We’re continuing our course of study of this letter of practical advice that Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug tradition, wrote to his friend the meditator Konchog-tsultrim. In it, Tsongkhapa gives us practical advice on how to follow the combined path of sutra and tantra, specifically the highest class of tantra (anuttarayoga). It’s important when studying this letter to really look at it in terms of practical advice and understand it as being practical advice and not just an exposition of the Dharma.
Review of Previous Sessions
Reliance on a Qualified Spiritual Teacher
Tsongkhapa says we’ve found precious human rebirth, and we’ve met with the teachings, and we have spiritual teachers, and we have the ability to discern between what’s adopted and rejected. We have the basic factors, and that’s important to, of course, appreciate, what we have, when we have them, and to appreciate how rare that is actually, to have any of these, let alone all four of these. If we have that, then we need to actually take advantage of it. Taking advantage of it here means to engage ourselves in the Buddhist teachings in this context.
For that, the thing that he emphasizes the most to start with is relying for guidance on a spiritual teacher. That’s one of the things that we have. To relate to the spiritual teacher properly and gain as much as you can from that relationship by relying on the teacher in a proper manner. But of course, it’s important to test the teacher and to make sure that the teacher is somebody who can actually guide us properly so that we can actually trust the teacher.
What are the things that the teacher needs to have? The basic minimum the teacher has to know, Tsongkhapa says:
- What are the types of mind that we need to develop and what are not the types of mind? In other words, what are the types of mind that we need to get rid of, not only the way of thinking, but the way of speaking, way of acting, etc.
- Not to add anything extra or leave anything out. Does that mean that the teacher needs to follow exactly the way that it is in the scriptures? Because the scriptures don’t talk about how you relate to your computer or things like that. Or does the teacher, in showing how you adapt the teachings to modern current situations — is that adding or leaving something out, or what is it? We have to check what actually does this mean, not to add anything and not to leave anything out.
- Then also the teacher has to know what the proper order is of how to develop these different stages of mind and how to apply it to each individual student. That’s not so easy, because as we explained, it’s not always possible to have individual attention from a spiritual teacher. At least rely on texts that present things in a graded way, because otherwise how in the world are we going to actually develop our minds? This is practical. It has to develop in a way which actually will work, a cumulative way, one thing building on the next.
That teacher has to be not only this, but the teacher has to be somebody who has not just made this up but has been through a whole process of training and personal development by having gone through a similar process himself, and that going back through a lineage of teachers all the way back to a Buddha, so that we have some confidence that this is a time-tested method. That course of training that the teacher has gone through, and which we will go through, is based on the great classics, not something which is aside from those classics. That means to have not only confidence but actually to study the words of the Buddha and the great Indian and Tibetan masters that have commented on them and explained them.
The Motivating Mental Framework
Then Tsongkhapa says: How do we begin our practice? Tame our minds. This is the most important thing. So we have to take that seriously. We’re not just learning the Dharma so that we have interesting information. We’re not just learning it so that we can perform in a certain way or please the teacher or join an in-group or something like that — be cool, or whatever you want to call it. But we actually are dealing with our own minds — and our minds mean our emotional state as well as our thinking process and ability to understand what’s going on — because our way of speaking, our way of acting, is dependent on our minds and being able to train our minds.
For that, although there are many, many things that we have to train with, the first basic groundwork for that is our motivation. Motivating network has to deal with both the aim of our practice (we have to be doing it for some sort of goal, although we don’t have to make such a big thing of being fixated on achieving and getting a goal, but it is going in a certain direction) and also what is the emotional state behind that (what is driving us to reach that goal?). This is what is meant by a motivating mental framework.
For that, there is a graded level of doing that:
- Working in terms of benefiting future lives.
- Then liberation from all uncontrollably recurring situations.
- And then working for the enlightenment of a Buddha.
In other words:
- Working to overcome the gross suffering (the so-called suffering of suffering).
- Then, on the intermediate level, working to get rid of the all-encompassing affecting problem, or suffering, of our body and mind — our so-called aggregates — that are brought about by confusion, filled with confusion, and perpetuate confusion.
- Then overcoming our shortcomings and difficulties of being able to actually know how best to help everybody.
There is a graded stage that we have there. We are motivated, in terms of an emotional drive, by really being very… frightened isn’t really the word, but just “Really, really, I don’t want to continue having gross suffering,” but with the point in mind that “I don’t want that, because how in the world am I going to actually be able to benefit others if I’m reborn as a cockroach, or if I am totally mentally disabled, or something like that?” We really want to avoid this type of gross suffering in order to, as our eventual goal, be able to benefit others.
Then this uncontrollably recurring rebirth: “I’m just disgusted with that. I mean, it’s just so boring to have to go all through childhood again and being a baby again and having learn how to walk and how to talk, and then going to school, and having to just do this over and over again. Having to figure out how in the world am I going to support myself even if I do want to devote myself to Dharma study. How am I going to get all the factors that are going to support that?” Having to deal with that over and over again even if we have the most ideal situation of a precious human rebirth, let alone we’re born as some god or some cockroach or something like that. Even with the most favorable circumstances, how totally boring it is and “I’m just fed up with that. I really don’t want to have to do that anymore.”
What we’re dealing with here is, on the initial scope, acting out our disturbing emotions, which leads to destructive behavior. On the second level, we want to get rid of the disturbing emotions, because that’s what is driving this uncontrollably recurring process of rebirth.
