ornament(for(clear(realization ... -...

Ornament for Clear Realization — Perfection of Wisdom Studies

Class 6 -‐ 2012 Sept 28 – Wednesday1 Institute for Buddhist Dialectics, McLeod Ganj, India

Teacher -‐ GESHE KELSANG WANGMO

REVIEW JE TSONG KHAPA'S LAM RIM CHEN-‐MO MATERIAL ON DILIGENCE/JOYOUS EFFORT PRESENTED IN CLASSES 2-‐5.

To remind you what we’ve talked about so far: Diligence or Joyous Effort. We didn’t start off using the texts that are usually used in this class; we started off with Je Tsong Khapa’s section on Diligence from the Lam Rim Chen-‐Mo. You’ll see why we did that when we begin reading the texts that we usually use in class. They’re a little harder and require you to think more, use more analysis, look behind the lines.

There are not as many debates from the textbooks on Diligence, but when we begin the next topic which starts soon, there are quite a few debates and those will be a bit more difficult than what we’ve been doing.

We’ve basically been talking about the causes for Buddhist practice. In order to engage in meaningful practice, developing the mind, making an effort, a repeated effort — not just once or twice but to start a continuous, day-‐to-‐day practice, we need diligence, Joyous Effort or enthusiastic effort, perseverance, which is a delight in doing the Mahayana practice. That is a very important mental factor, without which, without joy, Buddhist practice is not very effective: you do it for sometime, and then we get fed up and look for something else that makes us happy.

How do we newly cultivate such diligence? By thinking of the advantages of practice, etc.

Three categories of Diligence: Armor-‐like, which is the motivation. Diligence of accumulating or gathering virtue, positive actions, beneficial actions (depending on their motivation). And third, working for the benefit of sentient beings.

The next topic is the Method for Cultivating Diligence — not just newly cultivating it but retaining and sustain diligence continuously. For that one needs to eliminate unfavorable conditions, the obstacles to diligence, the opposite of Diligence.

There are opposites to everything although they’re not necessarily exact opposites. For example, what is the opposite to patience? Anger. Sometimes the opposite of Anger is said to be love. So it’s one of the two; it can only be one of the two. Both are actually said to be, so they are not directly opposite, but they counteract each other.

The opposite to Joyous Effort is said to be laziness. Here we have three types of laziness:

1 ROUGH DRAFT -‐

2 2012 Class 6 -‐ Sept 28 Class Notes Draft – Ornament For Clear Realizations – Joyous Diligence

(1) Laziness of being attached, or adhering to, negative actions. A bank robber may work really hard to pull off stealing, but because of the attachment to the money, it is still called laziness, the laziness of the attachment to non-‐virtuous actions.

In relation to Joyous Effort, which is delight in virtuous action, beneficial actions, in relation to that, it is called a type of laziness, because it is an obstacle to Joyous Effort. Not the Joyous Effort of a bank robber joyfully robbing a bank. No, here, Joyous Effort means delight in virtuous action, something positive. Joyous Effort is a positive state of mind, and the opposite would be anything that is an obstacle to that kind of delight, so the laziness of being attached to negative actions, even though that kind of laziness can lead someone to work very hard.

(2) Laziness of Procrastination. We’re all familiar with that. ‘I’ll start some other time, not today. Today, I’m very busy. I need to read my novel, watch movies, have a great meal with my friends, meet my friends.’ There’s no end to all the activities. So procrastinating is the other type of laziness.

(3) Laziness of Self-‐Contempt, feeling discouraged. ‘I can’t do that.’ That is the opposite to Joyous Effort, an obstacle to making an effort and delighting in virtue. So how do we overcome that?

We need to overcome those three kinds of laziness. First, overcome the laziness of procrastination by meditating on what? Death. We’re going to die, maybe soon. We don’t know how soon, and we may not have the same opportunity again, so we shouldn’t waste it. And not just death — anything can happen. I could have an accident and not be able to meditate any more or something. Anything can happen. We see other people who suddenly get so sick that they can’t practice any more, lose their eyesight or hearing.

Right now we are healthy and fit. We can do anything: we can use our minds, develop our minds. Also, we’re young, relatively young: Today is the youngest day of our lives. We’re just going to get older every day, so it will just get more difficult as we go along. So we might as well start now.

To stop the laziness of attachment we can reflect on impermanence and the law of Karma. Life is short. Why would we waste it with meaningless activities that are so short-‐lived. Also, reflecting on the law of Karma: If we engage in negative actions, in the future, we’ll reap the result. So do we really want to experience that kind of suffering. That’s the question, so reflect upon that. Is it really worth it. A little bit of happiness and satisfaction that results in great future suffering.

Third is the stopping of discouragement. So the discouragement spoken of is with the difficulties of Mahayana practice which is difficult and long. There is a lot of discouragement that may arise regarding certain aspects of Mahayana practice. The first kind of discouragement is with the Mahayana goal. Maybe right now, we don’t really understand what it means to be a Buddha if you haven’t really heard and studied about it. But when you hear the sutric teachings and explanations by great masters, hear what it means to be a fully enlightened Buddha, that is so different from anything we could even or ever wish for.

POWER OF MIND – CREATOR OF ALL OUR EXPERIENCE, THE SOURCE OF BUDDHAHOOD

Right now, we are so far away from being a Buddha that the idea that we could become like that seems impossible, so we may feel discouraged thinking, ‘I could never be like that. I could never be a fully enlightened Buddha; no way.’

2012 Class 6 -‐ Sept 28 Class Notes Draft – Ornament For Clear Realizations – Joyous Diligence 3

So then we need to reflect on Buddha Nature: we have all the ingredients needed to become a fully enlightened Buddha already present here and now, everything required. Buddhist practice is not so much about gaining new qualities as it is about reducing the faults that keep us from being fully enlightened by uncovering our incredible minds that we already possess. The mind that we cannot utilize right now because of our self-‐cherishing, self-‐centered attitude. Sometimes we get some glimpses of what the mind can do, the power of the mind. This is not just a Buddhist concept. In the West, there’s the idea that sometimes, through willpower, people can do unbelievable things. Whether you call them miracles or unexplainable, from a Buddhist point of view, they’re not a big deal; they’re nothing in comparison to what can be done. We can get glimpses of that.

The point is to understand that everyone has the potential for full enlightenment. And to study about what it means to be a Buddha; understanding that right now we are in this situation, and understanding what the situation is for a Buddha; and that there are causes and conditions, that if they are applied, ensure we will become a Buddha.

Therefore, there’s no reason to be discouraged about the goal, because there are so many reasons for becoming a Buddha, and there are no reason for not becoming a Buddha. And it is explained that everyone, even a tiny fly, a dog, a cat, any living being, a human being, has the potential and will eventually become a Buddha.

Then we may grow discouraged — not so much about the goal: ‘All right, I can become enlightened; okay. But it is very difficult!’ Those two are not contradicting each other. Even though everyone can become and will become a Buddha, that doesn’t mean it is easy. It is a long and difficult process, because our minds — even though they can be purified — are very habituated, strongly used to, familiarized with our negativities. Therefore, it requires great effort. We may be scared or worried or discouraged about this, thinking ‘I can never ever do these practices’

The practices that are described — there are so many of them, and we have to start where we are with what we are capable of. Some of the very advanced practices, we can be inspired by them, thinking, ‘Someday I’ll be able to do those practices’; but we should not be discouraged by those and be happy to do the practices that we are capable of now.

We do this in everyday life. No one in elementary school or five years old goes to University; that would be unrealistic. For us to do the advanced practices would be totally useless, like being five years old and going to University, sitting in class and understanding nothing. Likewise, with the advanced Buddhist practices.

As Westerners, we want the best and quickest methods, so we aim for really advanced practices. Of course, we get no result; or if there is a result, we can’t detect it; or there is not at all because we’re not ready. So we turn against it; we lose interest, feel discouraged and leave it.

