THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

If, when you are practicing, the dam of suffering bursts, it is simply that you are purifying your negative actions.

Rejoice and give up wrong views.

If you spend your whole life practicing alone in a mountain retreat, you will certainly have plenty of difficulties. You will fall sick, experience pain, and encounter many adverse circumstances. At such times do not think, "Although I am practicing the Dharma, I have nothing but trouble. The Dharma cannot be so great. I have followed a teacher and done so much practice, and yet hard times still befall me." Such thoughts are wrong views. You should realize that through the blessing and power of the practice, by experiencing sickness and other difficulties now, you are purifying and ridding yourself of negative actions you committed in past lives that would have led to rebirth in the hells and other lower realms in future lives. By purifying them now while you have the chance, you will later go from bliss to bliss. So do not think, "I don't deserve this illness, these obstacles, these negative influences." Realize instead that through the teacher's kindness and the power of the practice you can completely purify yourself of all your past negative actions. Experience your difficulties as the blessings of the Three Jewels. Furthermore, bear in mind that many, many beings are suffering in a similar way. Make a wish that the suffering you yourself are experiencing may take the place of all other beings' suffering, thinking, "May their suffering be exhausted in mine." So when you do experience such difficulties, you should be very happy and avoid having adverse thoughts like, "Why are such terrible things happening to me? The Guru and the Three Jewels don't care for me, they have no compassion, the practice doesn't help."

If people are hostile with a Dharma practitioner who has done nothing wrong, it is simply that they are setting him on the path of patience.

Avoid grudges and ill-will; keep in mind the benefits of patience.

As Kunkhyen Jigme Lingpa said:

An enemy repaying your good with bad makes you progress in your practice.
His unjust accusations are a whip that steers you toward virtue.
He's the teacher who destroys all your attachment and desires.
Look at his great kindness that you never can repay!

If someone criticizes or blames you even though you have not done anything wrong, do not get upset and angry or try to get even. Instead be grateful: regard it as an opportunity to purify your own actions from the past when you yourself blamed others. Don the armor of patience, reflecting on this verse:

No evil is there similar to anger,
No austerity to be compared with patience.
Steep yourself, therefore, in patience,
In various ways, insistently.

Jigme Lingpa himself said that although many people accused and criticized him unreasonably, he always prayed, "May these people become my disciples in a future life so that I can benefit them." And indeed in his future lives he manifested as Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje and as Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.

Here is a story that illustrates the benefits of patience. In one of his previous lives as a Bodhisattva, the Buddha was the rishi Patient Words. Although he was the brother of a king, he had long since forsaken worldly life and taken to a life of solitude and meditation in the forest. One day the king and his retinue of queens went into the forest for a picnic. The king fell asleep, and while he was sleeping, the queens wandered off and came across the rishi, Patient Words. When the king awoke and found that everyone had gone, he set out to look for his queens and eventually found them seated before the rishi listening to him teach. In a fury the king drew his sword and asked,

"Who are you?"

"They call me Patient Words," replied the rishi.

"Who was this rishi?" he asked. When he learned that it was his very own brother who had become a great rishi by meditating in the forest, he felt deep remorse. He took the body of the rishi back to his capital, held an enormous offering ceremony and constructed a stupa in which the relics were enshrined.

When the rishi became the Buddha Shakyamuni, by the power of his prayer in that previous life the king became one of the first five disciples who received the Buddha's teaching at Varanasi. So a Bodhisattva is someone who takes refuge thinking, "May the harm that others cause me create a connection through which they may attain happiness."

If we achieve some results from our practice and find ourselves being respected by people, we must never be conceited or proud that our activities are increasing. See everything as a dream, as an illusion, and avoid getting attached to wealth and possessions, otherwise you will fall back into samsara and end up having nothing at all.

If your having consummate faith coincides with applying the instructions, it is simply that you have come to the end of karma.

In the future you will not be reborn in samsara.

Like a hooked fish pulled out of the water, you will have been hooked by the compassion of the Buddhas. If in this life you are diligent and practice in the right way, even if you do not attain full realization, you will be reborn in a place where you can come across the teachings, meet the teacher, and continue to progress. The greater the connection you make with the Dharma in this way, the more you will benefit. It was through practicing the Dharma that all the sages in the past attained their level of realization.

The whole of the Dharma should serve as the antidote to attachment and aversion.

Otherwise doing a lot of practice will only increase your pride; spending a long time in a cave or secluded place will just be a way to pile up possessions, and you will become an evil spirit. The practice will not have acted as an antidote to your attachment and aversion, it will not have been genuine Dharma.

