Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 91-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun makes the striking claim that enemies are likely greater contributors to awakening than friends — an anchor for his extended treatment of tolerance, the third Bodhisattva perfection. The session moves through generosity as the practice of letting go, ethics reframed as the cooling of neurosis and realignment with basic sanity, and tolerance analyzed through the causes of anger and the skill of mentally reframing adversity. A guided meditation on love, compassion, and self-appreciation follows. The talk then shifts to practical preparation for dying: the five forces — giving possessions away, directing the mind through aspirational prayer, repudiating afflictive emotions, setting a positive final intention, and familiarizing oneself with compassion — ending with specific physical instructions for the dying posture.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 29 HMA 1996 08 21.mp3
UUID: 4a969e0d-fdaa-4736-9399-e7992dbb0178
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-08-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 91.3 minutes
Words: ~8,946
So we begin as we usually do in terms of this process readjusting our motivation again and again and again. Keep getting ourselves back on track, back in line with ways of thinking, ways of behaving that might better reflect what we would want for ourselves in our life. And like the saying goes, unless you change your direction you’re likely to end up where you’re headed. And again and again asking ourselves, you know where is it exactly that we’re headed? Where is our overall thinking, our overall behavior, our basic emotions and basic attitude about the world, about the people around us.
What it is that we want. Where is it going to take us? What’s it going to give us? Now what are we wishing for more or less? The thing about wishing is that it’s not that we don’t get what we wish but quite often we do.
And it turns out to be not what we wanted in the first place. So beginning to question and to analyze what actually within our own real lived experience brings meaning to my life. A sense of well-being, a sense of connectedness, a sense of it’s all worthwhile. A self validating way of being. We don’t have to justify ourselves even to ourselves.
It just feels right at a very deep level of our being. This process of orientating ourselves, going for refuge. Maybe we’re all going for refuge one way or another in some form or another whether consciously or unconsciously. Whether passively or actively. We’re all seeking some sort of protection, some kind of trying to create some kind of sanctuary for ourselves, some kind of protectorate zone of safety, something that we can avail ourselves of and make use of someone or something that’s going to take away the pain, make our life worthwhile for ourselves, bring us what it is that we want, and beginning to check up is my refuge working or not.
You know maybe we have to begin to either try harder because we have found the direction meaningful to ourselves, that is working, or begin to try differently to find another refuge. I’ve been talking about the general refuge formula that we recite. Here, before a talk, recite the refuge formula where it says, Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma. But quite often if you’re doing a practice, if you’re doing meditation, the general refuge formula is first becoming aware, recognizing, creating some kind of acknowledgement in our own mind. What are we going for refuge to?
You know, the Buddha Dharma and the spiritual community or the supreme community. And we go for refuge to awaken until we don’t need it anymore. Until we become a refuge ourselves, for ourselves and for others. And that we try to raise the level of motivation while we are involved in this process. And we actually have to do something in terms of helping ourselves but also in helping others.
Our practice, the motivation behind our practice becomes more and more other centered. There’s a shift in psychological center of gravity from exaggerated self concern with ourselves which is probably where the reality which we most of us recognize at present to one where we begin to see that our fulfillment lies very much in terms of our working for the welfare of others and dedicating our life to their well-being. And we do this in a very practical fashion. In this fashion it’s called the six perfections, six transcendental practices. And we began to talk about this last week about giving just a very abbreviated idea about the six I don’t know whether they’re perfections or transcendental practices.
Anyway, as long as you get an idea what they might be. And these are the principal practices of a Bodhisattva. You know someone who has awakened their heart to all living beings and is seeking highest awakening for their sake. And first it has getting in the car or getting on the bus and actually going, doing something very practical to realize your goal. And likewise, it’s not enough simply to aspire, but that’s a very necessary profound beginning.
But then we actually have to do something. We have to put our aspirations into practice with it. And if we’re going to actually develop the ability to respond, which is the real meaning of taking responsibility, to actually be able to, in some way, able to help others to be of greater use to others through developing our own selves, our own skills, our own understanding. So, do this, the Bodhisattva does this through the practice of six perfections or the six transcendental practices. Through the creative potential of my practicing generosity and the other perfections may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
So generosity. And we talked about that briefly last week. Essentially a process of letting go. The letting go of non-attachment. A letting go, giving up of mine, my possessions, my territory, my privacy, my security, my knowledge.
All of these giving up of having to hold onto ourselves so tightly and to keep securing our well-being as if sentient beings were in some way a threatening element in our environment and we to be on guard constantly against them. Giving up our central approach to our relationships, giving up anything that we identify with, the means of which we can continue to hold on to ourselves is tightening of our heart. You know it’s difficult to be loving all the time, but it’s more difficult never to love at all, never to open our hearts at all. So you know though it’s a it may be a long journey for all of us, we should attempt to begin it and should attempt every day to keep the process ongoing. An ongoing process of awakening our hearts throughout it.
