Page 1: The Profound
Essence of Spiritual Practice
I’m very happy to have this opportunity to return to New York, after three
or four years. I believe many of you here are practitioners, meditators, either
from this particular Shambhala Center or from other buddhist centers. This is
very nice to see. In seeing some of the dharma centers around the world today,
we can really begin to feel the growth of Buddhist meditation and philosophy.
It’s always nice to see that the profound teachings are spreading and flourishing,
and that a growing number of people are practicing.
And I feel that we need to really appreciate the hard work of so many students,
so many practitioners, for the teachings and [dharma] materials that are available
to the western world today. And–while the modern world can be harmful in
many ways–we also need to appreciate how much the media and modern technologies
have truly helped in transferring the teachings [to the West]. It took so many
hundreds of years for Buddhism to travel from India to Tibet; today, the same
amount of work has been accomplished in the westernization of Buddhism in, roughly,
forty years. So, a great deal of appreciation and encouragement and confidence
arises seeing practitioners practice very sincerely and well.
There is also [however] one concern among all of us. Something as profound as
the philosophy and teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha needs to be completely understood
as an inner growth practice; with individual responsibility to practice [in
order] to truly understand the meaning and main motivation, or main intention,
behind such a practice.
As I said before, media and modern technology can be harmful in some ways because
of how things become popular. Because of popularity, when a person chooses a
spiritual path–even as profound or pure a path as the buddhist tradition–we
find that certain faults, or difficulties, arise. And so anyone who chooses
to be on a spiritual path [and to] actually pursue and study buddhadharma, must
do so realizing what its true meaning is. If your spiritual practice is only
for some kind of temporary benefit or temporary relief, it’s far better
to waste your time somewhere else. (Laughter.)
Spiritual Practice
So spiritual practice must be completely understood. And perhaps many people
do understand it properly, nevertheless this is not only for beginners. Buddhist
practitioners who have spent many years in meditation and study talk constantly
about absolute truth and the emptiness nature of inner and outer phenomena;
yet we find they are still not able to "be" that person, that genuine
person, who should arise out of any spiritual path–especially if one’s
claiming to be a buddhist meditator.
The entire philosophy of Buddhism rests in, first of all, being able to truly
realize the responsibility of being a human being. Then, through understanding
the interdependence of all sentient beings, we’re able to develop some
sanity in life, some common sense. Using our brains, or common sense, and perfecting
that [understanding], we can live our lives fully and have sensible lives, lives
that are a little different. If we’re going to call ourselves the most
intelligent of all species, then [we should] show some example that that’s
so. (Laughter.)
So the spiritual path needs to be understood as something very simple, rather
than making it as complicated or complex as we want it to be–and not recognizing
the true meaning, or true nature, of what’s being taught.
Venerable Khandro Rinpoche
New York public Talk 10-20-98
Page 2: Learning What
Needs to Be Abandoned & What Needs to Be Cultivated
Now most of you who have studied buddhist texts – especially those who
have read The Words of My Perfect Teacher by Patrul Rinpoche – realize
that the essence of all the teachings is something that points out certain faults.
Most of this text seems to very strongly criticize or find faults in practitioners–and
I think rightly so. Atisha’s instructions within this text talk about the
kindness of one who is truly able to point out our hidden faults, [and how]
that enables us to truly learn what needs to be abandoned and what needs to
be cultivated.
This text–and the general buddhist point of view–begin most instructions
with the intention of developing [more] openness and mindfulness within ourselves.
If we sit down and think about it carefully, we human beings live our entire
lives indulging in activities that do not really make that much sense or are
that useful. When I examine my own self, I say "thirty years of my life,
and what has this life attained that is really beneficial or useful?" There
is nothing to show, nothing much that actually says "this is the true essence
of having lived so many years."
So, with our pride and our egos and mainly our mental assumptions that we have
done something, we tend to fabricate that examination. And out of that fabrication,
or pretense, we may assume that we’ve lived full lives, that we’ve
touched people’s lives, that we’ve said this and done that. But this
is mainly a kind of condolence we give ourselves to satisfy ourselves.
