Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 104-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub explores the process of death and rebirth in depth, moving beyond earlier discussions of the death process itself to examine what happens after. He explains how karma ripens at the moment of death—specifically, how one of the “throwing karmas” accumulated through past actions determines rebirth—and emphasizes the critical role of maintaining a virtuous mind during dying. He maps the six realms of saṃsāra and the conditions that lead to each, then contrasts ordinary rebirth with two profound alternatives: rebirth in a pure land created by a Buddha (notably Amitābha’s Pure Land, accessed through the practice of phowa or consciousness transference), and the precious human rebirth, which alone permits the practice of tantra. He walks through the intermediate state (bardo) between death and rebirth—its duration, the desperate search for a new body, the karmic attraction to future parents, and how realized beings gain conscious choice in this state—before turning to conception and the formation of the body through wind energy. Throughout, he stresses that we create the causes for our rebirth now through morality, generosity, and conscious dedication, and he illustrates these teachings with the story of how his teacher Lama Yeshe consciously chose his next rebirth. The session includes extended discussion of bodhisattvas, the nature of time, and detailed personal testimony of recognizing Lama Osel as Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation. Aimed at practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist cosmology and the Lamrim framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 07 30 DB Death&Rebirth Dondrub Week4 300713.mp3
UUID: 575ffd6b-09ed-4ea7-b894-6ddbac915d17
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Death & Rebirth (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-07-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 104.0 minutes
Words: ~11,456
Right. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our fourth and Penultimate class on I think that’s the right word, isn’t it? Second to last class on death and rebirth.
If you’d like to join the motivation prayers the page ten So as we do these, the tradition is if you feel comfortable, if it seems mindful, we visualize the Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration and guidance think of all sentient beings surrounding us, trying to have that strong awareness as much as possible about how we’re totally dependent directly, indirectly on all sentient beings and they are immensely kind in every way, but all of these beings are suffering in cyclic existence, suffering due to impermanence, suffering because of having to die and be reborn over and over again, and experiencing all sorts of other sufferings as well. Thinking along these lines we can generate the wish to realize our Buddha potential so that we can quickly achieve enlightenment, so that we are in a position to then help every sentient being achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. And this is the way to repay their kindness. So to think that in order to achieve freedom from death and rebirth and in order to achieve the enlightened state to help everyone become free of death and rebirth to achieve the deathless state of enlightenment then I have to follow the path.
In order to follow the path successfully I have to understand the path and be motivated to enter it. And what helps me well of course to understand the path I need to listen to the teachings and particularly to motivate myself to turn my mind away from meaningless and negative things towards what is really meaningful and virtuous, that is the practice of Dharma, then I need to understand more and more how everything is impermanent, everything in this world is impermanent, that I myself am definitely going to die, could die at any time. And as I’m dying, the only thing, the only thing that is going to be of any benefit at all is the genuine experience of Dharma that I have cultivated. So for this reason I need to think more and more, to study more about impermanence and death for my own sake, for the sake of all kind sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly.
By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can imagine the Buddha pleased with our motivation and showing this by now coming to the crown of our head, then dissolving into light, so that that blissful golden light pours into us, blessing our mind to be able to understand the teachings about impermanence, death and rebirth. So then we enhance that positive state of mind by briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise to help develop a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. So I don’t know how many people religiously check out the outline of the topics that were given, but I’ve changed the order. So class five was going to be about the powers of life and death and how to help the dying, but I’ll leave that till next week. And tonight I will talk a little bit about the process of rebirth and so on and where to be reborn. If we take this life, this life, have a human rebirth so this is the result of actions generated in past lives and since in the context of understanding cyclic existence a human rebirth is one of the best kinds of better or best kinds of rebirths we can have because there is happiness in you know a certain kind of happiness as a human being.
It’s not all obvious pain and suffering. So it’s a good rebirth and especially from a Dharma point of view it’s the best rebirth to get while we’re in saṃsāra because in the human realm we can meet the Buddhist teachings, we can find all the teachings to practice. Especially it’s only as a human being that we’re able to practice Tantra, is the very fastest way to become free of cyclic existence and achieve enlightenment. So anyway, to have this human rebirth is the result of good karma which we’ve created in past lives. But one aspect of having this rebirth is that as far as I understand, I may be wrong, as far as I understand, the length of the lifespan of this life is also part of the karmic result.
Just having a human rebirth, this particular body that we’ve got in this particular realm at this particular time is a karmic result depending on causes created in the past. So this also means that in past lives through our virtuous actions, due to having created a certain amount of virtue, we have created the cause to have a certain lifespan. But of course we don’t know how much good karma we created to have how long a lifespan but that’s it. So it is kind of predetermined but by our own actions, not by anything else. Everything the Buddha taught arises dependently.
So our lifespan itself arises dependently on many factors especially the actions we created in the past. But again for that full length of our life to be lived, to be able to experience it, it also depends on the conditions. So if we behave in a really stupid manner in this life, then we can end our life sooner than necessary. We may have a karmic created a karma to have a certain length of life but if we eat the wrong things or just live really dangerously or stupidly or take drugs and this and that, then our lifespan could well our life may end before the full karmic allowance runs out like that. I think there are some other reasons why the lifespan can also be cut short, but they escaped me at the moment.
I should have checked up, sorry. But anyway, yeah, so our life can come to an end at any moment and for whatever the reason, whatever starts off the death process, whether it’s just simply impermanence due to old age or it started by the the death process started by a serious illness or the body being wounded, you know, by like falling down or, you know, wounded by weapons or something like that. All of these things of course can start the death process and once that process starts then one of the things we I’ve mentioned this many times but just to remind you that what happens is that during the death process one karmic seed generally there are exceptions but just to keep it simple one karmic seed will ripen at the time of death that will determine that karmic seed will determine what kind of rebirth we have. So there’s karmic imprints that determine what kind of rebirth we have. For those people who did the karma course.
What is it called? What about karma? DB one. These are called throwing karmas. So throwing we we have created already in this life.
We’ve probably created a lot of throwing karmas and certainly in past lives we created them. So we have a whole pile figuratively speaking of throwing karmas. Some are good and some are negative ones. So three karmas are created when the four factors that determine the potency of a karmic imprint are all present and those four factors are all very very strong, have been engaged in very strongly. So when you have those four strong factors coming together during an action one creates a throwing karma and of course if the motivation was positive then it will be a positive throwing karma that will bring a good rebirth.
