Lam-rim 4: The Five Social Enriching Situations

What we will be dealing with today are the five social situations that enable Dharma practice. These are situations that affect many other people as well. They are sometimes referred to as the “comprehensive results” (bdag-po'i 'bras-bu) of karma, though not all of them fit into that category. In any case, now we’re referring to situations that are results of others’ karma. But as we’ve been born into them, these situations are the results of our karma as well. 

The five social enriching situations are having been born: 

• Where and when a Buddha has come 
• A Buddha has taught the Dharma
• The Dharma is still maintained 
• There is a monastic community following the Buddha’s example 
• There are others compassionately supporting the monastic community 

We need to recognize these situations as rare and to appreciate that we have them. 

Where and When a Buddha Has Come; a Buddha Has Taught the Dharma

The first situation is being born where and when a Buddha has come. There is, of course, a very elaborate explanation from abhidharma having to do with the cycles of the universe and when, within those cycles, a Buddha comes. There’s no need to go into all of that detail. But, basically, Buddhas only come and teach when the beings in a particular world system are receptive to the teachings. 

One the many qualities of a Buddha, specifically of Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya, the various form bodies of a Buddha, is that they’re always teaching. But that doesn’t mean they’re always teaching where we are born. According to the Buddhist view of the universe, there are many, many world systems and many worlds within those world systems. So, when a Buddha is not teaching in this world, a Buddha is teaching elsewhere. A Buddha can emanate and teach in many places at the same time. However, it’s only when a certain world system is at a certain period in its development and when the beings there are receptive that a Buddha will come. We live in such a period now. Buddha has come.

So, the first and second situations fit together: a Buddha has come, and not only that, a Buddha has taught. I don’t know if it makes much sense to meditate on each of these items separately.

A Buddha can appear at a certain place and then find that others are not receptive, in which case, the Buddha won’t teach. Remember that after Buddha manifested his enlightenment under the bodhi tree, he hesitated to teach for a while, because he wondered who would be able to understand these teachings. Then, according to the story, the gods Indra and Brahma requested him to teach. It’s very interesting that it was Indra and Brahma who made the request. That’s probably a Buddhist account, not a Hindu one, because it indicates that they must have felt that their own teachings weren’t adequate and, so, wanted the Buddha to give further teachings. In any case, Buddha was requested, and he saw that, although it would be difficult for people to understand, it would still be possible. So, the Buddha taught. Maybe that’s enough for the first point.

Participant: If a Buddha is omniscient, he should know instantly whether or not the beings in a certain world system are receptive.

Dr. Berzin: That’s an interesting point.

Participant: Is the story about the Buddha hesitating to teach and about others having to request teachings accepted in Mahayana?

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know. A Buddha will only teach when requested. That holds true for a spiritual teacher as well – unless there is a particularly receptive student, in which case, the teacher can offer to teach the student. This is the way it’s usually explained. I think it’s part of the whole accepted procedure that a Buddha would need to be requested to teach, which is exemplified by Indra and Brahma requesting the teachings.

Now, would a Buddha go someplace where nobody would request teachings? Wouldn’t a Buddha know that beforehand? Would there be any purpose in a Buddha going to such a place? I think that’s the question. What do you think?

Participant: Before his enlightenment, he wasn’t omniscient, so how would he have known?

Dr. Berzin: Well, now we come to a difference between the Hinayana and Mahayana versions of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Certainly, there would have been a first time when Buddha Shakyamuni became enlightened. According to the Hinayana version, that was under the bodhi tree in India. According to the Mahayana version, it was many eons ago. So, according to that version, when Buddha was under the bodhi tree, he was just manifesting becoming enlightened for the first time in order to demonstrate the attainment of enlightenment to people. 

Participant: I would suggest that he was just manifesting hesitating to teach in order to show all these students that they needed to request him to teach and that he wasn’t just babbling for his own benefit.

Dr. Berzin: I think that is part of it. But I think there’s another reason. I’m thinking of a story. I believe it was about Shariputra. Shariputra, in a previous lifetime, was a cobbler, a shoemaker. He went into his cave and lit a fire. There was a picture of a Buddha on the wall, and he admired it. As a result, he established a strong connection with the Buddha and was reborn in a later life as a close disciple of the Buddha. 

