Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The story of an actress who accidentally accepted 800,000 prostrations from Lama Zopa Rinpoche — then completed them — captures the tone of this wide-ranging 140-minute Lamrim session from Latvia. Venerable Jampa Gendun, an Australian monk teaching across Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s global centers, opens with why phones, magazines, and self-help books fail to produce lasting happiness, then traces his own anxious first visit to Kopan Monastery in Nepal. He works through the ten Mahāyāna qualities of a perfect guru and the difficulty of finding one, then moves to Buddhism’s nine-point death meditation: death is certain, its timing unknown, and only the mind’s karma travels forward. A Q&A closes with questions on karma, signs of dying, sudden death, and rebirth. Accessible to newcomers.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 LR 2008 05 26.mp3
UUID: 857c37b3-96fd-485a-8b18-f98aabb1fa35
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Lam Rim (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-05-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 140.5 minutes
Words: ~9,257
So I would imagine that many people have been very busy today. And in order to create some space Not space in the room, but space in the mind. Then it would be good if we could do a few minutes of meditation. Some people may never have done meditation before. So now they’re getting very nervous.
They’re starting to get sweat here. Wondering what’s going to happen. So there’s nothing complicated about meditation. Meditation is placing your mind on one object. So it’s using the power of concentration?
So these days it seems that we don’t have a long period of time that we can concentrate for. So actually for you to sit and listen for two hours is very difficult, I think. So in order to increase our powers of concentration, then it’s good to do meditation. And meditation is concentrating on the space. But if I just give you space to concentrate on, You may have so many thoughts you can’t find the space.
So meditation would become another cause of frustration. And we have enough causes of frustration. So better that we concentrate on the sensation of the breath? So this is as you breathe in and out through the nostrils? We’re concentrating on the sensation of the breath.
It is concentrated as it’s breathed out. So we’re just going to do this for a few minutes. So sit in as comfortable a position as you can. Of course many people are not used to sitting on the floor. The main thing is to have the back as straight as possible.
So not overly straight. And not slumped. So comfortably straight. Then the hands resting in the lap. Since you can’t see me, can look at the perfect example over here.
Then it’s said that with the head, first of all look straight ahead, then tilt your head a little bit down. And this will help you to subdue the thoughts. If you put your head back, then it increases the thoughts. Then if you notice in the paintings of the Buddhas, It always looks like the eyes are not fully open. So Buddha taught that you can have your eyes half open.
So you would look at the end of your nose at the floor in front of you. But you’re not focusing so much on the floor that you can describe what’s in front of you. And this is called a soft gaze. But it’s probably quite difficult for you to do initially. So then you might find it easier to close your eyes.
But it’s good to know how you can progress. So then I often find that when people come from work, they have a lot of tension in the shoulders. Look, there’s all this space here. It’s not that frightening. It’s like a little pack, you know, over here and a little pack over here.
You can sit down here, anybody can sit. What was I up to? No. I completely forgot. Tension in the shoulders.
So check your shoulders and see if there’s any tension. If you squeeze your shoulders up to your ears, and then drop your shoulders. So that’s the position that the shoulders should be in, drop down? If you’re tense, then you’ll sit with your shoulders up like this, your arms are really stiff, and your back’s straight, and you’ll think, this is terrible. And all you want to do is run out the door.
So then meditation is not going to work. So your body has to feel comfortable. And when you start meditating, you start becoming aware of the body. But the aim is for the body to be so comfortable you forget about the body. So then we can concentrate on something else other than the body.
But the body is the foundation. It’s the starting point. It’s a starting point. Okay, any questions? Where were we?
So then. As you breathe in deeply three times, You can think breathing in peace. Breathing out thoughts.
And And now we’re focusing on the nostrils. The sensation of the breath as you breathe in and out. You are aware of sounds? Your sense in that sense. Of thoughts?
Sensations? Just two minutes more. Otherwise, we’ll have phones going off all over the place. It’s the modern era we live in, isn’t it? We’re attached to our phones.
So my name is Venerable Namgyal. Venerable Namgyal. I’m an Australian Tibetan Buddhist monk. This is my Australian speech, my accent. And I spend virtually all year traveling around the world.
From the bottom of the world to nearly the top? And I teach Buddhism in Lama Zopa Rinpoche centers. And he now has around one hundred and sixty centers in the world. So I can’t get to one hundred and sixty centres? So I go to some of the centres, and it’s my privilege to come to Latvia.
We’ve recently finished a Medicine Buddha retreat. And so maybe I got to know a little bit more about Latvian people. But I think the common denominator of everywhere I go is understanding that in every country there are people with problems, and the problems vary in intensity. And nobody wants those problems? So when the problems come, nobody says, Oh, thank you very much for giving me the problems.
I’m so happy that I’ve got this sickness. So this is one experience that I’ve seen around the world, that this is quite common. Have problems, and then we make ourselves suffer more because of the problems. And then we want happiness, and we don’t quite know how to get happiness. So we think happiness is getting the latest Nokia phone.
