LTF 50: Not Wasting This Life; the 10 Enriching Factors

Now we’re ready to go on with the next verse, verse sixty.

[60] Even more foolish than someone who uses a golden vessel adorned with gems to collect his vomit, is someone who, having been born as a human, performs negative deeds.

If we have a precious human life – and the next verses will help us to identify what that precious human life is – it’s very, very important not to waste it. And how would we waste it? We would waste it by using it to build up more and more negative force, to reinforce our negative habits ever more strongly, and basically, to just waste our time in frivolous activities, which, ultimately, are meaningless. 

Shantideva says it very nicely in verse twenty-three of chapter four of Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior. He says: 

[23] So, if having found a respite like this, I don’t make being constructive a habit, there’s nothing more self-deceptive than this; there’s nothing more stupid than this. 

This respite, as we explained last week with the analogy that my teacher Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey loved to use, is like being on a short holiday from the worst rebirth states – that being in this human form now is just a small break. And if we’re not careful, we will no doubt go back to these worst rebirth states. So, don’t take it for granted that this is our natural condition. It’s not. 

I think it’s very important to reflect on what we are actually doing with the human lives that we have. We found out today that two people that many of us know died yesterday. That could happen to us as well. No reason why it wouldn’t. So, what have we been doing with our lives? How have we been using it? “How would I feel if today were my last day?” That, also, is a very helpful Dharma type of meditation to do – to imagine that this is our last day or our last hour. “Would I die with regret that I never really used the opportunities that I had? Or would I be able to die with peace of mind, feeling that, sure, it would have been nicer to live longer, but I have made very good use of this precious human life, and I feel fairly confident that I’ve built up the type of positive force that will enable me to continue having precious human lives in the future?” 

Remember the causes for the precious human life that we spoke of before. They are (1) keeping ethical self-discipline; (2) offering prayers, which is a strong wish – “May I always continue to have precious human lives” (and not just for the purpose of being with our friends and loved ones and so on but to use it to gain liberation and enlightenment); (3) supplementing these two main causes with the other six far-reaching attitudes (we already have self-discipline here), which are generosity, patience, positive or joyful perseverance, constancy of mind (which is not just having concentration but having emotional stability as well), and discriminating awareness, which is not just being able to discriminate about voidness but is also being able to discriminate in general between what’s helpful and what’s harmful.

So, why don’t we take a moment to reflect on that. What have we actually been doing with our lives? 

Taking Account of Our Actions and Thoughts at the End of Each Day

There’s a wonderful example – perhaps many of you know it – of Geshe Pen Kungyel, who was one of the Kadampa geshes that lived many, many centuries ago. And by the way, when we speak about Kadampa geshes, we’re not using “geshe” in the way in which that term was adopted as being the title for somebody completing the Gelug education system at the time of the fifth Dalai Lama. This is before that. “Geshe” is just the translation of the Sanskrit word kalyanamitra, which means a spiritual friend. 

Geshe Pen Kungyel was a terrible thief early on in his life, and he changed his ways. When he was doing intensive meditation practice in his cave, he kept a collection of light-colored stones and dark-colored stones, and he would keep count during the day of how many positive things he did, positive thoughts he had, and how many negative ones. So, he had white stones for the positive ones and black stones for the negative ones (he wasn’t educated in political correctness about white or black here, but let’s leave that aside). At the end of the day, if he had more dark-colored stones than light-colored stones, he would scold himself for having been so negative and threatened that he would go down into the town and announce to everybody what a hypocrite he was. On the other hand, if he had more white stones, he would congratulate himself. The story is that he’d take his left hand with his right hand and shake it and congratulate himself. 

Applying the Four Opponent Forces

At the end of the day, before we go to sleep, what is always recommended that we do when we do our dedication of whatever positive force we’ve built up during the day, is to actually review the day: “What have I done today? Did I just waste my time doing stupid, ultimately meaningless things? Did I do anything positive?” Even if we were working at a very boring job, could we have used that time to develop concentration in what we’re doing or to develop some motivation like, “May I be able to use the money that I’m making here for positive purposes”? There are many ways in which we can turn boring, fairly conventionally trivial actions into positive ones. The lojong, or mind-training, or attitude-training, text is full of methods for transforming not only neutral situations into positive ones but also negative situations into positive ones. 

