LTF 53: Appreciating Our Brief Vacation from Worse Rebirths

We are in the discussion of the far-reaching attitude of discriminating awareness, or the perfection of wisdom. There are many subsections to it, but to abbreviate the outline, it discusses the three higher trainings as the basis for developing discriminating awareness – namely, the higher training in ethical self-discipline, the higher training in absorbed concentration, and the higher training in discriminating awareness itself. 

Two Levels of Motivation for Training in Higher Discriminating Awareness: Renunciation of Samsara & Bodhichitta

When we actually get into the higher training of discriminating awareness, in other words, the understanding of voidness, we can do that with two levels of motivation. One is the motivation to gain liberation, in other words, the motivation of the determination to be free, or renunciation. The other is bodhichitta – having our hearts set on our not yet attained enlightenment, our own individual future enlightenments, being moved by compassion and love for everybody. We are aiming to achieve that future enlightenment so that we can actually benefit others as much as is possible. 

From the Madhyamaka point of view, specifically the Prasangika-Madhyamaka point of view, which is the philosophical view of Nagarjuna, we need the same understanding of voidness to reach either of these two goals, those of liberation or enlightenment. So, the text discusses this training in higher discriminating awareness in terms of how to get ourselves out of the disturbing emotions (that’s referring to the emotional obscurations, the disturbing emotions and attitudes and their tendencies that prevent our liberation) and then how to truly set out for enlightenment – in other words, with bodhichitta 

Two-Fold Division of Renunciation: Turning Away from the Things of This Lifetime & Turning Away from Samsara Altogether

Now, within the discussion of getting out of the disturbing emotions, in other words, the discussion of renunciation, we have a two-fold division, which is similar to what Tsongkhapa follows later on in his Three Principles of the Path. There’s the renunciation with which we turn away from having our main involvement and obsession being with the things of this lifetime. In other words, we think to benefit our future lifetimes, which in lam-rim, is the initial scope of motivation. Then, we have the renunciation with which we turn away from samsara altogether, which is the intermediate scope of motivation. 

Death, Impermanence, and the Precious Human Rebirth

For turning our minds from the things of this lifetime, we have the major topics that we find later on in the initial scope teaching of lam-rim: the meditation on death and impermanence and then the reflections on the precious human rebirth and how difficult it is to find. We have gone through most of that discussion. We’re still in the last parts of it. We’ve discussed death and impermanence – how it is for sure that we’re all going to die, that there is no certainty about when that will happen, and that the only thing that will be of benefit is the positive force that we’ve built up on our mental continuums through our practice of the Dharma, of the Buddha’s teachings. In other words, it depends on our having taking “preventive measures,” which is what the word “Dharma” means – something that we do to prevent or avoid suffering. 

Of course, thinking of death and impermanence only makes sense if we believe in past and future lives – that there is a continuity, a continuum of our individual subjective experience, and that what we will experience, in terms of happiness and unhappiness, is the result of the various karmic forces that we’ve built up in this lifetime and previous lifetimes as well. 

So, death is going to come for sure. When we realize that and we realize that nothing’s going to be of help except the Dharma that we’ve practiced, then we think about the precious human lives that we have now and the opportunities that we have. We want to use them in order to build up the positive force that will help to benefit our future lifetimes – that we’ll continue to have precious human rebirths so that we can continue on the spiritual path. It’s not that always having precious human lives is the ultimate goal, but it is the useful stepping stone that we need to achieve liberation and enlightenment.

The Spiritual Teacher

We spoke about the rarity of the precious human rebirth and what a waste it would be not to take advantage of it. We spoke about the ten enrichments – that our lives are rich with various opportunities to practice the Dharma. Within that discussion is where Nagarjuna places the discussion of the spiritual mentor, the spiritual teacher, and the relationship with the spiritual teacher and how important that is for making progress on the path. It’s not just for getting information, not just answering questions, but for giving inspiration by being a living example of what we are trying to achieve.

We spoke about the qualifications of the spiritual master and how important it is to find somebody who has all the various qualifications. We went through the list of them. Even if they don’t have all the qualifications and good qualities, at least, it can be somebody who has most of them. The main qualities, here, were having ethical self-discipline, having a mind that is not grossly under (ideally, not at all under) the influence of disturbing emotions, having a stable realization of reality, having good concentration, and especially, having great loving concern for the students, which is their only motivation – it’s to help them. They are learned; they are learned in the texts. They have some realization of that as well. They’re able to express themselves clearly. They never get tired of teaching, so they have patience with the slowest students as well as with the students that are very quick-minded and able to make progress more rapidly. 

We saw that the way that we relate in a healthy manner to the teacher is not by becoming dependent on the teacher but by having, first of all, firm conviction in the good qualities of the teacher. So, that means examining the teacher very well and seeing what good qualities there are. That also means not denying the shortcomings or the negativities of the teacher. We don’t want to be blind to that, but at the same time, we realize that complaining about them and dwelling on the shortcomings – like “My teacher doesn’t have enough time for me because he has so many students” – won’t bring any benefit to us whatsoever. That will just bring us down in our state of mind. 