And caring about others, being concerned, sensitive to their needs, and actually perhaps doing what we can. What we can is in terms of the six perfections. First by giving them what we can. Whether it’s in terms of the giving of material, the giving of money, time, energy, or the giving of protection from those who have fear for one reason or or in Dharma, for example, through sharing with others your knowledge of a spiritual path, Buddhism, whatever of teaching. The second perfection or transcendental practice is that of ethics or morality.
You know, whatever word works best for you. So, again, there’s a general conception about what morality is. Quite often it sounds rather heavy handed. Perhaps most of us have been unfortunate enough to have had a not so good association with our upbringing in terms of religion. It was something which did a lot of violence or was oppressive in some ways.
So, you know, even the idea of morality sounds borderline to hair shirts and ascetic practices and hurting ourselves and denying ourselves in some way. But morality or ethics is not a matter of binding ourselves to some fixed set of rules or some prescriptive ways of being. The emphasis in the practice of ethics is on aligning ourselves with our own basic sanity, sanity, with our own basic decency. You know this is what ethics is aiming toward. You know, We can do this by cultivating positive states, by cultivating and acting involving ourselves in skillful actions.
It involves thinking and behaving in ways which are conducive to pacify our mind. You know, even the word in terms of Sanskrit, Śīla, in terms of Pali Śīla. And it literally, this is the word which is translated to English as but it really means literally means cooling. Like cooling the heat of our own neurosis, the fire of our delusions. You know there’s a burning sensation.
There’s a sense it’s difficult because you talk about the term guilt. And really the guilt more than not has been corrupted into the sense where it is simply a means of oppressing us, I think, by institutions. But there is a quality of natural guilt, which is the sense of having missed the mark. We haven’t been true to something. We’re out of a line with something very deep inside of ourselves which makes us feel ill at ease, which is there’s a disharmony at the depth of our being.
This is really the quality of guilt. And it is in acting in ways which are conducive to reharmonizing ourselves, realigning ourselves with our own basic sanity, our own basic decency and intelligence which is the practice of ethics. Bringing about a harmony, a balance, a realignment. The discipline of not indulging in all the dysfunctional patterns that we normally dominate our thinking and our behaving. So ethics is on the aligning ourselves with our own basic sanity and decency through positive ways of thinking, skillful ways of acting.
It involves not in the discipline of not indulging. You know, not allowing these dysfunctional patterns of our mind to dominate ourselves, to begin to resist, to take a stand against them. We are not our patterns. We never had them. Though we might identify with them, allow them to complete, in doing that, them to completely control our being.
And finally in terms of ethics, the ethics involves a caring involvement in bringing about the welfare of others. So there are these three types of ethics. The ethics of aligning ourselves with our basic sanity and decency to developing and cultivating positive states of mind, involving ourselves in skillful actions. There’s the non indulgence and the discipline of not involving ourselves, not allowing these dysfunctional patterns of mind behavior to dominate ourselves. And finally, the ethics of working for the sake of others.
You know, in terms of ethics, basic to Buddhism is the ethic of nonviolence. And this is kind of the bottom line of Buddhism, what Buddhism is about most essentially. That is simply to say not to harm others. And specific, you know that’s in general, specific to the universal vehicle or the Mahāyāna, the great vehicle, the ethics is that of benefiting others. And the Lama has said that in this way that we can all of Buddhism can be subsumed in two sentences and condensed into two thoughts.
If you can help others, if you can’t, at least don’t harm them. If you can help others, this is the Mahāyāna, the great vehicle. If you can’t, at least don’t harm them. This is Buddhism in general. And for the Bodhisattva, this basic ethic takes the form of a commitment to the altruistic activity of benefiting others and restraint of self centeredness.
So it is through restraining of self centeredness that the Bodhisattva no longer harms others. And through involving themselves in altruistic activity that they actually bring about the welfare of others. So the perfection of ethics. The third perfection. So generosity, ethics.
Third one is tolerance, sometimes called patience. So again, you know, maybe looking at it in a little more profound manner than we might normally conceive of it. The tolerance goes beyond the simplistic notion of simply gritting our teeth and holding our temper as best we can whenever we meet difficult people or if we involve ourselves in difficult situations. You know I sometimes call it this is called dammed patience. Dammed patience?
You know, like you build a wall and it stops the current and the water just keeps building up behind it. There’s a certain degree of oppression. We simply don’t allow ourselves to feel what it is that feeling. We press. We hold back.
