Actual Practice
The Lamrim Prayer by Dorje Chang Losang Jinpa
The Title
A Direct Meditation on the Graduated Path, Containing All the Important Meanings
This lamrim prayer composed by the great lama Dorje Chang Losang Jinpa is short, yet it is very, very good as a motivation for life. I received the oral transmission of it from Kyabje Geshe Senge Rinpoche. Geshe-la, a Mongolian and lharampa geshe, was appointed as the abbot of both Sera Me and Sera Je colleges in Lhasa after Mao Zedong died. I didn’t ask him for the oral transmission; Geshe-la from his own side gave it to me and said that it would be good for me to recite it.
When you do this prayer think of your root guru, whether His Holiness the Dalai Lama or someone else, or of the merit field to which you usually pray. When you make requests to the merit field think that the holy beings in the merit field are all one. This is what you have to discover and realize – that they are all one.
Taking Refuge
Essence encompassing all the buddhas,
Originator of all the holy Dharma of scripture and realization,
Principal of all the aryas intending virtue:[1]
In the glorious holy gurus, I take refuge.
If you want to be free from samsara, you need to look for a guru. The continuity of the oceans of samsaric suffering – the suffering of pain, suffering of change, and pervasive, compounding suffering – has no beginning, but if you want to end it, you need to look for a guru. And especially if you want to achieve enlightenment to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to the peerless happiness of the state of omniscient mind, you need the root of the path to enlightenment, which is to correctly devote yourself to the virtuous friend. Therefore, you need a guru; you need to do guru yoga practice.
Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion says:
Vajradhara himself said,
“Realization follows after the master.”
By knowing that, please the guru’s holy mind
With everything you do.
Abandon anything that is displeasing.
General and sublime realizations will
Then be granted in just this life.
Realization follows after the master means realization depends on correctly devoting yourself to the vajra master, to the guru. First you check the guru. Then, when you have found a qualified guru, you correctly devote yourself to him, thus causing realizations to come. Sublime realization means enlightenment.
Whether or not you look for a guru and then correctly devote yourself to him depends on your motivation, on what you want to use your life for. You need the root of the path to enlightenment, correct devotion to the virtuous friend, especially if your motivation is the wish to achieve sang gyä, which means total elimination of all obscurations and completion of all realizations, so that you can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment, the peerless happiness of the state of omniscient mind.
A Summary of the Whole Lamrim
Please, gurus, bless my mind to become Dharma,
Dharma to become the path,
And the path to be without obstacles.
These three lines contain the whole lamrim. The first line contains the graduated path of the lower capable being; the second line, the graduated path of the middle capable being; and the last line, the graduated path of the higher capable being, both the sutra and tantra paths.
The First Panchen Lama’s commentary to Lama Atisha’s Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment mentions four capable beings. The ordinary capable being thinks only of this life, nothing else. They live their life with just the eight worldly dharmas, attachment to this life. In regard to their motivation, they are no different from an animal. Even though they have a human body, millionaires can live their lives in exactly the same way as ants, maggots, fleas, or worms in that they work only for this life, to have happiness and be free of problems right now. No matter how different their lives may look from the outside, their attitude, their motivation, is exactly the same. That is the ordinary capable being, who is not a Dharma practitioner. Even though some of them may look religious, with shaved heads and their way of acting and dressing, in reality they are not spiritual people.
The lower capable being has no attachment to this life, has renounced the eight worldly dharmas. They wish to not be reborn in the lower realms and seek a higher rebirth as a deva or human being, especially a perfect human rebirth. For that, they then take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and protect their karma. Of the three special capable beings, they are the lowest capable being.
The middle capable being looks for liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering. With that aim, they practice the three higher trainings of morality, concentration, and wisdom. This is the graduated path of the middle capable being.
The higher capable being seeks enlightenment. With bodhichitta, they practice the six paramitas and so forth. This is the graduated path of the higher capable being.