So, we think, “What have I done today? What has my state of mind been today?” And have an accounting. We don’t have to be so fanatic as to keep points for the positive and negative ones or anything like that, but it’s good to be aware of what’s going on with us. And if we have done a lot of negative things, we need to admit it. Don’t be naive and not even acknowledge having had a lot of negative thoughts and a lot of disturbing emotions. Then, we regret the negative things – “I really wish that it wasn’t like that. Why? Because it just produces a tremendous amount of suffering, suffering for me. I’m under the influence of these disturbing emotions. It’s incredibly unpleasant, not fun – even just now under the influence of these disturbing emotions, let alone the suffering it can bring in the future. Likewise, it causes troubles with others who have to deal with me. And it incapacitates me, preventing me from actually being of any help to anybody. If I’m angry, if I’m upset, if I’m depressed, if I am greedy, if I’m selfish, if I’m attached to somebody, it just produces problems.” So, we regret that. And then, “I’m going to try my best not to continue repeating that.” And be sincere about that. Obviously, we can’t promise never again to do it. That would be too much. Nobody would really be able to do that. But have that strong resolve: “I’m really going to try not to do this again.” This is why vows are so powerful.

The Power of Vows

A vow is a restraint that you accept on your mental continuum. It gives a certain shape to it. That’s why, in the Vaibhashika Prasangika traditions, they say it has a certain form: it shapes your behavior. And it protects you in the sense that if you remember the vows… the whole point is to be mindful of them. Mindfulness is the mental glue that holds onto them. But if you’re mindful of them, then when the impulse, or urge, comes up, to actually do something negative, the vow holds you back. We vow, “This is a boundary that I’ve set.” It’s not just sincerely resolving not to repeat something negative. It’s something stronger than that. If we have actually made up our minds – “I’m going to stop this!” – it’s much more powerful and, in a sense, much easier not to repeat the negative action. 

So, we regret it. We’re not going to repeat it. And we reaffirm the foundation that we have, which is safe direction and bodhichitta. What are we doing with this precious human rebirth? What are we doing with our lives? We’re trying to go in the direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. “I want to achieve a true stopping of all the problems and the causes of the problems and to achieve a true pathway mind that will get rid of them and that will be the result of getting rid of them (that’s the Dharma Gem) the way the Buddhas have done in full and the Arya Sangha have done in part.” That’s the direction we’re going in. 

And with bodhichitta, we want to achieve that because we can see that it is valid – that it is possible to achieve enlightenment. “I am aiming for my individual, future enlightenment that is possible to achieve, motivated by love and compassion for others. I want to use that attainment to benefit them as much as is possible. That’s the direction I’m going in my life.” If we reaffirm that direction, it gives us the force and the motive – the energy – not to repeat (at least to try not to repeat) the negative actions. 

Then we put into practice some sort of remedy, some sort of opponent, to oppose the negative actions. In other words, we try to counterbalance the negative things with positive things, whether it’s a purification practice like Vajrasattva or it’s just actually going out and helping others, doing something. 

If at the end of the day, we find that we’ve done more negative things, or even if we’ve only done some negative things, we evoke these four opponent powers, or four opponent “forces,” which is what they’re actually called. And be sincere about it. And whatever positive things we’ve done – rejoice. Rejoicing is always praised as something that is very powerful for increasing the positive force of something, let alone increasing our happiness, but without being narcissistic about it, like thinking, “How wonderful I am.” Rejoicing is not the same as “how wonderful I am.” Instead, it’s thinking, “I’m really happy about what I’ve done. My mind is at ease with that, and I want to continue.” 

So, thinking like this the end of the day helps us to make the best use of the precious human lives that we have, so that at the time of death, we don’t regret – “Uh! I’ve blown it. I’ve wasted my life.”

There was one saying (I forget who said it), which is an example of a perfectly wasted human life: My first twenty years, I was too young to think of any Dharma practice. In my middle twenty years, I was too busy making a living and raising a family. In my last twenty years, I’m too tired and too old. That’s the history of a perfectly wasted human life. So, we try not to be like that.

So, let’s reflect a little bit about what have we been doing with our lives. Are we really making the best use of the opportunities that we have? And if we were to die now, would we be able to die with peace of mind, or would we die with a great deal of regret? The image that Nagarjuna uses is a very powerful image that represents wasting the precious human rebirths that we have. What are the exact words? “Someone who uses a golden vessel adorned with gems to collect his vomit.” If we had a golden pot made out of solid gold and encrusted with diamonds and gems, and we used it to vomit into or to go to the toilet in – this would be absurd. 