Then, in terms of the advanced level, “How absolutely awful it is being interconnected with everybody and seeing everybody’s in the same situation. This is really, really intolerable, and I cannot support that.” This — I mean, we’ll get to it in one of the vows here — is based on seeing this with absolutely everybody, that no matter who we look at, whether it is a human being on the subway or on the street or an ant or a fly that comes into our house, that “What a horrible situation everybody is in. How wonderful it would be if I could do something, do something significant to help them, not just give them a meal once a day.” Shantideva says that nicely: we can give somebody a meal once a day and it satisfies their hunger for one time, but that’s nothing compared to being able to satisfy all beings of all problems forever, which we’re talking about with bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta), and so we really, really want to develop that. That’s the advanced scope, and that’s an incredible scope, to actually be in that state of mind.
This is the sequence. It’s within this growing mental framework, motivating mental framework, that then we would deal with gaining concentration, gaining discipline, gaining understanding of voidness, etc. This is very practical in terms of: What’s going to give us our energy? Why in the world would you want to gain concentration? Why would you want to get a deeper understanding of reality and so on? Just for the fun of it? Why? This is very practical. If we have a strong motivating framework then that is going to really support us, on the basis of having trust in a spiritual teacher, somebody who knows how to guide us in order to actually achieve these goals.
How To Meditate
Tsongkhapa emphasizes all of that, and he says we have to have this in an uncontrived manner. He also points out… What I like so much about this is that line that it’s not enough just to have kind thoughts: we have to actually train ourselves. That’s why he says you have to train your mind, and we need to actually have these states of mind in an uncontrived manner, and to do that we need to meditate. Meditate (sgom) means to build it up as a habit. In other words, don’t expect that we’re going to just sit down and automatically it’s going to come. It’s not. We are so ingrained with our negative habits that it’s not going to come. We’re going to just act very selfishly, etc. No big surprise about that, that we do act selfishly.
OK, we have to meditate. We have to build it up as a beneficial habit. To build it up as a beneficial habit, we have to know how to meditate. How do you do that? How do you turn your mind in these ways? In order to do that, we have to know:
- What is the state of mind that I’m trying to develop?
- What are the supports for that?
- What are the things that are detrimental to that?
- What are the steps that I have to have done first in order to be able to develop that state of mind in a very sincere way?
- When I’m actually in that state of mind, what am I focusing on?
- How is the mind relating to that object that I am focusing on?
If we have all these specifications, then we know what we’re doing. Otherwise, it’s just too vague to say “Sit down and meditate on love” or “Meditate on compassion” — in the end, we don’t accomplish very much of anything. Tsongkhapa outlines all these various points. That is extremely practical advice. That’s the whole point of this: it’s practical advice.
Then what does he say? We have to maintain these motivating mental frameworks — and so he’s talking about what we build up — steadily and continuously throughout our meditation sessions, not just “blah blah blah” at the beginning of the session, and not only during our meditation sessions but at all times. That’s not very easy at all. It means that we have to remind ourselves. That’s called mindfulness (dran-pa). Mindfulness is the same word as “to remember.” We have to remember and remind ourselves. Mindfulness is the mental glue with which we don’t let go of these states of mind. We have to be totally convinced of the benefits of having these states of mind in order to want to hold on to them — to want to develop them in the first place, and to want to not let go of them in the second place.
That we have to work on. It’s not going to come easily. It’s not going to come automatically. If we have this familiarity then, for instance, any time that you see somebody, that is going to inspire us to have compassion and to think “How wonderful it would be if I could actually help to liberate this person from their samsara (Skt. saṃsāra) — if I could somehow teach them, if I could somehow guide them to gaining liberation and to reaching enlightenment.” Of course, on the way, can I help them with a meal? Can I help them with whatever it is that we need to help them? But deeper than that. That’s what helps us to have this mindfulness, that if we have built this up, these states if mind, as something which is deeply ingrained as a beneficial habit, and we’ve seen that it’s beneficial, then it gets triggered by everything around us. That’s what we have to do.
The Ethical Self-Discipline of Keeping Vows
Then the next thing that Tsongkhapa is talking about is: OK, so now we have this motivating framework (that’s the basic sutra teachings), and we want to get into tantra practice. If we’re really serious about tantra practice, what do we need? We need ethical discipline. That’s the main, first thing that he’s saying. Without the discipline, there’s no way that we are going to be able to get anywhere in the sutra practice, let alone in tantra practice. That means that we have to be very serious about what we’re doing, and follow the procedures, and have confidence that the various types of discipline — which is referring to the different sets of vows — are in fact what we need to follow in order to be able to achieve these goals. We’re very thankful that there’s a set of vows — that there are three sets of vows — that indicate to us what to avoid that is going to make it very, very difficult, if not impossible, to reach these goals. If we’re really, really sincere in our motivations — what we’re aiming for and why — then we will very happily take these vows, so that it will shape our behavior.
This is referring to the pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows, the vows for individual liberation, meaning they’re going to help us to gain liberation. That’s why they’re called individual liberation (so-thar, Skt. pratimoksha). That’s avoiding five destructive things if we are lay people, and then more if we want to become a novice or a fully ordained monk or nun. There’s the bodhisattva vows, and then for the two highest classes of tantra there are the tantric vows.
What Are Vows?
What are vows? According to Vaibhashika (Skt. Vaibhāṣika) and Gelug Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika), they are what are called — a very, very subtle type of form of physical phenomenon — they’re called a nonrevealing form (rnam-par rig-byed ma-yin-pa’i gzugs). For the other schools, a vow is a form of, basically, this mental factor of discipline that restrains us from acting in a certain way. If we are following Gelug Prasangika, as defined and outlined basically by Tsongkhapa, this is what he has in mind.
Then we start to think: Why does Tsongkhapa goes back to the Vaibhashika view that vows are this subtle form, this nonrevealing form? Nonrevealing means that it’s not made of atoms and it doesn’t reveal the motivation behind it, so it’s sort of a hidden, invisible type of thing that goes along with the mental continuum. Why in the world would that be what vows are? Why does that make more sense than the vows being a form of a mental factor? Think about that. Why? Anybody have any idea? What’s your idea?
