you know this this incredible fortunate circumstance we're in if we strive to make it meaningful um then listen to this and especially for those who place their trust um in the path that pleases the conquerors so for those who have some faith in the buddhist teachings then he implores us to listen with an open mind and then three so three from three uh verse three four and five three verses i think about uh renunciation the first of the three principle aspects of the path is renunciation so remember and here actually yeah i'll show you we use a verse from within i mean sorry a couple lines from within this to give the meaning of pronunciation i mean the definition of pronunciation is a mind uh that day and night strives to achieve liberation from samsara freedom from the suffering of samsara so a mind which day and night is continually intent upon achieving freedom from the suffering of samsara is renunciation basically so that that comes up in just below okay so three without pure renunciation there is no means to pacify the yearning for the joys and the fruits of samsaric ocean that's not such a good translation basically it means without pure renunciation there's no way to pacify to eliminate the yearning for the the joys and like the pleasures the pleasurable results that we can achieve in the ocean of samsara suffering right and samsara which what is samsara it means it's the continuity of rebirths that we take through the force of karma and afflictive emotions so as since why because craving for existence chains us thoroughly um at first seek for true renunciation so it's because craving for existence in samsara is what is is what chains us thoroughly too so imagine you know when you're dying if you're dying and you know you've had a good life you have a loving family you know partner you've had you know some prosperity healthy body but then you know we all age and then and then we're dying and as we're dying all we want is to not be separated from those things we want to not be separated from our our family our children we want to not be separated from our our possessions our status our you know our um our our own our books our music you know all the things we enjoy and and we want not to be separated from our body because for most of us we identify as ourselves strongly with our body we have a hard time imagining that we could be we could exist as something separate from this body right so you can imagine as we're dying from most of us then we're clinging to all the things of this life and it's that very clean that throws us into another rebirth right so that's kind of what it's talking about here and as the craving for existence chains us thoroughly then we have to search for a true renunciation so then what is renunciation then verse 4 he explains by cultivating and how do we generate it by cult so first he he he describes how to cultivate renunciation and then uh describes what is the definition of having cultivated pronunciation so by cultivating in mind so by cultivating in our minds that this human life is hard to find first of all it's difficult to find a human rebirth and yet has no time to spare so this life doesn't last long death is um death is imminent it's definitely going to happen and when it's going to happen we have no idea right um so yeah so this human life is very difficult to find and has no time to spare every moment we're only getting closer to death right so our our our um our opportunity to do anything good on the basis of this human body and the rebirth we have now is only running out you know like sand running through um a [Music] um i can't remember what it's called i know you know what i'm talking about hourglass shape thing is it hourglass no anyway you know what i'm talking about um anyway so yeah so like sand running through that thing it's just running out or like you know water water falling from a waterfall it's only going down like that not that our lives are only going down but the time you know once the waterfall goes over the cliff then the time before it hits the the pool at the bottom is only getting shorter okay so preoccupations with so with the mind cultivation sorry by cultivating in our own minds so by thinking about again and again right the fact that this life is hard to find and that there is no time to spare right then preoccupations with the things of this life will cease right so it means our obsessive you know interest in all the the activities and the goings on in this life it'll become less the more we recognize that we have to leave this life right and and and after we die we're going to there's it's not that existence ends at the time of death we're going to have some kind of existence after death and right now we have no control about what kind of resistance that's going to be we have no certainty what's going to happen after uh after our death but actually we should think about that a lot that should be a big concern for us it's kind of like you know if you're in uh if you have a house or an apartment but you know that no matter what you do you're going to be evicted from that at some point maybe because the landlord he wants to renovate right and you're going to be kicked out of that apartment if you know that you'll definitely make some plans like okay when when when when i'm forced to leave this house then i need to take this and this with me you'll make some preparations but you know usually we don't do that with regard to this life we don't make preparations for our future lives um but here at sunconf is saying yeah we by thinking about how pr how fortunate this human life is and how it's going to end um then that reduces our preoccupation with the things of this life then further um so that's kind of renunciation for the happiness of this life right and then the next two lines are about renunciation for all of samsara right by contemplating repeatedly the truth of karma right karma the law of cause and effect and samsaric suffering means the sufferings of all of samsara so no matter where we take rebirth in samsara of course obviously as a hell of being a hungry ghost an animal it's not good right but even we take rebirth as a human being we're going to go through another you know coca-19 pandemic there's going to be you know more wars there's going to be more sickness more relationship problems more you know ptsd more depression those things are inevitable as a human being um not and then in the deva realm okay we don't have those growth sufferings but um actually the suffering that david's experience in the final week of that rebirth because they know that they're going to die away from that that heavenly rebirth and because they've used so much of their positive karma then their negative karma is going to write them and they'll take rebirth and morals and also they don't they don't progress towards liberation enlightenment because they have no interest in those things because everything is fine so by contemplating repeatedly the truth of karma law of cause and effect and the suffering of all of samsara preoccupation with with next life so it means preoccupation with getting a happy state of existence in next life will also cease will also come to an end so this is this is a famous this is a very famous verse i mean among galupa amongst probably even you know other traditions too this one verse it it it contains a lot in it it's like the whole small scope this can and the whole of the small scope and middle scope are all contained in this one verse so this is a verse that's quoted often and people uh you know recite it to themselves and contemplate a lot right um that verse okay then verse five as okay as you habituate in this way so as you habituate your mind in this way and when so this is the measure of having achieved renunciation when not even an instant of admiration arises for the prosperities of cyclic resistance it means that pleasurable things and psychic resistance so when for not not even for by reflecting on our precious human rebirth the inevitability of death and then the law of karmic law of cause and effect and the suffering of all of samsara by contemplating on those four things when not even for an instant does admiration it means yearning for the pleasures of psycho existence arise and instead when the thought aspiring for liberation arises day and night at this point trunan's true renunciation has arisen right so especially these last two lines are given as the the definition of renunciation