So, the precious human rebirth that we have – the type of body and all the opportunities and freedoms that we have – is like this golden vessel. And what are we doing with it? Are we (again, to use an image that the Tibetans like) just using it as a factory for making waste? You throw food in, and if it’s still in your stomach, you filled it with vomit. And if it goes all the way through, you are a perfect factory for making feces and urine. Is that what we are using our precious human rebirth for – as a factory for producing feces and urine? If that’s the only thing that we’re using it for, this is pretty ridiculous. It’s pathetic. And we have quite an efficient machine for producing that. Think about the amount of food that we’ve taken in and the amount of feces and urine we’ve turned it into – not very nice. In fact, we’ve turned very nice, clean things into things that nobody even wants to touch. So, what kind of a machine is that?

Participant: It depends what you eat. If you go to McDonald’s…

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes. But I don’t think this is a topic to make light of. I think that’s it’s a very serious thing. What in the world are you using this precious human life for? To sleep? OK, when you’re a teenager, you need a lot of sleep in order to grow. But as an adult, to spend ten hours a day sleeping? It’s absurd. Or to spend four or five hours watching mindless TV – is that what you do with a precious human life? At the end, whoever has seen the largest number of TV shows wins a prize – or what? Whoever has chalked up the most points on video games, computer games, wins? Well, what do you win? You certainly don’t win another precious human rebirth. So, these are thoughts that are helpful to give us the incentive to do something with this precious human life. Don’t be like a golden vessel that you just vomit in and go to the toilet in. OK?

And this precious human life – if we’ve been using it for negative things, then there’s no point in getting all depressed and hating ourselves and feeling guilty. This doesn’t help at all. In fact, that usually just presents another obstacle for actually making use of this precious human life. “OK, I haven’t made very good use of it up till now or in the last months,” or whatever it might be (let’s say that we’ve been in a deep depression), “but now I’m going to pull myself out of it and sincerely try to change.” Making a radical change is often not that easy for many of us, but at least, we can go in that direction. Try. 

OK. Any questions or comments on that?

Not Trivializing the Fundamental Aspects of the Path

A lot of people who get involved with the Dharma just want the advanced, sophisticated topics and so on. But in trivializing and skipping over these very fundamental points, we really shortchange ourselves (that’s an English idiom that means that we cheat ourselves). We might be doing all sorts of fancy tantric sadhanas and visualizations and stuff like that, but how much time each day do we spend doing that? Not very much. And what do we do the rest of the time? And what’s the point of doing these sadhanas anyway? People miss the point. That’s what I find so sad. 

The point is not to get the Olympic gold medal in being able to visualize… like, does Vajrayogini or Yamantaka have a belly button? This type of concern with the details of the visualization totally misses the point. The point is always that we want to be able to understand voidness in order to counter the causes for suffering and to get out of suffering. And the motive for that is either renunciation alone or renunciation and bodhichitta. The whole point of tantra is to be able to get to a subtler level of mind, which we can then use for understanding voidness. So, still, the main aim is to understand voidness. With tantra, it’s to build up the causes for the physical body of a Buddha with practices that are a little bit more close to the result of what we want to achieve – so, more efficiently. 

And how are we going to be able to really gain a correct understanding of voidness, of reality, without a precious human rebirth? It’s not possible. Not possible. An animal can’t get that. So, this precious human rebirth is important for being able to set us out on the path, for keeping us on the path, and for achieving the result. These are things to remember not to trivialize and not to forget about. And if we are doing tantric practice, are we only using this precious human rebirth to be able to have a tremendous imagination and to visualize? Is that all that we’re doing? “I’m a great cartoonist. I can make cartoons in my mind with these visualizations.” So what! 

So, take the essence of the precious human rebirth, and use it for what will bring you liberation and enlightenment. Use it for benefiting others.

OK. The next verse now gets us into the discussion of the factors that characterize a precious human rebirth. In the next verse, it speaks about the four wheels, the four great wheels, which are like the wheels of a chariot (though chariots tend to have two wheels, but anyway!). They’re the wheels of a vehicle that serves as an analogy for the precious human rebirth. We want to be able to use that, like a vehicle, to reach liberation and enlightenment. And these four wheels, basically, summarize the ten enriching factors of our lives. It’s just a way of condensing them. 

The verse says (sixty-one):

[61] (Now,) you possess the four great wheels: you live in a land that’s conducive (for Dharma), you rely on hallowed beings, (that’s referring to the gurus) by nature you’re prayerful, (meaning that you make prayers; you’re intent on doing positive things) and in the past, as well, you’ve built up positive force.

