1 COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL 2. AROUSING BODHICITTA, THE ROOT OF THE MAHAYANA HOMAGE Patrul Rinpoche again begins with paying homage to his guru Jigme Gyalwai Nyugu by explaining his guru’s superior qualities. Through great wisdom, he realized nirvana; Through great compassion, he accepted samsara. Through skill in methods, he realized their inseparability. At the feet of my peerless guru, I bow down. The root of the Mahayana path is the union of emptiness and compassion. Generally, the lower vehicles of the sravakas and the pratyekabuddhas realize emptiness alone and compassion alone, but not their unity. As a result, when achieving the fruition of the practice, these practitioners remain in the state of peace and liberation. They experience meditative absorption in the uncompounded essence of peace and liberation. Mind and the source of mind are completely absorbed in one-pointed meditative concentration. From the perspective of the practitioner, he is liberated from all the suffering of the world, but he cannot benefit other beings. The emptiness he has realized is not joined with compassion for others. By realizing only emptiness, he simply remains in meditative concentration, and this does not benefit others. The Mahayana path unites emptiness and compassion. The fruit of practicing this union is called the great peace and liberation that does not remain within the two limits. The two limits are worldly cyclic existence, and peace and liberation, in other words samsara and nirvana. Great peace and liberation beyond these two limits is achieved. The power of compassion and emptiness keeps Mayahana practitioners from falling within the two limits. While training on the path, their practice involves both meditative concentration and benefitting others. Ultimately, when they actualize the fruit, the meditative concentration of the dharmadhatu is realized for themselves, and they continue working effortlessly for the benefit of others until samsara has been completely emptied, for as long as space remains. Without realizing great wisdom, meaning the wisdom of emptiness, ego-clinging – the root cause of cyclic existence – can never be overcome. Having realized emptiness, sravakas and pratyekabuddhas remain in the KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 2 peaceful state of meditative concentration, a state that is liberated from samsara. Traditionally, at the beginning of the path bodhisattvas practice mainly meditative concentration until they attain the level of the noble ones. After arousing the wisdom of the noble ones, their main practice will be benefitting others. They will not remain in solitude, in a state of one-pointed meditation. They practice meditation, but their primary focus is on benefitting others, because they have great compassion. During the time of training they remain in samsara, mainly benefitting samsaric beings. After the final result, for as long as space remains and for as long as samsara has not been emptied, they spontaneously benefit others. This is not like the sravakas and prakyetabuddhas who discontinue benefitting others. The Mahayana path, the union of emptiness and compassion, is also called the path of skillful method. It may be called the extraordinary path of the Great Vehicle. Through practicing this vehicle, disciples can actualize the indivisibility of samsara and nirvana. There is no peace and liberation outside of samsara; there is no samsara other than peace and liberation. No impurity can be found from the very beginning. Jigme Gyalwai Nyugu, Patrul Rinpoche’s root guru, had actualized the quality of the indivisibility of samsara and nirvana and all the other qualities described. By paying homage to his guru through praising him, Patrul Rinpoche accumulated vast quantities of merit. Accumulating such quantities of merit fulfills all wishes without difficulty. Patrul Rinpoche’s inner intention is to benefit others. To do this, he begins by paying homage to his root guru. THE MAIN PRACTICE Arousing bodhicitta is the main aspect of the Mahayana path. Without bodhicitta, regardless of what is practiced of the view, meditation, and conduct, it cannot be considered Mahayana. We can differentiate the greater from the lesser vehicles on the basis of bodhicitta. Whatever we practice within Mahayana – whether Sutra or Tantra, development or completion stage – the foundation is taking refuge and arousing bodhicitta. We begin by explaining how to develop bodhicitta in those who have not yet aroused it. Unless all the conducive causes and auspicious conditions are complete, bodhicitta cannot arise. First we must train our 3 COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL minds (blo sbyong). There are different ways to train on this path. Following Shantideva’s “Way of the Bodhisattva,” first we should train in recognizing that we and others are the same. Next, we train in exchanging ourselves for others. The next stage is to learn to give greater importance to others than to ourselves. First we train in this way, and then later bodhicitta will arise on its own. Jowo Atisa taught the seven pith instructions on path and fruition. For example: understand that all beings have been your mothers; remember the great kindness they showed you when they were your mothers; repay the kindness of such loving mothers, their benevolent love and ultimate compassion. Training in these instructions one by one, bodhicitta will eventually arise. Patrul Rinpoche explains the four boundless qualities. Training repeatedly in these four instructions develops bodhicitta. We should train ourselves according to Patrul Rinpoche’s instructions. When these four boundless qualities automatically arise in our minds, without contrivance, the thought of bodhicitta will also arise. When all conducive conditions are complete, the fruit will come automatically. That is natural. Training in these four boundless qualities brings forth the fruit of bodhicitta in our minds. Two traditions of taking bodhicitta vows are taught. One is Nagarjuna’s tradition of the chariot of the profound view, and the other is Asanga’s tradition of the chariot of the