Palyul

Impermanence and Death: a Teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching given by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

Precious human birth does not mean everyone who is born as a human being.  It doesn’t mean that.  There is precious human birth and ordinary human birth.  Those who don’t do any kind of practice, those who don’t even try to go to church on weekends, those involved in New Age groups or modern ways of belief, or those who enter into some kind of entertainment and waste their lives in that manner—that is just an ordinary human birth.  You really must have accumulated some merit in your previous lifetime.  You must have done some kind of purification in your previous lifetime.  You must have made some kind of connection with the Dharma and your lamas. That is why you are here.  Otherwise there is no possibility.  That would never, ever happen.  So since you have a precious human rebirth, you must immediately think,  “I should not waste it.  I have to get some advantage from this opportunity.”

Then how can one do it?  You must then think that all phenomena which are composed of cause and condition are impermanent.  Impermanence does not just mean that everything comes to an end.  Impermanence means that each and every moment is impermanent. Each and every moment of our lives we are becoming older and older; we are getting nearer and nearer to death.  If you waste even one hour, you are one hour closer to death.  If you spend your weekend enjoying yourself, still you are getting nearer to death.  Whenever you sit idle, still you are getting nearer to death.  Even if you do practice, still you are getting nearer to death.  Even if you don’t do anything, still you are getting nearer to death.  You are always getting nearer and nearer and nearer.  Every sentient being who is born is subject to death.

At the same time, death is uncertain.  You can see many examples.  Someone will say, “Just yesterday he was talking with me, and then last night he had an accident.”  Or somebody shot him or killed him or whatever.  There are so many conditions that may bring death.  If I cannot do actual practice and if I do not have something I can carry with me, then tonight if something happens, what can I do?  What are you really going to carry with you?  You cannot pack up like when you get divorced or when you get mad at your friends and you say you’re going to leave and you take your suitcase and pack all your clothes and everything and whatever money and credit cards you have and you leave and go some other place.  When death comes, you cannot do that.  There is no way that one could do that.  Up until now in this world, even the great popes, even Milarepa, even Shakyamuni Buddha, even His Holiness Karmapa and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, they left all their belongings behind.  Even His Holiness Karmapa left his black hat behind, even his body.  Never mind about an ordinary sentient being who cannot carry all those things.  Even the great Christian popes who passed away, could not carry anything.  All the great ones and not so great ones—when death came, nobody could pack anything, nobody could carry anything along.  You could not even make a phone call.  “I’m coming very soon, so could you please reserve a place for me?”  There is no way that one can do that.  You say, “Oh please, you save a better place for me since I am coming very soon.”  Or you want to make a phone call to heaven.  “Oh God, please save a place for me.”  So you have to realize that life is like that.

In one sense, life is very long.  You can experience lots of things.  In another sense, life is gone like that.  When death comes, what one can carry is just whatever accumulation of merit or whatever negativity one has done.  That is the only thing that comes with you.  Even if you don’t want it, it is stuck there and will be coming with you.  So you have to realize that life is uncertain and death is uncertain.  At any moment it can come.  When you really consider that, you really get scared, goose bumpy.  Then you really get motivated to do practice.  Then your sleepy way of thinking and laziness and everything is gone just like that.  You cannot feel so tired if death is coming like that.  Then you can make yourself so alert. You can generate so much courage in yourself.  “Why can’t I do 100,000 prostrations in a month?  Why can’t I do that?”  Then you can have that kind of courage within yourself.  Otherwise you say, “Other people are out enjoying the weekend and going here and there and I am stuck here doing prostrations. I get pain in my legs and my knees and pain there. When can all this be finished?”  Then it feels really difficult.  When you really see that death is coming, then you can bear it.  If you think about that, then that will really help you to apply yourself into practice with full energy and with full courage.

