This is the third retreat of Mahayana training. The next training will be the Vajrayana training. The previous training was the Hinayana training, from which we already graduated from with great success and accomplishment.
Mahayana training contains various developmental meditative disciplines, such as mind training and Tonglen practice, which can bring a very rich development to one's practice.
This weekend we are going to talk about the Six Paramitas. This is perhaps the very essence, or the vital point, of Mahayana training. The Six Paramitas were taught by Buddha Shakiamuni to his followers or bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, according to many Mahayana sutra teachings, at the Vulture Peak Mountain in India. I want to share my personal experience.
Ten years ago, we went on the pilgrimage to visit some of the ancient holy places in Northern India where Buddha walked very much. One of them was the Vulture Peak Mountain. We had around 30 or 40 lamas from every tradition on the same bus. Auspicious synchronicity; it was truly a nonsectarian bus.
It was very wonderful to have a dialogue and even ordinary conversation with lamas from every tradition. We sat on the Vulture Peak Mountain, and we recited the same sutra which we recited today, the Heart Sutra, and everybody felt some kind of awakening experience. A very powerful experience, almost some sense of enlightenment too; it was a very unforgettable moment. Hopefully one day each of us can go there to do recitation of Heart Sutra.
In this retreat we are going to use the Heart Sutra as the basis of the teaching and practice; therefore I selected this text as a sadhana, or as prayer or liturgy, for this weekend. I know that your daily practice is getting thicker and thicker as time goes by. But also your skill of reciting prayers is getting faster and more dynamic too, so I would like you toadd the recitation of the Heart Sutra as part of your daily practice.
Mahayana training is the path where one develops training in Bodhicitta, or awakening mind, in enlightenment. Chang chub in Tibetan has two meanings: chang means purifying all habitual tendencies, and chub means completion of all perfections: love, compassion, wisdom.
The Mahayana path leads us to the attainment of these two principles of purification and completion. They're not really separate achievements; because if we are able to purify our defilements or kleshas, we are already endowed with perfections. We are already endowed with Buddha qualities; these are intrinsic qualities in of each of us, whether we are able to manifest them or not.
We are already Buddhas. This is the main message of Mahayana as well as Vajrayana: that all sentient beings are Buddhas. We are already endowed with Buddha qualities, or Buddha perfections, the moment we are born, even at the beginning of our existence. The only problem is that somehow we are trapped in samsara, which comes about from the accumulations of our defilements. So if we are able to purify our defilements, then we discover that we are already Buddhas, already enlightened ones.
So the notion or principle of purification and completion-they are not two things, they are the same essence.
So chang chub, which is the word for enlightenment in the Tibetan language, is the ultimate goal of this Mahayana training, which is to purify all our internal obscurations, all the 84,000 defilements which prevent us from actualizing and manifesting this internal perfection, or chubpa, which means perfection. There is perfection in each of us in every moment, whether or not we are able to reveal that right now. This is the ultimate perfection. There is no other perfection in this world more sublime than this intrinsic perfection.
At the same time, as long as we are outside of the Mahayana path, we are looking for various perfections in illusions, in thinking that perfection is outside of oneself. Most beings are looking for perfection in material things, various illusions, in images, which is false reality.
In the Mahayana path, we look for perfection within oneself by recognizing that the intrinsic ultimate perfection is your own nature, which is tathagarbha, This is the single goal of the Mahayana path. The individuals who are pursuing this path are called bodhisattvas, or the heroines or heroes, or enlightened heroes. Bodhisattva means someone who has the courage and the wisdom to pursue the path of Mahayana.
This path can be very challenging. It can be more challenging than any path or any journey that we can imagine in this human lifetime. This is because we have to sometimes confront the greatest enemies and demons, ghosts, (anything you can imagine), which are already in each of us. These great demons are our fear, our hope, our obscuration, and especially the fear of enlightenment. This may be a new concept for you: fear of enlightenment. This is the greatest enemy that ever you can confront, more than anything else. And the bodhisattva's duty is to face this inner enemy and to overcome that by acquiring and putting into action the practice and training of the Mahayana, especially the Six Paramitas.
So what we are doing right now is bodhisattva training. This is even better to say than saying the "Mahayana training." If you say "bodhisattva training" then there's more sense of personal connection with one's dharma practice; and many of you were already ordained as bodhisattvas through a ceremony at the beginning of this year.
At an annual gathering, it is very important to do a vow renewal, or renewing the bodhisattva's vows. This is for instance the Mahayana or bodhisattva anniversary for each of us. So too it would be very auspicious to take that vow once again. In the Tibetan tradition, we have sojongs, every month. Every month, when you do sojong practice, you renew your vows, your Hinayana vow, as well as Mahayana vow and Vajrayana vow, based on very particular sadhanas or ceremonies.
Today we are going to again do the renewal ceremony for the Mahayana precept, and then also I want to give a brief introduction to this weekend retreat, which is based on the Six Paramitas.
So what are the Six Paramitas? The transcendent wisdom or Prajna, or transcendent knowledge, is the view of the heart of bodhisattvas as well as the heart of all the Buddhas in the past, present and future. Heart of wisdom, or wisdom heart, which means that transcendent wisdom is like the heart, this beating heart of all the buddhas, all omniscient ones, all enlightened ones, in every time. This is also the same as what we're referring to when we speak about rigpa or dharmakaya mind in the dzogchen teachings.
There is no difference between rigpa, dzogchen teachings and transcendent wisdom in the Prajna paramita teachings, or the Mahayana teachings. They refer to the same state of wisdom which is the heart of all the buddhas. There's no higher realization or wisdom that we can actualize. It is the peak, the ultimate attainment that we can have on the path of Mahayana, and Vajrayana too. Therefore, Buddha called it Transcendent Wisdom, because it transcends duality, it transcends samsara, it transcends the duality of everything. And when you're able to transcend the duality of everything, there's no other enlightenment beside it. Whenever you have the wisdom of transcendence, Buddha enlightenment has blossomed in yourself. It's in your heart, in your hand. Buddhahood is already with you.
The other 5 paramitas are as generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, and meditation. They are actually foundations which support the training of transcendent wisdom. In many Mahayana teachings, it is said often that the transcendent wisdom is like the general, or the chief, or the leader in the battle or the war zone, and your ego and duality is like the enemy, the ugly enemy. The 5 paramitas are like the armies, the soldiers who would actually support or help the chief to defeat the enemy. This is a good analogy to memorize.
The essence of this training, the 6 paramitas, is the transcendent wisdom which we're going to talk about the next two days in a combination with meditation and reflection. This is an extraordinary environment where we can do practice, especially reflection and tomorrow maybe we can spend some time in the Redwood trees, in the meadow to do more reflection. This is a perfect environment for meditation.
So then the other 5 paramitas are like supporters, or the foundations of the transcendent wisdom. Also we can go through some kind of commentary and explanation on that, too. The main thing about the 6 paramitas is that they're not like some kind of abstract, religious ideas or concepts or conduct. But rather they are universal, timeless ways to conduct ourselves, compassionate wisdom, conduct that we can apply in every day life, no matter where we are-whether you're in a particular environment like a monastery, or you're in a very ordinary environment like a traffic jam or in your office. You can practice the Six Paramitas anytime, anywhere, because it is timeless wisdom.
It seems when we get to the heart or essence of enlightened teachings, there's less duality of culture, less duality of everything. It seems the true teachings, the heart teachings, can always be blended, mingled with your everyday life. If you look at the Six Paramitas objectively, they seem like Buddhist principles or Mahayana principles. They seem so far away from us. But when you really reflect carefully, you'll find that the Six Paramitas are actually a part of us. They're actually our intrinsic, fundamental qualities in each of us--like generosity, patience, discipline, meditation. These are very basic enlightened properties of each of us. They are actually inherent to each of us by birth.
So this plan involves developing enlightened qualities which you have already that are dormant, or potential. So the Six Paramitas are potential to most of us, including myself. And the purpose of practicing Mahayana training is to bring that potential or dormant quality into real experience. This means that we can learn to manifest, unfold those enlightened potentials into real life.
So right now the Six Paramitas are like some kind of enlightened seed, or potential seed in our consciousness. Our mind has been obscured by various defilements and karmic tendencies which have become very powerful hindrances to the unfolding of those enlightened potentials already in each of us. The training of Mahayana involves developing, cultivating, unfolding those enlightened potentials and capabilities into a state of fruition that manifests in direct experience.
So this training involves one's own internal development. It has nothing to do with any abstract spiritual religious principles. The Six Paramitas is all about developing your inner qualities, inner Buddha qualities. In some ways this is like the term self improvement. Some part of the idea of self-improvement can be blended with ego and spiritual narcissism. There is a strong notion of "self".
So in some way, this practice is a little bit like self-improvement. Not regarding the egotistic self, but the Buddha self. We can say: Buddha-self-improvement. The Six Paramitas are a method of Buddha self-improvement although in reality our Buddha nature can never be improve upon.
Everyone, no matter who you are, in some way or another, in order to attain liberation, has to engage with the path of the Six Paramitas. There isn't another path or avenue for anyone to the state of Buddhahood beyond Six Paramitas. Therefore, Buddha praised transcendent wisdom as the queen or mother of all Buddhas. All the Buddhas of the past, present, and future came into being out of practicing and undertaking the path of Six Paramitas, the path of transcendent wisdom.
So in Buddhas's teachings, Mahayana sermons, he often refers to that transcendent wisdom as the Great Mother of all buddhas, a mother who gives birth to and raises up Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
If we are trying to cultivate or obtain either perfection or liberation through some kind of worldly perfection, outwardly in illusions, then we never can find true liberation or true perfection. In some way, since we are human beings, we have this inborn desire to look for perfection - some kind of perfection, some kind of satisfaction, whatever that means. But the problem is that we end up looking for that perfection outwardly in illusions that are outside our selves. This is very much the fundamental motive of our social and conventional life.
This is not really some kind of difficult puzzlement. It is quite obvious when we reflect on our life. We are always looking for some kind of ultimate perfection or liberation in outer illusions like money or self-image or self-improvement or finding a relationship or trying to find some kind of association with a group of people or society. All of us have had this motive, looking for ultimate perfection somewhere, but outside of oneself, which is a great mistake.
Therefore, whatever we put forth as effort and energy goes in the wrong direction from the point of view of Mahayana. Actually Patrul Rinpoche said that if we spend the amount of time and effort which we spend for earning an ordinary living, and we put that same energy into dharma practice, he said everybody would be enlightened on earth a long time ago-which makes sense actually.
We're quite diligent in terms of earning a living. For example, we have to get up around 7:00 AM every day to shower and brush our teeth, and we have to drive our car to the office at 8:00 o'clock and then we come back. We don't really skip those daily routines, in relationship to work, career or social activities-and we do that how many times? We have only 2 vacations a year, but we really don't miss those social conventions or daily routines unless we have very serious illness or accidents.
But then, somehow our dharma practice is very easy to miss, the daily practice. Sometimes we might think "I'm going to get up and do my daily practice, but because I'm not really in the mood, or last night I drank too much wine, this morning I'm going to skip my morning sadhana."
That's why each of us have more enthusiasm or energy to put the focus, effort, and time toward worldly conventional activities rather than toward dharma practice. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is some kind of habitual pattern that we have to break down sooner or later in order to succeed in the path of the Six Paramitas.
So now you see, we put so much effort of cultivation toward outer things, conventional social values and perfections, but when we think about how much time and energy we spend for inner cultivation--Six Paramitas is inner cultivation- it's sometimes not very much time.
Social cultivation or 'samsaric' cultivation is necessary too. Cultivating money, cultivating security, cultivating insurance, these are also necessary too, necessary for temporary reasons. But when we forget the inner cultivation, while we are being so busy and so dominated by the sense of external or worldly cultivations, then we end up not finding what we are looking for-which is liberation, which is enlightenment.
There is nothing wrong with the sense of cultivating worldly things. Nothing wrong with it. There's no sin in it. As a matter of fact, if you are able to combine together this external and internal cultivation together and helping each other, then that can be a very pure authentic dharma practice, too. As a matter of fact, if you listen to enlightened teachers, His Holiness Dalai Lama, or all the teachers in Tibetan Buddhist traditions or even other Buddhist traditions, they all talk actually about the importance of bringing together these two cultivations: worldly cultivation and inner cultivation - to see that the two things are not contradictory to each other.
