Sogyel Rinpoche – transforming mind
“Materialize attitude of Buddhichitta not material!”
“When your perception is clear, it is a heaven. Therefore, heaven is here on earth”
Body, speech and mind are essential elements in Buddhism. Mind is
most powerful as it can enslave body and speech. Buddha nature of mind
is always pure and eternal. No one can destroy it.
Harming others is harming you. Loving others is to love you. Peace,
compassion and wisdom are the important subjects in teachings of Buddha.
The teaching of Buddha is the path to enlightenment, where you can be
the Buddha as well. Buddha can liberate sentience beings from world of
suffering. The question is why we are born in this world again. Negative
karma is so powerful that it makes Buddha helpless too.
There are three kind of faith:
1. Vivid Faith; e.g. faith of child to mother
2. Eager Faith; e.g. eager to have liberalization
3. Confident faith
In a story, a man was crossing a desert and he was thirsty to death.
His vivid faith is thinking of water and nothing else. Once he reached
an oasis of water, his eager faith is drinking water and nothing else.
His confident faith is the water is drinkable.
Guru Rinpoche
We all have karmic connection to Guru Rinpoche. When we meditate on
Guru Rinpoche, it is a complete meditation on all Buddhas. He is an
embodiment of all Buddhas. Guru is emanation of all Buddhas and seeing
him sees all Buddhas. We cannot see or feel him, though he is
omniscience. It is like our face, which we know it is there but we
cannot see. “Om a hung benza guru pema siddhi hum” is the hot line to
recall Guru Rinpoche. He knows our minds and gives a complete insurance
to nirvana for he can liberate sentient beings from samsara. Always pray
the seven lines of Guru for longevity, good mental and cessation of
depression. Imagine that Guru dissolves in you and you are purified. It
will convert suffering into bliss. We should have faith in a teacher but
it has to be based on reasons (Analogy)
Death
When we are dying or with a dying person. You have to recite “Om A hu
benza guru..” to him. It is even better to recite the Phowa to him. If
we are dying and breathe is slowly slipping out of us, meditate or think
of Buddha Yepame to take birth in dewa chen gi zhimkham. If we meditate
on Guru Rimphoche then we have to wish to take birth in Zangthophelri.
While we are alive, we take refuge in Guru Rimpoche and imagine guru
dissolving in us and becoming our self a guru. It is in a similar
fashion but this time when we are dying, we have to imagine to dissolve
our self into guru rimphoche and we becoming the Guru Rimpoche.
No one can deny the truth of death. Therefore, we all should plan it
well empowering by good deeds. It is important to reckon the nature of
mind at the time of death. We must recognize our mind like the Guru
Rimphoche and dissolving it with the Guru himself. Blessing comes
through devotions. If you have devotions, blessing is yours! You are to
born in an upper realm. Sinner will carry guilt with the fully
conscious mind in the deathbed. Sin obscures us from dying peacefully as
it will follow negative karma. The negative karma is responsible for us
to take rebirth in animal kingdom. Animals too have Buddha nature of
mind but they are obscure by negative karma. Obscuration and negative
thoughts are like cloud in a vicious cycle. The cloud overcast sky that
is the Buddha nature of mind. The sin has only one good quality that is
it can be purified. Always try to remove cloud and gain the sky. Body,
which we have, is due to our past karma. Negative karma is so powerful
that high practitioner cannot achieve enlightenment. They have to go
through causes of karma. Whatsoever, Good and pure heart is an essence
to achieve enlightenment.
Four noble truths
- Truth of suffering
- Truth of origin of suffering
- Cessation of suffering
- Path to cessation of suffering
Truth of suffering and origin of suffering are samara, the wheel of
life that includes ignorance and negative emotion and action. 1 and 2
are samsara. 3 and 4 are nirvana.
When we have truth of cessation and follow the path of cessation, we
are sure to liberate to take birth in nirvana. Therefore, we have to
take refuge in Buddha’s teaching to gain good karma.
We must not say that we got Buddha nature and doing all wrong things.
This brings negative karma (Saying my stick is of Buddha and rat is
Buddha. And killing rat with that stick… this bring negative karma,
losing the view in action). Suffering must be understood and abandon its
roots and causes.
Religions:
Christianity begins by guilty of sin and Buddhism begins by purity of
mind. Like healing power of Chayna Dorji, Christian prays to Holy Ghost
There is all essential in Buddhism so there is no need to change to
other religion. Buddhism is so amazing that gives all its values to all
religions and takes their values too. We have a human life, which is
precious, and we have wonderful time meeting a good teacher or spiritual
friends. Therefore, we should never waste this time to dedicate
ourselves to Buddha teaching.
Once you have a purity of mind and all perception is clear then there
begins a Buddha nature. When we are meditating and we feel emptiness,
it indicates a Buddha nature of mind. We should always recognize Buddha
nature in others and help them to bring to glory of nature. They can be
anyone like drug addict, alcoholic and thief.
Jetsun Jambayang represents wisdom, Compassion by cheri zee and
strength by Chayna dorji. Seeing a world of suffering and two drops of
tear fall from Chenri ze, which convert to white tara and green tara
later.
