Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 108-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub opens his second week of teaching on the Buddhist path with an extended meditation on bodhicitta—the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings—then pivots to foundational doctrinal material: the nature of mind as formless and beginningless; the structure of saṃsāra and the six realms; and a detailed exploration of why recognizing a precious human rebirth is vital. He walks through the eight freedoms and ten endowments, using concrete examples (comparing the ratio of animals to humans, illustrating analogies like a beggar with a diamond) to help students grasp how rare and favorable their circumstances are. He then addresses impermanence and death—that everything decays moment by moment, that death is certain but its timing uncertain, and that only qualities of heart and mind (faith, compassion, generosity) will help at the moment of dying. Woven throughout is an insistent emphasis on finding a qualified spiritual teacher: Dondrub explains that authentic teachers embody rather than merely describe the teachings, that a guru is someone who has mastered their own mind, and that connecting with the right teacher is the essential first step. The tone is direct and practical, aimed at beginners or those new to the course who may be encountering Buddhist philosophy for the first time.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 08 20 DB 2013 Presenting the Path Week 2 200813.mp3
UUID: a540e14f-09ef-453b-b4a2-330ec014e75c
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-08-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 108.0 minutes
Words: ~12,917
So we are asked to try and listen with that motivation as much as we can or something approximating that motivation. And So that’s a traditional prayer that I say at the beginning, everyone’s encouraged to join or at least read the words. These are on page nine of the student material. We see it twice in Tibetan for the sake of connecting with the tradition, one time in English for the sake of the mirror of the prayer. So as we say this prayer of bodhicitta, we imagine or you can to make it more powerful according to the tradition.
We try and imagine the Buddha present in front of us. Soon our Buddha will be back on the throne on the altar here. But we imagine the Buddha seated on a throne and then on the throne is a lotus symbolizing renunciation. Above the lotus is a sun disc symbolizing wisdom. Above that a moon disc symbolizing great compassion and a bodhicitta.
One alleges the Buddha seated above the center of the moon disc having a hollow body of golden light wearing the saffron robes of a monk holding a deep blue begging bowl in his left hand filled with wisdom nectar that overcomes the causes of all suffering. So as we think of the Buddha in front of us as a way to remind us, we imagine the Buddha is there to remind us of our Buddha potential and there to encourage us to realize our Buddha potential. And at the same time we try and have a sense of, as much as we can, of all sentient beings surrounding us as a way to motivate ourselves to realize our Buddha nature, our Buddha potential. So at least try to think of your mother on your left, your father on your right, and then behind you imagine the rest of your family or your friends, all the people you can think of. It doesn’t have to be just humans.
It could be nonhumans like your pet dog or cat or goldfish who’s been kind to you and helped you in any way in this life. And on the front, we think of those people who have harmed us, dislike us. Put them there not to generate more negativity towards them but to try to look at them objectively and see that they are in reality not significantly different than any other sentient being. They are suffering also, so they deserve my compassion, not my rejection. So unless we try and think of these people, and if we can, opening our hearts and minds to an awareness, concern for all the other beings of cyclic existence, at least trying to think of the human beings of this world, And thinking how all these people, all these beings, really, apart from all the other superficial things, the essence is these beings are only kind, but they’re only suffering.
So no matter what, I have to repay their kindness by helping to free them from suffering and lead them to peerless everlasting happiness. To do that, I have to achieve enlightenment, And to do that, I have to follow the path. To follow the path successfully, I have to understand the path. So that’s why I’ll study this course for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I enlighten into the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So if you find it helpful, imagine that now the Buddha being very pleased with your motivation and showing this by now coming to the crown of your head, imagining the the throne dissolving into light, absorbing up into the lotus, sun and moon, and the Buddha seated on these comes to the crown of your head. And more directly above your crown, imagine the Buddha that dissolves into blissful golden light, and that pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to understand the teachings, blessing your mind to be able to put them into practice correctly, blessing your mind to be able to eventually gain authentic, transformative realizations that bring about our complete perfect enlightenment. So just for a short time we can do the lion’s roar breathing exercise that was set out in the homework as a way to reinforce that positive state of mind, helping to establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind, we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay.
Thank you. So just very quickly, especially for the newer people, is very, very quick, condensed. So the very basis of Buddhist teaching is the mind. So we have a mind which is not the brain, not a product of the brain. It is this unique phenomena which is completely formless.
It has not been created by something else. It is beginningless, what creates it is just simply a previous moment going back and back into beginningless time. And because our mind is formless, insubstantial, like space, It’s not something physical, it is indestructible. It will always continue. And what the mind does is it knows experiences, and with every moment of knowing and experiencing there is feeling.
So of course there is the feeling of suffering and the feeling of happiness. So if we don’t think about our mind, the mind will continue to give rise to some pleasure but also a lot of suffering. And we don’t want that. We want to be free of suffering. Deep down what we really seek is perfect lasting happiness.
So even if we were just less suffering and more happiness, then it is vital to take care of our mind. But if we start to understand that when death comes, the mind doesn’t stop, it goes on. It continues to give rise to experience, and it’s not just the experience of a human being that is possible. Even if one starts to believe that the mind goes on and tends to think the mind always goes on in a human form, in a human body, even if you look around the world, suffering that human beings can experience is really unbelievable. Unbelievable forms of body and mind and both.
And for people who appear outwardly to be happy and have everything can actually have miserable, truly horrible lives. But the Buddha perceived that there is not just human existence the mind gives rise to, there is the existence of animals. Animals have minds. Minds are all the same. They are not just the same, we are not one mind, we are separate minds, but all minds are, in nature, the same.
So the mind can give rise to the experience of being an animal. Also if one pollutes, obscures the mind more through negative actions, following negative thoughts more and more, one can be reborn in a greater suffering realm of hungry ghosts. Eventually there is the immense suffering of the various kinds of hell realms which are fortunately not permanent because this is the mind controlled by delusion and karma gets reborn cycling. Sometimes it falls into the lower realms but it can be reborn as a human being or the mind can be less obscured and take rebirth in the various god realms. But these are all samsaric experiences that don’t last, come to an end and another rebirth occurs.
It could be a better one, it could be a worse one, depending on what we’ve done with our mind. This is saṃsāra. So the Buddha came to this earth to teach us, to show us what is happening, why it’s happening, and to show a path that leads us out of saṃsāra, freeing our mind from all the causes of suffering. So this is one of the paths the Buddha taught, the path to liberation or nirvana. And if one achieves nirvana, one becomes an arhat.
There is no more suffering, just pure bliss. But there is another path that the Buddha taught which takes us beyond just freedom from suffering to the state of enlightenment. So this is the path that we are going to talk about in brief form in this course. Because just by achieving what is called liberation, becoming an arhat, achieving the state of nirvana, as an arhat, a liberated being, one has this incredibly blissful experience, as an arhat, one can be of a great benefit to many sentient beings, pointing out, teaching the Dharma. But when an arhat dies, their mind goes on in this blissful state, in a state of nirvana.
