B. Alan Wallace. All rights reserved. The Seven-Point Mind Training B.

Alan Wallace Lecture Notes The Seven-Point Mind Training taught in Tibet by the great Indian master At!"a (9821054), passed on to Dromtnpa (1005-1064), and first written down by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (1101-1175), is probably the single most widely taught and practiced original Tibetan text in the whole of Tibetan Buddhism. Focusing on the cultivation of ultimate and relative bodhicitta, it was a central practice of the ancient Kadampa Tradition and is embraced by all schools of Tibetan Buddhism today. In the most straightforward way, it helps us cut through our habitual, dualistic grasping and self-centeredness, and leads us to a realization of the essential nature of awareness and genuine altruism. Introduction Our challenge: to maintain a vital spiritual practice in the midst of an active, often busy, way of life in the way, a practice that is truly spiritual and truly engaged. The lineage: Maitriyogin + Dharmarak#ita + Serlingpa ->At!"a -> Drom Tnpa -> Potowa -> Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (who wrote down these teachings) -> Serchil Buwa The seven points of mind training o The Preliminaries: Foundational Dharma o The Main Practice: Cultivating Ultimate and Relative Bodhicitta o Transforming Adversities into the Path of Awakening o A Synthesized Practice for a Lifetime o The Criteria for Having Trained the Mind o The Pledges of the Mind Training o The Practices of the Mind Training

1) The Preliminaries: Foundational Dharma to ensure that our practice becomes genuine spiritual practice, leading to spiritual awakening: First train in the preliminaries. a) Precious human life of leisure and endowment i) Leisure (8 of them) = the time to engage in spiritual practice (1) Recognize whether you have it or not; if not, why not? (2) For what are you sacrificing leisure, the principal benefit of civilization? (3) Spiritual practice is no antidote to overwork, fatigue, and nervous exhaustion. Create leisure first, to create space for spiritual practice. ii) Opportunity (10 of them) = the opportunity to engage in spiritual practice (1) What is real success? What is fraudulent success? The opportunity to learn and engage in spiritual practice = the endowment of human life. Nothing else works to bring about genuine happiness, or true success! (2) The pursuit of hedonic happiness by way of the eight mundane concerns is like playing the lottery in order to get rich; or even worse, even if you win, you finally lose, and the winning isnt what its made out to be.

2 (3) What is real failure? To waste your human life iii) The preciousness of such a human life (1) We take our lives for granted, but on what basis? We are betting our lives on our beliefs, so it behooves us to investigate the basis of whatever our beliefs and assumptions may be. (2) There is nothing irrational in adopting one working assumption over another if the available evidence does not compel us to believe one way as opposed to another. Especially if the type of hypothesis we adopt has a major impact on our lives. (3) His Holiness comments on the criteria of valid cognition. iv) The rarity of such a human life (1) Look around and respond with compassion to all those who are merely surviving (for awhile) or who are seeking happiness in ways that are hopeless (e.g. the eight mundane concerns, or through evil actions). Then cherish you own rare and precious opportunity. (2) What do you assume about the reasons for your present opportunities? Is it just luck that you presently have a human life with its opportunities? (3) David Finkelstein: a scientist must be skeptical, but in order to be skeptical of something, you must first notice it (and sometimes thats not so easy, especially when everyone around you assumes the same thing). (4) If you squander such an opportunity, why should you ever get it again? Theres nothing intrinsic or immutable about our present situation, not even our very identity as humans. b) Death and impermanence i) The value of this life of leisure and endowment (1) The possibility of bringing forth an ongoing state of joy without stimuli, welling up from exceptional mental health and spiritual awakening (2) The possibility of a state of well being through good and bad times, through life and death (3) The lottery-like nature of the 8 mundane concerns (4) Peoples faith in the outcomes of those pursuits (5) Lottery is the state penalty for those who are bad at math; frustration and disappointment are realitys penalty for those who are ignorant and bad at life. (6) Alternative faith in your own spirit and the power of Dharma to unveil it. ii) Taking personal responsibility for ones well being (1) Not relying solely on external influences, e.g. God, politics, educational systems, drugs, society, etc. (2) Example of HH and the tragedy of Tibet (3) The fleeting nature of this life of leisure & endowment. Our human minds and bodies are on loan. (4) This meditation to counteract our natural tendency to view the unstable and fleeting as being stable and enduring iii) Gross impermanence

3 (1) That which ascends to a high position descends to the low; that which comes together is rendered asunder; that which is gained is lost; and that which is created is destroyed. (2) Goenkas comment iv) Subtle impermanence: momentary nature of all feelings and all composites v) Threefold meditation (1) Inevitability of death (2) Unpredictability of the time of ones death (3) What is of value in the face of death? (4) Definition of Dharma (5) Milarepa: The aim of my Dharma practice is to die without regret. vi) What assumptions do we have about the nature of death? vii) Who dies? viii) Three ways of dying (1) Small, medium, and great capacity (2) The centrality of continuity of maturation from life to life (3) Can there be genuine happiness in the midst of the vast uncertainties of life? (4) Meditation on death and impermanence as a remedy for attachment, anxiety, arrogance, and other afflictions. (5) The greatest of all discernments. (6) The inspirer for Dharma and the purifier of Dharma. c) The miseries of sams$ra i) The first Noble Truth: This is the reality of suffering. Recognize it! ii) The three types of suffering (1) Blatant suffering: e.g., birth, aging, sickness, and death (2) The suffering of change: Stimulus-driven pleasurable feelings as a temporary alleviation of prior suffering, but not genuine happiness. (3) Pervasive suffering of fundamental vulnerability regarding the closely held aggregates. iii) The continuity of consciousness (1) John Searle: We would...need a much richer neurobiological theory of consciousness than anything we can now imagine to suppose that we could isolate necessary conditions of consciousness. (2) Modern science has no means of detecting the presence/absence of consciousness and no compelling method for identifying its origins, its function, or its final outcome. It has only assumptions, but no science of consciousness. (3) Critique of mind as emergent property theory. (4) Buddhist view iv) Theory of the causes and conditions for consciousness. (1) Empirical evidence for continuity of consciousness (2) Sobering view rather than euphoric perspective of continuity v) The causes and conditions of suffering (1) Anything in the world may act as a condition, but no object inevitably leads to misery

4 (2) Delusion, attachment, and anger as the real causescheck necessary causes with your own experience! (3) Only mental states turn into suffering; the rest are catalysts. (4) Without purifying the mind, the world will always be unsatisfying. vi) The causes and conditions of genuine happiness (1) All manner of things may or may not lead to pleasure (2) Not mistaking the outer symbols and rituals of happiness for the real thing. (3) Buddhist hypothesis: glimpses of genuine happiness are to be found in a balanced, virtuous mind. (4) Sustained, genuine happiness is to be found when the internal veils of afflictions and obscuration are dispelled. (5) The very source of our yearning for genuine happiness lies at the ground of our being, and that yearning can be satisfied only by that very ground. (6) Is it possible to be attached to a Guru or the Dharma? (7) Just do it! And note the instant gratification. (8) Developing knowledge of Dharma and skill in choosing which Dharma for which occasion. d) Actions and their consequences i) Cf. Freuds premise that in mental life nothing which has once been formed can perish...everything is somehow preserved and...in suitable circumstances... it can once more be brought to light. ii) If there is continuity of experience (consciousness) and rebirth, are there meaningful, causal relationships among those rebirths? iii) Types of karma (1) Physical, verbal, and mental (with grasping) (2) Virtuous, non-virtuous, and neutral (3) Ten non-virtues: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, slander, abuse, idle gossip, avarice, malice, and wrong views. (4) Ten virtues iv) Effects of karma (1) The fully matured effect (type of rebirth) (2) The effect similar to the cause (tendencies) (3) The environmental effect (external animate & inanimate) v) Four characteristics of full karma: Intention, preparation, performance, and completion (satisfaction in the completed deed) vi) Propulsive and completing karma vii) Four laws of karma (1) The invariability of positive/negative karma -->joy/sorrow (2) The natural increase of karma (3) If a deed is not committed, its effects will not be experienced (4) Karmic seeds never lose their potency (5) The Four Remedial Powers (a) The power of remorse (not guilt) (b) The power of turning away from misconduct (c) The power of reliance (d) The power of applying the antidote

