thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
Buddhism) is tranquillity and insight, and from the uncommon point of view of the vajrayana is the generation and completion stages.Meditation, however, depends in part upon the generation of loving-kindness and compassion. And this is true of any meditation, but it is especially most true of vajrayana meditation. The reason is that the specific vajrayana practices the visualization of deities or meditation upon mahamudra and so on depend upon the presence of a pure motivation on the part of the practitioner from the very start. If this pure motivation or genuine motivation is not present and, since were ordinary people, its quite possible that it might not be present not much benefit will really occur. For that reason, vajrayana practitioners always try to train their motivation, and try to develop the motivation thats known as the awakened mind, or bodhicitta.Now, as an indication of this, if you look at the liturgies used in vajrayana practice, youll see that the long and extensive forms of vajrayana liturgies always begin with a clarification of, or meditation upon, bodhicitta, and that even the short and shortest liturgies always begin with a meditation upon bodhicitta, loving-kindness and compassion, the point of this being that this type of motivation is necessary for all meditation, but especially for vajrayana practice.The only real meaning that we can give to our being born on this planet and in particular being born as human beings on this planet and the only really meaningful result that we can show for our lives is to have helped the world: to have helped our friends, to have helped all the beings on this planet as much as we can. And if we devote our lives or any significant part of our lives to destroying others and harming others, then to the extent that we actually do so, our lives have been meaningless. So if you understand that the only real point of a human life is to help others, to benefit others, to improve the world, then you must understand that the basis of not harming others but benefiting others is having the intention not to harm others and the intention to benefit others.Now, the main cause of having such a stable intention or stable motivation is the actual cultivation of love and compassion for others. Which means, when you find yourself full of spite and viciousness and it is not abnormal to be so then you have to recognize it, and be aware of it as what it is, and let go of it. And then, even though you may be free of spite or viciousness, and you may have the wish to improve things, you may be thinking only of yourself; you may be thinking only of helping or benefiting yourself. When thats the case, then you have to recollect that the root of that type of mentality, which is quite petty and limited and tight, is desiring victory for yourself even at the expense of the suffering and loss experienced by others. And, in that case, you have to gradually expand
your sympathy for others, and therefore this cultivation of bodhicitta or altruism in general as a motivation is an essential way of making your life meaningful.The importance of love and compassion is not an idea that is particular to Buddhism. Everyone throughout the world talks about the importance of love and compassion. Theres no one who says love and compassion are bad and we should try and get rid of them. However, there is an uncommon element in the method or approach which is taken to these by Buddhism. In general, when we think of compassion, we think of a natural or spontaneous sympathy or empathy which we experience when we perceive the suffering of someone else. And we generally think of compassion as being a state of pain, of sadness, because you see the suffering of someone else and you see whats causing that suffering and you know you cant do anything to remove the cause of that suffering and therefore the suffering itself. So, whereas before you generated compassion, one person was miserable, and after you generate compassion, two people are miserable. And this actually happens.However, the approach (that the Buddhist tradition takes) to compassion is a little bit different, because its founded on the recognition that, whether or not you can benefit that being or that person in their immediate situation and circumstances, you can generate the basis for their ultimate benefit. And the confidence in that removes the frustration or the misery which otherwise somehow afflicts ordinary compassion. So, when compassion is cultivated in that way, it is experienced as delightful rather than miserable.The way that we cultivate compassion is called immeasurable compassion. And, in fact, to be precise, there are four aspects of what we would, in general, call compassion, that are called, therefore, the four immeasurables. Now, normally, when we think of something thats called immeasurable, we mean immeasurably vast. Here, the primary connotation of the term is not vastness but impartiality. And the point of saying immeasurable compassion is compassion that is not going to help one person at the expense of hurting another. It is a compassion that is felt equally for all beings. The basis of the generation of such an impartial compassion is the recognition of the fact that all beings without exception really want and dont want the same things. All beings, without exception, want to be happy and want to avoid suffering. There is no being anywhere who really wants to suffer. And if you understand that, and to the extent that you understand that, you will have the intense wish that all beings be free from suffering. And there is no being anywhere who does not want to be happy; and if you understand that, and to the extent that you understand that, you will have the intense wish that all beings actually achieve the happiness that they wish to achieve. Now, because the experience of happiness and freedom from suffering depend upon the generation of the causes of these, then the actual form your aspiration takes is that