When we have that philosophy, it can also change the quality of our dharma practice. So therefore, there's nothing wrong with outer cultivation. For instance, if we really think carefully about how we got this environment, somebody is paying money to rent this place. Somebody is really working so hard-which is Berry in this case-She's working really hard. But if she hadn't worked so hard, we wouldn't have this place. We might try to have the retreat somewhere else, and someone might accuse us of trespassing, and kick us off the property.
So we would be in big trouble if we just showed up on someone's property. So outer cultivation can be very good. For instance, if you have successful outer cultivation, it can support your inner cultivation.
The Six Paramitas is an inner cultivation, where we are going to develop, cultivate and reveal the inner perfections which are already there. But the philosophy of the Mahayana teachings is that the Six Paramitas are inherent qualities. They're not divine qualities, in the sense that divine quality and human quality are two separate things. The Six Paramitas are not divine qualities. They are human qualities. They're actually earthly qualities. And that means each of us is already endowed with the Six Paramitas . That's why in the dzogchen teachings, they often talk about all sentient beings are already perfect from the very beginning of their existence, which means that we are endowed with Buddha qualities-omniscience, wisdom.
Love, compassion, and all these qualities that we are aspiring toward are already in each of us, but in the form of an endowment. It's like seeds buried underground. Imagine that there's a seed underground, and in order to grow that seed, you have to put lots of effort: water, and sun rays and the right kind of temperature, in order to grow that seed. The same with your enlightened qualities, your Buddha nature is like some kind of potential seed. In order to manifest it, it requires lots of work, practice, and training.
So now we can see that the Six Paramitas are in some way inherent qualities, in another way they are actually some kind of training or disciplines that we can practice. When we begin to practice shila or generosity, we begin to unfold our inherent generosity. When we practice meditation, we begin to unfold our inner samadhi which is already there. When we practice wisdom, we begin to unfold our inner wisdom which is already there. So whatever we practice of the Six Paramitas will bring up that quality. So this is the ultimate inner cultivation of intrinsic perfections.
Six Paramitas, in that respect, are the trainings or practice of a bodhisattva. And in some way we can say that transcendent wisdom is the philosophy, or the view, of bodhisattvas, and the 5 paramitas, such as generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, meditation are the conduct or the practice of the bodhisattvas. We can experience the entire Six Paramitas in that statement.
Tonight the most important thing we can do is ordain each of us as bodhisattvas. Even though you had taken that vow in the past, it's always important to take this vow again and again. Bodhisattva vow is what we call a lifetime vow. There are three kinds of precepts in Buddhism. The first one is called periodic vows or precepts. The second one is called lifetime precept. Then another precept is called the vow you take from this moment until the moment you're enlightened-which might taken an instant and might take many lifetimes. It depends on your capability too. So for instance, when we take Vajrayana vow, when we become yogis/yoginis, that vow begins from this moment until the moment we become enlightened.
When you're enlightened, then you can give up that vow. It may take just one day. It's possible that you can be enlightened in the evening and then you can give up that vow. If it is not serving you very well, you can give up that vow. Or it may take three lifetimes, or ten lifetimes, too. But bodhisattvas vow is considered a lifetime vow. So you take that vow from this one moment, always from this very moment, to the very moment that you die.
And even Mahayana teachings and literatures talk about that taking those bodhisattvas vows 6 times every day, 3 times during the day and 3 times during the night (called the 6 stations)-you take those vows 6 times every day and night, morning, noon, evening, early night, midnight and early morning (which is actually late night). So you may like to have actually a sort of bodhisattva alarm clock which rings 6 times a day. So you take this vow 6 times, every day and night, and when you do that, it can be sometimes a very formal ceremony.
The seven branch prayer is a very popular practice, especially in terms of taking Mahayana vows or Vajrayana vows. There's one seven branch prayer which is in the Avalokiteshvara sadhana. You can use that. And sometimes there's a very short verse of 7 branch prayers, and you can recite that too. So it's good to recite 7 branch prayers.
Imagine that you are inviting Buddhas and bodhisattvas and taking the whole vow once again, and there's a tremendous sense of enhancement and reinforcement, every time we take vows through our visualization in front of buddhas and bodhisattvas and mandalas. You begin to feel that there's a new charge, a new enthusiasm that grows in your heart in order to keep the vows and precepts and trainings of a bodhisattvas. So tonight I'm going to be giving this vow. And even though many of you are already ordained as bodhisattvas, so we are going to do that.
Also, it's very indispensable to the retreat to talk about bringing the right kind of intention. In Tibetan Buddhism, every time when we hold a retreat, often talk about having and possessing the right kind of intention. Kalong namtak which means pure intention.
One time Lama Tsongkapa said "if you have pure good intention then the path in the ground will be very pure. If you have a wrong intention, then the path in the ground will be wrong and mistaken." Therefore our retreat, especially the quality of retreat, or how much you are going to benefit from this retreat, will be determined by your motivation. Either you have right or wrong motivation. And then, of course, it has to do with lots of various other conditions, too-the teachings, the retreat place, the food, the conveniences, and so forth. But how much we're going to benefit from this retreat is based on how much you are going to hold pure intention.
We're going to begin to undertake this retreat, including this bodhisattva vow, by developing this pure intention. If we are able to have pure intention, it's like having a clean container. Once you have a clean container, you can pour ambrosia or nectar in that and it's going to be very pure. But imagine if that container is completely contaminated by poison and toxins, then no matter how much you pour into that, you can pour ambrosia into it, but everything (whatever goes into that container) will be toxic and poisonous.
Our mind, our motivation is like the container. Dharma teachings, including contemplation and meditation, are like the nectar. So if we don't have pure intention, then the teachings will go through our ears, but never go through our heart. The teachings will never have the ability to change our consciousness. So it's very necessary to try to develop the right kind of intention, which begins by developing this altruism or compassionate motivation toward all sentient beings, which is again the motivation of bodhisattvas. This is known also as Bodhicitta.
So we have to think at least that we are engaging with this path not for some kind of personal achievement or self-improvement, not for any desire toward exotic knowledges, without any kind of wrong intention, but rather we want to undertake the path of the Six Paramitas in order to liberate all sentient beings, including ourselves. Liberating all of us, each of us, from the reign of samsara to the state of ever excellent perfect buddhahood. And that can be our fundamental motivation.
Then throughout the retreat, we may have various thoughts, like 5 poisons, or judgmental mind, or unhappy state of mind. Whatever comes, just make sure you are able to catch your motivations, your thought, immediately, whenever your mind is going in the wrong direction, the direction of non-virtuous karma. Try to catch it, be aware of that. Then as an offset, as an antidote, a remedy for that, you can practice the Six Paramitas, or altruism, or Bodhicitta mind or even Tonglen practice. Try to transform that-and experience a more transcendent or enlightened experience. This is the training of the bodhisattvas, which mentions many teachings, which include mind training (7 point mind training). So try to hold that motivation all the way through.
Now we are going to begin this ceremony of the bodhisattvas ordination. So in some way each of us are already bodhisattvas, because each of us are endowed with the Six Paramitas. Or one way of saying it is we are already potential bodhisattvas, or candidate bodhisattvas. Like when I was taking citizenship, I realized I never can be President of the United States because I don't have some of those intrinsic qualities (I wasn't born in the United States).
So we are bodhisattvas, because we have all these intrinsic qualities. We are 'naturalized' bodhisattvas. Is that a correct way to say it? We have all these qualities, the Six Paramitas, inherent qualities. Even somebody who's confused, completely confused and full of hatred, even that person has intrinsic qualities like love and compassion. The only problem that he or she has is that they're not able to manifest it because of the heaviness or the obscurations or karmic tendencies.
Yet the bodhisattva qualities already exist as our true potential. That is our ultimate potential. And this is at the same time a universal truth. All sentient beings possess these intrinsic qualities, no matter who they are. They may play various roles of saint, or sinner, or good person or bad person. Whatever images or roles they play, each of them have these intrinsic bodhisattva qualities, or Six Paramitas. Therefore all sentient beings are already bodhisattvas, as potential bodhisattvas, or bodhisattvas candidates.
So that means if we put all our heart and enthusiasm toward the path of Mahayana, each of us has the ability to become a bodhisattva in this very lifetime. Actually, we can be bodhisattvas in this very moment. And this is the whole point of this ceremony. This ceremony is a truly symbolic ceremony to ordain, initiate each of us as bodhisattvas. So it's very possible that we can be bodhisattvas in this very moment. This ceremony is a symbolic initiation that empowers us as bodhisattvas in this very moment. Whenever we become awakened to our inner Buddha qualities, the Six Paramitas, then we are already bodhisattvas.
So it's possible that, until now, we have been ordinary beings, in terms of being sentient, being confused with all sorts of internal defilements, hopes, fears, 5 poisons. But simply by being awakened to our true nature, the bodhisattva qualities, in that very moment we can have such a transformation, such a metamorphosis, that we can be bodhisattvas too.
There are many stories in Mahayana teachings about this. Shantideva said in the Way of Bodhisattva, "Imagine there's a being who's suffering in the fire of hell, but the moment he or she has an instant of Bodhicitta, in that very moment, this person would be transformed as the heir of the buddhas. This person would be the object of gods' and humans' worship and prayer.
So this is speaking about this instant transformation. Imagine that from the very beginning of our lifetimes until now, we have been wandering in the realm of samsara and perpetuating the same kind of habitual tendencies of hope, fear, insecurities, anxieties - all those neuroses that we are experiencing.
But if we are able to simply be aware of our inner Buddha nature, the Six Paramitas that are already present in us, then we may find some new treasure, a new perfection in each of us. By finding that new treasure in yourself, you have the power and the blessing to completely awaken and illuminate your life, in that instant, in that moment. So this is a very powerful path.
Some people think the Mahayana path is a very arduous path - that it is for individuals who have lower or inferior spiritual capabilities - that the Mantrayana is a higher or more esoteric teaching. But that is not true actually. Mahayana teachings can be very powerful and transformative too.
So, through this ceremony, the idea of the ceremony is that each of us is going to be empowered as a bodhisattva, and that means that each of us is going to be awakened to this inner treasure, this inner perfection, the intrinsic paramitas. So it's better to use this word of "intrinsic paramitas" instead of "paramitas." The moment we use the word of "intrinsic" it refers to the Six Paramitas are already inherent quality of each of us.
disappointment, isn't it? I may be a very good president. But one you can be president of the United States. Then you will have a bodhisattva President.

Good morning everyone. This morning, we are going to talk about the Six Paramitas, which is transcendent wisdom. And later, we will talk about the other 5 paramitas. Yet this Sixth Paramita is perhaps the vital and most essential understanding in the context of the paramita teachings.
There are many ways that we can comprehend this meaning of transcendent wisdom. One vital meaning is that this state of wisdom transcends both samsara and nirvana. It's a state where one has gone beyond everything. Beyond duality, beyond birth, death, beyond anything that we can comprehend. And this is called Mahanirvana, which is the ultimate revelation of Buddha Shakiamuni under the Bodhi tree, through his vajra-like samadhi.
Buddha Shakiamuni was seeking some kind of liberation or freedom from human existence or suffering. He was looking for peace. As we are human beings, we all desire some sense of peace, or temporary peace. Most of the time we don't even understand what permanent or everlasting peace is; therefore we're looking for temporary peace, which is really a form of escapism, a way of escaping from the physical pain and existential suffering that we experience every day. As individuals, we experience suffering through the 5 skandas which we are going to talk about later. We experience physical pains too, as we are human beings.
When you think about the moment you are born up to now, or even if you think about the future, from this very moment until we die, we have to go through various physical pains. Sickness, hunger, thirst, tiresome back pain and so forth. All of them are some kind of physical pain or suffering, whatever you like to call it. And also, at the same time, we have emotional pain, grief or sadness, depression. Sometimes it can be very rational or reasonable, but most of the time it is very irrational, without any cause or source. We find out that we're in a deep psychological problem most of the time.
And so, we desire some kind of immediate peace, or jiva in Tibetan, which means peace but has the connotation of a temporary peace, or instant peace. Maybe we can call it instant coffee, something that you want to get right now for immediate relief of pain or suffering. That's what we're desiring for most of the time.
