Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. What does the word “blessings” actually mean? That question anchors much of this 109-minute Q&A in which Khensur Rinpoche fields student questions at Buddha House, roughly four weeks into a Lamrim study program. He explains chinlab — the Tibetan term for blessings — as the lama’s power actively transforming the student’s mind, illustrated by the image of fertile soil receiving sunlight: without that purifying influence, realizations cannot sprout. Before arriving there, Rinpoche reassures students who struggle with visualization: imagining one’s own lama as a condensed stand-in for the full merit field is entirely valid, with clarity expanding gradually over years of practice. He also addresses what formally makes someone your teacher, whether a lama can be a woman, and practical signs that a teacher has genuinely realized emptiness. Suited to practitioners working through Lamrim fundamentals who want conceptual grounding for practices they are already doing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 LR 2000 02 25.mp3
UUID: a7c7bd19-0036-4bbf-8501-853ec6cabf58
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 108.9 minutes
Words: ~4,902
I don’t want them to. Oh, yeah. Motivation here that in order to help oneself and others, I should here engage in this study and also to do this discussion in order to perfect myself to become enlightened for the sake of other sentient beings. And now here, along with this motivation And along with this motivation, we hear we recite the refuge prayers and once and then the seven-limb prayers, which is in the Melbourne book. Can you tell the patient I understand?
It’s on the page number one. So you have started the study study group or basic program and been done about three or four weeks Four weeks in written during that time. All of you have studied very hard, I’m sure, and I’m very happy with your effort being participating in doing a discussion on the topic. So I’m not teaching here today in here to discuss any questions you have and all the questions which you have been discussing in your study group. Also, if you have individual doubts or questions to ask, we shall discuss all the questions and questions and would be much better than giving a teaching here.
Okay. So, we’ll Start asking questions now, and I’m going to on to you soon. Give me two and a half minutes. Alright, that’s it. Yes.
Yeah. That’s it. Chairman, they’ll come. Raise up your hands when you have questions. Please sit.
Excuse me. I’m sorry to say this. You know, the machine, whenever you ask the question, try to make your questions very a b rated one rather than expanding all the questions. Yes, please. Khensur Rinpoche, please take a seat.
No. No. It wasn’t your fault because the the aircon was on, and I couldn’t hear. Okay? It’s been turned off.
This is just a bit complicated. Can you repeat the Christian part bit part later on? Excuse me? Can you repeat the I’m not very good. No.
No. You can you can shout. So in in our context here, devotion developing or paying a devotion to the Lama or guru is and I emphasize that one needs to pay devotion to the guru. It is because because the teacher or the guru has been very helpful to you by teaching you how I’m showing you the right path and also teaching you the practice of taking you and abandoning, which means what things to be done and what what what what to be abandoned. So by showing you, putting you into the right way and and benefiting you in many different ways.
So due to that, because of his kindness shown to you and being helpful, that’s that is the reason one pays the devotion to the guru or yeah. And we have, like, developing a faith and devotion to the guru, which means we speak two words, devotion and effect. So faith, which means by listening or receiving teachings from the particular guru and through through his teaching, you come to know that that he or she has a good quality and as a great person by knowing their intellectual or their qualities. And By seeing all the scholars and feeling of happiness or liking that person, liking that person is a sign or it is developing a faith in that guru. And so forth, that seems to be fairly straightforward along with the offerings.
But after that, there’s quite detailed visualizations prior to taking refuge and bodhicitta, and then there’s the petitioning of the merit field right through to to the end of the six preparatory practices with variations in the actual visualization of the I guess my theory is how important is it to get that correct, the visualizations? And in doing so, is it totally necessary if one recites the various prayers that are relevant to various aspects of practices? Is that enough to, for example, just recite and think about each line and seven in the prayer. But I guess what I’m getting at is it seems to be one big visualization in varying parts. And I’m just No.
No. No. Lam Rim one, which you you gave a copy yesterday. So That that one. Yeah.
That that one. Can I borrow it from you? So what area, what’s your main problem? Sorry, I mean the six preparatory practices and basically from about number three onwards where you adjust your motivation visualization for taking refuge in bodhicitta. Then after that you’ve got the positioning of the merit field which is a slightly different visualization.
Even with the seven-limb prayer and the Mandala offering, there’s some degree of visualization there as well. My experience has been basically to prior to taking refuge visualizing Buddha and various other aspects around it. Is that enough or is there much more to be gained by really getting a grasp of various visualisations? How would we get Your aspect is just to visualise Buddha Dharma and Sangha and to take the Yeah. He’s a good friend of mine.
