LTF 3: Buddhas Are the Deepest Source of Safe Direction

In terms of Buddhas, the Apparent Buddha Gem is a Buddha’s Rupakaya, the Form Bodies of a Buddha – which is a network of the various gross and subtle forms with which Buddhas appear. The Deepest Buddha Gem is a Buddha's Dharmakaya. That’s the omniscient mind of a Buddha as well as the voidness of the mind of a Buddha. The Nominal Buddha Gem, what represents this are the paintings and statues of Buddhas. We don't actually take refuge in those; we don’t worship those, although it might look as though some people do. The paintings and statues are merely representations. What we need to be mindful of are the Apparent and Deepest Buddha Gems. This is, of course, the Mahayana presentation. Hinayana does not speak about the various Buddha Bodies. 

In terms of the Dharma Gem, the Apparent Dharma Gem is the twelve categories of teachings that the Buddha gave. Those contain the actual content of these teachings. The Deepest Dharma Gem are the true stoppings and true paths on the mental continuum of an arya, whether a layperson or a monastic. An arya is somebody who has had a nonconceptual cognition of the voidness of the third and fourth noble truths. The Nominal Dharma Gem is the printed Dharma texts of these twelve categories of teachings that represent the Dharma that is an actual source of safe direction.

As for the Sangha Gem, we saw that the Apparent Sangha Gem is any individual person who is an arya. Whether they are lay or monastic doesn’t matter. Just one individual arya being can constitute the Apparent Sangha Gem, sometimes referred to as the “Arya Sangha.” The Deepest Sangha Gem is the true stoppings and true pathways of mind on the mental continuum of an arya. The Nominal Sangha Gem – what represents the Sangha Gem – is a group of four or more people from any of the four groups of the monastic sangha, namely, full or novice monks or full or novice nuns. The four don't necessarily have to be all from one group or to have one from each of the four groups. 

The use of the word “sangha” for the members of a Buddhist center is a totally Western invention based on the Western concept of the congregation of a church. Certainly, “Sangha,” as in “Sanghs Gem,” does not mean that. Not even the Nominal Sangha means that. It’s purely a Western usage. I think that for some people it’s quite confusing when they hear that members of a Buddhist center are the sangha. Then they think that they are supposed to take refuge in some of the very disturbed, strange people who come to their Dharma center. It's bad enough that there are strange and disturbed people among the monastics, but in Dharma centers, there are often even more. 

To continue our review, we saw that the ultimate providers of safe direction are only the Buddhas. This refers to the Apparent and Deepest Buddha Gems – the Form Bodies (Rupakaya) of a Buddha and the Dharmakaya of a Buddha. From within the Deepest Dharma Gem and Deepest Sangha Gem, the providers of refuge are the true stoppings and true pathway minds – the third and fourth noble truths – on the mental continuums only of Buddhas. Buddhas, after all, are included in the category of aryas. When we look more closely at the Dhamarkaya of a Buddha, we see that that too is actually the third and fourth noble truths on the mental continuum of a Buddha. What’s known as the “Wisdom Dharmakaya” or “Deep Awareness Dharmakaya” of a Buddha are the true paths on the mental continuum of the Buddha. And the Svabhavakaya, the Corpus of Essential Nature that Encompasses Everything, is the voidness of the mind of a Buddha, which is equivalent to the true stoppings on the mind of a Buddha.

So, the ultimate providers of safe direction, the deepest Gem, are the Buddhas. This refers to the physical bodies of a Buddha and the mind of a Buddha. The mind of a Buddha can be summarized here as the true paths and true stoppings on the mind of a Buddha. 

We also saw that the differences that we have in terms of the true paths and true stoppings in the mind of a Buddha – considered to be the Deepest Buddha Gem, the Deepest Dharma Gem, and the Deepest Sangha Gem – was that the Deepest Buddha Gem is a source of inspiration. So, we can get great inspiration from thinking of the subtle mind of a Buddha. The Deepest Dharma Gem is a source of actual attainments; by following in this direction, we can actually gain the attainments of a Buddha. The Dharma Gem indicates how to do that. The Deepest Sangha Gem is, in terms of the true paths and true stoppings, the network that is a source of enlightening influence; we are influenced in very positive ways by the community of Buddhists, basically, by this network of true paths and true stoppings on the mental continuums of the Buddhas. 

