The Buddha’s tradition generally defines wisdom as the ability to correctly distinguish the true attributes of things or phenomena. This means to recognize the nature of all things, and to be able to distinguish correctly between one thing and another.

Generally speaking, this type of wisdom is said to be cultivated in three stages. The three stages are called hearing, thinking and meditation. Hearing refers to the process of study, the acquisition of information and knowledge. Thinking refers to the rigorous analysis of the information or knowledge that has been gained until there is a decisive resolution of its true meaning. And then, through meditation practice, we come to a direct experience of what has been conceptually understood.

Because it is only meditation that leads to direct realization of these three stages, the one that is the most important is the third – the stage of meditation. Nevertheless, in the Buddhist tradition in general, it is recommended that meditation be preceded by some period of study or hearing and some period of rigorous analysis.

In our tradition, the lineage of Lord Gampopa, which combines the mahamudra tradition with the mind training teachings of the Kadampa school, there are two ways to approach this. If someone encounters the teachings in their youth, and has time therefore to do so, they can begin with years of exhaustive study, then exhaustive analysis, and then approach the formal practice of meditation. But, if someone lacks that much time, it’s sufficient, according to our tradition, to engage in a briefer period of study and analysis and principally to use the practice of meditation itself to develop the wisdom that is able to correctly discern the attributes of things.

Compassion is of tremendous importance. Most Westerners who are enthusiastic about dharma are particularly devoted to the mahayana and the vajrayana tradition, such as the teachings of Guru Rinpoche and so on. Compassion is essential because all of the dharma of the mahayana and the vajrayana is founded on love and compassion. Without love and compassion, all of this dharma is as dead as a corpse.

In particular, the mind of awakening – bodhicitta – is as essential to the practice of dharma as an aorta is to a functioning, living body. An ordinary person who is practicing dharma is not really a practitioner if they lack bodhicitta. A holy being who lacks bodhicitta is in fact not a holy being at all – they are just a fake. Monastics who lack bodhicitta, no matter how impressive they may seem in their behavior, or how glib they are in their explanations, are utterly heartless.

Fortunately, the cultivation of bodhicitta is not something that is so terribly difficult that no one can do it. It basically is a way of thinking. It starts with thinking about yourself, thinking about what it is you really want and what it is you really don’t want. No matter who you are, you want to feel good, you want your mind to be happy, and you want to be free of physical suffering. You want a state of pleasure or well being of body and mind. You want to be free of pain of all kinds.

Once you have admitted to yourself that you want to be happy, if you look around, you’ll notice that other sentient beings are your equal in this respect. Each and every being wants to be happy and wants not to suffer just as much as you do. That empathy, that understanding of the common ground between you and other beings, is the starting point of the development of bodhicitta.

There is a very clear example of what our lack of bodhicitta has done to us. We spend our lives dividing those with whom we interact and whom we know into two classes: friends and enemies. Those we call friends are those who in some way gratify us, those who give us what we want, those we suspect of harboring good feelings toward us, and those to whom we therefore become strongly attached. And, once we identify someone as a friend, we need them.

Then, there are our enemies: anyone who in any way prevents our doing what we want to do. We call an enemy anyone with whom we enter into conflict, anyone who we suspect harbors ill will towards us. And just as much as we feel we need our friends and need to support and surround ourselves with our friends, we encourage ourselves to hate our enemies as much as we can.

As time goes on, this distinction between friends and enemies becomes more and more reinforced and more and more deeply entrenched within us.

If you think about this carefully, the distinction we make between some people as friends and other people as enemies has no more substance to it than the difference between a good and a bad dream. We can distinguish between a good dream and a bad dream, but they are equally dreams, equally illusory. In the case of friends and enemies, neither our friends nor our enemies were born as such. None of your friends were born your friend. None of your enemies were born your enemy. Therefore, your friends are not inherently, or unchangeably, your friends; your enemies are not inherently, or unchangeably, your enemies.

Yet through habit and through reinforcement of thinking in that way, we fixate on friends and enemies very strongly. This fixation comes from a lack of empathy, the weakness within us for love, compassion and bodhicitta. We think this person hates me, they are my enemy; this person loves me, they are my friend. And by thinking in this way, with such fixation, we can actually ruin our lives. But in fact, these ideas we have about people have no more substance to them than the ideas we have about the dreams we have had. And, if we recognize that these distinctions are not inherent within beings themselves, our fixation on them as such will lessen.

