Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 60-minute teaching, Lama Ribur Rinpoche examines how difficult it is to achieve a precious human rebirth in future lives, using three key criteria: ethical conduct, generosity and patience, and pure aspiration focused on future rebirths rather than worldly gain. He illustrates this through the example of a close teacher friend, Tukar Rinpoche, who devoted himself to long-life practice because he recognized that obtaining another precious human life would be extraordinarily rare. Rinpoche counsels listeners that while they differ from ordinary people who act without awareness of cause and effect, genuine protection requires vigilant purification of past harm using the seven-limb prayer and confession to the thirty-five Buddhas. He then shifts to a detailed answer on proper guru devotion: the critical importance of careful teacher selection before accepting someone as a spiritual guide, and the principle that blessing received depends entirely on how one perceives the guru—ideally as a Buddha—not on the guru’s actual realization. The talk concludes with practical instruction on transforming daily activities into Dharma: bringing mindful intention to work, mantra recitation, meals as offerings, and sleep, rather than waiting for perfect conditions to meditate.
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File: precious human life tape 5 2.mp3
UUID: d66c6a81-8280-4c22-8fb4-fc5d1aad48a7
Teacher: Lama Ribur Rinpoche
Collection: Precious Human Life (Lama Ribur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 60.7 minutes
Words: ~4,888
That you have practiced, wisdom in the path. So it’s very it’s quite an it’s quite easy to understand, what did you do, in the path lives just looking at you now. But if all these are the causes, now it’s up to you to check whether you’re going to have a precious human rebirth in the future or not. It’s very easy. Also this is very easy.
It’s just up to you. You have to check if you are having good morality or not. Are you you you have to make yourself a question. Do I, do I observe in a in a proper way the, the ethics? Do I observe the morality?
And again, I’m generous, I’m practicing the generosity, and I’m a patient person, I practice patience and so forth. So if you check by yourself, understand whether you are going to have a precious human rebirth or not in the future. And if the question is up to me, I would say that it is rather difficult. It is quite difficult to get a precious rebirth in the future. It is not quite difficult.
It is very difficult that we are going to get a precious human rebirth in the future. It is very difficult to keep a pure morality. Is very difficult to, practice the six perfections. And on the top of that, and the third cause, which is pure prayer, is very difficult to to to is very difficult that you always have pure prayer. What does it mean pure prayer?
Pure prayer means that our, aspirational prayer, directed to the future lives and not concerning with these lives. So whichever prayer you might make like, may I have a long life, may I have stable life, may I be wealthy, and may everybody have life, death, and so forth. All these are impure prayer because I’m not concerned, I’m not regarding future lives matter. So whatever is concerning this life is not a pure prayer. Whatever is concerning future life is pure.
So this is actually another of the main causes in order to to order to achieve a precious human rebirth. So I had a friend. So if you check by yourself, you will see how many of these causes you have present and how many of them you don’t you don’t have. And I had a friend, I had a friend whose name was Tukar Rinpoche, and which he was actually all the time in long life retreat. And he was all the time making long life retreat and he was giving always long life initiation.
So then once I asked him because we were very close, I could just talk to him straight. So I said, it seems that your practice is just long life. You don’t have any other thing in your mind apart from having long life. And he said, No, you see, the situation is different. I think because now I have this precious human rebirth, it’s better if I take care of this because in the future I see quite difficult that we are going to get another one.
So because of this, I I try to take care as much as I can of this one that I already have. And and And so I think that the reason why he was saying that is because he was realizing how difficult it is to get to achieve another precious human rebirth. So personally, I think that personally, I think that, we are quite good and that, we differ quite a lot from the normal ordinary people. So, personally, I am I am happy in the sense that I know, that we are not wasting our time completely. We take refuge and we practice some Dharma.
So I think we are not as completely the same like the, like the other people. What I’m telling you is just to be careful. What I’m telling you is that, it’s not, it’s not gonna be easy in the future. So and to get another human life, so it’s better be careful now. And and and so what you should do is that on the top of the practice you already do is that you should put into practice the seven-limb prayer.
One thing is to recite it. One thing is to put it into practice. You should you should put into practice. You should you should take refuge, and then you should understanding your fault or your negative action which is being committed in the past, especially the greatest one, that one you might remember. So then those one you should regret, and you should generate regret, because of committing those, those actions.