I love my short notes. You know? So so you said from the first three of six preparatory practices, you do the Wrong number three. Yeah. The third the fourth one is the visualizing visualization.
Alright. The up from that first of the three, you do the visualization as well. Do you see Well, right from the beginning. Yeah. Oh, I put it face right now.
That just answers the confusion. Yeah. That’s what I mean. What I was saying is, I mean, you had a problem, say, not a problem, just say about visualizing a Visualizing a it’s hard. So it’s so detailed in what’s said in the.
So do you think that your question was, is it okay, for example, example, just to visualize some particular one object, which is kind of like equivalent of visualizing the merit field? Yeah, mean, the Buddha really comes to this. Is that the question or The visualizing that merit field is being set forth in different ways, like different versions. It’s been classified into the the the short, middling, and the greatest. So if you are able to, you can do the long version one, which is entire mag filled.
If you can’t, then you can do a middling version one. The shortest one is you can only visualize your particular lama or single guru, and that is that that symbolizes or that is equal equivalent of visualizing a merit field. So the system from the Ganden Lhagyama, which is the shortest way of visualizing. So the system of Ganden Lhagyama, which is the shortest one, and it’s been set forth that you can visualize a particular lama and which is in the aspect by nature by nature, it’s your your guru in the aspects of either Buddha Śākyamūni or great master Tsongkhapa, and that is the equivalent of visualizing all the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha that his speech symbolizes the teachings or or Dharma, and his mind is a Buddha, all the Buddhas, and his body are are represents all this represent all the Sangha. So you can visualize your lama as a collection or combination of entire Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Yes. Yes. So it is quite okay to maintain that this visualization while you do the entire six preparatory practices until the fifth one. The sixth one is which says the make sincere request in accordance with the instructions. So instruction here are the instructions, as we said, during the merit full visualization, there are two lineages, which so instructions of those two lineages.
Here, we say it’s the instructions of two lineages. Lineages. By visualizing that the guru is in the representation of entire body, speech and mind of the Buddhist and Dharma and Sangha. So it is quite okay that it concludes. Also, it’s okay to do with the with this visualization, you can go through all the entire six preparatory practices.
Doing. Wondered in the Tibetan teaching tradition if there was any advice on this, any traditional advice on improving our ability to visualise. Yep, yep, yep. That’s the simple question. Thanks for that, know, making you into shock form.
So it is true that it’s very hard hard hard to have the very clear to visualize a very unclear made feel point of view from the very opposite. So the even for the Arhat masters, from the beginning, they are not able to do it just from the right on the day they started. So the you we can we can have improved or progressed in the visualization through maintaining the continuation of one’s practices and try to make it more and more familiarized with the med school by from the beginning, focusing on the main, say, the main principle of the merit field, the center one. And by getting it by get becoming more familiar familiar with the principal one, then you can expand one’s visualization towards the lineage sources at the right and the left. Then, at the time whenever it comes to occur a bit more clear and when you’re able to maintain the visualization of the principal one plus the lineages, then you can increase, expand your visualization, say, the lower one about the masters, the great masters of the four schools of the tantra and then so forth.
Through your practices, you will eventually gradually progress and one day will have a clear vision of the merit field. So at this stage, our mind is not not our legs, the familiar familiarization or familiarity with the the the say, the visualization. But slowly and slowly, our minds get brighter and it get used to and more familiarized with acquaintance with beauty of one’s practices. Not only you can have a clear visualization of the merit field, even through your practice of familiarization, one day, you can have, let’s say, the entire lamrim teaching in a second. Because here, the great master, Śāntideva Śāntideva has said stated that there is no such things which won’t become which won’t become easier if if you try with if you meditate or if you try to familiarize with the object. So the purpose of visualizing a merit field is not just to recognize the teachers.
It is because one needs to visualize the merit field is because by visualizing the merit field in front of you and then later the next preparatory practice is making the seven-limb practice and the mandala offering. So that is to recognize that you know yourself, that where you are, where you make the offerings and making the mandala of the offerings and seven-limb practice and the mandala offering. Otherwise, just without visualizing it, then your offerings will just become like they say, just simply throwing a stone where you don’t know where the stone has gone. So just by visualizing that and you can understand the way you are offering and and by offering those with the great devotion and the faith, then they and you can can through by pleasing them and by by making offerings to individualized members of the merit field, and those the masters, lineages of masters, feel they are say, they accepted the offerings and feel say, we shall feel happy, and due to this, through the power of that, you receive the blessings. You please the merit field, and through this, you receive the blessings.
