Lama Lena hosts longtime friend, Chokyang Palga Rinpoche, who presents the essential teachings of Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind, a 2-part teaching. Rinpoche is from Ladakh, and is an acknowledged lineage holder of Wangdor Rimpoche, Lama Lena’s root teacher.

Part 1
Part 2

Transcript

Note: This transcript may contain errors.

[Lama lena] Live on YouTube?

[Nyondo] Yes

[Lama Lena] Goodmorning you all. You guys are lucky, we got a really cool guest teacher. Drugpa-Kagyu, like my own teacher, Wangdor Rinpoche; one of Wangdor Rinpoche’s other students. Who has been trained since childhood and knows a lot more than I do.

So, Palga Rinpoche, thank you so much for coming and doing this. As usual I have been having technological issues. So, those of you who wish to offer dana, we have not managed to put a button on the website. We’re going to send you a PayPal link during this and if you wish to make dana, that is where you can do it. With many, many thanks to Palga Rinpoche. <And I’ll explain to you the in’s and out’s what happened with your direct link later> Technology, the final frontier. But just think guys, you’d have had to go to Ladakh to get this; that’s far away. And not easy to get to. I get up there, riding the tops off trucks. Alf the road is only about this wide, it feels like. You’re looking now, you’re looking up. So, many, many thanks for doing this over the internet for me.

[Chokyang Palga Rinpoche]

It’s really my pleasure, Lama lena; thank you so much for such a generous introduction. I just feel very humble that my own Dharma-aunt – you know, I consider you as my Dharma-aunt, cause ever since I can remember, ever since I was enthroned and brought to Tso Pema at Wangdor Rinpoche’s doorstep in Dzigar Gompa, I have seen your face, since I can remember – so, it is such a pleasure to be conduct in this session with all your followers and all the followers of Wangdor Rinpoche. So, thank you very much.

[Lama lena] Well, thank you fro being here and on that said, Nyondo, if you take me off spotlight, we leave Rinpoche to give the teaching. Thank you so much.

[Chokyang Palga Rinpoche] Thank you. Am I good to go, Nyondo?

[Lama Lena] You are, you are live.

[Chokyang Palga Rinpoche] Okay, thank you so much, thank you Nyondo and thank you so much to my dear Dharma-aunt Lama lena for this opportunity to accumulate some merit, even though we are at very different time zones; you know, I was actually getting confused earlier, I had logged in half an hour earlier, freaking out that maybe I got late. But afterwards when I checked the link that Nyondo send to see the time difference, I had logged in half an hour earlier. So, yeah, it is such a pleasure.

I am currently in Delhi, and I am here teaching for some time, for a few weeks. And if I look tired, apologies, because it is half past eleven, pm. It is night and today I had a very busy day. I was actually teaching, especially to the youths at local Buddhist temple for Ladakhies in North Delhi. It is a lovely place. And it is like sanctuary during among the chaos that is Delhi. And we also have a lot of sick people who come from Ladakh who come for treatment, and I wanted to give a long life empowerment of Chenrezig, of Avalokiteshvara, so which I did today. And then I rushes back to my place in South Delhi, it was around nine or ten and got ready for this lovely session.

Thank you so much Lama Lena fro you very kind introduction. I just say a few words about me. I don’t know how many of you have heard about me. Maybe some of you know, maybe some of you are old friends, and maybe we have met in Tso Pema when I was young ,after I was recognized and enthroned and brought to Tso Pema. Or maybe some of you are new, and we have not met.

Basically I am from Ladakh. I am Tulku, reincarnated teacher, guru, of the Drugpa-Kagyü lineage. But I have attended teachings of all lineages. From Sagya-pa, and Gelugpa, from Nyingma, from Kagyü. So, even I belong to Drugpa-Kagyü lineage, I practice in a very ri-me sort of way.

I was from Ladakh, and I was recognized at a very early age of one, I was only one year old. And I was enthroned at the age of eight, because I was to young to be given to the monastery. So, my guru, His Holiness [?] Gelong Drugpa06:14 thought that it was better for me live with my parents for some years. So, I became, I was officially enthroned at the age of eight. And I remember when is wasn’t young, I used to tell u parents, that I don’t belong to Ladakh; this is not my place, this is not my home, you aren’t my parents. I used to say “My home is somewhere else, you know, this is not my town. My town is somewhere else”. What I could remember is my previous incarnation when the Chinese invaded Tibet. And a lot of destruction took place and a lot of monasteries – when the late Wangdor Rinpoche managed to escape Tibet, carrying his Guru on his back across the Himalayas – so, I think in that process my previous incarnation was killed during the invasion, like so many other great masters.

So, I used to remember that, you know. I was not from Ladakh, I was from some place else, so I used to say this to my parents. It was quite funny. They used to say “just shut up, you dot know what you are talking about”.

So, it was a great joy when the monks from Tso Pema – Wangdor Rinpoche had found a monastery in Tso Pema through sheer determination and hard work and with great assistance of my Dharma-aunt Lama Lena, and also thanks to so any benefactors and sponsors who helped. So, I was brought to Tso Pema monastery, it was nineteen-eighty-two, I was very young; and, I don’t want to go to deep into my boring life stop. But so I went through basic education in Tso Pema. I had a very harsh upbringing. My teacher was from eastern Tibet, he was a Khampa. And if you know Lama Lena, if you know Wangdor Rinpoche, hahaha, you know what a Khampa is. Hahaha.

So, I had a very difficult childhood, disciplined childhood. And it was quite a struggle to be trained as a Rinpoche. I would be locked up in a small room and I would have to wake up at five in the morning, practice, meditate, read, write, Lama dancing, the whole lot, you know, until six, even pm. maybe two hour break every day.

So, it was quite difficult but I found I used all my frustration, all the sadness, into books. So, I used to love reading. My grasp 09:11 [?] of English was very limited, I was very young. So, I could hardly, I only ran ups to third grade in Ladakh. Second or this grade, so I only knew the alphabet, and a few words. But a few people in Tso Pema, a few foreigners came and they thought me basic English , so I managed to pick up Tintin comic books. So I used to read a lot of Tintin, a lot of Asterix and Obelix. And managed to improve my English. And I didi the same thing with Hindi. I read a lot of Hindi comic books.

And so I took my frustration on books and instead of getting hammered down, instead of getting brought down by my depression, by my anxiety, by my loneliness, I channeled all those negative energies into refining myself.

So, that is very much how a Vajraya-nist sees the world. A Vajrayanist, a true Vajrayanist on the path, in my opinion, does not reject anything.

That is what is represented by the peacock feathers on the vase.. So, on the vase, the peacock feather is a very good representation of how to practice as a Vajrayanist. It is said that a peacock gets all this beautiful colors on its feathers, because the peacock is able to consume poisons, poisoned seeds and berries, not getting killed by but it actually contributes to the beautification of its feathers. That is what they say in the scriptures.

So, in the same way, in sort of getting harmed by the poison, the peacock transforms it to look beautiful. So, as a Vajrayanist I am sure you all know because you are students of Lama Lena; I am sure you all know, but I am just trying to remind that whenever we feel any adversity, we should not reject, we should ever judge, we should always have what we call pure vision, we should always try to see everything as in Dzogchen, everything as pure and everything with potential. How we use it, how we channel it, that depends on our spiritual growth.

But I managed to do it when I was very young. And instead of getting pulled down by all the difficult things that was happening in my life, I used it to learn new things, I used it to train myself, so that in the future I could communicate with the public.

So, anyway, there was a difficult childhood. Then I went to higher Buddhist studies, shedra. And after that I traveled to England, I lived there. I did some jobs. So, I had a very crazy time in England; I was there for two years, this was in two thousand four. I did some work, I did some jobs. At one point I became homeless because I was really struggling and I slept on the streets. It was a very interesting experience.

And then after that I came back to Tso Pema. I met Wangdor Rinpoche again and I got teachings from him and from many other masters. I finished my three year retreat, and then I traveled back to Europe again and I started traveling and teaching and so on. So, I had a very interesting life so far. And it is all thanks to lessons of Wangdor Rinpoche and with blessings of my auntie, Lama Lena. She has always been there for me, so it is a great joy to be able to talk about this topic today.

So, what we are going to, what I would like to talk about today, is in both Dzogchen and Mahamudra is what we call the foundational – I don’t have to use the word basic or beginners – I like to use the word foundational. It is the foundational teachings.

When you embark on a journey, either while Dzogchen or Mahamudra, basically it is almost the same, like two sides of a coin, it really doesn’t matter so much; so when you want to start. your practices, obviously in my opinion who never have met the oldic/ authentic 14:01 [?] very – they all get very exited with the higher teachings, for example of tu-mo, of which I am like – the six yoga’s of Naropa, of tu-mo , the inner heat practice, of which we are great, I am a big practitioner; that is why I a wearing this meditation belt, like Milarepa. Those who wear this belt are usually, not all I guess, signs that they practice yoga, especially the six yoga”s of Naropa.

So, people are very interested in practicing the higher technics, the high teachings, but it is absolutely essential for anyone, especially the novice, especially those who are not karmically prepared. Because everybody is different. Some people don’t need to be, don’t need to go through the preliminaries, the foundational teachings. I have met many people who are karmically ripe, the potential has been prepared for many lifetimes already. So, they don’t need that much preparation in this life. I am sure some of you fall into that category. I am sure Lama Lena has sometimes fast forwarded some of the teachings and given some of you very advanced teachings.

But generally, as a safeguard, it is very important to trek the path systematically. So we start with the foundational teachings. And among the foundational teachings, there are what we call the common preliminaries, the common foundational teachings, and the uncommon or special foundational teachings. So there are two categories, broadly speaking.

I don’t want to get to much into the details, or the technicalities. I want to give a very experiential account of the foundational teachings. based on my experiences, based on my hearings of the teachings from great gurus, especially from Wangdor Rinpoche. I want give my experiential thoughts and teachings in this particular topic.

So, there are four main teachings in that category of common foundational teachings of Mahamudra or Dzogchen. Generally, it sometimes depends; sometimes it can fall into five but usually, almost all the time we summarize them as four.

The first one is precious human body. The second one is impermanence. The third one and the fourth one, it depends sometimes, they shift. But usually the third one is the faults of samsara and the fourth one is karma, karmic consequences.

It has almost everything you need in order to get a good grasp of Buddha Dharma in general and how to prepare your mind, how to find the right motivation.

Because if you are not motivated to do a certain practice, it is very important to get – it is, you know, you can get dissolution, you know. There is a high change that along the path you will get tired, you will get disillusioned, because you haven’t set the right foundation in the beginning. So that is why it is very important to start with these four.

The first one is precious human body. Not very difficult to understand. It basically means that our bodies are the vessels through which we can accomplish great many things; not only in tis lifetime, not only for the sake of this lifetime, but also for the sake of our next lives. Not only temporal and samsaric happiness, but also long term, lets say eternal, let’s say enlightenment towards that. So only with the vessel of your body you can achieve all goals.

It is like a glass of water; the water cannot be used, or let’s say, we cannot drink without a vessel, without a glass. So the glass is absolutely essential. So our bodies are like the vessels, the mediums through which we accomplish great many things.

Now, technically, then you can talk about eighteen categories, there are eighteen counts.

On what makes a precious human body. Because not all humans have what we call the precious human body. There are many kind of humans, there are billions of humans on this earth. And we are only talking about one world we are only talking about one small world, on the southern edges of Mount Meru, according to Buddhist cosmology.

And we are only talking about one dimension and one world. But there are innumerable amounts of worlds where humans reside in different forms.

And on this particular world, it is special because in our time the Buddha has appeared. And many subsequent enlightened beings have appeared, like Garab Dorje, like Guru Rinpoche, like Nagarjuna, like Naropa and so on. So, not everybody has what we consider the perfect vessel, the perfect body. So, the first teaching is about the perfect human body.

What makes a human body perfect.

There are lots of counts, there are eighteen counts. Eight freedoms, eights sorts of freedoms, and ten endowments, or resources; things that you receive from self and others. So let me first start with the eight freedoms.

Basically we should not be born in hell, in the hell realm. Why. Because in the hell realm the suffering is extreme. Suffering with the eight hot realms and eight cold realms. And also the two surrounding hell realms. So there are eighteen realms in hell. And the suffering is extreme, you don’t have time to relax, you have time to have renunciation mind, you don’t have the wish to get out of this loop that we call samsara.

Coming back to samsara, something usually – the traditional word to describe samsara is cycle, we call it a cycle. Birth, death, a big cycle. And a small cycle for example, inhalation, exhalation. Or like a practical cycle: hungry? Go to the kitchen. And then after the food digest, go to the washroom. Again hungry, go to the kitchen. So, we are surrounded, we are driven by cycles. Big cycles and small cycles. That is a traditional term we use, cycles.

But I like to use the word loop; it is a more technical, more modern and technological word, loop. I like to think that we are stuck in a loop. And we need to break the loop. Because once you are stuck in a loop, you have no independence. There is no, there is only the illusion of independence; but we’re really not independent, we are always driven by our desire and needs and wants.

So I like to think as samsara as a loop and we ned to get out of this loop. In order to get out of this loop, we need a platform from where we can get out of it. And the only platform that we can get out of this loop of samsara is the human realm.

If you are born in hell realm, you can not practice the Dharma. Why? Because you are constantly suffering. I’ll give an example.