So, we focus on the good qualities in a very clearheaded way without disturbing emotions – in other words, without jealousy, without arrogance, and so on. And we have belief in those good qualities based on logic. In other words, we see how the teacher was trained; we see that their qualities follow from cause and effect. We see the way in which the teacher acts, the way in which the teacher influences others. That gives us some indication of the qualities and so on. Also, we develop some aspiration because of that to develop similar qualities ourselves.  

Then, in addition to this conviction in the good qualities of the teacher, we develop great appreciation for the kindness of the teacher. We think of the kindness of the teacher to actually teach us, to actually stay. Even though some of us might not be the best of students, the teacher is so kind to come and teach, to put effort into us. This appreciation, again, needs to be free of disturbing emotions – without pride of “how wonderful I am that the teacher teaches me”; without attachment; without guilt, feeling that we don’t deserve it; without fear that the teacher is going to criticize us or find fault in us. None of that. Instead, it’s a sincere appreciation with a type of love that is very heartwarming, uplifting, serene and with a feeling of joy about the teacher, based on admiration and respect. 

With this type of attitude of appreciation, respect, conviction of the good qualities of the teacher, and so on, we relate with our actions. That means that we show our appreciation of the teacher’s work by actually supporting it. And that means in a material way – for instance, showing our appreciation by coming to class on time, coming to class regularly, appreciating that the teacher is actually putting a great deal of effort into teaching. We can also show our appreciation for the teachings by putting an appropriate amount in the donation box. That is another way of showing one’s appreciation. There’s no obligation, of course, but to take it totally for granted that the teacher is always going to be available, always going to be there… so, if there is a television program or a movie or a birthday, “Well, why bother to go to class? I’d rather go to that,” or if we’re a little bit tired or we have a little bit of a headache, “Well, teacher will always be there next time” – that‘s not really appreciating the teachings or showing respect for the teachings or the teacher. 

This whole system of donations is one way in which one shows one’s appreciation. Even though the financial aspect is not really the most important, although that needs to be there, that’s always emphasized. After all, teachers have to pay rent, they have to buy food, they have to pay insurance, and all these other things, just like everybody else. They don’t just live on air and good wishes and like that. But I think what’s far more important, whether or not we are able to give the appropriate donations for the teachings, is to actually come to class, to actually show up, and to show up on time, to pay attention, and to make some effort to actually put the teachings into practice. This is how we relate with our actions. 

We appreciate their work by supporting it and offering help in whatever way we can. In other words, whatever work the teacher might be doing in terms of helping others, making the teachings available, we try to help to help make it easier for the teacher – whether that is being a secretary, whether that’s recording, whether that’s transcribing, whether that’s cooking a meal, whether that’s cleaning the house. Whatever we can do to help the teacher to spend more time actually helping others is very good. It’s a way of showing our appreciation. It’s how we relate to the teacher in a healthy way. 

Yeah, Karsten?

Participant: Last week, you mentioned the ten qualities. Once, I came across another teaching that said that it’s very difficult to find a teacher who has all these qualities, so it’s OK if he has only seven, or OK if it’s only five. But it said that the two most important, though I don’t know if I remember correctly, are ethical discipline and concern for the future lives of the students.

Dr. Berzin: Right, loving concern. That’s correct.

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s even in my Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice, which I put together from Geshe Dhargyey’s teachings, that we have these ten qualities. There are many other lists of good qualities of the teacher. I think it was Sakya Pandita who said that it’s very difficult for somebody to have all the qualifications but that, at least, they should have most of them – if not ten, then seven; if not seven, then five. The number isn’t so important. But he said the two most important are ethical discipline (which means not abusing or exploiting the students and, instead, being honest and all these sort of things) and having loving concern as their only motivation, loving concern equally for all the students. These are the most important qualities. That’s for sure. 

And of course, what is always said as the most important way of relating to the teacher with our actions is to actually take their advice, follow the advice of the teacher, in terms of the Dharma teachings.

So, that was what we have been discussing. The next verses, verses sixty-three and sixty-four, reflect on how, with the precious human life, we have freedom from the eight states of no leisure; we have a “respite” from them. This, I think, is the best way of translating the term. A “respite” means “a temporary pause” from these states in which we would have no leisure to really follow a spiritual path, no leisure to practice. Geshe Dhargyey always used to say that it’s like being on a short vacation from the worst states of rebirth. “Don’t expect that’s it’s going to last long. And if you don’t do something, you’ll need to go back.” So, it’s a temporary respite. Don’t think of it as a permanent state, and don’t take it for granted. 

These next two verses are always quoted in all the later texts as the source of these eight. So let me read them.

