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The Purpose of Life

by

Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa

I have been requested to talk about the purpose of life; therefore it is very important

for us to define life and the purpose of life to begin the whole subject.

So, what is life? Are we talking about this breathing, eating, sleeping, walking, and

talking life? Are we talking about this as life? If so, then what about when we are not

eating, not talking, not breathing, not walking, are we alive or not? So we have to

define this very clearly. Then when we say purpose we have to define, why we are

here, or what we are here for. Why we are here means looking back and what we

are here for means looking forward. Or just, what is this? Why do I look like me and

why do you look like you?

The purpose and our life, the subject itself, have to be defined very clearly otherwise

we will be talking without knowing what we are talking about. Let’s put it this way:

we have to make this life meaningful and we have to make this life purposeful. That

is good. Why, because we are already here and we want this life to be purposeful

and meaningful. But it is absolutely in our hands and it is absolutely our right to

make our life meaningless and purposeless if we want to, which is not hard to do.

But if we make this life meaningful and purposeful it is good for us and good for

everybody else.

One thing which we have no control over is, regardless of whether we make it

purposeful or not, is that our life will go on; that we can’t do anything about. There is

no such thing as ending our life. Nobody can end their life. Many people think they

can end their life by taking poison or by jumping off the thirtieth floor of a building,

but that is not true; they end their body but not their mind. What makes our body a

live body is our mind living in it—it is an occupied house, and when the house

becomes unliveable, then it becomes an unoccupied house; the person who was

living in the house checked out. So when our body becomes such that it cannot

sustain our mind, then our mind leaves the body. Our body is like a cage and our

mind is like a bird, so a bird in a cage. Some people like their cage and some people

don’t like their cage. I like my cage very much. That is my problem, but maybe it’s

not really a problem; I’d rather like myself than hate myself.

So, for the definition of life we should look a little bit beyond the mind and body

together in this form. For example, if we are not breathing anymore and we are

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deteriorating by the minute, people then put us in a very nice box and make it

airtight—actually some people may want to make us up and have a glass top on the

box so they can look at our face; lying there, very nicely made up and very peaceful

surrounded by flowers—but even in that situation our mind goes on. Our mind goes

on with an invisible body. Our body is visible so it cannot go through walls; it has to

find a door. But our mind is not obstructed by walls and nor does it have a speed

limit; it is faster than the speed of light and slower than the slowest of the slowest. It

is slower than a mountain and faster than the speed of light, at the same time; here

and there at the same time. In India some of us like to be precise in English, so

hither and thither at the same time. Are we alive at that time? Yes, of course, we are

alive, all the time. We are primordial. Our body can be dead but our mind is alive.

Now when we say ‘the purpose of life’ in a very casual sort of manner, not thinking

deeply, not trying to define it, then we are talking about the purpose of us

functioning in this body and living through childhood, being a teenager, adulthood

and getting old; all of this life. What is the purpose of this? That is a very simple,

superficial, casual perception of the purpose of life. Why am I born here? What am I

supposed to do? Why do I have two hands and two legs? Why am I able to talk and

listen? Why do I have to eat three meals a day? It will come to that, and if we talk

about that, then the purpose of life is to work out the causes and conditions that we

have created in the past, because we are the production of our own doing in the

past. We are not an accident. We are not somebody’s experiment. Each one of us is

a unique masterpiece of all of our actions and intentions of countless lifetimes of the

past.

So what is the purpose of life? In that context, one way we can ask ourselves is,

“Why did I do that so that I became like this?” That is one way to look at it, and if

you look at it that way, then the purpose of life is to undo all the bad things that we

have done in countless previous lifetimes, and to enhance all the good things that we

have done in all of our past lives. That is the purpose of life in that context.

Otherwise, what will happen to us are exactly the same things which have and are

happening to us; it will go on. In this life we are like this as a result of all of our past,

and in the next life we will be something else according to what we do in this life,

and the next life will be something else according to what we will do at that time. It

is a continuation. It is like the river Ganges—in some places it is very loud and

ferocious and in other places it is very calm and peaceful. In some places it is

moving very fast and in other places it is hardly moving at all. Also in some places it

is very, very clean and in other places it is very, very dirty, but it is the same river

Ganges from the beginning to the end. Similarly in one life you may be called Peter,

in another Jennifer, in another Sharma Ji, another Suraswasti, Mr. Gupta, Mr.

Armstrong or Mrs. Smith etc. Also in another life we might be a dog and called Kujo

or something.

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So it will be just like all of those things. And if we don’t do anything about it then it

will go on and on and on. But if we use this life to do our best—our best to undo all

the negative aspects of it, purify all the negative aspects of it by using all the

positive aspects of it, and improve all the positive aspects of it—then we will improve

from one life to another. Then we can call this a meaningful life. Otherwise we call it

a meaningless life, we lived and died, that’s it. Also there is no such thing as a

purpose of life that is something solid. We have to make this life purposeful and

meaningful.

I will give you an example, which for me is the highest example, which is Buddha

Shakyamuni. Because of all of his countless past lives’ good karma and everything

he was born as Prince Siddhartha. He was not born as Buddha Shakyamuni. So he

was born as Prince Siddhartha, the bad aspect of which was that his father, mother

and everybody wanted him to be the most powerful king. They meant well—you

cannot find anybody who cares for you more than your mother and your father.

Sometimes they care for you more than you care for yourself. That is what I call

‘mothers’ worry’; all mothers worry, worry, worry about their children because they

care too much, and it becomes more than children care for themselves.

Anyway, it was a good thing for his father and mother to want him to be the king

because he was already a prince. But also they wanted him to be a very big king—

from being a king to a very big king what you have to do is the same thing; you are

a king of one place and then you want to be a very big king means you have to work

to become a very big king. It doesn’t mean you have to put on a lot of weight

though. But you have to do things so that your kingdom will become bigger. And

there was only one way to do that in those days, even today I think. Today there

aren’t that many kingdoms but there are many countries and they want the same

thing. So that was the negative aspect of Prince Siddhartha’s life. Then everything

was provided for him so that he didn’t really have to do anything to get anything;

because he was born to a very, very important royal family everything was provided

for him.

Also for Prince Siddhartha, every aspect of life that was unpleasant was hidden from

him. He was just one person, he had only two eyes, two ears, two legs and two

hands, just like all of us, so he could not be everywhere, so wherever he went had to

be made perfect. Also whoever was going to be around him was made perfect.

Therefore he had no idea of what was going on. I am quite sure if his mother had

lived maybe she would have wanted the same thing, but his mother passed away

when he was very young. Anyway his father didn’t want him to see anything that

was unpleasant, so that was one negative aspect of Prince Siddhartha’s life.