when um when the thought aspiring for liberation arises day and night at this point true enunciation has arisen right so based on the contemplations that went before when you know not even for a moment for right now for most of us you know when we think about the suffering of samsara probably sometimes we have some degree of renunciation but then we have to be honest with ourselves is it something that arises continuously and effortlessly day and night do i never you know crave or you know yearn for the pleasures of sorrow for most of us no it's not really like that like sometimes we just want to listen to nice music we just want to have you know a cup of nice tea and go for a walk um which are i mean those things are fine but it's not that we can't ever do those things but um um yeah but never yeah i mean yeah there's a little bit yeah i won't go into now but we have to try to make a more kind of fine-grained distinction between well what what is it what is it to actually have actual renunciation and is there room for enjoying things you know in ordinary life definitely there has to be but how how can those two go together it's kind of a big question um [Music] yeah i mean part of the answer to the question is just not seeing the pleasures of samsara as an ultimate end in themselves right um and seeing how all the places of samsara actually are directly or indirectly tied up with um with suffering right either the suffering of suffering or the suffering of change or pervasive compounding suffering okay so from six um for the next three verses i think is about bodhichitta right so renunciation such pronunciation two if it is not sustained or accompanied by actually by pure awakening mind it will not become a cause of the perfect bliss of unexcelled enlightenment therefore oh intelligent ones generate the excellent awakening mind so awakening mind it's bodhichitta of course so it's saying that even if you develop that kind of pronunciation it does become a cause for liberation from samsara for freedom from suffering on samsara but it doesn't become a cause for the bliss of unexcelled enlightenment right for the omniscient state of buddhahood so we need to generate bodhichitta right in conjunction with renunciation so again such pronunciation too if it is not sustained by or accompanied by or held by you know by pure awakening mind body cheetah it will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of any sub-enlightenment so remember of course i think you all know but bodhichitta is the mind motivated by seeing the suffering of all sentient beings and wanting to free all sorts of beings from suffering striving the mind striving to or yearning for the state of full enlightenment right it's participant so um yeah so you're saying we need to generate that in order for anything we do to become a cause foreign and then seven so these this seven and eight are again really uh famous and very powerful verses about thinking about the suffering of sense of beings so here his holiness says as he often does that you can use these two verses by directing this contemplation to yourself as a baby we can use them to generate renunciation by directing the contemplation towards others thinking about the situation of others in this way we generate buddhic or great compassion so um there let's see the translation is a little weird but they're being swept away constantly by the four powerful rivers right so being continually so this is thinking about how all sentient beings are continually swept away by the four powerful rivers so there are two different ways deposit the four powerful rivers i'll just mention one one is the sufferings of birth old age sickness and death right that's that's one way to positive um yeah there's another but i don't remember exactly so yeah think about how sentient beings continually experience you know either one of these the suffering of birth all day sickness and death and life to life right and then and how all sentient beings are bound tightly with the fetters of karma most difficult to to escape so how we're under the control of our karma we're continually creating karma continually experiencing the effects of karma and how very difficult it is to get free from them and then trapped inside the iron mesh of self-grasping right so this is really the self-selfish mind the self-cherished mind how that keeps us you know how difficult it is to to reduce and eliminate that and it gives rise to anger greed jealousy um you know resentment again and again and again um and then enveloped from everywhere by the thick mist of ignorance so the basis of this self selfish mind is ignorance grasping at the inherently existing self so i mean we really have to think about the analogy here and then apply it to the meaning so first of all imagine that you're in a river you know in a big river like a rushing river you've fallen into you know you're falling into a rushing river and you're being swept downstream already it's terrifying right but then not only that your hands and your feet and arms are bound are tied up so you can't even swim right you're just totally at the mercy of the current and then not only that not only are your feet and arms are bound you're in a you're you're in a like a metal um net like a metal net you're trapped in the net so you you totally even if you get your arms and feet unbound you're totally helpless and not only that it's at night right and there's no moon there's no sun there's no lights it's totally dark i mean imagine how terrifying that would be you'd be like i'm done like no hope right even houdini couldn't get out of that i think so so so the so the yeah but so the analogy then we have to apply the analogy like really so before the powerful river is a river of uh birth all day sickness and death then you know we're bound by karma and then within karma where we're we're caught in the net of the self self-centered mind right and then within that we're blinded by ignorance right the ignorance grasping at everything is inherently insistent so it really is like it's a very powerful kind of uh illustration of our actual situation which usually we don't give a second thought about right so it's quite scary so you think well then verse eight so this is the first two lines continue uh then suspension beings they take rebirth within cyclic existence that has no end right an ordinary river at least it you know well it dumps into the ocean somewhere or something and there's a dam or something the river that of cycle resistance has no end right so that's kind of actually why we should practice even if we feel like our practice doesn't really add up too much it doesn't make much difference well it's better than endless suffering and psycho existence right they will add or you know if we make effort it will there will be an end to the path of practice there's no end to the suffering of some sort so when then they take rebirth when the cycle second distance has no end where they're endlessly tormented by the three suffering so as long as we're in like resistance we'll be tormented by the three sides remember as painful experiences the suffering of change is pleasant experiences which don't last actually and they transform into unpleasant experiences and then pervasive compounding suffering is just the fact of being under the control of um karma and afflictive emotions so by reflecting on all your mothers so here's somebody says by reflecting on myself being in such a condition please bless me to generate renunciation and then by reflecting on all your mother kind mother sentient beings as being in such a suffering condition please generate the supreme awakening in mind okay so that's it for bodhichitta and now on to emptiness so this prayer the three principal aspects of the path it's most famous it's most famous for these verses on emptiness actually um are considered you know really like songkappa's pith instruction on how to meditate on emptiness um and and what is the right view realizing emptiness so um yeah um yeah there's one two three four five verses on emptiness here so nine is just speaking about the need to realize emptiness if you do not have the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature that means emptiness if you do not have the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature even if you gain familiarity with renunciation and the awakened mind you will not be able to cut the root of cyclic existence right the root of second