Both Good and Bad Meditation Experiences are Irrelevant

By matt | Published: July 1, 2013

[From a teaching on Little Song to Please the Dakinis given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche in Battle Creek, Michigan on September 22, 2012. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Edited by Matt Willis. All rights reserved. The complete teaching is available as an MP3 download from the KPL Bookstore.]

What we are cultivating in meditation is familiarity with the ordinary mind, the mind that is simply experiencing the present moment directly. That’s all we’re looking for.

So extraordinary experiences, feelings of joy, or tremendous lucidity, or thoughts stopping for a while, and so on, are irrelevant. They’re not what we’re looking for. Craving for them is pointless. Being delighted by them can be destructive because then you seek them, you want them, you try to perpetuate them, and you’re altering the mind. So don’t adopt them.

Apparently negative experiences, such as the presence of turbulent thoughts or turbulent emotions, are not a problem. Abandon disappointment with and rejection of bad experiences. For the same reason so called good experiences are irrelevant, so are bad ones. There’s no need to attempt to get rid of them.

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Kleshas are Fake

By matt | Published: June 3, 2013

[From Essence of Wisdom: Stages of the Path, Part 1 by Lama Tashi Topgyal given in April 2013 at Kunzang Palchen Ling. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Edited by Matt Willis. All rights reserved. The complete teaching is available as an MP3 download from the KPL Bookstore.]

We all have kleshas, and because we have them we suffer. Kleshas are misery. When we are in the grips of any klesha we cannot be happy; happiness and kleshas are mutually exclusive. By conquering, transforming, recognizing the true nature of kleshas, we become happy. This is in fact the only way to become truly happy.

We suffer because we believe in the reality of our kleshas. By which I mean that we believe their poisonous nature as kleshas is their reality. But it is not. When we recognize the nonexistence of the kleshas, when we recognize that they are really in and of themselves wisdom, we will be naturally happy and naturally confident.

I consider myself the worst and least of practitioners, but I’ve had the good fortune to have this directly pointed out to me by eminent masters. And, I can tell you that when you recognize the true nature of kleshas as wisdom, your faith in the root and lineage gurus will automatically increase dramatically. Your confidence in dharma and your fundamental happiness will increase tremendously. Therefore, whatever our intentions may be, we require the path and require the conquering of our kleshas.

You know, the thing about kleshas is, is that they’re fake. They’re not what they look like. They’re not what, so to speak, they pretend to be. It’s really very simple. Kleshas appear ; we experience them. But they’re changing. They’re not solid. They’re not stable. They’re not unchanging. Simply because kleshas are changing, they are malleable. We can get rid of them. That’s what it comes down to. Because they change, we can get rid of them.

Wisdom doesn’t change. Wisdom is unchanging, is dependable. It is easy to get rid of kleshas because they change, and it is easy to identify and rest in wisdom because it doesn’t change. They’re like two people, one of whom is a compulsive liar and the other of whom is rigorously honest. Kleshas are compulsive liars and wisdom is rigorously honest. One is fake; the other is real. This is why Machik Labdron, who was a Tibetan woman I should point out, said, “You know, if you clean the kleshas, all you find is wisdom.” When you clean the kleshas wisdom is revealed, because wisdom is authentic. Wisdom is really there. Kleshas are not really there, they just seem to be there.

So, because our kleshas are deceptive, we can conquer them. Because they’re not real, they’re not stable. They’re not lasting. This is true for anyone; it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter your age, your gender, your social position. In fact, it doesn’t even matter if you’re a buddha or sentient being. This is simply true for all of us because we all have the same nature. Our situation is identical.

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Reject Selfishness

By matt | Published: May 9, 2013

[From a teaching on Little Song to Please the Dakinis given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche in Battle Creek, Michigan on September 22, 2012. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed and edited by Matt Willis. All rights reserved. The complete teaching is available as an MP3 download from the KPL Bookstore.]

We don’t really understand the result of karma, the process of karma. We don’t really understand what the karmic causes of things are, or how it is that actions lead to their infallible results.

The Buddha said, “Only an omniscient buddha can really understand this.” He said, “Only with omniscient wisdom can one know the karmic cause of each and every feather that adorns the tail of a peacock.” With omniscient wisdom a buddha sees the karmic causes of each and every thing, such as the particular shape and color and tone of each eye on the tail of a peacock.

But we don’t know that; we have no idea what these things are. If we’re honest we can’t say we really know how good and bad actions lead to happiness and suffering. But what we do know is that they do. We can be certain that virtuous actions lead to happiness and that negativity, wrongdoing, leads to suffering. Even though we don’t fully understand it, we can still base our lives on it. We can still make the correct choices.

So how do you do that? How do you distinguish between virtue and wrongdoing?

He [Terchen Barway Dorje] says, “The rejection of selfishness and undertaking of altruism will make your thoughts and deeds pure.” The real basis for correct moral choices is ultimately quite simple: anything that is selfish, anything that you do for your own benefit despite its effect on others, is probably bad. Anything you do that is sincerely done with the good of others in mind is probably good. If you reject selfishness within you and cultivate altruism, this will make your thoughts and deeds pure. Your thoughts, the intentions with which we act, become pure if we are freed from selfishness or to the extent that we are freed from selfishness. With pure motivation one’s actions will become pure as well.

Therefore, in examining ourselves we need to really question both our intentions, “Why am I really doing this? Why am I contemplating saying this?” and its effect on others, “If I do this, or if I say this, what effect will it have on them?” If this is sincere, if you’re not faking it but you really try to reduce selfishness, all of your deeds of body and mind — your actions and your intentions and your thinking – will be virtuous.

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