ornament(for(clear(realization(—(perfectionofwisdomstudiesibd-buddhism.org/abhi/pdf/2012fallclasses/20121012... ·...

Ornament for Clear Realization — Perfection of Wisdom Studies

Class 10 -‐ 2012 Oct 12 – Friday1 Institute for Buddhist Dialectics, McLeod Ganj, India

Teacher -‐ GESHE KELSANG WANGMO

EMOTION AND DHARMA TEACHINGS

To start, I’d like to remind you of something that is considered very important in Buddhist philosophy: every topic should somehow effect you emotionally, a positive emotional response.

In Buddhism, a living being is defined as someone who has feelings, who is associated with feelings. There’s a discussion: are trees sentient beings? And a response is, ‘No, they’re not, because they don’t have feeling.’ Then someone may respond, ‘Oh, they do. If you cut into a tree, it starts bleeding.’ There’s a whole discussion.

The point is, it is said that a living being is something or someone who has feelings. But there’s no real word for ‘emotion’ in Tibetan. The English term, emotion, covers more than just feeling. Feeling in Tibetan means a pleasant feeling, and unpleasant feeling, or a neutral feeling; whereas, emotion covers a lot more. Even though there’s not a specific word, it depends upon the context. In English, the word emotion works well.

But if you make a division taking the English word, emotion, and apply Buddhist ideas, there are positive emotions and negative emotions. Not every emotion is considered positive, but not every emotion is considered negative.

Negative emotions include anger, attachment, jealousy, resentment, hatred. Whereas positive emotions are basically the opposite of those: love, compassion, faith, devotion, rejoicing, e.g., feeling happy about someone’s success — the opposite of jealousy. Faith and devotion, I’ll talk a little bit more about those.

We have a sense that someone being very emotional is not very positive trait. Oh, this person is too emotional. What does that actually mean? I guess it means either there are too many negative emotions, anger resentment fear, etc., or the person doesn’t have much control over their emotions. And it seems more often the latter, a lack of control so the person lets their emotions out all the time.

I’ve also heard and through that with my classmates, ‘They don’t have any emotions at all.’ I mean because they don’t show their emotions. In Tibetan society, people do not show their emotions very much; and between men and women, men show their emotions less. So it seemed to me that my classmates had no emotions; but when I talked to them, there were a lot emotions that just were not expressed. There was more control over their emotions, or they could have been suppressing them. One has to be very care. But in general, in a Buddhist context, if someone practices well, it means they have more control over their emotion; so they have less emotional reaction right away.

1 ROUGH DRAFT -‐

2 2012 Class 10 -‐ Oct 12 Class Notes Draft – Ornament For Clear Realizations – Five Divine Eyes

I do not know if there is control over the emotion of love. A Bodhisattva has quite uncontrolled love, love for all sentient beings. Again, when we say someone is too emotional, usually we are referring more to the negative emotions.

However, in a Buddhist context, emotions are good in connection with what we learn about the Dharma. What have we learned so far?

We’ve studied the Four Noble Truths in past terms of this course and many of you have studied the Four Noble Truths. The first and second Noble Truths evoke emotions when we talk about the suffering nature of existence and the causes for those, that affects us strongly. We recognize in terms of our own life. There’s an emotional response, and we connect with it and it affects us in a way in which others may not; like the latter two Truths, Trust of Cessation and Path probably affect us less strongly.

What about Refuge? We did Refuge last term. Which emotion comes up there? Faith. We talked about faith. What is faith?

The Two Truths, about Ultimate Truth and the Conventional Truth, there’s some emotion, but there’s also something: there’s curiosity, wanting to understand how it really works.

Maybe curiosity is a kind of emotion; I don’t know. It’s hard to say, but this feeling of interest that I want to find out more about that. I guess there’s emotion in the sense that we see things don’t exist the way they appear. It puts our life, possibly, upside down when the things that used to be so solidly real don’t have that solid foundation. That’s pretty powerful. It’s said that merely having doubt in how phenomena really exist shakes our Samsaric existence. Just doubt, thinking, ‘Oh, maybe phenomena don’t exist the way they appear.’

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO TOPICS RE CLAIRVOYANCE

What about the topic we are studying now? The Five Sublime Eyes, Clairvoyance, these are not subjects you usually find in the English textbooks on Buddhism. In the Tibetan, you do. But less in what so far has been translated or written about in Buddhist philosophical texts in English because it is less appealing for the simple reason that these are far removed from us. They’re not like the Four Noble Truths, especially the first two which affect us right away. Refuge affects us quite strongly.

When we learn this we need to find how it does affect us. There are two ways: one way in which it actually does affect us personally, because with continuous Buddhist practice, I believe we become more perceptive. We get to see things, to notice things that maybe previously we haven’t noticed. Our mind kind of opens up more. This idea that we talked about last time: That usually, due to our wrong perception of reality, we have a tendency to be very closed-‐minded. The more, I think we all notice, the more we’re self-‐concerned, I, me and mind — the stronger that self-‐cherishing — and there are times when it is stronger or less strong — the times when it is stronger, those are the times we perceive less of what is going on around us, with other people. We relate everything we perceive back to our own worries and it gets distorted; whereas when that is less strong, when we’re relaxed and at east with ourselves and others, then we understand much better how others feel, and it’s harder to get upset because we understand much better where the other persons are coming from. The moment we put ourselves into the other person’s shoes, and anger becomes more difficult.

