Review of Previous Sessions
We’re going through Tsongkhapa’s letter that he wrote to his friend the meditator Konchog-tsultrim in answer to his request for some practical advice on how to practice sutra and tantra. As has been our custom, it is helpful to go through a little bit very briefly what has been covered already so that we recall the context.
Tsongkhapa says we’ve found this excellent working basis of a precious human rebirth, and we’ve met with the teachings, and we’re cared for by excellent spiritual teachers, and we have the power of mind to discern between what’s to be adopted and rejected. Now we need to take advantage of all of that, and to do that we have to engage ourselves in the Buddhist teachings. To do that, we need to rely on guidance by a spiritual teacher who is fully qualified. Here, the qualifications that Tsongkhapa points out are the very practical ones, that the teacher needs to know what is it that we need to develop, the states of mind, and which are the ones that we don’t need to develop, or get rid of, without adding anything, without leaving anything out, and know the proper order for developing them and how to apply them to each individual student’s mind. The teacher has to have gained certainty about this by going through this type of training himself or herself from their own spiritual teacher based on the study of the great classics, because the Buddhist classics are where all the practices derive from.
Then for how to begin our practice, the main point is to tame our minds, and for this the motivating mental framework is essential as the context for developing any sort of further states of mind. There are many ways to do that, but the most common and helpful way is through the graded levels of motivation of the lam-rim. For these, very briefly, we need to think in terms of working for future lives, not just this lifetime, so we continue to have a precious human rebirth, then to work for liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth, and then to work for enlightenment for the benefit of everyone and to help everyone out of that situation.
These are based on a certain motivating emotion or state of mind. We would dread having to continue with the terrible situations and rebirth states in the future, and we’re convinced that following the Buddhist path of safe direction and refuge will enable us to continue having the precious human rebirth. In that sense, we develop our interest in future lives through taking this safe direction and refraining from destructive behavior.
Then we think of all the sufferings of all samsaric states, and we want to renounce that, and we develop renunciation: we’re determined to be free of that and free of its causes, which are disturbing emotions and the karmic impulses that come from that.
Then we develop love and compassion and bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta) aimed at our own future enlightenment to be able to help everybody to fulfill the aims of our love and compassion, which is the wish for everybody to be happy and have the causes of happiness and to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Motivated by that state of mind of love, compassion, and bodhichitta, then we work for enlightenment.
It’s important to have these motivating mental frameworks in an uncontrived manner so that it’s not artificial, not just an intellectual understanding of them or in mere words, so we need to build them up as beneficial habits, or meditate, to do that. We need to know all the causes that will help us to build up these states of mind, what it relies on, what we need to develop first. We need to know all the aspects of each of these states of mind. We need to know, when we build them up, what do we actually focus on, and in terms of that state of mind, how does our mind understand, or take, or engage with what we’re focusing on, and what will support it, what will be detrimental to it, and so on. Tsongkhapa gives extremely practical advice on how to meditate. Then he says that it’s important to keep these motivating mental frameworks throughout our sessions and throughout our practice, not just have it at the very beginning.
Then in order to actually engage in tantra practice, if that’s what we’re aiming for, then (on the basis of these sutra aspects concerning our motivating mental framework) we have to, as our doorway for entering the various vehicles of mind — referring to the basic Hinayana (Skt. Hīnayāna) and the sutra Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) and tantra Mahayana — we need to keep the set of vows of ethical discipline of each of these vehicles of mind.
For entering the doorway of the Hinayana vehicle, aiming for our liberation, we have to keep vows of individual liberation — these are pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows — either the lay vows or the novice or full monk or nuns’ vows, and we went through the lay vows. Then in order to enter the sutra Mahayana vehicle, we need to keep the bodhisattva vows, and we’ve gone through that.
The Tantric Vows
Therefore, we are now up to the tantric vows, which we would need to keep for entering not all four classes of tantra but for entering the vehicles of the upper two classes of tantra — yoga tantra and anuttarayoga tantra. This is given here by Tsongkhapa’s line in the text: “Therefore, concerning…” I mean, he said before:
And especially when we enter secret mantra, then, as previously explained, since bodhichitta is the ultimate essential point for all the Mahayana pathway minds, it’s very important for that to be firm (with the bodhisattva vows).
Therefore, concerning the close bonds and (tantric) vows that we have acquired at the time when we receive perfectly pure empowerments from a qualified spiritual master, if we never give them up by means of the causes for giving them up and never let them weaken by means of the causes for them to weaken, that would be excellent.
This brings us to the topic of the tantric vows. First, let’s look at what they are before we look at the causes for them to weaken and the causes for giving them up.
Normally it’s said that the monk and nuns’ vows and the tantric vows are vows that we are not supposed to know before we take them, because we have to be so willing to become a monk or nun or so willing to practice tantra, these higher two classes of tantra, that we’re willing to follow anything. It seems as though in practice, since there are so many monk and nuns’ vows, that most people don’t really take the time to, or would think to take the time to, study all of them beforehand. Most people become monks or nuns just knowing some of the more important vows, and they only would study them in detail afterwards, after taking them.
In fact if you look at the Chinese tradition, they follow a slightly different set of vows for the monks and nuns, and they study them immediately after taking them. But in the Tibetan tradition, the study of vows comes actually much later, at the end of the training, the geshe training. This I think is probably because if you look at the curriculum in terms of the geshe training, the monks (and nowadays nuns) start their studies when they’re still teenagers. Usually, they start at around the age of 12 or 13. Before that, they basically memorize texts. I mean, this is considered their studies as well, but the system takes advantage of the fact that a young mind can memorize much more easily and what you memorize as a child you usually retain quite well for the rest of your life. They don’t start the actual debate training till they’re about 12 or 13. You don’t take your full vows of a monk or nun until you’re 21 years old, and so that comes toward the end of your studies, or more toward the middle of it, I suppose, but in any case, that’s one reason for postponing the study of the vows until later in the training.
But for the tantric vows, nowadays everybody in the West has them available in so many publications that there’s no great point at this stage in pretending that they’re not available and you can’t study them or know about them beforehand. What I thought to do is to go through the vows. There are two of them in the secondary vows that perhaps are not so appropriate to discuss without an initiation, so we’ll leave them out. But aside from that, the other vows… I think there’s no problem in explaining them. OK?
