MEDICINE BUDDHA SADHANA TEACHINGS PART 4

MEDICINE BUDDHA BRINGS PROTECTION
WHEN YOU RECEIVE INSTRUCTION in dharma, the motivation with which
you do so is extremely important. Recognize that the instructions
you have received are a basis for your practice of dharma, and that your
practice of dharma is of great benefit. This benefit is not limited to you
alone or only to a few—yourself and a few others—but ultimately the benefit of your practice will be enjoyed by all beings who fill space. Therefore,
when you receive the teachings in the beginning, do it with that recollection and with the motivation that by receiving these instructions, by meditating on and supplicating the Medicine Buddha, by studying his sutra,
and so on, you will be able to do the practice so that you can bring about
the liberation of all beings.
We concluded last time with the presentation of the benefits of the
sutra and of recollecting the name of the Medicine Buddha. The next event
in the dialogue is that the great Bodhisattva Chagdrul, one of the sixteen
bodhisattvas in the retinue of the Medicine Buddha and therefore present
at this teaching by the Buddha Shakyamuni, arises from his seat, adopts the
posture that Manjushri had adopted in order to request this teaching, and
addresses the Buddha. In addressing the Buddha and the entire gathering
here, Chagdrul is not actually asking a question. He is himself stating further benefits of the sutra. He begins by saying that it was most kind of the
Buddha to teach the sutra, to explain the twelve aspirations of the Medicine Buddha and their effects, to explain the benefits of the sutra and of the
name, and so on. Then he says that he has something to add, and says that
through the power of the Medicine Buddha, if someone becomes extremely
sick—so sick that they are in agony and are surrounded by their family and
their friends, and the family also is agonized by the sickness of the person—and even if it gets to the point where the person appears to be dying—when their perception of this world is becoming more and more vague
and they seem to be starting to perceive the next world, the intermediate
state—if even at that time there is intense supplication to the Medicine
Buddha, through the blessing of the Medicine Buddha that person may be
revived.
Chagdrul continues, “Because such benefits as these are possible—benefits both for this and future lives—men and women with faith should
venerate, worship, and supplicate the Medicine Buddha. This is extremely
important.”
At that point Ananda addresses the Bodhisattva Chagdrul, saying, “While
you say it is important to make offerings to and to worship the Medicine
Buddha, how should we do this?” In response Chagdrul says, “In order to
free oneself and others from sickness and suffering, it is important to recollect the name of the Medicine Buddha seven times during the day and
seven times during the night.”
Now, when it says in the sutra that there will be such and such benefits
from merely hearing, recollecting, or keeping in mind the name of the
Medicine Buddha, this does literally mean that to some extent there will be
some benefit from merely hearing, merely remembering, or merely keeping
the name in mind. But mainly, when it says the recollection of the name, it
means something more than the simple recollection of the name per se. It
means the recollection of the qualities of the Medicine Buddha, the recollection of the name in appreciation of the Medicine Buddha’s qualities,
with an attitude of sincere faith and great enthusiasm. Furthermore, it means
not simply the appreciation that there is a buddha in a certain realm far
away who has such and such qualities, but includes the actual wish to emulate the Medicine Buddha, the wish to achieve the same buddhahood, to
enact the same aspirations and benefits for beings, and therefore the wish
to diligently engage in the path in order to attain that same state. To recollect the name really means to recollect and know the Medicine Buddha’s
qualities and to actually engage enthusiastically in the path leading to the
attainment of those qualities. Now, it is not the case that there are no benefits whatsoever to simply hearing the name per se; there are. But ultimately the great benefits which arise from the blessing of the name of the
Medicine Buddha arise from practice based upon devotion to the Medicine
Buddha, and not merely from simply hearing his name.
Chagdrul continues to address Ananda, saying that if the practitioner
venerates and prays to the Medicine Buddha, then “the monarch will be
fully empowered.” This literally means that the monarch of the country in
which this veneration is occurring will be properly empowered as the monarch. But what it implies or is saying is that the whole country in which the
practice occurs will become happy, which is symbolized as the proper empowerment of that country’s monarch. This means that through the
practitioner’s practice, sickness, warfare, the action of malevolent spirit—
such as the spirits connected with the various constellations, planets, and
stars—disasters such as untimely wind, excessive rainfall, or drought, and
epidemics and civil strife will all be averted. For these to be averted the
practitioner must pray to and venerate the Medicine Buddha with great
love and compassion.
In other words, through supplication of the Medicine Buddha disasters
will be averted, sickness and the malevolent influence of spirits will diminish, and other problems or upheavals in the country in which the practice
occurs will be pacified. This means that while we practice dharma and,
therefore, supplicate the Medicine Buddha for the benefit of all beings, by
doing so we also secure our own happiness and the benefit of the country
and region in which we practice.
Ananda then asks the Bodhisattva Chagdrul another question. He asks,
“How is it possible through the supplication and blessing of the Medicine
Buddha for someone who is almost dead to be awakened in the manner
that Chagdrul has described?” And Chagdrul says that this is possible because the person’s life and vitality are not really exhausted. A condition
exists that has almost caused their death, and that will cause their death if it
is not removed. But it can be removed. He then lists nine different conditions of untimely death—untimely here meaning unnecessary—and says
that through supplication of the Medicine Buddha it is sometimes possible
to remove these conditions, thereby averting death and allowing the person
to revive.
Then the twelve yaksha chieftains, who have been present throughout
the Buddha’s teaching and have heard everything that has passed up to this
point, address the Buddha as a group. They express their appreciation for
having heard the sutra. They say, “We are most fortunate in this way to
have heard the name of the Medicine Buddha and to have heard of his
qualities and benefits, because simply through having heard this teaching
we are freed from the fear of falling into lower realms.” They say this be-
cause they are mundane gods at that point in time, and without having
heard the sutra would be in the same danger as ourselves of falling into a
lower rebirth. But they are confident that, having heard the name and the
benefits of the Medicine Buddha, they are no longer in danger of being
reborn in the three lower realms. Therefore, they say, “We are delighted by
this and we all take refuge, therefore, in the Buddha, in the dharma, and in
the sangha.” Because they have been inspired by hearing the sutra, by hearing about the Medicine Buddha’s name, and so forth, they take refuge and
commit themselves to being beneficial to sentient beings and to never harming them. And so in a sense, they also generate bodhicitta and promise to
protect beings.
In addition, the twelve yaksha chieftains say, “Especially, we will protect
any place where there is the sutra of the Medicine Buddha and we will
protect any persons and any place where there are persons who venerate the
Medicine Buddha.” In that way the twelve yaksha chieftains—and also the
four great kings—vow to protect the sutra and its followers, and to free all
of these beings from harm.
In response, the Buddha addresses the twelve yaksha chieftains and their
followers, saying, “Excellent. As you say, having heard the name of the
Medicine Buddha you are now free of the danger and fear of falling into
lower states. Your delight and confidence in this, the gratitude you have
expressed, and especially your commitment to the welfare of beings and of
the teachings that this has inspired in you are excellent.”