Or buying an iPod. Or having what we think of as the right partner, or the right car or the right house, and we can get those things, and we have to work really hard to get them. Yet still when you get them you may feel that you’re not really happy. So many people feel that they’ve got what they wanted and yet still they’re not very happy. So I often say to people that I used to follow my mother’s advice: My mother was Irish, and she had some strange advice, Like, if you spilled salt on the table,
You had to throw it over your shoulder. You don’t walk under a ladder. Black cats are really bad luck. Don’t put up an umbrella inside the house. And blue and green should not be worn together.
So these are really important pieces of advice. And I’m passing them on to you. And I’m absolutely sure they’re not going to make you happy. And I’m sure that you’ve probably got your own things that you received from your parents. Which can also be a bit bizarre.
So if we follow our parents, we may not get happiness from that advice. So then we turn to friends. And they also have parents. And they’ve also got their strange advice. So that might not work.
So then we turn to magazines. And so you buy Cleo or Esquire or Playboy? So you read the articles.
You fill in the quizzes, so how to make yourself happy, how to get what you want, and still not so happy. And then we buy books. So the seven of this or the twelve of that. So it always sounds so easy, but then when you read the book, at the end of the book you’re not quite sure how you’re going to implement this book. So, you know, maybe some of us have been through these type of situations.
But anyway, this is my experience, Was I had money. I could buy whatever I wanted. Not from my parents, but from my own work. But still, there was some feeling of something missing. And I think what I’ve learned over all these years of Buddhist practice, What I felt was missing is thinking about others.
Because in all of that searching, it’s all about me. So it’s all about me wanting to make myself happy. And as much as I tried to make myself happy, that happiness that I was getting was very short term. So it just didn’t last. So then, for myself, I ended up in Nepal.
And I was going to go to Kopan Monastery. But I was really worried about it. Because in Australia at that time there were some cults. And I thought, you know, maybe I’ll go to this place and I’ll just disappear. I could end up wearing strange clothes.
Change my name. Shave my head. So about mine, my Yavnoskushen. So luckily it didn’t happen. What life does not happen?
I’m joking, because it did. It’s your boy, I just remember. Must have been something in the water. So when I went along, I was interested in what Buddhism had to offer. But because I didn’t know anybody who’d been to this course, and it’s a one month course that they offer every year.
I was quite anxious about it. So I went and I checked it out. And the strangest thing about the place is that they had toilets at the end of the hill. And the toilets looked normal, they were outside but they looked normal. But when you went into them, was no back wall.
So you’d go to the toilet looking down to Kathmandu. Because you’re right up on top of a hill. And then sometimes there’s little monks walking past. Below the toilet. Maybe five-ten metres away.
And they wave and they say, Hello! So I thought, well, friendly place! Coming from the West, this was strange. But I think it was Lama Yeshe’s idea. So that when you went to the toilet you had this incredible view?
So maybe if you’ve got constipation then it’s a really nice experience. But most people who are in the East don’t have constipation. So you’re in and out of the toilet very quickly? This is a sidetrack. Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa started this monastery called Kopan, and they relied on the advice of their guru.
Their guru is His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So whenever they were making important decisions, they would always ask the Dalai Lama. Lama Yeshe was sitting in Boudhanath, in a small monastery, And he could see this empty hill, which is about maybe eight to ten kilometers away. And he used to say to Lama Zopa, That would be a really good place for a monastery. And at that time they had their first disciple, the first student.
Whose name was Zina. So she was a Russian princess who turned up in India looking for a guru. And by mistake she’d found Lama Zopa and Lama Yeshe. She was actually looking for another Lama, but she found them. And they were two of the unusual lamas who spoke English.
So she kept asking, please, please, teach me. And there was a sort of strange story around her. We’re talking about late 1960s. So she had the KGB following her? And she had the, I think it was the CIA following her?
So wherever she went, there were always people following her. So the Lamas weren’t quite sure what was going on. But she showed great devotion. And she really showed that she wanted to practice Buddhism. So she helped them to buy that land.
She became a nun. And then she went into retreat after some years in Lawudo, which is near Mount Everest. So she passed away, she died sitting in meditation, sitting alone in a cave, and she took rebirth as a French boy. So that family that she was born into were friends of hers. And they’re bringing Zena up, who’s now a boy, but giving him an ordinary education.
And they say when he gets older, when he’s grown up, he can then decide what he wants to do with his life. What she had from the very beginning was incredible devotion for the Lamas. What the Lamas have is incredible devotion for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And their other teachers? So when I went to Kopan, what I noticed was the extraordinary quality of the teachers.
So they weren’t just talking about wisdom or compassion, You could see that they had wisdom and that they had compassion. So what made me really interested in Buddhism? Were the teachers that I first met in Kopan? And as I said, I wasn’t there thinking, Oh, these teachers are incredible, this place is wonderful. I was quite suspicious about the situation.
And Buddha himself said that we should check things out. So there Buddha was doing all these miraculous, incredible things. And he’s saying, Don’t believe anything just because I say it. You must check it as if you’re buying gold. So if you’re buying gold, you scrape it, you weigh it, there’s various tests.
So if you know the tests and you’ve applied them? You’ve decided it’s gold. Then you’d be stupid if you then doubted your tests and went back and started doing the tests all over again. So, of course, we should know what sort of qualities a guru should have. One way is by looking at the people around the teacher.