But negative becomes positive if you have good karma, because your good karma is

more powerful. For example, if your good karma is a hundred kilos and your bad

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karma is only five kilos, then a hundred kilos will be very heavy and five kilos will be

tossed around like nothing. So that is what happened to Prince Siddhartha—he

wanted to see what was out there and this became the most important motivating

factor in his life. Although the king had done his level best to make everything

perfect, somehow Prince Siddhartha came to see birth, old age, sickness and death

in his journeys outside the palace. Prince Siddhartha asked his faithful chariot driver

sincere questions about what he saw, and his chariot driver was very sincere and

loyal so he told him the truth. Prince Siddhartha asked, “What is that?” “That is a

sick person,” his driver replied. Then Prince Siddhartha said, “Can I be sick?” The

driver said, “Yes of course your Royal Highness, of course you will.” Then he saw

somebody who was dead being carried away by people, while others were crying and

some playing music. Prince Siddhartha then asked his faithful chariot driver, “What is

this?” The driver said, “Somebody is dead.” Then Prince Siddhartha asked him: “Will

I die?” His driver told him, “Of course you will die, one day you will die.” So Prince

Siddhartha saw this very simple basic truth, which had been concealed from him.

Until then he didn’t know he would get sick or that he would die—he didn’t know

there was such a thing as sickness and death. That was all kept away from him.

Why the king was so careful about this was because after Prince Siddhartha’s birth,

special priests were invited to read his life. The priests told the king, “If he remains

king he will be a very good king, a very big and powerful king, but if he leaves the

kingdom, if he renounces it, he will become very highly enlightened.” The king was

devastated by this and didn’t want his son to renounce the kingdom. He also became

a little greedy because he saw there was a chance for his son to become the biggest

king in the world. For those reasons he did things in quite a neurotic way actually—

the way he tried to protect his son and build him up was quite neurotic. And if he

had succeeded it would have been terrible I think, because a king who doesn’t know

there is death and sickness and all of these things, if he doesn’t know that, then he

is a very ignorant king. But that was not able to happen because of Prince

Siddhartha’s karma. Prince Siddhartha took the bodhisattva aspiration three trillion

eons ago and since then was born again and again to benefit beings as a

bodhisattva.1 So that merit would not allow that [the king’s selfish wish] to succeed.

He saw the truth and as a result of that, then he renounced everything and left the

palace, because he wanted to make his life meaningful. He wanted to find a way to

be free from all of the suffering so that he could free everybody else from that.

Some of my friends who are not very serious Buddhists, who I call ‘friends of

Buddhism’ said to me, “It is a very, very selfish thing to do, leave everything behind,

your father, your wife, your son, and run away. That is terrible, that is very selfish.”

But that is because they don’t understand what bodhichitta is. Buddha left his family

and everything, not because he doesn’t like them or doesn’t care for them or doesn’t

love them, but because he cares for them limitlessly. His care for his father, his late

mother, his wife, his son, all of the people in his kingdom and all sentient beings, he

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cared for them limitlessly, therefore he sacrificed everything for them. How could he

free them if he himself was not free?

So he wanted to make the best use of his Prince Siddhartha life to reach the highest

possible realization. It took him many years—he sat on the bank of the river

Niranjana with a rock for a cushion for six years, not thinking and not day-dreaming

but meditating, and finally he moved from there to Bodhgaya under the bodhi-tree,

and there he attained enlightenment at the dawn of the day. So overnight, at the

dawn of the day, he became Buddha Shakyamuni from Prince Siddhartha. He made

that choice, he made that sacrifice, and he made that effort, then he became the

Buddha.

I cannot say the purpose of our life here is to become Buddha, I wouldn’t say that,

because that’s up to each individual. That is what you choose. You choose to be the

best designer, the best architect, a sort of happy yogi, or you choose to be worldly,

living a practical life but practicing dharma sincerely. So whichever way you choose,

whatever you achieve will be according to that. You will not achieve something

unless you wish to achieve it. There is no accidental enlightenment where you are

enlightened by mistake, you know, “Oops, I am enlightened!” That won’t happen;

enlightenment by mistake won’t happen. Everything is cause and result, and

everything is intention. But the final enlightenment is of course not by cause and

result, it is beyond cause and result. Cause and result applies until a certain stage,

then you are beyond cause and result because you become what you are. It is not

that you become something else. If you are becoming something else then it needs a

cause and result. But becoming what you are, then cause and result make no

difference, it is non-duality.

I believe that doing anything is ‘not doing’ that. ‘Not doing’ anything is doing ‘not

doing’ that. I don’t know if you get it, it is hard to explain. It is not that important

but if you sit down and think about it, it is very simple. For example, if I am talking

then I am not doing not talking. Get it? This way enlightenment is beyond duality—

this is the cause, this is the result, you do this then you get that, it is beyond that.

Until a certain stage it is like that, but after a certain stage you just evolve and

become. It is not cause and result.

Enlightenment is not düche, a Tibetan word which means the result of a cause and

conditions and so many things. Anything that is düche is impermanent. If

enlightenment was düche then enlightenment would be impermanent; you could be

Buddha today but tomorrow you would not be Buddha. Then what is the point? So it

is not düche, it is above and beyond that. As long as it is düche then you can lose it.

For example, you can be a very, very good person, which is very good, but if you

have not reached a certain level of realization that is above düche, if you are below

the threshold of düche, then even if you are quite enlightened, even if you are quite

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good, some situations, some cause, some things can ruin everything and you can fall

back to square one. I think we can see a lot of that within ourselves and within

others, some at arm’s length actually, not that far. I think you can understand what I

am talking about.

This way, the purpose of life, how do we make it purposeful? We should say,

basically, the purpose of life is to work out all the karma that we have accumulated.

But that is not really a purpose, that will happen anyway. So we go to the next

stage, the way to make this life purposeful is to make everything meaningful, useful.

We can talk, so make our talking useful, say prayers. We can see, so we can use our

seeing purposefully, read texts. We can hear, so make that purposeful, listen to the

dharma. We can walk, so make that purposeful, go on pilgrimage. We can do things,

things that are good for others, good for ourselves and good for others. We can

think, so think positively, think straight, don’t waste time by thinking negatively or

over complicating things. For example, I drink water very simply, and then I put the

cup down and put the cover on the cup, very simple. Then no flies fall in and drown

and I don’t get sick and have to go to hospital, and I don’t break my cup. But if I do

it otherwise it is very complicated. I can sit upside down and try to drink water... but

I tell you many times we do that. If you sit upside down and try to drink a glass of

water it will come out your nose. But we do that, sometimes by mistake and

sometimes by ego, we think, ‘Oh, everybody doesn’t know how to drink water. They

are stupid they just sit up and drink. This is how to drink water.’ So we try to be

smart but only find out better after doing it. That is wasting our life, doing

meaningless things that are counterproductive to a meaningful and purposeful life.

We can also understand this by listening to three very short sentences of the Lord

Buddha’s teachings: “Don’t do anything that is non-virtuous and negative. Do

everything virtuous, good, and positive. And tame your mind.” These three things

summarize the huge one hundred available volumes of teachings of the Lord Buddha,

the direct words of Buddha, the hundred volumes for which the lineage is available.

If we translate those into English I guarantee it will be three hundred volumes, if not

five hundred. For example, one volume was translated, the Sutra of the Excellent

Kalpa, and it became, I don’t know exactly how many, but I think four huge

volumes. Tarthang Rinpoche and Dharma Publishing from California translated it and

it became huge. So the essence of all of that put together are these three sentences,

these three points.

