This is a letter that Tsongkhapa wrote to his friend the meditator Konchog-tsultrim — we’ve been going through it — in which Tsongkhapa explains the practical points of how to put the sutra and tantra teachings into life.
Review of Previous Sessions
He speaks about our background: how we have the excellent working basis, we’ve met with the teachings, we have spiritual teachers, we have the intelligence to discern between what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate. We need to engage ourselves with the teachings. For that, we have to rely on a teacher who is learned in what are the actual states of mind that we need to develop, and which are not; and not to add any, not to leave any out; and to know the order of how they are developed and how to apply them to us. That teacher has to get certainty by having been led through the path himself or herself through a study of the great classics.
Then, as for how to begin the practice, we have to tame our mind, which means to develop the motivating mental framework. This has three levels — to put it very briefly — working to improve our future lives to guarantee that we continue to have precious human rebirths, then working toward liberation, and finally working toward enlightenment so that we can benefit others as much as is possible. We need to meditate (we need to build these up as beneficial states of mind). For that, we have to know all the details about how to do that: what to focus on, how our mind takes them, what are the things that are detrimental for the development of each, what is beneficial for it, and so on. And we need to maintain these motivating states of mind continuously throughout our session.
Then if we want to know how to actually enter into tantra practice, we do that gradually, based on the three levels of discipline. The pratimoksha vows, which are generally either monk or nun or lay vows. We spoke about the lay vows that we need to keep. That’s in general. Then on top of that, bodhisattva vows if we are entering into Mahayana in a serious way. Then, if we are following the upper two classes of tantra, the tantric vows.
The Eighteen Bodhisattva Root Downfalls
We went through the five lay vows, pratimoksha vows, for individual liberation and we’re going through the bodhisattva vows. There are 18 vows, the main vows. They are explained in terms of root downfalls. In other words, what are the things that we need to avoid that would cause us to fall down from our bodhichitta, our aim to reach enlightenment in order to benefit everybody and are actually engaging ourselves in the practice. We take these vows when we have developed that engaged state of bodhichitta of actually engaging ourselves in the practice.
[6] Forsaking the holy Dharma (continued)
We’ve discussed six of these, of the 18. The last one that we were discussing, that we need to avoid, is forsaking the holy Dharma. This was specifically denying that the various texts of the three vehicles are the actual teachings of the Buddha. We’re talking about the vehicles of the shravakas and the pratyekabuddhas and the bodhisattvas. The shravakas are the “listeners” to the teachings who lived at the time of the Buddha primarily, and the pratyekabuddhas are those who lived during the dark ages between Buddhas. They both follow what is known as the Hinayana path (which has various 18 schools) or the more “Modest” Vehicle. The bodhisattvas follow the Mahayana path. I think the main thrust of this vow is to — you know, we’re following Mahayana, and so what you want to avoid is this sectarianism with which a Mahayana practitioner would say that the Hinayana texts are not the teachings of the Buddha, or a Hinayana practitioner would say that the Mahayana teachings are not the teachings of the Buddha.
Specifically, when we are a Mahayana practitioner, a bodhisattva, then it’s important to accept that the Mahayana teachings are the teachings of the Buddha. That’s not such an easy thing, because the tradition is that, according to the traditional account, the Mahayana teachings were transmitted privately, while the Hinayana teachings were transmitted openly after the Buddha. Neither of them were written down. It was only in the first century before the Common Era that the Hinayana teachings started to be written down. That was first in the Pali language, and those were the Theravada tradition of Hinayana. It was soon after that some of the Mahayana teachings started to be written down. Actually, that occurred more in the first century of the Common Era.
As a Mahayana practitioner, we need to not doubt the authenticity of the Mahayana sutras. Does that mean that we say that Buddha taught the Prajnaparamita Sutras and they were hidden beneath the ocean or a lake in the Kathmandu valley by the nagas and then brought back by Nagarjuna? What do we actually believe? How do you deal with that? Or that Asanga got various teachings, the Mahayana teachings, from Maitreya Buddha in Tushita heaven, Tushita pure land. How do we deal with that? Because if we deny that these are the teachings of the Buddha, then how can we accept that following these teachings will bring us to the enlightened state of a Buddha? That’s the main point here. Because throughout later history there has been textual analysis: certain texts are inauthentic, were forged, this type of thing. The Tibetans chose which texts would be translated and put in the Kangyur and which texts were not included. But it has to do basically, fundamentally, with Mahayana. Later on, it will have to do with the tantras, although that’s not part of this vow. But if we extend it to our tantra practice, do we accept that the tantras were taught by the Buddha and are authentic teachings that could lead us to enlightenment? How do you deal with that? Or is it something that you just sort of brush aside, one of these awkward, embarrassing things in Buddhism that we would rather not look at?
Participant: I find the Mahayana explanations of the Buddha, the Bodies of the Buddha, helpful. And on the other hand, it fits with the other teachings.