There may be occasions when the practice of tolerance or the practice of patience comes down to this. It may be but this would be the least skillful attempt. The practice of patience is more in the developing of the skills necessary to maintain an undistressed mind in adversity. Developing the mental dexterity, the agility of mind, the skill whereby our mind remains undistressed, remains un upset in the face of adversity, the face of difficult situations, difficult people. In the absence of irritation, in the absence of frustration, such destructive types of mental patterns or emotions as hatred, anger, aggression, violence simply cannot arise.
And all of the various destructive behaviors which are associated with this are simply not we don’t involve ourselves in them. Why? Because the main cause is missing. The main cause of anger is the distressed mind, is an irritated mind, is an upset mind. And many times a lama will simply tell somebody be happy.
And it sounds rather simplistic, simple minded in a way. But it’s very profound. You know the more that we habituate ourselves to happiness, the happier we will become, the easier, the smoother our life will run. There’s something very healthy about happiness in itself, in its own experience. It’s a desirable one.
But it also is conducive to the condition whereby negative patterns no longer arise in our mind. Hatred does not arise the mind of a happy person, a person who feels a sense of well-being. They’re antagonistic to one another. In a way, in terms of anger, let’s talk about anger just for a moment. There’s one main cause and two cooperative conditions.
The main cause is a distressed mind, an unhappy mind, an upset mind, an irritated mind. The two conditions necessary are that we have a desire, and that this desire be in some way would you say? Thwarted. Good word. Our desire be thwarted.
Must be an easier word. Frustrated desire. Our desires are frustrated and we identify something which is preventing our achieving what it was. If we don’t have any desire, you won’t become angry. If there’s nothing frustrating your desire or you can’t identify anything that’s your desire or thwarting your desire, you’re not going to become angry.
But it’s difficult, isn’t it? We won’t we aren’t going to overcome desire until we probably overcome ignorance. We can reduce our desire. We can make use of very, very remedial antidotes. But the root cause is anger.
And we can also begin to transform. We can begin to you know, the practice of tolerance is the ability to reframe the situation. The practice of tolerance is particularly directed towards developing the ability to accept harm inflicted upon us by others. So this is one type of practice of To be able to endure hardships undergoing in the course of serving others, another type of tolerance. And to forbear in the legitimate suffering that traveling a spiritual path inevitably involves ourselves in.
So you know the skill of tolerance lies in our ability to mentally reframe the problem in such a way that even if the external facts remain the same, if they remain relatively the same, if they remain relatively unchanged, they are now no longer seen as problematic. The situations remain the same. The facts remain the same. But we now have a different attitude towards the same facts, the same situation. And therefore our mind is no longer disturbed by them.
There’s been a transformation in our attitude and the way we see it. We can change the entire personal significance, the meaning that we attribute to the situation, to whatever the facts. You know, we’ve transformed our way of viewing the situation to a more skillful one, a more functional one. And thereby what was once, for example, might have been a problem and difficult to bear is now neither. You know this is very much emphasized in what is called the genre of mind training or thought transformation.
The ability to transform the significance we give to events such that they no longer are seen as problems for ourselves but in fact are seen as sources of our well-being. You know, for example, are we, you know, we for all of us in terms of our normal ways of thinking, an enemy is by its very nature someone to be despised, someone to be gotten rid of in one way or another, either just immediately physically or otherwise. Want to separate ourselves from them. But in terms of someone who’s really trying to train their mind and practice, and practice especially to develop the perfection of tolerance, then they begin to see if I’m ever to develop tolerance, if I’m ever to develop a sense of fortitude, then I have no other object to practice tolerance than this person, than this enemy. You don’t practice tolerance with those people who are nice to you all the time, who are your friends, you know, those people who have no contact with.
The only time, you know, it’s strange, the only time that you can practice tolerance is when you don’t want to.. When you’re getting upset, irritated, when somebody’s pushing your button, when the situation is becoming difficult. There’s no other circumstance in which you can practice tolerance by its very nature. Then we can begin to use some of our skills, and begin to transform the personal significance of the situation and say, ah, isn’t this wonderful? This person is my greatest teacher.
You know, I think if we look at the practice of Dharma in very deep sense, we have to perhaps admit that our enemies are probably going to be a greater contribution to our awakening, to our ultimate well-being than our friends, our lover. Ultimately I think that’s the case. But we don’t look at it that way, do we? That’s a rather radical conception, you know, attitude to take. So, three types of tolerance: the ability to accept the harm inflicted upon us by others, being willing to endure the hardships, undergoing in the course of serving others, and to be able to forbear in what I call the legitimate suffering that a practice of development and growth inevitably entails.
You know this latter ability to be willing to stay with legitimate suffering, what I call legitimate suffering. There are two types of suffering. There is illegitimate suffering which we should get rid of as best as possible, which is something which is something that we don’t want and it’s quite rightful. It’s quite right to get rid of it. But there’s another type of it which is called legitimate suffering.
