Advice for Realizing the Lamrim

Introduction: The Mind Can Be Trained

In this short, and very inspiring, excerpt from "The Heart of the Path: Seeing the Guru As Buddha," Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why our minds can be trained to achieve the realizations of the path to enlightenment.  

It is the basic nature of our mind that we can train it in any way we wish. As Shantideva says, there is nothing that the mind cannot be trained to become.^[1] In other words, the mind is a causative phenomenon, dependent on causes and conditions. Our mind is like a child: what it becomes depends on how we guide, or direct, it.

In his thought-training teachings, Geshe Chekawa said,

This mind, which has many faults, has one great quality. What is that? Whichever way you train it, that’s what it becomes.

Compendium of Valid Cognition, a teaching on logic, explains that with a physical activity such as jumping, we need to apply effort every time we jump; however, the more we train our mind in mental phenomena, such as in generating compassion, the less effort we require to generate compassion. After some time, we effortlessly feel compassion. It is similar with seeing the guru as a buddha. At first we need to apply effort to generate devotion through using logical reasoning and quotations; then after some time our mind will effortlessly be in the nature of devotion.

Seeing the guru as a buddha has all to do with mental training; it has all to do with the way we train our mind. What we perceive depends on the way we train our mind. All the things around us are impermanent, changing within every second, but if we don’t put effort into training our mind to see these things as impermanent, the realization of impermanence won’t come. Seeing things as impermanent doesn’t come from the side of the objects—it has to come from our own mind. If we train our mind to be aware of the impermanent nature of life by meditating that it changes within each second because of causes and condition and that death can happen at any moment, we see our life as being very short, and our wrong conception of permanence, our fixed idea that we are going to live for a long time, is stopped during that time. To realize the reality of impermanence we have to put effort into looking at things as impermanent.

In a similar way we can transform our mind from self-cherishing into bodhicitta, which is also a dependent arising. Depending on one set of causes and conditions, our mind is selfish, and depending on another set of causes and conditions, that same mind develops bodhichitta. Because causative phenomena depend upon causes and conditions, they can be changed and developed.

Similarly, all phenomena are empty by nature, but just knowing this fact is not enough for us to realize emptiness. We have to train our mind to recognize the ignorance that believes in true existence and the objects of this ignorance, the truly existent I and truly existent phenomena, which don’t exist. With this knowledge, we then need to put effort into not following this ignorance and into looking at things as they are, which means as dependent arisings, empty of existence from their own side. In this way, the realization of emptiness will come.

It is the same with the tantric practice of seeing everything as pure. If this had to come from the side of the object, it would never happen. Even though we see ourselves and this place as ordinary, through training our mind in tantric practice, as we achieve realizations of the generation stage and especially the completion stage, we will gradually come to see everything as pure; we will see ourselves and other beings as deities and the place as a mandala. This pure appearance doesn’t come from the side of the object; it has to come from our side, from our own mind. We have to put effort into training our mind to look at everything as pure.

If we just wait for the realizations of impermanence, emptiness and pure view to happen, they never will, even though in reality objects are by nature impermanent, empty of existing from their own side and pure. If we don’t put effort into looking at the I as impermanent or as empty, we will never realize its real nature. It has to come from our own side, not from the side of the object. We can’t realize the impermanence and emptiness of the I without meditating on them.

Video 1. Lamrim is the Most Important Thing

(duration: 3 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

If our mind is not in renunciation, bodhichitta, and right view, then what happens is our mind is being under the control of timug dendzin marigpa,^[1] the ignorance holding the I as truly existent, [as well as] the aggregates and so forth. Being under the control of that, then the three poisonous minds arise, then constantly, we create samsara. We initiate samsara. We create samsara. In one day, one hour, one minute, so many times we create samsara, we begin samsara—tendrel yänlag chunyi,^[2] the twelve dependent related limbs. Even in one day, even in one hour, even in one minute, we start so many, so it is endless, endless samsara. So, you have to suffer all this.

Therefore, we need to practice Dharma. We need to realize renunciation to samsara, by realizing that samsara is only in the nature of suffering, like being in the midst of fire. Then we need to realize bodhichitta, and right view, especially that, the antidote. Right view is the direct antidote to samsara, to the root of samsara—ignorance, timug dendzin marigpa. The antidote is the wisdom realizing emptiness. We have to know the correct emptiness, not what is called “emptiness” by many different schools. [We have to know] the Prasangika view of emptiness, the most subtle dependent arising. This emptiness we have to realize, without mistake. That becomes sooooooooooooo most unbelievably important.

The most unbelievably important thing in our life is lamrim. The practice of the three principal aspects of the path is the most important thing. This is the most important, more important than a job, money, or anything else in our life. It is the most important thing.

Video 3. Meditate Until You Achieve the Effortful and Effortless Experiences

(duration: 11 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

Meditate Until You Achieve the Effortful Experience

One thing is guru devotion. First, you do it like this, you can do like this, tsölje kyi nyongwa,^[1] generating or developing the experience of the lamrim—the experience of the graduated path to enlightenment—with effort. Tsölje kyi nyongwa, [the experience] with effort, maybe, let’s see, do it for a few months. Maybe one year… Divide one year, and do one, two, or three months—whatever, you decide—on guru devotion, on the basis of the outlines. Read the commentary and on the basis of the outlines, do meditation. During those months, you go through the outlines. Whatever is not finished today, then you do it tomorrow. So you can go back again. [This is] tsölje kyi nyongwa, developing the experience with effort.