vast conduct. We must take vows in either one of these traditions. Taking the vows and training the mind so that bodhicitta automatically arises in our mindstreams are the two aspects of arousing bodhicitta. After receiving vows and training in bodhicitta, we must guard our vows well. There are the aspects of what to avoid, and of what to adopt. We must learn them both. Bodhicitta is of two types: bodhicitta of aspiration and bodhicitta of application. We train in these separately. We can also classify the practice into three parts: mind training, arousing bodhicitta, and training in what to adopt and what to avoid. These can be called the preliminary practice, the main practice, and the concluding practice. The preliminary practice is training in the four boundless qualities. The main practice is arousing bodhicitta and taking vows. The concluding practice is training in what to adopt and guarding without fail against what to avoid. KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 4 Training in the four boundless qualities In general, the four boundless qualities are listed in the following sequence: boundless love, boundless compassion, boundless rejoicing, and boundless impartiality. “Boundless” means that we visualize infinite beings. Based on this vast visualization we practice boundless love, boundless compassion, boundless rejoicing, and boundless impartiality. This practice accumulates boundless merit. Boundless impartiality When practicing, however, we begin with boundless impartiality. If you can accomplish boundless impartiality, then boundless love, boundless compassion, and boundless rejoicing will automatically arise in your mindstream. Without impartiality, practicing love, compassion, and rejoicing become partial and one-sided. Partial and one-sided means that although we have love in our mindstream, this love arises only for family and relations. It is not impartial, and is not boundless love. The same is true for the other boundless qualities of compassion and rejoicing. Without mastering the practice of boundless impartiality, the compassion that desires beings to be free from suffering will not arise for those whom we consider to be enemies. None of the four boundless qualities will be pure in that situation. Impartiality means maintaining a balanced perspective, recognizing the equality of all beings. Our present mind does not automatically feel love, compassion, or rejoicing toward those we do not like, those whom we consider to be enemies. We feel hatred toward them. Toward our family and friends, we automatically feel love, compassion, and rejoicing. We do not consider those who harm us to be the same as our parents who give us our lives. We consider that one is higher and the other is lower. If we cannot make them equal, however, then whatever practice we do on love, compassion, and rejoicing will be partial. For this reason we must see as equal those who harm us – our enemies – and those who gave birth to us – our parents – feeling neither attachment nor hatred toward either of them. We do not differentiate between the love we feel toward our mother and the love we feel toward our father, being more attached to one than the other. Neither do we feel any hatred toward them. We feel that our parents are the same. Having the same feelings toward our enemies as we have toward our parents is called impartiality. We must avoid hatred toward our enemies and attachment toward our parents, and learn to 5 COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL feel the same affection for our enemies as we feel for our parents. Considering the benefits they bring, our enemies benefit us to the same degree as our parents do. Considering the many problems they bring, our parents cause the same amount of difficulty as our enemies do. Nevertheless, we feel that our parents bring us great benefit, and our enemies bring us great difficulty. Reflecting upon this deeply, however, we will understand that our enemies benefit us in the same way our parents do. If we feel love and affection toward those who benefit us, we must also feel love and affection for our enemies. If we feel anger and hatred toward those who harm us, we must also feel anger and hatred for our parents, who harm us. We fail to identify the ways in which our parents cause us harm. The harm that comes to our mindstream from attachment is not the same as the harm that results from hatred. Attachment causes us great harm, but we fail to recognize this. We are delighted with those to whom we are attached. This is like being attached to those who deceive us with pleasant words and kind behavior. When hatred arises, both mind and body experience pain and suffering. This is actual harm, like being injured by a physical weapon, and we identify it immediately. Attachment also harms us, but we do not identify the harm quickly. In reality, both harm our mindstreams. We fail to recognize the actual harm our parents and relatives cause us while we identify the harm an enemy causes by his angry words or his weapons. In fact, there is no difference between them. One kind of harm we see, and the other we cannot see. Otherwise they are the same. This makes the attachment we feel toward our parents and the aversion we feel toward our enemies totally meaningless. When we consider the benefits our parents have brought to our lives, we should realize that our enemies have benefitted us in the same way. The only difference is in the timing. With this understanding we reflect that differentiating between our parents and our enemies is our own mistake. The benefit and harm that they bring us are the same, and we must consider them in exactly the same light. These thoughts are not the actual boundless impartiality, but are the preliminary practice. Actually feeling neither attachment nor hatred toward any sentient being is boundless impartiality. To arouse this feeling, we recognize that the kind parents who gave us life have greatly benefitted us in this life and the enemies who harmed us in this life have also greatly benefitted us in our past lives. There is no difference between them in terms of their benefit and kindness. Experiencing