Therefore, our lives can be sometimes very neurotic because we're constantly trying to hang on to immediate and instant relief of either physical or emotional pain and suffering. We're always jumping from one sensation to another, from one environment to another. And at the same time, if we are able to reflect on our everyday life, perhaps we'll discover that we have these habitual tendencies of going from one place to another place, either based on sensation or pleasure or emotion.
It can be something very simple; a very ordinary habit. For example, right now maybe we're drinking coffee, but nevertheless the next moment we want to drink tea or something like that. Then the next moment, we're wanting to eat something. One moment we are sitting in this temple, but then you might get bored with sitting here, or a physical sensation comes to make us feel uncomfortable or experiencing anxiety, and we find ourselves moving on to something else.
There is this constant perpetual tendency of not being able to be in the moment, but rather of being constantly haunted, pushed by dissatisfaction. And this is what we call dukha or oppressive suffering. So in that respect, there's a notion that Buddhism is passivism, because Buddha talked about the truth of suffering and the truth of dukha. And yet Buddhism is not passivism actually. It's more optimism because Buddha taught that suffering is not permanent.
No matter how great our suffering is, how intense and personal, there is a universal and inherent capability in each of us to overcome it. More than that, we have this intrinsic ability to actualize, to obtain the highest achievement and attainment which is enlightenment. We have the capability of attaining transcendent wisdom, which is the supreme knowledge, the knowledge that is supreme and divine, above all the dualistic knowledge that you can imagine.
There are various knowledges in this world, given by society, given by philosophers and scientists, and spiritual adepts. And all those knowledges are trying to show us the way out of suffering, how to have instant gratification, or instant relief. Actually, nowadays we're not going so much toward knowledge, but toward intoxicating substances. Maybe it was true at one time, that people were going toward more knowledge.
Buddha talked about giving up the obsession for knowledge and philosophy in his teachings. I think nowadays we have to put more emphasis on giving up obsession for substances. When I say substances, it can be anything, not only drugs or nice food, but substance, for example any material can be a substance, a source of obsession, attachment or the desire for instant relief of pain and suffering. At this time, in this era, we have to emphasize abandoning attachment and obsession to substances.
Knowledge is some kind of wisdom, either social or religious wisdom that teaches us how to get out of suffering. But from Buddha's teachings, especially from the perspective of the Mahayana view, knowledge can never actually grant us the means of finding freedom from nirvana or mokcha which is actually complete and total liberation.
For instance, Buddha was seeking knowledge too, at first. For many years in the forest, Buddha was in the company of various spiritual adepts and saddhus. After a period of time, he recognized that he wasn't discovering what he was looking for which was complete and everlasting liberation. So what he did was he sat under the Bodhi tree one night, and he went beyond all knowledge. Beyond all samsaric knowledge or nirvana knowledge. He went beyond all knowledge. And because he transcended all knowledge, he was able to gain this samadhi which is called vajra samadhi which is the entrance to the experience of enlightenment, according to Buddha's life story.
Then he discovered this Prajna paramita teaching. One of the first things he said was: "Our life is so marvelous to see all sentient beings as Buddhas." And then Buddha said, "What I have discovered is so profound and so unfathomable that no one would understand, so I am going to stay in the forest and be in silence."
Then the story goes that Buddha went to the forest for many years. After a while, Indra and Bhrama came from heaven to request Buddha to give teachings on what he had realized. But still, he didn't teach the Prajna paramita. He realized that ordinary human beings could not understand what he had realized, so he taught the four thoughts as groundwork, as preliminary teachings or guidance as a foundation for transcendent wisdom teachings. Later he taught the Prajna paramita teachings at the Vulture Peak Mountain in India.
So in some way, what we're doing here is very much what Buddha did, even though of course many of you already have the higher capability to understand very advanced teachings like dzogchen mahamudra, and mahayoga and so forth. Yet we did exactly what Buddha did. We taught in the first year the four noble truths, the four thoughts. We did all this groundwork, the preliminary training and education. Now, we're ready to receive the Prajna paramita teachings, and this is not Vulture Peak Mountain, but at least we can think of it as Vulture Peak Mountain. This is actually redwood trees.
So in some way we may have this preconception, this idea that some way we're going to get some kind of Buddha knowledge, or very special fancy knowledge from this teaching and training and that will fix all our problems overnight, because it's transcendent wisdom. This is something we have to let go of right now.
Actually, when you look carefully at the words of enlightenment in Tibetan, it says chang chub. It doesn't say chup-chang. That would be really good, chupchang would mean completion first, and then purification. But rather, purification comes first, then completion comes after that.
The Tibetan translators translated the word Bodhi as chang chub, which has two connotations. Chang means purification, and chup means completion, which is a very extraordinary translation. It really clarifies the whole meaning of the path, as well as the state of enlightenment. It's very good sometimes to reflect on those words, chang chub.
So that means, in order to have completion, where the completion means wisdom, enlightenment, or freedom or love or Bodhicitta - first we have to go through this process of chang, which means purification. That means purifying all our habitual tendencies, even purifying knowledge too. Purifying concepts.
Concepts can be a great hindrance to experiencing directly the way of things, (which is tadtai in Buddhism or the suchness, in order to realize the way things are). In order to realize the nature of reality, one has to purify not only the karmic tendencies, the gross ones, which are quite easy to point out, but also the subtle ones, concepts, concepts about who we are, concepts about Buddha and nirvana. We have to transcend all of them. That's why it's called transcendent wisdom - transcending everything, every level of concept. Whether they're holy or unholy, virtuous or non-virtuous, it doesn't matter, we have to transcend every form of concept in order experience directly the tadta or the suchness too.
Tadta is a very interesting way to express reality. Tadta is almost a meaningless word in Sanskrit, which means "that" or something like that. So therefore, Buddha was limited by language. It was extraordinarily difficult to put into words or to conceptualize about the true nature of reality he experienced. So tadta is almost like baby talk. It means "suchness " or the way things are. Reality itself is beyond any comprehension or language or symbol or concept. It's only something you can experience directly. So transcendent wisdom is something we can only experience directly and is not based on any knowledge or words or concepts or language. So that's why Buddha called it tadta or suchness.
Now we've come to the understanding that this whole training is not about acquiring or accumulating more knowledge but rather purifying and eradicating everything we've invested and accumulated in our consciousness throughout many lifetimes. Until we enter the path, or the Prajna paramita training, we've been encouraged to accumulate more knowledge, more ideas about what is nirvana, what is samsara, what is the way to liberation.
Take for instance the four thoughts or the four noble truths. These are basically various ideas or viewpoints or belief systems about who we are and what is the cause of samsara or enlightenment. But once we've entered this path of Prajna paramita, we're talking about purifying everything. This is very similar to the Atiyoga teachings, the dzogchen teachings.
Longchempa says that either one could be locked up in the golden chain or an iron chain, it doesn't matter, either way one is locked up in prison. So therefore, every form of concept that we associate in our mind is actually a form of chain that distances us from the complete liberation of mahanirvana. Whether they're a positive concept, or a negative concept, or even spiritual wisdom or conventional wisdom, any concept can be a subtle hindrance to experiencing the vajra like samadhi which is transcendent wisdom.
So now what we're doing is very unusual - unprecedented in our path, to some degree. It's about purifying everything. It's like some kind of backward practice, backward training. Up to now we've been encouraged to look for wisdom. We've been looking for knowledge everywhere, because we've been so desperate to experience immediate relief of suffering and pain and so forth.
Buddha did exactly the same as us, except he didn't drive an old Volvo. Otherwise he did exactly the same as me and you. In modern day terms he was a freak and he was a spiritual seeker also. But perhaps he wouldn't fit into any category. He might not even fit into a Buddhist community either. So basically he was a spiritual freak. He would definitely drive an old Volvo. I have a good joke about that, too. Because Buddhist people have a great attachment to precious human life, they don't want to die in car accidents before attaining buddhahood. So they usually buy Volvos.
So Buddha was exactly like we are now. A seeker of truth. So what Buddha found at first is called jiva. Zsuppa da jiva. Jiva means peace, but this has a connotation of temporary peace. Zsuppa means samsara. Samsara is the very experience of this contact, dissatisfaction, pain, boredom, loneliness, insecurity or various existential survival difficulties - which is quite obvious. Either we admit it consciously or not, or we are able to discuss it openly. We can't hide some of those existential survival difficulties, challenges. We might try to have some kind of false optimism or wear rose colored glasses, or try to live with a sense of American optimism. But it is obvious: there is extreme existential suffering. We experience it in our own lives and we see it in the lives of other people too.
So this is called samsara. Zsuppa is our internal sufferings and conflicts with reality, with life. This is called Zsuppa. Then there's jiva, which is temporary peace. Yet it is actually samsara deep down. You may not experience the intensities, or the obvious or apparent sufferings of samsara, but yet it is samsara. This is because whenever you run out of merit or run out of whatever the source of that temporary peace is, you have to go back again to samsara and re-experience everything again.
So jiva is sometimes known as temporary nirvana. So Buddha discovered that in the first place, before he actualized transcendent wisdom in the forest. There was a time when even he made a mistake, misperceiving jiva as nirvana or mahanirvana. He thought that he'd gained enlightenment. But later he discovered that actually he hadn't gotten any further toward enlightenment. He came back to Bodghaya and sat under the Bodhi tree, and finally obtained the samadhi called the vajrasamadhi or transcendent wisdom.
So therefore it's a very important point for bodhisattvas or for practitioners of Prajna paramita not to misunderstand the jiva as the ultimate state of ultimate liberation. Shiva is some kind of false bliss or false state of enlightenment. We may have a perception that we are already enlightened or a false perception that everything's perfect or a false perception that we no longer have to do dharma practice, or a false perception that 'oh, we know now the truth', or that we now have the ultimate wisdom or the ultimate knowledge. These are the symptoms of jiva.
We can experience jiva, or this temporary happiness, through various circumstances. For instance, sometimes we can take sanctuary in the material world, in the conventional world, and we can also experience the sense of jiva or temporary bliss or happiness. If you gained such a worldly richness, wealth, a nice house, and popularity, it's quite easy to experience temporary happiness in ways that obscure our seeing the existence of the underlying problems and conflicts of our life.
For instance, if we are on some kind of path, spiritual path, or even the path to enlightenment, it's very easy to experience this jiva or notion of temporary satisfaction, where we think 'oh everything's fine, or perfect' like being in spiritual la-la land, where everything is fantastic, exquisite, enlightened and so forth. So there are many sources in our life where we can experience temporary satisfaction. This is maybe familiar territory to each of us.
When we meditate carefully in our own lives, we can come to a heart felt realization that there is this ongoing dissatisfaction. Sometimes we're aware of it, sometimes not. Most times we're not aware of that underlying sense of dissatisfaction. It's an ongoing experience for each of us this sense of pain or discontent with who we are and the world around us.
This is always with us whether we're eating, sleeping, dancing or celebrating, there's always this ongoing sense of dissatisfaction. It's either projected onto our physical image, when we think: 'I'm not beautiful', or projected onto our sense of wealth: 'I don't have enough money', or projected on our life: 'life is confusing', or projected on God: 'god is not just', or onto society: 'society is not as perfect as I wish it were'.
So there is this constant dissatisfaction, but we don't experience this all the time consciously. We manage to hide that feeling by experiencing jiva, the temporary happiness, through various indulgences.
So let's talk about indulgence. That came up this morning. Buddhism talks about indulgence. Other religions talk about indulgence. In Christianity they have the 10 sins, right? One of them is eating too much food, what is that? Gluttony. That is similar to the Buddhist concept of indulgence.
So we have to talk about the habit of indulgence in relationship to our own life. It's not a really big problem, because everyone has this problem, so that makes it not a very big problem. Otherwise it's very scary to find out that we alone have a problem of indulgence. But it's a universal problem, a global problem. It's a problem for all human beings, so you don't have to feel any shame or guilt to meditate on that in our own life. I think sometimes westerners have a sense of reluctance or hesitance to find out about their own faults or their own neuroses, because society always condemns neuroses or habitual tendencies. So people are often afraid to discover any fault in themselves. So we must say this is a universal problem, and we have to be very happy, very delighted to discover our own indulgence.
