Excerpts from

“An Oral Teaching by The Venerable Lingtrul Rinpoche, Kadak Choying Dorje on
Peaceful Manjushri, A Treasure and Placing Buddhahood Within Reach”
by His Holiness Jigmed P’huntsog Jungnay; Vimala; Ashland, Oregon; 2010.
 The Three Scared Bonds (page 3)

“Regardless of whether you are explaining the dharma to others, whether you are
receiving such an explanation, whether you are engaging in formal meditation, or
whether you are engaged in any dharma-related activity, there are three key
points, termed the three bonds, which are extremely important to incorporate.
The first of these bonds is the key point that your initial motivation for undertaking
any one of these activities should be the motivation of bodhicitta, the altruistic
and compassionate resolve that was referred to earlier. The second key point is
that during the activity your mind should be focused one-pointedly, without any
extraneous frame of reference distracting you or taking your attention away from
what you are doing. The third key point or bond is that of the concluding factor,
that of dedicating the virtue and merit of the teaching, or of listening to the
teaching, or of meditating, or of practicing for the benefit of others. It is extremely
important that these so-called three bonds or three key points be present in all of
your formal practice and dharma-related activities.”

Bodhicitta (pages 14 - 17)

“Returning to the initial point, it is absolutely crucial that those who are motivated
to follow the Vajrayana path, within the Mahayana path, within the Buddhist
tradition, give rise to bodhicitta. The only way to practice this path properly and
effectively, in order to gain the goal that we are telling ourselves we want to
attain, is to give rise to that motivation. So this brings us back to the first of the
key points, the first bond, the motivation of bodhicitta, of why we do what we do
as Buddhists, as Mahayana Buddhists, as Vajrayana Buddhists: we undertake all
of this in order to bring benefit ultimately to all beings, not just ourselves.

The value of giving rise to bodhicitta in this way, as the initial motivation for
everything you undertake in the context of spiritual practice, is found in the fact
that it is very easy to do once you understand the framework, and it is
enormously powerful and beneficial as a factor in your path. The are more
complex stages of the spiritual path that involve certain pitfalls or ways in which
you can make an error that can leave you in big trouble if you don’t work very
closely with a teacher and pay real attention to what you are doing in your
spiritual practice. But in the case of bodhicitta, you cannot go wrong. All you
have to understand is the context in which true love and true compassion for
others is felt, and there is no way you can go wrong. There is no way you can
mess it up; you can’t misuse it once you have understood the context of how to
give rise to bodhicitta in the correct manner. Bodhicitta is the single path along
which the buddhas and bodhisattvas traverse their own individual paths to
enlightenment; they always have, they always will. If you follow the path of
bodhicitta, that alone guarantees your enlightenment at some point. That is why
it is indispensable and crucial from the onset to think that you are doing this for

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the sake of all beings and to learn how to truly implement that as your
motivation….

The transformative effect that this kind of motivation has on your practice is
something that Shantideva, the great Buddhist master of India, noted in one of
his writings. Whenever you commit a virtuous or positive action, you create what
is termed a root of virtue, and that root of virtue is something that under ordinary
circumstances, on a karmic level, leads to a positive result. Once that positive
result has ripened and been experienced, it’s finished. However, if you commit
that virtuous action and plant that root of virtue with an altruistic and
compassionate resolve, imbuing that act with bodhicitta, you lend a quality to it
that makes it inexhaustible. It no longer just plays itself out in the ordinary way
that karma plays itself out – a good cause leading to a good result and that’s it.
Rather, it continues to grow, it continues to magnify and it is inexhaustible. An
ordinary beneficial action, however laudable and however beneficial in the short
term, has a short-term result: it establishes a cause by planting a seed that
comes to some fruition in the future and then it’s over. However, if you instill that
same action with the motivation of bodhicitta, you will ensure that until you and all
beings attain enlightenment, the benefit of that act will continue to flourish without
being exhausted. It lends a different quality to the kinds of actions that you
commit in this lifetime.

You may be a perfectly good person who does positive acts out of a sense of
civic responsibility or just because you are a very good person, but you do them
without that sense of really doing them for the benefit of all beings. Those acts
have some beneficial effect, and maybe you will realize the results in this lifetime
or perhaps in some future lifetime, but with the ripening of those results, the
process comes to an end on the level of those particular actions. However, by
doing them with a mind imbued with bodhicitta, the benefit of such actions
continues to grow. That is why this quality is so indispensable and so crucial.
That is why it should be the very core of every practice. The very pith of our
practice of dharma should be the focus that we continue to place on motivation,
on bodhicitta. Remember that if you are truly seeking to gain enlightenment, as
you all seem to be saying you are, try to find a buddha or a bodhisattva who has
not attained that degree of complete awakening. Try to find someone. You
won’t. You can seek forever, but you will not find an enlightened being who has
not become enlightened through relying on bodhicitta….

In the true sense of the word, the first of these sacred bonds should ideally be
something that is spontaneous, effortless, uncontrived and completely sincere –
in short, something that we are not capable of at this point because we are
beginners. So what we find useful as beginners on the path is a sense of
emulation, of giving rise to bodhicitta by emulating great masters, by emulating
buddhas and bodhisattvas, by saying to ourselves, “Just as all the buddhas of
the past, present, and future have given rise, are giving rise and will give rise to
bodhicitta in order to attain enlightenment, so too will I give rise to that quality of

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bodhicitta.” We are emulating a role model of someone who embodies that
completely altruistic and compassionate resolve. While it might be asking too
much at this point to assume that we are going to be a complete incarnation of
compassion, to be the very epitome of bodhicitta, we at least begin with this
sense of emulation.”

Focus (page 19)

“The second sacred bond, you will recall, is that during the main body of the
practice, the teaching and so forth, one has an unwavering quality of focusing on
the key point. The Tibetan is translated as “no fixed frame of reference during
the main body of the teaching or practice”. And, of course, if your realization is
that of Mahamudra or the Great Perfection, and you are completely immersed in
the true nature of reality, then for you there is no fixed, ordinary frame of
reference. So that is ideal. But again, on a practical level, what this implies is
that whatever you are engaged in, whether you are listening to a teaching on a
particular topic or engaging in a particular practice – perhaps a visualization
exercise or part of the stage of completion, or whether you are following some
specific point of Dzogchen practice – then at the very least, your mind is focused
on that, to the exclusion of all extraneous distractions. So even though you might
not have accomplished the complete transcendence of all fixed frames of
reference in the ideal sense of the word, at the very least, you are focused upon
that which is most effective and most relevant at the moment, which is whatever
you are engaged in, whether it is receiving a teaching, practicing deity
visualization, or whatever.”