Now, for this reason, whether you regard it as the blessing of the Medicine Buddha himself and of his name, or as the protection of the twelve
yaksha chieftains, if you regularly supplicate the Medicine Buddha, it will
protect you. I can speak of this from my own experience. Once when I was
living at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, I needed to go into town. There
was a car that regularly went from the monastery into town, and I knew the
driver and had expressed my need to go that day. But for some reason he
didn’t wait for me. He left without me. So I found another car to go to
town in, and as a result I am still alive. The first car got into a terrible
accident, and while the driver survived, the passengers were all killed. Especially because I am so fat, I would definitely have been squished for sure. So
I regard it as the blessing of the three jewels that my life was saved, because
there was no obvious reason why he should have left without me.
Now the reason that I connect this with the Medicine Buddha is that
sometime before that I had gone into the presence of His Holiness Sakya
Trizin Rinpoche and had requested a divination from him as to whether
or not I was facing any obstacles. He said, “If you will do the Medicine
Buddha practice one hundred times, then you will be free from whatever
obstacles might otherwise affect you.” And so I did this very Medicine
Buddha practice that we have been studying one hundred times, and I
think that is why I was not killed in that accident. So when it says here that
the Medicine Buddha practice will protect you from untimely death through
poison and accidents, and so on, I believe it.
At this point, the Buddha has finished teaching the main body of the
sutra. The Bodhisattva Chagdrul has made his remarks and the twelve yaksha
chieftains have expressed their appreciation and commitment. At that point
Ananda arises once again and addresses the Buddha, thanking him for teaching the sutra and saying, “Now that you have given this teaching, what
should we call it in the future? This teaching will have to have a name.”
And the Buddha says, “You can call it either The Twelve Great Aspirations of the Medicine Buddha, or you can call it The Vow and Commitment of the Twelve Yaksha Chieftains.”
Finally, after the Buddha has given the name by which the sutra is to be
known in the future, all of those receiving the teaching, foremost among
them Manjushri, Vajrapani, and the other bodhisattvas, as well as the twelve
yaksha chieftains and so on, express their delight and rejoicing in the sutra’s
having been taught and their having heard it and say, “Excellent,” and so
forth.
And then, at the very end of the sutra, it says, “That is the completion
of the Sutra of the Great Aspirations of the Medicine Buddha.” That line is
present at the end to show that the sutra is complete. It is entirely possible
that one could have in hand only part of a sutra without the end of it. To
show that it is complete and goes all the way to the end, those words are
added.
That completes our discussion of the Medicine Buddha Sutra, so if you
have any questions, we have some time this morning.
Question: Thank you Rinpoche. May I ask for a definition of a yaksha?
Is it a human being? What is the Tibetan?
Translator: Nöjin.
Question: Is it a human being, is it other than a human being?
Rinpoche: Y akshas are not human. They are nonhuman beings who
are most often perceived as gods of wealth.
Question: When they were attending this teaching of the Buddha
Shakyamuni, would they have been seen by human beings who were there?
I mean by ordinary human beings, not by great bodhisattvas and so forth?
Rinpoche: The way it is put in the sutra, it sounds as though everybody
could see them.
Question: And do they have flesh bodies or do they have bodies of
light?
Rinpoche: I do not know.
Question: And if they are worldly deities, have they gotten enlightened
in the meantime? And if they have not, why are we prostrating to them?
Rinpoche: well, I do not know if they have attained awakening, but
because at that time they promised to protect the Buddha’s teachings, they
become dharmapalas, and we take refuge in them as mundane dharmapalas.
Question: I see, but if they show up, do we have to do what they tell us?
Rinpoche: You had probably better.
Question: Rinpoche, in the other Buddhist practices, which many of
us have done—shamatha, vipashyana, the various sadhanas, and so forth—
I have great confidence. Even though I may not be a good practitioner, I
have great confidence that they lead to the ultimate goal. But I am wondering if they have any effect on health as we conventionally understand it,
because many times it seems they do not. Or I do not know. Sometimes I
feel very sick, so I am wondering if Rinpoche would comment on that.
Translator: Which practices? Are you talking about all of them as a
group or the vajrayana practices in particular?
Question: Tonglen, shamatha, vipashyana, and the various sadhanas
and that sort of thing.
Rinpoche: Well, the main yidam sadhanas like Vajrayogini and
Chakrasamvara are not particularly said to have much effect on sickness,
but practices such as shamatha can be very helpful for sickness.
Question: I know of many people who are not here who would be very
happy and grateful if they had been here. Of course, that is not possible.
But I am wondering about how to work with this in the future. For instance, if we had the tapes of the teachings from this retreat, would it be
acceptable in a center like ours in Victoria or in other places to have a class
in which we would play the tapes with the idea that Rinpoche would come
sometime in the future to our center, maybe do a program, and give the
empowerment? Those people would have to understand, they would either
be Buddhist or take refuge as part of the empowerment.
Rinpoche: Sure.
Question: Rinpoche, following up on that same question, as Rinpoche
knows, in the Shambala centers there has always been a great effort made to
protect the teachings, especially the vajrayana teachings, and so this is sort
of a new situation for us in terms of the instruction that this can be made
more available. And so there are still issues going on about how to do that
properly. I am just wondering if Rinpoche could elaborate a little bit more
on some other possibilities for presenting these teachings properly—so that
people actually receive proper instruction and understand what is going on
while at the same time making them more available.
Rinpoche: I think you can make it as freely available as possible, because there is no possibility of anyone getting into trouble with this. This is
connected with the part of the sutra in which Ananda addresses the Buddha, saying, “Is there not a possibility that people hearing about this and
disbelieving it might accumulate negative karma and be worse off than if
they had not heard it in the first place?” And in answer to that the Buddha
says, “No, even if they initially react with disbelief or even antipathy, the
blessing of the Medicine Buddha itself will cause their minds to change.”
Question: Is : the front visualization a mirror image of the self-visualization or is it the other way around?
Translator: By mirror image do you mean that your right hand is like
that and that his left hand would be like that?
Question: Y es, mirror image.
Rinpoche: It is not literally a mirror image. In other words, in both the
self- and front visualizations the right hand of the Medicine Buddha is
extended holding the arura and the left hand in both cases is holding a
begging bowl on the lap.
Question: Rinpoche, there have been lots of instructions for sadhana
practitioners about how to visualize, and I would just like to hear your
instructions to us about how to do the self-visualization properly, given
that we have all these attachments to our bodies and to ourselves and that it
is difficult to work with that situation. I wanted to hear how you would
instruct us to properly visualize the self as the deity.
Rinpoche: well, here you are not trying to—and you do not have to—
first get rid of the fixation on your body. The idea is that you replace the
fixation on your ordinary body by adding to that the fixation on your body
as the body of the Medicine Buddha.
Question: forgive me, Rinpoche, I feel very much like the person that
Ananda was talking about, though I want very much to believe. When I
was a little girl in my convent in London in , the nuns told me that if
I prayed with great devotion and sincerity to Jesus to make Hitler a good
man, the war would not happen; we would be able to prevent it and be
protected from it. So, of course I felt I didn’t have enough devotion, and I
felt very bad about it. My heart really breaks to think of people in Tibet
who are much more evolved than I was and have much more devotion,
who are doing the Medicine Buddha practice and still they have war. Would
you please shed some light on this?
