Ah! This is self-knowing timeless awareness. Transcending any verbiage or terminology, it is not the province of mind. I, Tilo, have nothing whatsoever to show you. Understand it by pointing it out to yourself!

-- Tilopa

A True Caregiver

by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

The various studies and practices of the Dharma are all essentially diverse ways of learning how to work with our mind. Let’s say our mind is like a house. Before you decorate the house it needs to be cleaned, otherwise you will only be enhancing a mess. In a clean house, the true beauty of the decorations can really shine. Just as in this example, there is always a need to work with purifying our mind. To decorate our mind is through further study and  practice of the Dharma.

What do we actually cleanse? Basically we cleanse our ignorant mind of whatever has sprung forth from that ignorance. The mind of ordinary sentient beings has a distinct sense  of self. This sense of self is in a constant state of struggle, operating through the habits  generated from ignorance. These patterns need to be studied and understood. This sense of  clinging to the self has to be managed and transformed into something totally different. Without  studying the habits and patterns of ordinary mind, we will be unable to transform the clinging to the self and to penetrate to the level of ignorant mind. From time to time we may temporarily be  able to penetrate ignorance by the blessings of a very great master and our own devotion. But inevitably the habit comes back. All the struggles return, making it hard to fully rely upon ourselves and to genuinely develop our confidence.

There are as many varieties of habits as there are people existing in the world. In essence, however, there are the habitual patterns of the five different disturbing self-centred emotions: being attached, angry, proud, jealous, and unaware or stupid. One particular individual might have more difficulty or pain with anger rather than being jealous or prideful or attached. Another person might have serious problems with attachment, but not necessarily be aggressive, prideful, or jealous. These habits can be both gross and subtle. The study and practice of the  Dharma is to really understand one’s own habits, to have insight into them from a very clear, objective point of view, and then to find the skillful means to work with these habits.

The Dharma presents us with options. The deep wisdom of Dharma shows us how  to find freedom and liberation from our own disturbing, painful habits. Without the Dharma, we would have to resort to our own limited understanding. We would be like flies trying futilely  to get through a closed window. Not realising that the transparency is actually solid glass, a fly will smash against the windowpane over and over again, eventually dropping dead. Without the wisdom and skillful means of the Dharma, we can end up feeling like that helplessly  buzzing fly.

With the help of the Buddha, who is the teacher, the Dharma, which is the path, and  the Sangha, our companions on this path, from deep within we strive to be free from our negative habits. We can no longer stand our confusion. The root cause of our suffering is our  unmanaged, untamed mind, which cherishes the self. That is the problem.

Now we have arrived at the place where we do not want to let mind be chaotic and confused. We no longer want to be under the control of a self that randomly picks and senselessly  chooses how to operate. Instead, we want to replace the sense of self and the habits developed out of ignorance with a true caregiver. We want to exchange our present mind’s confusion  and lack of sanity for the true caregiver of the mind that has the potential to embody wisdom. The wisdom inherent within us can discern what is favourable and what is not. We do not have to be controlled by instincts, but can question the very instincts that have gotten us into trouble. The instincts and urges that we feel so strongly inside result from the powerful momentum that has been created by habits. Without some self-reflection or questioning of our mind in this state, mind is very vulnerable and loses all its power of discernment.

As practitioners, we need to question and study our habits. We need to intimately examine the method of functioning that has caused us so much pain and suffering. Up until this point we have been completely under the power of confusion and disturbing emotions. These have guided our destinies. We have endured this pain in samsara for endless lifetimes. This is the truth, however painful and unbearable it may be. Now, finally, we have reached the place where we can do something about it. We must find within ourselves, in the core of our heart, renunciation. We need a certain confidence that we can actually abandon negative habitual patterns. We have the potential not only to renounce what is going on in our mind, but also to replace it with the enlightened mind. We need to have the confidence that enlightened mind is  reachable. It is not something imported or stolen from outside, a foreign thing. Enlightened mind is  present in this very confusion — inherent in this mind that at this very moment is ruled by habits,  governed by ego, and filled with disturbing thoughts and emotions.

How can we find confidence in our present mind that is in such a deluded state?  How do we bring this confidence out more and more and make it stronger? We need to rely on  the Buddha, the teacher, the Dharma, his teachings, and the Sangha, our companions on the path. We need to connect with the three wisdom: the hearing wisdom, the contemplative wisdom, and the meditative wisdom. With the help of these three wisdom, our innate capacity can be brought out to the fullest extent.

Right now we have extremely favourable circumstances. Not only are we interested in  the Dharma, but also we can meet teachers, hear and study teachings, and receive a  spiritual teacher’s guidance.

With the support of the perfect teacher and the teaching, when we study our mind,  our pain, our habits, our self-cherishing and clinging, we can very clearly and intimately identify  how pain and suffering are linked to the habits, how the habits are all linked to the disturbing emotions, the disturbing emotions are all linked to the cherishing and protecting of the self, the  cherishing and protecting of the self is linked to the sense of clinging to a self, and finally the sense  of clinging to a self is a product of confusion and ignorance. We can see this very clearly in our  own experience. We have the potential to discern what is favourable and what is not, what supports our happiness and what opposes it. Based on this self-reflection we can gain the  courage, the confidence, to overcome all our negative ignorant traits through the wisdom of the  Dharma.

Self-reflection is not an end in itself. Rather, it is the key that opens the door to your innermost qualities, to buddha nature. It shows you the strength and confidence you already  possess as a result of those innate qualities. This strength and confidence allows you to carry on  with a sense of richness, of inner wealth.

Happiness and discernment can blossom from there. Once this discernment  blossoms, it’s not so difficult to get rid of or abandon the negative tendencies. It’s as if you have a piece  of metal that looks like gold and you treat it like gold, thinking it is very precious and will get you out of your impoverished state. You put it under your pillow to keep it safe and from time to time  take it out to look at it. Then all of a sudden you find out that it’s not gold — it’s actually a piece of radioactive ore. Your whole relationship with it changes immediately. Once you  know what it actually is and how dangerous it is, you will not struggle to get rid of it. Rather, you  will try to get it out of your life as quickly as possible.