Dr. Berzin: That’s exactly right. The criteria here are, first of all, we have to fit Buddha as the source of the teachings with the descriptions of Buddha that are given in the teachings. Hinayana teachings given by the historical Buddha (which is difficult to prove, in any case, because it was just transmitted orally), and the Mahayana teachings — although there is the explanation that they were transmitted in a hidden fashion, nevertheless the Mahayana description of a Buddha is that Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened eons ago and just manifesting the 12 enlightening deeds, and Buddhas manifest themselves in all sorts of different forms simultaneously at different times, and so on, and in Buddha lands and so on, like Maitreya Buddha. That kind of Buddha could have taught the Mahayana scriptures. What’s difficult, on top of that, is to believe that there is such a thing as that kind of Buddha and that’s what we are aiming to achieve. Or are we aiming to become a historical Buddha? A historical Buddha is just one aspect of a Buddha, Nirmanakaya aspect of a Buddha.
But these are difficult things to really think through, of what is a Buddha, and what is our concept of a Buddha that is the source of the teachings and that we’re striving to become ourselves. But anyway, Buddha as described in the Mahayana sutras could very easily be the source of the Mahayana sutras. The same thing with tantra. When we talk about a Buddha there, we’re talking primarily about a clear light mind that is freed from all the fleeting stains and that then, in its pure nature, manifests various Buddha Bodies. That could be revealed in pure visions, it could be revealed in all sorts of ways, by these various Buddha-figures and so on. That’s one aspect.
The next aspect that you mentioned was that do they fit in with the main themes that Buddha taught in his other texts and the main texts? Yes, they are the same themes; they fit in. And thirdly, do they work? Yes, they work when put into practice. This is what the first Panchen Lama said in his mahamudra texts where he lists the various traditions in Tibet — mahamudra, dzogchen, etc. — and says, “When put into practice by sincere yogis, they all produce the same result: enlightenment.”
What about various developments in the history of Buddhism? We find that, as Buddhism went from one culture to another, various aspects are incorporated into Buddhism. How do we deal with that?
Participant: An example?
Dr. Berzin: An example? Protector practices. Very, very minor. You find in the Kangyur (translated works of the Buddha), I think, there’s only one or two little, tiny things about protectors, yet the Tibetans make a big deal about it in Tibetan Buddhism. You find the figures that were these original protectors were figures that you have in the Hindu pantheon as well: Shiva, Durga, various types… Not Shiva, but Durga and so on, various types. How do we deal with this? Jorge?
Participant: I think maybe to have a problem with this is based on the idea of something like Brahmanic religions, that we have this idea that there is something written down which is the body of knowledge of that religion and nothing should come from the outside. But I guess Buddhism is trying to use all aspects of reality to achieve enlightenment. Different cultures will emphasize different parts of reality. Why not?
Dr. Berzin: Very, very good. He says that Buddhism is not like certain religions. You mentioned the Brahmanic tradition, that says that here are certain scriptural teachings and that is whole by itself, and nothing can be added, nothing can be left out. Whereas Buddhism says — Buddha said — that you can teach the Dharma in terms of anything. Everything can be turned into a teaching. All the various different types of cultural aspects that Buddhism encountered could be used in the teachings. That’s very true.
Also, what happened was that certain things that have a minor role in Indian Buddhism in the original teachings might have resonated more with certain cultural aspects of another civilization. Like, for instance, pure lands. I mean, Buddha-fields; they had all of that. But going to Amitabha’s pure land, these sort of things, that was one of the early Mahayana sutras that appeared. But among the Tibetans, for instance, it doesn’t get a huge emphasis. A little bit. It’s there, but not a huge emphasis. Whereas in China that resonated very, very well with Taoist ideas of the Land of the Immortals in the West and so on, and so you get a huge movement of Pure Land Buddhism, it’s called, in China, which then spread to Japan and Korea and Vietnam. There’s this aspect as well.
Are these the teachings of the Buddha? Teachings of the Buddha could be elaborated further. We have commentaries, etc. Do you call them sutras? This becomes difficult when you come to Chinese Zen materials. Platform Sutra and things like these. These were clearly written in China, but they say they were written in China by various patriarchs. Do we accept them as the teachings of the Buddha? I don’t know. Do you have to accept them as teachings of the Buddha, or can you say that they’re just teachings of the patriarchs? We accept commentaries by Indian... like Nagarjuna and so on. Nagarjuna is sometimes called the Second Buddha.
Participant: Last time, you gave the example of the Heart Sutra, where Avalokiteshvara is the one giving the teachings.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Then there are these examples of the Heart Sutra, where Buddha — in the presence of Buddha — inspired others to give the teachings, like Avalokiteshvara. Similarly, if we take a Mahayana concept of a Buddha who pervades the three times and all of space, a Buddha can also inspire others to give the teachings. How do you know that it’s authentic though? Some nut can get up there and say, “I’m inspired by Buddha,” and make up crazy teachings. That’s why the criteria that you brought up, which comes from Dharmakirti: it has to be consistent with the rest of the teachings of Buddha, with the main themes that Buddha taught, and it has to work. Because of that, His Holiness has said that it is possible in the future that there will be more pure visions and termas (gter-ma, treasure text) and these sorts of revealed teachings that you have in Tibetan Buddhism. I mean, it started in India. You have it prominently in the Nyingma tradition, but you have it in all traditions. There’s no reason why there can’t be these in the future.
Participant: I think in the West it will surely be influenced by psychology and by science.
Dr. Berzin: Right. In the West, Buddhism will also deal with psychological issues and scientific issues and so on, since this is part of our culture.
Participant: I think it’s started already, because a lot of people are interested in psychology and they are interested in Buddhism, and they bring it together.
