We are going through this text by Tsongkhapa. It’s a letter that he wrote to his friend, disciple, teacher, meditator — he had a very full relationship on many levels with Konchog-tsultrim. This meditator had asked Tsongkhapa for some practical advice on how to put the combined path of sutra and tantra into practice.
Review of Previous Sessions
Reliance on a Qualified Spiritual Mentor
Tsongkhapa replies — after several paragraphs of humility — that we’ve found an excellent working basis, this precious human rebirth; we’ve met with the teachings; we have wonderful, qualified teachers; and we have the intelligence, the ability to discern what’s to be adopted and what’s to be rejected. We need to then take full advantage of that. To take full advantage — that means to engage ourselves with the Buddha’s teachings, to actually get involved and put them into practice.
For that what is extremely important is to rely for guidance on a fully qualified teacher, someone who knows what are the states of mind that we need to develop, what are the ones that we don’t need to develop or that we need to get rid of, doesn’t add any, doesn’t leave any out, and knows the graded order of how to develop them. That teacher needs to be someone who’s gained certainty about all of this by having gone through this practice, this training, himself, or herself, having been led also by a qualified teacher. That course of study and practice needs to be on the basis of the great classics, that these are not separate things — the classics and the actual practice.
The Motivating Mental Framework
Then how do we begin our practice? We need to tame our minds. For that it’s extremely important to have the proper motivating mental framework, and the most common way of developing that is through the graded stages, the lam-rim, which is what covers the sutra path here. For this (without going into great detail):
- We need to think in terms of taking advantage of this precious human rebirth, and not just think in terms of this lifetime but to take interest in future lives so that we continue to have that working basis.
- Then, on the intermediate level, to realize that no matter what type of rebirth we have, if it’s under the influence of disturbing emotions and karma, it’s just going to be filled with various types of suffering. We need to develop renunciation of that and think in terms of gaining liberation.
- Then, on the advanced level, think how everybody else is in the same situation and wish to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit them the most, help them out of that situation.
How To Meditate
We need to develop these in an uncontrived manner — in other words, they need to not just be something on our lips but something very sincere — and it needs to be something which comes automatically. To do that we have to build them up as beneficial habits, which means to meditate on them. For that we need to know how to do that, and Tsongkhapa gives a very wonderful explanation of what we need to know for developing any particular constructive state of mind or attitude. We have to know:
- what are the causes for developing it, what are the things that it depends on that we have to develop first,
- what are all the aspects or details of it,
- and we need to know what will be helpful for developing that, what is unhelpful or detrimental for that,
- what do we actually focus on with that state of mind,
- how does our mind actually relate to that object. (Like, for instance, with compassion, we’re focusing on the suffering of others. The way the mind relates to it with the wish for it to be gone.)
In this way we work to develop these states of mind. We have to know also how it works, how the state of mind works — how we would apply it. All of these things.
When we develop these motivating states of mind, which are not at all easy to develop, then we need to maintain them steadily and continuously, not only during our meditation sessions but throughout the day and night.
The Ethical Self-Discipline of Keeping Vows
Then if we have this proper motivating mental framework, if we want to get involved with a tantra practice, then the doorway for entering any of the various Buddhist vehicles of mind is the ethical discipline of its own set of vows. We have the pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows (the vows for individual liberation), which are the basis of what is common for all the Buddhist vehicles. We discussed the lay vows in connection with that. We also have the bodhisattva vows, which are in common for the Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) vehicles of mind, both sutra and tantra. Then we have the tantra vows, which are applied particularly to the two higher classes of tantra. We’ve gone through all those vows and the close-bonding practices as well.
We are up to this discussion that Tsongkhapa says here — and I’ll read the section again, quoting Tsongkhapa’s letter:
Suppose on top of having held, as something to cherish, enhancing in that way our motivating mental framework like that – in other words, (suppose on top of) having held as our foundation never letting it weaken,
Referring to these initial, intermediate, and advanced states of motivating aim.
we (wish to) practice the two stages of secret mantra pathway minds.
That’s referring to the two stages of the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga.
Well in general, whenever we enter the doorway of any (Buddhist) vehicle of mind, we need to set as its basis the ethical discipline of its own (set of vows).
That’s what we’ve been covering.
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 is very important for that to be firm (with the bodhisattva vows).
We covered that.
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.
Factors Causing the Transgression of a Vow
Before we get into our discussion of what an empowerment is, one of the most essential aspects of receiving an empowerment or initiation is the taking of vows. As one great Drigung master said: without the vows there is no empowerment. What I’d like to discuss today are these causes for giving up the vows and the various causes for these vows to weaken. These are very helpful to learn and to keep in mind so that we don’t lose our vows.
There’s a big difference between losing them (so that we no longer have the vows on our mental continuum) and just weakening them. When we talk about transgressing a vow, which means to go against the vow, in common language that’s called — in English at least — breaking the vow. But one has to be very careful in differentiating. There’s breaking a vow in a way in which you no longer have the vows, you’ve lost them, and breaking a vow in the sense of weakening the strength of the vow.
Remember from the Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika) point of view that Tsongkhapa is holding, a vow is a subtle form that is the part of the mental continuum that helps, in a sense, to shape our behavior, set the boundaries of our behavior that we’re not going to go beyond, and obviously they can be strong or weak. This is what we’re talking about. We don’t want to weaken it, or it could be completely gone.