Participant: We were thinking about this.
Participant: I was asking myself that.
Dr. Berzin: Right. We’re always asking ourselves why.
When we have a vow, isn’t that supposed to be there all the time? Yes. Whether we are awake, whether we are asleep, the vow needs to be there. What about a mental factor? A mental factor is a way of being aware of something. A way of being aware of something. What does that mean? That means that when we are confronted with a situation in which we could potentially act in a destructive way or in a way that is in violation to the vow, the vow is the mental factor with which, while observing that situation, we refrain from acting out any impulse that might come up to act contrary to the vow, contrary to our promise. What about when we’re in a situation in which there isn’t one of these potentially… These situations in which we could act destructively. Then you’d have to say, “It’s become a habit, or it’s become subliminal,” or something like that. Sure, you could explain it that way, but if you say that the vow is a subtle form, a nonrevealing form, then it’s a little bit easier to accept its continuity — it’s non-static, it’s there from moment to moment — and it fits in with the same assertion that karma is a subtle form as well, a nonrevealing form.
Participant: Who says this?
Dr. Berzin: Who says this? Gelug Prasangika. Tsongkhapa says it, in keeping with what the Vaibhashikas say, with what’s in Abhidharmakosha (Skt. Abhidharmakośa).
Karma isn’t there all the time. We’re not talking about the... I mean, it’s interesting, very, very interesting. You have to look at these nonrevealing forms. When we talk about nonrevealing form in terms of karma, what are we talking about? We are talking about a subtle form that starts at the beginning of an action that you do that is brought on by a mental impulse. We’re not talking about mental karma here. There’s the impulse that brings on the action, and then there is — a subtle form of energy, I think, is the easiest way of relating to it as a subtle form — a form of energy that starts when we actually do the action and continues after the action is completed.
When does it end? It’s not like a tendency that has to ripen. I mean, it can ripen, but it will end when we will no longer repeat that action. In other words, as long as I intend to continue acting destructively in the same manner, that nonrevealing form will continue. If I make the firm decision, with all the opponent forces and all the things that are necessary here, that “I’m never going to do this again” then that nonrevealing form is gone. The tendency will still be there, but this particular energy is gone. “I’m never going to smoke again,” for example, or “I’m never going to drink alcohol again,” and you go to Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s a certain energy. I mean, the tendency might be there, but if you really are going to give it up… Then of course there’s debate as to what actually will constitute the end of this nonrevealing form, but the nonrevealing form will come to an end.
Then we think in terms of a vow. A vow — also you can weaken it, so likewise you can weaken this nonrevealing form, and also you can lose it. When we speak like that, I think it’s a little bit easier to understand what vows are, what these nonrevealing forms of karma are, and so on, as opposed to explaining it as a mental factor, a vow. How do you weaken that? When is it in effect? Of course, any mental factor has a spectrum of how strong or weak it is in terms of concentration, in terms of interest, in terms of this or that, so of course it will work to explain a vow as a mental factor, but there are certain advantages to explaining it in this way.
If we’re going to take vows, now let’s not ask the question: “What is it really? Is it a mental factor or is it a subtle nonrevealing form?” You can’t say it’s one or the other. There are two ways of explaining it. But I think it’s important to understand what actually a vow is. Is it a shaping of our mental continuum? Is it a type of subtle energy? Is it just a mental factor that comes into play actively at some times and at other times doesn’t? Even if it’s a nonrevealing form, still there’s going to be that mental factor of restraint that comes up. Is this the basis of the energy? Is the energy of the nonrevealing form a basis for it? All these things I think it’s important to try to analyze, to try to understand. If we are going to take vows, what in the world are they?
Participant: How does this apply to bodhichitta? Still, that’s a mental factor?
Dr. Berzin: How is bodhichitta... Bodhichitta is not a mental factor. Bodhichitta is a primary mind (rnam-shes), as far as I recall. A primary mind is one which takes as a.... A primary consciousness, or whatever we want to call it, is aimed at just the essential nature of its object without making differentiations or qualifications or things like that. It is focused on enlightenment, my not-yet-happened individual enlightenment. Then there are the various mental factors that accompany it, the various intentions specifically to achieve it and to benefit others by means of that.
We have these vows, and it’s very, very helpful to know these and to understand what it is if I’m going to take a vow. It’s not just signing a contract or anything like that. It is actually, if I do it sincerely, it is making a big difference on my mental continuum. (Whether I am mindful of them and remember them or not is another question.) That’s why it’s very helpful with the six-session yoga practice that we have in the Gelug tradition that you actually recite the vows. One doesn’t go through and recite all the monks’ vows, even if we are monks; it just lists the categories of them. But at least for the bodhisattva and tantric vows, you actually recite them. That’s very helpful to remind us — keep mindful — of what these vows are. We don’t recite all the secondary vows of the bodhichitta vows, but one could, one could. This is important, to try to remind ourselves what these vows are, so that if we’re looking at it as a mental factor that’s restraining us when a possible situation to violate them comes along, we will recognize what is that potentially dangerous situation and that restraint will come to be conscious — to be manifest (mngon-gyur-ba) we would say in Buddhist terminology. If we’re talking about a vow as a nonrevealing form, then on the basis of that energy which is there on a subtle level, we act in terms of refraining from a potentially dangerous situation of violating them.