Dr. Berzin: Right. A lot of people are interested in psychology, so they bring Buddhism and psychology together. That’s very true. The problem is when you reduce Buddhism merely to a psychology and lose the larger picture. One could see that that could happen in other aspects of Buddhism. For instance, a Pure Land Buddhist teaching could also degenerate into the ultimate goal just to be born in the paradise of Amitabha’s pure land and forget about liberation and enlightenment. That also is a danger that one has to watch out for in the context of Chinese Pure Land or Japanese Pure Land. Similarly, one has to watch out, in the development of Western Buddhism, that it doesn’t just degenerate into the goal being merely to be an emotionally healthy person in this life.
Participant: But I think this has also already happened in, for instance, Tibet, because many of the practices are done for this life.
Dr. Berzin: She said that this has already happened in Tibet: many practices are done for this life. Certainly, there are practices to overcome sickness and these sort of things. That’s there. I was talking about that being the ultimate goal, the final goal. If that’s the final goal and you forget about everything else, then that’s a problem. But then you also have to differentiate between the popular understanding of Buddhism and a more learned serious practitioner’s understanding of Buddhism. Popular religion is always on a much less sophisticated level.
Participant: But you will always have it.
Dr. Berzin: You always have popular religion, so you have that in Buddhism as well.
Participant: But the people need this, seem to need this.
Dr. Berzin: That’s right. People do need this, but they also need to be aware that there is something deeper. If they’re at least aware of that, then that’s helpful, then they can aspire to something else. You find this certainly in the popular level of Tibetan Buddhism. That’s certainly there. Among the Tibetans that I know, the lay practitioners who are just turning their mani wheel, and circumambulating, and saying Om mani peme hums, and want to overcome sickness and this sort of things, they nevertheless have a very deep… a feeling of planting seeds for future lives, and in future lives they will study and go deeper in practice. This they have. This is among the Tibetans.
Anyway, that’s enough for this vow. The point is not to deny that any of these vehicles — the shravaka, pratyekabuddha, or Mahayana vehicles — are the Buddha’s words derived from the Buddha.
[7] Disrobing monastics or committing such acts as stealing their robes
Then the next one is, the seventh one, disrobing monastics or such acts as stealing their robes. Here we do something damaging to one, two, or three Buddhist monks or nuns. It doesn’t matter whether they have degenerated their morality or do no study or practice.
The main point of this vow is: what we want to avoid is having ill will and malice toward monastics. In other words, yelling at them, beating them, taking away their possessions, whatever, because of ill will, really disliking them, really wanting to harm them because of anger, and so on. Why is this detrimental to the bodhisattva path?
Participant: Can I ask a question? Isn’t it that the root vow is not broken if you do it because they have broken one of the four root vows themselves?
Dr. Berzin: No. The question is: Does this have to do with if they’ve broken one of the four root vows? If they’ve broken one of the four root vows, they lose their monastic vow. Then they would have to be asked to leave the monastery. We’re not talking about that. What we’re talking about is doing… even doing that with ill will (that you’re really angry with them, you dislike them, you hate them, you wish them bad, and so on). Sometimes even without disrobing, a monk or a nun may be asked to leave the monastery.
Participant: The important point is the ill will.
Dr. Berzin: The main point is ill will. Why is that against the bodhisattva way? What is the Sangha representing, the monastics representing?
Participant: It’s counterproductive.
Dr. Berzin: It’s counterproductive. But the point is that monks and nuns are representing — although they’re not the Sangha refuge — they’re representing the Sangha. They are, ideally, working toward liberation — at least liberation, if not enlightenment. And you don’t want to have negative thoughts toward them — ill will, and punish them, and like that. You want to help them to go toward enlightenment and encourage them.
Even if a monk is not studying, even if a monk is — or a nun — has broken their morality, you may need to discipline them, and there are disciplinary measures in the monasteries. The point is not to do it with ill will, that you want to punish them because they’re bad and you’re angry with them and dislike them. Similarly, you don’t kick out somebody from a monastery just because you don’t like them.
This is not part of the vow, but what do you do in a Dharma center when there’s somebody very disruptive or somebody very crazy who’s at your Dharma center? This happens, whether it’s a city center or a residential center. Do you ask them to leave? Certainly, you don’t hit them and so on, but do you verbally abuse them? What do you do?
Participant: Kindly ask them to leave and explain the reasons why.
Dr. Berzin: Right. You kindly ask them to leave. You explain the reasons: “This is very disruptive to the group. This is not a psychiatric hospital.” Some people come to these residential centers and they really need to be institutionalized in a psychiatric facility, not come to the Dharma center and act completely disruptive and crazy. I mean, I’ve been at places like that and seen that, and these problems come up. The point is not to be angry with them, not to treat them with ill will, not to yell at them. We’re trying to follow a bodhisattva path, so to help them. Help them doesn’t mean that we let them stay and disrupt everybody else, but there are other ways.
That’s the seventh vow.
[8] Committing any of the five heinous crimes
The eighth vow: committing any of the five heinous crimes (mtshams-med lnga). These are (a) killing our father, (b) killing our mother, (c) or an arhat (a liberated being); (d) with bad intentions, drawing blood from a Buddha; or (e) causing a split in the Sangha, in the monastic community.
