Three Principal Aspects of the Path: undated recording, part 4

Okay. Okay. Okay. So irrespective of whether we are actually listening or explaining to Dharma, it is vital to generate a powerful motivation to benefit others. And so doing, this would be of benefit, to ourselves and to others.

So we must generate the motivation to listen to these teachings on the three principal aspects of the path, which are the very essence of all the teachings of the Buddha with the motivation of attaining a state of full enlightenment, which is a state endowed with all qualities and bereft of all faults for the benefit of all suffering mother sentient beings, not merely those suffering in the lower realms, but those suffering in general from the variegated sufferings of cyclic existence. So we will therefore meditate for one or two minutes to generate this motivation before listening to the teachings. Page one. Refuge and bodhicitta 42. On page five, Mandala offering.

We only do the first and the last verse. And there’s the English on page six if you’re not familiar. Which is renunciation without pure bodhicitta does not bring forth the perfect bliss of unsurpassed enlightenment. Therefore, Bodhisattvas generate excellent bodhicitta. Rinpoche says, generally speaking, in line two of your stanza, the objective, perfectly qualified bliss refers both to perfection with respect to oneself, in other words, perfection with respect to the qualities one has attained, and perfection with respect to others, in other words, perfection with respect to the activities one can perform for the benefit of others.

It is only if this mind of bodhicitta is generated within one’s mind stream that whatever activities we perform with this mind will act as a cause for full enlightenment. Otherwise, they will not. So once bodhicitta has been generated within our mind stream, we are qualified to be to be called children or sons of the conquerors, of the victorious ones. We, become the friends of Bodhisattvas. And in terms of our type or the class of being we belong to, we transcend beings of the Shravaka and Pratyekabuddha classes.

As I said in Bodhicaryāvatāra, the merit accrued through placing beings in such a state is inconceivable. And which he says, the merit one accumulates through removing the suffering of every single sentient being without exception and placing every single of these beings in a state of perfection, a full enlightenment, and striving to do so, such a merit is immeasurable and inconceivable. So if the merit we accumulate through dispelling the headache of one single sentient being is vast, how vast would be that of dispelling the headaches of all beings? So one being already in and of himself or herself has inconceivable sufferings. So if clearing the inconceivable sufferings of one such being, clearing all the sufferings of one such being, and in addition to this, placing such a being in a state of perfection of all qualities, in other words, in a state of full enlightenment could be performed, then such a deed would generate inconceivable merit.

So generally speaking, the benefits and the merit accrued from generating bodhicitta are inconceivable. Now this this merit is invisible. It is nonmaterial. But if it were visible, if it were material and we we materialized it, it would be vaster than the 3,000 worlds, the three-thousandfold cosmos. It would be even vaster than this.

So it is almost inconceivable. Now why should we generate the mind of bodhicitta at this point? We have completed the section regarding the generation of renunciation of our text, the three principles of the path. And at present, Je Tsongkhapa says that the wise generate the mind of bodhicitta. The reason for this is explicated in the verse of our text, which says carried by the flow of the four powerful, or the four fierce rivers.

These four fierce rivers, ought to be understood as follows. Based on Abhidharma, it’s generally said that these four rivers are the river of desire, the river of existence, the river of the view, and the river of ignorance. The river of desire is, refers to, because it’s an example here, to the collection of all of the afflictions of the desire realm with the exception of ignorance. So we take all the afflictions of the desire realm and we exclude ignorance. And this is exemplified by the river of desire.

The second flow of afflictions is the river of existence. This refers to the collection of afflictions specific to the two higher realms, the form realm and the formless realm from within the three, the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. Then the third river is the river of the view. This refers to all of the wrong views, such as the view of the transitory collection, the view of the collection of the aggregates, and so forth. And the fourth river, which is the fundamental river if you want, it’s a root affliction, is that of ignorance, which as we said earlier, we dispel or we eliminated from the first group of delusions.

So these four rivers are for examples of the flow of delusions carrying beings, and they are said to be rivers at the level of the cause. At the level of the effect, they give rise to four broad categories of effects, which can also be called rivers of flows. These are the effects of birth, disease, aging, and, death. So who is carried on these rivers? The victims, if you want, are all the mother sentient beings.

In the same way as when you see a human being being carried away by a torrent, he’s being propelled left and right with no control. In the same way, sentient beings are propelled with no control through these four rivers of of afflictions. And in addition to this, their hands and legs are bound. What are they bound by? They are bound by the chains of karma and affliction.

