When we begin to indulge in our habitual patterns or our kelshas, we begin to be hit by all sorts of sudden neurotic attacks; we get hit by all sorts of punishments.
Such punishment results from violating the sacredness of the world. It is the result of not taking care of ourselves properly.
We practice the four reminders by having a greater sense of connection with the lineage, with the disciplines that are inspired by the lineage, and with our own discipline.
We begin to realize that we are worthy people, and because we are worthy people, we find that our guru is also a worthy people.
Prostrations allow you to disembody or disarm your arrogance or your ego. Mantra practice allows you to experience your neuroses and to connect with a quality of purity. Having purified yourself, in the mandala offering you learn how to give further, to give everything. Finally you can actually mix your mind with the teacher’s mind.
The practice of devotion is based on three elements: blessing, changing your perception, and nonthought.
We cannot avoid karma as long as we have continual thoughts and continual subconscious gossip. As long as we have a liking-and-disliking state of mind happening all the time, we cannot avoid karma at all.
But we can prevent sowing further seeds of karma altogether by realizing that there is a level where karmic seeds are not sown, which is the nonthought level. That is why we meditate.
In this world, all inhabitants are impermanence. In particular, the life of all beings is like a bubble, death comes without warning, this body will be a corpse, at that time, the dharma will be I only help, I must practice it with exertion.
We cannot cling to our ego all the time. Shunyata, or emptiness, means that there is no real substance to hang on to. Everything could be and would be and should be subject to decay and change.
First, contemplate the preciousness of being free and well-favored. It is difficult to gain and easy to loose, now I must do something meaningful.
We begin to become workable when we finally accept ourselves. We start by giving up our spiritual shopping and by taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha.
We begin by synchronizing our mind and body through shamatha-vipashyana, and by developing friendliness to ourselves.
Having begun by paying attention to ourselves, we then find that others are also important. So in the mahayana, we develop compassion by means of tonglen practice and by working with the lojong slogans. We relate to both relative and absolute truth, and we realize ultimate bodhichitta.
Because of the devotion, trust, and appreciation of what you have experienced already, you begin to realize an additional mandala: the mandala of the Buddhas. This mandala actually extends over or permeates all other mandalas. With the buddha mandala, you begin to experience sacredness everywhere.
The secret mandala is quite simple and straightforward: it is the idea of transmuting neurosis into wakefulness.
The inner mandala is based on working with or overcoming the kleshas. But when we talk about overcoming the kleshas, we do not mean throwing them out the window or getting rid of them. Particularly in vajrayana tradition, we do not get rid of anything, but we work with whatever arises and whatever we have. We use such material as the kleshas; we work with them. The kleshas are regarded as the fuel for attaining enlightenment.
When you experience total sacred outlook, there is no grudge against any situation and no overindulgence in possessiveness and wanting. Physical existence and the forms you see in the outer world are seen as the heavenly realm of the deities; speech is experienced as mantra; and the psychology of the world is experienced as awakened clarity.
.Shamatha-Vipashyana is also known as the combination of emptiness and skillful means. Emptiness is the Shamatha process of eliminating mind’s occupations and preconceptions, slowly removing them altogether. “Skillful means” refers to vipashyana awareness, which sees all the possibilities of the environment around oneself.
Self-arising wisdom has two qualities: it is free from speculation, and it is unchanging and therefore spontaneous. The experience of self-born wisdom, or the awakened state of mind, is the transmission you receive from the teacher when you receive abhisheka. That is when your superficial ordinary mind ceases to exist, and therefore your further ordinary mind becomes powerful.
Mind needs to be protected, because mind is capable of jumping to conclusions of all kinds, but the heart is always pure. Cultivating that tender heart invites quite a lot of pain. It is like a young child growing up; a young child experiences all sorts of pain, including diaper rash, and that is all right.
Both vastness and profundity are mind’s creation; they are your mind’s creation. Profundity means getting deeper, so that you can cut the thickness of stupidity. Vastness means that you can expand, so that you can go beyond the territoriality of possessiveness.
First come emptiness, or shunyata. Shunyata is the emptiness of dualistic fixations of any kind. It is also the emptiness of oneself and of one’s basic core of bewilderment. Understanding that quality of emptiness, or twofold egolessness, we begin to develop a quality of brilliance.