But in that state of nirvana, they have no awareness of anything other than the bliss of their own mind, so they can’t be of any benefit to others. They don’t harm them, but they don’t benefit. Whereas if one fully develops the potential of the mind and becomes a Buddha, not only does one experience the blessed nirvana, but one is completely aware, totally awake. That’s what the Buddha means. Buddha is the awakened one.
One is completely omniscient, all knowing of everything, and because of that, and that omniscience is pervaded by great love, great compassion, etc, all good qualities, so the Buddha mind can and does spontaneously benefit everyone all the time. So we’re encouraged to recognize that we have Buddha nature and follow that path to enlightenment. If we just become an arhat, that benefits one person. But if we become a Buddha, that benefits everyone. And everyone has, is and will no, there is no verb to cover that everyone who has benefited us in the past is benefiting us now and will in the future.
So now we should have developed the wish to repay that kindness, to benefit them, and not just superficially, temporarily, but completely, perfectly forever. Because that’s the only way to repay their kindness. And the only way to perfectly repay that kindness is to become a Buddha. So the path to enlightenment involves firstly this is not necessarily the first step, but if one just wants to be how do you say? If one just wants to benefit from the Buddhist teachings a little bit, make this life better, maybe one’s future life better, then forget that.
I’ve got something else preliminary to say first. So the path to enlightenment, just in a nutshell, involves three stages. Or what we have to do is lead our mind in these three stages because right now, generally speaking, especially before we meet, we take any interest in a spiritual life, especially the Buddhist, know, teachings, our mind is just thinks about this life. We don’t most people yeah. We don’t think about future lives.
We may not even believe in them. We just think about this life and yeah. And I believe there is this life. And because of that, we’re, you know, we’re obsessed with the the problems of this life, with the getting rid of the problems, overcoming the problems of this life, and trying to get the pleasures of this life. So the first stage in this path to enlightenment is to renounce or give up our obsession with the things of this life in order to get a good rebirth because rebirth happens naturally.
When we die, rebirth you don’t have to do about anything about getting reborn. It just happens. But the kind of rebirth we get depends on the causes we create. If we don’t create the causes for a good rebirth, we won’t get one. We’ll get a suffering one.
That’s how it works. That’s how He gives it to others because of causes, the causes we create. So if we start to understand that, then the first stage in the spiritual path is using this life to not just to be obsessed with the what appears to be such important things in this life, but making sure we create the causes for a good rebirth. That’s the first stage renouncing attachment to this life and making sure we create the causes for a good rebirth so that we can continue the spiritual path. The next major stage in the spiritual path, developing the next level of motivation, is coming to understand or it arises from understanding more and more, developing faith that even if I get good rebirths again and again, I’m in saṃsāra, meaning as long as my mind is controlled by delusions such as ignorance, afflicted desire, anger, pride, jealousy, while my mind is controlled in that way, I will never be free of suffering.
I will never experience perfect happiness, real happiness. There will always be some pleasure, enjoyments, nice things, but it won’t last, and suffering will come again and again and again, even if I were reborn as a human being again and again. As a human being, you still have to experience sickness, aging, death, all sorts of stuff, elections, advertising for elections. There can’t be much more suffering than that. So, yeah, so the next level of motivation is deciding to renounce attachment to any kind of cyclic existence, samsaric rebirth, and in order to get out of cyclic existence to free the mind of all causes of suffering.
That’s the next level of motivation. And then the third level, the highest level of spiritual motivation, is realizing that, well, if I free myself from suffering, that’s great, but it only benefits me. And everyone else, all these people who’ve been so kind to me, my mother, father, brothers, sisters, everyone, and but everyone has been my mother because of beginningless mind, beginningless numbers of rebirth. So I all those people who’ve been so immensely kind to me get left behind to suffer. So how can I do that?
One then decides to renounce nirvana and achieve enlightenment. And that’s when you generate bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment. So first, so the three stages on the path to enlightenment are renouncing this life, which doesn’t mean of deciding to have a miserable life, by the way. It doesn’t mean that. Actually, if you meet people who’ve actually renounced this life, they are really happy people.
E.g., His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa, my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche, people like that, they they are not miserable. They haven’t given up happiness because renunciation refers to giving up suffering, not giving up happiness. It means giving up suffering and its causes. So we have to firstly renounce our obsession with the the things of this life, the ordinary things of this life, in order to achieve a good rebirth. Then we work to renouncing our attachment to cyclic existence, thinking somehow it’s okay.
Yeah. And then we have to renounce then we renounce so we, yeah, we renounce saṃsāra in order to achieve liberation or nirvana, but then we realize, well, nirvana is pretty kind of selfish in one way. So we renounce that in order to achieve enlightenment to benefit others. So that’s one way of looking at the path to enlightenment, these three levels of motivation. And one has to psychologically move through those phases.
You can’t say, oh, I’ll, you know, I’ll develop the motivation to achieve enlightenment straight away. That’s impossible. It’s utterly impossible. First one has to yeah. Anyway, impossible.
One has to lead the mind through those stages. And if that evolves, is in developing three major qualities, which is the or what I call the three principal paths to enlightenment, which is developing this quality of renunciation. That that’s the first thing. Then, one has to develop bodhicitta. To achieve enlightenment, one needs to renounce, to develop the mind of renunciation.
To to develop to follow the path to achieve enlightenment, We need to develop the wish to achieve enlightenment. And nothing happens if you don’t if you you’re not wishing for something. If you don’t want to come here, for whatever reason you came here tonight, you wanted to come here for some reason. I’m not sure. Hopefully, it was the best reason, but maybe you had nothing else to do.
So I’ll come here tonight. So but because you had that wish, you came here. But if there was no wish at all to come here, not at all, you wouldn’t come. Right? So to achieve something, you have to want it.
And of course, if that theory that you want to achieve is extremely difficult to achieve, you have to want it really, really strongly. So bodhicitta is this immensely powerful mind that is utterly determined to achieve enlightenment no matter how long it takes, how difficult it takes, how difficult it is. Right. And and the other possible quality, and so bodhicitta evolves. In in in a nutshell, bodhicitta is what his holiness calls the good heart.
When his holiness talks the Dalai Lama talks about developing a good heart, well, the highest good heart, the greatest good heart is bodhicitta. So it involves developing love, compassion, patience, kindness, tolerance, generosity, being virtuous, courageous. All of that stuff is what involves developing bodhicitta. And the other quality we need to develop to achieve realize our full potential to become Buddhas is to develop wisdom. And wisdom doesn’t refer to knowing lots of stuff.
It it refers to developing this potential of our mental consciousness to directly perceive the truth, the reality of things, the reality of our self, the reality of all phenomena. Because what the Buddha discovered is the actual cause of our suffering. The root cause of our suffering is our ignorance. This ignorance that fails to experience the true way we exist. It fails to experience because we are our mind is obscured by ignorance, we fail to experience the way all things actually exist.
We experience ourself, others, everything in a false way, but we don’t know it. We think that false way is reality, is true. We don’t question it. But because of that ignorance, we have all the delusions. They wouldn’t exist without ignorance.