So it is not a problem with the teachings or methods, but we are not ready for those methods and advanced practices. But when we are ready for them, it will be easy because as the text says, ‘There’s nothing that doesn’t get easier over time (with persistent effort).’ And so many things that we couldn’t do in the past, we can do those now. Everyone can change. We’re all the same, or equal in the sense that we can all develop our mind and develop fully perfected minds like the Buddha that cannot be ‘improved.’ That doesn’t mean that a Buddha can do anything. A Buddha has limitations. Buddhas are not omnipotent, but our mental consciousness cannot get any better, and once we reach that mental state, we’ll all be equal even though right now, we


have different abilities, interests and predispositions, etc., but we can all get to that kind of state.

It’s a step-‐by-‐step process, so to worry about the sufferings that lie ahead; there are sufferings. Just having a teacher, relying on a teacher, they make sure that it’s not going to be always pleasant. What do spiritual teachers do, like H.H. Dalai Lama, these great lamas — well, it is, of course, a little difficult to spend a lot of time in the presence of His Holiness, but other lamas can be very accessible, you can meet them. What do they do? A kind of painful process.

Find your weak points, your ego. They’re not going to tell you how wonderful you are or praise your great Buddha Nature. In the beginning, maybe. But then they’ll bring them out so they’ll be visible, because often we’re in denial about their negativities. Our negativities that really give us trouble, oftentimes, we’re not even aware of them, their frequency or strength or how they rule our lives and make us miserable. The task of those teachers is to bring those out, to bring the ego out. Sometimes if you’re around them, in their presence, everything is so ‘holy,’ and suddenly, this incredible negativity comes up and you can’t help it There you sit with an incredible lama right in front of you. This happens in teachings, and your most negative mind comes up even though you don’t want it there, but you can’t help it; it’s right there. That is the power of the lama. And we don’t like it, because we want to look at ourselves as being … you know.

But it is the only way. When you wash clothes, unless you detect the stains, you won’t make an effort to remove them, to clean the different kinds of stains. You need to know where they are; you need to identify them, to see them. It’s painful to bring up the ego. the self-‐grasping mind comes up very strongly… that’s painful. It’s like taking an injection that is painful but helps you to avoid worse problems in the future; to be prepared. We can understand that that suffering is worthwhile.

So much of the suffering that we go through is not worthwhile at all. So much of our past and present sufferings, so much unnecessary suffering. So with this kind of suffering, there’s a bit of discomfort, but they’re there to protect you so it never gets that bad.

So these are counters to the discouragement about the Path. Yes, there are some difficulties, but there’s nothing that you cannot muster, overcome. There are much worse things in everyday life that are not Dharma practice.

The third point, the last point of Lama Tsong Khapa’s explanation: Stopping discouragement because wherever we are, there’s a place to practice. Where we are right now, we can practice. That’s the best we can have; our situation is the best it can be.

Buddhism doesn’t talk about a creator god. But there is a creator of our suffering, our difficulties, our happiness, our comfort. What is that creator? It’s our own mind. That is the creator in Tibetan Buddhism. It’s not another being it is our own mind.

We experience what comes from our own mind. there’s a very famous saying:

If you want to know what your mind was like in the past, look at your situation now. If you want to know what your situation will be in the future, look at your mind now.

So it is dependent upon the mind really. If you think about this, it makes it so much easier to deal with difficulties — our own difficulties; not with other people! It is not a


thought that thinks, ‘Oh, it’s their own karma; let them suffer.’ No. We should help others right away. We should assist them for their sake and our own sake.

However, when something happens to us that makes us really unhappy and depressed, if we think: ‘Well, I did something in the past that caused that.’ Of course, there are other causes and conditions: there’s the person who says things; and the circumstances and all that, but the main cause is something I’ve accumulated in the past. It is liberating because then you don’t feel like some sort of victim, ‘I can’t do anything’ — kind of paralyzed. No. ‘I’ve done this in the past, okay. I can change it. I can make changes so this won’t happen to me again.’

In terms of events that happen to us right now, we can deal with those better. Understanding that their causes lie in the past. Also for the future, the future is in our own hands. I want happiness; I want certain comforts in my life to be able to make choices in terms of material possessions, which are helpful and useful — no denying that. So I better be generous in this lifetimes, then in future lives I’ll be able to have the material comfort that will allow me to make certain choices. If I want other people to like me and be patient with me, I should be patient, kind and open, friendly, sincerely caring for others. If I wanted to be cared for, I should care for others. What else? If I want to be attractive, I should be patience. Attractiveness to the extent that people are drawn to you in a certain way, patience. This is obvious in every day life. Someone who is angry ever day of their life has wrinkles forming in a way that makes them look ugly, while someone who is generally happy, satisfied and patient, they have almost a half smile on their face or look of contentment.

Sometimes I see someone who may be pretty or handsome, but sometimes they have a weird expression that shows a lot of anger in their faces. So even this lifetime it can show. From a Buddhist point of view if we want that in future lives, it is in our hands right now. So that is great; isn’t it. We don’t have too much freedom, but there’s a degree of freedom that we can increase by effort right now.

Also, it is said that even though we are in Samsara, and have this very limited mind and body, which is called Samsara. This mind and body is called Samsara. It is explained that with Buddhist practice, we will develop more happiness, so even though we’re stuck in Samsara for a long time, if we enjoy it, that doesn’t matter. So if we get discouraged by thinking, ‘OMG, I’m going to be in Samsara for so long!’ Not only does it take ages, lots of eons, but I’m in a situation that really sucks, is really difficult, has lots of suffering.

But what is Samsara? There’s no objective Samsara. We all have our own personal Samsara of our own experiences. Reality is just the summary of each and everyone’s reality; and each and everyone’s reality is the result of each and everyone’s mind. There’s nothing more to it.

If that is the case, if our mind improves, becoming more kind and loving, as a side effect, we just become happier. For a Bodhisattva, that is just a side effect; it is not really what they’re aiming for. They aim for the happiness of others but by working for the benefit of others — this is something we also know from our own experience. Sometimes, when we’re so engrossed with helping a friend, we are totally engrossed in making gifts for others, we totally forget our own troubles because we’re so absorbed in doing for others, in making someone happy and our own problems subside in that moment, become more bearable or totally disappear.

For us, the problem is that we can do that for an hour and then the self-‐centered mind returns. We can be very selfless helping someone, but if they don’t thank us or treat us


badly, then we get terribly upset because unconditional is never that unconditional. It is unconditional at first but then the conditions arise later. So unconditional love, while we are unconditionally loving, all right; but then later on we expect something in return.

So a Bodhisattva is not like that at all; it’s just for others all the time. So why would they suffer? Whatever people do to them, they don’t suffer because their concern is the other person and not their own happiness. As a side effect, they experience great happiness.

So it is explained that even though it takes a long time, immeasurable time, immeasurable sentient beings to work for; immeasurable qualities of enlightenment to be attained; immeasurable positive potential needs to be accumulated — immeasurable, immeasurable, immeasurable. So don’t hope for it be quick to attain Enlightenment. Just think immeasurable! Doesn’t matter how long it will actually take. Just think, ‘It takes forever.’

Then you can take it slow. You’re not in a rush. You take it a step at a time. You don’t try to jump — and trip because of that.

This basically concludes the explanation that Lama Tsong Khapa gives us in the Lam Rim Chen-‐Mo on Diligence. There is more explanation in the Lam Rim, but this all we need here. Every teacher of this course presents this general advice somewhat differently, more or less extensively.

TRACK 2 – BACKGROUND TO DEBATE & STUDY AT IBD & GELUK MONASTIC UNIVERSITIES

BUDDHA’S TEACHINGS & INDIAN COMMENTARIES

Now we start the actual text. Since it’s not straight forward, I’ll need to give you explanation. What is the actual text we’re study? It’s the word of the Buddha, the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, a particular genre that explicitly teaches the ultimate nature of phenomena and implicitly teaches the meditative states that one must develop in order to become enlightened. We are studying the implicit meditative states in this course.

The Buddha taught for about 45 years, and he is said to be a master pedagogue in the sense that he attempted to be of benefit to his immediate listeners. He taught the persons who were right in front of him according to their needs. So sometimes, he said one thing to one person and something else to another person depending upon their interests and needs, etc. This is an amazing way of teaching because it was highly effective right in that moment, but there’s a problem with this. One problem is that the Buddha’s teachings were not organized or systematized. After the Buddha passed away, the teachings of the Buddha were written down. People had amazing abilities to remember what the Buddha said due to their meditative abilities, so they were able to recite what the Buddha said word for word and it was written down.

