Attachment and Ignorance A teaching by Geshe Lharampa Jinpa Sonam Translated by Dr. Jampa Kalsang Sunday, January 5, 2003, 2:00 p.m. ET Baldendolpota (written as pronounced) made prayers to release beings from the samsaric world. Today we will discuss the way we evolve again and again into this samsaric world. This is due to attachment and ignorance. Next week we will begin on a specific text. (Pabongka Rinpoche’s “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand”). Geshe-la stated,”If we stick with this text book it could take years to complete our study. It is a huge textbook on the Lamrim called “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.” Geshe-la received the transmission of this text from Tachampa (written as pronounced) Rinpoche. Geshe-la wants to stick with that text because it is very clear and the teachings are practical to our everyday lives. The reason he has mentioned this today is so you can order this textbook for next Sunday’s class. Last week we talked about emptiness. The opposite of emptiness is self-attachment, “I”, or self. Due to the letter “I” (self) we come up with a lot of “My’s.” “My brother,” “My sister,” “My mother or father,” etc. Following this will cause you to become attached to these people. The reason for this attachment is because we believe in these things so much. We believe so much in the delusion and the importance of “I” that we cannot disconnect. The self or “I” is so important that we believe in its parts. This is the cause of samsara, because we are so attached to “I” and self. By making this so important attachment, pride, and anger come about. How do we reduce or remedy this? We need to work on that. Why does attachment come so easily? We do not have to learn attachment. It comes very natural because we used to do in our past life. Thus it is very familiar and very natural. There are many factors that we magnify with our delusion that is why we become so attached. We perceive things to be so beautiful and attach. For example…if you attach to a car your ignorance and delusion cause you to see it as very beautiful. That moment is very crucial. If you cannot control your perception of the car there will be many problems. Due to attachment we kill. If we don’t have money we steal or even lie to get it because we are so attached. We do not have to talk from a Dharma point of view on this. Just look at your daily life. What is the worth or value of someone that kills? From a Dharma point of view if you steal or kill you pay this lifetime and lifetimes to follow due to negative karma accumulated by your actions. We will suffer. For example…whatever we experience, happiness, sorrow, this is from your karma. If you are having money problems this is from your negative karma. You are paying for past actions. What can we do before our negative karma ripens? The antidote is purification, prostrations, etc. There are many methods. By knowing reality and karma you will know that when your life is happy this is due to your positive karma ripening. If you are dealt a bad moment you will know it is due to your negative karma ripening. Knowing this will minimize your suffering because you will know it is from a past life. Another side…someone who does not know reality and karma greatly suffers when their negative karma ripens. These people sometimes commit suicide, seeing this as an easy solution to their suffering, because they do not know how to deal with it. Without knowledge of the Dharma or the laws of karma when you have happiness you enjoy it too much. And when hard times come you suffer too much. When you know karma you understand why these things happen and it evens out. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tejon (written as pronounced) Rinpoche (Gesh-la’s teacher who as passed), and other great Teachers and Masters, when they come to death they are ready and happy because they are prepared. If you are not prepared you yell and scream. The reason they are happy is because they are ready and prepared. Those that are not are frightened by death. Great Masters are happy because they know, due to good merit, they will be reborn as a human. When they are born they know they will die. That way when it comes they are ready. The body is like a guest. They study and know the 37 Bodhisattva practices. They understand consciousness changes. And they understand that this body is a guesthouse. Best practitioners and even middle practitioners are not even afraid of death. Middle practitioners understand reality and are ready to die. Worst practitioners, at the time of death, beat on their chest and yell. They know at this point that their path has led them in the wrong direction and now it is too late. Why do they panic, beat on their chest, and shout? Because they did not practice their life was wasted partying and the such. Now they are afraid and uncomfortable. This is the main reason. So far I have explained the Three Levels of Practice. The best and middle have no fear. They knew at the time of their death that they are helpless. We have to try to be a good person and help others in our