Similarly, it takes getting to that point to really know our own mind. We have to really know our own suffering, our disturbing emotions, and our struggle with our sense of  self-importance. Truly know how these lead to so much more confusion and chaos in the form of actions that further perpetuate habits. When this kind of realisation springs forth, we feel inspired to change our whole mind-set to something much more enlightened, to a completely different type  of mind. 

Again, in getting rid of all the layers of neurosis, we become very appreciative of the  Dharma. We understand how it helps us to cleanse our mind and to replace what we have cleansed with sublime tools. If we do not replace the space we’ve cleansed with anything, it feels empty. It’s quite nice to get rid of all the things that are crowding our room; however, we do need some furniture to make ourselves comfortable. People are afraid of emptiness because they think that if we get rid of everything, there will only be the empty. The Dharma suggests what to  bring in after we have cleansed our mind, and it opens us to nurture and appreciate that.

Unconscious ignorant mind operates by cherishing and protecting the self. From this develops the mess of disturbing emotions, the habits they provide, and all the subsequent pain. But the clear, conscious mind that is steeped in the wisdom of the Buddhas, instead of  protecting and cherishing the self, has expanded to include cherishing and protecting all others. At  our current stage, to literally cherish all others and protect them is perhaps beyond our capacity,  but the intention or wish to do so is certainly within our reach. To have that intention very alive inside of us as a deep yearning strengthens our determination to make progress every day, regardless of how much we are at odds with our old habits. This heartfelt intention sustains the  practitioner’s mind in loving-kindness and compassion and all the positive actions that spring forth  from there.

It’s not that we have no struggle here. We have a tremendous struggle against our  habits. But we welcome that struggle, rather than thinking, “Oh, it should be a free ride to enlightenment.” There is not going to be a free ride to enlightenment, a ride without any challenge. If that were possible, why wouldn’t everyone be enlightened as easily as they intended? Such a vision is not realistic, nor is it exciting. We have to see ourselves rising from our own cocoon,  rising from our own old ignorant mind.

Samsara and nirvana exist within you. Samsara is made of our mind, as is nirvana.  Without samsara, there is not going to be nirvana. Without a dweller in samsara, there is not  going to be an achiever of nirvana. Of course, according to absolute truth there are no notions of  nirvana or samsara. However, within the relative way of viewing reality, because we intend to  attain nirvana, there must be samsara to overcome.

In this kind of thinking, every possibility is a great thrill. Let’s say, generally speaking,  that we don’t enjoy someone’s aggression coming towards us. We tend to dread this  aggression, especially if it’s from people dwelling under the same roof. Spouses dread each  other’s wrath or temper. Children dread upsetting their parents and unleashing their anger. Aggression disturbs our peace, and that disturbance causes us dread and fear. With a bit of study, we  can understand that it is not the aggression that destroys our peace. It is our mind’s weakness in patience that destroys our peace and creates that fear. If you know for a fact that someone is not  going to harm you, you have no fear. No matter how much other beings are intending to harm you,  even if they swarm around you like a cloud of small flies in summertime, you don’t have fear, because you feel secure. The experience of threat is due to our own lack of security, our own lack  of stability, our own lack of unshakeable strength and patience, and this makes us feel  overwhelmed by aggression, big or small.

Bodhisattvas develop unshakeable patience. No matter how many flies are swarming  around threatening to get a good bite of your skin, if you have attained stability in the training, you cannot be harmed. In reality it’s exciting to have difficult circumstances and problems  like aggression come into your life so that you can actually work with them. Without  some practice, you are never going to get there. Knowing that, all of these challenges are  welcomed.

Bodhisattvas take joy in encountering challenges. They are not interested in some  kind of vague hypothetical challenge, but in real-life situations — not only challenges but disasters as well, because from the perspective of practice these situations provide great opportunities. The question then becomes, “Is this a challenge? Is this really a disaster, or is this a great gift?” What seems to be a disaster or a challenge is a gift to bodhisattvas, and they welcome it.

In this way, samsara becomes a delightful place to live, especially for the bodhisattvas who are training their minds to become free from the deep-rooted weaknesses in the duality  of ego. Everything becomes good, and this is a view that we as practitioners, as amateur bodhisattvas, are trying to learn. Right now we are amateurs, but someday we will become the  real thing, and this is one’s own choice. The key to it is to sit with one’s mind, to study one’s mind,  to learn one’s mind, to find the transcripts of one’s mind in the books and in the teachings. Transcripts shed light on the mind. Use the teaching as a transcript, and then understand that the real teachings are in one’s mind. The books illuminate what takes place in the mind. When we approach the teaching in this manner, the teachings are not separate from our mind. The teachings are our mind.

In light of what we need to cleanse and what we need to nurture within our minds, the  teachings become a great source of relief. As I said earlier, if we don’t have the teachings, we  must resort to our own intelligence, our own wisdom; and if we do not have something greater than our limited intelligence and wisdom in the midst of all the confusion, habits, and conflicting emotions that overwhelm us, we become worse than the fly that is trying fruitlessly to escape, hitting his head against the windowpane. We may even become fanatical in our desperation. The fly, after all, is just trying to get out. Maybe he is hitting his head a little too hard, but he is not harming anyone — he is simply exhausting himself. When we human beings become  fanatical out of our own desperation, we harm not only ourselves, but others as well. Driven by the immense power of confusion and disturbing emotions, we act in ways that further disturb us  and jeopardise our well-being, not only in this lifetime, but also in many lifetimes to come.

Teachings are a respite because they provide us a pathway to understand ourselves, a pathway to relieve ourselves from the burdens, habits, and confusion created by disturbing  emotions and ignorant mind. The Dharma truly does point us to who we really are, what we are really capable of, and what we really can do with our lives and our minds. Generally speaking, an ordinary sentient being can only become an ordinary sentient being. The teachings describe  how an ordinary sentient being can become a Buddha. 