Killing our father, our mother, a liberated being, or trying to hurt a Buddha (you can’t really kill a Buddha). Our father and mother are the ones that have given us our precious human rebirth in terms of the physical body. The arhats and the Buddhas are the ones demonstrating or have achieved the goals that we’re aspiring to achieve. What about causing a split in the Sangha?
Participant: It’s used sometimes to keep a sectarian order.
Dr. Berzin: What do you mean, to keep a sectarian order?
Participant: Some Dharma teachers point to this vow to tell the students not to conspire against him or not to…
Dr. Berzin: Right. Some teachers use this vow to try to convince students not to leave them, not to... They may be paranoid and so on, or they may be very possessive of the students, and so they want to keep power over them, and so they use this [vow] as an excuse to say, “If you leave me, you’re causing a schism in the Sangha.” Sangha is referring, of course, to the monastic community, not to a Dharma center. But this is a topic that we can go into after I speak in terms of the monastic community.
What is a split in the Sangha? This is very important to understand. Devadatta — it all started back with Devadatta, the jealous cousin of the Buddha. He was very jealous of the Buddha. And he was a monk; he became a monk. He proposed 13 — they’re called the dutangas, “branches of observed practice.” He said that the discipline in the monastic community of the Buddha was not strict enough and they should follow these 13 rules. He invited various monks to leave Buddha’s monastic community and come join him and follow these 13. What are these 13? You have them listed in the Theravada tradition.
- The first is to wear robes patched from rags.
- The second is to wear only three robes. No sweaters and things like that.
- The third is to go for alms and never accept invitations to meals. Buddha and his monks used to get invited to various householders’ houses for meals, they stay, then after the meal Buddha would give various teachings. Many of the sutras derive from that setting. No, you can’t do this, only go for alms.
- The fourth one is not skipping any house when going for alms. If you dislike someone, or “They didn’t give, so what’s the point of going there?”
- The fifth is eating at one sitting whatever alms you receive. Whatever you get in your bowl, you eat it in one go. You don’t leave leftovers for the evening meal.
- Then the next one is eating only from your alms bowl, not from any other bowl or not anything else.
- The seventh is you need to refuse all other food.
- The eighth is living only in forests.
- The ninth is living under trees.
- The tenth is living in the open air, not in houses.
- The eleventh is staying mostly in charnel grounds. That means where they chop up the bodies or cremate the bodies, chop them up and feed them to the vultures or dogs.
- Twelfth: being satisfied with whatever place to stay you find and always continually wandering from place to place.
- The thirteenth is sleeping in the sitting position, never sleeping lying down.
Any of this sound familiar? This is the ascetic life. You have this with Indian sadhus, a lot of this. This is the foundation for the forest tradition of monks in Thailand. The mahasiddhas in India (the Buddhist and Hindu) followed a lot of this. In the three-year retreat, for example, you always sleep in the sitting position, never lying down.
In Mahayana, by the way, there is a similar list. They have just 12, not 13. They leave out not skipping any house when going for alms, they add wearing robes discarded from the dustbins (so things that are thrown in the garbage, that’s what you wear), and it combines two of them — going for alms and never accepting invitations to meals and eating only from your alms bowl — combines that into one. Anyway, it’s a similar list.
What was Buddha’s response to this? Was Devadatta, just by proposing these vows and inviting the monks to join him — was that splitting the Sangha? Was that a schism in the Sangha? No. Buddha said it was OK for others to follow. That’s why you have the forest tradition and these other things. The schism of a Sangha is when you do that with ill will toward the Buddhist monastic community. In other words, you say the Buddhist monastic community is no good — “They’re horrible. They’re not pure. We’re the only ones” — and with very negative thoughts toward the Buddhist monastic community, then you start another monastic type of tradition or serious religious tradition. That’s a schism in the Sangha.
What is the assumption here? The assumption is we’re talking about a pure Buddhist Sangha who are following the Buddha’s way of life, and then saying, “That’s no good.” If you have a Dharma center, for instance, in which there’s an abusive teacher, does that mean that you can’t break from that teacher? What does that mean? I think there’s a difference between accepting that “The Buddha’s teachings were pure the way the Buddha’s teaching was pure, but here’s another way” — there’s a dutanga way, to use the Sanskrit term. That’s one thing. Another thing is to say, “This is an abusive teacher. The way that they’re practicing is not in accord with Buddha’s words,” but still not have ill will toward them, and have something different. This, I think, is still OK. The point is not to have ill will, even if the teacher is abusive. Because you’re a bodhisattva and you want to help that person, even the abusive teacher, reach enlightenment.
Participant: Is the ill will also a necessary point for killing the father, etc., for those points?
Dr. Berzin: Is ill will necessary for killing the mother, father, or arhat, or drawing blood with a Buddha? It always says, “drawing blood from a Buddha with ill will.” That’s there because one could take a Buddha to a doctor to get a blood sample. That’s not taking... If you consider the Buddha or your teacher as a Buddha and go take a blood sample, that’s not with ill will.
Could you kill your mother, father, or an arhat without ill will and that’s OK? I don’t think so.
Participant: By accident.
Dr. Berzin: By accident? One could kill them by accident, that’s true.