There are in the hot realms, there is a place that I personal find terrifying, It is called thig nag; thig means line, nag means black, so black line. So basically it is how a carpenter saws, cuts wood. How does carpenter work? He takes a pencil, he draws a line on the wood, takes a big saw and starts cutting; either a manual saw or an electric saw. Same thing happens in hell. Instead, in this particular hell that I am talking about, thig nag, we are the wood. We are born there, all of a sudden, we are all tight up and you don’t know where you are, you are very confused, you just come out of bardo, everything is very confusing, and you are looking around and you are looking at this fierce creatures of Yama. All because of your confused mind they appear as animal-headed demons. And they are laughing, they are enjoying it. And one of them has a pencil and draws a line across your body. And you have no idea what they are doing, but then you realize because you know that is how carpenters cut wood. So, after drawing the line they will take their saws, blazing, hot. And the entire realm is hot, and the will cut our limbs.

If you are born in such a state, there is no reprieve, there is no time; you are constantly busy with suffering. So we should not be born in the hell realm.

Again I want to say just one thing. Places such as hell, hungry ghost and so on, especial the extremes one, the Buddha said that they don’t actual exist as a physical location. Hell really doesn’t exist as a physical location like how America exists, how India exists like a physical location. Like you can not put in your Google-maps “Hell”, “Take me to Hell”. They won’t say “Oh, take a right and then take a left and then you reached”.

So, there is no physical location for hell. Hell is a state of the confused mind. The mind that does not see its true potential, it is very far from its true potential, the mind that is polluted with defilements and confusion and driven by ego; that mind, after death suffers hell like visions, regions25:43 [?], that is what we call hell.

So, we should not be born in hell.

Second one is hungry ghost. What does hungry ghost mean. Hungry ghost is a realm in samsara where it is said that people are constantly hungry. There is no food whatsoever available. There is no water available anywhere. And those beings who are born in the hungry ghost realm, suffers constantly of hunger and thirst. So, obviously they cannot – they don’t even want to listen to the Dharma. Even if a Bodhisattva or a Guru did appear, they would not be able to concentrate, or supplicate or listen to any Dharma teachings. They are also not free.

So, not to be born in hell, not to be born in hungry ghost you are free from these two states, that is two freedoms. There are eight of them.

Third one animal kingdom. What happens if you are born as an animal. Now see, animals are beautiful, I love animals. They have things that we don’t, they have senses that we don’t. They are sensitive in a very beautiful way; that humans have become sterile so to speak. But then animals do not have the capacity of humans of understanding the Dharma. So, if you are born in the animal realm, either you are getting killed because of attachment, because people want to eat your flesh. Or you’re getting killed because of ignorance, because somebody wants to offer your blood or your flesh to a god; that is due to ignorance. Or you are getting killed because of hatred; “some animals have attacked our village, we are going to hunt the animal”, and so on.

Usually it is due to attachment and ignorance, so if you are born in the animal realm, we suffer due to this consequences. And also we suffer because animals are made to put to work, like buffalo’s, like donkeys and horses. They don’t have freedom in the same way that humans do. They don’t have the mental capacity to understand the Buddhist teachings, because they can’t read and write. Well, maybe they do, who knows. At least I think my dogs do, they are very intelligent, I love my dogs. But they don’t appear to be.

So, if you are born in the animal realm, you are not free.

Then we have – usually they call them barbarians – but people who are born in the outskirts of civilized world. Especially people who are born in the jungles, like natives who live in the jungles, and so on in the far away places. Because – not all of them but most of them, I think, unless they have some karma from past live, they would not have the capacity or the would not have the karma to understand the Buddhist teachings. Because all they know is how to hunt and how to survive in that hostile environment. They do have their own wisdom, in terms of hunting and so on, or in terms of surviving in a hostile environment, they are the experts; but if you went to go to a place where some very extreme natives live, in the jungle or in the mountain or somewhere, and you were to teach them something histories – in history we see that many people get killed, because they just do not understand and they see even humans as trophies to be hunted, to be killed and so on – so, we say that in the teachings it is said that if you are born in such a far away place, very far away from the Dharma, very far away from teachings and Gurus, you will not be able to practice the Dharma. So, you have to be free from being born in a far away land, like the land of the barbarians.

Then we have gods. If you are born in the god realm, there is a problem, because there is to much enjoyment. There is to much enjoyment, you are too happy constantly, because you have the wish fulfilling tree that grows of your karma. All you wishes get fulfilled, you are to busy having fun, so you don’t feel like you want to practice Dharma. You have to be free from that state.

Log-ta [log lta;Wylie], log-ta means wrong view. If you are born as a human, lets say you are born as a human, but you hold very extreme wrong views, that is inherent to your state, of your belief, or your upbringing – like for example if somebody says when you absolute believe that animals are to be sacrificed, the blood should be offered to the altar, that is what they are for; or if you believe in order to be happy we need to suppress others people, we need to climb on peoples head, metaphorically, in order to achieve success or happiness – if you hold such extreme views, where you believe that doing good is bad and being bad is good, that kind of view, that kind of state, even if you are born human, you are nor free. So, that is considered to be bad from a Buddhist perspective.

Even if you are born as a human, if you are born in an age where the Buddha is not at all appeared, what we call dark age, that is no good. Because you won’t to able to practice, you won’t be able to receive the teachings, the method, or the way to liberate yourself from samsara, to com out of this confused state of mind.

The last one is, if you are born human, but of you are born dumb, or mentally challenged or crazy. That doesn’t work, because you will not be able to communicate, you will not be able to read and write and so on, and understand, you will not be able to hold reason.

So, these are the eight states that we should be free from.

Now there are ten states, ten endowments that you need to – that have to be there for it to be considered a precious human body. Out of them, five are from self, five are from other.

Starting with the self.

Obviously the first one is you need to be, from a self perspective, you need to be a human. You cannot practice Dharma if you are born in any other realm, you need to be a human. That is the first one.

And being human is not enough, because as we saw as I mentioned earlier, if you are born in a far away place where there is no Dharma, not very center-location – spiritually center location like for example in ancient India it was Bodhgaya, after that is was Nalanda University; then Buddhism got transferred, transported to Tibet, so Tibet became the central location; now it is coming to the West, it is coming back to India, and spreading in many other corners, not just India, the West, so many countries in Europe, in Russia, and America and everywhere, Australia – so there are lots of central locations these days. Basically a place where the Dharma is being taught and practiced, that is what we call a central location.

Wang-po-zang-wa [dbang po tshang ba;Wylie] དབང་པོ་ཚང་བ།

wang-po-zang-wa means, the third one, that you need to be blessed, that you have, endowed with, is you need to have all your sense faculties. Your seeing, your hearing, your smelling, your speaking and so on. Because without a certain sense faculty it is much more challenging to practice the Dharma. you may be able to practice, but it is not the perfect human body. To be considered a perfect human body you need to have all your sense faculties. Even if you are blind, I know there is braille to read, but how many scriptures are written in braille. I think very few, I’ve never seen one. And if you are going to translate the entire of the Buddha, of Dzogchen, of Mahamudra into braille, maybe it is doable, but it is gonna take ages. So it is very challenging for somebody who is visually impaired to practice the Dharma. Not impossible, very difficult, very challenging.

And also somebody who is deaf will not be able to receive oral transmissions; maybe with the hearing aid, but still it slightly more challenging, not very convenient.

So, you need to have your sense faculties in tact; wang-po-zang-wa.

[Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] le kyi tha ma lo pa [las kyi mtha’ ma log pa;Wylie]

ལས་ཀྱི་མཐའ་མ་ལོག་པ།

Now, the fourth one is, even if you are born human, even if you have your sense faculties in tact, even if you are born close to the Dharma, if you have committed a very heinous crime, very heinous bad karma. For example killing is considered to be one of the worst bad karma. But killing someone, killing a common person compared to killing your father, your other, or an arhat – arhat is somebody very close to enlightenment – wounding a living Buddha – we don’t have Buddhas, but maybe like a guru, who is like a Buddha – wounding, physically wounding a Guru or creating divisions in the Sangha, between lineages – like saying that “Oh, Nyingma is the best, Drugpa is not very good, all Gelugpa are the best, Drigupas is not very good, Sakyapa are the best, Kagyupas are not very good, and also sowing discord among the communities – that is a very heinous crime.

You are breaking up a sangha; sangha means a unity, a bond, a community striving towards enlightenment. And you’re breaking that up. You are breaking the journey towards enlightenment a group of people who are serving to come out of samsara. So, that is a very heinous crime. Its equivalent to killing your mother, your father, its equivalent to killing an arhat, a person who is very close to enlightenment, and is equivalent tot wounding a Buddha. So it is a very, very heinous crime.

Unless you have committed any of these heinous crimes, you are okay. So, you should not have had committed any of these five heinous crimes, that is the fourth one.

The last one, 37:16 le tar por nye la te [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan], you need to have faith in the right places, you need to have faith in the Buddha, you need to have faith in the Dharma, you need to have faith in your own community, the sangha. And most important, you need to have fight in your guru, because your guru is the embodiment of Buddha, Dharma and sangha; the gurus mind is Buddha, the gurus speech is Dharma, the gurus appearance is sangha. So, you need to have absolute faith in the right place, it is mentioned. By right places it means Buddha, Dharma and sangha, guru and, you know, the teachings and so on. If you have al these five endowments, you are okay.

Then you have five endowments from other, from outside. From these five first one is [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]38:10 Sangye chön dang[sangs rgyas byon …;Wylie] must have had appeared. It should be an age where the Buddha master has appeared. In our case, yes, the Buddha did appear in Bodhgaya, starting at Lumbini where he was born; achieving enlightenment in Bodhgaya, teaching in Sarnath and so on. So, Buddha did appear, two-thousand-five-hundred years ago. So, that is very important, the Buddha must have had appeared. He did. First one.

Second one[Rinpoche speaking Tibetan],38:44 sang gye …….. chös gsung

;the Buddha must have had taught. It is not enough for the Buddha to appear on the earth, to be enlightened. It is imperative that the Buddha teaches. Because even historical Shakyamuni Buddha after achieving enlightenment, it is said that he felt a bit discouraged. He was not sure whether the people going to understand his discovery. Because it was out of this world, nobody had discovered it. At least not in our age. Maybe the previous Buddha did but then his teachings disappeared. But in our current Buddhas time, he was the first teacher, Buddha Shakyamuni. Obviously after that we had Guru Rinpoche, we had Naropa, we had Tilopa, we had Nagarjuna and so on. But they are not the first teacher of our age. The first teacher of our age, which we call ton-pa,[ston pa;Wylie] ton-pa means the one who shows the path, the one who shows the path, the original teacher – that is Buddha Shakyamuni. So, that is why we have to hold him in very high regard. Because we are all his followers.

So, the Buddha must have had appeared, he did; he must have had taught, which almost did not, because he was very discouraged. I think he did not teach for seven weeks. He was just moving/roaming around in the forest. But than I think the gods appeared and they beseeched the Buddha and said that there will be lots of people, there are lots of beings that will understand and benefit from your teachings. And in the future there will be lots of beings who will benefit from your teachings. So, only after that Buddha started teaching and starting in Sarnath with the Four Noble Truths

The Buddha must have had taught, that is very important.

40:33 [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]

And it is not enough for the Buddha to have taught, the teachings should remain unbroken. And it has, the teachings, though it – the teachings face a lot of obstacles, like Nalanda University being burned, and the teachings in between the teachings being translated and transport to Tibet – but the teachings still remain, so that is important.

40:57 [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]

And it is very important to have people who follow the teachings. Because a scripture, a Dzogchen scripture, a Mahamudra scripture, all the Buddhas teachings, all Prajnaparamita, or any teaching, unless somebody explains it to you – even if you are able read it, all the intrigued meanings; because teachings can have double meanings, and some of them are very difficult to understand, I think almost impossible without a proper teacher; so it is important to have teachers who practice the Buddhas teachings.

41:39 [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]

The last one is taught differently, according to different teachers, but it is generally accepted that those teachers who teach, who follow the Dharma, they need to have empathy, they need to have compassion towards others, and be interested in the welding of others.

So, it is not enough for the Buddha to have been born on this earth during our time, it is not enough for the Buddha to have taught, it is not enough for the teachings to have remained, it is not only enough for those who practice the Dharma, but it is imperative; and those who practice the Dharma to have compassion and love and interest, an altruistic interest in teaching to others and helping others.

So, those are what we consider to be the eighteen points of what we consider as a precious human body.

I keep checking the time, because I want to make sure we do not run out of time because I also want to discuss permanence.

So, I am giving very general teachings on this very important topic, but more or less that is everything to it.

Then also what I want to talk about is how difficult it is to obtain this body. Imagine that the whole world did not have any landmass. Now, we have lots of continents, we have lots of landmass on this earth; imagine if the whole world was a body of water.

Imagine that there was one tortoise, turtle, at the bottom of the ocean. A blind tortoise, a blind turtle, for the sake of communication lets say turtle. 43:50 [inaudible]

Lets imagine there is one turtle at the bottom of the ocean and the turtle is blind. One blind turtle, a whole world – ocean as big as the entire world, one blind turtle and imagine there was a yoke floating at the surface of the ocean. And imagine if the turtle surfaces once every hundred years, now just tell me what are the changes, imagine what are the changes of the turtles neck, head going through the whole of the yoke. One yoke, one turtle, blind, surfacing every hundred years; and we are not talking about a small pond, or a river or a lake, we are talking about the entire world size of ocean. To obtain a precious human body it is even more difficult than that.