So to make our life purposeful we try to remember these three points. That is the

beginning. Then of course there are so many sadhanas, so many studies and so

many meditations, some of which involve sadhana and some which don’t. Sadhana

means one deity and its prayers, offerings and visualizations, so many things that

are sadhana. Another aspect of practice is not really visualization and ritual but

directly practicing, which is harder actually. The involvement of rituals and prayers

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and all of that is much easier because you have something to do, you do this first,

this second etc, it occupies your body, it occupies your eyes, it occupies your ears, it

occupies your speech, it occupies all your thoughts, you are so totally engaged in it

that you say, “I am busy with my sadhana. I have no time,” which is good.

So the aspect of practice—which is very, very noble, and very, very sacred and does

not involve any kind of sadhana, if we can do that, which is very, very good—is just

simply allowing our ultimate destination and our potential to develop and mature by

itself; just allowing it to happen. That sounds wonderful but is very difficult to do

because we have to do nothing—we have to be able to do nothing so that the

naturalness manifests by itself. For example, we do nothing and the sun comes up

and goes across the sky and sets and we have a very quiet, peaceful night, and then

the sun comes up, a very bright day, and then again a very peaceful night. It all

happens without doing anything; we don’t have to do anything. So if we are able to

not do anything, just rest in our nature, in our primordial essence, that is the best

meditation. But that is very hard to do. Therefore all of the rituals and all of the

sadhanas are very, very beneficial for most of us.

People often say to me, “I can’t meditate. I have a very hard time meditating.” When

I ask them what the problem is, they say, “So many thoughts come into my mind,

and my feet hurt, my back hurts and it is boring,” All of that. Then I say, “Okay, I

have something for you; do this practice two hundred thousand times and this other

practice ten thousand times, then there is no time to get bored. Then if you get pins

and needles by sitting, just stand up and do prostrations. You will never get pins and

needles and you will never fall asleep.” You see?

So there are lots of things up the sleeve, lots of teachings and lots of methods.

Actually there is a general saying that Lord Buddha taught 84,000 different methods

which lead to enlightenment. That is a pretty good number, but actually it is more

than that because each one of them is according to each person. Right now there are

five thousand million human beings on Earth and if they are all practicing the 84,000

methods, then each one has to practice according to their capacity. You can’t expect

them to do better than their best, so they do their best and then it will become five

thousand million times 84,000. That’s a pretty good number.

So this is how we can make our life meaningful, beneficial and purposeful. Now with

that being said I will go back to the original title, ‘the purpose of life’. There is no

purpose, we have to make it purposeful because all of the karma that we have

created to manifest as this life, we have done that all by mistake. We are limitless in

potential but we have mistaken that as ‘I’. You cannot find anything in the whole

universe more limited than ‘I’. But also you cannot find a bigger problem in the

whole universe than ‘I’. If there is no ‘I’ then there is no problem, because all

problems come from ‘I’, and all the karma that is created is based on ‘I’. ‘I’ is

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ignorance—because we don’t understand that we are limitless, therefore we are

limited. And I want to be ‘me’, ‘I’, and all of you are not me. ‘I’ like to hear these

things. ‘I’ don’t like to hear those things. ‘I’ want to see these things. ‘I’ don’t want

to see those things. So on and so forth.

All this comes because there is ‘I’ and ‘I’ is a mistake, a very big mistake. But what

can we do? From our hair to our bone marrow everything is soaked in ‘I’. As long as

we have a single drop of blood running in our veins we will call ourselves ‘I’. As long

as there is a single breath left in our body we will call ourselves ‘I’. So what can we

do now? We cannot avoid that by deciding not to say the word ‘I’; that will only

complicate things even more. In this way, the purpose of life, if you look at it that

way, there is no purpose, it is all illusion. But then we have to make it meaningful

otherwise it will go on like this forever. We will be human, that’s wonderful, but

sometimes we can become a very bad human being and that’s not very nice. Then

we will become a cockroach. I don’t know exactly how cockroaches feel, maybe they

think they are good, because there must be good cockroaches and bad cockroaches.

But I don’t want to be a cockroach; that is very clear. Also we can be born in hell, or

we can be born in heaven and become a god, which is wonderful. I mean, if I am

born in heaven and become a god that is wonderful, I would like it. But the problem

is that as it is a result of my good karma, when my good karma finishes then I will

have no place there, I will die. I will leave there and be born as a cockroach or a

human being.

Compared to a god, humans are cockroaches; a human birth would be really bad for

a god. If a god imagines that he will be born a human, it will be unimaginable. We

have to shower every day, but in Delhi in the summer we have to take three showers

a day! For a god that would be like us having to eat two hundred times a day. But

still, gods are not free from samsara. The highest we can reach in samsara is to

become a god, and there are three levels of gods. The highest gods actually have no

form, they are formless gods. Their lifespan is billions and billions of eons, not

billions and billions of years, but eons. They live long and they have super powers.

Each one of the gods has their own kind of different powers. That is wonderful, but

then a god can make his or her life meaningful or just enjoy it there and be the boss

of the universe, then it comes to an end. It will be a very long time compared to our

life span. We don’t live for more than a hundred years, most of the time, some

people live to a hundred and ten or a hundred and twenty, but most of us will not go

over a hundred. But gods can live for billions of eons. Just one eon is a very long

time. The lowest of the gods, called gyal chen zhi (four great kings), I think five

hundred years of our time is one day for them. I don’t remember exactly, but it is in

the texts that they live several thousand of their years, not our years, but their years

where our five hundred years is their one day. That is quite something.

Anyway, we have to make our life meaningful and purposeful. The entire teachings

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of Buddha are to make our life meaningful and purposeful, otherwise he calls it

samsara—samsara means going in a circle; becoming better, becoming worse,

becoming better, becoming worse, becoming better, becoming worse... just like a

wheel. Right now this spoke number one is up and spoke number ten is down. Then

the next spoke, number nine will be down and spoke number two will be up. Like

that, life will be up and down, up and down, it goes on and on and on forever. That is

endless samsara. Samsara will not end by itself; it will not end unless we want it to,

that is what we call bodhichitta; that is intentionally.

I have spoken enough about the meaning and purpose of life in this way, so now I

will try to entertain you by being superficial about the meaning and purpose of life.

That is being very honest, so now I will be a little bit dishonest: the purpose of life is

to do our best to enjoy this life without hurting anybody, without causing any

suffering to anyone, and on top of that, happily, joyfully, doing everything we can to

help others, to make them happy and make them enjoy life. That sounds good, so I

will end here and let you ask questions. I am sure you have plenty of them.

Questions

Question: Rinpoche, you said that if you haven’t broken through the threshold of

düche, you can always go back, you can lose it?

Rinpoche: Yes.

Same Student: Then you pointed out the obstacle of ‘I’ in which we are so involved,

would you say that threshold has to do with this ‘I’, could you tell us how important

that is?