[63] Rebirth is someone holding a distorted antagonistic outlook as a creeping creature, a clutching ghost, or in a joyless realm, or rebirth where the words of the triumphant are absent, or as a barbarian in a savage border region, or stupid and dumb,

[64] Or as a long-lived god – rebirths as any (of these) are the eight faulty states that have no leisure. Having found leisure, being parted from them, make effort for the sake of turning away from (further) rebirth.

Now, within this list of eight, there are four non-human situations with no leisure to pursue the Dharma and four human situations with no leisure to pursue the Dharma. 

[1] A Trapped Being in a Joyless Realms

One of these situations of no leisure is being born as a trapped being in one of the “joyless realms.” “Trapped beings” is how I translate what’s often called “hell beings,” beings in the hells. These are a type of rebirth state. 

We’d discussed these rebirth states earlier, so there’s no need to go into the whole theory of why such states are possible in terms of the ability of a mind and body to experience more intense suffering or more intense pleasure than what the human mind and body are capable of experiencing. Minds and bodies, in general, are able to experience the whole spectrum from extreme pleasure to extreme pain, from extreme happiness to extreme unhappiness. So, there are these other realms of existence where the beings have other types of hardware, other types of bodies and minds, that can support these more extreme states. 

So, the type of body and mind that would support the most intense pain and suffering and unhappiness would be what we find in what’s called the “hell realms.” These are the “joyless realms,” literally, from the Sanskrit word naraka (there’s “no joy” there), and from the Tibetan word, which means “difficult to get out of.” So, they’re trapped, trapped beings in these joyless realms. They are overwhelmed with intense sufferings of heat and cold and so on. As it often says in the lam-rim, if someone were to put a red-hot coal on our heads and ask us to sit up straight and meditate, we would find it very difficult to do. Likewise, if we were in a rebirth situation of extreme pain, we would find it to be very, very difficult. 

We can relate to this in human experience to being in a concentration camp, being tortured, and so on. If we didn’t have a very firm Dharma foundation and methods to deal with that, it would be very difficult to start there and then to try to apply some sort of method. 

What is quite remarkable and is, I think, very note-worthy, is to look at the Tibetans. There have been many cultures throughout the world, throughout history, in which people have been subjected to concentration camps and intense torture. Often, what you find is that, after that type of experience, the people are quite emotionally damaged. They experience post-trauma syndrome and guilt that they survived and that others didn’t. Big, big problems. You might think that Buddhism would help very much with that if the people were very well trained in Buddhist practices. But if you look at the situation in some Buddhist countries, like the Cambodian situation and the people who survived Pol Pot’s massacres and all the horrors that went on there, you see that it’s quite different from the Tibetan lamas who survived the Chinese concentration camps. It doesn’t mean that the monks and so on in Cambodia weren’t very well trained in meditation. 

So, if one thinks about what it was that permitted or allowed these great Tibetan Lamas to be tortured and to undergo the most horrible things – the monks and nuns as well – and to survive, and to survive with quite a cheerful attitude and with quite a great deal of serenity, it’s the guru, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is what the Tibetans have. It’s more than what any of the other Asian Buddhists have. And if you speak to any of the Tibetan people who came out of these concentration camps, they say that that, in addition to their meditation practices, is what gave them the inspiration. It was the inspiration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as their leader, as the one who gives them hope, as the shining example. I think this is a very, very good illustration of how important it is to have a great spiritual master as well as a good illustration of the type of attitude one needs to have toward the spiritual master, toward the guru. That gives you the strength and the inspiration to cut through and endure any difficulty. This is something really to reflect about because I think that it is a very noticeable thing among the Tibetans. 

OK. Now we have the freedom, this respite, from being tortured in a joyless realm. So, we can relate to it a little bit in terms of the human experience. There is a certain validity to thinking like that because, according to the teachings on karma, if after experiencing a rebirth in one of these joyless realms, we are able to attain to a human rebirth, we will experience some leftover of that joyless realm experience. There will still be a little bit of leftover of that type of experience – so, concentration camps or very severe, painful cancers and this type of thing. 

The Meditations We Can Do to Appreciate Our Respites from the Lower Realms

Appreciating that we aren’t in that type of situation, that we have a respite from that, is very helpful. The way that we do meditation on this is to imagine that we have this type of suffering and that, then, all of sudden, we’re freed. We imagine how wonderful that would be, how relieved we would be, and how much we would want to take advantage of that freedom. Then we think about a situation in which we’re just about to experience this type of suffering – that we don’t have that yet – and how we would want to do everything to avoid it. Then we think about how we have built up the karma to experience it sometime in the future and how we would want to take advantage of the fact that we aren’t experiencing it yet and, so, do something to prevent it. These are the ways that we work with this in meditation. 

The usual example that is used is falling over a cliff into the worst realms. We imagine that we’re actually falling and how we want to avoid that. Then we imagine that we’re just on the edge of a cliff about to fall over. And then we imagine how we’re a bit of a distance away from the edge of the cliff, but we’re heading toward it. 