It's not your problem, it's a problem for everyone. It's like snow, because snow lands on everyone's head, it's not just landing on you.
(end side one)
What is indulgence? It's actually a very subtle tendency that governs or dominates every day of our life. Of course, sometimes indulgence can take a very serious level or degree. For instance there are people in society that are obsessed with drugs or sports, or obsessed with various things, very intensively, more than other people. But deep down we all have indulgences.
What is the nature of indulgence? It comes out of this ongoing desire to release dissatisfaction. We cannot tolerate the experience of dissatisfaction. It's very painful to experience. We want immediate release, or instant release. So therefore we've got all these instant substances: instant coffee, and nowadays, we have instant liberation, too.
One time Dalai Lama was giving a teaching and somebody asked him this question: "Can you teach us what is the fastest and cheapest way to enlightenment?" Basically he was asking for instant liberation. So we are looking for instant liberation, instant release. Anything that comes along with the label "instant" is very appealing to each of us. Somehow, it isn't easy to simply hang out with this experience of dissatisfaction. It's very painful.
If we allow ourselves to meditate and to discover what is really the nature of this dissatisfaction, we may find out the perfect answer, the meaning within the conflict itself, within the suffering dissatisfaction itself. What happens though, is we get sidetracked. It's like if your car has mechanical problems, it would be quite a meaningless act to go fix your computer. Maybe we don't often want to open the car, because we're afraid we'll find dead rats, mice, dirt, and stuff. So we really don't want to open the hood of the car. Instead we decide to go fix our computer, mindlessly thinking that fixing the computer is going to fix the car.
So this is very much like obsessing on external indulgences rather than digging into the nitty gritty of what's causing those indulgences in the first place.
So someone may think "Why is it so necessary to talk about all these unpleasant things about ourselves. Why don't we talk about more glamorous, transcendent or spiritual qualities, like Buddha nature?" To explain this, Buddha gave the following categories of teachings, called the three rules or three dharma chakras: The first dharma chakra were the Buddha's teachings on the four noble truths. The second dharma chakra were the Buddha's teachings on emptiness, transcendent wisdom. The third dharma chakra were the Buddha's teachings on Buddha nature, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya, and the Prajna paramita teachings. These teachings on Buddha nature or luminous wisdom, are known as dhrupa, which means teachings of affirmation. But in order to understand teachings of affirmation, first we have to understand the teachings of negation.
The notion of negation is to eradicate all our concepts, which are the source of samsara. If we are able to eradicate our concepts, including grasping to ego, grasping to duality, then there is space in our consciousness to experience directly all the enlightened properties, enlightened existence - dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, nirmanakaya. As a matter of fact, by purifying our habitual tendencies and concepts, the gnonto, and then the chup, the completion comes naturally, automatically without any effort.
For instance, if our mirror is dusty, we just wipe the dust off the mirror. We don't have to actually manufacture another mirror because the mirror is already absolutely perfect, absolutely pristine. That mirror has the quality of reflecting images, and that means all we have to do is wipe off the dust which obscures the mirror's intrinsic ability to reflect images. In the same we, we are already Buddhas from the very beginning of our existence.
Transcendent wisdom, the Six Paramitas, are already inherent in each of us, although dormant right now. In that sense we don't have to try to actualize or try to gain any enlightened qualities. They're already in each of us. So now, all we have to do is engage in process of meditation, in the various means and methods to purify the obscurations and defilements which obscure our Buddha qualities in this very lifetime. So if we are able to practice the first principle chang, then chup comes automatically as a natural, spontaneous attainment.
So now you see we came to this understanding that the ultimate suffering is dissatisfaction, and there isn't another form of suffering besides it. You may think that suffering can be caused by outer circumstances, unfavorable circumstances, such as loss of one's loved ones, being in a state of poverty, or maybe having various uncomfortable conditions, illness and so forth. In reality none of them can create suffering in us.
Suffering is a state of mind. Dissatisfaction is the only suffering that we should and that we can eradicate. When we eradicate or transform dissatisfaction, then everything can be transformed. Reality can be transformed in your own mind and that transforms the entire world which is only your perception. There is no reality outside your own perception.
So Buddhism teaches that we can find in ourselves the ultimate liberation, the completion of enlightenment, right in this very moment. It's not like building a bridge or building stuppas. If we're supposed to build a bridge, then we have to have substantial financial resources and other resources. It takes time, it takes all these conditions. It can be very dependent on outer circumstances. But enlightenment is not like building a bridge. It can happen right now by your own effort, because it's all about transforming one's perception, one's understanding of what is reality, who we are. So in some ways, obtaining enlightenment is much simpler, much easier than fixing one's computer, or fixing one's teapot.
Fixing one's computer is very difficult, actually, because first you have to have the knowledge, and even if you have the knowledge, the computer has to be fixable. If the computer is not fixable, then your knowledge about computer cannot repair the computer miraculously. So in that way enlightenment is a very easy process sometimes. Almost too easy. It's a work, a transformation that you can experience by changing your perception, independently too. It's quite amazing.
But on the other hand, it can be also very difficult, too. It's a very difficult process. Even Buddha says, "In the Hinayana path, individuals may take three aeons to gain enlightenment." Aeons are a very very long time. It can actually be very shocking news to hear what is one aeon. It contains billions of years. Quite hopeless news actually. Buddha said "Hinayana path is like riding an ox, a slow ox, it takes a long time to reach any place." The Mahayana and Vajrayana path are like riding a magical horse. You get to your destination quite miraculously. So therefore enlightenment sometimes takes a long time, sometimes short.
So when you think about your path, your dharma practice, it may seem to be taking a long time. And sometimes we have the experience of "Oh, this dharma practice is not really working for me. I've been trying to do this for a long time. I have been taking initiations, and still my problems are as concrete as before. More than that, it even seems as though I'm getting a little be worse than before."
There are many times that we actually have doubt about Buddha nature, maybe this whole Buddha nature thing is some kind of Buddhist good news, or Buddhist optimism. It has nothing to do with reality. We always encounter this doubt. We often have doubt toward our Buddha nature. Also, it is very easy to have doubt toward the dharma teachings. So either way it can be an obstruction. If we have doubt towards our Buddha nature or toward dharma teachings it can be a very powerful hindrance towards our path.
Even if we don't think that we are already Buddhas, at least we have to have a certain unshakeable faith that we have the potential of actualizing Buddhahood in this very lifetime and to overcome our suffering. We have to cultivate that conviction and faith as the foundation, the cornerstone of our dharma practice.
So in Tibetan Buddhism, there's a great emphasis in developing faith, developing faith in one's Buddha nature, in one's Buddha potentiality. This is perhaps the most important insight, more important than any other meditation, than any other practice. When we have true faith, true conviction in our Buddha nature, then it's very easy, it's very possible to gain samadhi, liberation and wisdom. Everything's possible. Then we may use the expression, as Tibetan's use, Sangye Lapchang, which means "Buddha is in the palm of your hand." Whenever you have complete faith in your Buddha nature, then enlightenment is in the palm of your hand. Sangye Lapchang. Buddhahood in one's hand.
I often talk about the importance of cultivating faith in Buddha nature. Buddha nature is not a philosophy, not some kind of optimism, or some kind of klesha. It's not some kind of politician's klesha like: "Everything's going to be fine next year when I become president".
I think Americans have very skeptical minds sometimes because you have a long history of leaders and politicians talking about "good news" and yet it ends up having nothing to do with reality. So there is a deep skepticism in American culture which becomes a threat. And we have those doubts and skepticisms in our consciousness too.
When we carry those conventional doubts and skepticism, which come from your upbringing, your culture, on the path to enlightenment, they can be major obstacles. Skepticism or doubt is a very powerful hindrance to us. So faith is actually the remedy to that.
In Buddhism, we don't talk a lot about conceptual faith, faith in conceptual thinking. Buddha never told his followers: "You should have faith in me." Buddha never talked about having faith in any external entity or beings. Buddha even said at one point, "Do not rely on me, rely on my teachings. Do not rely on words, but rely on meanings. Do not rely on concepts, but rely on wisdom. Do not rely on words, but rely on the realization" (the four reliances, a very famous Buddha's statement).
So he didn't encourage his followers to have faith in any outside beings outside themselves. He encouraged all his followers to have faith in their own Buddha nature. To have faith means to have faith in your own Buddha nature. That is the ultimate faith. It is also very important to have secondary faith, like faith in dharma teachings, faith in enlightened teachers. These are also very necessary. They can help enhance faith in your own Buddha nature.
When we are able to develop faith in Buddha, it's much easier to develop faith in your own Buddha nature. When we have faith in our sangha, in our dharma teachings, and the dharma teachings of Buddha Shakiamuni, Guru Padmasambhava, then it is very easy to have faith in one's own Buddha nature too.
If we are able to have faith, not only in enlightened teachers, but even in one individual person, that helps us to open our hearts to have faith in our own Buddha nature. There's a story that an old lady who became enlightened by worshipping a dog tooth that she thought was the Buddhas'. So if we have faith in the Buddha, or in enlightened teachers, or even faith in an ordinary person, it can help you to open your heart, open your mind to explore that we have Buddha nature - that we have this basic, ultimate, intrinsic, timeless, inherent divinity.
Everyone knows the story about the dog tooth, right? This is perhaps my favorite story in Tibetan Buddhism. So sometimes it's good to repeat those stories, they can be very inspiring. As a matter of fact, we are maybe going to read Milarepa's life story at the next DAP retreat. It's very good to read inspiring stories of enlightened beings, saints throughout history, like reading a story of 84 Mahasiddhas.
Anyway, this story is about a lady in Eastern Tibet who was very devoted. And she always wanted to have a tooth of the Buddha which is quite ambitious. I think there are only two or three of Buddha's teeth, but she was very devoted and very naïve too. So she has a son who goes to Lhasa, a holy city in the center of Tibet. Lhasa is considered to be a holy city where you have all the monasteries, temples, all the lamas. So she told her son to bring back Buddha's tooth as a gift when we comes back from his tour to Lhasa. So he was someone who commuted between Lhasa and Eastern Tibet often, and every time he went there, he would forget to bring back a present. So the next time he went off, his mother said: "If you don't bring back Buddha's tooth this time, I'm going to jump off a cliff and kill myself." So he said "Ok, don't worry, this time I will make sure to bring back Buddha's tooth for your altar." He went to Lhasa and he forgot again to look for Buddha's tooth. So when he returned, as he was nearing his village, he realized that he hadn't brought anything for his mother. He got very nervous, remembering what his mother had said. So he looked around, and found a dog's corpse. He took a tooth from the dog's corpse, and wrapped it in a very beautiful, fancy, silk kaza. The next day he arrived at his village. He presented the gift to his mother and said "This is Buddha's tooth. Please cherish it. Take care of it. Put it on your altar." And the mother was so happy, completely overjoyed. She put that tooth on her altar, and sat every day and did meditation and prayer. When she died, she obtained rainbow body, she became an enlightened one. This is a very good story. So it really happens that the dog's tooth was not Buddha's tooth; it was a dog's tooth, obviously, no way to mistake that. But somehow she was able to experience her own pure perception of faith in relation to her Buddha nature, by opening her heart, by having faith in that object as Buddha's tooth.
So it's very important, and a powerful means as well, to exercise faith or pure perception in all beings, in everything, in order to awaken to our own Buddha nature. Therefore, there is a sense in Tibetan Buddhism of exercising faith, which is a very unusual concept in western culture - exercising faith, exercising pure perception.
Pure perception and faith are very similar to each other. For example, when we end the session, we always recite the prayer of pure vision, which is all about exercising pure perception or faith in relationship to everything beyond existence, whatever comes in front of us.
So all of this means we are already Buddhas. Each of us have the potential to become Buddha in this very moment, because it's all a matter of changing one's ultimate perception of who we are and toward reality too. In that respect, enlightenment is very easy.
But where are we going to find the notion of enlightenment or Buddhahood? Outside oneself? Outside oneself in a divine transcendent dimension? Or are we going to find enlightenment within oneself. Enlightenment can only occur or awaken within oneself, within one's own consciousness. And that means enlightenment can be discovered within our own problems, within our conflict, within our own kleshas, whatever they are, right now.