Because I think that if when you go to a Buddhist center or you go to a monastery, if you like the people around the teacher, then this is one good step. So when I say step, it’s like we’re moving towards entering entering the door of Dharma. So you shouldn’t sort of go through the door of Dharma really quickly, close it, and then think afterwards, Oh, I should have checked, and now I want to get out. So I think some people do do that. They get caught up in the feeling at the time, especially if the teacher is very famous.
But in the same way, you should check whether it’s a small teacher or a big teacher. If you’re going to take them as your guru, then you need to know where they’re coming from. So what’s the lineage? Then according to the lineage, what sort of teachings are they giving? Then are those teachings appropriate for your mind?
And then when you try to put these teachings into practice, have you been given instructions that you can follow? Because if you don’t have a good connection with the teacher and the teachings, then you can hear them, but you don’t know what to do with them. And there’s no point in practicing just for a week or two and then thinking, Oh well, it’s not working, I’ll go somewhere else. You’ve actually got to try over a period of time. So usually we’re talking about three years, five years, ten years.
So I was at a teaching in Dharmasala with His Holiness. And His Holiness said, There are some people here who are not Buddhist. So you think you’re but you’re not Buddhist. Why are you not Buddhist? Because you’ve been practicing for many years and you haven’t changed.
So this is the test. If you’re still angry or more angry, You have desire or more desire. More attachment. And you’ve been practicing for fifteen years? So it’s either the method or you?
So then you need to figure out what is going wrong in that situation. So as Holiness said, you look at people who have been practicing fifteen years or ten years or five years or three years, And if you look over, say, three years and you haven’t seen any change at all, then you really need to look at whether you’re practicing the instructions in the correct way. So if you found the right guru, and you’re practicing in the right way, then you’re going to reach enlightenment very quickly. So we need a guru in order to become enlightened. If you don’t have a guru, then there’s so many practices.
You won’t know which practices to do. So then you might think, Well, I’ll start at the very beginning. And you slowly work through the stages. It may not be appropriate for you. So the benefit of having a guru is that they can quickly understand the nature of your mind.
And then they will be able to tell you the particular practices that you need to do in order to reach enlightenment. So you need to be genuinely devoted, not just thinking, not a duplicitous devotion. So duplicitous devotion is where you say, Oh, yes, yes, yes. So it’s looking very good, but the mind is like rock. So we need to soften the mind, and let go of the ego in order to follow what somebody is telling us.
So they’re going ahead of us. We’re coming behind. So they’re showing the safe way to get to enlightenment. But along the way you might think, I think I know a better way. I think I might go this way.
So then the guy is saying, No, no, no, this is really dangerous. And if you have an ego, then you think, Oh no, I know better. So this is where the danger comes. That if you don’t have enough devotion, If you don’t have patience and perseverance, it’s very difficult to keep going, because you’re going to experience difficulties along the way. Nāgārjuna said, If one fell from the peak of a great mountain, one would fall even though thinking I shall not.
If you receive beneficial teachings through the kindness of the guru, you will be liberated, though you think, I shall not. So if you have the right guru, then for sure you’re going to become enlightened. Then the second point in the Lamrim? Is that you will delight the Buddhas. So Buddha said that in future I will appear as gurus.
So the guru is something like an ambassador of the Buddhas. So if you’re pleasing the guru, then you’re pleasing all the Buddhas. The third point is? You won’t be harmed by bad friends? And any spirits or demons can’t harm you?
So I’ve already asked at the Medicine Buddha retreat if you have ghosts in Latvia. Apparently, do have ghosts. Yeah. Yeah? No.
What does the term ghost mean? A sentient being that looks, maybe looks human, but you can see straight through them. You have? Yeah. What does she think her ghost is?
Yeah. A few things that ghosts are beings who are living in old houses and threatening kids And making afraid children. Unlike these people. Also. So they they would look like them, but doing negative actions.
That sounds quite bad. Now you look, have you seen the ghosts, I don’t know what’s happening because there’s no translation. She didn’t understand the question. The last sentence. So it sounds like what she’s saying is that she thinks ghosts are looking like these people.
But those people that she’s thinking about are doing negative actions? More than I thought. So she didn’t mean that? She means what I think of as ghosts, dead people who are still hanging around. She doesn’t mean that either.
Yes. They are such beings. There are there are such beings. It would be the sort of ghost, at least, but they’ve been seen. There are beings who are moving their hands and legs, so there is no energy in them.
Okay. Yeah, Buddha said that there are beings who exist in those sort of realms. Yeah. And it’s not easy for all of us to experience that. But some people are quite sensitive, and then can experience harm from those type of beings.
But I think more troubling is if we have bad friends. So there was a famous Geshe called Geshe Potawa. So Geshe Potawa said, For ordinary people, it’s easy to pick up bad qualities. He said dust and dirt stick to a fur coat. Whereas gold coins don’t.
So if you mix with many people who are doing very negative actions, then it’s possible for the mind to become negative. So we have to be careful to protect our minds. So it’s difficult to get a rock to go up the mountain? But the rock rolls down very easily. So it’s important to have this protection.