Contemplating this Precious Opportunity by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso given at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

The Four Thoughts that turn the mind from samsara are very important.  Our minds are distracted by this world.  We practice a little bit, and then get distracted, thinking life is good — eating pizza in the restaurant, going to the beach on weekends, and enjoying ourselves.  It is really nice.  One could have a very happy life with one’s family, and eating, and experiencing all those happy experiences.  At the end of life, if one could not have the continuation of that kind of happiness in the next lifetime and many future lifetimes, one may get a little upset and think, “I should have done something.  I have just been going to the beach, the mountains, camping, bungee jumping, and all that.  I’ve spent my time doing all that, but I really didn’t do anything.”  Then all one’s karma ripens.  Whether you believe in karma or not, understand it or not, it doesn’t matter.  Whether you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Jew or a Muslim, in cyclic existence, karma is the life process.  It is the nature of cyclic existence itself.  So that nature ripens to everybody.  Everyone experiences that.  After death, if one has to bear all different kinds of suffering, then one may experience some regret.

This is how one has a very happy life.  You can have entertainment, but at the same time have a kind of entertainment which really makes sense, which you can carry with you.  On weekends, you could come here and participate in a tsog offering or a puja or some kind of a practice.  While you are doing the practice, you may experience some minor problems with your knees or sitting or doing prostrations, but still you are bearing some karma and having some purification.  After all, you could have something you can really carry with you after death.  It is as the Buddha, who is fully enlightened, has explained.  Jetsunma has also explained all this a number of times.  The important thing to realize here is that this precious human birth is one in which one could really become involved in practice, in which one could become involved with the Dharma teachings, in which one could really become involved in Dharma activities.  If one could really have some time to apply to practice, then this becomes a precious human birth.

The Bodhisattva Vow

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The following is the Bodhisattva Vow Ceremony as recited daily at Palyul Ling in New York, from the Nam Cho Daily Practice:

Gaining the Attention of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas Prior to Taking the Bodhisattva Vow

All buddhas who reside in the ten directions, transcendent accomplished conquerors,

All great bodhisattvas who dwell on the tenth bhumi, and

All gurus, great vajra holders–

Please turn your attention towards me!

Taking Refuge Prior to Taking the Bodhisattva Vow

Until the heart of enlightenment is realized,

I take refuge in all the buddhas.

In the dharma and the and the assembly

Of bodhisattvas, similarly I go for refuge!

Recite three times

Taking the Actual Bodhisattva Vow

Just as the sugatas of the past

Have aroused the awakened mind of bodhicitta,

And trained in the way of the bodhisattvas

To gradually accomplish the stages of development,

Similarly, for the benefit and purpose of beings,

By awakening the bodhicitta

And training in the conduct of the bodhisattvas,

I shall gradually practice the levels of training.

Rejoicing in Having Taken the Bodhisattva Vow for the Sake of All Sentient Beings

Today my life has become meaningful;

The meaning of this human existence is now realized.

Today I am reborn in the family of the buddhas

And have become an heir of the enlightened ones!

Now, no matter what occurs hereafter,

My activities will be in conscientious accordance with my family,

And I shall never engage in conduct that could

Possibly sully this faultless noble family!

Like a blind man finding a precious jewel

From amidst a heap of refuse,

Similarly, this occasion is such

That today I have given rise to the awakened mind.

Today, before all of my objects of refuge,

All beings and all those who have gone beyond,

I call to bear witness as guests of this occasion,

Where all devas, titans, and other join together to rejoice!

The precious, supreme bodhicitta:

If unborn, may it arise;

If generated, may it never diminish;

And may it remain ever-increasing!

Never without bodhicitta,

Absorbed in the conduct of the awakened ones,

And being held fast by all of the buddhas,

May all demonic activities be fully abandoned!

May all the bodhisattvas

Accomplish their altruistic intention to fulfill the needs of beings!

Whatever intention these protectors may have,

May it be realized for the purpose of those beings!

May all sentient beings be endowed with bliss!

May all the lower realms be permanently empty!

May all the bodhisattvas, on whatever stage they abide,

Fully accomplish all their aspirations!