Rinpoche: Well, first of all, as I said, the result of dharma practice is
usually not immediate. It usually does not manifest as an immediate and
dramatic or miraculous transformation of the circumstances. I mentioned
for example that if you pray for wealth you are not immediately going to have
a shower of gold come from the sky. But there is always a benefit. The benefit
manifests as an effect that emerges gradually over a long term and maybe as a
transformation of circumstances, as in the story that I told you. Now, for
example, I would not say that your prayers as a child just before the outbreak
of the Second World War were wasted. For example, you were not killed in
the London Blitz, but many other people were. And as for Tibet, of course
as everybody knows Tibet was overcome by warfare. And we simply have to
accept the fact that when a very large and populous country invades a small
one, they are going to win. It is very hard to escape from that. If we look at it
from a political point of view, we would have to say that Tibet was lost, but
from a dharmic point of view, the dharma tradition of Tibet is far from lost.
In fact it is doing better than it was before. It used to be that in Tibet, if
someone actually travelled from Tibet as far as Kalimpong in northern India, that was a real journey. That was really expanding, bringing the teachings
across the world. But now there is almost nowhere on this planet where there
are not Tibetan Buddhist dharma centers, Tibetan stupas, retreats, and so on.
Question: Could you elaborate on what is in the small picture you gave
us?
Rinpoche: On the top, the red seated figure is the Buddha Amitayus,
the buddha of longevity. On the bottom are the two bodhisattvas. The
yellow one is Manjushri and the white one is Chagdrul.
Question: Is there an end to experience once we attain buddhahood?
Translator: From the point of view of that buddha?
Question: W ell yes, I suppose. But also, once everyone in the mahayana
view is liberated, is there a cessation of experience? Or what happens exactly?
Translator: So, are there two questions? When one person attains enlightenment, do they cease to experience, and when everybody attains enlightenment, is everything going to be over?
Question: Or what happens? Yes.
Rinpoche: When someone attains full awakening, buddhahood, they
do not cease to experience. What they experience is by our standards inconceivable, and all that can be said about it is that it is utterly pure. All of
the appearances they undergo are pure, the environment in which they
experience themselves is a pure realm, and so on.
Implicit in your second question is the question, “Will there ever come
a time when all beings will have attained buddhahood?” This question has
to be asked before you can ask what will happen then. And the answer is
no. There will never come a specific time when samsara will be over for all
beings. There will never come, it is taught, a time when all beings without
a single exception will have attained buddhahood, because beings are infinite in number. And when we say, “I resolve to do this and that until samsara
is completely emptied,” we do so in order to generate an open ended and
unlimited aspiration and commitment. We say that, not because we think
that there will come a specific time when samsara will be emptied and our
contract terminated, but because we do not want to have a limited aspiration. We do not want to have an aspiration that says, “I will perform benefit for beings, but only for three years or only for this long.”
Now, returning to your first question, there are contexts in which it is
taught, for example in the common Middle Way School presentation of
the awakening of a buddha, that after awakening, that buddha exists only
in the perception of others, both pure and impure, and does not experience
himself or herself. But in the vajrayana that is not taught. In the vajrayana
it is definitely taught that the real sambhogakaya realm, the true or perfect
sambhogakaya, is in fact self-experience; it is how a buddha experiences
himself or herself.
Question: Rinpoche, you have gone into great detail about the sutra
tradition and about how the Medicine Buddha came to be known in this
world. That knowledge of the Medicine Buddha actually originated with
the Buddha Shakyamuni, and that gives me great confidence in terms of
the origin of this practice, because I have confidence in the Buddha
Shakyamuni himself. However, a large part of the practice that you have
given us is also tantric in nature, and the very detailed visualizations clearly
come from somewhere else. Can you give some details about their origins
so that we can have similar confidence in and knowledge about their origins?
Rinpoche: This practice is a combination of sutra and tantra. I have
explained its sutra origin. Basically it doesn’t have a tantric origin going
back to the Buddha Shakyamuni independent of its origin in the sutras. It
is basically a sutra practice connected with tantra. In other words, it is a
practice according to the sutras that adopts and adapts the methods of the
tantras, specifically some of the methods of anuttarayoga tantra. This became a tantric practice after the Buddha’s time through the realization and
teachings of the bodhisattvas who received it from the Buddha and the
various mahasiddhas who received it from them. In that sense it is different
from a primarily tantric practice like Chakrasamvara or Kalachakra, the
origins of which are one or more specific tantras taught by the Buddha,
belonging to a specific class of tantra such as some form of anuttarayoga
and so on. And in that sense it is also unlike the various lower tantras—the
yoga, carya and kriya tantras—which also go back originally to the Buddha
Shakyamuni. Here it is basically a sutra practice that makes use of the methods of anuttarayoga tantra, and there is no specific tantra that is a scriptural
basis for it as is the sutra.
Question: What about all of the detail, all of the richness of the visualization. Is that contained in the longer sutras? The palace and its various
colors, etc. Is there a specific being even after the Buddha’s time from whom
this originates?
Rinpoche: Well, the palace is based upon the description in the sutra of
the Medicine Buddha, which says that the Medicine Buddha’s realm is called
such and such, it is like this, and it has such and such a palace, and so on.
The retinue is based also upon the sutra. In the sutra all eight medicine
buddhas and the sixteen bodhisattvas are mentioned as being present at the
teaching, and the twelve yaksha chieftains, the ten protectors of the directions, and the four great kings are also described as being present at the
teaching. By visualizing them surrounding the buddhas and bodhisattvas,
you insure the receipt of their protection and blessing.
Question: For fear of totally beating a dead horse, you know all of the
lights and the medicine buddhas raining down, are these based on other
tantric practices?
Rinpoche: Yes.
Question: Rinpoche, when I go home and talk to my family and friends
and say I have been at the Medicine Buddha retreat and they ask me who or
what is the Medicine Buddha, I do not know what to tell them. I want to
create a definition that is going to bring them benefit, and although I know
that hearing about the Medicine Buddha will help them, I do not want to
initially turn them away. So could you give sort of a short answer in layman’s
terms? I do not know if that is possible. And also, we have a new cat and I
want to expose him to the Medicine Buddha, but he might not stay at the
shrine with us when we are practicing. So, is it appropriate to put a picture
of the Medicine Buddha near his food bowls or by his bed? Or is that not
appropriate? Will simply living with dharma practitioners be helpful for an
animal when he hears us just sort of talking dharma?
Rinpoche: To answer your first question, probably the most convenient thing to say to your family is that you were taught and practiced a
form of meditation designed to lead to physical health and freedom from
sickness, and leave it at that. As for putting an image of the Medicine Buddha near where your cat eats and sleeps, that is fine.
So the time is up. The rest of you could ask your questions this afternoon. I was asked a question yesterday about how to defend oneself against
sexual attack or rape, and I was asked to give an answer that is in accordance with the dharma. Basically, the dharmic answer to this would be
prevention as much as possible, which would basically fall into two categories. First of all, through mindfulness avoid situations where you are likely
to be a victim of that kind of attack. And the second approach is to discour-
age anyone who seems to be capable of that kind of attack or behavior by
being a little bit tough, so that they do not ever get the idea that they can
get that close to you.
So, we will dedicate the merit.
THE CORRECT VIEW REGARDING BOTH
DEITIES AND MARAS
WE HAVE COMPLETED THE EXPLANATION of the Medicine Buddha Sutra.