And if you have devotion, then you will want to improve your mind. The next point is that you will easily cease all delusions and faulty deeds. So when you receive teachings, then you’ll learn that it’s not so difficult to control and stop your delusions. And by subduing our delusions, less negative actions. We’re going to harm others less.
And when we harm others less, then our life And then we start learning how to practice love and compassion. So as you’re doing less negative actions, then you’re able to practice more compassion. And compassion is that you want to remove suffering? So you need to be skillful and wise to know how to remove suffering? So even though we may feel that we have some compassion, It’s not the situation that we know with everybody how to be compassionate.
So in order to understand the minds of all sentient beings, we need to have a very vast mind. We need to have great wisdom. We need to have a lot of joy. And we have to want to use our time, our energy, whatever we have, in order to benefit others. So that way of seeing the world needs to come from your guru.
Because in my case, when I met Lama Zopa Rinpoche, people said he doesn’t sleep. So I thought it’s not possible. We all need eight hours. But people said he stays awake all night, all day. So then there were occasions in Kopan where Lama Zopa would call me.
It would be twelve o’clock at night. And he’d be doing some pujas or prayers. Until one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock. And I’m sort of dropping off, but Lama Zopa is completely awake. And then at three o’clock he’ll say, Okay, you can go now.
Because every night he does six hours of prayers. So from three until nine o’clock in the morning. He does all his prayers. Nine o’clock he has breakfast. Then he starts to answer emails, letters.
He has interviews. He teaches. And when he’s teaching, he used to teach usually from the afternoon, three o’clock in the afternoon. Sometimes he would teach from three o’clock in the afternoon straight through the night. So this was my experience in Copan.
I think the second day or the third day he was teaching. He started teaching, and I don’t understand anything he’s saying. So I’m waiting for the tea break. So I’m just thinking tea, tea. So around five o’clock I could hear the monks bringing tea.
So I think, Ah, tea is coming. So then your mind starts to feel lighter. Happier, because it’s getting what it wants. It’s all about me, isn’t it? So then Lama Zopa’s attendant, his assistant, came in front of Lama Zopa with a cup of tea and stood there like this.
So this is just here. And Lama Zopa kept talking, talking, talking. And this monk was an American monk. So I was watching him, wondering what’s going to happen. Because obviously he has great devotion and he wants to offer the cup of tea.
So ten minutes. Twenty minutes. And I think there’s over two hundred people. Oh, my goodness. So I think we’re all watching.
Now we’re wondering how long is it going to last. So at about half an hour, he gave up. He put down the tea. He sat back down. And sat back down.
I said, that’s okay. And then I think, oh, okay, now we get our tea. So after about ten minutes, Lama’s over, sort of, oh, he noticed this tea. He’s really not interested in food, tea, coffee, he’s not interested. So he’s, oh, yes, I think tea must be ready.
So I think, oh, yes, yes, tea’s ready. So I’m I’m ready to go. I’ll just tell you one more thing. So then we went got up to dinner time. So that’s seven o’clock.
Seven o’clock. So we we didn’t get tea? So then seven o’clock, Lama’s office says, oh, I think it’s time for dinner. I think that’s something. I was so happy. Yeah, there’s no my legs working now.
And he started to make a dedication. I mean, it’s like a book of dedications. And then he said, Oh, I forgot to tell you something. We went to dinner. Now dinner’s stone cold.
Doesn’t taste the same when it’s cold. And then I thought, well, we must be finished now. But we had to go back. Then he talked until, I think it was about five o’clock in the morning. So it’s freezing cold.
And we have to get up before dawn. So we have one hour sleep. And it’s like this day after day after day. Then I really believed he doesn’t sleep. So in the end, the Dalai Lama asked Lama Zopa to stop teaching all night.
He said, the students can’t do it! So please stop at twelve! So because Lama Zopa has great devotion, then he would say at exactly twelve o’clock. His Holiness did ask me to stop teaching at twelve. So I just have something to say.
And then we’d finish at three or four in the morning. So what I saw from this person is such a sense of joy about wanting to help others. And his whole life is dedicated to being benefit to others. And I think that’s quite different from us, isn’t it? Because we’re thinking about our comfort.
It’s cold. I want my bed. I want dinner. I want tea. I want the toilet.
I want whatever I want. So our mind can be on those sort of thoughts. And Rinpoche’s mind is helping you to become enlightened. How does he help you to become happy? So that seems to be always his way of thinking, that what can he do to make you happy?
And in order to become happy, you have to change your behavior. You have to subdue the disturbing thoughts. You have to purify the negative karma, and you have to create positive actions for the future. So then the next thing I heard about Lama Zopa is he gives out these practices to people. So I used to think best is to avoid him.
Because you never know what you’re going to end up with. So then I’d constantly be bumping into him. And I’d get really nervous, because I’m thinking he’s going to give me some big practice. But I have a funny story. There was a lady on a one month course in Copan.
So she decided she’s not Buddhist. And she’s an actress? Only an actress. And so everybody’s going to see Lama Zopa. And she’s not going?