Knowing these vows is very, very important. That’s why we’re going through them here to explain them. To just know them by name is not enough; we need to understand what is involved, and what would weaken them, what would constitute losing them from our mental continuum. As it says: if we have no intention of keeping it, we’re happy that we violated it, we have no intention of stopping violating it, we don’t consider there was anything wrong with violating it, and we have no sense of self-dignity, no sense of how this reflects on our teachers or on Buddhism or anything like that, then finito. It’s gone. That subtle energy of keeping it is gone. Anything less than that, that energy just is weaker and weaker and weaker. I find relating to these vows as a form of subtle energy makes a little bit more sense in terms of what it feels like.
Participant: But it’s only considered a subtle energy concerning verbal and physical actions?
Dr. Berzin: Is it is only subtle energy concerning verbal and physical actions? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, if a vow is not to give up bodhichitta, is that a verbal or physical action? It wouldn’t be. That would be a mental action.
Participant: The question is: Would these also be some form of…
Dr. Berzin: The vow is a subtle form — the vow of not doing that would be a subtle form. The subtle form helps to restrain us. That’s what a vow is.
Participant: I can think of a response to that, but it’s a different question, and I don’t know if it’s relevant in the understanding of the vow per se, or why we take them, or the continuum of the vows after we’ve taken them. But you’ve written somewhere, I think in the descriptions of the bodhisattva vows (maybe it was the last ones we were doing, not the tantric vows), but there’s a point where you wrote something to the effect that if we have taken the vows in a previous lifetime and we have not yet taken them in this one, if we do things which are indiscretion or breaking of the vows — we wouldn’t consider breaking the vows, but we have not yet, in this lifetime, taken the vows — then it’s not a downfall, even if we have in the previous life before.
My question is: If a reaction, like karma, is the beginning of a new form that’s continuing, how does that relate… In other words, should we even care if we have previously taken these vows, or should we just approach it in this lifetime as if we’re beginning all over again? Or is there a kind of way of knowing if we are continuing something that we’ve already begun working on previously?
Dr. Berzin: That’s a difficult question. What she’s saying is that there is the explanation, and I’ve repeated that in some of my writings, that when we’ve taken… As you know (maybe you don’t know) the pratimoksha vows are just for this lifetime — you lose them at death — but bodhisattva and tantric vows you take until your attainment of enlightenment, which means they continue on the mental continuum when we are reborn as a cockroach or a dog or whatever. Now the question then is: If we violate them, is that a full downfall? No, it weakens it. We didn’t know that there was this vow. As a dog, we don’t know that in a previous lifetime we took a vow to meditate on voidness six times a day. Our not meditating on voidness six times a day as a dog is…
Participant: If it’s an intelligent dog, it’s trying to.
Dr. Berzin: That’s not losing the vow. It’s just weakening. To lose your vows, you have to not think that there’s anything wrong with it, and be happy about it, and…
Participant: Being ignorant…
Dr. Berzin: Being ignorant that you’ve taken it in a previous lifetime is not a downfall.
You have to be careful here in terms of... People go to initiations in the West, and they think... I mean, they don’t even know that they’ve taken vows, because it’s never explained, and so they think afterwards… Somebody tells them, “Hey, you went to this initiation. That means that now you have this and that vow,” and then they freak out and they think they have to keep it and so on. You didn’t take the vow. If you didn’t take the vow consciously and know what you were doing, you did not receive the vow. That’s clear.
Then your question that you asked was: How do we know whether we’ve taken a vow in a previous lifetime or not? Basically, we don’t know. How do you know? You could have a certain… what we would call in the West an “intuitive feeling” that draws us to want to take the vows. That’s a certain indication, certainly. If I’m really drawn to this, there must be some familiarity, and I really rejoice in having found out what are the bodhisattva vows and having had the opportunity to take them. That surely would indicate some previous-life familiarity with it.
However, there is also the point that despite beginningless mind, there is a first development of bodhichitta. Which then becomes a very interesting question: How can you have, on a beginningless continuum, a first occurrence of anything? But there is. Let’s not get into that discussion, because that will take the rest of our class. But there is that first time. If it is our first time in that lifetime, that will be the first time of taking the bodhisattva vows. But I don’t know, from an existential point of view, what difference would it make whether… when I take the bodhisattva vows for the first time in this lifetime, whether I had them from a previous lifetime or not. I don’t think it would make very much difference in terms of my attitude. There can be a feeling, I suppose, that... There’s a certain feeling of confidence that comes about when you have a feeling that something is familiar.
I’ll take myself as an example, from my own personal experience. I developed an interest in Buddhism and Asian things from a very, very early age. There was absolutely no input whatsoever from my family or from where I grew up or whatever. That was there. I pursued Asian studies even though I was pretty much pressured by my time that I grew up in to go into science because of the whole Sputnik freak-out in America, but nevertheless… I was looking at some of my very early college papers that I wrote, and already — even before I had this opportunity to study Chinese — I was already very interested in Chinese and to pursue on a more serious level what I had read when I was 13 and 14 years old about Zen and these other things. I went really strongly toward Asian languages, studied four of them, and got... Everything was paid for. I was able to go to the best universities — my family really had no money — I was able to go to the absolute best universities in America: Princeton, Harvard. Didn’t cost me anything.
I got this big fellowship to go to India. I arrive in India. I go to the Tibet House, which was in Delhi, and the first couple of days somebody says, “Oh, I have a house up in Dalhousie. Would you like my house?” And I go to Dalhousie, and there I meet the people who had studied with Geshe Wangyal, the two Tibetan young tulkus who had studied with Geshe Wangyal, and we knew everybody in common. I knew Geshe Wangyal. Within one week, without any plan whatsoever or preparation, I had a house, I had all the connections with Tibetans, I had a Tibetan monk living with me. I had absolutely everything set up totally effortlessly.
