Transcription of: Avoidance of Non-Virtues, Reincarnation and Karma
Teaching given by: TSEM TULKU RINPOCHE
(Teaching given in 1997 at Losang Drakpa, Kuala Lumpur)
…pivotal point or very important point that we covered yesterday so because it is pivotal or very important so I thought I will go over it with you today for a few minutes as a refresher and so that the new faces can understand, and since tomorrow is New Year and many people have engagements and could not have made it. In this case, today is very auspicious because we start off the New Year Eve with Dharma and also tomorrow we start off the Dharma gain. So never before in our previous years or in our previous lives we have such an auspicious occasion where we can start off such an auspicious time with the holy teachings of the Dharma.
So one should rejoice that at this time one is not frivolously wasting time or going out or doing things that one has normally done which does not bring one, happiness in this life or in previous lives. But this time, one has sacrificed, one has given up, one has made the effort to come to the holy Dharma. This is in itself quite an auspicious event and at the time when the old year is finishing it is auspicious in the sense that we give up our old habits and our old ways of negative type acting and we are starting the New Year with Dharma on a new basis and a new motivation and a new kind of transformation, a new type of life. So it is very, very auspicious.
Today I do extensive prayers and request the masters of the lineage all the way back to the Buddha to give their holy presence here so that we may be able to understand the Dharma, listen to the Dharma, concentrate on it, contemplate on it and therefore gain the holy result which is full enlightenment.
Again one should not listen to the Dharma with the faults of the three parts. One should not listen to the Dharma with low motivation. The three faulty parts are: the part that is facing down, the part that is facing up but dirty and the part that leaks. One who is listening to Dharma with the part facing down is like someone who comes with a closed mind. So when the part is down even though it is raining hard, no water can be collected inside. The second part which is facing up and collecting the water but it is contaminated. Even if we put the cleanest and best, to put in the part to eat or whatever, it will be contaminated although the item is good. In this example, it is coming to the Dharma with wrong motivation. It is coming to listen to the Dharma to pass time, to listen to the Dharma because you are bored. In order to listen to the Dharma, in order to get wealthy, to get young, to get beautiful, to just simply to have a good life. That is listening to the Dharma with a faulty part, that in the part that is contaminated with a faulty motivation. Then the third one is to have leaks and cracks. Whatever you listen to the Dharma you agree upon, you think it is excellent, you think it is wonderful, yet one does not practice. It enters one ear and leaves through the other.
So one should not listen to the Dharma with the three faulty parts.
On should not listen to the Dharma with low motivation – that one may get good life, one may get a healthy life, one may get money, one may get a deity who helps us to get a long life, health, excellence, money, wealth. We may gain some practice which will help us get a good future life. We should not be listening or practicing the Dharma with such lowly motivations when we have such a precious jewel. When we have such an excellent jewel, when we have such an excellent method, we should aim for the highest and not settle for the middle or lower scope.
That would be that all sentient beings inclusive of oneself are just like oneself want happiness. Everyone is not different, everyone wants happiness. Everyone is completely looking for happiness. Even the tiniest ant or tiniest insect is looking for happiness. Not anyone wants one moment of suffering, one moment of happiness. On that basis, others and myself, there is completely no difference. They want happiness and I want happiness. If they want happiness, there are more of them and there is only one of me. How can I as a logical person forsake other people and think about only myself? How can I practice Dharma only for myself and nothing for other people? That is completely illogical. I will in fact practice Dharma for the sake of all other sentient beings who are suffering and who have not met Dharma and who do not know about Dharma, who have not heard about Dharma, who have no idea about Dharma and therefore are ignorant of the true method to gain happiness and the true method to cessate/stop unhappiness.
So I will listen to the Dharma and therefore by gaining knowledge and by gaining experience of the Dharma, I will put it into practice into my daily life in order that I may gain the fully enlightened state of a conqueror Buddha like Lord Shakyamuni. Therefore I shall not rest in enlightenment and come back to this world again and again and again until all suffering ceases, until the last sentient being is released. With this motivation, therefore I shall listen to the holy teaching of the Dharma.