Now we can see in terms of count. How many – relatively – how many beings are born in the hell realm. There are more beings in hell realm, than the entire dust particles of the world. That is a lot I think; there are more beings in the hell realm then the entire dust particles in the world. There are more being in hungry ghost realm than on the bank of the river bank Ganges. There are more beings born in the animal kingdom than a handful of duster let’s say, the sediments of local made alcohol, well that is very big, so let’s say handful of dust. And there are less humans born than dust particles on a fingernail.

And even less humans who are endowed and leisure, free and endowed with a precious human body; who have all the counts that I have mentioned earlier, the eighteen counts.

So, it is very difficult to obtain.

I keep seeing teachings everywhere – I read a lot of sutras, the Buddhas teachings, I read them to get inspired, to remind myself, what the Buddha said, how the Buddha taught, and also just to accumulate good karma – but at the same time I read a lot of commentaries Shantideva, Nagarjuna, Naropa, Milarepa songs and so on – and I also read teachings from contemporary masters, masters who have recently past away, of the previous generation, like Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, like Chadral Rinpoche and so on – and almost everywhere, all times they teach us, always constantly remind us, forget about everything else, just remember one thing: “it is almost impossible to find this human body again”. In this form, in this way. We are very fortunate to have found this human body. So, please don’t waist your time, please don’t spent time sleeping and worrying about needless things. Don’t be to attached to – this human body is very precious, difficult to find, almost impossible to find in the future – but don’t be to attached to it, it is merely a vessel, that is going to be with us until we die. Accumulate as much good karma as possible, try to practice Dharma in the most profound way as much as possible while maintaining your Samaya with your teacher, while maintaining your bond with your teacher; try to accumulate as much good karma as possible. And if possible, try to achieve enlightenment within one lifetime like Milarepa.

So I see this teaching repeated always about the precious human body. And the reminder that we should not waist this opportunity. Why? Because even though this precious human body is the perfect vessel for us to achieve enlightenment, transcend this confused state of mind, samsara, it is important to make use of this opportunity because the precious human body, even though it is precious, it is impermanent.

So, there comes the second teaching of “the four turning our mind, renunciation mind, turning the mind from samsara” teachings. Second one is impermanence. So, I talk about impermanence until we finish.

So, impermanence is not very difficult to understand. It is very simple in fact; basically it means change, basically something that keeps changing that doesn’t remain. Impermanence has three main aspects: birth, remain and death. Something that is born, something that remains, whether for a long period or momentary, and something that dies. That constitutes impermanence. It has to have these three aspects.

And one word to summarize impermanence beautifully is [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] 49:41 du che tham che mi tag pa [‘dus byas thams cad mi rtag pa;Wylie], in English: all compounded phenomena are impermanent”; that summarizes impermanence very beautifully.

And if you have read Vajracchedikā sutra, the diamond cutting sutra, the one of the most profound teachings of the Buddha, along side Prajnaparamita, Vajracchedikā sutra, the diamond cutting sutra, at the end Buddha gave us a reminder of impermanence.

[Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]

Buddha gave a profound teaching about impermanence, and again like I just mentioned, Buddha said “All compounded phenomena are impermanent”. Even this precious human body is impermanent. Whatever joy we feel, whatever suffering we feel, is also impermanence. So impermanence is not bad news. In fact it is very good news. Impermanence means there is a potential for your depression to be lifted. Impermanence means there is a potential for you to overcome your anxiety. Impermanence means that if you gotten some sickness, like Covid, or some other sickness, or like a very bad sickness, you have the potential, you have the possibility to change and to overcome that illness, that sickness. Impermanence also means that we don’t have to be with this rotting body forever. We have a change to be reborn in a new country, in a new dimension, in a new face, as a baby, pure, fresh beautiful and to accumulate and create new memories. So, impermanence is not bad news. Impermanence is nearly a fact of how compounded phenomena is and how it functions.

Coming to impermanence, there are four teachings that summarize it very beautifully.

The underline teaching was what I mentioned earlier; “All compounded phenomena are impermanent”. If you remember that, you will understand impermanence very beautifully. Compounded; I am compounded, I am made of fingers, hand, skin, bones, marrows, nerves, I am made of eyes, nose, hair and so on, so I am a com pounded phenomena. I am made of four limbs and so on. I am compounded phenomena. If I am an compound phenomena I am impermanent. If I have been assembled, I will disassemble. A house is compounded phenomena; bricks, stones, wood, everything, it is compounded, put together, it is going to collapse. Money: wether it is small dollars, or one million dollars, it is made of a sense, and – a dollar – it is also compounded; a million dollar has one million – one individual millions value worth of dollars. So, that is also a compounded phenomena. And meeting people, like a gathering, family, friends, a party, that is also compounded. Because it is made of individual beings, so that is also compounded.

So, in order to truly understand impermanent, if yo remember these four points that I a going to share with you now, you are going to understand impermanence beautifully. And you can reflect upon it often until it becomes a habit. Because that is what meditation is about. Meditation is not – in Tibetan there is a very famous saying; [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] gom pa me gom-pa yin.54:13 Meditation is not to just sit down and meditate all the time. That is a form of mediation, but that is not the essence of mediation. The essence of mediation is to get used to, is to habituate yourself with good information, with good practices, with good habits; forming good habits, that’s what real meditation is about.

Familiarize yourself with Avalokiteshvara, familiarize yourself with your guru, familiarize yourself with Guru Rinpoche. That is why we chant “Om Mani Padma Hung”, not only once but millions of times. “Om A Hung Benzra Guru Padma Siddhi Hung”. Again and again you’re creating a habituation. You just don’t go “Om Mani Padma Hung” – done. It doesn’t work like that. In the same way that we form good habits, we also remind ourself of certain philosophies, until it becomes second nature to us. Until it doesn’t shock us, until it goes deep into our psyche, into our subconscious mind. And next time when something happens, you are like: “Hmm, I was prepared for that, because I know that symptom of it55:25 [?]

One of the four teachings of impermanence. One, there is no real order to it. The end of accumulation, money, wealth, fame, whatever it is, the end of accumulation is dispersion. That is the first one.

The second one, [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]55:51 the end of building, erection, you know, building your house, erecting a big structure, a statue, is collapse. See the eight wonders of the ancient world, the hanging God, Babylon, the statue of Zeus and so on, I was reading in some books and they said they were pretty magnificent, very big, who would touch them, who would want to destroy them. Now, maybe one or two remain. Maybe the Sphinx of Egypt? don’t know if it is considered to be one of the eight wonders of the ancient world. But I am just saying that even those big structures have collapsed. It doesn’t matter how strong they were. End of building have collapsed, doesn’t matter how strong it is. The end of meeting, whether it is family, friends, a small party, big party, whatever it is, the end of meeting is separation. Either through choice, agreed upon time. Let’s say we have a. meeting today from 7 pm to 9 pm, 9 pm you disperse, the meeting is ended. Or you decide to get married, and create a bond for live. Good, unless you get divorced, if one of the partners died, there is a separation. So, either by choice or by force, you are separated. So, the end of meeting is separation.

Then the last one, the most painful one. The end of birth is death.

We are not born to remain forever. The moment we are conceived in our mothers womb, we have the potential to cease, to die. We die sometimes in our mothers wombs, sometimes we die while taking births, sometimes we die while crawling, sometimes we die wile learning to walk, while running, while playing, wile driving, just countless.

If we’re lucky we will live through ripe, old age; we’ll be able to practice, we’ll be able to create good memories, be good to each other, have some fun, get closer to our true nature. But there is also the potential that we may just stop breathing tomorrow. There is a potential that we not wake up tomorrow. But we don’t act like that, we down think like that, because we are habituated to making long term plans, as if we have guarantee to live for the next ten – twenty years. So we say something like “Yes, tomorrow lets see if the weather is good, we’ll go to the beach”. But there is no guarantee we are going to wake up from our sleep. Very good for holidays. “I am going in June, July, Oh very good, I am going to the Maldives, I am going to the Bahamas”. There is no guarantee that you will be alive in order to reach Maldives or Bahamas. Or any other place. There’s no guarantee that the place itself will still be there, anything can happen.

So, what we are habituated to thinking that as humans deserve to live until eighty of ninety years old. We deserve to live until we are old and so on. That is the wrong kind of habituation. Our great masters of the past – even Wangdor Rinpoche, I remember him a couple of times, I saw him – when they go to sleep, the great masters, they keep their bowls, to have their food, their tea bowl and their food bowl, they turn it upside down.

And I used to ask them:”Why do you do that? Is it because of dust, because it can get dirty”. They said “No, I don’t know whether I wake up tomorrow, I am reminding myself, this is my alarm.”

This is their alarm, it is a different kind of alarm they are setting. We set a alarm, thinking we will wake up at 7 am, we set an alarm determine that we will wake up at 6 am. That is the wrong kind of alarm. The real alarm is to say “Well, I don’t know if I gonna wake up, so better not set any alarms”. No time keeping would be challenging and I think there may be a lot of delayed meetings, hahaha. But well, what does a cave dweller care about.

What does a mountain dweller care about.

So, among my great masters, Wangdor Rinpoche included, used to say that “Ah, I don’t know if I am gonna wake up tomorrow, so I am just going to – not bothering to set up side down, somebody will use it”. So, that is a very good kind of alarm, a good reminder.

We are not sure whether – even – I think it was Nagarjuna or [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] – he said: “It is a wonder that when we inhale, how does exhalation happen”.

If you think about is, inhalation and exhalation, once you practice shamata, calm abiding mediation, you start with breath analysis, you start with watching you’re breath.

It is very simple, you just sit here and look at your breath; in – out – in – out – in – out, very simple. As you get deeper and deeper into your breath watching, shamata meditation, calm abiding meditation, you start to realize the length of the breath, the shortness of the breath, where does the breath seem to remain, where in your throat, as it goes into your lungs; we usually think: “We breath, it comes out”. But even then you wonder “How do yo inhale and it comes out automatically”. You don’t have to remind yourself; in – out, just comes automatically. And Nagarjuna said: “It is a wonder that we are able to inhale and we just exhale automatically, it does not get stuck in our throat, in our lungs, and we die. No, it just comes automatically”. It is a wonder that you go to sleep and you wake up in the morning. Because when you go to sleep, we look like death people. We look almost decided like corpses. It is a wonder that after six to seven hours, eight hours sometimes if you are tires, you just wake up, whether you have an alarm or not, if you didn’t die in your sleep.

So, that is pretty much about impermanence. And impermanence is good news. The way to practice impermanence is always to remind yourself of impermanence. That is the only way.

Gampopa in his “Jewel ornament of liberation”, on his teachings on impermanence, he said: ” Whenever you hear – because the worst kind of impermanence is death, that is one thing we can’t handle – we can handle loss of wealth, we can handle the collapse of. building, we can handle a separation, a heartbreak, a divorce, a breakup, those we can recover, we can handle. But we can not handle death, because that is it, your memories are gone, at least temporarily, from this lifetime. That is something, it is very terminal in our mind. Even though death is not terminal, it is a transformation, but we see it that way. Because we cease to exist as we know ourselves from this life. – so, taking death for example, Gampopa said: “Whenever you hear of somebody passing away, dot be shocked, just remind yourself that you are also going to die”.

He used the word ‘remind yourself that you are also going to die’. Next time you buy a brand new phone, remind yourself it is a phone. There is something called gravity, there is something called mass. It will drop one day, the glass might shatter. remind yourself. So, when you do eventually, hopefully not, break your phone, it won’t hurt you that much. Even if it is a brand new iPhone. If you buy a new car, remind yourself. It is a big car, it weighs tons, two thousand, there thousand kilo, it is very heavy. You drive at very high speeds, there are lots of other cars on the road, not only you. There are trees, there are barriers and so on. There is a potential that you may crash the car, somebody will scratch it, somebody will bang it; once you remind yourself next time if something will happen to your car, you won’t suffer as much.

Also when you meet someone, there is a potential that you may not end up end up being with that person forever, that we may separate, that we may die.

So, if somebody does pass away, or if you have a brake up or whatever, it doesn’t hurt you that much, you can recover faster. Compared to if you were just 1:05:19 ?pointing on, if you were grasping.

So, impermanence is a very tricky subject to – not to understand – but to get used to. Because our minds are tuned towards not accepting impermanence. Our minds are habituated to not accept impermanence. That is why we use words such as “and they lived happily forever”. I don’t know about western weddings – yeah, you do certain things to make it seem eternal; we talk about eternal happiness, eternally happily forever after. Indian weddings it is very interesting. Because the bride and the groom tie a knot, they wear these long beautiful garments, and they tie a knot, very strong knots, and they say: “This is what we call a tooth-bonden. A tooth bonden means unbreakable knot”. 1:06:25 ?

I am just saying, as a society, as a species, as humans, as intelligent creatures who rule this world: incredibly stupid.

That we don’t see what’s in part 1:06:40 ? of us, that we only interact with phenomena how it appears, not how it is. Phenomena has two modes. One is appearance and one is its nature. One is how it appears, one is how it is.

To practice Dzogchen, to practice Mahamudra, to practice the teachings of Buddha, of Guru Rinpoche and so on, it is transcendent, this appearance, and to realize the nature of phenomena, of everything.