Heinous crime (mtshams med) — “uninterrupted” is literally the term; it’s an uninterrupted negative act, which means that directly, the next rebirth, you go to Avichi hell, the worst realm. There’s sort of a guarantee of what your next lifetime... In the teachings on karma, they speak about a classification of karma that would ripen in this lifetime that has definite ripening, that definitely will ripen in this lifetime, then there’s a certain list of those that will — very strong actions, of help or harm to one’s teacher, etc., done with very strong intention — that definitely will ripen in this lifetime and there’s certainty of ripening in this lifetime. Then there are those that are certain to ripen in one’s immediately following rebirth. That’s referring to these. They have certainty of ripening in the next rebirth to Avichi hell. Then there are those that are certain to ripen in some lifetime after that, any lifetime after that.
I don’t know. I’ve never seen ill will being the stipulation here. But I suppose if one was in a… This happened to my cousin. It was really horrible. She was driving the car; her mother was in the passenger seat. They got into an accident. She was barely hurt at all; the mother was killed in the accident, the car accident. Is this one of these negative actions? I tend to think not. Horrible for my cousin, horrible thing to live with for the rest of her life. Hard to imagine how she deals with that. But I don’t think it comes in this category.
[9] Holding a distorted, antagonistic outlook
Then the next one, number nine: holding a distorted, antagonistic outlook. This is not only denying what is true in a value, like refuge, and karma, the laws of karma, rebirth, liberation, etc. — it’s not only denying that, but we’re antagonistic toward anyone who believes like that. That’s what this distorted, antagonistic outlook is about. You have to be quite antagonistic as well, and close-minded and stubborn.
Do you know the word antagonistic? You’re hostile. You want to argue with anybody that thinks differently. You think anybody who thinks differently is stupid and wrong and, to an extreme extent, should be burned at the stake. It’s mixed with hostility as well. Obviously if we think like that, how can we really be striving toward enlightenment if we have this? Not only not believe that enlightenment is possible but think that it’s stupid and anybody who really believes in enlightenment is wrong.
That’s a very interesting thing to think about, because this is one of the heavier — this and giving up bodhichitta are the two really heavy downfalls. If we are following the bodhisattva path and taking the bodhisattva vows, do you need to believe that there is such a thing as enlightenment and that it’s possible? Yes, obviously; otherwise, how could you aim to achieve that? But there are many of us who doubt that there is such a thing as enlightenment. If you read all the descriptions of enlightenment: you can multiply your body in a zillion forms, and you are omniscient (you know absolutely everything), and you can be omnipresent throughout the universe...
Participant: Of course.
Dr. Berzin: You say, “Of course.”
And you can speak with one sound in every possible language, and everybody understands you in their own language, and you understand everybody else’s language. Do you really believe that? If you don’t believe that, is that breaking this vow?
Participant: It’s not breaking a vow. It’s OK. You can doubt…
Dr. Berzin: If you doubt it — well, your bodhichitta isn’t terribly strong if you doubt it. But maybe you can say, “Well, maybe there is enlightenment.” I don’t think you could be in the negative side there, of saying: “Maybe there isn’t enlightenment, but I don’t care. I’ll work to be like a Buddha.” We could do that. We could do that. “It doesn’t matter to me whether or not the description of a Buddha, with all the description, is true or not. Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care. The bodhisattva ideal is wonderful. I will go in that direction, and I wish to go in that direction.” Is that really bodhichitta? It’s close, maybe. I don’t know.
Participant: We should always doubt our own understanding of these.
Dr. Berzin: We should always doubt our own understanding. Yes.
Participant: We can never have pure bodhichitta until we have enlightenment, because we can’t understand enlightenment completely.
Dr. Berzi: He says we can never have pure bodhichitta until we understand enlightenment, and we won’t understand enlightenment until we’re a Buddha. Pure I don’t think is the correct word here. We’d always have conceptual bodhichitta. It’s always conceptual. We would just have an idea of what enlightenment is like. It couldn’t be nonconceptual, because unless you’re a Buddha, you wouldn’t know what enlightenment is.
Participant: The idea might contain errors.
Dr. Berzin: The idea might contain errors. Or it could have the list of all the qualities, and you could list them (64 of speech, and…) and list the whole list, but still not really understand it. But I think we at least have to say that it probably is this, but I don’t really quite understand what it is.” Maybe then you could have proper bodhichitta. But this is saying that “I definitely believe that there is no such thing and anybody who thinks like that is naive and stupid, and I’m going to argue with them.” That’s breaking this vow.
But these are things that I think are really serious matters to consider. Do I really believe in enlightenment? Do I really believe that Nagarjuna got the Prajnaparamita Sutras from the nagas under a lake in Kathmandu Valley?
Participant: They’re two different things.
Dr. Berzin: These are two different things? What do I believe? Would you feel comfortable telling your friends and your parents and your brothers and sisters: “Yes, I’m following this teaching. It was gotten from the nagas underneath the sea. And the other teaching was gotten from somebody who went to Tushita heaven and got it. When he came down, fifty human years had passed.” Really? I think those are things that one should not just brush aside, and I don’t think it means to be totally naive either.
Participant: Even if I did believe it in this case, I wouldn’t tell anybody.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Even if I did believe it, I wouldn’t tell anybody. This is a perfect example of why there are certain teachings that need to be kept hidden. (I prefer the translation hidden rather than secret.) They need to be kept hidden, because if you told other people, not only would they think you were crazy, but they would laugh at you and make fun of you and make fun of the teachings.