resistance is ignorance grasping at inherent existence for true resistance so without the wisdom realizing the ultimate truth emptiness you'll not be able to cut the root of psycho existence therefore strive or so strive in the means of realizing dependent origination right so this is kind of uh an odd thing you know in this verse because some copper is saying that you know to cut the root of the oceans of samsara suffering you need to realize ultimate nature emptiness so therefore strive in the means to realize dependent origination you know you would expect him to say therefore strive in the means to realize the ultimate nature or to realize emptiness but he doesn't say that instead he says strive to realize dependent origination so this very clearly shows so this is what his holiness explained in relation to this verse but it's common explanation this very clearly shows how dependent origination when i get my fingers in front dependent origination and um emptiness are two sides of the same coin right and how the correct understanding of emptiness is whereby well first of all how the best reason upon which to establish understanding of emptiness is dependent origination so when we make a syllogism we can say i the person you know a person the subject the person and then the predicate is empty of inherent existence and then the proof statement because of being a dependent or arising right using that kind of syllogism is the best way to establish under a correct understanding of emptiness so what that means is that um with a correct understanding of emptiness then we see that well first of all whatever is a dependent origin dependently arising phenomena therefore when you search for the actual thing existing from its own side you don't find anything all you find is like a net an assembly of parts or a set of causes and conditions and something's transforming moment by moment upon which we label this thing right and thereby the thing exists by the force of that labeling and the basis of imputation of parts right you don't find anything more substantial than that right so um so on the one hand emptiness it's i mean dependent arising it shows us how things are empty of inherent existence and on the other hand the fact that there is emptiness of inherent existence establishes that there there is there are things that are empty of inherent resistance emptiness itself depends upon what's called a basis of emptiness it depends upon there being conventional phenomena whose ultimate nature is to be empty of inherent resistance without there being conventional truth or conventional phenomena there could be no ultimate truth without there being ultimate truth there can be no conventional truth so those two are mutually dependent right so when we have a correct understanding they you know the meaning of dependent arising appears as emptiness and the meaning of emptiness appears as dependent arousal right so that's what that that that verse is very important then verse 10 when with respect to all phenomena of samsara and nirvana you see that cause and effect never deceive their laws right so despite things being empty of inherent existence still you know things change and and one thing gives rise to another in a very orderly and predictable way right like you know you you want a crop of rice you have to plant rice seeds you know if you want a good inner internet connection you need to use something other than just your sim card or you know if you want to make like a cup of tea you need hot water and tea you can't just put some flour in a pan and heat it up you're not going to get tea that way for example so the way things and if you want happiness you need to be kind right to others you can't just go around and being a grouch and complaining to everybody and being nasty to everybody and expect to be happy right so so there's a very in all you know in the physical world in the emotional world there's a very rational and and kind of orderly and fixed way in which causes certain you know certain set of causes gives rise to a certain set of effects and not some other weather it's not just chaos right so when with respect to all phenomena samsara nirvana you see that cause and effects never deceive their laws or they're unbetraying and when you have dismantled the focus of objectification so this is grasping at inherent resistance at that point you have entered the path that pleases the buddha okay then eleven so long as these as the two understandings so which two understandings of appearance which is undeceiving dependent origination and emptiness which is devoid of all of this remains separate so long you have not realized the intent of this stage so we're running out of time i don't have you know time to explain it in much detail but this yeah i wish i had time to go through the tibetan actually but um [Music] but imagine there's two understandings we understand that okay external phenomena and you know impermanent things conventional phenomena they're all dependently i mean they're all changing moment by moment right they appear and they're changing moment by moment that's okay and you know certain set of causes give rise to a certain set of effects okay on the one hand that's fine i understand that and then on the other hand we might understand that you know have an understanding that emptiness um is is totally devoid of all those conventional phenomena right ultimate truth is not any of those things um in the tibetan actually it says something more like emptiness is an absence of all assertions right but as as long as these two emptiness and conventional phenomena are seen as seen as two separate things that's the main thing here then we have not realized the ultimate intent of the sage of the buddha so in the next verse he reconciles this apparent kind of problem um by saying 12. however at some point when uh what's going on okay however at some point when without alteration so it means without alternating between these two emptiness and appearance emptiness appearance so without alternating between these two um so however at some point when without alteration but at once the instant you see that dependent origination is undeceiving if um when the instant you see that dependent origination is undeceiving if the entire object of grasping at certitude is dismantled at that point your analysis of the view has culminated so yeah it's really difficult to get all the tibetan into one verse here and i i he hasn't really gotten it all here if you look at the fpmt translation i think this verse is broken into two verses in english um it's it's a little bit more spread out which gets it better but the idea here i'll just try to explain and get the gist however at some point when without alteration so remember this is two things appearance of conventional phenomena and emptiness you know of ultimate truth so as long as those are seen the previous verse remember said as long as those twos are seen as separate you haven't gotten right so here he's talking about when when you have got it however at some point when without alteration so without alternating between these two you the instant you see that dependent origination is undeceiving right so that's the appearance side the appearances we have of things it's undeceiving the cause and effects works as it should and what it means is that very understanding of dependent origination that that you know through that very understanding of dependent origination that proves to you right in that moment that things are empty of inherent resistance without it being like a separate thing it's like that very appearance of things you know understanding how things appear how we have an experience of things how cause and effect works that right in in and of itself that shows us depend i mean or emptiness right so the instant you see that the pension origination is undeceiving if the entire object of grasping at servitude is dismantled so the instant means in that very moment in one moment those two things come together inseparably where you see both that it's because things appear in the way they do that they're empty of inherent resistance means if they if they if they were not empty of an air resistance if they if they existed from their own side they couldn't possibly appear as their way the way they did it would be impossible so it's the very appearance itself which negates things existing from their own side so if the entire so by that appearance if the entire object of