And then you should apply the confessions limbs, and you should rejoice, and you should purify, and you should rejoice of the other positive actions. And in this way, put it in real practice, the seven limbs, in your everyday life. And because Khensur Rinpoche is here, so it it might teach you how to apply the four antidotes for the purification, how to purify the negative karma. And so having having understood which are the faults, which are the negative action, understanding that regret and generate generating the antidote of regret and then applying the antidote. As for example, the best is the confession to the thirty-five Buddhas with prostrations.
And there are many other type of purification techniques which which you might apply in order to get rid of all that negative karma. So I’m I’m not saying that we are totally bad. What I’m saying is we are quite okay. We are different from we are we are just just now just now we are different from the ordinary people, that they don’t have any awareness and they spend their life in a total nonsense way. We are quite quite good, but what I tell you is to be careful.
Now that you can, be careful in what you’re doing, because in the future it might be very difficult to do. I’m actually, I’m encouraging you because I think it’s quite okay. I think you’re gonna be fine. And if just just keep you on the just keep yourself in the positive track. Just keep you just keep on going like this.
Try to improve as much as you can and to purify and to accumulate as much as you can. And I think there will be no much trouble in the future. But why this? Because we are different from the ordinary people. Why I’m saying this is because just look at what the ordinary people normally in the way how they spend their life.
They spend their life without any consciousness, without any awareness of cause and effect. So they just do whatever their minds tell them to do. So if their mind’s control is being controlled by the mental delusion tells them to do some sinful action, they just do it. And they don’t regret it at all because they don’t understand the negative aspect of those of those unwholesome action. So and Āryadeva, the Pandita Āryadeva, said once.
If you if you Āryadeva said, if you look at the majority if you look at the majority of the people in this world, because being ordinary beings and being deluded by their mental poison, they will all have as a future the lower realm rebirth. And why this? Because if you if you if you don’t try to overcome the mental delusion, but instead if you follow the mental delusion, the result of that, there is just one, is the rebirth in the lower realm. And there’s not much things we can do like lacking teachings, lacking the instruction on how to conduct a sensible life. All these people lacking all this instruction, lacking wisdom or discriminating wisdom, they just perform, they just commit every action that the mind tells them to do.
So their future will be surely to take rebirth in the lower realm. So from our side, what can do? Nothing. The only thing we can do is maybe some prayer. But apart from that, there’s nothing they can sort of, like, divert these people from their future.
Nothing can divert all of them back. So Rinpoche says, have no problem. So, you don’t have to worry about. You just Rinpoche said, just relax and just relax and practice as much as you can. Don’t commit unwholesome action.
Practice as much as virtues as you can, and everything will be fine. So and then just just just take care. So, if so if you know that you have committed, an unwholesome action, then just purify it. It’s not, it’s not a big problem. You see, the one who explain about virtues is the same one who I’m sorry.
The one who explained about negative action and negative karma is the same one who explained the way how to purify it. That is Buddha. So if if if, you believe that there are negative actions and negative karma, you must believe also that there is a way to purify it. So, it’s very simple. So if you know if you know that you have committed a action, you just purify it.
If the one who says about the one who told us about negative actions and negative results is Buddha, and, he’s the one who told us about purification practice. So if you believe to one, you’re stupid not to believe to the other. So if you have questions So Rinpoche said, if you have questions, especially the very important, essential one, then you can make it. Otherwise, just the vital ones, then you can ask. Because the time is running now.
This is what Rinpoche said. It’s not my interpretation. This is what Rinpoche said. Mhmm. So, Rinpoche gave two answers.
The first one is, you shouldn’t sorry? We have another question. We don’t have it yet. Yeah. We don’t have question.
Oh, sorry. You you didn’t hear her questions. Yeah. The question is the question was how to properly relate to tell me if I’m a mistake. Properly relate with with the guru because in the West is is actually quite unusual is quite an unusual tradition sort of or psychologically matter, you see, to have devotion or to relate to a teacher in in in such a deep way like in Buddhism.
So how to do that? Because sometimes you you must you you you could misunderstand, your attachment for your teacher or maybe your own not willing to take responsibility for your own improvement as a devotion. So how to do that properly? What’s the best way to do? So, Rinpoche answered in two ways.
