Recap
We are studying this text, Wheel of Sharp Weapons by Dharmarakshita, which is the earliest text in the lojong tradition, brought by Atisha to Tibet according to the traditional account. Lojong is attitude training or cleaning of attitudes, sometimes translated as mind training. In it, we want to train ourselves to cleanse or get rid of negative attitudes that are not at all helpful for the path but actually are detrimental to reaching liberation and enlightenment. Instead, we want to transform them – and, particularly, transform negative circumstances into positive ones to help us on the path.
This text has started off with a presentation about how to overcome the self-cherishing attitude and here the main practice that is stressed throughout the text is tonglen, the giving and taking practice. It’s a practice of taking on the suffering of others, assuming responsibility for them, imagining that we take them away from others; dealing with it in ourselves; and then giving them happiness and a solution – the causes for happiness. In dealing with the self-cherishing attitude, basically the level of tonglen that we are dealing with here is dealing with the suffering itself and the causes for suffering and particularly in terms of karma.
We look at various types of difficult situations that we might be experiencing; when we are experiencing these things, this is the time to do tonglen practice to change that negative circumstance into a positive one. We do this by thinking to take on from others the same type of suffering – in other words, to expand our basis for labeling “me” in terms of thinking, “It’s not just my problem but it’s the problem of all beings. I am a member of all beings, therefore it’s a general problem that we all face. Therefore, it is appropriate that I deal with it for everybody.” In expanding our basis here for labeling it as “my problem” and appropriate for me to deal with, we imagine taking that problem away from others. Then we look at the cause for that problem in terms of behavior, because we’re looking at the level of karma here in the first section. Each verse points out what the karmic cause for that type of experience of suffering is and then we imagine taking that on from others as well. We can think in terms of looking at our own behavior as well – how we might be continuing to perpetuate the cause for this problem. In terms of the teaching on karma, we undoubtedly are continuing to perpetuate that cause.
Then, when we give to others, in this tonglen practice, what each verse indicates is giving to them a change in behavior. So not only do we change out behavior pattern to not continue in this negative way which will cause the suffering that’s mentioned in each of the verses, but we give that solution to everybody. We think, “May everybody be able to change their behavior in this way.” That is dealing on one level with the problem and that’s the level of the self-cherishing attitude.
But then in the second part of the text, we deal with the deeper level which is the level of the misconception about how we exist. This is the misconception about the self: what we consider to be the true self which is actually not at all the case – that’s false. What we thought was truly “us” in terms of a solid, independently existing “me” is not true at all. We look, in the second part of the text, at various grand plans that we have for accomplishing this or that and we also point out how it never works out. We again look at everybody with the same type of situation and take it on from them. What really is the cause for that is the misconception about “me,” so that we take from everybody as well and we give to them the solution in terms of the understanding of voidness. That understanding is what will help them, or enable them, to actually overcome this grasping for a solid “me.” All this is done in the tonglen type of practice.
Doing this – this process of smashing the self-cherishing attitude and smashing this false concept of a “me” – is very difficult. Our habits tend to cause us to put up obstacles to that, mental blocks to that. We don’t want to do that; we have a great deal of resistance. Then we invoke the very strong force, or power, of Yamantaka, which is the forceful form of discriminating awareness or wisdom to discriminate between what is actually correct and what is false, what’s just a project or fantasy. Although one could look at Yamantaka as an external force, it’s much more powerful and meaningful to look at in terms of an internal aspect of our Buddha nature – that we have this forceful energy to cut through the confusion, cut through this resistance, cut through these obstacles and actually do this practice. We can smash through this misconception of a solid “me” and the self-cherishing and selfishness that is generates.
The Five Types of Deep Awareness
Now we’re in the section of the text that does a resume or a summary of this practice of tonglen. Last time we did verse 96. That goes very well together with the next verse, 97. Let’s just review what 96 was and add to that 97. In the old, poetical version, the verses read:
Thus, accepting ourselves all deluded nonvirtuous actions that others have done in the past, in the present and future with mind, speech and body, may delusions of others as well as our own be the favored conditions to gain our enlightenment, just as the peacocks eat poison and thrive.
Then the next verse:
As crows may be cured after swallowing poison by a powerful antidote given in time, let’s direct to all others our virtuous merit, that this may replenish their chances for freedom. May all sentient beings reach Buddhahood soon!