Because of this false perception we have afflicted desire, attachment, anger, pride, jealousy. We act on those, create negative engage in negative actions. These generate negative imprints, and suffering comes. So we need to develop these three qualities of renunciation or a simple way of looking at what renunciation is. It’s non-attachment.
So we need to develop in following the path. We need to develop complete non-attachment. We need to develop the good heart of bodhicitta. And we need to develop this wisdom, this penetrative insight into reality. And as I tried to say very briefly last week at the very end, these three qualities of non attachment, insight, and a good heart are things that we need in our daily life anyway.
We do not think so. They don’t advertise much on television. Politicians aren’t mentioning these things at all. My schools don’t even talk about them. But these are the qualities that will really bring real peace and contentment and well-being and so on in our daily life.
The more non attachment we have, the more wisdom we have, the more we approach things with a good heart, life will be just so much better for ourselves and everyone around us. But these are the qualities we need to achieve enlightenment, and I’m already over time. So that’s enough on that. So, yeah. So if one of the really starts to understand what saṃsāra is, I’m in saṃsāra.
My mind is controlled by delusion and karma. Therefore, when I die, I could have these terrible rebirths and even the good rebirths aren’t so good because they don’t last. And therefore, they come to an end and then one falls into the bad rebirth. And this if I don’t do anything with my mind, it’s just gonna go on and on like this forever. Then one can develop the wish to start following the spiritual path.
And if wants to follow the path really seriously, then one needs a teacher. This is what I was trying to start with. If one just wants to dabble with the teachings and make this life better, or use the teachings just to get a good rebirth, you don’t need a teacher perhaps. I don’t know, maybe to get a good rebirth. But if you really want to follow the path, you have to have a teacher.
And especially if you want to if we want to achieve enlightenment, we need a highly qualified teacher. Here, teaching in the sense of someone like how we understand in our culture, someone with a blackboard or a whiteboard or whatever they call this. Sorry. Shows how old I am. Anyway, you know, someone who just gives you some information about things on a board and blah, blah, blah, and tells you stuff.
A teacher, a guru, is someone who is able to inspire oneself, inspire us to change our mind and acts as a living embodiment of the teachings and is able to help bring about a radical transformation of our mind. Ultimately we have to find such a person and connect with them. But even if we won’t follow the teachings in any way, you will need some kind of teacher. Even someone like me, at least probably I know a little bit more than you do, well, some of you, about some of the the the teachings. Right?
So to learn the teachings, we need a teacher, and especially the Buddhadharma because even for very intelligent, educated people, it’s very easy to read it and always understand what is actually meant and how it is actually understood and practiced as a living tradition. Right? So we need someone who has some authentic knowledge to pass that on. But depending on how serious we want to be in following the path, ultimately we need someone who is an actually realized spiritual master. And the word master is a bit misleading because it can especially for people looking more negatively towards the Dharma, it sounds like someone who cracks a whip and makes you do all these things you don’t want to You know?
And thought you know? What what the word master is referring to is not mastering the disciple, but a master is someone who has mastered their mind. They are are in complete control of their mind. Or even better, they don’t have to control their mind anymore because there is nothing wrong with it anymore. It’s completely perfected.
So we need a qualified teacher and the more qualified the better. Or actually we could have more teachers, but we need to meet someone at some point who really is an authentic master of the tradition, not only intellectually knows it, but has a real lived experience of it, especially of the wisdom teachings of the Buddha, but also has developed a genuine, has renunciation and a good heart. Some people say you don’t need a teacher, this is just rubbish. You have to have a teacher for all sorts of reasons. The more qualified the teacher, the better.
Even if you want to make a cake, can get a recipe book and you can follow the recipe book and you’ll end up with some kind of cake. But if you want to make a really terrific cake really easily and quickly, if you’ve got if you eat a really good cake maker and that person shows you, then you will really know how to make cakes. See, if you want to repair a car, you can mess around with manuals. But if you know someone who really knows cars and they show you how to fix it up, you’ll always know how to fix up cars well. Or make a table, Or if you wanna learn to play the piano.
If you the if you the teacher you find for whatever we want to learn is a real master of that thing. They’re they’re completely, you know, experts. They can because, you know, you can write books, and, you know, you’re supposed to do this. But the experts says, oh, you don’t really have to do that. This is how you actually do it.
Because they know, it’s not in their head, they live it. They live it. They know exactly the best way. Like like, if you play an instrument, you you know, the book says do that and then do that, but, you know, you don’t do that. You go this, ping, like that.
And that makes the right sound. And then you do that. I mean, not none of the books say that bit that you do that. But they don’t work because they play it. And they don’t just, you know, or make a table, you know, whatever.
So especially with the mind, which is the last unique thing that we don’t know anything about, we can only make a cake or fix a car if you hang around long enough. Even I could probably no. Probably, I couldn’t fix a car. But, anyway, but fixing the mind, you know, it’s not you can’t see the mind. We don’t you know?
It’s there. It’s the most powerful important thing, but we learn nothing about it. So we add someone who not just knows the words, they really have experienced everything about their mind, good, bad, and they know how to fix it because they, you know, they because they did it. They’ve fixed their mind. Right?
So that you you yeah. The more expert yeah. So this is the first point to meet the guru and not not just everyone, not because they’re famous. You have to follow one who’s the real thing because there’s all sorts of famous phony gurus. They’re not famous for being phony.
They’re famous for apparently being the real thing, but they’re not. There’s tons of fakes out there, unfortunately, also in the Buddhist tradition. So you have to find the real one and the one who touches your heart, the one who as Lama Yeshe said, who’s pictured in it. Picture over there, just the head, the holy body. Lama Yeshe is the inspiration for this center and the foundation for the preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition all around the world.
He said that your root guru, the person who can lead you to enlightenment, is the person who makes the dharma come alive for you, makes it real for you. The person who can do that, depending on if they are really qualified, that person is the guru, your heart guru, the root guru. Milarepa said when he lived in the Sera Monastery in Tibet, there were thousands Sera Monastery had something like, I can’t remember, five thousand or six thousand monks and many apparently very, very highly realized Lamas there. He said he saw many of these highly realized Lamas, but he never took them as his gurus because he didn’t feel a connection with them. But it was the ones that he felt with a connection with because they touched his heart.
Not because they were famous or whatever, but because they touched his heart in the right way. So we have to find that person and then devote ourselves, put our complete trust. But we have to check that that person is qualified, because if they’re not really qualified and they’re not really teaching the tradition properly, and they themselves aren’t connected to a guru, that can be extremely dangerous. It’s the, you know, the most dangerous thing because to to to like, if we harm our body, if you go to a a family doctor, you know, we can end up really sick or or at the worst, dying. But we’re gonna die anyway.
