Vajra Royalty and Dzogchen Pith Instructions (July 22, 2017 P
Let’s say you’re on a month long retreat. You’d start off the retreat kind of slowly. Maybe you’ll start with six minute meditations, then have a little break, like stretching, but maybe not leaving cushion. Then you can do 12 minutes, then 18 minutes, then 24, then 48. You know, maybe the first week keep to a maximum of 24 minutes, but at the end of the retreat, traditionally, you’d be on your cushion for four hours at a time, then you’d take a break after the four hours.
So you’d work up to it. If you just slam yourself into it, that’s not good. It’s like slamming on the brakes when you’re going 80 mph – you’re going to roll the car. So of course here I am giving teachings and so forth, so we’re sitting for longer periods, but if you have time at home, start off little and build up – you want quality first. That way you’re not just kind of sitting there.
I’ve heard people say, “It’s not doing you any good unless you sit forty-five minutes”. Well, then you might as well say it’s not doing you any good if you’re not doing anything for forty-five minutes. There are a lot of good things you can do in less than forty-five minutes. So you build up to it. You don’t need to be ambitions that way.
I’m also sure I may have mentioned in Mahamudra/Dzogchen style meditation, your eyes are open. You’re just gazing straight ahead with eyes slightly down. We’re not closing our eyes because we’re opening all of our sense doors – all the Buddha families are open. We’re not centralizing inward or expanding outward. Most people think of meditation as inward. There is no in or out – that is a joke. We’re right in the middle. We’re not centralizing in, like, “I’m just going in.” Likewise, I’m not going out. Going out would be like “I am noticing x, y or z”. No. We’re in the middle. Not centralizing anywhere. That’s easy. No, it’s hard! So, our eyes are open with a soft gaze just present in the room. We are not trying to be present. We’re just in the room. We are just here. You don’t have to go inside or outside.
Traditionally during lunch breaks even on a short retreat like this, the idea is we’re maintaining Vajra pride of the deity. So we’re not running around saying, “Oh, I have to do Mahamudra or Dzogchen or something,” because we’re having lunch, right? But we are taking the view that we are princes and princesses who are also servants.
That’s why as Bodhisattvas, our Sambhogakaya may have the beautiful jewelry and silks and so forth, and we’re in our Mandala or palace/mansion and we’re being very gracious hosts. And we’re royalty, so we’re feeling that sense of confidence and pride and we’re really feeling being beautiful people like that. That’s why in the different sadhanas we’re visualizing and imagining that we have these jewels and these crowns, and luminous bodies. So we maintain that vision that we’re royalty who are here to serve, putting those two together. Usually royalty is like I am royalty and you are not. (Laughter)
We all have our own idea of royalty, usually along the lines of, “I’m special and you’re not.” Here though, we’re royalty to notice, to serve and to be hosts. We bring those two ideas together, so when we’re eating, we don’t have normal view of eating. By offering it to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, it becomes amrita. It becomes wonderful blissful medicine, with no calories! (laughter)
Do whatever meal prayers you like, but maintain the view, don’t just go, okay, that was a great break. No – you are maintaining Vajra pride, Sambhogakaya style. Okay, we will be back at 1:00. For those leaving for the day, thank you for contributing your energy. For those coming back at 1:00, we will be giving pith instructions on Dzogchen. Yes, someone has got to do it! Emaho! La la la. (lunch begins)
Lama Jinpa: So we’re starting with three things we’ll discuss.
1. Introducing directly the face of rigpa
2. Decide upon one thing only.
2. Confidence in the liberation of rising thoughts
So I was looking for sources for this talk and was using Patrul Rinpoche’s commentary. Some people may have read his very nice thick book “Words of My Perfect Teacher.” It’s Patrul’s ngondro in a sense, instructions for the practice.
So first, ‘introducing directly the face of Rigpa’ is really getting us to recognize our actual lived experience in the present. That’s it.
There was one time, I don’t know, I think it was at a Saturday meditation, I let out a yogic yell, a PHAT! That’s kind of traditional. I didn’t announce that I was going to do it – It kind of loses its effectiveness if you warn people, but not entirely. I wanted to wake people up, have them refocus.
One of Patrul’s teachings is called “A Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King.” I’ll read it out loud, and you can listen along. “Homage to the Master….” So reading this out too, you can consider it as having had the reading transmission.
Traditionally, particularly for Dzogchen and Mahamudra, anything you study you should get the oral transmission for it. That was easier to require before the internet, or even books like we have, you had to really go to the source before. But you want to actually hear it from a qualified teacher.