this is boundless impartiality. At present, we feel great attachment toward our parents, relatives, and KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 6 friends while harboring great hatred for our enemies. We make this mistake through a failure of investigation. In addition, we think “enemy” refers only to humans, not considering that gods and demons can also be enemies. In reality, non-human beings are also enemies. But we do not think about these kinds of formless entities when we practice mind training. If we have the power, we may think we should subjugate them through mental concentration and mantra, or through entrapping them in the ground. We feel that harming them is a Dharma activity, whereas we understand that harming human beings is negativity, and not Dharma. Our understanding is not correct. Whether we call them “parents” or “enemies,” both have harmed us and both have benefitted us at different times in the past. The enemies who cause us trouble in this life were our parents in the past. At that time they loved us, gave us whatever they had, raised us and benefitted us exactly as our present parents have done. They took care of us extremely well, and were most kind. They are enemies only in this life. In the past, they were our parents. Our present parents might have been our enemies and caused us a great deal of trouble in past lives. As has already been quoted from the noble Katyayana: Eating his father’s flesh, he beats his mother And holds on his lap an enemy that he killed. A wife chews upon her husband’s bones. I laugh to see samsara’s show. Katyayana was an arhat who had clairvoyance. Coming across a man cuddling a baby in his lap while eating a fish and beating a female dog, he sought the karmic reason for these actions. He saw that the child was an enemy from the man’s previous life. Due to karmic repayment, he was reborn as his son. The fish he was eating had been his past life father. The female dog was his past life mother, who was chewing on her own husband’s bones. This is a teaching on the indeterminate nature of samsaric relationships. No certainty can be found regarding enemies and relatives. Therefore samsaric relationships are a reason for laughing. The story of King Trisong Detsen’s daughter Princess Pema Sal is a similar example. Pema Sal was a Dzogchen disciple of Guru Rinpoche who passed away at the age of seventeen. The king asked Guru Rinpoche how such a thing could happen. “I thought my daughter probably had pure karma, and for that reason 7 COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL was born as the daughter of myself, King Trisong Detsen. She met you translators and scholars, who are actual buddhas. Why then has she had such a short life?” The teacher replied, “She was not born as your daughter as a result of pure past actions.” This indicates that her rebirth resulted from the karmic repayment of negativity. If we harm someone, the action of causing harm leads to a karmic debt. Until this debt has been completely paid, that person will continue to take birth as our offspring, and continue harming us. This is called the cycle of negativity. Princess Pema Sal’s story is an example of this. In the past, I Padmasambhava, you the great king, and the great bodhisattva1 were born as three low caste boys. When we were building the great stupa of Jarung Khashor, the princess had been born as an insect that stung you on the neck. Knocking it off with your hand, you innocently killed it. The debt incurred in taking that life caused the insect to be reborn as your daughter. Princess Pema Sal had taken birth as an insect only to show an example to ordinary people of the undeceiving character of cause and effect of karma. In reality, she was Guru Rinpoche’s disciple, on whom he conferred the entire cycle of Dzogchen Khandro Nyingtig. King Trisong Detsen was Manjushri in person. If he had a child due to a karmic debt, then what can we say about other people? At present we have a close connection with our parents and children, feeling great love and affection and having inconceivable hopes for them. When they suffer or when undesirable things happen to them, we are more unhappy than if it had happened to ourselves. This is just the karmic retribution for harm we did each other in past lives. Parents suffer greatly, physically as well as mentally, because of their children. The cause of this suffering is the karmic debt the parents owe the child. This debt of negativity is not exhausted. It is also possible that the child takes birth due to a karmic debt. If a pure sublime being or a noble one is born as a child, the child and the parents will both be liberated. This is a different situation. Other than this, children bring extreme suffering to their parents. The parents may wish to practice the holy Dharma, but be unable to do so because of their children. Contemplating this, we find that all such suffering results from a karmic debt not having been paid. Because of the suffering it brings, the relationship is definitely not the result of a 1 The abbot Shantaraksita. KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 8 good karmic connection. Of all our current enemies, there is not one who has not been our parent in a past life. Even now, those we consider to be enemies are not certain to be harming us. Some whom we take as enemies may not, from their side, consider us as opponents; even if they do they may be incapable of causing us harm. Some might be causing immediate harm, but this could lead to fame in this life or to our meeting the sublime Dharma and experiencing ultimate benefit and happiness. Others, if we use skillful means to adapt to their minds, and gentle and pleasing language until we come into agreement, could easily become friends. Likewise, even among those who are now considered close, there are children who cheat or even kill their parents. Sometimes children take the side of those opposed to their parents to steal their wealth and quarrel with them. When we are in harmony with our children, we suffer more from their unhappiness and the problems that arise for them than from our own. For the sake of our relatives, children, and