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.