OK. So, that’s the first one, the joyless realms. We have freedom from that.

Would you like to do that meditation? Can we try that? There are many ways of doing this. This can be done with joyless realms. We have also the clutching ghosts; we have animals; we have deaf and dumb, and so on. These meditations are done with all of these types of things. We could imagine, if relating to the joyless realms is very difficult, that all of sudden we discover that we are diagnosed with a very heavy cancer, which we know quite well is going to give us a tremendous amount of pain pretty soon and that there’s no cure, and how we would certainly want to avoid that. If we had that painful cancer, if we were diagnosed as having it, but the pain hasn’t come yet, or we haven’t been diagnosed yet, but we’re heading in that direction… we can do that with cancer, with AIDS. We can do that with whatever has some sort of emotional impact on us. And in terms of deaf and dumb, imagine Alzheimer’s, for example. OK? So, let us do this for a few moments. 

The main point of it is to realize that we have a respite from that. We have a break, a pause from that. We’re not there yet. We’re free from that. For the moment. And we want to take advantage of that breathing space that we have to actually, practice some preventive measure, some Dharma measures, to avoid having to experience these sufferings. Are there any questions about that?

[Pause]

Focusing on an Absence of Something – A Negation Phenomenon

What we are focusing on in this meditation is an absence of something. It’s a temporary absence, but it’s an absence of something. Here, it is the absence of being in the state of no leisure. I think that’s quite significant in terms of the general approach that we have in many of the Buddhist meditations leading all the way up to the meditation on voidness. When we meditate on voidness, we’re meditating on the total absence of impossible ways of existing – no such thing. So, already, with this meditation, we start to get into the habit of focusing on a negation phenomenon, that of not having this state of no leisure – focusing on the absence of that. It gets us into a way of thinking that, in a sense, frees the mind: there is an absence of this, an absence of that. Nature of the mind is free of the stains. So, it’s an absence of that, an absence of the disturbing emotions – with compassion: “May there be an absence of suffering from everybody.” It’s a general type of approach that is very liberating. We think in terms of “not this, not that.” 

Participant: I was just thinking, probably, it is easier for the mind to meditate on something instead of absence of something. Maybe. I’m not sure.

Dr. Berzin: Karsten says that maybe it’s easier to focus on the presence of something rather than the absence of something, that, in a sense, it’s a little bit easier to comprehend. Looking at the table and focusing on “this is a table” rather than focusing on “this is not an apple” is a little bit easier. However, when it comes to the teachings of interpretable and definitive meaning, the teachings of definitive meaning are, literally, the teachings that everything else is leading up to. Everything leads up to the teachings on voidness, the absence of impossible ways of existing. “I’m the center of the universe. I’m the only one. I exist independently of everybody. Therefore, I can have whatever I want, and who cares about anyone else.” But we train ourselves, train our minds, to be able to focus on an absence with these earlier types of meditation. At least, this is what I think. I’ve never seen that written in the texts or been taught that, but that seems to me to be one of the benefits of these types of meditation – that it’s in that structure of “not this.”

Participant: This isn’t the type of negation phenomenon that voidness is, right?

Dr. Berzin: You make a very good point: there are many different types of negation phenomena. 

Participant: I think this is different.

Dr. Berzin: It is very different. There’s a difference between an absence of something that exists, an absence of something that is a temporary absence, and an absence of something that never existed. But we are working up in stages. So, we’re working with something much simpler. It just starts to get you into thinking in terms of a negation phenomenon. But, yes, it’s quite different to meditate on voidness. It’s quite a different type of negation phenomenon. 

To focus on a negation… a negation phenomenon forces you to focus on an understanding. Doesn’t it? You could look at the table and focus on understanding that this object is a table. So, there needs to be some understanding there as well. But it’s more obvious, isn’t it? Whereas to focus on “not an apple” is something else. If you look at the presentation of the ten constructive actions. What is that? That’s refraining from the destructive ones; it’s not doing them. You see the disadvantages that would follow from doing them and, therefore, “I’m not going to do it.” It’s a negation. How do you define something or specify something? You specify it by discerning, “It’s not this and not that, and not this and not that” because you can’t actually point to it. OK? 

We had this discussion during a weekend a long time ago. I don’t know if the people here went to that or even if you remember it, but we discussed a type of phenomenon that’s explained in Buddhism, which is a double negation. The way that we translated it was “nothing other than.” What is a table? It’s nothing other than a table. There’s “not a table,” and a table is what’s other than that. It’s nothing other than a table. That’s how you define things. So, the whole Buddhist approach is in terms of negations, actually. That doesn’t mean it’s a negative religion. Those are not the same. 

But ethical self-discipline, a great deal of that, is not doing certain things. There is the ethical discipline to engage in constructive actions and to actually help others, but the basis for it is not acting destructively, refraining from it. 