There are several factors that can cause us to transgress our vows — transgress means to break them (we’re talking about in general, whether we’re talking about losing them or weakening them) — and this comes from the text called the Dakini-Vow Tantra (mKha’-’gro-ma’i sdom-pa’i rgyud, Skt. Dakinisamvara Tantra), and there it lists several reasons for these:
Not Knowing the Vow
The first of them is not knowing the vow. You could easily break the vow, transgress it, if you don’t know what the vow is. What would be the antidote for that? Obvious — come on! Know what the vows are. We have to study them and learn them. This is why the long version of the six-session practice that we have in the Gelug tradition that I mentioned before, last time, is very helpful, because there we actually list the vows, at least the root vows, so that if we are able to either recite them from memory (which is the way that all Tibetans would do) or we just read them, nevertheless — hopefully — it will make some imprint in our memory so that we remember what they are and we know what they are.
First, we have to take interest in knowing what they are. There are a lot of people who sometimes take initiations and, first of all, aren’t even aware of the fact that they have taken vows. That is perhaps the fault of the teacher that gives an empowerment but who doesn’t actually explain what’s going on but just does it in Tibetan for Westerners. It’s very important that we realize that there are vows as part of these initiations and we find out what they are. If the teacher doesn’t say what they are or doesn’t tell you that you’ve now taken the vows, you have to find out what they are. But there are plenty of books that list them nowadays. Although they were supposed to be kept hidden, and we are supposed to, in practicing tantra, be willing to follow any vow in order to reach enlightenment through this practice (because we’re so moved by compassion and bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta) that we’re willing to do anything), nowadays they all are quite public.
Not Caring and Being Careless
Then the next cause for transgressing our vows is not caring and being careless. That’s the same word. I translate it in the sensitivity training as the “caring attitude,” but in other contexts it also has the connotation of “being careful.” We’re just careless, and I think that’s part of not caring. If you don’t care, then you’re careless. “I don’t care about the vows. I don’t take them as being something important.” This is also in fact one of the tantric vows, is to avoid being picky with the vows, just choosing the ones that we like. And the ones that we don’t like? Ignore them. This is belittling some of the vows, and that obviously is not appropriate.
If the vows are there, they arose… I don’t know in terms of the tantric vows, I must confess. But with the vows of the monks and nuns, it was the case that Buddha in the beginning didn’t set any vows or rules. But various cases came up in which some difficulty occurred with the monastic community, and in order to avoid the problem arising again, Buddha made a vow. I don’t know if that was also the way that these bodhisattva and tantra vows evolved. But the point is that they are not there just as a test for us to be obedient, but rather they’re there to help us to avoid problems in our practice as a bodhisattva and as a tantric practitioner that obviously have come up in the past that necessitated making this vow in order to help us. These vows are all made to help us reach enlightenment for the benefit of everyone. Not caring about them and being careless would be a cause to transgress them or break them.
Any questions on that?
Obviously, we need a great deal of compassion as strong motivation for taking the vows. You don’t take them just because they’re given.
Participant: We don’t know about tantric vows, if they were set this way, empirically. But the monks’ vows were set empirically like this. Every time something arose, they made a vow. Doesn’t that mean that they should be adjustable? When these problems don’t exist anymore, they should be removed. And when new problems arise, some should be set.
Dr. Berzin: OK. That’s an interesting question. I stated that the pratimoksha vows for monks and nuns were established in response to various conditions, and I don’t know whether that was the case with the bodhisattva or tantric vows. But in any case, the question is: If that is so, then when conditions change, are there some vows that become irrelevant and then can be dropped? From the other point of view, are there new vows that need to be made?
In theory, yes. But in order to make any changes in the vinaya, it requires a “council of elders” it’s called, in which there is a consensus among the senior Buddhist leaders or Buddhist figures — monastic figures, in the case of monks’ or nuns’ vows — to come together and make a joint decision of the Sangha. The Sangha was established as a democratic institution actually, not as an authoritarian institution, and so there were mechanisms for being able to change things.
I mean, I’ve explored this issue with regard to the vows concerning sexual behavior, inappropriate or unreasonable sexual behavior, or however I translate it. There are certain things which were not specified. I was looking primarily at the lay vows, and there are certain things that were not specified in the earliest formulations of these vows (written formulations) that we find but then appear in written form later. Some of the geshes said that “You can’t say that it was added, in a sense, just from outside, but it’s quite possible that that was the intention of the vow, but it was just not said explicitly at the time.” So it fits into the flavor of the vow.
I mean, it is possible that there are situations in which things might be different. As I say, I am thinking specifically of the sexual things in terms of, for instance, concubines. When the vows went to China, where you had more than one wife, for example, then things were slightly changed in terms of how they translated certain vows. That probably was the case, although I’ve not heard it discussed in Tibet (where you had polygamy and polyandry). These things become influenced culturally.
But it’s very, very difficult to come to any decisions. You know there’s this whole issue of reinstating the bhikshuni (Skt. bhikṣuṇī) vows, the vows for fully ordained nuns. Although His Holiness is certainly in favor of doing that — we’re talking about the Mulasarvastivadin tradition of them as practiced by the Tibetans — nevertheless, His Holiness is very adamant in saying that he can’t make a unilateral decision about it and that it has to be based on the convening of a council of elders. And that is not so easy, to get a consensus. There are many who are very conservative and who question various issues, since there are some very technical, legalistic type of issues that are involved.