This is what we covered last time. 

When we speak of continual mindfulness of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, what this is referring to is keeping in mind the deepest, or ultimate, I should say, providers of safe direction, namely, the Buddhas. Often, we do this in visualization. We have what’s called a “refuge tree.” Often, we have the Buddhas, then we have Dharma texts in front of them symbolizing the Dharma and then also the various arya bodhisattvas and others around them symbolizing the Sangha. In essence, though, they are all combined in Buddha himself… in a Buddha. 

Also, continual mindfulness is something we can do in terms of a shamatha practice in which we try to gain single-pointed concentration on the visualization of a Buddha. This helps us to remain mindful of all the qualities of a Buddha. Or we can speak in terms of trying, at any time of the day, to be mindful of these qualities and of this safe direction that we are putting in our lives.

What does all of this mean on a practical level? If we consider ourselves to be within the Buddha's fold, I think it's very important to have some idea of what this safe direction is all about – what we are actually doing with our lives. The main thing that it refers to is the state of full, true stoppings of the two obscurations: the emotional obscurations that prevent our liberation – the disturbing emotions, unawareness, and confusion – and the cognitive obscurations that limit our awareness so that we don't know what the best way to help everybody is. 

What this is saying is that we have strong belief in the fact that it is possible to gain a true stopping of these two obscurations and that the nature of the mind is pure, that its nature hasn’t been stained by these things. And here it is that somebody has actually attained this state – a Buddha – and it is possible for us to attain it as well. Not only is it possible to gain a true stopping but also to gain all the qualities of a Buddha, in other words, all the full potentials that a mental continuum has. It is the final stages of the true paths that get rid of the cognitive obscurations that are still there when the emotional obscurations are gone. Then, the true paths are there in full. 

This is a source of inspiration for us; this is the direction that we are trying to go in. Whether we are going in this direction only part way as a Hinayana practitioner – just to liberation – or we are going all the way to enlightenment, to the state of a Buddha, as a Mahayana practitioner, doesn't matter; the direction is the same. It inspires us – the Buddha Gem – to try to go in that direction. It's the source of attainments because that's what we are trying to achieve, either in part or in full. And it has this strong, enlightening influence on us; it works some sort of effect on us when we have this direction in our lives. This is what is important to have continual mindfulness of.  

Now, one could get into a whole discussion here about whether or not it is possible to have continual mindfulness 24 hours a day. What about when we are asleep? One point that comes to my mind is from Shantideva's text, Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, where he says in chapter one, speaking on the benefits of developing bodhichitta, that once we have actually got it firmly – so, it’s not artificial, not contrived; we just get it automatically without having to work ourselves up to it – we then have this day and night. It doesn't matter what we are thinking about, or even if we are drunk or asleep. We still have it. Why? Because this is the basic aim that we have. Regardless of what we are doing, that aim is still there. It’s the basic direction that we are going in. 

I think we can understand this continual mindfulness of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in the same way – that we want to have it so firmly within us that we don't have to build it up in an artificial type of way. Instead, it is so sincerely felt that nothing is going to sway us from this direction in life. “This is the meaning of my life. This is where I am going.” So, that deepest, that ultimate source of safe direction are the Buddhas. 

Now, our refuge is not just the true stoppings and true paths on the mental continuum of a Buddha, but we never have true stoppings and true paths separately from the appearances of a Buddha, the various Form Bodies of a Buddha. These Form Bodies also help us to stay mindful of the qualities of the Buddha because, as we'll see shortly, each of the various features of the physical body of a Buddha is indicative of the causes for them. That helps us as well to go in this safe direction – namely, knowing what the causes for becoming like a Buddha and having all a Buddha’s physical features are.

The source of this quotation or this assertion that the deepest source of safe direction is the Buddhas comes from Maitreya's text the Uttaratantra (Furthest Everlasting Continuum). There, Maitreya writes, “The deepest source of safe direction for wandering beings are the Buddhas alone because the Sage Buddhas have a Dharmakaya, a Corpus that Encompasses Everything, and because they are the ultimate endpoint for the Sangha.” 

