Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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Chapter 12. Cutting the Root of Samsara Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 2014 Light of the Path retreat in North Carolina. Photo: Roy Harvey. The decoration that pervades our life Even taking refuge and protecting our karma so that we will not be reborn in the lower realms and will attain a higher rebirth is not sufficient because we are still under the control of karma and delusion. That means until we can break free we will continuously circle in samsara, having to be reborn again and again. Then, not only will we suffer endlessly but we will also be unable to ever meet and practice Dharma, to actualize the path to the direct perception of emptiness. It will continue to be like that as it has been from beginningless rebirths. How we circle in samsara is through the twelve dependent related limbs. Upon the valid base of the aggregates there is a valid labeling mind, one that merely imputes an I on those aggregates. That happens in the first moment, then in the next moment, for many of us, myself included, what happens is that what was a moment ago a valid mind merely imputing an I, now, we have no idea that was happening. We are so ignorant, so totally ignorant that we don’t know that this is the reality. That merely imputed I should appear back as just that, an I merely imputed by the mind—that is the reality—but this has not happened from beginningless rebirths. 157
As I have mentioned, for a buddha, after the mere imputation, the I appears as merely labeled by the mind, however, this does not happen for sentient beings unless they are in meditative equipoise. Otherwise, it appears as existing from its own side. For us, in the first moment it appears as merely imputed by the mind, but in the next moment it appears as existing from its own side. That is a hallucination, a total hallucination. We are completely hallucinating. I am not saying this because it is an interesting subject worthy of intellectual discussion. This is the real situation we are faced with. It is a big mistake—the biggest mistake—that we make, to see things as existing from their own side, existing by themselves, as truly existing. To use ordinary language, things appear real to us, real from there. This ignorance is a hallucination; it decorates an object. I find this a very interesting way of describing it. This is how it happens. Past ignorance has left an imprint on the mind and that negative imprint decorates, projects, the hallucination, making the I appear as real. Whatever the object of the mind is—the I, the action, the object, form, sound, smell, taste, tangible object—the whole thing appears to us as real. There is a real car, a real road, a real sky, a real shop, real ice cream, real money. On the road there is a real red light, a real yellow light, a real green light. In the real gompa there are real flowers, real thangkas, real statues. Everything is real from over there. It is a creation, a projection, merely imputed by our mind, but we have no idea of that. We have no idea that it is only a hallucination coming from over there. We see it from there as real. This “real” thing does not exist; it has never existed. It has never come into existence and it does not exist now. The whole thing is a hallucination. From morning to night it’s like that. Since we were born until our death, our whole life—whatever we do, wherever we travel—the whole thing, the objects of our senses, including the I, appear as real from there. Everything we experience, including the real I, is a hallucination. Nothing exists in reality. Nothing exists the way it appears to exist, as real from there. Everything is totally empty. It’s like a dream, like an illusion. Cutting the root of samsara If we are able to meditate in this way, looking at all this as like a dream, an illusion, a mirage—all the different examples—then it becomes very interesting. There is nothing to become attached to because it is not real. For example, if we recognize a dream as a dream, there is nothing to be attached to and there is nothing to be angry about. In a dream, somebody abuses us but if we can recognize the dream as a dream, the abuse does not bother us at all. Similarly, some object of desire appears in our dream, but recognizing it as just a dream, we are not agitated. Nothing disturbs us; our mind remains utterly peaceful. Anger and attachment do not arise, so we have a very, very interesting life. 158
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SUN OF DEVOTION, STREAM OF BLESSING
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The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Bring
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6. The Guru Is the Most Powerful Ob
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Editor’s Preface This book is the
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Chapter 1. Taking Care of the Mind
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We still have to experience death b
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In a well-cultivated field, whateve
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What a pleasant life we human being
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enefit the teachings of the Buddha
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Among those fifty-one secondary min
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means the cessation of all the gros
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Padmasambhava’s ways of diagnosin
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Practicing Dharma is subduing our m
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from life to life, we will be able
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In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s W
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said, that allows them to develop i