5 (6) The purification of karma through dreams, and the possibility of total purification through the above powers. viii) Karma and grace ix) Living and dying without guilt or remorse 2) The Main Practice: Cultivating Ultimate and Relative Bodhicitta a) The immediate preparation: Once stability is achieved, let the mystery be revealed. i) The stability of faith: belief, appreciation, and aspiration (1) Faith from theoretical understanding & practical experience as a source of inspiration (2) Faith in the validity and efficacy of a path, not its doctrinal purity. (3) The price of freedom is constant vigilance. Impurity comes not from alien traditions but from our own minds. ii) The stability of the attention (1) Mindfulness & introspection and mental health: Psychiatrist David Galin: it is more damaging to a persons integration to be out of touch with the dimensions of personal reality through loss of self-monitoring than to be out of touch with the externals through sensory loss or paralysis. (2) Attentional stability and education: William James: ...the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will...An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about. (3) William James: The subjects adhered to become real subjects, attributes adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real existence; whilst the subjects disregarded become imaginary subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and the existence disregarded an existence in no mans land, in the limbo where footless fancies dwell.... Habitually and practically we do not count these disregarded things as existents at all... they are not even treated as appearances; they are treated as if they were mere waste, equivalent to nothing at all. (4) Consciousness --> continuity --> transmigration --> karma --> liberation (a) Extrasensory perception & paranormal abilities (b) Bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality as unstable, limited portents of awakening (5) The disaster of increasing technological control over the environment, with no control over our own minds. There is likewise the imbalance of constantly looking for new sources of external resources to fulfill our hedonic desires, while ignoring the inner resources of our own minds. (6) Approaches to attentional balance. (a) The control model: attention with grasping, e.g. a Buddha image (b) The release model: settling the mind in its natural state (c) The wilderness ideal: let it be, dont manage it and dont pollute it! (d) Who controls and who releases? iii) Unveiling the mystery of the nature of consciousness

6 (1) Not obscuring the mystery with illusions of knowledge (historically, the primary obstacle to discovery): the certainty that consciousness is a product of the brain, with no knowledge of the necessary or sufficient causes of consciousness (2) First Bh!van!krama: Because the mind moves like a river, it does not remain still without the foundation of "amatha. The mind that is not established in equipoise is incapable of knowing reality. The Lord, too, declared, The mind that is established in equipoise discovers reality. (3) The Dhammapada: All phenomena are preceded by the mind, issue forth from the mind, and consist of the mind. (4) Ratnameghas"tra: All phenomena are preceded by the mind. When the mind is comprehended, all phenomena are comprehended...By bringing the mind under control, all things are brought under control. b) Ultimate Bodhicitta i) The non-inherent nature of apprehended objects: Regard all phenomena as if they were dreams. (1) Anton Zeilinger: (a) One may be tempted to assume that whenever we ask questions of nature, of the world there outside, there is reality existing independently of what can be said about it. We will now claim that such a position is void of any meaning. It is obvious that any property or feature of reality out there can only be based on information we receive. There cannot be any statement whatsoever about the world or about reality that is not based on such information. It therefore follows that the concept of a reality without at least the ability in principle to make statements about it to obtain information about its features is devoid of any possibility of confirmation or proof. This implies that the distinction between information, that is knowledge, and reality is devoid of any meaning. (b) In quantum physics the notion of the total information of the system emerges as a primary concept, independent of the particular complete set of complementary experimental procedures the observer might choose, and a property becomes a secondary concept, a specific representation of the information of the system that is created spontaneously in the measurement itself. (2) Physicist Roger Penrose: one needs a theory of consciousness, in effect, to explain the physics that we actually perceive going on in the world. (3) Physicist Andre Linde: The universe becomes alive (time-dependent) only when one divides it into two parts: an observer and the rest of the universe. Then the wave function of the rest of the universe depends on the time measured by the observer. In other words, evolution is possible only with respect to the observer. Without an observer, the universe is dead. (4) Stephen W. Hawking: Every possible version of a single universe exists simultaneously in a state of quantum superposition. When you choose to make a measurement, you select from this range of possibilities a subset of

7 histories that share the specific features measured. The history of the universe as you conceive of it is derived from that subset of histories. In other words, you choose your past. (5) John Archibald Wheeler: (a) It is wrong to think of that past as already existing in all detail. The past is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. By deciding what questions our quantum registering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable choice in what we have the right to say about the past. (b) For a measurement to take place, a true observation of the physical world must impart meaningful information, signifying a transition from the realm of mindless stuff to the realm of knowledge. Rather than thinking of the universe as matter in motion, one may regard it as information being processed. Information, the referent of information, and a conscious subject who is informed are all mutually interdependent. (6) Physicist Nick Herbert: The source of all quantum paradoxes appears to lie in the fact that human perceptions create a world of unique actualitiesour experience is inevitably classicalwhile quantum reality is simply not that way at all...Since physics assures us that our lives are embedded in a thoroughly quantum world, is it so obvious that our experience must remain forever classical? (7) Occams Razor: It is vain to do with more assumptions what can be done with fewer assumptions. ii) The non-inherent nature of the apprehending mind: Examine the unborn nature of awareness. (1) Kevaddha Sutta: (a) Where do earth, water, fire and air no footing find? Where are long and short, small and great, fair and foulWhere are name and form wholly destroyed? Where consciousness is signless, boundless, allluminous, thats where earth, water, fire, and air find no footing, there both long and short, small and great, fair and foulThere name and form are wholly destroyed. With the cessation of consciousness this is all destroyed. (b) Nyananada Bhikkhu: In nirvana, the four elements have no basis, for the familiar categories of name and form, subject and object, mind and matter vanish with the disappearance of ordinary, conceptually conditioned consciousness. This is a corrective to the common notion that the four elements can cease altogether somewherea notion that has its roots in the popular conception of self-existing material elements. The Buddhas formulation of the question and the concluding line are meant to combat this misconception. (2) The S"tra of the Questions of K!#yapa: K$"yapa, the mind does not exist inside, nor outside, nor is it observed between the two. K$"yapa, the mind is unanalyzable, undemonstrable, non-appearing, unknowable, and without location. K$"yapa, even the Buddhas have not seen, do not see, and will

8 not see the mind. K$"yapa, even if the mind sought, it is unfindable. Whatever is unfindable is unobservable. Whatever is unobservable does not arise in the past, in the future, or in the present. (3) N$g$rjuna states in his Commentary on Bodhicitta: The mind is a mere label, and it is nothing other than a label. Recognize awareness as a mere label. Moreover, a label has no intrinsic nature. The Jinas do not find it inside, nor outside, nor in-between those two. Thus, the mind has the nature of an apparition, and the nature of the mind does not exist as a type of color or shape, as something apprehended or as an apprehender, as a man, a woman, or a neuter and so forth. In short, the buddhas have not seen it and they will not see it; they truly see it as having the nature of being without an intrinsic nature. (4) The Vajra Essence: (a) If you do not know how to distinguish between the mind and pristine awareness, you will confuse the mind for pristine awareness, which will unfortunately lead to obstacles to achieving the state of liberation. So know how to distinguish them! As for the mind, there is the deluded mind that clings to appearances, the mind that seeks the path by way of negation and affirmation, and the mind that takes consciousness as the path. (b) The deluded mind that clings to appearances is the ordinary mind of sentient beings who do not seek the path and who do not see an entrance to the authentic path. (c) The mind that seeks the path is said to take the mind as its path, for in this case, the mind observes the mind, thoughts are observed with a conceptual mind, and one seeks the path of merely arousing pleasure and pain through intellectual fabrications and the acceptance and rejection of virtue and vice. (d) As for the mind that takes consciousness as the path, the experience of unceasing, ordinary consciousness, which is the ground of the mind, is not the realization of the view. As a result of such practice, outer appearances are reduced to an ethically neutral state, and since those appearances are taken to be real, reification is not counteracted. Inwardly, your own body appears to be ethically neutral, so the fixation of reifying the body is not counteracted. And since both outer and inner appearances are taken to be ethically neutral and substantially existent, you do not transcend the mind, so that, too, is called the mind. Even if that were called pristine awarenesslike giving a boys name to an unborn fetusthe characteristic of ascertaining pristine awareness in itself would not have been realized. Unawareness is failing to realize sa%s$ra and nirv$&a as great emptiness, and the terms awareness and unawareness are known conventionally by way of their respective functions. (e) Pristine awareness first establishes everything included in the phenomenal world of sa%s$ra and nirv$&a as emptiness. The reflections of the planets and stars in the ocean have no existence apart