When I open my own diaries, I say, "Oh, in 1996 things were done, almost
all the pages are full." And we take great pride in that. And nowadays
most of us buddhist teachers–who are said to be renunciates–talk about
"what are we going to do...," and "will we have time in July...,"
and things like that. In this way we are said to be practicing. Nevertheless,
if you truly examine this, there’s a real hollowness in terms of seeing
a human life and its true meaning. Apart from some kind of thought or mental
assumption [about] essence, or true depth of meaning, not many of us are really
able to do [it].
Therefore, [let’s] examine and see how we’re ending up as human beings.
We’re doing things from early morning until we crash into our beds [at
night]. With our bodies we try to accumulate, to do, various physical actions;
our speech is always very busy; and our thoughts are always very busy with some
form of activity or other. Nevertheless, if at this moment anyone of us were
to die, sit down and examine what truly remains. About what could you say "this
is the essence," "this is what I’ve achieved," or "this
is what I can give to somebody else"? Whether you’ve lived thirty
or sixty or seventy years, if it’s condensed down to the one happiness,
or one valuable opportunity, or one really helpful thing that you leave behind
for another sentient being–other than a lot of mental assumptions of having
done this or that–in reality, we don’t end up accumulating anything.
That is one way to look at it: examining [our lives], we find "unnecessary-ness."
There isn’t much meaning, or essence, which is nyingpo in Tibetan; in terms
of "essence," there isn’t much of value. And so, it’s very
necessary to understand that when we talk philosophically about "illusorylike
existence," [we are talking about] this way of living where so many of
our activities have no truly meaningful essence. Yet we end up being busy our
entire lives and having no time.
We hear this all the time: "I have no time, I have no time." If we
ask Buddhist meditators if they meditate, they say "I have no time."
If we ask parents, they say "I have no time for the children," and
children have no time for their parents. Friends have no time for one another,
we have no time on the job, and we have no time at home. (Laughter.) So in running
from one place to another, it seems, an entire life passes away.
In the middle of all that, we find that nothing actually stops. The movement
of life continues, the movement of time continues, and so with time and our
lives, some kind of action is being accumulated. When we talk about this from
a buddhist contemplative point of view, we talk about four main thoughts, or
reminders.
The Four Reminders
In The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Patrul Rinpoche talks about four main thoughts
that should precede every meditation, every moment of contemplation: first,
the preciousness of human existence; second, impermanence; third, the suffering
of samsara; and fourth, karma, or cause and effect. These four reminders are
said to be the main foundation of contemplation. Contemplating them, the meditator
is truly able to remain without fabrication, or fabricated beliefs about his
or her own spiritual path and spiritual motivation. They should truly enable
practitioners to be completely honest with themselves.
In spiritual practices, we sometimes talk about benefiting sentient beings,
or making life more meaningful, or being able to truly do something that is
good. In the beginning, our motivation may be very clear, but very soon our
habitual patterns return. These habitual tendencies re-create the same patterns
of living, thinking, doing, or saying things. Because of this–[while] we
may be doing a lot of meditation or contemplation in our hearts, and we may
have a very pure intention to help sentient beings or to do something beneficial–the
pull of our habitual patterns, or tendencies, does not allow us to remain in
touch with that pure motivation, with what is really beneficial and good. To
overcome such tendencies, the Four Reminders, again, are very beneficial.
Venerable Khandro Rinpoche
New York public Talk 10-20-98
Page 3: The Four Noble
Truths
The first reminder talks about the preciousness of human existence. Now when
we study Buddhist doctrine, the first teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha are the
Four Noble Truths. And he talks, first, about the noble truth of suffering.
As meditators, we are able to understand that all sentient beings have some
form of suffering. Because of that suffering, it’s necessary to contemplate
how interdependent we are with all sentient beings. With all the different layers
and masks we put on ourselves and others, we tend not to feel how much sameness,
how much interdependence, we have among ourselves.