Karma and Purification on the Path

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I personally know a story about a young lady who took robes of ordination as an Ani years ago. Deep habitual tendencies caused her to fall off her path and break the vows very seriously, more than once. As a lay woman she continued the pattern, there was so much rage in her, the events seemed neurotic, obsessive. She was determined to ruin her Teacher, as she imagined the downfall was her Teacher’s fault. The breakage seemed to spiral and worsen until she lost friends, and suffered terribly, as did the ones she attacked. It was a terrible mess! But she went to other Lamas and asked for advice, and to become their student. All told her she must return to her own Tsawei Lama and make amends.

How terribly difficult when so much damage to so many had been done. But she persisted. Correcting lies, doing purifying practice, applying the proper antidotes. She went to retreat and was welcomed and treated kindly. Her Guru had already taken her back. Except for one elder Lama who, when she served tea, poured it on the ground and said “you may not serve me!” as he himself had witnessed what she’d done personally, and had known the effect on all. She accepted and bowed low, wondering why everyone didn’t treat her just the same. But it was through that Lama’s activity she was instantly able to see the depth of her betrayal and was able to make confession without leaving out any details at all. She was given kind instruction from His Holiness Palyul Karma Kuchen Rinpoche and is now taking advanced teachings, much happier and her mind continues to be freed from the imprisonment of the cycle of hatred, greed and ignorance. Stage by stage she grows more free!

She repeatedly asked why she was so compelled, so intensely obsessed with harming her Teacher and Dharma. The answer, repeatedly, was a real kicker. In past lives she had made up her own path and convinced (skillfully) others to follow and practice what she taught. So in this life, although she is skillful and brilliant, it was impossible for her to keep the robes of the Buddha or to follow the path of Buddhism nicely or purely. It will take time to repair, but she is diligently applying herself. She was instructed to tell truth always and make an unshakable commitment to never behave that way again.

There is always a way to purify mistakes, but so much better to never make them in the first place. To try to teach a made-up path that causes downfall for others results in great mental instability and even insanity. Emotional equilibrium is lost. And it continues into future lives. Suffering of others is experienced by the false teacher. You will always know them by their current lives and experience. Sadly, still ignorant, they cannot see it for themselves. Karma is real, if you believe it or not. And you are experiencing it right now, and will continue until Supreme Enlightenment.

One more thing. I am so proud of her. And love her so deeply, she is a miracle.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Cause and Effect: Examining Circumstances

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso on Ngondro, given at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

There is not one single sentient being who wishes to suffer.  That is very obvious.  Even scary animals, ghosts, and evil spirits don’t really mean to harm anybody.  They are in search of some kind of happiness.  They are looking for some kind of peace.  An evil spirit or consciousness wanders here and there and creates some kind of problem for someone.  Then that person becomes possessed by the evil spirit and there are lots of disturbances, all due to the search for happiness, but without knowing what the actual cause of happiness is.  How can one really have actual happiness?  How can one really have a peaceful life?  How can one have a happier life?  One has to understand the actual cause.  Due to ignorance, all sentient beings do not know that. Each and every sentient being wishes for happiness, but not knowing the cause of happiness, all kinds of karma, actions, thoughts, and afflicted mind, arise and worldly things are done which result in problems and suffering.

I think that Americans really don’t like to hear about suffering in the teachings.  You like to hear only about having a happy and prosperous life, about enjoyment.  You are always trying to find some kind of modern technology, some different way of doing things, because you are really trying to find happiness.  Maybe if I climb a mountain, I can enjoy life more.  Or no, maybe I’ll go bungee jumping!  That may be more enjoyable and will bring some happiness.  In that way, everybody is trying each and every thing just to experience happiness, just to experience some kind of peaceful mind. There are so many religions, so many masters, so many yogis who have appeared. When a Hindu teacher comes, then everybody goes there and listens to the yogi teaching about prana, some kind of breathing, some kind of meditation, because they think,  “If I go to this teacher, maybe I can get some kind of solution so that I can be happier.  Maybe I can have some kind of path.  Maybe I can really get something so that I can maintain a happier life.”