Sorry. But if we meet up with the wrong guru, the wrong guru can mess up our minds so much that the suffering isn’t just experienced in this life, it can carry into many future lives of great torment. So the goal is to find a qualified teacher who has the qualities of wisdom and compassion and patience and the ability to teach and the patience to teach and who really cares for the student and so on, and who really knows the tradition, really knows the teachings, then we need to devote to that person to really entrust ourselves to them. And at the highest level, in Tibetan tradition, what one tries to train the mind in doing is seeing the guru as a Buddha because the Buddha Buddhas can manifest in countless ways. Once one achieves enlightened mind, one isn’t just trapped in his gross physical body.
The enlightened mind can manifest all sorts of physical forms and can appear as anything it wants to, to benefit others. As I I think I was saying last week, the most direct way the Buddha can can guide someone to enlightenment. Where we are in the hell realms screaming in horror, a Buddha can’t do much because our mind is too obscured. When are in the god realms blessing out, having such a terrific time, the mind is also obscured by pleasure, not interested. But when we are a human being and our intelligence is operating, then a Buddha can appear and actually teach us the Dharma and guide us in the practice.
That’s the most direct, powerful way a Buddha can help. But for a Buddha to appear as a Buddha in front of us and say, hi. I’m a Buddha. I’m gonna lead you to enlightenment. It would be terrifying.
We really like to think we would love to meet a, like, a real Buddha who I know this is a Buddha, and he takes us by the hand and says, I’ll guide you to enlightenment. Actually, this would be very scary and very, very difficult. Yeah. You know, just hanging around with this wholeness for a long time, you know, because they’re just so powerful, these people. So what the Buddha does is the Buddha appears as an ordinary human being that we can relate to, is impressive but not too impressive, Has a few faults so we can feel a bit comfortable with them but is terrific therefore we know they are on a good thing, they are special.
But not too weird, not too super perfect that we don’t feel connected with them. So that is the great skill of the appearing in what appears to be a human with faults, but actually is a perfect being. So such bells are in the world. So we never know if the person we connect with is a real Buddha or just or not, but it’s good to see them as Buddha. Because if they’re actually teaching the Dharma correctly with the right motivation, then it’s valid to see the person as a Buddha.
And just like with the placebo effect of sugar pills that the doctor tells you this is the cure for cancer and you believe it and you’re cured. This does happen. Maybe not with cancer but with some things because of the power of the mind. Because the mind does create our reality. So even if a person isn’t a Buddha, but if they have the right qualities, from our side, if we see them as a Buddha, it’s the same as that person being a Buddha.
If they have the right qualities, good qualities, if the person is a complete scary monster and you think, oh, this is a Buddha, then that’s dangerous. If this person has some good qualities, has good motivation, is actually teaching the correct tradition and you think this is a Buddha, then it is a Buddha. It works as being a Buddha. Because also the Buddhas can work through such a person. Anyway, think about it.
This is a very profound topic, actually. It’s one of the subjects of discovering Buddhism that we’ll go into more a lot of detail in at some point if you’re interested. But, anyway, the you know, setting out the past to enlightenment, this topic is taught first in the tradition to emphasize how important finding the right teacher is. Because once one has found the right one, really everything becomes very easy. Then the next foundation.
Any questions so far? Anything you want to get off your chest now? So then in a further path, what is extremely helpful the next topic that is taught in the tradition is to realize, to recognize that we have what is called a perfect or a precious human rebirth. On this planet there are approximately seven billion human beings, but very few of those have what is called a precious or a perfect or optimum human rebirth because a precious or perfect or optimum human rebirth refers to a human being who has what is called eight freedoms and ten endowments. So just very quickly, these eight freedoms, well, all all ordinary human beings have the first four freedoms, which is freedom of not being born in one of the lower realms as an animal, a hungry ghost in the hell realms.
And also so that freedom refers to the freedom of of being able to practice the Dharma, the freedom to work with one’s mind. So in the realms, there’s too much suffering. Right? And in the god realms, there’s too much happiness. People who are super happy think they’ve got it.
They don’t realize that this pleasure doesn’t last. So human beings who have lots of wealth and pleasure, most of them aren’t interested in following the spiritual path, some, but it’s more difficult as Christ said. What did he say? Is he what is it? It’s easier for what is it?
a camel to pass through the eye of a needle for a for a rich man to enter heaven. Yeah. Yeah. So and in the god realms, there’s incredible bliss, but it doesn’t last. But the people there don’t know it.
They think they’ve got it made. They think they’re enlightened or in nirvana or whatever. Actually, it’s very fortunate from a spiritual point of view to be reborn a human being free of the lower realms, free of being in the god realms because as a human being one has the greatest freedom to work with the mind. Are not overwhelmed with suffering but we are not overwhelmed with pleasure. And we know that both exist and we have the ability to understand what causes both.
And we want to be free of one and we want more of the other. So that gives us that incredible space in the mind, incredible freedom to work with our mind. Most human beings don’t have if you find it difficult to believe in saṃsāra, in the different realms, you can see the equivalent on this earth. There are people who are like animals. I don’t want use it in a disparaging way, but people whose lives live a life that is like an animal, just a pure drudgery of just working to keep alive.
There’s different ways you could see it. Also some people who don’t have to work hard, but their life is like an animal in that they just follow the senses. They just eat, sleep and have sex, and that’s life. Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t make them particularly human. If you just want to eat, drink and have sex, being an animal, there’s less guilt and things.
Choices, possibly. Anyway, you know, and and, like, there are hungry ghosts. There are billions of people on this planet are starving, born to starving mothers, and that’s all they know. Then in this world, there are people whose lives are like hell. People in the Middle East, in parts of Africa, even in this country, even people who are very rich, sometimes their life is hell, family life, all sorts of horrible things happening, violence, sexual violence, physical, mental violence to people.
The life of many aboriginals in this country is just truly, truly a hell realm, a human hell realm. Unbelievable. Yeah. And there’s the god realms on this earth, you know, it’s an equivalent of the people who are super rich, super, super rich. Whatever.
The royal family, diamonds everywhere. That stuff. So actually very difficult in all those situations to practice. But the people who don’t have all that suffering, very ordinary, but they are so lucky. There is that freedom to work with the mind.
So they are the first four freedoms. The next freedoms are, just very quickly, In the material realm, there’s the free so many human beings, their life is not such a good word, but is their life is pretty barbaric. The peep there’s so much violence. There’s so many cultures now, whole areas, countries, and areas within countries where people have almost no awareness of spiritual values. In many countries religion like in communist China, religious values were wiped out for a long time.
In Russia, the whole communist block and so on. Even Western countries in some parts of cities People knowing almost nothing about spiritual life or different religions. As I’ve said many times, once I had been alive for a very long time, I happened to be in I know, I can’t even remember why I was there, but I think I was in Redfern which is quite a heavy slum area or used to be, maybe still is, I don’t know, in Sydney. And this little boy came up to me and said, and he was in my robes, and he says, what are you? And I cleverly, wisely, skillfully said to this little boy, I’m a Buddhist monk.
And he looked up at me, and I expected him to say, what’s a Buddhist? And he said, what’s a monk? So you never know what any kind of monk was, let alone a Buddhist one. There are people with all sorts of physical and mental difficulties that make it extremely difficult to practice Dharma. You can be born blind or deaf.