So, anyway, the first non-human situation with no leisure is being a trapped being in a joyless realm

[2] A Desperately Clutching Ghost

The second one is being a desperately clutching ghost. These are ghosts, types of spirits, that in the Chinese translation are translated as “hungry ghosts.” That name comes from the Chinese cultural background. It refers to the departed ancestors who are not given food offerings and that, therefore, go hungry. And that’s quite terrible. But the original Sanskrit and Tibetan terms don’t have that connotation. “Preta,” the Sanskrit word, just means one that goes forth like a ghost. The Tibetan word (yi-dvags) means one with a mind that is very, very tight and clutching – so, a clutching ghost. They are totally preoccupied with horrible hunger and thirst, but their throats are so thin that they can never take anything in. Or if they take it in, it just turns to acid and so on. 

Some people have ulcers that are reminiscent of this type of syndrome… or they can’t keep anything down, are fed through a tube, or something like that. So, there are remnants of that rebirth that we can have in this lifetime. Another remnant would be to live in a famine area or a drought area. Again, if our total preoccupation was with getting enough to eat and getting something to drink, we would find it very hard to say, “Well, I’m just going to sit down and meditate,” unless we were really super well trained. So, we are very fortunate not to be experiencing that. 

[3] A Creeping Creature

The third non-human one is being a creeping creature. The Tibetan word, the Sanskrit word as well, connotates something that moves bent over. So, the image is not Bambi or some Walt Disney lovely animal or a pet poodle being spoiled. The image is a cockroach or some creepy crawly thing on the floor that anybody who sees it just wants to step on it. And that would be quite awful. You can teach a dog to do some tricks. You can teach a bear to ride a bicycle even. But you can’t teach them much more than that. And as an animal, either we are hunted… Can you imagine being hunted for your skin or for your meat? Other people want to eat you. Also, so many animals are eaten alive. Fish in the ocean are all eaten alive by other fish. Insects are often eaten alive by other insects. Horrible! And animals exploited for work… Imagine being in one of these chicken prisons or pig prisons where you’re just in a tiny cage. You can never walk. You can never do anything. You’re just force-fed until you’re fat enough to be killed and eaten. What kind of life is that? So, we’re very fortunate not to be like that – to be free of that type of situation.  

Geshe Dhargyey used to use this example: If we were a horse and the only way that we could communicate to others that we wanted something was to learn how to tap our foot, there wouldn’t be very much progress we could make in a state like that. So, we shouldn’t romanticize the animal realm – “How wonderful that is.” It’s not.

[4] A Long-lived Divine Being (God)

The fourth non-human state is as long-lived divine being, or god, a being in one of these god realms. Here, we’re not talking about the creator gods or stuff like that, although, I suppose, you could include them in this category. But most of these divine beings, according to the way that they’re described in the Buddhist and other Indian literature (although there are various realms of them), are completely engrossed in indulging themselves in trivial pleasures. Then, all of a sudden, after a very long life, they realize that they are going to lose all of that and fall. That’s really quite horrible. So, basically, it’s a great waste of time. Imagine having to spend the rest of your life in Florida next to a swimming pool and playing cards for the next thousand years. That would become pretty boring after a while. Pretty boring… or dancing to your techno music for the next thousand years non-stop, being so stoned that your mind is in a cloud. You would eventually – hopefully – find that to be rather boring and going nowhere. 

Participant: Do these gods have an influence on the human realm?

Dr. Berzin: Some of them do, sure. 

Participant: How does this manifest?

Dr. Berzin: The Tibetans certainly speak about the various gods and spirits of the mountains, spirits of the trees and this sort of thing, which comes from earlier beliefs. Whether these are ghosts, whether these are gods and the god realm, and so on, I don’t really know. 

The Inclusion of Hindu Gods in Buddhism

In the tantras, in anuttarayoga tantra, there’s a group of fifteen directional protectors arranged in the ten directions – it’s not at all a symmetrical grouping of them. These are basically Hindu gods from the Hindu pantheon. They are given initiation, Buddhist initiation, and are harnessed, you could say, to protect Buddhist practitioners – to protect you when you’re doing this practice. That, I think, indicates that they can offer some sort of protection. How do they protect? I don’t really know. Chase away interferences? How do protectors in general protect? 

Serkong Rinpoche always used to use the example of having a very fierce, wild dog like these huge mastiff dogs that the Tibetan nomads have, which are more like bears. He said that when you are doing a tantric practice, you are the central deity, a very forceful one like Yamantika. And although, you could – if you were, let’s say, the master of a house – stand out at the gate all night long and chase away thieves, why do that if you can get a dog to do that? So, the protector is like a dog. But you have to be very strong to be able to control it, and you also have to feed the dog. That’s the proper attitude to have toward a protector, a Buddhist protector. So, I would think it’s similar with the various Hindu gods or whatever type of gods. 