This is not just a description of how it could be for you and how it would be so  wonderful if you could get there. If teachings only described a state that could be so wonderful, but  didn’t show you the path to get there, you would feel like a hungry dog looking up at a chicken  hanging just out of reach. You have no way to get up there. But the teachings are not like that. 

They guide us step-by-step as to how we can actually emerge out of our cocoon of ignorance, out of our disturbing emotions and self-centredness. What are the transformations to  be made? How are those transformations possible, and how are those transitions made in reality?  The teachings show this all to us very clearly, and therefore we feel very appreciative of them. That is why the Buddha is the refuge for us: He embodies the enlightened qualities that are within  the reach of every one of us.

This characteristic is like a grand archer testing a bow, or like tuning the peg of a lute so the tension of the string remains evenly balanced. Likewise, if one constantly guards mindfulness while meditating on bodhichitta and the visualisations of the developing stage, or while contemplating the essence of the pure nature of appearance in the completion stage, then one will have the sense of what is called samadhi by keeping mindfulness balanced at all times without intervals.

-- Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

佛和众生的关系不是“主子”和“奴仆”

多识仁波切

“三宝”与佛教的关系。

“佛教”是佛陀的圣教。

佛教是由施教的佛、所教之法、受教的众生三个因素组成的。

佛是受此教、依此法得道的先知先觉，众生是未开悟或半开悟的施教对象，法是施教的内容，包括佛陀的思想学说和觉智、善行、品德。

佛和众生是相对的存在。

佛从众生中生，未成佛之前也是众生，成佛要靠众生，因为佛体和佛的功德都是利众行善的结果。

众生是行善的对象，如果没有众生，利众的善行就无法实施，利众行善功德就无法圆满。

因此佛离不开众生，众生的聪明才智和善德良心的开发、生存条件和幸福美好生活的创造中有佛的爱心和智慧的参与。

佛在世的利众形式，是以众生自觉为基础的正义良心的存在和幸福快乐向上事业的不断创造、完善及得以维护。

从这个意义上讲，众生的幸福来源于佛——觉者的爱心和智慧。

佛和众生的关系不是“主子”和“奴仆”的关系，而是“已觉”和“未觉”的关系。

佛存在的前提是众生，当一切众生脱苦得乐、大彻大悟之时，既无众生，佛与众生的对立也就消失，因此佛也就没有存在的意义了。

法是道，是事物的本质规律及正确反映事物本质规律的智慧。众生行此道成佛，佛以此道教育众生，化度众生。

僧是进入解脱圣道的道人或圣者，是证得“见道”以上的修行众。

佛和僧伽的关系，有以下三种类型：

(一)师徒关系。

如释迦牟尼和众菩萨、声闻弟子之间的关系。

(二)众生与佛的关系。

如一个人在未成道之前在学道是僧，成佛进入无学道便是佛。在未成道之前，圣人和凡人一律属于“众生”范畴。无论声闻、缘觉、菩萨，凡开悟，生出超世智慧者都是圣人。开悟是“见道”的境界，未证见道者一律称凡人、迷众。

(三)同一关系。

佛陀既是僧，也是佛，从“破”和“悟”的境界而言是“佛”；从佛的有生命、有意识的佛体而言是“僧”。

如释迦牟尼的破悟境界是“佛”，释迦牟尼的五蕴之体和意识是“僧”。因此，释迦牟尼既是“佛”，也是“僧”。

“僧伽”一词的含义是“向善众”或“向善团体”，是个集体名称。沙弥、比丘四人以上，方称“僧众”。但这不是绝对的，如前所述，佛既是“佛”，又是“僧”，佛的破悟境界和慈悲智慧功德也是“法”，因此说佛是“三宝”集于一身的觉者。

众生暂时性的和永久性的幸福快乐的获得要依靠“三宝”。一个人开始入道和中间道行的增长、最终道行的圆满都有赖于“三宝”之力。同时，众生入佛门，皈依佛法的最高目标是自己为了成就“三宝”，即自己成圣僧、成佛，获得法身无上功德。因此，“三宝”是因缘，“三宝”也是结果。概括起来说，佛教由佛、法、僧三要素组成，佛、法、僧“三宝”是佛教三位一体的具体表现。

Others may recognise you as a good practitioner merely on the basis of some positive behaviour or some pleasant speech or because you happen to conform to their expectations. Of the two witnesses, therefore, the principal one is the assurance that you are not faulted by your own mind.

-- Khenchen Konchok Gyaltsen Rinpoche

Action and Rebirth

by Geshe Sonam Rinchen

Ignorance gives impetus to an action by providing the motivating force. Ignorance precedes the second link, formative action, functioning in a causal capacity, and it is also present with the action. This ignorance can be of two kinds: ignorance regarding the fundamental nature of things and ignorance regarding the connection between actions and their effects. Both may accompany formative action, but when a virtuous action is performed, the second type of ignorance regarding the connection between actions and their effects is absent. The contemporaneous motivating ignorance pushes the action through to its conclusion. If ignorance about the connection between actions and their effects is present, virtuous action will not occur.

A negative action, such as killing, may be motivated by desire, anger, or confusion. We may slaughter an animal because of our desire to eat meat. If someone has harmed us, we may kill that person out of anger and the wish to take revenge. We may wrongly believe that blood sacrifice will bring us good fortune. These are examples of the motivating forces that can cause us to act. Lack of mercy and aggression are active when we kill for any of these reasons. Although ignorance is present, this ignorance is not the kind that forms the first of the twelve links — that ignorance is always the instinctive misconception of our own self.

How do the disturbing emotions arise from the misconception of the self? First there is a very vivid sense of self. When the innate sense of this larger-than-life “I” is present, a particularly sharp distinction is made between oneself and others. There is, of course, an “I” and there are “others,” but when the misconception is operating, these two are viewed in a special way that gives rise both to strong attachment to the self together with everything we consider to be on our side, and to aversion towards anything we see as other and hostile. From that distinction and from the strong sense of “me” and “mine” comes a clinging to my happiness and the happiness of those associated with me and fear and repugnance to anything that threatens it.