Then the perfect human rebirth, its usefulness, it is difficult to find again; then impermanence and death; and the lower realms and karma—[the meditations of the] kyebu chungwa,^[2] the small capable being.

Kyebu^[3] translated should be “capable being,” not “lower scope,” “middle scope,” “higher scope.” That is a kind of sign that one didn’t really pick up, understand, the meaning of kyebu. It is kind of not full, but it has become known but kyebu, kyebu chung, kyebu dring,^[4] kyebu chen^[5] are lower capable being, middle capable being, higher capable being.

The ordinary capable being is one who only works for this life, only thinks of this life’s happiness, only that, the happiness of this life, only that, nothing else, working for this life, like ants, like worms. An ordinary capable being does that. So it is “capable”; in the Lam Drön it clarifies that, in the Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment.

Kyebu chungwa [the lower capable being]: for some months train the mind in that, kyebu chung. Then after that, some months on kyebu dring, [the middle capable being], then some months on kyebu chenpo [the higher capable being], jangchub sem [bodhichitta] and yangdagpai tawa, right view. So, you can divide the year. That is tsölje kyi nyongwa, developing the experience with effort.

Then, after that… You do one year and, if you still need, you can do a second year, and if you still need, you can do a third year—if you still need.

Meditate Until You Achieve the Effortless Experience

After that, when you think, “Now, if I really meditate, I can get realization,” oh, then at that time you train your mind in tsölme kyi nyongwa,^[6] without effort, in the effortless experience. Then train the mind in guru devotion for no matter how many weeks, months, or years it takes time to get the realization. So one meditation [in a day] is always that. Then, if you still have time in the same day, then train the mind in kyebu chungwa [the lower capable being]. Try to have the realization step-by-step of the eight freedoms and ten richnesses, how precious they are, to realize that. Then, its usefulness, then that it is difficult it is to find. Try to have those realizations of kyebu chungwa [the lower capable being] and so forth. No matter how many weeks, months, or years it takes time, train the mind. In the same day, even not at the same time but in the same day, do another meditation to get effortless experience. Then, if you still have time that same day… Like that, the tsölje kyi nyongwa [experience with effort] and tsölme kyi nyongwa, the effortless experience. So after you have that realization.

Perhaps guru devotion takes a long time so [at the same time] you can do the kyebu chungwa, the graduated path of the small capable being, to get the realization. Then, after that, the middle capable being, and after that, the effortless experience of bodhichitta for kyebu chenpo [the higher capable being], then you have the realization of that by the two techniques for generating bodhichitta. You can meditate on whichever is more effective, whichever way, equalizing and exchanging self and others [or the seven-point cause and effect meditation].

Then, emptiness. Emptiness, every day you should do some meditation on emptiness by reciting the Heart Sutra. There are many teachings, Mindfulness, dränpa zhi,^[7] the Four Mindfulnesses [Four Foundations of Mindfulness], or even ngä zhi jepa,^[8] the analytical meditation on the four vital points, or even a short one like this: nga chochen denpa mepe, tendrel yinpai chir, nga, “I,” denpa mepe, “I has no true existence.” That is one meditation. You can meditate so much on that. Then, tendrel yinpai chir, “Because it is a dependent arising,” tendrel yinpai chir, meditate on that. The words are nothing, that is only three words, nga chochen denpa mepe, tendrel yinpai chir, but there is a lot to meditate on. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, it can be just a quotation or a verse. There are many verses—four verses or two verses—but there is so much to meditate on. So you can do like that, every day do meditation like that on emptiness, that is good, if possible.

If one has a lot of merit in this life and from past lives, a lot of merit from having studied or heard or read teachings on emptiness—having read, listened to, or studied, or meditated in the past—if there are a lot of imprints left, then with one or two words, or some notes, like “There is I on the I,” or “There is vase on the vase,” something, just very simple words or notes or something, then you click. When your mind is ready, so much purification has been done and so much merit has been collected and there is so much devotion to the guru, oh, at that time even just a word like that, it can click to the mind. Otherwise, you don’t understand. It is like that.

It is very, very scientific, this meditation is like a clock that depends on one machine. If this works, then depending on this machine, this turns and then altogether it is able to tell the time. Depending on all this, then it is able to give the time. So lamrim realization, each step is like that. It is very scientific. It is very scientific with the mind. It is all to do with the mind, not outside. It is all to do with the mind. It is all very scientific. It is scientific because due to causes and conditions, dependent arising: by depending on something, this happens. By depending on something, this happens. Like that, it is scientific.