First Noble Truth of Suffering
The first noble truth of suffering is an effective way of allowing mind to settle
down in the very beginning–and to understand that you are not the only
one who wants to be happy. Happiness is desired by all sentient beings; any
living being who has senses desires the same happiness and does not want suffering.
If we sit down and think about that, what is it that we call "happiness"?
What is "suffering"? And what causes that suffering?
We should also question why we think about it in this way. If a spiritual path
is one that we can follow in a general, simple way, then being a sensible human
being shouldn’t [have to] come from an eastern philosophy about feeling
happiness and knowing the cause of happiness, or feeling suffering and knowing
the cause of suffering. Common sense should enable us to sit down and understand
that. However, if [it makes] you comfortable, if you feel the need of inspiration
from a philosophy or spiritual path to understand that, that is why spiritual
paths and philosophies arise and spread.
When we talk about Buddhism–which is just a title, a name–much has
to do with mind: how to use that common sense in the intellect, how to truly
fulfill the responsibilities of being an ordinary human being–and how to
work with that responsibility. We can call it "buddhist thought" or
simply "human thought," as long as its purpose is to sit down and
understand what suffering is, and what the cause of suffering is. And then knowing
that just as much as we don’t want [suffering], similarly no other sentient
being wants it either. So what is it that does not allow us to cut through the
tendency to inflict harm on another sentient being, to inflict pain on another
sentient being–most of the time, unintentionally?
We call ourselves "human beings," with a spiritual base that we could
call "buddha nature," or "primordial wisdom"–or simply
"common sense."
With that as our basis, logically speaking we should have some amount of control
over our own bodies, our speech, and our minds. Mind is contained within the
body; this mind and body function together all the time. If there is such a
thing as mind with which we are thinking, those thoughts are generated by ourselves.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to control, or to discipline, our thoughts.
And our speech is very much our own, [as are] the actions of our bodies. Since
wanting happiness and not wanting suffering is the same for all sentient beings,
logically speaking it shouldn’t be difficult not to harm someone else physically;
and not to say things that are not truthful, that we’re not sure of, or
that may be exaggerated, harmful, or painful to someone else.
If we are going to call ourselves "skeptics"–as most Buddhists
are trained to be–we must only believe in the most absolute truth, and
not believe in anything that may be just a dream, a mirage, or an illusion.
To have so much faith in a formless thought that we let a single thought rule
our lives, and to make it such a big, important issue that we spend entire lives
meditating to dissolve that thought, that’s a little bit... (laughter).
If we look at it carefully, that’s what meditation is all about.
Buddhists take great pride in saying that one should be "nontheistic,"
and not believe things like a creator or being born in a heaven. Yet our meditation
doesn’t seem to reflect that at all. We sit in meditation still hoping
something will happen from the outside, [still] believing so many extraordinary
things will happen. These are the same people who are supposed to be meditating
on nature of emptiness! (Laughter.) But within the nature of emptiness, we try
to find form, we try to see things, hope for things.
We all know that nirvana, or enlightenment, is no other than mind; and that
from cutting through all tendencies of fabrication–when illusion is completely
shattered–from that arises primordial wisdom. Yet we [still] have some
hope and expectation that we might be the exception, the chosen one who can
actually enjoy the splendors of nirvana, then turn back to people who are still
ignorant saying "I’m going to save you all." In this way, a kind
of duality arises within the spiritual path. No matter how many years such a
person has mediated, he or she has never understood the noble truth of suffering,
from the very beginning.
Most of us just end up very lucky, very fortunate. Someone like me, for example,
might never understand what suffering is: being born in a very good family,
raised up in this particular way, much of our knowledge of suffering is book
knowledge, intellectual knowledge. But then, all of us have some difficulty
in our lives, [and] suffering is not so different for us. If we sit down and
count [them], most of us have quite a lot of difficulties–divorces, loss
of jobs, children growing up not according to our wishes, or simply [living
in] New York City (VKR laughs; laughter). There are all different forms of difficulties.