If it’s a negative one, a negative motivation through ignorance or anger or attachment and so on then that generates a negative throwing karma which can only bring a suffering rebirth. So it can only bring a negative throwing karma can only ripen to bring a non human rebirth. Actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, etc, etc, they’re done with all the four factors strongly present generate throwing karmas that cannot they have to bring a result, you know, all karmic imprints have to bring a result so they can never bring a positive one. They can only bring a non human result. Yeah.
And but if we’ve engaged in a virtuous throwing karma created the causes for virtuous throwing karmas, these will definitely bring the result of rebirth as a human or in the god realms. Just without going into too much detail and complications, just to remind you, hope you’re a little bit familiar with this by now, that saṃsāra consists of three realms. There’s the desire realm, which has six realms in it. There’s the human realm or the human level, the animal, the preta or hungry ghost realm, and the hell realms. Then there is the the god realm, the the the realm of the desire.
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. There there’s the demi-gods and then the god realms. So they that makes up the desire realm.
There is the form realm, and then there is the formless realm. So to be to be reborn in the as a desire realm god, the cause is virtuous actions creating good karma. Right? Good actions, practicing pure morality, good morality. To be reborn in a higher God realms in the form and formless realm it doesn’t depend just simply on virtuous actions.
It depends on very specifically cultivating single pointed concentration and if one is able to achieve single pointed concentration then and there are many levels of this depending on the level of single pointed concentration one is able to achieve in this life, and if one has developed that concentration purely as with a worldly motivation just to experience the bliss of those states, then when one dies, one is reborn in the form or formless realm that equates with the level of concentration that you’ve developed in meditation. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but that’s kind of how it works. So in the teachings you may have come across somewhere where it talks about there is positive karma, negative karma and then there’s another kind of karma which in English is sometimes called immutable karma or else do they call it Fixed karma or something like that? Unchanging karma. Something like that.
So that is referring to karma that will definitely ripen to bring a rebirth in the form of formless realm. Because one’s created the cause by developing high levels of single point of concentration. So if you haven’t done that you won’t be reborn in the form or formless realm. One of the really vital thing that we need to understand and remember is this and this is one of the the basic motivate there are many other motivations one can have. But one of the basic motivations that we can try and cultivate for practicing morality in our daily life more and more and developing a virtuous mind and kindness and compassion and so on is what type of throwing karma will ripen at the time of death depends almost entirely on the state of mind, of our gross mind, the state our gross mind is in those last moments of the death process.
So if the gross mind is in a virtuous state, that is the key condition for a virtuous throwing karma to ripen at the time of death. If the mind is in a negative state, if the gross mind is in a negative state, as one is dying, then that is the key condition for one of the negative throwing karmas to ripen. Right? So we need the ideal thing is the best thing is to be able to die with a calm, peaceful, and particularly a virtuous mind. That is the most, most important thing to be able to achieve as we’re dying is to have a quiet not just a quiet mind, but a virtuous mind.
But, of course, a quiet mind is a virtuous mind. Basically you only have a quiet mind when there’s some kind of virtue operating. Of course basically the only way to die with a virtuous mind is to have cultivated virtuous minds during one’s life. Right? It’s not it’s highly unlikely that when we are dying, something that we’re not used to, even though we’ve died many times before, but we don’t have any memory of it.
So it’s a unique event and in some ways a scary one perhaps for various reasons, then in such a situation it’s it’s highly unlikely if we haven’t trained our mind that we’re going to have a virtuous mind at that time. We need to really work on it. That’s why we’re taught to have this understanding of impermanence and death, particularly to develop this mindfulness that I could die and particularly at any time, literally any moment. Right? So if we can maintain that mindfulness more and more, this will encourage us if we have any faith and understanding of the teachings to keep our mind calm and peaceful no matter what’s going on around us, whether people are being kind or horrible to us, whether we’re we’re being treated justly or unjustly, this or that, the most important thing is to protect our mind, to keep it in a virtuous state.
Because of course, if we lose the lottery at death and end up with a bad rebirth, then once we get a bad rebirth, it becomes easier to get another bad rebirth, an even worse one, and it can can can spiral down. And once one’s got a good rebirth, that of course makes it easier to create the cause for another good rebirth and a better one and a better one and, you know, to follow the path out of cyclic existence. Since we’re all big people here, so much of Buddhadharma can be quite depressing and heavy whatever. But I just have to say this point that we are going to die and that means as we’re dying one of the throwing karmas that we individually have created either in this or a past life is going to ripen. And so we have positive throwing karmas and negative ones.
But if you think about it, and this is what the teachings tell us to do, it is much easier to create negative karma than positive karma. It is much easier to engage in negative actions at the moment for from an ordinary sentient being. It’s it’s so much easier to engage in negative actions than in virtuous actions. And when we engage in negative actions, it’s much it’s much easier that we engage in them wholeheartedly, strongly. When we engage in virtuous actions we don’t tend to engage in them so wholeheartedly and completely.
We may like to think so but if we check maybe this is not the case. So the point is we have if we’re honest even as nice people we have probably far more negative throwing karmas than positive ones. Just to take the half empty cup outlook. Well they don’t become throwing karmas, they are. Where are they going to ripen at a particular time?
That’s the point. Yeah, they ripen at death. No, no, you’ve got positive and negative throwing karmas potentials, right? And they they will ripen depending on whether your mind is in a positive or negative state at the time of death. Yeah that will one of those will ripen.
Yes yes yes yes both the positive and all of them because yeah all karmic imprints don’t go away they all have to ripen at some point. The negative ones can be purified, positive ones unfortunately can be destroyed by strong negative emotions like anger can wipe out the positive imprints. Of course the big exception is of course that if we realise emptiness and get out of saṃsāra then even though we’ve still got piles of negative imprints they just disappear once one’s fully realised emptiness. That’s the whole aim is to realise emptiness before all the negative stuff hits us. We escape it all.
Yes. No. The four factors are present when you engage in an action like killing. If you kill someone and though all the four factors are present strongly then you’ve created a throwing karma. Remember there are the ten non virtuous actions.