Natural meditation refers to our true nature. In a sense we could say that natural meditation is our beginningless or primordial, innate birthright – our fundamental condition and nature. In the Buddhist tradition it is often referred to as buddha nature, and it’s said, “Buddha nature fills all beings; therefore, all beings are capable of buddhahood.” This means that our fundamental nature is flawless and that all of the qualities of buddhahood are already present within us innately.

Indeed, about natural meditation, it is said, “The best meditation is to rest naturally and relaxed.” However, as easy as this may sound, it is actually quite hard for most of us to do. Under the sway of ignorance we are quite deluded. When we attempt to rest in our own true nature we often are not doing so, but are resting in an idea of that nature, a concept of it, or an idea about it. Any idea or concept of the nature is necessarily incorrect and flawed. Therefore, resting in such an idea or concept will not lead to recognition of the nature itself.

To understand how we can actually approach a recognition of this nature, especially as beginners, it may be helpful to employ the concepts that are often used when describing the state immediately after death – the state of the bardo, or interval between lives. In such a context, a distinction is made between what is called the ground clear light or fundamental clear light, and the path clear light. The ground clear light is our true nature. Clear light itself refers to the nature of our mind. Because that nature of our mind is the ground of all experience it is called the ground or fundamental clear light. Now, that ground clear light, our actual nature, is itself beyond delusion and it is also innate within each and every one of us. However, we normally do not see it. It is in fact obscured by our ideas or concepts about it. Therefore, in order to come to recognize that ground clear light we must begin by cultivating what is called the path clear light.

All of the different practices that are done in one’s dharma training are means, either directly or indirectly, of cultivating what we call the path clear light. And, the reason we need to do so is in order to be able to recognize the true nature, the ground clear light, when it arises for us at the time of death. Because whether one is engaged in the practice of dharma or not, as long as one has been born with a physical body, when one comes to die at the end of that life, one will experience the ground clear light. We all will, and do. However, while we all experience the ground clear light at the moment of death, most of us do not recognize it.

Our purpose in practicing dharma, our purpose in cultivating the path clear light, is to be able to recognize the ground clear light.

In order to do that, we engage in various means: means of gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom, means of purification, the stabilization of the mind with the practice of tranquility meditation, and all forms of deity yoga. All of these have one common purpose, which is gaining gradual familiarity with the path clear light.

If these means are properly cultivated, especially if the mind is stabilized through the practice of tranquility, then the mind gains the ability to some degree to recognize its own nature. That partial familiarity with the clear light on the path will lead at the time of death, when the ground clear light – the nature just as it is – is experienced, to the recognition of it as the ground clear light. One’s familiarity [with the path clear light] gained in that preceding life is called the child clear light. The direct experience of that nature is called the mother clear light. The recognition of the ground clear light as a result of the familiarity gained with the path clear light is called the meeting of mother and child. If this recognition is thorough, and occurs at that time of death, then at that instant, that person is liberated, indeed becomes a buddha. Of this it is said, “In an instant, the difference is made; in an instant, buddhahood is attained.”

Historically, we can see that there are a vast number of ways that people have cultivated natural meditation; they have had different lifestyles and have used different techniques and means in cultivating the path clear light. If we consider the lifestyles of the famous eighty-four mahasiddhas of Buddhist India, we see that each of them lived a little bit differently from the others and they all found a way to integrate the particular circumstances or their individual lives into this training.

For example, one of the best known among them is our forebear Tilopa who, as his name indicates, occupied himself during the day grinding sesame seeds to extract the oil. At night he was a procurer for a prostitute. And, working busily day and night, Tilopa nevertheless used his circumstances to strengthen his samadhi. And then finally, he achieved awakening. As a sign of his awakening, he rose into the sky and sat there, holding his mortar and pestle – the tools he had used for the grinding of sesame seeds and the extraction of the oil – as a metaphor for the exposure of the ground clear light and of buddha nature within everyone’s being. Then, his night-time employer, the Madam, felt somewhat sheepish at realizing that the guy she had been using as a doorman or bodyguard or procurer, was a buddha. And she apologized to him and she said, “I really didn’t know.” And he said, “Oh, you didn’t do anything wrong, you really didn’t know.” And he put a flower on her head and she achieved awakening too. This is just one example, but if we look at the lives of the eighty-four mahasiddhas, what they all have in common is that they all found ways to cultivate natural meditation, to cultivate the recognition of their mind’s nature in the midst of their individual and widely varying circumstances.