When we are able to reflect and meditate on our own consciousness, our own kleshas, our defilements, habitual tendencies, instead of getting stuck with them, instead of finding more and more suffering, we find true liberation actually. This is a very ironic truth. When we try to run away from our problems or internal kleshas, then our problems begin to grow, they tend to multiply. If you try to find instant relief or satisfaction from outside in the material, or worldly, existence, sensual pleasures, entertainment, ideas, activities, our problems begin to grow, becomes heavier, and multiply.
The moment we are able to redirect our mind, and are able to meditate on the nature of reality, of our suffering or our problems, as well as our Buddha nature, then the problems begin to resolve immediately. It happens the moment we are able to direct our mind toward our suffering. Liberation comes out of suffering. Therefore, Buddha said: "Suffering is a mask to all the Buddhas of the three times. dukha is actually the holy word for all Buddhas in the past, present and future. And there's no one who's become an enlightened one without taking one's own suffering as the ultimate teacher.
What does this mean, taking one's own suffering as a teacher? What does it mean? Does it mean that we have to become some kind of spiritual masochist? To experience more torment? It means to reflect on the nature of suffering, it means not being afraid of suffering, but rather undergoing the process of reflection, trying to understand what is the nature of suffering in this very moment.
There are many forms of suffering. Buddha talked about 84,000 human sufferings that we can experience in one day. We can count some of them right now, actually, from the headache down to the back pain; from stress to anxiety. We can count quite a few forms of suffering, but all of them actually grow from one field and that is dissatisfaction. You might be experiencing anxiety, or a sense of delusion, hope, or fear. All of them come out of one problem: dissatisfaction or discontent. This is what Buddha called "oppressive suffering." This sense of suffering actually permeates every one of our lifetime activities, motivations, conduct and so forth. It can also manifest in various forms of anxiety, grief, dissatisfaction, delusion, projection and so forth. This is the source of all suffering: dissatisfaction.
So where does this dissatisfaction come from? We are going to meditate on that. This is what the Prajna paramita teachings are all about. And ironically, when we experience this sense of dukha or dissatisfaction, we want to have the peace right now, immediately. We want a physical and emotional peace.
There are two ways that we look for that temporary peace, or 'jiva'. One is the instinctual method. That means you want to eat something, or drink something, have something, or experience something. Maybe you want to drink wine or have a party or listen to music. Of course there's nothing wrong with listening to music but if we look carefully, most of the time the sense of looking for relief is behind our motivation. Or maybe we want to live in a nice house, or have nice clothes, or move immediately from one environment to another environment, or we want to maybe surf the channels on the TV. All of this is because of dissatisfaction, obviously.
Maybe we want to have a lot of projects going on at the same time. These are the instinctual methods through which we experience jiva or temporary relief, which most people do. As American culture, as global culture, we go toward various sensual pleasures such as entertainment, movies, music, and so forth. I'm not saying these things are bad; but perhaps our motivation for being attached to them it to experience jiva or temporary relief.
Another way we look for jiva is the non-instinctual method. I'm not sure exactly what we have to use, but maybe it's some kind of ingenious method or conception. Somehow, we've become very sophisticated and we know that all these sensual pleasures cannot give us ultimate happiness, so we become very "spiritual" in that point of view. We become very disgusted or disillusioned with worldly life. We become disillusioned with the material world. Nothing makes sense to us, and we become very, basically, grouchy. Holy grouchy. We may want to be a monk tomorrow, or we want to be a nun tomorrow morning. We cut our hair. We think everybody's quite superficial, the culture is very material. We begin to see everything very gloomy, that there's no meaning in samsara, and we become saintly - holy grouchy. Then we begin to look for knowledge or wisdom. We may end up packing everything up tomorrow and going to Nepal or Jerusalem or Tibet to find out the way to enlightenment.
Many have followed a path such as this. When you were teenagers, you weren't interested in these teachings at all actually. And there were times that each of us were predominantly involved with sensual pleasures or entertainment that goes along with the main culture, like enjoying fancy clothes, driving a nice car, and trying to have ambitions or goals in life like trying to be successful. That was the purpose of life.
Then we came to the realization that none of our goals were giving us happiness. We knew that something was wrong with life. Then, there was a time when we began to look for wisdom, look for the enlightened path, and that's when we thought of becoming monks or nuns, when we ran away from our home town and so forth, to look for some kind of ultimate way to free ourselves from this suffering, this ongoing dissatisfaction.
This is a very necessary development or process. To reach the vehicle Prajna paramita, we have to go through all these phases, all these processes of our lifetime. And some of you are standing on Vulture Peak Mountain right now, ready to meditate, ready to explore the wealth of transcendent wisdom. But all things, whatever you did in the past, were actually a very necessary preparation to where we begin to explore the treasures, the wealth, the enlightened wisdom of transcendent teachings, Prajna paramita.
In my case, it was very different because I was a monk already when I was 10 years old. My way of renouncing samsara was running away from the monastery and coming to the United States. That was my way of practicing renunciation. For you it would be the opposite.
I think now we went beyond these two stages. Looking for perfection through sensual pleasures, or looking for perfection through acquiring more knowledge, more ideas. So when we read various books of all sorts, that's actually the same desire at work - to find an alternate satisfaction. We may think "some books may have the right answer to some of my problems, or maybe the dharma has, or that teaching has the answer." All of that comes from the one motivation, which is a very good motivation, nothing wrong with it.
But somehow the notion of Prajna paramita has the meaning of transcending everything, transcending even knowledge, transcending attachment toward anything, toward illusions, and transcending even attachment toward knowledge. So this is not about acquiring knowledge, or trying to learn more, but trying to not learn or un-learn.
So see. We always think of dharma as something to learn, but in this respect, it's something not to learn anymore. Something that transcends the act of learning.
In the Buddhist teachings, there are three stages, such as hoppisa. Hoppi means the state of learning, and that is considered the ordinary state. Then Buddhahood is considered mehoppisa which is considered the "not learning" state. So the path of Prajna paramita is the path of not learning. Not learning anything else. Not learning ideas, not learning any concept, any knowledge about enlightenment or ultimate reality. This is the way of not learning. It's very easy actually. We don't have any quizzes, no examinations, since this is the path of not learning.
So now, according to the Prajna paramita teachings, dissatisfaction arises out of grasping onto the notion of "I" or ego. Going beyond has this sense of going beyond ego. Ego is the ultimate concept. It is concept. Usually concept, or nongtuk, has the connotation of being fallible, of being invalid. Or it's a form of misperception when we say "concept," something we can eradicate, something we can actually throw out. You can say "Oh that's just your concept."
So ego is nothing but a simple concept. But somehow every human being has a very strong attachment to his or her concepts. This is a completely invalid concept. We may understand intellectually that this is an invalid concept that we need to throw out, but our attachment toward it is very strong, and deeply rooted in each of us through many lifetimes. So intellectual understanding cannot cut through this attachment. It requires meditation and various means of upaya including discipline and so forth.
So in this respect the Six Paramitas are not simply a meditation. It has various involvement with other practices, too. For instance, shila. Shila means discipline. Shila has various aspects including practicing discipline and purification too. For instance, discipline is necessary to support practice in order to experience transcendent wisdom or freedom from ego. It can be very powerful.
Shila is very important as a supporting practice in order to experience transcendent wisdom or the freedom from ego. Shila can be very powerful. Because we may understand intellectually the notion of ego as illusion, but in order to really purify our attachment and grasping to this notion of "I", it requires a lot of practice and discipline.
Buddha talked about the Six Paramitas, and he talked about transcendent wisdom being the main practice, a vital practice; but the five Paramitas are practices or disciplines which support us in order to gain this ultimate Paramita, transcendent wisdom.
Therefore, we can apply various disciplines. Of course, upaska vow can be a discipline, it can be a Paramita, too. And in your daily life, you can practice those Six Paramitas: generosity, discipline and so forth. There are many ways you can practice those Six Paramitas. They can be either formal or informal practices.
For instance, coming here to this sanctuary, and giving up your daily activities, and sitting in uncomfortable postures for 8 hours is discipline, too. What we are doing right now is part of the Six Paramitas practice. Actually, in Tibetan Buddhism, whenever we have an intensive retreat (and this is an intensive retreat in many degrees-a retreat that involves lots of reflection, meditation, sense of sincerity), usually we take a fasting ceremony, which involves a very specific discipline.
For instance, you can have only one meal, and then you don't eat anything else during the day, only one meal. And then there's a time that you get up very early in the morning, it's very good to get up very early in the morning, and go to your mat and spend lots of time in meditation, time by yourself.
There are a lot of practices and disciplines that can support our path toward the direct experience of transcendent wisdom, which means basically rigpa. In dzogchen, they talk about rigpa. In Mahamudra, they talk about innate wisdom. In the Madiamika teaching, they talk about transcendent wisdom, which refers to the same realization, the same experience of Buddha mind. There's no real difference or hierarchy between them.
Ego is a misperception, so we have to find way, such as wisdom, as well as meditation, a process of purification to eradicate or purify this attachment, this ultimate delusion.
What is ego? What is the notion of "I"? When you read the Heart Sutra, there are lots of teachings, lots of wisdom words to find out what is emptiness, what is self-emptiness, which is the non-existence of ego. The Heart Sutra is a very beautiful prayer that you can recite. The teaching is based on transcendent wisdom.
In the Heart Sutra, it is said that ego comes out of the 5 skandas, which are form, feeling, perception, intention or sometimes will, and then consciousness. So we are going to do a different set of meditations in order to understand the emptiness of the 5 skandas.
These 5 skandas are like attachment to this table. This table is a good example. It has various components, legs, a top, nails. But what is this table? There's no table, really. This table is just an object that someone designated or labeled as "table", based on the dependence of all these different components. So there's no table. In the same way, there's no house either. And there's no cup, and there's no bell.
In the Heart Sutra, there's no eyes, no tongue, no ears, no nose. Some lamas say: why didn't Buddha just say "there's no face"? That would have fixed everything. You know, there's no head (laughter). There's also no car, no office, no traffic jam. This is good news. All these things are a huge problem, a huge concept. "Thing" is the source of samsara. "Thing" is the source of everything. Things. What we're trying to do is eradicate things.
So we think there are lots of things. There are lots of things right now. Samsara is a thing. Nirvana is a thing. Buddha is a thing. Dharma is also a thing.
Buddha said "there is no wisdom, there is no dharma." This is quite a valuable statement in the Heart Sutra - "there's no dharma." There's no attainment even, because attainment is just a concept too. So things don't exist in the state of meditation. In the state of transcendent wisdom, things do not exist. And that state is called "great shunyata".
In dzogchen it's called Dharmakaya, which means the same thing, the all-pervasive space. All-pervasive space is the source of all enlightened qualities. So emptiness and Dharmakaya mean the same thing. Dzogchen doesn't use the word "great shunyata" as we use in the Prajna Paramita teachings. In dzogchen, they use more the notion of Dharmakaya, which means "all-pervasive, enlightened space." And in that state, there is no "thing." A thing has no existence, it is merely a concept.
So what we're trying to do right now is get rid of things. This is a very simple practice. Prajna Paramita is a very simple practice, getting rid of things. It's a kind of mind laundry practice. A mind-washing practice - getting rid of every thing out of your mind.
So whatever we experience, perceive everything as concepts in our mind. This practice is to get rid of everything in your mind, actually.
So you see, the table does not exist. The table is just an object that we have labeled with the word 'table' based on this collection of legs, nails, wood and so forth. In the same way, we are like the table. When we say "I", this is just like the table. The 5 skandas are similar to the components of the table.
Form, is for instance our physical body, or rupa in Sanskrit. This very physical body we received from our parents - from the elements. In Tibetan teachings there is an expression: "borrowed room" or "borrowed house"). It's like this body is a rented motel room. We rent it for a while, and it will decompose eventually into the 5 elements.
So it's like a borrowed motel room, and we are the so-called 'tenants'. We have to take care of this rental room. We cannot do damage to this property because it's borrowed. We have to take care of it very well. Cleansing feet and face, we care for everything, which is our task. But at the same time, we cannot be attached to this body, this form of rupa, because this is a borrowed object from the elements. Since this is a borrowed object, there's no owner.