Why these are selected out of all the non virtuous actions we can create is because if all the four factors are present they automatically become throwing karmas. The imprint from those becomes a throwing karmic imprint. Right? So in this life you haven’t killed any human beings, right? But unfortunately maybe in the past life you have, we all have.
And so when you killed this person you did it really nasty. All the four factors were present. The negative throwing karma is there and it stays with the mind until it’s either purified or it ripens. So we have many of those imprints. So what are you confused about still?
No. No. No. No. No.
All these throwing karmas are present right now, but then they can’t the throwing karmas can’t ripen now because we’re not dying. Oh, well, we are dying, but the death process hasn’t started. Right. Yeah. So it’s only when the death process starts that one of these throwing karmas can ripen start to ripen.
Okay? The other karmas, the other karmic imprints, they can ripen at any time. Yeah. Which are called the completing karmas, like being hit by a truck, you know, or winning the lottery or meeting the, you know, the person of your dreams. That can happen at any moment.
That doesn’t happen well, it could happen when you’re dying, which would be really bad luck. But, no, the yeah. The throwing cameras only ripen can only ripen during the death process, and only one of them can. Right. I didn’t think I had much to say tonight but we haven’t got on to the topic.
Well we haven’t died yet. Okay. So I talked about the death process as explained in tantric system which I think is something really profound and incredibly important that is really a very key aspect of the Buddhadharma, that teaching. Those various visions occur firstly there’s the as we’re dying there’s the visions of the gross mind starting with the mirage like vision then the smoke vision, then the spark vision, and then the white vision, the black, sorry, the red, the black, and then the clear yes. I’ve jumped a few there.
Gone beyond the gross mind. Anyway that was the whole lot of them. So as those visions are experienced first the gross mind ceases then the subtle mind and then finally what is left is the very very subtle mind. So it’s important to also understand that these aren’t different minds. Think it’s difficult for us to get some idea because we’re so used to thinking in terms of physical things so we think like there’s a gross mind and then a subtle mind, but they’re all part, you know, reflections of the one mind.
There’s just the gross aspect of the mind which is the bit that is functioning, dominating, when that can’t dominate, when that ceases because it’s underlying what’s supporting it which is this body can’t function then that ceases and then what becomes dominant is the subtle mind which is dependent on the gross winds in the body. When those gross winds absorb finally into the final single most subtle wind of all, which is the most subtle physical energy in the universe, there’s nothing more, no more subtle physical energy than that life supporting wind, then subtle mind ceases because its support, those grosser winds, have ceased. And so then what becomes manifest, it’s always there, but now it becomes manifest, there’s nothing else, is that very very subtle mind. And then that leaves. And for average person that very subtle mind leaves almost instantly.
I mean, possibly some people here have been with people who have died and have sat with them soon after, and there’s a sense, that the person is still there. But after some time, you you can see, oh, this is this is a corpse. It’s not the person. It is not a person anymore. There’s no person there.
There is just a body. And that usually happens, I would say, for the average person very quickly. But even in some ordinary people who have never practiced anything, their consciousness can remain, a very subtle consciousness can remain in the body up to three days. There was something in the news just recently about some young boy that were conducting his funeral, then he sat up and asked for a glass of water. So that’s possibly an example of that where the death process hasn’t ceased.
There’s some restoration of people that have coffins that have been opened and there’s all the scratch marks and things because the person wasn’t dead, because the breathing had stopped but the subtle mind was still there and for some complicated reason the process must have reversed and all the wind started moving again. I don’t know what happened but anyway. So these things happen and it makes sense from a Buddhist point of view, these things. Anyway, that where a very subtle mind does leave the body, the heart from the heart chakra sorry I hope that then the mind, the very subtle mind goes into what is called the Bardo state and the Bardo is a Tibetan word which just literally means in between. It’s the in between or the intermediate state in between one birth and the next.
Although the Bardo state itself is a kind of birth and what happens is that the sorry, skipped a bit. We won’t go into the Bardo yet, we’ll just go back a little bit. So During the death process and in the last part the heat of body will leave the body either from the head down towards the heart or from the feet up towards the heart. So if it leaves from the head first down is not such apparently this is not such a good sign it tends to indicate a bad rebirth whereas if the heat leaves the body from the feet upwards towards the heart then this is a sign, a good sign. I think we discussed this last week, the winds gather in the heart and so the mind leaves, always leaves, the very subtle mind always leaves the body.
Firstly it starts leaving the body from the heart chakra but it can leave actually from inside the heart chakra where it actually physically leaves the body apparently affects while the mind leaves the body indicates what kind of rebirth one will have and this is actually set out I’ll take a look at it now because I’ll just read it out you can you may have already read it in your student material. It’s on page one hundred and three. So of course no one except someone who’s very you know clairvoyant and highly realized can see these things but it says if this very subtle mind leaves from the anus one will be reborn in hell, if it leaves from the mouth one will be reborn as a pretas. If it leaves from the sex organ one is reborn an animal. If it comes out from the eyes a human.
If it comes from the navel one will be born as a form desire realm god. If it comes out of the nose one will be reborn as a negative spirit. If it comes from the forehead chakra one will be born in the formless realm. If it goes out the head chakra into the formless realm. And if it goes out through the highest head chakra, also one can be born in a pure land.
So of course if we have faith in the teachings the two best kinds of rebirth to have, to aim for, is to be reborn a human being, especially to pray to have a precious human rebirth. Remember? A precious human rebirth is not just a human rebirth, but it’s a human rebirth where one meets the Dharma. It was born in a place where the Dharma exists, one meets it, connects with it, has a healthy body, a healthy mind, and has all the conditions to be able to practice the Dharma such as meeting Dharma teachers, having Dharma friends, etc. Etc.
So that is the precious human rebirth. That is the optimum chance situation to be able to practice the Dharma and free ourselves from suffering. So the causes of a precious human rebirth are many, but practicing pure generosity and morality and consciously praying to have a precious human rebirth. So if you’re taking any of this seriously, it really is important to actually dedicate one’s good actions to having a good rebirth and trying to make that really really clear what kind of rebirth you want. You can specify whether you want to be reborn as a man or a woman, what country, everything.
