Hello, everybody, Tashi delek. Good evening, good morning to all our participant. We wait for a few minutes to let everybody enter and to make themselves comfortable before we start the session. Before we start the session, maybe we can do some breathing exercise a little bit to calm our mind fully to this earth all the way. And then we start the session.
This is a Taranatha’s method and Niguma’s teaching of the breathing exercise that I’m about to teach. When you breathe out, just simply keep your mind along with that breath. You don’t need to count how many times. You don’t have to count how many times you’ve been distracted or not distracted, or how many times that you have been able to continue without any interruption. You don’t have to worry about all these things in the beginning.
In the beginning, the most important is the quality of your mind. And that is more aware. The quality of the mind and the quality of the awareness, these are the two important things that you have to prioritize first. Because many of us, when we become Buddhist practitioner, we say ‘I should not be distracted’ and then it becomes a little bit like a religious obligation, ‘not to be distracted’. Mind, the mind itself is beyond religion, beyond race, beyond culture, beyond mentality, right? So therefore, in order to practice that we need to approach with our mentality like that.
So therefore, when we do the training for our mind with unbiased, non-religious prospective, non-obligation and being completely genuine. So that’s very important. So, the meaning of genuine means having awareness of the mind and the quality of the mind itself.
In the beginning throughout the meditative journey, it will be seen as two pillars. One that is observing, one that is moving into the state of mind or into our life, and ultimately it becomes one over the time. But you don’t need to push towards that. It becomes that over the time.
So therefore, when we say the awareness of the mind has to be like this, when you’re breathing out, simply your mind is along in that state, without any fixation or grasp towards it. And just simply genuine and continuity of soft and gentle awareness. It doesn’t have to be something special. It doesn’t have to be something extraordinary. The nature of the mind is ordinary. Our approach has to be ordinary. In order to lead in that path, we have to be genuine.
In order to be genuine, we must have a clear, open mind that is non-religious, and non-cultural mentality, you know, just a pure mind. So therefore, when you’re breathing out, keep your mind along with it. And when you’re breathing in, gently as you are doing in the daily bases, and just keeping your mind along with it. And then doing three times like that, and then by the third time, and simply dissolve the idea of following, and rather simply meditate with a very gentle touch, with a very small glimpse of awareness of meditating, and then simply living in the state of the meditation. So that’s how it should be.
And then once you find some sort of discomfort, distraction in your mind, and then again, you breathe out, you breathe in, you repeat three times like that. And then by the third time, again, you know, you breathe out without seeking the destination of where the air went, and simply having this gentle awareness of meditation. Then again, when your mind is interrupted, then you repeat that again, like that. So that’s the first method that we have to apply.
So, we do that for one minute, two minutes. Like I always been saying that do not prioritize time, prioritize the quality of the mind. And then the length of the practice will maintain by itself over the time.
Okay, so breathe out gently. And then your mind and your air along with it. And exhale gently and naturally in your mind along with it. Inhale with awareness, continuity with a gentle touch. And then again, exhale, inhale. Then the final time of the exhaling, then you simply breathe out without seeking the destination of where the air went or where the air should be going. Without any of this rigid mind, following that sense of breath, and then simply meditating. Simply being present. Even it’s for a few seconds. And then when there’s interaction, then again, you awaken yourself, resume that cycle again. So that’s that. Of course, you have to be in the meditation posture.
I see some individuals who are asking question about that are there a Spanish translators or other translators. Just to let you know, you know, of course, if you understand English, and then you know, you understand. But it’s mainly for Mandarin and Cantonese audience. And then for all the different language selection, it is a different topic of the teaching, which is later in the evening called creation and completion. So, it’s a different session. Just to make our audience understand that you’re not missing anything. And then if you still want to know everything what I’m trying to explain then you can ask your spiritual instructor to help you and to translate for you afterwards.
Okay, so we start our refuge prayers, bodhicitta, Mandala, then we start the Niguma, the lady of illusion, and then the essence of Lamrim. Okay?
[Prayers] [REFUGE AND BODHICITTA PRAYER]སངས་རྒྱས་ཆོས་དང་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་མཆོག་རྣམས་ལ།
བྱང་ཆུབ་བར་དུ་བདག་ནི་སྐྱབས་སུ་མཆི།
བདག་གི་བྱིན་སོགས་བགྱིས་པའི་བསོད་ནམས་ཀྱིས།
འགྲོ་ལ་ཕན་ཕྱིར་སངས་རྒྱས་འགྲུབ་པ་ཤོག།
I take refuge in the buddha, Dharma, and Supreme Assembly
Until the attainment of enlightenment.
Through the merit of practicing generosity and so forth,
May Buddhahood be accomplished for the benefit of beings.
སེམས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་བདེ་བ་དང་བདེ་བའི་རྒྱུ་དང་ལྡན་པར་གྱུར་ཅིག།
སྡུག་བསྔལ་དང་སྡུག་བསྔལ་གྱི་རྒྱུ་དང་བྲལ་བར་གྱུར་ཅིག།
སྡུག་བསྔལ་མེད་པའི་བདེ་བ་དམ་པ་དང་མི་བྲལ་བ་གྱུར་ཅིག།
ཉེ་རིང་ཆགས་སྡང་གཉིས་དང་བྲལ་བའི་བཏང་སྙོམས་ཆེན་པོ་ལ་གནས་པར་གྱུར་ཅིག།
May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May they be inseparable from true happiness devoid of and suffering.
May they realize great equanimity, without attachment to loved ones and
aversion to others.
ཕྱག་འཚལ་བ་དང་མཆོད་ཅིང་བཤགས་པ་དང་།
རྗེས་སུ་ཡི་རང་བསྐུལ་ཞིང་གསོལ་བ་ཡི།
དགེ་བ་ཅུང་ཟད་བདག་གིས་ཅི་བསགས་པ།
ཐམས་ཅད་བདག་གིས་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཆེན་པོར་བསྔོ་།
Through homage, making offerings, confession,
rejoicing, exhorting, and supplicating,
whatever small virtue I have amassed,
I delicate it all to supreme enlightenment.
ས་གཞི་སྤོས་ཀྱི་བྱུགས་ཤིང་མེ་ཏོག་བཀྲམ།
རི་རབ་གླིང་བཞི་ཉི་ཟླས་བརྒྱན་པ་ཡི།
སངས་རྒྱས་ཞིང་ལ་དམིགས་ཏེ་འཕུལ་བ་ཡིན།
འགྲོ་ཀུན་རྣམ་དག་ཞིང་དུ་སྤྱོད་པར་ཤོག།
The ground is anointed with fragrant waters and strewn with flowers,
adorned with Sumeru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon.
Through my imagining this as a buddha realm and offering it,
may all beings enjoy and completely pure realm.
དཔལ་ལྡན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།
བདག་གི་སྤྱི་བོར་པདྨའི་གདན་བཞུགས་ལ།
བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེན་པོའི་སྒོ་ནས་རྗེས་ཟུང་སྟེ།
སྐུ་གསུང་ཐུགས་ཀྱི་དངོས་འགྲུབ་རྩལ་དུ་གསོལ།
Glorious and precious root guru
who sits on a lotus-moon seat on the crown of my head,
Through your great kindness, having taken me as a disciple,
Grant me the accomplishment of the body, speech and mind of the Buddhas.
Kalu Rinpoche
Teaching on Stages in the Path of Illusion，Lesson 2，Part 1
26th Sep. 2021
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