Imagine trying to follow the spiritual life. You people are developing some interest or maybe have had a long interest in Buddhism, but imagine if you went blind or deaf now how difficult it would be to practice and to develop one’s understanding. Very difficult. Was a very boring way. One can be mentally disturbed, all sorts of physical handicaps.
It doesn’t stop one certain physical handicaps don’t stop people practicing, but it becomes much more difficult. So the point is to think what incredible freedom one has when one has a basically healthy body and a healthy mind. It gives so much freedom to practice, and so few people on the earth have that. So the point is to recognize that I have all these things. People who are perfectly you know, have no other problems, may be very well off, intelligent, educated, live in a peaceful place, blah blah blah blah blah.
But and yeah. But they have no belief in any kind of spiritual values, no belief belief in any kind of future life. You know? There’s many people like that, so they cut themselves off from all that possibility. This is a bit more difficult to relate to, but according to Buddha’s teachings, The Buddhas, because of the karma of people, can only appear and teach when people have the karma to meet a Buddha and meet the Buddha’s teachings.
And there are dark periods of time when human beings don’t have the karma for the Buddhas to appear. And these periods can last an enormously long time. So if we are born as a human being then, there’s no freedom to practice because there’s nothing to do. It’s a really horrible time and no spiritual teachings of any kind exist. So we are free of being born in such a time.
So that means we are free of the greatest obstacles to following the spiritual path. So how lucky we are, you know, we are. And the more I realize it, this will encourage us not to waste this freedom on ordinary things. And then we need to recognize that not only are we free of the worst obstacles to following the spiritual path, but we have all these endowments, all these encouraging factors, one of which is just being born a human being, having a human body, a human mind to practice. You know, we’ve got this body.
Most intelligent animals can’t well, I’m not doing it very well. Tell a page. You know? But even most intelligent animals can’t read. They can’t read.
Yeah. So having a human body and mind just gives us such an incredible freedom, such an encouraging factor to practice the spiritual path. Then we need to recognize that to be born in a place where various spiritual traditions including the Buddhadharma actually exist is so amazing. How could you practice any spiritual tradition if it’s if if there’s no nothing about of that tradition present where you live? So we’ve been born you know, while when I was born in Australia, I think there was no signs of Buddhism whatever.
And then slowly, some Buddhism came into this country. When I was first a monk, there was about three books available in English about Buddhism, really, especially valid ones. Now there are magazines which take you hours just to read the titles of really good Buddhist books in English. So that’s just in thirty six years that’s happened. But there are millions of people who will never even hear the word Buddha in lifetime, let alone see even one image of the Buddha or read a book.
But now we’ve been born in place where it’s all around us. So that is an unbelievably encouraging factor. And we do have a basically healthy body and mind. We may have some physical problems, we may have some mental problems, but we are basically Okay. We can use our mind and body in practice.
We need to recognize that. Actually, this is going to take too long. I’ll leave one thing out. One of these social things of the endowments, the encouraging factors, is the vital one. Because there are many people who have all these other factors, you know, they’re healthy, bodily, mentally, a place where the Dharma exists, all these other things, even without the Dharma, but they may even know they may even study Buddhism, they may even write PhDs about it, but they lack the crucial thing, which is faith.
They don’t believe it. So just to have a little bit of faith in Buddha’s teachings opens up this enormous possibility of achieving liberation and enlightenment. So if we recognize that we have that, we are really, really fortunate. So the idea and the point is in the teachings, it makes the point that they give the analogy of a beggar who finds an enormous diamond. But this beggar has no idea what this diamond is.
And they keep the diamond, but they don’t use it because they have no idea what it is. So this beggar remains a beggar, miserable, hungry, unhappy, cold, starving. So having a precious human rebirth and not recognizing it is like being a beggar with a diamond. Who doesn’t know they’ve got a diamond? We need to recognize that we have the optimal chance not only to have a good rebirth, but we have the optimum chance to free ourselves forever of all suffering.
And we have got the optimum chance, the optimum chance, it never gets better to to become a Buddha, to become enlightened. Literally. We all like to think that there must be some a better place to be to practice the Dharma. You know, You go to some celestial realm and float around and it all happens. But actually, this body that we’ve got now in this place right now is possibly the best situation we will ever have to free ourselves and benefit all sentient beings, or to start the process at least, because we have to start it.
And that’s what we have to recognize. Because if we don’t, we become the beggar with the diamond who remains miserable, and we waste our life chasing after rubbish, meaningless things, pointless things, things that actually ultimately lead to suffering. Just very quickly, we recognize that we have just most of the other encouraging factors are especially be a country where the teachings are actually flourishing, they’re alive, it’s not just books. Because one day, as the declines, there won’t be any teachers, there will just be statues and pictures and books, and slowly all of those things will disappear and there won’t be anything. But we are at a time when there are great teachers in the world, truly great Buddhist masters, and that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is recognized among the Tibetans as probably the greatest Dalai Lama of the lot.
Of all the fourteen that have appeared, many say he is probably the greatest or equal to the other because some weren’t very dynamic. This one, we’ve got him. And there are other great teachers around. And yes, and we’ve also met. We have Dharma Friends, we have Dharma Centers, lots of books, all sorts of things to encourage us in our practice.
Recognizing that, we’ve got the optimal chance to work with our mind in a really profound, meaningful way. We need to recognize that otherwise we will waste this life. And that’s a tragedy to waste life in general, but to waste a precious human rebirth is really a great tragedy. So with this precious human rebirth, what what is what is the meaning of having a precious human rebirth? The meaning is that we can get a we can we can accomplish any spiritual thing we want.
Particularly, like, if we want to become a kind person, a more moral person, a more generous person, a more patient, loving, compassionate, wise person, we can do it because we’ve got the optimum conditions. But there’s nothing and we’ve got all the encouraging factors. We’ve got all the freedom, all the encouraging factors. What stops us is our own failure to recognize the situation and, unfortunately, our spiritual laziness. Otherwise, we’ve got the best situation.
If we were to Tibet Marx, for example, first part of life’s memorizing books, dharma texts. Even though they’re quite small, they’ve memorized whole books of the Dharma. They can just read them. They can just pull up the whole book. There’s nothing stopping us doing that.
Yeah? Or studying as becoming an expert in any part of the spiritual teachings. There’s nothing stopping us. Everything is encouraging us. The only problem is we fail to recognize it, and we’re lazy.
I’m not trying to give you a hard time. Yes, am, but me too. This applies to me. So especially we can get, with our precious human rebirth, we’ve got the optimal chance to guarantee a good rebirth so that we can move away from suffering. We will never have it any better.
Right? The the deep meaning of the precious human rebirth is that we can quite literally achieve liberation and enlightenment with this body, this life. If we practiced tantra, the tantric teachings of the Buddha, we could even achieve enlightenment in this life, in this one life. That is a slim possibility. But at least we can definitely start the path in this life, guaranteed.
That’s the real meaning of having these eight freedoms and ten endowments. We can use it to achieve liberation and enlightenment. Really. Not this is not being cute. This is the reality.