The Fourteen Common Tantric Root Downfalls
We have the tantric root downfalls. In the Kalachakra system there’s a slightly different set, which we keep in addition to this common set of tantric vows. The list is fourteen in the common. Common means shared by all the tantras (this is, as I said, the third and fourth classes of tantra).
[1] Scorning or deriding our vajra masters
The first of these is scorning or deriding our vajra masters. The object for this is any teacher from whom we have received an empowerment (dbang) (that’s what is usually called the full initiation), a subsequent permission (rjes-snang), or a mantra-gathering (sngags-btus) into any class of tantra, full or partial explanation of any of their texts, or oral guidelines for any of their practices.
The difference between an empowerment, a subsequent permission, and a mantra-gathering
When we talk about empowerment, empowerment is the Tibetan word wang (dbang), which literally means “power” or “to empower.” The Sanskrit word abhishekha means a “sprinkling,” and so it is a sprinkling of water on the seeds of our Buddha-nature, and in that sense, it empowers them. If we all have the various factors of Buddha-nature which will enable us to attain enlightenment, then what happens during an empowerment is that through our actual participation in the ritual… which means that during the ritual, particularly when they talk about “Now you imagine that you have an experience of voidness with a blissful state of mind” — this is in anuttarayoga tantra in the Gelug tradition — that you actually have something, experience something, which means that of course we need to have some understanding of voidness beforehand (there’s no such thing as an empowerment without taking the vows. Sakya Pandita made that very clear). In order to receive the empowerment — which means to basically awaken and stimulate these seeds of Buddha-nature, and to plant further seeds, from some experience of voidness with a blissful consciousness from the circumstances of the ritual (the ambiance, the visualizations, and the acts of the teacher conferring the initiation, and our relationship with the teacher, and the inspiration from the teacher) — these Buddha-nature factors are, in a sense, awakened and stimulated. That’s the whole point of empowerment.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we have to have perfect visualizations of all the details during the empowerment. That’s something which would be quite totally impossible, especially in an empowerment of a tantra system that we have not had before, because obviously we would not know all the details of the visualization and it’s much too complicated and difficult. (Tibetans take the empowerments over and over and over again, and after they’ve done the retreat then they do what’s called the self-empowerment or self-initiation (bdag-’jug), in which you don’t require a teacher, but you go through the rituals yourself, then they become very familiar with the visualizations and can actually do them.) When we receive empowerment, just to have a vague idea of the visualizations is quite sufficient. What’s important is to have some sort of conscious experience of, as I say, voidness with at least a happy state of mind, not feel depressed that “I can’t follow what’s going on,” and so on.
After that we get what’s known as a subsequent permission, and that’s the Tibetan word jenang (rjes-snang). Often Westerners will translate jenang also as an “initiation,” which is, of course, misleading, because it’s not an initiation or an empowerment; it’s something which literally comes after having received an empowerment. As Serkong Rinpoche used to explain it: the empowerment is like giving us a sword, and the subsequent permission is like sharpening the sword.
For the empowerment there’s always some sort of mandala (Skt. maṇḍala), usually a little house that’s built that’s there, or if there isn’t a little house, it’s at least a picture of the mandala or a sand mandala.
With a subsequent permission, what is usually there is a torma (gtor-ma), a sculptured cone made out of barley grain which has, on top of it, a little thing like a toothpick, with a picture of the deity on top of that, and this is the main ritual implement with which it is given. It usually has, as its main parts, the inspiration or uplifting of body, speech, and mind, and all four together, so you can usually recognize what it is. It is given to people with two types of situations: If you have received an empowerment into either that specific deity or any deity of that class of tantra or higher, then you can visualize yourself as that deity afterwards. If you have not received an empowerment, then you’re not empowered to visualize yourself as the deity but just the Buddha-figure in front of you (not just during the ceremony but also afterwards in your meditation).
For instance, if you have received a full empowerment in the first class of tantra, kriya (Skt. kriyā) tantra — the one that’s most commonly given is the Thousand-Armed Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara (Skt. Avalokiteśvara) — then if after that you receive a subsequent permission (or jenang) of Tara (Skt. Tārā), then it’s OK to visualize yourself as Tara. But if you haven’t received something like the Thousand-Armed Chenrezig full empowerment, then when you receive a Tara subsequent permission, you only are empowered to visualize the deity in front of you, Tara in front of you. If you’ve received an initiation from the highest class of tantra, let’s say Kalachakra, then again if you receive a jenang (a subsequent permission) of Tara from the first class of tantra, again you are empowered to visualize yourself as Tara, because you’ve received a full empowerment from a higher class.
This is something which Tsongkhapa emphasized very much. Not all teachers, of course, follow that strictly — particularly in the West, I find, among the various different schools of Tibetan Buddhism — but if one wants to follow the exact procedures that have been laid down, those are the procedures.
The teacher is somebody from whom we’ve received an empowerment or subsequent permission or a mantra gathering. A mantra gathering is another ritual. It’s not performed very frequently. It’s actually extremely rare. This is a ritual which is done after all of this, usually, for a particular deity in which there is... There are various procedures for it, but basically what it is is to confirm the syllables of the mantra. There’s a grid which is set up of the Sanskrit alphabet in terms of the whole classification of the letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, and each letter of the mantra is specified by where in this grid it is. You have a number of where it is: the first row, the fourth one, or something like that. The vowels also will have a way of specifying them. Then what the attendant does usually is… there’s some form of powder with this grid — there are many different ways in which it’s done — and then they gather together the colored powder from the grid and write the actual letters of the mantra. The whole point of this is that it’s very difficult to guarantee, without this, that you have the mantra correct and the spelling is correct (very often these mantras have been garbled over time), and so if we have this mantra gathering ritual or ceremony then one can be very confident that all the letters of the mantra and everything is precise. There’s the mantra gathering ceremony.
Participant: Can I ask again: jenang is translated as “empowerment”?
Dr. Berzin: No. Jenang is subsequent permission. An empowerment is a wang.
Participant: Empowerment is a wang. Then initiation is?
Dr. Berzin: Initiation is a Western word that people use indiscriminately for both, but if we wanted to use it more precisely we would use it just for a wang.