It’s not a light matter to expand vows or to shrink them. One always has to be very, very careful about this danger that I mentioned, which is that “I don’t want this to be included in the vow of something that I need to avoid, because I like this thing and I like doing it, so let’s eliminate it from the vow. I don’t personally see anything wrong with it.” One has to then really, really investigate the purpose of the vows. The purpose of the vows, let’s say in the case of pratimoksha vows for individual liberation, is to help us to overcome attachment, desire, anger, naivety. That is very important. Bodhisattva vows: to help us to overcome self-cherishing, selfishness, inability to help others, these type of things — things that would earn us the distrust of others so that we wouldn’t be able to help them, they wouldn’t be open to us, these types of things. Obviously, these vows are based on a tremendous amount of experience.
Or in terms of the tantric vows, the one that always comes to my mind is this vow to meditate on voidness six times a day. Obviously, there are lot of people who must have gotten into real trouble, psychological trouble — not to mention spiritual trouble, whatever that means — but we can just speak about psychological trouble of doing these meditations of imagining themselves as these various Buddha-figures and so on when they have not remained mindful of voidness. Obviously that vow has been formulated for a very, very specific purpose — to help us to avoid a real danger in tantra practice.
Or really having very negative thoughts about the teacher. We should have examined the teacher very, very well beforehand, so that we don’t run the danger of thinking, when the teacher advises us to do something like “Do this as a daily practice for the rest of your life,” or “Do 100,000 prostrations,” or something like that — we say, “Oh, they’re crazy. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Forget it!” simply because we’re too lazy to do it or we don’t particularly like to do that. You don’t pick and choose.
There are the methods explained in the tantra texts, that if the teacher asks you to do something which seems utterly outrageous or is… First of all, if it’s contrary to the basic ethical teachings of Buddhism, don’t do it, or just ask the teacher why they’re asking you to do this. Say politely, “I don’t understand why you’re asking me to do this. Can you please explain your reason for this.” You question in those situations, but you don’t do that just because “I don’t particularly like doing prostration,” or this or that. If you have an injured knee or an injured back that the teacher didn’t know about, obviously you tell the teacher, “I’m sorry, but this is going to be physically almost impossible for me to do.” If they are a compassionate person, the teacher, which is one of their qualifications, they will not force you to do something that’s going to injure you, obviously. You approach it like an adult.
When you ask a question like that, one can approach it from the point of view of “In theory, is it possible?” or is it because there’s some specific vow that you question? I think that it’s only productive to think in terms of the specific vows. In theory — yes, there is the democratic process of getting a consensus of the elders. But is there some problem with one or another vow?
Participant: I was thinking more in terms of how much it becomes like a fundamentalist idea and how much it’s a live tradition.
Dr. Berzin: Then you say: Is it a fundamentalist idea or is it an alive tradition? What does alive mean? If you have a Western concept of alive that is that something is growing and getting better every year, a new model, then that’s not quite the Buddhist concept. It’s alive if it functions. It is obviously functioning. If it’s not functioning, then what’s going on?
You can see with certain vows, and again it’s hard to discuss this in terms of the tantric vows because it’s a little bit obscure (that has to do with your own personal practice), but in terms of monks’ or nuns’ vows — you look at the Tibetans. They don’t go around with begging bowls, and there are many vows concerning: “When you go around with your begging bowl, you keep your eyes down.” There are a lot of vows in terms of how you go around with your begging bowl. Do they follow that? You could say, “If they went around with the begging bowl then they would follow it.” But they are not going around with a begging bowl. Why are they not going around with a begging bowl? There are tremendous distances. The monasteries in Tibet were quite distant from town, so you couldn’t walk all the way to town and beg, and so people brought food there. Things are adjusted, but you can’t say it’s really changing a vow.
But things like “Don’t praise yourself and put down others because of attachment to your own personal gain.” If you’re saying, “I’m the best,” in order for people to give you something more, then obviously no one’s going to trust you. Why would you want to change that? That obviously is based on practical experience that this would be detrimental to the bodhisattva path. One has to think very, very deeply about these vows. That’s why we went through them so slowly and carefully.
Participant: You were talking about the council of the elders. Do you mean that everybody should agree?
Dr. Berzin: The council of the elders. What do we mean by that? That, I must say, is not very clear to me. Do we call the council of 500 arhats, like after Buddha passed away, to come to a consensus what the Buddha’s sutras were? I don’t think so.
I was at this last big conference about bhikshunis. It was held here in Hamburg. His Holiness is always saying, “Oh, we have to have a council,” and so on. We got a council there. I mean, not we — I didn’t organize it — but the people who organized it got the elders, monastic elders, the senior abbots and abbesses, from the Sri Lankans and the Taiwanese and the Japanese and the Koreans and the Vietnamese, and so on, got them together, as many as could come. But that was not sufficient, because you needed the Tibetans as well. But His Holiness wanted to find out what everybody else thought. Everybody else was completely in favor of reinstating the bhikshuni thing, but still there’s a lot of legalistic issues of how it can be reinstated.
Then the question (which was never really answered) was: Who among the Tibetans would be considered the elders? Who do you invite to this council? I don’t think that’s very clear. Do you invite only the abbots and retired abbots and abbesses? Do you invite all Rinpoches? Who do you invite?