Regardless of whether we consider that story as being fact or not, I think it shows us something that helps with this question, which is that a Buddha will come, even if he doesn’t teach, in order to make connections with others. So, a Buddha didn’t teach from that picture on the wall. Nevertheless, he still established a connection with those who saw the picture and thereby created causes for them to be receptive to him later on. So, it is possible that a Buddha would come, even if the beings there didn’t request any teachings – which a Buddha would know beforehand – just in order to make an impression on their mental continuums so that they would be receptive in the future. This is just the answer that comes to the top of my head.

Participant: It’s funny that the Buddha was playing games with Indra and Brahma. He knew they would ask, but still he played games, for example, hesitating to teach and waiting for them to ask.

Dr. Berzin: Right. From a Mahayana point of view, Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment and hesitation to give teachings was a demonstration. He was showing people what they can attain and what the appropriate way for requesting teachings was. Anyway, let’s not get stuck on this question.

Participant: Just coming back to Christian’s question, is the story about the Buddha hesitating just in the Pali canon, or is it in any of the Mahayana sutras as well?

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know.

Anyway, let us get to the meditation, which is to recognize that we have taken rebirth in a time and place in which a Buddha has come and a Buddha has taught. Think about what that means to us and how important that is. We aren’t in a situation in which a Buddha hasn’t come and hasn’t taught. Remember, the respites and endowments that we have go together. So, we could imagine being in a dark age in which a Buddha hasn’t come and taught. 

Let’s focus for a while, recognizing that we have this endowment, this favorable social situation. 

As we explained before, we do the meditation in two steps: First is the discerning mediation, sometimes called “analytical meditation,” in which we just discern or acknowledge that we actually do have this situation and try to understand what it means to us – its significance. Then we just try to feel that we have this and to rejoice. A very worldly analogy would be having enough money in the bank. We don’t have to constantly think about it; we have a feeling of security. Now, of course, what we have is not to be taken for granted. That’s why, in subsequent steps, we also recognize that these situations can be lost; we can be reborn in a very different kind of situation. But the second step of this meditation is to feel secure and happy that we have these two endowments, namely, that a Buddha has come and a Buddha has taught.

If it’s hard to relate to a Buddha coming and possibly not teaching, I think we can use His Holiness the Dalai Lama as an example. His Holiness has actually come to our country. There are many places where he hasn’t gone. Also, there are many places where he goes and doesn’t teach – where he only meets with political leaders, for example. So, if he’s come and he’s taught, that’s quite wonderful.

[meditation]

I think what goes together with this meditation is thinking about whether we have taken advantage of the fact that a Buddha has come and a Buddha has taught. Have we taken full advantage? Even if we have some of the enrichments that we discussed the last time – being receptive and open, wanting to follow spiritual aims, not being mentally disabled, and all of that – have we really taken advantage of them? 

That’s something will come, of course, in some of the later steps: taking advantage of our precious human lives, realizing that the opportunities that we have now will be lost when we die – unless, we do something about it. We need to build up the causes to have those opportunities, to prevent their loss. Still, I think we can start to think about these things now. For example, if, when a great lama comes and teaches, we think, “Well, I know that the lama is here and that the lama’s teaching, but I can’t be bothered to go,” we aren’t really taking advantage. Obviously, we can’t go to everything, especially nowadays when it costs money, when we have jobs, are busy, and so on; nevertheless, we can go to something.

Participant: Isn’t there a difference between thinking about the Dalai Lama and thinking about the Buddha? When I think about the Buddha giving teachings, I focus more on how precious it is for me that he brought the teachings into the world, that they are available in general, and that therefore I can take advantage of them now. The Dalai Lama writes books and his teachings are available on CDs, but, for me, it’s something different.

Dr. Berzin: Well, it is something different from that point of view. I was just using His Holiness as an example. I was saying that if it was difficult for us to relate to Buddha Shakyamuni, we could start to get into this way of thinking by thinking of the gurus. But, obviously, these two points pertain specifically to the Buddha Shakyamuni.

