Getting Settled before Meditating
Before we begin to meditate, regardless of what the topic may be, it’s very good, first, to quiet down and, then, to set the motivation, offer prostration, and sit down. But even after we’ve sat down, we might still need to get a bit more settled. For that, there are several options, which depend on how advanced we are with meditation.
One way is just to focus on the breath. That helps us to get grounded, particularly if we have a lot of extraneous thoughts going through our minds. Focusing on our lower abdomen as we breathe in and out is very good to do if we have a lot of mental wandering. Focusing lower down in the body tends to bring the energies down a bit. On the other hand, if we are a bit dull or sleepy, then focusing on the breath coming in and going out of the nose is a little bit better. Focusing higher in the body brings the airs a little bit higher.
Another way, which we can use if we are quite advanced in our meditation, is to do something like a mahamudra meditation in which we just focus on the mind itself – namely, focusing on the appearance-making and cognizing aspects of each moment of experience.
Why don’t we do this for a few minutes as a way to get ready for our meditations. The important thing, of course, is not to space out when focusing on the mind itself – though we can also space out focusing on the breath. In any case, try to stay alert.
When focusing on the breath, the eyes are loosely focused and looking downwards. When focusing on the nature of the mind, the eyes are more tightly focused and looking straight ahead. We can also do a combination: first, focusing on the breath and, then, when we’ve quieted down sufficiently, focusing on the mind.
[meditation]
We’ve been speaking about the precious human rebirth, recognizing and appreciating the fact that we are free of eight situations in which we would have no leisure to practice the Dharma. We have a temporary respite from them. What we also need to realize is that we’ve built up the causes for losing our precious rebirths. Therefore, what we eventually need to do is to develop a level of appreciation that would motivate us to take best advantage of the brief respites that we have.
Today, we’ll begin our discussion of the second set of situations, which are the ten enriching situations that enable Dharma practice. So there are situations that we are temporarily free of that prevent Dharma practice, and there are situations that we are temporarily endowed with that enable Dharma practice – “temporarily” because we have also built up the causes for losing them. Remember, part of the sufferings of samsara is not getting the things that we want and losing the things that we have.
Beginningless Mind, Beginningless Rebirths
Participant: In order to really appreciate that we have a temporary respite from worse states of rebirth, we have to think about the beginningless and endless nature of mind. If we have no idea that mind has existed since beginningless time, it makes no sense to talk about feeling relieved that we are not experiencing these states now.
Dr. Berzin: Well, this raises a very important point that is usually left out in the lam-rim.
One of the things that is assumed in Buddhism is rebirth – beginningless rebirths, given that mind is beginningless and endless. There are, of course, many logical reasons for believing in the beginningless and endless nature mind, but I don’t think that this is the proper time to go into that. That would take at least a whole class to discuss. But, certainly, we would only be able to appreciate being free of those situations – particularly the worst non-human situations – if we were thinking in terms of having had those types of rebirths in previous lives.
Also, if we are thinking in terms of beginningless time, beginningless rebirths, we’d have to say that – since unawareness, or ignorance, is dominant, and since our disturbing emotions and destructive behavior are based on that unawareness – most of the time, we’ve been in lower rebirths as trapped beings in a joyless realm, clutching ghosts, or creeping creatures.
So, you’re right. This is the assumption here. That’s why I sometimes suggest doing a Dharma-lite version of this. The Real Thing Dharma version is to think in terms of previous lives. The Dharma-lite version is to think of analogous situations in this lifetime. Although we may never have actually experienced such situations in this lifetime, we could. And certainly, there are other beings who have. And when we are thinking of other beings experiencing these types of sufferings – whether we’re thinking of the beings in these other realms or humans experiencing analogous situations – we can combine the meditation with feeling compassion for them. If we want to do that in a Mahayana way, we can also think how wonderful it would be to free them from that suffering and to provide them with these enriching factors.
There are many ways of doing this meditation. We can combine it with other aspects of the practice. This is why Trijang Rinpoche said, “I’ve gone through and studied the lam-rim a hundred times, and each time it’s like reading a different text.” Well, what does that mean? One of the things that it means is that the more familiar we become with all the different aspects, the more we’re able to see how they network together. I’m very fond of this networking image. All the different teachings connect with and relate to each other. And the more that we can see those interconnections and can put all the different aspects together in different ways, the deeper our insights will be. It’s said that if in one word of the Dharma we can see all the Dharma teachings, we’ve really gotten high realization. So, if we can connect each aspect to every other aspect of the teachings, then we’ve really gotten far in our lam-rim practice.