There is another sutra connected to this, called the Sutra of the Aspirations of the Eight Medicine Buddhas, which refers to the principal Medicine Buddha of the Medicine Buddha Sutra and the other seven medicine
buddhas in his retinue. These are distinct buddhas, but their aspirations are
fundamentally the same, so I am not going to explain that sutra separately.
In the sutra that we have been studying there is a great deal of presentation of the idea of veneration, even worship of this deity, the Medicine
Buddha, and through veneration and worship, achieving what is called cutting the noose of mara. So we have the idea of some sort of external mara
that is somewhere down there and some sort of external deity that is somewhere up there. Given this type of presentation we may come to the conclusion that the deity being supplicated, such as the Medicine Buddha, has
the omnipotence and the external existence of a creator, as though he or she
actually causes us to experience the pleasant and unpleasant things that we
undergo. It may seem that since, if you pray to the Medicine Buddha, you
will somehow receive the two attainments—the common and supreme attainments—that if you do not pray to the Medicine Buddha, you will get
into trouble. But the vajrayana view of the effect or effectiveness of the
supplication of deities is fundamentally different from this idea. The idea
in the vajrayana is that the blessing associated with the deity, the attainment you gain through this type of practice, is a result of your practice of
the path. Your accomplishment of the path leads to its result, which fundamentally is caused by your own meditative state or samadhi, cultivated
by yourself within yourself. The capacity you have to cultivate such a samadhi
and thereby attain these results is your own fundamental nature, which is
referred to as buddha nature. This potential is something that each and
every being has. It is usually obscured by the presence of temporary stains
or obscurations. These stains are removed by the practice of the path, by
the practice of meditation, by the practice of the generation and completion stages. And when these obscurations have been removed and the innate qualities of this buddha nature are revealed, that is the result. So this
practice is not really the worship of an external deity. It is primarily a way of
gaining access to your own inherent or innate wisdom.
Because this is the view of the vajrayana with regard to the nature of
deities, the uncommon method of the vajrayana is to visualize oneself as
the deity. Thus, in this practice you visualize yourself as the Medicine Buddha. But in the common vehicle, the basic teachings of the buddha, [the
hinayana teachings], it appears as though it is taught that the ultimate result of the path is what is called arhat without remainder. There it is taught
that when someone completes the path—which means that they remove or
abandon all of the causes of samsara, all karma, and all kleshas—then they
naturally attain the result of that removal, which is the cessation of the
results of those causes, which means the total cessation of samsaric existence for that individual. Since they have abandoned the causes and therefore experience the cessation of the results, according to the common vehicle,
there is nothing whatsoever left—which is called arhat without remainder.
So from the point of view of the common vehicle, one’s own liberation
depends entirely, without any exception whatsoever, upon one’s attainment
through meditation, and there is no point whatsoever in supplication or
prayer to anyone or anything outside oneself, because there is simply no
one to pray to.
The vajrayana view is different from that. According to the vajrayana,
as according to the mahayana, there have appeared innumerable buddhas
and bodhisattvas. All of them have entered the path by generating bodhicitta,
have traversed [or are in the process of traversing] the path by gathering the
accumulations of merit and wisdom for three periods of innumerable kalpas
[according to the mahayana], and finally have completed [or will complete] the path by attaining full awakening or buddhahood. Having attained buddhahood, they actually have the capacity to grant their blessing,
and it is for that reason that we make offerings, that we perform prostrations, that we supplicate, and so on. So in the vajrayana we not only visualize ourselves as the yidam, but we also visualize the yidam, such as the
Medicine Buddha, in front of us as well. Focusing on the front visualization, we make offerings and so forth in order to gather the accumulations,
and we supplicate the deity and receive its blessing. So from the vajrayana
point of view, there is in fact something to pray to, and doing so does
facilitate one’s attainment of the result.
Connected with this is one’s understanding of the aim of practice. Sometimes, in the way dharma is presented, it seems as though the only acceptable goal of doing dharma practice is the attainment of perfect awakening
in order to liberate others, and it seems to be said that it is utterly inappropriate to think of any benefit for this life at all, which implies there exist no
methods in dharma for benefiting oneself in this life. In fact, this is not the
case. Especially in the vajrayana tradition we talk about the attainment of
the two siddhis or two attainments. One of them is the supreme siddhi or
supreme attainment. Through the practice of meditation—through the
practice of the generation and completion stages—you gradually remove
the two obscurations—the mental/emotional afflictions and the cognitive
obscurations—and you eventually attain buddhahood. The attainment of
buddhahood is the supreme attainment. But if you think that this is the
only benefit or only reason for practice, that is not entirely the case. In the
vajrayana we also speak of the common siddhis or common attainments.
Through meditating upon a yidam you can also attain longevity, freedom
from sickness, wealth and so on, and it is because of this emphasis in
vajrayana on the common attainments that there are so many different
deities. For example, in order to attain wealth you would practice a wealth
deity such as Jambhala. In order to attain physical well-being and freedom
from sickness you might practice a deity such as the Medicine Buddha. In
order to increase your insight into the meaning of the teachings you might
practice Manjushri. Doing practices for these reasons is not regarded as
inappropriate in any way. Since these practices exist, it is obviously not
impossible to attain these things by doing them.
That is the view with regard to the deities that are meditated upon and
supplicated. Then there is the other side of things, mara or the maras, which
we might think of as being down there, in the same way that deities might
be thought of as being up there somewhere. There are two ways in which
we generally think of mara. One way is to think that mara refers to one’s
own mental afflictions, one’s own kleshas alone, and not as any kind of
external being that is trying to tempt one or interfere with one’s spiritual
progress. And sometimes we think that maras are completely external, and
we think that everything that goes wrong is caused by some kind of external malevolent force that is attempting to victimize us. Both of these views
are somewhat extreme.
Mara is most commonly presented in the Buddhist tradition as four
different types of maras, called devaputramara, the mara that is the child of
the gods; kleshamara, the mara that is the mental afflictions; skandhamara,
the mara that is the aggregates; and finally mrtyumara, the mara that is the
lord of death. These are primarily internal. The first of these, devaputramara,
the mara that is the child of the gods, refers not to some kind of external
demonic force but primarily to your own great attachment and great craving. Therefore, it is given the name of child of the gods, because when this
mara is depicted iconographically—because it is craving or wanting something so much—it is not depicted as something ugly and threatening, but
as something attractive, because that is the feeling-tone of attachment. It is
liking things so much that it interferes with your dharma practice and your
attainment of awakening. The second mara, kleshamara, the mara that is
mental afflictions, is your mental afflictions themselves. These become a
mara because, due to the beginningless habit of maintaining and cultivating them, they keep on popping up again and again. They are very hard to
abandon or even to suppress, and when they are momentarily absent, they
come up again, and in that way they interfere with your practice of dharma.
The third mara is skandamara, the mara of the aggregates. The aggregates here refer to the five aggregates that make up samsaric existence—
forms, sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness. Now, these
aggregates are themselves mara, because being aggregates or composite, they
are impermanent. Being impermanent they are constantly changing, and
therefore they are always a cause, directly or indirectly, of suffering. In
order to attain permanent happiness, in order to transcend the suffering of
samsara, we must transcend the five aggregates. There is simply no way to
attain a state of permanent happiness within the bondage of these aggregates.