Video 4. Meditate Until You See the Guru as All the Buddhas

(duration: 6 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

When Your Mind is Trained in Guru Devotion, You See Your Guru as All the Buddhas

One has to continue with the meditation, analytical meditation and fixed meditation, on guru devotion until one has the stable realization that one is able to see the guru as all the buddhas and one is able to see one buddha as all the gurus that you have, those with whom you have received a Dharma connection. So one buddha is all the gurus that you have and one guru is all the buddhas that exist, you are able to see that from your side. By doing analytical meditation and fixed meditation training the mind in guru devotion, in the way of devoting to, or following, the guru, you completely prove that to your mind. Before you saw a buddha as higher and the guru as down, an ordinary being. Even if they know a lot of Dharma, a lot of texts of sutra and tantra, by heart, but you see them as somebody who is down, an ordinary being. There is kind of a huge difference like that. You discriminate [the guru] as an ordinary being full of mistakes and then a buddha as higher. Vajradhara, or Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, or Tara, Maitreya, Manjushri, Chenrezig, all those are something higher, purest. Before sometimes you might have thought, “I know more than the guru,” kind of like that, and then seeing the guru as an ordinary being. Then later you prove to your mind that one guru is all the buddhas, no separation. One guru is all the buddhas and one buddha is all the gurus that you have. Totally no separation, oneness. Without the guru there is no buddha. You see both: without guru there is no buddha and without buddha there is no guru.

Before, a buddha is something most pure and the guru is some ordinary person full of mistakes. This is how it is at the beginning. Then, through meditation, analytical meditation and fixed meditation, then using quotations, logic, and your experience, oh, then gradually you see less mistakes and more qualities. Then you see [the guru as] a buddha. But it is not for a few hours or a few days. It is not just for a few days. It is not just for a few hours or a few days and then it disappears. It is not like that. It is not like that. You see it from the depths of your heart, you see it one hundred percent, no question. It is like tea, cha, and chai in all the three languages but it is talking about one thing. It is like that; from your heart there is no question. For weeks, months, and years, it has to be like that, stable; not just for a few hours, “Oh, buddha,” and then it is gone, it disappears. That is still receiving blessings. I forgot the name but that is still the guru’s blessings. Even for a few hours, or two days, even a few hours or maybe for two or three days your mind is up, then it disappears, it is gone. That is not the realization, but that is still the blessing of the guru, but I forget the Tibetan name. It doesn’t matter. But when it is stable like that and lasts for weeks, months, years, oh, that is realization. You have to do the meditation until that happens; train the mind. 

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 10^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015.

Video 5. Meditate on the Precious Human Body and Death to Complete the Realizations

(duration: 9 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

Just to mention in brief to get the idea; train step-by-step in the meditation to have realization. By training the mind as it is mentioned in the teachings, you realize the eight freedoms and ten richnesses that this body has. It is so precious, not only [more precious than] gold, diamonds, and sapphires, but even wish-granting jewels, even than a billion, zillion, trillion dollars. This human body is so much more precious than a billion, zillion, trillion dollars. That is nothing. For example, [something] more precious than a diamond is a wish-granting jewel, with which whatever you pray for, all the temporary needs of this life, you get everything. But, from that, with that, you cannot purify the causes of the lower realms and get a higher rebirth. With that alone, to practice the three higher trainings and achieve the realizations of the path to nirvana can’t happen. You can’t achieve ultimate happiness. With that alone, you can’t do that. It doesn’t have mind, so it doesn’t have suffering. It doesn’t have mind and it doesn’t have suffering, so there is no way for it to generate compassion, bodhichitta, then enter the path and then achieve enlightenment. But by having this precious human body, it gives you the opportunity to purify past negative karma, the cause of the lower realms, and to achieve a higher rebirth; and to practice taking refuge and protect karma, so you get a higher rebirth; to practice morality and get a higher rebirth. Then with the three higher trainings, you get liberation. Then with this [body], it gives you the opportunity to practice compassion and bodhichitta, and that gives you enlightenment. You are able to achieve enlightenment from this  [body], even if you don’t have any wish-granting jewels or any diamonds, gold, sapphires, or any jewels, any rupees, dollars, like Milarepa who didn’t have any rupees and dollars, no dollars or rupees.

The thieves came to look for money in his cave but couldn’t find anything. He made soup with nettles and then they asked for chili and salt, and Milarepa said, “This is the chili,” then he put nettles in. Then, “This is is salt,” and he put nettles in. He didn’t have one single rupee but he achieved enlightenment. He used his precious human body, which has eight freedoms and ten richnesses, to achieve enlightenment, the state of Vajradhara, in this brief lifetime of degenerate times. He achieved that, although he didn’t have even one rupee or one dollar. So the human body is so…. This human body that you have, which has eight freedoms and ten richnesses, is most unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably precious, so much more precious than a wish-granting jewel, than even the sky filled with wish-granting jewels. This is more precious than the sky filled with wish-granting jewels.

How precious it is. (Rinpoche cites in Tibetan) “If you see the great meaning of life,” that life is so meaningful, “then you don’t waste your life.” “You give up the meaningless works.” “The meaningless works you give up.” “Those which waste your life, you give up, if you see that it is so meaningful.” (Rinpoche cites in Tibetan) “If you think that this is so difficult to find again…” If you have found this, which is so difficult to find again, then without practicing Dharma, without making life meaningful, worthwhile, without practicing Dharma, then you can’t relax. You can’t just waste time by following attachment, just wasting time in meaningless activities, just wasting your life. You are unable to do that if you have found that which is so difficult to find again. By practicing Dharma you try to make this meaningful.

