A Selection of Teachings from a Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

[From the Seven-Line Supplication to Guru Rinpoche, Instructions, Part 2 of 2 by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso.]

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 learned one or another aspect of dharma, we have to go on to really think about it, to really analyze its meaning. And we have to think about it repeatedly until we gain certainty. By certainty I mean the certainty that is knowing, beyond any kind of doubt or any need to ask anyone, what dharma really is and what it’s all about. This king of certainty is exemplified by the great, early Kadampa masters, such as Geshe Langri Tangpa, 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 suffering for one self. Other than this, I’ve seen nothing that needs to be understood or practiced.” We need that kind of resolution, that king 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’s a target out there somewhere, but you can’t see it. No matter how much effort you put into shooting the arrow, you have no idea if you’re shooting it in the right direction. You might kill one of your friends! So just as you’re going to practice archery you need to do so where there’s light, if you’re going to practice dharma you need to do so on the basis of the certainty that comes from assiduous and careful thought. And then we actually practice.

Practice has to bring us to a state of resolution, which is even more than certainty. It is the resolution where 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 with one hundred great gurus, I will have nothing to ask them.” Now 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 diverted or corrupted by the eight worldy dharmas, so that our practice is really devoted to ambition — 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 part that is food, but at the same time you will be poisoning yourself.

We have to remember: 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’re going to be born in a higher state or a lower state. Therefore, we have to practice with effort and with courage.

[From a teaching on the Mahamudra of Terchen Barway Dorje, Part 2 by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso.]

Jetsun Milarepa, in one of his songs, sang: “There are three nails to meditation. If I explain them: the first is that thoughts are the dharmakaya. The second is that awareness is lucidity. The third is resting relaxed without alteration.”

The first nail, we would say “key point” of meditation [Rinpoche at this point said jokingly in English,  “eight inch,” regarding the nails], is that thoughts are the dharmakaya. We don’t need to separate them or think they are two different things. Although we normally think of our thoughts as problematic or defective or deluded and so on, the nature of them, no matter how they arise, is the dharmakaya. This means that when you look at the nature of thoughts what you’re seeing is the dharmakaya. And the second point, that awareness that is the faculty within the mind that looks and that thinks, is itself pure lucidity. It’s nothing other than simply the mind’s lucidity, its capacity to know, to think, to look, and so on. Therefore, since thoughts are the dharmakaya, and since the awareness that looks at thoughts is merely the lucidity that is the display of the dharmakaya, then the correct way to look is simply to rest relaxed. Because by being relaxed, there is no engagement in duality, and without alteration, because there is no need to alter anything within the mind.

So as Jetsun Milarepa said, if you can rest comfortably, relaxed, and freely without attempting to restrict or imprison your mind, then you will be able to naturally see the nature of whatever thoughts arise. Since that which sees the nature is nothing other than that nature itself seeing itself, then whatever thoughts arise will automatically, vividly, and evidently in your experience arise as the naked awareness-emptiness, lucid awareness that is itself the emptiness, the nature of thoughts, and its naked because there is no dualizing, and that is the dharmakaya. Therefore, in that state, the arising of thoughts and the liberation of those thoughts through the recognition of their nature are simultaneous.