The first is, the main the most important thing is to be sure of your choice. Like, you shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be, like, you shouldn’t be in a hurry when you choose your lama. A lama the the the choice of a lama and taking a teacher as your guru is not an an easy thing to do. You should check really carefully if, that teacher is proper as a a as a spiritual guide or not. And there are means to do that.
There are, like, qualities you should check if that that teacher should have in order to be a spiritual guide. This is something that is only emphasized every time he’s he’s teaching. He says, if, if your relation with the teacher is just in order to acquire knowledge, so then doesn’t need to become your guru. The teacher, that you are, that you are following in order to acquire, especially sūtra knowledge, that doesn’t need, to it’s not necessary to be your guru. Regarding tantra, it’s a completely different matter.
Whenever you receive an initiation from a teacher, that is going to become one of your main guru. So when you receive an initiation from from a teacher because you, because you introduce in the mandala and you take receiving vows from him, so from that moment on, that is going to be your guru, one of your guru. And, but if you you attend teaching in just in order to acquire knowledge, then this is not necessarily going to be your your guru. So you can have very good relation like a student teacher, but this necessarily doesn’t mean that you are this that you are like the disciple of that of that guru or whatever. This is one.
This is very important because this is what is going to build up your, your devotion afterwards. So this has to be, has to be checked. And, second, he said, in so how to actually after you’ve chosen after you’ve chosen your your your teacher, your guru, or you have you have accept, a teacher as your as your spiritual guide, then how to relate to him? Rinpoche said, the only and the best way how to do that is to perceive him as a Buddha. So once you have a set, a teacher as your spiritual guide, the like, the most complete method you can utilize in order to, have the perfect relation with him.
Like, let me just say, to in order not to think a lot, in order not to think what to do, not to do in in sometimes, what you do is that all the time you’re thinking about like being a Buddha. So if you’re thinking if you think that your spiritual guy is a Buddha, is a complete enlightened being, so, that is what is going to naturally make up your devotion or your proper relationship. That is the best way. Geshe Potowa said the amount or the quality of the blessing that you are going to receive from a lama is depending on the way you’re perceiving. The amount of blessing and the quality and the depth of the blessing you’re receiving from a lama doesn’t depend from the lama himself, but it depends.
It lays in your hand. It depends from the way you perceive him. So whether whether your lama whether whether your lama is is is a Buddha or not, whether your lama is a Buddha, is a bodhisattva, or is just an ordinary being, this doesn’t matter. That doesn’t create the difference, doesn’t make the difference. The difference in the blessing, in the quantity, in the quality, or whatever, that as the blessing you receive, the difference it makes the way you perceive him.
So if you perceive your guru as being a Buddha, you’re going to, you’re going to, receive, a Buddha’s blessing. If you see if you see him as a bodhisattvas, you’re going to receive just the blessing of a bodhisattva. If you are perceiving him as as as a and it’s like in a highly realized being, you’re going to receive that amount of blessing. If you’re if you’re perceiving as an ordinary being, just yourself, you don’t receive blessing at all. So that’s the way how that’s the way how it works.
So, because you are some someone that aims to reach Buddhahood, is better to perceive the guru as buddha because that is the way how you’re going to receive more blessing. The reason so if let’s make that let’s let’s say that the your teacher is really a Buddha, is an enlightened one. So, if you don’t perceive him as a Buddha, but you perceive him as a as an ordinary being, you’re not going to receive blessing. But not because he’s he’s not a Buddha, but because you’re not perceiving him as a Buddha. And the reason and an example for this, I already told you while I was explaining the Guru devotion, I told you that it was Devadatta, was the cousin of Buddha Śākyamūni who lived with him for twelve years.
But because he was not perceiving I mean, Buddha Śākyamūni had the major and the minor marks of enlightenment clearly visible. But but because Devadatta was not perceiving him as a Buddha, but he was perceiving as an ordinary being, and not only an ordinary being but a bad ordinary being, he didn’t he didn’t in twelve years he didn’t get even one blessing. He didn’t even receive just one blessing. So, was used to give this example, and regarding how you can receive blessing either from somebody that is not Buddha or is not an enlightened one just because you perceive him as to be an enlightened one. So there is a there is a story with Tibetan old woman wanted so much relics of a saint or a Buddha would be the best, but otherwise an Arhat.
