“རྣམ་རྟོག་བྱུང་ཙ་ན་དྲན་ཅིང་ངོ་ཤེས་པ་བྱེད་སྙམ་པ་བྱས་པས་སེལ་ཏེ། དམིགས་སྐོར་གསུམ། བརྗེད་ངས་ཀྱང་ཆེར་འགྲོ་ན་བྱིན་བའི་སྐྱོན་ཡིན། རིག་པ་བསྒྲིམ། མིག་དཔངས་གཏོད།
མཐོངས་དཀར་བ་དང་ཡང་ཐོག་ལ་སོགས་པར་བསྒོམ།”
“nam tok jung tsa na dren ching ngo shé pa jé nyam pa jé pé sel té mik kor sum jé ngé kyang cher dro na jin bé kyön yin rik pa drim mik pang tö
tong karwa dang yang tok la sok par gom”
So if you’re having a lot of undercurrent distraction then try to bring yourself together and keep your eyes more into a very, you know, in a middle level and simply meditate in that sort of attitude.
And then if you’re facing a laziness or some sort of no courage or any sort of a motivation or if you’re having a such anger and some sort of a very closed mind attitude, if you tend to have that, if you tend to develop that sort of thing, and then try to look down a little bit and then applying these methods to dissolve it.
And then if you are attached to the worldly things, little bit overwhelmingly, the worldly things, then it is important to remind yourself with the meaning of impermanence.
I think this is something I have to tell you. All of us we talk about the renunciation and non-attachment, we all like to talk about non-attachment because it sounds great but it really doesn’t work that well. And I think it’s very important that non-attachment is linked with the renunciation and the renunciation has to be practiced gradually, not everything at once.
Like the Buddha Shakyamuni, he didn’t became enlightened in a one lifetime right away. He accumulated lifetime after lifetime of accumulation of the positivity and in that single last lifetime, then he became enlightened. Right? So we have to keep that in mind. So that is something very important. So the renunciation is a practice that we have to carry on with our life. That is important. Not something just in the beginning but something to maintain.
The very core foundation of the renunciation is awareness of the mind. The more awareness you develop in your mind and the renunciation will exist and will strengthen on its own, by itself.
If you try to find the attachment and try to kick-off the attachment from your apartment, it’s not going to work that way. It’s going to come back, even more. You know? So therefore, in order to renounce, in order to have a genuine renunciation, develop awareness of the mind. When you develop the awareness of the mind, the renunciation will come by itself without any struggle. It will go by itself.
If you try to prioritize, “Ah I have to renounce!” if you make a lot of loud announcement about that, it’s really, it’s not going to work. You’re going to hurt your ear drum by making such a big echo in the room alone by yourself. “I want to have renunciation! I need to renounce!” does not work like that. Because when you have a genuine awareness, we have the purpose of awareness as only one thing: awareness of the illusion. Right? We’re not trying to be a military awareness, we’re trying to have a mind awareness.
So the more you develop the awareness, the renunciation is strengthened all by itself gradually. It does the work by itself. If you force yourself to renounce, it will bounce back to you and it will look, things will look more attractive, much bigger and better than before. You know? And the temptation will increase even more.
If you have awareness, then you have awareness of the cycle of suffering, existence of the suffering, the consequence of everything. Therefore you renounce. But that reality has to be maintained in order to realize fully, you understand?
So all the religious clothing we do, all the retreats that we do, all these are symbolic. These are not the reality, these are symbolic, these are just the circumstances that we are trying to build a better condition by ourself to develop awareness. So the awareness is the key to have a genuine renunciation. And the renunciation is not an emotion, nor struggle that you have to face. Okay?
It is awareness that you have to develop. The more you have awareness, the renunciation. Because in the very thing that we’re trying to renounce it is that we are saying this is samsara, this is an illusion, this is not real. Right? And then when you have awareness, you kind of let go off everything eventually, over the time. You know? You don’t have to cut yourself into pieces.
Like when you have a genuine awareness, and then all the things that appears to be important can be dissolved. That desire tends to dissolve by itself. Importance of the objects tends to dissolve by itself. Because you have the awareness of your own state of mind, you have the awareness of the influence that is coming from the different directions. You also understand the very existence of all the different influences, you also understand where it is coming from, what is coming to, where it is going to, what is the conclusion, what is the result.
When you have a genuine awareness, you see and you witness everything. So therefore, when you develop such qualities like that, you are renounced. Because you are not repeating the cycle of suffering and the cause of suffering. The very purpose to be renounced is not to repeat the cause and the reality of the suffering.
So therefore developing awareness is very important. In order to develop awareness, the most important is to recognize the definition of awareness. Idea of the awareness is beautiful and defining the meaning of the awareness is very important.
The defining the meaning of the awareness is, it goes like this: you practice Deity, you do Guru Yoga practice, you do Sukhasiddhi practice, you do Niguma practice, you do all sorts of practice. And then you experience, as you practice gradually, not by one month or two months. It can be exceptional for a few individuals’ experience.
