Review
We started with the precious human rebirth, appreciating that it is a temporary respite from the eight states of no leisure to practice and that we have the ten endowments, or enrichments, that allow us to practice and to improve ourselves. We looked at the causes for such a rebirth and saw how difficult and rare it is to obtain. The point is to take advantage of our precious human rebirths. To do that, we need to be mindful of death – death and impermanence. Impermanence is usually included since it is closely related to death. Impermanence, of course, is a much broader topic than that of death. Even our computers are impermanent.
The first part of this meditation practice on death deals with the six shortcomings of not being mindful of death. That will be followed by the six benefits of being mindful of it and, then, the way to be mindful of it – so, the actual meditations on it. Learning about and meditating on the shortcomings, or disadvantages, of not being mindful of it and the advantages of being mindful of it motivates us even more to do the death meditations.
Last time, we discussed the first of the shortcomings of not being mindful of death, which is that we will not be mindful of the preventive measures, or Dharma. I’m translating “Dharma” as a “preventive measure.” It literally means something that “holds one back.” It holds us back from suffering; so, it’s preventive. It’s also a measure, something that we do, not something that we just learn. It’s something that we put into practice and integrate into our lives.
We also talked about how these points and meditations on death assume that we understand and accept, at least on some level, the Buddhist idea of past and future lives. Without that, none of this makes much sense. We could, of course, do a Dharma-lite version, in which case, we wouldn’t be thinking in terms of future lives. We’d simply think how life is short, that time is running out and that we should make the best of it. But, here, in the lam-rim, we’re talking in terms of future lives and how, in future lifetimes, we might not have precious human rebirths again – in which case, we could really be in trouble.
Dharma, then, is defined in terms of future lives. Our intention is to prevent future suffering and to benefit future lives. If our intention is only to benefit this lifetime, the measures we take are not considered Dharma. So, there’s quite a difference between the Dharma-lite version and the Real Thing Dharma.
It’s not that we can’t experience the results of some of the Dharma practices we do in this lifetime. We certainly do experience some improvement in this lifetime, especially when it comes to training in concentration, developing the various far-reaching attitudes, developing more love, becoming less selfish, and these types of things. But, as with all of samsara, things go up and down. So, for example, even though we might think that we’ve made quite a lot of progress in dealing with a certain disturbing emotion, when something happens, some old disturbing emotion that we thought we had really taken care of suddenly pops up again. This is very common, and we shouldn’t be discouraged by that. It’s what happens. That’s particularly so when doing a retreat. That’s the most conducive circumstance for old, unprocessed “baggage,” as we say in English, to come up and slap us in the face. So, we shouldn’t be surprised when that happens. In fact, it’s a very good opportunity, particularly when in retreat, to deal with issues that are unresolved or only partially resolved.
In any case, although the results of the measures we take to lessen our disturbing emotions, to improve our concentration, and so on are ones we can experience in this lifetime, those results are not, strictly speaking, karmic results. Karmic results – such as being wealthy because of having practiced generosity – are not likely to ripen in this lifetime. They might, but they might not. In fact, the karmic results of most actions will only ripen in future lives. So, without thinking in terms of future lives, a lot of the meditations on mindfulness of death fall flat and don’t hold – although one can, as I said, do a Dharma-lite version of these practices. But let’s look at the real thing.
The Six Shortcomings of Not Being Mindful of Death (continued)
(2) Even If We Are Mindful of the Dharma, We Will Not Put It into Practice
As I said, the first shortcoming of not being mindful of death is that we will think only of this life and not be mindful of the preventive measures. The second one is that, even if we are mindful of the preventive measures, we will not put them into practice. Our lack of constant death awareness will cause us to procrastinate about actually adopting them.
By the way, what we saw with the preventive measures to avoid things getting worse in future lives – which has to do with karma and, so, ethical behavior, which will come up later on in this initial scope of the lam-rim – was that the main thing we need to do is to refrain from destructive behavior. Destructive behavior is the main cause for rebirth in one of the worst realms. So, the emphasis is not so much on doing positive things, which, obviously, we also need to do, but on refraining from doing negative things.