So, these are the four great wheels. We can speak about these in more detail if we look at the ten enriching factors themselves that these summarize. It is, I think, very important to realize what the characteristics that make up the precious human rebirth are because sometimes we complain, and we say, “Well, I’m so busy. I don’t have a precious human rebirth. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have enough this. I don’t have enough that.” Having enough money is not a characteristic of a precious human rebirth. Even if we don’t have any money, we can still have precious human rebirths. So, we have to realize what it is that gives us the opportunity to pursue the Dharma path. We don’t have very much money? Well, we can pursue the Dharma path in a different style than someone who has a lot of money. It doesn’t mean that we can’t follow the Dharma path and practice. 

The ten enriching factors are actually listed in a text by Asanga (Asanga and Nagarjuna are considered the two, great pioneers of the Mahayana path. They’re the earliest great teachers of Mahayana in India). I’ll just list them the way that Asanga says in his verse in Levels of the Mind of a Shravaka (Listener). He says: 

“Having been born as a human, in a central Buddhist region, with complete faculties,” (that’s referring to the senses) “not still experiencing the repercussions from having committed the most extreme destructive actions,” (you’re not still experiencing very heavy ripening of negative karma) “and with instinctive belief in those things in which we need to place our respect,” (so, we have a sense of respect and honor these things); and then, having been born in a place “where and when a Buddha has come” – so, when a Buddha has actually taught the Dharma; when the Dharma is still maintained; when there’s a community of people following the example of the Buddha; and there are others whose hearts are very lovingly concerned and who actually support spiritual practice, the centers and monasteries and these sorts of things. 

The first five of these factors are called the five “personal” factors because they have to do with our own personal rebirth situation. The last five are the societal factors, the type of society that we are born into, the times, and so on. 

The Five Personal Enriching Factors

[1] Being Born as a Human Being

The first of these is that we’re born as human beings. What is the importance of being born as a human being? That we can walk upright on two legs? No, that’s not the importance. That we can learn to do tricks? As Serkong Rinpoche pointed out, if in a circus, they can teach a bear to ride a bicycle, then we can be trained to do much more. We can do more than just perform tricks, operate a machine, drive a car… these sorts of things. That’s not what characterizes a human being. 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama always points out that what characterizes a human being the most is intelligence. It doesn’t mean that we have to be geniuses. But we have the intelligence to learn things, to discriminate between what’s helpful and what’s harmful, what’s correct and what’s incorrect. That is what characterizes us. Animals have motherly love. At least most of them do. Not all, but most of them do. They take care of their babies. 

But animals don’t have the type of minds – or at least the physical hardware in which a mind can operate – that would allow them to actually learn the Dharma, to discriminate between what’s constructive behavior and what’s destructive behavior, to realize that if they act destructively, it’s just going to cause more and more problems… “Therefore, I’m going to refrain from that.” It requires intelligence to understand that. So, intelligence is the greatest asset of being born as a human being.

So, it’s important to use that intelligence and not to cloud it over with alcohol and drugs, for example. That’s like putting a big sack, or bag, over our heads and then trying to go around life to see, “Oh, can I really go to class today and be stoned?” We use to do that in college. That’s kid stuff – to see how much one can actually do while being stoned. This is ridiculous. It’s like breaking an arm on purpose to see, “Well, how much can I do with a broken arm?” So, impairing our minds on purpose – or for the mistaken idea that it is fun – is really an example of using a golden pot to go to the toilet in. So, one has to keep these things in mind.

[2] Being Born in a Central Buddhist Region

Secondly, not only are we human beings, but we’ve been born in the right place. The right place is called a “central Buddhist region.” That can be defined in two ways. One is geographically, which is, again, specified in terms of ancient Indian geography as being on the Southern Continent (referring to this world) with Bodhgaya in the middle and in the area defined between four ranges of mountains, outside of which are the savage, so-called savage, lands. So, it’s being born in this kind of place. 

That would be, I think, a little bit difficult to define nowadays. That’s why the religiously defined Buddhist region, the second way of defining it, is a little bit more relevant. But this, again, has some problems because it says, “In any place where there are found the four groups essential for a complete monastic community.” These are places where there are novice and fully ordained both monks and nuns. Well, Tibet didn’t have fully ordained nuns. So, then one can debate: is anybody in Tibet actually born in a central Buddhist place? 