So everyone does whatever we do 24 hours a day. And whatever we are doing, whatever we talk to people about, it’s all in search of peace and happiness.  Not knowing the actual cause of happiness, one thinks something else may help, so one creates all kinds of karma, causing problems which ripen for oneself.  It is like a reflection, or an echo when you shout in a cave.  The same ego shouts back to you.  When you look in the mirror and make a face, the image makes the same face back at you.  In the same way, the actions one has done to other sentient beings, ripen back.  This is the cause of samsara, or cyclic existence.  Whatever peace or happiness is attained is very temporary and limited.  While worldly peace and happiness is temporary and of short duration, at the same time, one experiences lots and lots of difficulties, lots and lots of problems. One experiences suffering and struggles very hard before one can have a little bit of peace and happiness.

So experience one’s own life and others’ lives.  Sit aside and watch the universe, watch sentient beings. Watch how all these sentient beings fare.  Everything is the result of one’s own karma or whatever action one has done.  In this way, when one thinks about the suffering of sentient beings, then one could think, “How can I really apply some kind of method or practice so that I can become fully perfected, so that I may not have any more suffering—no miserable life, no birth, no death, no sickness, no old age?  How can I get rid of all this?”  There is a teaching which explains how one can really enter into a very strong practice, a practice which would produce results very fast, a practice which may have a very special skill, a special technique, so that one can have realization in this lifetime.  If one could really generate Bodhicitta or Awakening Mind, then one would feel like he really needs to get enlightened.

Generating the Motivation

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso given at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

Motherly sentient beings are spread throughout this universe.  As much as space has expanded, so sentient beings are extended throughout space.  We cannot perceive the edge of space, and in the same way, we cannot perceive the numbers of sentient beings.  Visualize the countless sentient beings that exist in this universe, and in the thousands and millions of other universes, which are also filled up with thousands and millions, countless, sentient beings.  Visualize and understand all sentient beings as one’s mother. And taking them as one’s mother, then generate compassion, realizing and experiencing the suffering of all sentient beings—all the different kinds of suffering, all the different kinds of obstacles, all the miserable lives.  Experience all these for oneself.  If one really tries to experience that, there is no way that one cannot generate compassion. You must generate compassion for all motherly sentient beings.  When you have compassion, then you really want to know how to help all these sentient beings. “How can I benefit these sentient beings?  I need some kind of energy, some kind of power.  I need all the qualities whereby I can benefit all sentient beings so that they can be liberated from cyclic existence, from the suffering of samsara.

When one has this strong desire to benefit sentient beings, then there is a way, a possibility, that one can give rise to the Bodhicitta, or the Awakening Mind. One thinks, “Now I need to get some kind of realization.  I really need some kind of power or energy or noble qualities or omniscient mind.  I really need to get enlightenment.  Otherwise how can I benefit all these sentient beings?  How can I help them?  How can I liberate them from cyclic existence?”

Invitation

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The following is an invitation offered to participants of the Palyul Ling Retreat in upstate New York:

After the wonderful experience of being in New York at Kyabje Penor Rinpoche’s center with our precious Palyul family, many people wish the summer would last. If you are one of these, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and the sangha of Kunzang Palyul Choling joyfully invite you to come visit our center and continue your practice experience.

We would like to share our lovely temple enriched with the blessings of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche’s first Rinchen Terzod outside of Tibet, and all the supports for Dharma practice. We have teaching and meditation rooms – open 24 hours a day for prayers, and a continuous prayer vigil around-the-clock.

If you like the outdoors, you can walk freely in our 72-acre peace park and enjoy the 15 Stupas that grace the property there. One of them contains precious relics of Terton Migyur Dorje, a gift from His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, who consecrated the Stupa. Many people have experienced tremendous healing from circumambulating the Migyur Dorje Stupa with faith. For those of you with the transmission, we also have a private Tsa-Lung hut on the property and weekly practices there.