So this is something that we try to do today. Here for example, under Erma’s guidance [ed. Rev. Erma Pounds was a well-respected dharma teacher who passed away in 2011], you do various practices such as singing songs, such as that pretty one that I think you call “Buddha Mind.” And these are all ways or techniques to instill in you the practice of natural meditation. And as long as you have a practice that is devoted to that, then you have what you need.

[From Precious Essence: The Inner Autobiography of Terchen Barway Dorje. Copyright Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Peter O'Hearn. All rights reserved.]

“In my eleventh year [This means he was 10. In Tibetan, age is not given by telling how many years you have finished, but by telling what year you are in] Gharwang Rinpoche and Tenga Rinpoche [Two major tulkus of Surmang] went to Palpung Monastery, and I had the good fortune to accompany them. It was therefore in that year that I first saw the mandala of the face of Lord Maitreya, Tai Situ Pema Nyinche Wangpo. This lord was someone who could transform your perception in an instant simply by seeing him. Therefore, even though I was so young, I saw him as an actual buddha, and immediately upon meeting him, gave rise to unconditional faith in him. When I first met him, my perceptions of the world dissolved. The first dharma connection I established with him was an empowerment of Amitayus and Hayagriva together, and therefore I credit him with my longevity because he established the interdependence for it on that day. I also received from him at that time the One Word of Advice From the Heart, the 3rd Gyalwang Karmapa Rangjung Dorje’s short commentary on mahamudra; Mahamudra Hitting You Like Lightning by the 1st Gyalwang Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa; and The Pointing Out of the Objects of the Six Consciousnesses, which Guru Rinpoche gave to Nanam Dorje Dudjom. When I received Situ Rinpoche’s instructions on all of these things, I saw at that time ordinary cognition nakedly. It was he who did me the kindness of directly and all at once showing me self-arisen wisdom. Therefore, my actual root guru, my true Vajradhara, is he, Situ Rinpoche.”

2nd Bardor Rinpoche and Gharwang Rinpoche

[From the biography of the Second Bardor Rinpoche, The Light of Dawn, composed by Karma Tupten and translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. All rights reserved.]

“In recounting Bardor Rinpoche’s life from his fifth year up to his nineteenth, I will combine the two subjects I listed as third and fourth—his undertaking of renunciation and completion, and his receiving empowerments and transmissions—into one and also describe how he learned to read and studied the major and minor sciences. This will have two parts. The first is his early training.

“First Tsangsar Rinchen Dargye taught him to read. Within twelve months he was pretty much able to recite the communal liturgies. Then the appointment of his tutor was discussed. Gharwang Rinpoche decided through divination that it should be Gechen Tsegyal. He received the appointment, and under his tutelage Bardor Rinpoche became able to recite all of our rituals without difficulty.

“Toward the beginning of his seventh year Bardor Rinpoche undertook renunciation in the presence of Surmang Khenpo Padma Namgyal, who also taught him grammar, writing, the Shramanerakarika, and the Three Vows.

“On an auspicious day, in the presence of Surmang Tentrul Rinpoche, Gharwang Rinpoche, and all the lamas and monks of Surmang Namgyaltse Monastery, Bardor Rinpoche was placed on the Red Throne of Shartse at Namgyaltse. This ceremony was performed with great elaboration. During it rainbows shone from the throne, red lightning flashed, a humming sound was heard, and there were other wonders. These were signs that the protector Tsengö was pleased. The history of the Red Throne is clearly recounted in the autobiography of Terchen Barway Dorje.

“Bardor Rinpoche received the empowerments, transmissions, and instructions of the Five Wheels of the Whispered Lineage of Surmang from Tentrul Rinpoche. He received the empowerment for Surmang Tradition Severance; Machik’s Great Explanation; the instruction-transmission of the White Crystal Mirror; the Round Empowerments for the Sixty-Two Deity Mandala of Chakrasamvara of the Surmang Tradition; and the empowerments, transmission, and instruction for the Ten Deity Mandala of the Four-Armed Mahakala from Gharwang Rinpoche. He received the Great Feast Dance, the Image of Eighty, the Five-Faced Great Torma, the Great Ninth Day Dance, the Instructions on Great Fulfillment, the Great Empowerment of the Four-Armed Mahakala, the Matrika Ekajati, and all the other empowerments, transmissions, and instructions of the Whispered Lineage of Surmang without exception from Kunzang Dorje.”