But you receive the blessings and you feel rejoice while you and you yourself will rejoice by pleasing the victorious ones. Through the power of doing this, you can cultivate by and your mind being placed, you’ll receive the blessings, and through this, you increases the benefit of this increases your knowledge or quality, and you attain the great, say, the great deal of merit. So so the merit will represent the body of teaching? Body of teaching. Okay.
So we could say that the old the merit field symbolizes or or contained the entire teachings or, say, the Buddhist teachings because within the Lamrim, the visualizations, they are the Buddhist, Buddhist, Dakas, Dakinis, Dharma protectors, everything is there. So and and also in the merit field, there are the masters which are so it symbolize there is a teaching is there. Also, the the masters who teach the teachings are there. And also, you can see the result of the teachings, persons who have practiced the teachings and you can see the results, will happen if you do practice. Also, you can see the benefits of practicing within that.
We could say that it’s entirely represents or it’s entirely there. Okay. So here, the definition of merit is said that it’s a it’s a action set forth by Buddha Śākyamūni that it’s action any action of body’s speech in mind, which is a good action. And for yes. Say, the any action of a body’s speech and mind, which which or which which give birth to a result which is very appealing and loving and produces the happiness.
It’s called the merit. Okay. What did you that? The the action which produce which which result is is appealing and produces happiness. Characteristic or sort of mind, yeah, which we need to develop.
What sort of mind should we be trying to develop? Develop at what? What sort of mind should we be trying to develop through doing the I’m not sure, but I’ll say the answer first. The the purpose of practicing this training, this and set the six preparatory so forth is to to to to to develop a very kind hearted very kind hearted kind heart yeah, kind hearted mind. And along with it, to to to purify all the the all the hindrances, obstacles, which obstructs us to to attain the realizations of the paths and grounds.
By practicing this, one tried to develop the kind-heartedness and avoid all the hindrances and try to attain the realizations of the path and ground, like attaining the three principal aspects of the path, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the correct view. Not only that, they are also to attain great numbers of realization or qualities, one which can be attained in the training by training in the three scopes. Especially for the qualities of the third scope or a great vehicle, there are numbers of qualities which one can attain. So these are the benefits of practicing the six preparatory and all these preliminaries to happiness and to attain all this. Is that the one?
No. So did you I mean, I may have misinterpreted. Did you ask what sort of mind which we need to practice or what sort of mind we attain by practicing this thing? If you ‘re a beginner you’re trying to take aim and if you’re trying to do the preliminary practices in more than just empty ritual then you’re trying to understand them deeper and deeper and deeper and you’re trying to actually develop a, you know, trying to transform your mind through doing the practices. So I was asked what sort of mind are we actually going after?
And you answered the question. Do you think so? Yes. Okay. Ultimate and this for the ultimate point, then we are trying to through by training in this, trying to attain the ultimate goal, which is to perfect both the self and others’ purposes.
So So So dakas and dakinis, which are set forth in the the merit field is it’s Sanskrit, but we actually say heroes and heroines. And and which are those dakas and dakinis are the same, but in qualification, but they are in, you the female and male and the female names. So Dakinis are the male female and the Dakas are the male. So those are the Bodhisattvas, in fact. One who has already attained the developed the great compassion, love, and bodhicitta.
So those beings are called the dakas and dakinis. When does guru become guru and all those? Okay. Okay. So as for the lama, they are to set forth say the the lama, the definitive form, and the interpretive form.
Right? So so the say the definitive one, the lama is is the one who has attained lam word the lot, which is utmost, almost highest. That means lama means it’s unsurpassable. It’s not higher than person, which means that the qualities that lama has attained, that is the highest quality and there’s no any other quality which are greater than the the lama have attained. So this is yeah.
Yeah. So it’s been called the what one lama who has attained the highest quality. No. So the the Rama and the Guru are just the difference of the languages. One is Sanskrit and one is Tibetan, but in but have the same meaning.