grasping that certitude is dismantled at that point your analysis of the view has culminated so you see why this is so important because song kappa is stating very clearly like if you realize it like this it means you've got emptiness right so this is i mean this is a very powerful verse for um for meditation it's something you know really good we can memorize and then reflect on again and again and then and then so here 13 kind of goes on to elaborate on it a little bit furthermore when appearance dispels the extreme of existence right and when emptiness dispels the extreme of non-existence and if you understand how emptiness arises as cause and effect you will never be captivated by views grasping at extremes right so ordinarily we would think that you know the first line furthermore when empty when appearance dispels the extreme of existence so ordinarily we would think that things appearing in the way you know the conventional way that they do yet that should dispel the extreme of nihilism that nothing exists right because you know if things appear in a conventional way then we we see that and we recognize oh then it's not the case that nothing exists right which is there's a big danger of when we meditate on emptiness that we fall into nihilism so but instead of saying that son cabba says furthermore when appearance dispels the extreme of existence right so the extreme of existence means grasping at inherent existence grasping at things existing from their own side so how is that you know so we have to kind of think a little bit to make sense of that but it's it i mean the meaning is what i just explained above that it's if things had inherent existence if things existed independently from their own side then there's no room for interaction between things right so then there's no zoom room there's no internet connection there's no plant growing outside there's no day and night there's no change right change requires things affecting one another things interacting with each other if things exist by their own power from their own side then there's no possibility for one thing to affect another at all it's over right so in that way then appearance dispels the extreme of this kind of inherent existence independent resistance and and emptiness so then think about emptiness on its own ordinarily we would think well emptiness dispels the extreme of um what is it called existence right the extreme of grasping at things as inher inherently existed which it does but kiri says the opposite when emptiness dispels the extreme of non-existence so again that requires you know thinking below the surface a little bit what does it mean how does emptiness dispel the extreme of non-existence well in the way i just described above because thing they're being anything they're we'll see their being the emptiness of an inherent existence requires there being something that is empty of inherent existence right if if nothing existed then there is also no emptiness of inherent resistance so any instance of you know inherent exist emptiness of inherent existence requires there being a basis which possesses that quality right so so by understanding that then whenever we think about emptiness that itself um is assurance that things exist that there isn't just nothing right because that emptiness is a quality of something other than emptiness right so there has to be other things in emptiness as well um so yeah so those and then if you understand how emptiness arises as cause and effect yeah that's and also very fascinating right how does emptiness arise is cause and effect what does that mean you will never be captivated by views grasping at extremes fourteen thus when you have understood as they are the essentials of the three principle aspects of the path oh son or o child seek solitude actually in tibetan the word they use i mean it can be used first on but it can also be gender neutral right but anyway he is addressing it to a man right so oh son seeks solitude and by enhancing the power of perseverance swiftly accomplish your ultimate aspiration right yeah so this is this is written as like a letter of personal advice a prayer personal advice to a close student who had studied with songkapa in central tibet um you know early on and then had gone back to come eastern tibet where he's from and so tonkava was sending him a letter of advice because they would never meet again all right okay so that's that's it uh for mine uh i don't think this wholeness said much after that so if you have any questions now okay you know at the end after this his holiness he just he gave some advice to the monks here in the in the in the three seats and the big monasteries in south india basically just talking about how important it is to study the five great treaties um and that you know the study of these these treaties is really the kind of the jewel of tibetan culture um and that you know it's really true when when you know if you've studied well then you see when you hear other people say that oh buddhism is just like blind faith people just following blind you know blindly following ideas then you you you know you usually recognize that they don't know what they're talking about basically um yeah which is really true okay anyway questions bill do you have a question can you answer yourself yes i have a question thank you very much excellent thank you can you explain a little bit about the merely labeled eye sure um you mean like what it is yes yeah like you didn't mention anything about the merely labeled eye yeah yeah it's true the merely labeled i okay well the i of course i person um being in the sense of like sentient being well sentient being is not sun unless i am person on those three self person those three are synonyms in buddhist philosophy right so first of all and all three are the merely labeled i i mean there is no person apart from the merely labeled person i mean everything is merely labeled right but when we talk about the merely labeled eye we're talking about the merely labeled person right and that's not like some person other than you know the person that we are because everything is merely labeled so there is only merely labeled person right so how that exists though is that we um i mean llamas oprah moshe explains this probably better in more detail than any other llama i've heard you know he goes through this step-by-step process there's like four or five steps the way room she explains it right and that's it's not really something richard's making up it's according to you know classical text so for for any when um to to impute or merely label anything we can't just impute anywhere you know like you know like i can't look at you can't look at the wall behind me and appear like soap there they just we just don't do that it doesn't make sense right so when we impute a person or i can't take you know i can't take like a notepad or or a watch or something and a few person on that right so everything requires a certain set of conditions within which imputing that thing makes sense otherwise it doesn't make sense so for a person the set of conditions are there has to be a body of a person well let's stick with human being it'll make it a little bit easier right so to improve human being there has to be the body of a human being first of all right who sets one head you know two ears two eyes or you know close you can have one eye you know one year that's not a big problem as long as most of the other parts are there right you can't just have one ear all alone and a few person on that right there has to be kind of most of a body there at least but anyway let's say ordinary body one head two arms two legs human body so that's the human body but is the human body alone enough to be a basis to impute person no otherwise we could improve person on a corpse right a human being's corpse a person has just died the whole body is there it's not functioning you know as a living body but the body is there you can't but it doesn't make sense to impute person on just a corpse right it's not a person why because it doesn't breathe it doesn't move um and and thereby it can't do the things that a person does it's not going to wake up or talk to us or anything so um okay so there has to be a body but then there has to be some things in addition to just the body so ideally there's speech or some kind of communication although that's not usually talked about the main other thing is the mind right there has to be consciousness