The Ten Enriching Situations That Enable Dharma Practice
The ten enriching situations that enable Dharma practice, sometimes called the ten “endowments,” are five personal situations and five social situations.
The Five Personal Situations
The personal situations are:
- Being a human
- Being born a central Buddhist region
- Having complete faculties
- Not continuing to experience the repercussions of having committed the most extreme destructive actions
- Having instinctive belief in what is true
Let’s go through these one by one.
Being a Human
What does it mean to be reborn as a human? What special characteristics or distinctive features do we as humans have?
Participant: Discriminating awareness.
Dr. Berzin: Well, highly developed discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness is a mental factor that all beings have. It’s just that it may or may not be correct and may or may not be highly developed.
Discriminating awareness is defined as the mental factor that adds the factor of certainty to distinguishing. Distinguishing is the mental factor with which we are able to discern a characteristic feature of something and differentiate that feature from other things. That can function on a very primitive level, for example, distinguishing light from dark, hungry from not hungry, soft from hard. Discriminating awareness just adds certainty to that.
Humans have highly developed discriminating awareness. We are able to discriminate between what’s helpful and what’s harmful, what’s beneficial and what’s not beneficial. That requires a higher level of ability than discriminating between what presents a danger to our lives and what doesn’t – things dealing with self-preservation.
We also can exercise more self-control because we can develop it based on that discriminating awareness. Animals can develop tremendous self-control. For example, a dog can be trained not to eat something until you say, “Eat” – which we might say is just based on reward and punishment. However, humans can exercise that self-control based on understanding what’s beneficial and what’s harmful.
Discriminating awareness is one of the most significant characteristics differentiating humans from other beings.
Is there anything else?
Participant: Compassion.
Dr. Berzin: Well, most animals have motherly love. A mother bird will take great care of its baby chicks. Have you seen the movie The March of the Penguins? It’s unbelievable what they’ll do for their young.
Participant: Yeah, but that might just be instinct.
Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s an interesting point. From a Nyingma point of view, compassion is one of the general characteristics of mind. They define compassion, though, as energy going out. It’s related to the appearance-making and Sambhogakaya aspect of the mind. They use the same word for that appearance-making as they do for the word that’s usually translated as “compassion.”
In a sense, we humans have instinctive compassion as well – for example, the maternal instinct. But one could say it’s more highly developed.
Is there anything else?
Participant: We are able to remember complex things for a long time.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Lab mice, though, can learn to go through very complicated mazes.
Participant: We’re able to think more abstractly.
Dr. Berzin: That’s true.
Participant: We have memory.
Dr. Berzin: Animals do as well. However, we’re able to remember much more.
I think what we’re learning from this is that, when it comes to the basic mental features, we’re not that different from other life forms. That can help us to understand beginningless rebirth – to see that the mental continuum can manifest in any of these forms. It’s just that in our case, being human, many of the mental factors are more highly developed and we are able to use them in more ways. I think this is the point. We’re able to develop them more, and we’re able to use them in more ways.
Participant: Also, we can think about ourselves. We can reflect on the mind itself. We can think philosophically.
Dr. Berzin: That goes with abstract thinking: we can think about the meaning of life and things like that.
Also, we can communicate on a much more sophisticated level. Animals also communicate with each other – for example, bees do a dance to indicate where things are; however, we’re able to communicate and to think in much more complex ways.
As I say, I think it’s helpful to relate the fact of beginningless mind to all the different life forms. We are special, but not that special. We’re not totally different from all other life forms. It’s just that we have an opportunity now, because of our human rebirths, to develop these mental factors far more – which relates to having the leisure and opportunity to practice Dharma. Our Dharma practice can help us to develop these basic mental factors even more.
Participant: What I find to be a key difference between us and other forms of life is that we have a balance between pain and pleasure or between being in a situation in which we have no time to do anything but work and one in which we have nothing to do but be entertained and distracted. We have a balance of these things. Sometimes life reminds us, because of the suffering we do have, that we should do something about ourselves. But at the same time, we have enough time and ability to do it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. As humans, we have neither the extreme gross suffering of the worst rebirth states nor the extreme pleasure and leisure of the so-called higher rebirth states, those of the gods. We don’t experience either of those two extremes. The combination of suffering and pleasure is, as you say, just right.