The graduated path of the three capable beings is the essence of the whole Buddhadharma, both sutra and tantra. It is the essence of what the Buddha taught, the more than one hundred volumes of the Kangyur, and the essence of what the pandits and yogis, such as Nagarjuna, Asanga, Saraha, Krishnacharya, Tilopa, and Naropa, taught, the more than two hundred volumes of the Tengyur. All these teachings are divided into three levels: the Hinayana teachings, the Paramitayana teachings, which are Mahayana sutra, and the Secret Mantra Vajrayana teachings, which are Mahayana tantra. All those teachings are contained in the lamrim, the graduated path of the three capable beings.
Guru Devotion
Until I achieve buddhahood, please bless me
To be like Youthful Norsang and Bodhisattva Always Crying
In correctly following the virtuous friend with pure thought and action,
Seeing whatever is done as pure,
And accomplishing whatever is said and advised.
This is how to correctly follow the virtuous friend, [the root of the path to full enlightenment].
The Sutra of the Fortunate Eon tells the stories of the Indian bodhisattvas Youthful Norsang and Always Crying. It mentions how Bodhisattva Always Crying sacrificed himself in his incomparable practice of guru devotion, in serving his guru. Even when he had achieved the great path of merit and could see numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect, he continued to look for the guru with whom he had a karmic connection from the past. He finally found his guru, the arya bodhisattva Dharmodgata, who at the time was doing retreat in a temple. While waiting many years for Dharmodgata to finish his retreat, Bodhisattva Always Crying circumambulated and cleaned outside the temple. The day his guru came out of retreat, Bodhisattva Always Crying, wishing to prepare a place to receive teachings from Dharmodgata, thought to sprinkle water on the ground to prevent the dust from rising when people came to hear the teachings. However, maras had dried up all the water in that place, so he took blood from his body and sprinkled it on the ground. Bodhisattva Always Crying is considered to be an incomparable example of devotion to the guru.
Although only these two examples are mentioned in this lamrim prayer, Milarepa and Kadampa Geshe Chayulwa were also incomparable practitioners of correct devotion to the virtuous friend. In his early life Milarepa killed thirty-six people and many animals, but in that same life he practiced Dharma with much hardship, completed the tantric path, and became enlightened. Even though Marpa made Milarepa undergo many hardships, such as building a nine-story tower three times, Milarepa had one-pointed devotion and never gave rise to any anger or heresy toward his guru. By following Marpa’s advice without any mistakes, Milarepa was able to achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of this degenerate time. But, of course, Milarepa was not the only one to do this; Lama Tsongkhapa’s indirect disciples, Chokyi Dorje and Gyalwa Ensapa, and many others also did the same.
Kadampa Geshe Chayulwa, no matter what he was doing, whether offering mandalas or writing, the moment his guru Chengawa called him to offer service, he didn’t wait to finish what he was doing but ran immediately to his guru’s room. As a result of his pure mind of devotion and his service, one morning after he had cleaned his guru’s room and was going downstairs with the garbage held in his robe, on reaching the third step he attained the great path of merit, the concentration of continual Dharma, and immediately was able to see numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect. He too is an incomparable example of correctly following the guru
Realization doesn’t happen only by doing meditation; it also happens by offering service. This is because offering service with strong devotion is a most powerful means of Dharma practice for purifying the negative karmas and defilements collected from beginningless rebirths and for collecting the most extensive merits.
By following the examples of Youthful Norsang, Bodhisattva Always Crying, and the others, you will become closer to achieving full enlightenment, even in a brief lifetime of this degenerate time. When a disciple is perfect and the guru is perfect, it is like molding dough with your hands: you can make it into any shape you like.
Seeing whatever is done as pure and accomplishing whatever is said and advised are huge responsibilities and practices. They are what help you quickly develop realizations and quickly achieve enlightenment. Therefore, you have to be very careful and pay much attention to them. Even though you might be teaching Dharma, if you haven’t heard many teachings on guru devotion and don’t know the subject of correctly devoting to the virtuous friend well, you will have many problems that will cause obstacles to your realizations, to transforming your mind into Dharma, into bodhichitta and the rest of the path. Guru devotion is a big subject. It is the most important meditation. If you want to help sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment, you need to achieve full enlightenment quickly; for that, this practice is of unbelievable importance.