Then parts were taught here and there to different people. And this is a huge volume of teachings from 45 years of teaching. I don’t think everything could’ve been written down, but a lot was, so there are voluminous teachings. Now you needed people to organize and systematize the teachings. Maitreya was one of those who did so. Maitreya took the genre of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, which were taught at different times during the Buddha’s life but a lot were taught in the middling part of his teaching. They teach Emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality, directly. And teach the meditative states indirectly. These types of teachings can be categorized into the


Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. Maitreya was a great master who read all of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, got an understanding of all of them, and composed a text where he just took the explanation of the meditative states that is hidden in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras — it’s not explicit — he took those and wrote them down and taught that text to his disciple, Asanga, about 1,600 years ago (400 A.D.). This was in Sanskrit, and was later translated into Tibetan in the 8th-‐9th centuries. It was translated at different times, so there were improved versions of this text. But of course, since it was written so long ago, it is necessary to have commentaries on it. Actually, thinking of the time from the 4th century to the 8th century, there weren’t that many commentaries written. There are about 17 from that period that are accepted as being good, explanatory commentaries on Maitreya’s text. One of those is by Acharya (Lopon (!ོབ་དཔོན་) Haribhadra (Senge Sangpo, སེང་གེ་བསང་པོ་, which means, the Gentle Lion) in the 8th century.2 His text is very brief. Maitreya’s text was quite short. Both of their texts are not very long and require a lot of explanation.

Even though there’s a lot written down, the Buddhist tradition is primarily an oral tradition. So all the teacher needed was clues — outlines or brief explanation — to know the topic and give extensive explanation. And that was passed on orally by people who understood and gained realizations, which they passed on along with academic understanding.

GELUK TRADITION OF TIBETAN BUDDHIST SCHOLARSHIP & STUDIES

Over time, it becomes more difficult to understand what was taught in another country hundreds of years ago. So in Tibet, more lengthy commentaries were written and we rely on those by Lama Tsong Khapa, a 14th century master who studied the three traditions existing — Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyu. One of his most important teachers was from the Sakya tradition. Based upon the writings and teachings of Je Tsong Khapa, the Geluk tradition was founded although he didn’t call it that. However, we rely on his explanations. There’s one text by Lama Tsong Khapa and once by his disciple, Gyaltseb Je. He had two main, heart disciples, Gyaltsab Je and Khedrup Je 3. Gyaltseb Rinpoche his commentary on Maitreya’s text is relied upon more than that by Je Rinpoche.

So we rely on the Ornament for Clear Realizations (Abhisamaya-‐alaṅkāra or Abhisamayalamkara) by Maitreya, Haribadhra’s commentary on the Ornament and Lama Tsong Khapa’s (the Golden Rosary). There were other texts in between, but we focus on these. When Je Tsong Khapa was quite young he wrote the commentary on Maitreya’s text, and thereby, on the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, i.e., the Golden Rosary. This is not the text we mainly rely on, because Gyaltsab Je’s text (Ornament of the Essence) is the one we use more, even though Gyaltsab Je is a disciple of Je Tsong Khapa. Because Gyaltsab Je is acting as a secretary to Je Rinpoche, and the teachings on the Ornament that Je Rinpoche gave later in his life (than the Golden Rosary), when he was more spiritually mature are incorporated into Gyaltsab Je’s commentary. Therefore, there are some contradictions between Gyaltsab Je’s text and the Golden Rosary, and Gyaltsab Je’s is considered the final expression of Je Rinpoche’s views. These were 2 Clear Meaning Commentary or Commentary Clarifying the Meaning -‐ <

འ"ེལ་པ་དོན་གསལ་>. Haribhadra

was a student of Shantarakshita, founder of Middle Way Autonomy-‐Yogic Practitioner (Madhyamika Svatantrika-‐Yogacara) tenet system and the saint who established the first monastery in Tibet. 3 Gyaltsab Je (!ལ་ཚབ་&ེ་) -‐ 1364-‐1432 -‐ Gyel-‐tsap Je Dharma Rinchen (

!ལ་ཚབ་&ེ་དར་མ་རིན་ཆེན་); Khe-‐drup

Je (མཁས་%ུབ་!ེ་

) -‐ 1385-‐1438 – mKhas Grub rJe dGe legs dPal bZang po (མཁས་%ུབ་(ེ་དགེ་ལེགས་

དཔལ་བཟང་པོ་).


written between the 13th-‐14th centuries. These are the texts that everyone in the Geluk tradition relies on.

The Nyingma and Kagyu tradition rely on Maitreya’s text, Haribhadra’s text, but not on Lama Tsong Khapa and Gyaltsab Je’s texts, because they have their own masters who wrote commentaries.

APPROACH TO STUDY: DEEP UNDERSTANDING RATHER THAN COLLECTING VAST INFORMATION

So this actually quite simple, if you think about it, Buddhist studies take so long and are so extensive, but actually we read relatively few texts compared to other forms of higher education where people read volumes and volumes and volumes. You can in this tradition, but the emphasis is more on taking those few texts and really understanding them. So you can study one sentence really deeply. Is that similar to studying the Torah in Judaism?

STUDENT: Talmud. You can study the Talmud your entire life.

GESHE WANGMO: Your entire life, but is it a matter of studying lots and lot of other texts; or is it more a matter of understanding that text or going deep?

STUDENT: Going deep.

GESHE WANGMO: So it may be quite similar to that. This extensive study. One does read a lot of texts, but the emphasis is more on concentrating on those and understanding those well, because if you understand those well, you understand the teachings of the Buddha and that’s what it’s all about. Not much about reading this, this and this and gaining knowledge, but about understanding what is meant.

People may think that, ‘Oh, to become omniscient, don’t I need to gain more and more knowledge?’ It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like you need to increase the amount that you know to become omniscient like the Buddha. It’s more about removing the obstacles to omniscience because we have the potential to be omniscient right now but obstacles prevent that. Getting closer to omniscience does not mean knowing about more things.

Therefore there are actually relatively few texts, and that makes it a little bit harder. Because the more information, you have … but we do rely on two more texts.

BRIEF HISTORY OF GELUK STUDIES & DEBATE

Basically in the Geluk tradition, there are three main monastic universities: Gaden, Sera and Drepung. These three main monasteries are called the Pillars of the Geluk Tradition. They are subdivided into two colleges each. In the past there were more — six in some, ten in others, etc. There were a lot more colleges. But in exile, each of the three has two sub-‐colleges. Each of those colleges relies on the same texts (described above), and on top of those they use texts by their own textbook authors. There are different Tibetan masters who wrote these texts after Lama Tsong Khapa. Somewhere contemporaries of Je Tsong Khapa and some lived later. These masters wrote commentaries on Je Rinpoche and wrote them in a way that would facilitate debate. The texts of Je Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Je contain the debates, but not in a format as easy to use, so the textbooks make it easier for us to debate because they wrote actual debate manuals.


Sometimes, if the textbooks of a college accepted on interpretation, the author of textbooks for a different college would purposely assert a different interpretation in order to facilitate debate. So they are not posing ‘final views’ — even though a final view does filter throughout — but these different interpretations of the commentaries are intended to challenge debate on certain points by posing contradictions.

PANCHEN SONAM DRAKPA – TEXT BOOK AUTHOR FOR IBD, DREPUNG LOSELING & GADEN SHARTSE MONASTIC COLLEGES

So that is reflected in our Handouts. At IBD, we use the textbooks by the author Panchen Sonam Drakpa for all our courses. Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s textbooks are used at Drepung Loseling college (one of the two Drepung colleges, the other being Gomang), Gaden Shartse college (one of the two Gaden colleges, the other being Jangtse), and several nunneries.

The Institute of Buddhist Dialectics follows Loseling because someone who studied at Loseling founded IBD. Many IBD teachers and students have studied at Loseling, and there’s an affiliation between IBD and Loseling. So we rely on the master Panchen Sonam Drakpa.

Panchen Sonam Drakpa has composed two texts for this course: General Meaning (!ི་དོན་) and Decisive Analysis (མཐའ་ད&ོད་).