Participant: Many humans have an urge to develop themselves spiritually.
Dr. Berzin: That will be covered in some of the other endowments – for example, having an instinctive belief in what is true. Broadly speaking, that could refer to having an interest in developing ourselves, searching for truth, and this type of thing. But let’s stick with the advantages of being human.
Participant: But, as far as we know, animals don’t have that urge.
Dr. Berzin: Well, this, again, gets into abstract thinking. Thinking about what is true and what is false is fairly abstract; so, we have concepts that animals wouldn’t have.
All life forms have conceptual thinking. The cow has a concept of its barn, the dog of its owner. A concept (rtog-pa) is a general term for a category within which one thinks of the items that would fit into that category. We have more abstract categories: “truth,” “justice,” etc.
Participant: It’s helpful for me to think about how I have the ability to change. That’s quite difficult to do in other realms or in other states.
Dr. Berzin: Right. We have the ability to change, to improve ourselves.
Participant: We’re not just driven by animal instincts.
Dr. Berzin: There are some animals that, without having been taught, have learned to make tools. Monkeys and crows, for instance, have been shown to be able to do that. But we have a more highly developed ability.
Participant: We can achieve enlightenment.
Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s taking the advantages of being human to the fullest extent.
Let’s meditate now on the fact that we are endowed with a human life, reflect on what it means to be human, and develop an appreciation of that. In a sense, we combine this with the mental factor of rejoicing – which doesn’t mean to just sit back and enjoy it. What this meditation is leading to is take advantage of our precious human lives – so, having a strong sense of appreciation, valuing what we have.
Again, we do this meditation in stages. There’s the discerning stage in which we think about all these various features; we discern them within ourselves. Then, there’s the stabilizing stage in which we let all that sink in and just stay with the feeling, along with the appreciation, that “yes, I have this human rebirth.”
[meditation]
Do you have anything to share or any questions about that?
Participant: I was just thinking about how we, as humans, can make art and how precious it is to be able to do that.
Dr. Berzin: What’s the value of that?
Participant: You can bring more beauty to the world.
Dr. Berzin: Why would you want to do that?
Participant: To bring pleasure to other people.
Dr. Berzin: Beauty is a subjective thing, of course. But through art, we can communicate the Dharma teachings to others. There are many ways of communicating the Dharma. One is through words, one is through art, another through dance – there are many ways. So, we have a wider range of means with which to communicate it.
Participant: What came to my mind was that, as a human, one is in a position to jump out of the samsaric cycle. In many other situations, one has no such ability.
Dr. Berzin: This, of course, has to do with the opportunities that we have to practice Dharma. Practicing Dharma is how we can take best advantage of our precious human rebirths. Being born as a human merely refers to the life form we’ve taken. The circumstances of a human life can, of course, vary very much. There are many, many humans, and many humans don’t have fully endowed rebirths. Various other factors – which we’ll be discussing – are necessary for us not only to have fully endowed human rebirths but also to be able to gain liberation.
Also, if we wanted to do these meditations on a more advanced level, we would focus on the voidness of the mental continuum that has these respites and enrichments, because it’s quite easy to emphasize me in this whole thing – “I am a human being.” We would recognize that both the respites and enrichments have arisen dependently on various causes and conditions and also that, with changing causes and conditions, they will be lost. Some of the causes and conditions are external to us, but a lot of them are internal. Here, we’re talking about the internal ones, which are based on our own karma. When we get to the next list, the five social enriching situations, we’ll talk about the external causes and conditions – although some of the factors in both lists might be similar.
Participant: I really had problems engaging emotionally with the features that we’ve been listing here. You said that compassion and other mental factors and instincts don’t quite count because every other being has these features too. So, what’s the difference between an animal and me? It’s just that I have highly developed discriminating awareness, self-control, and a balance of pleasure and pain. So, why would I want be a human? What’s the point?
Dr. Berzin: Well, no. I think that you perhaps didn’t understand me correctly. It wasn’t that compassion and interest in spiritual things don’t count. What I said was that we can develop all these basic features far more. Animals have compassion, at least for their young, and maybe also have concern, if they are pack animals, for others in their pack or herd. However, we can develop those qualities much more. And we can do that not just based on instinct but also on logic and reason – that everybody wants to be happy, nobody wants to be unhappy, we’re all equal, and so on.