This motivation is such that even when traveling in your car and going through traffic jams, sacrificing what you usually do, sitting here in a posture that is uncomfortable to your body, thinking and focusing becomes and act of merit, it becomes an act of Dharma. If the motivation is low, if the motivation is just to gain higher rebirths only, in order to get more health, in order to get more wealth, position and beauty and power, in order to gain friends and influences, to only be involved in social activities, to go to the Dharma centers to meet other friends, if the motivation is that it becomes not a Dharma practice. It becomes a worldly practice. These actions that you do become worldly actions. They do not become the merit or karma for you to become a fully enlightened being. It is not the actions that you do that determine whether it is Dharma or not. It is the motivation behind the action. It is the motivation.
Lord Buddha, in one of his previous lifetimes in the Jataka Tales, was on a ship traveling with five hundred merchants. Lord Buddha was the captain of the ship in charge, responsible for the crew. Although he was not a Buddha, he was a highly realized bodhisattva. Being a highly realized bodhisattva, he had very powerful clairvoyance that can read the mind of others. While he was traveling on the ship, he realized that one of the members on board had the intention to kill the other members and robbing them of all their possessions. Buddha out of great compassion, in order that the four hundred and ninety eight members are not to be killed and in order that the intended killer not accumulate such negative karma and go to the lower realm for millenniums, Buddha generated the great compassion. Buddha had no choice but to kill that person. Buddha killing that person became an act of merit, became an act of Dharma, became an act of Dharma for enlightenment because that act became completely pure, the object was correct and also the intention was faultless.
Therefore, actions that seemingly appear negative if done on the basis of bodhichitta or compassion will gain good results. Whereas actions that seemingly seem like Dharma, if you go to the Dharma centers, if you meditate, if you pray, if you do your mantras, if you make offerings, if you buy statues, if you do charity, if you help the poor, if you do these actions but the motivation or intention is to look good in front of your friends to gain position and power, to move up in life, to impress or to gain higher rebirth or to gain wealth then that action in itself is not Dharma, that action becomes stained and it becomes a worldly action. Therefore it does not equate Dharma.
So when one goes to the Dharma center, one has taken refuge, one has a nice altar, one makes offerings, one chants mantras and prayers, but it does not make one a Dharma practitioner. One knows one is a Dharma practitioner when one’s act is done without the eight worldly concerns. Any Dharma action in order for it to be qualified as a Dharma action must be free of the eight worldly concerns - the concern to encounter pleasure, the concern to encounter material gain, the concern to encounter praise and fine reputation, the concern to avoid pain, to avoid material loss, to avoid blame and poor reputation. If you do Dharma with the motivation to gain pleasure, material gain, praise and fine reputation, and to avoid material loss, blame and poor reputation, then you are not practicing Dharma. Although you can be sitting in a cave reciting millions and millions of mantras and doing millions and millions of meditation, if any of your Dharma practices is done with any of the eight worldly concerns, you are not a Dharma practitioner. You may practice Dharma for seven, eight, nine or ten years, you can practice for twenty, thirty or forty years and if you check yourself carefully and deeply, not one single grain of improvement can you find. In fact, your mind becomes lower, becomes more attached, becomes more angry, becomes more negative. In fact, you will start using Dharma as an excuse to cover up your inequities, all your mistakes, your pride, your ego.
If you are practicing Dharma without the eight worldly concerns, then yearly you see an improvement in your mind. You should definitely see an improvement in your worldly situations of/if your worldly situations are decreasing/deteriorating and the years in the Dharma is increasing, in general it is a very bad sign. It is a sign that you have not been practicing the Dharma sincerely and well. If you find that your mind yearly becomes more and more agitated, more and more angry, more and more hateful, more and more spiteful, more and more vengeful, if it becomes any of those delusion, you have been doing your Dharma practice wrong. It is not that the Dharma is wrong, it is not that the Buddha is wrong, it is not that the practice is wrong, it is the way that you are doing it. If you have a wonderful car you cannot drive it and you have an accident you cannot blame the dealer, you cannot blame the maker, you cannot blame the car. Only yourself.
Like that Dharma is excellent, Dharma is pure, Dharma is unstained, unsullied. But one must know how to practice Dharma. And before any type of practice of Dharma one should definitely, intimately internalize – get to know, understand what is to be avoided and what is not and that is to practice the Dharma. Without any of the eight worldly concerns, if it is done with that you will not gain the results. Definitely you will not gain the results.
