TEACHINGS GS ON ON CCHÖDHÖD

Here after we are saying PHAT, page 25, the last half of the bottom line, here briefly thepractitioner is giving a form of teaching to the sentient beings. Here it goes KYE MA DIRTSHOG; KYE MA is something like alas! those of you who are here, all the devas and allthe ghosts, the demons you who are constantly in search of other beings lives - know thatthis body is an illusion.

It is impermanent the very nature of this body is impermanence andtherefore I do not hesitate of giving it away without any kind of reservation. You, all thedemons out there, whoever wants it may have my body. That is what the message is.Those particular kind beings out there, as said, constantly at the lookout for lives, they wantto constantly searching for lives,

they want to take lives by karmic imprint37. LA is kind of the basis of life that which encases life. There is a thing called life and LA. LA is not veryeasy to understand, when a person dyes in the grounds wherever there is the corpse therealso remains that base, which contains, which encases life. These demons are always in thelookout, by nature they go on being demons, these

particular ones, for a long, long time,tens of thousands of years and because of karmic imprint they have this notion that they dieevery week. In order to prevent them from dying they feel they got to take a life. Once theycan take a life they feel completely relieved and satisfied that they will have the opportunityto live. So they are going looking for lives of other

beings on a weekly basis. To them youare saying – whoever wants to have... Trying to satisfy them by giving our body our life tothem so that they will be satisfied and at the same time teaching the impermanent nature of existence.We talk in terms of demonic obstacles, demonic obstacles in the sense, again going back tothis idea of life and LA. LA is a Tibetan word is a kind

of gray area. To take life you,actually, have to make all the major kind of life-sustaining body parts out of commission.But to steel your LA, so to speak, that can be done by the demons when you are sleeping.When your alert mind is off guard that is the time when your LA can be stolen, and whenLA is taken away, then what happens is immediately that is going to be followed by

signs of mental and physical degeneration followed by death.What we are saying to the demons out there is that just like a bunch of children looking at aflowerpot with all the beautiful flowers. We are saying to the children – yes, they may seembeautiful flowers, may seem beautiful but giving the time they are going to decompose, theyare going to dry up, they are no

use to me. So if you are attracted to the flowers by allmeans take them, have them. That is what we are saying to all the spirits out there. Thenature of one’s body is subject to decay, old age it is not something I cherish, if you want itby all means take it.By giving this body to all you beings out there I dedicate this to all sentient beings in generaland especially

to you the ones that have been my own parents and also, lamas, eberts tothem I dedicate this body. I give it away dedicating the merits to them. May this serve askarmic debt payment, may this serve as a ransom on behalf of all of you.By giving this may all your karmic debts be paid, may you be purified, from thebeginningless time all your karmic debts may be paid and whatever is owed may be settledand by the power this may all your desires of causing harms to other sentient beings may bepurified. Let

there not be anger, hatred in your mind may you now generate Bodhichittamind because of receiving this and by generating Bodhichitta mind by the power of thatmay you finally reach enlightenment. Then say PHAT PHAT PHAT.Here we say PHAT, top of page 28, PHAT PHAT. The third offering is - thus far we havegiven to all the ghost, demons and spirits the material sustenance but that is not enough,37Translator’s commentary: one thing I forgot to translate is a thing called consciousness and LA.

now we are saying to them that having filled your stomachs now I have to give you Dharmaoffering and that is how it begins.Here it goes on to say NA-MO meaning offer prostrations this is all phenomena in Samsaraarise from causes. What are those causes? These causes are explained by the Tathagatas andhow to put and end to those causes and these are the words of the great teacher thehistorical lord Buddha Sakyamuni. He went on to say that one should not indulge in anykind of negative action, one should

train oneself to engage in all positive actions and this iswhat he had to say. This really kind of ties in with some of the questions that were asked tome by people who came to me and said - what are the precepts that one has to observewhen one receives the gnakpa vow, or the ordination for the lay people. Whether it is Self-liberation Ordination or whether it is gnakpa vows, we can go into 253 different type of precepts that fully ordained people would surely observe. But the real kind of