Because that puts some imprint that doesn’t guarantee you’ll get that rebirth but if you create the causes and then you specifically you mentally direct your mind in that direction that you’re creating some cause for that to happen. There was a story which I think I’ve told and some people have heard it before in the teachings about how it’s a bit of example like you you should be careful what you wish for because it might happen. So there’s the story about this old lady in Tibet who wants to be reborn as what is called the Ganden treeper which is the head of the Gelugpa tradition. She prayed to be able to sit on the Ganden throne. She always dedicated her virtue to be able to sit on the Ganden throne.
In her mind that meant she wanted to become the head of the which is kind of like praying to become a head of the Church of England or something because the Gelugpa tradition was the official of the four schools of Buddhism in Tibet. It was the the main one. It was the state religion. Powerful one. There anyway I’ve jumped the gun.
So the story no, I’ve just ruined the whole story. The story is that once upon a time in Ganden monastery a cow wandered into the monastery, came up to the main temple of the monastery, walked into the main temple, down the the aisle, and onto the throne of the temple which is where the Ganden Tripa, the head of the Gelugpa tradition would sit. This cow walked up the steps and sat on the throne and all the monks said how is this possible? How could this possibly happen? And one of the lamas who was clairvoyant said, This is the karmic result of this person praying to sit on the Ganden throne, but she didn’t specify she wanted to be a human being.
Anyway, hadn’t created enough karma to be a human being. The Tibetans think that’s a very funny story. I don’t know if you’ve ever been with Tibetans when a Lama tells a joke they all laugh hysterically and they’ve all heard these stories many times and they always laugh hysterically every time as though it’s the first time, it’s the funniest story they’ve ever heard. Anyway, where are we? So we should consciously think about what kind of rebirth we want and why.
What do we want to achieve and how we will achieve it. To have a precious human rebirth is really important because, as I said, we can practice tantra. To start the practice of tantra and get some realizations, one has to have a human body. You can’t practice in the god realms. Can’t one cannot practice tantra in the god realms and so on.
One has to start and get some realizations as a human being. So that’s one reason to be reborn with a precious human rebirth. Another more general reason is that as a human being developing one’s mind on the path one has sent in beings around you to help and also they can help you directly but indirectly one needs sentient beings to practice with. To practice generosity you need sentient beings who need help. To practice morality, you need to be avoid harming sentient beings, etcetera, etcetera.
To develop one’s potential for love and compassion, you need people who are unhappy and miserable to yeah. And if that so have to be around sentient beings especially human beings then one can one’s practice can develop but also also you can help them so one can engage in the bodhisattva actions as well. So it’s doubly triply beneficial to have a precious human rebirth not just a ordinary human rebirth but a precious human rebirth. But the other kind of rebirth that we can aim to have is to be reborn in a pure land and I think I’ve mentioned this briefly before. I don’t know much about Pure Lands but what I do know is this.
Is that when one becomes a Buddha due to this enormous merit that one has accumulated as a Buddha and because one’s mind is now unrestricted, there’s nothing obscuring the mind and the mind can do all sorts of things. Every being who becomes a Buddha through the power of their mind and merit and vows, they manifest with their mind a pure land, a place. This is very difficult to understand but for example this universe that we this samsaric universe that we live in according to Buddhist understanding is the karmic result of all sentient beings. It is it wasn’t isn’t created by God. It isn’t created by a big, you know, a big bang.
It has been created by the minds of all sentient beings. But it’s samsaric, so it’s suffering, you know, it’s suffering a suffering place. There’s I mean, there’s good things here, but it is produced by the the deluded minds of sentient beings. Not consciously but somehow it comes together. Whereas a pure land is produced by the omniscient pure mind of a Buddha.
The mind manifests this place, this environment where everything is incredibly beautiful. So see, you know, we have beautiful things. I don’t know if you agree. Beautiful things. Beautiful me.
Beautiful things. Don’t forget that one. Which can bring us some happiness through our experience of these things, but also we can our negative minds can arise. We can have developed afflicted desire for them, attachment, and then people who threaten our beautiful things, we get angry or we and we get jealous and proud and so on. So even with the beautiful things and so on it can become a source of suffering whereas in the pure land created by a Buddha everything is incredibly beautiful far more beautiful than any samsaric beauty, but it doesn’t generate disturbing thoughts.
One someone can be reborn as an ordinary being, suffering, deluded being in a pure land where everything is peace there’s total peace. There’s no violence, no negativity, no ugliness. It’s just pure and perfect. So there’s nothing there to stimulate our disturbing thoughts. Yes.
Like like your goods. I don’t really know. It’s possible because of the vows of the Buddhas. The Buddhas made these vows to help sentient beings in various ways. That’s why they create these pure lands.
No. But that’s the point. It’s it’s not a samsaric place. You you ask one one it’s it’s a pure land. The god realms are samsaric.
Yeah? And and what and at the samsaric, the god realms are rebirth states where you are born there because of a particular cause. When the energy of that runs out, that rebirth, you die, and you get reborn somewhere else. Once you take rebirth in a pure land, you stay there until enlightenment. I didn’t know about this before, did you?
I wish I had told you you were a Darwin. Idea is to achieve enlightenment and you can achieve it there because everything there is encouraging you to practice Dharma because everything is produced by the mind of a Buddha. So they say you know, there are all these beautiful trees in the Pure Lands and there’s and when wind blows through the trees it makes the sound of the Dharma. It it it tells you about emptiness and everything you look at you know and there’s all these beautiful animals there but these animals are the mind of the Buddha you know and the trees are the Buddha’s mind. Everything is the Buddha.
There’s a Buddha there teaching the Dharma non stop twenty fourseven. The other one the main pure land. Well there are many of these because each Buddha creates one but the remote it’s like you know I shouldn’t it’s a bit like tourist spots. You know, there’s more tourist spots, but you can choose which one, you know, brochure. So the most famous tourist spot, Pure Land, is Amitābha’s Pure Land.
But I think the main reason it’s so famous is that it’s the easiest one to get into. It’s the cheapest one. You know? It’s the easiest one to get into because it’s due to the power of Amitābha Buddha making this vows when he was a bodhisattva that anyone who would say his name while they were dying they would be reborn in his Pure Land. So this is very common in extremely popular in Chinese Buddhism, always has been.