You will be welcomed by our large ordained Sangha – many of whom you know – and who uphold the practice calendar with daily tsog, and frequent group practices. All of this we’d like to share with you so that you may deepen your practice and fulfill your deepest wishes for enlightenment in this lifetime.

We hope you will visit soon!

www.tara.org

Easy to Understand Direction on Practicing Dharma

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The following is an excerpt from the magazine Palyul Times:

Dearest disciples,

This is a talk on dharma, always bear in mind. We havenothing else then the concern for this and next life. The most crucial is to be concerned for the next life lest we will astray into the boundless realm of samsara and undergo bottomless sufferings. The triple Gem is the only protector which can save us from that. So it is very imperative, first of all, to generate enthusiastic devotion in the Triple Gem and then to properly put into practice what to take on and what to give up. Do not essentially concert, without any sense of contentment, in achieving the hard-to-accomplish wealth and pleasures for this life. Bascially, supplicate the Triple Gem. To depend on an authentic master is of utmost consequence, and whatever the spiritual master says has to put into practice. The difficulty of obtaining the precious human life endowed with freedoms and riches, uncertainty of life, the infallibility of cause and effect, the imperfection of cyclic existence and virtue of liberation — as explained in the outer Preliminary Practice by the master, train your mind with these four senses of reversing mind from the cyclic existence. Unless we have genereted the sense of renunciation from the world of samsara, we will not become any perfect but the apparition of the dharma practitioner. Until we attain enlightenment, we have to contemplate on the four senses of reversing mind from cyclic existence. If we practice thus, we can be able to merge our mind with the dharma. The essential foundation of Mahayana Buddhism is to generate the mind of attaining enlightenment, Bodhicitta. If generated, that alone will do, if not all is ruined. Bodhicitta has to be free from any bias or secterianism or else it will not become ideal. First, we have to generate bodhicitta towards our own beloved mother and subsequently, at all times, generate towards immeasurable sentient beings until unbearable sense of compassion is aroused in us. If, now, we constantly practice the twofold bodhicitta of aspiring and practical, diligently pefect in the six transcendent paths and meditate on the emptiness that is an aspect of ultimate bodhicitta; eventually and progressively the twofold obscurations along with intrinsic tendencies will be cleansed and the realization of ultimate bodhicitta will dawn. At that time, we can broadly benefit untold numbers of beings. The specific inner preliminaries are as such: taking refuge in the Triple Gem with deep respect and longing, and thinking that ‘whatever happens or suffering may overcome me, I rely upon you’; generation of Bodhicitta has to base on considering all beings as mothers and appreciating their infinite kindness, the practice of Vajrasattva that cleanses all obscurations of self and others, mandala offering, the method of accumulating merits for self and others; and Guru Yoga that bestows immediate blessings– to appreciably complete these practices and to make sure that our three doors (body, speech, and mind) blend with the dharma, is of utmost significance. Of course, we are untainted and liberated since the beginning-less of time, the outer existence is the pure realm, all the males and females are deities; however, we are bonded by the attachment to ‘I’ due to ignorance and perverted point of view. Thus, we perceive everything as impure and wrongly indulge in them, constantly falling victim to unending sufferings. Buddhas, due to their spontaneous and intense compassion, manifest into male and female peaceful wisdom deities, male and female wrathful deities, as the Lord in union with consort and so forth. All these are for the imperfect beings to realize and perk up. Visualization of their outer existence as the blissful sphere, all the beings inside as wisdom deities, all sounds as the resounding of mantras, all conceptual thoughts as the enlightened mind or wisdom, also to visualize the emergence and merging of the rays from the mantras and wisdom of concentration at the heart, to see everything as the supreme excellence existing from the beginning-less of time, to merge into the expanse of emptiness in order the perfection not be sanitized by attachment, to arise again as the wisdom deity with one face and two arms– all these practices of generation completion phases have to be put into practice, by all, as the daily routine in order to finally the level of Primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra. In addition, for realization of the ultimate point of view generate devotion towards the perfect master bearing him in your mind as equal to the unblemished Buddha. And then receive instructions on mindfulness (Shamatha) and, in stages, the instructions on directly revealing the special insight (Vipashyana). Be able to actualize realization on the naked awareness, and diligently practice without being dissipated the point of view until you accomplish the four visions (of Dzogchen). If you practice thusly, without the slightest qualm, you wil attain the perfect Buddha-hood in one lifetime. Due to intense distraction, if you are not able to accomplish this despite your ardent diligence, then it is impossible, if truth be told, to realize the ultimate meaning. So, try to accomplish as I told you and be of utmost advantage for your own sake.