In the literal, new translation:
By having taken on ourselves, like that, (the negative consequences) of what others have done over the three times through their three gateways (of action), may the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment, like peacocks having radiant color through (feeding on) poisonous plants.
The next verse:
And by having given to wandering beings the roots from our constructive acts and, like curing with medicine crows who have eaten poisonous plants, having saved (then) the life of liberation for all beings, may they quickly attain Blissfully Gone Buddhahood.
We saw last time that the first verse was referring to a practice of dissolving the disturbing emotions into the underlying deep awareness. That is what is referred to here: “May the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment.” Let me just review very quickly. Underlying each of these disturbing emotions is a solid grasping for a solid “me,” and “you,” and so on and what we need to do is to relax that.
If we relax that through the understanding of voidness, what we are left with is the underlying structure of that cognition – the mental activity that’s involved with a disturbing emotion. If you loosen the naivety that we have of not knowing, or our mind being closed and knowing incorrectly, you’re left with just the mirror-like awareness, which is like a camera taking in the information. If we have pride and arrogance – “I’m better than you” and so on – then if we loosen that hold of grasping for a solid “me” and a solid “you,” the structure underneath that is just considering “you” and “me” equally in one cognition. That’s the underlying deep awareness. Similarly, when we have miserliness or stinginess and we don’t want to share, then likewise when we loosen that up, there’s the equalizing deep awareness of “me” and “you” rather than “I don’t want to share with you.”
For attachment or longing desire, when the grasping of a solid “me” is loosened, what we’re left with is the individualizing deep awareness – just individualizing this specific person or this specific thing that we’re attached to or have longing desire for. When we loosen the grip of underlying jealousy or envy, what we’re left with is just the awareness of accomplishing something, as opposed to thinking, “You accomplished something and I didn’t, so I’m jealous.” Underlying anger, which is basically a form of strong rejection of something, is the deep awareness of reality, with which we differentiate what something is and what it is not. “You’re not doing that, you’re doing this” – that’s all that is underlying it, as opposed to when we grasp for solid existence – “You’re not doing this” and we’re angry with the other person. This is the way that we make this transformation: when we are experiencing this disturbing emotion when we think in terms of everybody having this; we take that on from everybody and loosen that grip of grasping for true existence; and, with that underlying deep awareness, give that to others. We can see that this is a little bit deeper method than taking on, let’s say, the suffering and the karmic cause for that suffering from others and just changing our behavior and giving that behavior solution to others. It’s a deeper level.
Let us try that with one particular disturbing emotion. If you can remember these instructions, then we can do it with whatever disturbing emotion we might be feeling now, or we’ve been feeling most recently.
What I was thinking or experiencing was that I tried to connect it much more strongly with voidness. In a situation in which it had to do with another person – “You did this and didn’t do that”, “You gave this to somebody else and didn’t give this to me” – what was underlying that of course was the big “me.” The more that you focus on, “Well, you just did this and didn’t do that” – that’s all that it was – that becomes a little bit more neutral, less emotionally charged. In other words, it diffuses the problem and there’s less “me” in it. When you open it up to the tonglen practice of thinking of everybody, then it’s even less focused on “me” and my specific problem, because everybody has a different case of this.
In other words, when doing this process the actual content of the anger and what the object was and what specifically you did and didn’t do becomes totally irrelevant. You just get down in a very Mahamudra sense to just the structure of the mental activity that’s involved – that’s all. In this way, it really diffuses the problem for yourself and in giving this to others, you’re not thinking in terms of a specific – “this one” or “that one” – but more, in a tantra sense, of just the light rays going out from you of that deep awareness. As a tantra figure, you’re omitting these five-color rays of light and all that – those are the five types of deep awareness. What I tried to do was put all five together because they say the five types of deep awareness interact with each other.
“You did this and you didn’t do that” – that’s the awareness of reality. But also underlying that – “You did this to the other person and didn’t do this to me” – is the accomplishing deep awareness of doing something. With that also is the equalizing awareness of thinking, “You didn’t do it to me, but you did it to something else.” It’s looking at the two equally; there’s the mirror-like awareness, taking the information of that; and the individualizing awareness – “You didn’t do that. You did this and you didn’t do that.” In a sense, what you can try to do then is to see the whole scope of the mind and mental activity – the five types of deep awareness – that are underlying in fact all moments. Then as a Buddha figure you just radiate that to everybody: “May everybody get that understanding and may it dissolve, in a sense, everybody’s problem, everybody’s disturbing emotions.”