It’s called Pure Land practice where you recite the name of Amitābha. We are the righteous to recite it all the time as much as possible so that as you die you will be reciting it and then your mind will absorb into the pure land of Amitābha. And you are and and so that sounds pretty fantastic, but the in Sattra’s talking about this, it says you are reborn in a lotus, a a closed lotus that is floating in the in this beautiful ocean, something like that. Then depending on your karma, how much good karma you have created, this lotus will slowly open. You are inside the lotus, right?
It will slowly, slowly, slowly open, and when it eventually opens, you will see Amitābha Buddha, and he will teach you continuously the path to enlightenment. He will yeah. No. Well yes. No.
It’s Amitābha. Avalokiteśvara is the Buddha of compassion. Avalokiteśvara is an emanation of Amitābha. And then Tārā is born from a tear of Avalokiteśvara metaphorically. No.
Yeah. No. No. No. It’s a pure land.
Everything is perfect. Everything’s been set up by the Buddha for us to be able to practice. But the one problem that is always a problem of being born no. It’s not a problem. It’s a drawback.
Fine print. Of being born in the pure lands is that although there’s no suffering there, nothing bad happens and you don’t fall from out of it, it takes an extremely long time to get enlightened there because there’s no suffering. So there’s no everything’s hunky dory and there’s no you don’t see any suffering sentient beings. So there’s no the motivation motivating. Whereas being born as a human being there’s suffering everywhere.
You can see suffering. One has obvious suffering oneself one sees it all around. Yes. I do. That’s very, slow.
Yeah. Because what this is why it’s said to be so good to be born in a pure in in the human realm is because there’s a little bit of happiness to keep you, you know, happy and also to motivate you for towards more of it. And there’s just enough suffering to push you. Not too much because if there’s like in the lower realms because then one’s overwhelmed by suffering. But in the human realm, this is just right, like Goldilocks.
Just enough suffering. Well, of course, this is talking about being reborn, having a precious human rebirth because the nature of being a human being who has a precious human rebirth is that they may experience suffering and maybe even a lot of suffering from time to time but nothing like what many human beings because many human beings do experience overwhelming suffering where there’s no way they can practice Dharma because their life is just too horrible. But if one has a precious human rebirth, which most of us here probably have, if not all of us, you know, yeah, we have suffering and problems and difficulties with our body and mind and relationships and money and stuff, but nothing like most people. You know, many people in this world have nothing. Nothing.
And and so we we have the ability to sort of step beyond, but, you know, step back a little bit and do something with that, you know, learn from that suffering and use that suffering. Whereas for most people, their suffering destroys them. Whereas we have the great good fortune to be able to transform suffering into the path. So, yeah, so we can create the causes. So all the causes to be reborn in the pure lands is a practice of pure morality and and strongly, consciously praying to be reborn there.
But in in with Amitābha’s Pure Land, there is also a very specific meditation technique you can learn to which is called Phowa, where you forcefully shoot your consciousness when you’re dying. You learn to do this while you’re alive, of course, and not dying. And then when you’re actually dying and feel lucky to know you’re dying and everything, then you do this meditation practice where you shoot your consciousness out and it goes straight up into Amitābha’s Pure Land. I had the good fortune to at least hear some teachings on this practice from Lama Yeshe, the most amazing founder of our organization. And he mentioned during those teachings that when he was a young monk in Sera and the communists were bombarding the monastery and that everyone was fleeing.
He said, he saw some of the old Lamas who were just too old to leave, you know, it was just too difficult. They just sat down and did poa and left their bodies. So you can learn that. So so, Powa, p p o w a or p h o w a, Powa. Yes.
Powa. Powa. Poa. Poa. Poa.
Poa. The Phowa prayer. No. No. That’s just a prayer to Generacic.
Yes. Well, if you’re a highly realized being, you can do Phowa on other people. You can transfer their consciousness. Or you can do it for anyone if you can do it, but you have to be pretty pretty cool to do that. It’s hard enough to do it for oneself.
And, of course, you can try and hope that your lama, your guru, will do it for you, but the chances that your guru is close by when you die is pretty difficult, pretty rare. Anyway, okay. So where do we stop? Twenty okay. Very quickly.
So what happens when your consciousness leaves and enters into the Bardo is that is that those visions that occurred remember starting with the mirage like vision ending with the clear light vision they occur in the reverse order and when that ends one has the gross mind of a Bardo being and a body which of course is not a gross physical body like this and that Bardo being it is said has the body has the shape of the rebirth that they will take but they’re not aware of you one is not aware of that at this point. So you’re born into this state with a very very subtle body and this body is basically made of very subtle energy, this wind energy. So it’s what’s the word? I don’t know about that, but it’s nonobstructing so it can pass through physical material and wherever you thought to go, you’re there in a flash, you know, faster than Superman and the speed of light, you know, you’re just there. A little bit I think.
No. No. You don’t get into the Bardo state. You go straight. Yeah.
You would have the shape. Yeah. I’m not sure exactly. I haven’t heard very clear descriptions, they say you have the shape of the body of the future kind of being you will be. But you aren’t aware of that because you’re I think you’re barely aware.
Yeah. Let’s just talk about very ordinary beings like ourselves when we die. We will go into the you know this reverse visions will occur and we will end up with this Bardo body but we won’t be really aware that we’ve got such a body and that it has a particular shape or whatever. And the basic thing is that unfortunately the Bardo state, I always thought it was probably quite a nice state to be in, but it’s not. It’s kind of pretty scary, it seems.
All sorts of horrible visions can occur and as I was trying to say I think last week there’s I think there’s this overwhelming desperation to get a body which it may not even be conscious. It’s as I was trying to say last week, we we are so our deluded mind is so hundred percent identified with physically solid existence, but with death that ceases. So that is quite a totally disorienting and probably very frightening experience. And so just in the Bardo state, the being is just trying to become something solid in a sense. So it’s desperate to somehow become a solid material real thing again.
And so what happens due to previous karma one has created, then one is attracted to one’s future parents. So if one is gonna be born in the hell realms, then you go straight. You don’t have parents anyway, so one one is born instantly in the hell realms. If one is born in the formless realms, one also is born instantaneously in the formless realms. But especially in the other realm realms of the of the desire realm and the lot in the form realm, one takes body so one goes through the Bardo state and there’s that process of trying to find and it’s not very conscious for the ordinary person this situation to become another body.
