Recap
In our discussion of this text Wheel of Sharp Weapons or Throwing Star Weapons by Dharmarakshita, we have been looking at the whole method that is explained here of lojong, of attitude training. This is a Mahayana training with which we try to change our negative attitudes and difficult circumstances into positive ones, for overcoming all the obscurations and hindrances that prevent us from reaching enlightenment and being of greatest help to everyone. We saw that one of the main focuses here is overcoming the self-cherishing attitude. Self-cherishing attitude is the attitude with which we consider ourselves the most important one in the world and we’re only concerned about our own happiness and welfare, and we don’t care at all about others. We ignore others and their needs; we come first. With this self-centered, self-cherishing attitude, we then engage in all sorts of destructive types of behavior, because it is fed by our disturbing attitudes or emotions of greed and attachment and anger and so on – arrogance, jealousy. Through our destructive behavior we cause ourselves a tremendous number of problems and suffering and often we cause others suffering and problems as well. But within this context of Mahayana practice, we disable ourselves from being able to benefit others as a result of this type of destructive behavior and this is a result of our self-cherishing attitude.
We really need to overcome that, and the text has spoken about all the negative karmic consequences or suffering consequences that come upon us from acting in a destructive way based on the self-cherishing attitude. Then the text offers us a different way of acting, which will stop being so destructive and stop being based so much on self-cherishing. We go through with many verses all sorts of different variations here, of different types of sufferings that we experience and their karmic causes and how we can change that. We practice this change not simply in terms of ourselves, but we take it as a way to overcome our self-cherishing. The strongest way to overcome the self-cherishing is the tonglen practice. Tonglen practice is taking on the sufferings of others and giving them the solution that will bring them happiness. It’s proper for us to be concerned about everybody’s problems because the type of karmic problems that we have and self-cherishing, are not exclusively our own problem. Everybody has the same problem. Therefore, whatever solution that we have for that is for everybody and, in this way, we think in terms of taking on and dealing with everybody’s problems and giving them the solution.
But then we go deeper, and we see what’s behind the self-cherishing attitude and what’s behind it is a false concept: a misconception about how we ourselves exist. We think that we exist as some sort of solid, independent entity that can function all by itself and get its own way independently of anybody else, independently of circumstances and causes and not caring about the consequences. So, this is a false concept – there is no such thing. But we believe that this is our true self and the misconception here is called the “misconception of a ‘true self.’” This is obviously false. It’s not referring to anything real. We need to understand the voidness of it, which means its absence of existing in this way – there is just no such thing; never existed that way, never will. We, of course, exist – that’s the conventional “me” – but we don’t exist in this way, as if there were a big solid line around us or we were encapsulated in plastic and there we are – independently all by ourselves, trying to get our own way.
Now, the text goes through many different verses concerning how, when we have this false concept of a “true me,” we jeopardize the wonderful plans that we have. It shows us how this false concept causes so many troubles and difficulties. We want to smash this false concept and smash our belief in this false concept, and we invoke the strength and power that we all have, which is represented by Yamantaka. Yamantaka is a Buddha figure representing the strong aspect of discriminating awareness or wisdom. This is the awareness to discriminate between what’s true and what’s false; what is reality, what is fantasy; what is helpful, what is harmful. It’s necessary to cut through and smash this false concept and belief that it’s true with great strength. This is because it’s so deeply embedded and we’re so accustomed to it and we don’t want to give it up because, obviously, “me first” – this attitude – is something that seems to us as the best strategy to play in order to succeed in life. But, in fact, it doesn’t work.
Practicing Tonglen
We have finished those sections of the text and now we are in the section which is summarizing this and reaffirming the practice of tonglen, of giving and taking. We have been going a little bit more deeply into this practice. Last time we did the practice a little bit more strongly and we saw that the practice is something which is very advanced. It’s not something that we do lightly, because what we’re imagining is that when we have a certain problem – and the text is speaking about when we have a disturbing emotion like greed, or attachment, or anger, or jealousy, or arrogance, or naivety, whatever it might be – we then think in terms of everybody. We think of everybody who has this problem, and in fact, everybody does have this type of problem and we want to take on that problem from everybody. Taking on that problem from everybody, what we try to do is to experience with empathy the suffering that everybody has because of this problem. It’s not that when we imagine taking on the stupidity of everybody, we imagine being even more stupid than we are; or when we take on the anger of everybody, we imagine that we’re angrier – it’s not quite like that. We need to empathize. We need to feel some experience of what’s going on, but I think the main emphasis is to experience the pain and trouble and problems and difficulties that people have because of these disturbing emotions, because of a sickness that they might have.