The Nechung oracle and these various other oracles, who are also protectors, are also in god realms. They give advice. The various gods have from birth different types of extra-sensory perception, so they can give advice. They can be drafted into helping others. So, there is that. How it actually works, I have no grand idea. But certainly, that is part of the system. Whether we as Westerners accept that or not is secondary. Nothing says that we have to accept that or deal with protection from Hindu gods. But the Tibetans do that. And obviously, the Indians did that. 

You see, you always have to think in terms of Indian society. And Indian society was very mixed. Buddhism in India was never really completely separate from Hinduism. This was its downfall and the reason why it didn’t survive. When the monasteries were mostly destroyed, there was no basis to sustain it because Buddhism in India did not provide life ceremonies for the people. There were no ceremonies for births, no ceremonies for marriages, also none for deaths. Later on, they’d do some guru puja or something like that, but that’s not a specific ceremony. For births and, particularly, for marriages, the Buddhists in India did Hindu ceremonies. So, they were integrated. And that’s why Hindu Indians don’t look at Buddhism as something really separate. They think of it as just another form of Hinduism. There are so many different forms of Hinduism. Also, Buddha is one of the incarnations of Vishnu, an avatar of Vishnu, so they have full respect for Buddha. They go to pilgrimage places, like in Bodhgaya, and so on. So, then Buddhism had to find within itself some place for the Hindu gods. So, they did. 

OK. But we are very fortunate that we are not reborn as one of the gods or in those realms.

Participant: So, how do you think the people saw the thangkas where you have all the Hindu gods standing over them?

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, then you have another aspect. I didn’t really want to bring it up, but there are various Hindu gods that are enlisted as part of these fifteen directional protectors. But then there are also various Hindu deities that are underneath the feet of various yidams, these Buddha-figures. That represents overcoming various type of disturbing emotions or views that would be represented by these figures. So, for instance, you have the twenty-four holy places of Chakrasamvara, which are also holy places of Shiva. These are various places in India – in general, on the subcontinent – with Kailash being at the center. So, this is in common – Buddhism and the Shaivite form of Hinduism. 

Now, it is said that Buddha manifested the Chakrasamvara mandala and superimposed it on top of all these Shiva places in order to tame that energy. Some of the practices, at least on a superficial level, within Shaivite practices – like the sadhus smoking a lot of marijuana, and the whole cult of the lingam, the phallic aspect, and the use of bliss in an ecstatic form – these were things that needed to be tamed (from a Buddhist point of view) with an understanding of voidness. In other words, blissful awareness needs to be harnessed and used as the mind that focuses on voidness. How it’s actually used in the deepest teachings of Shaivite Hinduism, I really have no idea. But at least, we can say that Buddhism perceived the danger that it could be misunderstood and misused. Therefore, Chakrasamvara stands on top of Shiva and Parvati, the consort, in order to show that that needs to be tamed. 

So, the whole use of kundalini yoga and this type of thing is transformed in the Buddhist practice into tummo (the practice of inner heat). It’s the same thing, except that it’s harnessed with an understanding of voidness. Hindu tantra has all the chakras and channels and winds and all the various yogas. Same thing. That’s not particularly Buddhist. What makes a practice Buddhist is that it’s within the context of the four noble truths, renunciation, bodhichitta and voidness (the Three Jewels of Refuge represent a lot of them). That makes it Buddhist. All the other stuff, most of the other stuff, is shared in common with all the Indian systems. 

Participant: Is Varanasi also one of the places of Chakrasamvara?

Dr. Berzin: I must confess that I do not know that list by heart, so I really don’t know. Around Dharamsala, where I was living, is Jalandhara, which is transformed, in Hindi, into the city of Jalandhar, Jalandhar City. Actually, that particular holy place is in Kangra, and there’s a Hindu temple in Kangra that is considered to be that place. 

Participant: Jalandhar?

Dr. Berzin: It’s not in Jalandhar City. It’s in Kangra. There are various guidebooks that identify where these places are, but I must say, I don’t have that at my fingertips. I don’t even have it in my computer where I have a repository of all sorts of information, but not that. But there are books that locate them. OK?

Now, those were the four non-human states of no leisure. 

So, within one of these divine realms, the state of no leisure to study could be because of being involved with trivial sensory pleasures on the plane of sensory desires (that’s the desire realm). Or the state could be on these higher planes of existence where these divine beings are completely absorbed in trances. So, if we were in a coma for twenty thousand years and then woke up from it – then what? 

Participant: It can’t be a complete coma.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not a complete coma. It depends. Some of them are focusing on nothingness, for example. That’s one of the states in the formless realm. It all the depends on what they are focusing on. To be totally absorbed in some sort of trance is not the end point either. 

OK. Then, we have the four human situations with no leisure. 