Do we have to go around yelling PHAT? No, but generally when something new is introduced there’s going to be something unexpected. Generally to be introduced to something new, there’s going to have to be a necessary dropping of, “Eh, I know what this is.” So the awe and wonder that we sometimes see on Guru Rinpoche’s face in statues and paintings, with his mouth open and eyes wide open, that demonstrates that first experience before we know a story about it or even figure out what it is. On the path, all of our experiences are like that. We have no idea what is going on. (laughter) Then we tell a story about it.
The important part is when we have done the practice, then we could say mother clear light and child clear light come together. The child recognizes the mother – that’s the true nature before we grow up and get distracted – the mother doesn’t forget who the child is but the child forgets who the mother is. The path is where we’re reuniting mother and child.
We have to put ourselves in situations where we’re not in control and be willing to experience something new, and be willing to surrender to wonder and awe. Otherwise, the path becomes a very relative path where we feel, ‘Well, I really want to know what experience I’m going to have ahead of time.’ That’s the tricky part. We want to know what’s going to happen before it happens. It is kind of self-secret. Because even though we’re learning Mahamudra and Dzogchen, our very own lived experience still comes as a huge surprise to us!
But fortunately, wonderment and surprise, when integrated into our lives, become gratitude. How do you know when you have someone who is practicing Mahamudra and Dzogchen? One way is there is a sense of freshness along with a sense of gratitude – it’s really soft generally. When someone has this real hardness about them, they’re not generally going to be in a place of gratitude. Isn’t that so?
We’re just so incredibly grateful. Sometimes even with bad accidents or extreme situations, once we get out of it we feel an extreme sense of gratitude. Instead of feeling just lucky or shocked, we go into feeling deep gratitude. It’s like that.
But who knows, I may yell “PHAT!” Would that be okay? (laughter) Sometimes people jump. I don’t want any heart attacks or people suing me though, “Lama la! You yelled PHAT!” That’s American style, right? (Laughter)
In ‘The Words of my Perfect Teacher,’ Patrul Rinpoche talks about his experiences with his own teacher, Khensur Rinpoche. They’re just kind of stories about ordinary things; of course, there’s lots and lots of practice, but maybe they’re just lying down, looking up at the stars and it’s like, do you see the stars? Do you hear the dog barking? Just paying attention to that, their lived experience.
Patrul Rinpoche had an awakening right there – that is being very receptive. Because usually we’re like, “I see the stars, I’ve seen stars before. Yeah, I hear the stupid dog barking.” You don’t hear it for the first time. Can you imagine seeing something for the first time again, fresh? That is Rigpa. Would we get anything done if we always saw things for the first time? Yeah, we would, it might take longer but maybe it would be more interesting. “What are these?” (Laughter) Oooooh, what’s that?”
But with that fresh, immediate experience, we’ve built up the wisdom mind.
We’ve done all the supportive practices, so we still have the prajna aspect of discriminating wisdom, I mean we’re not walking into walls like a baby again. The combination of discriminating wisdom and primordial wisdom go together.
The second item is, “Decide upon one thing and one thing only.”
So in the retreat we did a few months ago, it was a little easier because everything was provided, and we didn’t feel we had to do anything else. When you’re on retreat and everything is provided, food, shelter, all that, there are fewer petty decisions to make. Retreat is easier really, because you don’t actually have to decide on so many things. So that’s the benefit of relative practice – you don’t have to decide so many things. You can keep deciding, “Okay, just my immediate pure awareness. I don’t have to decide between my immediate awareness and what I’m having for breakfast this morning.” (Laughter) Because that’s what we usually do. Isn’t it?
We think, hmmm, pure, immediate experience, or what should I have for dinner tonight? Usually we decide that what’s more important is what I have for dinner tonight. So in retreat we don’t do that.
Before we have realizations, we’re going to have experiences. Realizations are when we have the repeated, consistent experiences, where it becomes part of who we are. It becomes real – in other words, we can act on it. We can master it. It’s real. Realizations are, you can do it under pressure. It’s real, it’s innate.
We’re all masters of something. We’re all masters of a few things, where in spite of outside pressure, we can do it. That is realization – you can do it under pressure. You can do it under adverse circumstances because it’s integrated in your life.