Participant: Isn’t it that, although Buddha might have appeared and taught, without people like the Dalai Lama and the transmission of the scriptures, there would be nothing left today, two thousand years later? We totally rely on people like the Dalai Lama and the teachers.

Dr. Berzin: This brings up the third point in this list of five. 

The Dharma Is Still Maintained 

Although the Buddha came and taught, the teachers and the whole lineage of teachers are the ones who are now maintaining the teachings and making them available. According to the predictions, this is not going to last forever. Depending on the system we look at, the teachings are predicted to last five thousand years. Some systems – Kalachakra, for example – give a different number. The number is not as significant as the fact that the situation is declining. In the traditional Buddhist countries – Asian countries like India, Tibet, China, and Japan – the situation of Buddhism has deteriorated. So, it’s clear that the teachings are declining and becoming less and less available in their pure form. 

One could argue that more and more things are available because more and more things are being translated into our modern Western languages. However, not everything is. Also, by making the teachings too easily available (which I’m perhaps guilty of as well), people are no longer required to put in a huge effort to get them, which robs them of the opportunity to develop patience, discipline, enthusiastic perseverance, and so on. If the teachings are too easy to get, people also don’t take great advantage of them because they don’t appreciate their rarity. But that seems to be the way that things are going. And it was predicted that it would be like that – maybe not specifically in that form, but it was predicted that there would be various forms of decline.

Participant: Maybe we could say that we are the victims of our own karmic success: It’s so easy to get the teachings now, but we don’t appreciate them.

Dr. Berzin: If we really had the positive karma, we would take full advantage of them. The fact that we don’t indicates that this factor of having an instinctive belief in what’s true and being moved to seek the truth and to follow the spiritual path might not be strong enough in us.

Anyway, this is the point: the teachings are maintained. They have been maintained up until now – which also means that we need to appreciate all the various lineages. 

I think it’s also important to recognize that lineages are not linear. Even though the etymological derivation of “lineage” is the word “line,” a lineage is not linear. There are so many different teachings, and each of them has a different lineage. Some lineage holders appear in several lineages and some only in one. Lineages sometimes merge and sometimes  intertwine for a few generations. It’s not as if a lineage bearing the name of a particular founder passes on in isolation from all the other lineages. That was never the case. 

In any case, the teachings have been maintained from one generation to another through the various lineages and are still being maintained. This is very important. They’re maintained on many levels. There are, for example, the oral transmissions. The oral transmissions are to ensure that the words are accurate and that we don’t have doubts about their accuracy. Of course, one could argue that, especially as there have been many scholars editing the texts, corruptions have come in, in the scriptures. That’s for sure. There are many versions, many editions. But in any case, there are the oral transmissions. 

It is predicted that, eventually, there will only be oral transmissions but that nobody will actually know what the words mean; nobody will actually be able to understand and actualize them. So, the last thing to go will be the actual words. Fortunately, we’re not at that point yet.  

Again, let’s try to recognize and appreciate the fact that we are in a situation where the teachings are still being maintained, that we can take advantage of it – that we need to take advantage of it – and try to feel how wonderful and rare that situation is. 

I think it’s also helpful not to think in terms of “only my guru is maintaining the teachings, nobody else.” That’s a rather narrow-minded way of looking at this point. 

[meditation]

Does anybody have any comments they’d like to share?

What came to mind was my experience when I first went to India. I started studying Buddhism seriously in 1962 at university in the States. I also studied various Asian languages –Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, and, eventually, Tibetan. The thinking at that time was that Tibetan Buddhism was a dead religion. It was studied like ancient Egyptian studies are studied. Various academic professors had written commentaries, and the whole task was to figure things out from the commentaries and the dictionaries, like working out a grand crossword puzzle. 

I went to India in 1969, and I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his teachers, and the various people around him. What was the most profound experience was to realize that Tibetan Buddhism was in fact a living tradition and that here were people who actually knew what everything meant. So, understanding wasn’t a matter of guessing anymore; it was just a matter of being receptive to learning from these teachers, which also meant learning the languages better and so on. That was such a wonderful relief. I was overjoyed to see that Tibetan Buddhism was still alive. I think that’s the point here. It’s not just that Buddha came and Buddha taught: there are people who can actually explain them and who have actually realized these teachings in themselves. This is incredible! That’s the point. So, I can relate to that from my own experience.