In my view many Westerners don’t understand how important this practice is. Even though they are good at talking about Dharma, about bodhichitta and many other things, it is often difficult for them to speak about this section of the lamrim teachings. Either they don’t know the subject of guru devotion well and so are not strong in its practice, or else they don’t like this subject. Because they don’t understand it and don’t see the logic in it, they think it’s a fairytale, like a story that a mother makes up when she puts her baby to bed. If this is the case, there will be a lot of blockage to the development of their mind.
For this reason, His Holiness says that beginners should study with a teacher for two or three years and only after that should they decide whether or not to devote themselves to that person as a guru. In other words, you shouldn’t take a teacher as a guru immediately, but first examine them by studying with them, as if you were attending a university or college. Then, if you think you can devote yourself to them as a guru, you can make this decision. His Holiness advises people to be careful so that later on they don’t end up with a big problem in their devotion to their guru, which destroys their enlightenment, their liberation, and the happiness of all their future lives. Also, in every second they create the heaviest negative karma to suffer for many eons in hell, where it is difficult to even hear a human voice. Like this, they also create the cause for it to be difficult to find a guru for eons.
The Graduated Path of the Lower Capable Being
Please bless me to see that this greatly meaningful body with freedoms and richnesses
Is difficult to find and easily perishes,
That action and result are so profound,
And that the sufferings of the evil-gone transmigratory beings are so difficult to bear.
Therefore, please bless me to take refuge from the depths of my heart in the Three Rare Sublime Ones,[2]
Abandon negative karma, and accomplish virtue according to Dharma.
This is the graduated path of the lower capable being.
In the teachings of the Buddha, the difficulty of finding a perfect human rebirth is illustrated by example, by numbers, and by cause. The example is of the unlikelihood of a blind turtle that comes up for air only once every hundred years being able to put its head through a golden ring floating on the surface of the ocean. The example shows that our receiving not just a human body, but a perfect human body with the eight freedoms and ten richnesses is almost impossible.
In regard to number, the Buddha said that in each day, each hour, each minute, the number of sentient beings reborn from the intermediate state into the hell realms is like the number of dust particles of the earth. The number of sentient beings reborn from the intermediate state into the preta realm is like the number of sand grains of the Pacific Ocean. The number of sentient beings reborn from the intermediate state into the animal realm is like the number of blades of grass growing on the mountains and on the ground. The number of sentient beings receiving a higher rebirth as happy transmigratory beings is very few, like the number of dust particles under a fingernail after scratching the earth. The number of sentient beings receiving a perfect human rebirth with the freedoms and richnesses is like the number of grains that can stay on the tip of an upright needle or an upright pane of glass.
In regard to cause, the cause of a perfect human rebirth is very difficult to create because a Dharma motivation is so rare. Basically, since we do everything with attachment to this life, nothing we do becomes Dharma. Not only do we waste our lives, but we create negative karma day and night.
Milarepa said:
By remembering impermanence and death,
You become victorious over laziness.
Remembering death again and again,
Generate the realization of impermanence.
Then from morning to night,
Whatever you do becomes Dharma.
If you remember death, besides listening to, reflecting, and meditating on Dharma, also eating, walking, sitting, and sleeping become Dharma.
By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you can purify the negative karmas you have collected from beginningless rebirths and then achieve higher rebirth as a deva or human being, a perfect human rebirth, or rebirth in a pure land. From Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you can achieve ultimate liberation from samsara and then full enlightenment. By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you achieve sang gyä, cessation of the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.
Protecting karma means renouncing negative karma and practicing virtue exactly according to Dharma. If you don't know the difference between worldly dharma and holy Dharma, you will do everything with attachment to this life, such as to receive praise or get power. For example, someone might recite millions and millions of wrathful mantras or do a lot of retreat and think that they have been practicing Dharma for so many years, but actually their actions did not become Dharma because they did them out of attachment to this life. To stop this wrong concept, Dorje Chang Losang Jinpa says abandon negative karma and accomplish virtue according to Dharma. This is illustrated by the story of Geshe Ben Kungyal who cleaned his room and made more offerings than usual to get praise from his benefactor. But when he sat down and realized what he had done was worldly dharma motivated by attachment to this life, he got up and sprinkled ashes on the offerings. Padampa Sangye, who saw with clairvoyance what had happened, said that in Tibet that day Geshe Ben Kungyal had made the best and purest offering to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha because he had sprinkled ashes on his attachment.