9 from the ocean, yet they are of the same nature as the play of the ocean. Likewise, rainbows in the sky have no existence apart from the sky, yet those appearances are of the same nature as the play of the sky. In the same manner, pristine awareness is actualized by correctly recognizing that things appear even though nothing exists from the side of appearances, and that all appearances of the physical world and its sentient inhabitants have no existence apart from the ground sugatagarbha; yet those appearances are of the same nature as the play of the ground sugatagarbha. (f) Like the dawn breaking in the sky, without needing to meditate, you comprehend sa%s$ra and nirv$&a as being totally subsumed within great enlightenment. Without need of examination, there is the selfawareness, without grasping, that the whole of sa%s$ra and nirv$&a is like the reflections of the planets and stars in the ocean. Without need of modification, there is natural liberation in the absolute space of the ground, the great purity and equality of sa%s$ra and nirv$&a. Without need of objectification, there is a spacious dissolution into the great expanse, with no object, obstruction, or intentionality. In this way you experience and gain mastery over the inexhaustible ornamental wheels of the body, speech, mind, enlightened qualities and enlightened activities of the jinas and jinaputras of the three times. (g) Ultimately, simply by identifying the dharmak!ya, pristine awareness that is present in the ground, you gain power over the life force of sa%s$ra and nirv$&a. This is not talking about receiving empowerment through such things as water and symbolic pictures that are used as methods to awaken the mind. Rather, you know you have obtained the empowerments of the jinas and jinaputras and the oral transmissions of all the writings that emerge from primordial consciousness, pristine awareness. Thus, you have already simultaneously obtained all empowerments and oral transmissions. Therefore, recognize the importance of not mistaking the mind for pristine awareness. (5) Padmasambhava: (a) Astonishing! The ongoing cognizance and luminosity called the mind exists, but does not exist even as a single thing. It arises, for it manifests as sa%s$ra and nirv$&a, and as a myriad of joys and sorrows. It is asserted, for it is asserted according to the twelve y!nas. It is a label, for it is named in unimaginable ways. Some people call it the ultimate reality of the mind. Some non-Buddhists call it the Self. The $r!vakas call it personal identitylessness. The Cittam$trins call it the mind. Some people call it the middle way. Some call it the perfection of wisdom. Some give it the name tath!gatagarbha. Some give it the name Mah$mudr$. Some give it the name ordinary consciousness. Some call it the sole bindu. Some give it the name dharmadh!tu. Some give it the name the universal ground (!laya). (b) To introduce this by pointing it out directly, past consciousness has disappeared without a trace. Moreover, future realization is unarisen,

10 and in the freshness of its own present, uncontrived way of being, there is the ordinary consciousness of the present. When it stares at itself, with this observation there is a vividness in which nothing is seen. Awarenessdirect, naked, vivid, unestablished, empty, limpid luminosity, unique, non-dual luminosity and emptiness. It is not permanent, but unestablished. It is not nihilistic, but radiantly vivid. It is not one, but is manifoldly aware and luminous. It is not manifold, but is indivisibly of one taste. It is none other than this very selfawareness. This is a real introduction to the primordial nature of being. In this the three embodiments of the buddhas are indivisibly complete. As utterly unestablished emptiness, it is the Dharmak$ya. As the clear radiance of emptiness, it is the Sambhogak$ya. Appearing everywhere without impediment, it is the Nirm$&ak$ya. Simple, singularly complete, it is the Svabh$vak$ya. To introduce this by pointing it out forcefully, it is your very own present consciousness. When it is this very unstructured, self-luminous consciousness, what do you mean, I do not realize the ultimate reality of the mind? (c) There is nothing here to meditate on, so what do you mean, it does not arise due to meditation? When it is just this direct awareness, what do you mean, I do not find my own mind? When it is just this uninterrupted clear awareness, what do you mean, the nature of the mind is not seen? When it is the very thinker of the mind, what do you mean, it is not found by seeking it? When there is nothing at all to do, what do you mean, it does not arise due to activity? When it is enough to leave it in its own unstructured state, what do you mean, it does not remain? When it is enough to let it be without doing anything, what do you mean, I cannot do it? When it is unified, indivisible clarity, awareness, and emptiness, what do you mean, it is affirmed and unaffirmed? When it is spontaneously self-arisen without causes or conditions, what do you mean, I cant do it? When the arising and release of thoughts are simultaneous, what do you mean, they do not occur together? When it is this very consciousness of the present, what do you mean, I do not recognize it? (d) The ultimate nature of the mind is certainly empty and without basis. Your mind is intangible like empty space. Is it like that or not? observe your own mind! Empty and void but not a nihilistic view, selfarisen, primordial consciousness is original, clear consciousness. Selfarisen and self-illuminating, it is like the essence of the sun. Is it like that or not?observe your own mind! Awareness, primordial consciousness, is certainly unceasing. Uninterrupted awareness is like the current of a river. Is it like that or not?observe your own mind! The dispersing thoughts of ideation are certainly not being grasped. This intangible dispersion is like a hazy sky. Is it like that or not? observe your own mind! Recognize all appearances as self-appearing. Self-appearing phenomena are like reflections in a mirror. Is it like that or not?observe your own mind! All signs are certainly released in

11 their own state. Self-arising and self-releasing, they are like clouds in the sky. Is it like that or not?observe your own mind! (2) The Vajra Essence: This ground is present in the mindstreams of all sentient beings, but it is tightly constricted by dualistic grasping; and it is regarded as external, firm, and solid. This is like water in its natural, fluid state freezing in a cold wind. It is due to dualistic grasping to subjects and objects that the ground, which is naturally free, becomes frozen into the appearances of things. (3) Science writer K. C. Cole (The Hole in the Universe): Like water freezing into ice and releasing its energy into its surroundings, the freezing of the vacuum liberates enormous amounts of energyAs simply as water freezing into ice, the inflated vacuum froze into the structure that gave rise to quarks, electrons, and eventually us. (4) Physicist Henning Genz (Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space): (a) Real systems are, in this sense, excitations of the vacuummuch as surface waves in a pond are excitations of the ponds waterthe properties of the physical vacuum define the possible excitationsthe possible systems that can emerge from the physical vacuumThe vacuum in itself is shapeless, but it may assume specific shapes. In doing so, it becomes a physical reality, a real world. (b) Maybe quantum mechanical fluctuations initiated not only the stuff our world was made of prior to inflation but also space-time itself. Maybe the true vacuum, the true nothing, of philosophy and religion should be seen as a state wholly innocent of laws, space, and time. This state can be thought of as nothing but a collection of possibilities of what might be. (5) Dalai Lama: Any given state of consciousness is permeated by the clear light of primordial awareness. However solid ice may be, it never loses its true nature, which is water. In the same way, even very obvious concepts are such that their place, as it were, their final resting place, does not fall outside the expanse of primordial awareness. They arise within the expanse of primordial awareness and that is where they dissolve. i) The non-inherent nature of all phenomena: Even the antidote itself is liberated in its own state. (1) The Vajra Essence: The ground is unmoving throughout the three times, and it does not change for the better or the worse, so it is called immutable. Because it is endowed with the seven qualities of the indestructible vajra, it is called vajra. These are its seven qualities: (a) invulnerable to all karmas, mental afflictions, and habitual propensities (b) indestructible by any objects or contributing conditions (c) real, for it abides in the originally pure intrinsic nature of the great, primordial ground of the whole of sa%s$ra and nirv$&a (d) incorruptible, for it cannot be contaminated by any good or bad qualities (e) immutable, for it is unfluctuating and unmoving throughout the three times