all beings possess not only happiness but the causes of happiness, that they not only be free of suffering but of the causes of suffering.The causes of suffering are fundamentally the presence in our minds of mental afflictions ignorance, attachment, aversion, jealousy, arrogance, and so on and it is through the existence of these that we come to suffer. Now, through recognizing that there is a way to transcend these causes of suffering fundamentally, through the eradication of these causes through practicing meditation, which may or may not happen immediately but is a definite and workable process through this confidence, then this love wishing beings to be happy and the compassion of wishing beings to be free from suffering, is not hopeless or frustrated at all. And, therefore, the boundless love and boundless compassion generate a boundless joy that is based on the confidence that you can actually help beings free themselves.So boundless love is the aspiration that beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness. Boundless compassion or immeasurable compassion is the aspiration that beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. And the actual confidence and the delight you take in the confidence that you can actually bring these about is boundless joy. Now, because all of these are boundless or immeasurable or impartial, then they all have a quality, which is equanimity. Which is to say that if these are cultivated properly, you dont have compassion for one being but none for another , and so on. Now, normally, when we experience these qualities, of course, they are partial; they are anything but impartial. In order to eradicate the fixation that causes us to experience compassion only for some and not for others, then you can actually train yourself in cultivating equanimity for beings through recognizing that they all wish for the same thing and wish to avoid the same thing, and through doing so you can greatly increase or enhance your loving-kindness and compassion.This has been a brief introduction to the practice of meditation, and how to train in and generate compassion. If you have any questions, please ask them.Question: Rinpoche, can you speak a little bit about the difference between pure projection and impure projection, and in particular, where do pure projections actually come from?Rinpoche: First of all, impure projections are how we experience because of the presence in our minds of kleshas or mental afflictions. Because we have kleshas, then we experience friend and enemy that to which we are attached and that towards which we have aversion we experience delight and disgust and so on. And all of these ways we experience the world all these ways we experience are fundamentally tinged with, at least tinged with unpleasantness.Now, what is called pure appearance or pure projection is based on the experience of the true nature or essential purity of what, in confusion, we experience to be five types of mental affliction, or the five kleshas. The true nature of these five kleshas is what are called the five wisdoms. For example, when you
let go of fixation or obsession on a self, or with yourself, then the fundamental nature of the way you experience is a sameness, a lack of preference or partiality, which is called the wisdom of sameness. And, when you recognize the nature of all things, then that recognition which pervades or fills all of your experience is called the wisdom of the dharmadhatu. And so on.Now, when you experience the five wisdoms rather than the five kleshas or five mental afflictions, then instead of projecting all of the impurity which you project on the basis of experiencing the kleshas, you project purity, or you experience purity, which is the actual manifestation of these five wisdoms as realms, as forms of buddhas, and these are what are called the pure appearances which are experienced by bodhisattvas and so forth. Now, in order to approach this, in order to cultivate the experience of these wisdoms and the external experiences which go along with the experience of these wisdoms, we meditate upon the bodies of these buddhas, the realms, palaces and so on. By generating clarity of these visualized appearances and stabilizing that, then gradually we transform how we experience the world.Question: In practicing compassion, theres the practice of tonglen, which is the sending and receiving, taking the suffering from all sentient beings and giving them the happiness and merit that we have. And, in this practice, Ive practiced it before, and it seems to go well for a while, but then theres a subtle sense of I that creeps in that says, I dont really want to take the suffering, or its, I cant deal with too many people having cancer, I just cant take it all on myself, and so one kind of loses a little courage in the practice. So, could you illuminate us on this practice, and how to overcome these obstacles and really develop heroic mind?Rinpoche: What you say is very true, especially in the beginning of undertaking this practice. And, in fact, its okay that it be experienced that way. Even though there is a quality of faking it about the degree to which you actually really are ready to take on the suffering of others in the beginning, theres still benefit in doing the practice, because up until you begin this practice, youve probably been entirely selfish. And, to even attempt to fake altruism is a tremendous improvement. But it doesnt remain insincere like that, because eventually the habit starts to deepen and starts to counteract the habit of selfishness.Now if, when you began practicing tonglen, you already had one hundred per cent concern with the welfare of others and no concern for your own welfare, then you wouldnt need to practice tonglen in the first place. So, it is designed to work for a practitioner whos starting from a place of selfishness and to lead them into this place of concern for others. And, gradually, by using the practice, you will actually cultivate the sincere desire to take suffering away from others and experience it yourself;