It’s almost as if it were a necessary suffering, a part of the very process of growth itself. It’s important because to a large extent the basis of our continued neurosis is our unwillingness to expand our awareness and to bear with the inevitable ensuing tension that is experienced in the course of reconciling the disparity between our beliefs about the way things are and the way things are in fact. There is a tension. There is a you know, while our minds are readjusting, you know, what we might call the process of growth, while our beliefs are undergoing some state of flux. When we can no longer you know, there’s our beliefs about the world and there’s the way that things actually are, and there’s a disparity between the two.
And we are in conflict with the world. And this is experience of suffering. So we can’t change the world. That’s not within our control. But, you know, we often try.
I think we spend a great deal of our energy and time in trying and trying to order the people and the things about this to conform with our preconceptions about the way they should be. And in doing so we either experience a sense of rage because the world doesn’t run according to our preconceptions or our desires, or we experience a sense of impotency because we can’t do the impossible. But if we can begin to control one thing, that is to say our own mind, then it is as if we control the world. And we can bring we have no choice if ever to find some kind of peace, some kind of a harmony peace with inside of ourselves and harmony with the world about us to bring our beliefs, our ways of thinking, our ways of relating in line with the way things actually are. And the transition, this moving beyond misconception, mistaken beliefs, wrong ideas, and developing a world view which agrees, which is functional and harmonious with the way things are is experienced as tension, as anxiety.
You know, potential goes over into actuality by means of anxiety. It doesn’t seem like there’s any other way. So, you know, I call this legitimate suffering, being willing to bear. The expansion of awareness, you know, is associated with anxiety. You know, the more there is a connection between the two.
For most of us we try to, you know we are only aware to the degree that our survival makes it necessary, that much and no more. But we have to expand the scope of our awareness. And the Buddhism is asking that of us. And this I think involves some degree of ill ease, a certain degree of discomfort along the way until we form, we stabilize at a higher level of awareness, a greater level of consciousness, another order of consciousness. You know the talking about transforming the personal significance, the meaning that we attribute to situations.
Thereby what was once a problem is no longer a problem. What was difficult to bear is no longer so. You know for the Bodhisattva, this means that there is no person, no situation, no task that they cannot tolerate, that they cannot bear. Because there is no person, there is no situation, task that cannot be skillfully transformed into contributing to their journey along the path. And journey along their path is the central focus to their life.
Whatever helps them to grow, they see that as beneficial. They see it. They welcome that, let alone turn away from it. For a bodhisattva, everything, all the difficult people, all the difficult situations become only a servant for their virtue. It only helps them on the path.
They’re able to transform it in that way. They’re interested in that one thing, to achieve awakening as quickly as possible for the sake of all others. Anything that will help them on that path is a friend, is a contributor, is to be welcomed, is invited, is a source of bliss, even an enemy. Radical approach. So the inner, we can continue with the six these are things that we can orientate around in terms of our practice.
Begin to see we are trying to emulate Bodhisattva. We are trying to emulate Buddha. And these are how Bodhisattvas become Buddhas. So, you know, we can begin to you know, it gives us we’re not we’re not at a loss. We have some method, some means that we can work with, substantial means that we can actually do something for ourselves.
So in this process the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. The Buddha that’s inside of ourselves. How can we foster that Buddha? This Buddha that dwells at the depth of all of ourselves. You know how can we actualize that in gradual manner so that our body, our speech and our thinking become more and more reflecting.
You know a reflection of this happy, healthy, sane human being that we ultimately will become. You know this becomes a concern for ourselves. Know it becomes an orientation. You know we’re not lost. We don’t have to stay the same person that we’ve always been.
We can reinvent ourselves as Buddhists. And the way that we do that is by means of the Dharma. All the various techniques, methods of training, practices of the six perfections for example. That we can do something very substantial for ourselves. And this process occurs within the context of a spiritual community.
Now this is social matrix of the process of well-being. Existing interdependence with a sane environment. An environment of love and caring in which we can nurture seeds of our own Buddhahood, of our own well-being, And we can help others in the process. And we try to raise the level of our motivation behind what we’re doing. Initially we have to begin with ourselves.
There’s no question about that. As the Śāntideva, the great master in his Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life said, If we’ve never even dreamed of such an attitude for ourselves, how could we ever develop a genuine, stable, consistent compassion for others wishing them that they too achieve freedom from their suffering, that they achieve their well-being. We won’t. So, you know, any authentic path that is grounded within our own actual experience necessarily has to begin with ourselves. The universal vehicle asks us not to stop there.
To go beyond a deficiency motivation to one of growth. But more than just growth for oneself, it’s growth for all others. Know to expand the scope of our the scope of our horizons now and what we could do and what we can become to include all others. So this becomes very much a part of force behind what we do, the why of what we do. You know we can correct ourselves.