So Buddhist practice is about opening the mind and becoming more perceptive, and clairvoyance may be a long way away, but I watched a documentary awhile ago. A

2012 Class 10 -‐ Oct 12 Class Notes Draft – Ornament For Clear Realizations – Five Divine Eyes 3

scientist claimed that people are capable of seeing into the future based on experiments. The subjects of the experiment had wires attached to their brains. Whenever they had an emotional reaction, their brain waves altered from those they had when they were not emotion. Then they were shown pictures, some of which triggered emotional responses and some of which didn’t.

SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT SUPPORTS PREMONITION CAPACITIES

Originally, the test was to see what would happen when certain photographs were shown to the subjects, like a photo of a muscular man with a little baby, kind of cute. The subjects' brain waves indicating emotion increased; and when they saw a picture of a stone, there was no response. . . .

They noticed that 3 seconds before the photo was shown, when it was an emotional picture, 3 seconds before that picture was shown, the person’s brain reaction was already going up. They determined there was no way the persons saw the photos 3 seconds earlier. Every time, 3 seconds before the picture was shown, the emotions began to go up as if the person knew in advance what the picture was in advance.

From a Buddhist point of view, not a ‘Big deal.” It’s not such a big deal because our consciousness has the ability to know everything, so to have premonitions to know things in advance, to have telepathy, these are not considered unusual. Mothers and children are a popular example. When a mother has a very strong emotional connection to a child, sometimes the mother will know whether something is wrong with the child, whether the child is still alive or not. Because of that mental connection, the mother may know. Twins are another example. From a Buddhist point of view, twins have different minds, but they have a very strong karmic connection from a previous life, and having that strong karmic connection, you can then know each other’s minds to a greater degree.

These are considered to be facts. The scientific understands are not contradicting Buddhism, and on the contrary support Buddhist ideas that we can know certain things. But you need to tap into that, because we don’t trust or believe even our own premonitions. Sometimes we know what another person is going to say, but we don’t trust in that sense.

Buddhist practice is about getting in touch with that, because there are so many levels of consciousness that we don’t tap into, what we call the sub-‐consciousness or unconsciousness, Buddhist explains such levels of consciousness and practices on how to develop awareness of those, very advanced practices that are possible to do and develop those states. So in a personal way, studying about clairvoyance, etc., is relevant, because there must have been times in your lives where you had a clairvoyant experience. I wouldn’t be surprised.

TRACK 2 -‐ CLAIRVOYANCE & RELIANCE ON A SPIRITUAL TEACHER (LAMA)

Another way in which this topic is very important relates to faith and devotion. Last time, we talked a little bit about having a spiritual teacher. I’m not just talking about a teacher who is more like a spiritual friend, like I’m a friend who’s sharing what I’ve learned. I’m talking about a lama, a highly realized person.

Can I see the hands of persons who’ve never been to a teaching by a high lama, e.g., to a teaching by H.H. Dalai Lama — that’s as high as it gets. Someone who’s never been to a


teaching by H.H. Dalai Lama or H.H. Karmapa — so only a few of you haven’t. Most of you have been to those teachings.

My experience and what people tell me is that it is a special experience that many of you have never had that experience with anyone else. Does that sound familiar? Maybe it hasn’t set in, yet. The first time I listened to teachings by H.H. Dalai Lama, nothing happened. I thought ‘Big deal. Everyone is prostrating.’ I wasn’t prostrating. I wasn’t a Buddhist at that time. I thought he was very nice and jolly, but I didn’t have faith. Over time, that grew stronger. With most of my teachers, it wasn’t there in the beginning.

There’s something about these lamas. They affect you in a way which is beyond words. I talked about this last time. Assuming they have these incredible qualities, that sometimes we are or are not aware of, that go beyond anything ordinary. They have love and compassion to such an extent that ordinary people just don’t have, which doesn’t meant that ordinary people can’t develop that but then they’re not called ordinary anymore. Anyone can have those qualities.

And they have such love and care for sentient beings, without any discrimination, that is much stronger than the love and compassion that our parents have for us which is the strongest that in an ordinary sense love and compassion get. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche titled his book on the way to think of a lama, relate to a lama, it is such an appropriate title, The Heart of the Path. It’s actually The Heart of the Spiritual Path. It is a thick book.

Of course, this is a dangerous topic and I talked about this last time also. Lama in Sanskrit is Guru, which sounds more obviously like a dangerous topic, Guru. Of course, guru devotion has been abused by people who are not real gurus, not real lamas. In Buddhism, and in the Hindu tradition, it is considered important — and in all traditions really – rely on the Bishop, rely on the priest, rely on the Iman, rely on the Rabbi. If it is a ‘good’ and qualified person, they can guide their students very well. But if they abuse their power, then whether it is a priest, bishop, iman, rabbi or lama, great harm is done.

