Jangchub Lam Rim – the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment – Teachings – Day 7

Tashi Lhunpo, Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India, 26 December 2015 – This morning the tone of the voices taking part in the debates prior to the teachings changed as nuns engaged in an exchange with monks. His Holiness arrived, the verses of salutation, Heart Sutra and Lam Rim Lineage Prayer were chanted and tea was served.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaching from the veranda of Tashi Lhunpo Temple in Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India on December 26, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

“Views may differ,” His Holiness began, “but we’re all the same in wishing to find happiness and avoid suffering. And the reason we don’t fulfil this wish is because our minds are untamed. We are troubled by disturbing emotions like attachment and anger. Skilful means alone don’t undermine such negative emotions, to do that we need to understand emptiness. It’s because he taught emptiness and dependent arising that Nagarjuna refers to the Buddha as an incomparable guide. Dependent arising is a profound observation, because in general everything depends on causes and conditions. If we could interest politicians in dependent arising it would broaden their otherwise quite narrow minds.

“The most profound of the Buddha’s teachings are contained in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. The wisdom we need to understand, emptiness and dependent arising, are presented in those books.

“Today we’re going to start reading the special insight section of Zhamar Pandita’s ‘Treatise’. As I mentioned yesterday, I received the transmission of these treatises in the 1960s from a Golok monk named Dragpa Gyatso. Because to begin with he didn’t have the transmission of the special insight section, I asked him to make efforts to find it. He found an old monk in his 90s, who happened to be called Tenzin Gyatso, who was able to give it to him. This old monk had suffered greatly during difficult years in Tibet. When he had food he ate it, otherwise he survived on the practice of extracting the essence of flowers.

“We’ll say the prayer to Manjushri together to begin because he has the potential to remove all ignorance. By realizing emptiness we’ll not only be able to undermine our disturbing emotions and overcome suffering as the Arhats have done, we’ll also eliminate the obstructions to knowledge as the Buddhas and bodhisattvas have done and are doing.”

His Holiness steadily read the text as it made its way through thickets of definitive and provisional views culminating, just before he broke for lunch, with his reading,

A monk following the text during the seventh day of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Lam Rim Teaching at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India on December 26, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

“The meaning of emptiness is dependent arising; the meaning of dependent arising is emptiness. Chandrakirti’s ‘Clear Words’ (Prasannapada) says emptiness is designated upon dependent arising.” And looking up from the page, His Holiness smiled and remarked, “This is quite tough isn’t it?”

When he resumed after lunch, the text explored what is to be cancelled and what is to be negated. When tea was served half way through the session, His Holiness announced that he was thinking of conducting ceremonies to generate the awakening mind and bestow the bodhisattva vow the day after tomorrow. He said he will probably follow the approach found in Tsongkhapa’s ‘Great Stages of the Path to Enlightenment’ for generating the awakening mind. He explained that, although individual emancipation vows (pratimoksha) and tantric vows have to be taken from a living master, bodhisattva vows can be taken before an image of the Buddha. However, it is also possible for a lama to give them on the basis of Je Rinpoche’s commentary on the morality chapter of ‘Bodhisattvabhumi’. He said:

“I requested Kyabje Ling Rinpoche to take the Bodhisattva vows before the statue of the Buddha in Bodhgaya and then to give them to me, which he did. Serkhong Rinpoche was also with me at the time. I was so moved I wept.”

His Holiness continued his reading until the end of the session, when he said:

“I’ve covered 55 pages today. There is a great deal to be analyzed.”

The Chant Master led another rousing rendition of the Lam Rim Dedication prayer and when that was complete, His Holiness prompted him to recite the Words of Truth, which ends:

May the good results of these prayers now quickly appear.
By the profound interdependence of emptiness and relative forms,
Together with the force of great compassion in the Three Jewels and their
Words of Truth,
And through the power of the infallible law of actions and their fruits,
May this truthful prayer be unhindered and quickly fulfilled.

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