By thinking of death, you don’t…. The appearances of this life [are such that] we always think, “Oh I’m going to live for a long time,” always, even on the same day when you are going to have an accident, the same day you are going to have an accident or going to get sick with a heart attack or whatever. Suddenly you are going to have a heart attack, but that same day from the morning when you get up, “Oh, I’m going to live for many years,” you think like that. Even five minutes before a car accident in which you die, “Oh, I’m going to live for many years.” It is cheating you, the concept of permanence. If you meditate on the impermanence of life, then you stop thinking you will live long and following the concept of permanence, then you see life is very short. Because of that, that makes you able to practice Dharma and complete the realizations. 

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 10^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015.

Video 6. Without Renunciation, Meditation on Emptiness and Bodhichitta is Very Shallow

(duration: 4 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

You want to have the realizations only that you like, “Oh, bodhichitta,” “Oh, this.” Only those that you like; you don’t want renunciation, you don’t think of renunciation—the shortcomings of samsara. You don’t think about the impermanence and death of your life, you don’t think. The lower realms, you don’t think. If you never think of these, only of bodhichitta, only emptiness, or tantra meditation, then it is difficult to have realizations, no matter how much you meditate. Without renunciation, bodhichitta, the good heart, bodhichitta, and all those other things are like what I said—putting tsampa^[1] on a river. If on a river you put tsampa, sprinkle tsampa, the tsampa doesn’t go down; the tsampa stays up. I f you meditate only on emptiness or bodhichitta, it is just very shallow, no essence, like a seed cover [a husk]. The essence is not there. It is a very shallow experience, very empty. The real realization, the real experience, doesn’t come. So it doesn’t come because you never meditate on renunciation. The basis to develop great compassion, the basis for bodhichitta, is renunciation—the shortcomings of samsara, how samsara is the nature of suffering, and the lower realms’ sufferings. If you never pay attention to that, if you don’t want to meditate on that, if you never pay attention to it, bodhichitta and all those things are just words between your lips. I mean it is just very shallow, not really from the heart, that one hundred percent you really feel it there.

If you do the previous meditations, it lays the foundation—renunciation. The lower realms’ suffering, then the sufferings of samsara, all these things, oh, [these bring] renunciation. The stronger renunciation you have, the more great compassion, the stronger compassion, for others, who are suffering in samsara. You can feel, you can see, how it is unbearable for others, the more you meditate on the lower realms’ suffering. When you have the realization of renunciation, then you are able to develop great compassion toward other sentient beings, feeling unbearable their suffering, so unbearable their suffering. When you are able to generate great compassion, then you are able to generate real bodhichitta. Otherwise, if you only do what you like, then nothing [happens]. However much, however many times, you meditate, not much happens. It is like that because there is no basis.

Video 7. Meditate Until You Have Stable Realizations of the Three Paths

(duration: 8 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

When Your Mind is Trained in the Graduated Path of the Small Capable Being, Nothing Bothers You

By training the mind in kyebu chungwa, the graduated path of the small capable being, then, whatever happens in this life, any problems, any difficulties, whatever happens, it doesn’t bother you much. What you look for mainly is not the happiness of this life. That is just unimportant. The happiness of this life is unimportant. Mainly what you look for is the happiness of future lives. You totally switch. Now, it is so important the happiness of this life. So important. The happiness of future lives, even if you accept future lives, but you don’t feel much. But then, after you do the meditation, tsölje kyi nyongwa [effortful experience] and tsölme kyi nyongwa [effortless experience], oh, then your future life’s happiness becomes so important and then this life is not so important. The more you see important the future lives, this life is less. How much you regard it as important is less, the more you see [the importance of] future lives. This is nothing important, the happiness of this life is nothing important, and the future life is so important.

So that stable realization, for however many weeks, months, or years it takes time to have stable realization, do that. Then, you will be able to keep the mind always in Dharma. You are able to live with the mind in Dharma day and night, whether you eat, whether you sleep, whether you do your job. Whatever you do, [your mind] is always in Dharma. So life becomes meaningful all the time, without a break.

When Your Mind is Trained in the Graduated Path of the Middle Capable Being, You Can’t Stand Samsara

After training your mind in the graduated path of the middle capable being, kyebu dring lam gyi rimpa by meditating on the eight types of suffering, the six types of suffering, and the three types of suffering,^[1] then the evolution of suffering through tendrel yänlag chunyi, the twelve dependent-related limbs, then the suffering of each realm, human beings, suras, asuras and so forth, then you see samsara, being in samsara, as something you can’t stand. You can’t stand it. It is like when you are caught in prison, you don’t want to be even one minute in prison. You don’t want to be even one minute in prison. You want to be free from that. You want to be out of that. Like that is renunciation of samsara, after you develop tsölje kyi nyongwa and tsölme kyi nyongwa, [that is,] after you develop experience with effort and after you develop experience without effort. When you have total realization of renunciation of samsara, you feel that being in samsara is like being in the center of a fire. You are in the center of a fire, burning. Or your naked body is sitting on a thorn bush, or like needles all over the body. Sort of like that, like sitting on needles. When even for a minute or a second, you have no interest to be in samsara, you want to be liberated from that, renunciation of samsara is stable. So no matter how many weeks, months, or years it takes time to have the realization of that.