The fourth of the four maras is death itself, which is depicted iconographically as wrathful or unpleasant. Death, of course, is what we are most
afraid of. Death is what comes with great agony and fear and pain.
These four maras are fundamentally internal; they are not external beings. Victory over the four maras requires the practice of dharma, the practice of meditation. Specifically, it requires the realization of the selflessness

of persons and the selflessness or emptiness of things in general. In order to
realize these two aspects of selflessness or emptiness, one meditates on emptiness, and, especially according to the vajrayana tradition, one meditates
upon the nature of one’s own mind, since this is an evident emptiness, an
obvious or directly experienceable emptiness. Therefore, the practice of
shamatha and vipashyana, tranquillity and insight meditation, that takes as
its basis the recognition of the nature of one’s own mind, is a direct method
that leads to the realization of the emptiness of one’s own nature, and on
the basis of that realization, one can gradually attain the ultimate fruition,
final awakening, at which point one has conquered all four maras once and
for all. And that is how one conquers the mara that is internal.
Vajrayana practice therefore includes the practices of both shamatha
and vipashyana. But the typical practices of the vajrayana are not limited to
those practices; they also include the two broad and inclusive categories of
the generation stage and the completion stage. According to the vajrayana,
the four maras are considered to be impure appearances, the projections of
bewilderment and the presence in one’s mind of those tendencies—the
kleshas and the cognitive obscurations—that cause those projections. The
four maras consist of impure appearances and the reification of them, and
this includes impure or negative karma as well. The attainment of victory
over the four maras according to the vajrayana tradition comes about from
transcending these impure appearances and coming to experience pure appearances. One attains the experience of pure appearances by meditating
upon appearances as pure, by meditating upon one’s environment as a pure
realm, one’s body as a pure form, and so forth. Now if this were a meditation upon things as other than what they truly or fundamentally are, it
would never work. But because our basic nature is buddha nature, and
because the temporary obscurations that cause us to perceive things as impure are secondary to that nature—and by temporary or secondary we mean
that they can be removed, that they are empty, that they are not intrinsic to
the nature—because our basic or true nature is buddha nature and those
obscurations that hide it are not intrinsic to it and can be removed, therefore, just as our true nature is pure, appearances are also fundamentally
pure. It is in order to reveal this basic nature and reveal these pure appearances that we practice the generation stage.
Initially, generation stage practice is extremely difficult, because it goes
directly against the grain or the current of our habit of impure projections,
which causes the impure appearances we experience. But eventually [with
effort] the habit of regarding things as pure is cultivated to the point where
one generates a clear appearance or a clear perception of things as pure.
From that point onward, gradually, the actual, pure nature of phenomena
or appearances begins to be revealed, and it is for that reason that we practice the generation stage meditation upon yidams. It is also in order to
reveal this pure nature of appearances that we regard things not as the ordinary solid things that they appear to be—ordinary earth, ordinary stones
and so on—but as the embodiment of emptiness manifesting as vivid pure
appearances. In this way, through practicing the generation and completion stages, we attain the ultimate result.
Sometimes when we are practicing, we experience adverse conditions,
obstacles of various kinds—such as physical illness or mental depression, or
various external setbacks in whatever we are trying to do. These come from
one of two causes—from previous actions or karmas, or from present, suddenly arising conditions. Although normally we regard the maturation of
our previous actions as something that, once it arises, is very difficult to
change, nevertheless, if you supplicate the buddhas and bodhisattvas, make
offerings, gather the accumulations, and so on, you can purify your karma.
Purifying your karma also purifies some of your kleshas at the same time.
We all have kleshas for sure, but they can be defeated by the appropriate
remedies, if the remedies are sincerely and consistently applied. With the
application of the appropriate remedies—especially with the blessings of
buddhas and bodhisattvas—one can alter one’s karma and reduce the power
of one’s kleshas, [thereby eliminating or reducing one’s obstacles and adverse conditions].
The other cause of obstacles is what is called “sudden conditions.” One
type of sudden condition is a karmic debt, a situation in which what is
happening is not the direct result of your immediately previous actions,
but is being imposed upon you by another being because of a negative
karmic connection you made with that being [in a previous life]—for example, a being whom in previous lives you have beaten up, killed, or stolen
from, and so on. Sometimes this is a human being who for no apparent
reason takes such dislike to you that they start persecuting you. Sometimes
it is a nonhuman being, a spirit with no apparent physical form, who,
because of your having harmed it in a previous life, takes every opportunity
to cause you obstacles in this life. These things are quite possible; they
happen to us. In such a situation, if you supplicate the Medicine Buddha,
make offerings, make virtuous aspirations and so forth, this being’s aggression will be pacified, and you can free yourself from the obstacle.
I am going to stop there for this afternoon. Some of you didn’t get a
chance to ask your questions this morning, so if you’d like to ask them now,
please go ahead.
Question: Rinpoche, it seems as though in the West many of the teachings that have been provided to us have put a great amount of emphasis on
our mental afflictions or kleshas, and there has not really been much teaching on physical afflictions, which is in a sense what we have been talking
about this week, some of the ways of working with physical afflictions. I
wonder if Rinpoche would comment a little bit more about the view to
take—both from the relative and the absolute standpoint—when physical
afflictions and physical difficulties and sicknesses occur, as well as ways of
working with physical afflictions in the post-meditation experience. That
is part one of the question.
Rinpoche: Well, of course, physical difficulties, physical suffering, and
sickness are always happening in one way or another for us. These are relative truths, relative phenomena. As relative phenomena they are interdependent, which is to say, each and every aspect of these situations is in fact
the coming together of many conditions that depend on one another in
order to appear as what they appear to be, as for example sickness or physical pain. Therefore, because they are interdependent, because they are not
true [immutable] units, there is always a remedy of one kind or another.
For example, in the context of the Medicine Buddha practice, visualizing
the body of the Medicine Buddha, reciting the mantra of the Medicine
Buddha, requesting the blessing of the Medicine Buddha—all of which are
primarily mental, primarily acts of meditation and visualization—initially
pacify your mind, but by pacifying your mind, because of the interdependence of mind and body, these acts start also to pacify your physical illness.
If you are ill, they will help to pacify the illness. And if you are not ill, they
will help to prevent the advent of illness.
At the same time, we also make use of physical remedies, medicines, for
sickness. But as we know from experience, sometimes a medicine will work
and sometimes, for some reason that is not necessarily apparent, something
interferes with the proper functioning of the medicine, and it does not
effectively treat even an illness for which it is appropriately prescribed. Supplication of the Medicine Buddha will help prevent that interference with
or ineffectiveness of medicine, and will help the medicine take its proper
effect.
Question: May I continue? There are here this weekend many health
care practitioners and/or educators who often work with people who are
not practitioners but who certainly have some quality of openness. Could
Rinpoche comment a bit on how we, as medical practitioners and as educators in medical schools—as we begin to practice and study and understand
the Medicine Buddha and what you have talked about—how we can apply
all of this as we work with our patients and with our students in medical
schools?
Rinpoche: Well, the most important thing to have in working with a
patient and to communicate in teaching physicians is that the fundamental
ground of the alleviation of sickness, which must be common to all health
care practitioners, is the sincere and committed wish to help others, the
sincere wish to remove suffering and at least the proximate causes of suffering. And so the four-fold unsullied and stainless attitude that was described
yesterday in the sutra is very important. Freedom from aggression and the
wish to benefit the patient are the most important things, and these need to
be communicated and to be present.