So, the Buddhas are the deepest source of direction because, obviously, they are Buddhas themselves and because they have a Dharmakaya. The Dharmakaya, the true stoppings and true pathway minds, is the Deepest Dharma Gem as well. And the Buddhas are the ultimate endpoint for the Sangha because the Sangha we can think of as the various aryas and because the Buddhas are the endpoint of the aryas. So, the Buddhas themselves are the deepest source of safe direction. 

When we think of this direction that we are going in – to bring up another point that we only briefly discussed last time but that I think is quite important – remember that there are causal and resultant providers of safe direction. The causal providers are the Buddhas themselves because they can cause us, in the sense of inspiring us, to reach our goal. In terms of the resultant provider of safe direction, it is our own result of being on this path that we are aiming to achieve or that we can achieve in terms of own future enlightenment, our own future state of a Buddha. This, of course, is achieved on the basis of Buddha-nature because safe direction – to talk about this in a truly Buddhist sense; we are not talking about some great beings “up there” who can protect us – is talking about a direction that we can go in to become like that ourselves. When we speak in terms of this direction as being like a path, obviously we can think of a path in two ways. We can think of a path as an actual road that we walk on, but that is a very – what shall we say? – non-dynamic way of looking at the path. Or we can look at the path as our actual dynamic going in this direction. I think this is a very important point when we talk about safe direction. 

First of all, it is important to be convinced that it is possible to be a Buddha, to be convinced that such a thing exists – that our minds are ultimately pure of these obscurations and that we have many good qualities that are either there and not functioning or that they can be developed further, depending on how we want to look at it. We see that there are people who have actually done it and, so, we see  that it’s something that we can do too in terms of this resultant provider of safe direction. But in order to do this, we have to actually go in this direction. What will provide me with protection from suffering and so on is actually going in this direction, this dynamic process. 

If we are actually are going in this direction, not just saying “I am going,” but then not going – that really is putting a safe direction in our live. It really makes life meaningful. The example that is often used in the texts is that if it is raining and we’re standing outside of a cave, and we say, “I take refuge in the cave. I take refuge in the cave,” but we don't actually go into the cave, it's not going to help us. 

Many of us, perhaps most of us, consider ourselves followers of Buddhism. But how seriously do we take this safe direction? How central is it, actually, in our spiritual lives? How deep is it? Without this, there really is no foundation. Refuge is always called the “entranceway” to being a Buddhist; it’s a doorway. Without it, without actually going through that door, we are just imitating Buddhist practices; we are not really taking them to heart. Very often people trivialize refuge, and that really is very sad. 

Participant: Sad in what way?

Dr Berzin: In what way? You go to a ceremony, have a little piece of your hair cut, you get a Dharma name, and “Now I’ve taken refuge. Now I can wear a red string around my neck and I’m a Buddhist.” That's certainly trivializing taking refuge. “I have joined the club.” Some people call it “the red string club.” 

Participant: And then what?

Dr Berzin: Then you are a member of the red string club. Very good. I hope it's also a very old and dirty string. Then it’s authentic. 

Participant: And do I wash it?

Dr Berzin: Never wash it; otherwise, you wash away the blessings.

Participant: Then it won’t be authentic…

Dr Berzin: Then it won't be authentic, absolutely not. 

Let's take a few moments to reflect on how deep our taking of safe direction actually is. What does it actually mean to us? Do we really believe that there are Buddhas, or that there were Buddhas, or that there will be Buddhas?

Participant: I think it demands a lot of courage to actually be open with ourselves and to acknowledge how far away this is and that in the end we will have to go through a tremendous amount of change and transformation to actually reach the goal of Buddhahood. It’s not enough to just do some nice things and everything else will be sorted out by just being a good Buddhist. I think it really demands a lot of courage to face that. 

Dr Berzin: But what about just having the feeling that “I’m on the way regardless of how long it will take”? When we talk about joyful perseverance, this is the aspect of courage. It’s this armor-like courage: “It doesn't matter how long it takes as long as I’m on the way. And I am not going to turn back.” 