But then it is difficult to analyze, and understand the nature of each and every phenomena, because phenomena is countless.

But all phenomena, according to certain school of paths in Buddhism are merely a reflection of your own mind. And occurrence, a creation of your own mind.

That is why in Dzogchen and Mahamudra there is a beautiful teaching, there is a beautiful statement, that makes a lot of sense. We call it “chig she kun drol” [gcig shes kun grol;Wylie]; chig means one, che means to realize, kun means all, drol means to liberate.

“Realize one, liberate all”

It is a very lazy statement. I don’t know which guru gave it, but its beautiful. hahaha. Its a typical Tibetan statement; “chig she kun drol”, they don’t want to elaborate to very long sentence, “chig she kun drol”.

So, I used to get this teachings all the time, Wangdor Rinpoche – “chig she kun drol, chig she kun drol, chig she kun drol” – Wangdor RInpoche I remember, very fond of him. He used to teach, formal teachings. But most of the teachings I received from Wangdor Rinpoche were not in the form of verbal teachings, not in the form of formal teachings. My dear aunt, Lama Lena has received a lot of formal teachings, a lot of verbal teachings. I was to busy with my own Tulku activities, being naughty, and trying not to get caught, trying not to get murdered by my tutor, trying to survive every day.

Wangdor Rinpoche gave me a lot of transmissions, lets put it that way. He transmitted a lot of things without teaching. We had a sort of understanding where we would just behave with each other and work with gestures. For example, he used to give me a lot of candies. I used to love candies. And even the act of giving candies, was with so much care; he didn’t just used to like lump it in my hand, like say, like this: take it! – we usually just give it like that – no, he used to place it with great care and his hand, I still remember his fingers – just want to talk about it for a second, cause today I am reconnecting back with Lama Lena so that has brought some memories and some emotions – even the way he held the candle was with so much care and his fingers were almost like this. His pinky was always straight, I don’t know why. His index finger was almost always straight. He would bend his middle finger and his ring finger, he would hold it like this, and he would literally place it gently in your hand.

Whether it is a candy, ice, treat, meat back then 1:10:23 [?] when I younger – no option, I was fed meat by my Kham-pa teachers. I have given up meat since two thousand and seventeen, so it has been some years – a piece of meat or maybe a few rupees for me to buy some candies. He used to literally place it like this, very gently. Even that act of giving a candy, for me when I ate a candy I now realize, it was not just eating a candy or some sweets, I was receiving hidden teachings, I was receiving blessings that you can just can’t put in words. I was receiving transmissions of love and compassion and wisdom.

Yeah, so he was something else, his love towards infactious, his presence was like this loving Buddha, ever present in Tso Pema. Since he passed away I haven’t really gone back to Tso Pema, no I haven’t. Now it is been two to three years, I should go back because that is still my monastery, that is still Wangdor Rinpoche monastery, there is still Lama Lenas monastery and we need to look after the monastery, his legacy. But just the shock, just his absences, was to much for me and to go to Tso Pema and not find him there is like going to a town and not finding any sheriff, I guess, hahaha.

So, yeah anyway. So, that is basically it about impermanence. 1:12:09 ?…if you could understand. And another way to see impermanence is that impermanence has this illusory way of appearance. You can’t really see it. And if yo ask somebody like “What impermanence. I look the same”. Yes I do. I look the same today, and I look the same tomorrow. I agree with that. You won’t find any differences in the wrinkles, in your hair, whatever. But if you look at yourself five years ago…oh, there is a shock. If you look at your old picture ten years ago…boom, there is a very big shock. Once you cross the twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties, the shocks are very big. Every day you don’t see it that much. It is like a waterfall, it looks the same, but the water is already falling down, it is already reached down below and it is constantly passing. But it looks the same, so it is an illusion. So, that is why I tell friends an my followers “Don’t look at your pictures every day. Look at your pictures a years ago, maybe five years ago, maybe a decade ago, you will get a good reminder of what is impermanence.”

Also when it comes to impermanence it is very important to not hold on and to let go; of our experiences, of people, of anything, because there is only so much that is in our control. Even control is an illusion. We feel like we can control somebody, we can control something, but it is an illusion. Everything is fleeting, everything is slipping through our fingers, whether they want to or not. Either by choice or by force. Nothing remains the same forever. The feelings, the emotions also change, we change, situations change. But yet we do this great disservice to ourselves and to our fellow human beings. But always holding on to something and trying to make impermanence eternal, trying to make impermanence permanent. It just doesn’t work, because – you’re flowing – you’re going against the flow of change, of time. You’re going against the flow. Obviously you are going to suffer. You are going to drown. And you are not going to comprehend when things change, when things are not the same. “Ah, you don’t feel about me the same way anymore? I am so hurt.” But obviously he or she didn’t feel the same anymore, because he or she was a different person back then, with a different set of understanding, with a different set of eyes to see the world, different lenses, different experiences, different hormones, different chemical composition in your body. So, obviously he or she doesn’t – is not the same person anymore.

So, yeah, that is basically impermanence in a nutshell; things change. And I just want to share a small story with you.

Just one story I want to share about letting go, which is a very crucial aspect of working with impermanence.

[Lama Lena] We’re here and you can continue, you’re wonderful. You can continue as long as you like, you can take questions if you like, it is entirely ups to you.

[Rinpoche] Okay, I will do that, even though it is – let me just check the time – it is a quarter to one (00.45 am)

[Lama Lena]Well, I think you’ve been up half the night, fro your sake maybe we should end it soon and you are coming back in a week.

I am going to take as many questions as necessary, I am going to stay up for as long as necessary.

[Lama Lena]Right now there is just a few, they have been listening to you openmouthed and quit typing.

[Rinpoche] I just want to say to you, Lama Lena and Nyondo, it is a bit weird, because I am talking to a screen and I see a beautiful picture of you on top; usually when I do this kind of teachings I see comments below or I see different screens, but this is like talking to myself. I don’t know the reaction of people, so I hope they’re not falling asleep or thinking hahahaha..

[Lama Lena] Yes, if at some point you want to take some people through a retreat, we do that exclusively on Zoom, and then you can see them. But when we are doing a public teaching like this, which I wanted them to have.

[Lame Lena talking to Nyondo now] check out for comments, see if anything is important for a question, that seems to help to real understandings.

[Rinpoche] I am not seeing any comments, so you just let me know. I am just going to finish this story, and then you tell me.

[Nyondo] These two are to reassure him that they are not a sleep, they are listening to him avidly.

[Lama Lena] Okay, so the only one is: “How can we purify heinous acts”. That might be really important to someone.

[Rinpoche] Oh, that is a toughie, because honestly speaking, when it is a heinous act, we call it – the correct word in Tibetan is tsam-me-pa.[mtshams med pa;Wylie] 1:18:37 Tsam-me-pa means no break. Basically there is no break of bardo. When we pass away, when we die, after we die, there is no change of us going to for example Sukhavati, to be with Amitabha, or to any other Buddha realms, to be done po-wa and to be transferred our consciousness. A heinous act is determent by the fact that after we pass away, there is no gap of bardo. So, as soon as you die, you supposed to descend directly into the lowest realms of hell. Having said that even if somebody has committed a heinous act, I think the best way to purify it, is through practice. Only through trying to realize the true nature of your mind, trying to go as deep as possible, forgetting about all theater kind of practices like discipline, generosity and so on – those won’t work – the only thing that will work is going deep within you, through the teachings of Dzogchen and Mahamudra. Because only through cutting trough all this illusions and everything, and going beyond, going beyond father, going beyond mother, going beyond Arhats, going beyond Buddha, going beyond what we understand, transcending each and everything and going to the absolute root, which is the true nature of mind. I think that is the only change we have.

So, I will beseech, I will request anyone who may or may not have committed such an experience, which is not important; it is important – I suggest that you try to repel and really take your practice really seriously. 1:20:33 [inaudible]

[Lama Lena] Beautiful, beautiful answer, yes. In the direct realization of the nature of mind, even karma is freed.

[Rinpoche]Exact

[Lama Lena] So, thank you very much. Now finish the story you were going to tell and then let me thank you formally

[Rinpoche] This is lovely story about letting go. I am sure, Lama Lena, you have heard this many times. But as you mentioned, you are now starting to forget things, so I am here to remind you, hahaha, of how Wangdor Rinpoche used to give us candies, he used to give me candies, he used to give you pieces of meat, haha. And to other people he used to give blankets, he used to give five rupees, ten rupees; so I am always here to remind you.

This story, it is something that has taught me a lot about letting go. And that is in tune with what is happening right now in the world, with Covid and everything. We have collectively as a species, as a society, we have been through a very traumatic experience in the past two to three years, and I am sure – as I have also lost people that I know, people that I care about – I am sure there are also people who have been also through a lot of hardships, even if somebody hasn’t passed away, but may have suffered financially, they have suffered in terms of relationships and so on. So, this story is very beautiful about letting go and it is very relevant to todays, to what is happening today.

So, basically the story goes like this:

There were two monks. Lets just call it the short monk and the tall monk. And they were fully celibate monks. You know, some of those crazies who think it is the hahaha right thing to do hahaha, just kidding. I have full respect to celibate monks, those who have taken the full vows, even though I am not a celibate monk.

So, there were two monks, both celibate and they were walking across – going to a different place. And they reach a river and the river was raging, it had flooded a little bit. And there was this implacably beautiful girl standing, wondering at the bank of the river, thinking “How will I cross this river and get to this function, to this party”, because she was dressed beautifully. Her shoes were impeccable, her make up and everything- the monks were dressed maggot 1:23:10 ?- but they had the full vows of a ge-lung [dge slong;Wylie] which means they were not even allowed to look at a girl, you are not allowed to touch a girl, and so on.

The girl asked the monks politely:”Can you please carry me on your back and transport me across the river?”

The short monk said: “No, I am not even allowed to look at you, I have taken the full vows, what are you talking about!”

The tall monk, who had more compassion, a better understanding of the Dharma, he said: “Okay, don’t worry, hop on.” She climbed on his back, he took her to the otters side. And he dropped her; she went her way, they went their way.

During the entire journey the short monk did not utter a single word to the tall monk. He was very grumpy. And when they reached their destination, the temple where they were going, the short monk said: “How could you break your vows and carry her! How dare you touch her! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

The tall monk said: “What are you talking about?”

“That girl you carried across the river. You broke your vows!”

And the tall monk said: “Is that why you were so quiet? Is that why you were so pissed? You know, so grumpy.”

And the short monk said: “Yes, I am disappointed in you. I am so ashamed.”

And you know what the tall monk said? He said: ” I carried her across and left her, you are still carrying her.”

He had carried her across, let go, that is the important part. But we, even tough people are still not there with certain people, certain experiences, certain things, we still carry this in our minds. And it becomes so heavy and nothing seems to work. It just accumulates all this pollution, there is only darkness, there is only confusion; every single thing seems to provoke is, makes us angry, makes us agitated; we become this bundle of nerves which is very easily poked. And it is a very sad way of being.

So that is why we need these teachings, that cut through all this – I can’t swear – but all this b…, you know, the word that starts with b.; cuts through all that, and reaches the heart, which is Dzogchen.

And for that after Wangdor Rinpoche we have great masters like my dear aunt Lama Lena, from whom I wish to also one day sit down nicely and just talk and receive the same transmission that I received also from Wangdor Rinpoche.

[Lama Lena] I will get to India this year, really I will.

[Rinpoche] You must come

[Lama Lena] As soon as my summer travels of teaching are done, I am planning to head over there. May the border stay open.

[Rinpoche] They will, I think they will.

[Lama Lena] I hope so, I hope they are done with closing the borders, cause that was a grrrrr….

I had my ticket, I was packed, I was everything. Anyway, Thank you so much, this is offered [Lama Lena offering a white scarf]

[Rinpoche] Thank you so much, Lama Lena

[Lama Lena] And we will see you again for the rest of this next weekend

[Rinpoche] Yes it is on the twenty third, if I am correct.

[Lama Lena] I think so, I am not looking at the calendar right now, I am looking at you.

So, probably, I never remember anything. Thank you for these teachings that cut through the “Should I, shouldn’t I do the practice”. Bullshit that goes on in our – I can say it, even if you can’t – that goes on inner mind, all the time. And more coming, I am looking forward especially on teachings on karma. Because it is so poorly understood in the West. Everybody thinks it is some kind of process of revenge.

[Rinpoche] I know.

[Lama Lena] Or if you are e good person, you will have a good live this time.

[Rinpoche] Immediate returns.

[Lama Lena] Yeah, so on that one I definitely look forwards to those teachings. Thank you so much for being with us and get some sleep. I know it is like 1 am or something for you right now.

[Rinpoche] It is. My eyes are naturally small, I have very small eyes, even for a Tibetan, and now with the sleep and whole day I have been busy since 11 am and I have been teaching, giving empowerment to more than two hundred people in the heat of Delhi, you have no idea how hot it is.

[Lama Lena] Oh I can imagine, its why I am not there right now, now that the borders are open again.

[Rinpoche] Actually somebody collapsed because of a heat stroke. It was that hot. He recovered.