Know we can at least point our cart in that direction. At least we’re moving in in an extremely skillful and healthy way. We can have some kind of confidence in that. You know it might be a long journey but we’re headed in the right direction and we’re eventually going to end up where we’re headed. And we can find some kind of self respect and dignity within that itself.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge until awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, mind, and present clouds of every type of offering that is actual and imagined. I disclose my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary being. Please remain until cyclic existence is ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening.
Would you like to stand up and then we’ll we’ll sit and meditate? That’s the end of it. We have to keep coming back to many of the same ideas and same development and the same attitudes and trying to gain the same insights and accustom our minds again and again and again. Sometimes they actually use the word accustomizing, familiarization. It’s the same root as the word generally translated as meditation.
So it has the quality of process of integrating through familiarization until something becomes our second nature, becomes our primary nature. So we’re going to meditate on trying to appreciate ourselves and appreciate some of our many qualities that we probably aren’t we don’t recognize or we don’t acknowledge, but are still there in our everyday behavior or at least are dormant in some way. So we’re just simply going to work with qualities about ourselves and try and the process of imagination, imagining ourselves in various situations with specific qualities. Kind of rewriting the story that we have about ourselves, maybe repunctuating who we are. Have a conception about who we are simply because that is the dominant patterns that we focus upon.
But one of the very basic understandings of Buddhism is that as the Zen saying, human nature is Buddha nature and Buddha nature is no nature. And we have no intrinsic identity, that it is simply the dominance of certain patterns over time and we fixate upon them and we think I’m such and such a type of person, I have such and such type of qualities, however we might think of ourselves whether it’s positive or negative quite often more whether or not it’s negative. Our life very much in terms of the self identity that we have developed around ourselves becomes a self defeating, self fulfilling prophecy. We become the C grade people that we imagine ourselves to be and we lead C grade life with all the and we marry a C grade partner, have C grade children, and teach them how to do C grade and it kind of perpetuates the same notion about what life is about. We can’t imagine anything more than what we’ve experienced up to now.
It wouldn’t be us. How many times have people say, Oh you aren’t yourself today, when you’re maybe manifesting another quality temporarily and they kind of, there’s a bit of uneasiness when people do that. You’ve changed, I don’t know. And people unthinking they are unknowingly quite often, or not quite often, always force us back into the same molds, into the same habitual patterns because things work, things fit that way. We lock in with other people’s patterns, with our society’s patterns.
But this isn’t necessarily so. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can begin to become the authority of the story about our lives and begin to choose who we will be, the character that we want to actualize. We can reinvent ourselves as Buddhists. We can perform a Buddhist story if we like.
It’s possible. Not easy, but possible. Possible. So we’re going to meditate on that, okay? And we’re going to, in terms of developing love and compassion, again and again working with these ideas.
Ideas. It might get boring, it might get frustrating, not again. But we don’t have to listen to that mind. Where’s that mind ever got us? And then not again.
That baby mind or whatever it is, the complaining mind, the whinging mind, we keep going in the direction that we want. Development of love and compassion are basic to Buddhism, basic to mental health, basic to be happy, getting along in life. So we have to assist and persevere. We haven’t come to that in six perfections but that’s one of them. Joyous effort.
So we’re going to practice joyous effort in terms of love and compassion. And imagining as the object of developing and cultivating love and compassion, again, that you love a great deal and a second person, someone who is a little bit removed from that, someone you like a great deal, a great deal of caring but not quite to the same degree as perhaps your primary partner, primary relation. So these two people, okay, really develop love and compassion as them as objects. Then we’ll do meditative mindfulness of breathing and then cultivating and appreciating and becoming aware of and acknowledging and perhaps finding imaginative space to express some of the qualities of ourselves. So if you take a comfortable firm posture.
Okay. Let’s first get in touch with the body. I’m noticing any tightness or any tensions. Letting go. You feel tension moving down and out of your body into the ground.
And body becoming comfortable. Now imagine these two individuals, someone that you love a great deal, perhaps your primary relationship, and someone other than that, someone very close that you care a great deal about. May you not suffer. It’s like taking a stand what you really want. It’s more than just a wish.
I’m going to help you. I’m going to take responsibility in helping you to solve your problem, to ensure that you don’t suffer. And now let’s call it love. Beginning with a simple, friendly thought. It would be wonderful if you were happy.
I wish you happy. Very positive. May you be happy. I’m gonna commit myself to ensure that you’re happy. I’m gonna help you to be happy.
In a way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this very moment through my meditation. If I can develop my mind, my skills, my ability, then eventually I’m going to be a really significant practical benefit to you. I can really do something if I’m feeling my commitment to you, if I develop myself. What I’m doing, I’m doing for you. Somewhere down the line, This is going to benefit you.