Then we act — physically, verbally, or mentally — to insure our happiness, to prevent others from interfering with it, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive as harm. Meritorious, demeritorious, or unfluctuating actions that are the result of ignorance keep us within cyclic existence. We have taken rebirth over and over again throughout time without beginning. Helplessly we keep experiencing all the suffering associated with cyclic existence. To break out of this process we must stop the formative actions that yield their results enabled by craving and grasping. This can only be done by ridding ourselves of attachment and hostility and the underlying ignorance.

In this context particular emphasis is laid on getting rid of the attachment or craving. Freeing ourselves from this is no easy matter because our notion of the self is deeply entrenched and habitual. It will be of no help to look outwards. We must look for the root of cyclic existence within ourselves, examine how the misconception arises, how it serves as a foundation for the other disturbing attitudes and emotions, and how it can be uprooted.

All ordinary living beings have this misconception and act under its influence. Exalted beings have direct perception of reality as it actually is, and though they may still have confusion, it no longer influences their actions, so they do not act in ways that perpetuate their existence in the round of rebirth.

We create many positive and negative actions. Are all the actions we perform the kind that will give rise to another rebirth with a suffering body and mind? Is there ever a time when we are not creating actions that will give rise to further cyclic existence? We act even in our dreams. Will these actions, too, perpetuate cyclic existence?

Through appreciating the marvellous qualities of enlightenment, we may aspire to become enlightened ourselves and create meritorious actions for that purpose. Or having heard about the many disadvantages of cyclic existence and thought about them, we may perform virtuous actions with a strong antipathy to our present condition and with a wish to free ourselves. We may receive teachings on emptiness and, with our own limited understanding, contemplate it and try to recall the nature of reality when we act.

Will these positive actions produce a good rebirth? If so, are all of these actions simply producing further cyclic existence, albeit in one of the better states? Is the attainment of high status, namely a good rebirth, necessarily the result of formative actions? Aren’t the actions we have just mentioned, such as those motivated by the wish for freedom from cyclic existence, for liberation and enlightenment, the antidote to cyclic existence?

These are meritorious actions based on turning away from cyclic existence. If we think everything we do at present is simply going to give rise to further cyclic existence, it is very discouraging. We should understand that it is possible for us at this moment to perform actions that will not do this, which is why so much emphasis is laid on motivation. Not all thought is counterproductive. The result of our actions depends upon our intention, and thoughts that are directed towards the attainment of liberation, for instance, are constructive thoughts. If they are strong enough, the actions which arise from them will act as causes for freedom from cyclic existence.

In the chapter on perseverance in his Way of the Bodhisattva Shantideva says:

Take advantage of this human boat;

Free yourself from sorrow’s mighty stream!

This vessel will be later hard to find.

The time that you have now, you fool, is not for sleep!

Using this good body and mind in the right way, we can free ourselves from suffering. No other rebirth offers us such an opportunity. As an animal we have no chance of liberation or enlightenment. To accomplish this task we will need at least several more rebirths, for even though it is possible to do it in one lifetime, if we consider our own intelligence and the amount of effort we are prepared to make, it will certainly take time. So we must try in every way to insure that we take the kind of rebirths in the future that can provide us with the very best conditions for practice.

Unless we enjoy the favourable circumstances that make good consistent practice possible, we will not see any significant results, no matter how much effort we make to gain insights. A number of factors make a human rebirth special and privileged. The eight freedoms and ten riches distinguish a precious human life from an ordinary one. There are also eight assets which result from positive past actions and seven distinguishing attributes. Ideally we possess a working basis endowed with the “four wheels” that can speed us towards enlightenment in the Great Vehicle.

Possession of the eight freedoms and ten riches means that we are free from all kinds of hindrances that prevent practice and enjoy conducive circumstances that support it. The eight assets that come from past virtue are a long life span, an attractive appearance, birth into a good family, authority and wealth, trustworthy speech, a strong body and mind, and being male. If one possesses these eight, one also probably has the seven features that distinguish a high state of rebirth. The “four wheels” are to live in a conducive place; to have a relationship with an excellent or holy being; to admire and take an interest in excellent activities, such as the pursuit of liberation and enlightenment, with a strong aspiration to practice accordingly; and to have created a good store of positive energy.

We should examine whether we enjoy all these advantages and make sure that we will have them in the future as well. A good body and mind are essential, but we also need a long life, otherwise there will not be enough time to accomplish anything in our practices. We need time now and sufficient time in the future. Just praying for this is not enough. We have to create the causes that give rise to a long life. Just as most of us like to be attractive to others and to have a good appearance now, we will also want that in the future. This is not frivolous because if we look nice, we can more easily create relationships with others and through that find many opportunities to help them. It will also make it easier to get whatever material support we need to sustain our practice.

Patience gives rise to an attractive appearance. This is self-evident because people who are even-tempered, calm, and patient attract others, even though they may not be beautiful in a conventional sense. Those who are truly patient are also loving, which makes them very appealing. When we get upset and angry, we are not at all attractive to others. If we wish to have certain qualities, we have to make effort to develop them, since things do not just happen causelessly. One of the assets mentioned in this context is that we will be born with status. This is desirable because the ability to command respect and esteem will decrease the obstacles we face when working for others. Such status is the result of showing respect to those who possess admirable qualities and have done good. We must, therefore, avoid denigrating and condescending conduct towards others.

We also need sufficient resources to practice without having to worry about daily necessities. If we have plenty, we can easily attract others through generosity and do many things for their benefit.

Our speech should be honest and convey what needs to be said in a sincere way. Our own actions should accord with the advice we give others. These qualities will serve us well now and in the future, so we should take this precious opportunity to create their causes now. We need the best possible conditions if we are to use our body and mind to free ourselves.

Like us, animals try to avoid the suffering of pain, and practitioners in many spiritual traditions endeavour to overcome preoccupation with ordinary or contaminated pleasure, which is untrustworthy and subject to change. Buddhist practice is unique in providing us with the means to free ourselves from the constraints of having this kind of body and mind, which are the result of contaminated actions and disturbing emotions and constitute the pervasive suffering of conditioning. These compulsive actions and the disturbing emotions are the second noble truth, the true sources of suffering that bind us to cyclic existence and make true suffering, the first noble truth, inevitable. A deeper exploration of the four noble truths brings us to the teaching on the twelve links of dependent arising, which is a cherished treasure among the jewels of the Buddha’s teachings and is worth thinking about again and again.