Rinpoche: Absolutely. When our ‘I’ becomes no more than just a reflection and when

our essence manifests in such a way that as far as we are concerned there is no

duality—it doesn’t mean everybody has become non-dualistic, because Buddha has

reached that but we are still here playing games. So Buddha reaching non-dualistic

realization doesn’t mean we have reached it. So from our side, from the

practitioner’s side, when you are free of this dualistic ‘I’ and when you reach the

level of realization, not just understanding—I understand non-duality very well and I

could write volumes on it, I could talk for days on it, but realizing it is another thing,

so realization of non-duality, when you reach that level—then that is the threshold

which you have crossed.

Same Student: Then you will not go back?

Rinpoche: Yes, that will never happen. It is like learning how to ride a bicycle, once

you have learnt to ride, then you can always ride. It is natural. Right now ‘I’ is so

natural for us; ‘I’ and ‘other’. Everybody says ‘I’. How many times did I say ‘I’ in my

talk here? At least a few hundred times, if not a thousand times. Nobody can have a

conversation without saying ‘I’. Also nobody can have a conversation without talking

to somebody; you always have to talk to somebody. Even when you are talking to

yourself, you have to imagine you are talking to somebody. There are people who

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talk to themselves, but they are imagining that they are talking to somebody,

actually having a conversation. This is so natural for us. Now through practice and

through the accumulation of merit, through purification, through meditation,

whatever, then you reach the level that non-duality becomes natural, as natural as

how duality is for us now. When you reach the level that non-duality becomes that

natural, then that is, let’s say, the non-falling-back zone.

Question: In terms of the bodhisattva path, is that what you are talking about?

Rinpoche: No, before that. There are five paths. The path of seeing is the third path.

At the second path, which has four levels, you are not even a first level bodhisattva,

then when you reach the level of zöpa, (patience), the third, that is the threshold.2

As a chapter in a book it is quite an early stage, but as far as realization is concerned

I don’t think we can distinguish between somebody who has reached the level of

zöpa and a Buddha, with our own perception. If a person who has reached the level

of zöpa sat here and a person who is a Buddha sat there, we would not know the

difference, because we don’t have the capacity to see that. But at their level, it is

totally different.

Question: Rinpoche, you said that who we are is a direct result of the karmic actions

in the past.

Rinpoche: Yes, all the actions in the past. Karma always carries a kind of language

barrier, so let’s say all the causes and conditions that we have involved ourselves in

in the past.

Same Student: Okay, so on the relative level the world we inhabit appears

miraculously due to karma, however we, our body, have not appeared miraculously

due to karma, it depends on our parents. If it’s all due to the manifestation of

karma, then why don’t we manifest miraculously instead of having to come through

our parents?

Rinpoche: Well, I think this world did not come about miraculously. This world came

about through all kinds of ways, but we are talking about only one kind of world. We

are talking about the world that we perceive: this is the earth, that is the sky, this is

the sun, this is the moon, those are the stars, that is water. Then, this is good water

that we can drink, that is bad water which will make us sick, you know, that kind of

world. This is what we see. But each one of us sees it slightly differently, that’s why

each one of us is dressed slightly differently. Somebody thinks putting their hair one

way is cool and others think putting it another way is cool, etc. It is quite clear how

we all perceive, so each one has a different perception. Although we have different

perceptions, it is the same earth, the same sun, the same stars, the same sky, the

same air, the same food, the same things.

But this world has not just miraculously come about. This world came about through

many, many trials and errors of all kinds. It went through so many evolutionary

processes, burning, breaking, exploding, shrinking and expanding, so many things,

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which are still happening today. For example, just recently our land shook so much

that tens of thousands of people were buried alive. All these things are happening

but they are not miraculous things. Then we are born from our parents, which is also

our karma, because we have been their parents and now we are their children. We

say ‘mother sentient beings’ but we can say ‘father sentient beings’, ‘brother sentient

beings’, ‘sister sentient beings’, ‘husband sentient beings’, ‘wife sentient beings’, ‘son

sentient beings’, ‘daughter sentient beings’, ‘friend sentient beings’, ‘enemy sentient

beings’, ‘stranger sentient beings’. Everybody has been everything to us, therefore,

now, we become somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter.

But there are other ways to be born also, you can be born from an egg, you can be

born by what we call a miraculous birth, like Guru Padmasambhava, who appeared

out of nowhere, this also happens. There are four kinds of births: miraculously born;

born from heat; born from a mother’s womb; and born from an egg, which we call

double birth—first an egg has to be born and then the egg has to hatch and be born

again. So there are four types of birth, and of course I know that this time you are

born from your mother, the creation of your father and mother, but I’m sure in past

lives you were born miraculously countless times. Me too, everybody, so, we are not

deprived of having being born miraculously.

Then one more thing I must say, because this is our kind of perception, if you are

miraculously born in a certain way then you will not perceive this world like this.

Miraculous birth is not necessarily an enlightened birth like Guru Padmasambhava,

ordinary sentient beings can also be born miraculously, without a mother and father.

If you are that type, then your world will be totally different, you will not perceive us,

you will not see us. You will see everything differently, and our sun, our moon, our

stars, our earth would have no relevance for you. You wouldn’t see this; it would be

totally something else.

I can give you a simple example, for fish, water is air. Have you ever heard of a fish

drowning, except dolphins and whales getting caught in a net? Ordinary fish, real

fish, never drown. Whales are not 100% fish, they are kind of half and half, they

have to breathe. Anyway, for them water is air, but for us it is something to drink

but not to breathe. We would die there—if we were underwater for ten minutes we

would be dead, fifteen minutes would be the maximum. Then for our kind of gods,

we say they see all our water as nectar, amrita. For our kind of hell-beings they see

all the water as burning lava and flowing. For our kind of preta they will see all the

water as undrinkable poison, so they starve.3 Pretas or hungry ghosts are not

hungry because there is nothing to drink or eat, but because everything is burning

and poison, it is impossible to drink for them. Actually there are many kinds of

pretas, but that is one aspect. So like that, even water is perceived differently.

So in one way everything is miraculous, yes, but I think we should reserve the word

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miracle only for positive enlightened manifestations. But as a term, everything is

miraculous. All of us have two eyes here, we all have a little hair on our head, or no

hair, and one nose with two holes; it is miraculous.

Question: Rinpoche, you said several times that we need to put effort in our practice.

Rinpoche: If we need to. If we need to put in effort, then we have to put in effort. If

practice becomes so natural, then we don’t need to put in effort, but otherwise we

have to.

Same Student: Effort or diligence doesn’t seem to be at all in my control. I do it, but

I may do it one day and not another, it’s just like phenomena, it doesn’t seem to be

in my control.

Rinpoche: I can only reflect on your question, because for me it is not like that, for

me personally it doesn’t work like that. If I don’t put in effort then I just want to sit

there, be a couch potato. I mean that’s very comfortable.

Same Student: Automatically I end up doing my mantras and all that, but suppose I

say every day at six o’clock I’m going to do my mantras diligently, but it may or may

not happen on its own.

Rinpoche: I’m going to reflect on that because you said it and I also know other

people who are like that. I’m not like that. For me I have to have it written down—I

have to have everything very clear, a schedule and my alarm clock. You know,

everything, I have to have my mala [for counting the mantras], this is necessary,

this is how it works for me. If I have none of these things then I have no reference.

