Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute teaching on guru devotion, Lama Ribur Rinpoche begins with a sobering reflection: the value of a precious human rebirth. He compares our spiritual potential with that of Milarepa, establishing that while our circumstances are identical, our effort differs vastly. He then contextualizes rarity by population: among seven billion people, only a small fraction practise religion at all, fewer still Buddhism purely, and fewer still truly extract its essence. He illustrates this imbalance through a Nāgārjuna metaphor—using a golden vessel studded with jewels as a rubbish bin is stupidity; wasting a human rebirth is far worse. The talk pivots to causation: what generates a precious human rebirth in future lives? Three causes: pure moral conduct (the ten virtuous actions), the six perfections (with specific results—generosity brings wealth, patience brings a faultless body), and stainless aspirational prayer. Addressed to practitioners seeking to understand how to value and utilise their current human existence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 GD.mp3
UUID: 0426a1cb-fe9b-401f-b7b4-f63fdb9e9ecd
Teacher: Lama Ribur Rinpoche
Collection: Guru Devotion (Lama Ribur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.9 minutes
Words: ~2,084
To not having complete understanding of the precious opportunity we have. And if you don’t, and so because of this, it becomes very important to abide in these contemplations because this is like an antidote for depression. This is like an antidote for not understanding properly the value of our own life. So now again, Rinpoche expressed how important it is to value all these various points in order to understand how precious is our life.
And if you check well, you will see that there’s not just a single hair of difference between your body and the body of Milarepa. Like, what Milarepa did with his own precious human rebirth, he did on the basis of that. He did on the base of the same condition that we are having now. So there’s no difference regarding the base of the practice. The difference is in the effort that Milarepa put into his practice.
So regarding the base, the base is the same. What you actually do with your human form, this is another matter. But regarding the base, the base is the same. The fortune is the same. So think about, how many people are in this world? How much is the population in this world? Seven billion? So among these seven billion people, how many of them are practicing some religious tradition, some religious path? The majority of them, they don’t care about inner path, inner development, and they are just keen to three things which are food, possession and fame. These are the three things in which the people are mainly keen to.
So among the majority, like among all these seven billion people, there is only a really small number of people who think that the inner side of the human being should be developed and that this through a religious practice. So it’s already a really small group in comparison with the majority of the worldly population. And now, because there are many religious traditions, the ones that practice Buddhism, they are really few among the few. And then again, among the ones that are practicing Buddhism, the ones that are really practicing purely, the ones that are really taking the essence of this precious human rebirth, those are really few. So if you really check whether there are many fortunate, like precious human rebirths among the world population, then you will understand that there are many human beings, but there are not many precious human rebirths. So having the precious human rebirth is really rare. It is really rare. And because of this rarity and because of the opportunity which it carries with, it is really precious and is a really good thing if you analyze in this way.
Try to think about what I said. Try to think how many people in this world are taking the opportunity of their life, or on the other hand, how many people are wasting their life, whether they are not practicing Dharma at all or whether they are practicing Dharma. How many of them are really taking the opportunity of their precious human rebirth? Now that’s enough in order to understand how precious is the human rebirth. Now we’re talking about how much value has the precious human rebirth, what goals you can obtain, what result you can have through a proper utilization of this human rebirth.
So this human rebirth has great value in short terms and in long terms, as well as in ultimate terms. And what does it mean? It means that based on this precious human rebirth, if you practice the ten virtues by avoiding the ten unwholesome actions and practicing the ten virtuous actions, then with no doubt you’re going to avoid the rebirth in a lower realm and you’re going to be reborn, you’re going to achieve one of the higher or upper realm rebirths. And this you’re going to do on the base of the precious human rebirth, utilizing the precious human rebirth. On the other hand, if more than this, if you practice the three principles of the path—renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness—with no doubt, utilizing this precious human rebirth, based on that, you can free yourself from the chain of saṃsāra. You can reach the liberation from the saṃsāra state.
And again, if you complete, if you take the full advantages of precious human rebirth, then you can achieve the omniscient state of Buddhahood. So all these three great goals or aims, they are going to be achieved based on or through the utilization of this precious human rebirth. And again, based on this precious human rebirth, you can take the next rebirth in one of the pure lands like Tuśita or Sukhāvati and so forth. And not only those pure lands, but based on the practice of Chakrasamvara, you can take rebirth in the pure land of Chakrasamvara without leaving this form, without leaving this human body.