No. Think she was not going. So everybody says, you should come. So you should well, why not? So but I’m not going to ask any questions.
Because she’s also heard about these practices. So she goes along and there’s a group of fifteen people. So Lama Zopa is asking each person, What do you want? What do you want? When it got to her, he asked her, Well, what do you want?
Because everybody else had said, What should I do? Automatically her lips said, What should I do? So then Rinpoche said, I’ll do this practice and do this practice, you know, and she’s nodding and smiling. And everybody’s looking at her really puzzled. Because she’s not Buddhist and she’s not going to do anything.
But she’s looking very calm and accepting everything. So after the interview, everybody said to her, wow, you’re incredible. If he did that to me, I just don’t know what I’d do. She said, I don’t know what he gave me. She couldn’t understand a word he said.
And because she’s an actress, she was saying, Oh, yes. Yes. And he was saying, eight hundred thousand prostrations. Eight hundred thousand mandala offerings. Eight hundred thousand water bowls, the list was like that of eight hundred thousand of everything.
So she said, Well, absolutely impossible! I’m not doing that! And she went back home. So she was thinking about this. And then she thought, maybe I will do it.
So she decided, since he gave me this practice, I’m going to do it. So she finished the eight hundred thousand prostrations, which must be the most difficult one to do. She decided to go back to Kopan until Lama Zopa, I finished. Always a very dangerous thing to do. So she gets to see Lama Zopa.
And she said, Well Rinpoche, you told me to do eight hundred thousand prostrations. She said, With great pride, I finished them! So what should I do now? So Rinpoche meditated for a little while, and he said, You need to do them again. That took care of the rest of the ego.
So it’s only a great teacher like that that can see exactly what each person needs. So I wanted to tell you what the ten qualities of a perfect guru are. This is from the Mahāyāna perspective. Mahāyāna means somebody who is on the bodhisattva path. So it’s said, if you can find a guru with ten qualities, this is the best.
But it’s said these days it’s difficult to find somebody with five qualities. You might not even find five. You might have to make do with three. Or even what? So the ten qualities are: a mind controlled by pure morality.
The second one is a mind that is pacified and undistracted through the practice of concentration. The third one is a mind completely pacified by discriminating wisdom. The fourth one is having greater knowledge than the disciple. Fifth is having perseverance. Sixth is a wealth of scriptural or knowledge.
Seventh is a realisation of suchness, the wisdom perceiving emptiness. The eighth is skill in teaching the Dharma. The ninth is having love and compassion. And the tenth is having abandoned discouragement and laziness in teaching the Dharma. A wealth of scriptural knowledge.
So within the Tibetan Buddhist monastic system, then we have original texts. So these originate with Buddha. And then other great teachers like Nāgārjuna. And then we have commentaries on those texts. So these original texts are memorized by the monks.
So how the monks in the monasteries in Asia study Buddhism? Is first they have to memorise the text. So the text might be eight hundred pages. So they have to memorise eight hundred pages. Until they can recite it perfectly.
Once they can recite it perfectly, they can then receive teachings on it. And then they start to understand it. So this is completely opposite to what we do. So we want to read a book and understand it immediately. So can you imagine that you come along here and you say, I’d like to learn something about Buddhism?
I hand you this huge book, and I say, Go away and memorize this. When you’ve got it memorized, come back and I’ll tell you. I’m sure most people would just disappear. Because it’s not the way our minds work, is it? So for these monks, they’re not memorizing one text, they’re memorizing several texts.
And their memory is so good that you can say page three eighty one, the third line, and they can tell you what’s on that third line. So that’s what it means by scriptural knowledge. It means they’ve memorized the text, they understand the meaning. And then they can quote from these original teachings rather than them giving their own advice. The advice is coming from Śākyamūni Buddha.
So from a Buddhist context, this is very important. Because it means that when it comes from Śākyamūni Buddha, it’s coming from an enlightened source. So if it doesn’t come from an enlightened source, it’s not going to enlighten you. So, you know, if you ask me for advice, and I say, you know, in order to be happy, don’t wear blue and green. Don’t walk under ladders.
Then this is the sort of normal stuff that we can find everywhere, isn’t it? So there’s nothing special about this type of advice. And we know that it doesn’t produce long lasting happiness. It doesn’t even produce temporary happiness. Because whenever I’ve said this sort of blue and green statement, there’s usually somebody sitting there wearing blue and green.
And they’re wearing blue and green because they’re really happy with blue and green. So that shows you from blue and green’s own side there’s no unhappiness in blue and green together. So the unhappiness doesn’t come from putting blue and green together. So I wanted to tell you about these ten qualities, because then I think you understand how difficult it is to find a really qualified guru. And I think in this day and age there’s many people who say that they’re enlightened.
Or they set themselves up as a guru. So from your point of view, you need to check to see if they’re a valid guru. So from their side, they’re advertising. So they’re trying to sell something? But from your side you’ve got to check whether it’s gold.
And if you don’t check, then you could be harmed? Because you spend a lot of time going in the wrong direction. Instead of heading straight for enlightenment. So we don’t have much time left. It’s not.