[5] A Barbarian in a Savage Border Region

The first one is being born as a barbarian among uncivilized savages. Or it could be being born in a place where religion is outlawed. There are plenty of places in which that has been the case, especially during the communist days when it was very, very difficult. Dharma books were outlawed, were forbidden, and people actually came to your house to check whether you had these things or not. There are still places where the Internet is censored. So, if we were living in a very dangerous area, let’s say, a war zone where everybody is killing each other and where there are suicide bombers all over the place, or living in one of these ghettos where there are gang wars and stuff like that – that would be very difficult. Very difficult to be in that type of situation. 

So, we’re very fortunate not to be in that type of situation. 

[6] In a Land Where the Dharma is Unavailable

We’re very fortunate not to be in a situation in which the teachings of the Buddha are unavailable. If they were unavailable, how would we be able to actually practice them? 

[7] Severely Mentally Handicapped

We’re very fortunate that we are not in a situation of being mentally retarded, severely mentally handicapped. What’s also always mentioned here is being deaf and dumb. The problem with being deaf and dumb, if we think in terms of ancient times, particularly before the teachings were written down, was that the only way one could learn the teachings was to hear them and to recite them – mantras and these sorts of things. So, being deaf and dumb would be quite a severe handicap to being able to learn the Dharma and practice the Dharma. I don’t know if they had sign language and these sorts of things in those days. Who knows? But nowadays, of course, it is possible. 

I really distinctly remember one teaching by His Holiness, which was in Canada, where they had somebody up onstage signing the teachings (doing it in sign language). I’ve only seen that once, but His Holiness really liked that, really appreciated that very, very much. It’s the same thing with making teachings available to blind people. This is something that my webmaster is working on – making my website available to blind people. There’s software that will actually read the website to people and even let them navigate and so on. I wasn’t aware that blind people can actually use the Internet, but they can. It just takes some work to make a site available for that. 

So, nowadays we have opportunities for such people. But if we were with Down syndrome or something like that, then, for sure, it would be very, very difficult to really learn and practice the Dharma. At best, we could maybe be taught, like a pet dog, to circumambulate a stupa or something like that. But that’s about it. So, we’re very fortunate that we’re not severely disabled or handicapped like that. 

[8] Instinctively Holding a Distorted, Antagonistic Outlook

And we are very fortunate if we are free of instinctively thinking with a distorted, antagonistic outlook. A distorted, antagonistic outlook is not only disbelief in and disrespect for anything spiritual – for spiritual teachers, for being a kind person, and all of that – it’s also being very antagonistic, wanting to argue and to put down anybody who shows respect for these things. We are very fortunate to be free of that. That would be a severe mental block to practicing the Dharma

Additional Meditations

The way that the meditations on these respites are usually done is to do them progressively. You feel like you’re losing a big burden from your back. It’s like you had a knapsack with eight heavy weights in it and that, one by one, they are removed. So, “I’m not experiencing severe pain like in a joyless realm” – that is taken off of you. “I’m not like a hungry ghost, a clutching ghost, experiencing severe hunger and thirst.” “I’m not like a creeping creature, experiencing stupidity and everybody wanting to step on me.” “I’m not in one these god realms, being totally absorbed in trivial, stupid things.” “And I’m not severely mentally handicapped, etc.” 

So, we feel each of these being progressively removed, and what a tremendous sense of relief and appreciation that we would have – that we have leisure from walking around with this heavy weight on our backs. That’s the way that this is put into practice in meditation in order to really appreciate what we have… and, in this case, what we don’t have. 

Now, if we relate this to the meditation on voidness, we first imagine that everything exists truly, solidly on its own, with big, solid lines around it, “out there,” giving us trouble and making life difficult for us – which is a very paranoid vision of reality. That’s a heavy burden, isn’t it? It’s like these heavy burdens on our backs that I’ve been describing. Then, when we realize that there’s no such thing, that things don’t exist that way, again, we experience a tremendous relief. A tremendous burden is off of our minds. 

“You don’t love me! You are ignoring me!” We think of a big, solid “me,” a big solid “you,” and then we realize, “Here’s a mental continuum, my mental continuum, that’s experiencing moment-to-moment change that’s made up of five aggregates of so many different things happening, so many different things influencing it, and in this particular moment, there has been this interaction. But that was occurring at one moment, and at another moment, there’s a different interaction. And they have many other things going on in their life, and I have many other things going on in my life…” and so on. But it’s a relief! A great burden that’s lifted. 

Of course, that’s not easy to focus on, as several of you have pointed out. Not easy at all to focus on. But we can train ourselves slowly to focus on a negation phenomenon. Negation phenomenon is negating something that you knew before. We have to know “apple” in order to know “not an apple.” So, slowly, through meditations like this on the respites, the freedoms, the temporary pauses that we have from these worst states of no leisure, we get into that way of thinking. 

OK. Any questions?

Geshe Dhargyey also used to use another lovely example. He said that people think it’s difficult to collect eight trivial items in a game, and if they succeed, they consider themselves so clever (you know these games where you have to find these various things?). But if we have succeeded in getting these eight respites, that really is an achievement. 