So his son, his Tibetan son used to go to India to because he was a businessman, so he he was used to go to India to buy and sell. And so because he was having this trade, the and he was often going to India, so his mother once asked him, please, would you would you please bring me back from India? The best would be a relic from Buddha himself. But if not, at least a bone from an Arhat, one of the Arhats or a very saintly being. So, please just remember it very well and put it in your mind.
So the the son assured that, and he went to India and obviously forgot. So then when he was just he was just arriving and back to his in to his own house, he remembered. And so he picked up a tooth of a of a dead dog. And so and he he he sort of folded in in in a very precious silk. And then when he when he met his mother, the mother said, so I ask you so much about these relics of a Buddha or an Arhat.
Of what did you did you remember? And so the son said, yes. Sure. And he he opened up the the silk shroud, and there was this tooth. So the mother took this this dog tooth as being as as the Buddha Buddha tooth himself.
And so with a lot of reverence, he brought this dog tooth into the altar, and then and she she start because of her devotion, because of her, like, single pointed faith, she start making prayer to this dog tooth. And and and suddenly, because of this power, because of the power of her prayer, because of the power of her faith, unshakable I mean, we should say unshakable faith, then light was springing from the rainbow light was streaming from the tooth of the dog just because of her, very strong faith. This means that, whether that was really relics or not, and in fact it was not, but due to the main power of the faith, due to the main power of perceiving that as in Buddha relics made everything I mean, that made the magic happen. So the blessing is depending on how you perceive your lama. So, so if you want to get the maximum advantages, it’s better to see your lama as Buddha.
So whether whether the the lama is Buddha or not, it’s like it’s not your business. Your business is to perceive him as a lama, as a Buddha. So what you should do is that you should wake up early in the morning, and and then you should make up your mind that this year, especially this month, especially that day, you’re going to you’re going to check your mind, to control your mind, and to be particularly virtuous. So you should try in that day, you should make up your mind that in that day, should avoid as much as you can all the negative action of body, speech, and mind, and you should try to accumulate as much virtues as you can of body, speech, and mind. And then then, like, you set you set, like, you set your mind in this way, and then you go to work.
And when you go to work, like, you might have obviously, you have I mean, you go to work because you need salary. So but if you think, if you just think that that salary, you might utilize it for making offerings and buying books and so forth in order to and to improve your your your mind, your inner side. So if you can, like, thinking if you can think this and if you can generate this thought, this awareness, again and again while you’re working, that is gonna help because then this like even if the job is the same, but having different type of motivation helps the result, makes different the result. So, again, while you’re working, Rinpoche said, usually when you’re working, usually your mouth either is shut or you’re not using very well. So the best way to use your mouth when your hands are typing or whatever, so then you can, in order to develop some renunciation, some compassion, and some wisdom, you can recite mantras like Rinpoche said, om mani padme hum.
So having having the intention of improving your mind towards those goals, like the generation of the three principal aspects of the path, You you can utilize the mouth in that way while you’re working. When you come back from work, then you you after after dinner, you if you have little bit of spare time and if you have a small place where you can meditate, you can you can you can meditate a little bit on those Lamrim topics like we have explained now. So on the eighth benefit of having guru devotion and then to and then on the precious human rebirth and so forth up to the end. And and then you can do it either quickly or maybe a little bit more intensively, depending on the time you have. And then while you’re, for example, you’re having lunch and dinner, while you’re having your food, then instead of just throwing food in your mouth, you can think that because your body I mean, yourself is not alone, but inside your body there are all the sentient beings like virus and microbes and so forth.
And and so you you you might think that all those sentient beings, they are going to survive due to your to your lunch or dinner. And so and praying with the prayer that they might take rebirth rebirth as a human being and may be able to generate a pure mind in meeting with the Dharma. And if you I think if you can do this, if you can do this every day, so, it’s, it’s already a very good, Dharma practice and is going to bring you really is going to bring you very far away, very further away. And if you are if you have received If you have received any of the, tantric initiation or whichever class you have received, then, you might think that, when you’re eating, when you’re having lunch, then at your heart, there is the deity himself, and, you actually, you’re like offering you’re you’re giving offerings. You’re, like, doing offerings to the to the deity while you’re, while you’re eating.