We can do this also when we’re feeling sick – imagine everybody who has a cold. All that comes on us, we are able to take it away from them and we imagine taking it away from them and that they are free of this problem or this disturbing emotion. Taking it into ourselves, we imagine that it destroys our self-cherishing attitude, which like a very tight lump in our hearts and that tight lump will be tighter the more that we offer resistance because of self-cherishing. “I don’t want to deal with other people’s problems. It’s too messy;” “I don’t want to get my hands dirty;” “I have enough problems of my own;” “I’m too busy; “I’m not good enough” – all these different types of excuses come up and make us tighter inside and more closed. This is what we imagine, when we take in these other things from others, that it smashes, and we do this with very strong visualizations. We could do it with a very simple visualization of just black light – although, obviously, light can’t be black – but we imagine black light coming in and that smashes the self-cherishing. But we can also do it with much stronger visualizations and this is why we need to be quite emotionally mature in order to do this practice, because if not, we could quite freak out at all of this. That’s why it is a very advanced practice.
We can imagine that all the suffering and difficulties of others come in first in the form of dirty substances like grease and oil and ink, mud – this type of thing that normally we would not want to get dirty with. We don’t want that to touch us, to come inside us. So, we imagine that because, in imagining that, the self-cherishing attitude within us puts up more resistance: “I don’t want to deal with that;” “I don’t like that;” “I don’t want that.” This is what you have to, with great strength, fight against. We also need to, once we’re able to deal with that level, go further and imagine, on the next level, that the suffering and problems of others come into us in the form of vomit, diarrhea, pus, snot, blood – these sorts of things – that again, even more strongly, we wouldn’t want to touch us or to get inside us. The resistance is even stronger. Then the strongest level is to imagine that all of this comes into us in the form of whatever it is that we’re the most afraid of, because then we really put up the resistance. We could be afraid of spiders, or insects, or snakes, or rats, or fire, or monsters. Whatever it might be that we are the most afraid of, you imagine that coming inside. What this does is, of course, build up a tremendous amount of courage to deal with these problems and to overcome the selfishness and self-cherishing that says, “No way I’m going to do this.”
Now, of course, another aspect that makes this so advanced is that it has to be combined with an understanding of voidness and the nature of the mind. Otherwise, we imagine that we keep all these horrible things inside us, and you really freak out and it’s not that. It’s not like that. It’s also not just simply that it comes into us and goes out some hole in the back of us or down the drain, like in the bathtub – it’s not quite like that, because we want to actually feel the suffering that the others experience. But we need, with an understanding of voidness, to realize that self-cherishing is not referring to anything real. It’s not some solid thing there that’s fighting against all these horrible visualizations that are coming in and the suffering. It itself has no solid existence. There is no basis to the self-cherishing and so, like that, that understanding of how false the self-cherishing attitude is, how falsely based it is, allows us to, in a sense, dissolve all that suffering and dissolve the self-cherishing.
We can also do this on a level which is more like a Mahamudra level, of imagining that all of the suffering and difficulties are just like waves on the ocean on the mind and realizing that whether it’s big waves, small waves – it’s still water. Then it quiets down, and we just get to the natural state of the mind. In a sense, we can combine both methods, if we like. Then on that basis of calming down and understanding of the voidness of all of this, then we can tap into the innate joy, which is a quality of the mind and give that out to others. Give the happiness out to others – we can imagine that going out of us, leaving us, with either white light or in the form of, within that white light, all the various things that the other person might need: good health, intelligence, more resources, more calmness – whatever it this that they might need. We can visualize that in any form that we like. It could be in a graphic form; it could be just in an abstract form – it doesn’t really matter.
So, this is the practice and we do this with alternating the breath. We breath in and we imagine that the suffering and problems come into us – that’s through the right nostril; and when we breath out, they leave us through the left nostril. That’s very difficult to do in the beginning because it’s too fast. So, what we do in the beginning level of this practice is to just, for a period of time, imagine taking in the suffering and problems; and then after that, for a period of time, that it leaves us. When we are really adept in it and agile and we’re able to do it easily – then you can do it with the in-and-out, in-and-out, as we normally breathe. Of course, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this practice is actually going to work in terms of eliminating the suffering from others and healing them in a sense. It is possible in some very rare cases, when you have a super close karmic relationship with the other person, and you really have an understanding of voidness and no self-cherishing that it could work – but then you are on some bodhisattva level.
