First I want to say thank you everyone for being here in this mandala. I
gave commentary on this Avalokiteshvara sadhana beginning two weeks ago and I'm
going to continue.
I'm going to give this commentary based on the teachings
of my teachers and also my own experience, although it is less, based on
meditation and practice.
We are on bodhicitta: "By the merit of practicing
generosity and the other paramitas may I achieve buddhahood for the benefit of
beings."
Refuge and bodhicitta are like laying the proper foundation for a
house. Refuge is about taking refuge in the true source of happiness and
freedom, which is Buddhadharma. Bodhicitta is about developing universal mind
and love. It won't be contaminated by greed and ego and selfish
mentality.
What is true spirituality? Lama Tharchin used to say "Too much
spiritual phenomena!!" True spirituality can take you to lasting happiness.
Spiritual phenomena is just entertaining your mind.
As long as we are
transcending ego it is true spirituality. It has nothing to do with what you
know but has to do with bodhicitta, enlightened heart. It's possible we can get
caught up unconsciously with our own ambitions and greed, even on the spiritual
path. So it requires reflection to see whether one's mind is bound to inner
obscurations.
What is the spiritual path? It's all self-reflection. You'll
see your shadow, your negativities. You'll learn how to apply spiritual
discipline to them, to the right target.
What are we looking for on the
spiritual path? God? Or higher reality? Actually we are looking for ultimate
love, the bodhicitta mind. Bodhicitta mind is the beginning and the destination
of our spiritual journey.
As we are spiritual people, the essence of our
journey is to meditate on love and apply love to our actions with other beings
and to actualize love.
This is a crucial thought to remember. Maybe we think
there are different goals on the spiritual path, like enlightenment or
buddhahood, but there's only one - love. Bodhi, which means purified mind, means
genuine love, which transcends hatred, hope, and fear. Enlightenment is an
abstract theory - sometimes too abstract. So let's go back to love and
compassion.
Everyone knows what love and compassion are, even if they haven't
read spiritual texts. They've experienced it at least once in their
lives.
HHDL was teaching one day and he held out his hand. We have smooth
fingernails, not claws, he said.. Our nature is goodness. The nature of all
sentient beings is goodness. Love and compassion are already inside yourself.
But sometimes we can't feel them because of obscurations, because we think
there's a source of happiness outside ourselves.
The true spiritual teachings
are not about showing you some higher being separate from you. They are the ones
that show you the deity in yourself. This is the embodiment of all sacred
teachings throughout history. We say there are many rivers. Some are from snow
mountains. Some are from other mountains. But they all flow to the great
ocean.
Buddhism and Christianity talk about exploring the divinity in
yourself. This is what Buddha, Christ, and Krishna all taught.
Knowledge
depends on time, but wisdom is timeless.
When you read Buddha's early
teachings, like Dharmapadda, their message is always fresh and you can apply
them to your life. Even though we now live in a technical age those teachings
can be applied as a solution to your daily life.
I came to the West eight
years ago and had a tremendous experience of dealing with people and counseling
them. And I thought maybe I would have to study western literature,
Christianity, or perhaps psychology. But that was the wrong way. I realized I
don't have to take course in psychology. I can use the teachings to help myself
and to counsel others. They are timeless wisdom.
The true message of Buddha
and all the sages is timeless and simple. It can be applied at all times and in
all civilizations, because Buddha's teachings are wisdom, not
knowledge.
Psychology is knowledge. All those -ism's are knowledge. I always
ask people, "Are you studying Buddhism or buddha dharma?" There's Tibetan,
Chinese, Japanese and American Buddhisms, but there is one buddha dharma which
reflects love, compassion and wisdom.
I remember an event three years ago.
Very powerful ceremony led by Native American chief and had sufis and buddhists
and everything. At the end of the teaching he asked us to hold hands and said
inhale. Now exhale and imagine that all the -ism's go out. There are too many
isms.
An -ism is knowledge, a concept. You forget about the true nature in
yourself. Mipham R said the reason we do not recognize the nature of mind is
that it is too close to us. Kabir said we are like thirsty fish living in
water.
Sometimes we need support from outside -- someone who can reflect to
us our true nature of love, compassion and wisdom. It is very difficult for us
to have that experience of our true nature, our buddha nature. So we need
support from outside so we can see directly that buddha nature inside of
us.
It's not enough to read books and scripture. We have to consult spiritual
guides and sangha. If I speak about my own life, the most powerful support for
me is to have the spiritual community. If I had not met those spiritual masters
I couldn't say what I'm saying today. It's importance to have guidance,
community, and to cultivate some kid of discipline.