Learn about the current Gharwang Rinpoche.

The Buddha taught the Dharma as a path. Although all of us, sentient beings inhabiting the six realms of samsara, have buddha nature and therefore posses within us the perfect cause of awakening that contains the qualities of all buddhas, we have been deluded by the mistaken thought of I. And so, although we are inherently able to achieve the dharmakaya for our own benefit and the  rupakaya for the benefits of others, we continue to wander in samsara for no other reason than the delusion produced by this thought of I. It was in order that we be able to overcome this delusion that the Buddha taught the dharma as a path. Essential to this path is coming to trust ourselves and believe in our own ability.

Many years have passed since His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa brought the Dharma to this land and throughout those many years we have all worked hard and have come to know one another well. As he is my root guru, I consider his vision as a command and therefore I have done my best to assist in your accomplishment of the dharmakaya for your own benefit and the rupakaya for the benefit of others. I regard doing this as my responsibility, however for the result to occur, the first thing that is needed is for you to trust yourself enough to overcome despair.

The Buddha said that the Tathagata does not dispel the sufferings of beings by wiping them away with his hand nor can he pass his realization to them. Beings’ sufferings are dispelled by his presentation of the peace of dharmata. To understand the meaning of these words, we need to remember that all buddhas achieve buddhahood motivated by the wish to benefit others. No one ever has or ever will achieve buddhahood with the selfish motivation of wishing to achieve buddhahood for their own benefit. But in spite of the fact that all buddhas become buddhas out of the wish to benefit others, they nevertheless cannot simply wipe away our pain nor can they hand us their awakening.

It is not that they are too weak to wipe away our pain or that they will not hand us their realization because they are too greedy or selfish. They would do these things if they could. The reason why this is impossible is that realization is an interdependent phenomenon and it involves the recognition by a person of the nature of their own mind in connection with the instruction they receive from a buddha or his or her representative.

What does it mean to say that buddhas dispel beings suffering by presenting the peace of dhamata? Dharmata is the way things really are and it is peace because it is utterly unchanging. Absolute truth is beyond change or fluctuation. Our fundamental nature never changes and it is in order to recognize that that we practice. But in spite of this, when we practice, we often adulterate our practice with our kleshas. We may practice in a state of pride, anger, or attachment. Practicing in that way, we may gain the ability to be reborn as a deva, asura, or human repeatedly without being reborn in lower states, but we will not achieve the nirvana of two-fold transcendence. A perfect practitioner needs to seek out and implement the means of achieving nirvana that transcends the extreme of samsara through recognition [of mind's nature] and that transcends nirvana itself through compassion. The most important thing for us to achieve is “the single medicine for one hundred ills”—bodhichitta. Most dharma is concerned with bodhichitta; with how to generate it, how to strengthen it, why to do so, and so forth. Unfortunately, we often practice it with partiality—we feel love and compassion for some and not for others. As long as we restrict our compassion to some and prevent it from being all-encompassing, we will only be able to prevent lower rebirth; we will not achieve the nirvana of two-fold transcendence. It is therefore especially important that we cultivate impartiality.

What we need is love, compassion, and bodhichitta that are impartial, unlimited, and endless. Most of us have some love and compassion, and we have some love and compassion for some beings, but not for others. We have love and compassion sometimes and not at other times. Most of us are fairly loving and compassionate as long as things are going our way. Whenever things stop going our way, our love and compassion seem to disappear. We have compassion for those with whom we identify and as long as our compassion is based upon that, we will not have compassion for those with whom we do not identify—those from a different country, of a different religious tradition, of a different race, or different species. Our compassion may be reactive—when others are nice to us, it is easy for us to be nice to them; when others are mean to us, we are mean to them.