Dedication (Page 24 - 26)

“Now we should say something about the third aspect of the sacred bond, which
is that of the conclusion: how we dedicate the virtue and merit of our practice for
the benefit of others. What is it that we mean by dedication? We may quote
Jetson Milarepa in this regard. In one of his songs he stated that between the
yogin who meditates in the hills and the person who sponsors the practice by
supporting the practice of that yogin with food or whatever, there exists such a
connection that the two of them can awaken to buddhahood together. The root
of that interdependence that exists between the two of them lies in the
dedication. So there is a valuable connection, he was pointing out, between
someone who practices and someone who supports that practice, and the value
of that interdependence, the very root of it, lies in that sense of dedication, the
dedication of the fruits and virtues of that practice between the two individuals.

When we speak of the scared bond or sacred point of dedication, what is it that
makes it truly sacred? The bodhisattva dedicates the virtue and merit of his or
her practice without any hope of reward. It’s not as though we say to ourselves,

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“Well, I’ll dedicate my virtue and merit to sentient beings, but that means they
owe me one, and at some point I get to call in the debt, and they have to do
something for me.” That’s not the approach in the Mahayana. That does not
constitute Mahayana practice. Mahayana practice involves no hope of reward.
One dedicates the virtue and merit for the benefit of others and only for the
benefit of others, and does so not because there is any hope that if you do this,
then that means they will be nice to you, and you will get all kinds of rewards
from being such a good person. Quite the opposite: it’s just completely without
hope of reward.

Concerning the question of prayer in this context, we can identify two basic ways
in which we pray, if you will. Some people tend to lump these together, but they
are, in fact, two distinct processes of prayer. One is dedication and the other is
aspiration. Dedication refers to what we do with what has already taken place.
We have undertaken something of a virtuous or positive nature. We have
completed that action, and we say to ourselves, “Now I dedicate the effect of
having done that session of meditation or having given that gift to charity, or
whatever; I dedicate the virtue and merit of that for the benefit of all beings.” In
the case of aspiration, we may not be dealing with something that has already
taken place so much as we are aspiring for something to take place by invoking
the truth and the power of the Three Jewels, by invoking the blessing of the
lineage. By invoking any number of factors, we may aspire for someone else or
for all beings to be happy and healthy, to live longer, to enjoy greater prosperity.
So aspiration is more a question of looking towards something, whereas
dedication has more the sense of properly dispensing with what has already
taken place. – the act of virtue that we have committed. We are dedicating the
effects of that virtue and the merit resulting from that virtue for the benefit of
others, whereas with aspiration we are looking toward what we aspire to be the
case in the future.

What does it mean then when we dedicate the merit and virtue of a teaching, of
an empowerment, or of a session of our own practice or group practice? In
effect, what we are saying is that we dedicate the virtue and merit of that
particular act of virtue, be it a teaching, an empowerment, a session of personal
practice or a group practice or puja, as that which exemplifies all virtue of the
three times, all virtues that ever has been created, all virtue that is being created,
all virtue that ever will be created – all virtue that is created by ordinary beings,
such as ourselves, in a rather limited way, or all virtue and merit created by
buddhas and bodhisattvas in a truly inexhaustible manner in their enlightened
mindstreams. All of that is exemplified by this specific act of virtue in the present
moment, and all of that is something that, in a sense, we bundle together. That
is our offering; that is our dedication. All of that is dedicated in order that it may
function as the unerring cause for the enlightenment of all beings. So it is a way
of focusing on a specific act as a means of exemplifying all the virtue and merit
that ever has been created, that ever will be created and that is being created in
the present moment.

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The Tibetan tradition of offering a kathag, the Tibetan word for the white scarf
that is often wrapped around the offering one gives to the lama, is not an empty
gesture; it’s not just done mechanically. In Tibetan culture it is the way of
exemplifying all of that merit and virtue one is dedicating at that point with that
offering. That simple little scarf in that moment exemplifies, for the person who
understands, the symbolism that all of that virtue and merit accumulated
throughout the three times, by ordinary beings, by buddhas, and bodhisattvas, is
being offered. And again, we begin realistically with a sense of emulation,
understanding that this sense of dedication is something that grows through
practice and through our own realization and understanding. We begin with the
attitude, “Just as buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times and the ten
directions have dedicated, dedicate and will dedicate the virtue and merit of
attainments for the benefit of beings, so too do I now, at this moment, using this
act of virtue as the model, dedicate the virtue and merit of all of my activities in
the past, present, and future for the benefit of all beings.” We begin with that
sense of emulation.

Summary (page 28)

“These constitute the three key principles of the unerring path that will lead one
to enlightenment, and they are the three indispensable elements of that path.
The great Longchen Rabjam, of the Nyingma school, stated in one of his writings
that when one’s motivation is imbued with bodhicitta initially, when one’s mind
does not waver from the main focus of the teaching, the practice, or whatever the
undertaking is, and when one’s roots of virtue that are cultivated in this way are
dedicated for the benefit of others, one truly has discovered the unerring path to
liberation and omniscience.”

REFUGE

The Three Jewels (pages 29 - 36)

“…I also understand that there are some people who are quite new to the
tradition of Buddhism, and so it seems appropriate on this occasion to talk about
the Three Jewels, to talk about the sources of refuge in which we place our trust
as Buddhists, to talk about the positive qualities of the Three Jewels, and to give
you some kind of background. This is primarily intended for newer students, but
it may also be of use to older students as well.

The reason why taking refuge in the Three Jewels is so important in the Buddhist
tradition is because it is, in some formal sense and also in a very personal sense,
the first step on the Buddhist path. It is what distinguishes someone who is a
practicing Buddhist from someone who has not made that particular commitment

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in his or her own individual life or situation. Just as the quality of bodhicitta is that
which distinguishes the Mahayana or greater vehicle from the Hinayana or lesser
vehicle of practice, the taking of refuge distinguishes the Buddhist path from non-
buddhist paths; it is like the foundation or the cornerstone of the entire path of
Buddhist practice. If you are going to build a building, the first thing you do is dig
down into the earth and lay a solid foundation, so that the building that you
construct is solidly based and will not break down or degenerate quickly. In the
same way, in order to assure that your practice is firmly based, you base it upon
the foundation of taking refuge. So it is like the cornerstone; it is like that firm
foundation.

The particular term in Tibetan that is translated very loosely as the Three Jewels
is kon chog. The term kon means that which is rare. Just as we term certain
precious substances in the world as rare because they are difficult to come by,
there is also a rarity about the qualities present in the Three Jewels. The second
syllable, chog, means that which is most sublime or most excellent, and so it
implies as well that which, in our world, in our own experience, is of a most
sublime nature. That’s the etymology, if you will, for the term as it is used in
Tibetan, kon chog, or as it is very roughly translated into English, the Three
Jewels. The reason why we say the Three Jewels is because we recognize the
highest principles in Buddhist practice to be the jewel of buddha, or awakened
mind; the jewel of dharma, the teachings that lead one to that state of awakened
mind; and the jewel of sangha, the community of those who help one on that
path. So we speak of the jewel of buddha, the jewel of dharma, and the jewel of
sangha, hence the term Three Jewels collectively.

