Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of dying in a cave — body left for birds and insects, as Milarepa did — opens this 48-minute commentary in which Khensur Rinpoche presents what he calls the essence of practice: the ten innermost jewels of the Kadampa tradition. He covers the last two of four entrustments (committing unto death, and entrusting oneself to a cave), then three vajra qualities — unstoppable determination like Śākyamūni leaving his palace, acting without guilt when others disapprove, and unwavering adherence to one’s resolve. Three further qualities complete the ten: tolerating outcast status, enduring physical hardship like hunger and cold, and ultimate attainment of Buddhahood. A soccer-goal analogy closes the session, equating the joy of scoring with cutting attachment to this life. Suited to practitioners with some grounding in Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 3PA 1993 06 22.mp3
UUID: 23d62201-bde5-4376-b69d-adee864873b0
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-06-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.2 minutes
Words: ~2,023
So, and the third entrustment is entrusting until death. In the course of, you know, not gathering together — you know, one may become sick, and may not have the medicine to help get well. And one may die not having this medicine, not having — you know, having not worked to gain the wealth in order to gain the medicine which will help cure one from illness — and end up dying in the course of the practice of Dharma. But we should think: you know, we have died numberless, meaningless deaths, and we have never really experienced a meaningful death. And if we were to die for our Dharma practice, then our death would have meaning.
It would be something we’ve never experienced before, and it would be of tremendous benefit. So, entrusting ourselves even unto death. It really doesn’t matter that we, you know, entrust ourselves in this way even unto death, because no matter — even rich people have to die. You know, no matter how much wealth we may gather together, we still must die. And not only that — in the gathering together of all this wealth, we’ve created a great deal of negativity.
But on the other hand, through my practice of Dharma, not only have I not created negativities, but I’ve accumulated a great collection of creative potential, and I’m still going to die — but my death has meaning. This other death doesn’t. There’s a great difference. So one might go on to think: well, if I don’t have any money, even after my death no one will — I won’t have anything — I won’t have enough money for a funeral. There won’t be anyone to take care of my body.
Body when we’re dead — I mean, we should — this is the fourth entrustment, entrusting ourselves to a cave. That living out our life and dying in a cave, you know, it doesn’t matter what happens to our body, what they do with it, whether it’s carried away or left there, whether the birds or the insects eat it. This is the fourth entrustment: entrusting ourselves to a cave. Once we’re dead, our body is just like the earth or the ground or stones. A Dharma practitioner should be like the flight of a bird: when it lands someplace and then it just takes off again.
And we can take as an example to emulate Milarepa. He entrusted himself to the Dharma. He entrusted himself to the life of a beggar. He entrusted himself unto death and to a cave. If we do — if we act in this way — then we will completely block or cease attachment to this life.
So we may view these four entrustments as extremely difficult, and yet, you know, if we can put them into practice, then that’s wonderful. But even if we can’t, we can still within our minds think how wonderful it would be to be able to practice this way in the future, and make prayers that: May I be able to practice in this way in the future? And this will act as a cause to be able to practice in such a way in the future. So these are the four entrustments in the practice of the Kadampa. And then, the three vajras.
So the first of these — not the four vajras, it’s the — can’t translate the term. It’s called, maybe I’ll have to look it up, Tegme — but to exemplify what it means: it means something like unstoppable, exemplified by Śākyamūni Buddha, who — when he lived in the palace, his parents, the king, the queen, the mother — tried to stop him from leaving the palace and going forth into a life of practicing the Dharma. But he was unstoppable in his determination to practice, and they weren’t able to stop him, and he went forth. Another example would be Atisha, who also experienced the same unstoppability. So this determination — unstoppable determination.
Unable to be stopped. It’s a vajra determination not to be stopped. That’s not a very good — so the second vajra is a vajra of something like no regret — that is, no guilt, no feelings of guilt. I have to check that out.
What it means — to illustrate it: that if you wanted to go out and practice, and to leave it all, to give it all — everything — up, that others are going to criticize you. You know, they’re going to say, you know, and they’re going to call you a hippie, or they’re going to say it’s bad — either way, it doesn’t matter. This should not allow you to be dissuaded. You know, whether they call you — whether it’s bad or they say it’s good — either way, it doesn’t matter. You are — you’re not going to allow them to — you leave without any sort of guilt or regret.
This determination. Sorry about this. Then the third vajra is again sticking to one’s determination. Sticking to — you know, one has decided, one determines to leave home, to go out, to practice the Dharma, to go out and meditate, to cultivate the practices, and one commits oneself to that. And then one actually does so, and practices day and night, and gains realization.