But consensus seems to be consensus. I don’t know how literally that’s taken. If there’s one person that doesn’t want it, does that veto the whole process? I really don’t know. I’m not a vinaya expert. I mean, here it gets into very legalistic, lawyer type of language, which is a bit surprising. But in fact, you find that in all religions, certainly in the biblical religions. In Judaism and Islam in particular, there’s a tremendous amount of legalistic discussion of the interpretation of the laws. You have that in Buddhism as well.
Participant: You said that a vow is giving a shape to our mind. So if a woman has been living according to the vows, even if she has no opportunity to take them — because they couldn’t get this council together — but if she lives like this, does she have the same benefit?
Dr. Berzin: OK. This is a very good question. She says if, for instance, a woman lives according to the bhikshuni vows, the full nun vows, even though she hasn’t formally taken those vows, won’t she derive the same benefit? There is a difference in strength of karma between just doing something and doing the same thing on the basis of a vow. And there’s a difference between just making a promise to yourself and taking a vow in your mind to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas — in a formal type of way or just in your mind.
I mean, this is my own speculation and from my own experience as well, that if you take a vow, you are liberated from the indecision. If you say, “Well, I’m not going to drink alcohol.” You just set that as a policy for yourself. The question comes up each time that there’s a temptation to drink, and you have to reaffirm that decision over and over again. That’s a very tension-filled situation. Whereas if you’ve taken a vow, that’s it, finished — you’ve made the decision once and for all. I always thought, at least initially in my Dharma studies, that that was one aspect of why it was called a vow for individual liberation. It liberated you from the indecision. Finished — “I’m not going to drink alcohol.” Finished — “I’m not going to smoke,” or whatever it is. So in the discussion of karma, the various things that affect the strength of karma, it says that if there’s a vow it’s stronger.
Because I asked this question to Serkong Rinpoche’s teacher, this very, very learned geshe, Tenzin Zangpo, and he reminded me of something in abhidharma in which there is — these are terribly difficult terms to translate — there’s a vow and then there is an anti-vow (counter-vow? I don’t know how to translate it) and then there’s a category in between.
There is a vow to do something constructive or refrain from doing something destructive. That’s usually the way that a vow is, to refrain from doing something destructive.
An anti-vow or a counter-vow (it’s actually just the negative in front of the word) is when you vow not to refrain from this. Like if you join the animal slaughterers’ guild, then you are going to not show — or the exterminators’ guild, the insect exterminators’ guild — then you take a vow not to show any mercy (“Oh, the poor little cockroach. I’ll let this one go.”) You take a vow: “I’m going to exterminate them all.” This type of thing. I mean, these are maybe far-fetched examples, but this is what they’re talking about. They usually give the example of the slaughterer of animals, a professional slaughterer.
Then there’s an intermediate one, which is not a vow or an anti-vow, but it is a strong promise that you’re going to refrain from something. That is stronger, if you make that kind of promise (without it being to an abbot or this sort of stuff), than not making a vow.
There are different grades.
Participant: But you can say, “I vow it by the Buddhas.”
Dr. Berzin: You can say, “I vow it by the Buddhas.”
Participant: They are not indecisive. These women are not wavering, but they have no opportunity.
Dr. Berzin: Right. “I will live according to this.” But you’re not taking the full aspect into consideration here. The main point is whether or not the nuns can join in the pratimoksha ceremony, the twice-a-month confession ceremony of the monastics. There are many, many things which are involved. There are certain things which the whole monastic community does together, the monks and the nuns. That’s part of it. That part they might not be able to do. From just the point of keeping the vows — yes, you could certainly do that, but it’s not the full thing with all the ramifications that come together in terms of the full monastic community. It’s a bit complex. And then there’s the whole issue of lineage, and that really is the issue, the legalistic issue of: Is there an unbroken lineage?
Participant: But the lineage started somewhere. Before it…
Dr. Berzin: The lineages come from the Buddha. The Buddha is the source of the vows.
Participant: Then you start a new lineage.
Dr. Berzin: You can’t start a new lineage of vows.
Participant: Why not?
Dr. Berzin: His Holiness said this very clearly. When it comes to Vinaya — that was set by Buddha; therefore, you have to follow Buddha’s rules for how to amend it. That’s just the way that it is.
Participant: I’m taking it practically, from the point of benefiting the mind.
Dr. Berzin: They do. For instance, the point of benefiting the mind. I mean, let’s not quibble about this. We can go on and on, and there are conferences that go on for weeks and for years that never decide this. But there are different lineages of the vows, and the different lineages of the vows have slightly different enumerations of the vows. The Mulasarvastivada (Skt. Mūlasarvāstivāda) is the Tibetan one, that they follow. The Dharmaguptaka, which is an unbroken lineage, is what the Chinese follow. Those who follow Tibetan lineage have taken the bhikshuni vows of the Dharmaguptaka, and so they are bhikshunis but they’re Dharmaguptaka bhikshunis. Are they then keeping the Dharmaguptaka vows or are they keeping the Mulasarvastivadin vows? Do they wear Chinese robes, or do they wear Tibetan robes? Can they participate in the Dharmaguptaka pratimoksha ceremony? Yes. Can they do the Mulasarvastivadin one? That’s questionable because they don’t have the lineage. These are the legalistic issues that are involved.