so but but it's because that our consciousness is conjoined with that body that we're able to have movement speech and also that the physiological functions happen the heart beats then the blood flows the brain works we have sensations and so forth so but you know look at all those things the body you know any part of our mind our memories our plans for the future our feelings our ideas and then also our speech none of those are a person if you take any of those in isolation they're not suitable to to label person i mean the one thing that might be questionable there would be this extreme of consciousness right because the person does take rebirth right and that when they when the stream of consciousness leaves the body and before it's then takes rebirth in a future body there is no gross physical body right but but there we resort to tantra according to tantra there still is a physical aspect right there's a subtle wind so the subtle wind in mind is the basis of invitation but but okay so just to answer but to keep it short and answer your question then the merely imputed person is when we um well on the basis of this collection of parts all the parts of the body and all the parts of the mind primarium among which is a stream of consciousness then you know none of those parts are the person and if you if you put all those parts off to one side and search somewhere else for something to call a person you don't find anything so then what is the person it's something that we we observe that collection of parts and then we label person and thereby it exists right so that's how the imputed person exists but then what rinpoche does then is describe how we grasp at it as being inherently existent then due to our imprints of ignorance we project we it appears back to us as if we didn't impute person on the aggregates as if the person really is there on the aggregates by its own power it appears back to us like that because of our influence of ignorance and then we we believe that that appearance as real so that's how we grasp the inherently system personally okay but what do you have a follow-up i'm sure no where is it where is the uh merely labeler yeah i mean that's rinpoche's big debate question no where's the where is the merely imputed person yeah you know well i mean we can we can confidently answer that with reference to things that are not part of our continuum right so i'm i'm i'm on the chair you know think about where you are where are you we're most familiar with among all the different persons we're most familiar with us so we have to think about where am i well i can with reference to i'm i'm behind the table i'm in front of the laptop i'm on the chair i'm below the ceiling i'm above the floor so with reference to all these external things there's no problem locating us the problem is when we come closer right am i on the top of my head am i on my shoulder am i in my heart am i in my toes then it's like well you'd want to kind of want to think that the person pervades all of that space because if something's you know um touching your feet it's touching you right so any any point on our body if something's touching it we think it's touching me so it seems like the person pervades all of that but then you know you get into a lot of difficult questions very quickly so i mean if it's labeled it must be our consciousness labeling it right yeah i mean but that's a whole other question but what about because i'm looking at you in the zoom room now and i'm labeling you know i'm seeing an image of you and i'm labeling bill on that image so then is there a different bill one bill that lexico is labeling bill and then one bill that you're labeling yourself well this one's labeled door j groomer you know a doji german yeah sorry yeah but but i mean there's a question there's many many different people can label yeah well something so then does that mean there's different things one that's labeled by me one by one by them or and that that i haven't really seen a clear you know clearly addressed in text i asked room say one time can the buddha see are merely labeled eye he said yes the buddha can see when you when your arya beans can see it you know when you attain you realize emptiness then you can see it but we can see i mean that merely labeled the eye appears to us but it always appears as mixed with the inherently just an eye so we can't separate it we have really difficult we we can almost not separate it at all but they have a look okay what about the merely what about the merely part does that have anything specific meaning yeah yeah the merely negates inheritling system on the merely part yeah the merely negates inherently system thank you thank you very much okay someone else have a question um sure so i have a question um regarding to um the three jewels in a way it's like we say that we have like the buddha dharma sangha right but within those three so the dharma is the is the one that is most important correct me if i misunderstand so i was wondering because we had a teaching about it also and i think the principle of the the path is a little bit like the lam rim in a very short version if i think so and so i was wondering if like the dharma is the one that is most important because the buddha and the sangha are external but when you are studying the dharma then this would be the internal change within you and this is why it's like the most important one um yeah that makes sense um well usually it's described in two ways i think the reason the dharma is most important one is that it's because that's the thing that we actually practice right it's the actual buddhist teaching and advice which is what we actually try to put into practice the buddha explains that you know and the song that help us to practice but the thing we actually practice is the dharma you know the advice that we actually try to live in accordance with is you know the dharma that's one way and then the other way is more similar to what you're saying because what is the actual dharma jewel i mean within with regard to each of the three the three uh rare sublime ones or the three jewels of refuge there's an ultimate and a conventional right so there's ultimate conventional buddha there's ultimate conventional dharma there's a sangha and there's an ultimate and conventional dharma jewel so the ultimate dharma jewel actually is the truth of cessation and the truth of the path so those two that's what we're trying to achieve in our continuum so and and those two are what actually protect us from suffering so once it's by by generating the actual path so the actual path is from the path of seeing up the path of seeing path of meditation path of no more learning so once you've directly realized emptiness you become an aria boom so at that point you actually have the truth of the path in your continuum and and you and you uh you also have the truth of cessation because from the very first moment of directly realizing emptiness you've abandoned the smallest the the as they can say the the first level of obscurations right so each each successive level of obscurations that you abandon that's the truth of cessation right so basically from the path of seeing you have in your continuum the truth of the path and the truth of cessation which are the ultimate dharma jewel and it's those which actually protect you prevent you from taking rebirth in samsara again right and and it will enable you to achieve liberation and enlightenment yeah so in that way i think what you're what i hear you saying is that is the reason the the dharma is the main refuge of the three is because that's what internally actually protects us is that right yeah i mean it's like when there was just the sentence like that the buddha can show you the way but you are the one that has to walk it so i thought about it in that connotation of that because at the end it's the internal change that you have to do and not someone he cannot change you you can change yourself and that's what the dharma teaches at the end yeah right right exactly in that verse that um the buddhas don't wash away sins of water they don't pull sentient beings out of samsara by their hand they don't transfer their realizations into the mind of others they benefit beings by teaching the dharma yeah so it's the dharma that we actually have to practice thank you okay uh another question you can raise your hand in front of your screen also okay carrasco you look like you had a question i