So it is very important to check well: is this person fully qualified. I can’t stress that enough, because there’s been a lot of abuse. Anything that can be greatly powerful in a positive way can also be very powerful in a negative way, like nuclear energy. Likewise, reliance on a teacher, if the teacher is not fully qualified or the student messes things up, it can be very negative. However, assuming you find a teacher who is fully qualified and you rely on that teacher in the correct way, then the results are extraordinary and one can progress quite quickly. The problem is there are many teachers and they may not be the obvious great lamas that everyone knows are great lamas, and you don’t need to check H.H. Dalai Lama for many years, it is so obvious.

There are other lamas who are less known, and Lama Tsong Khapa suggests, ‘Well, check them for 10-‐12 years if you need to; no deadline; take your time; check to be sure they are qualified. Once you are certain, then you rely on them. Relying on the lama needs to come from our side, because they’re always ready to help us. But we have our distorted, worldly ideas that we bring to us. I came with exactly those expectations.

First of all, I thought if I have a lama, he needs to live next door — not literally, but I can go any time I want; they should be there. That’s what I thought was the perfect lama scenario — at least live in McLeod Ganj for as long as I live here. If I move, they better move, too. So H.H. Dalai Lama, I thought, ‘Nah, it’s so hard to meet him. I need to find someone who has more time for me.’

But that is this misperception that we have to be physically close to a lama, physically somewhere near by so we can walk in any time we want. But that is not the idea at all.


If we read stories of some of the greatest student/lama relationships, we find some were very close to their students but some spent years apart, and maybe never saw them again. Therefore, it is more of an emotional state, an emotional closeness.

How does this come about? By practicing what they teach. There are ways now days. In the past it was much harder. Unless you were present, during the teachings, it was much harder to practice. Or if you were lucky enough to have one of those rare copies of a book. Now days, there are plenty of books, CD’s, internet streaming, podcasts. You can easily listen to teachings and make a connection.

JIN LAB – BLESSINGS -‐ !ིན་བ&བ་

Something very special comes through that. It is called a blessing. Blessing is a limited word unless you know what I’m talking about, a blessing doesn’t have the right connotation. Here, a blessing — in Tibetan, jin lab (byin brlab -‐ !ིན་བ&བ་; byin gyis brlab -‐ !ིན་%ིས་བ(བ་), means to change into something greater, better, superior. There’s something that affects you, the jin lab, something that changes you into something better.

Sometimes, if you rely on a teacher, e.g., H.H. Dalai Lama and listen to teachings or read a book, and you allow it to affect yourself in a different way, try to take it to heart, take it personally. Then through the power of the person who composed the book or is giving the teachings, it affects you differently. And before you know it something happens, something is different. Trust that feeling; don’t just think it is some kind of weird feeling. That feeling is very important, in this way you make the connection. The lamas are so important because they look after us over many lifetimes.

There’s a beautiful example. The radio example I gave last time — the lamas are like the radio waves and we’re like the radio and we need to tune into the signals. The classical example is that the lamas are like the sun. If you decide to stay inside our dark houses, but if we walk outside, then the sun affects us. So their abilities affect us. Also what Lama Zopa Rinpoche says a lot in his book and during other teachings, scientifically, I don’t know how it works, whether this lama who could be someone highly advanced or already a Bodhisattva or maybe not yet or maybe even a Buddha — and we don’t know.

With H.H. Dalai Lama, to think he is not a Buddha, I don’t know 100%. But what more could a Buddha do. But anyway, we still don’t know because we can’t differentiate between a Bodhisattva and a Buddha; they’re so beyond us.

Even if he is not a Buddha, by relying upon His Holiness as though he is a Buddha, we get all of the blessings of the Buddhas. This is very clear in the descriptions. If you try it out. If you perceive a person whom you’ve checked out well, and you see them as Buddhas, then they and their actions affect you in a different way on an emotional level that is beyond anything kind of ordinary. I think that is really important.

Some of you that I know personally have this very close relationship with someone and it is amazing just talking about it. What is so important is that the lamas have the abilities that we are discussing this term. I mentioned the clairvoyant abilities of one of my teachers who insisted that I depart the country that very night in order to get a visa in Nepal. And I followed his advice and got my visa and right after that, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated and there were no visa available after that. This type of things has happened.


My mother would have said, go when you’re comfortable. But he said, ‘No, you go today.” And this has happened so many times when I’ve gone to see a teacher, was skeptical in that moment of what they said, but then I tried to trust and do what they said, and I find it’s the best I could do. Oftentimes they tell me things I don’t want to do; I’m comfortable … when we rely on a teacher, and personally rely on a teacher, there may that kind of fear: OMG, they may tell me to do something I don’t want to do. But we can reason with a teacher and say, I can’t do that right now. They may change it or be adamant, ‘No, you do it,’ and then you better. Then you’ll see it was actually good that they told you.