bottom line,the foundation of all these precepts is not causing harm to others. There are fourfundamentals that one has to observe.The Tibetan word, key word is DIG-PA, DIG-PA is negative action. Negative action is thatwhich causes harm to others, that which generates suffering to others, that is DIG-PA ornegative action. In Buddhism, Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings focuses on putting and end tothe cause of causes of negative action, others you find simply kind of try to tackle thesymptoms not the

disease itself, that is the difference, in Buddhism we look at the diseaseitself, not at the symptoms. This is very logical because once a seed goes in the earth this isthe cause and the result will be a shoot coming out of the earth. This is inevitable, so we tryto prevent the seed going into the earth; all these negative actions come from this selfishIcenterness. When you treat yourself as the center of all things, then you don’t care aboutothers, if they are cold let them be cold, if

they are hungry let them be hungry, if somethingis causing them suffering or harm let it be. It is them it is notme. That kind of attitude isself-centered. When one has this tremendous amount of self centerness then what one islikely to do is if possible they will kind of rob others, when it is not possible one will think of steeling. This is the kind of negative actions one is likely to engage in when there is thisIcenterness. When one is not able to detach oneself from the self centerness one will not

beable to benefit others. Therefore in order that we may learn to detach ourselves we, inBuddhist circles attach so much importance on training the mind on accepting all sentientbeings as parents. Parents by definition being kind to sons and daughters. In that way onetries to be helpful, to be of benefit to others. Whatever one is able to do all the good deedone is able to do for the benefit of all sentient beings is positive action. Positive actiongenerates positive results; negative actions generate negative results. What is the main thingthat switches on and off from virtuous deeds to non-virtuous deeds? It is one’s own mind.And when one’s own mind is deluded with hatred, desire, attachment and ignorance thenwe don’t see the right things from the wrong things and engage in all kind of unwholesomethings. That is why the concluding verse of Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings goes on to saythat one should properly control one’s own mind. So, emphasis is laid on the controlling of

mind. Finally Lord Buddha Sakyamuni concludes by saying – this is the teaching of theBuddhas, this is Dharma. That is what he says.# - Again going back to 28, because obviously the teachings of the Buddha are soprofound, so meaningful that it deserves another look at. In page 28 the transliteration says-DIG-PA CHI-YANG MI JYA ZHING/ GE WA PHUN SUM TSHOG PAR CHYE/ RANG-GI SEM-NI YONG-SU DUL/ DI-NI SANG-GYE TEN-PA YIN/ this stanzaincludes the whole range of 84,000 heaps of Buddha’s teachings. How so? You may ask.This is how - in this stanza alone includes all the ordinations.

In Tibetan we say TSHOG chang ta. tshog is Self-liberation Ordination, Chang is Bodhitsattva Ordination, ma ? is theTantric Ordination all three are embodied in this very stanza. When lords Buddha goes onto say DIG-PA CHI-YANG MI JYA ZHING/ by not engaging on any kind of negativeactions. This ties in with the Vinaya teachings when you do not cause harm to others andyou abide by the four fundamental precepts, that is Self-liberation Ordination. That is one.Next one Lord Buddha goes on to say /

GE WA PHUN SUM TSHOG PAR CHYE/

try to do everything one can in one’s power to engage in positive wholesome activities. Now,what are positive wholesome activities? Positive wholesome activities is, the bottom line is,the generation of Bodhichitta mind and following up with Bodhichita actions. So in that isBodhichita Ordination included, when you generate Bodhichitta mind you will want to doeverything in your power to help sentient beings, even if it means your own life. So thereyou are you got your Bodhisattva vow in that. Next one RANG-GI SEM-NI YONG-SUDUL/ it says to refine your mind, it says DUL it is to refine to perfect one’s mind, tocontrol one’s mind. How? Refining or returning or perfecting the state of your mind wouldbe turning your ordinary mind into the mind of the enlightened beings. When you throughmental visualization generate yourself as Yidam deities, body, speech and mind by this youare receiving or talking about the Tantric vow. When you receive Tantric vow, whateveryou see as you see