12 (f) totally unobstructable, for it can pierce even the most subtle cognitive obscurations in the absolute space of ultimate reality, which transcends causality (g) invincible, for it cannot be transformed by either sa%s$ra or nirv$&a (2) The Vajra Essence: Never, even for an instant, have you been separated from the originally pure ground, free of conceptual elaboration; but by failing to recognize it, you have not apprehended your own nature for yourself. As a consequence, you have been deluded by grasping to the true existence of the constant stream of joyful and painful appearances. Now with great wisdom you recognize manifest primordial consciousness, and by apprehending the profundity of your own state, you are self-liberated. This is like recognizing the wish-fulfilling gem and honoring it, which then frees you from poverty. (3) Padmasambhavas parable and its meaning (a) The parable: In the center of the land of Orgyen dwelled the vastly wealthy and powerful King 'k$"agarbha with his Queen Vimalaprabhini-manoj$, his son, Prince Kira&a, who was immature and foolish, and his wise minister S(ryana"im. On one occasion the prince went to a great festival and became entranced by the spectacle of an illusionists apparitions. As a result, he became deluded, forgot his identity and his home, and wandered for years as a vagrant, suffering miserably. Eventually, when the kingdom was falling into decline, he came to beg at the door of the minister S(ryana"im, who identified him and tried to persuade him that he was the prince. Prince Kira&a, feeling himself to be merely an unworthy beggar, did not believe him, and refused to enter his fathers palace. The minister told him what had happened to him and challenged him to examine his own identity, his parents, and his birthplace. The prince was stunned at what he didnt find, and asked the minister to reveal to him his actual nature and personal history. The prince was then enthroned. In an instant, while not discarding his identity as a beggar, he stopped living in the manner of a beggar. The misery of being a vagrant disappeared by itself, and the kingdom and all his subjects without exception came under his rule. And they lived in great joy and happiness. (b) The meaning: (i) King 'k$"agarbha = not falling to the extremes of sa%s!ra or nirv!na (ii) Vimala-prabhini-manoj$ = dwelling with the displays of the luminosity of your own mind (iii) Prince Kira&a = neither realizing nor being deluded by the momentarily arising expressions of the creative power of your own mind (iv) Minister S(ryana"im = the spiritual mentor with realization who teaches out of compassion (c) Padmasambhava: Just as the prince did not know he was a prince and became a beggar, you fail to recognize the ultimate reality of your own

13 mind as the dharmak$ya, and you wander in the cycle of existence. Just as the minister recognized the prince and brought him to the seat of royalty, the spiritual mentor identifies the ultimate nature of your mind as the dharmak$ya; and upon becoming freed from the suffering of sa%s$ra, you achieve the excellent qualities of a buddha. ii) Releasing the mind in a state of non-grasping: Rest in the essential nature of the universal ground. (1) Buddha: For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who does no cling, there is no motion. Where there is no motion, there is stillness. Where there is stillness, there is no craving. Where there is no craving, there is neither coming nor going. Where there is no coming or going, there is neither arising nor passing away. Where there is neither arising nor passing away, there is neither this world nor a world beyond, nor a state between. This, truly, is the end of suffering. Ud!na 8:3 (2) The Vajra Essence: Previously, your intellect demarcated outer from inner and grasped to them as being distinct. Now, ascertaining that there is no outer and inner, you come upon the nature of great, all-pervasive openness, which is called meditation free of the intellect and devoid of activity. In such a meditative state, motionlessly rest your body without modifying it, like a corpse in a charnel ground. Let your voice rest unmodified, dispensing with all speech and recitations, as if your voice were a lute with its strings cut. Let your mind rest without modification, naturally releasing it in the state of primordial being, without altering it in any way. For the three, dispensing with activities of the body, speech, and mind, you settle in meditative equipoise that is devoid of activity. For that reason, this is called meditative equipoise. (3) The Vajra Essence: Leaving your body, speech, and mind in a state of inactivity is the unsurpassed, supreme technique for inserting the vital energy and mind into the central channel. (4) H. H. the Dalai Lama: When you rest the mind, putting it out of work, the vital energies naturally become refined, and solely by non-conceptual meditation, you slip into the clear light with the mind and vital energies. This requires settling in complete inactivity, which is not easy! (5) The ultimate substrate: the union of ultimate nature of reality (dharmat!) and the ultimate nature of the mind (cittat!) (6) The Vajra Essence: As for meditation, throughout beginningless lifetimes in sa%s$ra, the original, primordial ground, Samantabhadra, has pervaded the mindstreams of all sentient beings, just as sesame oil pervades sesame seeds. However, under the influence of dualistic grasping and clinging to true existence, the mind becomes dimmed, as if by darkness, and deluded. But now, apart from identifying your own nature, there is nothing whatsoever on which to meditate, and you thereby gain freedom for yourself. As a result of holding your own ground, freedom is experienced in the domain of pristine space, unstructured and unmodified by the intellect, and you are infinitely immersed in great, self-emergent, primordial rest. This is like space merging with space.

14 (7) Sera Khandro: Four Kinds of Open Presence (a) Regarding the view of open presence, the great, uniform pervasiveness of the view transcends intellectual grasping to signs, does not succumb to bias or extremes, and realizes unconditioned reality, which is like space. (b) Regarding the meditation of open presence, just as the water of the great ocean is unfathomable, whatever arises is none other than the nature of ultimate reality. Just as water is permeated by limpid luminosity, in ultimate reality there is no sa%s$ra or nirv$&a, no joy or sorrow, and so forth, for one realizes that everything dissolves into uniform pervasiveness as displays of clear light. (c) Regarding the pristine awareness of open presence, just as the supreme mountain in the center of this world system is unmovable, pristine awareness transcends time, without wavering even for an instant from the nature of its own great luminosity. (d) Regarding appearances and the mental processes of open presence, all appearing phenomena are naturally empty and self-illuminating. They are not apprehended by the intellect, not grasped by the mind, and not adjusted by awareness. Rather, they dissolve into great uniform pervasiveness, so they are liberated with no basis for acceptance or rejection, no distinction between luminosity and emptiness, and no ambivalence. (e) To summarize all these points, the Great Perfection of ultimate reality is the great, universal basis of sa%s$ra, nirv$&a, and the three paths, as well as the great absolute space that encompasses sa%s$ra, nirv$&a, and the three paths. Truly perceiving its character and nature of being is the view; and when you see your own nature, you gain mastery over the great, original, primordial ground of being. By holding your own ground within yourself, pristine awareness awakens to its own nature; and meditationwithout wavering from great uniform pervasiveness, free of conceptual elaborationsis devoid of any objective referent. When a water drop merges with the ocean, it is indivisible from the ocean; and the one space on the outside and inside of a broken vase cannot be differentiated, but extends into a single, all-pervasive space. Likewise, in the identification within yourself of the dharmak$ya, pristine awareness that is present in the ground, there is nothing to be altered and nothing else with which to engage. iii) Post-meditative practice: Between sessions, act as an illusory being. (1) The impure illusory body (a) Padmasambhava: Consider that since these things, which are without permanence, stability, or immutability, have no inherent nature, they are like illusions. (b) Your body and mind and you are simply dependently related events, but apart from these mere illusory, delusive appearances, there is no real body, mind or person.

15 (c) The distinction between minor emptiness and great emptiness and the parallel with a quantum system and quantum cosmology (d) Regard your own and others speech as being like echoes. (e) Regard all mentation as being like mirages. (f) Regard all the eight mundane concerns, all situations of attachment and anger, in the same way, and equalize them with insight. (2) The pure illusory body (a) Cultivate a pure vision of all physical appearances as being embodiments of enlightened consciousness, all sounds as the voice of the enlightened ones, and all mentation as the enlightened mind. (b) Imagine your own body as being of the nature of pure light, devoid of inherent existence, and your own speech and mind as utterly pure. (i) William James: For the moment what we attend to is reality. (ii) If everything exists in dependence upon its conceptual designation, then we may influence the reality we experience by choosing what and how we wish to engage in such designations. (iii) The fusion of intelligence with spiritual intuition (primordial consciousness) as the swift path to enlightenment, while intelligence alone will suffice but take immensely longer. (iv) The emergence of primordial consciousness through the cultivation of virtue and through the cultivation of pure vision. (v) At all times behave as if you were merely an apparition, like a character in a lucid dream. (vi) Be on guard against reification and decontextualization at all times, for this is the basis of all self-centered craving, all anger and hatred, and all pride and jealousy. (vii) Dzogchen: All things appear, but are non-existent. b) Relative Bodhicitta i) Alternately practice sending and taking. (1) Buddha: Wisdom without compassion is bondage. Compassion without wisdom is bondage. (2) At!"a: Only the Tibetans know how to develop bodhicitta without cultivating loving-kindness and compassion. (3) H. H. the Dalai Lama: My religion is cultivating a good heart. (4) Compassion (a) The dangers of "amatha without compassion (b) Realization of emptiness may be discovering the greatest treasure or discovering the greatest loss. (c) Relationship between compassion and insight into emptiness (d) How can we bear compassion? H.H. the Dalai Lama: Sometimes compassion becomes unbearable without the wisdom of emptiness. (e) Dependent origination and compassion (f) The distinction between compassion and hatred (g) The need to cultivate abiding, rather than episodic, compassion. (Cf. Tibetan yogi watching a film on the genocide in Tibet: Im not seeing