Don’t like my experience. For some reason, I’ve spent a lot of time on the guru. Which is actually very strange. Because we don’t usually talk about the guru at all. Usually this is a sort of it’s a taboo subject.
Because Westerners don’t like the word guru. So Lama Zopa often says kangaroo. He makes a sort of joke out of it. Because we’re individuals, aren’t we? We want to do it by ourselves alone.
So we’re reinventing the wheel. And I think, you know, good to let go of the ego. And follow. And then you’ll find that you can actually improve your mind quite quickly. Because you have the right inspiration.
Okay, so I’ve got about ten minutes more, then I’m going to stop and then you can ask questions. So the other thing I wanted to talk about today was death. Maybe this is another taboo subject. It is very popular in Buddhism. Buddha was very fond of it.
He loved death. So death, it’s said in Buddhism, is the most important time to have control over the mind. And there are nine meditation points. So after I leave, Rita is going to teach you how to meditate on these nine meditation points. And if Rita disappears after tonight, then Sandra’s going to do it.
Anyway, somebody will do it. So the nine points are: Death will definitely come, nothing can prevent it. So is there anybody here who thinks they’re not going to die? You’re all going to die? I see.
You’re not going to die? No. Because I see that I could go. But you’ll still die. This body will die, but your mind your mind will go on.
Yeah? So this is a very good point that he’s made, that when we talk about death, we can feel very depressed about it because we think, I am dying. But actually, it’s just the body. And the body is like a guesthouse. If you’re travelling and you go to stay in a guesthouse, and you look at the room and you think, oh, don’t like the colour of this room.
And I’m staying here for a few days, so I’m going to decorate. So you paint it. Because you painted it, you need to change the carpet. You need new light fittings. New furniture, and then you leave.
So this is an analogy. We checked into this guesthouse, the body. We spent so much time exercising it. Painting it. Sucking the fat out of it.
Botoxing it. Shopping for it, cooking for it. Sleeping. Working. So this takes up a lot of time.
So it’s not saying don’t look after the body, but it’s to find some balance. So the first point is death will definitely come, nothing can prevent it. In this meditation, you’re thinking of all the famous people in the world, they’ve all died, because they lived a few hundred years ago or thousand of years ago. Then you think of other places to go where you might not die, Because the mind’s quite tricky. You might think up there on a space station.
I won’t die. Or maybe under the ocean, I won’t die. But the body is a product, which is dependent on causes and conditions. So when the causes and conditions are not there for health, The body becomes unhealthy. And then what we call death happens.
So in this first meditation you’re checking if there’s any part of the mind that thinks there could be somewhere where I’m not going to die. So if you think in the world, or even just in this room, if you take maximum life one hundred and fifty? So how many people in this room will live to one hundred and fifty? How many people in the world will live until one hundred and fifty? So this is something that they put in the Guinness Book of Records.
It’s this person who’s lived so long. So it’s an extraordinary event. So now the other thing to think about maybe is cryogenics. In America, they’ve got around death. They don’t die.
America, we still like can’t I guess all that. So some rich people pay two hundred thousand dollars and they have their head frozen. And they’re waiting for a time when that head can be put on the body of a robot. And they think that they’re going to continue as they are, but with a robot’s body. So then you have to check-in your mind whether you think this would work for you.
Whether you think you’re the head. From the Buddhist point of view, you’re not the head. But it could be a way that the mind gets tricky. And it thinks well, there’s cryogenics. So the second point is lifespan cannot be increased.
It decreases continuously. So each time you breathe in, closer to death. There’s not much more to say about that, is there? So it’s said that from the time of birth we’re moving towards death. So aging started to happen the moment you were born.
Then the third point is death will certainly come, regardless of whether you’ve made time to practice Dharma. So if you think about how much we practice Dharma, And Dharma is something we do for the mind? Then we went to school. College, university. So maybe the first twenty years of our life, gone.
So then you think about the middle part of your life, shopping, food, Does the next part of your life come? Then what about how much we spend sleeping? If you get eight hours of sleep a day, and the average, so we take sixty years as an average life. We spend twenty years sleeping. Twenty years working.
Then how much do we spend on the shopping and cooking and cleaning? How much time is left over? Do we do meditation every day? So even if you did fifteen minutes every day, it’s better than nothing. But most people don’t even do fifteen minutes a day.
So these first three meditations, if you’ve decided to practice Dharma, are to give you the feeling I must practice Dharma. This is to get you out of bed and sitting on the cushion? Or it’s to get you here tomorrow night? Then the second three? No, the first three?
The time of death is uncertain. Now the second set. So the first point is the lifespan of beings in this world is not certain. So when you’re born, you get a birth certificate. You don’t get a death certificate.
So you don’t know which age you’re going to die at. So if you keep putting things off, thinking tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, one day there will be no tomorrow. The second point is: there are more factors conducive to death than life. So these days you can think of the external conditions. So what I noticed about Riga is there’s a lot of water around here.
So is it going to be a problem when the sea rises? Because they’re talking about one to three meters higher. So already in some parts of the world, islands are disappearing. We also have storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, but also just trying to cross the road in Riga. My first day out.