[Lama Lena] I am glad he recovered. I remember when Rinpoche had one in a heat, and they are not easy. We were in Chicago and we were in a heatwave and there was no air-conditioning in the gompa. Many years back and Rinpoche pretty much had a heat stroke and it was hard. Anyway thank you. Nyondo, you can take us offline and get this marvelous Rinpoche get some sleep, so that he can help more sentient beings starting tomorrow.

[Rinpoche] Thank you so much, Nyondo, Lama Lena

Thank you, tug-je che [thugs rje che;Wylie]

[Lama Lena] And sometime when it is daytime we have a nice talk.

[Rinpoche] We will, lots of kisses, love you, bye -bye.

Transcript

Note: This transcript may contain errors.

[Lama Lena] It is better, but if you vanish at any point during it, which could happen the internet being as it is from Ladakh, all you have to do is sign back on and I’ll be here to catch you and get you back in.

[Rinpoche] Okay. All right, I’ll do that.

[Lama Lena] We do what we can. Now are we live yet?

[Nyondo] We are.

[Lama Lena] Okay, good morning everybody. We have the continuing teachings from Palga Rinpoche on the four turning minds. So Palga Rinpoche is back in Ladakh. For those of you who’ve ever been up there, it’s a bit out on the edge of things. So the internet connection isn’t the best. If it jumps around a little bit, or he disappears, he’ll come back. So you just be patient; the teachings are well worth having a bit of patience with the internet. And with that said, Rinpoche, perhaps you’d care to tell people about “why it hurts here in samsara”.

01:07

[Rinpoche] Thank you, Lama Lena, for the very lovely introduction once again.

And I love the way you put it: “Why it hurts in samsara”. That is the first time I’ve heard that expression. And I think it is very faithful to how we experience things in samsara.

Yeah, so like Lama Lena said, today I’m back in Ladakh. I was in Delhi for the past two to three weeks, I was doing some teachings. And we have lots of people in the big cities in India who are interested.

I really hope the connection is stable and I hope that it will need to be simple while we have this conversation. 02:16 [inaudible due to connection problem]

..early for a few weeks.

There are lots of people in the cities interested in the teachings of the Buddha. I’m trying to do my best to connect to people from various backgrounds, various religions, various cultures, and try to connect them to the Buddha’s teachings.

So today I’m back in Ladakh. Tomorrow at the main temple in Leh, which is our capital of Ladakh, I will be conducting a seven day Tara retreat, which is going to be lovely. And I’ll do live streaming on my Instagram, We don’t have the facilities to do multiple live streams on YouTube and Facebook, and Instagram. But at least I will try to do it on my Instagram. So those of you who are on Instagram can follow this lovely retreat.

[Lama Lena] If you could give us your Instagram address.

[Rinpoche] So yeah, it is just my name Palga Rinpoche; you will see an image, a graphic image. That’s it, you just follow and eh….. But I’m warning you, I post a lot of rubbish there as well. I post a lot of my personal thoughts and all the garbage that comes in my mind stream. Along with whatever little knowledge I have, and whatever little teachings that I’ve received, and experience I have; I also talk about health, about taking care of your body, taking care of your mind. I call it complete wellness. So not only meditation, and not only working with your mind to try to realize its nature. But also triy to take care of yourself physically of what to eat, how to eat and how to do exercises, how to do yoga and how… just try to motivate people to move around and try to keep the precious human body going on for as long as possible. Because as I mentioned on the 17th, when we had our first teaching, the precious human body is the perfect vessel for us to achieve enlightenment. So we should not waste it and try to keep it as fit as possible. So I am posting a lot of things there. So I’m just warning you, Lama Lena, and anyone else who’s going to follow me hahaha..

So let me know, Lama Lena, when I can start with your permission and I will do so without too much delay.

[Lama Lena] Oh, please go ahead. We are quite ready for you here and very much looking forward to it.

05:12

[Rinpoche] Okay, thank you. So, as Lama Lena mentioned, the four turning minds. There are different translations for this teaching. Some call it “the four renunciation mind”. I think it’s slightly…it sounds a little bit religious. I don’t use that term so much. And even these days the terms we use in Buddhism, I think it’s very important what terms we use.

For example: samsara we call it cyclic. And it is a good translation. But I think for me, what the word that makes most sense, I think of it as a loop. Cyclic is good, it’s a very good translation. But I think of samsara… I like to use the term loop, that we’re stuck in this loop.

That’s the much more modern and up to date word. And I think it really faithfully translates what samsara is all about, how it functions; that we’re stuck in this endless loop.

That term makes us understand how samsara performs slightly better.

In the same way, I would say the teachings on the four turning of the mind, to turn your mind from samsara. But if you use the word “renunciation” it is… I think it sounds a bit religious. So I like the translation that Lama Lena used.

So from the four teachings that will turn your mind away from samsara, from this loop, or at least motivate you to work towards enlightenment – whichever vehicle you’re comfortable with, you could be comfortable with the Theravada vehicle, you could be comfortable with Mahayana vehicle, or you could be comfortable, or attuned with the Vajrayana vehicle – all these vehicles will deliver you to enlightenment.

Though the speed varies. Vajrayana is the shortest and the fastest route to enlightenment. And also it’s the most dangerous as well. The safest route would be the Theravada. Slightly more difficult and slightly faster, but the middle path, the balance would be Mahayana. Vajrayana is the most extreme. And I think Vajrayana, in my opinion at least, it’s all about “the end justifies the means”.

So, anyone who knows about Vajrayana, who has attended Vajrayana teachings and teachers, know that sometimes the teachers can display very unconventional methods of teaching. And they will use very different words and actions to try to shake the foundations of a student, so that the student can directly realize the true nature of itself. And by extension, the true nature of phenomena, which we call chig-shes-kun-drol [gcig shes kun grol]; know one, liberate all. Realize one, and liberate all, that’s the direct translation.

Realize the true nature of your mind, you get liberated from all of the projections, that comes from this…from the deepest part of your mind, from the true nature of your mind.

So the four teachings that will turn your mind – teachings that will turn your mind away from samsara – are the precious human body, which we covered on the 17th; it is impermanence, which is an extremely important teaching; and today we’ll be covering the karma and the faults of samsara.

So these four teachings, generally – sometimes they can be five, sometimes they can be four, it doesn’t really matter; it depends on the tradition of Dzogchen and Mahamudra – but usually, generally, there are four teachings that we call “will turn your mind away from samsaric way of life”.

Basically 09:41 inaudible] to achieve enlightenment. Today we’ll talk about karma and the faults of samsara. So I’ll start with karma.

And I really love the way Lama Lena put it. Why it hurts.

09:55

you know, just sort of just [?] ….

Again, karma…see, the thing is like, I think, we humans have a tendency to to abuse words. I look at it as abusing words and terms. I think we really literally over abused, abused to death this term, karma.

And if you asked me to … [?] the word karma, I don’t really like the word karma anymore. It has literally been abused and overused and misunderstood and mis taught; not only by teachers, but also in popular culture, this term “karma”.

Because when we say karma, it sounds like they’re an entity, there is a power residing somewhere, who is keeping a receipt, or like a check law or like a database on what we do, and what we don’t do. It sounds … it is very contradictory to the Buddhist idea that we don’t believe in a God who gives and takes or creates and destroys. We say that it all is because of your own mind. Everything is a projection of your own mind. And basically, that’s also what karma is, karma is also part of that.

Karma is not some entity out there, not some god out there – you really have to understand this before we continue – who keeps a receipt or or a check. Because even in popular culture, in songs, in English songs, I heard such lyrics like “all karma gets receipts” and “karma is the b-word”, and “karma will get back at you”, and so on.

So, it’s not like it is some sort of an entity or some power residing out there that is out there to get you. Karma basically – karma is a Sanskrit term, very simple to understand – karma basically means action. Karma. The raw translation of karma is action.

Now if you want to stretch it a bit, and if you want explain it a bit, karma then can be explained as cause and effect. Basically, that’s it.

So let me explain. Today I came to Ladakh. The cause was that I got on an airplane. And the effect was that I reached Ladakh. Those are the two major contributing factors for this to happen, the cause and effect. But it is equally important to understand that besides the two major factors of cause and effect, there are various conditions that need to be favorable for this to happen. So it’s not only … so you can’t just have the cause, and expect it to flourish into the result, whether it is positive or negative. There are also a lot of conditions that need to work with it, that need to support it.

It is also a bit like how you boil an egg. For an example: you take a small pot, and put some water, you put an egg in it, you need a heating element, and once you lightened it, once you light the gas, or whatever fuel you have, the water will boil, and eventually the egg will cooked. The cause, the major cause is the egg itself. And the result is the boiled egg; cause is a raw egg, the result is the boiled egg. But the conditions are the vessel, the water and the fire, the flame. They also need to be met.

I got an airplane in Delhi and I reached Ladakh; there was a cause, this was the effect. But the fact that my plane reached here safely, the weather was not overcast, that the airplane didn’t run out of fuel, and lots of other factors, conditions that supported for the outcome of this effect. So that is also important to understand: cause and effect, but also the conditions that support it.

Take another example. Karma can be understood like you commit an action: you plant a seed that is the cause and the result is a beautiful flower. But for the flower to grow, to sprout, you need to put water, you need to look after the soil, you need to make sure that it gets enough heat, it should not be too hot like a desert or it will literally just dry up, it should not be too cold like the Arctic’s, or like very cold weather, the land should be … the temperature should be adequate, it should be perfect for the for the flower to grow. Those are the conditions.

15:09

And in the same way, in the same way, whatever we do, there is a major cause. And once the conditions are met, the result will ripen in front of us. That’s basically karma, cause and condition.

The issue here is that on a short scale, on a short term, we can see the consequences of cause and effect, very easy. But on longer term, the connection disappears. So you don’t realize, and you ask yourself “What have I done to deserve this? It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything to deserve this outcome. Why is it happening to me? Why am I getting sick? Why am I getting cancer? Why did I get COVID? Why did I lose all my wealth? Why did you break up? And why is he treating me like this? I didn’t do anything bad at all. It just didn’t work out”.

In those cases, it becomes slightly more difficult to understand the workings of karma. So it goes a bit like this, at least in my opinion. See right now here it is 11:51pm. I came to Ladakh and it’s high altitude. So when you come to Ladakh, on the first day, we advise people to acclimatize, so everybody needs to rest. So I rested today, I took a very long nap. I drank lots of hot water, I eat proper food. And as a result of that rest, right now, I feel rested. And I know why I feel rested. I’m not fatigued right now. I can have a clear conversation with Lama Lena and with with all of you. It is a result, direct result of me resting and taking care of my body. So I can see the connection of cause in effect. I’m not tired right now, because I know I rested a few hours ago. Likewise, I know that I’m not hungry, because just before we started this livestream I took a good dinner. I know the cause of the result of my stomach being full, that I know. It’s a bit like that. In a short term, you can see the cause and effect.

Now if you go longer term, you don’t see the connection. For example, let me tell you one story. When I was young, my relationship with Karma really was difficult. It took me a long time to understand the workings of karma. I am like “why we deserve certain things, and why we don’t”. When I was recognized and brought to Tso Pema, at the age of eight, I was…I lived – because the monastery in Tso Pema that time, the monastery was complete, but my residence wasn’t complete. So the late Wangdor Rinpoche, for whom I’m eternally grateful, he’s the one who took care of me, who looked after me, who brought me up in Tso Pema, he built my residency, it was not ready. So I spent a year in a place called Chauntra, which is about three to four hours from Tso Pema. And after that, I went for one year 18:39 [inaudible] retreat, study retreat in the caves, in the Guru Padmasambhava caves, where Lama Lena and Wangdor Rinpoche meditated for many years. So, in those caves, I was with my tutor, and my attendant. My tutor was very harsh. He used to almost beat me every day. It was a very harsh teaching method. Very [inaudible]. He was a Khampa after all. And yeah, so it was very difficult for me. I would constantly ask myself “Why am I suffering like this? What did I do to deserve it?” I was around nine, maybe that time, nine to ten. And I could not understand why I was suffering, why I was separated from my mother. What karma I had committed to deserve it. And I thought “If they say that I’m this Rinpoche, this high Lama, this high being, why am I suffering? Shouldn’t I be outside this cycle? Shouldn’t I be beyond this cycle? Isn’t that what a Nirmanakaya Tulku means?”

19:49

So I struggled with this, that pain, for many, many years, and it continued when I descended down Tso Pema; when I came to the main monastery, I couldn’t understand why I was suffering so much.

So that time I remember, I used to have a small painting of Manjushri, one of Mahakala, the four armed, one of Naropa. And I used to blame them, I used to shout at them, like in the Hindi movies, like the Bollywood movies, like: “Oh, why you, why are you not taking care of me? What did I do to deserve it? Why am I suffering so much”, and so on. I really couldn’t understand the pain I was going through. Only later on, once I started attending shedra in the Dzongsar Institute, and studied I the teachings of the Buddha, starting with the Bodhicharyavatara, and Madhyamika and all that, I understood that karma can go back many eons. Karma can go back forever, and will not dissipate, it will not diminish, it will not disappear. Whatever active we have committed, it’s committed. It’s literally inscribed, it’s literally sort of stuck with you. Until the causes and conditions meet one day, when the time is favorable, when the time comes, when the causes and conditions are favorable, it will manifest.