From the Western point of view, all the Western scholars who were there, and many of the East Asian and Southeast Asian abbots and abbesses — basically their opinion was “So what?” That is not the opinion of the very, very conservative Tibetan abbots and... well, primarily abbots. These are the people that you have to get on board in order to change it within the Gelugpa — not just Gelugpa but within the Tibetan structure. Therefore, do not minimize the political difficulty of it and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s responsibility for this. He will not take a unilateral decision, full stop, even though he’s totally in favor of it.
Participant: You’re only referring now to the monastic vows?
Dr. Berzin: I was only referring to the monastic vows.
Participant: Then my next question is to continue on her first thought about what if somebody is a woman and is in the middle of nowhere, so she doesn’t have access to Dharma teachings or to somebody to take, for example, the tantric or bodhisattva vows from. If she is living by these vows, I’m assuming it’s better to live by them and have some effect on your spiritual development than to sort of half not live by them and wait until you can find somebody that you can take proper vows with.
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying: If someone… You specified a woman. Doesn’t have to be a woman. It could be a man as well. This is not gender-specific for bodhisattva and tantric vows, not at all gender-specific. That if you are in a situation in which there’s no opportunity to take these vows, wouldn’t it be beneficial to keep them anyway?
First of all, bodhisattva vows are vows that you can take by yourself. There are two methods for doing that: one is with a master, and one is just visualizing the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. That’s not a problem.
Then the question is the tantric vows. Tantric vows have to be taken at an empowerment, at an initiation. Is it beneficial to keep them without having an empowerment? Sure. Is it beneficial to recite a tantric practice and try to do a tantric practice without the empowerment? That’s not really recommended, basically because they say that you won’t get anywhere with it. Particularly if you try to do it without renunciation, bodhichitta, and voidness, then you’re going to get into deep psychological problems with the things. They’re dangerous. That’s why they were kept confidential, kept private.
But is there any harm in meditating on voidness six times a day? Certainly not, if you’re familiar with voidness. If you meditate that “Nothing exists, and I don’t exist, then there’s nothing,” six times a day, that will be very detrimental. It has to be a correct understanding of voidness.
If one follows the theory, you’re supposed to be very well prepared by the time you take an empowerment and not just somebody off the street coming in and taking it. That’s why there’s a big difference between being there and just witnessing it as an anthropological event or actually doing it. The difference is — for one aspect of it — is consciously taking the vows on the basis of knowing them.
Participant: Many people do come off the street and take vows.
Dr. Berzin: Many people do come off the street and take the vows, and most of them don’t keep them. I mean, this is the first reason there — because they don’t know them. Secondly, they don’t care. They don’t consider it important. They don’t take it seriously. These are the reasons that are listed. Let’s go on with some more. Otherwise, we’ve only covered two reasons. We haven’t gotten very far in our discussion.
Being Overwhelmed by Disturbing Emotions
The next one is, a cause for us to transgress our vows, is being overwhelmed by disturbing emotions. What could that possibly mean?
Participant: Attachment, aversion, and ignorance.
Dr. Berzin: Attachment, aversion, naivety — ignorance. But where is the borderline of being overpowered or overwhelmed by them?
Participant: When one doesn’t stay like a block of wood.
Dr. Berzin: When you can’t stay like a block of wood. I mean, I can think of situations in which… You are in Iraq, and the soldiers come in and, for no reason at all, shoot and kill your wife and children. You might lose your cool and get very angry and try to do things that would transgress your vows. That’s a situation, an extreme situation, of being overwhelmed by disturbing emotion, isn’t it? But as my sister would criticize me, I’m always giving extreme examples.
I don’t know. This one is a difficult one, because one could rationalize… I mean, this doesn’t excuse breaking the vow. This is just saying why you would transgress it. You got really, really angry, and you just blew it, you forgot it. Or you got so attached, you fell overboard in love with somebody, that you no longer were in your senses. This type of thing. Which happens to many people, and they act very foolishly. As in “I promised to do this practice every day, but here’s my lover and I don’t want to say, ‘Hold on while I go do my daily practice.’” Is that being overwhelmed by attachment and desire? Can you use it as an excuse? No, certainly not. But it would be a reason for transgressing the vow, why you might transgress a vow. I think that’s a common occurrence actually. And then you’re so tired you fall asleep. Which is the reason before, that then you don’t care. These are things to watch out for, obviously.
Lack of Respect
Then the next one is lack of respect — that you don’t have enough respect for the vows, or respect for the teacher, or respect for yourself, or respect for the tantra method in general — that you would break the vow.
Forgetfulness
Then the next one is forgetfulness. “Ooh, I forgot!” That happens, doesn’t it? There is the close-bonding practice of making the tsog offering twice a month, on the 10th and 25th of the Tibetan lunar month, if you’ve received an empowerment of either Chakrasamvara (Skt. Cakrasaṃvara) or Vajrayogini (Skt. Vajrayoginī). I think it’s also with Hevajra; I’m not sure. But at least with those two you have that vow (not vow, but a close-boding practice). It’s very easy to forget unless you really mark it on your calendar and look at your calendar every day to make sure. What about if you don’t know the lunar calendar? Then Serkong Rinpoche said, “Doesn’t the Western calendar have a 10th and 25th of the month?” indicating that “Let’s forget about being astrologically superstitious here. It’s just a matter of doing it twice a month.” (He’s quite amazing in his flexibility actually.) And we try very much to not forget.