In the General Meaning, he took the texts — the Ornament, Haribhadra’s and Gyaltsab Je’s and Lama Tsong Khapa’s, and mainly used Gyaltsab Je’s and Haribhadra’s (both of which contain the Ornament) as his main focus — and he wrote a general explanation of those, giving you an easily accessible sense of those texts.

In the Decisive Analysis you find all the dialectical debates. The debates always begin, “Someone says …” Someone is always wrong. Someone doesn’t have to say something that anyone actually posits, it can be a hypothetical view. And then our system logically refutes what ‘Someone’ says. The ‘Someone” could be Sera Jey’s textbook author. And Sera Jey’s textbook author may refuge something posited by Panchen Sonam Drakpa. That is not a problem.

They are refuting each other in order to foster debate and learn from each other. If you don’t disagree, there’s nothing to debate about. It may be that Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s position is not your own final view after all. You can challenge views that you basically agree with and learn from the debate. You learn from your own mistakes; from the other person’s mistakes. Sometimes you say something unexpectedly, it comes out of your mouth and you think, ‘Oh, wow, that is the answer.’ It’s almost like you say it before you actually realize that it makes sense.

So debate is a very helpful method for learning. So we will go over these debates here in class in the way that they were presented in my studies. I found it extremely effective. The Tibetans have figured out a very effective way of doing this that has worked for hundreds of years.

However, for this first topic, the Three Types of Diligence, Panchen Sonam Drakpa does not pose any debates in the DA, because they are very easy to understand. The debates begin with the next topic of our Fall 2012 term. So we need to think of debates about Diligence ourselves.


We’re trained — and I want to encourage you to adopt this — that whenever we read something, look for the discrepancies; always be critical; always think, ‘I’m going to find a mistake in this presentation any moment now.’ Have that state of mind, and then you will read with a different state of mind: ‘That doesn’t sound right.’ ‘That’s contradictory.’ And then bring it up here in question & answer time or maybe reflect on your own. Then you understanding and wisdom increase, which as a part of Buddhist practice is extremely important. So it’s an extremely effective approach to understanding things better. It is very different from just listening and making notes — I mean, we never look at the notes! Most of the time, at least mine are in a cupboard getting kind of yellow now.

It’s not just about making notes and retaining the information, it’s about going deeper and understanding it on a different level. Growing how it relates to other things, which is very important in Buddhism, because every principle is connected to everything else.

H.H. Dalai Lama is someone who really comprehends this. His Holiness has an amazing ability of connecting everything. He starts off with one topic, and it takes you all over Buddhism, and before you know it, the entire path has been covered. This is the skill of someone who has really understood all the teachings because he sees all the connections and he can draw the connections. That is another way of gaining understanding Buddhist teachings because you need to understand how everything is connected. And that only comes from analysis, investigation, continuous thinking and checking that you can get to that kind of knowledge.

So with this in mind, let’s start.

Track 3 -‐ THREE TYPES OF DILIGENCE PER ABHISAMAYALAMKARA & COMMENTARIES BY HARIBHADRA AND GYALTSAB JE – HANDOUT 7

THREE TYPES OF DILIGENCE

Here is an explanation of the Tibetan word written the way it is pronounced and then in Tibetan.

Tibetan: བ"ོན་འ'ུས་

-‐ tsoen drue (brtson 'grus -‐ བ"ོན་འ'ུས་),

(tsoen = effort / exertion / perseverance / diligence / to exert/ to practice / devote oneself to / persevere in / be diligent / energetic / study hard / make effort / vigor / vigorous pursuit / strive for,

drue pa = diligence / zeal / endeavor / industry / exertion / effort)

English: diligence / perseverance / joyous effort / enthusiastic effort

There are many English translations for the meaning of the first syllable (brtson), which is a Tibetan word itself, as is the second syllable ('grus). Often Tibetan two-‐syllable words are made up of two words that have the same or similar meaning. The English translations are essential the meaning of those syllables.

As you see, there’s no joy in the word itself or in its two syllables. So the English translation, Joyous Effort, is similar to what the Tibetans have done with some Sanskrit words, because this is diligence associated with a kind of joy. It is not the diligence of


having to make money, and hating it, and getting out of bed every day and being diligent about going to a job you hate. That’s not the diligence meant here.

Unfortunately, you don’t get paid for Buddhist practice, so the only thing that gets you running is joy; no other rewards really. So you start off with some joy, and that’s what keeps you going.

Of course:

Diligence can be categorized in different ways.

Any state of mind has many different types. Our minds are so complicated and sophisticated. Watch your own mind. There are so many different kinds of anger. We have some words in English: hatred, resentment, aggression, belligerence, irritation, wrath. And there are even more types of minds: strong, middling and weak anger. Monday morning anger, different types influenced by other states of mind and with different objects (towards oneself, towards a table when you stub your toe, towards another person) and differences in the duration of the anger.

Just to use a word to describe the spectrum of a mental state is inadequate, but that’s all we have: diligence.

THREE DILIGENCES PER ORNAMENT: NON-‐ADHERENCE, NON-‐WEARINESS, THOROUGHLY UPHOLDING THE PATH

There are different ways of categorizing diligence. Maitreya Ornament gives a three-‐fold division here, but the three are different than we studied from the text we studied before which were Armor-‐Like), Gathering Virtue and Working for the Welfare of Sentient Beings.

The Ornament categorizes it into three. However, the Ornament's threefold division is slightly different from the threefold division of diligence according to the Lam Rim Chenmo.

Now, you will see how the Ornament is really short, just a list of different topics that we study. Sometimes there are some explanations, but not here. The Ornament verse that describes the Three Diligence is verse 22

The verse of the Ornament that describes the three diligences is:

Practice, the truths, The three jewels such as the Buddha, Non-‐adherence, non-‐weariness, Thoroughly upholding the path, [22]

We actually memorize the Ornament text, which is not long, about 70 pages in my book. And it is all in verse. The First chapter has about 75 verses, and it has eight chapters. The first chapter is one of the longest, so it is not impossible. However, it is difficult to memorize because when you memorize it before you start studying it, you have no idea what these words mean. So it is very difficult. Later the words are explained.


But if you have memorized it, that’s very nice, then you recite it, you have the topics in your mind. Then when you’ve done the studies, these words naming the topic trigger your memory of the whole topic. Of course, for debate, you need to have memorized the text.

Actually, only the last lines of Verse 22 talk about Diligence.

The first two lines of the Ornament outline the first three topics of practice instructions:

1) The two truths which are explained in order to understand the nature and the aspect of practice

2) The four noble truths which are the focal object of practice

3) The three jewels such as the Buddha and so forth – going for refuge to them serves as the basis of one's practice

If you remember, there are 10 topics regarding the (Mahayana) Practice Instructions given by Maitreya here. The first one is the Two Truths, Conventional and Ultimate Truth, and we studied this about two years ago. We covered the Three Jewels of Refuge in the Spring term this year.

The next two lines describe the three types of diligences:

1. The diligence of non-‐adherence

2. The diligence of non-‐weariness

3. The diligence of thoroughly upholding the [Mahayana] path

What does adherence mean? One of the three types of laziness mentioned this: one is adhering to negative actions in the sense of attachment to negative action. So here, adherence means attachment, clinging.

Laziness was that of Procrastination and the third Laziness of being disheartened, self-‐contempt.

So here diligence of non-‐adherence is that of not adhering to negative actions. The diligence of non-‐weariness is a different type. What does it mean to be weariness.

STUDENT: In a way, it means to be discouraged.

GESHE WANGMO: In a way, but not exactly. Just being tired. Not necessarily discouraged. If you’re discouraged, you’re weary; but if you’re weary, you’re not necessarily discouraged. I think basically weariness is just being tired: ‘My knees ache, and anyway, I just want to have a good time. Never mind.’

Then the diligence of thoroughly upholding the [Mahayana] path . That is said to be the hardest. To work for our own benefit is so difficult, but to work to benefit all sentient beings; come on? And they’re obnoxious; worse than myself — according to me. Therefore, a lot of courage is needed. It’s very difficult to uphold the Mahayana practice.