Question: Rinpoche, I want to confirm my understanding that it has
been okayed by Rinpoche to share the tapes from this week and the practice text that we have used with others, and that those with whom we are
sharing it do not have to have taken the refuge vow. Is that correct? Because
I have people waiting back in Portland and I just wanted to be absolutely
sure.
Rinpoche: Yes.
Question: Thank you.
Question: I may just be asking Rinpoche to repeat himself, but I think
I need to hear it. The first question is about faith and devotion. When we
supplicate intensely, I am trying to understand better what exactly we’re
supplicating. What have we faith in and what do we have devotion to? Is it
faith that the practice will actually work or that the deity actually exists, or
a combination?

Rinpoche: It is both. The point is that faith and devotion bring the
accomplishment of whatever you are trying to do. If you have faith, you
will accomplish whatever it is, and if you do not have faith, you won’t. This
is simply how things work. If you have faith, then you will do it. You will
do something properly, and doing it properly will cause it to work. You will
achieve the result. And if you do not have that much faith in something,
you will do it halfheartedly or not at all, and therefore you will not achieve
the result. So having faith really means fundamentally trusting and believing in the process. With respect to the Medicine Buddha practice, it means
believing first and foremost that it will work. Trusting in the process will
automatically entail—and therefore produce—faith in and devotion to the
deities involved, the lama who taught you the practice, and so on.
Question: And does dev otion have to do with just the recognition of
the superior qualities of whatever it is you are devoted to?
Rinpoche: In Tibetan, the word that gets translated as devotion is usually expressed in English in two words that have distinct meanings. The
first word means enthusiasm, and of course enthusiasm is simply being
really interested in something. But this specific type of enthusiasm, as is
indicated by the second word, which literally means respect, is an enthusiasm founded upon, as you indicated, a recognition of the extraordinary
qualities of someone or something.
Question: Could you talk about the relationship between purification
and blessing?
Rinpoche: These two—purification and receiving blessings—are distinct. They are not exactly the same. Purification means that the obscurations—
the cognitive obscuration, which is ignorance, and the afflictive obscurations,
which are the mental afflictions and the karmic obscurations or the negative
karma that you have accumulated—are gradually purified, which means removed from you. And receiving blessing means that through your supplication of the buddha or of the dharma, you receive their blessing. For example,
when you supplicate the Medicine Buddha, through the power of your own
supplication combined with the power of the twelve aspirations made by the
Medicine Buddha, something happens, and that is called blessing. On the
other hand, while purification and blessing are distinct, either one can cause
the other. The removal of obscurations allows you to receive the blessings
[more fully] and receiving blessings brings about the removal of obscurations.
Question: Thank you very much Rinpoche.
Question: I have two questions and one challenge. But you may escape
the challenge depending on how you answer the first question. The first
question is, can you explain the difference between our buddha nature and
a buddha in particular with regard to the notions of omniscience and the
inseparability of samsara and nirvana?
Translator: The question is, can you explain the difference between our
buddha nature and a buddha, someone who has attained buddhahood,
and particularly in regard to the issue of omniscience and the inseparability
of samsara and nirvana. Is that the question or the challenge?
Question: That is the question. There is an adjunct actually to that.
How can one be realized without consciousness? I think they are connected,
those two.
Translator: By consciousness what do you mean?
Question: The aggregate that is impure that you talked about before.
Rinpoche: The buddha nature that is present in our nature as the ground
of being is like a bird in its eggshell, a bird that has not yet emerged from
the egg. And a buddha is like that bird flying in the sky, having broken out
of the eggshell. We each and everyone have the innate potential that manifests as the qualities of buddhahood. But this potential, which is our essence, is hidden by our obscurations, and therefore, as long as it is hidden,
we call it a seed. We use the term buddha to refer to someone in whom this
previously hidden essence has become revealed. So there are basically two
situations: a being whose basic nature is still hidden and a being whose
basic nature has been revealed. When that basic nature is hidden, we call it
a potential, a kernel or seed, an essence, or buddha nature. And when that
basic nature has been revealed, then we call that being a buddha.
Question: You didn’t answer the question about how you can be realized without consciousness.
Translator: Oh yes, I am sorry.
Rinpoche: You do not “lose consciousness” when you attain
buddhahood. You transform consciousness. The function of consciousness
is transformed into wisdom. In our present state, consciousness functions
somewhat haphazardly and imperfectly. Sometimes our consciousnesses are
so intense that they are overwhelming and sometimes they are so obscure
or dim that they do not really function properly.
Question: This is quite quick. Is it within mara’s ability to convince a
person that they are a realized buddha when they are not, or that they are a
lineage holder or a bodhisattva when they are not? And if it is, how does a
person protect himself or herself against that illusion, particularly given
that to be a realized buddha and/or lineage holder and/or a bodhisattva is
what one aspires to be?
Rinpoche: It sounds possible.
Question: w ell how do you protect yourself against it?
Rinpoche: Basically by preserving a good motivation and cultivating a
lot of love and compassion.
Question: I’ll leave my challenge for another time because there are so
many people.
Question: Thank you, Rinpoche, and thank you, Lama, for your translations. My question is regarding sangha. Most of us do not have any trouble
taking refuge in the buddha or taking refuge in the dharma, but when it
comes to taking refuge in the sangha, we roll our eyes and nervously giggle.
Here this whole week, we have been together as a sangha, all working cooperatively together, but when we leave here we’ll go to our different cities
and our different groups and get into situations where we have come from
many different schools—Nyingma, Kagyu, Geluk, Sakya, and others—and
many different teachers, many different ways of doing things. And what I
have seen happen in Seattle is one group thinking that their way is the best,
this teacher over here is said to have some shady past, some other teacher
does not teach at all in Tibetan, with all their various differences, and even
within individual groups, the various concepts: well, this person has taken
refuge, so they are sangha, even though maybe they do not practice very
often; this person practices all the time, but has not taken refuge; that person practices all the time but does not come to the center. So there are all
these various ideas about what sangha is and how to behave towards sangha
members, and I would like it if Rinpoche could address what sangha is,
what a practitioner is, and what the correct view and behavior towards
those would be.
Rinpoche: Our attitude towards the sangha is indicated by the definition of taking refuge in the sangha. Taking refuge in the sangha is accepting
the sangha or the community as companions on the path. So the basic view
you have of other practitioners is that they are fellow travelers on the same
path. That being the case, you do not particularly have to examine whether
or not someone is what either you or someone else might consider a fullfledged bona fide member of the sangha. You do not need to worry about
what the criteria are for making that appraisal. It does not matter whether
someone is of the same particular lineage or not, whether their approach in
practice is exactly the same as yours or not, whether they have taken the
vow of refuge or not. They are on the same path, trying to reach the same
goal. The fundamental function of the sangha is—by being on the same
path and having the same goal—to encourage one another to practice
dharma, to cause one another to remain involved and to become more
involved in dharma and its practice, rather than to lead one another farther
and farther away from the path.
Question: In that respect then, Rinpoche, would one expect sangha to
get larger rather than to become more and more narrow?
Translator: As a community you mean?
Question: Yes.