Which? The Tibet. So the the word, as I said, the only difference is in the language, in the renunciation, but the lama is the Tibetan. Guru is in Sanskrit. Then to interpret that, it has the same meaning: the lama is the one who has attained the highest quality and is unsurpassable, as well as is the one who has perfected all the qualities and have attained numbers or innumerable numbers of good qualities.
And then as for the interpretive one, then there are many lamas, many interpretive ones. So the lama is the one. So one becomes lama when when one perfected all the good qualities. So the way this the someone who’s someone who becomes your lama. Right?
And is is this way. Say, it’s the lama of some the the the lama is the lama of someone else, and you you you you met that lama and Yeah. And you you wanted to be you want that person to be your lama. And having along having such a motivation that you want that person to be your lama, and through this motivation, or through this intention, you receive a teaching of a single like a verse. So whenever that happens, then you have accepted, and that person becomes your lama.
You have an intention that you want that person to be your teacher. And through having along so having with with that intention, and you receive a teaching from that person, just a single verse. Yeah. You can you you I mean, you can you can hold a lot of teachings, but just by listening a single word or just one verse to a teaching from him, for example, like the refuge prayer, and that on that onward you have accepted, you have intention within you and you receive the teaching, that person becomes your lama. Should you formally request that when you So, yeah, so traditionally, in Tibetan custom, what we do, when you want to receive any teachings and the person wants the person to be your teacher, and you can either request the lama to teach you or or the lama that lama is giving a certain teaching or initiation in public publicly, and you want to receive the teaching.
So what we do, we approach the lama and get it asking him to give you permission to receive his teaching. That means that you want the person to be your lama because if if the person doesn’t want to be your lama, you won’t ask him to give ask for permission to receive his teachings. So that’s how and by asking requesting them to let you come, which means which means you want to accept the person as your lama and you come. If not, then if you just come simple again, like listening to or talk like that, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the person you heard his teachings, but that doesn’t mean that the person has to become your Rama. Can a lama be a woman?
Lama. Lama can be a woman? Mhmm. Okay. Lama.
If the person said woman has a quality of this, they can she she can be. Is there someone like who lived in K for twelve years? This is what. She can be her lama if she has attained great I mean, great qualities inside her, like bodhicitta, compassion, love, and so forth. You’re a lama to him, babe.
You want to Who decides who is the one that has attained these highest qualities above everybody else? Who gives this qualification? A positive. Yeah. How do you, how does the highest qualities above everybody, So the okay.
The person the rama is the one who qualified himself or who says you are the rama, and that is through or the meditator, he himself discerns whether he has qualified or not. He himself knows that through his meditation, whenever he overcomes all the, say, the negativities or bad qualities, he overcomes and attain entire qualities that he himself has perfected, he himself may qualify. But your one is just asking or wanting kind of like wanting someone who examines the person. Right? Or we can say that Buddha makes the decision whether the person perfected all the qualities or not.
Whenever the person has qualified the qualities, then put aside that you have perfected and qualified. But in the future, it is the world. We should say the Buddha the Buddha made the decision. What were you expecting? The lama which we are discussing here is about the lama which is definitive form.
For the interpretive form, there have been numbers of the interpretive ramas among and there could be anything. But rama, which we discuss here right now, is is about the definitive So say the interpretive one, the Dalai Lama. For example, it is like, say, a very qualified Geshe has completed all the teaching and he said Geshe and it says qualified. I mean, very well educated and well qualified geshe. He has lots of He benefited lots of sentient beings, and that lama dies.
These followers want to have a reincarnation of the lama. And then through this, say, example, they request these oracles to search for the geshe’s incarnation, and through his investigation, through his divination, he find the reincarnation of that geshe. And so that that incarnation becomes your your interpretive form. So, for example, a lama also is recognized as the lama’s incarnation, so he’s the interpretive lama. Well, Geshe wrote out to us that in one of his tapes and he says if he doesn’t talk about, if the person talking about emptiness doesn’t talk about morality within the first five or ten minutes of, you know, talk then you can be sure that it’s a bit sus.
You know? I thought Go ahead. Yeah, I mean I wasn’t being facile when I said that, but for Westerners that’s probably one of the things to listen for. So if he speaks for about the morale, obviously five minutes? Yeah, check if a person’s setting themselves up as a guru and they are claiming, claiming or insinuating that they have seen emptiness, they have the wisdom of emptiness, listen for the talk on morality.