If you know perfectly the usefulness of and the difficulty of again finding a perfect human rebirth, death and impermanence, the lower realms’ suffering, taking refuge, and karma, your mind becomes pure, with no clinging to this life’s happiness. The motivation of the lower capable being, which is unstained by the eight worldly dharmas, by attachment to this life, is to seek the happiness of future lives. With that motivation everything becomes Dharma. This is the lowest motivation for everything to become Dharma.
The Graduated Path of the Middle Capable Being
In dependence upon that, even if I achieve the mere higher rebirth
of a deva or human,
I will still have to experience suffering endlessly in samsara
Because of not having abandoned, and being under the control of, the disturbing-thought obscurations.
Therefore, please bless me to reflect well upon the way of circling in samsara,
And to continuously follow, day and night,
The path of the three types of precious trainings –
The principal method for becoming free from samsara.
This is the graduated path of the middle capable being.
By depending on the motivation of the lower capable being, you achieve merely higher rebirth as a deva or human. But because you haven’t abandoned the disturbing thoughts and are under their control, you continue to experience suffering endlessly in samsara.
In Lamrim Chenmo, Lama Tsongkhapa defines samsara as “the part of the continuity of aggregates caused by karma and delusion.” The reason for saying “part” is that an arya who has actualized the path of meditation doesn’t have to be reborn in samsara. In this life they still have aggregates caused by karma and delusions, but they have ceased the continuity of aggregates caused by karma and delusions. Since you, on the other hand, haven’t actualized a direct perception of emptiness, you continue to circle in samsara. Unless you practice Dharma, the continuity of your aggregates caused by karma and delusion will not only be beginningless but will also be endless.
The Seventh Dalai Lama mentions, “Wherever you are born – the desire, form, or formless realm – is like being in a burning iron house. In the ten directions, wherever you go, you are always burned by suffering.” As long as you are not free from samsara, as long as you remain in samsara, wherever you go is like being burned in a red-hot iron house. By realizing that samsara is of the nature of suffering, you give up attachment to samsaric perfections. By thinking well about the way you circle in samsara, you continuously practice the three precious higher trainings, the principal method for becoming free from samsara. That is the path of the middle capable being.
The Common Graduated Path of the Great Capable Being
In dependence upon that, even if I achieve mere liberation,
Since there is no sentient being of the six types who has not been my father and mother,
Please bless me to think, “I must fulfill their purpose,”
And turn away from the lower happiness of nirvana.
Then, please bless me to generate precious bodhichitta
By equalizing and exchanging myself with others,
And follow the conduct of the conquerors’ sons, the six paramitas and so forth.
This is the common graduated path of the great capable being.
The mind can change, even though now you are totally selfish, totally cherishing the I, thinking day and night, all the time, “When can I be happy?” In the East, old Tibetan fathers and mothers recite, “OM MANI PADME HUM, OM MANI PADME HUM, OM MANI PADME HUM.” Like that, in the West people recite, “When can I be happy? When I can be happy? When can I be happy?” Instead of living your life with self-cherishing thought, you can live it with compassion; that’s the correct motivation. By thinking of the kindness of sentient beings, you cherish and serve them.
On the basis of loving kindness and compassion, the higher capable being develops the motivation of bodhichitta, the wish to free sentient beings from the oceans of suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. To be able to do that perfectly, without the slightest mistake, you yourself have to achieve the state of omniscient mind. With that motivation, you then practice the six paramitas, the path to enlightenment of the Conquerors’ Sons, the bodhisattvas.
The Graduated Path of the Secret Mantra Vajra Vehicle
Having trained my mind in the common path in that way,
I will not be upset even if I have to experience the sufferings of samsara for a long time.
However, please bless me to look at sentient beings with extraordinary unbearable compassion,
And to enter the quick path of the Vajrayana teachings.
Then, please bless me to protect my vows and samayas more than my life,
And to quickly accomplish the unified Vajradhara state
In one brief lifetime of this degenerate time.
This is the graduated path of the secret mantra vajra vehicle of the greatest capable being.
There is then the tantric path. With even stronger compassion and bodhichitta, you practice tantra, and especially highest yoga tantra, to achieve enlightenment quickly for sentient beings.