you will cultivate real love and compassion for others. But on the other hand, you dont really do the practice in order to be able to, at that moment, take on the suffering of others and experience it yourself; youre really doing it in order to train the mind. And by training your mind and developing the motivation and the actual wish to free others from suffering, then the long-term result is that you have the ability to directly dispel the suffering of others.Question: Rinpoche, you said that we may not be able to one person may not be able to directly affect or remove short-term unhappiness or suffering of another person, but that we can learn to generate the basis of anothers happiness, ultimate happiness. So could you say more, please, about how one person can generate the basis of ultimate happiness for another person?Rinpoche: Well, the direct basis of establishing another being in a state of freedom or happiness, long-term or ultimate happiness, is being able to show them how to get rid of their mental afflictions and to teach them how to recognize and therefore abandon causes of suffering. And, through doing so in that way, then you can establish them gradually in ultimate happiness. But even in cases where you cant, for whatever reason, do that, by having the intention to benefit that being, then when you yourself become fully free, then you will be able to actually help them and gradually free and protect them as well.Question: Rinpoche, can you say a little more about the practice of letting go when the mind is agitated, as you described, as used in mahamudra and dzogchen? I experience my mind when I sit as being agitated. And theres the practice of letting go. And Im wondering if you can just say more about that in a practical way?Rinpoche: In general, the main approach that is taken in the mahamudra and dzogchen traditions is applied when you are looking at the nature of your mind. Now, kleshas or mental afflictions are thoughts, and thoughts are the natural display of the mind. Thoughts may be pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant, they may be positive or negative, but in any case, whatever type of thought arises, you deal with it in exactly the same way. You simply look directly at it.Now, looking at the thought, or looking into the thought, or looking at the nature of the thought, is quite different from analyzing it. You dont attempt to analyze the contents of the thought, nor do you attempt to think about the thought. You just simply look directly at it. And when you look directly at a thought, you dont find anything. Now, you may think that you dont find anything because you dont know how to look or you dont know where to look, but in fact, thats not the reason. The reason, according to Buddha, is that thoughts are empty. And this is the basic meaning of all the various teachings on emptiness he gave, such as the sixteen emptinesses and
so on.Now, to use anger as an example of this, if you become angry, and then you look directly at the anger which doesnt mean analyze the contents of the thoughts of anger, but you look directly at that specific thought of anger then you wont find anything. And, in that moment of not finding anything, the poisonous quality of the anger will somehow vanish or dissolve. Your mind will relax, and you will, at least to some extent, be free of anger.Now, you may or may not, at this point, understand this, but in any case, youll have opportunity to work with this approach tomorrow and the next day, and over the next couple of days you may come to have some experience of this.So, were going to conclude now with a brief dedication. But I would also like to thank you for demonstrating your great interest in dharma, and listening and asking questions. CommentThe Essence of Ones Heart: How to Recognise the Nature of Mind.In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on March 26, 2007 at 11:07 pm H.E. the XIIth Tai Situ RinpocheBased on the topic concerning the nature of the mind, there are three particular questions:1) What does it mean to recognise the nature of mind?2) How do we experience and live in the relative and absolute truth in everyday life?3) How can we manage to look through delusions and transform the related negative emotions?We, being more than five billion human beings and other creatures too, are composed of three things: (1) the Body which is tangible, (2) the Emotions and Expressions which are individual and unique, and (3) the Mind.First, in order to discuss these topics, we must define what the mind is and explain its nature according to the Buddhas teachings.The mind is the most important thing we have to take care of and cultivate. Its nature, also called the essence of the heart, is what we wish to recognise; we want to recognise our Buddha-nature. Besides the mind, our body and our environment also exist relatively. But, regardless of the body or the environment, the mind matters the most and proceeds these.The mind is the most essential. It is the mind which expresses the emotions through the body; the body does not convey expressions and ideas through the mind. The body acts like an attendant, messenger and tool, and the mind uses the body to express what it wants to and needs to. So, the mind is the master of everything, even though we might not be very adequate and only get everything right from time to time.When referring the minds essence, it is limitless. The minds nature does not have any limitation.For centuries it has been common for people to debate whether or not the mind exists. If one does not believe there is a mind that is fine. Also, if one believes there is a mind, and asserts there is something more than the body, there is definitely a mind, that is fine too. These two view-points can be argued, and the debate can go on and