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contained in the Tengyur, a collect
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Thus the misconceptions about Buddh
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Not understanding this specific emp
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Cutter Sutra eventually does. Then
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There are sentient beings who are a
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vase, the neck is not the vase, the
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4. The freedom of not being born as
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sentient beings, not only to the ti
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If Milarepa could do that after kil
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All of us, believers or nonbeliever
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The need for refuge in our life Per
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▶abstaining from telling lies ▶
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Otherwise they come into the kitche
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Our life is so important, so precio
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Even though our mind, or the other
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We will realize this as we are abou
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The emptiness of the Z I want to en
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the greatest problem that affluent
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Without a guru, we cannot be free f
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This is mentioned in Pabongka Deche
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particles of dust of the earth. Eve
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human mother. If we were to sacrifi
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Buddhism came from the Buddha, from
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obscurations but also the obscurati
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Chapter 7. A Talk about Dolgyal Rec
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seemed to like us and we were able
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very crowded. That’s how we lived
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him about the bum-pa, the vase. Thi
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A key element of guru devotion prac
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who helped with his education, his
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In short, practicing Dolgyal is har
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Khadro-la and earthquakes Although
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esult of negative karma is rebirth
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Publicly she is like an ordinary pe
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There are other quotations but that
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Once in Nepal I dreamed of a small
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is the kind root guru. Then it star
Page 108 and 109: It is as the quote says, Before the
Page 110 and 111: The importance of guru devotion Pad
Page 112 and 113: So now, this is a real story. At Bu
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Page 116 and 117: Practicing Dharma is more important
Page 118 and 119: memorize them but then forgot them
Page 120 and 121: egin by achieving a long life, wher
Page 122 and 123: Chapter 10. Seeing the Guru as a Bu
Page 124 and 125: The monks did that, but of course,
Page 126 and 127: uddhas. That is also mentioned in t
Page 128 and 129: person without head. I don’t know
Page 130 and 131: Those meditators who have achieved
Page 132 and 133: When I was in Tibet I visited Tsurp
Page 134 and 135: Why should they be called kon-chog
Page 136 and 137: that it is his mistake. It is like
Page 138 and 139: Chapter 11. More Precious than a Wi
Page 140 and 141: patience, perseverance, meditation
Page 142 and 143: dust of this earth can be counted,
Page 144 and 145: we were once crossing a short bridg
Page 146 and 147: There are so many animals. There ar
Page 148 and 149: Whether or not we eat animals is in
Page 150 and 151: Having been born at a time when the
Page 152 and 153: We must prepare for the next life T
Page 154 and 155: There is no sentient being we have
Page 156 and 157: Probably many people think that ren
Page 160 and 161: Because things appear to us not as
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Page 164 and 165: This is all karma. What the Buddha
Page 166 and 167: numberless suffering sentient being
Page 168 and 169: By seeing that person as a wish-gra
Page 170 and 171: light more and some illusory body.
Page 172 and 173: to achieve enlightenment. The other
Page 174 and 175: together is the transcendental wisd
Page 176 and 177: Then you make a promise to generate
Page 178 and 179: eings who also need the Medicine Bu
Page 180 and 181: Focus on the deity’s holy body th
Page 182 and 183: End Notes 1. Or his. Rather than us
Page 184 and 185: 30. Khedrub Sang ye Yeshe (1525-91)
Page 186 and 187: 64. In other teachings Rinpoche has
Page 188 and 189: 97. These are the three ways to und
Page 190 and 191: Where and when these teachings were
Page 192 and 193: Gyatso, Tenzin, the Fourteenth Dala
Page 194 and 195: ———. How to Practice Dharma:
Page 196 and 197: If you, dear reader, would like to
Page 198 and 199: Other available teachings by Lama Y
Page 200 and 201: Our further development similarly d
Page 202 and 203: The Foundation for the Preservation
Page 204 and 205: Dedication Through the merit create
Page 206 and 207: About Gordon McDougall Gordon McDou
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