There’s everyone who became a Buddha or realized being used the precious human rebirth to do so. That’s what they had, just like ourselves. Nothing nothing lower, nothing less. Another thing with the precious human rebirth is that we can make every moment meaningful. We can use our body, our speech, and mind in so many ways to make life meaningful for ourselves and others, to purify our mind, to do virtuous things, accumulate merit, do meaningful things.
There’s nothing stopping us. Nothing stopping us. We just fail to recognize it and we are lazy. Okay. I’ll stop there.
There’s lots more to do tonight. Sorry to bombard you, but Tabrake. Ten ten minutes. Good. Yeah.
Good. Good. Yeah. What is the purpose? There is no purpose.
This is the sixty five dollars question or the sixty four thousand dollars question, which is where is there suffering? That simple question. No. Very simple. Well, it’s very We have suffering because of ignorance.
And then our question becomes why why do we have ignorance? And the frustrating answer is that we do. It’s there. It’s always I mean, it gets very com I have answered this in actually previous courses that you’ve been at. But the whole purpose the whole purpose of the spiritual path, the path to enlightenment, is to eliminate ignorance from the mind completely.
Because if once ignorance and even subtle imprints are are oh, okay. Maybe I have to repeat the question. Oh, no. Why? The question is basically, what is the purpose of suffering?
So there is no purpose but suffering exists because it has a cause which is ignorance. And then you can ask the question but why is there ignorance? And the answer is that to answer that I just have to make this point that the purpose of the path is getting rid of ignorance and even the imprints of ignorance because where ignorance and its imprints are alleviated, there is enlightenment. There is liberation and enlightenment. Now if the nature of the wisdom that gets rid of ignorance is that it once wisdom is established completely in the mind, there’s no way ignorance can return.
Because if it could, what would be the point of engaging in all this difficult practice to get rid of ignorance and then it comes back again just by itself. Right? So the point very nature of wisdom is that it utterly eradicates wisdom in such ignorance in such a way that it will never come back and therefore ignorance doesn’t return. So that means that it very logically follows that ignorance has always obscured our Buddha nature, the pure nature of our mind. Because otherwise, you would have to say, at some point, we were enlightened and then ignorance started.
And that’s impossible. So that means that ignorance because just as the mind is beginningless, the mind never started. Ignorance never started. It’s always blurred with the mind. But even though it’s always blurred with the mind, it’s always obscured the mind, it doesn’t follow that it can’t be removed.
Cause that’s what the whole Buddhist practice is about, removing it. That’s what the Buddha achieved and said, I achieved it. You can achieve it too because my mind is no different than yours. So that’s something to think about really, of course. Because I you know, and I asked him to say, well, what caused ignorance or who caused it and why?
You know? Why would why would everyone make up ignorance? It just the the bizarre thing is is just we have you know, our mind is naturally pure and perfect, but it’s also always been obscured. Now I put it there. It’s always been there.
But it can be permanently, tightly removed by wisdom. So last week I was saying that the Buddha Śākyamūni according to the tradition was already enlightened. So if that is the case, what does that mean for Buddha nature in relation to ourselves? There was a being who was always enlightened. It doesn’t mean that.
It just means that this being who became Śākyamūni Buddha became a Buddha a long, long time ago, but they manifested in this world to teach us because in the teachings it says that when the person who became long time ago before Śākyamūni Buddha was a Buddha, when he was a bodhisattva he made this vow that when I achieve enlightenment, I will teach, excuse me, the most difficult of sentient beings, the ones who are really difficult to put in a degenerate times when people are really deluded, I will appear and teach. Because according to the teachings, many Buddhas have tried to teach us and have just given up. Oh, you’re too this bunch are too difficult. But the Buddha said, I will teach the most difficult of his incredible compassion. So the woman having achieved enlightenment, having made that vow, he is now fulfilling it.
He appeared in this world for us. Don’t get too depressed by that. The opposite, be happy that the Buddha has specifically chosen us to take care of. Especially, you know, the the there’s one reason you know, all the the topics which we’re going through and which are all topics to be they’re meditation topics. They all have, like, a short term, immediate, intermediate, and long term purpose.
The long term is to bring about enlightenment. In terms of meditating on recognizing the precious human rebirth, again, that it’s about getting us going in the spiritual path, helping us to renounce this life. But it’s it’s a direct and immediate yeah. Immediate purpose is well, one of its purposes is to make the mind happy. You know, if if one does this meditation properly, it should make the mind happy because one recognizes, wow, I have a precious human rebirth, which is unbelievably rare, which is the next point just to briefly mention.
First of all, it’s to try and go through, look at the eight freedoms, the ten endowments, and realize I’ve got those or I’ve got most of them. How amazing. It isn’t like a miracle to have all all or most of those eight freedoms and ten endowments. And then I realize with it, I can do all these amazing things, the most meaningful things. And then one has to meditate or doesn’t have to.
The next stage of that meditation is to understand how incredibly rare a precious human rebirth is because a precious human rebirth just doesn’t happen. Nothing happened just happens. There has to be causes. And to create the causes to have eight freedoms and ten endowments is immensely difficult. Incredibly difficult.
Basically, cause is or the causes are to practice pure morality in previous lives and pure generosity, and also to consciously dedicate pray to get a precious human rebirth. So to do those things purely is extremely difficult, like pushing a rock up a hill. And in past lives we did that because we have the result. It’s not an accident, it is a very precise result of precise causes, unbelievably difficult. So if we realize that, how could we waste it?
All the ordinary things, meaningless and negative things. And we want to understand how incredibly rare and difficult a precious human rebirth is, is to compare the number of human beings on this earth with the number of sentient beings trapped in animal bodies. If you think of animals as being four legged, two legged, and there are all kinds of insects, bacteria, tiny things living in the earth, on the earth, in the water, in the sky. For every human being, there are thousands and thousands and we have beings living in our body. We have sentient beings living on our body.
So for every human being, there are literally thousands, possibly millions of sentient beings in the animal realm. Why? Because it is very easy to create the negative causes to be born in the animal realm. And even to be a suffering human being is very rare. It’s very difficult to be you know, just to to have any kind of human rebirth.
So for each year, you know, like, ratio between animals and humans is is is enormous. And then they isolate from the seven billion human beings. You take away those who have all these other are overwhelmed with suffering, have no faith, have never met the dharma, all of those things, and you have almost no human beings, hardly any anywhere right now who have the precious human rebirth. And then you think, I’ve got one. So you wouldn’t think that people like the president of the United States or the queen of England are at the top of the heap, but we are from a spiritual point of view.
That’s why we’re better. It’s not saying we are any better than any other sentient being. It just means momentarily, and that’s the operative word, because the precious human rebirth doesn’t last forever because we’re going to die. And even before we die we can lose the precious human rebirth because we may go crazy or our body may fall apart or if we have faith in the Dharma we lose it or something else. Momentarily, we just happen to be in the best position to practice the Dharma, to be free, to be totally free.