Even when we do have this
incredible wealth and preciousness in each of us, what we call buddha nature in
buddhist language, we have to know how to take care of it. It's like a tree or
flower. You have to care for and cultivate it. In order to experience buddha
nature you have to cultivate a spiritual path because our mind has been obscured
by hope and fear over many lifetimes. We have to cultivate the path of
meditation and practice in order to purify those veils.
I notice that some
people have trouble understanding why you have to practice, do retreat... it
could be Tibetan tradition or another... Those traditions help us break down our
obscurations of hope, fear and delusion. Just trying to have bodhicitta mind
would not help us break down those habitual tendencies.
When generating
bodhicitta mind you are making a commitment that you are going to practice
meditation and spiritual disciplines in order to be enlightened and in order to
show others their buddha nature too. This is the second step. We have two steps.
The first is refuge. The second is bodhicitta. We need to make the path a
priority in our life -- like practicing the six paramitas of generosity, wisdom,
and so on -- in order to discover our own buddha nature and in order to show
others their buddha nature, too.
"When someone thinks about the suffering of
other beings and thinks about their capacity to be free and cries a tear, in the
time the tear reaches their jaw, that momentary bodhicitta mind can purify the
negative karma of infinite lifetimes."
In mahayana sutras, the buddha always
speaks about the power of bodhicitta mind. You put all the merit together of
generosity, meditation, truthful words, prayer, and feeding others. All that
merit of infinite lifetimes isn't even close to the power of bodhicitta
mind.
Without bodhicitta mind, universal love, none of those activities can
lead us to the state of enlightenment.
Shantideva says the moment one
experiences bodhicitta mind, one is already free from the jail of samsara. One
is renowned as a bodhisattva at that moment.
We experience samsara, the
vicious circle, because we don't allow ourselves to experience bodhicitta mind.
Samsara is in your mind. I like this translation, "vicious circle." Physically
outwardly we change in our life. But inwardly we stay the same until we realize
our bodhicitta mind. We repeat the same kind of suffering and delusion over and
over. We experience suffering either consciously or unconsciously. And we
believe that we can find happiness outside ourselves in the material world by
getting what we want to have.
We can move or change jobs or buy a nicer car
and we have the conviction that we are going to be happy if we can get it. But
no matter how much we change outwardly, inwardly we have the same wheel spinning
over and over. A vicious circle.
I was joking a few years ago. I came from
Tibet across the ocean. I left my family, my monastery and even my prayer books.
People say you must be lonely without any companions. But I say I have my old
companions of confusion and afflictive emotion. They are always with me.
We
change outward things and think it will make our lives better. But if we don't
change inwardly we will just repeat the vicious circle and experience hope,
fear, doubt, confusion.
So the only way we can free ourselves from the
vicious circle is to see our true nature, which is buddha nature, and by
purifying our inner obscurations, our habitual tendencies which veil our buddha
nature. They veil who we are and veil our inherent qualities, like love and
compassion.
The most powerful insight or meditation to break down this
vicious circle is to practice bodhicitta mind. When we say we practice
meditation we may not know what we're doing. It could be quite selfish.
It is
important to know how to simplify our dharma practice. There's only one
practice, one principle, in buddha dharma, even though there are different forms
and disciplines and events, the goal is the same. The principle is the same. The
goal is to practice bodhicitta mind.
There's this story of Acharya Asangha, a
great master and pandita from India. Once upon a time he wanted to practice
Buddha Arya Maitreya, who is the future buddha. He went to the mountain and did
retreat for nine years, but got no signs of accomplishment. No realization, no
visions. He was dissapointed and decided not to continue. On the way to his home
from the mountain, he saw a sick dog by the side of the road, with open wounds
full of maggots. He was filled with compassion. He thought that if he moved the
insects with his fingers he would kill them, so he used his tongue. It was so
disgusting he shut his eyes and stuck out his tongue, but it didn't contact
anything. When he opened his eyes he saw Buddha Maitreya and rainbows. He was
angry. "I practiced for nine years and never saw you. Why?" Maitreya said it was
because you had too many habitual tendencies and not enough love and
compassion.
One thing we always have to remember is to practice bodhicitta
mind. I know sometimes it is difficult to feel it genuinely. But do not allow
yourself to fail. Remember to keep that thought, practicing bodhicitta mind, and
keep that thought moment to moment in your daily life. It will change
you.
