These lectures were transcribed by
T Vd Broek. Heartfelt gratitude is offered for all the hours of work
spent on this Dharma activity. These talks are offered free of charge.
They have been slightly edited.
Duncan March 8 1992
Last week we talked about the four
mundane preliminaries and the uncommon preliminaries. We covered in
the common preliminaries the precious human rebirth and personal
impermanence. The last two are the awareness of the law of cause and
effect or karma and the altruistic attitude of bodhicitta.
In all
activities we do it is important to have in our mind some clarity as
to what we are doing in the sense of acquiring karma. Using an example
of bad karma, if you are going to say something unpleasant to someone
because you are angry, in you is the motive. I am angry and I want to
retaliate. Then the object is the person who has hurt you. The
activity which accomplishes that is then your choice of words. So you
pick a word which is particularly hurtful or damaging. It touches on
something such as a handicap that person has so you are very effective
when you say the word. So from the negative motive, anger, and
directed at the object, you say the negative word. The time the karma
becomes successful is when they hear it and understand it. And this
applies to any variety of karma that we accumulate. That there has to
be the completion of the karma in that there is recognition that the
activity I did got the effect I wanted.
If you got angry at
someone and said something nasty but the person did not hear it, you
have not completed your karma yet. You will not get the full ripening
of it. What makes it a ripened effect is that you have to have
experienced the joy or satisfaction that the activity had been
completed. That is the cap that makes it a very powerful karma.
Regarding positive attitudes or being virtuous, it is important
for example, lets say you were going to offer a flower to the altar.
Then your motivation is respect and kindness to the Buddhas. In
offering the flower, it should be a beautiful flower. And in offering,
it should be in a respectful way. With maybe both your hands. And
maybe a dish, and put the flower on the altar. In offering it then,
you could offer a prayer that all sentient beings be happy. And then
the satisfaction that I have done this. This is a nice action. I am
happy with my action. That then completes the karma. So in any of the
activities we are involved with, it is important that we have a moment
to recognize the completion of the activity. And particularly
regarding positive actions. It is important that we allow our mind to
register what we are involved with.
It is not like seeing a poor
person walking up the street, then thinking I am going to give them a
dollar, and you walk up, "Here take this!" And then you walk away.
That is not a very effective way to create good karma. It is better to
address the person respectfully and full of good intent. In giving it
to them, they say thank you. And when you have a recognition that they
have received it, that you feel that something has been accomplished.
Then you are getting full results of your karma. And it is important
that we do that because we are the result of our activities in that
right now, where we stand emotionally is based on what we have
actually been doing. If we take responsibility for ourselves, become
more conscious, then we should try to cultivate ourselves in a way
that is going to develop us fairly well. So we should try to become
conscious of the process involved with karma.
In doing that we
should try to recognize objects which are more special. For example it
is said that in creating good karma, if we offer gifts to people who
have been important in our lives, such as our parents or those who
have been helpful, it is termed the field of benefit. They have
benefitted our life. They have helped us grow up. They have helped us
become a nice person. And so to repay their kindness is actually like
an insurance policy. You will have good supporters in your future
lives. That is one area we should have respect. It is always
worthwhile although sometimes difficult to have a good relationship
with our parents. At least from our side we should have a good
attitude.
Another area it is good to have awareness is regarding
our teachers. This applies to both our school teachers, and those who
are helping us to attain skills. And then even our spiritual teachers
in that it is not so much in offering to them it is good for them, it
us good for us because from our side we have respect and a sense of
veneration. In that way it helps us learn better. If we respect the
teachers or have a sense of appreciation, we learn the subject matters
better. So it is good if we make offerings to the people which is said
to be the object of the field of the quality. In that the teachers who
help us to become a more articulate person, who help us gain skills,
and certainly and most importantly those who help us regarding our
spiritual practice. In making offerings to them it helps us develop
our own spirituality because it helps us develop a positive
environment. It is like ground which is cleared and made fertile. When
it is then seeded, it will grow very well. Also with our mind. When we
have respect, qualities of being reliable, and other such things,then
our mind becomes a very fertile ground where positive qualities can
grow.
Finally there is the field of compassion. And that is of
course, people who are not doing well. People who are poor. People who
are sick. People who have a disadvantage. These are a good object to
work with because they need help. And if we have compassion and a good
heart when we do things for those people, it is very beneficial. You
could say it is a field of need, but it also termed the field of
suffering in the sense that they have problems in life. By helping it
it helps them improve. So whether we offer material help or advice or
circumstances, all these things are good to offer to others.
Essentially in the common preliminary being conscious of the law
of cause and effect is beneficial because it helps us cultivate who we
become. There is a saying, if you want to know who you are look at
what you have been doing. If you want to know what you are going to
become, look at what you are doing. You right now are an expression of
the activities that you have been involved with to this point. If you
look at what you are doing, you can have an idea of what you are going
to become in the future. If you want to become a nicer person, it is
worthwhile of becoming more conscious of the activity that creates you
to become that way. Or if you want to gain realization or some quality
which you deem as beneficial, in regards to all of those, it is
important that you start to cultivate those qualities now, and after
some time that quality will become ours.
Shantideva said that even
insects and small animals, if they strove hard, could attain results.
So how much more so for us who are human, who have a great deal of
intelligence, to attain good results if we put our mind to it. That is
the third preliminary for the practices of mind training.