16 anything here that Im not aware of already, constantly, with respect to all sentient beings.) (h) The near enemy of compassion is despair; cruelty is its far enemy; the proximate cause of compassion is seeing the helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering, but also seeing hope for their relief; it succeeds when it makes cruelty subside, and it fails when it produces despair. (i) Tibetan yogi Gen Thuthob: In the cultivation of compassion, first empathetic sorrow arises, but when compassion takes over, the sorrow is left behind, and one is constructively focused on alleviating others suffering, rather than simply suffering with them. (5) Loving-kindness (a) The distinction between loving-kindness and attachment (b) The near enemy of loving-kindness is attachment, for like an enemy it masquerades as a friend; malice is its far enemy; its proximate cause is seeing loveableness in beings; it succeeds when it makes malice subside, and it fails when it produces selfish affection. (6) The actual practice of giving and taking, or tonglen: (a) Imagine first your own mother in the space in front of you, then gradually other sentient beings, while cultivating loving-kindness and compassion for them. (b) Recall your mothers kindness from the time you were in her womb, and recall the suffering to which she is still subject. (c) Take on the responsibility of bringing her all manner of happiness and protect her from all harm. (d) Imagine taking all your mothers suffering and its causes into your heart. (e) Thinking, I shall bring about complete joy for my mother, offer all your possessions, virtues, and happiness to her without reservation, yielding everything she needs for her temporal and ultimate happiness. (f) As a result, imagine her attaining perfect enlightenment. (g) The measure of success is actually being able to take on her suffering without regard for yourself. ii) Mount them both upon your breath. (1) Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: Dont be dismayed if your mind becomes clouded and obscurations seem to increase: not a bad sign. (2) Focus especially on those who have committed great evils. c) Post-meditative practice: Three objects, three poisons, and three roots of virtue. (1) Three objects refers to three categories of people (or objects): people you like, people you dont like, and people towards whom you feel neutral. (2) The three poisons are aroused in us: people we like arouse the poison of self-centered attachment; people we dont like arouse aversion; people toward whom we feel neutral arouse indifference.

17 (3) The three roots of virtue entail transmuting attachment into lovingkindness, aversion into compassion, and indifference into warm-hearted equanimity. (a) May this represent the attachment of all living beings, and may all living beings be free of this attachment that is formed and overcome in my mind. May all beings experience happiness that arises from being free from this attachment. (b) May this represent the anger and aversion of all living beings, and may all living beings be free of anger and aversion, and may all beings experience happiness that arises from being totally free from anger and aversion. (c) May this be the end of ignorance of all living beings and may they all have the happiness that arises from being free. (4) When the three poisons arise with respect to the three types of objects, regard with compassion all those who are subject to the same afflictions. (5) Imagine taking all those afflictions upon yourself, praying that others may have your roots of virtue to free them from those afflictions. ii) During all activities, train with phrases. (1) May the suffering and its causes of all sentient beings ripen upon me! (2) May the causes of my well-being ripen upon all sentient beings! (3) Practice until you obtain signs of success, as in the case of Maitriyogin: When Maitriyogin was teaching, a dog barked at someone, who, losing his temper, threw a stone at it. The dog was hit in the ribs and yelped. Feeling great sorrow for the animal, the teacher cried out and fell down from the throne. This is taking things a bit too far, thought his disciples. Knowing what was in their minds, Maitriyogin said, Look here, at my ribs. And on his body, exactly where the stone had hit the dog, he had a bruise. He had taken the suffering of the animal upon himself. iii) Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself. Begin the practice of sending and taking by focusing on yourself, then focusing on a friend in trouble and need; and eventually extend this loving-kindness and compassion to all beings, both near and far. iv) Summing up: All suffering stems from the delusion of grasping to true existence and to self-centeredness. The cultivation of ultimate bodhicitta counteracts the first, and the cultivation of relative bodhicitta counteracts the second. 3) Transforming Adversity into an Aid to Spiritual Awakening a) In dependence upon relative bodhicitta: When the physical world and its sentient inhabitants are enslaved by vices, transform adversities into the path of spiritual awakening. i) All adversity arises from misdeeds done in the past, and when you think nothing can be done to remedy them, they arise as obstacles. ii) Chen-ngawa: If you have the will to practice in the face of physical and mental suffering, they become blessings from the objects of refuge. So apply all suffering to the two types of Bodhicitta. iii) Relative bodhicitta of aspiring for spiritual awakening

18 (1) Distinguish between your true enemyself-centeredness and selfgraspingand your true friendconcern for others. (2) The impossibility of releasing self-centeredness as long as we are banking on the eight mundane concerns for our happiness. (3) Can we trust that there is some power in the universe that will bring us what we need if we dont grasp after it with self-centeredness? (4) Self-acceptance or recognizing internal enemies? cf. Flu. b) Blame everything on one culprit. Self-grasping. i) )$ntideva: VIII, 134: If all the harm, fear, and suffering in the world occur due to grasping onto the self, what use is that great demon to me? ii) From identification of self to identification of others, to attachment to self to aversion to others, and from them, all problems. iii) This has always been our fundamental problem, and it will remain so until we identify our true enemy. iv) )$ntideva: IV, 34: How can I take delight in the cycle of existence when constant, long-lasting enemies, who are the sole cause of the perpetuation of a mass of adversities, fearlessly dwell in my heart? v) )$ntideva: VIII, 130: Enough of much talk! Note the difference between the fool who seeks his own benefit and the sage who works for the benefit of others. vi) Ben Knkyen: I stand at guard at the gateway of my mind with the spear of antidotes in hand. If my adversaries press in, I press back; if they lighten up, I lighten up. Cf. Mao Zedongs guerrilla warfare tactic. vii) Analogy of self-centeredness to bearing a bundle of thorns on a naked back. viii) The degree to which self-grasping diminishes is the degree to which your spiritual practice has been effective. Put it to the pragmatic test! c) Nondually cherishing sentient beings: Meditate on everyone as being very kind. i) Especially cultivate love and compassion for those who harm you, and practice tonglen. ii) The cultivation of love: regarding all sentient beings as your own kin, look upon them with affection, hold them with kindness, protect them from harm, and provide them with happiness. iii) The cultivation of compassion: They harmed me solely out of delusion, but in the past they have served me, and due to their mental afflictions, they continue to wander helplessly in the cycle of existence. iv) Repaying the kindness of others by means of the practice of tonglen. v) The spiritual value of the wide range of human experience. d) In dependence upon ultimate bodhicitta: By meditating on delusive appearances as the four k!yas, emptiness is the unsurpassed protection. i) Ascertain that all phenomena, including those that inflict harm, are solely delusive appearances to your own mind. Ultimately no phenomenon has its own inherent existence; all are like apparitions emerging from space. ii) Both the aggressor and I are simply non-inherent awareness; and there can be no harm from one to the other, just as the space in the east cannot hurt the space in the west.

19 iii) The absence of inherent existence of everything, including your own mental afflictions, is the dharmak!ya. iv) That which is unborn is unceasing, and that unceasing luminosity is the sambhogak!ya. v) That which is unborn and unceasing is also nonabiding, and that nonabidingness is the nirm!&ak!ya. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: the empty, reflection-like nature of phenomena is the nirm!&ak!ya. vi) The non-inherent nature of all phenomena, as they are not established in any of the three times, is the svabh!vak!ya: the indivisibility of the three embodiments. vii) By recognizing that your own mind is unborn, unceasing, and nonabiding, you may ascertain that it is free of all impurities and is none other than the four k$yas. viii) Be grateful to those who harm you, for their kindness spurs you on to practice; they show you how far you have matured; cf. Mongolian Buddhist view of the Communist persecution of Buddhism in Mongolia; HHDL on the Chinese communist invasion and genocide of Tibet. ix) Therefore, the benefit of enemies is just like that of your spiritual mentor and the Buddha, so regard them as emanations of the Buddha. x) View illness in the same way, as a spur to practice and not simply as an obstacle to mundane pleasure. xi) Adversity gives rise to a spirit of emergence and to compassion, so view all types of adversity as emanations of your spiritual mentor. xii) In this way, your whole life becomes Dharma. e) A special practice for accumulating merit and purifying obscurations: The best of methods is to have four practices. i) Accumulate merit (1) The means to develop beneficial habitual propensities, which nurture ones spiritual maturation. (2) Counteract mundane hopes and fears by yearning that all situations, agreeable and disagreeable, may lead you to spiritual awakening. ii) Purify vices by means of the four remedial powers (1) Remorse for past wrong-doings (2) Resolve to turn away from misconduct (3) Support: taking refuge and cultivating compassion (4) Engaging in purifying practices iii) Make offerings to spirits (1) Do spirits exist as anything other than figments of certain peoples imaginations? Cf. Thomas Sprat, Isaac Newton & Ddjom Lingpa. (2) Science has no objective means of detecting the presence or function of consciousness (human or otherwise), so how could it possibly make any empirical judgments about the existence of spirits? (3) Make gifts to those who harm you out of gratitude for their aid to your spiritual practice.