There are cases that I know of in terms of great masters with whom this has actually worked, like with my own teacher Serkong Rinpoche. He was one of the teachers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He was able to do this type of practice, taking on a serious threat to His Holiness’s life and Serkong Rinpoche died in the process of doing this tonglen. He always said that in doing this type of practice, one has to be totally willing to die for the sake of taking on and removing the sufferings of others. He often said that, which I think was very interesting because then he actually did that. Usually, most teachers, when they teach that, don’t bring up that point. In any case, he was a great bodhisattva, that’s for sure and he was a teacher of the Dalai Lama, so on that level it was able to work. But in any case, on our level don’t expect it work.
Developing Courage
The main thing is to develop the courage to take on the suffering of others, to deal with it – so the courage to become a bodhisattva. It’s quite interesting, in the Tibetan translation of the word bodhisattva, “bodhi” is an enlightened state (either liberation or enlightenment), but “sattva” in Sanskrit just means a “being.” That’s all it means. “Sat” is the word “to be,” and “tva” at the end of it makes it an abstract noun – so “beings.” Tibetans translate it as “sem-pa:” somebody with a limited mind. So, Tibetans bring this aspect into it, which isn’t there in the Sanskrit and then very often that “pa” at the end of “sem-pa” in Tibetan they will spell differently: they will spell it with the word that means “courageous,” and so it’s someone with a courageous but limited mind that’s aiming for enlightenment. They elaborate bodhisattva in that way.
“Bodhi” is the purified state, which can refer to either the liberation of a Shravaka arhat or a Pratyekabuddha arhat – these are Hinayana liberated beings – or it can also refer to the enlightened state of a Buddha. So, there are actually three states of bodhi. The Tibetans make out of “bodhi” – which is basically similar to the word “Buddha, it comes from the root meaning “to be awake” – the Tibetans make it into two syllables, which is “byang-chub.” “Byang” implies purification – purified the negative aspects; and “chub” implies attaining positive aspects. The Tibetans followed this way of translating, which actually they got from the Khotanese in Khotan, which is the area in the north of Tibet – northwest Tibet, in the desert. They had Buddhism before Tibet had it and they translated in this way and that was something which the Tibetans borrowed from them or learned from them.
In any case, doing this practice helps us to develop courage – our minds are becoming courageous to act like a bodhisattva, to deal with the sufferings of others, so that anytime that we are in a situation where we could help others, we do that. Let’s say, you get on the elevator and you’re in a hurry to go up to wherever it is that you’re going, but you see somebody is coming in the door of the building and they also want to use the elevator. Self-cherishing would have us just close the door and go up: “To hell with this other person, they can wait.” But we realize that this is a very negative attitude. It’s not at all helpful to the other person and we invoke that power of Yamantaka to smash it and we hold the door open for the other person to also get into the elevator – this type of thing. Now, these are just everyday examples where we can see self-cherishing and how we act in a really very nasty way based on self-cherishing – a very selfish way – and how we could avoid that. So, we take on the suffering of others and we give them type of happiness. All of this, as it says in the text, is based on overcoming what is underlying the self-cherishing attitude, which is that grasping for a solid “me” – the so-called “true me.”
So that’s our review. A few of you weren’t here last time, so hopefully it was helpful to review it a little bit more thoroughly. This is, obviously, a very large topic and a very full practice and I can’t underline enough that it’s not a practice for beginners or those who are emotionally unstable.
In the beginning, as I said, I think we need to follow a phase of just taking in, because it’s too quick to do it with the breath – in and out, in and out – and then a whole phase of doing it out. So, obviously during this phase we’re both breathing in and breathing out; however, eventually we want to do it in coordination with the breath. Why? Because this then makes for a strong reinforcement of what we want to do in the advanced tantra practices. In tantra what you do is you imagine that you’re a Buddha figure – and this text obviously has tantra influence in it because of speaking about Yamantaka. So, what we do in tantra is you imagine you’re a Buddha figure – voidness and bodhichitta and all of that – and you imagine that light goes out from you, from your heart. In many of the practices, it doesn’t just go directly out of your heart. It goes out with your breath, out of your nostrils and in fact that’s the way it’s done in Yamantaka practice. It goes out and with this light it gives happiness and enlightenment to all beings and offerings (offerings to the Buddhas); and then you bring the light back in. This is not so much in terms of taking back in the sufferings, but the light goes out and the light comes back in. Eventually what you want to do, in the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga tantra – this is related to the energy winds of the heart chakra – the energies go out from the heart chakra in terms of emanations – because as a Buddha we emanate various forms to help others. Then you want to bring that back in and dissolve it back in, so that the energy winds will dissolve into the central channel. This is one of the aims that we have in the highest class of tantra, in order to reach the clear light level of mind, the subtlest level of mind, which is the most efficient for understanding voidness.