The
final is also termed the altruistic generation for the mind of
enlightenment, or the wish to be able to benefit sentient beings. That
is actually all the teachings are involved with, but, in reflection
you should think just as I want to be happy, so all sentient beings
want to be happy. just as I don't want even the smallest suffering,
equally every other sentient beings does not want even the slightest
suffering. Even a little bit. So with this recognition of the quality
that all of us are equal in that wish, on the basis of that, we should
not only work for ourselves and be selfish, we should try to work in
regards to helping others also. If you have two people in the room,
one is selfish, one is a nicer person, we automatically like the less
selfish person more. It is easy. They are a nice person to be around
and such. So in our spiritual practice as a preliminary, if we
recognize some of the facet which help us create our spirituality,
which is like a preliminary to help us become a more spiritual person,
in that we can say, being more open minded, being more universal in
our attitude, looking at all sentient beings, creates great qualities,
is a very essential preliminary which we have.
So that covers the
two final preliminaries regarding the four common preliminaries. The
four uncommon preliminaries are spiritual exercises which can be
undertaken. Prostrations, mantras, mandala offerings and prayers to
the guru. They should normally be received from your teacher. And in
the spiritual exercises are for the purification of negativity, and
the second two for the accumulation of positive merits. Those two
things are important. It is important to purify previous negativity.
It is what limits your mind. If you have a miserly or negative
attitude, you are always looking pessimistically at the world, that is
a hindrance to being able to grow at all. It limits you totally. So in
purification, it is not that you feel guilty, but that you engage
yourself in a practice which will wash you of your negativity. It puts
you in a better relationship to your spiritual practice.
There are
many things we have inside which we have never resolved. We have done
naughty things! It is not easy to sometimes recognize what they are
because they are in the past and we cannot remember the detail. But
the effect of that is in us right now. And so when we do a
purification practice, if we are conscious, we can start to recognize
things which nee to be purified. Negative attitude. Sense of ill will.
Sense of suspicion about others. These are attitudes based on ill
will, insecurity and such things. So it is good if we purify them so
that we can move beyond them. So the practices you do, such as
prostrations, prostrations are a purification of disrespect of others.
In doing a prostration you have to humble yourself. So on one side you
can say it sounds simplistic, but on the other, it is a terrific
practice. If you have any sense of arrogance, you put yourself above
others, it puts you in a bad position and difficult position to learn
how to be a little bit with empathy or love, kindness. So arrogance,
the sense of being better than others, is a major stumbling block to
moving forward at all . In doing prostrations, it is beneficial.
The exercise is quite physically strong. In doing them, it is said
you also purify a lot of physical karma for having killed or damaged
others. Regarding those things which sometimes happen quite
unconsciously, we purify a lot of the negative karma with physical
prostrations.
The Vajrasattva mantra practice will take up to
three months to do. The benefits are great though. You visualize on
the crown of your head the Buddha. And while you recite the mantra you
visualize your nervous system gets washed of negativity. You should
visualize washing out illness, negative feelings you may be clinging
to, and in this way basically purify yourself. And even sometimes we
can have negative spirits which cling to us and cause us illness. By
doing the Vajrasattva mantra we also purify them, get them out of our
nervous system.
The other two uncommon preliminaries refer to the
accumulation of positive merit. The mandala offerings are done by
visualizing the concept universe and offering it. You are setting up a
mode of generosity within yourself. And normally you do it in two
verses. You take refuge to the Buddha. And with a special plate and
such, you take handfuls of rice and put it on the prayer. And in the
second prayer you say this mandala spred with saffron, water and
flowers, adorned with Mt. Meru, sun and moon, great treasures and
things which are precious, I offer to the field of the Buddhas. In
receiving this may all sentient beings be happy. What you are doing is
offering in the symbolic form all of the material world. All that
makes people in the material sense happy. And in offering, you are
creating prosperity. Prosperity is important in the sense that if you
are very limited, have limited material means, it is hard to
accomplish the dharma because you are always looking for food, shelter
and such things. In this preliminary it is said that you actually
accumulate merit to have the facilities to have the condition to be
able to practice your dharma quite comfortably without hardships.
There is a little saying. The saint Tsong Khapa offered eighteen
million mandala offerings in the space of abut a year and a half. And
in offering these, he was the founder of the sect we are involved
with, he amassed a great deal of merit. The Gelugpa tradition has
never been poor! There has always been prosperity for the monasteries
and monks involved with that tradition. And it is said to be based on
the fact that Tsong Khapa offered many mandala offering for the
success of the spiritual tradition. For ourselves as individuals, it
is important that we collect some karma regarding generosity because
it is the cause of our prosperity.
The fourth preliminary is guru
yoga, or prayers to the guru. And it considered very important because
in regards to realizations we have, we have the kindness of our
teachers. If the spiritual teachers were not around, and we just had
books and things like that, it is much harder to gain realizations. If
we have a teacher who helps us and introduces us how to practice, and
particularly if the teacher is qualified. He or she had done practice
himself. Is involved a little bit on the path, it is very beneficial.
Because they can help us miss mistakes. Maybe we do not have the right
understanding. Maybe our spiritual practice is a little wrong. By
relying on a teacher, those mistakes can be corrected easily.
In
that way doing the guru yoga practice is beneficial because it sets up
a positive relationship with our guru and makes us receptive to
receive teachings. Particularly regarding having a qualified teacher,
if we find that, we are guaranteed by relying on him, good experiences
and realizations. So that practice is to do a hundred thousand prayers
to ones spiritual teacher.
In doing that one has finished the four
uncommon preliminaries.
Meditation:
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