daily lives. Most of our lives are spent trying to collecting money and making a living. Little time is spent on Dharma practice. This is not good according to Buddhism. Ujatempay Joombay (written as pronounced) said, “If you have a valley of gold when you sleep you cannot take it with you. If you recite the Mani mantra even 100 times you take with you.” Not just the Six Syllable Mantra (Om Mani Padme Hum), even if you help others with a good heart, that’s a good Dharma practitioner. At the time of death if you have positive merit from the life you lived you take it with you. If you own a 100-story building you cannot even take 1 story with you. In real life people use religions…”Mines better,” debating and competing. This is not good. Religion should come from the heart. Dharma helps to make you a better person. Sometimes religious leaders use religion as a weapon. Geshe-la does not feel that this is good and believes that it causes many problems in society. Religious people are responsible to look at what is going on. They should get involved and help others. Religious people should go to society and help others. Everyone likes happiness, no one likes sorrow. We always try to gain happiness. “How can I be a better person?” The Nature of Mind is luminous and clear as a crystal. Attachment confuses the mind. We don’t know reality so we attach to beautiful objects. If your mind is trained you will not attach and know not to. Because we cannot separate, confusion causes and brings problems. “If I cannot get I’m not happy.” This causes a lot of problems. Geshe-la says when he analyzes all the things he sees attachment causes a lot of problems. How do we detach? This is very difficult. If you read just one Dharma book this will not help. You must go to teachings, read Dharma books again and again. You’ll get some antidote. This level requires practice. If you are not familiar and read a Dharma book only one or two times you’ll forget. Your first meditation class was very difficult. You forget, don’t know, and don’t understand. If you study and forget you are losing time. Business people who lose business shout a lot. Money might help for 60 years, but not after death. After death it will do you no good. If we lose whatever we learn this is a great loss. For example take emptiness…you spend a lot of time studying, understanding, then you forget. Whatever you learn and study do not forget. This is like losing $400,000. We are so unhappy when we lose even $1,000 in business. I make this lifetime so important because it is crucial. “What’s the importance of my next lifetime(s)?” So you study and forget. This is a major loss. A great Yogi spends his entire life meditating on emptiness. Cameras and recorders have no value to these people. The great Milarepa owned only one clay pot, nothing more. He didn’t lose much in life. He didn’t eat what we eat, delicious food. He ate stinky lentils and didn’t miss anything. He gained enlightenment. He proved that through the Dharma you can become enlightened in one lifetime. If you read his biography you will see the beginning of his life was much different from the end. One must be careful in wanting to be like Milarepa. He was prepared, studied a lot of time, and it took a lot of effort to reach that level. To achieve that is a very simple thing. Helping people with the right motivation is real practice without attachment. When you help or give to others do not expect things in return. This is the wrong motivation. There was once a Tibetan nobleman who had much luxury. He read about Milarepa and wanted to be like him. He gave away everything he owned and went to a cave. He remained there and ate grass for 6 days. After that he returned to his village, he had given up, and told everyone that Milarepa caused him to become a beggar. He was just imitating Milarepa. He was not ready or well prepared. He could not become like Milarepa. When you do Dharma practice well and prepared then you will be ready. Start having your meditation sessions for very short periods…say 5 minutes, then 6 minutes. Increase these sessions slowly. Then you’ll be able to do them for hours. If you do not practice in this way you will tend to give up. Due to attachment we suffer. If I see an object that I don’t have money for I may steal it. Then I’ll be in jail. In India they beat thieves. This causes more suffering. Anger is a very bad thing. We must work on ugly. We are smiling then, due to a mistake, we become angry. This change makes us ugly. People will say when they see you, “Is this the same person?” From Dharmic language anger can destroy 1,000 eons of positive karma in one instant. Anger is very negative and very powerful. We don’t even have to talk in a Dharma point of view…if I want to be a Doctor I must go to school. I need wisdom and I really must listen to teachings from someone. This gives us light for a dark room. It is not good enough to read books and to listen to a teacher. You must put into practice what you learn. Do analytical meditation – analyze. First you listen, second comes understanding, and the third step is to put