Although, I, the lowly one, deprived of any quality or accomplishment of special abandonment and realization, have written this being unable to turn away from my disciples’ request for an easy-to-understand direction on practicing the dharma.
Patrul Padma Norbu

Qualities of the Lama

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche called “Guru Yoga” reprinted here with permission from Palyul Ling International

The teachings we know of as Buddhism were first taught by the Buddha Sakyamuni. These teachings have been maintained by a lineage of living transmission up to the present day by those who have been inspired to follow the example of the Buddha and to study that path and transmit it to others. In any of the various Buddhist traditions we find that there are countless numbers of people who through their study and contemplation have become extremely learned and gifted with spiritual power and realization. But the reason why they teach and the reason why these individuals undertake to become learned in the dharma should not be to indulge in self-aggrandizement. One does not become learned in dharma in order to think of oneself as learned and to gain some special status. One does not teach others from a sense of personal pride, either. Dharma is maintained because it brings benefit to those who hear the teachings. That is the motivation behind teaching.

In order to become an authentic teacher of the tradition, it is not sufficient to simply read enough books to become very clever at the teachings and then set oneself up as a teacher. Rather, it is the case that one’s own teacher, a particularly realized individual, must give one permission to teach. It may also be the case that one will be graced with a vision of one’s chosen deity during which experience the deity will confer upon one the blessing and authority to teach.

So it isn’t simply a question of ordinary people developing enough cleverness to be able to talk well about the dharma. The true benefit of the teachings doesn’t come about through an ordinary approach, because that more ordinary approach tends only to feed one’s own pride and conflicting emotions. No benefit that can come out of that. It is only when the teaching is a selfless gesture to benefit others based upon an authentic transmission that we really have the benefit that is necessary for the dharma to be maintained.

If we take into account all of the teachings of the Buddha, including all of the commentaries on those teachings by the great mahasiddhas – the learned pundits of the Indian, Tibetan and other traditions of Buddhism – it would be impossible for a single individual to try and put all of that into practice. This does not mean that there is any aspect of those teachings that are useless and have no function. The Buddha Sakyamuni turned the wheel of the dharma in three successive transmissions during his time in the world. In vajrayana when we consider the thousands of volumes that collectively known as the buddha dharma, including the 84,000 collections of the Buddha’s teachings and the 6,400,000 texts of tantra, it is obvious that no single person could absorb and practice all of that.

The Blessings of the Guru

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from Palyul Ling Retreat Center in upstate New York:

From the three syllables in the Lama Guru’s three places white, red, and blue light rays emerge.

OM…the white ray from Guru’s head to the disciple’s head, blessing one’s body.

AH…The red ray from the Lama Guru’s throat blesses and purifies the disciple’s speech.

Then HUNG….the blue ray from the Guru Lama’s heart pours forth to mix with the disciple’s heart.

The precious Tantric Initiations are just so! In this way blessings and ripening are conferred from Guru to student directly, like milk from mother to child. May the precious Guru remain and the Lineage and transmissions remain unbroken for countless aeons, and may all without exception be Liberated from suffering!

May Palyul remain the perfect source of refuge and stainless Dharma activity in the world!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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