you have pure perception, all sights are pure sights - Buddhas andBodhisattvas, all sounds are the mantras of enlightened beings, again pure. The mindset iswhen you are in the state of true nature of mind, which is in the state of Dharmakaya. Thisway is talking about the practice of Tantrayana, in it there is the Self-liberation, generationof Bodhichita, the ways of the Bodhisattva and ordination, the ways of the method of Tantric practice and its ordinations. Every single thing is included

in this very verse and thatis why Buddha goes on to say - this is my teaching.This is the teaching of Buddhism. When you practice Chöd, when you read, again page 28,top line PHAT/ NA-MO CH’O-NAM THEM-CHE GYU-LE JYUNG/ all phenomena inSamsara arise from cause, you are thinking about the interplay of cause and effect. Causeand effect relationship is infallible.At that time it is also a good opportunity to generate devotion. Before any of us you, theBuddha, saw the relationship between cause and effect and therefore you, the great one, Igenerate devotion. That kind of attitude you should have.The Buddha nature of all sentient beings as well as Tathagatas being the same, when you arewholeheartedly thinking in this way then your own true nature of mind merges with the truenature of mind of all sentient beings. And in that way you are benefiting your guests, all the

Samsaric beings by merging your altruistic mind with theirs and leaving an imprint on theirminds so they too will be able to generate Bodhichita.Here there is this thing called Buddha’s teachings SANG-GYE TEN-PA, teachings that areshown, imparted by the Buddha. What is Buddhism? What is Buddha’s teaching? WellBuddha’s teaching are associated with red robes, temples, monasteries, the sound of prayers. These are associated with Buddha’s teaching but these are only kind of externalthings. The

real Buddha’s teaching that matter the most, which is the innermost is treatingall sentient beings in an equal way and considering all of them like our own parents.Because of that equality the willingness to help and generate Bodhichita. If one is not ableto do that then wearing red robes is completely an empty hollow shell it is just meaningless.You can yourself test as to how much of a practitioner you are by kind of measuring theamount of Bodhichitta mind you possess. You, yourself know the

best. You are your ownwitness, if you have an inkling of what kind of person you are then you will know howthings are. What other people are likely to perceive you as is of secondary consequence. It 82doesn’t matter, in fact it doesn’t matter at all, if they say you are Bodhisattva or they say youare a demon it does not matter. That shouldn’t affect you. The real important thing is you,yourself, that is the life witness of what is happening in

your own mind. Whatever you doyou should put your mind as witness of whatever you are about to do or you are doing andthat is what matters.Just like I taught you last year, Mahamudra teachings, the alert mind constantly being on thewatch out for conceptual thoughts, negative emotions and when they come not followthem trying to stay in the true nature of mind. This really is the bottom line. All lamas, nomatter what kind of teaching you receive the message will be the same; teachings will be

thesame, that is the foundation.After this the next stanza is the last sentence in Tibetan on page 28, JYIN-PA GYA-CH’EN. Here it says that - by having given this huge, vast offering, by its power, for thebenefit of all sentient beings, may I reach enlightenment. And having reachedenlightenment may I be able to liberate all sentient beings by the power of this offering tothe extent that no other Tathagatas, no other glorious ones had been able to do in the past.So this is the message.Next s

tanza MA SAM JO-ME, this is talking the true nature of mind, this is talking aboutShunyata or emptiness. What are the qualities of Shunyata or Emptiness? The Root Textgoes on to say – yes I feel like describing the qualities of Shunyata, that ismasom, but Icannot jeremiadsays. I have this urge to express the qualities of Shunyata but there are notwords, I cannot tell you what it is like. It is the Prajnaparamita or the perfection of wisdom.That is something that it cannot be described by words, it is

unborn it is unceasing, it is likethe deep blue space. It can (it meaning the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom), theperfection of wisdom can only be seen or experience by the perfection of wisdom. That iswhy it says SO SO RANG RIG YE-SHE, it can be seen by itself and to you thePrajnaparamita, the mother of all the victorious ones of all three times let your auspiciousthis, be here today. That is the concluding sentence, kind of prayer too talking about theNATURE OF MIND or