If it’s just an experience, it’s more like “I had this really interesting experience but I can’t use it right now,” or it’s faded. Or maybe we think we can use it but outsiders may say, “You think you had a realization but you’re not really using it.” At the same time though, things start out as experiences, as glimpses. Stillness, blissfulness, clarity or no thought – these are going to start out as just experiences. Even at this level, where you can say, “Oh I’m a Dzogchenpa,” we’re going to attach to those experiences. We’re going to say, “This is it!” But please remember what the 3rd Karmapa said, “If you have to say this is it, it is not it. Or if you have to say this is not it, it is it.” (Laughter) So that is not recognition. Hold onto that.
Has anybody had the experience where you go, “I really have to hold onto that experience” and you go to repeat it but you can’t? You’re holding onto an experience and it won’t become a realization because it’s really become just a memory that you’re trying to reproduce. You want to continually practice so the experiences continually arise and become realizations.
Rinpoche says, “Disrupt them again and again.” That doesn’t mean get up from you cushion again and again and get all distracted or be stupid. (hearty laughter)
Sometimes people say, “I am really doing the practice. Whenever I get calm or still, I just sort of stop doing the practice. Then I just quit.” That isn’t what he means. (Laughter) Okay?
It does mean we are not fixating on these experiences; we’re disrupting them through skillful means and wisdom. So we’re recognizing, okay, that’s wonderful but we’re also recognizing that each new moment is a new moment. Each situation needs to be viewed with a wisdom mind and a skillful mind, which generally means thinking, this is good but how will this benefit others? This is good but how can I deepen it? This is good but how will it lead to complete liberation? So we are disrupting the fixation on having to own the experience. If you’re really doing it, you don’t need to own it. You don’t need to say, “Yes I have my Patience badge right over here.” If you really are patient, you don’t need to own it. Right?
So we release the fixation that we have to maintain the stillness, or maintain the clarity, or maintain the no thought. That’s one level of fixation. But really, if after one or two experiences you’re thinking you have it, or “Now I’m a great yogi,” then you need to go back to counting your breath. (Hearty laughter) And then you know, hang out with a good friend that tells you that you didn’t do the dishes correctly. (Hearty laughter) Or just come to Lion’s Roar – someone’s bound to tell you that you have to do it this way and then you’ll be like, “No I don’t, I’m a Dzogchenpa! I don’t have to! I’m free!” (Laughter) Then you realize, “No, I am stuck.”
When you become fixated, don’t become tricky with yourself. Just count your breaths again. Or help someone with some basic tasks. Seriously – that’s what he’s talking about – wisdom and skillful means.
Okay then, the third one, “Confidence in the liberation of rising thoughts.” At that point happiness or sorrow, fleeting emotions, momentary thoughts, each one arises but vanishes just as writing vanishes on water. And though they may arise as before, the difference is in how they’re liberated. That is the key. After one and two glimpses of directly seeing the nature of mind and then liberating fixation, we usually think, “Well, we are all done!” No, even with the first one, we think “I am all done.” Or maybe, “I’m not enlightened but I’m not attached to my experience, so I’m done.”
Even after those states are experienced and somewhat mastered, we can get overwhelmed by the manifestations of mind. Right? The expression of mind comes out in response to, of course, all kinds of phenomena, you know the mind-waves of the ocean, all kinds of phenomena, like the temple, or our bodies, but the trickiest phenomena are our thoughts and emotions. Right?
And even though thoughts and emotions are the nature of mind, they’re not quite the same as the dharmakaya aspect. We get kind of traumatized by our own expressions, our thought expressions. This is quite an important point. So even though you know, maybe we’ve done a lot of practice, we get kind of blown away by our own expressions. The mind naturally blows it up. You know, we could just say, “That’s easy,” or “I just realized that”, like that. But actually when it happens, we get a little traumatized. Trauma is being overwhelmed – we get a little overwhelmed.
The mind naturally expresses thoughts. So we could go that’s easy, but actually when it happens, we get a little overwhelmed. So the third point really is that even though it appears the sky is falling, it’s just arising expression. That’s difficult.
The third point is something Lamas generally have to tell students. We’re testing ourselves and the sangha tests us, but after thinking we’ve attained some Shine or Dzogchen, do we still get overwhelmed by arising thoughts and emotions? Yeah. So we tell you, ‘This is an expression.’ We’re not saying that we’ll never get overwhelmed, but that we should have confidence that they liberate themselves. We say that it’s like writing on water.
If we don’t mess with it, don’t add more anger to it, don’t act it out, don’t deny it, or don’t stuff it all down, then the expression will have its own natural rise and fall. The confidence is not “If I get enlightened, if I get realized, I’ll never get pissed off and never make a mistake.” That isn’t realistic. The confidence really is that we understand the process – we understand that the waves will go down quite significantly. Confidence doesn’t mean, “Now I’m confident that I’ll never get pissed off again.” If you say to a teacher like me “I’ve attained humility; now, I’m no longer angry.” What will happen? (Laughter)
A: (laughs) You’ll tell us we’re wrong.