into practice through meditation day and night. We digest knowledge and understand through meditation. Due to our ignorance and attaching so much to “I” and self we are like machines. Rotating non-stop, life after life, due to our ignorance. Pandandowtopa (written as pronounced) made a prayer for all sentient beings and to eradicate all of them from samsaric attachment. The first level - compassion is like a seed within us. We must generate love and compassion within ourselves. The second level – compassion is like a fertilizer. It makes whatever is implanted to grow much faster. The third level – compassion works to help achieve what we want. So, there are three levels of compassion…1)seed; 2) fertilizer; 3) ripens like fruit. Pandandowtopa’s compassion prayer generates compassion for all sentient beings. When you recite this prayer you visualize even the smallest insects. The Nature of Compassion is to visualize all sentient beings, from the smallest to the largest to achieve enlightenment. Meditate on compassion using the three levels. If you do this you will transform your body into the Buddha of compassion. Doing this will help all beings. Meditate on love and compassion and wish for all sentient beings to receive this. Once you reach that level it is very peaceful and very calm. Remain in that state for 5 minutes. Visualization must be done in a very clear way. If you don’t know how to do this it will be very hard to do meditation on compassion. Q – Explain the three aspects of compassion . Geshe-la – Visualize sentient beings being freed from suffering. This generates compassion connected to mind. There are many factors. Compassion is strongly connected with wisdom. Geshe-la’s personal experience through interfaith dialogue is that Buddhadharma covers all sentient beings, even the smallest, and not just one being. Himalayans never purposely kill even the smallest animal. This is common in Tibetan society. Ninjay (written as pronounced) is Tibetan for compassion. Second level – same compassion, but more advanced. This can manifest even in Shravakas (Henayana practitioners). When you meditate on compassion you generate more, and more, and more special knowledge. For example…if you boil water at 100° it is boiling and cannot do much more. Just like an athlete who is doing his or her best cannot go past a certain point. Love and compassion increase, and increase. There is no end or limit. This helps you understand and accumulate wisdom. Next time we will talk about generating wisdom from texts. Gelug, Sakya, Nyingma, and Kagyu believe the same, but their practice is a little different. Third level – there is no practice at the advanced level, but love and compassion still increase. At this level you become a Bodhisattva. It comes automatically. The highest level of compassion is a Bodhisattva. His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that when we practice, at the beginning is easiest. The higher and higher levels is for all sentient beings. Emptiness is difficult at the beginning. Once you understand emptiness that’s it. It is harder and harder the higher you go because there are countless sentient beings. When you want to achieve a higher level you must work on emptiness. Compassion/wisdom – emptiness/method works like emptiness and wisdom. Q – What do we call “I”? The Five Aggregates or heaps…is this what we call “I”? Geshe-la – “I” is not related to the five aggregates. “I” is past life, “I” is present life, “I” is future life. This is much deeper than the five aggregates. We really have to understand “I”. Does “I” really exist? When you know there is no “I” emptiness is attained. The five aggregates are man given names for “I”. Look for “I” and you will not find. Q – What if one of five aggregates do not exist? Geshe-la – Madhyamika text says body aggregates are just man given names. Drola Ninjay (written as pronounced). Q – To reach the first Bumi (1st level Bodhisattva) what does this in tale? Geshe-la – To reach first Bumi you have to go to the five paths. 1) Path of Accumulation; 2) Path of Action; 3) Samadhi (Tibetan: Gomlam); 4) Tonglam – seeing the realm path; 5) Path without teaching. At the second path you understand the gross meaning of emptiness. You continue on from that level to the Samadhi level, then to the Tonglam path, after this you simultaneously reach first Bumi. When you go through all five paths you will have reached tenth Bumi. Even at eighth Bumi you understand all teachings automatically. Q – You mentioned Pandandowtopa’s compassion prayer could you tell/give this prayer to us? Geshe-la - (He quickly said the prayer two times. Jampa-la chuckled and advised that he would give the prayer to the student in writing after the class.) In meeting with Jampa-la after class he was given the Tibetan text from Geshe-la and he gave the following as the Compassion Prayer. My apologies in advance for the spelling, but I wrote it as it is pronounced. Tomboo she da la lin gyun Chin da gee dee she ngu la chuck Gee pa so choon chin dar drun one Me pa yee dro la ning geer drur Kan kay la dew Recite this prayer three times.