Shunyata38.Going back to the Root Text MA-KYE MI-GANG NAM-KHA’I NGO-WO NYI,unborn, unceasing with the essence of the blue sky. If you try to understand this byreferring to all the Buddha’s teachings, the canonical teachings, in the Sutras, in Tantras youwill never be able to take out the jest of all his teachings. I, for example, do not know whatare written in those things. Instead of searching to these things in the Sutras and theTantras we look inwardly to our own mind and it is a kind of hands on

finding what themeaning is. In this it is said that Shunyata or emptiness or true nature of mind, thatperfection or wisdom can be seen and experienced by wisdom alone. What kind of wisdomis it? Again we are going again through the same question, what does it feel? So when youare trying to meditate in the state of Mahamudra, all appearances come and when they docome the alert mind recognizes, that very recognition in our case we can call that wisdom.The wisdom that recognizes the wisdom. By

recognizing all these conceptual thoughts oneis able to disassociate with these conceptual thoughts and focus the attention on the truenature of mind, the stabilized mind. If we did not have this alert mind we would be kind of preoccupied with these conceptual thoughts and we would be far away from the stabilized38Translator’s commentary: Rinpoche says- is that too much? And I said that is a way, way too much! (laughs).Words of Rinpoche. Translator: Sure..... more words Sure.... more words Rinpoche

is talking to himself.....(laughs) telling me how he doesn’t know a great deal ... and how there would be many amongst you guys ...who would know more than himself, how shameless he is that he is going on and on... Ya, right! 83true nature of mind. Therefore, again, we can call that kind of alertness of mind wisdom aform of wisdom. Then, how does it feel when you actually recognize resorting to the use of that alert mind (wisdom) and then find out what Shunyata is like. The

brief moments weexperience without conceptual thoughts, without marred with conceptual thoughts orappearances, that very kind of deep or hollow blissful feeling. That would be, in our case,the state of emptiness. That would be the Mahamudra, and who does the finding out? Wellit is our alert mind. Wisdom sees wisdom.SO SO RANG RIG, the third line on the right, SO SO RANG RIG or SO SO RANGRIG PA is of the five wisdoms it would be the discerning wisdom. Here one thing, if youget the notion that the

discerning wisdom, the alert mind in our case, is a kind of differententity from the true nature of mind, then that becomes dualistic. That is not the case at all,there is not one wisdom that does the seen and another wisdom that serves as the seen. It isthe same very wisdom. If I use an analogy it would be like a burning butter lamp, thatillumination illuminates the illumination, so the illumination it is not separated from what itis illuminated. When the illumination illuminates, it

illuminates also that very illumination.That may serve as a kind of analogy, a useful thing for you. When the discerning wisdomsees the true nature of mind, the true nature of mind is not separate from the discerningwisdom.This word YE-SHE or wisdom it is made up from two separate words. YE is from the verybeginning, it is the primordial. SHE is the awareness. YE-SHE is the primordial awareness,wisdom, these are wisdom and these are pure, but the polluted, tainted understanding of things,

perception of things that are called GNAM-SHE, a cognitive senses, cognitionwould be the right word for that. There is a very wonderful meaning attach to the wordYE-SHE, primordial awareness.Shunyata, emptiness, true nature of mind, whichever you want to call it is the mother of allBuddhas of past, present and future.Next stanza is the bottom line in page 29 starting with CH’O-KU NAM-KHA ZHIN-DUJYER ME KYANG/ here the state of Dharmakaya is like the space, we already talkedabout Dharmakaya, now