thought you did yeah thank you very much i have a lot of problems but it was it's more like um about bullying because i am i have a book from i know [Music] hold on can you can you put the mic up to your mouth you have a mic on your sorry yeah now hear me yeah i can hear you better now thank you very much okay so when his holiness dalai lama he i i didn't found the text from for generating body cheetah because i have a book uh this i found it from i and the the text the text yeah yeah and next that the bro he said it wasn't the same that i have so i was trying to follow in the ceremony but i didn't found the text so what where can i find the text for dinner oh good question um i don't know do one of you guys have it uh can upload to the chat or anton can you look for it online the text for generating body cheetah in that in that book you just held up the book with the bodhisattva vows at the beginning isn't there any and the verses for generating people i thought it would be there well i can't hear you again [Music] [Music] it isn't sex it's not the same well it's okay there's there's different verses there are different versions no there could be different translations from the same tibetan which is okay and even in tibetan there there's um mainly there's two different um prayers for generating bodhichitta one is using verses by shanti deva from the bodhisattvas way of life and then the other is using verses by atisha from the um lamp uh what is it uh the lamp on the path to enlightenment by atisha right so and i think there might be another set of verses yeah there are by asanga from a different text right so there are different verses you don't have to use a specific set of verses or words the main thing is to understand what is the attitude of bodhichitta what does it mean and to generate that in your heart right that's the main thing and then and then to make a pledge that you'll never give up trying to you know live your life according to that attitude and increase that attitude more and more okay that's the simple thing right so there's different versions of the words don't worry about that the one the version you have is fine okay uh okay any more questions what is the schedule is it this is scheduled till nine i think i don't want to keep you guys from your important evening activities i know it doesn't have the finished day it's just oh yeah seven to nine okay all right more questions i was thinking in the 8 30s georgie jimmy did you have a follow-up question are you in thailand [Music] um okay there's only 11 of us we're all in one room maya you must have a quote you asked a question already where's deal shot is she here jill shot oh yeah there you are hi dilsa do you have a question hi anthony yes um can you thank you for the teachings just awesome as usual thank you so much every day has been brilliant can you speak to renunciation some more just a that one aspect of the path in terms of just day-to-day life um of the three i know the body cheater emptiness you know shananna but the the renunciation in particular and the way it relates to the verses and the grasping you know just you know just the way it relates to the verses on harassment no grasping grasping remember if you could just speak to that a bit not harassment okay okay grasping grasping thank you um [Music] yeah yeah you know in a way i kind of find renunciation in a way it's the most difficult to understand of the three because it does it is hard to make it jive with our ordinary you know our sense that well we need to have ordinary life you know and you know oftentimes the the mistake people make i know i definitely made when we're new to buddhism is is to have the idea that renunciation means we have to give up everything that we like that whenever we like something or enjoy something we definitely do so with attachment which is true and that means all the things that we enjoy doing we have to stop doing and just be like you know severe ascetic many people have that kind of reaction to their initial understanding of pronunciation i remember once when i was a new i was new buddhist not a monk then before i was a monk and the first time i came to tashida i had a mala that i think maybe i don't know one of my teachers or some monk gave me or something but i was i had a ma it was my first mala and i was very attached to it and so once once i was walking on the path up to trion just above tashida just below the eagle's nest cafe so this really nice forest and i was thinking about renunciation and you know being very new and very enthusiastic i really want to generate this mind and then thinking i'm attached to my mama and just threw it i just threw it into the woods and then i went back and told the uh aniwango she was living at toshita then this senior nun what i did and she was like that's not pronunciation and she's totally right like you don't have to go throwing away your mala and stuff that you like like that's not going to help you in any way um so yeah i think the most helpful way to think about renunciation is just to think about like more like long-term where different experiences that we have like where is this leading me the more i the more i engage in this experience is this leading me towards real stable lasting happiness or is this just is does this just a permanent i mean is this just a temporary distraction or a temporary kind of fix for my boredom or my you know whatever longing or whatever it's just is this just a very temporary enjoyment that actually is not going leading me to any long-lasting satisfaction so that i think you know that's where it i think it relates to self-grasping you know grasping a selfishness on one hand because we can see so many of the things that we enjoy actually they really just reinforce our self-centered attitude that i just want to do this i don't care in this moment like i don't care if you know how it affects anyone else i just like doing this and i want to enjoy this so and then if we think about all the faults of selfishness then it shows us how well even you know some innocent pleasures they're actually just leading me in more into more of this kind of it's okay that i'm the sole center of my concern and that i don't really care much about anybody else like and and that that i mean in small degrees that's not so bad but the stronger it gets that self-centered concern the more and more likely we are to do things to hurt other people you know on smaller great scales so um and engage in negative karma to you know tell lies steal and so forth i mean lying stealing killing crime all of that comes about by not thinking about the people that were harming right so it's all related to being self this self-centered mind so um [Music] um and then you know we have to look at well well what are the things that i can do which lead me to be like more altruistic going in so and and to not be so concerned about pleasures you know so i find you know especially when we're doing things for other people that we don't enjoy it's really good i mean that's almost like it's guaranteed it's not feeding our own selfish desire for pleasure it's actually going against that right and it's especially if it's not something that we're going to get any direct benefit from we're really doing because we feel like we should you know i just should help this other person in this way um but but also you know more simple things just like you know meditation on loving kindness and compassion that's something we can enjoy you know fully it's very enjoyable and it's not reinforcing any selfish disposition and if we keep doing that it will lead us to be a better person so it is bringing us closer to you know liberation and enlightenment um so yeah i think it's it's important to yeah kind of but then what about all the mundane things that we have to do we have to eat um so yeah i don't know i mean is it i don't really i don't know there's still there's still some things i struggle with about you know eating like for example i mean just look at two different ways of looking at it like i know uh one some friends um who just they just think about the health benefit you know if there's anything you can put in the food that might damage the health not because they just obsessed with their health but because they really want to live a long time in order they're playing a buddhist practitioner in order to make the most of this human life to benefit you know beings and make progress on the path so if there's anything