We have won, you know, we have won the lottery. You don’t have to buy the lotto. We’ve won literally the the lottery, and we don’t realize it. We have won something far better than, as my teacher says, what does he say? Even if you had, like, you won or given a mountain of diamonds like as high as Mount Everest.
What can I do with all that? Not much. And it’s it’s with a mountain of diamonds, high as Mount Everest, we’re still going to die. It won’t stop us dying, won’t stop us getting sick, won’t stop us growing old, won’t stop us being unhappy. But with the precious human rebirth, we can stop all that eventually.
Start to stop it. So we have literally, not being cutesy wootsy, literally won the highest, best, rarest lottery of all. That’s what we need to realize. That’s why we need meditate on these points until we get it, until like the beggar, we realize, ah, it’s a diamond. I’ve got a diamond.
But it’s better than a diamond, inconceivably more than a diamond, especially when we discover yeah. So unbelievably rare because it’s so difficult to create the causes. So what then allows us to practice more is to realize that I’ve got this precious human rebirth which is so rare, so rare, and yet I am wasting it on things that are either meaningless or actually negative. I am engaging in negative actions or meaningless actions. And what helps us renounce all of that is to realize all the stuff that I’m attached to craving in the external world, hoping and believing it’s gonna make me happy.
It’s all impermanent. It doesn’t last. It can’t last. It’s changing moment by moment, irreversibly. Yeah?
It’s all arising depending on causes and conditions. If you check, everything that depends on causes and conditions is impermanent. It changes moment by moment, decays moment by moment irreversibly. So people are happy you know, we have a lasting happiness on things depending on things which are impermanent. How can impermanent things, people, relationships, objects, power, money, prestige, fame, all of which are impermanent, how can that bring lasting happiness?
It’s not. It can’t. And all the things that upset us, bad news, annoyance, make us angry, frightness, well, they’re also impermanent. They don’t last. And we waste our time and energy obsessing on all these things because we think they’re permanent.
They’re going to last, but they’re not. So we have to break through that illusion. We have to allow ourselves to realize everything in this world is impermanent. I am impermanent. Everything, you know, my possessions, family, friends, everything is impermanent.
So why waste time on things that aren’t going to last? Why not practice the Dharma because the the results I get from working with my mind, these will last because the mind is the only thing that goes on forever. Nothing else does. The mind is different in the sense that it changes moment by moment, but it goes on forever. Everything else changes below by moment, but it decays moment by moment, and so it eventually collapses, falls apart.
And this thing, you know, it doesn’t look like it, but it is changing all the time. Yeah? Everything there. And not just something fragile like a flower, but this is also this thing here is decaying moment by moment. One day, it’ll be quite a few days.
It won’t it’ll just be dust as will this earth. But the mind goes on forever. This body is is not going to last, But the mind will, and what we do with it lasts. The good stuff. Even the bad stuff doesn’t last, fortunately.
But the good stuff we do with our mind, that stays because it connects you know, when we do good things, it’s due to motivations of love and compassion and so on. And love and compassion are integral aspects of the mind. They are mind. The mind is made up of love and compassion. So when we do things motivated by that, those things influence the mind forever because, yeah, they are the nature of the mind.
So that really helps us to let go of our obsessions with this life so we we can focus on what is really meaningful is in addition to being aware that everything external is impermanent is to realize that I myself am going to die. So most of us have we’ve we’ve looked at this for the last six weeks about in the previous Discovering Buddhism course, but this is something we have to and it’s such an important topic to think about again and help to be mindful of that to realize I myself am going to die. Yeah? There’s not yeah. This is absolutely definite.
The one thing I can be sure of is that I’m going to die. No reasons for that because I the best reason is because I I have come into existence depending on causes and conditions. And everything that depends on the cause and conditions is impermanent. Like the sound of a bell which carries out existence depending on the causes and conditions. And now it stopped, doesn’t exist anymore.
Decaying moment by moment. So this thing is like the sound of a bell. This is like the sound of a bell. And this thing, which is so so solid is like the sound of a bell. It’s decaying moment by moment.
And it just set a point. Finished. So the mind leaves. Yeah. And then a whole set of experience starts.
Definitely. And not so we don’t know why we’re going to definitely die, but we could die at any time. Because there’s so many causes of death, extraordinary, totally weird causes of death, common causes of death, like disease and accident and so on, and very extraordinary rare causes of death. And we have to have them. So and our human life isn’t fixed, So it knows we could die at any time.
So if we think about that, this could motivate us that since my life is definitely going to leave this body, this realm, but continue, I really should start I should practice the Dharma. In other words, take care of my mind to prepare for that this one indefinite thing of living this life and going to another rebirth. And if we think that I could die at any time, we this encourages us to to stop postponing our practice of taking care of the mind and realizing I need to take care of my mind now. That’s that’s the most important thing to do. Especially if we could be mindful that we could die at any time, this would help us subdue all the disturbances in our mind that bring us suffering now and suffering in the future.
Why be attached to things if if I could die at any moment? Why you know, I don’t wanna die a with a mind of strong craving and attachment. Or why be angry if I could die right now being angry? I don’t want to die angry. Or why be proud or jealous or anything because I don’t want to die in that kind of negative state of mind.
So the very third point to think about in terms of death one’s own mortality, is to really seriously think about what is going to help me when I die. Especially of all the things I’m doing in my life now, my precious human rebirth, which is, you know, so short, of all the things that take is taking up, eating up this precious human rebirth, what is all of it will actually benefit me and help me as I’m dying. And if we’re honest, not much of what we’re doing isn’t going to help us at all. You know? No matter how much money we have, no matter how many possessions we have, none of that is going to help us at the time of death.
Our attachment to it could be a huge obstacle, or actually it will be. If we have attachment to our wealth, possessions at the time of death, however much attachment we have, we will have that much difficulty letting go, and therefore that much difficulty having a peaceful mind which is the vital ingredient for having a good rebirth. We have so much attachment and involvement with family and friends. Again, our family and friends are not probably going to help us at the time of death. I wish we have some good dying friends who might be able to pray as we’re dying, but even, you know, that’s not that much help, some help.
But most of our faith, maybe family and friends aren’t interested in the dharma, have no belief in it. Anyway, our attachment to them, so they they can’t help. And our attachment to them, their attachment to me, will create lots of problems at the time of death. And then my body, we spend a lot of time trying to make the body It hasn’t worked with me. Look okay.
You know? Healthy, beautiful, desirable, blah blah blah. It’s not gonna help at the time of death. And you have to acquire knowledge. Being an expert in this, that, and the other is not gonna help at the time of death.
Being famous, powerful, is not going to help at the time of death. And all our attachments to those things will be an obstacle. What will actually help at the time of death are the good qualities of heart and mind that we have, such as having faith, having a kind heart, a generous heart, compassion, loving kindness, patience, etcetera, etcetera. Those are the qualities that we need at the time of death. And when they suddenly happen, they don’t suddenly arise.