And we’ll practice the nine round breathing meditation. Of you are familiar with this practice. Beginning by blocking your left nostril, breathing into the right, the brilliant white light which is the expression of the blessings of the Buddhism and Bodhisattvas, all that is pure and wonderful in the universe. Coming down and up. Left channel, blocking the right.
Breathing out the thick black smoke which all the negativity associated with desire and obstacles going off in the far distance and disappearing. So in your own time, in your own pattern of rhythm, practicing the nine round breathing meditation. And then bringing mind to the breath. Ease and gentle flow in and out of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, you need techniques of counting and working the breath.
Now we’re going to meditate on appreciating ourselves and begin by thinking of a female who you admire, respect a great deal, that you look up to. And then what is it about her, characteristics, what qualities does she possess that you admire and respect so much that you look up to, that you value? Now imagine that you yourself have the same quality, the same characteristics. And create an imaginative situation where you express this quality. So you’re going to play a role.
You’re going to assume this quality that you now admire in this other female. Imagine that you have it completely. Feel it. Identify it. Express it in an imaginative situation.
Now think of a male that you admire, that you respect. And again, what is it about this person? What quality? What characteristic do they have that you value so much? And then again, imagine that you yourself have the same quality.
And you feel, identify with it, and express it in an imaginary situation. Now think of a significant female in your life, a female who you’re close to, good friends with, and value your relationship with. What is it do you suppose that they admire about you? What quality do do you possess that they that they value, that they might respect? What is it about you that they care about so much?
Now imagine this same quality that you possess present many, many, many times developed. Completely, truly magnified. Completely developed. And imagine a situation where you now express this further developed quality about yourself. Now think of a significant male in your life, someone that you’re close to, that you have a close relationship.
What is it about you that they might admire and that they value about you? Again, imagine that this quality that you presently possess is many, many times more developed completely. Developed to its maximum. Creating an imaginative situation expresses this fully developed quality about yourself. And then finally, what is it that you like about yourself?
What quality within yourself at present you value, you respect? What is this about you that you like? Now this quality is many times about completely developed. And try to feel it and identify with it and express it in your imaginary situation. Then bring your mind back to the breath.
Easy. Gently in and out flow of the breath. Gradually becoming aware of your body, your posture, position, physical sensation. And slowly becoming aware of what’s going on about you. Just take your time.
So we’re almost through with death. I’m sure you’re dying to get through with death. And we talked about the dying process and how some advanced yogis, advanced tantric practitioners make use of the physiology and the psychology of the death transition as a means to attain awakening and liberation. But this is all very well and good for people who spend considerable part of their lives training for their death. And but what about us?
Ordinary people like ourselves. You know what can we do to help ourselves at the time of death? What can we do to help others at the time of death? So this in terms of helping ourselves, we can make use of what is called the five, practice called the five strength, the five forces, sometimes called the five strength, five powers. And it’s good to, you know we’ve talked a great deal about death and become aware of death.
But it’s also good to perhaps begin to develop some kind of strategy for what you might do when death does occur because it will occur to create some kind of plan for yourself that you can put into effect and put into action when you’re dying. So the first of these five strengths is the force of positive seed or more literally white seed, positive seed. So, you know, when this is a force which we begin to apply sometime before our actual death, When we become aware that we are shortly going to die in the very near future, we should begin to prepare. Begin to prepare by giving away what it is that we have. Our wealth, our property, our various possessions.
Giving it to our family, giving it to providing for their needs. Making offerings to the Buddha Dharma, the Sangha community, to our lamas, to charitable organizations, needy people, whatever is worthwhile, whatever is useful. But to begin to give, to let go. Specifically, the process is initiating letting go. We have to begin to give up in our minds any object which at the moment of a death we might develop attachment toward, that we might develop some kind of longing toward for.
It could be something insignificant, something terribly trivial. There’s a story about an old Tibetan monk who was dying. And old Tibetan monk had a great liking for Tibetan tea, know Tibetan butter tea. Don’t know if you’ve ever tasted it, but then some people like it a great deal. It’s almost like soup.
Anyway, and he associated his great liking for Tibetan butter tea with his old, you know, stained, cracked wooden bowl that he drank it from. And the old monk was having a hard time with it. Know, he simply could not let go and move on. And his teacher came to his bedside and understanding the situation, understanding the problem, asked him if he could have his bowl, his drinking bowl that he drank his butter tea from. But he quickly added, you know, where you’re going, they have even better butter tea than they do here.
And the monk let go and he died peacefully. So that was quite a simple case. It might not be so simple in our cases for us to be able to move on. So essentially this idea of positive seed is to accumulate creative potential, to accumulate merit, but most emphasis is on the process of letting go, you know, letting go of our attachments, Whether it’s to people, to things, to our own body. You know, saying your goodbyes.
Putting your affairs in orders. As we talked about last week. You know, making out a will very clearly so it doesn’t have to come up in your mind at the time of death. Giving up our possessions, giving everything away, know, becoming mindful of the fact that everything that is born is due to decay, including our own bodies. And beginning to accept this fact.