So they are carried away by these four torrents without being able to protect themselves. Now if this were just an ordinary bond, ordinary rope, if you want, it would be possible to cut through it and free beings. But these are steel bonds, bonds of iron, and it is very difficult to do this in the same way as if you have a bunch of flotsam of wood which is, discarded and tied up with wire. It’s very difficult to cut it. Now here, the the bind which is holding beings is fundamentally that of self grasping.

And if we continue with the this metaphor which we Rinpoche is presenting a visualization to us for, the beings which are carried away in these fierce torrents are bound, and they are crying for help. But it is midnight. It’s dark. And this darkness is a darkness of ignorance. So even though the beings are crying for help or beings carried in the flow of cyclic existence, nobody can help them.

Their cries are heard, but because of the darkness of ignorance, nothing can be done for them. If you imagine the flow of the great rivers of this earth, this flow has an end. But these rivers, these gigantic rivers of cyclic existence are endless. They are infinite. They proceed to infinity.

And within them, beings endure sufferings within the lower realms because of non virtuous karma, the general sufferings of cyclic existence because of virtuous karma, merit, and, specific sufferings connected with immutable, preparatory karma. But they are constantly plagued by the many sufferings of cyclic existence. And these mother sentient beings have only one hope and one wish, and that is to free to be freed from this tragic situation. And these mother sentient beings which are carried in these this gigantic flow of existence are infinite, immeasurable, uncountable. They are ocean like in their vastness.

And then who is going to help these beings which are swept away on an ocean of rivers of suffering? The only hope these old mother sentient beings have are their children. So we are their children. They have no other hope but but us. So it is our responsibility to remove them from this flow of suffering.

So we have attained the body to do this. And what are the means at our disposal to do this? The means at our disposal is the practice of Dharma because we must reflect again and again on this horrific infinite suffering of beings, which is so great that it must pierce our mind as a needle. We can imagine if our mind were pierced by a needle or a sword, how terrible the suffering would would be. We have to imagine that from our side, the empathy we feel for the suffering of these mother sentient beings is so great, there is nothing we would not do to help them.

Their suffering is insupportable for us. And with this as a motivation, we engage in Dharma practice. And these beings which are borne away in these huge rivers, who are they? They are none other, but our fathers and mothers of this life and of all previous lives. If we do not generate love for these beings, if we cannot generate love for these beings, then we are brainless.

We are beings without a brain, without comprehension. We ourselves will be carried away the same way by these rivers in the future. So the only hope the poor beings being carried away in this flow have is that hope in their children, which is us. There is no other hope but that for them. These are real tragedies.

This is real suffering. We complain endlessly about our small problems. But when we look at the infinite problems of beings borne away in the flow of cyclic existence, those are real problems. That is a tragedy. And then we should reflect and think, who but I, who am the son of these poor mother sentient beings, will take the responsibility of freeing them from suffering and thereby generate compassion?

Who but I will take the responsibility of placing them in a problemless state, a state endowed with complete happiness and bereft of all difficulties, which is a state of full enlightenment. And with this as a motivation, generating bodhicitta, we should then practice Dharma. To give an example, imagine a mother who has an only child, and this only child is afflicted of or by a ghastly disease. The child can barely breathe. Every breath is labored and painful.

The only thought in the mother’s child in the mother’s mind when seeing her child suffering and struggling to breathe, the only thought which is in the mother’s mind is how can I free my child? What can I do to help my child? She has no other thought but this. She concentrates only on this. And this is how we should feel with respect to the suffering of other beings.

We should feel the same preoccupation with their suffering which a mother has for her only child and think it is terrible. It is atrocious that they endure these sufferings. I will do everything in my power to free them. So it is this sort of mind which has taught us to train in, and it is this sort of mind himself trained in. And we are all students of Je Tsongkhapa.

Je Tsongkhapa is a guru. He is our lama. So Je Tsongkhapa instructs us to develop bodhicitta, and the student must obey what his guru tells him. So we must develop this mind of bodhicitta. Now within the two techniques for developing bodhicitta, the interchange of self and others and the sevenfold cause and effect generation of bodhicitta, the interchange of self and others is an inconceivably profound teaching whose lineage passed onwards from Mañjuśrī to Nāgārjuna, from Nāgārjuna to Guru Serlingpa, from Serlingpa to Atisha, and then to the great Kadampa Geshes like Geshe Chengawa and Geshe Chekawa whose main and only practice this was?