So I didn’t realize at that time that even though I’m the eighth reincarnation, I may have done some good things as Rinpoche, but also, I may have misused some of the funds that people have donated in my past lives. Who knows. That’s what we call black money. It’s a very heavy thing. We call it a dark money or dark wealth, dark possession, possession that people offer, material that people offer, money or whatever, to Lama to do some practice. Maybe a few times, I forgot to do some practice or neglected or I was lazy in some of my incarnations. Who knows. But I’m sure it was the consequences of that, that I was suffering.

Somebody Rinpoche’s have very easy upbringing, I had a difficult one. Though now I’m grateful for it, because it made me stronger. So you look back and maybe you see the result wasn’t that bad. I took it positively. But I didn’t realize at that time that karma can go back eons and eons, Karma can go back thousands of 22:42 inaudible] of times.

[Rinpoche talking Tibetan]

ལུས་ཅན་དག་གི་ལས་རྣམས་ནི། །

བསྐལ་པ་བརྒྱར་ཡང་ཆུད་མི་ཟ། །

ཚོགས་ཤིང་དུས་ལས་བབས་པ་ན། །

འབྲས་བུ་ཉིད་དུ་སྨིན་པར་འགྱུར། །

lü chen dak gi lé nam ni

kal pa gyar yang chü mi za

tsok shing dü lé bab pa na

dré bu nyi du min par gyur

This very famous stanza: lü chen means those with bodies, humans; those who possess a body, that’s humans.

lü chen dak gi lé nam ni; whatever karma will commit

kal pa gyar yang chü mi za; It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t diminish, even if a hundred kalpas, hundred eons have passed.

tsok shing dü lé bab pa na; and this is a very important part of this statement: when the conditions are favorable than the time is upon. And the time is upon when the conditions are favorable.

dré bu nyi du min par gyur; it will manifest as a result.

The few things that we can learn from this very important stanza that explains the workings of karma: the act we commit, those who possess bodies, us human beings, whatever act we commit, whether it’s good act or a bad act, even if a hundred kalpa has passed, it doesn’t diminish. Causes and conditions, when they meet, it results, it manifests; it manifests as a result.

Sometimes…the thing with Buddhism is that it is one of those philosophies, faiths, whatever you want to call it, way of lives, that requires maybe a little bit of faith, maybe five to ten percent. Ninety to ninety-five percent of everything in Buddhism can be explained, can be analyzed, can be realized. Even if it can’t be explained verbally, because there’s only so much things that it can use words, because of the vocabulary is limited. Vowels are limited, human communication is limited. So that’s why there are some experiences for which there are no words.

Either way, ninety percent of it, at least in the initial phase, can be taught, can be reasoned, can be explained, or it can be realized along the path. But you still do require five to ten percent of faith.

And when it comes to karma, you need that kind of faith. That you really need to believe, trust that the Buddha’s journey towards samsara, from the moment he took the vow to liberate all sentient beings, and until he achieved enlightenment in Bodhgaya, that journey of so many eons, of so many rebirths, through trial and error, Buddha’s discovery, we should have faith in that. We should not believe, we should not think that “Oh, just because it doesn’t make sense”, just because you think you don’t deserve it. Just because we are good humans in this life, doesn’t mean that we were always good in our past lives. Just because we were evil or – I don’t like to use the word evil – just because we were harmful people, to self and to others in this life, doesn’t mean that we have always been bad in the past lives.

26:05

Karma can really explain things better, I think, than other philosophies. For example: in other philosophies and religions, we say that, they say that “it’s the will of God”, right?

So if something good happens, you say “God has been kind”. Then you say: “Why is God been only kind to you? What about me? What of the rest of the other people? Why is God choosing between us? Does God have enough time? How does God function? Is God permanent or impermanent?” If God is impermanent, that means God himself or herself is subject to suffering, is subject to birth, remaining and death. And if God is permanent, which means no change, how does God come out of this mode of permanence, and creates something impermanent. Because those are contradictory.

Something permanent cannot make or create something impermanent. How does …come out of this mode. So the moment God is start coming out of this state of permanence, and to say: “I want to create this person”, immediately the God has entered the realm of impermanence. So that’s contradictory to human understanding, to reason.

In Buddhism we reject the idea that God punishes us or rewards us. That is one thing I think everybody should really understand; those who are interested in Buddhist teachings. Even though a 27:35 ?] is somebody’s faith, you have to respect that as their religion. But at least according to Buddhism, we don’t believe that there is a God who creates and destroys, there is a God that rewards and takes things away. Because then how do you explain the sufferings of the hungry children in Africa, and in many parts of India. And all those beggars on the street, [inaudible] little children. At least the elder, okay, maybe you can say: “They had misfortune. Some of them are lazy, some of them are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and they like to abuse their woman and so on”. But what about the children? They have no fault, they are innocent. How do you explain that? Does God discriminate between those who are not able to take care of themselves? And underprivileged? Does God prefer those who are powerful, and can control things? That doesn’t make any sense. That’s why again, Karma can explain things beautifully. That even though these beautiful children, though they are innocent, though they are beautiful right now, they may not have been in their past lives. They may have been murderers, they may have been serial killers, they may have been robbers and rapists, and mass murderers. They may have been dictators, they may have been anything. And it’s not only… we can’t just think about the past hundred years or two-hundred years. We’re talking about the eternity, the entire time that existence has been there. So it can be almost anything. It can be that this child has freshly come out of the realms, the confusions of hell, having been stuck there for many kalpas, many eons. Maybe this child is now taking…exhausted all the negative karma and taking rebirth on earth. But because of how karma functions, because of the way Buddha explains how karma functions, maybe the child is still experiencing hell like suffering.

29:44

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the child is literally free from the consequences of all the entire… because sometimes it’s like eating garlic: even if you’ve already eaten garlic, the smell remains. If you have eaten onion, the smell remains. So the consequences of somebody having suffered for so long, sometimes some of the effects still carries on in this lifetime, even though they’re born in a higher realm.

I think there’s a degree to how much Karma can be cleansed. There is a degree to it. It’s not black and white, I think there are lots of gray areas. That is why even in the human realm you see a lot of suffering. Even though you may ask yourself: “haven’t they exhausted all their past karma, that they are now reborn on this magnificent platform?”

No, they haven’t, they still have a lot of baggage from past lives. And just like the smelling of garlic, it is still carrying on and there’s this small manifestations.

Now that can work both ways. In my case, when I was suffering when I was young, when I went through the hard training methods of a Tulku, of a Rinpoche, the hands of my tutor – for whom I’m grateful actually, even though I used to hate him, I used to really be…I didn’t used to like him when I was younger, because I was subjected to so much pain and suffering – but now, I realized that he trained, he disciplined me. And I was a very naughty, naughty kid. I would not sit still for five minutes. And Lama Lena is a witness to that. But now I’m grateful to him, and I used that pain. The sufferings that happen in this lifetime – because at least I have the luxury of memory of this lifetime, I have the luxury of retaining the memory of the suffering of this life – I’ve used that memory to motivate myself to improve further as a human being, as a spiritual teacher. And not to blame somebody. It has helped me to let go, it has helped me to see things positively, and to move on.

32:01

So that’s one thing you can all do. We are not nobody, as long as we are in this state of confusion, until and unless we have seen directly realized rigpa, the true nature of our mind, the true nature of everything in fact, or we have attained enlightenment, complete enlightenment, we’re not free from the consequences of cause and effect. Even if it’s a good cause, or a bad cause, a good effect or a bad effect, it doesn’t matter. We need to exhaust all our good karma and bad karma. Both of them. It’s not like we should think: “Oh, I want to exhaust all my bad karma. But when I reach enlightenment, I still want to have a good baggage, a good stock, a good supply of good karma”. No, you have to exhaust all of them. It is to exhaust all karma, positive and negative, that is the definition of enlightenment, basically.

So enlightenment is not about attainment, as much as it’s about exhaustion. That’s another way to say it. Enlightenment is more about exhaustion than attainment. I think it was the Buddha who said: “I don’t know what you gain from meditation, from practice”. I think it was the Buddha, if I’m not wrong. He says something like: ” You don’t gain anything actually from meditation and practice. But you do lose, you exhaust things, you lose”. And that losing is enlightenment. It’s like cleaning the mirror, a glass. If the glass is full of filth, and you can’t see clearly the other side – that’s the function of glass, to be clear; to be able to see the other side. That’s why we put a glass, although we’d might as well put a wall – to clean the glass, which had eons and eons worth of dust, you take your cloth and you keep wiping. This exhaustion directly, this wiping, this spring off,34:18 [inaudible] just wiping, this exhaustion of all the filth and dirt, this leads to a clear glass. So that’s how enlightenment works. That’s how our journey through samsara, as a Buddhist practitioner, works.

34:34

We exhaust, we rub and clean all our karma, whether it’s good or bad, we exhaust everything, we go beyond everything; and then you see, then you realize enlightenment, then you realize the true nature of your mind. So it’s more about exhaustion than attainment.

Basically, that’s how karma works. There’s no one out there who keeps a receipt, no one out there with a database. We should not think that there is a God who creates and destroys, who punishes and rewards, who discriminates between races or religions or fate or whatever; there is no such thing. It is all because of what we have accumulated in the past. In this state of confusion, we have done things good or bad. And that, when the causes and conditions meet, manifests in a result.

Another way to explain karma – this is a very important teaching that comes from Dzogchen, I want everybody to hear this story – it is like a bird flying. Imagine if a bird is flying in the sky. You don’t know, nobody knows when the bird will land, what time it will land, and where it will land. But we know that the bird will land eventually. And we also know that the bird has the shadow, the past karma that we have committed. And the landing is a result. So we know that, even though the bird is flying high in the sky, it has a shadow. We’re not able to pinpoint it because it’s flying really high. It’s like this eagle.

But we also do know that the bird will land sometime. When the bird lands, then you can say: “Aha, so the bird landed in Ladakh, at Palga Rinpoches residence at 11 past midnight”. You know the timing, you know the exact location. And you can see the meeting of the bird and the shadow.

In this in the same way, right now, even though we do not see the shadow of karma that we have committed in our past lives, we do need to know, we do need to have the faith that there is this baggage, that there is the shadow that is eventually going to catch up with us. Eventually, when the bird lands, it will meet with the shadow. Eventually, when the time comes, when the causes and conditions are favorable, our karma will manifest. So we need to prevent that.

Now, again, I did a lot of thinking about karma. It seems to be also from these four teachings of the Lama Lenas 37:32 inaudible] … topic. So it is mine. Because it’s very interesting. Because when we talk about karma, we’re talking about things that really affects us directly. It really causes a lot of direct pain and also pleasure. It’s something that is slightly beyond our understanding. So it’s this mysterious thing. And we have, like I said, we have codified it, we have mystified it, we have romanticized it, we have done everything with karma. So I think a lot about karma.

And I also think about the degree of choice. I don’t know if you have ever thought about that. The degree of choice. I think, if we say that everything is a consequence of our past actions, how much choice do we have? Right? How much choice do we have? What is the element of choice in our lives? What is the degree of choice, extent of choice we have within this karmic cycle? I did a lot of thinking about this. And honestly speaking, I was a bit confused initially. But then I came upon this beautiful stanza, this teaching. Again, the teachings of our gurus, of the Buddha, of Guru Rinpoche, of the previous enlightened beings. They really help, whenever we have confusions. So I really suggest to everyone to start reading. For example, the translation of “Words of my perfect teacher”. A beautiful Dzogchen teaching about Mahamudra and so on. It will explain a lot of things.

Though, please be aware that it has a lot of Tibetan context. So don’t …they were written by Tibetan masters, they were written by Himalayan teachers – I won’t just say Tibetan – Himalayan teachers; they may have a lot of Himalayan context. And sometimes they may be some sexist, gender biased comments. So please forgive them because it was a different time, they were in a different era, different society, different understanding of rights and so on. So it may sound a bit discriminatory, but you have to go beyond the words and look at the meaning. So I’m just warning you that when you read sometimes some of the ancient texts, you may find such reference, 40:00 inaudible?] maybe you think “Oh, Buddhism is sexist, Buddhism is biased against homosexuality, against genders and so on”. But it is not. It is cultural based, the teachings. And you have to take it in context. Buddhism itself goes beyond race, religion and any kind of discrimination. It is to go beyond discrimination that we can connect with all sentient beings. We can consider all sentient beings as our close to … our dear ones. So, please do not misunderstand.

So, I suggest people read for example Bodhicharyavatara, which is a great teaching; a very great teaching by a great Indian saint Shantideva that will explain a lot of things.

Also the “Words of my perfect teacher”. Obviously you also should follow the teachings of your own guru; that is unique. For example, like teaching from Lama Lena and Wangdor Rinpoche, and whichever guru you follow.

So stanzas really explain, teachings really explain certain things that sometimes goes beyond the realm 41:08 ?] if you are/ with the understanding.

So when I was thinking about the element of choice in our lives, I came upon this stanza that really explained it very clearly. It says:

སྔ་མ་གར་བྱས་ད་ལྟའི་ལུས་ལ་ལྟོས། །

ཕྱི་མ་གར་འགྲོ་ད་ལྟའི་ལས་ལ་ལྟོས། །

nga ma kar ché ta tai lü la tö

chi ma kar dro ta tai lé la tö

It is it is a beautiful poetic teaching. It says nga ma kar ché; whatever we have done in the past, ta tai lü la tö; if you want to know what you’ve done in the past, look at your present condition. The direct translation is “look at your present body”; but it means you look at your present situation, your present condition. Chi ma kar dro ta tai lé la tö; if you want to know where you will be reborn, what the future will be, look at your present action.