Question: But in the German translation, do you know?
Dr. Berzin: The German translation? I think they use Einweihung for both.
Participant: Initiation is used for jenang, but it’s not always clearly distinguished.
Dr. Berzin: Right. But to call it a blessing, I find, is mixing in a word with connotations from another religion which I think are quite misleading. The word that’s usually translated as “blessing” is chinlab (byin-rlabs) in Tibetan, adhishthana in Sanskrit, which I translate as “inspiration” or, in other contexts, an “uplifting.”
This is when people go to an empowerment, and they don’t take the vows or really participate. If you don’t take the vows, you haven’t received the empowerment. That’s absolutely clear. If you haven’t had some sort of experience participating in the thing, then also you can’t really say that you’ve received the empowerment. You’ve observed it, but you haven’t actually received it just by being there (otherwise dogs and babies would receive it by being there). When people use this term inspiration from being there, this I think is a little bit more accurate for the people who don’t actually participate and take the initiation. It’s inspiring to be there and so that leaves a certain impression, and that’s fine, but that is not the intention of the ceremony, to inspire people. The intention is that one gives this in order for practitioners to be able to practice in this lifetime. Now of course the way that many Tibetans take this, particularly lay Tibetans, is with no intention to practice it in this lifetime but to lay seeds for future lifetimes, and often the spiritual teachers will give it on that basis of people thinking to lay the seeds for future lives. They’re serious in terms of that but not actually intending to practice it in this lifetime.
Types of mandalas
Participant: But in the case of the wang, you enter the mandala, so then you can distinguish between a wang and a jenang.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Yes. With a wang there’s the entering of the mandala. That’s why I said the ritual setup, by where the teacher is, will give away what it is: if there’s a mandala there then it’s a full empowerment. The mandala can either be a little… like a doll house that’s built over a two-dimensional representation of the mandala, or with no doll house, but the representation can be either made of powder (colored sand) (rdul-phran-gyi dkyil-’khor, powder mandala) or it can be just a picture (ras-bris-kyi dkyil-’khor, painted mandala).
There are some empowerments that are given from what’s called a body mandala (lus-kyi dkyil-’khor, lus-dkyil), which is when the... There are certain practices, certain deity practices, that have the various deities arranged internally in the body, and even different parts of the body representing different parts of the mandala building (a mandala is actually a building with various figures in it). But in order to receive an empowerment from a body mandala — in which case the guru is visualizing this or manifesting this — it has to be immediately preceded by an empowerment from an actual external mandala. If it’s not done like that, then again it is not following the procedures, although the guru can specify that people who attend have to have received an empowerment from an external mandala sometime before.
But usually, you can tell from what’s up there by the guru. Also with the empowerment, they pass out the red blindfolds and the kusha grass, so that also gives it away.
Participant: Is it sufficient only to have it like a representation, or is it also necessary to make this visualization?
Dr. Berzin: Is it necessary to actually visualize or just have the thing in a drawing up by the guru? You don’t actually step up and walk into the drawing. As I said, you don’t need to actually be able to visualize all the details but at least imagine that you’re going into a palace. That’s not so difficult.
Now of course there are people who have difficulty visualizing. The ability to visualize is not something that is so easy for a lot of people. That’s something that has to be cultivated. But the main point with visualization — and Tsongkhapa will make this later in the text — is that between the two factors which are there:
- One is the clarity (gsal) of the visualization. Clarity here, as in the definition of mind (sems), means giving rise to a mental hologram. It doesn’t have to be in focus with complete detail. One aspect is actually giving rise to a mental hologram representing the thing, the building.
- The other aspect is what’s called the pride of the deity (lha’i nga rgyal, divine pride), which is basically a feeling that one has of actually being inside the mandala, that it’s actually happening. What it’s referring to is being able to label the I or impute the I — the self, me — on our mental continuum that’s giving rise to this mental hologram, on the basis of Buddha-nature and so on. This is me. A feeling of “this is me,” a feeling that the actual thing is there, that you’ve actually entered it. Tsongkhapa says this is far more important than being able to give rise to a hologram, particularly in all its details. It’s just a feeling that it’s happening. That’s enough. That’s enough.
Explanation of the vow
The object is any teacher from whom we’ve received empowerment, subsequent permission, or mantra-gathering into any class of tantra (this is what I’ve seen in the commentaries that I’ve read; in other commentaries that I’ve heard about, it would say just yoga tantra and anuttarayoga tantra, but according to Tsongkhapa’s explanations it’s of any class of tantra) and somebody that we’ve received full or partial explanation of any of the texts concerning the tantra (so the root text and the various commentaries and so on) or oral guidelines for any of their practices (so somebody who has actually instructed us on how to do the practice). That would be what is considered a vajra master — and somebody that, obviously, confers the vows on us if we’ve received empowerment from them. Scorning or deriding them means showing them contempt, faulting or ridiculing them, being disrespectful or impolite, or thinking or saying that their teachings or advice were useless. That is something that we need to be careful about.
Showing them contempt. Contempt means hatred, not liking them, badmouthing them, these sort of things. Faulting or ridiculing them. Now obviously if teachers have a slip of the tongue or something like that, then we don’t have to think that they’re stupid or something like that. That would be violating this vow. But one can ask simply: “I’ve heard elsewhere this or that. Is this what you meant?” or “Could you explain what you meant?” and so on. If the teacher is someone who is honest, they will admit that that was a slip of the tongue or that they made a mistake or something like that.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama always laughs when he makes a mistake. He usually can recognize quite quickly after he’s said something that he made a mistake or a slip of the tongue, and then he just laughs at how funny it is, which is actually quite good; it makes the whole thing much lighter rather than being uptight that you have to be absolutely perfect all the time.
Practicing tantra prematurely
Participant: I know there are many confused people concerning empowerments. I know some people who either took a jenang and they believed it was a wang, or they say they didn’t take the vows but still they believe they took the wang, and then they visualize themselves as deities and all this. What kind of danger is there if technically you didn’t receive the wang, but you think you did, and then you practice this?
Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s the question: If you have attended an empowerment, or attended just a subsequent permission, and you didn’t take the vows, you didn’t know what was going on, it was not explained to you, and so on, but you think that just because you were there that you have the vows — because to take a vow, you have to be actually very consciously take it and very consciously make the promise that you’re going to keep it (if you haven’t done that then you haven’t actually taken the vow) — and then do various practices and so on, visualizing themselves as the deity. Is there danger in that?
The chances are that they’re not going to get very far in the practice on this basis. It’s always much better if, once they realize what’s going on, when they have the opportunity, they take the empowerment or subsequent permission again. Is there danger? There’s danger in terms of… even if you receive the empowerment, to practice it without having a good basis of renunciation, bodhichitta, and an understanding of voidness — that there’s a huge danger of doing. Without basic refuge or safe direction, and refraining from destructive behavior, keeping vows, and so on. There’s a big danger there.
This determination to be free — renunciation — is absolutely essential, because what are you doing? You are basically renouncing — you’re determined to be free from your ordinary samsaric appearance, the ordinary samsaric type of body that we have and mind that we have, and our ordinary grasping for a self. We’re determined to be free of that. Therefore, we visualize ourself as a Buddha-figure. Without that determination to be free of that, then it’s just a game, what you’re doing with the visualization.
And bodhichitta is absolutely necessary because we’re aiming for our future enlightenment that we haven’t achieved yet, but we’re doing that on the basis of love and compassion. So what are we visualizing? We’re visualizing that future enlightenment that we haven’t attained yet. If you’re not aiming for that, why are you visualizing yourself as that? When we, in the tantric practice, imagine that we’re sending out light and so on, alleviating everybody of suffering and so on — if you don’t have compassion as the basis for doing that, what in the world are you doing?
Without the understanding of voidness there’s no way to dissolve our attachment to our ordinary appearance and an impossible me and visualize yourself as a deity with some understanding of the voidness of that. Otherwise, you become like a schizophrenic, and you think you really are a Tara or a Chenrezig or whatever.
Without this fundamental basis of sutra, any tantra practice is very dangerous, because then it could become a big ego trip, power trip, and so on, so then it’s detrimental. Therefore, most people in the West unfortunately have gotten into tantra practice prematurely, and this is why I think many of the Tibetans realize that they’re not really prepared for tantra practice and just go to these empowerments to lay seeds for future lives.
His Holiness says over and over and over again: to just do rituals “blah blah blah,” without having a good foundation in all these things that I’ve discussed, is fairly useless. It’s not going to get you very far — maybe a little bit (you can’t say that it won’t have any positive effect), but he says, “Don’t expect much from it.” The main thing is to do, what he says over and over and over and over again, analytical meditation, which is to actually think about the teachings and build them up logically as a positive state of mind, based on understanding them and on understanding the reasons behind these states of mind. This is the most important. This is what actually transforms our mind. The tantra transformation is on top of that. It’s advanced. It’s not beginner.
People who have taken tantra prematurely, without the vows and so on, or without really knowing what they’re doing, and they do some practice, then the questions is… If they understand that they haven’t really gotten the real thing and they need to take it again (the empowerment or subsequent permission), then the question is: should they just drop their practice until then? I think no. I think that it’s important to maintain the momentum, because it maintains your interest in being able to do it more properly. At least reciting the mantra and so on. You can recite a mantra just by getting the oral transmission of it. There is no problem with that, just repeating Om mani peme hum, after some teacher who has received that from a lineage, and one has the oral transmission. There’s that situation.
I think that also, as His Holiness says, if you have the full intention to be able to practice tantra — and not just in future lives, but if you have the full intention to practice it later in this lifetime once we get more firmly based in sutra — then it’s OK to receive the empowerment, to take the vows and so on, because you have that full intention to be able to practice. Then you sort of leave it aside for a while, maybe do a few mantras to keep up the momentum, and when you are fully ready, then do the practice. Because usually with an empowerment there’s a certain practice commitment which is given, and that can vary from teacher to teacher, from audience to audience, and from disciple to disciple. Sometimes His Holiness will say that the practice commitment for this is to do the long sadhana (Skt. sādhana) every day for the rest of your life. Sometimes there’s a retreat commitment, but that is not so often done, at least not by His Holiness. There are some lamas who teach in the West who do give retreat commitments, but that’s not so usual. (Maybe when empowerments are given as part of a three-year retreat with a retreat commitment. That’s something else. Usually, they are given again at the beginning of a three-year retreat. But that’s a more limited situation and for a limited, special audience.) But His Holiness would say the long one, and then, if that’s not possible, the short one, and if that’s not possible, at least a certain number of mantras or something like that. One has to see, and we’ll get into this a little later.
For the highest class of tantra, there is the — what was mentioned here — the close-bonding practices (dam-tshig), and there are nineteen of those for the five Buddha-families. In the Gelug tradition there’s a certain practice which is done — six-session yoga (thun-drug rnal-’byor) it’s called — to keep those commitments of those close-bonding practices. That was not put together at the time of Tsongkhapa when he wrote this letter; but the First Panchen Lama, who was the tutor of the Fourth and Fifth Dalai Lamas — he put that together in its present form. One takes the commitment to do that every day for the rest of your life. But this is quite important. If one is serious, you take the empowerment because you want to do the practice, and so you would vow to do the practice every day for the rest of your life — or at least something until you can get into the full practice.
There should be an understanding of tantra, of the method of tantra, and a confident belief in the efficacy of tantra. If you don’t understand what tantra is or what tantra practice is all about, and you don’t have confidence that it is a valid and worthwhile way to practice, then why would you want to get involved with the practice? Why would you want an empowerment? His Holiness usually gives a very, very complete discussion of bodhichitta and the theory of tantra before he gives empowerment these days. I mean, he’s always done that, but these days, in the West, he really, really abbreviates the actual ritual part, because he doesn’t want people to be — the German word is good here, begeistert — he doesn’t want people to be enchanted and overwhelmed with fantasies about a ritual and think it’s just so far out, and so on. He wants to avoid that, especially since most people can’t follow the ritual anyway and just get very confused and frustrated that they can’t do all the visualizations. He just speeds through that at the end and gives the main emphasis on explanation beforehand. This has become more and more pronounced in recent years when His Holiness gives empowerments or subsequent permissions in the West. In India it’s something different with the Tibetans.
