Dear Friends,
I hope you have all been
healthy and truly happy this past month. As many of you probably know,
the previous month in the Tibetan calendar was Saga Dawa, which is
regarded as an especially blessed time. Marking the anniversary of both
the enlightenment and parinirvana of Buddha Shakyamuni, it is said that
the effect of the deeds you perform during this month are multiplied and
for that reason the importance of practice is emphasized. During this
month, at the blessed Boudhanath stupa and other sacred Buddhist places
it was inspiring to witness the stream of devoted pilgrims and
practitioners performing prostrations around the stupa, making
circumambulations, offering butter lamps, and making aspirations that
continued day and night without break.
Inspired by this special month and anniversary, I would like to share with you a short excerpt of a text entitled The Sage Who Dispels the Mind’s Anguish
by the late Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoche. In this short, pithy text Rinpoche
explains the practices of shamata and vipashyana based on Buddha
Shakyamuni. Towards the end of the text, Rinpoche quotes from the Wisdom of Passing Sutra and explains:
Likewise,
all of these phenomena, such as death, have no established identity
whatsoever, yet like illusory appearances their expression is completely
unobstructed. When analyzed they cannot be expressed whatsoever in
terms of the extremes of existence and non-existence. They are naturally
non-conceptual and luminous. Therefore, one’s own mind that does not
abide as any entity or non-conceptual thing whatsoever is primordially
luminous; in the state of the present direct awareness all phenomena of
samsara and nirvana are totally equal. Therefore, resolve the
enlightened mind of the Teacher, Lord of Sages (Buddha Shakyamuni), and
one’s own mind as well to be indivisible in the nature of mind, the
state of self-existing wakefulness. If without getting distracted from
that state you come to possess confidence and develop certainty in it,
that is the realization of the true nature of one’s mind. Other than
that there is no so-called ‘buddha’ whatsoever.
In that state there is
no death and birth. Death and so forth are mere concepts; in the truth
of the innate nature of mind free from concepts, birth and death are not
in any way established. If one passes away resting evenly in that
state, you will be reborn in a buddhafield without the deluded
appearances of the intermediate state and so forth occurring.
If you do not have that
level of confidence, but at the time of death and all throughout the
intermediate state remember only the Guru, Lord of Sages, and do not
forget, simply through that you will be led to a pure realm. Moreover,
no matter what terror and suffering you encounter in this life, if you
remember the Buddha you will definitely be liberated from those
difficulties. No matter what happiness and excellence you may encounter
know it to be the great kindness of the Buddha, and visualizing those
pleasurable objects as a Samantabhadra offering cloud offer them to the
Buddha.
Constantly reflect on
the three liberations taught by the Teacher, and the meaning of the six
paramitas and so forth. With great compassion for all sentient beings
arouse the mind of supreme enlightenment and train as much as you are
able in the conduct of the bodhisattvas. Recalling the Teacher like this
is extremely important, for recalling the Buddha is that which sets one
out on the beginning of all the bodhisattva paths and has immeasurable
benefits. It generates all the excellent qualities of the path.
These days when most
people hold the practices of their own school to be the most important,
there are only a few people who consider the Teacher, Lord of Sages, as
especially important. However, those who have entered into these
teachings yet lack the faith and trust that regards the Teacher as
supreme lack intelligence. Why is that? Because it is solely due to the
compassion of the Teacher demonstrating the acts of the Buddha in this
realm and time to us wandering beings of the degenerate age that the
teachings—the three pitakas, and not only that, but all the way up to
the teachings of the secret mantra Vajrayana, the path that can
actualize in one short lifetime of this degenerate age the unified state
of no-more learning—appeared. It is also solely due to his compassion
that the beings who are the holders of the teachings, those who have
entered the teachings of sutra and mantra, the sangha of noble beings as
many as they are, appeared.
If the Teacher had not
radiated out the light of the teachings here in this realm and time, we
would not hear even the name of the three jewels. What need to speak
then of being able to practice the paths of sutra and mantra? That
beings so, whichever tradition one practices, whether it is be the New
Schools or the Old School, to have intense faith that acknowledges the
Teacher as especially important is indispensable at all times.
Therefore, one must be especially devoted to the Teacher and persevere
in that practice!
Keeping these profound
and important instructions in mind, I hope you can find the time this
month to joyfully engage in the three wheels Buddha taught his
followers: the wheel of study and reflection, the wheel of relinquishing
the afflictions through meditation, and the wheel of benefiting others
through actions.
With constant prayers and aspirations and the best of wishes,
Phakchok Rinpoche
Sarva Mangalam!