When Your Mind is Trained in Bodhichitta, the Suffering of Others is Unbearable

Like that bodhichitta, it is mentioned by the meditators that every sentient being… Day and night… For example, now, day and night, what you have in your heart is the happiness of this life. For example, for me, it is the happiness of this life. Whether you eat it is with that, whether you sleep it is with that. Whatever you do, your job, what you have in the heart is the happiness of this life. So now that time, when you have the realization of bodhichitta, it is only for sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, so, so, so unbearable. Before, your being in samsara is so unbearable, as I gave the examples, but now you feel like that for others, the numberless sentient beings—the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras. Their being in samsara is like that, like how you were feeling for yourself, like that you feel for others, like your mother fell in the fire, like she is in the midst of a fire and is burning, how that [feels], your kind mother, like somebody who you think of as most kind, most dear, most precious, oh, somebody like that, whether it is your father or mother or somebody else who fell in the fire, how that is, sssssh. Wow, wow, wow.

Then to bring them to enlightenment, you wish to achieve enlightenment. With these two wishes, then you have the principal consciousness, tsosem, the special principal consciousness with these two intentions: seeking enlightenment for others and then to cause that oneself needs to achieve enlightenment. [Bodhichitta is] a principal consciousness which is in five ways similar to those two intentions. So bodhichitta is generated when for every person, every sentient being, you see, you want to achieve enlightenment. This is what is said by the meditators who have a realization of bodhichitta. So the main thing that you have in the mind is that. So no matter how many weeks, months, or years it takes time you train the mind in that, to have the stable realization.

Video 8. Meditate Until You Realize the Prasangika’s View of Emptiness

(duration: 20 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

When Your Mind is Trained in Emptiness, Your Understanding of the Ultimate Truth of the Table Supports Your Understanding that the Table Exists in Mere Name

About emptiness, for example, where is the table? The general table or the merely labeled table, but without touching anything of the false table, the gagja [the object to be refuted], without touching anything to do with that, the table which has to be refuted, without touching that: Oh, the merely labeled table, where is it? The table, where is it? This is not table. This is not table. This side, that side. This is not table. This is not table. Every piece that is part of the table is not table. So you cannot find table. So you cannot find table. So you could not find table; everything is a part. Everything is a part. Wherever you point is a part of the table. It is a piece of the table. It is a part of the table. It is not table but a part of table. So that doesn’t mean table doesn’t exist? The conclusion? What is the conclusion? What is the conclusion? The table doesn’t exist? There is no table in this room? There is no table in this room? You looked for the table but you could not find it. You see, it doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t help.

That way of checking, if you think that is the meditation on emptiness, that’s wrong, totally wrong. If you think that, that doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t support it at all. It is the opposite to supporting it. It doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t help. What is your conclusion? What is your conclusion? It is the same with the mug, “Where is the mug?” This is mug? This is mug? It is the same. Or the “I”: every piece, “Is this the I?” “Is this the I? In all the five aggregates, it is nonexistent. Nothing. You don’t find anything that is the I. So it doesn’t support it. It looks like the I doesn’t exist. So it comes to that conclusion—nihilism. That is nihilism, you have to understand.

So that is not meditating on emptiness, you have to understand. Many people might believe that. Lama Tsongkhapa explained in the Lamrim Chenmo, or it might be in the Middle Lamrim, for example, vase; here there is a vase. What is mentioned there is a vase. In Dharma texts, the philosophical texts, vase, pillar; there are certain objects used quite often. So, vase: this is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. The bottom part is not vase. So at the end, it is not clear. You did not find it. There is no recognition of the vase, that “This is vase.” There is no recognition, so that is a sign of falling into nihilism.

There are two: eternalism, it exists from its own side, and nihilism, it doesn’t exist at all. We have to realize the Middle Way view devoid of these two extremes, otherwise not. So here you fall into nihilism because you are unable to differentiate between the merely labeled and the gagja, the merely labeled vase and the vase, which is the object to be refuted. The truly existent vase and the merely labeled vase, being unable to differentiate them. This what is mentioned in the teachings. So of that, you have to be careful—persons like me with not much understanding. I’m telling this only for those people. This is a very, very basic thing to understand. A very, very basic thing. Otherwise, you make a big mistake in your meditation on emptiness. A big mistake in your meditation on emptiness. Even if you meditate for many years, a big meditation, you are meditating on nihilism. It is the same as Zen meditation. Zen, Zen meditation, it is the same as Zen meditation.

So now, going back to the table. Now, okay. Now, think again about the table. The table that exists is what is merely labeled by the mind. It is so subtle. (I have to make that noise for you to get a clear picture! At least if the words are correct, then it is okay. At least my words are correct.) What table exists is what is merely labeled by the mind. Therefore, it never ever existed from its own side. There is a table but it does not exist from its own side. So it is totally empty. Like, “Form is empty. Emptiness is form,” here, “Table is empty. Emptiness is table.” The table is empty. Emptiness is the table. So the table which is totally empty from its own side, oh, that is table. That is the table that exists, that we can use—the merely labeled table.