Relating to a spiritual teacher
OK. Now, when you receive an empowerment from a teacher, the point is that one is going... What is the main purpose of the spiritual teacher? The main purpose of the spiritual teacher is to inspire us. That’s the main purpose. Our energy and so on to start the practice, to maintain the practice, and to achieve the goal derives from inspiration from the teacher. If you don’t feel anything from the teacher, then that becomes very difficult. Even if the teacher is very qualified, still if you don’t feel anything from the teacher, the relationship with the teacher is not going to work in terms of inspiring us. It’s very important to examine the teacher, examine “Is the teacher qualified? Does the teacher actually inspire me?” For that, not only do we need to have some contact with the teacher — or these days, see a video or something like that — but also really examine ourselves. We ourselves have to be qualified and not just rely on our wishful thinking that we’re qualified. “Do I really have the basic qualifications, or at least the aspiration to have them? Am I going just because everybody else is going? Why am I going?” If the opportunity is there and we find the teacher inspiring and so on, then fine, even if we’re not ready but we have that aspiration.
Being qualified means that I’m going to... If I’m inspired by this teacher, then what is the purpose of that inspiration? The inspiration is to awaken and foster the Buddha-nature aspects. I’m not going to put down the teacher once I find a teacher like this, because that is basically dampening the whole Buddha-nature aspect. When we see the teacher as a Buddha, we’re seeing the Buddha-nature in the teacher, which is to help us to see the Buddha-nature in ourselves.
One has to be very careful that one is ready to enter into this relationship. Not getting angry with the teacher. If the teacher makes a mistake or something like that, you don’t become a mindless slave and accept everything that they say, but you ask in a polite way: “Could you explain what you meant? I’ve read something different, so how does that compare to what you’ve just said?” and so on. Even if the teacher scolds us or doesn’t give us teachings when we want it and so on, then we have to be able to accept that without getting angry, without criticizing the teacher. Because again, what are we criticizing? We’re basically putting down our source of inspiration. As it says in the text concerning the relationship with the spiritual teacher, and the Fifth Dalai Lama makes this very clear: he says that we don’t deny that a teacher has shortcomings; it’s going to be almost impossible to find a teacher with all the qualifications and none of the shortcomings. You’re not in a state of denial. But if you focus on the negative qualities and complain about them, all that does is bring you down. Whereas if you focus on the good qualities that are actually there — so you have to examine the teacher — then that’s going to inspire you, and that’s what you really want to focus on, is this inspiration.
We have to be careful not to put down the teacher, not to fault them or ridicule them, not to be disrespectful or impolite, or to say that (or think that) their teachings or advice was useless. You could say, “I’m not ready to be able to take your advice now.” Or you could question the teacher: “Why have you asked me to do this type of practice or that type of practice?” Saying that “This type of practice would be very difficult for me to do. Could you please, to help me to be able to do it, please explain why you are advising this?” That’s fine.
But also we’re not going to the tantric teacher for advice about our marriage problems or how to invest our money or this or that. That’s not the point. You go for advice concerning the practice. The teacher is not a psychiatrist either. This also is a common mistake with a spiritual teacher. The relation with a spiritual teacher is not the relationship with a pastor in the West, to whom you go for pastoral advice about your life and your job and your marriage, and so on, and is not a psychiatrist that you go to and tell them all your problems and expect that, somehow, they’re going to deal with that. The teacher gives you the teachings, tries to answer your questions, but often they won’t actually give you the answer: they will give you guidelines of what to think about so that you figure out the answer. Based on the teachings then you’re supposed to be able to deal with your problems yourself and figure out from the Buddhist teachings what’s going on, what the causes of the problem are, and how to deal with them. That’s the relation with the teacher.
Now of course Tibetans go for these mos, these divinations about worldly things, to the teachers. And certainly Serkong Rinpoche, who I was very, very close with, always completely disliked doing that, thought it was useless, both the old one and the new one as well. They both say that they do it just basically to make the Tibetans happy, because the Tibetans expect that from a very high lama. But for us Westerners, that really is — usually, I should say — that’s usually a case of not wanting to take responsibility for your own decisions and wanting someone else to make the decisions for you.
Participant: Concerning these questions about practice: I met one lady, an English lady, in Bodhgaya, and she emailed a popular, famous teacher and wanted them to “Please give me the number for my prostrations.” It took months and months and months, it seems, because nowadays it’s difficult to get in touch with him. Then the email came back: “You have to do 700,000.” Then, on top of that, she had 100,000 from another lama. All in all, she has to do 800,000 in her life, and she didn’t look very comfortable with this number, you know? She said, “What shall I do? Should I email him again? Should I ask? But if I ask, maybe it’s a sign of not trusting him,” and she was really confused about this. Also, if she emails, maybe she wouldn’t get an answer, because, as I said, it’s difficult to get into contact with him. I didn’t know exactly what to say. But what do you think of this kind of extreme case?
Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that there was a woman who asked for advice about ngondro (sngon-’gro, preliminary practices) to a famous lama. The lama was very busy, difficult to contact him, but when she finally got an answer months later, he advised her that she needed to do 700,000 of each of the preliminary practices?
Participant: No. Just the prostrations
Dr. Berzin: Of just the prostrations. She was a bit upset about that and freaked out and didn’t know what to do. 700,000 is not so many. Tsongkhapa did three and a half million, so 700,000 is not outrageous. Then she had to do another 100,000. I mean, these are normal numbers. These are not excessive numbers. For the Tara retreat, you have to do a million Tara mantras. These are not excessive.
The problem with many people in the West is they want to get a bargain, they want to get it cheap, without having to do so much work. But there’s a purpose to these preliminary practices. She should be happy that she’s not being asked, like Milarepa, to build various towers. My good friend Alan, who’s also a very close disciple of Serkong Rinpoche — he had asked Rinpoche about preliminary practices, and Rinpoche said to do his prostrations, just a hundred thousand, but to do them with a certain visualization and a certain verse. And he did that. The next time he saw Rinpoche, when Rinpoche came to the West again — he [Alan] was already living in England, back in England — and he asked Alan how it was going, and Alan said that he had done, I think, 85,000 or something like that, that he was nearly finished. Rinpoche asked him, “What were you visualizing? What were you reciting?” Alan told him. And Rinpoche said, “No, no. That’s all wrong. Start all over again with a different visualization and a different thing to recite.” And Alan said, “But that was what you told me to do.” He said, “Doesn’t matter. Start all over again.”