So there’s something beyond just words. It is so important. Those who’ve tapped into this have found out. But try to tap into it. Go to the teachings coming up on the 29th. Try to go, definitely.

One more thing about relying on a teacher. We shouldn’t think that the lamas are totally separate. They’re very much connected with one another. Certain advanced practices, you actually think of the Buddha, for example, being of one nature with your lama X, your Lama Zed and your Lama Wy. So of being one nature, because they are not really as separate. So this is also a point: not to see your teachers, your lamas as totally separate. They have similar qualities and communicate in a totally different way. Their minds are so much vaster than ours. So much vaster. We may think H.H. Dalai Lama is so busy with so many people, he doesn’t have time for me.

It doesn’t work that way. If I as an ordinary person, I have barely time for myself or other people because my afflictions are keeping me so busy. But these lamas are kept busy by their afflictions, their self-‐cherishing attitudes, and they can simultaneously look after anyone. And that is expressed in the idea that once someone is highly advanced, they can emanate different bodies. When I talk about this, I can hear my own mind go, ‘How is that possible.” How can someone have emanations? Like I could emanate in ten different forms, and they’re all ‘me’, working for different forms. But the texts are so clear on that.

We can’t imagine it due to our narrow-‐mindedness, we’re restricted to just one body. It seems in an ordinary sense, so weird, but we narrow it down to this one mind. It is our mind that is narrow minded, and therefore narrows us down to just one existence. As the mind expands, you can actually manifest in two bodies, and that’s your mind controlling that. Then three, four, for the benefit of others. Sounds like a fairy tale, but the more we learn about this, the more it makes sense that it’s possible. What the mind can do is unbelievable. We’ve heard of a father who could lift up a lorry or a truck to save his child. We hear these stories of immense mental strength and at that moment, there’s no ‘I, me and mine,’ so people can do amazing things. It is a matter of developing and extending that ability.

To make it emotionally relevant, I wanted to talk about this. Talking about these different mental states, the lamas have those and they’re not a big deal for them. They don’t show them, because you’re not supposed to show any special qualities. H.H. Dalai Lama keeps saying, ‘I’m just an ordinary monk.” In that case, I’m not ordinary, I’m so far below that. But His Holiness, in order to allow us to related to His Holiness, manifests the aspect of being just ordinary. Therefore, His Holiness would never say that he has special abilities; of course, he does.

So keep that kind of openness and tap into that kind of faith. And when we study those kind of abilities, think, “His Holiness has those kinds of abilities. My lama has those kinds of abilities, and uses them for my own sake.” And we may not be aware of those, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.


And it gives us a sense that someone is looking after us. And we find that idea in many religions, of course, and it gives us great comfort. From a Buddhist practice, even in other religions that there’s a god that looks after people. Buddhism doesn’t have a problem with that. There’s a problem with a creator. That god created everything. From a Buddhist point of view, the creator is the mind. The creator of our world is our mind. The creator of my experience, is my mind. The creator of Steve’s experience is Steven’s mind. For everyone that is the same. But there’s the similarity of someone looking after us. Sharing this with you is important so that you can tap into that kind of emotion of you have faith in your lama, and remember that this is something that people you rely on have these kinds of states of minds.

Something else that I want to tap into is when we learn about the Two Truths, how do things really exist. There’s less emotion, and more of a sense, ‘Wow, I want to learn more about this. This is interesting.’ It’s like learning about science if you have an interest, and the more you understand, the more you are interested.

Part of our study is trying to understand reality better. We learn about these states of special perception, clairvoyance, by learning more of the details. How do they come about? What is their cause? What kind of person has those abilities? Who doesn’t? what kind of state of mind is that really? And then in relation to that, what levels of concentration can be generated: the four types of concentration, the meditative absorptions, what are those? I only know of one book in English that talks about this, Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism, translations by Leah Zahler and Jeffrey Hopkins.2 There aren’t many books written on it.

So what is our existence? What does it mean to be existent here? What is this world we live in? We perceive so little of what is actually going on around us. Let’s see. I want to stimulate your curiosity a little more, because it’s hard to dive into this topic.

That’s why it’s not taught so much in the West. People lose interest so easily and stop quite quickly. We had to go through this, and interest grew, and you could see its relevance.

TRACK 3 -‐ REVIEW – FIVE STATES OF MIND, THE SUBLIME EYES

To take you back to what we talked about last time. There are five different states of mind. These five different minds, called the Sublime Eyes, are different higher perceptions. The word Sublime Eye is in Tibetan is literally the word Eye, but it doesn’t refer to physical eyes, but to mental consciousnesses. Any kind of higher perception does not happen with the sense consciousness but with the mental consciousness, that’s the one we’re trying to develop.