Rinpoche: well, it is good if it does, because the greater the number,
then the greater the momentum of the practice of that specific sangha. And
the greater the momentum, the more courage and the more deeply involved people tend to get.
Question: Thank you, Rinpoche. My question concerns care of people
who are terminally ill, people who are dying of something like cancer, and
the relief of pain. I have been told that it is better not to relieve pain too
much because it is karma coming to fruition, that if you do not feel it now,
you are going to feel it later, in the next life or whenever, which seems to me
not the most compassionate view, particularly if the person who is dying in
pain is not a dharma practitioner. Could you speak to that please?
Rinpoche: It is possible that the agony of a dying person is a result of
their previous karma, but your giving them medicine that reduces that pain
does not remove the working out of that karma. It affects how bad the pain
is, but the karma itself is still ripening. So by alleviating the pain of a dying
person, you are not dooming them to a worse fate later on. So by all means
they should be given pain medication.
Question: Thank you.
Question: You have been talking a lot about impure and pure perceptions. I am having a hard time understanding or thinking what might constitute something that is pure in its perception. Is it bright or light? On the
other hand what is an impure perception?
Rinpoche: It has more to do with the mind that is perceiving than it
does with the actual physical characteristics of what is perceived. A simple
example of this is that if the same person looks at the same thing in two
different emotional states, they will see them differently. The effect of what
they see will be very different. For example, if someone looks at something
while they are very angry, while they are feeling really spiteful and mean,
they will see it as irritating or as unpleasant, and if the same person looks at
the same thing when their emotional state is one of love and compassion,
something very positive, they will see the same thing as having a positive
nature or quality. That basically is what is meant by impure perception or
appearances and pure perception or appearances, but the difference between those two states—the same person in basically two different moods—
is very slight. While that is the principle on which it operates, it can go
much further than that. If you can imagine a mind that is completely pure
of any kind of negativity whatsoever, what that person would experience is
what we would call true, pure appearances. And a mind that is filled with
various sorts of negativity experiences impure appearances.
Question: Thank you for the teachings, Rinpoche. I have a couple of
questions. I am wondering, in the subtle level of the judging mind, when
one is aware of judgments coming up—not when one is angry, but when
these judgmental tendencies arise—how can one work to antidote these in
the present moment?
Rinpoche: Are you talking about meditation or post-meditation?
Question: Post-meditation in interaction with others or even in simple
observation in daily life.
Rinpoche: The first step is to recognize the tendency. If you are in the
habit of recognizing these sorts of subtle judgmental thoughts as what they
are, then the habit of recognizing them and not wishing to invest in them
will accrue, and they will occur less and less often.
Question: So how is that really happening?
Rinpoche: If you are not interested in cultivating those thoughts and
you apply mindfulness and alertness, they will automatically happen less
and less and disappear.
Question: You mentioned the two main bodhisattvas of the Medicine
Buddha, Luminous Like The Sun and Luminous Like The Moon. I was
wondering if you could expand on that some.
Rinpoche: I think that they are other names for Manjushri and
Chagdrul. Luminous Like The Sun would be Manjushri, and Luminous
Like The Moon would be Chagdrul.
Question: You spoke a little bit about spirits and not wanting to get
them angry or to offend them. I am increasing my faith in the Medicine
Buddha and I am sure that its practice is great, but I wonder if you have
more guidance for one who does healing work where actual spirit possession may happen, and what perhaps to do or to focus on after doing such a
session?
Translator: Do you mean, if you are trying to heal someone who is
possessed by a spirit, or if you the healer get attacked by the spirit?
Question: Well, both perhaps. You are working with somebody, and a
spirit depossession happens, and they kind of reclaim their body. Generally
what I have experienced is just staying really strong and clear, but sometimes there is fatigue or other things that may happen afterwards. So both.
Rinpoche: The most important thing in that situation is that the practitioner have compassion not only for the possessed person but for the
possessing spirit as well. Of course, we normally have compassion for the
possessed, but we may not have that much compassion for the possessor.
The possessed person deserves our compassion, because they are suffering.
But the possessor—equally or perhaps even more so—deserves our compassion, because they are doing what will become the cause of great suffering for themselves in the future. If you have that attitude of compassion for
the spirit, it will facilitate the extrication of the spirit, and also will not leave
that sort of staleness, and so forth, that will otherwise ensue.
SOMEHOW OUR BUDDHA NATURE HAS BEEN
AWAKENED, AND WE ARE VERY FORTUNATE INDEED
ALL OF YOU ARE NO DOUBT EXTREMELY BUSY, but in spite of that, you all
decided to come here, and for that, in and of itself, I thank you. Beyond that, having come here, you have all practiced and listened to the
teachings with great diligence and attentiveness, and I thank you especially
for that as well. As it says in the Jewel Ornament of Liberation, “While all
sentient beings without exception possess buddha nature, this buddha nature is hidden by our obscurations,” as in the analogy I gave yesterday of a
bird in an egg shell. There are different ways that buddha nature can be
present in a person. While it is equally present per se in everyone, it can
either emerge and be somehow awakened, or not. When buddha nature is
dormant, when there is no evidence in the person’s life of the presence of it,
that person has no immediate opportunity for liberation. On the other
hand, when the qualities of buddha nature emerge, when it becomes awakened or aroused, then its qualities are revealed and the person can begin to
attain liberation. Now in the case of all of you, your having decided to
come here, your having done so, and your having practiced diligently is
ample evidence of the awakening or emergence of your buddha nature, and
I consider this evidence further that your practice of dharma will continue
to progress until you attain liberation. So that is why I thank you for coming here and practicing.
While you have been here, you have been listening to and practicing
specifically the dharma connected with the Medicine Buddha, which in the
long term will be a cause of your complete liberation and in the short term
a cause of physical and mental well-being. So you are extremely fortunate,
because this practice is extremely beneficial. Now as you go on with your
lives and attempt to integrate practice into your daily life, you will find that
sometimes you will have what will seem like a more or less perfect opportunity. It will fit right into your life without any contradiction or problem,

and there will not seem to be any impediments or obstacles that interfere
with your practice. And sometimes you will find that there will seem to be
any number of obstacles impeding or obstructing your practice, time constraints and so forth, and it may get to the point that you feel you have no
opportunity to practice, at least not as much as you would like. In such
situations, do not be discouraged. Do not think, “I have obstacles, I have
real problems, I am never going to be able to practice. No matter what I do,
things always go wrong,” and so on. Do not allow yourself to become depressed by the temporary obstruction of your practice, and always remember that even merely encountering such dharma, even hearing it, is something
that is extremely fortunate, extremely beneficial in and of itself. Whatever
contact you have made and whatever practice of dharma you have done
will never be lost. The benefits of it can never be destroyed or removed and
will lead you sooner or later to complete liberation.
It says in the Jewel Ornament of Liberation that in one of the sutras the
Buddha discusses the benefit of having less than complete faith. Now obviously there are some people who have intense and complete, unquestioning faith in the three jewels, and especially in the dharma, and of course
that is wonderful. But there are other people who have less faith in the
dharma, which is to say that they have some faith in it, but they also have
some questions and doubts. The image that the Buddha uses to describe
these situations is that if someone has complete faith, they are going to join
both palms together in front of their heart in a gesture of utter devotion
and trust. But someone with less faith might just put one hand up in front
of their chest. So what the Buddha is describing is a situation in which
someone has what we could call “half faith.” They have faith but they also
have a lot of doubt. And the Buddha poses the question, “Is there going to
be any benefit, is there going to be any result to putting one hand up in a
gesture of half faith or half devotion?” And his answer is, “Yes, there will
definitely be a great result; there will be great benefit, and the benefit of this
will never be lost.” It will eventually lead to that being’s perfect awakening.