When it comes to the positive karma we have already built up, some people might think, for instance, that if we have received a great deal of hospitality during our lives – people have housed us, fed us, given us things, and so on – we have used up some of our positive karma by accepting these things. But whether we’ve used it up or not – who knows how much good karma we have – shouldn’t be the point. It can lead to the misunderstanding that “I don’t want to use it up; so, I’ll avoid any good situation.” That’s a bit absurd, a bit fanatical. A better approach would be to think, “If I want to continue to experience being the object of others’ generosity, then I need to be generous myself. Therefore, I’m going to make up for and balance the kindness that I’ve received by offering that kindness to others. If I’ve been taught by somebody or been taken care of by somebody, I will teach or take care of someone myself.”
Now, here, on the initial scope, when we practice generosity or kindness, we do it to ensure that we have better rebirths. We’re not doing it purely to be kind. That’s pretty selfish, pretty self-oriented, isn’t it? So, if we’re going to practice the initial scope teachings in a Mahayana way, we need to have the two kinds of motivations. “I’m doing this to benefit the others. But in order to be able to continue benefiting others, I need to experience other people being kind to me in my future lives as well so that I can train and have the circumstances to be able to help them.” So, although the initial scope motivation is very much oriented toward ourselves, as Mahayana practitioners – so, here we are bringing in the intermediate scope motivation – we are practicing generosity and so on as a foundation for being better able to help others. OK? That’s a very important point actually.
Procrastination
So the shortcoming here is that even if we are mindful of the preventive measures, we will procrastinate; we will put them off till later. We need to think about that and examine within ourselves how much we procrastinate, what areas we procrastinate in, and why we procrastinate. It’s usually because of laziness. Laziness can be “I don’t feel like it” or…
Participant: “I’m too tired.”
Dr. Berzin: Being tired… or being too busy. Is being too busy a form of laziness?
Participant: Being busy with what?
Participant: Accumulating wealth is said to be one of the biggest forms of laziness.
Dr. Berzin: Trying to accumulate wealth, fame, friends, and all of that will actually come in the next shortcoming.
When we say we’re too busy, are we just making excuses? We might not be too busy to do the things that we consider fun.
Participant: So, it’s not important enough.
Dr. Berzin: That’s the whole thing: it’s not important enough. I’m thinking of the example, “I won’t go to the Dharma class this week because I have a birthday party to go to” – or a music concert or something else – “And because this class is every week, I can miss one.” This is very, very common among Western Dharma students who go to a Dharma center where there’s a regular program. This is a good example of procrastinating – being lazy about Dharma practice because of considering trivial things to be more important than the Dharma.
Participant: What do you do if you have taken the bodhisattva vows, like the one that says that when you’re invited by someone, you should go?
Dr. Berzin: Well, we need to read the exceptions to that vow. What if I’m going to be teaching a class and somebody invites me to a party? There are certain things that take precedence. There are also exceptions, like being very sick or something like that. So, we have to see.
But how are we approaching this? Are we approaching it as a lawyer would, just seeing if we can find valid ways out?
Anyway, let’s reflect on this point for some minutes. Try to recognize the disadvantages of putting things off. Death can come before we are able to take any preventative measures. Or we could get a stroke, be paralyzed, or get Alzheimer’s disease. OK?
[meditation]
I think one of the central issues here is having a daily Dharma practice. Or do we only practice when we feel like it?
[meditation]
I am reminded of a story that is given in the traditional teachings. It’s about a practitioner who would immediately put what he read in the Dharma texts into practice – which is what we really need to do. I don’t remember the actual example that’s used in the story, but let’s say it’s that he read that for a certain type of meditation, one should sit on a certain type of cushion. He then immediately went to get that kind of cushion and sat on it. Then he read further on in the text that if one has a certain type of back pain or something like that, one shouldn’t use that type of cushion; one should use a different type. He had that type of pain, so he immediately threw away the other cushion and got the different type of cushion.
When we learn something in the Dharma, do we immediately put it into practice, or do we put it off? That, I think, is a real issue. Or do we take the approach that many people do, particularly Tibetans, which is that “I’m just planting seeds for future lives,” and leave it at that?