ZUG-KU JA TSHON ZHIN-DU SO SOR SEL/, now talkingabout the form body. Form body appears just like a rainbow and it is apparent, it isdistinctive visible. How so? What makes it so visible? That is because of the method andwisdom. Method, emptiness being the method and compassion being the wisdom, becauseof method and wisdom kind of inter-playing makes it possible form the form body to havean appearance.Then last one we are asking for auspiciousness from all the five Tathagatas. All forms of enlightened beings fall in the category of five Dhyani Buddhas.Now we have ten bhumis and five paths. The next stanza is talking about the five paths –prostrations to the Path of Accumulation of Merits, the second one is putting into practiceBodhichitta mind, and the third is, because of these actions then actual seeing orexperiencing the state of emptiness. The forth is once one experiences the emptiness, thenstaying in meditation in this state of emptiness. When you do this free of attachment andego

clinging then there will be no impediment, no obstacles, so the fifth is the Path of noimpediments or obstacles.Putting into practice the Bodhichitta mind, compassion is the actual performance Path.Putting into action Bodhichitta mind, once that is done then you see the true nature of things – the suffering of sentient beings, the futility of all the things that sentient beings gothrough, through ignorance not seeing the true nature. True nature being the true emptinessor basis for all Tathagatas. So that is the Path of seeing.

84Then the last sentence is a prayer, praying that all sentient beings may actualize the body,speech and mind of the Great Mother, the Prajnaparamita.Then at the end on page 30, MA YUM CH’EN-GO PHANG NYUR THOB SHOG/ theyare praying that all sentient beings may actualize the state of Prajnaparamita. At that timevisualize that all sentient beings, after feasting on your

offerings, having generatedBodhichita and having said prayers, all sentient beings; the male species become Chenrezigor Avalokiteshvara and all female species becoming Tara or Drolma. Then with that kind of conclusion and visualization and meditation you send all sentient beings home.Once one become used to the generation stage and one gets used to the meditating on thetrue nature of mind, then there is no gender difference but before one becomes used tothat, one can visualize all

sentient beings the male as Chenrezig and female as Tara.This does not need a great deal of explanation, the small script here. It is already translatedbut as Lord Jigten Sumgon has mentioned, if possible, one can do four practice sessions,but that would be quite difficult. At least one should try to do it once, that especially in theevening before going to bed. If possible read the text completely if not just go through thevisualization process and that is going to give you all the benefits mentioned in

page 31 and32.In this supplication there are a few lines that are very important. It goes on to say now wehave left to send all sentient beings guest as Chenrezig and Tara and we send them home atthat time. By generating Bodhichitta mind, by thinking in that way, then at that timevisualize that all the host of deities that you have generated in front of you they all dissolvein light. The Prajnaparamita too dissolves in light and that light dissolves in oneself. Andwhen that happens, then the

transformation that should take place is as a result of alldissolving Prajnaparamita in yourself, your naked true nature of mind is exposed. At thattime you should instead of looking into space you should look inwardly, to your own truenature of mind. When you do so your true nature own mind is not something tangible andyou will not see it in a tangible way because is the state of Shunyata or emptiness. On theother hand if you say or feel or think that - when I look inwardly I cannot see the

truenature of mind in a tangible way, well it is not non-existing either. Because in that nature of mind there is also all kinds of thoughts and appearances that are coming from. And whenyou look at it seeing the naked mind, just like that burning lamp analogy, when you see withyour discerning wisdom and that’s what should take place.The more profound teachings about the ultimate View on Shunyata or Mahamudra arecontained in the supplication. So later on as an appendix if you could have this

supplicationtranslated and attached to the Chöd practice text this would be of immense value to you itis not that long.When you have this feeling of great bliss in your mind again look at that blissful nature of mind. And that blissful nature of mind is called the blissful of emptiness, it is the qualitiesof Mahamudra.When it talks about to look at it is not the external thing, look inwardly. Mind looking atmind itself, when you do that all the discursive thoughts, conceptual thoughts are just likesmoke