I think one very interesting point is that we could be on the way, have this direction in our lives, without really knowing whether or not we can reach the final endpoint or whether or not anybody else has really reached the final endpoint. After all, how do I know if somebody has or not? But just as long as I’m going in that direction… it seems like a fantastic direction, and one can go pretty far. It's sort of like a mathematical curve – can it actually reach the final limit? Well, maybe not, but it can go pretty far. Then we see people like His Holiness the Dalai Lama who are much, much further down that road than we are. So, if I can at least become like that, that would be quite good. 

The question is: How important is it to us whether there actually ever were Buddhas or not as long as there is the path that goes in that direction? Or is it necessary that there ever were Buddhas and for there to be the possibility of actually reaching the final point of that path? That hangs on this whole question of whether or not the mind is by nature unstained. If you are convinced that it is unstained, does it matter whether anybody has actually reached the final endpoint? It's an interesting question.

Participant: Well, if you don't know it, it’s a bit like Columbus sailing to America. It’s just a hope that there is something.

Dr Berzin: Right. If we don't know it. It's like Columbus sailing to America: there is the hope that it's possible. Would it be enough, then, to say, “Well, it’s possible to go 99% of the way”? I don't know. It's an interesting question. I think it’s difficult to be 100% convinced. And really, it is only in terms of logic that we can be convinced because we can't meet Buddhas; we’re not going to see a Buddha. Only one Dharmakaya, one enlightened mind, can recognize and know another enlightened mind. So, we have to figure out with logic whether or not it is actually possible. That's an interesting point. 

I think, ultimately, what is crucial in this whole discussion is to know quite precisely what a Buddha is and what enlightenment is. If we don't have a clear idea of that, with all the details, then we might be worrying about something that actually isn't possible at all – at least our idea of what a Buddha is. This is why, what I would like to do next is to go into the discussion of the qualities of a Buddha.

Participant: So, being enlightened is not the same as being a Buddha?

Dr Berzin: Being enlightened is the same as being a Buddha.

Participant: The prediction is that there are these Buddhas. And it’s a fixed number, isn’t it?

Dr Berzin: That’s another point – whether there is a fixed number of Buddhas. There is a certain number of Buddhas in this particular eon. It’s 1,000 Buddhas. But these are Buddhas who will start universal Buddhist religions. There are going to be, from a Mahayana point of view, countless other Buddhas who don't start world religions. It's usually explained like that. Even in the Hinayana schools, though, they do accept that there are past and future Buddhas, not just one. Of course, the number that they have in each eon is different, but that’s not really so important. 

Participant: You could just go along the path and see where it leads.

Dr Berzin: Okay, so Marianna is suggesting another approach, which would be not to have in mind the final goal – for example, to become a brain surgeon – but just to go step-by-step. First they would learn how to read, next they would get a regular high-school education, then get a college degree and then decide, “Okay, I want to become a doctor,” and then maybe one works toward becoming a brain surgeon. I think that’s possible, but I think it has to be within the course of at least a vaguely defined direction. In other words, “I don't have a clear concept of what a Buddha is, but I think going vaguely in that direction is OK. And then, as I go further along the path, it will become clearer what I am working toward.” Otherwise, the steps that you take might not actually lead to that goal.

Participant: How about, for instance, you want to get rid of the suffering, your own suffering, and then you go in that direction.

Dr Berzin: Yes, but getting rid of your own suffering is the direction of safe direction because the teachings that will lead us in that direction were taught by the Buddha. The aryas and arhats have rid themselves of this suffering, so that's part of this direction.

Participant: Yeah, but I think it’s very difficult to be confident about this idea of omniscience. I can’t figure it out. Maybe this is a little bit too much for me to believe at the moment.

Dr Berzin: Right, well, this is a very good point – that to think of omniscience and all that is a bit too much for us. This is why they say the guru is so important. The guru is like the magnifying glass for the rays of the sun to be able to make the leaves catch on fire. Similarly, it's beyond our imagination to really be able to imagine a Buddha and all the qualities of a Buddha, although those qualities are listed in the texts so that we can learn them. But to actually imagine somebody like that is very difficult. 