So in that way the Buddha praises an attitude of faith even if it is what we
might consider half-hearted.
A second analogy the Buddha gives begins with imagining a place of
practice such as this one. Initially, in order to come here, one generates the
intention to do so. So someone might think, “I need to go to such and such
place and practice intensively.” Now obviously, if you actually get there and
practice, there will be great benefit, but suppose someone, having decided,
“I want to go there and practice,” takes a few steps in order to get there, and
after merely few steps something gets in their way, a situation comes up
that prevents them from actually ever reaching the place and practicing.
And the Buddha asks, “In such a situation would there be a result?” And
the answer is yes, there would be a tremendous result, great benefit; even
having taken a few steps towards a place of practice with the intention of
practicing, even though you never get there and never practice, will ultimately still be a cause of perfect happiness. So as you go on with your lives
and you go on with the process that has included listening to dharma and
practicing dharma, sometimes you will find that you are free of impediments and obstacles that interfere with your practice, and other times you
will find that things just get in the way of your practice. But when things
get in the way, do not be too discouraged; remember that all of this is
always beneficial, and that it is not an abnormal situation for sometimes
there to be the freedom to practice and other times not. So never think ill
of yourself when you experience impediments.
That is the way this is explained in the teachings of the Buddha, as
quoted and expounded by Lord Gampopa. And if we simply think about it
ourselves, we can arrive at the same conclusion. If we consider appearances,
this world as we experience it, we normally experience things as being very
lustrous and colorful and powerful and distracting, even seductive. And
our minds are very easily pulled around, fooled, and seduced. Our minds
are very naive. Especially because we have lots of thoughts about what we
experience. We think that things are going to stay the same. We think that
things are stable and so on. And we usually fool ourselves with all of these
thoughts based on appearances. But somehow we have all generated the
idea, the thought, that practicing dharma and specifically coming here and
participating in this retreat would be worthwhile, that it would be important enough to make room for it in our lives. Most beings simply do not
come up with this idea. Most beings would not choose to come here. The
reason we did is that somehow our buddha nature has become awakened a
little bit, and the blessings of buddhas and bodhisattvas have somehow
entered into us and affected us. So while obstacles will arise from time to
time, these are not as important as they may seem at the time. They are
ultimately temporary and really unimportant. The process that has begun
with the awakening of our buddha nature and our making the choices we
have already made is unstoppable. Ultimately it will lead to our liberation.
So we are really very fortunate indeed. When you can, when you have the
necessary conditions or resources to do so, by all means practice. And when
you cannot, when things just get in the way of practice and make it impossible, then do not feel too sad, and recognize how extremely fortunate you
are.

PART FOUR
THE TWELVE GREAT ASPIRATIONS
OF THE MEDICINE BUDDHA

THE TWELVE GREAT ASPIRATIONS
OF THE MEDICINE BUDDHA
Excerpted from the Mahayana Sutra:
The Vast Attributes of the Previous Aspiration Prayers of the Noble
Victor,
The Deity of Medicine, Light of Lapis Lazuli
THE FIRST GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, then
may the light of my body make brilliant, stable, and especially radiant the
realms of this universe that are numberless, immeasurable, and beyond any
count. May all sentient beings be adorned with the thirty-two marks and
the eighty characteristics of a great, noble being. Thus, may all sentient
beings become just as I am.” So he prayed.
THE SECOND GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, may my
body resemble precious lapis lazuli, and be fully adorned with utter purity
within and without, a radiant clarity free of stains, a great agility in all
things, blazing glory and brilliance, physical symmetry, and a filigree of
light rays brighter than the sun and moon. For those born within this world
and for those who have gone their separate ways into the dark of the dead
of night, may my light come in all directions bringing happiness and contentment. May it also bring about virtuous activity.” So he prayed.

THE THIRD GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, through
my wisdom and immeasurable skillful means, may countless realms of sentient beings have inexhaustible wealth. May no one be deprived of anything.” So he prayed.
THE FOURTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, I will
place on the path to awakening any sentient being who has entered a negative path. All those who have entered the shravaka path or the
pratyekabuddha path, I will guide into the mahayana.” So he prayed.
THE FIFTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, may
any sentient being near to me maintain celibacy. Likewise, through my
power, may other innumerable sentient beings beyond measure, having
heard my name, hold their three vows and may their discipline not deteriorate. May those whose discipline has been corrupted, not enter into the
lower realms.” So he prayed.
THE SIXTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, may
any sentient being who has an inferior body, incomplete faculties, an unpleasant color, a virulent, epidemic disease, impaired limbs, a hunchback,
splotchy skin, may any being who is lame, blind, deaf, insane, or struck by
illness, upon hearing my name, for each one, may their faculties become
whole and their limbs be made perfect.” So he prayed.
THE SEVENTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, for any
sentient being whose body is riddled with the pain of various illnesses, who
has no refuge nor protector, no material goods nor medicine, no throng of

relatives, and who is poor and suffering, when my name comes to their
ears, may all their diseases be pacified. Until awakening, may they be free of
illness and remain unharmed.” So he prayed.
THE EIGHTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, if some
people are intensely afflicted by the faults of a negative birth, despised for
having it, and wish to be free of that place of birth, may they be liberated
from taking this negative birth again. Until they attain ultimate awakening, may a positive rebirth always arise for them.” So he prayed.
THE NINTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, I will
free all sentient beings from the maras’ noose. I will establish in the correct
view all those in disharmony due to various views and the problems of
discord. Ultimately, I will teach them the practice of bodhisattvas.” So he
prayed.
THE TENTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, may the
power of my merit completely liberate [beings] from all harm: those who
are terrorized by the fear of a ruler, who are in bondage and beaten, who
have fallen into a trap, who are sentenced to death, who are under the heel
of deception, who are not successful, and whose body, speech, and mind
are afflicted by suffering.” So he prayed.
THE ELEVENTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, for those
who are burning with hunger and thirst, and who commit negative actions
in their continuous efforts to search for food, may I satisfy them physically
with food that has [a pleasing] color, smell, and taste. Later, I will bring
them to the most blissful taste of the dharma.” So he prayed.

THE TWELFTH GREAT ASPIRATION
“At a future time when I have attained unsurpassable, ultimate, and
perfectly complete enlightenment, having come to full awakening, for those
who experience suffering day and night, being naked with no clothes to
wear, poor and miserable, [too] cold or hot, afflicted by flies and maggots,
I will give generously whatever they can enjoy, [such as] clothes that have
been dyed many colors. I will fulfill all their wishes just as they desire with
a variety of precious ornaments and decorations, necklaces, incense, ointments, the sound of music, musical instruments, and hand cymbals.” So he
prayed.
Manjushri, these are the twelve aspirations made by the Victor, the
Tathagata, the Arhant, the Perfect Buddha, the Lapis Lazuli Light of Medicine, when he was practicing the conduct of a bodhisattva.
Translated by Michele Martin