ORNAMENT COMMENTARIES BY HARIBHADRA, GYALTSAB JE RE: DILIGENCE

Remember Panchen Sonam Drakpa is the textbook author of Drepung Loseling and IBD, and some of the nunneries study the same texts. Jamyang Choeling here, Jangchub Choeling in the south do. Gaden Choeling doesn’t; they use the textbook author of Sera Jey. In the Geluk-‐pa tradition, you follow any of the six colleges’ textbook authors, and we follow Panchen Sonam Drakpa.

It doesn’t matter. I may not agree with some of what he says, and agree with the others. Although of them basically say the same, but invoke debates.

Since Panchen Sonam Drakpa merely cites the three types of diligence with their sutric sources in his General Meaning, but does not give any further explanation, the scriptural quotations given in the handouts on the three types of diligence are from the following texts:

i. Haribhadra's Commentary Clarifying the Meaning

ii. Gyaltsab Je's Ornament of the Essence

iii. Lama Tsongkhapa's Golden Rosary

I apologize for any mistakes I’ve made in these translations, and I’m sure there are some. But it is very difficult to check, because whom am I going to check with? The people who know Tibetan and English well enough to check are too busy. And if I go to my teachers, they don’t know English. So if there are mistakes, I apologize in advance. I tried to go over, and over and over it, but the difficulty is also that it was translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan; and the Tibetan is old Tibetan. Actually, we have an incredible advantage because at least the spelling of the words hasn’t changed. In English, if you read a book from 200 years ago, the spelling is different. Many of the ‘I’s are ‘Y’s. And there was different grammar and spelling and words. So that doesn’t happen in Tibetan, the written Tibetan, although the grammar has changed slightly. I find it easier to read contemporary texts than the older texts because I feel the grammar is clearer, . .

Sometimes there are two ways to translate something, and I’m not sure which one to use. That can be good in that the sentence has a double meaning. But English isn’t like that so much since it is very precise grammatically. Older Tibetan grammar is much more ambiguous. In Sanskrit, I’ve heard that there was a text that when you read it from the beginning to the end, it was a praise to the king; and when you read it from the end to the beginning, it was a critique of the king. Such was the nature of the language and the expertise of the author, that you could actually say two different things; that’s quite an amazing language and is hard to imagine. You can read in-‐between the lines because one word has so many different meanings. So Sanskrit is such a great language because if you want to say three things, you can say them with one sentence. That was not fully the case in Tibetan but there’s a bit of that flavor in that sentences can have double meanings. But in English that’s impossible.

Gyaltsab-‐je's Ornament of the Essence and Lama Tsongkhapa's Golden Rosary are both commentaries on Haribhadra’s Commentary Clarifying the Meaning, which is one of the main Indian commentaries on Maitreya's Ornament that Tibetan monastics rely upon.

However, due to Haribhadra's terse writing style . . .

They are also, of course, commentaries on the Ornament. And Haribhadra’s writing style is extremely terse, and the book is not very long.


… his explanations can often be difficult to understand. Therefore, it is helpful to rely on Gyaltsab-‐je and Lama Tsongkhapa's commentaries since both the Ornament of the Essence and the Golden Rosary are composed in a way in which their extensive explanations are interspersed with Haribhadra's original words.

They use Haribhadra’s word and insert their own. Some people call this paraphrasing, but paraphrasing means changing the original words. They don’t change the original, they add extension.

Sometimes people highlight Haribhadra’s words, but I decided that you should do so on your own, and also because it looks a little odd. Sometimes, I would translate one part, and then translate another part a few days later, and get confused about which translations I used. So I hope I didn’t use different English words to translate one Tibetan. I tried to be consistent. This is to give you a sense of the Lama Tsong Khapa says, what Gyaltsab Je says and what Haribhadra says. I won’t do this as much later on, because I’d end up translating too much and not get around to translating the debate texts. Later on, there are Handouts on the debates and in those, I didn’t translate all of Je Rinpoche, only the important and most interesting quotations that were not redundant with the others.

TRACK 4 – GYALTSAB JE’S OUTLINE OF THREE DILIGENCES (PRESENTED BY MAITREYA AND HARIBHADRA)

Here we have outlines, which is a Tibetan custom (not Indian). Gyaltsab Je created outlines for Haribhadra’s text.

MANIFEST DISCORDANT FACTORS

According to Gyaltsab-‐je's Ornament of the Essence, the three types of diligence are explained under the following outlines:

Instructions on eliminating manifest discordant factors (i.e. negativities)

Discordant factors, mi thun chok (མི་མཐུན་&ོགས་) in Tibetan, literally means a discordant direction. Anything that is a negativity, an obstacle to practice is a discordant factor. It’s a popular word in Tibetan.

So what does it mean to eliminate manifest obstacles to practice? This is very important:

MANIFEST & DORMANT ANGER

There is a difference between eliminating manifest anger and eliminating the seeds of anger, which are the potential for anger to arise again.

Let’s say I have practiced patience every day for the last month. Before I started the practice, I got angry day around 10 am and 7 pm. But because of my practice of patience, I am now able to eliminate the manifestation or the arising of anger. That is actually really good, helpful.


But the problem, there is no guarantee that anger will not arise again; and secondly, the moment I stop practicing patience, at some point, anger will arise again. So it is good, but more needs to be done.

So to eliminate something manifest what I want to do eventually is get rid of the potential for anger ever to arise again, and that is called the seed. Just as a seed has the potential to arise into something else, likewise this seed has the potential to arise into anger again. So it is called the seeds of anger.

ELIMINATING MANIFEST ANGER (WITH PATIENCE) VERSUS ELIMINATING ANGER’S SEEDS

So there are two ways to eliminate anger. The final mode is to eliminate the seed. That’s always the goal in Buddhism, permanent, which means if I eliminate the seeds of anger, I eliminate the potential to ever become angry again; I can’t be angry. But that is not the result of practicing patience. Patience is great and very helpful, because if I can’t totally eliminate anger, than patience is the best I can do and it allows me to generate the mind that can totally eliminate anger.

What is the mind that totally eliminates anger? Patience is a state of mind; right? Patience is not the actions of being patient — smiling, whatever you do when you’re patience — are the result of the mental state called patience. So that only eliminates the manifest kind of anger for some time, making sure it doesn’t arise, so that the anger lies dormant.

Right now, I hope that none of you has manifest anger. Assuming you’re ordinary people. I don’t know: some of you may be enlightened. But if you’re not, anger lies dormant, which means the potential for anger to arise is there if the right circumstances come about. If there’s something that you do that helps you to not manifest anger over a period of time, you still have the potential to manifest anger later.

What is the mind that can totally overcome anger?

DORIS: The mind that realizes Emptiness directly.

GESHE WANGMO: The mind that realizes the ultimate nature of phenomena, that directly realizes how phenomena exist. This will come up later. So you understand that difference.

What does Diligence do here? It doesn’t have that power, but it overcomes that which is a discordant factor or an unfavorable factor to our practice. What is this discordant factor? The state of mind that is an unfavorable factor to our working hard?

STUDENT: Laziness.

GESHE WANGMO: Exactly. So it eliminates that manifest form of laziness. Of course, the seeds remain for us to deal with later. But even for now, great! This is the instruction that Gyaltsab Je gives:


Therefore Gyaltsab-‐je describes the three types of diligence as an antidote that eliminates manifest discordant factors (i.e. negativities) such as laziness. Furthermore, since the three types of diligence are one of the topics of Mahayana practice instructions, they are presented in the form of instructions on diligence.

The outline: Instructions on eliminating manifest discordant factors has three further outlines, with each of the three explaining one of the three types of diligence.

The three outlines are:

1. Instructions on the causes of the non-‐degeneration of one's practice

2. Instructions on the causes of increasing one's practice

3. Instructions on the causes of not falling into the Hinayana [vehicle]

So this is part of the Practice Instructions on Diligence. Who gives the instructions? The Buddha gave the instructions and other people comment on them.

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE CAUSES FOR NON-‐DEGENERATION OF ONE'S PRACTICE -‐ DILIGENCE OF NON-‐ADHERENCE.

The first Diligence was the Diligence of Non-‐Adherence. So this is the cause of the non-‐degeneration of one’s practice. You could, of course, exchange those: it’s also the cause for the increase of one’s practice, etc. But mainly, it prevents the degeneration of one’s practice. Non-‐degeneration: if you have attachment to this and that worldly happiness, that immediately degenerates your little bit of practice. Even when we have a few seconds of inspiration, then the next minute, ‘Oh, no. Can’t do it; I’m too busy. Too busy with my attachment.

