Kategori: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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Recognizing the nature of samsara

Recognizing the nature of samsara, you will feel weary of it, and such weariness will inspire you to strive toward liberation-and by striving for it, you will attain it. Samsara will never just disappear on its own. You have to want to get rid of it actively yourself.

If you acknowledge the suffering of samsara, you will recognize that the source of suffering lies in your obscuring emotions and the negative actions they engender, and that the source of your obscuring emotions lies in your clinging to the idea of self. If you can rid yourself of that clinging, suffering will cease.

Liberation means freeing yourself from the ties of your emotions and negative actions. The way to free yourself from them is to practice the Dharma-to train in discipline; in concentration; and in prajna, the wisdom that allows you to realize the non-existence of the individual self and phenomena. Discipline is the basis of concentration; concentration is the basis of wisdom. If you practice the Dharma properly, even for as little as an hour a day, the results of countless lifetimes and kalpas of negative actions can be purified.
As you practice the Dharma steadily, even in quite a modest way, you will gradually be able to progress further and further on the path to liberation. Eventually, you will attain a true bliss that can never diminish.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion

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Purifying and ridding yourself of negative actions

”You will fall sick, experience pain, and encounter many adverse circumstances. At such times do not think, ‘Although I am practicing the Dharma, I have nothing but trouble. The Dharma cannot be so great. I have followed a teacher and done so much practice, and yet hard times still befall me.’

Such thoughts are wrong views. You should realize that through the blessing and power of the practice, by experiencing sickness and other difficulties now, you are purifying and ridding yourself of negative actions.

By purifying them while you have the chance, you will later go from bliss to bliss. So do not think, ‘I don’t deserve this illness, these obstacles, these negative influences.’ Experience your difficulties as blessings. When you do experience such difficulties, you should be very happy and avoid having adverse thoughts like, ‘Why are such terrible things happening to me?’”

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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Teaching the Dharma

How can we help others before we have tamed the negative forces hidden within ourselves?

Anyone who wants to teach the Dharma must first make it an integral part of his being; it would be no good just repeating the words, like a deaf musician playing tunes that, however beautiful, he cannot hear himself.

To receive the teachings, our motive should be a sincere aspiration to apply them to ourselves; if we are just trying to acquire something that we can teach to other people, like the music a beggar plays to get money, receiving teachings will be useful neither to ourselves nor to others.

It is equally wrong to collect knowledge of the Dharma for the sake of our own fame and importance. As the saying goes, Greater knowledge, greater pride; further from home, further from honesty.

How can we help others before we have tamed the negative forces hidden within ourselves? That would just be a joke, like a penniless beggar talking of feeding the whole village.

To secure the genuine welfare of others we must first perfect ourselves until we can emulate Patrul Rinpoche, who modestly claims he has no realization, yet whose whole being is saturated with the meaning of the Dharma.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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Projections of the mind

All our different activities are projections of the mind, created by our thoughts. If you follow these deluded thoughts, there will be no end to your mind being upset by delusion, just as when the wind blows over the surface of a lake, the crystal clarity of the water is masked by ripples. It is therefore important to control the mind by applying the view, meditation, and action, both in meditation and in postmeditation, for major situations and minor ones.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book ”Zurchungpa’s Testament”

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When a field has been carefully prepared and planted with seeds

When the Buddha first turned the Wheel of Dharma, he taught the Four Noble Truths.

The First Noble Truth is that there is suffering, and it should be recognised.

The Second Noble Truth is that suffering has a cause, which therefore needs to be given up. That cause is the kleshas, the negative emotions or afflicting mental factors. Although there are many such obscured states of mind, the five principal obscurations are desire, aggression, ignorance, pride, and jealousy.

The Third Noble Truth is that there is a path that leads beings away from suffering; this path therefore needs to be followed.

The Fourth Noble Truth is that suffering can thus be brought to cessation.

Through the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha urged us to renounce worldly concerns and strive for liberation from samsara.

In our search for the means to be free from samsara, the first step is to listen to the teachings which explain the different methods of so doing. In addition to the precious knowledge that is thus acquired, simply hearing the sound of the Dharma being taught – even the sound of the conches and gongs that call the community to gather for teachings – has inconceivable blessings and benefits, the Buddha said, and can liberate beings from rebirth in the lower realms.

Through listening to the teachings, even those who lack the faculties to understand their meaning thoroughly will at least gain some notion of the Dharma’s qualities. Even a general idea of how to practice the Dharma is already precious.

The second step is to reflect on what you have heard and try to find the essential meaning in it. Examine your own mind to see whether it is really as the teachings describe or not, and whether you can keep it focused on an object of meditation.

Third, once you have a clear idea of the essential meaning of the Dharma, you must try to realize that meaning through your inner experience, and assimilate it into your being. This is called meditation.

As you progress through these three steps, spiritual qualities will naturally arise, and you will see the truth of the teachings. Those qualities will bloom spontaneously because the buddha nature within you is being revealed.

The buddha nature, or tathagatagarbha, is present in all beings, but is hidden by obscurations, in the same way that buried gold is hidden by the earth under which it lies.

As you listen to, reflect, and meditate on the Dharma, all the inherent qualities of your buddha nature will be actualized. When a field has been carefully prepared and planted with seeds, and all favorable conditions are present, such as temperature, moisture, and warmth, the seeds will germinate and grow into crops.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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The Buddhas are Aware

The buddhas are aware of your faith and devotion, and know the very moment you take refuge. Do not think that the buddhas are far away in distant, absolute realms where your prayers and aspirations go unheard and unheeded. Buddhas are as ever present as the sky.

– Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion

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Bound to change

 

In our delusion, we see things as being permanent and truly self-existing. But in reality phenomena are impermanent, and devoid of any true substantial existence. We want to believe that our friends, partner, wealth and influence will all endure, but by nature they are bound to change. It is therefore senseless to be so preoccupied with them.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book ”The Heart of Compassion: The Thirty-seven Verses on the Practice of a Bodhisattva”

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Rather than being trapped by your perceptions

We are naturally attached to comfort and pleasure and bothered by physical and mental suffering. These innate tendencies lead us to seek out, maintain and try to increase whatever gives us pleasure comfortable clothing, delicious food, agreeable places, sensual pleasure – and to avoid or destroy whatever we find unpleasant or painful. Constantly changing and devoid of any true essence, these sensations rest on the ephemeral association of the mind with the body, and it is useless to be attached to them. Rather than being dragged along and trapped by your perceptions, just let them dissolve as soon as they form, like letters traced on the surface of water with your finger disappearing as you draw them.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book ”The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most”