Lama Jinpa: Or I’ll get pissed off and see, check if it’s true. It’s always an open secret, it’s easy to tell, right? I’ve actually had students come into darshan and say, “Lamala, now I have attained humility.” (Laughter) Seriously, they do! I kind of take that in. I don’t immediately say, “No you haven’t.” That would be too obvious. Instead, after a little while, I might say, “You know the way you did that in the past – that wasn’t really all that good,” and then see what happens. And then you might get a kind of buildup. Maybe if someone has attained some humility, they’ll just say yeah, I did screw up the last time. Maybe not. And then the second time when the Lama goes, “Just the other day, when you did this, you really screwed up and you could have done that way better.” And the third time when the Lama points out, “You know even right now, you’re not really paying attention and you’re really into your ego.” And maybe the person would go. “You know, Lama la, you’re right. I’m not really paying attention and I’m really into my ego. Thank you for pointing that out.” (Laughter) Maybe they’d say that.
Instead what usually happens is the student gets progressively pissed off, and eventually the goes, “How dare you criticize me three times in a row?!?”
And actually, if they’re good practitioners, they’d wonder, “Where is the humility now?” But lots of times instead the person goes, “Oh, I knew you were just testing me.” Well, if you knew I was testing you, then why did you take the bait? So it’s an open secret –right? I am telling you right now, full disclosure, if you make claims of having attained the paramita of patience, you will be tested.
Okay question time.
Q: Can you say something more about the anger- you said if we don’t add to it or respond to it we won’t get overwhelmed?
Lama Jinpa: Usually, when we’re overwhelmed, we go into a trauma response. Generally, first there’s flight, then there is freeze, then forget, then fabricate I call it. And finally, there’s “Fuck it.”
If we don’t go immediately into a trauma response, then we’re finally riding the wave. You know, we’re like the sea gulls on top the wave. We’re going to ride the wave; we understand the nature of mind. We understand the mind is going to have expression and occasionally it will feel overwhelming, and we hang with it.
People have heard me say, “It’s okay to be on the roller coaster as long as the bar is down.” Because you don’t want to make a claim like “I will never get pissed again” or “I will never get hurt again.” “I will never want the chocolate cake again.” We don’t want to do that. We have to understand that when we do that, we’re a little bit traumatized by our own actions. This is our own experience, our own expression of mind.
We’re not blaming. I do it too sometimes – but it’s a fiction: “You made me angry.” That is a fiction, a total fiction! So at the very least, as dharma practitioners we have to be willing to say, “I made myself angry by attaching to what you did.” That is confidence. And the confidence is in understanding that okay, this is impermanent, that’s it. This too shall pass. I know there’s a trajectory. There’s an end to the ride, and then we’ll lift the bar and go on another ride. But it really amps it up when you feel like you have to win, or like you have to stamp it out.
That needs to really be clear, because sometimes practitioners will think like, a Buddha or enlightened person would never get upset. Even the Dalai Lama says he gets annoyed, right? Okay, so let’s not go there.
Trungpa Rinpoche, Dalai Lama, Dudjom Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche, Arjia Rinpoche, our own Jhado Rinpoche, my own teacher, Geshe Gyatso…Guess what? I never met anybody who does not get angry! Everybody does! If someone here knows someone who you could cut off their arm and they won’t get angry, then I want to go meet that person.
But what I’ve noticed with all the wonderful teachers that I’ve had, even if they do get angry there is probably some kind of Bodhisattva reason. And they get over it quickly and it’s not a hostile anger. It’s just kind of an uprising, an expression. But yet there is some disturbance.
If you tell the teacher something bad has happened for instance, there’s some disturbance. Like our beautiful Abbott who was here, Khen Rinpoche, was very peaceful, just like Chenrezi but what if their administrator came to him and said, “You know what, we just checked our bank and our account has been wiped out. We had this much money there in the bank and now we don’t.”
Rinpoche would be upset, right? He wouldn’t say, “Well money comes and money goes,” because he’s an Abbot and they depend on those funds! He can’t say no worries, let the thief or Bank of India have it, because he knows without the money in the bank, he wouldn’t be able to get food for the monks. It’s going to be worrisome.
So this is a very nice teaching from Patrul Rinpoche. Look at the nature of your lived experience. Decide this is it. When the essence of mind expresses itself a little strongly, ride it like a wave. Let’s meditate.