Now, immediately putting what we’ve learned into practice is difficult when we’ve taken many tantric initiations that we’re not at all prepared to put into practice. What do we do then?
The Importance of Maintaining a Daily Dharma Practice
I must say that having been a translator for many initiations, many empowerments – and I will only translate for somebody who is a teacher of mine. I’m not a translator for hire that will translate for just anybody. This is because the bond between with the teacher is so important. Now, regarding the empowerments that I do translate for, the policy that I have come to follow is to do at least one repetition of each mantra from each empowerment every day. Obviously, it would be better to do each one three times or more, but since there are so many, I’m limited to one. But by saying one mantra of each of the deities for whom I have received empowerments, I maintain at least some level of connection and some level of practice.
I think this is an important point: not to procrastinate, thinking, “Well, I just took it for a blessing” – the Western term “blessing” actually means “inspiration” (byin-gyis rlabs) – “so I can think about doing the practice sometime later on.” Taking it as a blessing only can just be an excuse to do no practice at all. We can at least do a minimal thing. That’s better than doing nothing.
I should maybe add that there are certain practices that we might not be ready to do yet – for example, renunciation. Renunciation is primarily renunciation of our disturbing emotions and the behavior that is based on them. This is what we really want to get rid of. Whether we eat ice cream or we don’t eat ice cream is irrelevant. The point is all the disturbing emotions that come up in relation to eating ice cream – our longing desire for the ice cream, our anger when we don’t get it, and so on. Eating ice cream is, in itself, a neutral activity.
Another example is becoming a monk or a nun, which is the ideal situation for practicing Dharma and attaining enlightenment. Though we might not be quite ready for that now, we could have it as an ideal, something that we aspire to achieve in the future. Obviously, it is possible to achieve enlightenment as a layperson, but, eventually, we are going to need to refrain altogether from sexual behavior since sexual behavior is very difficult to engage in without some sort of desire.
The whole idea of overcoming biological drives and so on might be a bit too much for us now, but having at least some aspiration to overcome them is important and is better than saying, “Oh, this is just some fanatic Buddhist thing. There’s no way I am ever going to do that!” Actually, this is something that comes up at a later point in this meditation: how much do we trust the Dharma and trust the teachings as being true? Or is it that we are only going to pick and choose the teachings that we like? As they say, don’t be like an old man with no teeth who will only eat mashed potatoes and spit out anything that is tough and needs chewing.
Participant: I was thinking more in terms of a day-to-day level of practice. I used to do two sittings a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. But, nowadays, I watch television in the evening. I think, “I’ll have my second sit after that,” but then sometimes I’m too tired.
Dr. Berzin: This is very common, whether one has a television or not. For instance, there are people who have taken tantric empowerments and have long sadhana recitation commitments that take an hour or more to do. They do it at night before they go to sleep, rather than in the morning when they’re fresh. They often fall asleep, and then they have to get up in the middle of the night to finish. It’s a torture. That certainly is an example of procrastination.
What’s always recommended is to practice in the morning, because then one is freshest. But, obviously, people have different metabolisms and different body rhythms.
But this television business is quite difficult because it’s addictive. It’s hard not just to keep watching one program after another. We have to set limits. I have a friend, a student, who is starting to read Lam-rim Chen-mo, this Great Presentation of the Stages of the Path, which, in translation, is very long. It’s over a 1,000 pages. What he decided was to read twenty pages every day. He keeps to that limit. It’s like when people do ngondro (sngon-’gro, preliminary practices). They set themselves a limit: “I’m going to do 300 repetitions each day” or something like that. I think it’s the same thing with television. If we’re going to set limits for our children – for example, that they can only have one hour of television a day – we also need to set limits for ourselves. We don’t necessarily have to deprive ourselves of television, but we can choose what and how much we’re going to watch.
But as far as daily practice goes, what we do will change over the course of our lifetimes. When I was younger in the Dharma, I did much, much more meditation each day than I do now. Now I cover the same ground – in fact, I cover much more ground – but in less time. A lot of it is in abbreviated form.