and fog they will just disappear.Here the Mahamudra true nature of mind, emptiness and Shunyata. There are so manydifferent labels put there is the blissful and empty. Now here when you feel a great deal of clarity then turn inwardly. Let your mind look at your own state of mind and you will findthat that is the clarity and emptiness, again the quality of Mahamudra. When

you findsometimes that there is a really empty feeling in your state of mind again look at your stateof mind and that is the non-existence of conceptual thoughts, that is again Mahamudra.

85That far we have been talking about the qualities of Shunyata, Mahamudra, the state of emptiness, this idea, this feeling of bliss, bliss and emptiness, clarity and emptiness, emptyemptiness. When you look at all these aspects - bliss, clarity, empty, really there is nothingto be seen and that is why it is called the naked ordinary mind, that naked, ordinary mind isexposed

when you look at it and you see that there is no bliss, no clarity, there is noemptiness. But it’s only what remains its and naked common mind, tha mal shes pa rjen pa jemba? Tha mal is common, shes pa is mind and rjen pa is naked or raw but we shouldn’tuse raw, it is better to say naked.So when you look at the true nature of common mind whatever is there is there just likerainbow - you are no grasping it, you are not manipulating it, your are letting it be there.We have in the supplication

these wordings – let me see both Samsara and Nirvana asnothing but illusion, so there is this illusion, leave this illusion as illusion.When the five poisons, these are discursive thoughts pertaining to the five poisons, arise just leave them alone. Do not manipulate them, let them be and when you, yourself, stay inmeditation on true nature of mind the five poisons are going to dissipate by themselves,without you having to do anything to with them.And I keep on saying – just don’t mess with this

negative emotions let them be. The reasonfor this is that anger, hatred, jealousy, when one of these discursive thoughts arise, if youdon’t leave them alone what is going to happen is you are going to chase after what hadhappened yesterday, your are going to issue into things that never have happened tomorrowand you are going to do a lot of things about what is currently happening. So past, presentand future and going to the more and more discursive thoughts added on to what alreadyexist that is

why I asked you too leave them alone, do not mess with them they willdisappear by themselves.Stay in the state of equanimity whether it is happiness or sorrow, these are all thoughts,these are all emotions. When they arise leave them alone in equanimity when you do thatthey are not going to not affect you at all, but when you mess with this they are going togenerate more and more discursive thoughts.Whenever we are stricken with fear, all kinds of different fears, and when you look at

thenature of these fears they will subside and disappear and these are the qualities of Chödpractice, which ties in with Mahamudra teachings.This kind of state, stabilized state this wonderful state of emptiness. Masters and peoplewho experience this state of mind wanted to put a label to it, so that the teachings could bepast on to others. They searched for words and finally they came up with kind of wonderfulsounding names like the great Madhyamika or the middle path, the Mahamudra and

theGreat Perfection – Dbu ma, Phyag rgya chen po and Rdzog pa chen po. All thesebombastic sounding names were put just because they couldn’t find any better names.So whether your teacher is from the Gelupa sect, Nygma sect, Kagyu sect, Sakya sect, fromwhichever aspect of the teachings from the 84,000 heaps of Buddha’s teachings there areteaching you. Always try one thing on your mind that is – try to absorb the nectar of theseteachings and try to look for what is the bottom line. The bottom line

is the true nature of mind all focus must be given to nature of mind and whenever you receive teachings look for it.There is nothing in Nirvana, there is nothing in Samsara that is not included in one’s truenature of mind. Therefore the word Rdzog pa chen po is given, so called the great perfection. Mind is one thing that contains every conceivable thought, every conceivableteaching, and every conceivable idea. From Samsara to Nirvana everything is contained inthis teaching and because of that they have use the word rdzogs pa or containment.Just like the Nirvana and Samsara it is just like a flower the roots being Samsara and thatflower being Nirvana, but at these different? Are they the same? Well, it is one stem fromwhich the blossoms bloom.When we are new to this practice