Since we all suffer, regardless of how we treat one another, we must at some point accept a responsibility to help everyone regardless of our relationship to them. Once we really want to help everyone equally, then true and impartial love and compassion will naturally arise within us. When we cultivate love and compassion as the relative aspect of our path, our path becomes very quick and the emergence of ripening of the qualities within us is speeded up greatly. When we cultivate relative bodhichitta, we come to realize absolute bodhichitta, and that realization gives us the power to help all beings until samsara is emptied. That is why bodhichitta is called “the single medicine for one hundred ills” and why it is so essential for the genuine practitioner.

Someone who has genuine love and compassion will never restrict their compassion to those who practice the same religion that they do. They will definitely feel as much compassion for followers of no religion and for followers of other religious traditions, and they will work to benefit those others in a way that fits with the others’ belief system. For example, the Buddha once blessed Mara so that Mara entered the state in which he taught several profound sutras. Those sutras taught by Mara were so profound that many beings came to recognize the nature of their mind through hearing and studying them. This did not arise because of any inherent ability or desire within Mara.  It was through the blessing and power of the Buddha. By working through Mara in that way, the Buddha was able to help many others in accordance with their own belief system. In more recent terms, when His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa went to Calgary in Western Canada, he was approached by a young member of the First Nation (in this country you would say a Native American), who said to His Holiness, “I like you and I find you inspiring. I am Indian and you are Tibetan. I don’t know your ways and you sure don’t know my ways. If I pray to you in my way, can you bless me in your way?” And His Holiness said, “Definitely. Don’t worry.” So mere difference in religious tradition is obviously irrelevant. We cannot say that there is an inherent difference between Buddhist faith and non-Buddhist faith. Faith is simply a state of mind and is therefore empty. It is merely the play of that mind, which is empty lucidity, so it is definitely beyond sectarian differences.

A genuine practitioner needs to be able to trust him or herself. Our minds are really hidden from others; others can at best infer from our behavior what is really going on within us. Except for buddhas who directly know the minds of others, no one else really knows what is going on with us. But we are never hidden from ourselves. We know whether we are doing well or poorly. A genuine practitioner needs to be able to say, “I have meditated on love and compassion to this degree in this life. As much as I could, I have done this or that practice and so on it will be ok if I die today or tomorrow.” It may take us quite a while to get through all of the stages of the path; it might be very difficult for us to achieve the state of Vajradhara in this life, but at least we can make some progress along the way. If we consider the path to be like a staircase with one hundred steps, and we can make it up ten of those steps in one life, then in ten life-times, we will have completed the path and that is quite good. The alternative is less beneficial; we may look like great practitioners, we may rise early and go to sleep late, and we may never let go of our malas with our hands, but if we have not gotten to the point where we have confidence when we face adversity, if we quiver in terror at death, then our practice has not been satisfactory; we have not gained confidence in ourselves. There is a saying “Dharma is revealed by adversity”; the quality of one’s practice, the degree of one’s confidence is evident when things are not going well. When things have gone poorly and someone is quivering in terror as they approach death, it is very very sad for them and for the people around them. So we, as practitioners, need to take responsibility for and take hold of our own lives and our own practice, and by doing so, we will become the best type of practitioner. I think this is what self-confidence really is.

It is very hard to look at somebody and really see what is going on inside them to really know. Machik Lapdron in Praise to Guru Padmapa Sangye says, “Father, you sleep throughout the day and night continuously. This is a sign of your unbroken natural meditation.” In most cases, if we saw somebody sleeping all day and night, realization would not be our first thought. But Machik Lapdron knew, because she was an extraordinary being. If we were looking at Padampa Sangye today, we would not know what is going on with him. We would see this reportedly rather ugly guy sleeping all the time. We would not know. In The Words of My Prefect Teacher there is a story about Jetsun Milarepa who slept in the same dwelling as a lama who was diligent in his practice. The lama would stay up very late chanting, then he would sleep a little bit in the middle of the night, and then he would got up very early and begin his recitations and chanting again. Meanwhile, Jetsun Milarepa slept peacefully. Eventually, when Milarepa woke up, the lama said to him, “You know, you look like a great yogin, but why are you so lazy? Why do you sleep so much?” But Milarepa knew that when this lama had been doing his good-looking chanting, he had actually been thinking about how much money he was going to get after selling a yak that he was going to have slaughtered. So Milarepa answered him, “Well, you know, you are right. I usually do get up earlier but last night I could not sleep. I spent the whole damn night thinking about how much money I am going to make.” So holy beings like Milarepa can actually see what is going on inside somebody’s mind but we cannot. The best we can do is to take ourselves as witnesses; the utmost kindness that we can do to ourselves is to let go, as much as we can, of negativity, to do our best to cultivate goodness at least to the point where we have no quilt about how we are living our lives. We do not need to become renunciate monastics or do anything fancy; we just need to be able to trust ourselves. That is a very important thing to understand.