So that’s the element of choice. What has happened until now, it is because of karma. What we do from now onwards, we have a choice. Otherwise, what’s the point of being born with the eighteen perfect conditions of a human body, that I explained on the 17th, to be free from hell, to be free from the God-realm, to be not be born as a barbarian and so on. What is the point of having a precious human body if there is no free will, if there is no choice. If we’re still so driven by the force of karma. What is the point?

So there has to be an element of choice. There is! What is occurred until now is a direct consequence of what we have done in the past. That’s what the teaching says. What happened in the future is up to us. So we have to be careful with our actions.

There it is, the element of choice that I was talking about. I got very confused with that. But this stanza explained it beautifully. And I’m sharing this with you.

42:58

Another way to explain it is to think of it like getting caught up in a blizzard, or big storm. When I was young, I was watching this movie Twister. It’s about tornadoes, in America. I’ve never been to America, but I’ve through watching so much, so many movies, I think I know exactly how America functions. Or, at least to a certain degree, I don’t want to say that I know it all. I know, I have a good understanding of how American society functions.

I have a very keen mind, I have this curiosity that… I always like to learn new things. Even if it’s a movie I try to learn so many things about cultures and humans and so on. So when I was young, I watched this movie called Twister. It’s about tornadoes. So in that movie – well, it’s about tornadoes so there are lots of this strong winds happening across the great plains of America and people are suffering, and when the tornado hits you, it carries away all the houses and cars. But then, if you’re in the basement, you’re somehow protected. And after the tornado, before the tornado and after the tornado, there are very strong winds, but it doesn’t literally sweep you away. You’re still okay, until it hits you. So I thought that time, when I was young, “Isn’t that how karma works?” Even watching a movie like Tornado, I was thinking like “Maybe isn’t that how karma works?”

In the hell realm the karma is so severe, it’s like you’re directly on the path of the tornado. And it hits you with full force. There’s no choice at all. But on a human realm, it is like slightly being from the far, from observing the tornado and watching it go across the plains. You can feel the wind, but it is not affecting you as much as it does were you to be directly in its path. So in the human realm, we do feel the karmic wind, but it is not as strong as it is in the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm, the animal kingdom, and so on. We do feel it, we do feel the heat of hell, the cold of hell, all the experiences of hell-like conditions. We say that: “Oh, I’m feeling hellish, this is hell”, when we have a breakup, and somebody harms us, when we get angry; these are like similar experiences of hell.

When we are full of lust and attachment, it’s a bit like being born in the hungry ghost realm; you’re so striving and lusting for food and so on. And then when we are ignorant, and we do stupid things, it’s like being born in the animal kingdom. So even in the human realm, we do face karmic consequences, this wind of karma. But in the hell, in the other realm, it is much more severe. So I think that is a little bit like how a tornado also affects us. So watching the movie I thought about that. And it makes a bit of sense.

So in on the human realm, the wind of karma is not so strong that you literally be blown away and swept away with no degree of control; we have a degree of control.

It is enough, the window of karma is enough to motivate us to say; “Look, don’t go in that direction, or the tornado will hit you directly. Stay back. Observe it, understand the force of this nature and go away from it”. Or at least take shelter in a bunker.

So on the human realm, the conditions are so good, so equal, that there’s a good balance of pain and suffering. That it doesn’t overwhelm us in an 47:10 inaudible] So it’s …it really is a good platform for us to motivate us to get out of samsara.

If you want to go become a big technical about karma, there are the ten good deeds and the bad deeds, the ten wholesome deeds and the ten unwholesome deeds. So from the body – I just want to go through briefly before I conclude my, this teaching of karma, because I also want to talk a little bit about the faults of samsara, so that we can conclude the four turning mind teachings – physically, we commit murder, we steal, and we commit adultery. I don’t know, if the word adultery is the direct explanation of the word, adultery, I don’t know if it’s correct or not, but we say, sexual misconduct and so on.

So murder is easy. Either you kill an animal or a human being. The understanding, the realization that that animal is living, the wish to kill it, the killing, and the completion. These four have to be met, to be considered taking a life.

48:19

We need to know whether that animal is sentient, that knowledge has to be there; which we do, because we’re not stupid. And second, the intention to kill it, the planning to kill it. Third one, the act of killing. And the fourth one, the act of having killed, the act of dying of the animal, taking life, the completion. Because if somebody doesn’t die, the karma of killing is not there. So it has to have all these four elements: the realization that it’s a sentient being, the planning or the intention to kill it, the act and the completion. So if you do that, it’s considered considered a very bad, unwholesome dead, bad.

Stealing is simple: taking away what doesn’t belong to you. Either you do it by force, or you do it with cunning and so on. It depends that we know… or you do it by mixing or by fooling people like saying: “Oh, this cost …I bought it for $100,000. But I can let you have it for 70,000”. That’s a lie, because I would have bought it for $10,000. So you taking wealth away from somebody. It doesn’t necessarily mean stealing. So abstained from such acts of directly robbing somebody or stealing, stealthily, or fooling somebody to part away with their belongings. That is bad karma.

And also the sexual misconduct part is – now there are different ways to explain it. But I think the best way to explain it would be that it’s not good to have it…is it is bad karma to have extramarital affairs if you’re in a relationship, because it directly harms the person that you are in relationship with; you’re married or so on.

And then by speech there are four: telling lies, and then the ta-ma [phra ma;Wylie] spreading…ta-ma is to discord between people, to spread discord between people. And then the third one is tsig-tsub. [tshig rtub;Wylie] harsh words, calling people names and saying bad things to hurt somebody’s feelings. And then the fourth one is useless chatter, so that you waste somebody’s time, because time is precious. So these four are considered bad karma verbally.

And then by mind, that is covetousness, to covet something, to wish that “Oh, I really wish that the husband of that woman be mine, or the wife, or the person be mine. I really wish that person’s house be mine. May I..I really wish if that person’s earrings, a gold chain or whatever belonging be mine”. Then you act upon it, you feel like “Oh, how do I separate these couple, so that I can be with the husband or with the wife, or with his belongings or his car or his property”. Then you lie, you create discord, you gossip between people, and then maybe you may even kill someone, and so on. So that is when we crave error that we commit from our mind; covetousness, that’s really…that leads to bad circumstances, bad results.

51:49

Then nö-sem [gnod sems;Wylie] nö-sem is the direct wish to harm someone, to kill someone, to harm someone. So that’s not good, because it again leads you to commit an action, most probably. So you have to watch that feeling of harming someone, or being… or to covet something courageousness.

Last last one is what we call wrong views. To say that doing good things is bad, and doing bad things is good. Like killing people is good, killing animals is good. And benefiting people is is not good. You should climb upon people’s heads to reach higher stages of success; only by being egoistic, and only by being aggressive and arrogant can you achieve success. Those wrong views. And then you can have like maybe even more strong views like saying “Killing of an animal and offering it to the gods at an altar is good”. But it is not. And to sacrifice someone, a human being for the sake of God, or blessing, or enlightenment is good. So, those wrong views are very… are much worse than a normal generic wrong view. So, we should watch those kinds of thoughts.

So, these are basically the ten direct unwholesome deeds that we connect with our bodies, speech and mind. And discipline, morality is to watch upon these three; that we do not commit such acts physically, verbally and mentally. And to do the opposite is the wholesome deeds. For example 53:35 inaudible] …. extramarital affair or whatever, to be loyal to a person, to your partner, and to your friends and families and so on. And then instead of telling lies, telling the truth. Instead of sowing discord between two people, make sure that people live in harmony, make sure that you create/see[?] things which creates bonds, instead of creating divisions. Instead of saying harsh words, you always use very pleasant words like… yeah, speaking pleasantly. Instead of saying useless chatter, to talk meaningfully. Instead of coveting something, covetousness, you rejoice. Instead of saying “Oh, I wish I had that person’s new car”, or whatever, you rejoice. You think “Oh, it is his own, his or her own good karma from the past that they are now blessed” – well, not… blessing is a religious word, slightly so – “that they’re fortunate enough to have such good karma”. So rejoice.

And instead of having harmful thoughts, compassion and love. Instead of having wrong views, the right views. So that is, I think that concludes the teaching of karma. I do not want to get to technical about karma, like I did right now. Because that can be a bit boring. And this information you can find almost in every major text and teachings. I just wanted to give my own version of what I think of karma and so on, because there is a purpose of listening from a teacher, from a spiritual teacher. Because you want to have a different perspective, from different teachers. And they all have different experiences, different ways of teaching about a certain topic. So I wanted to talk more about my experiences and my thoughts about karma.

Now we still have enough time to cover the faults of samsara. So it’s the fault of samsara. Now, why is it important to talk about the faults of samsara. It is important to talk about the faults of samsara so that we don’t get attached to samsara. See, there are many people that I’ve met, who say “Oh, samsara is fine, samsara is lovely. There is no such thing as samsara. It’s all rubbish. I’m rich, I’m a millionaire. I’m forty, I’m fifty, I have this lovely car, I have this big mansion. I have lots of friends. I have… this is lovely”. And they get attached to the trappings of samsara, to this beautiful display of illusions. And that is the saddest thing, to see somebody trapped by the illusions that they create, in the present moment, and that they have created in the past.

It is a cyalistic, it is like seeing a mad person. It is like seeing somebody who’s gone mad, and saying things like “Oh, look at that” – psychedelic experiences, I think – “Oh it is so beautiful, I really don’t want to 56:54 [inaudible] this dump, even though I’m homeless. I’ve injected myself with [I don’t know] what kind of drugs. I’m hungry”. But he doesn’t realize it, because he’s literally so drugged with things of his confused mind. And he’s so attracted to look at this, all these beautiful patterns, but they don’t really exist. The person still 57:21 inaudible] vividly, and is so attracted. And that’s how many people experience samsara. They see, they get attached with the appearance of phenomena. And they don’t have any interest to look at the nature of phenomena.

So the appearance can be very attractive, it can be very intoxicating, it can be very addictive. And it can literally trap into samsara, to this cyclic rebirth, to this loop. They’re stuck in this loop. They’re stuck in this matrix. Anybody who’s seen the movie Matrix knows exactly what I’m talking about. They’re stuck in this beautiful maze. And you do see things, humans, and experience and so on, but none of them truly exist. It’s all an illusion.

58:18

And the reason why it appears so real is that we have solidified it with eons worth of habituation. And the antidote is to meditate, is to practice. Because that’s what meditation is all about. gom-pa mai gom-pa yin. 58:38 [Tibetan]. It’s not about meditating, it’s not about sitting down and just literally go “Om, Om, Om”. It’s about habituation. gom-pa mai gom-pa yin.

So it’s about getting rid of bad habituation. And it’s about applying good habituation. It’s about not looking only at the appearance of samsara, but it’s about cutting through it, transcending it, and trying to work with the nature of samsara, the nature of phenomena.

Then, what happens is that you become liberated in the sense that you realize, from the bottom of your heart, from the root of your mind, you know that this is not real. But you enjoy it anyway. It is like watching a magician. Only a child or a foolish person think that the magician’s, whatever they do, is real. But it’s not. It’s all an illusion. But adults, we enjoy it. We love it. We don’t get upset when the magician cuts the woman in half, in the box. We don’t get so elated to the point that we literally become overwhelmed with joy when he takes a rabbit out of his head. Because we know all of this, it’s an illusion. It’s a play.

Samsara also manifests in that way. And it’s good to talk about the pros and cons of samsara. The pros are very little. The cons are manifold. So let’s talk about the cons. The cons are that… if you’re born in either of the six realms, what are the consequences? What are the sufferings? What are the problems? If you’re born in hell realm, it is not a good place to be born. Even though we don’t really believe – in the high teachings of the Buddha Shantideva himself said “Who created the hell realm? Who created all these burning furnaces and this cold regions of hell? No one, only this confused mind did”.

So we’re not talking about a physical place where you will be born and thrown into. We are talking about being stuck in this loop after we die. We’re talking about getting stuck in this mindset of experiences hellish realm. Because your mind is so accustomed to negativity. And all your karma from the past is caught up. And somehow you’re stuck in this in this Twilight Zone. Well, big fan – so it’s a bit like that. You’re stuck in this Twilight Zone, you’re stuck in this loop, in this maze, you’re stuck in this matrix. It doesn’t make sense. But I think humans do experiences these things. It is mentioned again and again in the teachings.

So what’s the problem, if we get stuck in a hellish kind of experience? You experience eight 1:01:43 inaudible] different hot experiences of burning sensation, and eight kind of cold and freezing sensations; none of them are pleasant, none of them give you any degree of control. You’re totally, totally, totally dependent on your own confused mind. And there is no independence at all. You’re stuck. And then there are the two neighboring hell’s. There are eighteen realms in the hell realm where you’re born. Please read on…you can read in texts what they talk about; for example, in some realms, you’re born with… like a battering ram, you’re born in between two big mountains, and it has a manifestation of like a sheep’s head, a rams head, and it crushes you. When he separates, there’s the wind, there’s a breeze, you revive. And again, it crushes you. So you’re constantly keep… you’re stuck in this place, until your karma is exhausted, until your confusion, confused state of mind is exhausted. So that’s very sad. And there’s nothing nothing you can do to come out of it. Because you’re constantly suffering. And you can’t even think about practice. You can’t even hear a mantra. You can’t even hear….you can’t even find a teacher though. What teacher would be born there? Let me ask you.