The Sanskrit term Buddha was translated into the Tibetan language as sangye;
and again, to understand sangye etymologically, sang means awaken. In this
sense, the state of an awakened mind is one that has awakened from the
sleeplike ignorance or non-recognition of the true nature of being, and the term
gye refers to the complete unfolding and increasing of all the powers and
qualities latent in the nature of mind itself. With this awakening from sleeplike
ignorance and the unfolding of all the latent, inherent qualities of mind, we have
sangye or buddha, awakened mind, awakened being.

Again, the Sanskrit term dharma is translated into Tibetan as the term cho, and
there are actually several opinions among Tibetans as to the root of this term.
One implies that it is to fashion, mold or shape, and the other is that it is from a
verb meaning to protect, to guard. Either way makes sense, because the
teachings of dharma provide us with a model or a process by which we can
shape our minds, by which we can eliminate from our minds all of the negative
and conflicting emotions that create suffering; at the same time there is a
protective function of the teachings of dharma in that through following that path
of teachings, one is given some shelter or refuge from the sufferings of the three
realms of cyclic existence – the desire real, the form realm, and the formless
realm. One’s direction, rather than being one of continually falling into that

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confusion and suffering, is that of being guided toward enlightenment, toward
one’s own awakening to buddhahood. In either of these senses, we have the
word cho in Tibetan, meaning the equivalent of the Sanskrit term dharma, the
teachings.

The Sanskrit term sangha, which literally just means a community or a gathering,
is translated into Tibetan as gendun, which literally means those who are
motivated by virtue. We speak sometimes speak of the sangha as being
comprised of those who are spiritually advanced and those who, like us, are
ordinary human beings who are on the path and who are seeking that state of
awakened being that is enlightenment, that is buddhahood. So the distinction is
made between those who are of a spiritually advanced level and those who are
ordinary practitioners on the path. In either case, the word gendun in Tibetan
implies a gathering, a community, a group of individuals or beings who are no
longer indulging in the nonvirtuous and confused tendencies of ordinary mind but
are those who are motivated by, who yearn for, who strive toward that which is of
a positive and wholesome nature in their own mind. That is where we get the
term sangha, or its Tibetan form gendun – those who are motivated by or who
strive toward virtue.

As Buddhists, when we state that we take refuge in the Three Jewels, this
implies that we rely upon buddhahood and, in particular, upon the Buddha as one
who attained buddhaood and as that which demonstrates the path, just like
someone showing one the way to go. We take refuge in the dharma, in the
sense of relying upon the teachings that are the legacy of such a buddha, as the
path itself that we are following; we rely upon the sangha as those who are our
companions and guides on that path. That is what we really mean when we say,
“I take refuge in the Three Jewels.” We mean that we are relying upon Buddha
as the teacher, upon dharma as the path, and upon sangha as our companions
on that path.

In taking refuge, one implicitly acknowledges that the ability, the power to provide
refuge – to provide shelter, to provide a protection, to guard against the
sufferings and vicissitudes of the three realms of cyclic existence – lies within
those principles that we term the Three Jewels. If one doesn’t believe that, then
one isn’t really taking refuge – no matter how much one gives lip service to the
formula, one simply doesn’t have that kind of trust and that kind of conviction that
constitutes truly taking refuge. Similarly, if one does not have a healthy fear of
the shortcomings and sufferings of cyclic existence, then one isn’t really taking
refuge because one hasn’t appreciated what one is doing when one takes
refuge. Out of a healthy fear of cyclic existence and its shortcomings, one takes
refuge in that which is a source of the power and that which has the capability to
bring one out of that suffering and out of those shortcomings. That is what it
means to truly take refuge.

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Taking refuge can be thought of in a number of contexts. In a more short-term or
superficial way, people take refuge from certain fears or sources of problems in
their lives. For example, if a wild animal attacks you, you may retreat into a
building because the building provides a place of refuge. Now that’s a very
prosaic example, but it’s an indication of what’s taking place when we take
refuge. Because of the fear of the animal or the threat imposed by the wild
animal, you run from it and seek a safe hiding place. In Tibet during the military
occupation and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, we Tibetans took refuge in other
countries. We became refugees. We came to India, we came to Nepal; some of
us came to the United States of America and other countries to find refuge. In
particular, we found refuge from the persecution that we experienced in our
homeland. But that kind of refuge and these kinds of examples refer to a very
temporary refuge; it only lasts during this lifetime. A person may flee his or her
homeland and find refuge in another country, but that country can only provide
refuge during that person’s lifetime. When that refugee dies, the country in which
that person has sought refuge has no more power to help that person.

In a similar way, it is only when a person has appreciated that from the highest
state of relative conditioned existence down to the lowest hell, there is nowhere
to find any true, lasting, eternal happiness, but there are only temporary states of
happiness; the entire cycle of conditioned existence is fraught with suffering and
dissatisfaction. When a person truly appreciates that, only then can that person
appreciate the fact that the power to liberate someone from all of those
shortcomings and all of that dissatisfaction and suffering lies within the Three
Jewels. If someone is still entertaining thoughts of how wonderful it would be to
be reborn as a god or how wonderful it would be to be reborn as a human being
with lots of power and wealth, that person isn’t taking refuge, because he or she
is still seeking some ultimate happiness where there is no ultimate happiness,
still pretending that somewhere in the cycle of conditioned existence there is
some eternal state of happiness that is a worthy goal.

Once you as a practitioner have understood that the nature of conditioned

existence is one of dissatisfaction and suffering, that there is nothing but this
great shifting display of what is essentially frustrating, then automatically you
begin to seek some source of refuge. You don’t have to think about it at that
point: you are moved to try to find something, some source of power or benefit
upon which you can rely in order to liberate your mindstream from that appalling
prospect of remaining caught within conditioned existence. When you reflect
upon the qualities of the Three Jewels, you discover that power and capability lie
in the Three Jewels and nowhere within the realm of conditioned existence,
because it is through relying upon those higher principles embodied in the Three
Jewels that your mind can truly transcend duality, can truly transcend both the
extreme of continuing in endless confusion in cyclic existence and the extreme of
merely seeking personal salvation, without any thought for the welfare of others.
But if you rely upon a more worldly force, be it a worldly god, be it a local spirit, or
some kind of more powerful being within conditioned existence, although that

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being may be far more powerful than you, if that being is still caught within the
nature of conditioned existence, that being cannot provide that final kind of
refuge.