20 (4) If you cant do that, offer gifts with loving-kindness and compassion, praying that they stop afflicting you so that they wont have to suffer the karmic consequences of their deeds. iv) Make offerings to the Dharma Protectors (1) H.H. the Dalai Lama: Let the Buddha himself be your Dharma protector. Who has more power to protect your practice? (2) Let your cultivation of relative and ultimate Bodhicitta protect your practice. Here is the true refuge. f) Post-meditative yoga: Whatever you encounter, immediately apply it to meditation. i) Whatever adversity strikes, apply it to the cultivation of bodhicitta. (1) In the case of illness, getting mugged, robbed, and all other misfortunes and disappointments, consider that the whole world is this way, so cultivate compassion, imagining taking on everyone elses suffering in addition to your own. (2) Do the same in the event of mental afflictions arising in your mind, imagining others to be freed from those afflictions and abiding in joy. (3) All practices of transforming adversity into the path are designed to counteract mundane hope and fear. (4) As long as you indulge in mundane hope and fear, you will not be able to transform adversities into the path. (5) Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: Eventually by the power of bodhicitta, we will be free even from the hope of accomplishing bodhicitta and the fear of not doing so. (6) Langri Thangpa: by training in this way with regard to friends and enemies the crooked tree of the mind is made straight. 4) A Synthesis of Practice for One Life a) To synthesize the essence of this practical guidance, apply yourself to the five powers. i) The power of resolution: Never to be separated from the two bodhicittas. ii) The power of familiarization (1) Never to be distracted from that training (2) )$ntideva, VI: 14: With familiarization, there is nothing whatsoever that does not become easier. iii) The power of positive seeds: Constant devotion to your spiritual practice in all its diversity & richness. iv) The power of revulsion (1) Revulsion for self-grasping and self-centeredness, which have brought us suffering for countless lives. (2) Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: Hit the pig on the nose; clean the lamp while it is still warm. v) The power of prayer (1) Pray never, in all your lives, to be separated from the two bodhicittas, from genuine spiritual mentors, and from the Dharma. (2) Karma versus prayer & receiving blessings

21 (3) According to a poll published in the Scientific American in 1914, 40% of scientists stated that they believed in God. A poll with the same set of questions was again conducted in 1997, also reported in the Scientific American, and it indicated that 40% of scientists still believe in God. A more recent survey indicated that 60% of scientists claim to believe in God. (4) Is the universe causally closed physically, i.e., can there be no nonphysical causes in the natural world? (a) According to the energy-time Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the conservation of energy principle is violated regularly, and the shorter the violation, the greater it can be. (b) Twenty-two percent of the gravitational force in the universe is unaccounted for, so it is attributed to dark matter. Seventy-four percent of the force in the universe that opposes gravity and causes the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is also unaccounted for, so this is attributed to dark energy. The nature of this so-called energy is unknown, hence the qualifier dark. (c) Although physicists dont know the nature of either dark matter or dark energy, they are confident that these unknown entities, existing in the objective universe, independently of our measurements, do fit within our human notion of physical. The designation is clearly tautological: if something exists, even if its nature is completely unknown, it is declared to be physical. (d) In terms of explanatory power, whats the difference between these hypotheses about physical dark matter and energy vs. attributing these effects to non-physical seraphim and cherubim? (e) The unexplained causal efficacy of the placebo effect, which, like real drugs, can cause side-effects like itching, diarrhea, and nausea, and can lead to changes in pulse rate, blood pressure, electrical skin resistance, gastric function, penis engorgement, hair growth, and skin conditions. (f) The causal efficacy of information, which is non-physical (5) English mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford (1845 1879): It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. (6) Counter-examples: (a) Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileos belief in the heliocentric theory before there was any compelling evidence to affirm it over the Ptolemaic system, with its eccentrics and epicycles (b) Newton considered himself to be one of a select group of individuals who were specially chosen by God for the task of understanding Biblical scripture. He also believed our world was to be replaced with a new one based upon a transition to an era of divinely inspired peace in the year 2060. It appears that one of the main goals of his alchemical research was the discovery of The Philosopher's Stone (a material believed to turn base metals into gold), and perhaps to a lesser

22 extent, the discovery of the Elixir of Life. He reportedly believed that an alchemical demonstration producing a dendritic growth of silver from solution was evidence that metals possessed a sort of life. Darwins belief that his theory was sufficient for explaining the evolution of species and the anomaly of human intelligence Lord Kelvin (1891), One thing we are sure of, and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether (disproven by the renowned Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887). Soviet biologist Aleksandr Oparins belief (1924) that the first living organisms formed spontaneously out of nonliving substances, implying a smooth continuum from inorganic to organic matter, reinforced by American biologist Stanley Millers finding (1953) that exposed gases simulating Earths early atmosphere to an electric discharge produced amino acids, suggesting a chemical basis for the emergence of living organisms. The amino acids that Miller created may be likened to individual screws in a functioning watch, which corresponds to a living cell. Individual screws are needed to make a watch, just as amino acids are needed in the formation of a cell. But isolated amino acids are dead matter incapable of the interactions that characterize a living cell. A watchmaker knows how to assemble a watch from screws and other mechanical components, but biologists have made little progress in artificially transforming amino acids into a living organism. Neuroscientists beliefs that the mind is the brain, or else a function or emergent property of the brain, despite all contrary evidence, simply because they cannot imagine how non-physical mental processes could interact with the brain. Eric Kandel, recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Our understanding of the biology of mental disorders has been slow in coming, but recent advances like these have shown us that mental disorders are biological in nature, that people are not responsible for having schizophrenia or depression, and that individual biology and genetics make significant contributions The brain is a complex biological organ possessing immense computational capability: it constructs our sensory experience, regulates our thoughts and emotions, and controls our actions. It is responsible not only for relatively simple motor behaviors like running and eating, but also for complex acts that we consider quintessentially human, like thinking, speaking and creating works of art. Looked at from this perspective, our mind is a set of operations carried out by our brain. The same principle of unity applies to mental disorders. Biologist J.P.S. Haldane, geneticist and evolutionary biologist, generally credited with a central role in the development of neoDarwinian thinking (Possible Worlds and Other Papers, 1927, p. 286) 1927): I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that

(c) (d) (e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

23 the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. (i) Max Planck: (i) Science advances one funeral at a time. (ii) (Religion und Naturwissenschaft, 1958): Under these conditions it is no wonder, that the movement of atheists, which declares religion to be just a deliberate illusion, invented by power-seeking priests, and which has for the pious belief in a higher Power nothing but words of mockery, eagerly makes use of progressive scientific knowledge and in a presumed unity with it, expands in an ever faster pace its disintegrating action on all nations of the earth and on all social levels. I do not need to explain in any more detail that after its victory not only all the most precious treasures of our culture would vanish, but which is even worse also any prospects at a better future. (iii) Much as the lancet fluke and other manipulative parasites cause their hosts to engage in unlikelyeven suicidalways, all for the benefit of the guest, not the host, so has the dogma of scientific materialism commandeered modern science, causing it to continue to neglect the empirical observation of mental phenomena, often stupefying the mind, and at times arousing suicidal tendencies in its hosts. (7) Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson: As a scientist, I need something better than your eyewitness testimony. Because even if in the court of law eyewitness testimony is a high form of evidence, in the court of science it is the lowest form of evidence you could possibly put forth. (8) Michael Shermer: (a) Skepticism is . . . the application of reason to any and all ideasno sacred cows allowed. In other words . . . skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are skeptical, we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. (b) Everybody has eyes and ears and a brain that perceives and so on. I think theyre all equally unreliable as eyewitnesses. Were very bad at recounting things we think we saw. (9) Psychologist Anne Treisman: Perception is a kind of externally guided hallucination. We create experience rather that photographing it. Psychologists regard subjective reports as data, rather than as factual accounts. (Hallucinations involve sensing things while awake that appear to be real, but instead have been created by the mind. There are few treatments for many types of hallucinations. However, for those hallucinations caused by mental disease, a psychologist or psychiatrist should be alerted, and treatment will be based on the observations of those doctors.)

