Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Biography Karma Chakme Rinpoche

Biography Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

Song One: Teaches the Profound Dharma

Song Two: How to Gain the Essence of the Difficult-to-Find Human Body

Song Three: Contemplating Impermanence, Cause, and Effect

Song Four: On the Visualization Sessions

Song Five: Training in Generation and Completion for Beginners

Song Six: The Arising of Experiences and the Elimination of Obstacles

Song Seven: On Enhancement

Song Eight: Taking Death onto the Path

Tibetan Root Text Tibetan and English

Glossary

Index

Acknowledgments

Resources

Excerpts

The Nature of Thought is Emptiness

Excerpt from "Song Six: The Arising of Experiences and the Elimination of Obstacles"

At that time, whatever thoughts arise, identify one thought,
And when you look and do not find where it comes from
Where it goes or where it resides, that is emptiness.

When your mind becomes so agitated that you cannot look at it, apprehend one thought from among any of the thoughts that are rushing through your mind. Look at that thought to see where it came from, where it is, and where it goes when it disappears. When you look at these three things, you will discover that the thought did not come from anywhere. It also is not anywhere, even while it is apparently present, and it does not go anywhere. In other words, the origin, location, and destination of thought are all emptiness.

For example, if you cut through a bamboo and look inside,
You will know that all bamboos are empty inside.
In that same way, when you realize that one thought is empty,
You will know that all thoughts are the same
And will not be gladdened by stillness or saddened by movement.

If you can recognize this in the experience of direct observation of any one thought, then that will substantially alter how you experience all thoughts. For example, if you go into a large bamboo forest and cut open one stalk of bamboo, and you discover that the stalk is hollow, you know that all the bamboo is hollow. You do not have to go around cutting open each and every stalk. In the same way, once you have realized that any one thought is empty, since all thoughts have the same nature, you will then transcend the preference for stillness. Preference for stillness means thinking that it is great if the mind is at rest and that it is terrible if the mind is moving — that is, if thoughts are arising.

Just as there is no difference between water and waves,
You should look at the essence of whatever arises, with no
difference between stillness and movement.

Once you have recognized that the nature of thought is emptiness, you will no longer make that preferential distinction, because the relationship between the mind at rest and the thoughts that emerge in the mind is like the relationship between a body of water and the waves that appear on its surface. The waves are nothing other than the water itself exhibiting the form of waves; therefore, without making any distinction between stillness and movement, simply look directly at the nature of whatever arises in the mind.

Entrust Yourself to the Three Jewels

Excerpt from "Song Four: The Visualization Sessions"

If you don't keep the vows and commitments
After entering the dharma and receiving empowerment,
transmission, and instruction,
It will be your ruin, like medicine changing into poison.

The final section of this part of the fourth song presents the theory behind these practices and is concerned with the commitments that we take in our involvement with dharma. Having entered the door of dharma and having received empowerments, transmissions, and instructions, if you do not keep the vows and samayas you have undertaken, it is like a medicine turning to poison. In other words, it is a disaster. When a medicine becomes poisonous, it is actually worse than the sickness that it was supposed to remedy. In order to avoid that, you need to keep the vows and commitments you have undertaken. We all want to do that; the problem is that sometimes we are not aware of or cannot even remember all of these commitments.

It is difficult to keep the vows if you don't know them in detail.
But it will suffice to keep them as included within one essential meaning.

As long as you do not know about these commitments, it is very difficult for you to keep them. It is, however, sufficient to summarize the essence of each of these vows into one essential commitment, and if you keep that one commitment, it will be sufficient for keeping all the vows.

If you entrust yourself to the Jewels thinking that they know what is
to be done,
Then that will include all the vows of refuge.

The first vow we take is the refuge vow. To completely entrust yourself to the Three Jewels with the attitude, "You know what to do," and to maintain that attitude toward the buddha, dharma, and sangha, includes all commitments of the refuge vow. An implication of this, of course, is that if you do not completely entrust yourself to the buddha, dharma, and sangha in that way, you are not fully keeping the vow of refuge.

Proceed Gradually

Student: When you give teachings like this that are easier for me to understand, I get really worked up and want to make some kind of leap. I really start to feel like I want to get out of samsara, and I would like to make some deeper commitment. I would like to know how I should do that. Should I just sell everything?