It is because the nature of the Three Jewels is not of this ordinary world of
conditioned existence that the power to release one from this ordinary state lies
in those principles. But again, if one relies upon a very powerful spirit or worldly
god or some more powerful person, and one expects that other being to provide
that ultimate refuge, one will not find a reliable source. At that point it’s like two
people being carried away by a flood and trying to save one another – a laudable
sentiment, but neither of them has the power to save the other because they are
both being swept away by that flood. By relying upon a being, human or
otherwise, that is still within the realm of conditioned existence, we will not have
found anything like an ultimate source of refuge. We will have found something
that is of this world, and therefore something that cannot take us beyond this
world. Only by relying upon the awakened state of buddhahood that transcends
ordinary conditioned existence, as our principle in practice, can we too transcend
this ordinary state of conditioned existence.
How one goes about taking refuge can be distinguished within the Buddhist
context in three ways. There is the way in which a person of a small degree or
an inferior degree of development, we might say, takes refuge; the way in which
a person of middling degree of development takes refuge; and the way in which a
person of a great degree of development takes refuge. A person who is of a
lesser degree of maturity spiritually speaking is a person who is really only
concerned with his or her own welfare and is someone who is afraid of falling into
some lower state of existence as a hell being, as a hungry ghost, or as an
animal, and therefore that person takes refuge by relying upon the Three Jewels
as a means of assuring that he or she will be reborn in a higher state of existence
as a god or as a human. If a person is motivated in this way, it is a valid form of
taking refuge, but it is of a very inferior degree because of the nature of the
motivation. That person is basically taking refuge because he or she is afraid of
a specific kind of pain and wants to avoid it personally, without necessarily
[having] any regard for the welfare of anyone else. As well, a person with an
inferior kind of motivation, a less developed form of motivation, is someone who
may take refuge within the context of a very short time frame, that is to say just
for the rest of this life. Without thinking of any future lifetimes, the person just
says, “From now until I die, I take refuge.”

A person who is taking refuge on a more intermediate or middling level of

maturity is a person who has perceived that all of the three realms of cyclic
existence – the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm, from the
lowest hell to the highest gods’ realm – are of the nature of suffering, and that
ultimately there is no true happiness in any of these alternatives. The person
then is motivated to attain what they perceive to be some kind of nirvana, a state
of calm, a state of peace, a state of personal salvation from all of that suffering.

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Again the time frame tends to be of a very limited nature. The person is thinking
of taking refuge for this lifetime.

The person of the highest kind of motivation, who is a truly superior kind of
spiritual practitioner, is not satisfied with any of these more short-term solutions.
Such a person is motivated to attain nothing less than fully awakened
buddhahood, and until that attainment is achieved, the person refuses to fall into
either the extreme of continuing to wander in cyclic existence or, on the other
hand, to be satisfied with mere personal salvation at the expense of others’
welfare. This person is concerned with attaining nothing less than full and
complete enlightenment, which does not fall into either of these extremes, neither
one of remaining in a state of continued confusion nor one of merely releasing
oneself personally, without taking the welfare of others into consideration.

To which of these three levels of taking refuge should we aspire? As those who
are practicing the Mahayana path, it behooves us to follow the Mahayana
approach in taking refuge, which is to develop our motivation so that we are
satisfied with nothing less than full and complete enlightenment – and that we are
motivated to attain enlightenment that does not fall into either of these extremes,
neither continued confusion nor mere personal salvation from suffering and pain.
Our time frame again is not of a short-term nature, but it is the motivation to take
refuge until all beings attain enlightenment. Therefore, for this reason, we state
in the Buddhist tradition, “I take refuge in the Buddha as the most excellent of
humans embodying awakened being; I take refuge in the dharma, the path that
leads to the most excellent state of peace; and I take refuge in the sangha, the
most excellent of gatherings, who are my companions on the path.” It is made
with that kind of background and understanding of the enormous time frame and
the immense goal before us that we take refuge.

The Nine Points of Taking Refuge (pages 36 – 43)

Now taking refuge is not a one-shot deal, so to speak. You don’t just go through
the ceremony, take refuge, and that’s it. There is training involved. There is a
kind of code that you commit yourself to when you take refuge. However, this
training is not particularly arduous. There are certain principles involved in taking
refuge: there are three points that are to be encouraged once one has taken
refuge; there are three ways of acting and thinking that are to be discouraged;
and there are other supportive factors, which are again three in number, that aid
one’s practice once one has taken refuge. So we can speak of the training to
mean one’s having taken refuge under these nine points or nine categories.

Regarding the kinds of attitudes that one should foster and encourage in oneself,
after having taken refuge in the Buddha, in the awakened mind, as one of the
Three Jewels, one should maintain an attitude of respect for anything that

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represents the ideal of enlightened mind, whether it be a small statue of a
buddha or a deity, or any other symbolic representation, even on a conventional
level. Similarly, once one has taken refuge in the dharma, in the teachings that
lead one as the practitioner to that state of awakened being, it is important for
that individual to show that respect even to the texts which contain the words and
letters that embody and convey the ideas of the teachings, by not placing those
texts in a low or an unclean place, but by always keeping them in a high and
clean place. That is another way in which an individual can honour that vow of
refuge and incorporate it into daily life. Once one has taken refuge in the
sangha, even the robes and colors that are associated with the Buddhist sangha
are worthy of one’s respect. In the Tibetan tradition, three colors have historically
been considered appropriate for robes for the sangha. Those are red, yellow,
and blue. But the point here is not so much the specific colors, but that those
colors embody an ideal, and that the robes, which are worn by individuals who
are practitioners, embody an ideal, the ideal of the sangha as one’s companions
and guides on the path. So it is on that level that it is appropriate for one to
develop an attitude of respect, even for something such as a robe or a piece of
cloth that is of one of those colors, just as though one were relating to the actual
jewel of the sangha itself. These are the three aspects of the training that you
should foster or encourage once you have taken refuge.

Once you have taken refuge in the Buddha, in the awakened mind as your
source of refuge, the first of the three aspects of the training that you should
discourage and eliminate in your conduct and your attitude concerns
inappropriateness of taking any worldly or mundane god or demon or force, or
whatever, as one’s ultimate source of refuge, precisely for the reason that was
mentioned earlier. Such beings are still caught within conditioned existence itself
and therefore cannot provide any ultimate source of refuge. On a more
conventional level, there may be powerful worldly forces or worldly gods that can
be relied upon to alleviate sickness or incidental dangers and so forth, but here
we are talking about the ultimate source of refuge, that which is ultimately going
to lead you out of confusion and suffering. That can only be provided by the
jewel of buddhahood, by awakened being itself, the awakened nature of mind.
To rely on anything less than that is basically to sell yourself short as a
practitioner. Basically, you are taking something that is less than ultimate to be
ultimate, and this refers not just to human beings but to all beings, of whatever
size or shape or species.