Participant: Or misuse them.
Dr. Berzin: Or misuse them. Definitely they would misuse them, like with the tantras.
Participant: In the case of tantric Buddhism, but mostly with the case of the tantric healers and all the tantras in Hinduism, which have been completely misunderstood in Western culture.
Dr. Berzin: Right. As he says, particularly tantra. Buddhist, but more in the Hindu tantra… But I think tantra in general has been misinterpreted and made widespread, the misinterpretation.
Participant: I am wondering if it is really something important, to really... I think it’s not important. It’s just a nice story. Also, in Christianity you have a lot of stories which you can take on different levels.
Dr. Berzin: Right. OK. Now you bring up a very good point. Marianna says, “These aren’t important points.”
Participant: For me.
Dr. Berzin: For you. Nagarjuna and the nagas and Tushita — those may not be important, but what about is there enlightenment?
Participant: Also, then you can argue if it’s really… this point is special, to have your ears like this or arms like this. I think it’s not important.
Dr. Berzin: OK. She says that it’s not important, the various things that, as a Buddha… The 32 signs. A Buddha has very long ear lobes; they go down to the shoulders. The tongue can reach the nose, and so on. What is the sense behind this?
OK. I think there are many points here. One you said — that some of these things can be understood on different levels. This I think is the major point here, that do we have to take these things literally? No, we don’t have to take them literally. The only thing to be taken literally are the teachings on voidness; everything else is interpretable, to lead us to an understanding of voidness and the various aspects that would support it.
For instance, one could understand that the teachings on voidness, on reality, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, these are — now we use the analysis of myths like you find in Jungian psychology — that these are buried deep in the unconscious (we don’t want to use the Western idea of unconscious, so clear light mind) and one has to discover them and bring this forth. That the clear light mind has all the capacity to have full understanding of everything, so when all the stains are removed, it has full understanding of everything. So protected by the nagas? The nagas are the subtle conceptual minds that, in a sense, obscure and guard the clear light mind — that you have to go deep enough to get past them to get it. You could understand it on that level. Tushita as well: go to some pure land (which is also clear light mind) to get the teachings from Maitreya (maitreya the word means love).
There are very different ways of understanding all of this if we bring in the concept of Buddha according to Mahayana. Then these things start to make sense. Take it literally? It’s like a fairy tale. You’re right: it’s not so important.
But this is why I’m saying it’s important to think more deeply about it. Because if there are these other levels of understanding, then we can feel comfortable about it. You can say, “It’s unimportant. It’s even embarrassing. I’ll forget about it and leave it to the side.” That is not being comfortable with the tradition. Or you can understand it on other levels.
The teachings about the different signs of the Buddha — the long ears, the long nose, etc. — these are indicative signs. If you look at the teachings on it, each sign is a... it’s a sign representing the cause for it. A long tongue — this is the one that I always remember (I can’t remember the others offhand) — represents that while working to become a Buddha, a bodhisattva cares for others with as much affection as a mother animal licking her young. To represent that, there’s a long tongue. Fine. Literally when I become a Buddha, am I going to have a long tongue? Well, literally when I become a Buddha, I’ll be able to manifest as anything — long tongue, short tongue. If you look at the scriptures, you can manifest as a bridge. You can manifest as anything.
One needs to look at what are the teachings intended to teach us, and not just skip over them because they’re embarrassing. My teacher always said, “Buddha didn’t teach things…” — Serkong Rinpoche used to say — “Buddha didn’t teach things for no reason.” Whatever he taught, no matter how weird it might look to us, was intended to benefit disciples. Which means that there’s some lesson to be learned here. If the lesson isn’t obvious and the literal understanding of what was taught is nonsense, this is putting down the teachings. This comes in another vow: we’re saying the teachings aren’t effective.
The best attitude is “I don’t understand this. If it’s Buddha’s words, I will assume that there’s something here to be learned on a deeper level. And I hope I can find someday somebody who can explain it, or I build up enough positive force so that I figure it out myself.” In other words, we always give what in English is called “the benefit of the doubt” to the teachings. “I will assume that this is meaningful, and provisionally I will accept it and work with it, not just dismiss it. Maybe I have to put off thinking more deeply about it.” This would be in the case of what you said Marianna, that it’s not so important. “It’s not so important to understand it now. But I don’t want to just throw it away.”
Participant: It’s not so important to understand it literally.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, the literal is not so important. If you look at all the teachings on karma: The man who had an elephant that shit gold, and every time that he tried to give that elephant away, the elephant always came back, or came up from the middle of the earth, and stuff like that. And you go “Oh, come on!” But then one could try to understand what does this represent. For this, Western disciplines are very good, particularly the whole Jungian approach of analyzing myths and stories and so on. What does it represent psychologically and emotionally? This I found very helpful. I have a very good friend who is quite good at that, a Buddhist teacher, Swiss.
[10] Destroying places such as towns
Then the next one is number ten: destroying places such as towns. This is with a conscious intent to destroy a place, we demolish, bomb, or deliberately pollute a place, a town, a city, a countryside, making it unfit, harmful, or difficult for humans or animals to live there.
This is consciously polluting and destroying a place. Doing it on purpose. Our usual environmental pollution — or not separating our trash into organic, paper, metal, plastic, etc. — is that breaking this vow?