Participant: This vow with the two tsogs — is this common in all schools?
Dr. Berzin: Is this vow with the two tsogs common in all schools? I don’t really know. I would guess that it is. I don’t know if it’s the case with Guru Rinpoche, certain Guru Rinpoche initiations and Yeshe Tsogyal initiations. I mean, they do a lot of tsog. I don’t know if that’s a close-bonding practice that they promise to do. I really don’t know. I’m sorry.
Participant: A friend of mine took Vajrayogini in the Sakya tradition, and I asked him, “Do you do bimonthly tsogs?” He said the lama didn’t tell him anything about it.
Dr. Berzin: This is the fault… Just because the lama didn’t… Well, in the Sakya tradition they receive Vajrayogini, and he asked does his friend do this bimonthly tsog offering, and the guy said that he didn’t know about it and the lama didn’t say anything. That doesn’t prove that there isn’t that custom.
Participant: It’s the fault of the lama, in a way.
Dr. Berzin: It’s the fault of the lama. That’s what I said before. In the Sakya tradition… I mean, the real tradition is you can’t give Vajrayogini to more than twenty-five people at a time. If they’re following that type of procedure, I would hope that they would follow other procedures as well. Maybe it’s not there. I don’t know.
The Gelugpa tradition, Gelug tradition, tends to follow tradition and discipline and so on much more strongly than the others. This was one of Tsongkhapa’s big things that he said that the others at his time were not following the procedures purely.
I don’t know. One needs to ask. If one is really, really interested, one would ask. But it’s certainly there in the Gelug tradition. Now whether every Gelug lama explains that when they give this or not, I don’t know. Mine certainly did.
Participant: Kagyu?
Dr. Berzin: Kagyu? I don’t know. I’ve not received Vajrayogini initiations from any other lineage except Gelug, so I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. There’s no such thing as Kagyu either. There’s Karma Kagyu, there’s Drugpa Kagyu, there’s Drigung Kagyu, Shangpa Kagyu. They tend to be quite different, quite individual.
Anyway, those are the causes.
Weak Mindfulness
The last one was weak mindfulness. You don’t hold on to the thing very strongly. Mindfulness, remember, is the mental glue. So, you don’t really hold on to it.
With this tsog, for instance, that if one has made that promise, then you really have to have a calendar and mark on your calendar in a prominent way what are the tsog days and make it your business to find out when they are if you can, if you’re serious about it, and then do it. What happens if you don’t have a little piece of meat and a little piece of alcohol? Serkong Rinpoche said, “Use anything. Transform it.” He said there’s no excuse. Be inventive but do it. OK. Obviously if you can do it properly, do it properly.
Those are the reasons for transgressing them.
The Four Binding Factors
According to the explanations of these texts by two Gelug masters, Kaydrub Norzang-gyatso and Tsongkhapa, except for the fifth root tantric vow (giving up bodhichitta), a downfall from the tantric vows — so this is when you lose them, no longer have them — requires transgressing one of the fourteen root vows with the four binding factors being complete. We had these binding factors with the bodhisattva vows. At least in the Gelug tradition, they explain that they apply as well with the tantric vows.
Just because we don’t find that said explicitly in commentaries from the other traditions, does that mean that they don’t also honor this? No, it doesn’t mean that. What I said before: just because they haven’t stated something explicitly, doesn’t mean that they reject it… part of their intention. This one has to be careful about.
These factors have to be held and maintained — this is interesting — they have to be held and maintained from the moment immediately after developing the motivation to break the vow, up until the moment right after completing the act of transgression. Like one of them is not regarding it as detrimental, seeing nothing wrong in it. That you have to have from when you first develop the drive that I’m going to break it, all the way up until you have finished breaking it, transgressing it.
“I’m not going to meditate on voidness today. To hell with it.” From when you decide that until the end of the day, you maintain that; you don’t change your mind in the middle.
Participant: You’re proud of it.
Dr. Berzin: “I am proud of it. I feel I did the right thing.” Maybe that’s not so frequent with not meditating on voidness. But, for instance, really having very negative thoughts about the teacher and putting the teacher down, saying the teacher’s an idiot and doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and despising the teacher, and so on — that could go on for a while.
These four come from the Bodhisattvabhumi (Byang-chub sems-dpa’i sa) by Asanga (Skt. Asaṅga), The Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattva Stages of Mind), the ethical self-discipline chapter. In that, these four are:
- Not regarding the negative action as detrimental, seeing only advantages to it, and undertaking it with no regrets. Obviously, they don’t talk about guilt here, but we could add our Western concept of guilt probably, as an emotion that most of us would feel. You don’t feel guilty about it, there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s great to break it, and I have no regrets about it.
- The second one is having been in the habit of committing the transgression before (so we’re already in the habit of doing that), having no wish or intention to refrain now or in the future from repeating it. “I’m going to continue doing this. This vow is really stupid. I’m not going to keep the vow in the future.”
- Then the third one is delighting in the negative action and undertaking it with joy. “I’m really happy that I gave this up. This was such a drag.”
- Then the fourth one is having no moral self-dignity or care for how our actions reflect on others and thus having no intention of repairing the damage we are doing to ourselves and to them.