There are some people who feel that certain forms of life are worthy of respect,
such as human life and perhaps larger animals, such as horses and elephants
and household pets, and so forth, but that something like insect life is
inconsequential, and that one can destroy insects without any consequences.
But think of it from the point of view of the animal or insect or other being that is
being killed. The fact that an insect has a smaller body than yours does not
mean that insect wants to lose its life or doesn’t suffer when it loses its life: its life
force is as vital as yours. Just as you would suffer from having your life force cut

12
short, so would a tiny insect suffer, even though from our perspective it may
seem to be insignificant. So the second aspect is to avoid harming other beings,
the encouragement to follow the path of harmlessness. To incorporate taking
refuge in the dharma by expressing it as an attitude of harmlessness towards all
other beings involves embracing all life, not just larger forms of life or those that
are closer to us as human beings, but really expressing an attitude of
harmlessness towards anything that has a mind and that lives.

The third aspect of training on the level of what to avoid or what to seek to
eliminate in one’s situation as a practitioner is that after having taken refuge in
the sangha, one should not rely upon or come under the influence of those who
hold extreme views. That is the literal terminology used in the text. In this
particular culture, we don’t have the same kinds of problems that occurred in the
past. For example, when Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, was journeying
from India to Tibet to spread the teachings, at a certain border region between
India and Tibet there was an individual who had established a law that no
buddhist teacher could cross that boundary. That was kind of an old historical
grudge that had been fostered, and so it was necessary for Guru Rinpoche to
exert very wrathful activity in order to break through that barrier in order to come
to Tibet and to bring the teachings to the Tibetan people. There were occasions
when the great Sakya Pandita, Drakpa Gyaltsen, while traveling from Tibet,
where he was born, to India, would encounter holders of extreme views who
would hold debates with buddhist pandits. The local rulers would insist that the
loser would convert to the faith of the one who won the debate. A buddhist
teacher who lost a debate was required by law, according to the local ruler’s
interpretation, to abandon buddhism and take up the faith of the person who won
the debate. We don’t run into that kind of thing in a culture such as this, where
there is more religious tolerance, but among people around us, we do run into
intolerance for our own views as practitioners – people who try to convince us
that our teachers are charlatans, that the teachings are false, people who try to
undermine our faith and our devotion and our conviction on the path that we have
chosen to follow. That really is what corresponds at this point to what historically
was perhaps a more serious social problem. Here people of extreme views are
people who in some way personally try to undermine your faith and confidence in
your spiritual process. As someone who has taken refuge, you are better off
ignoring their advice. Those are the three points of training that are to be
abandoned or eliminated.

Now we come to the three points of training that are of a supportive nature. This
means that once one has taken refuge, it is then of an extremely supportive
nature to make a small shrine in one’s home or apartment, perhaps, with a statue
or a text or some representation of the Three Jewels, as well as to place
offerings there, if even just simple bowls of water. Ideally this is done on a daily
basis. That is the first alternative, or it is at least done on a monthly basis on
particular days such as the full moon or the new moon, which are auspicious
days, or at the very least once a year. For example, the Tibetan New Year’s

13
tradition of Losar is a time when everybody makes sure that at least for two or
three days they make offerings on a shrine in order to renew that sense of taking
refuge in the Three Jewels. In any of those ways, according to one’s own
capabilities, it is supportive for one’s practice to engage in that kind of activity on
a regular basis, even if it’s only once a year, just to reiterate the connection that
one has through taking refuge.

Given that one takes refuge, then out of this healthy appreciation, this
apprehension of the shortcomings and sufferings of the three realms of cyclic
existence – given that one is motivated to attain nothing less than full
enlightenment for oneself and all beings – this act accompanied with right
motivation is an ongoing aspect of one’s practice. One doesn’t take refuge with
that motivation at one point in time and then just drop it. One continues by
literally repeating the vow of refuge, over and over again, constantly bringing to
mind the qualities of the Three Jewels.

It is also important that a person who has taken refuge be willing to explain to
others something that they haven’t understood before – these are the qualities of
the Three Jewels. That is what it means to take refuge; that is the value of taking
refuge. That encourages someone to begin that sort of search in their own life,
and it is a very valuable contribution that you can make to someone else. So it
shouldn’t be something that you are embarrassed about, ashamed of, or
unwilling to discuss, but rather something that you are quite willing to discuss
with others.

In their most complete description, these three so-called supportive trainings

constitute first incorporating some regular formal expression of that taking refuge
– through making offerings on a shrine or whatever, according to one’s own
lifestyle; through continuing to exert oneself in taking refuge as part of one’s
formal spiritual practice; and, where one finds that kind of openness or
inquisitiveness on the part of others, by encouraging others to do so. Those are
the three supportive trainings that go hand in hand with the taking of the vow of
refuge.

On a formal level, the kind of discipline that the vow of refuge requires is quite
straightforward. These nine points that we have just discussed within a few
minutes are all that there really is to it, which makes it far easier to keep than are
some of the more complex and formal ordinations of the buddhist path. For
example, if you are a fully ordained monk or bhikshu, there are 253 vows of the
order that are to be observed. Four of these are the most serious because they
are called defeats; that is to say, if you commit one of those four actions, your
ordination is destroyed and you are no longer a monk, you are no longer fit to
wear the robes. There are thirteen others that require that the entire chapter of
the sangha gather to decide how one should purify oneself of that particular
offense. There are some thirty moral downfalls and ninety secondary points of
proper conduct for a fully ordained monk. There are four situations in which a

14
monk must offer individual confession for the commission of a particular act and
112 minor rules of conduct, dress, eating, deportment, and speaking, all of which
constitute the 253 vows of a fully ordained monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
As far as the novice vows are concerned, there are thirty. If we want to look into
the Vajrayana, the implications of samaya can go on for hundreds and thousands
of rules, if we want to explore it in detail. Here we are only talking about nine
pretty simple principles, and I think that makes them pretty easy to keep; it’s not
a very demanding training.

For a person who has faith and conviction in his or her mind, taking refuge in the
blessings of the Three Jewels is palpable and directly accessible. There is no
distance involved. No one person is more distant from the blessings of the Three
Jewels than any other person, save due to the fact that there is or is not that faith
and devotion in the mind of the individual. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or
poor; it doesn’t matter whether you are from the Eastern Hemisphere or the
Western Hemisphere; it doesn’t matter whether you are clean or dirty; it doesn’t
matter what your personal qualities are on a conventional level – if that faith and
devotion for the Three Jewels is in your mind, you receive the blessings of the
Three Jewels.

Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) said, “If you have faith in me, I am standing
right in your doorstep.” It’s not as though we expect Guru Rinpoche to be just
waiting to see who calls him and then that he runs over and stands next to their
door. What he meant was as long as there is faith and devotion in your mind for
guru Rinpoche, the presence of Guru Rinpoche is immediate. There is no
distance to be traversed; there is no separation between you and Guru Rinpoche
when your mind is filled with faith and devotion to Guru Rinpoche. You shouldn’t
think that you are so unworthy that the Three Jewels are very distant from you,
so you wonder how could you ever receive their blessings. The moment you
have faith and devotion and conviction in your heart, you receive the blessings of
the Three Jewels. It’s like a mirror: if the mirror is covered with dust or is in some
way obscured, it won’t reflect an image, but the moment you wipe away the dust,
the image is brilliantly clear in the mirror. The moment there is faith and devotion
in your heart, you receive the blessings of the Three Jewels.

Once an individual has taken refuge and has given rise to bodhicitta with the two
points – the taking of refuge as the crux that determines whether or not one is
following the buddhist path, and the taking of the vow to give rise to the quality of
bodhicitta as the altruistic and compassionate resolve that determines whether or
not one is following the Mahayana, the greater vehicle of buddhist practice – that
individual enters into the doorway of the Mahayana. That is an unerring and
infallible path that assures an individual’s own enlightenment and potential for the
bringing about of enormous benefit for others.”

15
CONTENTMENT (Pages 126 – 129)

“…His Holiness Jigmed P’huntsog says that to practice this path effectively, the
person who does so must have within himself or herself a degree of contentment
in that he or she has few wants on the material level; he or she must also have
arrived at a degree of contentment on that level.

Contentment means knowing when enough is enough. It is the kind of attitude

that the person realizes when he or she knows that as long as there is enough to
eat, enough to wear, and enough to take personal care of oneself on a material
level, that is enough. Such individuals do not continually try to figure out how
they can earn more, own more, or acquire more. Rather, they have arrived at a
degree of understanding, that they have enough to meet their physical needs on
the level of those basic physical human needs, and they do not seek more.
That’s the basic interpretation of the term at this point.

This also ties in with the idea of having few wants. When a person has realized
that degree of contentment, he or she is not continually placing his or her hopes
in the idea that further acquisitions or material gain will provide any greater
happiness. Rather, that person has already arrived at a sense of contentment, a
sense of understanding that on a material level, enough is enough, and that we
don’t need to seek further to try to reinforce our happiness. This is in recognition
of the fact that in general all of the worldly goals that we seek purely within the
context of this life – all of the prosperity, all of the wealth, all of the security, all of
the fame, all of the glory – have no true essence. They are not something that
will last, and if that is our goal, we are deceiving ourselves. All we really need is
enough to eat, enough to wear, enough to keep a roof over our heads – just
enough to keep those basic human needs satisfied.

The more we place our hopes and aspirations on increasing our security on the
purely material level, the more we are simply fueling our desires. That is the
nature of the process. When we want something, we find it is very difficult to
satiate that desire. We have one thing and then we want something else;
moreover we feel less satisfied, because we think that until we have more and
more we are not in any way going to be truly happy. We can never reach the
point of being satisfied by indulging in that or playing that out. Actually, we will
never be satisfied as long as we still want and need more on the material level.

In any case, all of those seemingly attractive goals on the material level only
come about because one has the appropriate merit. If the previous merit has not
been accumulated in one’s mindstream to allow for the experience of wealth,
success, and so forth, merely grasping after these is beside the point. If one has
the merit, these will come about. If one doesn’t, then one needs to work on the
level of merit, not on the level of trying to grab fruition without establishing the

16
cause, and the cause in this case is the merit that leads to the fruition. If a
person does not establish the cause, that person will not have the good fortune
to enjoy the fruition.

Rather than simply desiring the fruition, we need to address things on a causal
level. Having covetous attitudes and continually placing our hopes in objects
outside of ourselves – things that we could own or have or acquire – is really a
false way of viewing things. Really, there is no benefit to following through
without the right point of view, because you will not get anywhere. The way to
approach it is from the point of view of the cause of merit leading to the
experience, even on a mundane level of affluence, success, or satisfaction.

….His Holiness Jigmed P’huntsog states that if a person is truly bent on pursuing
the path of dharma effectively, that individual must pursue it without any
particular attachment to or fixation upon the ordinary levels of pleasure, success,
fame, glory, and so forth that he or she might possibly obtain on the material
level. If a person doesn’t place his or her hopes entirely in that direction and
doesn’t fixate upon those, the person will find that their path is much more
straightforward and free of obstacles. His Holiness Jigmed P’huntsog quotes
from the teachings of the Buddha in which it is stated that the lessening of
attachment and desire is a sign of a superior person. If we make any distinction
at all on a spiritual level of people who are very ordinary and people who are
superior, it is on the basis of where the person has really placed his or her focus.
If a person has few wants and desires on this material level, it is a sign that the
person has made some spiritual progress.

Clearly, the more we indulge in the wants and desires of this lifetime, the more
we tie up our time and energy, and the less time we have to practice. The less
time we have to practice, the less time we have to free our minds from cyclic
existence. As you can see, it is of great value, first and foremost, to adopt this
attitude of contentment, because that will free up so much more of our time and
energy for practice. For the person who follows the path of dharma, the focus
shifts from that of being entirely concerned with this lifetime to that of being
motivated instead to practice with a view of bringing benefit to himself or herself
and others in future lifetimes as well. Instead of being entirely focused upon this
lifetime, the person begins to think in much longer terms. It is really that basic. It
is a question of whether or not you have time to practice, whether you have
leisure to practice. This is the importance of these qualities. The reason why the
emphasis is made here on this quality is simply because it frees up so much of
your time and energy for practice – for something truly valuable.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A QUALIFIED TEACHER (pages 129 - 132)

For the person with this level of contentment, who then begins to practice a
formal path – and in this context we are discussing the path of the Buddhist
tradition – it is important to seek a guide, a lama or teacher qualified to impart the

17
kind of information and guidance that is needed to follow the path. It is very
important to follow a teacher, a spiritual mentor, because that is the way you as
the student allow your own positive qualities to arise in an authentic manner. If
you don’t have that kind of guidance, but simply try to figure it out on your own, it
will not work. You do need to rely upon some external source of guidance at the
outset of your path in order to elicit those positive qualities that are latent within
you.

Of course, this is something that is emphasized again and again, and it causes
some questions to arise in people’s minds. It is always being said that the lama
is very important. What does that mean? Think of it in this way: According to
one of the tantras, it is stated that before the teacher appears, not even the idea
or the name of buddhahood or enlightenment is present. Each of the one
thousand buddhas that will eventually have appeared during this eon in which we
live will have attained that buddhahood by relying upon teachers. None of them
will have just figured it out themselves. It will be by undergoing a training
process of his or her mindstream that the being will become a buddha. It is
important that you follow a teacher. It is also important that the teacher have the
necessary qualifications.