The willingness to be groundless could be called the seed of being outrageous in a tantric way. In other words, you are willing to let the threat to security break through. Unless there is that kind of bravery, you are not apt to hear the vajrayana teachings.
Both vastness and profundity are mind’s creation; they are your mind’s creation. Profundity means getting deeper, so that you can cut the thickness of stupidity. Vastness means that you can expand, so that you can go beyond the territoriality of possessiveness.
Not all emotions are conflicting emotions, or kleshas. However, emotions are tricky. Emotions are also quite prone to being grasped, and they could flip into the lower realm of emotions.
With kleshas, if a nondwelling quality is there, that nondwelling is their transformation into wisdom. By nondwelling, you are overcoming the kleshas altogether.
The willingness to be groundless could be called the seed of being outrageous in a tantric way. You are willing to let the threat to security break through. You do not need any compliments or confirmation, and at the same time, you are willing to relate with the messages and directions that come to you.
Nirmanakaya buddhas are resourceful, and they never cause a nuisance to society. They also tend to create further expansion and further realization by teaching other people.
Sambhoga means “joy” or “bliss”;
In the Sambhogakaya, expression comes out in terms of speech and movement. You experience the sense perceptions very clearly and precisely, and you understand them as they are.
The utterance of the dharmakaya is:
“I am unborn; therefore, I am intelligent. I have no dharma and no form. I have no marks. I am the charnel ground where all existence is exposed.
Since I am the origin of kindness and compassion; therefore, I have transcended the definition of shunyata or any ideology. I shine brilliantly; therefore, I have never known the darkness.”
The idea of primordial is not just at the level of prenatal or prehistoric, but it goes far beyond that. It is old wisdom that is still new at the present moment.
Primordial space is beyond age; it transcends age.
After the indestructibility of vajradhatu, there is wisdom. There is a sense of being learned, a sense of comprehending all kinds of things, a sense of scrutinizing the phenomenal world in a very spacious way.
The reason this wisdom is known as “self-existing” is because there is no reason. There is no reason, no purpose, and no particular attitude. But there is enormous clarity-clarity born from nothing.
Vajradhatu is regarded as the basic space that accommodates everything, samsara and nirvana. Nothing can challenge this space. In spite of its clarity, or discriminating wisdom, it is still indestructible.
When you wake up from ignorance, you discover rikpa. Rikpa is the first notion of wakefulness, not necessarily in the sense of enlightenment, but as contrasted to slothfulness or confusion. So rikpa is a sort of spark, as opposed to dullness and sleepiness. It is intrinsic sharpness, penetratingly bright.
Shunyata is the emptiness of kuntak, or “random labeling",” and of dualistic fixations of any kind. It is also emptiness of oneself and of one’s basic core of bewilderment. That original primordial ignorance is also empty.
A further kind of knowing is called yeshe. Yeshe is primordially knowing. It is the universal monarch or fruition level; therefore, it is even free from the path. It is simply becoming free from habitual patterns, or transcending lo.
Basic goodness is a glimpse of wakefulness or reality in which unconditionality is possible; but it is still based on a certain amount of dichotomy or separate reality, on this and that. It has been said that the experience of yeshe cannot be born out of dualistic mind, or sem, because yeshe is a completely non-eop experience, while sem still involves the reference point of self and other.
When you have tamed yourself by means of shamatha, you begin to realize that you can be more decent and genuine in expressing warmth, which in the vajrayana is connected with devotion. Shamatha is connected with humbleness.
Rikpa is the basic approach we are trying to work in order to maintain or get in touch with yeshe(free from habitual pattern of ordinary mind).
In order to realize yeshe, we have to realize prajna.
In order to realize prajna, we have to experience vipashyana.
Vipashyana gives us a quality of gentleness, so we can do not become too hash adn clever and we do not stay in the higher realms alone. It brings us down to the level of compassion and softness.
Yeshe is all-knowing, and prajna is the communication system that goes with yeshe.
Prajna enables you to relate with your world altogether. Prajna and yeshe happen together, simultaneously. Prajna is like the limbs, and yeshe is like the body.
Yeshe is that which is free from the habitual patterns of ordinary mind, or sem (that which project to other), and from yeshe there arises what is known as insight, or rikpa.
Rikpa is a clear way of looking at a situation, a kind of build-in perception for yeshe. It is also a seed of prajna, although prajna operates more in relationship to other, and rikpa relates more to yourself.
With rikpa, you are your own disciplinarian, so you do not stray.