Participant: A lesson in patience.
Dr. Berzin: A lesson in patience, and a lesson in many, many things. I mean, he was very, very good about these sorts of things. He didn’t compromise. He had very few very close disciples, but the very close disciples were ones who were prepared to enter into that type of relationship with him.
I tell you, I used to think... I mean, it’s really amazing, funny. This is true. My whole feeling with him, as I was beginning my studies with him, was that it was like wanting to ride a wild horse, that I needed to get my language up to a level — and myself up to a level — in which I could actually then ride the wild horse of this teacher, to be able to deal with that type of relationship. But it definitely requires a tremendous amount of maturity and emotional stability — I mean, I’m not saying that I’m so great — but a certain type of maturity to be able to enter into a relationship in which you say, “Whatever you do, I’m not going to see fault in that, but I’m going to look at it as a teaching. Even if what you’re teaching me is not to act the way that you’re acting. But I will look at it as a teaching, and I will never ever get angry.” That’s part of the whole contract, the unspoken, unwritten contract of the Real Thing relationship with the teacher, and this is what this vow is talking about. Officially you wouldn’t take an empowerment or initiation from anybody that you’re not willing to view in that way. That’s why one has to be very, very careful who you take empowerments from.
It’s really funny. Various lamas come to the West, and whether they’re qualified to give an empowerment or not is another question, but I speak to the various geshes and lamas who come (in Tibetan), and many of them say, “No way would I ever, ever give empowerments or jenangs, or things like that, in India to the Tibetans. No way. But coming to the West… Here I am at this center, and people expect that I’m going to be able to do that.” And they do it. This is very difficult, a very, very difficult situation. But visiting lamas come, and Western people: “I’ve never heard of this lama, I have no idea who it is, but they’re giving an empowerment or a jenang,” and they go. This, I think, is not appropriate. But it’s very difficult in the West, because Dharma centers know that if a lama gives an empowerment or an initiation, a lot of people will come. If they just talk about refuge or something like that, not so many people will come, then they won’t be able to meet the expenses and pay the rent and all of that. It becomes very complicated by worldly concerns, which are very practical concerns. The whole thing is difficult in the West.
Marianna, you wanted to say something?
Participant: I just wanted to ask if it was the same thing in Tibet. When I look at films or movies of Tibet, there’s the empowerment and many people come from the local region. They also go just for the empowerment.
Dr. Berzin: Right. She was saying that in Tibet… what she has heard and seen is that if a lama comes to a valley or a region and gives empowerments then everybody comes. That’s true. But it wouldn’t be just anybody who has finished their geshe degree or anybody who’s done a three-year retreat. It would be somebody who has more qualifications, who’s better known.
Now of course the problem in Tibet is that you have the whole tulku (sprul sku) system (the Rinpoches, the reincarnate lamas), and many of them — not many of them but some of them — rely just on their names, that people would come just because of their names, not necessarily because of their qualifications in this lifetime. His Holiness thinks that this is not at all appropriate. But that happens. Again, it all depends on... To go to a ceremony, there’s no big deal. You go to the ceremony. What is your state of mind? Do you feel that you’re actually receiving the empowerment and then you’re going to practice on the basis of it? Are you really taking the vows or are you just going there for the inspiration? If you just go for inspiration, fine.
Also, another way of going to an empowerment is that you… if you have broken your vows or weakened them, you want to retake them and re-strengthen them, and you can do this at another empowerment by taking the vows again. Some people will go just in order to take the vows again, and then you can’t walk out after that, so they sit there, but they don’t feel that they’re receiving the empowerment. That’s perfectly fine, if you go to renew your vows. But the whole thing within tantra is very, very tricky, very tricky. There are some empowerments and some traditions in which the number of people that can receive the empowerment at a time is limited. You find this particularly in the Sakya school. There are certain empowerments that are only… You’re only allowed to give them to 21 people maximum at a time. Because if it’s really going to be done properly, the teacher should examine the student as well.
It’s very rare actually that all the procedures are followed precisely, and that’s sad. One wonders, if you don’t really value the preciousness of the tantra teachings, how far you could possibly get with them. I don’t think very far. I don’t think very far. Tantra practice is not so easy, with all these deities and visualizations and stuff. After a while, if you don’t understand it, you can get very easily fed up with it: “What in the world am I doing? This is just fantasy. This is silly.” One really needs to understand the theory behind it, how it works and why.
You need to have that inspiration from the teacher not just at the beginning. It’s easier to get that inspiration when the teacher is there — His Holiness the Dalai Lama or somebody like that is there — and they give it, and it’s very exciting and it’s inspiring, and you go and you’re all enthusiastic. Where you really need the inspiration is 5, 10, 20 years down the line when you’re sitting there and you’re doing it every day and you’re completely bored, and you think that it’s useless, and you’re just rushing through it so that you can get to the rest of your day. Or people do it at night just before they go to sleep and then they’re constantly nodding off, and it becomes a torture to get through it without falling asleep. It’s then when you really need the inspiration. As they say, the inspiration to go all the way to the end. So important at the beginning, middle, and end. That’s a constantly repeated phrase in the teachings, and it’s very, very true.
The inspiration also comes from the example of the teacher, so that’s why the teacher has to have, as it says in the texts, at least more good qualities than shortcomings. But don’t expect that the teacher will be perfect. You’re seeing the teacher as a Buddha, but that never means that the teacher is enlightened. If you look at the qualifications of the teacher, never in any of the lists is that one of the qualifications is that the teacher is an enlightened being. This is a mistake. People think that seeing the teacher as a Buddha, and all of that, means literally they’re Buddha, so the teacher must be omniscient and the teacher must know and so on. That’s not necessarily the case, but one doesn’t criticize.