I could imagine His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a Buddha because I’ve had a lot of experience with him. I know him personally. Even if it’s not the Dalai Lama, there could be someone with a lower level of qualification who makes us think, “Look how incredible this is, how much more highly developed this person is than myself. I want to go in that direction. Now, what's beyond that level, that point in the direction, I don't know, but it seems to be going in a pretty good direction, and once I get there…” So, we can get inspiration from His Holiness and from others who are more highly developed than ourselves. 

His Holiness says that he gets his inspiration from the example of Shakyamuni Buddha. That’s because His Holiness is at the level where he can appreciate what a Buddha does. So, I think you are right in that sense. But the direction that we already know is a vague direction. It's not that clearly defined. It's like, “I am going to learn to concentrate. I am going to learn to sit cross-legged.” Those are steps. “I’m going to learn to meditate.” It's a step. We don't know where it leads, but it's a general direction as opposed to, “I am going to learn bullfighting.” 

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: What Tashi is saying is that what can help us to go in that direction is to see from our own experience. For example, when we develop a little bit of concentration, we’re able to understand things more deeply, and we are actually able to gain some concentration. Then we can get inspiration from people who have reached higher levels. For example, we read in the newspaper about people who know so many different languages and who can do calculations up to thirty decibel points in their heads and so on. This gives us some indication that the mind can be trained if we have a little bit of experience. But there’s a difficult point here, which is that, “Well, yes, these other people can develop that because they are geniuses, but I am a dummy; I can't develop it,” or, “I can only develop a little bit, but I certainly couldn't develop that far because I don't have the capacity that person has.” 

Now Tashi is saying that there are some cases where somebody was a dummy and then they were hit in the head, and when they woke up, they were geniuses. Well, the danger of that, my dear, is that then we will all go around hitting ourselves on the head in the hopes that we will become geniuses. 

There is a wonderful Chinese story from the Chinese classics called The Foolish Man of Sung. There was a man that had gone out into his field, and there was a tree stump there. One day he went out into his field, and he saw that there was a dead rabbit next to the tree stump. The rabbit had run into it during the night and had killed itself. So, then the man stopped farming and spent the whole day sitting next to the stump. People came and asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I am catching rabbits.” So it's like that. “Well, I'll hit myself on the head and maybe I’ll catch a rabbit – I will become a genius.” 

So, the question is: Are there 1,000 Buddhas who will come, or are there just a few of them? Will they all teach at the same time? Will some teach sutra and some teach tantra?” Actually, there is only a very limited number who will teach tantra, and I must confess that I don't remember those numbers. Certainly, the present Buddha, who is the fourth, I think… Does anybody remember the list? There's the ninth… 

Participant: I think there are all together forty.

Dr Berzin: Yes, all together. Then the last Buddha will summarize and teach everything that everybody else taught. I recall the fourth Buddha, but I don't remember the exact number of Buddhas on the list. 

Participant: I heard in the translation of a teaching by His Holiness that when Maitreya comes he will destroy the teachings of the Buddha because they won’t work anymore.

Dr Berzin: I really don't know. Certainly, it's correct that Matireya will not teach tantra. What he will teach is hard to say because there are the texts of Maitreya that we have now. I’m just wondering about the translation here. The Tibetan term could have been a word that means “destroy,” but more likely, it was a word that means “cause them to end”– in other words, their time had come to an end. I don't really know. It could mean that Maitreya will revise the teachings of Shakyamuni in the sense that he won't teach those things that people aren’t open to, aren’t ready for, and that maybe he will teach other things that perhaps people weren't ready for when Shakyamuni was around. I don't know. 

Participant: Maybe the teachings will have vanished before he comes. 

Dr Berzin: Well, the teachings will have vanished long before Maitreya comes. That's why I’m wondering if the word “destroy” here in translation is a correct translation. What word did His Holiness actually say? Anyway, it is pointless to speculate. We can't come to a conclusion. 