You’re not going to recover. You’re going to have to give it all away. So begin to give it away. It’s going to be taken away from you forcibly. You’re going to be separated whether you wish it or not, so begin to let go.
Accepting that fact. Accepting and getting on with the impermanence of life. You know, maybe this is something we should be doing. This is an important part of Buddhist practice over the course of our life. As part of our practice, throughout our life.
You know, you’re going to have to give up everything at some time, sooner or later. So this force reminds us of that fact and of the necessity begin the process now. It becomes apparent that you’re going to die, that you’re not going to recover from this particular illness, from this particular accident, start to begin to let things go. Give things away quite literally. Put your affairs in order.
Begin the process now. And at the actual time of death, as the very signs of the death process begin to take place. Know beginning to sincerely dedicate all our possessions. You know this is just something in your mind that you’re doing. You’ve taken care of everything as physically well as possible.
But even to emphasize that, giving away everything, letting go of our possessions, our creative potential, our merit, even our own body, dedicating anything and everything in which we may hold, harvest some attachment toward, some lingering attachment, some clinging. Dedicate to all sentient beings. May this be of use to all living beings in some way letting go. You know, to let go of everything, clear, you know, to clear yourself out, to clean house, to mentally give it all up, give it all away until there’s nothing left. There’s this you, your mind, and the imprints which have been placed upon your mind through your various actions, through your various practices.
These are the only things left that’s going to go together to the future life. So, you know, it’s like mental house cleaning, hygiene. Stripping down to the bare nakedness of your own mind, giving everything away. Clean, clear. The second force is the force of aspiring prayer.
You know we’re trying to give the mind some kind of directionality through this process. It’s going to be tossed by various forces like a leaf blown by the karmic wind. And we want to, as best we can, give it some kind of direction, at least some type of control over the process. So, as death approaches, we have to begin to cut through all the possible fears, all the confusion which may begin to arise for ourselves. You know, try to, don’t let those minds of fear and confusion and panic and bewilderment to overwhelm you, to take you over, to begin to cut through and down to underlying your deeper values.
What is a really ultimate concern to you? And you begin to to concentrate and focus on those. Not allowing the mind to be distracted to the worldly events which might be occurring, the experiences which are undergoing, what is surrounding you at the time. You know, especially in terms of our practice, trying to focus on the awakening heart, you know, the awakened heart of love and compassion, and the awakened mind. Wisdom, understanding, ultimate truth.
As best we can in terms of our limited understanding and ability. Again and again, making heartfelt prayers, aspirations to the Buddhas, to the dharmas, the spiritual community, to our lamas. That you will never be separated from me. May I never be separated from my Dharma practice. No matter what else may occur, may I always have the opportunity to continue on with my practice, to meet with fully qualified lama, Meet with the teachings and with the spiritual community where I can awaken my heart, where I can awaken my mind.
You know, making such types of prayers. And dedicating all of your possessions, all of your creative potential, even your own body to that end. Whatever is left may it go toward that. For example, this is a prayer which is mentioned in one mind training text. Now and at all times throughout my death, the intermediate stage, the next and all subsequent rebirths, bless me to never be parted from this spiritual practice.
May I always be guided by true spiritual teachers who repeatedly lead me to generate the awakened heart. May I just be able to hear the word awakened heart bodhicitta in my future life. May I be able to remember it during the immediate state? That has profound effects upon the mind. Just this aspiration.
Prayer means the path of wishing, creating a directionality for your mind through these positive wishes. So the force of aspiring prayer, Wishing in the depth of your heart what it is that you want love as your time approaches. Thirdly, is the force of repudiation. Repudiation. This involves, to repudiate has the idea of what it is that you don’t want.
Making it clear for yourself. Basically what you don’t want is suffering. And what are the real sources of suffering? Essentially self centeredness and self grasping. Essentially.
But also what arises from all the various afflictive emotions attachment, hatred, envy and jealousy, miserliness. The time, you know, if we begin to associate suffering with these states of mind, with these patterns of thought, they’re going to be less likely to arise. We begin to repudiate this, we begin to, we begin to disassociate ourselves with them more and more. So it involves developing and maintaining a deeply felt sense of repulsion toward the afflictive emotion. I don’t want anything to do with this.
And towards cyclic existence in general. This compulsive, reoccurring cyclic existence. You know this reoccurring dissatisfactory patterns under the influence of afflictive emotion and karma. You know it’s like a nightmare and I never want to go through it again. And it’s making it clear in that mind what it is that you want to avoid.