If your own fear of death coincides with other people dying, it is simply that the time has come to turn your mind away from samsara.

Once the Lord Buddha came across four strong men trying to split a huge rock blocking the road. However hard they tried they were unable to move it. Using his miraculous power the Buddha tossed the rock into the air with his toe, and when it landed again, he reduced it to gravel by pointing his finger at it. Everyone was amazed and said, "Surely there is no one in the world more powerful than you."

"Yes," replied the Buddha, "there is someone much stronger than me."

"Who can that person be?" they asked.

"When I pass into nirvana, I shall meet the Lord of Death. He is far more powerful than I am."

Do not be attached to happiness and comfort in this life.

However delicious the food is that we eat, it all turns into excrement. However beautiful the clothes we wear, they are only covering what is under the skin—foul components like flesh, blood, and lymph. So what is the point of dressing one's body up in brocades? This life is as fleeting as a cloud in the sky; it can vanish at any moment. No one can say how long they will live. And if they do live a certain amount of time, no one can say whether they will be happy and satisfied all their life. Nothing is certain—neither our death nor the circumstances of our lives, so we should have no attachment to the things of this life. The only way to use our lives properly is to practice the Dharma, and to do so when we are young and our bodies and minds are in their prime. We might think, "For the next twenty years, or perhaps a bit less, I shall earn and save enough money to be able to stop working, and then I'll practice the Dharma." But who knows when we might die; who knows if in the meantime we might change our minds? This is why the root text says,

If you think you will finish your projects for this life first and after that practice a bit of Dharma, this is simply the demon's delaying tactics.

It is very important not to fall under the influence of such a demon.

What we call a demon is not something with goggling eyes, a gaping mouth, sharp teeth, and a terrifying look. The real demon is our predilection for worldly activities, our attachment to friends and relatives, our aversion to enemies and the fact that we are completely dominated by the eight ordinary concerns, together with the circumstances—both good and bad—that can make us stray from the Dharma. It is said that favorable circumstances are more difficult to deal with and use on the path because they are more distracting and make us forget the Dharma. So when we have everything we need—money, status, a comfortable home, food, and clothes—we should not be attached to these but view them as illusory, as things that appear in a dream.

Undesirable circumstances are relatively easier to deal with. It is relatively easier to meditate on patience when someone gets very angry with us or threatens us, and to practice when we are sick, because these are causes of suffering and suffering naturally reminds us of the Dharma. But when we are happy, when things are going well, these good circumstances have a tendency to blend very comfortably with our minds, like massage oil, which spreads easily over the body. When we enjoy good times, attachment rests easily on the mind and becomes part of our feelings. And once we are attached to good circumstances, the demon of the sons of the gods has arrived. Of the four demons, this is the one that creates pride: we become infatuated with success, fame and riches. It is very difficult to rid the mind of such pride.

Furthermore, of the Dharma's nine vehicles, practice the one that can truly help you in accordance with your present capacity and condition. Never dismiss the so-called lesser vehicles, thinking that they are too low for you. Each vehicle has teachings that can help us according to our capacity. So you should receive and examine the teachings of the Shravaka Vehicle properly, seeing the truth in them and practicing them as much as possible. Similarly, in the Bodhisattva and Mantra Vehicles you should learn whatever is beneficial for you and practice them as well as you are able. Thus, do not discriminate against lower vehicles or long to practice the so-called advanced teachings. Realizing that these teachings do not contradict each other, practice them in such a way that they truly help you to progress. Then everything will arise as teaching. The Buddha gave all the various teachings out of compassion, and they are all imbued with his wisdom: there is not a single word in them that can harm beings. Each one has the virtue of leading beings to liberation and enlightenment. So do not be sectarian and think, "Our teachings are far superior to those of other schools and philosophical traditions."

As all the vehicles are true in their own terms, do not have rigid opinions about paths or philosophical schools.

While we should never think that our own tradition is best and other traditions are inferior, there is no harm in genuine discussion and debate that is free of attachment and animosity, if it helps to clarify minor misunderstandings or incorrect interpretations in our own view. Likewise, misinterpretations of others' views can be corrected by discussions between learned siddhas.

Son, there are four kinds of experience.

When we try to preserve the recognition of the absolute nature in this way, we will have various experiences. The first of these is:

The experience of no clinging to thoughts, as illustrated by a small child and a mirror:

although there are perceptions, there is no clinging.

Experiences will arise. If we did not have experiences on the path, we would be on the wrong path. But although they arise, we must be completely free of clinging to them, like a small baby in front of a mirror. Whatever the baby does, the mirror will reflect it. But the baby does not cling to it as being good or bad. Likewise, someone who is completely free from clinging is not caught by notions of good and bad.