The mental consciousness may have to do with the ‘third eye.’ That kind of an idea of our eyes being the predominant sense consciousness, so phenomena suddenly become clear to you analogous to how they become clear to an eye consciousness. Now certain mental consciousnesses can perceive things they couldn’t see before. So the first one is called the Physical Sublime Eye. We’ll learn about this today. Through certain levels of

2 Oral commentaries by Lati Rinpoche (Oral Presentation of the Concentrations and Formless Absorptions) and Denma Lochoe Rinpoche (on "Explanation Concentrations and Formless Absorptions" from Panchen Sonam Drakpa's General Meaning Commentary on Maitreya's Ornament for Clear Realization). Translations by Leah Zahler & Jeffrey Hopkins.


concentration, you can come to see physical forms that are far away within this universe. They have to be within our universe.

There are billions of world systems like ours. I don’t know if it’s exactly billions, but a lot, within this universe. And within this universe, we share a karmic connection with all the other world systems in this universe.

So the first Sublime Eye can perceive phenomena within this universe. There’s different levels but at least for a range of distance called 100 Yojanas, and 1 Yojana is 7 kilometers or 4.34 miles. So you can do the math. 1,000 Yojanas is about 4,340 miles or 7,000 km. From such a distance you can see phenomena and it can be developed beyond that. I don’t know. That’s what the Buddha talked about. No reason why the Buddha should lie about it. If it didn’t exist why would he talk about it, and the Buddha talked about so many things we can personally see are true – the first two Noble Truths.

Therefore, this is the first of those higher perceptions, you can see these different forms.

The second one is called the Celestial Sublime Eye, where you can perceive, you are able to perceive where someone has died; where their consciousness has gone to; and where they’re reborn, so the transference. It is like you do not die and get immediately reborn, there’s an in-‐between time and that can be seen.

So the first two are kind of the ones that are more amazing because we’ve not heard about them. The third one is basically a Sublime Eye, or a mental consciousness, that perceives ultimate reality. The Four Sublime Eye perceives other highly advanced beings who’ve realized reality. The fifth Sublime Eye is the Omniscient Mind of a Buddha, the result.

SPIRITUAL TEACHERS (LAMAS) & THE FIVE DIVINE EYES

For us this is relevant in terms of thinking of our own spiritual teacher. Our teacher knows exactly how we’re doing, sees our form. Physical form means our body, what we say. There’s a different clairvoyance that comes later of knowing our mind. This form is not said to be that difficult; you don’t need to be a Buddhist, but practice the different states of concentration allows you to know those things.

If a lama has great love and compassion and the ability to benefit us, if I open myself to this kind of help, then I can be benefited. It needs to be both kinds. If we’re closed up, we can’t be helped. It’s like going to a doctor. You’ve got to listen to what he says and take the medicine. The doctor can be the best in the world, if we don’t follow his advice, we won’t be benefitted.

Likewise, if we open ourselves up, then we can perceive that benefit. Definitely, they know exactly where we are if you’ve made the karmic connection so we can be helped, they are looking after us even when we die. We take refuge in different beings in this lifetime. When we get really, really sick or down — when I’m really, really sick, I call my mom to make sure she’s not worried but as a refuge. I call my parents if I’ve got troubles or I think of my parents. Why is that? We take refuge in our parents because they are the ones we know love us the most. And my mom would, of course, come right away, get on the next flight and try everything to help me. And I know that.

Our lamas are objects of refuge because they will benefit us. It’s not because they come physically, but they help us mentally, and that’s most important. That’s the kind of help we need. We pray to them; we request them; and oftentimes, before we know it, the


problem is solved. Moreover, this goes over lifetimes because with the Second Sublime Eye, these lamas know where we die, how we die, where our consciousness goes and where we’re reborn and reconnect with us again. And sometimes many, many years go by. There’s a connection I have with one of my teachers, 20 years ago it was very strong, then it went away. Just recently, I reconnected. And I thought, I didn’t have that strong feeling — never negative, but not as strong. Somehow the picture was not on the altar any more. Now, I believe the fact that I was able to go through these studies that were so hard at times, and I didn’t give up — at first I thought it was just me, but I’m not that kind of person. When there’s something I don’t like, I give up kind of right away. Now, I actually think this lama protected me all the way through. And it is such a comforting feeling that ‘I’m protected and will be in next lives.’ When I met that lama again, I said, ‘It’s funny. 20 years ago, it was very strong; and now again, it’s very strong.’ And he said, ‘We have a connection over many lifetimes.’ I felt, ‘Wow, I’m okay. In my last life and next lives, there’ll be someone there. Someone looking after me.’

And it’s such a comfort. Refuge is not something abstract; it’s something real. It’s there right now.’ I think that’s so important. It brings it alive. With this lama, I felt everything I learned came alive. There’s a living example.

Of course, with His Holiness, that’s also the case. But His Holiness is much harder to go and meet and personally talk to. But just that one time, if I don’t meet this lama again for 20 years, it’s kind of okay. Cause I reconnected.

These are the two states, understanding that is so important. And then understanding that this person realizes ultimate reality, which we all need to understand to progress, i.e., the Third Sublime Eye. And the lama understands — due to having the Fourth Sublime Eye — knows where there are other great beings and can refer me. How is that relevant? Because they can refer us to other great lamas on the same level. We can’t know the level of those more highly realized. I can know a little about people on a similar level; but the moment a person has any realizations, is beyond my ordinary state, then I can’t tell. I don’t know, have no sense of that. You’ve gone to university, so you know what someone else who’s gone to university has studied or gone through; but if you’re in kindergarten, you don’t. In everyday life it is the same. A lama who’s realized Emptiness directly knows who the other Arya beings are, who’s had the same direct realization. Arya has many different uses, but in a Buddhist sense, it means someone who has realized how phenomena rally exist.