I think that one way around this is to think, not in terms of the small, little country where we’ve been born, or even if it’s a geographically large country, but to think of this planet as a whole (we’ve been born on this planet). Now with Internet and globalization and all these things, I think that we can think a little bit more strongly in terms of a global place – that there are fully ordained nuns. And they don’t have to be from the specific tradition that we follow. 

Now, of course, one can’t say completely that we are all part of this planet, that we can consider ourselves part of this planet. I have to qualify what I mean by that. Some decades ago, there were areas where there was a totalitarian communist rule and in which people did not have access to the Dharma. One couldn’t say that they were in a central Buddhist location. The authorities and everybody were very hostile toward these types of practice. And there are still some places on the globe that are like that. So, I think that we have to qualify this global aspect in terms of being in a place where we can actually access everything. That’s why the social factors, which are the second half of this list, are important.

But it’s very interesting. How do we specify the presence of the Buddhist Dharma? The way that it is specified is that a monastic community is present. Well, we have to think, “Why? What does a monastic community signify?” The way that Western Buddhism has been evolving has primarily been as a lay movement. Monks and nuns aren’t getting the main emphasis, and many people even look down on them. After all, the Dharma centers are the ones that basically have to run the hotel of the Dharma center during a retreat and take care of everybody, which is certainly not the way that it is intended to be. It should be the other way around. The monks and nuns are the main ones, the main audience for the teachings. Why? Because they are the ones who have firmly made their minds up that they’re following the spiritual path; this is their main thing. 

What does the Tibetan term for “sangha,” dge-'dun, mean? Dun is an intention; dge is constructive. It refers to those who are totally intent on achieving the constructive goal of either liberation or enlightenment. And they’re really serious about it. Whether or not they have realizations is something else. It’s very hard for somebody to say whether they have realization or not, but as long as there is a monastic community of those who are totally devoting their lives to achieving the Buddhist goals, you can say that the Dharma is present. 

Most laypeople don’t have too much time to devote to Dharma practice. That is the reality, especially in the modern world. Of course, it’s possible for laypersons to achieve liberation and enlightenment. A big deal is made out of that in Mahayana. However, one would also have to say that it’s much rarer and more difficult, unless the layperson can devote all their time to the Dharma. Dharma is a fulltime thing. Study, practice, training the mind – that is a fulltime job. 

So, it is significant that it’s mentioned here. Being born in a central Buddhist place means having the example of a monastic community. We can see living examples – that, yes, there are people that devote their full time to this, and we respect that. And maybe we are not able to do that in this present life, but it would be great to be able to do that. And we support that in whatever way we can. Traditionally, it was to feed the monk and nuns when they went around begging for food.

OK. So, if we are born in that type of situation, we are not in a “savage land” (that’s the qualification if we define it as a geographic location). In other words, we are in a place where there are living examples, and there are people who respect following a religious path and are open to following the Buddhist path as well. There can be places where people are fanatic followers of one religion and are completely against anybody practicing another religion. So, this word “savage” here is a bit strong, but I think you get the idea.

[3] Having Complete Faculties

Then the next factor… the actual word for this is “enrichments” – things that make our lives rich. We have these. They make our lives rich in the sense that we can actually use the precious human rebirth. We are rich with opportunities. 

The next one is having full senses. “Faculties” is actually the word. Now, when we talk about faculties here, we have to qualify or explain what this means. It refers, on the one hand, to not being blind, not being deaf or dumb. That doesn’t mean, however that blind people can’t follow the Dharma and deaf and dumb people can’t follow the Dharma. They definitely can. But it’s much more difficult. And if we think how it was in ancient India – it was really difficult in those times. So, if we have complete senses, we should be very happy about that. 

I think that big strides are being made to make Dharma more and more available to those who have difficulty with seeing and hearing. I remember there was one teaching by His Holiness (it was in Canada, if I remember correctly) where they not only had translators into spoken languages, they also had somebody signing, doing sign language, of His Holiness’s talk at the same time. And on the big screen (like sometimes you have on certain television stations), there was a little box at the bottom where people could see this person signing His Holiness’s talk. This is great! This is really great. It makes it available. For websites too (we’re trying to do this with my website) – you can make websites that blind people can access; with special programs, the whole site can be read to them. And they can even navigate and make links and stuff like that. So, there are these types of things that make the teachings more available even for those who are deaf and dumb. 