There are these four points: (1) that Buddhahood is possible, (2) that there have actually been people who have attained it, (3) that I am capable of attaining it, and (4) that I have the conviction that I am going to actually do it. The question is, are there various meditations, etc, that we can do to become more convinced of Buddhahood? This is a very large topic. It has to do with becoming convinced that the mind is by nature unstained – that the emotional obscurations and cognitive obscurations are “fleeting stains.” I don't know how much we want to go into that right now because it's already nine o'clock.

Participant: Some other time?

Dr Berzin: Right, some other time. The argument that His Holiness gives, at least, is that there is a period of time during which the fleeting stains aren't there at all. This is the clear-light state, the subtlest level of the mind, which becomes manifest at the time of death. At that time, not only are there no disturbing emotions and no unawareness or confusion, there’s also no grasping for true existence, which would be the emotional obscurations. The mind at that period of time also doesn't produce appearances of true existence, which are the cognitive obscurations that prevent omniscience. If it is the case that there is one situation of the mental continuum in which it is unstained, then we can’t say that being stained is the nature of the mental continuum. If we can actually reach that state now – before dying – in meditation (which requires, of course, anuttarayoga tantra methods,) and it can be sustained, then one could stay in that basic situation of the unstained mind so that true stopping is possible. 

Now, the other side of it is – what about all the various qualities of a Buddha such as being able to manifest in a million forms and all of that? That would follow from the fact that they say that the mind can be aware of all things; that there are no limitations, actually. Just because the mind is not making appearances of true existence… what does that actually mean? It means that when it has the appearance of true existence, it’s as if everything were laminated in plastic, as if everything existed autonomously, by itself. When we see that this is not the case, then we are aware that everything is interrelated with everything else. So, the endpoint of that is that we would be aware of everything because everything is interrelated. And if everything is the object of the mind, of awareness, then, since subtlest energy is another way of describing subtlest awareness from a different point of view, this energy is everywhere. If the energy is everywhere, then a Buddha can manifest everywhere in many different forms. The argument goes like that, but it's not a very easy one. 

If that is the basic nature of awareness, then there is nothing special about a Buddha's awareness or my awareness; they’re the same. So, there’s the same Buddha-nature, the same ability. Therefore, if we put in effort like the Buddhas did, it's possible to achieve that. It’s just a matter of effort. It's not a matter of “me” because there is no independently existing “me” who is inadequate. Also, we’re no longer thinking of the process in terms of an autonomous “me” that isn’t good enough. When we get these qualities ascribed to this autonomous “me” that’s not good enough, we get discouraged. So, that has to be refuted as well. That’s it in brief.

Now, how do we become convinced that there actually has been a Buddha, somebody who has reached this goal? How do we know that the nature of mind, the clear-light mind, doesn't do these things? There has to be somebody that’s experienced this to be able to describe it. How do we know that Buddha is a valid source of information and so on? There are many arguments for this. But one of the arguments that is fairly convincing is that Buddha and other great masters afterwards have described every single, tiny, little step all the way to enlightenment in unbelievable detail. If we know people who have followed a lot of those steps and it has worked – they get the results that are described – is there any reason to think that Buddha or whoever wrote these texts lied about the last few steps but that they weren’t lying about all the steps before? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they lie? 

These sorts of arguments are used in the “discussion of omniscience” section of Pramanavarttika, or Commentary on Valid Ways of Knowing by Dharmakirti to prove that Buddhas are a valid source of information. In very simple words, what it comes down to is that there is no reason for a Buddha to lie if the motivation to become a Buddha is compassion. 

Participant: But there are many different accounts of what Buddha said.

Dr Berzin: That's absolutely true. 

Participant: And then there’s the Pali Canon. What do we do about that?

Dr Berzin: I don't know. I am not well-versed enough in the Pali Canon to be able to say how detailed their description of all the steps on the entire path is. However, this argument about the omniscience of a Buddha is by Dignaga. Dignaga is from a Hinayana school, the Sautrantika School. It's not Mahayana.  

Participant: Dharmakirti was it? 

Dr Berzin: Dharmakirti.

Participant: And then the text was?

 Dr Berzin: Pramanavarttika, which is a commentary on a basic text on logic by Dignaga.