There are beautiful prayers like the four immeasurables:
May all
sentient beings possess happiness and the cause of happiness.
May all
sentient beings be separated from suffering and the cause of suffering.
May
all sentient beings dwell in equanimity which is free from the cause of
suffering.
May all sentient beings dwell in equanimity which free from
attachment and hatred.
Or just remember, "I love sentient beings." It can be
very simple.
Sometimes it's good to keep a spiritual diary. How many times do
you practice meditation, prayers, go to temple, listen to teachings. Perhaps a
lot.
When I was in Texas I was talking about dharma bums, a term from the
60's. These are people who do retreat a lot and live in community and wear
spiritual clothes. Someone asked the definition in Texas. What's a dharma bum?
Someone who drives an old Volvo and goes to lots of teachings. We spend lots of
time doing practice. I know people in my community who gave up marriage,
education, and career to discover enlightenment in their lifetime.
But I ask
this question. How often do we keep the thought of loving all sentient beings?
Promise yourself that you are going to practice love and compassion as the
essence of your spiritual development and keep it from moment to moment in your
everyday life.
First we can practice loving all sentient beings throughout
space. Buddha said space is infinite. Wherever there is space there are sentient
beings. And wherever there are sentient beings there is suffering.
In our
prayer we can practice having love to all beings. Don't speculate about what is
bodhicitta intellectually or what is love. Bodhicitta mind cannot be understood
by conceptualizing it. You have to let go of your knowledge about buddha and
bodhicitta and trust in your ability to experience higher reality. And then you
can practice loving all sentient beings every moment.
After that you can
practice for specific people, like those starving in Africa or being killed in
war. More specifically, you can practice for your neighbors, parents, children,
wife or husband.
Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to have a retreat
about loving your parents. In America I find many people are caught up in issues
with one or both of their parents. They end up solidifying and concretizing it.
If you exclude your parents or your enemies, you cannot experience bodhicitta or
universal love. To experience it you have to deal with disharmony and
resentment, with all beings. With your boss who fired you five years ago or your
ex who rejected you or your neighbor who annoyed you.
Try to include all
sentient beings without any discrimination. I met Dzogchen practitioners who are
supposed to be great yogis, but I realized that many of them have issues with
their parents. In the future we should do a specific ceremony to forgive our
parents.
This is a new experience for me, as a Tibetan. We have issues with
other people, but not our parents. We have issues with Chinese. That's my
spiritual homework. Try to remember people with whom you have issues,
resentment. And learn how to forgive them, to love them.
I heard something
powerful from HHDL. He said he has so much gratitude to Chinese people. It was
hot and under a tree and he was wearing light clothing. When I had meetings with
the upper class in Tibet, he said, they used to make me wear heavy clothes that
gave me a rash. Without the Chinese people I couldn't wear these light clothes
and travel the world and meet all these people.
We need to learn how to
express gratitude to the people that we have issues with. Bodhicitta mind is
universal and specific, too. It's universal because it loves all beings, all
existence. But it's also specific because it includes everyone in your life,
even your enemy.
When we say meditate, we are meditating on bodhicitta mind.
When we pray, what are we praying to? Bodhicitta mind. When we keep discipline,
what are we keeping? Bodhicitta mind.
That way there can be real
transformation. We can break down our habitual tendencies of hope and fear and
demonstrate love to all beings who come into our lives.
Before I stop this
talk, I want to have a few moments to meditate on bodhicitta mind. It's a very
simple practice. You don't have to be educated, a scholar, a pandita. It's all
about learning love and forgiveness to others. We know this reality, this entity
by birth. It's an inborn education. But sometimes we forget about it because we
get caught up with worldly issues. It's in each of us. More than that it's our
true nature. when we say, "I'm going to let go of my hope, fear, delusion" We
sometimes get attached to our mental delusions of jealousy and pride. We need to
let go of our clinging to suffering, misery, and confusion. That way we can
experience bodhicitta mind.
Think about generating love to all beings
throughout space. Then think about people we have issues with and forgive them.
We can be free and so can they.
About freedom. Who do we believe took away
freedom from us? Our enemy or our abusive parents? But it's really we who take
freedom away from ourselves. When you're attached to your own memory of
resentment, hatred, and envy you can't experience bodhicitta mind. When we
forgive them we will be free from our own ego, our own concepts.
We are going
to do bodhicitta practice for two or three minutes. Think of people like your
teacher or your parents. And forgive them. Realize that it is all delusion.