What one sees is one’s future parents or actually all you see are the sex organs of your future parents but you don’t know these are your future parents and I don’t think you even see the sex organs as we would see them. Just there is a karmic vision projection onto those and one, you know, just goes there. And as I think we were talking about this last week, they say, if you’re going to be reborn as a man, you’re attracted to your future mother and get angry with your father or what is is going to be your father and vice versa. So the Bardo being goes towards those objects and that mode of desire towards one and the aversion to the other in a sense kills the being and that all the visions occur and the gross mind of the Bardo being ceases, subtle mind ceases, very subtle mind arises and then the whole process of another rebirth starts. So if one has the good karma to be attracted to humans, one’s very subtle mind enters into the sperm and ovum of these two human beings.
One enters into the womb of the mother and from a very subtle mind, the subtle mind starts manifesting and that means the winds from that very subtle wind, the grosser winds start coming, manifesting and moving in this lump of liquid and that causes that liquid to get thicker and more solid and then as the winds move that causes that lump of liquid to develop a shape and so because the winds moving that lump develops legs and arms and a head. And then the winds move out and your ears and your nose comes out and your eyes. Yeah. And the fingers and the toes. Oh, let’s not get into the complicated part.
It’s all the the the possibly due to the movement of the winds and which is also karmically influenced. Yeah. Just to go just one minute. So just go back to the Bardo state. A little voice.
So it is said that the Bardo state narrowly lasts up to seven days but again one could take rebirth very very quickly. I think my understanding is the stronger, the more good karma we have the more quickly we’re able to find our rebirth situation and a good rebirth situation. The longer we stay in the bardo I think our options get worse and worse. I’m not one percent sure about that but I think that’s what tends to happen. I don’t understand this but this is what the teachings say that after seven days if the Bardo being hasn’t found the conditions to take rebirth that Bardo being dies and is reborn in the Bardo state again with a new body And again the whole process starts and that can happen up to seven times.
That one stays in the Bardo state a maximum of forty nine days. So that’s why in the Tibetan tradition prayers and practices are done for a person for forty nine days because prayers and practices can influence that Bardo being, help the Bardo being to create the conditions for them to find the conditions for a good rebirth. It is also said a little bit like that movie The Sixth Sense that the person who dies for a short time after they have died, and this not always the case and I don’t know how common it is, but in the teachings it mentions that when you die for a short time you may not be aware that you are dead. You are in the Bardo state but you don’t know it And you have the karma to still sort of see, you know, where you were where you were living. And you think you’re there.
You don’t know you’re dead. So you’re, you know, you’re wandering around in wherever you died. And maybe if it’s with your family, you know, you try and talk to them and they ignore you. And, you know, and there’s no no no no lunch set out for you and things like that. So this is why the Tibetans apparently they have a custom for a couple of days of sometimes not everyone does it but there is a custom of setting out a place for the dead person and offering food and so on because it’s possible the being is still there seeing everyone going about their business.
But that quickly ends and then the full Bardo experience takes over. So if we are lucky, we will be attracted to when we die and go into the Bardo, we will be attracted to a couple of human beings, hopefully, who will be nice parents. Yeah. But all of that is, you know, karmic results. We have to create the causes But of course if we try our mind, if we go beyond just being nice Buddhists and really engage in really serious practice and start gaining realizations, then of course when we die, as one becomes a more realised being, one will have control in the Bardo state.
One will be able to be sort of conscious of what is going on and one will be able to have some actual conscious choice of, oh, I like those two. I’ll I’ll I’ll go with them. Nice. Nice. You know?
You’ll have some awareness of what kind of you know, not just they look nice, but you’ll have some insight into the character of these people and, oh, they’ll be good parents, I you know, so you zoom there. But one has to be, you know, fairly realized to be able to do those things. Lama Yeshe died in nineteen eighty four, actually some time before he died, did start indicating to some of his close disciples in various ways that he didn’t have long to live. And and there was a meeting in Spain where he’s where everyone was saying that they hardly ever saw him, and they were worried about they wouldn’t you know, he was leaving to go to another country to teach. And they said, oh, you know, oh, we won’t see you for a long, long, long time.
He says, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. And this he was telling the people who were actually to come to become his parents. He said, don’t worry. I’ll see you very soon.
And yeah. Of course, no one realized that at the time. But that’s what realized beings can do. Of course, the mother had amazing dreams. She she was aware when she actually what’s the word?
Conceived. Yes. She she I think she had lots of experience because she had about eight kids. No. Not not not that many before.
About six already. But she said she knew when she conceived, and she had the most amazing, amazing dreams. Just mind boggling dreams. And this little child was amazing. Truly amazing.
Yeah. So we have to work on it, folks, because we are going to die. So we’ve got all the conditions to try and have to have the best rebirth best death, best rebirth. It’s in our hands, really. Okay, tea break.
Oh, yes, tea break. Discussion group time, finally, discussion. Now there’s plenty to discuss. There should be plenty to discuss. So I’ll just remind you of your discussion groups.
There’s four discussion four discussion groups. In group one is Annette Beltran, Shona, Christine Christine is not here tonight. Shona, Steve, Arnold, Judy, Michelle, and Jan. So where could group one go? At the table.
Okay. Table. Group group two is Danny, Chris, Chris Elo. Who’s Chris? Yeah.
Chris. Oh, right. Linden. Oh, he’s not he went. He left.
He went. He went. Richard, Margaret, Margaret Roney, Peter and Maggie. And then grab three is Shardine, Bill, oh they’re not, he’s not here, Jenny McArthur, Jenny McArthur. Jenny McArthur.
Elaine Skinner. India and Adam. And group four is Kathy, Rudy oh, no. Rudy’s not here. Sasha, PC, Karen, she’s not here, Bill, Gaston, Pam Jones, and Cheryl Malone.
Has everyone been nominated? Yeah. Questions? If you can Yes. No.
No. Not really. To to become clairvoyant, you have to develop single pointed concentration. So that’s not that’s not easy. But someone who’s it it’s not it it does it it it it’s very impressive to be clairvoyant, but it doesn’t really necessarily mean very much.
So it doesn’t mean you’re particularly holy if you’ve got clairvoyance. Sequential. It could be cosmic time, seasonal time. You know, it’s about seven basic forms of time. You talk about time from the Tibetan sense, you know, it sounds to be very much western lineal Well this is not just Tibetan, this is the Dharma.