And the practice, the Tantra, the Tantra of Chakrasamvara has a special feature, because of which you can take rebirth in one of this Chakrasamvara pure land, either leaving the body or without the need of leaving your human form. You can actually emigrate. You can leave this world and with the same body go to the pure land of Chakrasamvara. So what I want to say is that we have obtained, you have obtained, a very precious human rebirth, something really valuable, something that you should understand the value of, something which you should utilize. Otherwise, if you don’t do that, if you don’t become aware of the richness in this human rebirth, there is the danger that you just waste it. There is the danger that you just spend it without great, without much sense.
And I had to translate one thing I forgot before. Rinpoche was saying, so what you should do is understand the value of this precious human rebirth. You should determine yourself to take advantage, to take the essence of this precious human rebirth from tomorrow, just starting from tomorrow onward. And what you should do is that you should determine yourself not to waste this life, not to waste this year, not to waste the month, not to waste the week, and especially not to waste from tomorrow, not to waste even just a single day.
So in the beginning of the day, early in the morning, you should wake up with this awareness of the preciousness of this human form, of this human body, and you should determine that for the entire day you will not waste your time but you’re going to accumulate as much positive karma as you can and you’re going to purify as much negative karma as you can. So through the accumulation and purification, at the end of the day, you are going to succeed in taking the essence of this precious human form. So every day, you are going to make a day, you’re going to make a week, a month, a year, ten years and so forth. So in this way, you’re going to utilize in the proper way your time.
So if we don’t take the essence of this precious human rebirth, and instead of this we are just enduring and performing or committing negative actions and so spending our time, spending our life in negative actions, that is a total nonsense thing to do. And it’s just like is described in Nāgārjuna’s text saying, if a person has a very precious vessel, a golden precious vessel, completely covered with precious stones, and really an astonishing piece of beauty, and then he’s utilizing this vessel as a rubbish bin, rubbish bin for a place to put rubbish, it’s a really stupid thing to do. And the people, when the people see this, they would think that the person is rather mad or at least stupid. Because it’s not a suitable object, like a golden vessel for a dustbin. So if you don’t utilize your life, or on the other hand you utilize your life by committing sinful actions or unwholesome actions, it is worse than utilizing a golden vessel for a dustbin. So if that person is stupid, then you are much more stupid. You are like inconceivably stupid because spending your life in that way is really like wasting a very precious thing.
So now, in order to understand how difficult it is to get a precious human rebirth, we should clarify that first of all, there’s nothing in this saṃsāra that doesn’t appear without cause. So if the precious human rebirth is a type of existence, it must have its own cause. Otherwise, the precious human rebirth or whatever type of rebirth, it must have causes, otherwise it’s not a phenomenon of this existence. So what are the causes for this precious human rebirth? There are three mainly. The first is pure morality. The second is the practice of the six perfections. And the third is what is called stainless or completely pure prayer or aspirational prayer. And if you don’t have all these three causes, then you can forget about getting a precious human rebirth in the future.
So having the pure morality means, if we take in consideration the ten virtues or the ten virtuous actions or the ten unwholesome actions, then morality means that you are avoiding the ten unwholesome actions from the first to the last one. And if you accumulate a vast amount of morality observing those actions, then this is one of the causes in order to get the precious human rebirth in the future. And what the six perfections practice is going to generate in the future is that not only you need a precious human rebirth, but you need to have wealth. And this is the result of generosity, the first of the perfections. So if you practice generosity, then you’re going to experience wealth in the future. And if you don’t practice generosity, then you’re going to live, yes, as a human, but as a poor person, like a beggar.
And if you want that your body is without faults, like has all the limbs and you don’t have brain damages and so forth, you don’t have any defects, if you want that, then you need to practice patience. Because avoiding generating anger or hatred in your mind is the cause that will have as a result in the future the fact that you are perfect and you don’t have any fault in your body and so forth. And for example, like the Kadampa Geshe masters wrote in their texts, if you want to know what did you do, what sort of practice, or what sort of behavior, what sort of action you performed in the past life, you just need to look at you now. The way you are, you can understand. The way you are gives you the signs or gives you the way to under