So that is a big accumulation of, merit and wisdom. And, when you go to work with the goal of receiving salary for the salary, so then when you receive the salary, you think that you’re going to use this also for offerings in order to accumulate merit. I think it’s just a matter of doing, you see. Otherwise, there is a lot to do. There is a lot of there is the possibility of doing a lot of things, you know.
It’s just a matter of doing that. Otherwise, possibility are like various, then a lot of them. Then as Milarepa was saying, whatever action you do, can transform it in dharma. Like when you walk or when you sleep, everything can be transformed in dharma. Milarepa is saying, when I walk and I’m going up, I think that I’m going I’m taking all the beings to the, upper realms.
And when I sleep, I sleep in the, I think that I’m sleeping in the clear light of, of bliss. So, if you are not able to utilize, if you don’t, like if you don’t make up your mind that you’re going to utilize whatever happened as Dharma is difficult. And, it’s difficult that you are able to practice Dharma if you, if it’s like if you if you try to find a spot of time and space and to dedicate this and and to your practice of Dharma, it’s gonna be difficult. It’s better to utilize whatever happened in your life as the Dharma. You see, a day is made of twenty four hours, and we sleep the majority of those hours.
And then we dedicate the remaining to the to to to going to work. And so and then also for eating and and washing and so forth. So basically, if you try to find if you think that you’re going to accomplish dharma, utilizing maybe that half an hour or an hour of sitting in cross leg in your on your cushion, that is gonna be difficult. I think the best things to do is to utilize whatever, in a skillful way, whatever comes in your life. Utilizing the time that you spend to work and to when you eat and sleep and so forth.
So if you can utilize all these, you will have a great result. Otherwise, you wait to have a right free time of, like a right spot of, of place and then a right time, like half an hour, an hour of free time in order to meditate, that I don’t think is going to work very well. So better to utilize whatever comes and in a skillful way, in a dharmic or transforming, like in a dharmic way. And, however, the the thing that makes a difference in our life is if we know what is to what has to be our mental attitude, our attitude. Our attitude toward life should be, not harming other beings and trying to be as much as much benefit beneficial as we can.
And this is from, other side, from our side, trying to trying to, control as more as possible the three mental delusion. So when we knowing then the mental delusion like attachment, hatred and ignorance are, like, really harmful to us, knowing that we should try to, apply all those, antidotes like when we know that we are over overwhelmed by attachment, we should apply the meditation on the unpleasantness of the object. And when we medit when we are overwhelmed by anger, we should meditate on patience. So trying to, you see, avoiding harming other people, trying to be as much beneficial as we can, and, keeping on mind that we have to subdue our mind, that we have to control and we have to free our mind from the mental delusion. I think if you keep in in your mind this and while while you are, living your life, that is going to, that is going to have very good result.
Okay. There’s no any further questions. So we stop here. Oh, yeah. Do you understand the question?
Yeah. The problem is that the dreams are you can divide the dreams in three in four in four different categories. And and those four different categories are related to different time of the night. So, like, you can have dreams in the first part of the night, in the second, third, and fourth. And the fourth part of the night is the one close to the sunrise, and like, let’s say, four or six.
And those are the one that usually are relating to reality. So the other three, the other first, second and third are are made like you have dreams, but those dreams are, due to your winds, bile, and phlegm.
Phlegm? You say phlegm? Phlegm. Right. So, winds, bile, and phlegm.
So these three are are like, let’s say, inducing some dreams. So these three are not real. You have you have several dreams, but they are completely unreal. So the fourth one, the one that comes during the sunrise are the real one. So I really don’t know in which part you have dreamed.
If you I don’t know if it was the first, second, third, fourth. And the whatever dream may appear to you apart from the sunrise are fake. I mean, you can say it’s fake, but it’s realer than this. You know? Yeah.
Like a dream. But I you can someone you can tell Again, there are different way of judging about the dreams, regarding the way how you wake up. If you wake up straight after one dream, if you wake up in a really happy state of mind, that dream is auspicious and it might have a good result. Where, if you wake up in a really sad and, sort of, afraid state of mind, then the dream is gonna have well, it’s not really auspicious and it might have a bad result.