This past, present and future. First there’s the path, then there’s the present, then the future. I’m sorry it’s that straightforward. Yes, yes, basically. Yep, the whole shebang.
Right. That’s the hard stuff. Yeah. Anything else I can clarify? I I don’t know.
I’ve never I haven’t I haven’t been there. I don’t know. I think you’ve got an awful lot of time on your hands in the Pure Lands, but but it also probably goes very quickly because it’s very enjoyable. I’m not good at answering questions about time. I don’t have these kind of cosmic views of time.
I’m a very lineal person, but this is also how it’s presented in the tradition also, more or less. The dharma is presented according to ordinary human conventions. It’s because it’s for humans to understand. But, I mean, there is there is a past that I mean, this is also not just a convention. This is both a conventional truth, but there’s the past, present, and future.
Well, not for every not not for everybody. Like what? Yes. But what does that mean? That’s very poetic, but what does it mean?
You know, Cleopatra isn’t here. She’s not present. Oh, I think that’s good. Now, come on. Go on.
Is she? No. Introduce me. She’s not here. She’s passed.
She’s gone. Oh, it’s very simple at one level. And I didn’t see the problem with it. There’s no problem. I don’t actually have a problem.
I just wanted to I asked the question really just because I don’t have that experience of time all the time. So Does that make sense? The time being to the sort you’re talking about Yeah. Yeah. I don’t actually have all the time, so to speak.
Yeah. Well, it’s true. I mean, some some things can feel like they’re going on a long time or things can feel like they’re going, you know, lasting a very short time. But even with that subjective experience, there’s also a relative objective reality happening that people can say that that experience that seemed to last a second actually lasted three minutes. And both and both are valid.
I do have a sense of what I’m talking about, not being totally valid. I don’t know. It’s not going to be invalidated. It’s not I’m not hanging on to it. It’s just that I I do think it’s a very Western Yes, but actually the crucial point, the the tantric teachings are this these super, super teachings, which are extremely complex and can be very dangerous, are taught so that sentient beings can be free of suffering quickly.
Because there is time. Suffering is experienced in real time. And the whole reason the Buddha taught tantra is so that real time suffering could be ended as quickly as possible. Thank you. Mean, I don’t I Of course, you will always be wrong.
But No. No. No. No. No.
No. I I I don’t know. I can’t explain this probably because I probably don’t understand it probably, but one of the very important philosophical points or basis of Lama Tsongkhapa’s philosophy is about how it is vital not to deny conventional reality. In understanding emptiness, it is vital not to to accept and understand and not deny conventional reality. There is a conventional truth.
Yeah. I have no idea. I would never try. Well, if I don’t know their I mean, this this is getting too abstract. Sorry.
Mhmm. Yes. Someone who wants to become a bodhisattva. Is what just? Sorry.
How do you become a bodhisattva? You come to Buddha house, you receive teachings how you become a bodhisattva is you generate bodhicitta and you generate bodhicitta by renouncing saṃsāra and cultivating, meditating on the causes of bodhicitta. This is done as an ordinary person and it involves we have to accumulate merit to strengthen the mind, have to purify the mind, to get rid of the hindrances, we have to understand the teachings about bodhicitta, and we have to create the direct and indirect causes which is about meditating. The causes of bodhicitta are basically seeing sentient beings as bereft of happiness and seeing that they are overwhelmed with suffering. And they are constantly creating the causes of suffering and not creating the causes of happiness.
And these beings and it’s it’s involved realizing deeply that these beings are my mother. As I am as closely connected to every sentient being as the mother and father of this life. There is no difference. These are the causes of generating bodhicitta, which take an enormous amount of time to accumulate those causes. One has to, you know, meditate on those for a very long time.
And not just meditate on them, but, you know, one has to act on on all of that. Being patient and generous and moral and kind and and acting on one’s you meditate on compassion and act on it and meditate on love and act on it for lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes. And at some point, the authentic determination to become a Buddha will arise, involves the thought, I will never ever give in to my self-cherishing thought. I will never follow it for a moment. And then one enters the path at that point.
And we are still a set in being. One still has delusions, one still has ignorance, but one reduces these things step by step. So one still dies and takes rebirth through the power of karma, but at some point a bodhisattva will realize emptiness, will gain first direct perception of emptiness, and from then, from that moment, they are no longer I’m I’m I’m actually sorry if if this gets recorded. Some Geshes would probably die laughing at my, misunderstandings. But there’s a point where one is still in saṃsāra, but you are no longer under the power of karma to take rebirth in the way that we are.
And so one was able to choose one’s like at a very conventional level, this is what Lama Yeshe did, that he knew he was dying and he because at the point I should have tried to make this clear. The, yeah, the people he told, don’t worry. I’m coming back soon, who were his future parents were disciples, very close disciples of him. He actually told them years before to get married. He said, you get married.
I mean, they were already living together and had a couple of kids by that point, I think. But, anyway, he does. You get married. You know? And then he was reborn.
When he died, he took rebirth with this this couple who were his disciples. So he picked them because he knew he was going to die, and he picked those that couple to be his parents. Yeah. That that this was the right situation where he could yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s just even at a conventional level. At a higher level, at some point, bodhisattva is free of saṃsāra. An eighth level bodhisattva is no longer in saṃsāra.
They are free of saṃsāra. But then they can take rebirth through the power of compassion, not through the power of karma. They may not get reborn. They may decide not to be reborn as a human being, but hang out in the pure lands and just continue the path to enlightenment there. But some, I don’t know the percentage I haven’t read the statistics come back to the earth.
It’s it is getting out. I’m happy to answer questions, but we are now well over time. Yeah. Not not super amazing. Or in some ways sorry.
What can I explain how? Well, he was recognized when he was about seventeen months old, and I was there at the time. I saw it all happen. Well, I mean, there’s various stages. This could take a long time to explain, but I was Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant.
Lama Zopa was Lama Yeshe’s main disciple, and I was Rinpoche’s attendant for three years. So when he was in Spain in eighty five well, at some point, Lama Zopa Rinpoche had a dream. He never told me about this dream. Shame on him that he sorry. But he he had this dream, and when he was in Spain, in southern Spain, at Osel Ling retreat center, is where Lama Osel, the incarnation of Lama Yeshe was born, he’d you know, he he had this dream, and, anyway, he was teaching and mixing everything up.