If you’re dumb (which means you can’t speak), then it would be pretty difficult to recite mantras, for example. So, there are certain handicaps, things that you would not be able to do so easily. If you are completely paralyzed, it would be very difficult to do prostrations. It doesn’t mean that you cannot achieve liberation and enlightenment, but it’s not going to be as easy as if you had complete senses. 

What would be most difficult would be to be mentally handicapped. Jan here works with mentally handicapped people. If someone has Cretinism, Down syndrome, and so on, it would be very, very difficult to go far in the Dharma. One could maybe instruct such a person to circumambulate a stupa or something like that, but there’s not much more that person could really do. And their motivation would probably not be very strong – quite weak. So, we really, really are fortunate not to be born like that. And to have a full mind doesn’t mean we have to be geniuses, but we have the ability to think, and we are not handicapped in that way. That is really great.

In the traditional abhidharma texts, it’s really quite interesting (I don’t want to leave this out because that’s not fair to the tradition) – that having complete faculties also refers to having either male organs or female organs. That’s because they say that if you have both (although there are hermaphrodites that have both), it becomes very difficult to become either a monk or a nun. Which one are you going to become? The texts always bring up these types of examples. Or if you were born with no sexual organs whatsoever, then, likewise, could you become a monk or a nun? So, having full organs is also counted as part of full faculties. 

OK. So, if we are deformed or handicapped in any type of way, it’s going to require a lot more work to study Dharma because we’d have to overcome that handicap. 

Alright. 

And we need to rejoice that we have all of these opportunities. That’s the whole meditation that one does. It is to develop a sense of appreciation and rejoicing that our lives are rich with these opportunities. Monks and nuns are living examples that can inspire me. Even if they’re not keeping proper discipline, at least they have the intention – at least, most of them, unless they were thrown into the monastery at age seven by their parents because the parents couldn’t feed them (which is often the case among the Tibetans, particularly among the refugee community). But in any case, there are living examples, and we are not severely handicapped. It’s great.

[4] Not Experiencing the Disastrous Repercussions from Having Committed the Most Extreme Destructive Actions

Then it says that we should rejoice that we’re not still experiencing the disastrous repercussions of having committed the most extreme destructive actions. That’s referring to the five heinous crimes. There are five types of really destructive actions, the consequences of which we will experience the karmic results of in the very next rebirth – unless we really purify. These are murdering our mother, murdering our father, killing an arhat is the…

Participant: Making him bleed? 

Dr. Berzin: Right, drawing blood from a Buddha with negative intentions and, then, causing a schism in a monastic community. These are the five. 

What Does It Mean to Cause a Schism in a Monastic Community?

Now, we need to be aware what it means to cause to a schism in the monastic community. It doesn’t mean breaking off from a group and starting another Buddhist group. That’s not making a schism in the sangha (“sangha,” here, meaning the monastic community). In fact, there were many splits within the monastic community, if you look at the history, when the Sarvastivadins broke off from the Theravadins and all these various splinter movements began. So, the monastic community has split many times. That’s not causing a schism in the Dharma. 

When we look at the example of Devadatta… Devadatta was the jealous cousin of the Buddha, who basically wanted Buddha to step down. He wanted to take his place as the really powerful one. He was very jealous of the Buddha, and he tried to assassinate Buddha and all these things. It never worked, so he started a separate movement. Now, this separate movement put into practice the… I didn’t bring the list with me, but in the Theravada tradition, it’s thirteen behaviors. In the Mahayana traditions, they summarize them slightly differently, but if you put a few together, you get twelve of these dhutangas (they’re called in Pali and Sanskrit). These are the branches of ascetic behavior that you do to be super constructive, super positive. 

These are, for instance, not sleeping in houses, always living out doors; sleeping under trees; spending a lot of time in charnel grounds (where they chop up the dead bodies); not sleeping lying down but sleeping sitting up; living only on alms; never eating a meal in somebody’s house; eating only once a day at noon and never eating after that; only eating in one sitting; wearing robes and clothes out of the garbage that people have thrown away and that are just patched together from rags. There are either twelve or thirteen, depending on which list that we look at. 

Now, Buddha said this was OK. He said, “If you want to follow this, it’s no problem. Nobody’s obliged to follow this stricter discipline.” In fact, the forest monk tradition in Thailand and the Mahasiddha type of tradition in Mahayana basically grew out of following these types of stricter discipline. But that’s not a problem. And to the monks going off, Buddha said, “If you want to go off and join this other group, that’s OK.” 