But eventually when you practice it, and then you experience the pure bliss of your own mind, not necessarily the nature of the mind. You understand? Because many Buddhist people, other Buddhist people, not here, not here, other Buddhist people, in an alternative universe, and everybody is so much into the idea of enlightenment. And I think enlightenment is overrated. I think it’s great but it is little bit overrated. There are so many beautiful to experience along that journey. And you’re forgetting that. Like the way we live our life, to be born and then we die. We can’t wait to die. Almost over. Some people they can’t live their life, with a sense of cherishing it, experiencing it. They don’t live their life fully.
So just as we have a perspective in life and death, and then some, majority of the people they grasp into the idea of enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment. And it’s great, there is no denial of that, but we should not forget all the beautiful experience that we can achieve along that journey. And that is something that we must understand.
So like when you, when I practice Niguma Yoga, when I practice Six-Armed Mahakala or the Four Deities or other practice, then you start to develop not just awareness but you start to develop a genuine awareness and some sort of a bliss experience, a blissful experience. Not an imagination of self but rather a pure blissful experience.
And when you start to tell yourself “everything is good” you understand? You start to tell yourself “everything is good, everything that I need is here”, with the sense of content. When you have that sort of a mindset and then along with it, the awareness. And then you don’t make the stupid mistakes like other people. You understand? So that’s something very important to keep in mind. So that’s that.
So just try to appreciate the journey rather than only the destination. Because I see some people who are Buddhist practitioner and the way they practice is miserable. It’s really unattractive, miserable. I am not saying that everything is elegant and beautiful, there is a lot of hardships that has to endure, but not like to the extend you make yourself miserable and an unhappy person, a Buddhist unhappy person. It doesn’t have to go in that way.
I’m not saying that there is no struggle, there are definitely struggles, there’s definitely hardships, there’s definitely challenges. You have to endure that. But not the point of making your life miserable. So it’s quite a separate thing. So that’s that.
Like an example, we all, in our life the very cause of suffering is because we want more, we want more, we want more. So whether it’s in a materialistic world, we want more and we suffer. You know? When you have no money, you have no relatives. When you have money, you have lot of relatives. When you’re alive, nobody is there, when you’re going to die, there’s a lot of relatives there, who is having the will, and so on, so forth. You know?
So having everything is lot of suffering in the materialistic world. But also, I’m not saying that isn’t the way I perceive life. But in the spirituality also, lot of grasping, lot of grasping. “I want to practice this! And I want to get that result! What is the highest teaching? What is the secret teaching? What is the most important teaching that other people didn’t receive it before” and we tend to go in that direction. And I have no judgment on that. But it doesn’t work like that.
“The best teaching” there is no such thing as a “best teaching”. There is only a teaching and then there is only the quality of your mind, that your perception of the reality and your perception of the dharma. It really all depends on that. You know?
So “the best teaching” really cannot help if you don’t have the quality of mind. If you have a quality of mind, even the simplicity of the teachings can really have a profound impact on how you perceive the reality. Because the teaching is about how you perceive the reality, how you perceive yourself, and how you perceive your own awareness and the purpose of the practice and so on.
So just by getting this “highest teaching” is not going to help anybody. Like an example, look, nowadays there’s so many books around the world. Every book, Buddhist book there is almost no lack of mentioning about “the nature of the mind”. Everybody talks about it and look how many people recognize the nature of the mind. None, almost. So it doesn’t work like that. So that’s what I’m saying, you need to endure little bit of hardship, little bit of challenge will, has to go along the journey. You know? And then along the journey you have to understand there’s lot of beautiful experience you can achieve, you know? So that’s that.
And I think, I will give you an example, when you are just an ordinary, basic practitioner, when you are told the meaning of impermanence and you just perceive the meaning of impermanence, a lot of suffering, lot of life and death, and lot of circumstances, and that’s how you perceive, of course you practice, and so and so forth.
Eventually when you reach to a certain level of understanding and realization and then when even a leaf falling down from the trees, landing on the ground and how you perceive that: “Ah that is the life and that is the end of life and that is the impermanence.”
And then you are able to meditate on such simple reflection, such simple teaching, you are able to meditate into a non-duality state, even with the simplest method of teaching. So when you develop more qualities of the mind with the retreat and so on. So even the basic teachings can be perceived in a very profound impact of your perception of life and practice and so on. So that’s that.
“དམིགས་སྐོར་བཞི་པའོ།”
“mik kor zhi pao”
The fourth cycle is remembering, thinking about the meaning of impermanence and so on, which I have explained previously. So these are the fourth, all together the fourth cycle.
Fourth Meditation
When your mind becomes unclear and you have many lapses of memory, this indicates the fault of sinking: tighten your awareness, look upward, and meditate sitting on a balcony or a roof. Cut through the sinking by standing up, etc.
If you become irritated or overly sensitive, this signals agitation: relax, look downward.
If you become distracted with [thoughts of] the pleasures of the senses, develop disengagement with reflection on impermanence and suffering.
༄༅། །ཕྱག་ཆེན་གའུ་མའམ་རང་བབས་རྣམ་གསུམ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་ཁྲིད་ཡིག་བཞུགས་སོ།།
“phyag chen ga’u ma’am rang babs rnam gsum zhes bya ba’i khrid”
Instructions for Great Seal of the Amulet Box or The Three Facets of Natural Repose
by Taranata
Niguma’s “Amulet Mahamudra” by Kalu Rinpoche (morning session – 1h 15′ 15”)
Kagyu Sukha Chöling – Friday March 11, 2022
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