of meditating on Mahamudra, of course, we need toresort to the use of some means to stay in focus, to stay in stability of mind. When once acertain level of stability is achieved then the mind should be without any focus at all, itshould be left alone.Believe in your own common naked mind and there is nothing outside of it. That is calledRdzog pa chen po or Phyang rgya

chen po all these are contained or encompassed in yourown mind.Tsongkhapa had clearly written in one of his songs and said don’t look for true nature of mind elsewhere, be satisfied with the kind of true nature of mind you possess yourself.When you practice Mahamudra meditation then after a while you are going to realize thatthe alert mind is not a separate kind of unit of

the true nature of mind. There is not onelooking out to and there is not another one that it is looked at, both are the same. Whenyou come to understand this, experience this, that is the real Mahamudra.Then one might be tempted to conclude that under the circumstance, really we don’t needto resort any kind of the structural formal practice all we ever need to do is look

inwardlyand keep on looking and just don’t waste time on other practices. Well, that doesn’t apply atall until one is able to get rid off the conceptual thoughts and discursive thoughts one has toresort to all these teachings like generation of bodhichitta devotion or purification, all theseone has to do.There is the mention of three ordinations the first would be self-

liberation ordination andthe other would the Bodhisattva ordination and the third would be Tantric ordination orVajrayana ordination.The root text says there is the View and there is the action and those should be directed inthe right way and one should be following the three ordinations just like you are protectingyour own eyeballs. When you do this, this is called the

merging of Mahamudra and theGreat Perfection in the ocean of true nature of mind. Now here about the self-liberationordination, bodhitsattva ordination and Vajrayana ordination, somebody asked punditAtisha - venerable Atisha how are you faring with the keeping of the vows, the threedifferent kind of vows? Atisha replied – self liberation vows I am able to keep them to

theletter, bodhitsattva vows most of the times precariously, but when it comes to Vajrayanavows then I am totally blind and I am just a blind man trying to find a path, I am making amess out of it. This indicates how difficult it is to observe the Vajrayana ordination. To tryto follow Vajrayana ordination would be very difficult, the reason is you have the bodymind speech

samayas. Body samayas, now you have to, without shifting your focus to otherthings, you have to cast your mind to the generation of deity body, and that is the bodySamaya. And all sounds everywhere, including your own sounds, thoughts to be thoughtregarded as a speech of deities and your mind has to be in contemplation on the true natureof mind. So is very, very

difficult to do these things and that is why they say keeping theVajrayana vows is extremely hard.39Translator footnote: I personally think based on Rinpoche’s teachings this particular it should be the greatcontainment rather than great completion. 87The Vajrayana Samaya rests on the contemplation on the true nature of mind. Because truenature of mind is something that all

Vajrayana practitioners must hold very dearly to one’sheart that is why the wordholdit is closely used in Tibetan word rig dzin. Rig dzin meansto hold, Vidyadhara in Sanskrit also refers to holding, and towards that just because of interdependent origination for auspicious reasons etc. etc., getting the Upaseka vow or layman’s vow sometimes referred as gnakpa vow. That

too kind of empowers you to visualizedeities, recite mantras and also stay in meditation of Mahamudra.In doing so learning to turn the five poisons into pure perceptions, pure perception in thesense that with the flip side of the five poisons would be the five wisdoms. Five wisdoms inessence is five Dhyani Buddhas. The five elements for example must be perceived as pureand

when you are able to do that the five elements are turned into the five Dakini consortsof the five Dhyani Buddhas, for example the earth is form, earth is alsosenge gemaone of the consort Dakinis. Water is mamaki, another consort Dakini. So like that you have tolearn to perceive things as pure perception and also this way of talking about outer shell of Samsaric existence. Now

the inner inhabitants you also have to see them as pure perceptionbecause each and every single individual has the basis of all Tathagatas or Buddha nature.Because when you are able to see all beings, including the outer shell and inner inhabitants,meaning the sentient beings, perceived as pure then there are all kinds of stories. Onewould be the story about