As we have seen, when ignorance regarding the fundamental nature of things and ignorance regarding the connection between actions and their effects are both present, the result is a negative action which leads to a bad rebirth. In other cases, only the former but not the latter kind of ignorance is present. We could be aware that positive actions lead to happiness but mistake the happiness of good rebirths for real happiness without recognising the suffering entailed. As a result we might perform all kinds of positive actions in order to be reborn as a human or celestial being. These are meritorious actions that are still underlain by the misconception of the self.

Formative action in this context means action motivated by ignorance belonging to the same set of twelve links, since several sets of the twelve links ordinarily are operating simultaneously. This action will project a number of factors that also belong to the same set of twelve links. Action, according to the lower schools of tenets, refers to the mental factor of intention; however, from the Prasangika point of view, physical and verbal actions have physical form. Action can be created through any of the three doors of body, speech, and mind.

Demeritorious action consists of such actions as the seven harmful activities of body and speech, while meritorious action is virtuous action which avoids these seven. Unfluctuating action refers to practices of deep concentration that give rise to rebirth in the upper realms of celestial beings in deep states of absorption. This kind of action can only be created if we have accomplished a calmly abiding mind. Formative action forms the next existence. The action does this even though the person may be totally unaware or unmindful of its consequences.

The moment the action ceases, it leaves an imprint on consciousness. The third link is called consciousness and refers to that moment when the action stops and the seed is implanted. This is consciousness at the time of the cause, or causal consciousness. Consciousness at the moment of conception in the rebirth resulting from this imprint is referred to as resultant consciousness.

Ignorance, formative action, and consciousness are the three projecting causes. The results they project are name and form, the six sources, contact, and feeling. Craving and grasping, like moisture and a fertile growing medium, activate the seed-like imprint so that it begins to grow.

We all have a vast store of imprints from the countless positive and negative actions we have performed. Only mental consciousness, not any of the five kinds of sensory consciousness, acts as the storehouse. Although this consciousness changes moment by moment, it continues in an unbroken continuity, whereas there are periods, such as during sleep, when the different kinds of sensory consciousness stop operating. Whether we take a good or bad rebirth depends on what sort of imprint ripens. Since mental consciousness continues on to that new rebirth, the person imputed to that consciousness does so too.

Conditioned by formative action,

Consciousness enters rebirths.

When consciousness has entered,

Name and form come into being.

A variety of causes and conditions produce each moment of consciousness, but here Nagarjuna emphasises how formative action determines which kind of rebirth the consciousness will enter. How does consciousness continue on?

It does so when the death process is complete and the moment of death occurs. This is simultaneous with the beginning of the intermediate state. In the case of a human rebirth, the being of the intermediate state ceases to exist at the moment when consciousness enters the fertilised ovum in the womb of the mother. The end of the intermediate existence and the beginning of the human existence are simultaneous. The final moment of the death process is like deep sleep; the intermediate state is like dreaming and conception like waking.

The fourth link, name and form, describes the moment of conception. “Name” refers to the four aggregates of feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness, while “form” refers to the physical embryo. The entity of the being has come into existence, after which development takes place.

Just as barley seed or rice seed yield their own specific crop, the imprints implanted on consciousness through performing actions yield their own particular results in the form of good or bad rebirths. When rebirth in the desire realm or form realm occurs, all five aggregates are present from the very beginning. In the formless realm the four aggregates associated with mental activity are present, but since beings in that realm have no actual physical form, the physical aspect is present only as a potential.

Wherever you travel in this world, 

Above, across, or below; 

Carefully examine at all times 

The arising and passing of all compounded things.

-- The Buddha

禅茶一味

文｜阿土

一

云在青天外，浮着。自然、淡泊，舒卷随性，聚散无形。

原以为，读了那么多的经书，听了那么久的佛音，又在冥想中灵魂出窍，我已经不在三界内了，已经得到通达，可以像红尘外的老僧，以云为氅，甩一袭长袖，进退自在，笑对月落花开。

谁知，我刚一睁眼，就在生烟的寒水里看到了随形的皮囊，那臃肿、那虚荣、那迷恋一切繁华的影子，思绪万千！

我终究是无法看透世相的俗人，纵然喜欢空阔的山林，喜欢无人的小径，喜欢禅韵悠悠的溪流，对花草充满同情，我依旧不能做到“色即是空，空即是色”。

如此，就这个样子好了，掸掸襟怀，把能放的东西放下，捡自己喜欢的事情做做，不再把尘封的影集里日渐发黄的照片，看成向我发出焦急暗示的指令；不再幻想丛生，总是一副众人皆已醉去而我还醒着的样子；喜欢的老歌可以一听再听，不用再想是否是对生命的浪费！

人生如朝露，鸟儿愿飞就让它飞去吧，无论怎样叱咤，终要归于平静。

想安静的时候，点一支佛香，可以愣愣地望着它出神，也可以看它袅袅地明灭。

静静地，任时光荏苒，任世事幻化，心如止水与否，由他……

二

我要从一枚叶子发酵的水中，悟出口中的滋味如何由苦涩变成甘甜。

我还记着自己最初是如何盯着那些游动在水中的精灵，为它舞之蹈之的样子陶醉，为它渐渐舒展的身体惊讶，连自己的影子在身后掉下都未能发觉。我原以为自己是个有定力的人，不曾想只是一片沉睡中醒来的叶子，就将我所有的骄傲击得碎如粉末。