In doing that, it also helps to dissolve this solid view of “this one and that one and that one and that one” or “this person, that person, that person, that person, with this problem, that problem and that problem.” You don’t want to lose sight of the conventional identity of each person – of course they’re an individual. But you also don’t want to be biased in thinking, “Well, I’ll deal with this person’s problem and not that person. I’ll deal with this one because I like that and not with that one because I don’t like them of I don’t know them.” Actually, in doing that I didn’t find very much of a necessity for using those very strong visualizations of the dirty substances and the diarrhea and vomit and frightening insects and stuff coming into me, to deal with that. If there’s some sort of basic understanding of voidness there, the resistance is much weaker.
But I think what was most significant in it, in my experience, was that the actual content of the incident that I was upset about was totally irrelevant. It’s just a general pattern and then if you expand and think in terms of beginningless mind – beginningless mental continuum that’s going to go on forever as well – that okay, you had this one incident but come on, that’s one of how many billions and billions of the same incident, then you can start to really get into the whole idea of renunciation and liberation from this. This is just going to go on. It’s not just in my lifetime; there’s going to be another lifetime with the same crap and another lifetime and another lifetime. It’s just going to go on and on and on, so you really want to get out of that.
Practicing Tonglen
I would think what would motivate you to actually to do this practice – and this is what is recommended – is not to do it just when we think, “Everything is fine with me and now I’m going to do this practice and take on everybody else’s problems; I’m okay.” What is recommended is when we are at the time experiencing some really disturbing emotion and the pain of it, to transform that negative circumstance into a positive one by doing this practice. You want to be able to apply it when you actually need it. Of course, if we’re in a real-life situation, unless we are completely familiar with this practice in meditation by ourselves, we won’t be able to apply it. I don’t know about you but I’m sure for most of us – it’s certainly the case with me – if you have a disturbing emotion, it comes up all the time, over and over again, the thought repeats and the motion repeats. So, while you’re sitting in meditation, that emotion could easily come up again.
It’s like a recurring thought – “You did this and you didn’t do that” – a recurring thought that does on and on and on. Then, I think, once we have dealt with the tonglen level of this practice, I find it quite good to turn to a Mahamudra method during the day. The Mahamudra method is that this is going to repeat because of the habit: the thought is going to come up again. You keep of thinking of that person and you can’t help yourself. It’s quite but bizarre how many times, when you’re upset with somebody, the thought of that person keeps on arising, even if you’ve been working with it in meditation. In that situation, then you just see it as a wave on the ocean – if we want to use the simplest Mahamuda method. It’s just a wave of mental activity and we don’t get involved with the content. This is just a blip of the mental activity, due to a stupid habit. Then you don’t pay attention to it. “I’m not going to let this take over”. This is just a loop, a repeating loop that’s going on. This is stupid. Don’t get involved in the content, don’t follow it out. You can look at it a little more sophisticatedly in terms of the rising of a mental hologram and awareness engaging with it – doesn’t matter at which level you look at it. So this I think is a good combination with this practice of seeing the underlying deep awareness and expanding it with the tonglen practice. Because it’s going to happen, the recurring thought is going to be there.
One shouldn’t think that just applying this method of tonglen and dissolving things into the deep awareness is going to instantly rid you of the emotional upset and the recurring thought. But eventually the force of that recurring thought will get weaker and weaker. This recurring thought is always with “you” – there’s a strong “you” and a strong “me.” This is nonsense. In terms of this longer mental continuum, if it’s not this specific “you,” it’s another “you.” I’ve done this millions of times; I’ve certainly done it many times in this lifetime already, with this “you” or that “you.” What’s so special? Nothing. That also is very helpful when you start thinking of the longer time span. It’s already pretty good if you can think of the whole timespan of this lifetime, but if you can think of many more lifetimes, then you see the pattern more easily and the actual specific instance is fairly irrelevant. This problem will pass, this particular instance will pass and then another one will arise and another one will arise.