Therefore, when you look at the table, you have the appearance of the table existing from its own side. For example, for me, there is a table existing from its own side. This is opposite, completely opposite, to a merely labeled table—the appearance. There is no appearance of a merely labeled table. Only a buddha has that. There is no mere appearance.

I don’t have mere appearance. Sentient beings don’t have that appearance, except for arya beings in equipoise meditation on emptiness. At that time there is no merely labeled appearance. Of course, they have realized emptiness, so at that time there is no true existence [either]. But as far as appearance goes, you have it until you have achieved enlightenment. Except for arya beings when they are in equipoise meditation, then at that time they don’t have true existence appearance; [otherwise,] that goes up to enlightenment. Only when the knowledge obscurations left by the past ignorance are totally removed, abandoned, totally removed, ceased totally, then there is no projection or mental fabrication of true existence. The appearance of true existence you don’t have; that is only for a buddha.

I don’t remember what I said.

When you look at the table again, in your view, how you see the table, in your view of the table there is the appearance that the table exists from its own side. It is not mere appearance… the appearance of a mere table, no. The opposite, totally opposite—a table existing from its own side, that appearance, oh, oh that, oh, then that real table, oh, that, that is the object to be searched for and that is what you have to realize is empty, totally empty, as it is empty, as it is empty. It is not that it has been existing and now you have to realize is empty. No, that is wrong. That which has been empty, it never existed but you have been believing it exists. That hallucination becomes the foundation for the suffering of samsara. It becomes the basis for all the attachment and anger, all the delusions, that real table, believing it is real. It appeared and you believe it is real. That becomes the basis for attachment, anger, all the delusions, so from where all the suffering comes.

That table, a real table appearing from its own side, that one totally, totally, does not exist from its own side. That one is totally nonexistent, completely nonexistent. That is the emptiness of table. So a real table appearing as existing from its own side, oh, for that you look, for that you search. That one, you search: where is it? You search and you can’t find it anywhere. You look for it, where is it, and you can’t find it anywhere, a table existing from its own side. It doesn’t have true existence at all because the table is a dependent arising—denpar me te, tendrel yinpai chir, a dependent arising. The table is merely imputed by relating to the group of the parts gathered [together]. The group of the parts gathered is the basis. The group of the parts gathered [together] is the basis to be merely labeled “table”—this is the basis—by the valid mind.

So the real table that appears to us, which we one hundred percent believe in, oh, that is not true. That one is totally empty. It is not there at all because “table” is a dependent arising, merely labeled by the mind. This is not gross dependent arising, depending on causes and conditions, not that one, not gross dependent arising but subtle dependent arising, the Prasangika’s view of dependent arising, because “table” is what is merely labeled by the valid mind.

So you see, while the table is empty, it is existing. It is existing as merely labeled by the valid mind. Do you understand? While the table is existing, the table is empty. Please don’t think, it is not that I have realized this but this is what, I think, Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned and what the meditators experience. It is unified, emptiness and dependent arising; emptiness, tongpanyi, empty of true existence, and dependent arising, existing. Emptiness and existing are oneness, inseparable. “There is no emptiness other than form. There is no form other than emptiness.” So table exists, table exists in mere name. The table exists because it is empty, empty from its own side. It is not just nihilistic empty; it is empty from its own side.

It is the same thing on the I, on the vase. What is I is similar; it is an extremely, unbelievably, unbelievably subtle phenomenon. Therefore, many great meditators fall into nihilism. They are unable to stay in the middle view of Madhyamaka. They slip out into nihilism, or fall into eternalism. That is very, very, very, very... Not only that, but that is one of the main qualities of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings.

Here emptiness relates to the false table, the real table existing from its own side, something existing from its own side, oh, that is the gagja [the object to be refuted]. You look for that and you don’t find it at all. Then, next… First, you see the ultimate truth of the table. Then, with that as a cause, as a result you see the merely labeled table. Then you see the merely labeled table. It helps you to see the table existing in mere name, merely labeled by mind. It is a support for the existence of the table that is true for the all-obscuring mind. It supports, helps, the existence of the table merely labeled by mind. Oh, that unification, oh, that is the Prasangika’s view of emptiness. You see?

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 11^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015.

Video 9. Lamrim Lays the Foundation and Protects the Mind

(duration: 9 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

Lamrim Lays the Foundation

Yes, we have commitments of sadhanas and mantras, but the lamrim meditation, many times the main meditation is missing, the lamrim meditation is kind of left out. Usually we do sadhanas, the highest tantra practices. I don’t know if it is meditation on completion stage but sometimes, at the beginning of the six yogas of Naropa, there is the generating heat, tummo meditation, without bodhichitta, without renunciation at all. Maybe there is some meditation on bodhichitta and emptiness, maybe some, I’m not sure. Then you do tummo meditation. You are more interested in tantra, tummo meditation or dzogchen or dzogrim or something, not even much on the generation stage, things like that, just doing practice that is very high without any foundation. Without a foundation, even if you are doing those tantric meditations, the six yogas of Naropa or something, however tantric meditation, but it is like building a house on ice. Building a house on ice, it collapses easily and also as the ice melts then the house collapses. Building the house on ice, ice is slippery, so it collapses, and then also it melts. Anyway, how much you do the practice there is no progression, no progression without the foundation, without the realizations of the foundation. You are doing some practice but, without a foundation, you really don’t have much progression, really. So as I suggested last night, you must lay the foundation. You should go carefully.