There Is a Monastic Community Following the Buddha’s Example

The next point is that we’ve been reborn in a place where there is a monastic community following the Buddha’s example. Now we get into the topic of the importance of a monastic community, which is a community of monks or nuns with vows living in monasteries and pursuing the spiritual path full-time. 

What’s the importance of this? Does it mean anything to you? The trend now, especially in the West, is to put the emphasis on the lay practitioners and not on the monastic community. Very often, the Western monastic communities are in terrible situations. There are only a few actual monasteries. In many places, Westerners take monk or nun vows and are immediately, with no training, thrown into a Dharma center. Then they’re supposed to be the spiritual directors of these places. In many cases, they end up running a hotel, as it were, just making sure that when people come to courses, the place is running properly. They don’t even have the opportunity to go to teachings themselves because they’re so involved with the organization. It is really sad that that’s the case. 

So, what is the significance here of there being a monastic community following the Buddha’s example? And what does it mean to you?

Participant: They are the professional practitioners.

Dr. Berzin: In a sense, they are. Are they getting paid by the community? In a sense, they are: they’re supported by the community. Do they look at it as a job? Hopefully not.

Participant: They devote a large amount of their day to that, as opposed to lay practitioners, who can devote only a little bit of their time.

Dr. Berzin: So the monastic community are full-time Dharma practitioners – hopefully. If we as laypersons were really following the Dharma, we would also be full-time practitioners, though in a different way. We would, in our daily lives, be working with a bodhichitta motivation. We would be trying to develop patience, generosity, ethical discipline – trying to refrain from acting in destructive ways and working to overcome our disturbing emotions. So, even if we aren’t doing pujas or studying and debating all day long, we could, in our own ways, also be full-time practitioners. 

In any case, what difference does it make to us whether or not there is a monastic community? 

Christian.

Participant: I think it’s a problem that there isn’t much of a monastic community in the West right now. Somehow a really deep understanding of the teachings has to be kept alive. They need to be maintained and transmitted. This requires there to be a core of people who are practicing very intensely. I think that’s much harder to accomplish when you live an ordinary, worldly life. Only very few people get very deep insights.

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s true, but there is a monastic community in Asia. 

So does this mean anything to us?

Participant: Without a monastic community, there would be no teachings anymore.

Dr. Berzin: There’d be very few. There are some lay teachers, of course. 

Participant: I’d say that ninety percent of all the teachers I’ve met have a monastic background. I think the teachings I’ve had would have been totally different if they hadn’t had that education.

Dr. Berzin: Also, most of the teachers from the Tibetan communities who are now lay teachers got their training in the monasteries when they were young. When they left the monastic community, they didn’t leave it completely. They’re still very much associated with monasteries.

Participant: Because they have all these vows, they are role models for ethical discipline.

Dr. Berzin: They are following the example of the Buddha by keeping all the vows, so they are role models. Certainly.

Participant: It’s a very big inspiration for me to go to Asian monk or nun communities, even when they are not major practitioners. Just recently, in India, I participated in a ritual that was led mostly by young monks. I still found it very, very inspiring. One feels the same connection to the monastic community that the local villagers feel.

Dr. Berzin: Right. The fact that the monks and nuns are devoting themselves, even if they’re just doing rituals and so on, gives us encouragement. We can see that there’s something authentic still going on and that the monastic life is still alive – at least to a certain extent. 

I think that “following the Buddha’s example” is a very important part here. We’re talking about those who are actually keeping the vows and following the monastic life properly. We’re not talking about those who are just hanging out in the monastery because they can get a free meal or because their parents put them there when they were eight years old and didn’t have any choice in the matter. 

So, we ask ourselves, “What does it mean to me that there is a monastic community and that this is a great enrichment – that without it, something would definitely be missing?” 

Buddha did say that the survival of the Dharma depends on the maintenance of a monastic community maintaining the vows: “Without that, my Dharma would not continue, would not be present.”  Why did Buddha say that? Let’s think about it.

[meditation]

Anything to report?