In general, and religious tradition basically has only one aim. Any religious tradition, the aim is to bring about harmony, love and compassion and the betterment of society or the happiness of the individual. Any religious tradition, the reason for it is to bring about a good harmonious, happy situation or happy society. Therefore on the basis of knowing that motivation, any religious teacher of the past of any religious denomination has taught a particular path according to time, geography, culture and situation of the people. Therefore those religious teachers might have changed the words or changed the circumstances but the meaning is always basically the same. Basically the same – not to harm, not to bring unhappiness to others but to increase others’ happiness, to benefit others, that is the basic or fundamental aim of any religious practice.
If a certain religious practitioner of any denomination does it wrong or has a bad way of doing things, it does not mean that the Dharma is bad, it does not mean that the particular religious denomination is bad, but the person, like the unskilled driver of a car, does not know how to practice that particular faith well.
On the basic, that any religious teacher in the world, it is the denomination that has taught a particular path to bring about harmony for us. On that basis and on that motivation alone we can gain a very wonderful respect, we can gain a very wonderful appreciation, a very wonderful overview of any religious faith or denomination. Any religious faith or any denomination is good, is excellent because it teaches a very pure path. If you want to go to K.L. from different cities such as Ipoh, Penang and Malacca, etc. we can take different types of road. We can take a rougher road, a smoother road or a faster road. We can take it by walking, we can take it by riding a bike, we can take it by taking a vehicle, we can take it by airplane. How fast or slow and by what road, it doesn’t matter as long as we are traveling on that road.
Therefore realizing the motivation of each religious teacher, realizing the magnificent motivation and altruistic intention of each religious teacher who has manifested in this world regardless of the religious denomination, we can gain a very deep respect for all religious traditions, any religious tradition and not just within the Buddhist faith, the Buddhist sect, the Buddhist denomination. Any religious tradition. On that sincere basis, on that sincere thinking, we can gain great respect for any great religious denomination.
And whether it is a correct religious denomination or not is checked, whether the teachings teach you to tame your delusions or not, and as I check the world religious teach us different methods to tame the delusions in our minds. We are so-called Buddhists within the Buddhist faith, our affinity, our karma, our propensity, our liking is within the Buddhist faith. Within a restaurant, you have many different types of food. No need to argue what food you are going to eat as long as your stomach is filled. You become full. Your hunger is taken care of. So like that, there are different religious denominations, different religious teaches and different religious methods. With the different religious there are different types of sects and methods, all are excellent, all intentions are the same. The important thing is for us to pick one.
By these religious methods, one can gain mental happiness. By worldly methods, one can gain some kind of physical comfort, one cannot gain mental happiness. If by worldly methods and worldly items and possessions we can gain happiness, then the more possessions we have, the more wealth, we have, the more power or position we have the happier we should became. In fact, if we were to check well, people in high places or high positions, people of wealth and power are quite unhappy. They do not have free time. They have a lot of health problems, they have a lot of worries. They have a lot of tension. Even when they die, at the time of death, they cannot die in peace, wondering what’s going to happen to the hard-earned wealth that they are going to leave behind them, who’s going to handle the mantle. What’s going to happen to their hard-earned wealth.
People who are worldly and ignorant do not know what brings happiness, are attached to worldly things – diamonds, cars, houses, mates, friends, position and power. Worldly people who do not know the methods of happiness are attached. Therefore if they have a car, or a diamond ring, or a nice house then every single day they have it, they should create more and more and more happiness. In fact, when we have a new possession for the first few days, we may feel kid of transitory happiness but as the days go by, it becomes a problem or a source of suffering. For example, the car, you have to maintain it, we have to pay its fees. We have to make sure it is not broken. We have to make sure we park it right so that no one hits it. We have to make sure that it looks nice, that the paint doesn’t crack, that is clean and wash it. And when it is getting older, we sell it off. These are subtle sources of suffering. These are subtle sources of unhappiness. Yet our ignorant mind grasps on to such an object and think it is a source of happiness, yet not knowing one is suffering, yet not knowing that one is unhappy.
That is applicable to all Dharmas. All Dharmas in this case means all phenomena, all objects that we are attached to whether it be a mate, a friend, or a person we are married to. Our wife is very young, our wife is very beautiful. We are attracted but as the years go by maybe she gets a bit of paunchy, some lives started coming in and we start looking at other people, we start looking at other things. It shows that all phenomena are transitory. It shows that we are attached and that we like things that we think bring us happiness, bring us some kind of comfort. If it did bring us comfort then from that day we possessed and owned it, every single day, the happiness should increase and become better and better and better.