When you’re emotionally upset you don’t usually choose the wisest course of action. What is the definition of a disturbing emotion? It’s a state of mind, when it arises you lose peace of mind and you lose self-control, so we just say something stupid or so something stupid that later we regret. So, this is actually incredibly advanced and not very easy practice. But I think what we have to watch out for here – and I notice it in myself as well – is that you tend to just do this practice and ignore the tonglen aspect of it, because the so-called simple practice of doing it just with yourself is so sophisticated and difficult that taking it to the next step of doing it as a tonglen practice is even more sophisticated. There are many levels at which we could work on this thing, and we need to take more time and do it more slowly – especially at the beginning, when we’re not used to it – step by step.
Giving Others the Roots of Our Constructive Acts
Let’s move on to the second verse that we were reading. The first verse was taking on the problems of others and transforming it into the underlying deep awareness and the second verse:
And by having given to wandering beings the roots from our constructive acts and, like curing with medicine crows who have eaten poisonous plants, having saved (then) the life of liberation for all beings, may they quickly attain Blissfully Gone Buddhahood.
What we are giving to others is not just the underlying deep awareness, for example, from the first verse here; but also the roots of our constructive acts. What does that mean? Whatever good qualities I have and whatever constructive actions I’ve done have built up a positive force and that positive force will ripen into continuing to have, let’s say, happiness, things going well, intelligence and kindness and opportunities to study with the great spiritual masters and so on. What we want to do is to share that with others. How do you share that with others? I’ll just give an example of how I try to do it. The root of my positive force allowed me to be able to study with the greatest of the great Tibetan masters. I trained to be a translator for them to enable others to be able to likewise share their teaching. That is using my roots of virtue (as it’s sometimes translated) to ripen into not just me getting these teachings and to hell with everybody else but making them available for others. Indirectly, Serkong Rinpoche really pushed me in that direction because, as I’ve mentioned many times, for most of the years that I was with him, he would never teach me individually. I had to translate. Whatever I wanted to study I had to translate for somebody else. It had to be in that situation. Finally, it dawns on you what he’s doing and why he’s doing that.
So, if we have connections with various influential people that can help – well, not just that they help us, they can share that with others. They can help other people as well. If we have intelligence, we can use that to help teach others; if we have kindness, we can use that to be kind not just to ourselves or people in our family but to be kind to others, like being a nurse for example, or a social workers. So, in that sense we give the constructive things to others and, in this way – as it says, “like curing with medicine crows who have eaten poisonous plants.”
Also, what does the positive force that we’ve built up – the roots of our virtue, as they say – ripen into? That also ripens into the circumstances that are conducive for overcoming two types of obscurations: the emotional and cognitive obscurations – in other words, our mental blocks, to put it simply. The more positive force we build up, the weaker our mental blocks will be; we’ll be able to overcome them. That’s very true. We’ll be able to understand more easily; we’ll be able to give more easily; we’ll be able to get over upsetting situations more quickly and more easily – the more positive force that you’ve built up, experientially it works that way. In sharing this with others, then it helps to cure them from their disturbing emotions, so you think, may they be able to overcome their mental blocks. There are ways of helping other people overcome their mental blocks: helping them to build up self-confidence; giving them encouragement; being kind to them; paying attention to them; not ignoring them. That helps them to overcome various emotional blocks, doesn’t it? Giving them advice; showing patience, tolerance.
We have built up all those qualities from our constructive actions and the positive force from that: may it ripen on others; may they also be able to overcome these mental blocks. We’ve “saved (then) the life of liberation for all beings”, because their disturbing emotions are what weakens the life force of gaining liberation. We help them and then “may they quickly attain Blissfully Gone Buddhahood.” “Blissfully Gone” is a translation of epithet of a Buddha, Sugata. Sugata means “gone” – one who has gone through the stages of spiritual development blissfully, through a path that creates more and more experiences of happiness because you’re acting more and more constructively. Constructive behavior is what brings about happiness. The result and state that you’re aiming for is also a blissful awareness of voidness all the time. Blissful in the sense of a relief: “Ha, I’m free from all this garbage.”
This is a fuller recounting of the tonglen practice in these two verses. Again, we can try this a little bit in terms of focusing now more on giving to others the roots of our positive force – may it ripen on them. We try to feel the mental blocks that people feel and dissolve that within yourself and give them the positive qualities and so on that we used to overcome these mental blocks. When you’re doing this as a tonglen practice with compassion, it gives you much more strength to actually cut through the garbage that we’re experiencing. “I need to do this, I have to do this, in order to give to others.” Let’s try this for a few minutes.
Dedication
Let’s end here for today with a dedication. We think whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for us and everybody to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.