I live in India, so I just cross anywhere. But here I was very disciplined. I went to the crossing. I waited patiently for the green light. I started to cross, and this car came screaming around the corner, nearly hit me, and she went swerving off down the road, and I looked at her, you know, really amazed, and I could see her looking in the mirror, sort of talking to herself.
I think she amazed herself too. Because you’re probably used to this, but I’m not. And really, she missed me, I think, by this much. So then I was very happy that they’d taken out insurance. So I thought maybe something is going to happen in Latvia.
So, you know, cars are a cause for death? Oh, the machines — aeroplanes, electricity, gas — Gas, so there’s now many causes of death.
Then things which generally support life can turn into conditions for death. For instance, if you have an allergic reaction to food, it can bring about death. If you rely on medicine to protect your life and you take the wrong dose, it can produce death. The third point is our bodies are very fragile. So if you’ve never thought about this, think about how a tiny virus that we can’t even see can enter our body and kill us.
So that’s how fragile the body is. meditations you come to the conclusion, I must practice Dharma now. Then the last three points, At the time of death, nothing but Dharma benefits. So when you die, you’re not taking your money. Nice car.
Nokia. Your Nokia. Your iPod. Your iPhone. They’re all staying behind.
So what are you taking with you? Only your mind. And your mind has the accumulation of actions that you’ve done in this life and previous lives. So if you’ve been doing good actions and helping others, reducing negative states of mind, Then I think the future is no problem. But if you have the habit of negative states of mind, you’re taking that with you when you die.
So your friends are not going with you? Your wealth is not going with you? Your body is not going with you? So at the end of those three meditations, then you think, I must practice Dharma purely. Purely means not to think about just the concerns of this life.
So that’s the way we normally think. You know, I want, I want, I want. So change your mind, think about future lives, when you think about future lives, then you realize you want to take something good with you. By thinking that way it helps to reduce the anger. The jealousy or the hatred.
Because if you indulge in being angry in this life. Did you use the word indulge? No. I like this word indulge. Indulge.
Indulge. Is our second dictionary. To indulge in something is when you It’s like you’re eating ice cream and you know you shouldn’t, but you eat it. So you know it’s going to hurt you, but you eat it anyway. So if you’re participating in this type of behaviour, You know it’s harmful.
But you just think, oh, well, you know, why not be angry? But if you know there’s a consequence, and you’re taking that consequence with you, you’re going to experience that consequence in the future. So one way of thinking might be to think that you’ve got a garden, and you’re choosing to plant some very poisonous seeds in your garden. And the garden is your mind. So you’re putting the seeds in the garden.
And in this life you may not see the result of those seeds, but this life is the result of previous lives. So the states of mind that we’re experiencing now are what has been created for us in the past. And sometimes we have very negative states of mind, and we don’t know where they come from. And sometimes we have incredibly nice states of mind, and we think, Oh, I must have done that. So when it’s really good, I’m responsible.
And when it’s really bad, somebody else must be responsible. So I think we have to take responsibility for our behaviour and our actions. Because by taking responsibility, we can change. And that’s what Buddhism wants to give to you. Is the ability to bring about happier states of mind.
And to have less suffering? So I finished. Any questions? Okay.
So the question is, what happens to the souls of those famous persons who in their lives did good, but we think of them of them now as having done something bad. And so, actually, in their lives, they were doing good, but now we are telling bad things about them. So the question is, what happens to these? So I was Please, particularly, ask. Hold on.
Mhmm. I will get my crystal ball. And I’m confused. In the past, they did good actions. Yeah.
We can say, for example, Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe? Was that her example? Example? Did good actions?
All she did was stand over a fan, I mean, I’m not sure that’s a definition of somebody who’s done good actions. Maybe we don’t know, but good actions which I thought she used drugs and got drunk. Maybe you’re more than cheese. Think probably walking the street using drugs and getting drunk. Well, maybe it’s not a very good example.
She’s wrong, it’s not bad, of course. I mean, does she really think that she did good actions? The definition of good virtuous. So Stalin did whatever he did. Maybe he thought he was doing wise actions.
But then you have to look at the result of the actions. So the result seems to be that many people suffered, And that many people wanted to get out of the oppression that he created. So the same with Mao Zedong? Same with Hitler. Each one thought they had an incredible mind that knew how to bring about happiness.
Because they were charismatic, they carried some people along with them. But the result was incredible suffering. So maybe some people thought that they had wisdom at the time. But when they look back, they see that that was not wisdom. So it’s very easy to have wisdom after the fact.
It’s difficult to have wisdom during the event. So I think, you know, when we look back on history, we can see some good periods and we can see some negative If those people were truly compassionate, then the future is no problem. They would be a Bodhisattva by now. But if they did not have have compassion they brought harm to many sentient beings caused the death of many sentient beings. But when I was talking about that, then I think they’re suffering in a hell realm.
So I don’t think it matters what we say about them. What matters is the motivation for their action. The action? And then the consequence of that action? So these are the teachings on karma.
So you should come on the evening. We talk about karma. So I I can’t give you a direct answer, you know, as to each person, where they’ve gone, and what they’re doing. Because then I’d be pretending to have clairvoyance. But I can only tell you from a logical point of view.