我也曾想收集散落在镜片中的倒影，用身上的光斑一点点聚集成像，可是，在一杯杯的品啜中，我的欲望越来越淡泊，怀抱的执念也不断消失。

我不知道这些后果是如何造成，在反刍过所有的记忆之后，只记得那枚卷曲的叶子曾在我的手掌中发出过一次生命的轻微律动，只一次……

当我看着那片卷曲的叶子从水中张开，身体的某些神经随之被它一寸一寸地唤醒，我不明白这些不语的家伙，是如何懂得我最安静的时候，更渴望对话。

也许，并不是它们懂我，也许，它们只是习惯于在水复活……

管他呢，且吃茶去！

三

人生就是从一开始到一结束，起点即是终点，对吗？

面对这样的人生，人应该怎样才能不再顾虑，继续前行的路程？

虽然，我借助任何事物都无法看清自己的内心结构，至少我可以看清别人，对吗？

我把能打量的时光都打量了，能抹除的痕迹都抹除了，空虚的屋子里，除了阳光和空气，我再也不用怕别人说些什么了，是这样的吧？

我摆脱不了影子，它时而在身左，时而在身右，偶尔也会跑到身前，大多时间它只是紧随在身后，它的动机明了， 一切直白的事物都没有什么好怕的，对吗？

当你从最低的低谷走向最高的山巅，你就会明白，所有的生活深度，不过是从一到万，再从万到一的过程，而这就是人生，对吗？

一是唯一、是一切，从开始回到的只能是开始，从起点回到的也只能是起点，就像水最终只会走回水……

是的，这一次，我不再置疑！

四

是什么让我充满期待的心慢慢恢复平静？是什么拽着我出窍的灵魂缓缓回归肉体？

在每一根毛孔里涌动的气息，滋润着我的肌肤，也滋润着我的心事。它们一股股地冲突着，气流强劲却也温顺无比。它们在我的体内穿梭，经气血到肌肉再到筋骨，从绵密到轻松再到舒展，那抚拭了一个遍的感觉，似无骨的手掌，又似柔美的亲吻！

哦，还好，我是坐着的，在临湖的思绪中坐着，在微微的风浅浅地拈着的花朵下坐着，眼睛掠过了高耸的楼房，在远远的青山上迎迓丰美的绿色！

似乎，我所有的等待只是为了这一瞬得道的感觉，在平静的水中，在凡俗的人世，以出世之心，做一个与众不同的悟者。

但是，这一切都是空的，因为这些俗念，因为我的肉眼还不能在闪耀的阳光里看到最微小的灰尘。

所以，这一切都是空的，我心中所有的念头和在身体里抒散的余韵，不过是缘于那只淡袅轻烟的壶！

Compassion does not focus on the suffering that beings are undergoing, but on the beings undergoing that suffering.

-- 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

The Dalai Lama: The Making of a Spiritual Hero

by Stephan Talty

I travelled to Tibet in the spring of 2009 to see places: rivers, palaces, obscure corners of old Lhasa. I was writing a book about the occupation of Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s escape, and when I’m writing nonfiction about a country I’ve never seen, it can seem like I’m describing an imaginary place. To make it real, I went to Lhasa to see the landmarks where the story had played out fifty years before. Places like the ice-cold river Kyichu that so many Lhasans had fled across during the 1959 uprising, and the cobblestone street where a monk saw a dead Tibetan man, shot in the back, a leash in his hand still clipped to the collar of his dog.

If I was on a pilgrimage, it wasn’t a religious one. I was a journalist, a lapsed Catholic, writing a book about a nationalistic event. One can’t go to Tibet and not encounter Buddhism, of course, but it wasn’t in the front of my mind.

As for the people of Tibet, I didn’t expect to talk to them much. One Tibetan activist told me to imagine that, as a Westerner in Tibet, I had a fatal disease, and anyone I spoke to would catch it. That gruesome exercise, he felt, would give me the necessary discipline to keep Tibetans out of jail for talking to a journalist.

Tibet was tense as I touched down, and understandably so. That spring was the fiftieth anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape to India and the birth of the Free Tibet movement. Protests had erupted on previous anniversaries of the escape, and I knew the Chinese bureaucrats in Lhasa were braced for more. I was prepared to see a tightly controlled city.

Lhasa is surrounded by space — miles and miles of empty, arid terrain. It reminded me of Ireland, where my parents had emigrated from in the fifties. Ireland’s countryside is famously lush, but when you are walking through its blue-black hills late at night, without a porch light or a spark of electricity visible, the loneliness of the place can make you shiver. I’ve always thought of superstition and ghost stories as beginning in places like these, places where the landscape seems indifferent or ready to devour you.

My father used to tell me about a family friend who told him he would meet him at “the Hand” when he was dead. The Hand was a local crossroads, and months after the man’s death, when my father was walking home from a party, he saw the family friend there. My father is not a superstitious person, but he swore that he’d met that one spirit.

Empty landscapes produce ghost stories. And faith.

In my first days in Lhasa, I had that feeling I’d gotten in Ireland. I was struck by how tangible the Buddhist faith was there. In a place where you could be arrested for possessing a picture of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tibetan women prostrated themselves in a square near the Potala Palace, their faces to the ground. I walked with young men doing their circuit around the Jokhang Temple at the centre of Lhasa, their faces grimy and exhausted. I saw impossibly old women — bent over at the waist from age — climb the floors of the Potala Palace. It seemed like a large risk to their health. Yet in their faces was blissful happiness. Many were crying.

I had always thought of Buddhism as something mental, something you did with your brain. Pictures of Buddhists practising their faith showed them with their eyes closed. The Catholicism I was raised in was more connected with physical places, pilgrimages, stories of crucifixions, and bloody pogroms. Buddhism seemed to float above the real world.

I’d been raised in the Irish equivalent of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets — not as violent, but close enough — and I grew up marinating in the iconography of the Catholic Church: suffering, wounds, transcendence. I was named after the first Catholic martyr. Even though I didn’t believe in it anymore, Catholicism’s intimate connection with the hard details of life attracted me.

In contrast, Buddhism seemed bloodless.

Until I went to Tibet. Just as in rural Ireland, I saw a Buddhist faith that went down to the bone. These simple people bowing to an empty throne were risking imprisonment for the rest of their lives by even acknowledging His Holiness. Buddhism here wasn’t just a mental discipline; it was something that people were actively suffering in the service of. When I managed to sneak in a quick conversation with a young Tibetan man, his voice broke at the mention of the Dalai Lama. “We want to see him so much,” he told me. The fact that they were prevented from seeing His Holiness, made many of the Tibetans I spoke to in Tibet and elsewhere seem actually physically tormented — really, there is no other word.