Usually we think we are the owner of this body - that the owner is the ego, the sense of "I". But since this is a borrowed object, there's no owner actually. The owner, or the sense of "I" is also a mis-perception. "I" does not exist. "I" is some notion that we perceived based on the 5 skandas, the way we labeled the collection of various components of the table. So we have very strong concepts of thinking of this as a solid table; but the table does not exist. So this is called form, the first mis-perceived component of ego.
The second component is called feeling. We have lots of feelings. Various feelings in every moment. Feelings are not permanent either. They're transient, impermanent. If we meditate on the process of feeling without being identified with any of them, then feeling is transient. We can't actually point to or grasp any feeling, because they're constantly changing in every moment. It's constantly changing. Right now you have one feeling, the next moment you can have another feeling in relationship to the environment or to the people next to you, or to the weather. Feelings are constantly changing. At the same time, we think feelings are "I", "I" am happy or "I" am not happy.
If we're able to realize it, the nature of feeling is transient, impermanent. It's emptiness. Then we can understand that there's no longer the sense of "I". The reason we suffer is that we become attached to the feeling of "I". Or another way to say it is that we become "I"-dentified with feeling our feelings.
So meditation is a way to see the nature of feeling, the reality of feeling which is constant change, transience, impermanence, which has no sense of permanence or solidity. There's no basis in the realm of feeling that we can identify as "I". The notion of "I" does not exist in feeling itself as intrinsic solidity, but exists when we become attached to the feeling. So this is called feeling, which is the second skanda.
Lihkhipong is perception. And perception is some kind of cognitive ability we have as mind function. We perceive this as a red collar, that as a blue collar. We perceive this as a table. We perceive this as a person. That is a flower. That is a statue. That's called perception. At the same time, perception isn't permanent either. Perception is constantly changing in the same way as feelings change. But we have the tendency to identify ourselves with those various perceptions. We think that we are the perception. Then we make huge assumptions out of that, when we get attached to the perception as "I".
It's the same way with intention or will. We have will in every moment, the will to move, the will to speak, the will to sit, the will to meditate, the will to use the bathroom, the will to drive a car, the will to get enlightenment. But we have again this tendency to identify with will - "I" am going to use the bathroom, "I" am going to speak, "I" am speaking, "I" am going to change the whole world, or "I" am going to meditate. We become attached to will, then we continue the process of solidifying the ego.
Another skanda is called lamshu consciousness. Lamshu is the ability to become conscious of everything. For instance, if we see a car driving down the highway, we're aware of that car, aware that someone is driving that car. Or if we're listening to the dharma teachings, we are able to be aware of hearing the dharma teachings. Basically, it's the conscious, cognitive ability to be aware of everything that's happening in this moment. For instance, right now, we become aware that we're listening to the teachings, or we're aware that we're meditating, or we're aware that we're at Berry's house. So we can be conscious of every event.
Somehow, consciousness seems to be a larger component of us. It seems to be reality. But it is momentary reality. And when we meditate on the nature of consciousness, it changes constantly, the way the clouds are moving constantly, the way we are flowing every moment. It's very transient.
Buddha said, "if you divide the sound of a snap into atomic moments, as a hypothesis, there are 364 subatomic moments in the duration of the sound of one snap. In that moment, everything changes so much: your body, your perception, your feeling, your consciousness, everything changes. It could take a few weeks or months to become aware of the changes that are constantly occurring every second in our body. But when we meditate right now, without any attachment to thought, emotion, or perception, we can really begin to see that everything is changing. We really begin to experience that there's no real ground we can hang on to. No solid "I" - "I" am feeling this, or "I" am experiencing that, or "I" am going to react to that now. "I'm" going to get really pissed off, "I'm" going to be happy. So you can see we don't have any true base or ground for 'I'.
When we meditate, we simply meditate with the awareness of whatever is arising. The Prajna Paramita teachings are basically involved in meditation of the 5 skandas - to find the wisdom of egolessness - not in the intellectual dimension, but in one's direct experience.
So this morning, we're going to meditate a little bit. Sometimes Chod is very similar to the Prajna Paramita
teachings. I often make this comment: there are two Prajna Paramita teachings, the wrathful one and the peaceful one. The wrathful one is Chod practice. That is the more wrathful method of practicing the Prajna Paramita teachings that we are going to do in Colorado in a few weeks.
What we're doing right now is the peaceful Prajna Paramita practice, living in a nice temple, and sitting on comfortable cushions, and meditating on the 5 skandas. This is definitely the peaceful version of Prajna Paramita practice.
So we're going to do a basic meditation or reflection on the 5 skandas. Sometimes, if you're doing meditation on the 5 skandas, it's good to do a recitation, like the Heart Sutra. In the Prajna Paramita teachings, the Heart Sutras is not really a liturgy or prayer, it's more like a self-guided meditation. When you recite those prayers, they give you direct guidance for your meditation. Sometimes if you don't know how to meditate, you can recite the Heart Sutra, and that can lead you to a state of meditation. I think the Heart Sutra is like some kind of meditation instructor, except you don't have to pay him. So when you recite that prayer, it can immediately lead you into a very profound, luminous state of reflection. Very precious.
The Heart Sutra seems so dry when you recite it ("there's no eye, no tongue, no nose"); but when you recite it, the feeling that you can come out of it with is very rich. You can experience a sense of luminous wisdom. So we're going to mediate on the 5 skandas
I think it would be nice to go outside, it's good to first walk a little big, reflect on nature. Nature is a very good teacher. Buddha always spoke about the illusions of nature, for instance there is a beautiful prayer in the Sutra (recites it in Tibetan). In monasteries, the monks are supposed to recite that prayer once every two hours, as a reminder to observe nature. This prayer says "everything is like illusion, mirage, clouds, rainbows, mist, butter lamp," everything is changing constantly. So it's good to reflect on the movement of nature, which is constantly changing. After a while then you can sit by a tree or in the meadow, and reflect on the 5 skandas.
First we'll reflect on the 5 skandas, observing your body, and then feelings, sensations, perceptions and consciousness. This is a mediation, but it's more of an introspection. It's not at analytical meditation; we're not trying to analyzing anything. We are simply going to be looking into things, looking into the 5 skandas, the way you look into clouds. There's no reason to analyze what the color of that cloud is, you simply look at it. And when you look at that cloud, you begin to be aware of the experience that the cloud is moving constantly. In the same way, we look into the 5 skandas, by directing our meditation toward the shifting nature of the body, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness.
We can meditate on the 5 of them together, and reflect on your sensory perceptions, your audio perception, your visual perception, and all these other perceptions. Allow yourself to open all your sensory doors. If you hear car sounds, allow yourself to hear. If you don't label anything, then that sound disappears and you will hear another sound, the sound of birds, or the sound of coughing.
You simply reflect on whatever is happening in your sensory perception without labeling, without judging, without designating anything as "Oh, I'm hearing a car sound" or "I'm feeling this unpleasant (or pleasant) perception". Because the moment we identify with them, we reinforce this notion of "ego" and then we become reactive to whatever the sensory input is. And that's when we experience what we call the conflict between oneself and the so-called external reality. This is the source of true suffering.
(meditation)
So we said that samsara is a vicious cycle, and is actually a state of mind brought on by discursive thinking. A great Buddhist master, Acharya Asanga said "liberation means simply exhausting all concepts."
Nirvana is not some place that exists outside of our own mind. Nirvana is not some kind of paradise that exists somewhere else, like the notion of shambala, or external heaven. Nirvana is inside of us. Whenever we're able to let go of our grasping, or attachment to our concepts, then that purified state of mind, that unconditional state of mind is already nirvana. In this respect, all concepts literally refer back to the notion of 'ego'. Ego is the mother of all concepts. Ego is the foundation of all concepts.
When we are able to let go of all our attachment to ego, then we don't have any base or foundation for any emotions or concepts or defilements and so forth. Ego is this giant mother that lays lots of eggs-defilements, concepts. It's like a spooky monster creature, who lives under the train station. That is ego actually.
It's important to remember that freedom, liberation, enlightenment, is not a myth. It's not simply a fantasy. We can actualize the highest level of liberation in this lifetime. We don't have to die to be born in heaven or in a buddhafield in order to experience the highest level of liberation. Liberation does not depend on any outer circumstances, or any cause or conditions. That means we don't have to be a special person, or be in any special position, in order to experience liberation.
There's no such thing as the need to be physically fit to find liberation. You don't have to be male, or female, or wealthy, or intelligent or to have been born in a certain environment. There are no conditions for liberation. Liberation is available to every sentient being, in each moment.
The practice of Dzogchen teaches that liberation is a momentary experience. Whenever you're able to relax the natural state of your mind, then liberation arises automatically. So liberation is not something we're going to actualize in the future, but rather it's something we can directly experience: being awake to the natural state of your mind in this very moment.
So nirvana is not a myth. And yet, if we're looking for happiness outside oneself, then freedom is a myth. It's a very common experience for each of us to look for freedom and happiness in outer circumstances. This is like trying to catch a rainbow. But we will never be successful in catching a rainbow in this way. A rainbow looks very beautiful, but as you try to get close to it, it always gets further and further away from you.
In the same way, when you try to look for happiness or freedom outside yourself, it's simply like trying to catch a rainbow. There's a Tibetan folk saying that the only way to catch a rainbow is to ride a black goat and hold dog shit in your mouth! (laughter) So this is a completely irrational nonsense statement, right? In the same way, if anyone, society, or our parents teach us that we can catch happiness or freedom by being successful, or by getting what we want to get, it's completely irrational, fraudulent advice. That statement is false knowledge,
As we are human beings, we grow up in this conventional social belief system believing that happiness is outside of ourself. We have this conviction we have to be a hard worker, greedy, ambitious in order to find happiness. Somehow our dualistic mind misconstrues material wealth and worldly illusions and perfections as ultimate happiness. This is the biggest mistake we make in the beginning of our life.
The moment we direct our mind's effort to looking for satisfaction or enlightenment outside ourselves, then freedom, happiness become myths, become completely unattainable. The moment we direct our mind inwardly, looking for enlightenment, freedom or nirvana, then there's the possibility in each of us that we can find the ultimate supreme liberation, everlasting happiness right here in this moment without any conditions.
There is no such thing as the right conditions, the right weather or astrological date for finding enlightenment. It can happen at any moment if you're able to direct your mind inwardly rather than outwardly.
Worldly or samsaric happiness is very much dependent on various conditions and circumstances. More than that, it's temporal, changeable, it never lasts more than a certain amount of time. For instance, if we're very happy from having some kind of social recognition, or eating nice food or maybe winning the lottery, we'd be happy for a while, but sooner or later we would experience the same kind of dissatisfaction.
We may have this cultural belief that if we have money, then we'll be happy. But then we can have millions of dollars, and still we would be dissatisfied, thinking we should have more money. Maybe we should compete with Bill Gates. Then one day, maybe we'll be like Bill Gates with billions of dollars, and then have some kind of neurotic desire to build this huge bridge from the West Coast to Asia, then realize that we don't have enough money to build the bridge. Then that would cause lots of anxiety and dissatisfaction. This is called dissatisfaction.
Buddha calls it: "dodpa" which means attachment, dissatisfaction.
So we said this morning that dissatisfaction comes from believing in the notion of I, the sense of I. I think a Buddhist master said that all our worries come from believing in an I. All worries and troubles come from worrying about yourself. In fact, there's no one there. This is quite a powerful statement. We can remember this statement now and especially when we go through emotional upheavals. This whole phenomenon of worry and anxiety, is delusional because it's worry based on a non-existent entity - worry about a phantom.
In computers now there this thing called 'virtual pets'. This reminds me of the ego. It doesn't exist. It's just a virtual pet, like a dog or monkey. In the first place, we know it's a virtual pet so we don't have any emotional entanglement with that. But then, the problem is that if you don't feed it every day, it dies. So eventually, people who play with these virtual pet computers develop very strong emotional attachment and love, then anxiety and frustration if they forget to feed the virtual pet.