Now you think “Why is all of this happening? Either this is totally insane or there must be some previous-life explanation for why everything has fallen in place so unbelievably easy in my life.” That reaffirmed and gave me confidence to go ahead with what I was doing — and eventually to say “No, thank you” to becoming a university professor — and making my life in India with the Tibetans and with the teachers that I connected with.
If we have a feeling that “I’ve done this in a previous lifetime. I’ve taken these vows,” and so on, and if there’s some indication, in one form or another, that confirms that there’s really no other explanation of why in the world I’m so drawn to this and everything is falling in place so easily, then that gives us self-confidence to proceed full speed with all of this. Yes, I think it does make a certain difference.
Participant: That can be an indicator that you have taken these vows before.
Dr. Berzin: It can be an indicator that I was involved with all of this in a previous lifetime and now it’s continuing. What it reinforces very, very strongly — what it should reinforce — is that “I really want to continue building up the causes so that it will be possible to continue further in future lifetimes.” So — bam! — there you have the initial scope of motivation. “How wonderful it would be to be able to do that without being a baby again and having to wear diapers, and having to...” I mean, all this other crap that we have to go through.
Participant: Going back again to India.
Dr. Berzin: Back to India, and back to taking exams, and the whole bit. Although, mind you, Buddha Shakyamuni was born as a little baby. Mind you, he could (according to the accounts) take seven steps and “Here I am.” But nevertheless, it would be lovely not to be under the influence of anger and hostility and desire and jealousy and pride and naivety, and all this other garbage that comes with... I mean, it’s not just “How nice it would be not to have to go to school again and not having to worry about making a living.” That’s not the point. The point is, when we’re talking about liberation, how wonderful it would be to not have... What are we renouncing? We are renouncing tainted aggregates, so a mind and a body that is brought about by disturbing emotions and karmic impulses and is filled with it and perpetuates it. The main thing that we have to overcome, then, is our so-called ignorance — our unawareness — and the disturbing emotions that are based on it. It’s a little bit easier to relate to the disturbing emotions, isn’t it? I can recognize very easily anger and attachment and greed and selfishness, and all those things. Those are fairly obvious. The fact that I am unaware of voidness is not so obvious. I mean, you have to learn what voidness is in order to know that you’re unaware of it, isn’t it? Whereas nobody has to teach us and point to us what anger is or attachment. I mean, we know what it is.
Participant: Actually, I have met people that are so dense they don’t realize their own…
Dr. Berzin: There are a lot of people who are so dense that they don’t realize that they are being selfish. Absolutely correct. Absolutely true.
Participant: They think they are being the way…
Dr. Berzin: They are being the way that everybody should be. With greed: go out there and make as much as possible and just look out for number one — as we say in American colloquial — me.
Nevertheless, it is easier to recognize anger than it is to recognize unawareness of voidness. It is easier to recognize that that is causing our problems — or worry or stress or nervousness or indecisiveness, or whatever it might be — that’s easier to recognize than what’s underlying it (“Me, me, me. What should I do?” if we talk about indecisiveness).
The Fourteen Common Tantric Root Downfalls (continued)
Anyway, the vows. Excuse me for going on and on, but I’m in that sort of mood this evening, so you got it. We have gone through the lay vows, we have gone through the bodhisattva vows, and we are in our discussion of the tantric vows. And we have discussed the first one: scorning or deriding our vajra masters.
[2] Transgressing the words of an enlightened one
Now we are up to the second one: transgressing the words of an enlightened one. The objects of this action are the contents of an enlightened being’s teachings concerning the vows — that’s why I was giving this whole big discussion of the vows — the pratimoksha, bodhisattva, or tantric vows, whether the person is a Buddha himself or a later great master. We’re talking about the vows, the contents of the vows, whether Buddha spoke them or they were compiled from Shantideva’s compendium or whatever, these sort of things. Pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva vows, or tantric vows.
Committing this downfall is not simply to transgress a particular vow from one of these sets having taken it — we’re talking about if you’ve taken these vows — but to do so with two additional factors that are present. These are (a) fully acknowledging that the vow derives from someone who has removed all mental obscuration (an enlightened being), and (b) trivializing it — this is the part that would be more common — trivializing the vow by thinking or saying that violating it brings no negative consequences. In other words, what it means is that “Yes, I know that Buddha said not to…” — let’s say if we are a monk or a nun — “I know that Buddha made this vow not to eat after noon, but really this is trivial. Who cares? This really is unimportant, so forget about it.” That’s breaking this tantric vow. “Or meditate on voidness…” — we’ll get this a little bit later — “four times a day? Well, come on, Buddha, you can’t really be serious to say that I need to meditate six times a day. Oh, come on!”
Participant: That’s a bodhisattva vow?
Dr. Berzin: That’s a tantric vow. That’s probably the most difficult of the tantric vows. That’s trivializing it, saying, “He really didn’t mean it, and it’s not so important.”
Participant: This is the 21st century.
Dr. Berzin: “It’s the 21st century. We don’t have to do that.” This type of thing.
Trivializing or transgressing things that we know that an enlightened being has taught other than these three sets of vows we’ve taken, or trivializing advice that any other great master has given — an enlightened being (we’re talking about the Indian masters and so on) — does not constitute a tantric root downfall. It creates obstacles though.
This is talking specifically about the vows. That underlines the importance of: if we’re going to take vows, take them seriously and understand that there’s a reason behind them, and don’t say, “This is trivial and really unimportant.” It’s underlining here, with the tantric vows, the seriousness of the vows.
You have a question?
Participant: The first one was to do what?
Dr. Berzin: The first one is we have to acknowledge that the vow does come from an enlightened being. “I know that this is a vow. I know that it comes from Buddha or from a great vinaya master or the vinaya sutras or whatever.” We’re not talking about when you don’t know the vow or when you’ve not taken it. “I’ve taken it. I did it. I know that these are the Buddhist vows, and it comes from Buddha or whatever. And I think it’s unimportant. I think Buddha didn’t really mean it, or it doesn’t really apply to me. I’m special. I get special dispensation.”