In the second lineage, the transmission of the sevenfold cause and effect generation of bodhicitta was initiated by Buddha Śākyamūni himself and transmitted from him to Ārya Maitreya, from Maitreya to Asaṇga, from Asaṇga onwards to Guru Serlingpa, from Serlingpa to Atisha, and then from Atisha to Dromtonpa and the Kadampa Geshes. Why were these two lineages taught separately? Generally speaking, the sevenfold causal lineage for the generation of bodhicitta is a public and general teaching. It is appropriate for beings of greater middling and lesser capacity and of all levels of understanding, courage and dedication. However, the practice of the interchange of self and others is a supplementary, practice.

It is actually an esoteric practice reserved for the small minority of exceptional disciples with exceptional mental capacities, exceptional courage, exceptional energy and dedication. This is why it is called supplementary or ancillary. Good. Good. And Geshe Chekawa, who was a very great bodhisattva of the Kadampa tradition, was the one who finally, taught the, ancillary practice of the interchange of self and others publicly to a wide gathering.

He felt that it would be of benefit to teach not merely the lineage of the sevenfold cause and effect, but as well this uncommon and powerful practice for exceptional disciples to a larger gathering. And therefore, he taught them both. And all we owe to Geshe Chekhawa the presentation of the public teaching of the interchange of self and others, it is to Je Rinpoche, to Je Tsongkhapa himself, that we owe the uncommon, extraordinarily profound, and powerful means of attaining bodhicitta whereby the two, the lineage of the sevenfold cause and effect, and the interchange of self and other are interwoven.

And practiced inseparably the one from the other. So as explained previously, we have completed the section on the generation of renunciation within the three principles of the path. We have now entered the section on the generation of the mind of bodhicitta. And will teach this, and we will meditate on this in keeping with Je Tsongkhapa uncommon tradition of fusing these two lineages. Very, very good.

Very, very good. Rinpoche says, you have good brains. You have good minds, and you are very fortunate to receive these instructions. To receive instructions like this, the teacher is very fortunate to be able to grant them, and the disciples are very fortunate to be able to receive them. Even if you cannot generate these powerful minds of bodhicitta within your mind stream, nonetheless, you can implant very powerful karmic imprints to generate them in the future.

You are not merely lucky. You are inconceivably lucky to receive these transmissions. All of us have been reincarnating for countless lives without hearing the mere name of these transmissions, let alone understanding the meaning. And at present, we will plant the seed so that in the future, it will be possible for us to generate this mind of bodhicitta. So there is an 11 fold sequence for the generation of these conjoined this conjoined practice of the lineage of the sevenfold cause and effect in the interchange of self and others, which is we owe to Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche.

And there is a slightly larger 13 step generation, which we owe to the Dalai Lama. But apart from differences in enumeration, the meaning of this this process to generate the mind of bodhicitta is the same. So this practice is indissociable from the practice of Tonglen, of giving and taking. It is a practice whereby we give all our happiness and virtuous karma to others, and we take upon ourselves all their sufferings, their non virtuous karma, and their unhappiness. This is a practice which calls for great courage from the part of the practitioner.

And then when we refer to the interchange of self and others, the second of the two lineages Rinpoche was talking about, it is not the case when we speak of interchange of self and others that we say, I am you and you am, you are me. You know, this is not the type of interchange we are talking about. When we talk of the interchange of self and others, we are talking of a change of mindset, a change of attitude, of thought. There is a specific mindset, an egotistical mindset, which has been the cause of all our sufferings from beginningless time. It has led us nowhere.

And this is a mindset we’re going to throw out, we’re going to dispose of, and we’re going to replace it with a new wholesome mindset. And this practice of interchange of self and others is a practice where we strive to place others in actuality in the state of full enlightenment. It is a secret practice. It is said specifically by Atisha by, excuse me, by Śāntideva to be, a very powerful but secret practice. And what is meant here by the fact that it is a secret practice?

With respect to secret mantra, to Tantrayāna, we say that it is secret because it is unsuitable to reveal it to inappropriate vessels. Now in this context, the term, of secrecy or the secrecy of the practice arises from the fact that unsuitable vessels, practitioners who are not suitable for this practice, who are too weak, will, be afraid when they are told about this practice, and they will grow dizzy. They will not be able to perform it. So then it is better not to talk about this practice to them.