And if the lama is omniscient, that lama possesses the Fifth Sublime Eye. This is how the Sublime Eyes are reliable.

There are some mistakes in Handout 10, page 1, in the paragraph about a sentence in the middle of page 1 reads:

Even when having merely attained a similitude of the fifth [the sublime eye of Dharma] . . .

The bracketed phrase that reads “[the sublime eye of Dharma]”should read:

. . . [the sublime eye of a Buddha] . . .

The new version will be replace the original on the blog on Wednesday, India AM, October 17.

Then on the 2nd page of HANDOUT 10, the paragraph that begins:


Furthermore, the celestial sublime eye is different from the fourth, fifth, and sixth sublime eyes

There aren’t six sublime eyes. So it should read:

Furthermore, the celestial sublime eye is different from the fourth, and fifth sublime eyes

And the last mistake is where the sutric passages wherein the Buddha spoke of the sublime eyes are cited on HANDOUT 10, page 2, five sutra passages are quoted. The third is:

The sutric passage that gives instructions on the sublime eye of wisdom is:

When Bodhisattvas engage in the practice of the perfection of wisdom, those that [ultimately] do not know, do not see, do not think, and do not realize [the true existence] of all phenomena, ranging from form up to the omniscient mind of a Buddha, Shariputra, are the sublime eyes of wisdom...

There are two bracketed words or phrases: the first is “[ultimately]” and the second is “[the true existence]”. The latter should read:

. . . [the lack of true existence] . . .

I kind of stumbled over that when I read it in the last class, but I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve read it so many times, it must be correct; and I didn’t think any more about it.’ But it should be the lack of true existence.

On line, a new version of this will be posted on line.

TRACK 4 – FIVE SUBLIME EYES PER PANCHEN SONAM DRAKPA’S GENERAL MEANING -‐ HANDOUT 11

Let’s get into the actual text, HANDOUT 11.

Haribhadra's Commentary Clarifying the Meaning cites the following sutric passages that teach the five sublime eyes (which were cited before and as part of the General Meaning are cited again):

They were cited before as part of the General Meaning, he cites them again. Before, you remember, you had the passage from Haribhadra and Gyaltsab Je’s commentaries, the translations. But they are hard to understand. So when we just read them, we probably don’t understand them because the Tibetan is quite difficult, written in the 8th century. The way to understand it is by reading this commentary and then going back. This is the commentary by Panchen Sonam Drakpa. We use his commentary (General Meaning) and debate manual (Decisive Analysis) in these studies. Here Panchen Sonam Drakpa quote Haribhadra, and says again:

1) The sutric passage that teaches the physical sublime eye is: "physical [sublime eye]" and "that ascertains things individually"

2) The sutric passage that teaches the celestial sublime eye is: "celestial [sublime eye], which arose from fruition" and "that [knows] death-‐transference and birth of all sentient beings"


3) The sutric passage that teaches the sublime eye of wisdom is: "[sublime eye] of wisdom" and "that does not conceptualize with respect to all phenomena"

4) The sutric passage that teaches the sublime eye of Dharma is: "[sublime eye] of Dharma" and "that realizes all Arya beings"

5) The sutric passage that teaches the sublime eye of a Buddha is: "[sublime eye of] a Buddha" and "that is a completely enlightened object-‐possessor [which realizes] all aspects of all phenomena. Furthermore, they are established as one in suchness."

The sutric passages cited for each Sublime Eye are slightly different, because there are many passages on the Sublime Eyes in the sutras. The sutras are huge volumes, about 108 volumes, and these are only the ones that got translated into Tibetan. So many were not translated, were lost. There’s no report on how many got lost.

Let’s not forget the sutras. That’s the point. Sometimes people criticize Tibetan Buddhism for not dealing with the sutras; but actually it does. But they’re not mentioned in the English books which get right to easier to digest material, because the style of the sutras is different than Westerners are used to. Two short sutras are cited a lot, the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Cutter Sutra; however, the very long sutras are not.

Then Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s General Meaning discusses all of the Sublime Eyes very systematically by way of five topics that investigate those higher perceptions.

The General Meaning proceeds with expounding on the five sublime eyes by way of five subtopics:

1. The (physical and mental) bases of the five sublime eyes

2. The individual natures of the five sublime eyes

What are they actually; what is the meaning of them.

3. The sameness of levels

That will be explained later, and doesn’t make sense right now.

4. The demarcation of the five sublime eyes

In whose continuum? What kind of attainments must you have to have those Sublime Eye; when do they start? What kind of path have you generated in your mind before you can generate such higher perceptions.

5. The functions of the five sublime eyes


The functions: what are the functions of each of these higher perceptions or Sublime Eye?