What does it mean that the lama or teacher must be qualified? First and
foremost, the lama’s mind should embody, to a significant degree through
realization, the qualities of view, meditation, and conduct according to the Great
Perfection approach. Ideally, of course, the teacher would have realized the
complete fruition of the Great Perfection. The second qualification is that the
teacher should be compassionately concerned and involved in guiding students.
Third, the teacher should have the wisdom and the knowledge to be able to deal
with the various misunderstandings or wrong views that crop up in students’
minds as well as be able to dispel those through skillful teaching. Although we
could discuss the qualifications of a teacher in great detail, these three
qualifications will suffice in this context.

When one has encountered such a qualified teacher, it is important to guard the
connection with that teacher just as you would your own heart or your own eyes.
One should really maintain that and honor that connection by serving, or more
literally, the three ways of pleasing the teacher. Of the three, the ideal way is
through your own practice. Nothing pleases a teacher more than to impart
teachings to a student who then practices those teachings so that he or she
personally realizes the fruits. That is the very best way to serve and please the
teacher. The intermediate way to serve and please one’s teacher is through
personal service, by attending the teacher, helping him or her with various
building and publishing projects or anything tied in with dharma activities of the
teacher. At the very least, one may honor the connection through material
support of the teacher’s projects or by supporting the lama financially so that the
dharma activities of that teacher can continue to flourish.

18
Given that you have found a teacher who is qualified, then in order to really serve
that teacher, you should do so with a heartfelt attitude of devotion and respect.
Then you will be receptive to the teachings that you receive, and you will be able
to implement them as they are intended to be in your practice. This attitude of
faith influences how you view the teacher when you are receiving teachings in
various contexts. Even in the context of the sutra tradition, the dialectical or
more exoteric Buddhist vehicle, the teachings that you receive are still most
effective when you regard the teacher as inseparable from the presence of the
Buddha Shakyamuni; it is as though you are taking teachings from the Lord
Buddha himself. When you have that sense of reverence for the teacher, you
are completely receptive to the teachings he or she is giving. In the context of
the Vajrayana teachings, one should think of the teacher in a somewhat more
intense way – as being the actual embodiment of enlightenment itself. It is with
the deep conviction that one is actually in the presence of a buddha that one
receives the teachings of the Vajrayana.

Whan we come to the Great Perfection path of sheer lucidity, above and beyond
the ordinary exoteric vehicle and that of the Vajrayana, the appropriate attitude
for you to hold towards the teacher is that you are not in the presence of the
nirmanakaya or even the sambhogakaya manifestation, but in the presence of
the dharmakaya itself. Here, you are actually receiving these teachings from the
ultimate nature of being, dharmakaya itself. The transmission is that direct. In
the Dzogchen context of taking teachings, the teacher, in a certain sense, almost
seems to eclipse that status of the Buddha, for a very specific and personal
reason. No attempt is being made to suggest that the lama is in any objective
way greater than the Buddha Shakyamuni or any other buddha in terms of
qualities. It is in the context of the extraordinary kindness you receive from your
personal teacher that the true value of that relationship becomes evident. While
the teacher may be in no way superior to the Buddha in terms of his or her
positive qualities, nevertheless, in terms of his or her positive influence on your
life, the kindness and grace that you receive from the teacher is based on your
view that the teacher is even more important to you than the Buddha. Although
the Buddha left a legacy of teachings, and although Buddha Shakyamuni and
other buddhas have appeared in the world, we have not in this present context
had the good fortune to encounter those buddhas. But we have encountered the
teacher who transmits those teachings to us, who teaches us about the kind of
moral choices that are important in our life, and who teaches us the practices and
stages of the path that we need to follow in order to work our way out of our own
confusion and attain enlightenment. So for that reason this importance is
accorded to one’s personal teacher in the context of receiving teachings in
Buddhism.

19
ETHICS AND DISCIPLINE (Pages 132 – 138)

“To take an overview of the path, we can begin by looking at someone who has
reached a certain level of contentment and a diminishing of wants on a material
level, and who is motivated by something beyond this lifetime and has begun to
seek teachings and a teacher. Moreover, this person has found a teacher who is
qualified and is someone upon whom he or she has begun to rely, and (this
person) has entered into that path of practice. Another important element that
we should note at this point involves that of one’s own ethics and discipline as an
important foundation to one’s own practice. Ethics and discipline fall into several
categories in the Buddhist context. On a very rudimentary level, there is the kind
of discipline that assures one’s own individual liberation from suffering. Above
and beyond that, there is the discipline and ethics of the bodhisattva path, and
above and beyond that, there is the more secret level of discipline, which deals
with Vajrayana, with tantric discipline.

In terms of keeping discipline, it is important that we not overlook the level of

discipline that assures our own individual liberation, whether for the ordained or
the layperson’s vows. And there are a number of different levels of vows for
novice monks and nuns, for the fully ordained, and for the various levels of
laypeople; there are many different formal ordinations. Perhaps it is difficult in
this culture to assume that there will be a strong monastic basis at this point;
nevertheless, ordination for a layperson is an important foundation for one’s
practice. Even if a person’s situation does not afford the life-style or freedom to
keep that type of ordination, there are temporary ordinations. People are familiar
with the fasting ritual (Tib. nyungne), which is part of kriyatantra, are aware of the
ordination that is taken and maintained from one morning until the next morning.
Even though this may seem like a very short-term commitment, nevertheless,
sincerely taking that ordination and maintaining those ethics and that discipline
for the twenty-four-hour period is valuable because it begins to lay a foundation
in one’s mindstream, upon which positive qualities can grow. The point of
discipline and ethics is to provide a foundation, like a fertile piece of ground in
which a good crop can grow and yield a good harvest. The more a person
observes and maintains this level of discipline and ethics in his or her lifestyle,
the more that foundation is being laid for those positive qualities to develop in his
or her mindstream. Again, depending upon the culture one is from and the
context in which one lives, assuming a full monastic ordination may be
unrealistic, but that does not mean that one cannot implement those basic
principles of ethics and discipline through assuming the householder or
layperson’s ordination.

The vows are not extremely rigorous for a householder or a layperson. A person
who chooses to take that path has various options open to him or her. The first
of the vows is to avoid killing, and that refers to any form of life. The second vow

20
concerns stealing, taking anything that isn’t given to one freely under any
circumstances or pretext. The third is the vow that deals with an observance of a
wholesome way of expressing one’s sexuality with a partner, if one is in a partner
relationship, so that one does not injure or bring mental or physical harm to
others through a misuse of one’s sexuality. The fourth vow concerns speech.
One’s speech should be honest, sincere, and well intentioned; one should not
use harsh speech, lie, or conceal the truth in a way that causes confusion and
harm to others. These are called the four root vows. The fifth vow, which is
often mentioned in the context of the householder’s ordination, is to avoid using
intoxicants that confuse the mind and make it difficult for one to maintain a clear
and precise attitude towards one’s life.