You need to be able to put these things together, that are spelled out here, on your own, e.g. , the “Non-‐Degeneration of One's Practice” and “Diligence of Non-‐Adherence.” Later on, they won’t be clearly spelled out in the Handouts so you can have that exercise.

1. Instructions on the causes of the non-‐degeneration of one's practice

The type of diligence presented under this outline is the diligence of non-‐adherence, which counteracts the laziness of adhering to non-‐virtuous actions and assists practitioners in stabilizing their practice.

In Tibetan the word 'adherence' (Tib.: zhen pa -‐ ཞེན་པ་) has the connotation of attachment, clinging, craving, hanging on to etc. Therefore, the laziness that adheres to negative actions is a mental factor that is attached or clings to negative actions of body, speech, or mind.

Even though zhen pa (ཞེན་པ་) can be translated as ‘attachment’, it’s translated as

adherence because there’s another Tibetan word used for attachment. ཞེན་པ་ is an

interesting word. Someone can have zhen po (ཞེན་པོ་) towards one’s own country. If I

have ཞེན་པོ་ towards my own country, then I always prefer someone from my own country, help someone from my own country. I’m not sure what the English is. It’s not


really clinging; maybe it’s a lack of impartiality towards other countries. It can be to the degree of obsession, ཞེན་པོ་, also means obsession.

STUDENT: Preference.

GESHE WANGMO: Preference can be a positive thing — I prefer Buddhahood over living in Samsara. Whereas, ཞེན་པ་ is negative.

STUDENT: It’s like stickiness?

GESHE WANGMO: Not just stickiness. It’s also like: due to attachment, preferring one over the other.

STUDENT: Being partial.

GESHE WANGMO: Exactly. Being partial, being biased. That’s the colloquial meaning. Here, in the Dharma, it’s used a lot as adherence. It doesn’t always mean attachment; not always. E.g., “a conceptual mind adheres to its object”. That doesn’t mean it’s attached to it. That’s how a conceptual mind apprehends its object.

Here, in this context, it definitely means attachment, clinging, craving, hanging on to, etc., in a negative sense. In modern psychology, sometimes there’s a positive sense to the word attachment: a new mother should develop attachment to her infant, a type of bonding that is said to be positive. Whereas, in Buddhism, it usually is negative, a selfish kind of attitude of not wanting to be separated from something of being clinging.

We have different degrees of attachment towards different phenomena.

Therefore, the laziness that adheres to negative actions is a mental factor that is attached or clings to negative actions of body, speech, or mind.

Next comes Haribhadra. Since his commentary is so condensed, and since it was written in Sanskrit which is so pithy as described, if I’ve used brackets and parenthesis. The brackets are used for words and phrases added to the text to make it more accessible grammatically. Parentheses enclose my own comments.

Haribhadra says in his Commentary Clarifying the Meaning:

By generating diligence some earnestly practice the meaning of what was explained [but] due to the happiness of the body, and so forth completely adhere.

Basically he is saying that if you really generate diligence, then you are able to practice earnestly; but if “due to the happiness of the body, and so forth” — not just the happiness of the body. What does “and so forth” mean? The mind. So the happiness of the mind and body can be an obstacle. “Completely adhere” to what? The happiness of the body and so forth.


Hence in order not to adhere, the instructions teach the lack of a [true] nature of the body, and so forth.

Haribhadra is saying that the antidote is the true, ultimate nature of phenomena. Then Gyaltsab Je comments on Haribhadra. Sometimes Gyaltsab Je changes the words Haribhadra used a little bit grammatically, but you can usually understand the root text. Here Gyaltsab Je cites a passage from Sutra. Gyaltsab Je had read the sutras and found instruction on diligence, but he doesn’t quote the entire passage on diligence. In Tibetan there’s a way of saying, ‘and so forth.’ In English we use ellipsis and quotation marks. In Tibetan, there is no punctuation symbol for quotations, there are words that indicate quotation. So after the quoted passage, the Tibetan text says, “Quotation and so forth.”

DORIS: The “and so forth,” does it include all phenomena or just body and mind?

GESHE WANGMO: The happiness of the table? The happiness refers to the pleasurable experiences of the body — being massaged or eating good food. Then happiness of the mind refers to being free of worry, content. Actually, they are all mental states — happiness’s of sense consciousnesses.

Gyaltsab je says in his Ornament of the Essence:

[The following sutric passage:] “Great Bodhisattva, the practice of the Perfection of Wisdom with body, speech and mind…” is an instruction [by the Buddha] in order not to adhere to negative actions of the three doors [body, speech, and mind], because it is an instruction which teaches, “You need to realize that the body and so forth are ultimately natureless.”

It is appropriate to instruct in such a way because if some [practitioners] of weak faculty do not meditate on the meaning of emptiness, they will completely adhere [to negative actions] when, by generating the diligence of application they earnestly practice the meaning of what was explained during [the topic of] Bodhicitta. This must be abandoned.

From what causes [does such adherence arise?] It arises from mere happiness of the body, and so forth, that is attached to ordinary activities.

Again, it is not really that straightforward, but it gives us more of a sense of what Haribhadra is talking about. The sutric doesn’t tell us too much.

Basically, “the practice of the Perfection of Wisdom with body, speech and mind” refers an instruction by the Buddha to someone who is a Bodhisattva, “not to adhere to negative actions of the three doors.”

THE THREE DOORS

The three doors is Buddhist terminology for the body, speech and mind. These three gateways of communication which we can use negatively: I can kick someone through the gateway of the body. I can be abusive by saying horrible things to a person to harm by speech. Or I can just mentally plan harm by thinking negative thoughts. These are three doorways to accumulating non-‐virtue.


When I intentionally kick someone, of course, the negativity of mind is there and must have been present before I kick, even if it was just a brief moment. But the mind is mentioned separately. When you become a Buddhist practitioner, you may work hard to hold your tongue, but inside, your mind is churning smoke. If you want to make an effort, the first two you can stop are those of the body and speech. The negativity of the mind is very difficult to stop; that goes on.

It is difficult for anyone to control those three, but the mind is the hardest. In order not to be attached negative actions, we practice the diligence of non-‐adherence. So making an effort to overcome attachment.

REFLECTIONS ON EMPTINESS TO CURB ATTACHMENT

Then hat is the most effective method. This is a commentary on which text by the Buddha? The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, which explicitly teach Emptiness. So the antidote that is taught to us directly here is Emptiness. In order not to be so attached, let’s reflect on Emptiness. This is not all that it says: that is the explicit meaning. Implicitly, all the other instructions (for the path) that are not directly dealing with Emptiness are included. We’ve dealt with some already, Emptiness, thinking of death, impermanence, the workings of karma, understanding this precious opportunity we have right now. But here, it is talking about reflecting on Emptiness, which is great. We should all do that. It is very hard to find people who really understand Emptiness; I have no idea really. I can do the arguments, etc., but I don’t realize it.

In some situations, however, it is helpful to think: “I don’t exist the way I believe I do. And I’m only annoyed because I perceive a Self.” That can help. Usually, in terms of someone having said something to us, and we’re angry or annoyed at that person; it usually is something to do with us. So if I just think, “The ‘I’ that feels so hurt doesn’t exist.’ That ‘I’ – there is an ‘I’ that exist but the one that exists doesn’t feel hurt. The ‘I’ that feels hurt is not existent. It has a sense, ‘She said that to ME!” If she said it to someone else, ‘No problem.’ But she’s offended, “ME”. That kind of ‘I’ — to just remind myself that kind of ‘I’ doesn’t exist. Why be so upset by my belief in such an ‘I’.

It’s great to reflect even further. Also, what are the things that we are attached to? Like our great attachment to another person, as though there was some kind of essence there. But there’s nothing findable. Let’s say we’re attached to our reputation, a more abstract thing. What is reputation, really. It’s a name given to a bunch of people saying a person is wonderful. That’s called a good reputation. What else is a good reputation?