Also, as we go through different stages in our practice, we may emphasize one thing more than another. When doing the ngondro practices, for example, there’s the initial phase of doing 100,000 repetitions of something. That phase of our daily practice will be quite different from the later phases. It’s the same thing in terms of retreats. There are retreats for the various deities in which one does hundreds of thousands of repetitions of the mantra. How many depends on how many syllables. So, if it’s a six-syllable mantra like OM MANI PADME HUM, one does 600,000. If it’s a ten-syllable mantra, like the Tara mantra, one does 1,000,000. If it’s more than twelve syllables, then one does just 10,000 repetitions. Also, before one has done the ngondro practice, one’s practice might be more extensive. After having done it, certain things can be abbreviated. So, things will vary. That’s not a case of procrastination. I think that’s just a case of following a progression.
It’s also important to be flexible with our daily practice, which means having to set a limit to the number of practices that we commit ourselves to doing every day. This is especially important when doing any type of ngondro practice, the hundred-thousand-repetition type of practice. For those doing retreat, Serkong Rinpoche gave this advice very strongly: “The first session, do only three repetitions of the mantra. Never do more than three repetitions that first session, because this is the basic minimum that you will have set yourself to do each day of the retreat. So, if you are sick and completely out of it and can’t do practice, you will at least be able to do three and maintain the continuity.” This is important because, when doing a ngondro practice or a mantra retreat, we have to do it every day. We can’t break the continuity; otherwise, we have to start all over again.
Another instance of needing to be flexible is when we’re travelling. If we are on an airplane, or we’re on a train in India travelling for thirty-six hours, we might not be able to do full prostration, but we could do a modified form of prostration – a hand gesture or something like that. So, we need to be flexible, but without being lazy – being flexible out of laziness. But we also don’t want to be rigid. Do everything, but make it so that we can do it a little bit faster when necessary. OK?
Participant: You said about becoming a monk that we shouldn’t say, “Oh, that isn’t something for me.” Is it the same in regard to tantric practice?
Dr. Berzin: Right. Tantric practice might not be what we’re ready for or what suits us now, but at least we can see the value of it and hope that at some time in the future – if not this life, then some future life – to be able to follow that path. We certainly don’t want to put it down. That’s called “abandoning the Dharma.” Well, abandoning the Dharma is saying, “The Buddha didn’t even teach that,” but there are other ways of putting down the Dharma, like saying, “This is stupid, and I don’t need to do it.” But all of this will come up a little bit later when we get to the issue of how much we trust the Dharma and are therefore committed to putting it into practice.
(3) Even if We Practice It, We Will Not Do So Purely
The next point is that, even if we do practice, we will not do so purely. So, even if we take the preventive measures, we still might think only of the benefits we would get in this life. For example, we might practice charity with the aim of receiving help, praise, friendship, fame, or something material in return. Obviously, we could think, “I want help, praise, friendship, fame, and something material in return in my next lifetime.” That’s just as bad. But, here, the emphasis is on wanting these things in this lifetime.
The Purity of Our Spiritual Practice Depends on Our Level of Detachment from Life’s Fleeting Pleasures
The purity of our spiritual practice depends on the level of our detachment from this life. Also, detachment is a state of mind; it’s not something to display to others – for example, sleeping on the floor like a dog and owning nothing so that when people come to visit, they can see how detached we are. That’s not the point. We can have nice things. If we have them – fine. If we don’t have them, it doesn’t matter.
Detachment is an attitude of disinterest towards life’s fleeting pleasures. With detachment, we give up clinging to them. Such an attitude is gained by being mindful of the fact that no situation in life is static. That leads us to the topic of impermanence as a way to help us gain detachment.
Understanding Impermanence
Impermanence (mi-rtag-pa) I translate as “nonstaticness,” which is not a very nice word, but it helps us to understand the two levels of impermanence: gross impermanence and subtle impermanence.
Gross impermanence (mi-rtag-pa rags-pa) refers to all conditioned phenomena (‘dus-byas, affected phenomena), namely, phenomena that are affected by causes and conditions. Everything that’s affected by causes and conditions changes from moment to moment. They change from moment to moment because they depend on causes and conditions, which themselves change from moment to moment. So, because what maintains the moment-to-moment continuity of a phenomenon changes, the phenomenon itself changes. So that’s a bit of a third man argument: that the conditions change because what they rely upon changes, and so on. But, anyway, you get the idea.