For example, I think it is four o’clock in the morning but actually it is seven thirty in

the morning. So I have to have an alarm clock to wake me up and then I know it is

time to practice. This is how it works for me.

But for some people it doesn’t work like that, because of their perception and their

way of doing things, their up-bringing, their kind of physical and mental structure or

whatever, it doesn’t work like that. For them they do it naturally, as it comes, more

spontaneously. There is nothing wrong with that. If you are like that, if you are

happy with that, if that’s the way it works for you, then let it be. Then you don’t

have to have an alarm clock or have notes written all over the place.

Some of our lamas, also myself when I am in retreat, write notes: ‘Don’t waste your

time, don’t let your mind wander, don’t daydream, you are in retreat’. I write that

very big, because I have to remind myself otherwise it is very comfortable—there is

nothing like doing solitary retreat. Solitary confinement is the best thing that can

happen to me because it is absolute privacy. Maybe I appreciate the privacy too

much, that way the solitary retreat is so enjoyable, therefore I have to put all these

things around so that I don’t just sit there and relax. I have to pray, I do my routine,

everything one after another; from this hour to that minute I do this, from this hour

to that minute I do this. I put these notes everywhere so that it becomes very, very

clear for me. Also my retreats are very short. Maybe just one month, or three

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months, a maximum of five or six months, so I don’t have time to waste. If I was

doing a ten year retreat then it wouldn’t matter very much, but mine are pretty

short.

So for different people it works differently, for people like you it works differently, so

let it be. Don’t worry about it by thinking that everybody says you have to have a

schedule and all of that, that that has to be the way, then it doesn’t work for you.

Then you think something is wrong with you or something is wrong with the system

of putting all these things like that. But it is neither. Each person is different. Some

people eat chilli and they get a stomach ache, and some people like to only eat chilli.

People are a little bit different from each other.

Question: I would like to ask about dealing with negative emotions like anger and

jealousy because they can become an obstacle to the kind of purpose you have

talked about. How is that to be dealt with as a practitioner or as a person?

Rinpoche: Of course you will deal with your anger and you will deal with your

jealousy in the best way you have dealt with them up to today. I’m sure you dealt

with them very well up to today. So you go on in the same way, but at the same

time you go to the root of it also. Many times we deal with things like an operation, a

surgical treatment. For example, if you see that half of a kidney is bad, you open up

the person and cut out the half part which is bad, then sew it up and put antibiotics

there and then the person gets well. That is one way.

We have to do that, but at the same time you have to go back: why did that half of

the kidney get bad? The kidney did not get bad by itself; it went bad because of

something, because of something, because of something etc. We can’t find out all

the causes and conditions of countless lifetimes, but we can definitely find the

culprit. The culprit is ego. Everything is ‘I’, everything is ‘ego’. So you find the ego

and you deal with the ego, but you deal with the surgical thing as well. I think you

are dealing with it surgically, case by case, but then you look back, go back and try

to tame your ego. But taming your ego is not done by beating up your ego because

then your ego is only afraid. You tame your ego by making your ego understand. It’s

like a child behaving because you cane them, or a child behaving because the child

understands.

Question: Is the understanding of ego like generating more bodhichitta?

Rinpoche: Yes. The bigger the ego is then you can make bigger bodhichitta.

Question: That takes care of our anger or jealousy, but what about somebody else’s?

Rinpoche: Oh, that’s when you have to wear a helmet and get a shield! How a

Buddhist deals with somebody else’s anger is that in your right hand you don’t carry

anything but a mala, also the mala shouldn’t be that big—a big mala can be a very

effective a weapon—so a nice small mala and a precious one, because you are afraid

14

to break it, so coral or something that breaks easily and is quite small. Then in your

left hand you carry a shield and on your head you wear a helmet. Then it doesn’t

matter who says what, or who does what, or who is angry at you, or who is jealous

of you, whatever; it doesn’t matter because the helmet and shield will take care of

that. And your right hand will not make it worse because you are carrying a very

precious mala and you don’t want to break it. Okay.

Of course another thing is that people can only have this kind of situation with

families, friends and acquaintances; you cannot have this with a stranger. If you are

out on the street and somebody comes and growls at you it doesn’t matter, that’s

okay, it is no big deal. It is not personal and you can deal with that very easily. But

when this happens it is karma, and if we don’t make more karma, then we are

working it out. But if we make more karma then it will become worse. For example,

if somebody says, “You are a dog,” and you go back and say, “You are a cat,” then it

is a big problem. If somebody says, “You are a dog,” and you just sit there, then the

person will say, “You are a nice puppy.” That then becomes better.

Question: Rinpoche, you talked about bodhichitta and a proper life, but each one has

bad habits. How can we overcome latent bad habits?

Rinpoche: Bad habits are not that easy to overcome. When something is a habit

already it’s not easy to overcome. A person who has bad habits is normally not that

strong, a strong person will not have bad habits. For example, this piece of paper is

not strong paper. If I roll it up it stays like that. That’s habit. Then if you try to make

it flat again it rolls back up by itself. But if it was strong it could not become like

that, you could not roll it. For instance, I cannot roll this table up because it is

strong.

So those of us who have bad habits, normally we are weak. Not ultimately, but

relatively weak. But forging strength doesn’t work, it is like cheating ourselves. So

first of all you have to look at exactly what your habit is, then you have to look at

the other side of your habit, turn the coin. This is the back of my hand and this is the

front of my hand, they are attached, similarly your strengths and your weaknesses

are two sides of a coin. The best way for most people and for most habits is to use

the strength of that habit to overcome that habit. Because the stronger the habit is,

you can find the remedy for that habit. Do you understand?

Same Student: Please give us an example? Also when you are born you may have a

bad habit. It is not new.

Rinpoche: Of course, the whole of samsara is a habit. It’s a habit of ‘I’. Nothing is

new, everything is there. For example, this paper is not new, it is many years old,

also it is not new because it came from a tree, and that is also not new because it

came from the earth. Nothing is new. Everything is ancient; everything has roots

going back billions and billions and billions of lifetimes. Something might look like it

is new but it is not, it is the fingerprint of all of the past. It is the masterpiece of all

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of the past. It is the tip of the iceberg of all of the past. That is what it is, and that is

relevant all the time. But it is still the same, because, look at strength, for example,

you wanted an example. So if your problem let’s say is very strong attachment,

which is a very bad thing—attachment leads to greed, jealousy, and aggression, all

kinds of things, so it is a very bad thing— then you can transform your attachment

into compassion. You can transform your attachment to limitless compassion for all

sentient beings, and to limitless devotion to the Buddha. That is the transformation

of attachment. You don’t have to beat your attachment; you have to transform it.

That is an example—the other side of strong attachment is the potential for strong

devotion, strong compassion and strong desire to be good; strong desire not to be

bad. So instead of that attachment going to rubbish things, use that attachment for

meaningful things. Instead of collecting rubbish you collect good things, because you

have a habit to collect. If you have a habit to collect and you cannot overcome that

habit, then instead of collecting rubbish you collect nice things. Then it becomes

meaningful.