Whether you will achieve enlightenment… First is whether you will be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings or not. Next is whether you will achieve buddhahood or not. How quickly, how long it takes in time, it all depends on understanding Dharma or not understanding Dharma, and how good you are at practicing, how skillful you are at practicing Dharma. It all depends on skill. Anything, if you are going to build a house, construct a house, how neat and how quickly you finish, the whole thing depends on your skill in building a house. It is the same thing. Many things depend on your skill for how well it is done, how long it lasts. Just anything depends on your skill. Everything, even worldly activities, it all depends on skill, how wise you are in anything. So Dharma practice is the same; it depends on how skillful you are. Your understanding of Dharma and how skillfully you practice, so therefore it is quicker to achieve enlightenment.

Our life mostly goes in taking initiations, so then most of our life goes in sadhanas. Our time goes in sadhanas and no lamrim. The most important meditation is lamrim, to lay the foundation, the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment, to lay the foundation.

Lamrim Protects the Mind

Yes, it is very good, so fortunate, yes, to even just be able to take the initiation and to recite the sadhana. So, so, so fortunate, yes, but then here most of the time goes on sadhanas and then your motivation, if it just becomes words between the lips, and in the heart, here, there is the self-cherishing thought, without bodhichitta, it’s like a tape recorder, it’s not practical, it’s not effective. Here (Rinpoche points to his lips) it is just like a tape-recorder, like playing a tape recorder, inside, but not the heart.

So the main meditation, if possible, is the lamrim, that to get done, really. Even if you have… Of course one hour or a half hour, but even fifteen minutes or twenty minutes is good. It helps very much. It protects the mind very much from distraction, from meaningless work, and from non-virtues. The precious human life spending in a non-virtuous life, it protects from that. So it is very, very helpful. Very helpful.

The purpose of meditating on the lamrim is huge. In so many ways it helps, so many ways. Really. So it has great, great meaning. The person becomes a better and better heart, good heart, a more and more meaningful life. The person is able to live life more and more meaningfully, a more and more pure heart, renunciation seeing samsara as suffering, a more and more pure heart, more and more letting go of the cause of suffering, the three poisonous minds. Then, instead of that, more renunciation and bodhichitta, generally able to have a more pure heart, and emptiness also.

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 11^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015. 

Video 10. Lojong: The Quickest Way to Lamrim Realizations

(duration: 13 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

I asked [Gen Jampa Wangdu], “What is the quickest way to have success in the realizations of the lamrim?” That is the other thing I asked. He said, “Practicing the remedy to the self-cherishing thought.” That is it exactly, yes, practicing the remedy to the self-cherishing thought. Whatever problem comes, whatever difficulty comes, whatever problem comes in the life, immediately, without delay, immediately point to the self-cherishing thought. If somebody complains, if somebody is angry, whatever happens, sickness, whatever happens, even death, whatever happens, immediately blame your self-cherishing thought.

In the Seven-Point Thought Transformation by Geshe Chekawa, there it says for all the mistakes, all the problems, all the shortcomings, “Blame the one”; so that is your self-cherishing thought. That is you. Then, “Toward others, meditate on kindness.” Including animals, even insects, if you harm them, they harm you back. They do whatever they can, biting or whatever they can. Then, of course, generally human beings, ordinary human beings, in the world, even if somebody didn’t harm you, but you harm them back. Even if somebody didn’t harm you, you harm back. You harm others like that. Somehow you harm back. To that which is outside, to others, you harm back. That is what they do.

So it is totally the opposite. Then you harm back. You don’t know. You harm them. Whether they harmed you or not, you harm them and then that becomes the cause to receive harm later, either right away or later, or in the next lives. You don’t know that. “Oh, kill everybody. Kill. Kill,” anybody you want to kill, like… I don’t know. I heard that Hitler wanted… Eyes or what? Eyes or something, one color. He wanted blue eyes or something? Then brown hair. Blonde hair. He wanted blonde hair and something to do with the eyes. Something like that, I heard. Otherwise, he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like. He killed what he didn’t like it.

This has just two words but it is a great, great, great practice. Wow, wow, wow, a great, great, great, great, great, great practice in the life, but only two words: “Put all the blame on one. Toward others, meditate on kindness.” That is the practice of bodhichitta. Oh, what Gen Jampa Wangdu was saying is that. “Practice the remedy to the self-cherishing thought,” he said, “To get quick realizations of the lamrim.” Ah, that is very rich.

(Rinpoche cites in Tibetan) All the others… As I said, from beginningless rebirths even happiness came from them, their kindness. The present and future [happiness], including enlightenment, all that, liberation from samsara, the happiness of future lives, every single collection of goodness, every single happiness, came from them, from every sentient being. From every sentient being. Wow, wow, it is most amazing, most amazing. These two words are an unbelievable practice, a most unbelievable practice.