And spiritual aims? The urge to improve oneself could, I think, come under the category of self-preservation if that urge is mixed with a totally self-centered attitude. But then that urge can also be motivated by something deeper – as when pursuing the spiritual path. The point is that we have taken rebirth in a form that, potentially at least, provides us with quite highly developed good qualities and also the ability to develop them further.
The mental continuum can include both negative and positive aspects. We’re focusing on how we have a minimal amount, relatively speaking, of the negative aspects. So, even if we have a tremendous amount of desire, anger, and so on, compared to the ghosts, the hell creatures, etc., we have a relatively small proportion of those negative qualities. We also have a greater proportion of good qualities.
Understanding that the mental continuum includes both negative and positive aspects in both humans and animals helps us to understand beginningless rebirth. In all previous lives, we have also had both positive and negative qualities; it is simply a matter of differing strengths in each lifetime.
Being Born in a Central Buddhist Region
The next one is birth in a central Buddhist region. A central Buddhist region can be defined geographically – meaning India, basically, at the time of the Buddha and the great Indian masters when the Buddhist teachings were available there. Or it can be defined religiously – meaning a place where there are at least four people following the Buddhist path: a full monk, a full nun, a layman following the five vows, and a laywoman following the five vows. There need to be these four for an area to be a religiously defined central region. There are big discussions about the fact that there aren’t fully ordained nuns in the Tibetan tradition anymore and, therefore, that we no longer have a religiously defined central Buddhist region. Let’s not get into that debate.
In any case, we’re talking here about having had the throwing karma for our mental continuums to be propelled into this type of rebirth and into this type of place. What’s the significance of having the place where we are born geographically and/or religiously defined?
Participant: Otherwise, we could not relate to the teachings.
Dr. Berzin: Would it be sufficient if the teachings were available only in books or on the Internet?
Participant: You need a live connection.
Dr. Berzin: Do you have to actually meet a monk or a nun?
Participant: You do for inspiration.
Dr. Berzin: For inspiration? Perhaps. How strictly does that monk or nun need to be following the Buddhist path and the vows? There are a lot of people who wear robes who aren’t terribly good examples of monastics.
It’s an interesting question. Here, we’re just talking about being born in that type of situation, where there’s the possibility to meet with the Buddhist teachings and teachers. I think this is what we’re talking about here: possibilities.
Participant: Could it also be about the opportunity to become ordained or to become a lay follower?
Dr. Berzin: That’s very good. That also is quite significant. We have the opportunity, then, to become fully ordained or to take the lay vows. We’ve been born in a land where that opportunity is available. Nowadays, we are able to travel quite easily. In ancient days, when one had to walk or ride an animal, meeting with Buddhist teachers was not so simple.
Participant: I don’t understand the logic of that. For example, if you had been born in East Germany, you wouldn’t have had the opportunity.
Dr. Berzin: Well, we’re not talking about being born. We’re talking about rebirth, our lives as humans. Rebirth doesn’t mean just the moment we’re born: it’s a rebirth state, a rebirth situation. It’s the whole thing, from conception up until death.
Participant: Otherwise, it would mean that those who were born a day before the Buddha and lived to see him wouldn’t have had a precious human life.
Dr. Berzin: That’s right.
Participant: If there were just monks and nuns – so no laypeople – there would be no one to support them. It would be difficult for them to survive, and they would have to leave.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Or they would have to work in order to make their own livelihood. Then they wouldn’t be able to devote themselves fully to the spiritual path. That was exactly what happened in the Chan monasteries in China. Chan, by the way, is the Chinese word that the Japanese pronounce as “Zen.” These Chinese Chan monks had to support themselves to fit in with the Confucian ethic that was prevalent there at the time.
What we need to focus on here is that we’ve been born as humans; we have lives as humans. Not only do we have lives as humans, we have lives as humans in a Buddhist region. OK? So, from our sides, we’ve built up the karma to be thrown into that type of situation this lifetime. We need to appreciate that. We could have been born in different times and places. So let’s focus on this.
I think that what’s also helpful to think about here is, what if there were no monks or nuns? What if there were only those with lay vows? Or the other way around: what if there were only monks and nuns and no laypeople? I think that a fundamental aspect underlying this particular personal situation is that we’ve been born as humans with a connection to Buddhism.