I think this answers the question, I hope. But always, all habits go back for many,

many lifetimes, we are born with them. Sometimes it looks like habits develop later,

but actually the seeds go way back, otherwise they will never happen. For example,

when a peacock is born it doesn’t have one single beautiful hair, actually it looks

worse than a baby chicken—chicks are so cute. A baby peacock is not that beautiful,

but when it grows up it has all these beautiful feathers; hundreds of them grow into

that, because the potential is there.

Question: Could you please say something about devotion, as this is often difficult

for people?

Rinpoche: One common practice that we do is Chenrezig practice, the bodhisattva of

compassion. It is easy for us to have devotion to the embodiment of compassion

because we have so much ego—compassion is more ego friendly and devotion is less

ego friendly, so to be compassionate is much easier these days than to be a true

devotee, for good reasons. I think everything that we take, we have to carry a

thermometer and before we take it, dip in the thermometer and look at the

temperature, these days you never know what is what. So I think emphasising more

on compassion instead of devotion is quite appropriate for the world today. But it

doesn’t mean devotion becomes less relevant, because until we have true devotion

nothing deep is going to happen, that is for sure. Until we are able to humble

ourselves, until we are able to have true devotion (which is impossible when we have

so much ego), so until we are able to overcome our ego and have true devotion,

nothing deep and profound is going to happen to us, or develop within us. Therefore

devotion is always the most important thing.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, in tantra, the foundation is devotion. Compassion is the

foundation of Mahayana, which is very important, because without the foundation of

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compassion it is hard to have devotion. But once you have a good foundation of

compassion then you have to develop devotion.

I don’t know much about Hinduism, Sikhism or Jainism, to me all of them are the

same, but I see in the Sikh guru prayers, the Jain prayers and in the Hindu prayers

to gods, all of this music and singing there shows me that there is lots of devotion

there. I personally think that regardless of how much human suffering there is here

in India, still everybody is able to laugh, and the poor and rich are able to sit next to

each other and chit chat and make jokes. I think that is the blessing of this devotion,

really. So I think it is very much here. Also since I have been to many parts of the

world I think there is some sense of devotion in every society. For example in the

Catholic religion I have seen lots of devotion there. But naturally the sort of

magnitude of devotion is less in the west. The magnitude of compassion is there but

the magnitude of devotion is less. Compassion is there, at the same time I will say

that compassion is easier when we have a big ego—it is easier to have compassion

to someone than to have devotion to someone. When you have devotion you have to

be able to bow down, you have to be able to surrender, you have to be able to

somehow give in, but with compassion you don’t need that. You have to have

something to offer and something to give, so your knowledge, your physical service,

your monetary service and your ideology, you increase those for the benefit of

others, which is wonderful. But for deep things to happen then devotion is extremely

important. So through the practice of Chenrezig we can develop the already existing

devotion we have one or two steps further.

Question: Rinpoche, can thoughts become a cause for something?

Rinpoche: Of course, but only thoughts, no. The result of thought is thought. For

karma to become full blown karma, fully fledged karma, you have to have four

things: a very clear objective, a very clear intention, a very clear action, and a very

clear accomplishment, then it is full karma. Otherwise it is half karma, one quarter

karma, or one third karma. For example, if I want to steal Rishi’s wallet but because

I am so nervous I end up stealing my own wallet, then I don’t accomplish that

action. I had the intention, that is karma. I started the action, that is karma, but I

did not accomplish it so my intention was not fulfilled. Therefore it is only fifty

percent, or even less, because I would never rejoice in stealing my own wallet. When

you rejoice in it then it becomes really bad karma. There are so many other

examples but I think this is enough.

Question: Rinpoche, what would be the other side of anger and how would you

transform anger?

Rinpoche: Oh, that’s very good. The other side of anger is very clear. The other side

of anger is that you are a very serious and severe person. You are like a fire, you are

a severe person, you are not wishy washy. Therefore you take your bodhichitta very

seriously. Your bodhichitta will never be wishy washy. Also you put that into your

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practice so that you will do 4000 prostrations a day—because you have so much

energy, the anger, the aggression, you just go and do prostrations like boom, boom,

boom.

Question: Is diligence in practice always the transforming factor?

Rinpoche: Yes of course, but then diligence has many aspects, for some it wouldn’t

work. I mean anger is fire, so you cannot have a lazy angry person. You have an

active angry person; all angry people are very active. Passive people are not like

that. Therefore you should use that energy to do good things and you should take a

very strong commitment to do good things. And do it seriously, aggressively.

Same Student: But if you make a strong commitment to do good things and then

those things don’t work out, then you get angry?

Rinpoche: No, no. Then you will get angry at yourself. But that is much better than

being angry at somebody else.

Same Student: But if you are angry at yourself then you take it out on others.

Rinpoche: You will not. Then you are a coward. An angry person never wants to be a

coward, so you will accept your own weakness. If you cannot accept and admit your

own weaknesses then you are a coward. But a person who is angry and aggressive

never wants to be a coward.

Same Student: So are you saying just be good, good, good?

Rinpoche: Be the sugar daddy? But good, good, good can be very bad. I understand,

of course I have a very clear answer for that. Always you have to say, “Be good,

good, good,” that you have to say. But we have to understand that good means real

good. For example, if a thief is coming to your house and is going to steal all your

valuables, then you will be deprived of them and the person becomes a thief and is

very happy with it. Then the thief will have very bad karma from that, also they

might get caught and become a criminal by the law. Then that is not very good.

So it looks like you are good if when you see the thief coming you walk slowly away

to your room where there are no valuable things and you lock yourself up and listen

until the thief is gone. You stay there and then you come out, and the thief has

taken everything and you are very happy, “Oh, the thief took everything, I made him

rich.” That is wrong compassion; we call that ‘idiot compassion’. Instead you have to

turn on all the lights, turn on all the alarms and call your neighbours; you have to

show your teeth, if you have them, so that the thief will leave. The thief will then not

be able to steal your things and it will be a good lesson for them, and they will think

twice before they steal from anybody else. That way good, good, good does not

mean passive, passive, passive. Real good means what is really beneficial. For

example, if a smile is good then you smile, but if a frown is good then frown.

Same Student: You mean if someone is good to you then you will be good to them,

and if someone is bad to you then you will be bad to them?

Rinpoche: No, not necessarily. It depends on what kind. If someone is bad to you

because of a misunderstanding then you deal with them differently. If someone is

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bad to you because they think it is the best thing for you, out of kindness; like for

example, some parents in rural areas beat their children with canes. It is quite bad

actually; they get bruised and even broken bones. But in their heart they think they

are doing their best, because they can’t afford to say to their child, “sit down, listen,

this is what you should do, this is what you shouldn’t do,” they have no time. They

have to fetch firewood, they have to milk cows and they have to cook for their

husband and children. The mother is very busy and has no time to tell the child all

these things—if they have five children they can’t give each one of them two hours

of lessons each day. So the easiest way is to pick up a stick and spank them. That is

pretty bad but it is because they have no other means. So that kind of bad you treat

differently. But if somebody really means ill, is really bad and tries to be bad to you,

then in your heart be kind to them. But in your actions, whatever will make them

stop, you do that.