We cannot judge others; we do not know what is really going on within them. But we can and do know what is going on within us. If we can be non-judgmental toward others, if we can rejoice in their virtue whatever it is, regardless of their religious tradition or affiliation, then by being free of jealousy, we will accrue the same merit as they do. This will protect us from sectarian hatred and enable us to accumulate an ocean of merit, day by day, drop by drop. By cultivating relative bodhichitta, we will eventually discover absolute bodhichitta. So we need to do our best at least to move in that direction and if we do that, then I guarantee you that we will discover genuine self-confidence.

In considering Khenchen Mipham’s White Lotus, his commentary on the Seven‑Line Supplication, we need to think about the outer, inner, and secret aspects of Guru Rinpoche (Padmakara). Previously, I have identified the inner aspect of Padmakara as the nature of mind, the absolute bodhichitta. That absolute bodhichitta—our true nature—is stainless, immaculate, and pure like a brilliant lotus flower, and this is something that we all have. In order to reveal this, however, we depend largely on relative bodhichitta.

The cause of achieving non‑abiding nirvana—the state of buddhahood that transcends both samsara and nirvana—is our generation of bodhichitta. And one cannot generate bodhichitta just once or twice, and think that is enough. It must be constantly reinforced. Only through constant reinforcement will our relative bodhichitta develop through increasing familiarity.  That is why our practices begin with the re‑affirmation of the vow of refuge and of the generation of bodhichitta.

Much of our practice consists of familiarization, which is important.  As is said, there is nothing that cannot be achieved if you become familiar enough with it. Sometimes we have problems with this because the process of familiarization involves putting time and effort into practice. Sometimes people say, “I like Dharma. But I’m very lazy. I don’t want to practice.”  And so they’ll ask, “How much do I need to practice?” To the point where if you say to someone, “Well, you could simply say one hundred OM MANI PEME HUNG every day,” they will say, “Whoo! A hundred? That’s hard. A hundred. That’s a lot.” And they are right. If you think about it, one hundred repetitions of anything is a lot. But when it is OM MANI PEME HUNG, it takes far less than five minutes.

We have to be realistic. We are trying to remedy or overcome all of the bad habits and obscurations we have accumulated with our bodies, our speech, and our minds throughout beginningless time. That is a lot of stuff. As with any illness, as with any negative situation, the remedy must correspond in strength to the problem that we wish to solve. If it were enough to remove a mountain of wrongdoing and obscurations by simply saying one mantra such as OM MANI PEME HUNG a few times, that would be fantastic. But if that were the case, we would all be liberated already. Therefore we have to be courageous and we have to accept that this is going to take effort. And we have to resolve, “If I cannot engage in more virtue than I have engaged in wrongdoing up to this point, I must at least and at all costs engage in the same amount of virtue.” Otherwise our hopes for awakening are as unrealistic as confidently believing that you can put out a huge wild fire with a couple of gallons of water.

Training in Dharma consists of hearing, thinking, and meditating. We start with hearing. And sometimes, unfortunately, we stop there. When we hear teachings from a lama, we may be very inspired; we may think, “This Lama is a great siddha. This Dharma is very profound.  I’m very fortunate to receive it. This is fantastic.” And then we might just go to sleep and forget about the whole thing. If we leave the process at only hearing, then it serves no real use whatsoever. So having heard one or another aspect of Dharma, we have to go on to really think about it, to analyze its meaning. And we have to think about it repeatedly until we gain certainty. By “certainty,” I mean the kind of certainty that is knowing—beyond any kind of doubt or any need to ask anyone—what Dharma really is. This kind of certainty is exemplified by the great early Kadampa masters, such as Geshe Langri Tampa, who said, “Of all the Dharma I have studied, I have resolved that there is nothing more profound than the instruction, “Give all victory and joy to others and accept all defeat and sufferings for oneself.” Other than this, I have seen nothing that needs to be understood or practiced.” We need that kind of resolution, that kind of certainty, because only from that kind of certainty will come the commitment, which will enable us to engage in effort. As long as we lack certainty about the meaning of Dharma and how to put it all together, our practice will be like shooting an arrow in the darkness. You might know there is a target out there somewhere, but you cannot see it. So no matter how much effort you put into shooting the arrow, you have no idea of whether you are shooting it in the right direction. You might kill one of your friends! So just as if you are going to practice archery, you need to do so where there is light, if you are going to practice Dharma, you need to do so on the basis of the certainty that comes from assiduous and careful thought. And then, you actually practice.