So we’re beginning to give the mind some kind of directionality about what it is the way we want it to go and the way we don’t want it to go. And beginning to clarify that for ourselves. And when you develop a sincere revulsion, I don’t want it to be associated with hatred, with violence, with ignorance, with all, you know, this this neurosis that’s been covering my life up to now. You know, actually repeating a certain disgust, revulsion towards that way of being. Then the fourth force, you know this is, you know as our death is approaching, the force of determination.
You know really beginning to give the mind some kind of direction. You know, set a strong intention to keep a positive state. And this is terribly important. You know, if we don’t do anything else to maintain a positive state or minimally a neutral state, but hopefully a positive state. A positive mind throughout the transition of death in the immediate state and into the future.
I’ll read a quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama where he says, Our state of mind at death is all important. If we die in a positive frame of mind, we can improve our next birth despite our negative karma. And if we are upset and distressed, it may have a detrimental effect even though we may have used our lives well. This means that the last thought and emotion that we have before we die has an extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future. Just as the mind of a mad person is usually entirely occupied by one obsession, which returns again and again, so at the moment of death our minds are totally vulnerable and exposed to whatever thought that preoccupies us.
That last thought or emotion we have can be magnified out of all proportion and flood our whole perception. You know, what type of thoughts are you preoccupying with? That is a summarization of your life. You know? And beginning to to determine by the force of your intent about what thought, what emotion is going to flood your mind, is going to preoccupy yourself.
Know? Don’t you know, it’s like taking control of the process. Not allowing your mind to simply be buffeted about by experience, by fear, by panic. But to maintain direction, to maintain control. You know, most especially resolve that you’re going to direct that you’re going to you’re going to generate and not be separated from compassion.
If we can do this, then we can rest assured that our death and our rebirth will go well. If we can, to combine this with wisdom of understanding emptiness. And if we can, trying to determine, may I never, may through this entire process, may I not be separated from compassion of the awakened heart? You know the real thought to benefit and care for others. May I be able to identify, may I be able to see things in terms of the emptiness, that things don’t exist out there independent of my own mind, that they are merely appearances arising from my mind.
And as best we can in terms of our limited, present limited understanding. So the fourth force, the force of determination. A strong intention about what you want to occur. The emotions that you want to arise, the thoughts that you want to experience over through this transition period. And finally, the fifth force, the force of familiarity.
So in general we should go to a training session for ourselves in terms of acquainting ourselves with how we’re going to die. So that at the moment of our death we can avoid any type of panic. It also will lessen our fear. You know we can have sort of a, have some kind of program we can initiate that we’ve worked on. Most especially to familiarize ourselves with the awakened heart, compassion, and again wisdom, the awakened mind, understanding them.
That familiarizing ourselves with these over the course of our life so that we can make use of them at the time of our death. So at the time of our death, having some program. Now if you can, you can sit in the sevenfold posture that we generally meditate in, you know, you’re acting during the course of the death process. You know, for most of us this might not be a real option. We can die in the same bodily position that the Buddha passed into parinirvana.
We can lie on our right side with our head facing, head directed to the north. Now this is the position that is recommended. You might find it useful. The index finger, the ring ring finger, okay ring finger, blocking the right nostril, your palm resting on your cheek, your head facing the north. Now we’ve talked about the fact that wind energy runs through the right and left channel and that the wind energy running through the right channel is most associated with anger.
The thinking behind locking the right nostril in line on your right side is that this will inhibit the flow of wind energies through the right channel and that inhibit the rising of anger. So, blocking the right nostril with the ring finger. Your left arm along your body. Then try to generate the awakened heart. Try to generate love and compassion.
And the practice which is most emphasized in terms of generation of compassion is to, while you’re still breathing, to make use of that breath in the practice of Tonglen. And it says taking and giving, taking and giving. Taking on the suffering of others and giving away our happiness and well-being. We are to go into this practice in detail when we come to the second of the three principal aspects of the path. The awakened heart, the development of the bodhicitta.
This is an important practice in mind training. So while you’re still breathing, having locking the nostril, imagining that you’re taking upon the sufferings of others, you know, having compassionately taking upon the sufferings of others and lovingly giving away your happiness, your well-being, whatever, everything that you have left. And by the force of our awakened mind, our wisdom, not to cling to anything. You know, resting the mind in the understanding that what is going to appear to you over the course of this transition does not exist out there independent of your own mind. But it’s in fact dependent upon your mind and the karmic imprints which are being activated.
If we can die in such awareness, with such dignity, in a positive state of mind, And there is no doubt that you have created the conditions necessary to gain the type of rebirth where you will be able to carry on uninterruptedly your practice of Dharma in the future. You know we can be assured of that. Aside from the practice of highly realized yogis who spend a great deal of their life. There is no more beneficial way for us to proceed, a way to work through the process of death than these five forces. These are again and again emphasized.
And it’s something that we can do even if only in limited fashion and that we can practice. And then when our time of our death comes, we can simply.