Participant: Like I was eating after noon.
Dr. Berzin: Eating after... The point is to acknowledge that this is in contradiction to the vow. “I have a particular reason, not just because of greed, for eating it. I really am not happy about it and I wish I didn’t have to do that.” But not just saying that “It’s unimportant. It’s trivial. This is a minor vow.” How in the world people in the Tibetan tradition, then, regard all the vows concerning how you go around with your begging bowl and beg for your meals. This I don’t know, and I don’t really want to go there in terms of trying to figure out how they regard that. But ideally you would say that “Even if this is not the custom of our culture or our society, I don’t think that that’s trivial and unimportant, and I wish that we could do that.” At least that much would be important.
Don’t trivialize the words of a Buddha, of an enlightened one, concerning the vows. Concerning other things, it’s not a tantric downfall to do that, to trivialize it. I mean, we have all the advice. In Shantideva you have the advice… What I’m thinking about is in the lojong, the attitude training, there’s this wonderful list of the 18 and the 22, this list of the various pieces of advice and trainings that you have. This is in the Seven-Point Attitude Training (Blo-sbyong don-bdun-ma). These are wonderful pieces of advice, wonderful. Very, very good to read. If we’re going to recite the vows, recite these as well, and don’t just recite them but try to incorporate them. OK. Now to say one of these is trivial is not transgressing this vow, because it’s not specifically a vow, but nevertheless it weakens your practice to say this is trivial. OK? Very easy to break that in relation to things, especially to think “I’m special and it doesn’t really have to apply to me.” Very easy to do that with vows we don’t like, which unfortunately have come as a part of the set. Like getting a box of chocolates and there’s one in there that we don’t like and so we sort of throw it away; we’re not going to eat that one.
[3] Because of anger, faulting our vajra brothers or sisters
Then the third one: because of anger, faulting our vajra brothers or sisters. That’s not an easy one either. Here we have to know the definitions. Vajra brothers and sisters are those who hold tantric vows — OK, now we’ve already limited it; they’re those who hold tantric vows (that means they’ve taken the third or fourth class of tantra) — and have received an empowerment into any Buddha-figure system of any class of tantra from our same tantric master. That’s the definition here. What does that mean? The empowerments do not need to be received at the same time, nor do they need to be into the same system or class of tantra.
Let’s give an example. We have a teacher, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has given many, many, many empowerments in all classes of tantra. Out of those, if there are some who have received the tantric vows but not necessarily received the tantric vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama… Let’s say they took a highest class (anuttarayoga) tantra initiation from somebody else, but they received an initiation in kriya (Skt. kriyā) tantra (let’s say a Chenrezig initiation) from His Holiness at a different time than we have, and we haven’t even received that one (we just received Kalachakra) — still that person is our vajra brother or sister.
They don’t have to have received the tantric vows from the same teacher as we do, but as long as they have the tantric vows and they have received any empowerment from our teacher, then they count as vajra brothers and sisters. Why that’s so, I don’t really know. This is how Tsongkhapa defined it. There are others that define it a little bit more strictly (a little bit more limited, I should say). But this is how Tsongkhapa defines it. Basically, we’re talking about anybody who has received any initiation from our teachers, if they have tantric vows, as a vajra brother and sister. That’s a lot of people when we’re talking about His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
This downfall occurs when, knowing full well that certain persons are our vajra brothers or sisters — that’s going to eliminate a lot of people here — but if we know that they are our vajra brother or sister and we taunt (taunt means to make fun of them) or verbally abuse them to their face (we’re not talking about behind their back) about faults, shortcomings, failings, mistakes, transgressions, and so on, that they may or may not possess or have committed, and they understand what we say. We’re reminded here of what we have in the pratimoksha vows or the discussion of the ten destructive actions. Lying to somebody — it’s not complete unless the other person believes our lie and is fooled. Likewise, abusing someone, our vajra brother or sister, taunting them, saying something nasty to them, and so on — and the motivation has to be, it says here, hostility, anger, or hatred — and they understand what we say, then that is this downfall.
Pointing out the weaknesses of such persons in a kind manner with a wish to help them overcome them — that’s not a fault. The point is to really get angry at them, and yell at them, and scold them really heavily with anger to their face, and they understand what we say. You may have to scold. My teacher Serkong Rinpoche certainly scolded me a lot, and aside from him being my teacher — I mean from me being his disciple — I was also a vajra brother (we received initiations from His Holiness), but the motivation was not anger, hatred, or hostility.
In general, of course, it’s not very nice to scream and yell at people with anger and hostility in any case — that’s one of the destructive actions (it’s harsh, abusive language) — but particularly with our vajra brothers and sisters that’s important. Why is that important?
Participant: Why is that important?
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, I’m asking you. Why do you think that’s important?
Participant: In a way, you’re also insulting the whole Sangha and breaking your bond to refuge.
Dr. Berzin: Breaking your bond to refuge and to the whole Sangha? I would object to that. This is the Western use of the word Sangha to refer to a congregation of a church. That’s not... The Sangha is referring to monks and nuns as the representation, but it’s referring to the aryas.