Practice has to bring us to a state of resolution which is even more certainty. It is the resolution whereby you trust in your own experience; you trust yourself and your own practice. This resolution is exemplified by the statement of Jetsun Milarepa, “From today onward, even if I have the opportunity to meet one hundred great gurus, I will have nothing to ask them.” That type of resolution can only come from the practice of Dharma that is free from personal worldly ambition. If we allow our practice to be corrupted by the eight worldly Dharmas so that our practice is really devoted to ambition for fame, for wealth, for position, or simply for the successful competition with others, then our practice will be like the consumption of food mixed with poison. You might be nourished by the food but at the same time, you will be poisoning yourself. We have to remember that we practice because we want to free our mind from kleshas. We practice because we do not want this beginningless series of rebirths to continue. If we do not achieve liberation, it will continue. And we have no way of knowing whether we are going to be born in a higher or a lower state. So we have to practice with effort and with courage.

We have great examples to emulate. When His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa was giving the Treasury of Kagyu Mantra empowerments in Nepal, he met Palsingha Rinpoche, a Nyingma tulku who lived mostly in retreat in Yolmo Kangra, which is a place where Jetsun Milarepa used to do retreat. Palsingha Rinpoche’s practice was principally to do the preliminaries. He had done the preliminary practices fifteen times (that is 1,500,000 prostrations and so forth), and he was going to do more. We were all so impressed with him that we said this person was like a second Milarepa. Well, if somebody who is already an incarnate nirmanakaya, is willing to put in so much effort, it need not be said that we need to work a little harder. And there are many people who do. There are people who, regardless of what their other practices may be, will do a thousand prostrations or five hundred prostrations every day. This kind of constant, unremitting effort is what is needed in order to reveal that self‑aware wisdom, which is our fundamental nature.

We cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot think, “Well, I did a hundred prostrations. That’s good. I’ll stop there. That’s enough.” and then go to sleep. If you become complacent about what you have done, it is very uncertain whether it is going to do you any good at all.  Practice that leads to complacency or that is corrupted by complacency is of dubious effectiveness in either the purification of wrongdoing or the accumulation of merit. Dharma needs effort; it needs austerity and it needs to be free from complacency. So regardless of what we practice and how much or how little we practice, we must at all cost never become complacent. And in order to avoid this, we must always honestly scrutinize our own minds. There is no need for us to attempt to scrutinize or speculate about the minds of others, but there is a great need for us to scrutinize our own mind. Of course we are concerned with the well being of others. It is our aspiration to bring all beings to the state of the perfect buddhahood and, at best, we want to be able to do that. But in order to do that, we first have to save ourselves. It is as though we are all drowning and we want to rescue everybody else from drowning. But if we are still drowning ourselves, we cannot pull anybody else out of the water. So in order to get your head above water, you must examine your own mind. And, in fact, examine everything about your behavior—your body, speech, and mind. If your body, speech, and mind are employed in virtue, they will ripen into the trikaya—the dharmakaya, sambogakaya, and nirmanakaya. And if your body, speech, and mind are devoted to wrongdoing, they will cast you into the three lower states. Our bodies, speech, and minds are very powerful. They have a tremendous potential for both good and bad. And we also have to accept responsibility for ourselves because, finally, each of us knows ourself better than anyone else ever could. If we take this kind of responsibility, practice with effort and with commitment, then we will gradually develop absolute bodhichitta; all of the problems and defects that assail us will disappear, and all of the qualities that we possess will grow to their full potential. So that is [what I have to say] about the inner Padmakara or inner Guru Rinpoche.