But the noble truth of suffering is talking about something else entirely.
Most of our lives are very comfortable and, while there may be difficulties,
if we count them, there are more happy moments and fewer moments of suffering.
Because of that [our] aversion to samsara–the great wish to actually be
free from this existence–is not very strong.
Now traditional buddhist texts, such as The Words of My Perfect Teacher, talk
about a variety of existences, or Six Realms, where each realm has its own difficulties
or sufferings. In the Human Realm–this particular existence in which we
live–they talk about birth, old age, sickness, and death, and the various
sufferings that arise. Yet from the inner sense of meditation and contemplation,
[we could] look at our lives simply, as we said before.
How very solid, how very fixated, how very attached we become to things that
are not as useful or solid as we assume they are. When we look at the moments
of our lives–especially in terms of our emotions and feelings–most
of the things we hold on to are based on some kind of mental assumption.
I always think of this example: let’s say I tell you that we’re going
to do an elaborate ceremony to demonstrate the power of my horns. And I say
"Look at my horns. Only those with great devotion will be able to see them;
only those fortunate enough will be able to see the magnificent quality of my
horns, which are from the East, and which I’ve carried with me throughout
many lifetimes. How beautiful they are, how sharp, how bejeweled, how very nice
they are!" If I go on like this, those of you sitting there might soon
come to some understanding that there are no horns, no horns at all! And yet
I could go on and on, making them as solid, as important, as magnificent or
as valuable as I want them to be. And, just as there are no horns to be totally
convinced of, similarly I could go on with my emotions: my anger, my desire,
my hatred, my jealousy, and so forth.
In examining and dissecting thoughts, all of us who’ve done a little meditation
will be able to see that those thoughts we fixate on are none other than the
horns I’m talking about. They don’t have any form or solidity. What
arises, however, when we meddle with them, fiddle with them, then becomes important.
Just as I could describe my horns, similarly I could sit here and describe why
my anger came [up], why it’s so important, why it needs to be demonstrated,
who is to blame for it, how powerful it is, how stagnant, how it doesn’t
go away, and what needs to be done about it, and the nature of its antidotes
(laughter). We could go on and on–but the fact is that it doesn’t
exist. It exists only as much as we hold or grasp onto it.
And the rest of our
existence is the same: we make meaning out of meaningless things. Trying to
see the essence and the use of things, we spend our entire lives [driven by]
a kind of force which we call "karma," or "habitual pattern."
When we take the time to sit down quietly, look around us and think, [we see]
an entire world system functioning in this way. Nobody is telling us to do things,
yet we all do them; nobody is telling us to say things, but we all say them;
nobody teaches us what anger is and how to demonstrate it, yet [there is] so
much manifestation of anger. [We live] entire lives doing, saying, and reacting
to things in the same ways; protecting, defending, and holding onto the same
things; and then moving along in the same ways, day in and day out. [This is
how] we live our lives!
Suffering is very much being able to know this. We have a body, and yet how
much control [do we have]; we have speech, but how much control [do we have
of our] speech; we have minds, and how much [are they] under control?
The lives of human beings–which are very difficult to attain–can be
so very beneficial, if used properly. Understanding their potential, [our lives
can] make life happy and peaceful for as many as come in contact with us. For
what reason [then, do we] hold onto things that don’t even have form, that
don’t have any kind of existence other than our own grasping mind? [For
what reason do we] allow them to become so very important, so very necessary,
that then we have to rely on 84,000 tenets to teach us how to be kind, how to
truly let go of useless anger?
Spiritual development, within this relative existence, is so very beneficial
for all of us. It is also a very clear reflection, like a mirror that we should
keep in front of us, to see that which is so easy to do. And yet we do not want
to see that. Because of our strong attraction and grasping to complexities,
we tend to attach ourselves to those things that are more complicated.