Derek.

Participant: I was thinking about the monks and nuns keeping the rituals alive and that a lay community doesn’t have time to maintain all the rituals and procedures.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s part of this factor – that there are people who are devoting themselves full-time to maintaining and studying the Dharma.

Participant: I think it’s more than just that. If you were in a monastery, you not only would have the leisure to study for years and years, you also would have house teachers or tutors or something like. There would be people that would help the younger monks grow.

Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s not just that there are people maintaining ritual practices but that there’s a whole community of people. Yes, I think that to be able to appreciate this point, it’s necessary to know what a well-functioning Asian monastery in the Tibetan tradition – as well as the community in which it functions – is like. 

Now, this is not to say that these communities are ideal. All communities have their problems – political, financial, etc. But leaving that aside, I can say that, having lived in monasteries in India myself and having always lived with monks, one of the important aspects of living a monastic life is the tremendous discipline it entails. Now, of course, that’s the case in the army as well – getting up early in the morning, having one’s whole day structured, and having rules that one needs to follow. But from the point of view of the type of community it is and the support one gets, it’s totally different. In debating, everybody is trying to help each other to understand. So, there’s tremendous cooperation. People live with their teachers, so a teacher is always there. Also, what’s fantastic in a monastery is that there are so many learned monks or nuns. There’s always somebody who can answer your questions, who can guide you. 

Even though many of the monks may be children and teenagers who, like any other children and teenagers, play, have a lot of energy, and so on, there are those who are very sincere practitioners. There are always some very sincere practitioners in every monastery. This is very, very inspiring. As a whole, there’s a community spirit of people working to improve themselves spiritually. Again, not everybody may be. Let’s not romanticize and idealize these monasteries. But, certainly, more are working to improve themselves spiritually than in other communities. This is very comforting, even if we are not monks or nuns ourselves. 

This is the point here: we’ve been born into a situation where such a community exists. We could, if we were so moved, even become monks or nuns ourselves. But even if we are not able to do that in this lifetime, we can make prayers and have aspirations to do it in future lives. Also, now, even as laypersons, we have the possibility of spending time in a monastery. That’s allowed. In the Tibetan tradition, there isn’t the tradition of taking vows and actually joining a monastery for a short time – which they have in Thailand, for example. Nonetheless, we can stay in a monastery – although language is a problem.

Let’s go on to the next point. 

There Are Others Compassionately Supporting the Monastic Community 

If the monastic community didn’t have patrons supporting it, it wouldn’t be able to function. I think that we could extend the meaning of “monastic community” to include our Western Dharma centers. A Dharma center is not a monastery, that’s for sure, and it can’t provide what a fully functioning monastery can provide. Nevertheless, we wouldn’t have even our centers if there weren’t people supporting them and if there weren’t a society of people supporting the Dharma in general and supporting these monastic communities. This is quite extraordinary. 

One of the problems with starting monasteries here in the West is that we don’t have a society that supports them. In the traditional Asian societies, for example, where the monks and nuns follow the rules of the monastic discipline in the way they were followed at the time of the Buddha, the monks go around with begging bowls to people’s houses early in the morning. If there weren’t a community of people supporting them in that way, those monasteries wouldn’t be able to exist as they do. In China, the rules were adapted: the monks became farmers. In Tibet, the monks don’t go around begging – the distances are too far, it’s too cold, etc. – so the lay community brings food to the monasteries as an offering. In any case, there are these types of support. 

That kind of support doesn’t exist in the West, but at least there are other kinds – people giving money to the centers, for example. Without that, the centers wouldn’t exist and the teachings wouldn’t be available. Of course, for the centers to function, there need to be people who provide not only financial support but other types of support as well, whether it’s washing up, cooking, cleaning, or whatever. 

Let’s focus on that for our remaining minutes.

[meditation]

Now we put everything together: We have been born into a society where and when a Buddha has come; a Buddha has taught the Dharma; the Dharma is still maintained; there’s a monastic community following the Buddha’s example; and there are others compassionately supporting that monastic community. What a wonderful situation of a society that we live in. It’s a rare and precious situation – one that won’t last forever or even for very long.

[meditation]