Compassion
Compassionate mind will have empathy with
reasoning, basic feeling of others by stepping in their shoes. It has
four components. Dharma is the education for life; it makes a good human
being. “Good head formidable and good heart combination is compassion” –
Nelson.
Jamyang Khentse Rinpoche got blessing from Khando Tshering choden
pretending to put her hand on his chin and abruptly putting on his head.
- LOVE; antidote to anger (Anger cannot be destroyed by anger but by love) Future Buddha is Buddha of Love.
- Wife wants to understand the problem. Husband wants to fix
it. We should actually understand the problem. Women are for feeling.
Men are for looks. Men should always show presence, being there with
her. Some of rich men give retail therapy sending women for shopping or
buying an expensive gift. Understand is much economical. Women are the
source of wisdom
- JOY; “don’t sacrifice long term happiness by short time pleasure”,
the marriage is being destroyed by anger over a mistake which is not
hers. When someone hurts you in turn, we should wish him to be our
teacher.
Dalai Lama had an old monk who was in prison for lifetime. He was
questioned what his greatest fear was? It was the feared of losing
compassion. Merit gain by wisdom never destroyed, it is eternal bliss.
It can be however destroy by anger and showing off. Showing off and
betrayal are the worst enemy. A practitioner who had 2 millions of
mantra completed approached lama and showed off his hard work. Lama felt
pity on his stupidity.. what a pity, what a pity? (What a waste?)
- Compassion
- Equanimity
All above four can combine to LOVE and Compassion and again can
combine to compassion itself. Compassion transfers your mind, makes you
happy. Dalai Lama in his concluding remark at a conference of compassion
said that compassion doesn’t benefit others but it’s you that benefits.
Loving – antidote to fear; Buddha asked monks to go to a deep forest
to meditate. There lived a demon in tree that causes them too many
troubles. Monks suffered mental trauma and return to Buddha. Buddha
gave them teaching on loving and kindness “May you be happy, may you be
well” and send back monks to the same tree for meditation. Demon was so
pleased with the mantra that monks enjoy the bliss.
Meditation
Think of a person who loves you. The best person to remember is a
mother/master. Meditate about her, meditate on friends and lastly
meditate on enemies. (Meditate – may you be happy, may you be well!). It
does not matter even if we do not meditate on Guru. If you have a
strong devotion to teacher, we can meditate on him alone. Meditating
Guru recalls root and linage lamas. We have to respect the lineage
because all enlightens are authentic.
Never take pride and apathy in meditation. If your mission fails then meditate on buddhichitta.
God is not bias to anyone. Guru Rinpoche would also bless those who
doesn’t believe in him. On the flips side of the coin, worldly God are
very partial and gets angry if they are not worshiped. Yeshey Chojay was
the best disciple of Guru Rinpoche due to his ultimate devotion. So
when we meditate, we should take in the form of yeshey Chojay “May I too
have form of Yeshey Chojay”. When chanting words of praying, it is not
necessary to remember the meaning of each word. We should be aspired by
just recitation, whatever word meant to be, it is there.
There are different purposes for meditation. Meditating on Dorji
Sempa heals our wounds. Likewise, Sangay Mela is the Buddha of healing.
Imagining Vajra Satawa on the sky sitting on lotus and nectar flowing on
your head, dissolving in you will wash all impurities. You can do it
while walking and showering. Imagining shower as nectar
In dreams, if we see taking bath and changing clothes, it is believe that you got the blessing.
SEMTHUL – Mind Instruction
Mind is the creator of Samsara and nirvana. Mind can be the worst
enemy. Buddhichitta is a compassionate mind, known as Jangchuk Sempa.
Buddhichitta takes compassion to the highest level. They are altruist
and realize Buddha thinking and feeling. They think of others as them!
Everyone has potential to be a buddhichitta. When we wakeup, we must
assume the form of Buddhichitta.
“Teach 100 people with high devotion, the teaching will be less.
Teach 1 person with less devotion, the teaching will be too much”. Guru
Rinpoche said that a disciple should be either stupid or brilliant to
get the teaching. “Rang gi Sem di yongsu du” ( Yongsu – thoroughly, du –
tame) meaning mind our own business for mind can be tamed. Think
globally and act locally!
“When we are angry, there is 90% anger and only 10% reality” Dalai
Lama. “Fear and anxiety come to the untamed mind” Buddha. “There is
nothing to fear but fear itself” Roosevelt
Samsara is mind turned outwardly, lost in projection. Nirvana is mind
turned inwardly and recognizing the nature of mind. Mind is like sun
and thought and motion is like sunrays. Therefore, mind is never equal
to thought and motion.Mind should be like water not stirred. When it
becomes clear then we are mindfulness. If lama is in mind, we are not
separated from him.
Sogyel Rinpoche is truly a humble person and I see in him the living
Guru Rinpoche. He is an enlighten being but he never recognizes praise
or reincarnation or vision. I felt paradise on earth with the RInpoche,
though the moment was brief. Whatever, it was a happy session for
government and public to be blessed by His Eminence.