There are certain things you ask the teacher and certain things that you don’t. As I was saying, things in terms of personal problems, marital problems, sexual problems. You certainly don’t ask a teacher who’s a monk or a nun these sort of things; they have no experience in that, and that’s a bit disrespectful. But also, if you just ask, “Guru, guru, lama, lama, tell me what to do,” then you’re opening yourself up to anything that they tell you to do, and then you can’t really object, so that’s usually not the best way of doing it. The point is to think for yourself. “I’ve received all these empowerments. Now I want to do a retreat. Which one would be best to do first?” That you can ask, of course. Or “I would like to do this. Do you have any objections?” That’s also a very appropriate way of asking. The point is not to become a mindless slave that just puts all responsibility on to the teacher to make decisions in your life. The point is to become a mature adult in the teachings. But everything really depends on the level of the student, the maturity of the student, and so on.
This first one, this first vow, is dealing with the relation with the teacher. Usually, most of the time, you don’t spend a lot of time with the teacher. This also was said by various people — that if you are too close to a teacher, then unless you have a very special relationship with that teacher, the chances are you’re going to see more faults. A little bit of a distance in that case can be better. This is not so easy with Western situations. There are some Western teachers — that aren’t necessarily tantra teachers — but they maintain an aloofness from the students, and consequently, since the only people that they ever see or meet are their students, they are very lonely. Not so easy. This I’m sharing with you from my colleagues, my friends who are also Dharma teachers. One has to, in the West, find some sort of balance of how to deal with the teacher-disciple relationship. This, I think, is not so easy, and I don’t know that one can give just one formula that would work for everybody, for all Western teachers. But the type of mature relationship that’s being described here, in traditional ways, I think is very rare between two Westerners without it getting into a dependency and all these sorts of things. Also, there’s been a great deal of abuse in these types of relationships, not just between two Westerners but between Tibetans and Westerners, and not just Tibetans but traditional teachers and Westerners.
This relation with the teacher is very, very delicate, very, very, difficult. Again, it depends on how serious we are with our practice and how seriously we want to really follow the practice. This is why it’s always best to be very, very selective in terms of who we receive empowerments from and the various practices that we receive empowerment into. You have to see the practice itself. Do we feel a connection with it? “Am I attracted to this practice?” It’s not a good idea to ask a teacher, “Should I go to this empowerment?” You never ask a teacher, “Should I go to this other person’s empowerment?” or “Is it good to go to the empowerment?” That’s not a proper question. They can’t say as an answer, “It’s bad to go,” in terms of renewing vows and stuff like that. One has to really discriminate.
It’s also important if you have a teacher — especially a tantric master, but not just a tantric master, but any spiritual teacher — to avoid going to an empowerment or taking as your teacher someone that is in conflict with your teacher. There are many types of unfortunate conflicts that are going on between various teachers and so on, and if you receive empowerments from both sides, or try to form a close relationship with both sides, then it becomes emotionally incredibly difficult because of loyalty issues. Which side are you going to be loyal to? To say that you’re going to be neutral, and not care about the point of conflict, in practice doesn’t work. Inevitably you get drawn into having to take sides, being confused, and then eventually having to leave one teacher. One has to see: do the various teachers… If you’re going to go to another teacher, then to see ,“Is this teacher in harmony with my teacher?” That’s important.
Also there’s another point I wanted to make, in terms of: if after entering into a relationship with a teacher, if it was premature — we hadn’t examined really sufficiently and we find that the teacher really is at fault, and there are a lot of things that the teacher is doing that really we can’t support or deal with — then it says very clearly in Fifty Verses on the Guru (Bla-ma lnga-bcu-pa) by Ashvaghosha (Skt. Aśvaghoṣa), a major text concerning the relation with the tantric master, that one just keeps a respectful distance. Again, you don’t put down the teacher, say how terrible they are, and so on. You focus on the good qualities of that teacher, what you learned from that teacher — you appreciate that, but there’s absolutely no reason to continue to go to teachings from that teacher, or seek any advice, or have anything to do with the teacher, so you keep a respectful distance. (This comes out of the Kalachakra text itself.) That is important also to remember.
Any questions about this vow?
Participant: Just about 300.
Dr. Berzin: Just about 300?
Is it best for a Westerner to travel abroad to find a teacher?
Participant: One general question. Due to the inconsistency of teachings in the West and the drawbacks — you described certain abuses or other inconsistencies or things like that — do you think if somebody is very, very serious and they have the means or the possibility to take time to travel, do you think it’s more advantageous to go somewhere where there’s a higher concentration of teachers so that there is maybe a closer overview of what’s happening, so maybe there are fewer abuses? In other words, if someone has the means to do it and they’re serious about their practices, is it better to go somewhere like India for a stretch of time, for a good chunk of time, at least to establish some real relationship with a teacher? Are there fewer abuses in that case?
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s asking: given the current situation and the difficulties that are involved, if we have the means, is it better to go to places where there are more teachers available, such as India, Nepal, or wherever, so that we have a better chance of meeting a more qualified teacher or a teacher that we have a connection with and feel inspired by and we can have confidence in? Yes, by all means. The Dharma was never intended to be spoon-fed to anybody. The point is to develop our character and our personality, and for that you have to put in a great deal of effort. Things should never be made too easy. On purpose they’re made not too easy.
That’s difficult in the West, where people have to, at the Dharma centers, make a living and pay the rent and stuff like that. If you give people a hard time, they’re not going to come. We don’t have a society that makes offerings to the monks and feeds the monks and is happy to support Dharma facilities. We don’t have that kind of society. Because we don’t have that support, we don’t have... I mean, this is one of the features of a precious human rebirth, is to be in a place where there is that kind of support. We don’t have that very easily. I mean, there are a few patrons, but it’s a difficult situation.
I think that yes, if we have the means… I mean, finding the Dharma, practicing the Dharma — if we’re really serious — has to take high priority in our lives, and for a lot of people that’s difficult, especially if you don’t have the economic means.
There are plenty of people who… certainly in Tibet, where the monastery gives you very little means to live on and you’re supposed to have certain material support from your family, and there are many monks who have gone into the monasteries and had very, very difficult times just having enough to eat. But for them it was really, really important to be able to practice, and they made great progress on the basis of that hardship. There’s a saying that if you’re a sincere practitioner… Nobody who’s really, really a sincere practitioner has ever starved to death. Whether one really has faith in that or not is hard to say. But one has to make a strong determination to go. I mean, I did that. I didn’t have the material means, and I’ve always been supported in one way or another.