That's like ego. It doesn't exist but it has the ability to imprison us into a deep realm of emotional experiences, all the 84,000 defilements and kleshas. So, from a meditative perspective, then we can say that it's really ridiculous. This worry is completely ridiculous: worrying about something that never existed. So we can apply the same logic to ego. Ego is like a virtual pet. We can say: virtual ego. We have the habitual tendency to become attached to it, believing that it's real, that it's who we are. Then we begin to experience worry, hope, fear, based on this internal phantom.
So whenever we're able to let go of the grasping ego then there's liberation. We don't have to seek liberation any further. Liberation's already there if you're able to remove this one fundamental misperception. In that respect, liberation is so close to us. Mipham Rinpoche said that the only reason we can't understand the dharmakaya or the nature of reality is because it's so simple, so close to us.
There are many great, inspiring stories of enlightened beings, saints, yogis, yoginis who came to the realization of the nature of reality in very unexpected and sudden ways because enlightenment can be a very instant experience. If you let go of ego right now, then there's enlightenment. If you're able to relinquish the sense of ego, then all our karma will be purified at the same time. So this is perhaps the most powerful means of purification: letting go of attachment to ego. When our ego goes, so does our karma.
A dzogchen analogy goes: if you carry a light into a dark room, immediately the darkness of countless aeons vanishes in a single instant. Ego, in dzogchen teachings, is called duhpa, which means obscuration. Dzogchen teaches that there is Buddha mind in all sentient beings. This is the same as transcendental wisdom. Transcendental wisdom is inherent in all sentient beings, no matter who you are, whether you know dharma or not, on the path or not, ordained as Bodhisattva or not.
As a universal truth, Buddha mind exists in each of us, but somehow we can't experience it directly because of obscuration or duhpa. The ultimate obscuration is the perception of 'I', the ego. Whether you're practicing Atiyoga or Prajnaparamita, we have the same goal, which is going beyond ego. Buddha spoke about going beyond ego in terms of going to the other side; across the ocean of samsara. The other side always refers to the dharmakaya mind or Buddha mind. Ocean always refers to samsara which is ego or the ultimate concept, the concept that we exist separately from the rest of reality. So ego is a wall or boundary that obscures from us ultimate reality which is non-dual reality.
So enlightenment is on the other side but not geographically on the other side, something that lies very far from us. This other side is already inside yourself. When Ananda asked Shakiamuni: 'where is that perfect island where there's no suffering, no old age, no sickness, no famine?' The Buddha said that there is such a perfect island but it does not exist outside yourself. Your pure perception is that perfect island where everything's perfect.
So this perfect field, this Buddha field, this dharmakaya realm is what we call transcendental wisdom. Transcendent wisdom is not mundane or human knowledge. It goes beyond any conceptual elaborations or knowledge or ideas about who we are, what is Buddha what is enlightenment. It's simply direct experience of the way things are. Therefore transcendent wisdom does not come into being out of learning, out of cultivating more views or concepts or ideas but rather it comes into being when we let go of all our desire, all our craving for material, sensual pleasures, knowledge, even enlightenment.
So transcendent wisdom is not knowingness, is not knowledge, it is direct experience of the way things are. That means all we have to do is to rest in the natural state of our mind. Then we begin to experience the way that things are. The nature of reality, as dzogchen says, the nature of all phenomena, the nature of the five skandas, the nature of your own mind as it is without any distortion. In that state, there's no longer a state of suffering or sense of conflict between one's self and reality. You're completely united with everything around you. It's ultimate unity. This is the purpose of dharma practice.
There's one phrase I'm very fond of repeating: to study dharma is to forget yourself. That means to transcend the duality between oneself and others-which means to unite with everything else.
So enlightenment is being united with everything - with death, with birth, with evil, with god, with samsara, nirvana, with sentient beings, with Buddhas, with five skandas, with friends, enemies. That is the ultimate peace or mahanirvana. That is what we sometimes call mahasuka which means great bliss. This is a very unique, exceptional bliss because all forms of bliss or happiness that we experience in this mundane world which is based on causes and conditions is subject to change and so they are not ultimate or infallible. They're a temporary nice feeling which is good to have which will eventually but most assuredly dissipate when the causes and conditions run out that brought them into existence in the first place.
When we experience the notion of bliss or happiness or freedom out of going beyond duality or the perception of ego, that freedom is everlasting. No one can take that away from you. Buddha said that this is ultimate wealth. You can have various types of wealth. You can have money, nice houses, cars, but all of them are perishable, changeable, right? Somebody can take these things away; somebody can extort your wealth away from you.
Can you find any wealth of perfection in this world beside the inner peace that is permanent, that you can count on? Like the American expression: what can you count on? No we can't count on anything. We can't count on our career even though it may be producing a lot of money right now, but career is impermanent. It can be changed, it can be lost. It can't also grant the ultimate satisfaction. So can we count on our house? No it can be burnt down or carried away by tornado, especially if you live in the south.
How about meditation? Meditation is also not very reliable because if someone makes a noise, then our meditation gets interrupted. Like Patrul Rinpoche was testing this yogi who was doing meditation in a cave. He said: 'What are you practicing?' The yogi said: 'I'm practicing patience.' Patrul Rinpoche said: 'Pardon me, what did you say?' 'I'm practicing patience.' 'What?' 'I told you I'm practicing patience!' 'What did you say?' 'YOU IDIOT, I TOLD YOU I'M PRACTICING PATIENCE!'
So even meditation is not reliable. It can be injured or interrupted by a noise or various uncomfortable sensations, or thoughts about what we're going to do tomorrow.
So enlightenment goes beyond meditation, beyond dharma. When you read the Heart Sutra, it says there's no attainment, not even dharma. This is going beyond everything. So you cannot really imagine that there's any wealth or perfection that is permanent. So sometimes it's good to reflect on these teachings, on these words of Buddha that everything's changeable. This is called reflection on impermanence. Buddha said that there are many forms of meditation but the supreme meditation is reflecting on impermanence, the nature of reality, which is changeable. He also said: 'There are many footprints, but the supreme footprint is the footprint of the cow.' This was for the benefit of Indians who think that the cow is a holy being so therefore they think that the footprint of a cow is very holy.
So meditation on impermanence is the supreme meditation because it can lead the meditator to awakening to the nature of reality. So what is the benefit of being awakened to the nature of reality? As Americans, we always want to know: 'what's the benefit?' Otherwise we don't want to try anything. So what can we gain by being awakened to the nature of everything?
So now you see the huge difference between being awakened and knowing. This is the fundamental characteristic of transcendent wisdom. Usually wisdom or knowledge has the connotation of knowing god or enlightenment or reality or some mystery. In this respect, as far as transcendent wisdom goes, there's no meaning of knowing or understanding whatsoever. It's all about being awakened to the nature of reality in this very moment.
Like when you wake up from the dream state. You can experience so many things in a dream, such as war, ambition, career, love affairs, family situations, but the moment you awaken, in one instant, all of the seeming reality of the dream is gone. In the same way, whatever we're experiencing right now such as samsara or personal struggle, desire, confusion, all of them vanish in one moment when you awaken to the nature of reality.
It's quite amazing when you think about the Buddha's attainment of enlightenment. He said the moment he experienced the Vajra samadhi under the Bodhi tree, before that he was a samsaric being; after that he was an enlightened being.
So the benefit of awakening to the way things are or the nature of reality is to attain the ultimate peace or serenity. Enlightenment has many definitions. One of them is "giwa chembo" in Tibetan, which means great peace without the turbulence of one's own concepts and afflictive emotions where one can experience ultimate freedom which is everlasting happiness.
So in reality there's no suffering as solid or concrete. Suffering is actually a mind-manufactured experience. You have the choice to keep it for a long time or to get rid of it. In some way, when we study the Mahayana and Vajrayana, we really begin to see that it seem we have the choice for everything. We realize that we have this tremendous choice: freedom. We have the choice to keep samsara as long as we want and the choice to give it up at any time.
Sometimes, even to think about that can be a liberating experience. To think that we have the choice to go beyond all our suffering right now. And to think that we have the choice to perpetuate, continue being in this realm. If we didn't have the choice to gain liberation, then dharma practice would be completely wasting time. Because we have the choice to gain liberation at any moment, we should practice dharma right now in this very moment. We should put all our effort, all our heart toward dharma practice as our priority.
The amazing thing is that there's no specific time for enlightenment. Enlightenment isn't like planting a seed in a garden. When we plant a seed in a garden, it takes a certain amount of time, a few months to grow. But enlightenment is not like that. First it's possible to obtain, second there's no time limitation. It can be attained at any time. Therefore it's so necessary to practice right now.
If we hold the idea that there is a time constraint about enlightenment and that it takes a long time, then we don't have to practice dharma now. We can practice slowly, little by little, once a week. But it's right now. So it's so worthwhile. There are so many reasons and so much purpose for doing dharma practice right now by putting your complete, sincere and open heart towards that direction.
So we have to be ambitious sometimes to a certain degree. I'm not talking about greed or ego-oriented ambition. We have to think: maybe I'm gong to be enlightened in this retreat. So you can make a plan for your entire lifetime based on the assumption that you're going to get enlightened. You might have some ideas about what you'll have to get rid of in your home and what you have to get. But do you have that ambition, that assumption that you're going to be completely enlightened through this retreat? Do you have that trust or not?
Or in the back of your mind do you think that it's impossible. "In a few years when I die, maybe; but not now." There's this doubt which hinders, lurking behind our mind no matter how much we listen to teachings, no matter how much we practice, there's always this doubt. So reflect on that doubt for a few minutes...
So samsara is a state of your mind which we call discursive thinking. It's some kind of perceptual/conceptual boundary between oneself and others, between subject and object, good and bad. This is called sometimes the conflict between oneself and reality. When we have this internal boundary, then we see everything as object. Either we like or we dislike. Either we're attached or we hate. Everything' becomes separate from ourself. Then there's death outside one's self to be afraid of. Then there are certain circumstances that we're supposed to be afraid of, or like, or love, or be attached to. It creates this whole entire experience of hope, fear, like, dislike, aversion, obsession. All of them created out of this internal boundary which is ego.
So the notion of being awakened to the nature of reality means being enlightened with everything which means there's no longer duality or boundary between one and everything else, between one and death, one and old age, one and reality. Everything becomes part of your own Buddha mind so there's no longer this sense of fear, obsession, hope, aversion. All of them come out of this one delusion, this perception of being separate.
In the Prajna Paramita teachings they talk about that enlightenment state where you go beyond birth and death. That does not mean that there's no birth or death which is obvious. There is birth, there is death, there is sickness which is undeniable. The idea of going beyond birth and death means that birth and death are no longer separate from you. It's part of you. It's no longer objective reality. Therefore one doesn't have to be attached to or afraid of anything else because everything becomes part of your self.
Ego is a form of paranoia. It is constantly afraid of everything else. Constantly afraid of reality. Constantly being afraid of change, impermanence.
Even more interesting is that it never existed even one single moment.
So this whole transcendent wisdom is about going beyond ego and being awakened to the great shunyata or emptiness. There are many understandings about emptiness. Emptiness does not mean that there's no existence. There are Buddhas, sentient beings, five skandas, and so on. But emptiness means empty of thought, empty of concept, empty of ego. Tilopa said to Naropa: "Objects don't bind us to samsara. Attachment to objects bind us." Therefore, we don't have to meditate or reflect about whether a table exists or not, or house exists or not, or whether god exists or not. We don't have to worry about those things. We can experience what we experience.
Meditation is about opening our sensory perceptions. Meditation is not some kind of blank state of mind where we shut down our sensory perception, our emotions, our passions. But rather, opening up everything. So therefore we don't have to obstruct our consciousness, our sensory perceptions. We can open all our doors of sensory perception, to hear sounds, to see forms, to feel various tastes and flavors, whatever comes. But when we become attached to those experiences, then we create samsara, craving, desire, afflictive emotions. In that respect, nothing has to do with the emptiness of sound or form or anything but emptiness of attachment, emptiness of concept in relationship towards reality, towards five skandas, form, feeling, perception, will, consciousness.
For example right now in this moment there's a table in front of us. This table does not harm you, does not prevent you from gaining enlightenment. In the same way the whole world is innocent to you. No one is obstructing you from gaining liberation. Sometimes we think there are so many hindrances toward our spiritual path. We think that relationships can sometimes be hindrances. But that's a misunderstanding.