others who are close to us, we commit great nonvirtue that will drop us into the hells in our next life. When we want to practice Dharma perfectly, they keep us from it. Unable to let go of our parents and children, we put off our Dharma practice until later, and never find time for it. Compared to our enemies they do us more harm. Considering the obstacles children and relatives create to Dharma practice, they are worse than other enemies. Similarly, those we now consider our enemies may be born as our children in future lives, and those we are close to could be born as enemies. There is no certainty about this. Because of taking these momentary appearances of enemy and friend to be real, we accumulate nonvirtue through attachment and anger. Why keep doing things that will anchor us to the hell realms? Therefore, rest firmly in seeing all the infinite sentient beings as your parents and children. Follow the life stories of great beings of the past and treat friends and enemies as the same. Sublime beings never distinguish between those close to them and enemies. They consider the great kindness of their present parents and try to benefit them as much as possible. They equally benefit their enemies, seeing them as kind parents from past lives. We nowhere find them caring 9 COMMENTARY BY KHENPO NAMDROL for some and harming others. We must act like they do, and consider our parents and our enemies as equal. At the beginning, considering those you do not like at all, those who make you angry and whom you seriously dislike, you should train your mind in various ways so that your anger and hatred for them no longer arise. Wanting to benefit our friends and relations is easy; we always feel this way. Desiring to benefit our enemies, on the other hand, is difficult at first. By training our minds, we can gradually develop the wish to care for our enemies just as we care for those dear to us. We feel hatred and anger toward our enemies because we think that they have harmed us. Reflecting deeply, we see they haven’t really harmed us and in fact have helped us. What we initially considered harmful is actually not. As we gradually develop this understanding, our anger ceases to arise. Think of your enemies as though they were people to whom you feel neutral, those who do you neither harm nor good. Consider that the uncountable beings toward whom you feel neutral have at some time during your beginningless past lives been your parents. At first, considering your enemies as the same as your father and mother is difficult, even though they have actually been your parents. Initially you must learn to consider them as neutral individuals. After developing the feeling that they are neutral, then gradually you can develop the feeling that they are really your parents. When they were your parents in the past, they were extremely kind to you, so you must develop sincere love for them, the same as you feel for your parents from this life. When your present parents are suffering, you automatically wish to free them from their pain. You train your mind to realize that enemies and neutral persons are the same as your parents, so that when they suffer you also desire to free them. Meditate until this compassionate feeling arises automatically, just as it does for your actual parents. The practice of “taking as equal” means there is no difference in our attitude toward our parents, neutral persons and enemies. The same compassionate feelings we have for our present parents will arise for all sentient beings. This is boundless impartiality. Merely having no compassion or attachment toward your parents, no hatred toward your enemies, and feeling neutral toward people to whom you are indifferent is not the practice of boundless impartiality. This is called “ignorant indifference” that brings KUNZANG LAMA’I ZHALUNG 10 neither benefit nor harm. An example for boundless impartiality is a feast given by a great sage. When sages offer feasts they invite everyone, making no distinction between high or low, powerful or weak, good or bad, superior or mediocre. We should hold all sentient beings pervading space equally as objects of our vast compassion. We train until achieving this. Right now, when we see the misery of someone we dislike or feel indifferent toward, we do not question their suffering. When we automatically wish for all beings to be free from suffering, with the same feeling we have for our parents, we have reached the state of boundless impartiality. Then we will have no difficulty in developing boundless love, compassion, and rejoicing without jealousy or envy. Thus, we must first train well in boundless impartiality. Boundless love Once we have developed boundless impartiality toward all sentient beings, we can easily develop boundless love for them. Sentient beings pervading space are equal in not living in ultimate happiness, but in suffering. The desire to establish them in happiness is love. Beings in the higher realms experience circumstantial happiness, but such happiness is compounded and easily lost. Beings in the lower realms do not even have this circumstantial, compounded happiness. We take all beings as the object of our boundless love. Due to attachment, we now feel love for our friends and families, but this love is not impartial. However, since all beings suffer equally from not abiding in the final peace and happiness of nirvana, we must train in wishing to establish all of them in this state. When this feeling comes automatically, we have achieved boundless love. The difference between love and compassion is as follows. The desire to establish all beings in happiness is called love; and the desire that they be free from suffering is called compassion. These feelings should not be limited in any way, but should be impartial, covering all beings like the sky. By meditating on boundless impartiality, we come to see all sentient beings of the three realms as equal objects of great love. The example is the way parents care for their small children. Ignoring the children’s ingratitude and their own difficulties, they strive with body, speech, and mind to make the children comfortable, happy,