So this is the reality. So you blame the self-cherishing thought, the inner enemy, your great demon, then you eliminate it, destroy it.  You blame it, then destroy it. You don’t follow the self-cherishing thought. By following the self-cherishing thought you have experienced oceans of samsaric sufferings until now, from beginningless time until now. That is due to following the self-cherishing thought. Oh, then put all the blame on that, eliminate that. Then comes bodhichitta. Then there is enlightenment. Then you free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. Numberless sentient beings, you free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, can you imagine? Can you imagine that? It is easy to say the words but can you imagine that? Wow, wow, wow. You, the one person, by having bodhichitta, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Then you bring them to sanggyä kyi gopang, buddhahood, peerless happiness, wow, wow, wow. Therefore, put all the blame on the one, the self-cherishing thought, and towards others, kindness, only kindness. Others are most dear, most precious, most kind, your wish-fulfilling jewel. Oh, more than that. Not just a wish-granting jewel, but, as I said, they are more kind than skies full of wish-granting jewels. 

This is reality, reality, but even when we are trying to practice Dharma, reciting mantras and prayers, we, including myself, don’t get to practice this one—the real rich, the most rich practice, bodhichitta, lojong.

(Rinpoche cites in Tibetan: “Put all the blame on one. Towards others, meditate on kindness.”) Then there’s no fighting, there’s nothing to get angry about at others. There’s nothing to get angry about at others. It is so silly to get angry or to kill, or take revenge. You don’t know it, but you are creating the cause to receive harm for many lifetimes, a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand lifetimes, from one karma of harming others.

One doesn’t think of karma. One doesn’t know it. One doesn’t think of karma. Or even if one knows, one doesn’t think about it. One knows it intellectually, but doesn’t think about it. When it comes to your life, then you put the blame on others. “Put the blame on the self-cherishing thought,” not that: “Put the blame on others.” Maybe then you meditate on your kindness to others, the opposite! I’m not sure. This shows how ordinary beings in the world are, including us. The teachings we have heard many times, but we don’t practice. This is myself, but I’m not saying this about others. When problems come on you, you blame others. You put all the blame on others. You practice the opposite.

This is amazing. It is only two words, two verses, wow, wow, how they are so important in the life—the best psychology, the best meditation, the best practice, wow. Then you have no problems. You have no problem with others. Even the obstacles that you have, you use. Because of that, you take the obstacles of sentient beings and experience them for sentient beings, for them to achieve the state of omniscient mind. You use them to achieve enlightenment. You use your obstacles as a support, to support your enlightenment, to achieve your enlightenment, buddhahood, and the sentient beings to free them from the sufferings of samsara and achieve enlightenment. It is incredible! So you have no obstacles to practicing Dharma.

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 10^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015. 

Video 11. A Summary of the Advice

(duration: 4 minutes)

(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)

Then the main practice is meditation on the lamrim.

1) You should study one lamrim. There are many lamrims now in English, like Lama Tsongkhapa's Great Lamrim. Now, there is Geshe Sopa’s commentary in [five] books, Geshe Sopa’s commentary. Then there is the Middle Lamrim, which is studied in the Basic Program, and then Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. There are many other lamrims. One lamrim, Liberation in the Palm or Middle Lamrim, study it well, read it a few times. Study it a few times from beginning to end.

2) Then you do effortful meditation. Divide the year up: one part of the [year] for guru devotion, one part of the [year] for renunciation, one part of the [year] for bodhichitta, one part of the [year] for right view. You divide the whole year. You can do like that, or even [divide it] into two years or three years.

3) After that, you develop effortless meditation. Develop guru devotion until you have the stable realization. No matter how many days, weeks, months, or years it takes, do that until you get the stable realization. The other ones are the graduated path of the lower capable being; train the mind in that until you gain a stable realization of no attachment to this life's pleasures and the main thing is the next life’s rebirth or happiness, or ultimate happiness, to be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, or enlightenment. Then after that train the mind… You can do two or three meditations a day; if you can’t do two, then at least do one.

Then after that train the mind in the graduated path of the middle capable being. You can do two [meditations a day]: [a meditation on the graduated path of the middle capable being] and then bodhichitta. If not, then do one [meditation a day]. Then after you achieve [the graduated path of the middle capable being], then put the main effort into bodhichitta, for no matter how many months or years it takes to have a stable realization. Then also you can do a little bit of meditation on emptiness every day by using different quotations or even the Heart Sutra.

Depending on how many imprints you left [on the mind] in past lives, depending on how much you studied and how much you listened to teachings, depending on that, then you get realizations and understandings in this life. So anyway, that is the basis.

After you actualize bodhichitta then you do meditation mainly on tantra, the generation and completion stage; you do that just to get the imprint, but the main thing is the generation stage.

Colophon

This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, May 17^th, 2014, at the Light of the Path Retreat 2014 hosted by Kadampa Center, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 5–17 May 2014. The transcript was typed simultaneously with the teachings by Joan Nicell. It was subsequently corrected by listening to the audio recording and lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen and Joan Nicell, August 2015.