Let’s think more in terms of, I think, a family, because they’re using the analogy of a family of disciples of a common teacher. You’re not taking refuge in your vajra brothers and sisters as the Sangha Jewel, certainly not, because there’s going to be a lot of very crazy, neurotic people there. The Arya Jewel is those beings who have achieved already some true stoppings of the obscurations, the disturbing emotions and so on. Certainly not the members of our Dharma center, in most cases, or our vajra brothers and sisters. But we’re talking about basically like in a family. We’re all practicing under a certain teacher, and we’re practicing tantra, and we’re practicing tantra in a very serious type of way in terms of a serious commitment to this teacher and to our practice. So it’s important to be harmonious. If we get angry and hostile toward the other one, then — I mean, what is that? The teacher has to be like a mommy and daddy and get the kids to stop fighting with each other? I mean, that’s really terrible. Brings the whole thing down to a very low level, doesn’t it?
I think that we have to think of real-life situations here, and what are real life situations? We may live in a community — could be at your Dharma center — in which people have taken initiations from the same teacher. It’s very easy to get angry and yell at various people in the center if they’ve also taken these vows. It could be with studying together. It could actually be in class with the teacher or outside the class. You have to think of these situations. Why would getting angry and yelling at each other be detrimental, and why would it be beneficial not to do that, in terms of reaching enlightenment through tantra?
Participant: By doing it, we inspire disturbing emotions in the others and ourselves.
Dr. Berzin: Right. In doing this, we would not only be acting out disturbing emotions in ourselves but could cause the other person to have disturbing emotions. Sure.
Participant: That could prevent enlightenment.
Dr. Berzin: That could prevent enlightenment, yeah.
Think of situations where this could arise. I mean, there’s one of the vows later on not to argue during tsog (tshogs). Here now we have an offering puja (Skt. pūjā), an offering ceremony, and somebody sets up the altar incorrectly or does something wrong, and then you start yelling at them: “You idiot!” You create a whole very unpleasant atmosphere there, don’t you? It’s not at all a joyful offering ceremony. Also, if you think in terms of the highest class of tantra, we’re trying to generate a blissful awareness of voidness. Very hard to have a blissful awareness when you are yelling with anger at somebody or being yelled at in anger by somebody. One has to look and analyze why these vows are there.
[4] Giving up love for sentient beings
Next one, very interesting one: giving up love for sentient beings. Love is the wish for others to be happy and to have the causes for happiness. This downfall is wishing the opposite for any being, even a serial murderer or something like that.
In another explanation, it makes it a little bit more clear: If out of all sentient beings there’s one sentient being that you don’t want to benefit, and your reason to attain enlightenment doesn’t include benefiting this one, then you have given up love for sentient beings. That, I think, makes it much clearer. That’s why I was saying a little bit before: when you think about bodhichitta — my goodness, if you really think about it — then you can appreciate Shantideva’s first chapter, in which he is praising bodhichitta as the most incredible thing in the universe. If there’s one being… You see some little ant on the ground, or some mosquito, and “I’m not interested in attaining enlightenment for this ant,” then you’ve given up loving sentient beings. We’re not just talking about “Oh, I love you, blah blah blah. You’re such a nice fly or mosquito.” But if we’re talking about bodhichitta, absolutely every being that we encounter — “I want to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit you.” If we leave any out, that’s breaking this vow. That’s very difficult. That’s very, very difficult. I can see by the expression on your face that you appreciate how difficult that is.
Participant: I’m just thinking about ticks or leeches and stuff like this that you want to get rid of. Somehow you have love for them, but in the same moment you have to kill them to get rid of them.
Dr. Berzin: Ticks, leeches… Unacceptable life forms by our value system. Right. One moment you have love for them, at another moment you might have to kill them in order to... If you’re not at the stage of being able to feed your body to the hungry tigress.
Participant: I heard there was a Tibetan monk, actually, in India who snapped his fingers and sent them to a better realm when he had to kill them.
Dr. Berzin: Right. He heard in India… Yes, Naropa (Skt. Nāropa) and Tilopa could snap their fingers and send them to a better realm. One could also rationalize: “I could snap my fingers and say, ‘I send you to a better realm’ and kill anything.” That’s certainly an excuse, a rationalization.
No. I think that when we’re not at a stage to be able to, as I say, feed our body to the hungry tigress, or to feed the mosquitoes, to feed... We’re not talking about feeding my child to the leeches. We’re talking about feeding myself to the leeches. “I sacrifice my child, my baby to…” No. Not like that. But if we’re talking about ourselves, and we’re not at that stage: “Still, I really would like to reach enlightenment in order to benefit this mosquito, and I’m very sorry that I can’t deal with you now, but I really have great compassion for you. I mean, what an awful situation, to be reborn as a mosquito and that you drink blood, and that anybody that you drink blood from doesn’t really appreciate it and probably thinks very ill of me for drinking their blood. But what can I do? This is what I eat.”
Participant: That’s why you are supposed to say a prayer when you kill a vampire.
Dr. Berzin: That’s why you say a prayer when you kill a vampire or whatever. Thank you. But you know what I mean. This is referring to: “Here is one being that I’m not including in why I want to reach enlightenment. I’m not including this one, that I want to reach enlightenment for the benefit of this one.”
It becomes a very good training when we are on the bus or the U-Bahn or on the highway, looking at everybody and really: “Not only do I want to help this person…” — we’re not just talking about “I wish them happiness and I wish them not to suffer,” but take it further in terms of bodhichitta — “I really, really have to work to get my act together to overcome all these obscurations, all this junk that’s preventing me from really being able to benefit you, and you, and this one, and that one, and the fly,” and all of that. I mean, if you can do that and really, sincerely feel that, then you really appreciate Shantideva’s praise to bodhichitta, that this is extraordinary.