There was a restless hunger to be in the presence of the Dalai Lama, and touch him and hear his voice. I hadn’t expected that. It made the faith more comprehensible to me. Yet that hunger is a conundrum, of course. Buddhism teaches the value of detachment from worldly things, but here were Buddhists so attached to the idea of one man that they were willing to risk jail just to hear his voice.

Before visiting Lhasa, I’d spoken to some Buddhists who felt the intense devotion to the Dalai Lama was in fact a bad thing. To them, his escape to the West, which had spread the word about Tibetan Buddhism to every corner of the earth, had freed Tibetan Buddhism from Tibet. The worship of His Holiness, the relics, the people flinging themselves to the ground in front of the Jokhang Temple — all of it was a throwback to them. It needed to go.

But, after seeing Lhasa, I disagreed. Here were Buddhists whose faith was something they could touch, something that tore their heart. And that brought me closer to the faith than I’d thought possible.

As I toured the spots where the story of the Dalai Lama’s escape had played out, I thought back on the thing that had first made me want to write his story. It was a short passage in His Holiness’s second memoir, where he talked about how, as a young teenager, he was more interested in playing soldier than reading about the Buddha. When I came across that paragraph, I had to stop and reread the words again.

I had always thought of the Dalai Lama as a serene being who’d come by his faith automatically. He was, after all, the reincarnation of a line of lamas. He’d inherited his tranquillity of mind as you or I might inherit a chest of drawers.

But when I began researching the story, I realised how untrue this was. As a thirteen-year-old, the Dalai Lama was as unruly, godless, tenderhearted, and selfish as I’d been as a teenager. He had a ferocious temper, growing so angry at times that his body shook as he stood on the shiny floor of his winter palace in Lhasa, and religious stories bored him so much that he would edit them in his head to make them more exciting.

To think that for many years, His Holiness wasn’t religious at all, or even spiritual, was startling to me. I spoke to people who’d been close to him and found out that his minders often worried about him. What if the Fourteenth Dalai Lama turned out not to care about Buddhism at all? It had happened before; the bisexual Sixth Dalai Lama became a drunkard and a womaniser (or a maniser, depending on his mood), fleeing his palace to get drunk in the streets of Lhasa.

It had never occurred to me that a Dalai Lama could choose whether or not to follow the dharma. And when I found out the circumstances under which the Fourteenth had made his choice, I found them revealing.

When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibetans had little or no faith in the aristocrats and bureaucrats who ran the country. I spoke to monks and private citizens who told me how a Chinese bureaucrat would go from door to door in the nice parts of Lhasa, a bag of silver coins over his shoulder, paying off the men who worked in the government offices. Many Tibetan leaders were as corrupt as the day is long.

And Tibetans were divided among themselves. The Easterners hated the Westerners. The Khampas hated the Lhasans, and vice versa. The city folk looked down on the country people, and the country people returned the favour. As Americans, there are so many things that bind us together: the Constitution, baseball, hamburgers, language. But in 1949 a woman from Amdo province would not have even been understood in Lhasa, the capital. Even the great monasteries had individual colleges where different dialects were spoken.

The only thing that a Tibetan could say made him a Tibetan were tsampa, the roasted barley eaten from one end of the country to the other. And Buddhism, embodied in the Dalai Lama. So the citizens of this occupied country, quarrelling and mistrustful, looked to the young Dalai Lama to save them. But isolated from his loved ones, deeply lonely, badly educated, the young lama had no idea how to be a leader. He turned to Buddhism, not as the reincarnation of a holy line who is finally taking up his destiny, but as a frightened young man searching frantically for a compass. He dove deep into Buddhism’s lessons and emerged, really, a different man. Very much the person we know today, a monk who has given himself over utterly to the practice of the dharma.

So Buddhism in Tibet was not separate from its modern history. Quite the opposite, it was essential. In many ways, it was all that mattered.

Before I interviewed survivors of the uprising, I had assumed that most of them fought for their country. That was the narrative in the West: Tibet was a nation taken over by a foreign power. It was a story that Americans and Europeans understood instinctively. The memory of World War II, of occupation and liberation, is very much alive in us.

But what I found in researching the Tibetan uprising contradicted my assumptions. Many of the people I spoke to had fought as Buddhists first and Tibetans second. Monks in the colleges grabbed rifles when they heard a rumour that the Chinese were going to kidnap His Holiness. They hadn’t taken up arms in 1950 when the Chinese invaded their borders; nationalism hadn’t roused a majority of them to fight. The notion of Tibet was too diffuse and the history with China counselled patience rather than war. What sparked the uprising was a threat to the Dalai Lama that Tibetans — rightly or wrongly — perceived in that spring of 1959. And to stop that threat, they would have laid down their lives. I spoke to monks who now live in tiny rooms in the hills of Dharamsala, India, and many told me the same thing: in fighting the Chinese in Lhasa, they believed they were protecting His Holiness as he sped toward freedom. They believed if he died, the dharma would be irreparably harmed. No price was too great to prevent that.

The men and women I spoke to even remembered in vivid detail the morning when rumours of a Chinese plot to kill or kidnap the Dalai Lama began to circulate in Lhasa. They’d dropped whatever they were doing, literally dropped pans and hairbrushes and shovels to the ground, and ran toward His Holiness’ palace. They’d abandoned their own lives in half a second. They no longer existed as individuals; the only thing that mattered to them was His Holiness.

In talking about the fighting and the horrors they’d seen, these Tibetans rarely mentioned themselves. They didn’t dwell on what the uprising had cost them personally. Some seemed puzzled when I asked that typical American question: When you saw an abbot shot down, or your dead sister, how did that make you feel? They’d so given themselves over to protecting the dharma that they couldn’t understand the question.

I wondered, how many Christians would so lose themselves to the moment? It was then, for the first time, that I understood the concept of detachment from inessential things.