You have to really have all of these and maintain them in order to lose these tantric vows, the same as with the bodhisattva vows. Here that is the case except for giving up bodhichitta. That’s giving up the wishing state: “I no longer wish to become a Buddha,” this type of thing.
If all four are present — this is an interesting one, then we get into the legalistic discussion — if all four are present, this is a great or major downfall (kun-dkris chen-po) it’s called.
If not regarding the negative action as detrimental is present, but not all of the other three factors, then it’s an intermediate downfall (kun-dkris ’bring). That you have to think about in order to understand that. Not regarding the negative action as detrimental is present — “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it” — but not all the other three factors are there. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but I’m not really happy about doing it.” “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but just this one time I’m too busy or I can’t be bothered.” Or “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but I’ll try to make it up, just to be on the safe side.” These sorts of situations. That’s an intermediate downfall.
Then the third one is: if not regarding the negative action as detrimental is not present, but any or all of the others are present, then it’s a small downfall (kun-dkris chung-ngu). We get our lawyer training out here. What that means is that you feel that it’s detrimental. “I know it’s detrimental, I know it’s wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway.” “I care about how my actions reflect on others. I feel badly about it,” but do it anyway. That would be a small downfall.
If it’s the major downfall then you actually lose the vows.
Now, with regard to the eight thick actions (sbom-po, heavy actions), the secondary tantric vows, it’s not a downfall even if all of them are present. One doesn’t lose the tantric vows. That was the same case with the bodhisattva vows. These only refer to the root vows. Even if they’re present… I mean, what’s happening here is that you’re weakening them. You’re not actually losing them if all of these aren’t complete; you’re weakening it. Obviously if you: “I know it’s wrong, but I’m going to break it anyway” — well, you weaken it, because you start to make exceptions, so the strength of that restraint weakens.
Factors Needed for the Karmic Results to Be the Fullest
Then in addition, as with the ten destructive actions and the bodhisattva vows, for the karmic pathway to be complete, there must be present all these factors, like in our big discussion of karma:
- An object against whom or which the action is directed. Like if you think that your guru is an idiot and put him or her down then that would be the object.
- An actual action committed.
- The action has to reach its finale.
In another explanation it says that:
- The person who commits the action must be a holder of un-transgressed vows. So to lose the vows or weaken them you have to have the vows.
- There has to be a correct discernment of the object against whom or which the action is directed (it’s this guru and not that guru).
- And you have to have an attitude containing these four binding factors.
All these things need to be complete. If any of them are not complete then, again, it is weakened.
“I don’t remember who it was that actually I took initiation from. I think I took it from this person,” but we didn’t, and then you put down that person. Your recognition of who it was is incorrect. These sorts of things can happen.
The Seven Conjoining Factors
Then we find in a text by a Drigung Kagyu master, Kunkhyen Rigdzin-chodrag, a list of seven conjoining factors that must be complete for a downfall from the tantric vows to occur. This is very interesting. (You have a very similar list explained by Jamgon Kongtrul in his encyclopedia.) Here these seven conjoining factors are for losing them, to lose the vows.
- First of all, being motivated by one of the three disturbing emotions. That has to be there. Attachment, anger, or naivety.
- The second one is... In the text it’s just called “knowing that to be that,” a wonderful Tibetan way of expressing things. Knowing that to be that. Then you need a commentary to know what that means. What it means… There are two commentaries that I have seen on that. One is knowing the action to be a fault, knowing that to be that. You have to know that it was a fault, as in the four binding factors. Or it could refer to correctly discerning the basis — knowing that that is the guru to be the one that’s the basis of your thing — as in the four factors for the karmic pathway to be complete. So there’s two ways to understanding that.
- Then the next one is not restraining the actions of one’s body or speech. You actually do it. You’re not restraining yourself.
- Then the fourth one is very difficult to understand. I won’t go into all the linguistic problems here, but literally it’s “being parted from damaging.” What it refers to is that, in general, if you apply the opponents to transgressing a vow within three hours of transgressing them… In other words, you’ve broken the vow, but you realize that I did this, and within three hours I regret it, and then we do… and then there’s a whole long list (and it differs with every author) of: recite a whole bunch of mantras, or some sort of recitation of something, or whatever. If you let more than three hours pass without applying the opponents, then that’s this factor. The way that it’s formulated here is “being parted from damaging.” Damaging refers to damaging the infraction. You damage or prevent the infraction, the breaking of the vow, from being complete and you are parted from that. It’s linguistically a nightmare the way that it is phrased here, but if we untangle it, that’s what it’s referring to here. If you let more than three hours pass without making it up, without trying to repair it. This is a very good thing to know, that if within three hours you realize “Oh, I didn’t do it,” I didn’t follow a certain practice or whatever, then… Like on the spur of the moment, you get really, really angry with your teacher, or something like that, but then you calm down. You have that three-hour leeway.
- Then the fifth one is having known the action to be faulty, not regretting it. “I knew that it was a fault, but I don’t regret having done it.” That needs to be there to lose the vows.
- Then the sixth one is rejoicing in it.
- The seventh one is not being deceived in one’s nature. The commentaries explain that as not being of unsound mind or deranged when committing the action. That ties in with this one of not being overwhelmed by disturbing emotions, something like that. You went crazy. You went berserk. Something like that.
Participant: I don’t get the point of what these seven points are about.