Vajra Royalty and Dzogchen Pith Instructions
Let’s say you’re on a month long retreat. You’d start off the retreat kind of slowly. Maybe you’ll start with six minute meditations, then have a little break, like stretching, but maybe not leaving cushion. Then you can do 12 minutes, then 18 minutes, then 24, then 48. You know, maybe the first week keep to a maximum of 24 minutes, but at the end of the retreat, traditionally, you’d be on your cushion for four hours at a time, then you’d take a break after the four hours.
So you’d work up to it. If you just slam yourself into it, that’s not good. It’s like slamming on the brakes when you’re going 80 mph – you’re going to roll the car. So of course here I am giving teachings and so forth, so we’re sitting for longer periods, but if you have time at home, start off little and build up – you want quality first. That way you’re not just kind of sitting there.
I’ve heard people say, “It’s not doing you any good unless you sit forty-five minutes”. Well, then you might as well say it’s not doing you any good if you’re not doing anything for forty-five minutes. There are a lot of good things you can do in less than forty-five minutes. So you build up to it. You don’t need to be ambitions that way.
I’m also sure I may have mentioned in Mahamudra/Dzogchen style meditation, your eyes are open. You’re just gazing straight ahead with eyes slightly down. We’re not closing our eyes because we’re opening all of our sense doors – all the Buddha families are open. We’re not centralizing inward or expanding outward. Most people think of meditation as inward. There is no in or out – that is a joke. We’re right in the middle. We’re not centralizing in, like, “I’m just going in.” Likewise, I’m not going out. Going out would be like “I am noticing x, y or z”. No. We’re in the middle. Not centralizing anywhere. That’s easy. No, it’s hard! So, our eyes are open with a soft gaze just present in the room. We are not trying to be present. We’re just in the room. We are just here. You don’t have to go inside or outside.
Traditionally during lunch breaks even on a short retreat like this, the idea is we’re maintaining Vajra pride of the deity. So we’re not running around saying, “Oh, I have to do Mahamudra or Dzogchen or something,” because we’re having lunch, right? But we are taking the view that we are princes and princesses who are also servants.
That’s why as Bodhisattvas, our Sambhogakaya may have the beautiful jewelry and silks and so forth, and we’re in our Mandala or palace/mansion and we’re being very gracious hosts. And we’re royalty, so we’re feeling that sense of confidence and pride and we’re really feeling being beautiful people like that. That’s why in the different sadhanas we’re visualizing and imagining that we have these jewels and these crowns, and luminous bodies. So we maintain that vision that we’re royalty who are here to serve, putting those two together. Usually royalty is like I am royalty and you are not. (Laughter)
We all have our own idea of royalty, usually along the lines of, “I’m special and you’re not.” Here though, we’re royalty to notice, to serve and to be hosts. We bring those two ideas together, so when we’re eating, we don’t have normal view of eating. By offering it to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, it becomes amrita. It becomes wonderful blissful medicine, with no calories! (laughter)
Do whatever meal prayers you like, but maintain the view, don’t just go, okay, that was a great break. No – you are maintaining Vajra pride, Sambhogakaya style. Okay, we will be back at 1:00. For those leaving for the day, thank you for contributing your energy. For those coming back at 1:00, we will be giving pith instructions on Dzogchen. Yes, someone has got to do it! Emaho! La la la. (lunch begins)
Lama Jinpa: So we’re starting with three things we’ll discuss.
1. Introducing directly the face of rigpa
2. Decide upon one thing only.
2. Confidence in the liberation of rising thoughts
So I was looking for sources for this talk and was using Patrul Rinpoche’s commentary. Some people may have read his very nice thick book “Words of My Perfect Teacher.” It’s Patrul’s ngondro in a sense, instructions for the practice.
So first, ‘introducing directly the face of Rigpa’ is really getting us to recognize our actual lived experience in the present. That’s it.
There was one time, I don’t know, I think it was at a Saturday meditation, I let out a yogic yell, a PHAT! That’s kind of traditional. I didn’t announce that I was going to do it – It kind of loses its effectiveness if you warn people, but not entirely. I wanted to wake people up, have them refocus.
One of Patrul’s teachings is called “A Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King.” I’ll read it out loud, and you can listen along. “Homage to the Master….” So reading this out too, you can consider it as having had the reading transmission.
Traditionally, particularly for Dzogchen and Mahamudra, anything you study you should get the oral transmission for it. That was easier to require before the internet, or even books like we have, you had to really go to the source before. But you want to actually hear it from a qualified teacher.