That’s quite advanced and if you haven’t heard anything about this before, don’t worry about it. But these practices here with tonglen on a sutra level are helping to familiarize ourselves with practices that we will do in general tantra of just light going out and coming back in of helping others. That would then prepare the way for the highest class of tantra practice, anuttarayoga tantra practice, where actually the energy is going out and the energy is coming back in, so that that helps us to dissolve all the energies in the heart chakra, the central channel. With this, we can access the most subtle level of mind, which is the most efficient for breaking through self-cherishing and all the obstacles. This then leads to, as a Buddha, being able to emanate out all sorts of forms and draw them back in. All of it is connected step by step. In tantra, in the tantra texts, there are various so-called vajra words – these are the words of the tantra texts, and they have many levels of meaning, the same words. There’s usually one level of meaning which is referring to practices that are done in common between sutra and tantra. This is a good example of that – that basically lights, or energy, or other things going out and coming back in – here it’s specifically in and out in the tonglen practice. This is done in common in sutra and in tantra and in each of these levels it has a slightly different significance and purpose.
Eventually you want to do this with the breath because the breath is the same as energy. In the Buddhist context, when we talk about energy it’s called the energy-wind and that is associated with the breath. The breath is the grossest form of that. There are a lot of practices done with the breath – shaping the breath with mantras, basically – so that then, if you shape the breath, you shape the energy; and if you shape the energy, then you can gain control over it. That’s the ultimate purpose of mantras. The ultimate, deepest purpose of mantras is to shape your breath, which then gives a shape to your energy; and if the energy has a shape and is not just chaotic, then you can work with that energy and dissolve it and use that energy. Mantras are very powerful. Serkong Rinpoche always used to say that there are three powerful things in the world, in the universe: there is medicine, technology and mantras. Mantras refer to the prajnaparamita mantra in the Heart Sutra, “gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha,” which refers to the path to liberation and enlightenment.
What I think is very important is not to trivialize the tonglen practice into just, “Black light in, white light out, la-di-da,” and not take other people’s suffering seriously. If you think that, you’re not really doing anything. The question is, does the other person that we’re doing this for, do they feel better? Do they get healed? In 99.999 percent of the time, they feel nothing. That’s why I was saying that you have to have a super strong connection with the person and really bodhichitta, really no self-cherishing, really perfect concentration and so on. In most cases it’s not going to work. That’s why you don’t tell anybody that you’re doing this for them. You don’t tell them. If you tell, you make a fool out of yourself. People don’t go around laying on their hands over the aura and stuff like that. That’s not Tibetan.
The main aim of the practice is that actually it helps you to develop the courage of a bodhisattva and to overcome your self-cherishing. If it helps the other person – wonderful. In most cases don’t expect it to actually help. That’s a very odd thing. Do things actually help that you do for somebody else? I remember, my favorite uncle was dying of brain cancer – this was many years ago when I was first in India in the 1970s – and he didn’t believe in Buddhism or anything like that. Basically, he didn’t have any religion. I was in Bodh Gaya and at the stupa in Bodh Gaya I lit a whole bunch of candles and things like that and said prayers for his benefit. It was very funny because then he sent me a letter asking if did something, because he felt something at that time. So, I think sometimes some sort of practice, especially if done with the energy of a place like Bodh Gaya, can have some effect. Things arise dependently, depend on many, many causes. I mean, obviously he died a few month after that. He was quite terminal. But sometimes you can have an effect on other people through a meditation practice. There are practices to help in the bardo – in the in-between period – but again, you have to be super well connected with the person and really have bodhichitta and voidness and concentration and all these things. But you can add something into the karmic mixture in terms of what type of rebirth will ripen next for this person and affect the next rebirth. That’s quite clear. How effective is it actually? How do you know? There is no way of knowing, is there? But the texts say that it is possible.