Now, there are some things that deteriorate, which means that they fall apart and end – like the body. There are other things that do not deteriorate but that nevertheless change from moment to moment – for example, the mental continuum. The mental continuum doesn’t wear out like our bodies do; nevertheless, it changes from moment to moment. We are aware of different things from moment to moment; the content of mental activity changes from moment to moment.
Gross impermanence is talking about the things that deteriorate and come to an end, like our bodies. Our bodies are aging all the time. We’re going to die; that’s for sure. Or a computer – it’s going to crash and break at some point. That’s gross impermanence. That also includes relationships. It’s perhaps much more difficult to realize and acknowledge that a relationship, even a marriage, is eventually going to end – if not with a break-up, then with somebody’s death. So, in that sense, it’s going to come to an end.
The other type of impermanence, subtle impermanence (mi-rtag-pa phra-mo), is speaking about the moment-to-moment change that occurs with phenomena affected by causes and conditions. The important thing here is that they come to end based on the fact that they had a beginning. If the car hadn’t been built, it wouldn’t break. The fact that it was built is actually the cause for it to break. So, the actual cause of death is birth. The cancer or heart attack, or whatever it is that we die of, is just the condition of our deaths, but the fact that we’re going to die is established from the fact that we were born – which is very good to realize. The fact that my computer will break is based on its having been built. That’s the cause of its breaking. The condition for its breaking was that I dropped it on the floor, or spilled a glass of water on it, or that things wore out – whatever. Moment to moment, these things come closer to their ends. The image that’s used is of being on a conveyor belt heading toward “the mouth of the Lord of Death,” as Shantideva so poetically puts it.
Does this mean that we never buy anything or never enter into relationships? No. But we at least have this realization that they are going to have an end. That’s not an easy pill to swallow, especially when it has to do with people and things that we are particularly attached to, but understanding impermanence is the way to gain more detachment.
Does Detachment Mean Not Getting Emotionally Involved?
Now, how do we gain detachment? That’s really difficult because it entails dealing with emotions. Does detachment mean that I don’t get emotionally involved?
Participant: I rather think that detachment comes automatically from understanding the impermanence of the phenomenon. So, if you are already emotionally involved, it’s actually quite late.
Dr. Berzin: Well, if you understood the impermanence of the phenomenon, would you get emotionally involved at all? This is the question. Understanding the impermanence of the phenomenon – does that preclude being emotionally involved? What does “emotionally involved” mean? Does it only mean being involved with disturbing emotions, like attachment, or could it also mean being emotionally involved with non-disturbing emotions, like love? One could say that Buddha is emotionally involved with all beings: he has love and compassion, knowing that they’re going to die. Well, he also knows they’re going to be reborn, so that’s maybe not a fair analogy, but I think you understand the point that I’m trying to make.
Participant: But knowing that they are going to be reborn is an important point.
Dr. Berzin: But we tend to assume that gaining a precious human rebirth is so easy. “I will be reborn as a human, and this person will be reborn as a human, and we will meet again in our next lifetimes.” This is a very common way of thinking because we haven’t taken the rarity of the precious human rebirth all that seriously.
A friend of mine who’s very, very close with the Tibetan lay community has pointed out that there is such a difference between the way Tibetans look at things – the lay Tibetans not deeply educated in Buddhism – and the way Western Dharma practitioners look at things. The Tibetans take the rarity of the precious human rebirth very seriously and fully believe that, in the next lifetime, they’re going to be a worm or something like that, whereas most of us assume that we’re going to continue to be humans and that our friends and loved ones will too. This comes from not taking the rarity of the precious human rebirth seriously. “I’m going to continue to be emotionally involved with you in your next life when you’re a mosquito”… well, hey.
Participant: That’s a very good point. But what I was trying to say was that when you see that the other person is not terribly fixed in that state and could become something very different, you can more easily have detachment. Of course, on the other hand, the only person that you have to relate to is the person in front of you right now.