Very good. Then how do we engage in the training, which conjoins these two practices? The first training we have to engage in is immeasurable equanimity, which is that mind which wishes that all sentient beings be free both of desire and of hatred and be equal, or identical in that respect. And then with this as a foundation, we then generate the following level of mind, which is a recognition of all sentient beings as mother sentient beings, as beings which were our mothers infinitely close to us in past lives. And in dependence on the generation of this recognition of all sentient beings as mothers, we then recollect the kindness these mother sentient beings showed to us in the past, the infinite kindness they showed to us.

And remembering this again and again, it would be the behavior of a child, the behavior of a beast, not to want to repay the kindness of the mother, which has helped us so much in the past. And we then generate a powerful mind which wishes to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. And reflecting again and again on their present predicament, the infinite sufferings they are enduring, we should then think in the same way as a mother who sees her only child suffer and considers or feels that the sight of this is unbearable, that the suffering of sentient beings become unbearable to us. We simply cannot stand the thought that they suffer in this way. It pierces our mind like a needle.

And then we generate a powerful motivation to free all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering. It is at this point when we generate the great compassion that we in turn generate in keeping with the uncommon oral lineage of the fusion of the seven fold generation of bodhicitta and the interchange of self and others that we generate, the great equanimity. So as a foundation of this practice, we had just generated ordinary equanimity. But at present, we generate the great equanimity, which is a practice of the bodhisattvas, which wishes to place all sentient beings in an equal state of absolute happiness and an equal state of bereftness of freedom from all suffering, which is a state of full enlightenment. And at this point, we engage in the practice of the interchange of self and others.

This is how we fuse the two lineages. We engage in the, practice of the interchange of self and others by dispelling or eliminating the self grasping which has always inhabited our minds and replacing it with a grasping at the welfare of others, a concern, an existential concern for the welfare of others. For beginningless time, our minds have been activated, have been impelled by self grasping. And we have seen self grasping as a friend, and as a result of this, have endured suffering upon suffering. The time has come to replace self grasping by concern for others.

From beginningless time, instead of seeing self grasping as the enemy which it is, we have misapprehended it as a friend. And instead of seeing concern for others as the friend that it is, we have misapprehended it as an enemy. Instead, at present, it is critical to understand that self grasping is a poison and to apprehend self grasping as the poison it is, to understand poison as a poison, and to realize that concern for the welfare of others is like medicine and to understand the medicine to be itself medicine. It is because we ourselves have been ingesting poison from beginningless time that we have been cycling in the cycle of lives. And because the great bodhisattvas have taken medicine that they have reached a state of full enlightenment where all qualities are perfected and all faults are eliminated.

Likewise, we ourselves at present have to ingest the medicine of concern for others, and then we can hope to attain a state of full enlightenment. So, what is actually the relationship between self-cherishing and apprehending the self as truly existed or inherently existent. These two actually are very closely connected. They are, if you want, close friends, mutual friends. They help each other.

self-cherishing helps that, misapprehension of the self as truly existent. The misapprehension of the self as truly existent in turn helps self-cherishing. In dependence on these two, self-cherishing and apprehending the self as inherently or truly existent, we have accumulated all of the non virtuous karma, which we have accumulated since beginningless time. And in dependence on this, we have suffered again and again. So the key at present is to destroy self-cherishing and the mind which apprehends the self as inherently existent.

And we do this in the context of the practice of Tonglen, of giving and taking. So visualizing that we take through compassion all of the suffering of all mother sentient beings upon ourselves and it smashes self-cherishing and the mind which sees itself as inherently existent to smithereens, to bits. And then with the power of love, we give to all sentient being beings all our virtue and all our virtuous karma. And we engage in this constant process of taking their suffering and giving our virtuous karma to them. This is not, an easy process, Rinpoche says.

We actually must go to war with self-cherishing, with the mind which apprehends the self as inherently existent. It is a struggle, and struggles are not for the weak and the feeble. Struggles are for those with courage. So we have to generate courage within our mind stream to fight this good fight. And everybody says, you know, it’s a little bit like, some soldiers which are sent to battle, and they’re weak, and cowardly.

And when the time has come to go to war, they cry and they say to the commander, but please, I have a wife. I have a baby. I have a child. Send somebody else instead of me. Allow me to stay behind.

And Rinpoche says, this is precisely the attitude we don’t want to have. We have to have the courage to fight self-cherishing and this mind which apprehends itself as truly existent. In Tibetan, Bodhisattva is said: Jang means enlightenment, chub means mind, and sempa means power, a hero.