Do we have to go around yelling PHAT? No, but generally when something new is introduced there’s going to be something unexpected. Generally to be introduced to something new, there’s going to have to be a necessary dropping of, “Eh, I know what this is.” So the awe and wonder that we sometimes see on Guru Rinpoche’s face in statues and paintings, with his mouth open and eyes wide open, that demonstrates that first experience before we know a story about it or even figure out what it is. On the path, all of our experiences are like that. We have no idea what is going on. (laughter) Then we tell a story about it.
The important part is when we have done the practice, then we could say mother clear light and child clear light come together. The child recognizes the mother – that’s the true nature before we grow up and get distracted – the mother doesn’t forget who the child is but the child forgets who the mother is. The path is where we’re reuniting mother and child.
We have to put ourselves in situations where we’re not in control and be willing to experience something new, and be willing to surrender to wonder and awe. Otherwise, the path becomes a very relative path where we feel, ‘Well, I really want to know what experience I’m going to have ahead of time.’ That’s the tricky part. We want to know what’s going to happen before it happens. It is kind of self-secret. Because even though we’re learning Mahamudra and Dzogchen, our very own lived experience still comes as a huge surprise to us!
But fortunately, wonderment and surprise, when integrated into our lives, become gratitude. How do you know when you have someone who is practicing Mahamudra and Dzogchen? One way is there is a sense of freshness along with a sense of gratitude – it’s really soft generally. When someone has this real hardness about them, they’re not generally going to be in a place of gratitude. Isn’t that so?
We’re just so incredibly grateful. Sometimes even with bad accidents or extreme situations, once we get out of it we feel an extreme sense of gratitude. Instead of feeling just lucky or shocked, we go into feeling deep gratitude. It’s like that.
But who knows, I may yell “PHAT!” Would that be okay? (laughter) Sometimes people jump. I don’t want any heart attacks or people suing me though, “Lama la! You yelled PHAT!” That’s American style, right? (Laughter)
In ‘The Words of my Perfect Teacher,’ Patrul Rinpoche talks about his experiences with his own teacher, Khensur Rinpoche. They’re just kind of stories about ordinary things; of course, there’s lots and lots of practice, but maybe they’re just lying down, looking up at the stars and it’s like, do you see the stars? Do you hear the dog barking? Just paying attention to that, their lived experience.
Patrul Rinpoche had an awakening right there – that is being very receptive. Because usually we’re like, “I see the stars, I’ve seen stars before. Yeah, I hear the stupid dog barking.” You don’t hear it for the first time. Can you imagine seeing something for the first time again, fresh? That is Rigpa. Would we get anything done if we always saw things for the first time? Yeah, we would, it might take longer but maybe it would be more interesting. “What are these?” (Laughter) Oooooh, what’s that?”
But with that fresh, immediate experience, we’ve built up the wisdom mind.
We’ve done all the supportive practices, so we still have the prajna aspect of discriminating wisdom, I mean we’re not walking into walls like a baby again. The combination of discriminating wisdom and primordial wisdom go together.
The second item is, “Decide upon one thing and one thing only.”
So in the retreat we did a few months ago, it was a little easier because everything was provided, and we didn’t feel we had to do anything else. When you’re on retreat and everything is provided, food, shelter, all that, there are fewer petty decisions to make. Retreat is easier really, because you don’t actually have to decide on so many things. So that’s the benefit of relative practice – you don’t have to decide so many things. You can keep deciding, “Okay, just my immediate pure awareness. I don’t have to decide between my immediate awareness and what I’m having for breakfast this morning.” (Laughter) Because that’s what we usually do. Isn’t it?
We think, hmmm, pure, immediate experience, or what should I have for dinner tonight? Usually we decide that what’s more important is what I have for dinner tonight. So in retreat we don’t do that.
Before we have realizations, we’re going to have experiences. Realizations are when we have the repeated, consistent experiences, where it becomes part of who we are. It becomes real – in other words, we can act on it. We can master it. It’s real. Realizations are, you can do it under pressure. It’s real, it’s innate.
We’re all masters of something. We’re all masters of a few things, where in spite of outside pressure, we can do it. That is realization – you can do it under pressure. You can do it under adverse circumstances because it’s integrated in your life.
If it’s just an experience, it’s more like “I had this really interesting experience but I can’t use it right now,” or it’s faded. Or maybe we think we can use it but outsiders may say, “You think you had a realization but you’re not really using it.” At the same time though, things start out as experiences, as glimpses. Stillness, blissfulness, clarity or no thought – these are going to start out as just experiences. Even at this level, where you can say, “Oh I’m a Dzogchenpa,” we’re going to attach to those experiences. We’re going to say, “This is it!” But please remember what the 3rd Karmapa said, “If you have to say this is it, it is not it. Or if you have to say this is not it, it is it.” (Laughter) So that is not recognition. Hold onto that.