Same Student: So what he is doing is his karma and what I am doing will be my

karma?

Rinpoche: It’s the same thing. It is like corruption. Somebody who takes the money

and somebody who gives the money, both are corrupt. It is the same. But this will

never happen to me because I always go around with lots of people, lamas and

everyone. I don’t go alone, I don’t have that privilege. But somebody like you who

can go around and are a bit late somewhere, maybe five or six people could try to

beat you up and steal all your money, and maybe even kill you. In that case you

shouldn’t just sit there and let them kill you and take all your money. You fight back

and make other people hear you and call the police. That way you don’t make those

people thieves and murderers—you prevent them from becoming a murderer and

you prevent them from becoming a thief. So it depends. But then if it is in the middle

of the day in a public place where there are hundreds of people, if somebody says

something nasty to you, then don’t do anything, just walk away, because if you react

to it, it is not going to make anything better. But you walk away by letting them

know that maybe you heard it. I would do that, yes. Make sure you let them know

you heard it.

Question: You spoke about 84,000 different journeys to enlightenment, and I would

like to ask how would one choose the way? If it is possible to choose the way by ego,

or do you have to wait…

Rinpoche: You don’t have to choose the way. Why? If you have to choose it by your

ego it is almost certain to be wrong. The simple way is, although there are 84,000

ways, simply speaking… if you just want to listen to the dharma, be a good person,

be a kind of dharma well wisher, that’s one thing, but if you want to practice dharma

and become a dharma practitioner, if you are serious about practicing dharma, then

you should find a guru. That is very important.

To find a guru is very, very easy, because the way of Vajrayana Buddhism is based

on a guru and disciple—a guru teaches and the disciple learns. That’s very simple. If

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the disciple has devotion, then the guru’s teaching will be accurate. But if a disciple

doesn’t have faith and devotion then no matter how hard the guru tries, it will never

be accurate. It is like asking a Totaram a question which doesn’t mean anything.4

When you ask a Totaram a question you should ask honestly. You cannot ask a

Totaram a question like, “I am John and I want to go to Sydney and I want to find a

job. Should I go this month or should I go next month?” or “I am Peter and I want to

give up my job in the UK, should I do it tomorrow or today?” A Totaram’s answer will

be totally wrong if you are asking a question which is not sincere, not from your

heart.

So the guru/disciple relationship is like that. Most gurus are people, just like me,

who have received transmissions from their guru. I teach because people want to

learn, and according to their faith and their devotion then the teaching will benefit

them more or less. It has very little to do with me, but it has everything to do with

the blessing of the lineage and the devotion of the disciple. It is very much to do

with that. It has one thing to do with me; that is my devotion to the lineage and my

devotion to my guru.

I don’t know if this is your question or not, but people ask this question often, “How

do you check to see if the guru is a good guru or a bad guru?” It is very easy: check

how much devotion and how much dedication your guru has towards his or her guru,

or his or her lineage. That way you find out whether they are a good guru or not.

Guru is lineage, if there is no lineage then no guru; g-u-r-u doesn’t mean anything.

That is very important, therefore you don’t really have to choose, you have to leave

that up to your guru. Also a guru doesn’t really have to choose, because each

lineage has their own way— when new practitioners come, first they do this, then

second they do this, third they do this, fourth they do this, then at this point they

have a choice between this or this etc. It is very, very organized, very, very clear.

So you don’t really have to choose from 84,000 ways. But at a certain time a guru

might encourage you to choose, then there you choose.

Question: If one wants to practice dharma seriously, how should one relate to one’s

affairs, should one be aloof to them or involved, how do we combine the two?

Rinpoche: If we want to reach Buddhahood in this life, if that is our goal, then we

have to renounce everything, otherwise it is never going to happen, because there is

no time. But me for example, do I want to attain Buddhahood in this life? No, but not

because I don’t like Buddhahood or because it is undesirable. But I know it will never

happen to me in this life, therefore I should not kid myself, I should not brainwash

myself. I should not lie to myself. But if I can improve by one percent, if I can get

one percent more enlightened from the day I was born to the day I die I will be very

happy. Then in one hundred lives I will be Buddha. So I do my best in this life and I

might improve by one percent in this life. Even a half percent is not bad, then it will

be two hundred lives. We have lived countless lifetimes, and here we are, it is not

20

too bad, it is quite okay. That way, if we seriously and one hundred percent want to

try to reach Buddhahood in this life, then we have to give up everything, just like

Prince Siddhartha, just like Milarepa, like that. Otherwise it is not going to happen.

But most of us who cannot do that, then we combine so that we have a few hours

every day allocated for dharma practice, serious practice. We make it very clear that

nothing in our household should disturb us during that time. But that we have to

decide very wisely, practically, because one cannot expect that the impossible would

be possible. So whatever is possible, half an hour, one hour, two hours, three hours,

the more the better, but whatever is possible you decide on that. Then the rest of

the time you try to be very good—again good—a very good, sincere, genuine dharma

person. That means you try to be mindful, you try to be aware, you try to have a

very clear mind. Try to avoid all the negative actions, negative words, negative

thoughts, and try one’s best to do positive things, what is best. In that way you live

in your world. You do your job that way, you do your business that way, you live

your family life that way and then you allocate some time for serious practice,

nothing but practice, allocate some time. Then that shouldn’t be... how do you say…

Student: Non-negotiable?

Rinpoche: I wouldn’t use that word. Uncompromised. That shouldn’t be

compromised. But what will be possible one has to think, because if half an hour is

only possible, then you do half an hour. If one hour is possible, you do one hour. If

two hours is possible, you do two hours. If only half an hour is possible but you do

two hours then you are asking for trouble. So be realistic. That way, if it is a shorter

time, then concentrate more on the quality. If it is a longer time then you can

concentrate on quality and quantity, both. But if you have a very short time, then

that practice should be concentrating more on quality rather than quantity.

Question: About meditation, when you meditate, do you reach a higher plane of

spirituality, is that what it’s meant to do, elevate you spiritually? When you are

meditating do you exude anything to people who are watching you or do you negate

some of the negative qualities of those who are watching you?

Rinpoche: That’s very good. When I teach meditation, if those people fall asleep then

I am very happy, because those people are never going to become crazy through

meditation. But there are many people who, when they meditate, as a result, they

become funny because they become more tense—they become very sensitive, super

sensitive—they become strange, which is because they don’t get it right. The

definition of the first step of meditation is to calm down. When we are meditating

and somebody is sleeping then I feel good because that person has calmed down;

then step one of meditation, the purpose of meditation, is fulfilled—that person has

learned to calm down. You shouldn’t fall asleep, but if you do fall asleep it’s a good

sign, it is not a bad sign. Physically, mentally, calm down, that’s what meditation

means.