1:03:03

And in certain places in hell, they will draw a line across your body and start chopping you with a saw. Those experiences that you feel, there’s no physical place, but it’s an experience. So that’s also there. [?]

And in the cold realms, it is so cold that your body literally shatters; your body becomes purple, your body becomes…your body splits, like a flower when it rills[?]1:03:36 , when it dries; when a flower dries it breaks and literally just falls apart. The body becomes so cold that it literally just explodes. It is shattering like ice. Those are the kinds of experiences you feel in the cold realm.

And if you’re born in the hungry ghost realm, that is also not very pleasant. Because you’re constantly hungry, constantly thirsty. Those two experiences of hunger and thirst are extreme. And you don’t have, again, any time to think about dharma. Your belly is the size of a big boulder. Your head is the size of a big rock. Your throat is the size of a needle. And your mouth is the size of the needles eye. And you have these limbs which are very skinny. That’s the kind of experience that manifests in hungry ghost realm. You’re constantly looking for food. In the distance, you might see a tree with some fruits and you run towards it, you eat it and that tree… and it’s… the fruit of the tree is actually, written in the scriptures, are the human waste from the human realm. Whatever ways we flushed down the toilet, or our defecation, our waste, it manifests as fruit in the hungry ghost realm as food. Even though they do manage to push a small morsel to the tiny mouth, it goes through, goes along the thin needle-like throat into their bellies, it burns, it catches fire, and all your interior burns, you die, again you reborn. So that’s the experience of hungry ghost. And also, the place you’re born is very dry, it’s like a desert area.

1:05:35

If you’re born in the animal kingdom, you don’t have any degree of control; because either you’re killed because of anger, because people want to hunt this bear or this wolf, which has attacked their tribe or their town, city; or they kill for attachment, for game, hunting, people look… literally stupid people who like to go hunting for no reason at all, just to kill those beautiful animals. Happens a lot in Africa, and you see a lot of stupid people do that; something I really don’t like. And also for the flesh to kill an animal, not because your body needs, but because you’re so attached to the tastes of flesh. Or you kill an animal out of ignorance. So animals are also subject to a multitude of sufferings. And also you enslave animals to work for us. Like to use donkeys to carry things, use horses to carry people, we use oxes and cows to do work in the field, and so on. So animals also don’t have much control. It is not the right place to be reborn, in order to practice the Dharma.

And what happens if you’re born into the god’s realm. Well in the God Realm, there is a lot of pleasure, through… because of a karma. Three manifests. In the asura-realm, asura realm is a realm directly below the god realm. So a tree grows, a big tree, the wishfulfilling tree grows in the asura realm. And the fruits appear in the god realm. Now the gods and asuras, gods and demigods, they have this problem. The demigods are burning with jealousy. They don’t want the tree to be grown in the backyard and for the gods to enjoy. So they’re constantly shooting arrows and fighting or what not. The gods rain down arrows, and it’s much more easier for them to kill the demigods. And the gods live a life of luxury, whatever they wish they get from this beautiful tree. They live very, very long life full of happiness, full of pleasure. But towards the end of their lives 1:07:45 [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] all the beautiful clothes, all the beautiful garlands of flowers that wear, they wear out; their body start smelling really badly. And also, they are subjected to loneliness, because the younger gods will not associate with old older gods, with the elder gods. So they will be subject to the corner, and they will be very lonely. And then because of their power in the god realm, they will be able to see where they will be reborn next; most probably in the hell realm. They will see and the hell realm, they will see the preparation going on for them to be chopped, and boiled and so on. So that causes a great degree of anguish.

1:08:26

In the human realm, there’s a perfect balance of happiness and sadness. We have four major sufferings:

The suffering of birth; we have forgotten the suffering of birth, because it’s long time. And we were literally babies. But then if you look at babies, how they’re born, I don’t think there’s a single baby, there may be, but babies usually born screaming, shouting. And they come out with this beautiful place, which is the mother’s womb, which is comfortable, which is warm, where they don’t even have to open the mouth to eat, it comes directly from the umbilical cord. And all of a sudden, they’re subjected to this harsh climate. If they’re born in Africa, it must be so hot that they feel like they’ve been boiled. If they’re born in a place like Ladakh, it can be very cold, they feel like they’re literally freezing. So then babies are born, they experience pain. And because of this pain and suffering, this is one of the main reason that the trauma of being in the womb, of going through the process. And rumors also, though it’s a beautiful place, it’s a place where lives are conceived, but it is also slightly impure. So because of that impurity, and because of the trauma of birth, that is the direct reason why we lose our memory of our past life; even though it had carried across bardo, you lose any memories of your past life.

But sometimes some children, when they’re young, they remember a little bit of their past life; especially if they were born in the human realm. So they may say things like “Oh, this is not my house, you’re not my parents, I was born somebody somewhere else”. So the suffering of birth.

Suffering of old age, as you grow older, you don’t see things as clearly, you don’t taste things in the same way, you don’t experience phenomena and you don’t experience the world with the same intensity. So there is also the suffering of old age, and also the physical discomfort and so on you get.

And suffering of illness, whether you’re young or old, we will suffer the illness. And then the suffering of death. So these are the four major sufferings of the of the human realm.

It is nothing compared to the sufferings of hell, hungry, ghosts, animal, and so on.

And it’s not good either to be reborn as a god in the god-realm, because they’re literally full of pleasure and joy. And they don’t even think about practicing the Dharma.

So those are the faults of samsara. Those are the faults of being born in either all…in any of these realms. And even in the human realm, to strive to be millionaire, or to be a billionaire, and to own a big hotel, or big business and so on, these are all trappings. The richer you get, the more your worries will increase, the busier you get. And also, the more people you attract who shake your hands based on your bank balance, based on your wealth, you lose more people who will embrace you because of the good person you are. So that’s the downside of becoming too wealthy. And the downs or becoming too poor is that you suffer obviously of sustenance, and so on. So a balanced life is very important.

When I was like around nine to ten years ago, when I was in Europe, I was teaching and traveling. And I met some really good people, for whom I’m eternally grateful. And they gave me a lot of money and I invested in stock. And at one point I was a millionaire, and I was very rich. And I bought lots of luxurious cars. I had Range Rovers, I had Hummers, I had Maseratis and I had Mini Coopers, and I was living in the five star hotels and spending so much money needlessly. I was wearing Gucci, Armani, all these branded clothes; I was living a very godlike life, a typical villainous life. And I was not used to that. Before I got rich, I did have some friends, and the friendship was really good. My quality of life was really good. I had enough money, so that I would have a comfortable life. I wasn’t obscenely rich. And the friends I made at that point, were very… they liked me for the person I was. But then afterwards, as I got richer, and I displayed my wealth with these cars, and hotels, and clothes and so on, I started to attract people who were not necessarily attracted to my personality, but only to my wealth. So that was the transfer of wealth that really got to me and…you know, yeah…so then I sold everything, came back to India, donated everything to my monastery in Tso Pema and founded a shedra, a philosophy school in Darjeeling. And went into retreat for two years, just to detoxify all those gourmet meals and Michelin food and the V8 engines and the Gucci Armani; detoxified myself, came back to the rags and old clothes.

Now it’s good, I have a balanced life, I’m not rich, I’m not poor. It’s just good. And my activities are flourishing, because I have a good balance. I don’t have so much wealth that I have to keep worrying about what to do with it. And I’m not so poor that I’m always constantly thinking about where the next meal will come. So a balanced life is very important.

So yeah, that’s important to know. And not to get trapped with the trappings of samsara. That’s so important. And in the human realm…let’s forget about the hell realm, let’s forget about the hungry ghosts realm. Because they may exist, they may not exist. Who knows? Though we have faith in the Buddha and Guru Rinpoche, they would not lie to us. Let’s only try to deal with the faults of our present condition, the human realm. What we experience, and try to work with that. Try not to get trapped with too much money, with too much men, woman and only parties and so on. Because it’s like drinking salt water. The more you drink salty water, the more thirsty you become. It’s good to have a good balance. I’m not saying: tomorrow shave your head. Or like Lama Lena, you become a yogi and go find your guru in the Himalayas. I’m not saying that, that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. You have to start gradually, start thinking… first start to hear. Hearing is very important, or reading. Hearing or reading; hearing teachings from your gurus, or reading the teachings of your gurus, of past and present. And in contemplation; contemplate on the meanings and so on. And then to apply it in your life 1:15:38 Rinpoche speaking Tibetan, very important.

Hearing, and studying, contemplating; taking it upstairs, giving it a stir, and then taking it to your heart and to apply it. So hearing, contemplating, an application. Very important. These three processes, it will lead you towards greater wisdom.

1:15:59

So basically, I think that’s it. Lama Lena, you’re still here?

[Lama Lena] I’m right here with you, enjoying this.

[Rinpoche] Okay.

[Lama Lena] I really want to thank you for coming and presenting this in the traditional, untraditional way that you’ve been able to. Only someone trained as well as you, but also with the life experiences you have, can express this in a way that is both traditional and understandable. So I really appreciate this.

[Rinpoche] Thank you, Lama Lena

[Lama Lena] Nyondo, could you put that in the chat?

[Nyondo] Yeah, it’s been.

[Lama Lena] Okay. So it’ll keep…

[Nyondo] It’ll keep showing, also in Spanish.

[Lama Lena] So…okay, and we have… this was in Russian and Spanish as well as English today. We have pinned in the chat for all of you, who would like to make an offering to our teacher of the last two sessions, a PayPal that you can send to. Also, if you had this in a language other than English, remember your translator. Let’s keep our translators fat and happy, so we feed our translators. And let’s keep our teachers the same, so we keep our teachers coming back. There’s a lot more I would like us all to learn from Palga Rinpoche over the next year. Thank you so much Rinpoche.

[Rinpoche] Thank you so much for having me.

[Lama Lena] I really appreciate you having come.

[Rinpoche] Thank you. I feel very touched. Very emotional always when I hear your voice and to see your face, because it takes me back to my childhood and to our time together in Tso Pema.

[Lama Lena] This is symbolic from all of us who are out here today. [Lama Lena offering Kata/white scarf]

[Rinpoche] Thank you.

[Lama Lena] And the non symbolic symbolic will come through PayPal.

[Rinpoche] Okay, hahaha. I hope the connection was stable enough.

[Lama Lena] It was pretty good. We didn’t lose more than a dozen words in the entire time. And you were clear enough that we could figure out what those few words that it hiccuped over were.

[Rinpoche] Okay. I’m sorry if I was… if I looked a bit disoriented, because I just came to a very high altitude today. And though I did rest…

[Lama Lena] It’s still a big change to come from Delhi, which is close to sea level, all the way up to Ladakh. You supposed to take it easy for a few days, even if you are a Ladakhi.

[Rinpoche] Yes, true. Yeah, thank you so much, Lama Lena. I really miss you.

[Lama Lena] Perhaps next summer I’ll make it up there to visit.

[Rinpoche] Please come! We are finishing….

[Lama Lena] Or even I am gonna try for early September, at the end of the rains, ror in June. So let’s see what becomes possible.

[Rinpoche] Anything. We are finishing this retreat center here, Lama Lena. I will share details with you. We’re making it in the shape of a mandala, round mandala. And we have eight adjoining rooms. So like in pairs, sixteen in total. And I’m calling them the eight auspicious symbols, assign them eight auspicious symbols. So I’m implementing all these things. It’s shaped of a mandala with a beautiful stone stupa in the middle.

[Lama Lena] Oh, beautiful.

[Rinpoche] With prayer flags running across and so on. So they’ve managed to build a few of the rooms. Hopefully by June – July we will be able to complete the entire thing. And then you will have at least sixteen rooms for you to bring your students, for you to come and just be here.

[Lama Lena] And besides, I just really want to see you. It’s been too long.

[Rinpoche] Yeah, I know. It has been really long. And you always welcome. You, Nyondo and any of your Sangha, any of my old friends; always welcome. And really, it is so nice to see you and to see you smile and to see the glow on your face and to hear your voice…I miss you.

[Lama Lena] Yes, you too. And perhaps, with this, I should mutual admiration society, I should let you go off and get some sleep. It’s 1am!

[Rinpoche] Yeah, it’s close to…only four minutes to 1am. But it is okay, don’t worry.

[Lama Lena] Nah, you need to get some sleep. I know you’re doing things in the morning. And we have let people have your Instagram for those who want to sort of join in with the Tarot retreat. We’ve got a lot of people practicing Tara.

[Rinpoche] Okay, that’s great. Though the teachings will be in English…sorry, I mean Ladakhi, everybody live in Ladakh… but just for the people to experience to be part of this.

[Lama Lena] The energy will transmit. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Ladakhi.

[Rinpoche] Exactly.

[Lama Lena] I’ve been teaching them to catch the telepathic component. They can go practice with this one. And make some ge-wa.

[Rinpoche] Yeah. Lama Lena, so nice to see you. A big hug to you. Nyondo also. And take care.

[Lama Lena]

Good evening.

1:21:45

Traditionally, dharma teachings are offered free of charge and students offer a donation (dana) as they are able to. If you benefited from this teaching and have the means, please offer dana through the link here: lamalenateachings.com/give-dana

Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind with Chokyang Palga Rinpoche

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