So these are heroes which are striving to attain the mind of enlightenment. They are struggling mightily to generate this mind within their mind stream. They are heroes because they engage in the practice and the meditations on bodhicitta and the view of emptiness to destroy their enemy, which are the afflictions, the non virtues in their minds. And then we must generate the powerful resolution within our mind stream that we ourselves and no one but ourselves who are the children of these poor mother sentient beings carried away in the rivers, these four rivers which torment them about which Rinpoche spoke. We ourselves will save these mother sentient beings, and we ourselves, none but us, will lead them to a state of full enlightenment bereft of all suffering and endowed with all qualities.

And this mind is the mind of the great resolution and in dependence on this bodhicitta arises. The way to practice this is to practice these meditations incrementally step by step, gaining experience at each step of the way and then progressing onwards. So we will stop here for today.

So the question is, does the Rūpakāya arise from bodhicitta because of Buddha nature? And, basically, what is the cause of the Rūpakāya? Says, generally speaking, the two collections, the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom, respectively lead to the attainment of the two broad categories of the bodies of the Buddha, which is the Rūpakāya and the Dharmakāya. Now fundamentally, it is said that the Buddha has, if we develop these two bodies, four bodies. These four bodies are the two types of Dharmakāya, the Sambhogakāya and the Nirmānakāya.

The two types of Dharmakāya are the Dharmakāya, the Sambhogakāya and the Nirmānakāya both qualify as Rūpakāya or form bodies. The causes for the two types of Dharmakāya are respectively that truth of cessation, which is a mere cessation of afflictions and elaborations. And on top of this, that mind which sees all phenomena nakedly as if they were in the palm of one hand, which gives rise to the, omniscient mind of the Buddhist, the Svabhāvikakāya. Now these two are dharmakayas. In as much as they are dharmakayas, they are imperceptible to ordinary beings.

And therefore, out of the motivation to benefit ordinary beings, the Buddhas manifest the form body. And two different form bodies are manifested. At first, the Sambhogakaya is manifested, which is an extremely subtle body which can only be perceived by Ārya Bodhisattvas and Bodhisattvas on the grounds and higher. And since only such highly advanced beings can perceive it, again, to benefit ordinary beings who are not at that level, the Buddha then manifest Nirmanakayas or emanation bodies. Both the Sambhogakayas and the Nirmanakayas, which are form bodies, which are Rupakayas, are manifested for the benefit of beings.

And generally speaking, they are the result of the method side of the the path. Specifically, they are the result of the practice of love, of compassion, of bodhicitta, and of the four first of the six perfections, are giving, morality, forbearance, and enthusiasm. And then, generally speaking, from within these four bodies of the Buddha, as Rinpoche explained, we have two bodies which are the dharmakaya and two bodies which are the rupakaya. The dharmakaya is referred to as the body attained for one’s own benefit, and the rupakaya is referred to as the body attained for the benefit of others. And in the Buddhist tradition, there is reference to what is called the three perfections, which are the three perfections of the dharmakaya, of the rupakaya, and the perfection of the speech of the Buddha.

Now the meaning of these terms is as follows. The dharmakaya is said to be a body attained for oneself because it is the state of full enlightenment one has driven for, but in that state, one is not able to benefit others directly since one is not visible to them. The Rūpakāya is a state whereby one manifests to others. They can actually perceive oneself. Therefore, it is said to be the body attained for the sake of others.

And then since the rupakaya in and of itself does not communicate, it needs to communicate with beings to impart the teachings to them and thereby to place them in a state of liberation and eventually a full enlightenment. Therefore, a third activity is necessary, and this is the third perfection, which is a perfection of the speech of the Buddha. So we have two broad bodies divided in four, and they can also be subsumed or expanded into three perfections, the perfection of the dharmakaya, the rupakaya, and of the speech of the Buddha. Okay. So bodhicitta is a motivation.

In dependence on this motivation, one engages in practice of the six perfections. Now within the six perfections, the three first perfections, giving ethics and forbearance, are the direct cause for the Rūpakāya. And the two last perfections, which are Dhyāna and wisdom, are the cause for Dharmakāya. As for the fourth perfection, which is a perfection of energy or enthusiasm, it is necessary for the attainment of both the Rūpakāya and the Dharmakāya. So there’s no attainment of either of the bodies of the Buddha without enthusiasm.

And one could develop this much more, but says, we will leave it at that for today. Page nine. Verse nine. Okay. Thank you.