go on forever. This debate will go on for as long as the mind goes on; whether or not one believes in the mind, this debate is all within the mind anyway.~ ~ ~ ~Now, what does it mean to recognise the nature of the mind?Temporarily, everyone has ambition and wants to be satisfied. After that, they feel contented. But, no one in human history ever reached a state of ultimate contentment, in which their struggle to be satisfied was then over.Only those who are enlightened can have ultimate contentment. To fulfil ones search and struggle totally, and ultimately, is to realise the nature of ones mind.All the spiritual masters of Buddhism, and even those of other religions, found contentment within themselves. This is what we call recognising nature of mind, realising ones own essence. According to the Buddhas teachings, every single living being has this potential which is limitless and within themselves. There are then a limitless amount of ways and means which can be used to attain this potential, to recognise ones essence. We must then respect all these various ways and means, even though one might not understand each and every one of them.~ ~ ~ ~Now we can deal with the next two concepts which are interconnected: Experiencing the relative and ultimate truth in everyday life, and transforming delusions and the related emotions.Whether we know it or not, or believe in it or not, or live in heaven, hell or here on earth, we are apart of and always in unity with the relative and ultimate truth. We cannot live beyond it.One example is that of a parent and ones wonderful child. While walking down the street, they pass by a toy shop which has a very expensive toy. As the parent, you do not have much money. But, your child wants to go in and that toy is the most important thing to him or her, no matter how much it costs. However as the parent, spending the money in order to have better food, medical care and education is far more important than wasting it on a toy. After a hard decision the parent decides to buy the toy. Tomorrow at home though, the toy is all in pieces and broken. Then ones child absolutely does not want it. Yesterday it was the mostimportant thing for the child, and today he or she does not even want it. So, one can see how relatively the toy was important to the child, but ultimately the toy was meaningless, it was just an illusion in Samsara.Another example deals with the emotions. Today two people might get really mad at each other; they get on each others nerves and are in turmoil. But, then they apologise tomorrow and everything is forgotten; yesterdays big deal is now nothing. Likewise, a long time ago two countries mightve fought each other. Then, after some time, they are friends. As time passes, they fight again.So, we can see, whether we believe in it or not, there is this relativity, and also the ultimate
aspect of the illusory nature of phenomena and emotions in everyday life.Now, we come to the topic of transforming our relative experiences and emotions. We, as people, try to manage everything so everything goes well for us; there is no one who did not try to manage it since were are all here! Karmically, one might manage negativity by being in hell for millions of years, one can manage very positive actions by being in heaven for millions of years or one can manage having a mixture of both by being born a human being.As human beings now, we are trying to manage and want to transform our experiences. In summary, as the whole subject cannot be covered, there is a difference in the manner which sentient beings manage and transform our experiences and emotions. One is through the worldly or materialistic methods, the other is through spiritual methods based on the dharma teachings.As humans using worldly and materialistic methods, one tries to be at peace and calm down. We try to transform Samsara by drinking coffee or very strong liquor, or smoking lots of cigarettes, or taking drugs. This is how ordinary individuals manage in Samsara.By the definition of Samsara, we go in circles. So, with these worldly methods we must keep doing them and in the long run they keep increasing: Right now one drinks only one cup of coffee but next month one needs two cups. But soon that coffee is not enough, one must smoke a cigar with it. Later on, even that is still not enough to be at peace. The end result becomes very, very demanding.According to the Buddha, the dharma or spiritual method of transformation is inside of you, not outside of you. One does not have to go outside of oneself to find the solution for the afflictions which are inside of oneself.Therefore, the ultimate solution to take care of delusions and afflictions is inside you. The solution is within ones essence, the nature of ones mind. That is why the Buddha taught us to meditate by sitting down and straight, breathing normally, and calming ones mind.These methods help one overcome Samsara. Normally people are quite hysterical: When happy we are wild and when we are upset we our wild too. Hysteria is a bad solution since it abuses ourselves from time to time, and abuses other people many, many times.The first step in Calm-abiding (Shinay) and Insight (Lhatong) meditation is just this: One does not have to create anything, just let your potential and essence arise naturally. One cannot overcome difficulties hysterically, calm down and let it take care of itself. Just let the nature of ones mind function, dont disable it by being hysterical.The beginning of the end of Samsara, for oneself, is just that. Buddhism is very rich in methods, there are thousands of methods suitable to each individual state of mind. Whether or not one is a Buddhist, in ones essence you are a Buddha anyway. Only in the application of methods the difference arises.Doing something outside of oneself, like