So this is the sticking to one’s commitment in a vajra manner. Are you tired? Is it nice? It’s very good. Better than us?
Thankyou. So now there are three more. These are easy. So the first of these three is tolerance with respect to one’s goal. So having tolerance with respect to one’s goals — having, you know, having given up this life, having little clinging for this life and the activities of this life — you know, one is able to tolerate — one does not associate with those who are involved in worldly pursuits.
For example, Sadhus of India — they do not associate with worldly pursuits; their goals are not the same as worldly goals. They are not goals of this life. And for this reason they appear very strange. For example, in the case of Milarepa, people said that Milarepa was crazy. Those who are caught up in cyclic existence — that is to say, this life — they called Milarepa crazy, but Milarepa called them crazy. Who’s crazy?
Milarepa or them? So Milarepa did not tolerate — did not tolerate the activities of this life. Yes. So he was intolerant, or he did not have patience with the things of this life. The Kadampa practitioners were outcasts from humanity and were left at the level of — So, they were, in the course of their practice of Dharma, they had to undergo many hardships.
In the case of whether it’s India or Tibet, the acquiring of food and drink and shelter was difficult. There was the suffering of hot and cold, the suffering of thirst and hunger, and they had to tolerate all these privations, and lead the life of less than — tolerate a life which was like that of a dog, having less than a human. And finally, through one’s practice, one eliminates all of one’s faults and brings to consummation one’s excellent qualities, and one becomes a god of gods, as Śākyamūni Buddha did. And for example, Jetsün Milarepa, though undergoing great difficulties in terms of gaining a livelihood, entrusting himself to a cave, attained Buddhahood — that is, he became god of gods. So first was being an outcast of humanity, thrown out of humanity, tolerating the life of a dog, and attaining the level of a God — that is to say, Buddha.
So these are: outcast, tolerance, and attainment. Okay. We all had some difficulties today. So these are the ten innermost jewels of the Kadampa, by means of which they progress to Buddhahood. So these practices are extremely precious, and we should make prayers that we will be able to practice them.
You know, if we can practice in this life, then that’s the best we can do. But if we aren’t able to practice in this way in the course of this life, we should try to rejoice and make heartfelt prayers that we will be able to in the future. Making prayers is a way that we can bring about — making prayers is a way that we can — it is a method of bringing about something that we want in the future. You know, if we can practice this for the sake of all sentient beings and make prayers for that, we will be able to practice that in some future life. So, you know, I’ve been teaching now for almost five years, and many of you have been studying for two, three, four, five years.
And you have been progressing well in your practices and your studies. And I thought it would be excellent to give this — what I consider to be the essence of practice. You know, I — I’m going to be here for another year — and I thought it would be of tremendous benefit if you were to be able to hear what I see as the essence of the practice. Even though you’ve probably listened to many teachings, perhaps you’ve never heard this before. I think, you know, many of you have been striving in your practices — you know, each of you has to go to your various work each day, and then you come here in the evening, and you apply yourself to your practice and try to practice as authentically as possible.
And I thought it would be an excellent method to help you improve your practice if I were to implant this teaching in your mind. But I think if I could — I could speak very eloquently about practices which are quite easy to put into use. I could talk in that way. Okay. Do you have some questions?
I think it’s a friendly letter. Friendly letter. Okay. Do you have any questions? You?
What would be the level at which you could practice? What would be the major sign? So one could practice in that manner when having developed a great trust in the Dharma, making great effort in one’s Dharma practice, and having overcome emphasis on the appearances of this life. So, actually one would be extremely joyous in practicing in this manner because having cut off the clingings to this life, and having cut off attachment to this life, one ceases — many faults are automatically cut away in the course of one’s practice, and many obstructions are automatically eliminated.
And because one has cut off attachment and clinging to this life, one’s goals are not of this life. One’s goals are future lives. Having cut off the attachment to this life, one can achieve one’s goals. It really becomes apparent to one that everything that one does becomes a pure cause for achieving the goals of one’s future in terms of liberation and omniscience. And that these causes are very powerful causes.
And when one sees that everything that one does becomes pure and powerful causes for achieving one’s goals in the future — who wouldn’t be joyful? So in the course of a game of soccer, one has to make a great deal of effort and has to go through a great deal of difficulty in getting the ball in the net. So once the person scores a goal, how high do they jump up in the air? And how joyful — and how they all gang around each other and rejoice in their great having achieved their goal. And that’s the same kind of joy that one experiences in practicing in this way.
Why does this great happiness come? Because one has achieved according to one’s desires. One has achieved one’s goal. It’s the same. Same.
Yes? You can do something about? Well, I couldn’t see myself going around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, I see. I see. See. And the — can —