[From a teaching on Songs of Barway Dorje, Part 14, by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso.]
I think there’s something about the context of these songs, these dialogues, that I had best make clear. As is probably obvious to many of you, most of the disciples who wrote Barway Dorje requesting instructions had done quite a bit of practice and received quite a bit of instruction before doing so. So essentially, most of their particular requests are requests for two things: correction, the identification of errors in the way they’re practicing, and enhancement, suggestions or advice about how they can progress further. Especially in the case of this last song that we just looked at [The Song of Tondar], it is evident from the way that the request is made that what the student is actually requesting is how to use his conviction that his guru is a buddha as a means to achieve ultimate awakening. And that’s what Terchen Barway Dorje explains in his answer.
So as many of you understand, whether you’re here or watching this online, these instructions are founded upon personal history with practice. And they’re also founded upon a very specific attitude toward the relationship between being, per se, and life as we know it.
The fundamental view here is that each and every being whether we are, at the moment, a better person or worse person, whether we are a human being or an insect, that each and every one of us has an identical nature. And that this nature because it is an inherent — not only capacity for but disposition to awakening and perfection — is fit to be called that, the nature of awakening or sugatagarbha, buddha nature. It follows from this that inherently each and every being is equally capable of and on a fundamental level equally disposed towards Buddhahood. Now this is, of course, a buddhist doctrine or dogma, but it is more than a dogma because it actually describes the truth.
However, there is a second thing that we also need to understand: that while that always is, always will be, and always has been the nature of each and every one of us — we are all deluded. And we are deluded by nothing other than our own ignorance of our own nature. But nevertheless, that delusion, as simple as it may sound, is sufficient to plunge us in life as we know it — beginningless and potentially endless spinning samsara. Therefore, all means of practice, of prayer, of supplication, of meditation taught in the buddhist tradition are all, without exception, means to dispel this delusion.
So the context for these songs really depends upon understanding these two points: that everyone has buddha nature and everyone’s buddha nature is equally perfect. And secondly, that everyone is deluded and unless we dispel that delusion, we will never reveal our own perfect buddha nature. I mention this because if these two points are not understood as the underpinnings of these songs, then they sound practically meaningless. They sound like a lot of conversations about not very much, but they have great meaning, if you understand these two points and also if you take to heart the very practical advice concerning causality and the results of actions.