They say it, and then they forget later that they thought so and so was a great person. But I’m so attached to this reputation. But what is that reputation? It’s not the word, because the words are gone quickly. So the things like reputation that I’m so attached to, when you look for what it is that you’re attached to, you don’t find anything there, anything solidly there. People saying something, so ‘big deal’; right? Often, they don’t even mean it; maybe they’re just trying to flatter you; it wasn’t even sincere anyway, but then ‘I believe in my good reputation.’ And later, ‘Oh, dear, where did it go?”

So when we think about these things that give us pleasure, like food: how long does food remain in your mouth. The bite of chocolate – you can try and force it to remain in your mouth for a long time, but it just doesn’t last long. In and gone, the sensation in the mouth doesn’t last long, so then we eat too much and eventually, it’ll make you sick. Eventually it turns into suffering anyway, because you don’t fit into your clothes anymore. There are so many reasons, but we’re still so attached!


So think about what is actually there? The sensation in my mouth? Think about the taste, what is it exactly. Think about it as sensation. Don’t label it as good, chocolate taste. Just look at it as a sensation: there’s nothing to be found as inherently wonderful. Thinking about it that way can reduce attachment. We may not be the most sophisticated meditator on Emptiness, chariots and stuff, but it is still so helpful. So we start there. And in every day life, we should bring those two together: meditate on death and meditate on karma and also remember that phenomena do not exist the way they appear. They are just like an illusion, a magical trick. Things play a trick on us — no things don’t play a trick on us. Our mind plays tricks on us.

In every situation, when it gets difficult, try to remember, every time it happens, and 100%, you’ll be able to deal with that situation better. It’s just a matter of remembering; and not getting totally carried away by the situation. Especially when dealing with attachment, for which the instruction here is given.

TRACK 5 -‐ DILIGENCE OF NON-‐ADHERENCE PER HARIBHADRA AND GYALTSAB JE’S COMMENTARIES

Here Haribhadra and Gyaltsab Je explain

Here Haribhadra and Gyaltsab-‐je explain the diligence of non-‐adherence to negativities, which counteracts the laziness of adhering to negative actions of body, speech, and mind.

PRACTITIONERS OF WEAK FACULTY OR STRONG FACULTY RE UNDERSTANDING EMPTINESS

Going back to what Gyaltsab Je said above, he also mentions instructions for “those practitioners of weak faculty.” Who is a practitioner of “weak faculty” and who is a practitioner of “sharp faculty”? That determination is totally relative. That is a two-‐fold division of practitioners that is sometimes used in Buddhist teachings. Of course, the end result is always the same: there is no Buddha of weak faculty. They all have the same qualities. But some practitioners are less interested in Emptiness and more interested in Method practices, and those persons are said to be of ‘weak faculty’ in relation to Emptiness. Stronger faculty in terms of Bodhicitta. An illustration given of that person is a person who generates Bodhicitta before they realize Emptiness. Once you have Bodhicitta, if you have realized Emptiness before, fine. If you generate Bodhicitta without having realized Emptiness, you enter the Path of Accumulation. From there, you cannot progress to the next level — the Path of Accumulation — until you realize Emptiness. In order to move to the next level the Path of Preparation, you must realize Emptiness. Understanding Emptiness means understanding the ultimate nature of phenomena, the lack of or absence of inherent existence. Not the absence of existence.

I learned English together with the Dharma. So the word Emptiness always means the Emptiness of inherent existence, because when I learned English that was the meaning I learned. But recently I learned it has a very negative meaning, e.g. , ‘Oh, I have such emptiness inside.’ That is depression. That is not the Emptiness we mean. So I’m glad I found out about that meaning, so now I can warn people. Emptiness is a good thing; it is not the emptiness you find in the dictionary.

Emptiness refers to the understanding of how phenomena really exist, which is just the absence of a certain characteristic which phenomena have never had.


So a person who realizes Emptiness before generating Bodhicitta does so because they want to know: ‘Do phenomena really exist that way?’ “Is enlightenment makes sense or not.” They want to investigate really well before they generate Bodhicitta if I don’t know what the reasons are behind the Bodhisattva path.

But let’s not judge good / bad. There’s a lot of grey in between. Moreover, weak and sharp is in relation to Emptiness. You can be very sharp in terms of Bodhicitta, great strength of mind, but that is not described as sharp faculty because generating Bodhicitta does not rely so much on analysis. Still weak and strong are totally faculty. And strong faculty is used to describe persons’ understanding of Emptiness. It’s not a judgment.

There’s so much emphasis on being P.C. in the West. And that emphasis serves a valid purpose. However, to say to someone, ‘Oh, you have less interest in Emptiness, so you have weak faculty’ — I would never dare to say that to someone.

But for Tibetans this assessment is not seen as a problem. It doesn’t mean the person is bad!

They are just words that describe certain characteristics. We believe too much in words sometimes. In Buddhism, for example, the terminology Hinayana and Mahayana, Lesser Vehicle and Greater Vehicle. Westerners get so offended by those words, but they are not meant to say that Hinayana is not good. However, in comparison, the goal of Hinayana (Self-‐Liberation) is less than the goal of Mahayana (Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings). That does not say that Hinayana is not good; and greater and lesser are totally relative. Good and bad are relative. If I say someone is good or bad, it doesn’t mean that the good person is perfect nor that the bad person is the worst.

Tibetans can sound a lot harsher, lamas, maybe. Because people understand that these are just words and they don’t make ‘me’ anything. Westerners often are offended. In the beginning, I was very offended and still I am. But I’ve gotten used to these descriptions. A person of weak faculty: actually, I am a person of weak faculty. I prefer to Bodhicitta: Emptiness every now and then; but Bodhicitta more often. So I’m a person of weak faculty — fine. That doesn’t change who I am.

So these characteristics have no connotation of ‘You are good’, ‘You are bad,’ ‘You’re with us,’ ‘You’re against us.’

So going back to Gyaltsab Je’s commentary,

It is appropriate to instruct in such a way because if some [practitioners] of weak faculty do not meditate on the meaning of emptiness, they will completely adhere [to negative actions] . . .

The Tibetan text does you’re the word “completely”, but that doesn’t mean they will not do anything else. It actually means, “they will strongly adhere to negative actions”:

. . . when, by generating the diligence of application . . .

The diligence of application is a different type of diligence we have not talked about before: the diligence of applying oneself to Mahayana practice.


. . . they earnestly practice the meaning of what was explained during [the topic of] Bodhicitta. .

. .

Bodhicitta is the previous topic of Chapter 1 of the Abhisamayalamkara. Ideally, a student practices what the instructions they receive while studying the Ornament.

However, when practicing Bodhicitta, it is important to remember Emptiness; otherwise, it is too easy to become attached to negative actions:

. . . This must be abandoned.

From what causes [does such adherence arise?] It arises from mere happiness of the body, and so forth, that is attached to ordinary activities.

Here mere means happiness itself of the body and the mind, and such happiness is an obstacle. Happiness of body, speech and mind is an obstacle. That doesn’t mean we should suffer. We should experience great happiness and joy when we practice and use that to our advantage as said before. Some of you weren’t here. Especially initially, it is important to experience happiness and joy, because our mind works such that when we experience something joyful, we grow attached; when there’s something unpleasant, we grow anger; and if the sensation is neither, we just ignore it. Any kind of sensation.

Fine, that’s the best we can experience at the beginning; therefore, it’s okay to be attached to practice. It’s better to be attached to practice than to robbing a bank, obviously. So we use attachment to our own advantage.

Here, it is saying that happiness of the body and so forth is not the problem, but the cause.

I’ll leave it here.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

There’s a little more time for questions.

STUDENT: I just got a little confused when you were saying that you can develop Bodhicitta on the Path of Preparation, and then you can’t progress until the Path of Seeing unless you . . .

GESHE WANGMO: I didn’t say that. There are five levels of Mahayana practice. The first level is the Path of Accumulation. You generate the Path of Accumulation, the first level, for the first time when you generate Bodhicitta, full Bodhicitta, uncontrived, spontaneous wish to become enlightened for the benefit of sentient beings. That is the gateway to the Mahayana path.