The other question, which is more troubling to me, is that it is clear from listening to the teachings that we need to take our devotion — which for me can come spontaneously with feelings of emotion, but not very often — and make it part of our minds all of the time to really get the benefits of enlightenment. How do we get to that place?

Rinpoche: What you say is very true. What happens to us normally is that we hear something, we understand it, and it inspires renunciation and so on. The reason why this feeling thereafter seems to dissipate, or why there seem to be so many ups and downs in our renunciation and devotion, is that we do not have enough experience of meditating on it. That is why this text recommends meditating on impermanence three times every day. In this way, instead of having brief moments of intense, inspired renunciation that later vanish, you have a gradually deepening renunciation.

When we think about abandoning samsara, we feel like we want to do something dramatic and say good-bye to it today. At the same time we have the problem of having a physical body that needs to be sustained, fed, protected, and clothed. Rather than attempting to suddenly make your life 100 percent dharma, it seems that the most productive thing to do is to gradually introduce more and more dharma into your life over time. Start with 10 percent dharma, then make it 20 percent, and then 30 percent. Proceed gradually.

Buddha from the Beginning

Excerpt from "Song Five: Training in Generation and Completion for Beginners"

The root meaning: the path of generation and completion’s union.
This has what has to be known and what has to be meditated.

The fifth song describes a path that consists of the unification or integration of the generation stage (the visualization of a deity or deities) and the completion stage (which in this case refers to recognition of the mind’s nature). This path is presented as two things that can be practiced simultaneously and do not necessarily have to be practiced separately. The song has two parts: what is to be understood and what is to be meditated on. The meaning is profound and extensive. What is to be understood is the actual view behind all deity meditation, and what is to be practiced is the main meditation of this path.

The essence of the mind of all beings
Is primordially the essence of buddhahood.
Its empty essence is the birthless dharmakaya.
Its clear distinct appearances are the sambhogakaya.
Its unceasing compassion is the variegated nirmanakay.
The inseparable union of those three is the svabhavikakaya.
Its eternal changelessness is the mahasukhakaya.

The view is to be understood as follows: The nature of the mind of all sentient beings, irrespective of any obscurations that may obscure or conceal it, has from the very beginning been buddha. There is an inherent wakefulness and perfection to the mind of each and every being. In fact, this is what the mind of each and every being is. In and of itself, it is free of all defects and complete with all qualities, and therefore the nature of the mind can be called buddha. Even though we have become confused and wander through samsara, that basic nature has not degenerated, and even when we attain full awakening, that nature itself will not improve. The nature of the mind remains unaffected; in other words, it is the same in both the context of ground and in the context of fruition. Its essential emptiness is the dharmakaya, the essential nature of the mind that is free from arising, abiding, and cessation. Nevertheless your mind is not just empty; it is vivid, lucid, and cognitive. That characteristic or appearance of the mind as a lucidity that is unmixed in its experience of appearances is the sambhogakaya, or body of complete enjoyment. The actual display of that lucidity, the goodness or responsiveness and compassion of the mind, which is unlimited and unceasing in its variety, is the nirmanakaya. When we speak of them in these terms, these three seem different from one another. The mind’s emptiness, its clarity, and the arising of appearances within the mind are not in and of themselves substantial, but rather they are the appearance of that which is without inherent existence, like a rainbow. Although these three sound different, they are not three different things, but are in fact a unity. That unity, which is the mind itself, is the svabhavikakaya, or essence body. This unity also never changes: it does not improve at the time of fruition, nor does it degenerate under other circumstances, so therefore it is called the mahasukhakaya, or body of great bliss.

This primordial innate presence in yourself
Was not created by the compassion of the buddhas,
by the blessing of the gurus
Or by the profound special essentials of the dharma.
Wisdom has primordially been present in this way.
All sutras and tantras are in accord on this.

From the very beginning, this primordial wisdom has been inherent in each and every person. It is innate; it is something that we are never without; we never lose it nor deviate from it. Because it is and has always been the unity of emptiness and lucidity, the path that corresponds in characteristic to the ground is therefore the unity of these two stages, generation and completion. This unity itself, which has always been the nature of our minds and which we have never been without, is not produced by the path. The path corresponds in characteristic to the qualities of the ground, but the path does not produce the ground, it only reveals it.