Bringing in Voidness
You have to have some understanding of voidness – that is the key. That’s why, right before this, the text talked about smashing self-cherishing and the verse – if we ever get to the verse today – emphasizes that understanding of “no ‘true self’.” Without that understanding of voidness, you just take the suffering into yourself. You hold it – “I’m the martyr” – and eventually you’ll explode. Don’t do the practice without some understanding of voidness. You have to get all the different pieces that you can use in order to do the practice, otherwise you just do it on the trivial level of, “In comes the black light, out goes the white light.”
Many people in the West have self-hatred, which is a low self-esteem. It’s a milder form of that and this is something that at least the Tibetans find very difficult to relate to. I was present when His Holiness was first introduced to the idea that Western people had low self-esteem and hated themselves and he couldn’t believe it. He asked everybody in the room if they had that and everybody said yes. You don’t like yourself and you feel inadequate and so on. This is what Anna is pointing out: “Trample him, trample him, stamp on the head and smash this concept” – this forceful aspect of Yamantaka focused on our misconceptions could be misunderstood as anger directed at ourselves, but it would have to be anger at a solid “me.” This requires a very delicate understanding of voidness, as you point out and it’s true. When you have self-hatred, it’s certainly based on thinking of a solid “me” – that that solid “me” is no good. What we want to smash is the conventional “me” believing that it exists as the false “me.” It’s like, “Come on! Wake up! You don’t exist like that. That’s a fantasy.” But certainly, if there’s no real understanding behind it, it could reinforce your self-hatred and guilt. “You’re so stupid,” so smash myself and then you get out the whips and start whipping yourself. Therefore, again, these are quite advanced practices.
I think the way that this practice works and how you do it is that you don’t start with this kind of practice. You start on a much gentler level. When you do voidness meditation in general, it’s very gentle. There’s no invoking Yamantaka or anything like that. First you become familiar with it. But where does the utility of invoking the strong force come in? It’s when you have the understanding of “Okay, I understand that I don’t exist like that. I understand all the disadvantages of being selfish and self-cherishing,” but – to put it into simple language – you don’t get off your ass and do it. It’s at that point, where basically you’re being lazy that you need this strong force that says, “Okay, you know that this is complete garbage, what you’re believing – now stop it.” It’s when you have to be strong with yourself. It’s like, for instance, the alarm clock goes off and you’re in bed and it’s so comfortable and it’s so nice and you have one of these inventions, which was invented by Satan himself, of the little button on the top of the alarm clock that you press and five minutes later it will ring again. That really is from the devil because you can do that over and over and over again and never get up. But eventually you have to be strong with yourself and say, “Come on, stop it already, get up,” and you get up. I think this is the type of example we can use. You’d be gentle at first but if, being gentle at first, you keep on pressing the snooze alarm, at some point you have to be forceful with yourself and just get up.
Sometimes we need to be strong with ourselves; sometimes we need to be gentle with ourselves. You have to be sensitive to yourself. That’s why with the Dharma we learn many different methods so that we can choose which one is suiting the situation. You really have to get to know yourself very well to know what the most effective one is for you. If you’re going to help other people, you have to learn what’s going to be most effective for them and not just make them into a static thing – that every time they have a problem, you think, “Oh, it’s the same old problem, so I give them the same old solution” – because things change. You need flexibility – and flexibility comes with an understanding of voidness, actually. You don’t think of yourself as some sort of permanent solid thing – “This is my way, and this is how I do it.” You’re flexible.
It is very important to apply the text, to apply the teachings in our everyday situations. That’s very true. Especially when it is somebody that is annoying. Somebody does something damaging to you or tries to do something damaging to you; for instance, somebody denounces you and says you’re a terrible person and things like that. You can have equanimity to that. You are fairly well-practiced, and you have equanimity: “Okay, they say stupid things, who cares?” As Shantideva says, “Somebody says something bad about me, there are other people that say something good; and if somebody says something good, there are other people that say something bad.” So, nothing special. Not everybody liked the Buddha, so what do I expect for myself? But you could also then do tonglen. Think of the suffering and delusion and jealousy and hatred and whatever it is on the side of this person that caused them to act in such a nasty way toward me and then think to recall that actually sometimes I’m like that too, or I have been like that in the past and then do the tonglen practice. That takes it one step further than just equanimity.
Dedication
Let us end then with the dedication. We think whatever positive force has come from this, whatever understanding, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.