One of my last stops in Lhasa was the Potala Palace. The tiny rooms and hallways are beautifully illustrated with murals, the ones that His Holiness used to gaze at for hours on afternoons when he was left alone. I could almost feel the claustrophobia he must have felt in his early years, locked up in these dark rooms for one afternoon after another, separated from his family and from children his own age.

Before the escape, His Holiness lived a life of less-than-splendid isolation. In his two palaces, one for summer and one for winter, his every moment was scripted and formalised. How he talked, how he walked, how he held his body was determined by tradition. His followers were not allowed to look at him, and the language they spoke was so formalised that it was really just another ceremony, not a real conversation. During these endless ritual talks, the Dalai Lama gazed above the speaker’s head. It was sacrilege for him to meet their eyes. He was barely allowed to think or speak for himself.

His Holiness’ only access to the larger world was a telescope he would gaze through for hours, unnerving the prisoners who were held at the foot of his winter palace. And some old issues of Life magazine and, later, a few films. That was it.

The Dalai Lama clutched at these artefacts of a different world. Some would say he was only curious; “insatiably curious” is one of those clichés that are passed around about the Dalai Lama as a boy. But I think he was reacting to the narrowness of his world. He was protesting what Tibet had become: isolated and inward.

As much as he loved Tibet, the Dalai Lama by 1959 had come to realise that it was also a cage. When he fled with a small group of relatives across the moonscape of the southern provinces, the Dalai Lama was not only fleeing the increasing oppression and brutality under the Chinese, he was fleeing the ancient court of Lhasa.

This was the final thing Tibet taught me: If the Dalai Lama hadn’t escaped, he would be a very different man today. Being ejected into the wider world allowed him to remake himself according to his own ideas. Which is just what he did.

And he began immediately. I found a long-forgotten interview with His Holiness right after his escape. He was being housed in a hotel in India when a poet was sent by Harper’s Magazine to interview the exotic “god-king” (a term the Tibetans hated). Before the meeting, the poet was told by the Dalai Lama’s stern minders what he could and couldn’t do in the presence of the Precious Protector. All the old rituals of the Lhasa court were invoked, including the stipulation that, at the end of the interview, the poet couldn’t turn his back on His Holiness and walk out. He had to shuffle backwards, ridiculously.

As soon as he entered the room, the poet was frightened to realise he was with an ebullient and childlike person who had no intention of observing his minder’s strict rules. The Dalai Lama patted the poet on the leg to make a point; he laughed like a young boy; he pursued his interviewer across the room. The poet was terrified that the meeting in fact was one long heresy. When he began to shuffle backward toward the door, the young monk laughed, grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a small push.

This is the first real sighting of the man we would come to know as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. A free, ordinary man. Free not only from the Chinese and from worldly illusions, but from his own past. I believe escaping Tibet gave him the chance to manifest Buddhism in his own nature — childlike, joyful, empathetic. As his own people had thrown over their own lives in an instant to save the dharma, so he had begun to peel away everything that restricted him from pursuing it.

His Holiness was the fourteenth reincarnation of a line of lamas and rulers, but his predecessors would hardly have recognised themselves in this compassionate and wonderfully approachable man. He shed the more absurd traditions as one would slip out of a badly fitting coat, and that process began in those high Himalayan passes on the trail from Lhasa.

If you ask the Dalai Lama, he will tell you that leaving Tibet forced him to think differently. And it did. He had to contend with issues and situations he would never have had to in Tibet. He came to the world not as a guru whose word was quite literally law. He came as a political supplicant. And only then as a teacher.

The real benefit of all this to the world is in how His Holiness practices his faith. The core of the Dalai Lama’s faith wasn’t changed by leaving Lhasa. If you attend one of his lectures, you will find him delving deeply into the traditional texts; I’m sure in doing this he disappoints many of the people who come to see him. Hoping to find a more authentic Deepak Chopra or a more exotic Dr. Phil, they find instead a serious student of the classical texts.

But how he applies his beliefs was clearly affected by his experience as a refugee. He thinks like a man who is guaranteed nothing. He strives to make Buddhism modern — his work with the Mind & Life Institute, for example, shows his near-obsession with proving that some of the faith’s tenets are scientifically sound. The very instability of Tibetans’ place in the world has given his message to the global community a flexibility and adventurousness it wouldn’t have had back in Lhasa.

The result is a Buddhism that is forward-looking, one might even say unafraid — even of looking ridiculous. The Dalai Lama skirts that border occasionally, because there is nothing he considers off-topic. You need to attend just one of his press conferences to get a taste of the kooky questions tossed his way, and how genuinely he answers. He finds no question embarrassing. There’s nothing that’s beneath him, and that fact alone has changed how people view their own small tragedies.

It’s His Holiness’ openness that has attracted so many people to his view of Buddhism. He isn’t a Martin Luther; he hasn’t reformed the dharma. But he’s helped many thousands of people simply by making it relatable.

Perhaps I’m Westernising Buddhism by looking for real-world events to view it through. Perhaps I need this idea of a faith tested in action to begin to understand what Buddhism truly is. But I find its role in the spring of 1959 thrilling and instructive.

Or maybe I’m Christianising it — the testing of the Dalai Lama during the uprising was, in a way, his Gethsemane. And the blood spilled in an uprising against oppressive rulers, well, that is the story of the first Catholics. Some Tibetans cooperated with the Chinese army; one of the Dalai Lama’s closest advisers called him a traitor and a dog on Peking Radio. (One can only think of Peter denying Jesus.) But the human circumstances of Tibet’s tragedy made Buddhism more meaningful for me.

Today, half a century after the escape, the Dalai Lama is a spiritual celebrity. His Twitter account and his daily lessons on Facebook reach many thousands of people. (To literally become a follower of the Dalai Lama nowadays, one need only click a button.) But his words often emerge out of the ether, sayings from a smiling man in a robe. I worry that, to many people, he is a nice man who says gentle things, and nothing else.

If people knew how much he went through to see Buddhism clearly, and how Tibetans suffered to keep the dharma alive, I think those words would feel heavier.

They certainly do to me.