1. The (physical and mental) bases of the five sublime eyes

The basis of the five sublime eyes is subdivided into:

i. The physical basis of the five sublime eyes

ii. The mental basis of the five sublime eyes

So the basis of something. A way of investigating something is to see what is the basis, the physical and mental basis of certain states of mind. You don’t find this approach in Western texts very often, but you find it all over Tibetan texts, everywhere, in a lot of texts explaining a state of mind, the question is raised: what is the physical basis for that mind?

PHYSICAL BASIS OF THE FIVE SUBLIME EYES

So just looking at the physical basis:

i. The physical basis of the five sublime eyes

The physical basis of the five sublime eyes refers to the person in whose continuum any of the five sublime eyes arises.

The person, e.g. , Bodhicitta: in whose continuum does Bodhicitta arise? Take the six types persons: Hell Being, Preta being, animal, human, semi-‐celestial being and celestial being — in whose continuum, on the basis of which physical basis does Bodhicitta arise?

STUDENT: Human.

GESHE WANGMO: Is that it? . . . Actually, in all six realms. Our present Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni is said to have generated Bodhicitta in the Hell realm. So in all realms. Animal realm, more specifically, refers to Nagas. They say these special beings — that exist from a Buddhist point of view — Naga beings, a serpent kind of being who are part of the animal realm, but they can practice. For other animals it is said to be more difficult.

DORIS: Also other animals? . . .

GESHE WANGMO: Ordinary animals do not have the capacity to practice according to Buddhist descriptions. But who knows? There are animals that are emanations of special beings. You could have a dog or a cat that’s actually an emanation. I don’t want to go into this too much.

STUDENT: Nagas are just snakes?

GESHE WANGMO: Nagas aren’t snakes. They’re serpent beings. I don’t know much about Nagas; do you?


VEN. KUNPHEN: They can be in the animal or celestial realms.

GESHE WANGMO: I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. Some of them are stories, some are said to be in accordance with reality. The point is that in any realm, beings can become Bodhisattvas, which is a comforting thought.

To make it clear. Within those different realms, as a certain person, that is the physical basis of Bodhicitta is, e.g., a Heal Being, a Human being and so forth.

Why is it called a physical basis: is a human being physical? No, it is not. A human being is not physical. It has a physical part to it. A human being is composed of what; what are the ingredients or parts? Mind and body. On the basis of the mind and a body of a human being, you impute human.

Therefore, why do we call a human the physical basis? We call it the physical basis because being a human being or not depends upon the body. Whether you are a human being or not depends upon your body. Even your mind. How is that possible?

Because ordinary human beings, you having a human mind depends upon you having a human brain; the coarser levels of the mind are dependent upon the brain. Right now, we can only utilize our coarser minds, therefore whether or not we are a human depends upon our bodies’ brains.

A highly evolved person can have brain damage, and still function the same way, because they can utilize levels of mind that we cannot utilize. Our coarsest levels of mind are totally dependent upon brain. If you poke a knitting needle into your brain, then your coarser levels don’t work the same way anymore, because we can’t utilize the subtler levels. Fascinating.

For us, being human or not very much depends upon the body because of the brain we have; and because the coarser levels of mind that we utilize are dependent upon the brain we have. Likewise, if we are reborn as an animal; and we are not highly advanced so that we can utilize the subtler levels of our consciousness, we are going to utilize only the coarser mind that is dependent upon an animal brain and be limited. Does that make sense?

Whether we are an animal, a human, a celestial, etc., is very much dependent upon the physical brain and body we have. Of course, from a Buddhist point of view, we generate the causes to be reborn in those states. So we have a very precious opportunity as a human being right now, so we can make sure we’re not reborn as an animal. But if we are reborn as certain animals, there’ll be very little practice we can do.

So this is why it is called physical basis, because of the five aggregates, basically the mind and body aggregates, those five:

It is called 'physical basis' because of the five aggregates the physical aggregate is the principal basis of designation based on which a person is designated as pertaining to a particular realm.

Like male or female is basically physical, therefore we’re designated male or female on the physical basis; and likewise, human or non-‐human.


E.g. the human body is the principal aggregate based on which a person is designated as a human being.

This explains the physical basis, what kind of a person is it who has any of those five Sublime Eyes.

FIRST & SECOND SUBLIME EYES -‐ ACHIEVED BY NON-‐BUDDHIST & BUDDHIST GURUS

The first two sublime eyes (the physical sublime eye and the celestial sublime eye) can both be found in the continua of non-‐Buddhists.

So you don’t have to be a Buddhist. These practices that allow you to — certain practices are only found in Buddhism that then result in specific states of mind. That’s not discriminating against other religions. It is just looking at other religions and seeing, ‘Okay, these practices are just not there.’ Other practices you cannot find in Buddhism, but can find in other religions. Some practices, you can find in Buddhism and in other religions. The practices that lead to the last three Sublime Eyes can only be found in the Buddhist teachings. Whereas, the first two you can find in Buddhism and other traditions.