In reality, he was teaching. I didn’t go to this teaching that day, so I missed actually seeing this. But what happened is that Lama Yeshe this little baby was sitting in the lap of his mother at seventeen months old. And while Lama Yeshe was on a high a throne higher, this teaching to all these people, and and the mother was sitting in front of Rinpoche some distance back with his the little baby on her lap. The little baby crawled off her lap, crawled down the aisle, and crawled up the steps and sat on Rinpoche’s lap.
So Rinpoche had this dream that before it happened, before in time, it physically happened. So this was one of the signs Rinpoche felt. But Rinpoche had been checking because he is also clairvoyant. There’s no doubt the lama of Rinpoche is clairvoyant that anyway, I know there’s many things I can say, but what happened? So anyway, Rinpoche then started manifesting, paying a lot of attention to this little baby.
Already some people I didn’t know that the mother had all had all these amazing dreams. But she was a very down to earth person and didn’t sort of think, oh, I must be Lama Yeshe’s mother. She just had all these amazing dreams, and there was some thought maybe this could be Lama Lama’s incarnation. Anyway, later on, Rinpoche and I went back to India, and Rinpoche asked the mother, Maria, for no no obvious conventional reason, to bring this small baby to see him in India. And he paid the trip.
So this little baby came up to Dharmasala, where Lama Zopa Rinpoche has in his centre in Dharmasala. Rinpoche had been in Delhi with the mother and the baby and I had already gone up ahead and was preparing for Rinpoche’s arrival. Rinpoche arrived one afternoon with the mother and this little baby, and Rinpoche said to me, oh, we’ll we’ll have a little puja, like chanting ceremony in Lama Yeshe’s room. Call all the because there were about fifty westerners doing retreat at the center at the time. So no explanation.
So just from all my point of view, this is just, you know, just a baby. You know? Not Rinpoche hasn’t said anything to anyone who it is, but I already knew that Rinpoche thought this was Lama’s incarnation. But no one else knew anything. So in Lama’s room, all these fifty western students were sitting on the ground.
Lama’s Lama Zopa Rinpoche was sitting on a high seat with his table in front, and this little baby was put next to him. He was about seven two months two years old from Spain, from southern Spain, Andalucia, a tiny village in Andalusia in Spain. So we started doing this little puja which most people were familiar with, which involves ringing bells and while holding dorjes and things. And this little baby is sitting in front of a two year old little baby is sitting in front of fifty strangers, smiling and happy. And he every time Rinpoche looks at picks up the bell, he’s looking.
So Rinpoche says to me, go and get a bell for him. So we put a dorje and bell in front of this little two year old baby. So every time Lama Zopa Rinpoche picked up the bell and do here is a bell. Oh, we don’t have any. And and a dorje.
So you pick up the bell. They’re positioned like this, and you, anyway, you pick them up, and I’ve got them wrong way. Dorje and bell. No. I can’t.
No. That’s right. Bell. Bell. And so Rinpoche would play it, hold it, and this little baby, every time Rinpoche picked them up, he would pick his up and play very happily.
Yeah. Two years old. You try and get any two year old to do that. And as I said, I’ve I’ve told this story many times, but there’s many things happen. But one last little boy, he’s so he stayed for a few days, and then he went back to Delhi.
And he to get back to Delhi, he had he had to catch a bus in Dharmasala to go drive for twenty four hours practically down to Delhi. Anyway, by this stage, all the Tibetan people living in the area had heard the rumor that Lama Zopa Rinpoche thought that this little boy was Lama Yeshe’s incarnation. So about fifty Tibetan ladies came with their white scarves, these katas, to offer to this little boy as he was leaving on the bus. And our tradition is if you’ve ever seen Tibetan Lamas, you saw His Holiness here in Adelaide, traditional thing is you offer a kata to the lama and he puts it around your head and sometimes they give you a pat on the head as a blessing. So this two little I wasn’t there.
I I was stayed at the center. But the other people saw it and told me that as this little boy was leaving on the bus, these fifty about fifty Tibetan ladies came with their katas. Each one offered this little boy a katas, and he, two years old, from Andalucia, in a little village, which is the poorest part of Spain, put it around the head and tapped it on the head. I’ve met mothers who think their children are just wonderful. A jealous, know, and that I mean, I’ve met I’ve met these kids.
They’re cute. They’re nice, but they’re just totally ordinary little kids who could never do that. Never. Because he wasn’t told to do this. No.
There was no explanation. He just did it. And as I said, you can see this on it’s on YouTube now. It’s all in Spanish, but I just discovered that because his mother has just recently put this up on YouTube, is the film of when he was officially recognized. There was a ceremony where he was officially please go home if you want no.
It’s getting late. Where he was officially recognized. And there were all these lamas, many international press photographers, a couple of hundred people. And in the tradition, in part of the ceremony, you offer the lama a mandala which he takes and gives to the attendant. Then you offer him a statue of the Buddha, which he puts to his head and gives to the attendant.
You offer him a text, which he puts to his head and gives to the attendant. And then a stupa, which he puts to his head and gives. So this wasn’t rehearsed, and he did that. I’ve I’ve as a senior monk, I have tried to train monks and nuns how to do this ceremony of offering to the lama. They get so confused.
You know they’re wandering around no idea who to give anything to, how to do it but like this mandala which you don’t put to your forehead he didn’t. He took it and gave it to me And then the step the three other things which you put to your forehead, he did. There was no rehearsal. I there was no hinting, nudging to do it. This is in front of hundreds of people.
This is not a fluke. This is not just a coincidence. Know? This doesn’t happen by fluke. Yeah.
And he did other all sorts of interesting things that like close students who had known Lama Yeshe. He did things, little things, that made them feel that this was Lama Yeshe. Even the way he would stand as a two year old kid. He’d come walk into my room and just stand there and look at you like Lama Yeshe, like an old man. Anyway, stop.
We’ve got sorry. Very late. Thank you very much. I hope that the homework makes sense. I was going to explain it, but it’s too late.
I hope it’s self explanatory, the meditation teachings. Yes, quick dedication, page ten. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious body mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.