Some people realize Emptiness before that. When you newly realize Emptiness conceptually, you do not necessarily enter a path, any of those levels. So having newly realized Emptiness conceptually — a conceptual realization of Emptiness is not a direct realization of Emptiness — then when you generate Bodhicitta, you enter the Path of Accumulation and you can continue progress onto the Path of Preparation. However, if you generate Bodhicitta before generating such a conceptual realization of Emptiness,


then you must realize Emptiness in order to progress to the second level, the Path of Preparation, you need a conceptual realization of Emptiness.

STUDENT: You mention that psychology speaks of the attachment between a mother and child as a good thing, while Buddhism says that attachment is a bad thing. So do you think that the attachment between a mother and a child is a bad thing?

GESHE WANGMO: No, no. I mean the word. I’ve seen the word attachment used, for example, “It is important for the mother to develop attachment towards her child.” Right. I talked to my sister, and she said it is talking about love. The word is used to mean love.

So English words are used to explain Buddhist ideas. The word in Tibetan, chak pa, that is translated in English as attachment, in Tibetan that word usually has a negative connotation. Sometimes, infrequently, it is used to mean love; but usually, it is a negative word.

Now in English, clinging generally has a negative connotation. “This child is very clinging.” If we say, “A mother should develop clinging for her child,” I don’t think that sounds very positive. So in English, the word attachment is used with a positive connotation. Whereas, in Tibetan Buddhism, it is meant to have a negative connotation. So I gave that explanation in case you are used to using the word attachment in a positive context, then you may think Buddhism is saying that the love of a mother for her child is negative. No. Real love is necessary. Buddhism has no problem with that. There is a problem if a mother is overly attached to her child as it grows, and wants the child to be this way and that way, and can’t be without the child; and the child is 18 years old, and the mother doesn’t want the child to leave home. Those situations are seen as negative.

So in Buddhism, Emptiness is a good thing; but in English it is not. If I say, “I experience a lot of Emptiness,” Buddhists would say, ‘Wow, wonderful!’ Even though in a normal sense, you don’t want to experience a lot of Emptiness.

TODD: It’s kind of very picky regarding the “happiness of body and so forth”, does the author really mean the body …?

GESHE WANGMO: Todd’s question is: when we say the “happiness of body”, is the experience of the happiness the body? Right does the actual body experience happiness: does my knee or does my tooth experience happiness? Does my tongue experience happiness?

It is formulated that way in Tibetan, “the happiness of the body,” but it actually means the happiness of the sense consciousness. So for the tongue, the happiness that arises in dependence on the tongue, on an object on the tongue and then the sense of taste consciousness. That is called the body consciousness. So really it is “the happiness of the body consciousness.” I could have put consciousness in brackets actually. So not literally the happiness of the body.

STUDENT: Thinking about the word Emptiness, I think maybe it is the wrong word for trying to explain the Buddhist idea, because the word emptiness is associated with something negative, e.g., an empty box, an empty brain.

GESHE WANGMO: Okay. If you say so, first of all it is too late because everyone uses this. Number two, in Tibetan there are two words: tong pa (!ངོ་པ་) means empty; tong pa nyi


(!ངོ་པ་ཉདི་ -‐ abbrv. !ངོ་ཉིད་) means emptiness; the suffix particle nyi (ཉིད་) turns the adjective into a noun. So how would you do that in English: use the word empty and make it a noun by using the root word, empty? What else could say by emptiness?

STUDENT: Empty-‐nuity.

GESHE WANGMO: Empty-‐nuity. That’s a great word.

STUDENT: Well, inventing a word.

GESHE WANGMO: There’s another word that is used, suchness, but the problem with the word suchness is that Emptiness implies the negation, something is empty of inherent existence. It doesn’t mean nothingness. It’s the Emptiness of inherent existence; whereas, the suchness of inherent existence seems to imply inherent existence exists because it’s the suchness of inherent existence. And suchness is the translation of a different Tibetan word.

I can see that difficulty, but we have that difficulty with so many other words. The word love , we often confuse that word with attachment, or confuse attachment with love. So it is a real challenge.

There are two possibilities: We can do like the Tibetans and make up totally new words, but then you come to this class, and those of you who’ve studied for awhile are okay; and the rest of you won’t understand a word.

That’s how Tibetans are; that’s a problem Tibetans have. If Tibetans go to His Holiness’ teachings, and are not familiar with the Buddhist vocabulary, they won’t understand much. So His Holiness spends some time talking to them; and then it’s time for them to nod off. So don’t get it wrong when a Tibetan kind of nods off; they just don’t understand. We still can understand because the same English is used, while the Tibetans often don’t understand the totally different vocabulary of words that are not used in every day language. So there’s always an advantage and a disadvantage, but I take your point.

STUDENT: What about, instead of saying Emptiness, using lack, lackness.

GESHE WANGMO: Lackness: I have to realize lackness; that sounds like nail polish. I get your point, but I’m not going to be the one to change it. So it’s already been established. It is good for us – at least now we know.

STUDENT: I have a question from last time about ultimate Bodhicitta, and the limited capacity of the mind to be angry.

GESHE WANGMO: That positive qualities can be limitless; negative qualities are limited. Limited and limitless. The classic explanation usually given – it is not really described in the text as much. It’s said that love can grow limitlessly and anger cannot. So what is the limit. One explanation is sentient beings: I can have love towards all sentient beings, in the sense that whoever approaches me I can actually, sincerely love them. Love is defined as the wish for this person to be happy. So someone comes in the room that I’ve never seen before, and out of the depth of my heart, through habituation, I can generate a wish for them to be happy. And they are very important to me in that moment.


But it is said that in anger, it is not possible with anger. That anyone, randomly, you want to harm everyone. In the sense of a concept, but it is not like you really dislike them; because we usually dislike someone due to the self-‐centered attitude. We dislike someone because they harm us. Usually not because they harm someone on Somalia, unless we feel some connection to someone in Somalia. Anything that is not related to ourselves, we don’t get angry.

But love is not based on that self-‐centeredness; it is based on the realistic view that everyone wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer; and everyone deserves to be happy in the same way. As Todd said last time, anger is based upon a misperception. It is based on the self-‐centered attitude, first of all, which just includes one person so it is kind of limited. Therefore, your anger is also limited because it has to refer back to the ‘I’.

It is also limited, if you like, because it is not based on reality. How does anger function? When I’m angry with you, let’s say I’m angry at you, then I just take one negative aspect which may not even be there, and even if it is there, I exaggerate it; I make it bigger than it actually is. So it is not realistic. If you’ve been to His Holiness’ teachings, I think he regularly says this recently. When he talks about anger, he mentions his conversation with a psychiatrist in the West who said that modern psychologists have come to understand that anger is 90% a projection by the angry person of negative qualities onto the object of anger, so that one doesn’t see the positive qualities any more. You just see something negative when you’re angry; you just totally blow up the negative. If we check on our own anger, this is how it works.

Whereas with love: you can see the good, the bad and accept the person for who they are, so it is based on reality.

In that sense one is limited because it is not based on reality; the other is not limited because it is based upon what is there.

Limitless has actually more to do with sentient beings. If you think of limited as a restriction: anger is restricted in that sense, limited and restricted. Unrestricted, without limitations, boundless is tha’ may (མཐའ་མེད་) in the Tibetan, no boundaries.

Even though it may seem as though all there is in my mind is anger, but that is just strong anger. However, you can only be angry with a certain amount of anger.

If someone does something you perceive as positive, it’s very difficult to be angry with them. Really. If you hated me, and then I saved your life, you’d have a hard time hating me. But if you had real love and I harmed you, you’d still love me like a mother. Mothers love serial killers, OMG. Serial killers are people who run amok, but often their mums and dads are still behind them while everyone else hates them. The love of a mother or father is often used as a simile for the love of a Bodhisattva. Even though their son killed an entire family of eight, the mother keeps loving. Anger is different: you can destroy anger.

How do you destroy your enemy? By making him or her your friend. That’s the way His Holiness says to go about conquering your enemy: by making him or her your friend.

So anger is limited. There are lots of examples. That’s why love is unlimited and hatred can become limited. My anger is more limitless than my love now. But talking about the end result: the love of a Buddha which is so limitless compared to the greatest anger a person can have.


I’m not saying our own love is limitless but that it can grow into that limitless love.

STUDENT: Sounds quite exhausting. . . .

GESHE WANGMO: … Well, let’s check it and debate it.

ornament(for(clear(realization ... -...

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