The experience of wisdom taking birth where it has not previously arisen, as illustrated by a poor woman finding treasure:

experience and realization are newly born.

When a new experience or realization of wisdom arises in the mind, we should be joyful, and the joy we feel should make us endeavor even more in the practice, just as when a woman who is destitute finds treasure buried underground. She is overjoyed, knowing that for seven generations to come there will be no need to worry about being poor, and she therefore takes great care of the treasure she has found.

The experience of neither apprehension nor esteem, as illustrated by a swallow entering the nest and a lion:

The experience of being unafraid of philosophical views, as illustrated by the lion who is not scared of the fox:

there is no fear of the view and action of lower vehicles.

When we have realized the absolute nature, we will not be tied by the views and conduct of the lower vehicles. Like the lion, which is never afraid of the fox however much it barks, someone who has full realization of the Great Perfection is not affected by the numerous teachings on the view, meditation, and action of the gradual vehicles; they do not make him hesitate.

The signs that arise from experience.

Son, there are four kinds of signs.

When experience and realization bloom within, this is

The sign of awareness shining within, as illustrated by a butter lamp inside a vase.

When a butter lamp is placed in a vase, it is protected from the wind and therefore burns very steadily and brightly. Similarly, when clear awareness fills one's inner space, karma and afflictive emotions are immediately dispelled.

For this there are four ways in which objects of knowledge are freed in their own nature.

Once we have realized the absolute nature, all concepts are dispelled within that same absolute nature.

They are self-freeing, like iron cutting iron.

Just as iron can be cut by iron but not by wood, when the ultimate nature of the subject and object acts as the antidote for the same subject and object, all duality naturally dissolves.

Appearances and the mind being inseparable, they are freed through one single thing, like fire lighting a fire.

When there are many different afflictive emotions occurring in the mind, there is no need to search for a separate antidote for each one. The absolute nature serves as the antidote for them all, like fire lighting a fire. Once one has realized that mind and appearances are inseparable, the more firewood one adds the stronger the fire blazes.

By knowing one's own nature, they are freed into the fundamental reality, like space mixing with space.

Inside a vase there is space, and that space is basically the same as the space outside. When the vase is broken with a hammer, the space inside and the vast space outside blend as one and become indistinguishable.

Appearances are recognized as being manifestations of the mind, like a mother and child meeting.

Once we have recognized that all outer phenomena are simply the self-manifestation of our own awareness or absolute nature, outer conditioned phenomena cannot deceive our inner absolute nature. This recognition that outer phenomena are our own projections is like a mother and child meeting: between them there is certain recognition, without hesitation or mistake.

When there is no effort, this is

The sign of the mind not getting involved in the pleasures of the senses, as illustrated by a king seated on his throne.

A king who has complete dominion over his kingdom has no need to actively increase his authority, nor to involve himself in the day-to-day running of the state. Similarly, when we have confidence in the absolute nature, we will not be lured by attractions and sensory experiences outside. The mind will not run after objects of desire. This is a sign of stability.

When one curtails one's plans because there is no time to waste, or decides clearly that all phenomena are unborn, this is

The sign of focusing the mind on the unborn nature, as illustrated by a sick person and a cemetery.

There are two examples here, reminding us that although we may have this sort of realization, we must never feel complacent with regard to impermanence and death, and we must be decided about the unborn nature of phenomena.

The first example is that of someone who is terminally ill and knows that there is little time left before the final journey to the cemetery. Such a person does not feel like wasting time. The second example (pointing to the realization that all phenomena are unborn) is that of the sick person's corpse being carried to the cemetery. Just as one does not need to take care of a corpse as one did of the living person, once we have realized the absolute nature, we do not need to pay special attention to "what is to be rejected"—afflictive emotions and so forth. We do not need any other antidote for them than the realization of the unborn nature. Other, ordinary antidotes become irrelevant.

If we are free from both the things to be rejected and the antidotes, this is to be applied, we will gain the confidence of a hawk. When a hawk sees a pigeon flying quietly through the forest, it does not hesitate for a second in swooping down on its prey. Likewise, if we have the confidence of having gone beyond both things to be rejected and the need for antidotes, we will overwhelm the afflictive emotions without hesitation. This is

The sign of having stamped on the afflictive emotions, as illustrated by the pigeon and the hawk.

More about the author and translators . . .

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991) was one of the foremost lamas to come out of Tibet and was revered for his wisdom and compassion by members of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Padmakara Translation Group has a distinguished reputation for its translations of Tibetan texts and teachings, and is renowned for its clear and accurate literary style.