Is there some sort of spiritual compensation if we’re willing to take these risks in finding a teacher?
Participant: Do you think if you’re willing to take the risk which it requires for us if we don’t have the material means, then even by the action of taking the risk, there is some compensation for that in a spiritual sense?
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying: if we’re willing to take the risk, is there some compensation for that in a spiritual way? I think so. But one has to be a bit realistic, a bit realistic in terms of that. But yes, I think so. I mean, it takes a great deal of courage, and not everybody is ready. One has to really be very firmly committed, and the commitment is based on... There are a lot of people that say, “It should be just based on faith and inspiration, and the guru, and so on” — you know, sort of blind faith with the teacher. They always say to never have blind faith with the teacher.
Three ways of believing a fact to be true
There are three kinds of belief. All of them are belief in what’s true, that what’s true is a fact. The qualities of the teacher need to be a fact, not just something that we hope that they have.
[a] Believing a fact to be true based on reason (yid-ches-kyi dad-pa)
There is a confident belief in it based on reason. You know the teacher’s training, their relation with the other people, how they behave, their relation with their own teachers, and so on. It’s based on reason, that you have confidence in the teacher.
[b] Clearheadedly believing a fact to be true (dangs-ba’i dad-pa)
Then there is the mind-clearing or… I forget exactly what the word is, but it’s the type of confidence that you have in the belief that the teacher has these qualities that clears the mind of disturbing emotions towards the teacher. That’s a very special type of belief. So that you’re not jealous, you’re not feeling that “I’m so terrible in comparison,” and so on. It leaves you in a very positive, respectful state of mind.
[c] Believing a fact with an aspiration toward it (mngon-’dod-kyi dad-pa)
Then the third kind is with an aspiration, which is not only the confidence that the teacher has these qualities but the aspiration to become like that. Which doesn’t mean to become a clone of the teacher and follow their eating habits and their way of speaking and so on, but...
Participant: Their Buddha-nature not their personality.
Dr. Berzin: Their Buddha-nature. Their good qualities, basically, based on Buddha-nature. The confidence that “I am able to reach that goal.” The aspiration is with the confidence that you can achieve that goal. So it’s with that, that that can sustain you. But also, you have to be really confident in the teachings, the four noble truths. Otherwise, what in the world are you doing? It doesn’t have to be a 100%. The question is: you have indecisive wavering — the question that you were asking earlier today — how much do you have to be over indecisive wavering in order to just do it? Is it some point where you just take the leap and go to India, give up your job and go to India or whatever? It’s hard to say that you do that when you’re 100% convinced. That’s hard to say. I must say, in my own case, it just felt as though “This is the right thing to do” and I just did it (in terms of saying “No, thank you” to become a university professor and so on, which was arranged for me when I got my doctorate).
The motivation for practicing more seriously
Participant: I’ve often heard the Dalai Lama refer to the sensation of disgust, that you must actually experience a sense of disgust with various samsaric factors, and that can propel you into a better or more serious practice. Do you think that a valid motivating force to do such a thing could be a sense of… if not full out disgust, but complete disillusionment that one has tried here, there, wherever, all throughout the West, and it’s always that there’s a glass ceiling on how far you can go, and that you feel frustrated — and a sense of maybe a little disgust — that you feel compelled to have to seek for this? Is that valid?
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s asking: Is it a valid motivation to have disgust and disillusionment with the various other things that you’ve tried (the samsaric things or other spiritual paths and so on), to actually throw ourselves fully into the Dharma or relationship with the teacher here? Yes, that’s part of renunciation, and so renunciation of course is very important. One has to have experienced some of the shortcomings… To have renunciation, you have to think about suffering, and not just think about it theoretically but actually experience it and see it. Even Buddha did that. So yes, that’s important. But the other side of this, the other side of the coin of this, is often missing, which is “Yes, I’m disgusted and disillusioned with getting a job and having a mortgage and all these other things that I don’t want. I don’t want that type of life,” but on the other hand, there is no confidence that the Dharma has the solution to this based on understanding the Dharma. And what happens is a lot of people turn to the Dharma for a miracle cure, expecting a miracle. “Just give me the magic words to say. I’ll say it a million times and then I will be saved. I will do all the prostrations because at the end I expect a miracle.” This has happened over and over and over again, and these people usually get so disillusioned afterwards that in some cases they’ve even committed suicide.
Participant: But they’re still looking for a solution to their samsaric wanderings; they’re not looking for a solution out of them. That’s the difference.
Dr. Berzin: Yes.
Participant: An alternative to this samsaric set of circumstances to a new set of samsaric circumstances.
Dr. Berzin: Yes. She’s saying that they’re looking for an alternative to their disillusion with certain samsaric circumstances and they’re still looking for a better samsaric circumstance. This is why I speak so much about Dharma-lite versus the Real Thing Dharma. Dharma-lite is looking for an improved samsara (Skt. saṃsāra), which is not... I mean, this is before even the initial scope of motivation, which is an improved samsara for future lives. They’re looking for an improved samsara of this lifetime. And I think that, as I’ve said so many times, that this is a valid steppingstone so long as one sees it as a stepping stone and doesn’t discredit the further type of steps and stages.
Different levels of teacher and student
Another thing that I should mention — I mean, we’re already a little bit over time — that I point out very strongly in the book that I did, Relating to a Spiritual Teacher, is that there are different classes or levels of spiritual teacher and different levels of spiritual seeker. Somebody that just gives us information is one thing, and somebody who’s just seeking information, or somebody that’s looking for some practical advice based on experience and somebody who can give that, somebody who can teach you how to do rituals… These are all different. That’s like getting a trainer: they teach you how to sit and stuff like that. If that’s what we’re wanting, and there are certain teachers who are qualified to do that, fine. But the actual definitional quality of a spiritual teacher is “someone who gives us vows.” That’s what formally makes somebody your spiritual teacher: if you receive vows from them. Just going for teachings… It’s always said — His Holiness says — “You can go to a teacher like going to a lecture at a university.” If you have that attitude, that’s fine. This point here is referring to only with somebody that we have, as it says, received the empowerments, etc., which means you’ve taken vows with them, or on the basis of that, that you’re getting instructions on how to do a practice.
Let’s end here with the dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.