Has anybody had the experience where you go, “I really have to hold onto that experience” and you go to repeat it but you can’t? You’re holding onto an experience and it won’t become a realization because it’s really become just a memory that you’re trying to reproduce. You want to continually practice so the experiences continually arise and become realizations.
Rinpoche says, “Disrupt them again and again.” That doesn’t mean get up from you cushion again and again and get all distracted or be stupid. (hearty laughter)
Sometimes people say, “I am really doing the practice. Whenever I get calm or still, I just sort of stop doing the practice. Then I just quit.” That isn’t what he means. (Laughter) Okay?
It does mean we are not fixating on these experiences; we’re disrupting them through skillful means and wisdom. So we’re recognizing, okay, that’s wonderful but we’re also recognizing that each new moment is a new moment. Each situation needs to be viewed with a wisdom mind and a skillful mind, which generally means thinking, this is good but how will this benefit others? This is good but how can I deepen it? This is good but how will it lead to complete liberation? So we are disrupting the fixation on having to own the experience. If you’re really doing it, you don’t need to own it. You don’t need to say, “Yes I have my Patience badge right over here.” If you really are patient, you don’t need to own it. Right?
So we release the fixation that we have to maintain the stillness, or maintain the clarity, or maintain the no thought. That’s one level of fixation. But really, if after one or two experiences you’re thinking you have it, or “Now I’m a great yogi,” then you need to go back to counting your breath. (Hearty laughter) And then you know, hang out with a good friend that tells you that you didn’t do the dishes correctly. (Hearty laughter) Or just come to Lion’s Roar – someone’s bound to tell you that you have to do it this way and then you’ll be like, “No I don’t, I’m a Dzogchenpa! I don’t have to! I’m free!” (Laughter) Then you realize, “No, I am stuck.”
When you become fixated, don’t become tricky with yourself. Just count your breaths again. Or help someone with some basic tasks. Seriously – that’s what he’s talking about – wisdom and skillful means.
Okay then, the third one, “Confidence in the liberation of rising thoughts.” At that point happiness or sorrow, fleeting emotions, momentary thoughts, each one arises but vanishes just as writing vanishes on water. And though they may arise as before, the difference is in how they’re liberated. That is the key. After one and two glimpses of directly seeing the nature of mind and then liberating fixation, we usually think, “Well, we are all done!” No, even with the first one, we think “I am all done.” Or maybe, “I’m not enlightened but I’m not attached to my experience, so I’m done.”
Even after those states are experienced and somewhat mastered, we can get overwhelmed by the manifestations of mind. Right? The expression of mind comes out in response to, of course, all kinds of phenomena, you know the mind-waves of the ocean, all kinds of phenomena, like the temple, or our bodies, but the trickiest phenomena are our thoughts and emotions. Right?
And even though thoughts and emotions are the nature of mind, they’re not quite the same as the dharmakaya aspect. We get kind of traumatized by our own expressions, our thought expressions. This is quite an important point. So even though you know, maybe we’ve done a lot of practice, we get kind of blown away by our own expressions. The mind naturally blows it up. You know, we could just say, “That’s easy,” or “I just realized that”, like that. But actually when it happens, we get a little traumatized. Trauma is being overwhelmed – we get a little overwhelmed.
The mind naturally expresses thoughts. So we could go that’s easy, but actually when it happens, we get a little overwhelmed. So the third point really is that even though it appears the sky is falling, it’s just arising expression. That’s difficult.
The third point is something Lamas generally have to tell students. We’re testing ourselves and the sangha tests us, but after thinking we’ve attained some Shine or Dzogchen, do we still get overwhelmed by arising thoughts and emotions? Yeah. So we tell you, ‘This is an expression.’ We’re not saying that we’ll never get overwhelmed, but that we should have confidence that they liberate themselves. We say that it’s like writing on water.
If we don’t mess with it, don’t add more anger to it, don’t act it out, don’t deny it, or don’t stuff it all down, then the expression will have its own natural rise and fall. The confidence is not “If I get enlightened, if I get realized, I’ll never get pissed off and never make a mistake.” That isn’t realistic. The confidence really is that we understand the process – we understand that the waves will go down quite significantly. Confidence doesn’t mean, “Now I’m confident that I’ll never get pissed off again.” If you say to a teacher like me “I’ve attained humility; now, I’m no longer angry.” What will happen? (Laughter)
Answer: (laughs) You’ll tell us we’re wrong.