Dr. Berzin: And that’s something that we often forget. So, we think, “I’m only going to have pure love, compassion, generosity, patience, and all these things in my relationship with you. I’m not going to have disturbing emotions. I’m not going to get attached. I’m not going to get angry or jealous,” etc. But only an arhat would be free of all of those things. So, we have to accept the whole package. If we’re going to be emotionally involved with somebody, we have to accept that we’re going to have disturbing emotions. The point is to minimize them. That’s the hard one. Otherwise, we’re going to say, “Well, I’m not going to get emotionally involved with anybody at all” – which is, I think, a bit of a fanatical position. Even the monks and nuns in monasteries have good friends and enjoy their friends. Obviously, the ideal is equanimity – for everybody to be equal. Nonetheless, the monks and nuns have friends and are involved emotionally with their friends.
This whole issue of detachment is based on understanding impermanence. One really has to think about the whole emotional consequence of detachment. How do we understand detachment in terms of our emotions, and what does it mean, then, to practice the Dharma purely? So let’s think about that for our final meditation for the evening.
Participant: So, does emotional involvement necessarily mean attachment?
Dr. Berzin: Well, no. What I was asking was, what is the relationship between detachment and emotional involvement? Does detachment mean no emotional involvement? How pure can our emotional involvements be? If to practice Dharma purely, we need to have detachment, how pure can our practice be? What is realistic in terms of what we’re capable of, given that we’re not arhats?
Participant: Would the ideal be to be emotionally involved without attachment?
Dr. Berzin: Mahayana practice involves love, compassion, patience, generosity, etc. These would be examples of emotional involvement that would not necessarily involve attachment, although often they do.
Participant: How can we develop ourselves without having close relationships? If by detachment you mean completely stopping all emotional involvement, we would never develop.
Dr. Berzin: One could be, let’s say, a nurse and treat everybody without getting emotionally involved because it’s too painful. But that’s difficult.
What about somebody who works in a hospice? Here, it’s very clear that the people are all going to die. Can we still show them warmth? Can we still show them love? How do we do that without becoming devastated and depressed when they actually die? To be able to do that requires detachment. However, we’re not arhats, so don’t expect that we’re not going to be sad. We will be sad. There’s nothing wrong with being sad. Even His Holiness the Dalai Lama was sad when he received the news that his mother had died. I was with him when he was teaching in Bodh Gaya and he received the news, though I wasn’t with him the very moment he received the news. He admitted that he was sad, but that passed. It is sad when somebody dies, but the point is not to wallow in it, not to get stuck in it for ages and ages.
Anyway, I think this is the issue here: What does it mean that to practice Dharma purely, we have to have detachment, have to “give up clinging to the fleeting pleasures”? Well, that gets into what fleeting pleasures are and what actual pleasures are. In any case, there’s the pleasure of being with somebody one loves, for example. Well, that’s a fleeting pleasure; it’s not going to last. The relationship is going to change in one way or another. It’s affected by causes and conditions. We are not the only variable in this person’s life; they have many other things happening to them and many other people that they’re involved with. Obviously, the relationship will change from moment to moment, and the reason why it will inevitably end is because we got into the relationship in the first place.
These teachings aren’t saying not to get into a relationship with someone and to get emotionally involved, but to have some detachment, understanding that the relationship will end and that, on a deeper level, it will end with death. When we die, we’re going to have to leave all of our relationships behind. As I said, we tend to think, “Oh, I’m going to meet them all in my next lifetime.” There is a lovely story in the Dharma about a person whose dog was their mother in a previous life, that a fish that they caught in the river had been a close friend, and all of these sorts of things. So, there’s no guarantee of the form in which we might meet these people that we’re so closely involved with in a future life. We might be a frog and eat our best friend who’s been reborn as a mosquito.
OK. Let’s reflect on this for a few minutes.
[meditation]
Besides personal relationships, other examples that we can use are our pets. There’s also our computers, the data on our computers, our books. How do we react when our computer crashes and we lose all our data or when our laptop is lost or stolen? Or how about our homes? How would we react if our homes burned down and we lost everything? Does that mean that we don’t enjoy what we have? How about passion for our work, the stuff on our computers? We could have great passion for it, but if it’s lost, it’s lost. It’s not the end of the world.