Participant: If you know that not doing it would pollute the environment.
Dr. Berzin: If you know that not doing it will pollute the environment. Or has it to be the other way? “By not doing this, I want to pollute the environment.” It’s stronger. Here we have laziness or indifference, from what you said: “I’m too lazy to separate my garbage.” Or there can be attachment. “I am attached to driving my car all the time, not taking public transport.” That obviously also is something quite negative. But the vow specifically is doing it on purpose. We have to understand all these things are counter to bodhichitta. If we want to help everybody and help bring everybody to a Buddha land, and all this sort of stuff, then you don’t deliberately destroy the environment. Would anyone deliberately destroy the environment?
Participant: Yes, if you could take something out of the earth for gain.
Participant: For example, that’s done in a war.
Dr. Berzin: Right. During a war, that’s done, definitely. Planting land mines throughout the countryside.
Participant: Or Agent Orange.
Dr. Berzin: Agent Orange destroying all the vegetation, making it unfit for habitation. That’s certainly breaking the vow.
Participant: Taking resources.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Taking out the... What about chopping down the forest?
Participant: I think that depends on intention.
Dr. Berzin: It depends on the intention. If your intention is to make money from the wood, and you don’t care about the environment…
Participant: Then it’s fine.
Dr. Berzin: Not that it’s fine, but it’s not breaking this vow specifically. “I want to make it unfit for habitation.” What about — ooh, here’s a good one — what about making a place unfit for insect habitation? Here’s an interesting one.
Participant: It’s very difficult, the intention.
Dr. Berzin: I will spread insecticide over the crops and make it unfit for insect habitation.
Participant: In order to produce lots of food and to benefit…
Dr. Berzin: In order to produce a lot of food and benefit humans. That’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Is that against the bodhisattva vow? Is that working to help the insects, those beings who in this lifetime are manifesting an insect body and mind but who have Buddha-nature and last lifetime could have been your mother and next lifetime could be your mother? Is that helping them? No, not really. It would be difficult to follow that sort of policy. We’d have to become organic farmers.
Participant: But even if we are organic farmers, we will kill quite a lot of insects.
Dr. Berzin: Even if we are organic farmers, we will kill insects. That’s why one of the monks’ and nuns’ vows is not to do farming. One of the monks’ and nuns’ vows is not to till the earth.
Participant: Really?
Dr. Berzin: Yeah. They’re also not supposed to light a fire, because moths and various insects fly into it. That’s why you’re supposed to only accept food that’s given to you in your bowl if you’re really strict.
One has to be... Do you fumigate your house if it’s infested with cockroaches or bedbugs? Is this destroying a place? Or just make it nasty so they wouldn’t want to be there?
Participant: That’s also destroying the environment.
Dr. Berzin: That’s also destroying the environment. Sometimes this one is not so easy to keep. It’s not that we’re going around dropping Agent Orange from our airplane on the jungles. There are more subtle ways. What’s the whole point? The whole point is that if we really have bodhichitta, we want to benefit everybody, including those who in this lifetime are nonhuman, including insects. That’s why bodhichitta, to really have it sincerely, is extraordinary. If you really have that. If you really have even just the equanimity on which it’s based, it’s extraordinary. One has to think about these things.
Participant: What is the motivation for breaking this?
Dr. Berzin: The motivation for breaking this is you want to make it unfit, harmful, or difficult for humans or animals to live there.
Participant: To make it difficult.
Dr. Berzin: To make it difficult. So there’s ill will. You don’t want to benefit them. What about setting up an alternative place, an alternative habitat?
Participant: It’s a good idea.
Dr. Berzin: A good idea? How about: “We are going to tear down your houses in the city to build a parking lot or a sports arena, or something like that, and move you to this place that you don’t want to live in at all, way, way distant from your work and so on.” Is that OK?
Participant: In a place that one likes.
Dr. Berzin: Right. You want to make it a nice place. We won’t give you any money for your...
Participant: Or you can give me money for building this. Fine. Please build a sports park here, and I’ll leave. Thanks a lot. That’s fine.
Dr. Berzin: I don’t know. One has to think. There are many variants on this that are — resettling people and so on — that come into thinking about this.
As I say, I think the main issue here is that these vows are things that could be deeply thought about and contemplated. They shouldn’t just be something that “I want to take the vow because I want to be holy, but I don’t really want to study what the vow is and really analyze it in my behavior and what the implications of it are.”
[11] Teaching voidness to those whose minds are untrained
Next one, eleven: teaching voidness to those whose minds are untrained. Difficult, as a Buddhist teacher talks about voidness all the time.
The point of it is that if we teach voidness… I mean, this is in the explanations. It says if you teach voidness to someone with a bodhichitta motivation and they misunderstand it and think that there’s no such thing as enlightenment or “it means that nobody exists, so why should I work to benefit everybody?” and they give up working for enlightenment, or even for liberation, then you really have acted counter to your bodhisattva wish to benefit them. You have to be careful who you teach what to. In teaching about voidness, you need to lead others through explanations that are gradual. This is difficult when you’re teaching to large groups. His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches voidness all the time to very large crowds. Is he breaking this vow?
Participant: He’s mostly teaching on a level that’s difficult to understand.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly. He’s teaching voidness on a level that is so difficult to understand that those who are not ready to understand it won’t understand anything.