Participant: Is it also possible when you walk around in life and you see certain animals on a farm to meditate on it instantly? Or do you just use the technique in meditation on your cushion? 

Dr. Berzin: Ah. So, if we are walking around and we see various animals on a farm or whatever, do we apply the meditation then and there, or do we just leave it to when we are meditating on our cushion at home? We certainly try to apply it in daily life. 

“Meditation” means to build up a beneficial habit, to accustom ourselves to something by practicing it over and over again – repeating it. For very difficult situations, especially when our lives are busy or we’re dealing with some emotionally charged thing, it’s very helpful to have a protected space in which we can meditate. So, we have a room that we set up and so on to meditate in at certain times. So, we feel it’s a little bit of a protected space. In tantra practices, we always set up a protected space in which we visualize various protectors and figures in the different directions chasing off interference. We feel that we are in a protected space. That helps us to actually get into the practice. That’s important for training ourselves. 

But eventually, what we want to do is to view things with this more beneficial attitude that we’ve built up in meditation. We want to be able to see everything around us in that way when it is suitable, when it is appropriate, when it fits the situation. So, we see some animal… say, we’re on the U-Bahn, the subway (here, in Germany, people take their dogs on the subway, the U-Bahn), and we see a dog. We could say, “Oh, how cute.” But then what? “Would I really want to be this dog, lying on the floor there with a rope around my neck and having to go wherever somebody drags me and just waiting for someone to pat me on the head, and then I wag my tail?” So, we think in terms of how awful it is that this being, at this point in its history, has generated a dog rebirth. “It’s not inherently a dog. In a previous lifetime, it could have been my mother; it could have been anybody. And next time lifetime, I could be this dog. And how fortunate I am not this dog.” So, “how cute” could turn into a little bit of compassion for the dog. 

Now, that’s not so easy, of course, because some people, like I myself, like dogs. So, quite naturally, “How cute” comes up in my mind. And we want to pet the dog. Why do we want to pet the dog? That’s really weird. Would we want to pet the person who owns the dog?

Participant: We have different contacts and relationships with different beings. It’s normal.

Dr. Berzin: That’s true. Well, there are some people who treat their animals like they were people. But putting that aside, there are some people who treat people like they were animals, also. That also is the case. 

But I think it’s very sobering and very important – especially when we talk about renunciation, which is the general topic here: renouncing our preoccupation with this lifetime – to see that, if we have a precious human rebirth, we need to take advantage of it because it’s not going to last. I think in that context, it’s very important to get into the whole framework of thinking of beginningless and endless mental continuums, individual mental continuums. Without that, most of this Buddhist stuff doesn’t make very much sense. 

Sure, there can be a Dharma-Lite version of being a nice person and appreciating that we’re not in a concentration camp and taking advantage of this lifetime. But that’s staying within the context of this lifetime. As we know, one could be a great practitioner and do all sorts of nice things in one’s lifetime and still die a horrible, painful death of cancer. We don’t want to lose heart and get discouraged by thinking it was all stupid and in vain – “Where’s my reward?” 

So, for so many things (there’s no need to go into a big, long discussion; we’ve had it many times), it’s very important to think of past and future lives. So, that mental continuum… you don’t identify anybody as existing inherently with a big solid line around them – the life form, age, gender, whatever their karma is generating at this particular moment. It’s only on that basis that you can think in terms of working to benefit everybody equally. 

Everybody’s equal. So, you think in terms of this dog. Or you think in terms of the fly… I had a fly in my room today. It’s a being, an individual being, that for various reasons is now experiencing a fly rebirth. So, if I were in that situation, would I want… “I just happened to fly into this room. The window was open” – maybe, there was an interesting smell – “so, I came in. Would I want somebody to just smash me? No. Not really. It would be nice if somebody fed me. But aside from that, it would be nice if somebody helped me get out of this room, get back outside.”

Participant: Maybe they like to be inside because there’s more food.

Dr. Berzin: Possibly. They probably prefer to be outside in the backyard where all the garbage bins are. Anyway, let’s not get distracted by flies. 

But just the attitude to have toward the dog – this is something, all the time, every day, we try to apply. We try to apply these Dharma attitudes in whatever situation arises. And the more Dharma attitudes we’ve built up in meditation, the more we’ll have available to help us in the day. Then we’re really following what’s called the “lojong method” (attitude training), which is to turn every circumstance into a situation conducive for helping us on the path. So, seeing the animals – “Wow! I’m really fortunate that I’m not there.” It’s not very nice for them either, so we try to be kind to them, for example. OK? 

So, let us end, then, with the dedication. This finishes, by the way, this whole section on the renunciation of our obsession with this lifetime. Then, starting with the next verses, we get into the big discussion of the renunciation of samsara in general and thinking about the different sufferings of samsara in general. That’s filled with verses that are quoted all the time in the lam-rim texts.