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Once you calm down then you can do many things, such as visualization, generating

compassion for all sentient beings, taking their suffering and dispersing it like a fire,

like you become the Agni (god of fire)—all sentient beings’ suffering you breathe in

and burn it out. Out of that, then the more you burn the brighter the fire becomes.

So all the badness is transformed into goodness, light, and it shines for all. There are

many meditations like that, but before doing any of those—we shouldn’t put the

horse behind the cart, we have to put the horse before the cart—the first thing is to

calm down. So you are doing very well if you are falling asleep when you meditate.

When you are relaxed everything becomes clear. When you are not relaxed then

everything becomes complicated. It is like people who can’t sleep have a problem—

people who have a sleeping problem have a mental problem, they cannot think

clearly and they cannot function clearly. But if you can have seven hours of good

sleep every night, fifty percent of your problems are solved. I always want seven

hours of sleep so I always remind my secretary to please schedule seven hours of

sleep for me. This is very important, more important than food actually. Sleeping is

very important because you are calming down. Meditation means calming down.

Then on top of that, on that base, there are many meditation methods to enhance

your wisdom, to enhance your potential. There are so many methods, so many

sadhanas.

Question: What do you think of when you are meditating?

Rinpoche: The first step in meditation is that you have to have some thing to

concentrate on, some thing to occupy your mind. In our lineage the first step in

meditation therefore is to concentrate on your breathing. We are breathing all the

time, it is nothing new, so we focus on our breathing: breathe out slowly and

completely, pause out for some time, then breathe in slowly and completely, then

pause in for some time. That way we have a very smooth, long and relaxed

breathing—out and in, pause, out and in. We count this cycle twenty-one times.

Then we just relax a little bit and then again count it twenty-one times. We count

this set of twenty-one once, twice, three, five or seven times. Seven sets of twenty-

one is quite a long time. Then we can do it twenty-one times. That is pretty good,

one very good session actually. Then we also concentrate on breathing without

counting. But at the beginning we have to count because that is disciplining

ourselves.

Question: What do think in your mind?

Rinpoche: You are thinking about your breathing. We don’t have two minds. When

you are focusing on your breathing, try to breathe as slowly as possible, as smoothly

as possible and as completely as possible. Breathe in as slowly as possible, seriously,

and counting it one, two etc. Then that occupies all your mind. We don’t have two

minds, only one mind, and our one mind is occupied in a very calm manner, in a

natural way, that is the beginning. Once you have that, when your mind is naturally

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stable and calm, then you have visualization, thinking about deities, light radiating,

blessings, empowerments, thinking about all sentient beings, helping them,

liberating them, blessing them and all of this. There is so much, so much goes on.

Same Student: I do that but then something else comes to my mind.

Rinpoche: Then your concentration on your breathing has gone, your counting has

gone. That means you have to not think about your other thoughts but think about

the breathing. People say when you meditate you don’t think, but that doesn’t make

any sense because you think “I shouldn’t think.” That is also thinking. It is

impossible not to think, that will affect you mentally; you can’t do it. You are

thinking about your breathing, you are concentrating on that. If you don’t like that

then there are other methods. For example, focusing on a light in your forehead, you

keep your breathing calm and you have a shining clear light in your forehead; it is

shining like a diamond and you are focusing on it. That is another method. There are

also more methods, and these are called ordinary methods, not sacred methods.

Sacred methods are when we are visualizing a Buddha or visualizing a bodhisattva.

We call this Shamatha, but we have many, many different levels of it. Ordinary

methods are breathing, looking at something, visualizing something like light etc.

Then the sacred methods are looking at a Buddha’s image, visualizing a Buddha,

visualizing a bodhisattva, reciting mantras etc. There are quite a few.

Question: Rinpoche, in the bodhichitta chapter of your book Awakening the Sleeping

Buddha it says that there are three sections: first is aspiration, very special

bodhichitta meditation, and then the paramitas, that kind of division.

Rinpoche: Yes, these are the practices. Bodhichitta is a vow.

Same Student: I have a specific question. In the bodhichitta meditation, the

sentence was that to meditate, to directly try and realize bodhichitta within. Can you

tell us about this practice? What is this practice?

Rinpoche: Bodhichitta within is that we have limitless potential; all sentient beings

have limitless potential. That is what we call ultimate bodhichitta, bodhichitta within.

As a result of that, if we see somebody suffering then we feel compassion, right?

That is that bodhichitta’s light coming out. It is like a diamond in a rock, when that

rock is polished, then some tip of the diamond is clear, you can see a little shiny

thing. So like that, bodhichitta is manifesting naturally—when you are in a good

mood and somebody is suffering then you feel sorry for them, and sometimes you

even go out and help them. This is because our potential is there and it is

manifesting.

Knowing that and believing in it is the first very important step, because if you don’t

know it and don’t believe in it, then it is as good as if it were not there. I’ll give you a

worldly example. If you are a billionaire but you don’t know that you have a billion

dollars in the bank—your predecessor did not tell you so you don’t know—then it is

the same as if you didn’t have anything. But the minute you know, then you are a

billionaire. So like that, we have bodhichitta, which is priceless, limitless, and is

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Buddha, but as long as we don’t know that, then it is the same as if we didn’t have

it. But when we know that we have it, then we have it, that is the first step, then we

have to practice it through the six paramitas.5

NOTES

1. Expressed in the bodhisattva vow to attain liberation for the benefit of all sentient beings.

2. According to the sutras there are five paths: the path of accumulation, the path of

application, the path of seeing/insight (attainment of the first bodhisattva level), the path

of meditation (second to seventh bodhisattva level) and the path of no more learning

(Buddhahood). The five paths cover the entire process from beginning dharma practice to

complete enlightenment.

In order to never again be born in the lower realms you must have attained at least

the third of the four levels of the path of application, which is zopa or patience.

There are ten bodhisattva levels which begin with the path of seeing in the sutra

tradition. The tantric tradition has thirteen levels.

3. Beings in samsara are categorized as six classes or types: gods, demigods, humans,

animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings. These are the possible types of births for beings in

samsara: the god realm is the highest of the six realms, where beings are dominated by

pride and suffer because when their karma to be a god runs out they fall to the lower

realms. In the asura realm the beings are dominated by jealousy and envy and suffer as a

result of their constant quarrelling and fighting. The human realm is characterized by

desire and attachment, and although the beings suffer from ceaseless struggle, it provides

the best opportunity to practice dharma. The animal realm is dominated by ignorance and

stupidity; beings there suffer from constant fear. The hungry ghost realm is dominated by

greed, and the preta beings suffer terribly from hunger and thirst. The lowest of the

realms, the hell realm, is dominated by hatred and aggression, and the beings there

endure intense suffering.

4 A Totaram is a parrot trained to tell people’s fortune—you ask a question and the parrot

selects a piece of paper or card with something written on it. This is common in India.

5. Pure actions free from dualistic concepts that liberate sentient beings from samsara. The six

paramitas are: generosity, moral ethics, patience, diligence, meditative-concentration, and

wisdom-awareness.

This teaching by Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa is from his soon to be released book,

Ultimately Perfect to published by and available from

Palpung Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal Publications:

http://www.greatliberation.org/shop