like salt or sugar or oil that you can put in the food that's just for the purpose of pleasure then you know if you're putting that isn't that just following attachment and but on the other hand like i don't know i eat food that you know doesn't have any of those things and i'm just like blah i'm not really not into it so i feel like when i eat food that's like that really tastes good then that itself is kind of some kind of nourishment as well now of course there's extreme you don't want to just eat you know deep fried chicken like every day or something like that but um i don't know yeah i think we have to find in that that way we kind of have to find a balance between you know trying to be honest like about things that we enjoy how do we enjoy them i mean i mean it's one of the things i like a lot about laminish's style of teaching was saying like you don't have to give up the chocolate you know you can enjoy things that you things that you really like that you know sounds tastes experiences relationships you know travel we can enjoy it's not the enjoyment of those things in and of themselves that's a problem really the problem is that we look to those things as an ultimate source of satisfaction and they don't have the ability to ultimately satisfy us at all but the the pleasurable experience of those things if we look at it in the right way especially so to go back to grasping again if we see that those things are depend interdependently arising their emptiness of inherent existence and my ability to enjoy them is actually a result of my positive karma that i've created so first of all the karma if we see that we can enjoy something and realize oh i'm in the i'm able to experience this thing in this way as pleasurable because i i you know created positive karma by you know not harming others by practicing generosity being kind to others you know um by being a good person i created the possibility for me to have this pleasurable experience so that with that understanding then all of our pleasurable experiences reinforce our positive behavior which brings us closer to tribulation and enlightenment right on one hand and then to think about in terms of like dependent arising and emptiness any pleasurable experience that we have we can use that as a basis for thinking well what is going on actually who is the person i who's experiencing it where is the actual pleasure can i pinpoint it no we just have a whole disparate part of experience what is the actual object that i'm you know that i'm experiencing so we can use all of that as you know food for contemplation on emptiness and then the pleasurable experience itself be you know it helps enrich our understanding of emptiness and actually which is you know this is a very important point um especially kind of related to tantra is that when our mind is happy we can easily understand things and understand them much more deeply if our mind is unhappy it's very difficult to learn new things so just look at your school days you know as a child when they go to school think of a teacher that is like really happy smiling complimenting everyone you know telling jokes we love to learn from that teacher we can learn so much from that kind of teacher whereas another teacher who's just very dour very strict very by the book not creative not really you know complimenting the children much everybody you know they can they might make really strict rules so out of fear you you study hard but you won't learn as much and in a dynamic as a dynamic way as you will from the really positive teacher right so we can apply the same logic to ourselves if we're really like we beat ourselves up for enjoying anything because that's just you know that's just promoting our attachment yeah we can practice that way and we will make progress but it'll be much slower than if we have this more dynamic way of looking things where like we can think no i can enjoy things there's no problem with that i just have to not put unrealistic expectations on things i enjoy to give me ultimate satisfaction my ultimate satisfaction is going to come by the way i enjoy them with wisdom right and with kindness something like that yeah okay um okay don't you hear me you have to unmute yourself yes thank you very much why um why does the karma expand like if you lie then over a period of time it'll turn into the same karma as killing yeah yeah that's a great question and i don't have a great answer actually i haven't heard one i haven't seen one i think that's just never heard after 45 years i have never heard a good yeah yeah you know uh a few years ago i was at i went to the gui samaja center in washington northern washington northern virginia and one of the senior students there asked me the same question i was also quite stumped i mean you know i think that's just it's just kind of like i mean there's many kind of questions that we can ask that about you know why does time move forward as a proof as opposed to moving backwards about the inanimate environment that there's just certain ways that you know in the inanimate environment there's just you know different look at the periodic table like each of the elements they have different properties they interact with each other in different ways why is that it's just their nature to do like that so i think with karma i mean and that aspect i think that aspect of karma that it expands is arguably a very hidden phenomenon as opposed to a slightly hidden phenomenon and a very hidden phenomenon you remember very hidden phenomena are those that you cannot prove with logic alone right you can only know independence upon a valid being who has purified their mind and and generated merit to be able to see that and then taught it right so i think that aspect of karma maybe is something you know the way to gain faith that that is true is to gain faith in the person who taught it right the shaking and and you know trust that he actually saw that that is the case and in order to benefit us he explained that but it's not some i mean obviously if there was an easy way to prove that as being true the buddha would have taught that proof as well as to make it much easier for us to you know to have some confidence in that yeah i asked uh the great khabib song say the with the beard the last life yeah about that he just said that's just what it is that's just what it does yeah yeah i think it's skinny it boils down to that yeah okay maya hey i just wonder regarding to what bill was asking if that could be because of the repeal effect you know like if you yeah like if you do something and that could affect something way bigger like you know with the story with the with the this the vows that they said they don't drink alcohol and and then he and or like don't kill like with i don't remember exactly how the story goes but uh but then at the end he he drink the alcohol he uh have sex with a woman and then you know and then all these other things comes up from one thing and i thought about you know sometimes you do one thing and you're not even aware of like what that fact of that one small thing that you did could become something way more bigger i mean so maybe in that regard you cannot say if that thing really would be something that will be bigger and would have a bigger effect or not but that's something that only a mind of omniscient can see that that act that you did led to that something way more bigger than what you thought you know what i mean i was wondering about that i think so i mean with regard to our own behavior like i mean there's different well i mean with regard to karma there's the four different kinds of effect right um the there's two are the effects that are in accordance with the cause so one is the effect such that you tend to do the same things again the behavior which is similar to the cause the effect of future behavior is some of the cause so if you practice a small instance of generosity then then you have the karma such that you'll have a tendency to practice generosity again in the future and then again and again yeah and that can build um and then there's the effect that you have an experience which is similar to the cause so again if you practice a small instance of generosity then then you you receive prosperity right you receive things from the environment or from others or somehow but but the thing that bill's talking about the you know the is one of the four characteristics of karma whereas if you practice a small instance