A schism is caused when you have an extremely hostile attitude toward the other group. You really want to harm the group that you split off from. You have a very negative attitude toward it – always saying bad things about it, trying to cause scandals, trying to destroy it in some way or another. That’s a schism in the sangha. Similarly, if you’re in the group that the other group broke off from and you have all these negative attitudes toward it, you’re making a schism.

Participant: Is there a schism going on inside the Karma Kagyu tradition these days?

Dr. Berzin: As I say, it depends on the individual people. If you have hostile attitude toward the other one and try to discredit the other one, that’s a schism. Both sides may claim that their Karmapa is the real Karmapa. But as long as they have respect for the other tulku and say, “Well, maybe this isn’t the Karmapa, but this is certainly a great person, a tulku of somebody or other, and I have some respect for them” – that’s cool. That’s fine. A schism is defined as a split with very hostile intentions. It’s the hostility and destructive actions toward the other group that defines a schism.

Participant: I thought a schism can only be caused by an abbot or a high teacher who would say, “Now we are different, and I think the others can’t have ordination,” or whatever. I think that in this case, it’s ordinary people who are causing it, right?  

Dr. Berzin: Well, no. This is a very good question. He thought that it was the founder of the schism, the one who started it, that actually causes the schism, but what about the people who join it? Well, technically, the heinous action is starting the schism. That’s for sure. But it certainly is not constructive to join it – and not just to join it but to have a hostile attitude toward the other group. Whether or not it technically is as heavy as making the schism itself – it’s probably not as heavy – it certainly comes under the general category of “pretty bad.”

Participant: Anyone can do it here, maybe in Germany too. It’s not necessary to have it done in a monastery; we can do it in a Dharma center too with laypeople. To split them, maybe it’s not necessary to have a monastic seat or something.

Dr. Berzin: Well, this is an interesting question: does this refer only to making a split in the monastic sangha? What about the lay Dharma centers? Well, making a split is making a split in the “sangha.” That’s what it’s called. “Sangha” was never, ever, ever used in the Indo-Tibetan tradition to refer to laypeople. It’s only for the monastic community. 

So, what about making a schism like this within lay Dharma centers? I think that that also is extremely negative. So, the only issue here is basically for lawyers to debate: can you be convicted – like in a court – of actually committing this crime, or is it a lesser crime? I think it’s only a legal question now. However, it certainly is not positive to do something like that. But to look specifically at what the texts say, they say that it’s the monastic community and the one who starts it.

Participant: It’s not the Sangha from the path of seeing.

Dr. Berzin: And it’s not the Sangha from the path of seeing; it’s not the Arya Sangha. It’s not the Arya Sangha.

Why Causing a Schism Is So Negative

Why is it so negative? One of the things that Buddha was so concerned about and why he set all the various vows, the rules of discipline, was to avoid society looking down on the monastic community and having negative impressions of Buddhism, of the teachings, because then they would not be receptive; they would be unreceptive to it. So, Buddha did not start his monastic community with a fixed set of vows. It was all done ad hoc; he made the vows as it became necessary to make them. 

I can’t think of a specific example, but I can make up an example: a monk was alone with a woman in a room, and the townspeople suspected that they were having sexual relations. So, in order to avoid that suspicion, Buddha made the vow that monks are not to be in a room alone or sit on a bed alone with a woman. There needs to be another man present, somebody else present. So, these sorts of things came up, and Buddha made the vows that way. 

If you have warring factions within the monasteries (and, unfortunately, it has happened in the history of Tibet that monasteries were at war with each other), what will people think of Buddhism? Who’s going to be inspired to join a monastery except people who want to fight? It really damages tremendously the opportunity for people to seriously practice to reach liberation and enlightenment. That’s why it’s so serious.

OK. So, that’s important, even on a lighter level, not to have negative views toward other Buddhist traditions. As His Holiness says, the main opponent for that is education: you learn something about them. Usually, the suspicion behind putting them down is based on not knowing what their teachings really are. And don’t base your opinion on the most superficial level of what their teachings are. Find out from a master, somebody who really knows and who really practices them, because on the surface, they might not look so profound or whatever.

OK. You can extend this to other religions. His Holiness always emphasizes non-sectarianism. If you’re spending all your time as a religious organization criticizing and putting down other religious groups, what are people going to think of you? It doesn’t give a very good reputation. It’s not that you want a good reputation just for the sake of “how wonderful I am”: it’s that you want to benefit people. And if people can benefit from the Dharma… it doesn’t mean we have to be missionaries, but if people can benefit from it, you don’t want to put people off by engaging in such fights.