One has to be skillful. Or if you make it understandable, you have to make it understandable in such simple terms that also they wouldn’t really misunderstand. Like when I speak in terms of “Things don’t exist in impossible ways that our mind projects, makes up and projects. Voidness is talking about that these projections don’t refer to anything real. You’re projecting something that’s impossible.” OK, that is not the most profound way of explaining voidness, but it gets the general idea, which I don’t think can be confused or misunderstood.
I think that’s sort of the way that you approach it when you’re teaching in larger crowds. Or you teach it in such a complicated way that nobody can understand it (or very few, unless they’re really ready). I have articles on voidness on my website which I really wonder how many people can understand. That’s good. Because only those who have really, really studied will be able to understand it. You don’t want to make things too easy.
But if we’re teaching an individual person on a one-to-one basis, then it’s very important to make the teachings in such a way, particularly about voidness, that are going to suit that person’s level of understanding. Always make sure that they don’t fall to nihilism or eternalism. Of the two, nihilism is worse, because then you would give up doing anything: “Why should I bother doing anything? I don’t exist, you don’t exist, nothing exists. So why follow a Buddhist path? Why follow any path?”
[12] Turning others away from full enlightenment
Then the next one is turning others away from full enlightenment. This is referring to people who already have developed bodhichitta motivation and are striving toward enlightenment. We tell them that “You’re incapable of acting all the time with generosity. You can’t possibly become a Buddha, so you should give it up. Better to work for your liberation or give up the whole thing.” For this vow to really be broken, they have to actually turn their aim away from enlightenment. In other words, they understand what we say and are convinced and then stop working for enlightenment, then the vow is broken, the downfall is complete. Obviously, that is counter to the bodhisattva ideal.
[13] Turning others away from their pratimoksha vows
The next one is turning others away from their pratimoksha vows. This would be monks, nuns, or laypeople. The object has to be those who are keeping one of these sets of vows. We would tell them that “There’s no use, as a bodhisattva, in doing that, because for bodhisattvas all actions are pure. You can do anything. You could have sex with me, you could do whatever, because you’re a bodhisattva. And on the bodhisattva path, you have to help me by being my consort,” and all this sort of crap. For the downfall to be complete, they must actually give up their vows. There are abusive teachers who do that. One has to be careful about that.
[14] Belittling the shravaka vehicle
I think we have time for one more: belittling the shravaka vehicle. With the sixth root downfall, we said that the Hinayana teachings, the shravaka vehicle, were not the words of the Buddha. Here we would say that they are — we accept that they are the words of the Buddha — but we say they are ineffective and you can’t possibly attain liberation through them. As in saying, “Going to a vipassana course is useless. It’s not going to help you to overcome your anger and desire, to just sit there and observe your breath and the sensations in your body.”
Participant: According to Prasangika, you can’t reach liberation on these lower levels.
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now you bring up an interesting thing. The Prasangika says that you cannot reach liberation with the shravaka teachings. Don’t they differentiate, though, the actual shravaka teachings from the lower school’s understanding of what the shravaka teachings are? They say, “Through our understanding of what the shravaka teachings are, you can achieve liberation.” They assert that merely understanding the lack of a self-sufficiently knowable self will not bring you to liberation, which is what the others say. But they say you have to understand the voidness of the self and of all phenomena in order to achieve liberation, and they point out that the shravaka teachings say that. This is not breaking their vow.
Participant: It doesn’t come to the students like that.
Dr. Berzin: Often it doesn’t come to the students like that. But we studied that in Shantideva’s text. Of course, it doesn’t come to the students often like that.
Also, you could agree that if you just sit there and focus on your breath, that’s not going to bring you liberation, but that can be a step in a process. In the shravaka teachings, then, one needs to analyze “who is breathing?” and so on. It goes much deeper than that. Maybe the way that it’s taught is not going to the deepest level of the shravaka teachings, but it is there in the shravaka teachings. Focusing on the breath is helpful, even if just doing that doesn’t bring you enlightenment — or liberation, I should say. But I don’t think that anybody says that it does bring you liberation, just by focusing on that.
We have to have... There’s a lot of aspects in the bodhisattva teachings that deal with showing respect to the shravakas, to the Hinayana teachings.
Participant: The Prasangikas would say that in the shravaka teachings it is meant like everything is void, not existing from its own side, but different schools interpret it incorrectly.
Dr. Berzin: No. What he’s saying is that Prasangika says that the shravakas have to understand the Prasangika understanding of voidness, and they don’t. What they say is wrong, that you can achieve liberation just with understanding their understanding of the lack of a self-sufficiently knowable self.
No. What Prasangika is saying is that they are only teaching up to... It’s not that they’re wrong. Well, wrong is a difficult word. What they’re saying is that: In their teachings, you do need to understand the lack of a self-sufficiently knowable self. In our teachings as well, you need to understand that. That’s what we call the rough selflessness of a person. They call it the subtle selflessness of a person. But there’s a deeper one. If you really look at your teachings, the deeper understanding is there as well; the deeper teaching is there as well. Your teachings will contribute toward going to liberation, your understanding of them, but then it has to go further.
Let’s leave that here, and we have two more of these — well, four more of these — for next time, and then we can get into the secondary vows as well.
Let’s end with a dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.