So we can put these things together: I have a respite from being a trapped being in a joyless realm, a desperately clutching ghost, a creeping creature, or a long-lived god; instead, I had the karma to be born as a human. I also wasn’t born as a barbarian in a savage border region or where the Dharma is unavailable. I was born in a place where Buddhism is available, so I have a connection with Buddhism.
[meditation]
Having Complete Faculties
There are, as I said, a lot of humans, and there are also a lot of humans born in a central Buddhist land. So, what distinguishes me even more? Well, I don’t have severe learning disabilities. So, the next feature is that I have complete mental and physical faculties. Nowadays, of course, even if one is blind or deaf, one can still have access to the Dharma. However, it would be more difficult to get, and not as much material is available. In the old days, it would not have been available at all. If we had some kind of intellectual disability such as Down syndrome, we would be completely incapacitated. Instead, we have complete faculties.
Let’s think about that for a moment. It would be nice to get through at least this list of five today.
[meditation]
These things are cumulative: I’m a human; I am a human that was born in or is now living in a central Buddhist region, which is an opportunity not all humans have; not only am I a human in a central Buddhist region, I have complete faculties, which not all humans who are in a central Buddhist region have.
Not Continuing to Experience the Repercussions of Having Committed the Most Extreme Destructive Actions
Now, even among the humans who are in a central Buddhist region and who have complete faculties, there are those who are still experiencing the repercussions of having committed the most extreme destructive actions. The result of committing the most extreme destructive actions is rebirth in the worst states. But it is also possible to continue to experience the consequences – leftovers, as it were – of such actions in a subsequent human rebirth.
For example, we could be born as humans in a central Buddhist place – whether geographically or religiously defined – and have complete senses, but at the same time, we could be impossibly sick all the time. We could also be extremely poor or always lose whatever we have or constantly be robbed. Our relationships could always break up; people could always deceive us, lie to us, or cheat us; we could always meet with abusive teachers who take advantage of us. All these would be the types of repercussions we could experience in a human rebirth.
So, we focus on the fact that we’ve been born without the karma to experience those kinds of repercussions.
[meditation]
Having an Instinctive Belief in What Is True
You will remember that the last of the four human situations of no leisure was instinctively holding a distorted outlook on life, denying what’s true. Here, what we have instead is the enriching factor of having an instinctive belief in what is true.
So we’re free of all of these horrible situations. We’re not hell creatures, ghosts, animals, or gods. We’re humans. We’ve been born in a central place. We’ve not been born as barbarians in a savage border region. Nor have we been born where the Dharma’s unavailable. We are not severely disabled; we have all our faculties. We’re not experiencing terrible repercussions of negative karma, experiencing all sorts of disasters happening to us. In addition to all that, we have instinctive belief in what’s true – here’s where your spiritual aims come in. We are seeking what is true, what is beneficial, whether in the realm of science, philosophy, or spiritual things. It’s in the next set, the social enriching factors, where the context for the instinctive belief in what is true is specifically Buddhist. Here, it is more general. We’re not antagonistic, stubborn, and closed- minded.
So let’s focus on this last one, having an instinctive belief in what’s true.
[meditation]
If we think about it, we really are fortunate to be born as humans in places where Buddhism is available. We’re not born in some remote village in Africa or Alaska far from central Buddhist regions. We’re not severely mentally or emotionally disabled. Nor are we disabled by repercussions of negative karma. We’re also looking for spiritual things and have an instinctive belief in what is true. It is incredible that we have this. That’s very rare.
Participant: Why is freedom from negative karmic aftereffects counted as an enrichment?
Dr. Berzin: I must say, I don’t know. We are endowed with lives that are free of that.
As I say, I relate this endowment to our throwing karma at the time of death in our last rebirths – that we didn’t come out of a terrible rebirth. If our last rebirths had been in one of the worst realms, we’d still be experiencing these repercussions. It’s pretty rare to come out of a terrible rebirth and for the karma to have a connection with Buddhism activated.
Participant: Could one then say that the other enrichments are completing karma?
Dr. Berzin: Yes, all of these, except for being born as a human, are the results of completing karma. There’s throwing karma (‘phen-byed-kyi las) and completing karma (rdzogs-byed-kyi las). The ripening karma and, more specifically, the ripened result (rnam-smin-gyi 'bras-bu) has to do with the actual life form that we take: human, animal, etc. All the other karma is karma that completes the circumstances of that rebirth.