Participant: You mentioned being on the U-Bahn or the bus. Sometimes I am really confused, because if I’m in a crowded situation like that and I am seeing faces around me and I see so much pain and pinched lips and sorrow and sadness, I go into a mental thing where I just recite “May you, as I, be free from pain. May you, as I, be free from pain. May you, as I, be free from pain…” And I look at each face, and I’m wishing them to be free from pain. Sometimes it’s very creepy, because as I’m just looking around and then I’m thinking, I’m doing this mantra thing in my mind, and sometimes the people will look back at me as I’m looking. Or sometimes, even if I’m looking at the back of somebody’s head and I’m thinking “May you, as I, be free from pain. May you, as I, be free from pain…” they’ll turn around.
Dr. Berzin: May you as I?
Participant: May you, as I, be free from pain. And then, although I may be looking at the back of somebody’s head, they’ll turn and look directly at me, and then sometimes it’s very startling. When you really do open yourself up, and you are just eliminating thoughts from your mind, and you really are just looking at every face on the U-Bahn and wishing they’re free from pain, wishing... They’re hot, they’re irritated, sad, whatever. You’re only focusing on this outpouring of wishing them… It can be sometimes very frightening that they actually look back at you and there is some kind of a connection there, even if it’s for a split-second. It can be startling actually.
Dr. Berzin: OK. What she’s saying is that she’s had the experience on the subway (we call it an U-Bahn here in Germany) of looking at the various people on the crowded train and seeing that people are suffering in one way or another, and reciting in her mind very strongly “May you, like I, be free from pain,” and reciting this over and over again and sending out this good wish and thought to others, just looking at the back of people’s heads or looking at their faces. Sometimes they turn around and look at her, and she finds this a bit creepy (I think was the word that you used) and a bit odd or a bit uncomfortable.
First of all, if we look at the advice in the Seven-Point Attitude Training (Blo-sbyong don-bdun-ma) in terms of doing tonglen, it says to do this in a hidden fashion. I think it’s in that. Maybe it’s in the Eight Verses (Blo-sbyong tshig-brgyad-ma, Eight-Verse Attitude Training). I forget which one. But do it in a hidden fashion. So, you don’t stare at people in the face and do this type of thing, but you’re doing it in your mind. Some people are sensitive; they might feel that. Other people just look around at everybody else in the U-Bahn, just like you’re looking around in the U-Bahn, and so they happen to look at you. If they smile at you, you can smile back. In some societies, people might think that you’re a pervert or something like that, so you have to be a little bit careful that they don’t misunderstand what’s...
Participant: In Saudi Arabia don’t do that.
Dr. Berzin: Don’t do that in Saudi Arabia. Don’t do that in probably New York. In India, yes you can do that. There are different societies in which eye contact and smiling at each other are not seen as suspicious activities, but let’s leave that aside. Some people may be sensitive and respond to it. Fine. Why not? There’s nothing to feel creepy about that.
Participant: Maybe creepy wasn’t the right word. I find it interesting that if you can do that, if you open yourself up to that, that actually there is a response. I mean, really it works, in other words.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If you open yourself up to that, she says that there is a response. It’s not necessarily a response. There may be a response. There may be a response, but the point is that we’re not aiming it in order to get a response.
Participant: No, no, no, no. That’s the point, was that it surprises me. Because I’m a very introverted kind of person, so on the contrary I tend to like to be more withdrawn and do things like this not in an overt way. I certainly don’t psych people out and stare in their eyes. On the contrary, I tend to be more surreptitious and use my peripheral vision to just look around. But I’m saying it is surprising how much actually, if you are open and you are trying to impart some good wishes to people, there is a receptivity.
Dr. Berzin: OK. She’s saying: if your heart is open and you have these good wishes and you send them out and so on, that others are receptive… May be receptive to that. Definitely. I mean, what are we doing? If we put it in New Age terms, we are creating vibes. In tantra, we actually visualize waves of light and various offering figures and so on going out to others and relieving them of their suffering and so on, as we say a mantra — a mantra does create a subtle vibration — and so on. It’s not surprising that some people can feel… I can’t think of any better word than our vibes, our vibrations. Just as you may be sensitive to other people being very nervous or very upset or really stressed or suffering — I mean, you can feel that with the people — similarly, people can also feel, if they are sensitive to some degree, when somebody is very calm, very relaxed. It relaxes the whole environment around them. That is called pacifying energy. Tantra talks about all of this and how to develop these types of energy — not to gain power as a power trip but be able to benefit others. It’s very wonderful to be able to walk into a room where a lot of people are so stressed and you are so calm and relaxed that it calms everybody down, or you are so open and loving that it makes them a bit open. It’s generating a vibe. If we are familiar with the fact that tantra actually is teaching us how to do this, then it’s not surprising when it actually works, when we see some results.
Participant: That’s what I am trying to say, is that I think a lot of people are very doubtful: “Why shouldn’t I be thinking about my own problems throughout the day? Why should I be doing these continuous mantras even as I’m walking down the street or when I’ve got better things I need to be thinking about?” But actually, there is no better thing you could be thinking about than opening yourself up to others, because it is, in a way, purification for yourself, but even if it’s in some minute, small way, it really does. It’s like you were describing the energy of an action, a form, before: it really does really spread, and unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t believe that.
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying that we shouldn’t trivialize the tantra teachings — I’m putting it in different words — the fact that it is possible to create a beneficial atmosphere and generate a beneficial atmosphere around us, and so we shouldn’t think it’s useless to recite mantras all day or as we’re walking down the street or things like that. I would add to that not just reciting a mantra but generating a state of mind that goes with that, with the mantra, not just “Blah blah blah.” Yeah, it does have an effect, and it’s very important not to trivialize it. I mean, we’re not talking about trivializing a vow but trivializing a certain type of practice. It is quite easy to either become fixated on mantras so that you’re walking around with a rosary the whole day and counting how many you do, or the other extreme, which is to trivialize it and say this is unimportant.
OK. We’ve covered at least a few of these vows this evening, and let’s end here with the dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.