of generosity then it's like the longer that you don't experience the result of that especially the experiential result that's similar to the effect for the longer amount of time that you don't experience that that that karmic seed of generosity the longer it doesn't ripen the more the greater the potential for it to produce a result right you know so so usually we explain in terms of negative karma right so imagine you kill an insect if you don't purify it today this is why we do rajasthan like meditation at the end of each day if you don't purify that negative karma today then by tomorrow you have the it increases such that it can produce the effect of you being killed are say you being like getting a headache after two days it increases such that it can have the effect of you like getting a terminal illness or something after three days it has the it or say after i don't know two weeks that that one karma the the power of it to produce an effect increases such that the result will be that you are killed like multiple times or something so you can see that's something it's something quite different than like a ripple effect or you know your propensity to do something although i mean although it's another question that comes up is you know that kind of because usually when it's explained that increasing effect of karma it's explained in terms of the effect which is an experience like the cause but does it go the same also for the other kinds of effects you know the effect to engage in behavior which is similar to the cause and then the environmental effect and the rebirth in fact i think also in terms of the rebirth the kind of rebirth that's thrown also that's that's explained so why is it that you can create one small karma and and as time passes and it doesn't ripen the power of that karma to produce an effect is greater and greater and greater that i don't i don't know you know i mean i think yeah like songwriter boucher said that's just the way it is if that was the case it would be hopeless because we would all have karma go to the hell realms because everything just increases to the karma of killing yeah but remember it's the same for the positive karma yeah so that's how you have to look at the balance so if you're not if you're doing bodhichitta it's so powerful that it would purify yeah yeah yeah and then we have all these powerful purification practices i mean bodhichitta and refuge themselves they act to purify exactly those things have you heard i've only heard with that vajrasattva the 21 mantras stopping stops the increase of that right right i've never heard any other kind of any other explanation of a purification pass except for if you say the 21 budgets one budgets it stops the negative karma right have you heard it that's true but i mean i mean your patients should do it but by extension of the same logic other things should work too yes i mean also i was recently i would have some interest in the meaning of the bhagavatam because you know a mantra is more much more powerful if you remember the meaning of the words right it's often said but the vatican mantra is so long and i'm often trying to say it's so fast i don't often think about the meaning but um you know recently i was kind of looking at some notes on it but again but you know the meaning is like okay first of all it's just vajra sabha manu means like carefully right so it's like in some of the the those many phrases like vajrasattva what is vajrasaba first of all sata is a being and vadra is probably referring to like you know the mind of bliss and emptiness you know mind realizing emptiness and bodhichitta united or something like that right definitely has to do with emptiness right the ultimate nature the vadra is indestructible what's indestructible the ultimate nature of things right so it seems like the meaning of the mantra is really kind of like all referring back to this wisdom realizing emptiness it's like a prayer you know may i become wisdom realizing emptiness so then if that's the case then definitely i mean of course with just meditating on emptiness is incredible powerful purification and then support that with bodhichitta then you know oh my god so powerful so yeah i think it's not just about a supple mantra that purifies but you know there's other things you know how can some llama tell us oh just meditate on emptiness for five minutes every day and that will purify all the negative karma there's no way to quantify meditation and emptiness bodhichitta other things easily just makes it convenient you can just quantify oh this amount of mantras and then of course there's the whole aspect that you know a specific buddha in a specific form taught that mantra and endowed that mantra with the power of prayer so from the side of the object you know there's there's a lot of power there okay it's nine o'clock now so we should probably conclude here you know each go our own ways otherwise we'll run out of time to meditate on emptiness and bodhichitta tonight okay thank you all so much for coming i've really enjoyed these three uh review sessions with you all and yeah it's always worthwhile to try to think about you know what is holiness has taught again so i hope you know next time you're here is teaching april 7th right so next time you hear his honest teach i hope this helps kind of um yeah understand a little bit better what he's talking about um and thank you for to pamela and toshita's staff for organizing so yeah let's dedicate briefly rejoice in all the mayor we've created through this session and all the sessions um and all the merit created by all of our dharma brothers and sisters um today and you know in the distant past we rejoice and especially rejoice in the mayor created by you know his holistic dalai lama for teaching us today and all the practice you know and effort his wholeness has put in from life to life over countless lives um you know to be able to guide us and inspire us and countless others in the way he does and then rejoice in the holy activities of body speech and mind of all of our teachers and others and all the lineage llamas back to shaking buddha himself and before we can rejoice in all their holy enlightened activities so all this merit and combined together we dedicate that the the buddha dharma may flourish and spread in all directions and long into the future that the lives of our gurus are stable and that we're able to meet our gurus again and again and again to receive teaching instruction and guidance especially the activities of us individual students and dharma centers such as toshiba are only pleasing to the mind of the holy ghost and that we can um all of our activities don't cause the slightest harm to an essential being but our only sources of benefit and well-being and then finally may all send your means and shortly free from every suffering and have the temporary and ultimate happiness and for that purpose may we become quickly enlightened and then add any other own prayers bring to mind and prayers we'd like to make so may those your own wholesome aspirations um um come to me as quickly as possible yeah and then finally the global pandemic of probably 19 i remember all those suffering due to it or who have died and those who recently died like a precious human rebirth may all beings in the three lower realms you know i've taken rebirth there's helpings animals hungry gross may they quickly their karma to exist in that realm quickly be exhausted maybe they take a pressure from a river or rebirth on a patrol land and may the endemic quickly be brought to an end and uh global destruction of the environment and climate destruction we quickly um reversed made the world become a pure land for beings to practice the path to the monument okay thank you all very much and uh yeah see you next time so thank you so much uh please uh can i offer this cover to you on behalf of toshita and everybody here thank you so much for sharing your wisdom very generously and if i may ask maybe we look forward to see you next time for his honest teaching thank you so much and thank you everyone uh here thank you so much for your participation and the questions and i think it was a great discussion about this evening thank you so much have a good night thank you all

Channel: Tushita Meditation Centre Dharamkot

Views: 109

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: n2l52k0QZrk

Length: 128min 2sec (7682 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 13 2021