Listen for the morality talk of that lama, right? Yeah. Deep cook and this have The you can say that you can see the person you see through his physical gesture whether he or she has attained realized has attained the realization of emptiness or not by seeing their actions. Because it’s been said for a person or an ordinary being or a person who, whenever the word emptiness hears, and at that time, he automatically say the felt release or the tears, the person with tears, and the hairs, is it? Yeah, hairs raise.
Yeah, hairs. So obviously stand up, right? Whenever bad things happen, the person who had all these experiences when they had the emptiness, that is the sign that the person has realized the emptiness. I’m very good. That that is, like, roughly speaking.
This is kind of like roughly judging a person. You can see that person disperses into tears and has all these feelings whenever he or she hears the word emptiness. That is we can briefly we can say or judge that person has the wisdom. In order to increase my faith in my teacher, understand I should think of my teacher’s skillful means of subjecting his disciples. Mhmm.
Please explain about these skillful means, and is it the same as seeing good qualities in God’s teacher? So that skillful means of subduing the disciple means towards the lama’s advanced speech, which helps one to help disciple to eradicate all the hindrances and obstacles and helps to attain the good qualities, but that advice has been come out of from the lamas through or through or by the influence of great compassion and love, affection towards That that advice is the one which is advice is also an instruction, which is to avoid all the obstacles that you call this. What’s what’s the actual mechanism that’s that work in which Guru devotion actually assists in developing insight and realizations? Yeah. I’ll I’ll say the answer first here.
We do meditation these days, and we still have problem or cannot really develop any or generate any realization. It is because of our minds being bounded or or being under influence of the disturbing emotions, and it’s not that clear. So as it is not purified in the mind, because of that, we cannot attains $2ny any realizations and so forth. In order to attain the great qualities and the realizations, one has to have a very pure and purified mind, the mind which is not mixed with disturbing emotions. In order to purify all those disturbing emotions and hindrances, For that purposes, seeks, one takes guru devotions, one practices and develop a faith and requests the guru to grant it the blessings to you.
And through the blessings power of his by doing so, you receive the blessings. You receive one. What actual process of work? So, The self process or actual process of working to I mean, any kind of guru devotion you work or your practices, The main key is to do it through both speech and mind. Along the three, the main one is the mind, and that is to develop develop a faith and devotion towards guru, and there could be any any kind of guru guru devotion you do, but which which you can imply for all.
Yes. So it’s like the the purpose of developing a faith and devotion to its guru is to purify one’s mind. And for If you demonstrate an example here, it’s like the sun and the ray of the sun and the field. The field is not a fertile soil. It hasn’t got a good soil and also with lots of other things, substances like stones, lots of grass and so forth.
You grow a seed in that particular soil, and no matter how the sun and its ray, say, strikes the field, you won’t have a proper sprout or a crop coming out of the field because of the field being not a good If the field itself has very fertile soil and you have lots of manuals and manuals and free of all the stones and so forth. Then you grow, say, you grow a seed. If you sow a seed, then there’s enough water there to start ready to come out. On top of that, then the sun, the light or the sun rays start to fill, which helps the spark to come out, to grow. Likewise, developing a faith in guru is Faith and devotion to guru is like receiving it.
Like to clarifying all it’s clarifying the the answer. So so it’s like a very purified soil and you sow a seed inside. If the soil, that seed didn’t get enough light or enough rays of the sun, then it wouldn’t grow. Likewise, your mind has been very pure and been free from all the disturbing emotions. By developing a faith in devotion, it’s like putting a seed, like sowing a seed on the field.
Through doing this, then delight grace, which is the blessings of the lama, strikes into your heart or your mind stream, which helps you to obtain the realizations of good qualities. Let me get past. So the word the actual word in Tibetan is called chinlab, which we translate the blessings. So the meaning of chinlab, which means chin refers towards the potential or power of the lama. Lab means by receiving the potential or power of lama in which lab means which transforms which transforms one’s bad state of mind into good is called lab.
It means blessings here, chinlab, which is to the receiving of the power or the potential of the lama which transforms one’s mind. It’s called blessing, which we translate blessing. So here, the chinlab is like converting the bad thing into good. For example, right now, the tea tea has come. And it’s so yeah.
Which we which we before, if the tea is not really purified or not a pure tea, but before the the offerings, recite the purifying or transforming mantra, Om Ah hum. So by saying Om Ah hum, which just means we are chinlab or blessing the tea, which means transforming. If it’s not a pure or good pure, then we are transforming it into very good, like, nectar. So that’s how, like, transforming.