Dr. Berzin: These seven points according to this Drigung commentary — and Jamgon Kongtrul, this Rimey master, also repeats this list — it comes from a tantra text. I don’t have that listed here. [Vajra Garland: Points in Which to Train with Regard to the Vows of Peerless Tantra (Bla-med rdo-rje theg-pa’i sdom-pa’i bslab-bya rdo-rje’i phreng-ba)] That these have to be complete for a downfall.
In the Gelugpa formulation they talk about the four binding factors needing to be complete. And here in this Kagyu formulation they talk about these seven needing to be complete. They’re basically drawing from two different scriptural sources, which is often the case, actually, when we find different explanations in different Tibetan traditions. They’re just taking it from different texts. Which doesn’t mean that just because I take my explanation from this text by Buddha, I think that this other text by Buddha is nonsense. It certainly doesn’t mean that. That would be an example of abandoning the Dharma, choosing and picking what you like.
Participant: But if I’m in one tradition, do I just follow these four factors?
Dr. Berzin: This is an interesting question. If I am in one tradition, then does the stipulation from another tradition not count? They’re all based on Buddha’s texts and Buddha’s words, so the more we know, the better. The more, the better. I mean, it’s not talking about rules; it’s talking about what on the basis of experience will weaken the force of your vows or cause them to really be gone from your mental continuum (you have to take them again). I mean, even if you’ve weakened them. That’s why you take them over and over again, to restrengthen them, to purify them.
Participant: Yes. But for example, in this other one, you have to do the purification within three hours and things like this. If one didn’t know this, that one could do this — if one had taken initiation with a different tradition — then does this still count?
Dr. Berzin: This is an interesting one. I’ve never seen them explained in the Gelug tradition. I didn’t even know about them until somebody was translating this text, this Drigung Kagyu text, and asked me, “What does this mean?” — and then I looked up in various commentaries and found out what it meant — this thing that’s formulated with two or three negatives in it. So now I know about it. I never knew about this thing of: within three [hours], if you purify it, it’s cool (not that it’s cool — it’s still weak, but you don’t lose the vows).
I didn’t know about that before. I didn’t know about it before, so I didn’t have that possibility. If I followed only the explanation that I had heard, about the four binding factors — included within the four binding factors would be that I didn’t do anything about it: “I don’t care.”
Participant: Yes, but in one case you lose the vow completely. And in the other case…
Dr. Berzin: No. In one case, you lose them completely. In the other case — I didn’t even know that I could repair them, so why would I repair them? But the thing is that I don’t think that one has to be overly legalistic about this, my own personal thing. “Oh, it’s three hours and five minutes. I messed up.” “I blew it,” as we’d say in English. You go instantly to Vajra Hell. I would not take that fundamentalist point of view, personally.
Participant: But you have to retake the vow.
Dr. Berzin: You retake the vows. You retake the vows anyway. You’d probably retake them anyway. When I read something like this, I find it very helpful as a piece of advice — I don’t look at it as a law book, personally — as a piece of advice, that if I break the vow and I’m aware of it, then the sooner I try to apply the opponent forces of regret and do something positive to counter it, which could be a couple hundred of the mantra, or whatever it may be… I mean, there’s so many different lists of what you could do. But that’s good. And that I should try to do it as soon as possible. Don’t leave it till the next day.
There are a lot of people that have a daily practice that they do before they go to sleep. (Personally, I always thought that that was, at least not for me… The daily practice that I do before I go to sleep is quite short. I do almost everything in the early morning when I get up. Then I make sure that I get up early enough to do it, regardless of how early I have to get up.) And so... but you fall asleep. Let’s say that here I have a half-hour practice, or an hour practice, and “I’m just too tired. I’m exhausted,” and you fall asleep. You roll over in the night, you’re vaguely awake, and somehow in your semiconscious state you go, “Oh my god, I forgot to do it. I fell asleep.” You had this intention to do it. What is this indicating? It’s indicating don’t just say, “I’ll do it in the morning,” and roll over and go back to sleep. You get up and you do it.
That’s the type of advice that I read out of this. Don’t put it off. As soon as you remember that you didn’t do it, that you broke it, make it up [i.e. make up for it]. Don’t waste time. Death could come at any time if you want to apply that axiom.
“I forgot to do tsog.” That happened to me once. I forgot to do tsog. I just forgot. I didn’t look at the calendar, and I forgot. It was the next day. As soon as I remembered that, I said, “Oh. How in the world could I have forgotten?” I’d never done that before. Immediately then I did it, did the tsog, right there, right then.
This is how I understand it. Let’s not do “It’s five minutes after three hours.” But I’m sure there are some legalist fundamentalists who take it like that.
What can I say? What I can say is that our time is up. Maybe we leave it here. There’s a few more stipulations that are involved here with the seven, a little bit further legalistic things, but let’s leave these details for next time, OK, then we’ll go on. And then I want to explain next: there are procedures for restoring the vows. These are things we should know. Then what we need to cover here is what an empowerment is (what initiation is) and why it’s important, and why it is crucial to actually receive one, that one not just start a tantric practice without the proper empowerment. OK? Good.
Let’s end, then, with the dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper — so we pay attention to what are the possible causes for breaking the vows, what are the factors that would be there to lose them completely, so that I just weaken them rather than lose them, to be aware (we watch our behavior, watch what we do) — may this go deeper and deeper and form a deeper and deeper habit that acts as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.