What Buddha taught, and we can take it as an example Buddha, whose teachings still exist today, and are still benefiting today, or Jesus and Christianity. It’s an example of pure motivation and a pure action. Anything else? Yes, I’m sure. So the question is, let’s say, the day of my death has come, and how do I know that I have to concentrate now on the next next rebirth?
Yes. How can you know whether I’m going to die actually or I am not going to still live after that? How do you know you’re dying, you mean? To put it simply? Yeah.
It sounded very complicated. So, how do you know if you’re living or dying? Is that the question? How do you know if you’re actually dying? Yeah.
Is it not just an illusion? Absolutely. Right? I mean, do people have illusions of death? My talk in the non I don’t know.
Too young. Live a bit longer. I haven’t haven’t heard of anybody experiencing what they thought was death, but it wasn’t. But it’s possible. Personally, I’ve experienced choking, where I really thought I was dying, and then you can actually feel as if it’s as if your consciousness is leaving your body.
But this would be an unfortunate type of death. Fortunate death is where you have a warning that you’re going to die. So it’s said that the elements start to change within the body, and about six months before you’re going to die, there are signs that you’re going to die. And then it’s taught that there are stages of dissolution of the elements. And as the elements are dissolving, there are various visions that And various signs within the body?
So people can see from the outside and you can experience from the inside. But I think probably the best answer I can give is to just live every day as if you’re going to die today. And when it’s really happening, you’ll be ready. So then it’s okay. But I think he needs to study the eight dissolutions — the dissolutions at death.
Then if you ever have an opportunity to see somebody dying, you’ll see the elements dissolving, and this will give you more faith. And after I’ve left, Rita will lead that meditation? I’ll give her a bit more work. So in the case of sudden death, does the the person who is experiencing the sudden death, does it does he recognise it? Not necessarily.
Never got it. That’s why it’s called an unfortunate death. That’s felt by no other sense, but never. So for instance, if you’re driving a car and suddenly it’s in an accident. One minute you’re alive, the next second you’re dead.
The consciousness comes straight out of the body. But the consciousness still thinks it’s alive. So that would be if that consciousness doesn’t gain a realisation that it’s dead, it won’t understand why people can’t see it, can’t talk to it. And because of attachment could stay in a ghost realm? So then it’s up to other people to then do pujas and prayers for that person?
To help to separate them from that attachment. So we have what’s called the mind or the consciousness. That’s the repository of all the actions that we’ve done from beginningless time. So it’s a bit like a cassette tape. But without the tape?
Because you can’t see the mind. The definition of mind is clear and knowing. So it’s the utiliser of the body and the brain. The only way you can become aware of your mind is through meditation. So then when we die, the last moment of consciousness becomes the next moment of an intermediate state.
So the mind moments continue, but the body has finished. Then the mind continues with a subtle body, and immediately, because of attachment to body, starts to look for another body. So then it’s looking for parents. As soon as it sees parents copulating, then because of attachment, the mind goes into the sperm and the egg, and that’s the moment of rebirth. So for Buddhists, this is completely normal.
And you might think I’m completely crazy. The actual moment of birth would be in the coming together, something. Yeah. Yeah. From that moment, life exists.
So when a Tibetan child is born, the child is one year of age. So Tibetans are older. Better not to be Tibetan. You’re practicing concentration meditation? There are nine levels of concentration to the point the ninth level is where your mind does not move from the object ever.
At the fifth level, you develop a common siddhi. So that siddhi is clairvoyance. So the ability to read others’ minds? So if you have compassion, then it’s a useful skill. Because it enables you to quickly understand how to help the other and appropriate advice to give.
So I think when we meet these great gurus, many people have this experience of gurus seeming to know us very deeply. That’s the the quality of clairvoyance.
No. We should care. Because the body is the support for our mind. And body supports us to enlightenment. And what we’re not talking about tonight, we don’t have time, is precious human rebirth.
Because we talked about it a bit last Wednesday. So precious human rebirth is the teachings in Buddhism, which says that this body is extremely precious, because it’s human. So we have a special intellect. And with this special situation we can become enlightened. If you compare our situation to other realms, for instance animals, we have many advantages.
So we should take care of the body, but not excessively. Because, you know, some people go to the gym, they play sport, always thinking about the new restaurant to eat in. Don’t do anything for the mind. So it’s do something for the body, do something for the mind. We’re only asking for fifteen minutes.
As of the whole day, just fifteen minutes. So that’s the way that you start meditating? By starting to meditate you start to get some space in your mind. And then this enables you to deal with the difficulties that you experience. Then the mind becomes more peaceful.
And then more expansive. Which means that you can help more. And harm others less. So then life becomes better. Okay.
So it’s not saying don’t paint, but it’s saying don’t keep repainting. Okay, so we should stop. Thank you all very much for coming. Hope I see you again tomorrow. And I just want dedicate all this positive energy.
For your happiness. Your good health. Your long life. Your success in all your projects. And for the enlightenment of all sentient beings?
Because as much as you, they want happiness. They also don’t want suffering. The same as you. So let’s also offer this positive energy to all sentient beings With the wish that they may have all the causes of happiness. And none of the causes of suffering.