These vows can be taken in any combination. If a person takes even one of
these vows, such as the vow not to kill, that constitutes one level of ordination or
ethics and discipline. Or one may choose any two, three or four vows; of course,
one may choose to take all five, which is known as the complete ordination for
laypeople.

Now it may raise a question in your mind that because you don’t do these things
anyway, why should you take a vow? It may be the case that you never kill. You
may be a gentle person who never takes the life of anything, even an insect. But
if you don’t have the idea in your mind that you will not kill and that you will turn
away from that kind of action, then without that kind of resolve, you won’t have
the same kind of merit that comes from not taking life and having that resolve in
mind at the same time. In the former case, it’s an innocuous action that doesn’t
carry a great deal of merit or power with it. However, a person who has taken a
formal vow to abstain from that behavior generates merit. Again, you may be a
person who never steals and is very honest, yet at the same time, if you don’t
have that resolve, you deny yourself the opportunity to make that a truly
meritorious action, because with that resolve you lend power to the fact that you
are keeping that particular ethical position.

As you can see in each of these cases, there is value in making a formal resolve
and going through a ceremony in which you formally dedicate your efforts to
abstain from a certain kind of behavior and to follow another course of action in
your life. As was mentioned just a moment ago, any of these vows in
combination constitutes some level of a layperson’s ordination. The fasting ritual
mentioned just a few minutes ago involves the four basic vows, with the sexual
vow extended to one of celibacy for that twenty-four-hour period. There are also
some incidental vows that are added, making a total of eight that are kept for a
twenty-four-hour period. Again, you can take these vows with the understanding
that you are only keeping them for twenty-four hours. Nevertheless, taking them
sincerely and keeping them sincerely for that period of time generates a great
deal of merit because of the resolve that goes into taking that stance to make
that decision in one’s life.

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To continue our discussion of the stages on the path of our hypothetical
individual: He or she has found and is relying upon a teacher, has ventures onto
the path of practice, has adopted whatever particular form of ethics and discipline
is appropriate for his or her situation, and has begun the process of studying,
which is literally termed hearing in Tibetan. Hearing the teachings means not
just reading about them in books in a dry intellectual way, but actually receiving
teachings in a very personal way from the teacher, whether it is teachings based
upon the sutras, upon the tantras, or upon any of the auxiliary commentaries
associated with those. The person begins a process of study and training to
develop his or her mind.

The value of going through this training is threefold. The first value is that
hearing the teachings and the ideas that are embodied in these teachings plants
seeds in your mindstream that will ripen into your liberation. So even though you
may not be able to completely understand and realize a teaching as you receive
it, nevertheless, a seed is planted. The second value of receiving teachings is
that the darkness of ignorance in your mind is dispelled through the inner
illumination that comes about with the understanding that the teachings bring to
you. The third value is that there is a process of purification: in hearing the
teachings and in understanding and reflecting upon them, you are actually
purifying your mind from the effects of harmful actions and obscurations.

In many Buddhist contexts, a person will blow a conch shell or ring a gong in
order to announce the teaching. Even hearing those incidental sounds sets up a
certain atmosphere in one’s mind that plants the seed of liberation and makes
one more receptive to the teachings. There is a saying in Tibet that if even the
sound of a gong or a conch shell can plant the seed of liberation, how much
more so do the words of the teachings themselves. You might think at this point,
“So, that’s it – I can just study; that’s all I need.” Not quite. Rather, once you
have heard the teachings, it is further necessary to develop a kind of wisdom that
comes through contemplation, by taking the words and the meaning of those
words that you have received from your teacher and reflecting on them again and
again, until you have really come to a thorough understanding. It’s not enough
just to get the teachings once and think, “Oh yeah, I understand that.” Rather,
you take the teachings and work with them, turning them over and over in your
mind, reflecting upon the words and the meanings of those words until you have
come to a really thorough inner understanding.

Without this kind of wisdom born of contemplation, you will not come to the point
where you can really practice effectively. You can go through the motions, but
you won’t really be practicing in the essential way that is intended if you haven’t
gone through this stage of contemplation, especially when it involves the
teachings that are concerned with your personal practice. You have to reflect
upon these again and again and again. You must be so thoroughly grounded in
them that when you are in retreat alone in the mountains, you will not even think

22
about asking anybody for advice, because you are so completely certain about
what you are doing. You must have that kind of certainty.

Again, you might ask at this point if just hearing and contemplating the teachings
is the whole picture. No, you have to go beyond contemplation to meditation. To
develop the kind of wisdom that is born of meditation, you have to actually
meditate upon all of the stages of the path, beginning with the four thoughts that
turn the mind towards practice, up to and including the level of Great Perfection
practice. In each of these stages you must hear, contemplate, and then actually
meditate in order to totally internalize those teachings.

The way in which meditation proceeds in the context of the Buddhist path, and in
particular, the Dzogchen path, is that you begin with the four contemplations of
the precious human existence, of death and impermanence, of the cause-and-
effect nature of karma, and of the sufferings and shortcomings of cyclic
existence, in order to initially turn your mind away from further involvement in
cyclic existence and towards practice. Following this, you proceed through the
ngondro – the ordinary preliminaries and the specific or special preliminaries that
require the repetition of one-hundred thousand prostrations, one-hundred
thousand refuge prayers, and so forth. Following that training, when your mind
has been suitably prepared, then you can begin then to embark on the actual
path of the Dzogchen practice. It’s important to understand that there is a value
in this process. It is not an arbitrary process; it is not a penalty that is being
exacted. It has a function.

If a person is introduced immediately to Dzogchen teachings and practice without

having gone through this process of purification, development, and preparation,
the necessary qualities and realization simply won’t arise in that person’s
mindstream. It’s as simple as that. If it were possible to just introduce everybody
directly to Dzogchen, don’t you think teachers would have done that all along?
There wouldn’t have been the need, generation after generation, to go through all
of the prostrations, all of the Vajrasattva mantras, and all of the mandala
offerings if they didn’t serve some purpose. They are an expression of the
compassionate and skillful means of enlightened buddhas guiding sentient
beings according to the capacities and needs of those sentient beings. Given
that the nature of buddha activity is to bring benefit to beings, we shouldn’t think
of these preliminaries as being some kind of harsh punishment that is being
exacted or as some kind of annoying obstacle to receiving the real teachings. In
fact, this is the only process by which one can become receptive to receiving the
real teachings. So it’s important that we understand in this context that the
preliminaries have a value and a function that is not in the least arbitrary.”

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