Actually, nothing's a hindrance. Some people think that food is a hindrance to enlightenment. Some people think that enjoying your life is a hindrance. Some people think that this material world is a hindrance to enlightenment. So therefore, they become fanatical, renunciate. They give up nice food, nice clothes, which of course can be another extreme. In this respect, everything's innocent to us.
So the ultimate hindrance is attachment, concept, and the perception of I. When we can cut through that, then no matter whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you experience, non of them can be a hindrance that can prevent you from experiencing the awakened state which is Buddhahood.
So this whole meditation involves finding out the great shunyata or emptiness or transcendent wisdom which means the same thing.
This afternoon we're going to meditate of transcendent wisdom, great shunyata, meditation on the five skandas. So I'll talk on the five skandas. The five skandas are like some kind of innocent objects which we're going to abuse. We're going to make that into objective ego. But it's an innocent object.
It's like the Buddhist analogy of the striped rope lying in the road. If you're walking along at night with a little moonlight, you can see it but not clearly. You might misperceive it and think that it is a snake. You may experience a sense of hesitation or fear or reaction in relation to that rope. Yet that rope is just a rope. But your mind begins to create all these emotions, defilements, hope, fear. What should be get rid of? The rope or the delusion? First we may think that we need to get rid of the rope. The problem with that is that will be another object that will be misperceived.
Therefore, as Tilopa said to Naropa, cut through that delusion towards reality which is ego. Ego is a delusion too. So the five skandas are like the rope; ego is like the delusion or misperception that sees the rope as a snake. Somehow we've turned these five skandas in an object where we experience delusion, the sense of ego, this sense of separate existence. That means that this meditation is going to help us see how we are attached to this misperception based on the five skandas. This meditation is also a way of finding the nature of the five skandas. The five skandas are not ego. The five skandas are not duality. The five skandas are actually emptiness. They never exist. They exist as an entity of change, and entity of impermanence.
Simply observing and meditating on the nature of the five skandas we begin to see that the ego is completely jimepa saltro - groundless, rootless phenomena. Completely phantom. So we'll finally understand the emptiness of ego by simply reflecting on the nature of the five skandas.
First we'll talk about form which is the first skanda. This will be a meditation on form - rupa - rupa meditation. When we observe this body - this is not who I am. We think that this is who I am. We have this very strong, intimate attachment that this is me, this is I. I may think: this is Thubten. When people call your name, what comes to your mind? Your image, your body comes to mind suddenly. So when you call your name, what image do you see in your mind's eye?
We have very strong attachment to our body. More than we need. We have to practice reverence to the body as a Buddhist law. It's very important not to make the mistake that this meditation is not some sort of ascetic practice or some fanatic religious practice or self torment.
Whether we're talking about Hinayana, Mahayana or Vajrayana, they all speak of the importance of respecting one's body. In Vajrayana, for instance, the body is regarded as a mandala. So you have to offer to your body, take care of your body in the same way you worship your altar or sacred images or Buddha or deities.
So there's nothing wrong with the body itself. But somehow we develop this attachment and obsession in relationship to body which is quite obvious in modern society. Everyone has an obsessive attachment to their body. Especially in the western world. Somehow, in Tibet we have less of an attachment to our body. In Western culture, everyone grows up with some kind of obsession toward their body. So many people experience tremendous sense of suffering in relationship to their body-either they're not beautiful enough, or healthy enough, or their body doesn't measure up to society's standard of perfection. There are many people suffering constantly from that.
Some time ago, a Chinese woman came to visit Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, and he is a very direct teacher, compared to many other lamas. He didn't mean to hurt or disregard that woman, but he said to her, "You're fat." She didn't say anything. Now she had come from out of town to receive these teachings, but the next session, she wasn't there. Three days of teachings (extraordinary dzogchen teachings) went by, and after these three days, she finally showed up with her cheeks wet with tears. She had been crying by herself. Thinley Norbu Rinpoche said "Why didn't you come? For three days I've been giving these extraordinary teachings for you." And she said, "You told me I'm fat, so I have been so sad. I locked my door and have been crying all day." This is an obsession/attachment. This is a form of defilement or neurosis that we have to cut through.
Because we are dharma practitioners, we should be less obsessed with our bodies than other people. We might have a little bit of attachment, but it should be less than ordinary people who never heard the teachings of emptiness. This is a very subtle discipline; because unconsciously we have very strong attachments to the body. We may think, tonight we are going to have Tsog, so we're going to dress in very nice clothes, or let's fix our hairstyle-or then we worry about whether people will like how I'm dressed, or the hairstyle, or the lama won't appreciate my clothes, that it will be very catastrophic, if the lama doesn't like my clothes. On and on, and the anxiety grows, and then hope, fear, all of that comes into being again. So body obsession is very subtle. Even if we live in dharma centers or spiritual communities, we are still perpetuating the samsaric obsession or attachment in relationship to rupa or form.
Now I'm not saying we have to wear some kind of burlap bag or cut your hair randomly. They say you do have to do that in chod practice, you have to do counterproductive method. In chod practice you have wear unconventional clothes, wear unconventional hairstyle. This is part of chod practice, but we're not practicing chod right now. So we can of course take showers and wear nice clothes, but we must also reflect every moment to make sure we are cutting our obsession toward rupa, form, which refers to body in this case.
Why do we obsess about this body? Should we blame the cosmetic companies? Did they put too much subliminal information on the TV? We have to find who is the cause, the mastermind behind that! Maybe they want to sell lots of clothes or beauty products. In that case, it's very easy, we can just sue them for being the source of samsara. But actually, they're not really responsible. The ultimate cause of attachment, or suffering in relationship to your body, is ego. It's not really the companies, not those people who come up with those brilliant commercials and ads. It's ego. All this goes back to oneself, one's own misunderstanding of who we are.
In Buddhism there are great answers, in practicing cutting through attachment to one's body. That means to see that body is not who you are. You are not your body, because you do not exist. One does not exist in the first place. But somehow, we made this ultimate mistake to perceive our bodies as who we are. In the same way, we misperceive the world like the snake metaphor we used earlier.
So the meditation on rupa, or emptiness of form, is simply to reflect on the nature of the body, which is changeable, impermanent. At the same time the body is emptiness itself. What is the body itself? There's no real body that we're grasping onto. Body is also just like the table-a collection of various components: flesh, bones, hair, various atoms, cells and so forth.
Sometimes Mahayana can be very precise, can be too precise. There's one meditation that we have to go into all these details, and the meditation becomes almost like an operation. We have to think "What is the body? It's not your organs, not your lung. What is your lung? It's not your lung, because the lung is only a collection of cells." It's like a very detailed operation. We don't have to do that kind of meditation. First of all, there isn't enough time today. But definitely, it's very important to meditate on the nature of body; and to comprehend that we have this habitual attachment toward the body and that we have identified our body as who we are. That is the very source of hope and fear that we experience in relationship to the body.
This is not some kind of Buddhist view. This is very much a human, mundane experience that all of us go through -
the fear, the shame, the guilt that we experience because of our body. It's not just a Buddhist concept. You experience that every moment, in some way or other, unless we practice this kind of meditation. There's so much hope in relationship to your body-either consciously or unconsciously, by yourself or at a party or at a meditation hall-there's this ongoing hope, fear, guilt, expectation, obsession in relationship to one's body. Clothes. Clothes are a source of attachment, same as one's body.
So body is one example, but we can add more toward rupa. We can have more, too. There are car skandas, house skandas, because all of them can be representations of ego, really. Especially the car, which is a symbol of your social status. People tend to judge who you are based on what kind of car you drive. If you drive a Mercedes, people tend to think you are a good person automatically. Or they might think you are a moral person because of it. If you drive a little bit of a funky car, people will have a very difficult time shaking your hand, or definitely they won't give you their phone number. They may think you're some kind of anti-government freak, or you could be one of those unibombers who live in the forest. But if you drive a nice car, people feel very confident and peaceful around you.
So I always make this joke: it's very important that you, as a practitioner, wear nice clothes. I even heard some lamas encourage people to wear nice clothes when they come to an empowerment. One of them is that people tend to look at who you are, and what your philosophy is, and maybe even what your worth is, based on what kind of clothes you wear. So I guess the intention of those lamas is to have people coming to dharma teachings wearing conventional, more normal clothes, so that people perhaps won't be so afraid of coming to dharma teachings. But if everybody wears very funky clothes, then people think "Maybe that's some kind of cult." Or "Maybe what they're doing is not right."
People tend to be very reluctant to come to teachings too. Therefore Trumpa Rinpoche encouraged everyone to wear a suit and necktie. Because when he first came to the U. S., all his students were hippies, so no yuppies came to dharma teachings. But yuppies need dharma teachings too, because they have Buddha nature just like hippies do. Therefore, he came up with this idea that everyone should wear some kind of normal, or conventional clothing. That way the sangha, or the dharma, coming wouldn't be such a threat to most of the mainstream people.
Therefore, it's all right to wear nice clothes, drive a nice car, but we also have to meditate on the very fact that we have so much attachment, identity, in relationship to various things: car skandas, clothes skandas. So this is the 7th skanda. What else? Business card skanda. We like to make really nice business cards. And what else? Job skandas. Computer skandas. Expensive dog skandas. Count them while you're meditating. Skandas in this case means "object of ego, or ego identity." Wristwatch skanda, (Rolex).
My friend, who's a monk living in a monastery, he's my cousin actually. He wrote me a letter to send some money from the U.S. Then I wrote him back saying "what do you want to use it for?" He wanted to buy a motorcycle. He mentioned a lot of reasons why he wanted to buy a motorcycle, one of them being "In the monastery, all the monks have bicycles, so a motorcycle would be more fancy." So this kind of attachment exists even in monasteries too. Attachment is everywhere, monasteries, towns, villages, and dharma centers as well. It doesn't matter if you're a monk or a nun. Attachment is an internal development.
So we're going to meditate on form. Rupakaya means the meditation of rupa is basically reflecting on "body." Buddha said "In one second, there are 364 subatomic levels. In each of those moments, your body is completely changed into new cells, new structure." And what is your body? There's no real body that you can point out. Body is a collection of various organs, hair, bones, various textures and so forth. In some ways there's no longer a body. This is called "emptiness of rupa." Buddha said: "form is emptiness. Emptiness is also form."
Then you can meditate on the second skanda which is perception, feeling. When you meditate, there are various feelings arising constantly. Nice feelings, unpleasant feelings, in relationship to conditions, environment, weather, or something you just heard. There's constant feeling, but when you meditate on feeling, they're impermanent, they're very transient, constantly changing. There's no feeling that you can identify as "me" or "I". In normal life, when we experience feeling, then we become attached to that feeling. If you're experiencing unpleasant feeling, we become attached to that. That's who we are.
We think we are that feeling. If we're experiencing sadness, we end up perceiving that "I'm" sad, or "I'm" angry, or "I'm" going to react to that person, or "I'm" going to react to that situation. "I'm" going to fix everything in my life. "I'm" going to come to reality. And then we begin to develop more kleshas, hope, fear, etc. It's feeling. If you meditate on the nature of feeling, it's constantly changing. There's no sense of ego in itself. So it's good to meditate on the nature of feeling, while you're meditating on the nature of truth, like clouds, or river, or changes of weather or temperature or changes of things about yourself.
This is a very necessary subject, because in Western society, we talk about feelings quite a lot. Feelings are very important in western society. We put great importance on feelings. We love to have nice feelings, and we don't want to have unpleasant feelings. We pay lots of money to have good feelings. Either nice food, or a nice place-it's all about having good feelings. And sometimes, we want to have good feelings during meditation, or during dharma practice. But what is feeling?
When you experience the feeling of sadness, if you simply look into that feeling, that feeling dissolves immediately without leaving any trace. It doesn't leave a single trace. And then we have a pleasant feeling. If you look into the nature of that feeling, it also dissolves, immediately, without leaving any trace.
Looking into the nature of feeling is a powerful meditation mainly because it does not give us any chance to develop the sense of "I", which is identifying with the feelings. And in that respect, whatever arises, either positive or negative feelings, pleasant or unpleasant feelings arise, none of them can affect you, none can cause harm. This is called the state of equanimity.
Even if you experience a positive feeling, it doesn't affect your mediation. You may experience a pleasant feel