24 (10) Robert Sharf, Professor of Buddhist Studies and Chair of the Center for Buddhist Studies and Director of the Group in Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley: (a) Scholars of religion are not presented with experiences that stand in need of interpretation but rather with texts, narratives, performances, and so forth. (b) Thus, while experienceconstrued as that which is immediately presentmay indeed be both irrefutable and indubitable, we must remember that whatever epistemological certainty experience may offer is gained only at the expense of any possible discursive meaning or significance. To put it another way, all attempts to signify inner experience are destined to remain well-meaning squirms that get us nowhere. (11) William James: (a) Where preferences are powerless to modify or produce things, faith is totally inappropriate, he wrote, but for the class of truths that depend on personal preference, trust, or loyalty for actualization, faith is not only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. [Such] truths cannot become true till our faith has made them so. (b) In what manner do we espouse and hold fast to visions? By thinking a conception might be true somewhere, it may be true even here and now; it is fit to be true and it ought to be true; it must be true; it shall be true for me. (i) When queried about his many unsuccessful attempts to invent an electric light bulb, Thomas Edison responded to a New York Times reporter, I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work. (ii) Thomas Edison: Many of lifes failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. (c) Philosophy is more a matter of passionate vision than of logic, . . . logic only finding reasons for the vision afterwards. (d) Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and their conditions. The phenomena are such things as we call feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, and the like (e) I say empiricism, because it is contented to regard its most assured conclusions concerning matters of fact as hypotheses liable to modification in the course of future experience; and I say radical, because it treats the doctrine of monism itself as an hypothesis, and unlike so much of the half-way empiricism that is current under the name of positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism, it does not dogmatically affirm monism as something with which all experience has got to square. (Occams Razor: It is vain to do with more assumptions what can be done with fewer assumptions.)

25 (f) Introspective Observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always. The word introspection need hardly be definedit means, of course, the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover. Everyone agrees that we there discover states of consciousness. (g) Introspection is difficult and fallible; and ... the difficulty is simply that of all observation of whatever kind... The only safeguard is in the final consensus of our farther knowledge about the thing in question, later views correcting earlier ones, until at last the harmony of a consistent system is reached. (h) Psychology, indeed, is today hardly more than what physics was before Galileo. (i) Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I believe that a new era of religion as well as philosophy will be ready to begin. ... I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural ally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life. (j) He proposed a science of religion that differs from philosophical theology by drawing inferences and devising imperatives based on a scrutiny of the immediate content of religious consciousness. Such a science can offer mediation between different believers, and help to bring about consensus of opinion. Even the personally nonreligious might accept its conclusions on trust, much as blind persons now accept the facts of opticsit might appear as foolish to refuse them. (k) Richard Feynman: It is only through refined measurements and careful experimentation that we can have a wider vision. And then we see unexpected things: we see things that are far from what we would guessfar from what we could have imagined. . . . If science is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting resultsthe results must be reported without somebody saying what they would like the results to have been . . . One of the ways of stopping science would be only to do experiments in the region where you know the law. But experimenters search most diligently, and with the greatest effort, in exactly those places where it seems most likely that we can prove our theories wrong. In other words we are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress. (l) Geoffrey Carr (Science Editor of The Economist): My guess is that we wont really understand consciousness until we have a paradigm shiftthat somebody will wake up one morning and say Eureka! A new wave of thought will then probably emerge, and that will be the basis of a proper theory of consciousness. (m) The reductionist beliefs of materialism are preventing physicists from making any headway in terms of solving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics; preventing biologists from making any headway in terms of discovering the origins of life; and preventing

26 cognitive scientists from understanding consciousness and the role of the mind in human existence and the natural world. (n) What is needed in todays world is a Protestant Reformation of the Church Scientific, a Renaissance of contemplative inquiry among the worlds religions, and the first Revolution in the mind sciences. (o) Kadampa aphorism: Do not rely on the individual, rely on the Dharma. Do not rely on the words, rely on the meaning. Do not rely on the provisional meaning, rely on the definitive meaning. Do not rely on conditioned consciousness, rely on primordial consciousness. b) The Mah!y!na teaching on transferring consciousness is precisely these five powers, so your conduct is crucial. i) The power of positive seeds: Give up all your material goods to your objects of refuge with a sense of fearlessness regarding the hereafter. ii) The power of prayer: disclose all misdeeds, take refuge, make offerings, and ask for blessings to sustain the two Bodhicittas during the Bardo and future lives, to meet with spiritual mentors, and to be led by them on the path of joy. iii) The power of revulsion: Self-grasping is the source of all misery, so determine not to latch onto a body in the Bardo, but let your mind dissolve into space. iv) The power of resolve: to recall the two Bodhicittas in the Bardo and to train in them. v) The power of familiarization: the constant practice of the two Bodhicittas. c) Final advice on dying i) Adopt the sleeping lion posture. ii) Relative Bodhicitta: cultivate love & compassion and conjoin tonglen with your breathing. (1) Ultimate Bodhicitta: Consider, All of sa%s!ra and nirv!&a consists of delusive appearances. The mind-itself has never been other than the Dharmak$ya, so there is nothing in me that can die. (2) Alternate the practices of relative and ultimate Bodhicitta as you die. (3) If you cannot do that, identify your mind-itself as the Dharmak$ya, perceive the character of sa%s!ra and nirv!&a as neither to be accepted or rejected, and rest in reality-itself, in the state in which the mind-itself is not transferred. At!"a: there is no more wondrous counsel on dying than this. 5) The Criteria for Having Trained the Mind a) The whole of Dharma is synthesized in one aim. Namely, subduing self-grasping. i) All hearing, thinking, and meditation is aimed at eliminating grasping onto the self, which, upon examination, has no existence whatsoever in and of itself. ii) Examine: do all your physical, verbal, and mental activities enhance or diminish self-grasping? If they reinforce self-grasping, all your spiritual practice is heading for the eight mundane concerns and your self-

27 aggrandizement in this life. In that case, your whole practice is misguided. If they attenuate your self-grasping, that is the real point of your study and practice. iii) Once we release self-grasping, we have the opportunity to begin to realize our actual natureprimordial awareness. b) Maintain the chief of two witnesses. i) Others may praise you as an exemplar Dharma practitioner, but they are not the chief witnesses, for they see only small portions of your overall behavior, and they do not fathom the depths of your heart and mind. ii) Distinguish between mundane concern over what the neighbors think and meaningful regard for others. c) Constantly resort to a sense of good cheer. i) Once you have gained the taste of Dharma through your mind-training, whatever adversity strikes, be content to respond to it with the practice of the two Bodhicittas, without being discouraged, hassled, grumpy, or frustrated. That is a criterion of success in this practice. ii) Observe throughout the course of the day exactly what situations erode your sense of good cheer, and learn to apply the two Bodhicittas to them. iii) By cultivating a sense of welcome towards all types of felicity and adversity, you will accept everything with gladness. Consequently, your meditative experience and realizations will never collapse. That is a criterion of success. iv) Whatever troubles you experience as a result of your tonglen practice, consider that you are indeed taking on the miseries of others, and take satisfaction in that. v) In short, if all adversities arise as aids to your practice, without disgruntlement, that is a sign of success. vi) Whether or not something arises as an adversity depends not simply on the nature of the event, but on our own appraisal of it. This, in turn, depends on what we value mostthe pursuit of spiritual awakening or the satisfaction of our mundane desires. vii) Even illness, disgrace, and death itself are not intrinsically instances of adversity. Begin applying the practices to small adversities, then increase your range. viii) Faith is a great boon to this practicenot blind beliefbut a kind of faith invokes a deep reality into our experience. ix) Bodhisattvas are known by their conduct. 6) The Pledges of the Mind-training a) Always practice the three principles. i) Do not contravene your commitments to training the mind. (1) Not being dismissive of vows or ethics. (2) Not regarding this mind-training to be all that is needed, while being dismissive of other teachings. ii) Do not have a sense of bravado in your mind-training. e.g., seeking out dangerous people or situations in order to demonstrate the potency of your practice.