King Indrabodhi, it is said that the whole kingdom and allinhabitants of the kingdom reached enlightenment because of pure perception.Sometimes we find certain spots on the ground as dirty, you cannot do that, once you havereceived the Vajrayana empowerment because of the Samaya when you see the earth asdirty that is the opposite of pure perception, you should not have

impure perception. Veryfrequently we hear that you should not have the wrong view of the Lama and the teachersand your friends those are kind of obvious, even the five elements should be seen as pureperception. When you come across a dog to see that dog as impure then you are violatingthe Vajrayana ordination. In all cases you should have pure perception, the least you shoulddo

is try to leave things in equanimity and whenever you violate some of these ordinationsthen have remorse and read or say the hundred syllable mantra.I am just fishing, you are going through the pages and fishing out the ones of those who areapplicable to you and leaving out the ones that are not applicable. So the things that youshould not do, it is a list of do not but I am

separating from the pages.So far there are four of them, the first one is do not alienate, do not let down one’s ownDharma friends, because if you did that is violation of Tantrayana or Vajrayana ordination.Do not say bad things about the teachings that one receives, any kind of teachings, if youdid that is a violation. Do not fight or have views between Dharma friends,

especially in asituation where you are together receiving teachings. That would be very, very bad if youdid. The fourth one, probably the worst of all, one that Guru Rinpoche condemned himself and said – this is one thing that must be given up or else one would be barred even torecitation of Guru Rinpoche’s mantra, that is smoking. One is not supposed to smoke, if one did

smoke that person would be barred from recitation of BENZA PEME SIDHIHUM. It is a very, very powerful a negative action. There are five or six kind of smokes andall of them are equally bad, that is the forth one.Also it is a violation of Vajrayana Samaya

if when one of your Dharma friends comes toyou and ask you to share some information on teachings, because either the person hasmissed or did not understand, under those circumstances if you withhold information, if you don’t share information that is also a violation. So in the morning, when you wake-upyou should always try to say the Vajra wind recitation. That is to say OM AH HUNG in

your breathing OM AH HUNG being the body speech mind of enlightened beings and inaddition to the breathing of OM AH HUNG one should try to be alert in one’s mind, try tostay in meditation.With those in mind generating bodhichitta mind, causing not harm to others and try to seeeverything as pure perfection.# - When receiving Vajrayana ordination one can actually wear the red

robes to indicatethat you are one of those who are abiding by those Vajrayana rules. Because there is areason for it, the red robes also can be included as liberation by sight because the minutethe pious people look at these red robes as object for reverence, they will say some goodthings, prayers, generate bodhichitta. So you can wear red robes and I will be giving you

theordination tomorrow. All those would be gnakpas can come tomorrow and if you have redrobes bring them with you and follow those who are receiving refuge ordination and then Iwill give you the gnakpa ordination40. (Sounds and laughs, clapping – they gave him the cap,burgundy cap and he is wearing it). Rinpoche says that you are very, very skilful inaccumulating merits

because of all the Three Jewels, the ordained Sangha are the best andmost powerful when you make offerings. My own mother (Rinpoche’s) passed away lastyear and I did offerings to non-other than Sangha community, so this is very good.These teachings were typed by Karma Tsewan Chödrön (better known as Martha from Venezuela), from thetapes of the teachings in Rochester, 1999.

They have many mistakes, particularly about Tibetan names andwords.The merit of this typing is dedicated to the enlightenment of all sentient beings and also to the long life of mybeloved teachers.40Translator interruption: Genie said that you have some things to offer to Rinpoche and the colour will beliberation by sight, right? OK

Source

[[1]]