So, experiencing the disastrous repercussions of the most extreme destructive actions (to get back to where we were in our discussion) is… Well, the aftermath of any of the five heinous crimes is that, immediately after you die, you’re born in the lowest of the joyless realms, the hells. So, whether that’s something that you take literally, just leave it aside for the moment. “Repercussions” refer to when, finally, you get out of that rebirth and, at some point, you’re born as a human again, there will continue to be repercussions of what you did. In other words, all sorts of incredible obstacles will come up in your life that will prevent you from being able to really get involved with the Dharma. These obstacles can be things like mental blocks, mental obscurations, emotional blocks – things that just psychologically block you. “Uh! I’m just completely repelled by all spiritual paths.” A lot of people are very turned off by religion in general. So, then they include Buddhism in there: “It’s the poison of the masses.” So, it’s a strong mental block that prevents you from even taking any interest in the Dharma. 

So, one could see – karmically – that if you had such a hostile mentality and had taken such hostile actions against any group of the Buddhist monastic community, creating blocks for others to get involved with the Dharma, a repercussion of that would be that you would experience a block yourself. So, we’re very fortunate if we don’t have some instinctive, mental block preventing us from getting involved with the teachings.

[5] Having Instinctive Belief in Things That Are Worthy of Respect

The fifth one is to instinctively believe in things that are worthy of respect. There are some of us who automatically have respect for holy people, respect for Buddhist teachings, and who are interested in it from early life. When we see monks and nuns, we don’t immediately make fun of them and think that they’re stupid or silly; instead, automatically, we have some sort of respect. We have some respect for ethics. 

We can see this also in the cases of small children who instinctively respect life. They don’t want to kill flies or insects and things like that. Then there are others – their favorite toy is a flyswatter – who delight in killing things. There are also children who, instinctively, from a very, very young age, are repulsed by eating meat. Well, that could come from many, many rebirths as a cow! But if it’s not something like that, then it could be based on having respect for the lives of animals, not just “I don’t like this. I don’t like the taste.” We’re not talking about that level of it. 

So, if we instinctively have respect for spiritual things, for spiritual people, and so on, that is a tremendous enrichment of our lives. 

So, these are the five that are personal qualities, personal enrichments: 

• Being born a human being
• Being born in a central location where there is some sort of Buddhist monastic community present 
• Having full organs and faculties 
• Not experiencing mental blocks and repercussions from having committed the heaviest of negative actions 
• Instinctively having respect for spiritual things 

So, you go through the checklist and see, “Do I have these things?” If you do, then appreciate it! Rejoice: “This is great!” Don’t take that for granted. It’s very, very rare. It’s in the topic of the rarity of the precious human rebirth. That’s rare! There are far more animals and insects than human beings. 

We were speaking about globalization, but there are still a lot of people living in areas where there is not very much access to Dharma. And even though I and other people are trying to make it more and more available on the Internet, the entire world doesn’t have access to the Internet – at least not yet. We’re very fortunate. Very, very fortunate. It’s really quite amazing.

We only have five minutes left. So, rather than rush through the next list of five enriching factors in terms of society, why don’t we spend a few minutes thinking about these five personal qualities to check whether we have them and to try to develop a sense of appreciation – rejoicing. 

How Do We Mediate on – and Rejoice in – Having a Precious Human Rebirth?

Now, you could ask, “How do I rejoice in something like this? What do I actually do? How do you generate a feeling of happiness?” The way that is suggested in some of the meditation texts is to imagine that you don’t have these and, then, all of a sudden, you get them. Let’s say you had cataract over your eyes and you couldn’t see at all, and then all of a sudden you get an operation and now you can see. Or all of a sudden, the Berlin Wall comes down, and now you have access to a whole world of spirituality. You’d feel pretty happy – “Wow! Now I have these opportunities.” So, that’s the way that you meditate on this. OK? So, let’s try that for a few minutes.

Another good example is when someone gives birth. As soon as the child is born, what is the first thing that the mother and father are interested in with the baby? Is it healthy? Does it have everything complete? This type of thing. And if the baby is complete and isn’t deformed or missing something or whatever, how happy they feel. So, imagine you are that baby and how happy you would feel. “Oh! I was a frog before, and here I’ve popped out and… wow! I made it! A human being!” How happy you would feel.