28 iii) b) Do not have an uneven mind-training. e.g., bearing harm from humans but not non-humans, respecting some while despising others, loving some and hating others. Change your priorities, but stay as you are. i) Mentally practice tonglen, without ever disengaging from practice, but let your physical and verbal conduct remain as it was. ii) Dont verbally express your virtues to others, or radically alter your behavior; rather, while bringing about a great change in your mind, do not draw others attention to your practice or progress. iii) Potowa: Let your mind mature spiritually without others knowing of it. iv) The radical difference between modern Western custom and Buddhist tradition regarding this point. Do not speak of others limitations. i) The reference is to not speaking of others spiritual or mundane faults. ii) When is it legitimate to speak of others faults? Never? Think nothing of the other side. i) Regarding other sentient beings in general, especially Dharma practitioners, and most especially your own Dharma companions, it is never appropriate to dwell on their faults. ii) Limitations of the black-box approach to knowing someones mind; underdetermination. iii) Attention, reality, and pure perception. Abandon all hope of rewards. i) Abandon all hopes of gaining high status in this life, respect, fame, magical powers of healing, fortunate rebirth, your own liberation, and even your own perfect enlightenment. ii) As soon as such ambition arises, forces seem to arise that obstruct its fulfillment. Avoid poisoned food. i) Acting out of self-interest, while not regarding self-grasping as the enemy and without rejecting self-cherishing. ii) Whatever Dharma you practice while grasping onto the true existence of phenomena acts perpetuates your sa%s!ra, you die in sa%s!ra, and suffering is induced. Do not indulge in self-righteousness. i) Avoid flaring up in indignation and resentment at the misdeeds of others. ii) Attend closely to the circumstances under which others vices emerge, and the influences that have led to your own virtues, such as they may be. Do not engage in malicious sarcasm. Whether your words are true or not, avoid harsh speech directed toward anyone, dear or not. Do not wait in ambush. Avoid holding a grudge and retaliating when your target is off guard, and avoid seeking out others faults. Do not load the burden of a dzo on an ox. (a dzo is a cross between a yak and an ox). If there is an undesirable task or responsibility that is rightfully yours, do not deviously shift it to someone else. Do not flatter to get on top. Flatter neither yourself nor others.

c) d)

e)

f)

g)

h) i) j) k)

29 l) Avoid pretense. e.g., any kind of practice in which your inner motivation is at variance with your outer conduct. m) Do not bring a god down to the level of a demon. i) If you serve a mundane god, it may help you, but if you show disrespect, it will retaliate like a demon. ii) The mind-training is for subduing yourself, but it is corrupted if it results in a sense of superiority, a sense of being an outstanding Dharma practitioner, while regarding others as inferior. iii) Regard yourself as the least of servants to all. iv) We practice to overcome our afflictions. Be well, not proud. n) Do not take advantage of anothers misfortune. i) E.g., taking satisfaction in anothers misfortune. ii) Gladly anticipating a relatives death so that you can get your inheritance. iii) Meditate rather on your actions and their consequences. 7) The Practices of the Mind-Training a) Practice all contemplations by means of one. i) Transform all tasks, duties, and concerns into this Seven-point Mind Training, with its emphasis on the two Bodhicittas. ii) Overcome the division between mundane pursuits and Dharma, not by making Dharma mundane, but by elevating the mundane to Dharma. b) Respond in one way to all dejection. i) Dejection may come from lack of confidence in the practice, thinking, I get sick due to practicing, people despise me, and my afflictions, such as selfgrasping, are actually growing stronger. ii) Recognize such disillusionment, and consider that many meet with discouragement while living in ways contrary to the Dharma, and practice tonglen towards them. c) There are two tasks, at the beginning and the end. Cultivate bodhicitta at the beginning of the day, then maintain it with introspection, and finally dedicate the merits at the end of the day. i) D. Bear whichever of the two occurs. In the midst of felicity and adversity, continue practicing, noting the relativity of both. d) Guard the two at the cost of your life. Regard the two Bodhicittas as more precious than life itself. e) Practice the three austerities. i) (a) Remembering the remedies for mental afflictions, and (b) averting and (c) cutting off the flow of mental afflictions as soon as they arise. ii) Know the defining characteristics of afflictions in theory and in daily experience. f) Adopt the three principle causes. i) Following a qualified mentor. ii) Devoting ourselves to all stages of the practice iii) Cultivate the outer and inner conditions for fruitful practice, including faith, intelligence, and zeal; tonglen. g) Cultivate three things without letting them deteriorate. i) Faith and reverence for your spiritual mentor.

30 ii) Enthusiasm for training your mind. iii) Conscientiousness concerning your precepts and pledges. Maintain three things inseparably. i) Bodily virtue, e.g. service to the mentor, offerings to the Three Jewels, and circumambulations. ii) Verbal virtue, e.g., reciting verses of refuge and reciting texts. iii) Mental virtue, e.g., cultivating the two Bodhicittas. Meditate constantly on the distinctive ones. i) Those who compete with you, whom you resent, those who harm you for no apparent reason. It is here that your spiritual practice can fall apart, so especially cherish them. ii) The karma from deeds relating to your spiritual mentors, parents, and bodhisattvas is especially intense, so practice well with regard to them. Do not depend on other factors. For other practices, external conditions may be necessary, but here you need no other support, for all circumstances arise as aids to your practice. Now practice what is important. Take advantage of this precious human life by prioritizing: i) Spiritual practice over mundane pursuits. ii) Practicing Dharma over talking about it. iii) The cultivation of Bodhicitta over other practices. iv) Your mentors personal guidance over teachings of the scriptures and logic. v) Inner practice over changing the place you live. vi) Those who hear the Dharma are rare; among them, those who deeply ponder the Dharma are rare; among them, those who sincerely practice the Dharma are rare; among them, those who persevere in the practice are rare. Therefore, spiritual maturation and awakening are rare. Make no mistake. i) Mistaken forbearance: not bearing the tribulations of Dharma, but only those of mundane concerns. ii) Mistaken desires: not for spiritual maturation but for mundane goals. iii) Mistaken experience: striving not for the experience of hearing, thinking, and meditating, but for various outer and inner mundane pleasures. iv) Mistaken compassion: pitying Dharma practitioners who undergo hardships, but feeling no compassion for those who dwell in suffering and the causes of suffering. v) Mistaken priorities: for the mundane affairs of this life instead of spiritual practice. vi) Mistaken satisfaction: not rejoicing in the virtues of sentient beings and Buddhas, but rejoicing in the misfortunes of your enemies and those you despise. Do not be erratic. Occasionally practicing the mind training, but then losing faith and just engaging in recitations. Focusing on this life alone, engaging in nonvirtue and mental afflictions, then again becoming concerned about the hereafter and practicing Dharma.

h)

i)

j) k)

l)

m)

31 n) Practice with total conviction. Check out the practice first, see whether or not it is beneficial, and if it seems truly authentic, totally commit yourself to it. o) Free yourself by means of investigation and analysis. i) Investigate which mental affliction is strongest in your mind-stream, and forcefully counteract it with the appropriate remedies. ii) Investigate the objects in dependence upon which that affliction arises, and with the remedies see if you can decrease that affliction or eliminate it altogether. iii) Don the armor against that affliction with the resolve never to be overwhelmed by it again. p) Do not try to make an impression. i) Not on the basis of your kindness to others, your practice, knowledge, discipline, or your great associates. ii) Otherwise your practice will not counteract your afflictions. iii) Aphorism of Domtnpa: Do not place great hopes in people. Pray to the divine. Let your primary prayer be for the sake of your spiritual practice and maturation. q) Do not be bound by distemper. When others physically harm you, abuse you, do not retaliate verbally and do not foster resentment, for that indicates that your practice has not been counteracting self-cherishing. r) Do not be temperamental. Flaring up at any little adversity is a source of irritation for your companions and damages your own health. s) Do not yearn for gratitude. Do not expect others to reward you by helping you, expressing their thanks to you, and so on. Summary This practice of the two Bodhicittas for a lifetime, during meditation sessions and following them, calms all beings, removes dissention, and brings happiness to everyone. It is especially pertinent during this era of the five degenerations adverse conditions, evil dispositions, short life, powerful afflictions, and false viewswhen there are so many obstacles to spiritual practice. Without a practice such as this, no other practice will lead to success. Practicing this during period, when the Dharma is endangered, brings greater merit than practicing in a buddha-field for an eon. So relate everything you do to this practice, integrating your mind with Dharma. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: There exist many teachings, profound and vast, such as Mah$mudr$ and Dzogchen. But our capacity is small, we are without perseverance and lack sufficient respect and devotion to be freed through teachings such as these. Nevertheless, if we practice this Mind Training, we will experience great benefits. It is an extraordinary instruction, the very essence of the bodhisattva teachings, and has been praised again and again. Therefore let us practice it without distraction.