Lama Jinpa Or I’ll get pissed off and see, check if it’s true. It’s always an open secret, it’s easy to tell, right? I’ve actually had students come into darshan and say, “Lamala, now I have attained humility.” (Laughter) Seriously, they do! I kind of take that in. I don’t immediately say, “No you haven’t.” That would be too obvious. Instead, after a little while, I might say, “You know the way you did that in the past – that wasn’t really all that good,” and then see what happens. And then you might get a kind of buildup. Maybe if someone has attained some humility, they’ll just say yeah, I did screw up the last time. Maybe not. And then the second time when the Lama goes, “Just the other day, when you did this, you really screwed up and you could have done that way better.” And the third time when the Lama points out, “You know even right now, you’re not really paying attention and you’re really into your ego.” And maybe the person would go. “You know, Lama la, you’re right. I’m not really paying attention and I’m really into my ego. Thank you for pointing that out.” (Laughter) Maybe they’d say that.
Instead what usually happens is the student gets progressively pissed off, and eventually the goes, “How dare you criticize me three times in a row?!?”
And actually, if they’re good practitioners, they’d wonder, “Where is the humility now?” But lots of times instead the person goes, “Oh, I knew you were just testing me.” Well, if you knew I was testing you, then why did you take the bait? So it’s an open secret –right? I am telling you right now, full disclosure, if you make claims of having attained the paramita of patience, you will be tested.
Okay question time.
Q: Can you say something more about the anger- you said if we don’t add to it or respond to it we won’t get overwhelmed?
Lama Jinpa: Usually, when we’re overwhelmed, we go into a trauma response. Generally, first there’s flight, then there is freeze, then forget, then fabricate I call it. And finally, there’s “Fuck it.”
If we don’t go immediately into a trauma response, then we’re finally riding the wave. You know, we’re like the sea gulls on top the wave. We’re going to ride the wave; we understand the nature of mind. We understand the mind is going to have expression and occasionally it will feel overwhelming, and we hang with it.
People have heard me say, “It’s okay to be on the roller coaster as long as the bar is down.” Because you don’t want to make a claim like “I will never get pissed again” or “I will never get hurt again.” “I will never want the chocolate cake again.” We don’t want to do that. We have to understand that when we do that, we’re a little bit traumatized by our own actions. This is our own experience, our own expression of mind.
We’re not blaming. I do it too sometimes – but it’s a fiction: “You made me angry.” That is a fiction, a total fiction! So at the very least, as dharma practitioners we have to be willing to say, “I made myself angry by attaching to what you did.” That is confidence. And the confidence is in understanding that okay, this is impermanent, that’s it. This too shall pass. I know there’s a trajectory. There’s an end to the ride, and then we’ll lift the bar and go on another ride. But it really amps it up when you feel like you have to win, or like you have to stamp it out.
That needs to really be clear, because sometimes practitioners will think like, a Buddha or enlightened person would never get upset. Even the Dalai Lama says he gets annoyed, right? Okay, so let’s not go there.
Trungpa Rinpoche, Dalai Lama, Dudjom Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche, Arjia Rinpoche, our own Jhado Rinpoche, my own teacher, Geshe Gyatso…Guess what? I never met anybody who does not get angry! Everybody does! If someone here knows someone who you could cut off their arm and they won’t get angry, then I want to go meet that person.
But what I’ve noticed with all the wonderful teachers that I’ve had, even if they do get angry there is probably some kind of Bodhisattva reason. And they get over it quickly and it’s not a hostile anger. It’s just kind of an uprising, an expression. But yet there is some disturbance.
If you tell the teacher something bad has happened for instance, there’s some disturbance. Like our beautiful Abbott who was here, Khen Rinpoche, was very peaceful, just like Chenrezi but what if their administrator came to him and said, “You know what, we just checked our bank and our account has been wiped out. We had this much money there in the bank and now we don’t.”
Rinpoche would be upset, right? He wouldn’t say, “Well money comes and money goes,” because he’s an Abbot and they depend on those funds! He can’t say no worries, let the thief or Bank of India have it, because he knows without the money in the bank, he wouldn’t be able to get food for the monks. It’s going to be worrisome.
So this is a very nice teaching from Patrul Rinpoche. Look at the nature of your lived experience. Decide this is it. When the essence of mind expresses itself a little strongly, ride it like a wave.
Let’s meditate.