They will only arise if we’ve cultivated them during this life. And we will really only cultivate them strongly if we recognize that we have got a precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to do so. But if we are attached to the things of this life, our attachment to just this life and the good stuff of this life and be obsessed with all the problems of this life, that will just swamp our good qualities and activate all our negative ones. So if we realise that actually taking care of our mind, cultivating our mind, practicing the Buddha’s teachings, the Dharma, is the best thing that will benefit at the time of life at the time of death. This will encourage us not only to use this precious human rebirth to follow the spiritual path and to to do it now, but also to do it genuinely, sincerely, not just some kind of half hearted pretense.
So it’s particularly about thinking about the impermanence of death. This is the key factor that turns our mind away. It’s the real heart of developing this first level of motivation that turns away our mind from obsessing with this life and thinking about the need to use this life to ensure a good rebirth. Because rebirth is coming, and what kind of rebirth depends on the causes. It’s so easy to create the causes of a bad rebirth, difficult to create the good causes of a good rebirth, but I’ve got the precious human rebirth, the optimal chance, the best chance to free of all the worst obstacles have all the encouraging factors that make it as easy as possible to create the causes of a good rebirth.
That’s it for tonight. So just to be close, have they already collected oh, they haven’t. Who has got their homework and everything? Because because actually, can you can you has got their homework? Just just one?
You got two. Right. So two sets. I just have to explain just very quickly, the homework, especially for the young people. But Do you both have those two books?
Do you do you no. Yeah. So if they they they do this, I’ll just cut those later. Yeah? These are free.
So right. So, well, this this is a very special night. I’ve actually covered everything I intended for the very first time ever, I think. Crikey, I haven’t had time to So, if the syllabus says to read the Essence of Tibetan Buddhism, this is book, this one, by Lama Tsongkhapa. I haven’t worked out which bit to read yet.
Pronunciation. Up page twenty one. And if you feel tempted to read more, I would encourage people just to read the homework that is set rather than just reading. You can. I can’t stop you.
But if you want to read more, read more about what you’ve already read. You know, try to go into that in-depth. Okay? So that’s one thing to add. So in the essence of Tibetan Buddhism, turn it up to the beginning of page twenty one.
And then in the daily meditation, it says, Please do the daily meditation. So that’s your student material at the beginning of pages. I’m not sure on page of you’ll you’ll find it at the beginning of in section one of the student material. To do that you’ve got that from week one. So do you have that to check at the workwear handouts?
You wouldn’t have those, would you? I’ll give those to you in a yeah. So this is at at the end of that meditation on on Śākyamūni Buddha, after you’ve done all that, just before dedicating your if you want to, And the prayer for dedicating an errant is on page nine. Just to do a little simple meditation and reflection on the importance of having a qualified teacher. So I’ve got the hangout for that, right, tonight.
Guided meditation on devoting to a qualified spiritual master. So the idea is just to read through that and reflect on the meaning of that as you can. Okay? There are four handouts. There’s homework and three handouts.
There are four shots over there that everyone should collect, Right? So what you do tomorrow. To my ideal I’m just a sure that we all do this dutifully. You chat out of bed early, and so I’ll talk to it a little bit once you met a minute. So please try if you can.
The whole idea of this course is to try and do these things if you can. At least sometime during the day, but ideally first thing in the morning. So I think one is referring to that. So the assignments: so Thursday, number two, is to meditate on the freedoms and the endowments, which is referring to this refers to you recognizing a precious human rebirth. Is to meditate on the priority of a precious human rebirth.
So that’s the other two parts of that meditation on that sheet. For this Sunday is that four is to meditate on impermanence. So I don’t have a handout for that, but basically just to I I don’t know you’ve done the cause on impermanence and death. But just for those who have it, just try to reflect how everything just checking the truth of are things impermanent. They don’t look it, but if you check the that are permanent, the change in decay, if you are such as a flower, if you agree that this is impermanent, you can also check that this this theory comes to in existence depending on causes and conditions.
If you then investigate everything in the world exists depending on causes and conditions. So this means that just like just one thing depending on causes and conditions is impermanent, it it means everything that depends on causes and conditions is actually impermanent, even though they don’t look like it. So you can’t even hold it permanently. Even though you wanted, you were trying to hold it, you can’t. Okay.
So that’s a theory. To thinking about death and so on and death is certain. Number six is to think about how the time of death is uncertain and number seven is to think what helps at the time of death. Okay? So what we’re doing in first practice is during the day to try to be aware, to be mindful of the particular thing you’re irritated on.
That’s why it’s good to do it first thing and allowing to reflect on these points first thing, and then try to maintain some awareness of that point. Such as if you meditate on impermanence, then try to be aware of it during the day and particularly to, you know, sort of be particularly aware of things that really demonstrate that strongly. This, say, fifteen minutes max altogether. You can talk a longer, but say if, I I I yeah. I was getting late, but I wanted to do the Shaknir.
Put a meditation together tonight, but there’s no time. But I’ll try and do it as a group next week. Also yeah, but please try and do it. And then if you have some questions, we we can try and deal with any questions about breathing or the posture or how to do the Śākyamūni Buddha meditation. One thing with the visualizations, most people some people seem to be able to visualize really well.
I can’t. It’s very difficult, but it’s worthwhile trying to. And I think in other ways, rather than using the word visualization, sometimes, like, just imagine is better. Visualization somehow implies you’ve got this absolutely, like like watching television in front of you. Well, it’s just imagining the the Buddha.
If you can just imagine the Buddha’s there. And even if it appears, you just pretend the Buddha’s there. Yeah? You pretend you’re visualizing. You pretend it’s very there.
Yeah. It’s all happening. But the Buddha’s don’t don’t like, I can’t do this. I can’t it’s too difficult because everything happens through the power of familiarity. They just trail your mind.
Things will happen definitely at some point. So thank you very much. That’s it for tonight. We can finish with the dedication of now because we’ve put some positive information and impressing our mind. It will develop some positive imprints tonight and put positive inference in our mind so we can dedicate all that positive energy that it becomes a cause for us to be able to really follow the spiritual path, quickly achieve enlightenment for the sake of all kind suffering mother sentient beings.
Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a guru Buddha and let all of you beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born, rise and grow. May you like born have not declined but increase forevermore. So for some of the people, if you feel like doing Śākyamūni Buddha meditation and the prayers is a bit too much like religious indoctrination, you can leave it out. But at least do the analytical meditation to think about these things.
Yeah. Yeah. But I do encourage people because this is about discovering Buddhism. If you wanna discover what Buddhism is really about, it is about certainly Tibetan Buddhism, is about prayers and visualizing and mantras, and it has many, many aspects. And what appears maybe kind of weird and creepy and strange and primitive at first, you may come to love.
You may come to hate it, but give it a chance. Give it a chance. Can I think of the age? The Gelug tradition is the tradition of teaching us. Would like three prostrations to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
Just very quickly, sorry. The tradition is whoever teaches the Dharma should sit higher than everyone else as a way to pay respect to the precious, priceless teachings of the Buddha. And at the beginning, when people do prostrations, you are prostrating to me. We are prostrating to the Buddha or the triple gem. Right.