Here “non-‐Buddhists” means more than just not being a Buddhist. This is a strange term. It specifically refers to Indian religious systems; they are called non-‐Buddhist. They’re very advanced religious systems where you find very advanced practices of concentration. People who had these levels of clairvoyant concentration can be found. We have mentioned five levels of high perception that are said to be important in this context; but there are more. Many of the practitioners of the great Indian spiritual had and have those, even now days. The practitioners that are more in the forefront are not the ones necessarily that do; usually, they are the practitioners hidden away in mountain caves. There are amazing practitioners even nowadays, but they don’t seek the limelight, fame, and so forth.

Anyway, the latter three are said to be specifically Buddhist. The first two, which makes sense, because the first two are very important for the teacher-‐student relationship. Because these are relationships between a spiritual teacher — not an ordinary teacher but a lama or guru — and a disciple. These relationships go over many lifetimes – not just from a Buddhist point of view. These other traditions that assert past and future lives. Without the acceptance of past and future lives, it’s hard to practice towards these future existences. In those traditions where it’s accepted, you find these exceptional practices where a teacher looks after disciples over many lifetimes. And these exist in Indian systems. The first two were important for teachers looking after disciples. The latter three are specifically Buddhist.

PHYSICAL SUBLIME EYE & CELESTIAL SUBLIME EYE

The physical sublime eye can be found in the continua of non-‐Buddhists who in dependence on an actual concentration have cultivated the faculty that pertains to the level of concentration.


Concentrations will be explained towards the end of this term. There’s a whole chapter of the concentrations. This is a translation of the actual text we use, so it just says this at this point. I didn’t add anything to the actual wording of the text.

There are four kinds of actual concentrations. They can be attained in such persons’ continua.

In dependence on such faculty non-‐Buddhists are able to perceive phenomena in the three-‐thousand-‐fold world system at a distance ranging from at least one hundred yojanas.

This is another way of saying, the billion worlds in this universe — they can perceive phenomena in this universe. And there are different types. Not every Sublime Eye can do that. With this kind of mind, this is the greatest extent of their vision; they could have less ability. This is important to know: this is a general explanation.

Before we had an explanation: where you can see where someone has died. With the Celestial Sublime Eye, you can see where a person has died, where their consciousness has gone to and where they’re reborn. What intermediate state they went to and where they’re reborn. But you might only be able to do with that five people or ten; or you could see the death of 100 people but not more — not where they’re reborn. There are different strengths or levels.

This makes sense if you look at any state of mind or any kind of ordinary ability that we have. We have different levels. Some can make a one layer cake and some can make three-‐layer cakes. These are abilities — being able to bake a cake or being able to write a book. These are all mental abilities. Being able to calculate something in your head — there are different levels, some are better at that than others. Likewise here, from a Buddhist point of view, if you have the causes and conditions come together to get to those levels, and there are some who are better and some who can see less. Think of everyday kinds of examples. Because we all have a mental consciousness, but using what we have and generating those abilities.

Regarding Yojanas, in the last class I made a mistake.

With the physical sublime eye, one can see within this universe a distance ranging from at least 100 yojanas. If I said 7,000 kilometers before? It should be 700 kilometers or 343 miles. Before I said 1,000. That is a mistake. You multiply by 7 to get the kilometers per Yojana; and then the mileage is similar.

Furthermore, the celestial sublime eye can also be found in the mental continua of non-‐Buddhists because non-‐Buddhists, who in dependence on a causal meditative concentration were born, for instance, in the cloudless region, are now able to see their and others' past and future lives.

Causal meditative concentration is just another way of saying an actual concentration.

It’s more specific: you don’t just see where someone is reborn; you can also see where they come from and where you and others will go. It is quite helpful in terms of your own life, if you know where you’re going to be reborn, where you may be reborn — maybe you can make some changes. Or of course, where you come from, possible that


can helpful. From a Buddhist point of view, it’s not that helpful. Past life regression is not considered so helpful, but it may be interesting to know where you’ve been before.

Here, cloudless region does not mean literally a region without clouds. This refers to a celestial region where one can take rebirth. We may not be terribly in this, because we’re more interested in what is going on in the human realm; but to know that there are different levels of existence and to make them come alive, can increase our interest in finding out what else is possible. There’s only one Human realm; but there are said to be 17 levels of the Form Realm that depend upon the attainment of different meditative states where persons exist for a long time and can see us even though we can’t see them.

We may think, ‘Oh, whatever. It doesn’t really affect me.’ But I think that understanding more about our world is beneficial. We’re interested in learning about what goes on in the deep ocean, even though we’d never go there to have a look, because it’s part of understanding what is going on around us. Similarly, part of Buddhist practice is understanding samsara, which includes more than just the human realm but other realms that we cannot perceive. For example, in some realms, they don’t have all the senses. In the Form Realms they have three senses; they don’t need two that we may think are really neat. But if you think about it, we spend a lot of time wasted because of those two.

Which two are missing do you think?

STUDENT: Taste and smell.

GESHE WANGMO: Yes. We would probably think, ‘OMG, without my first cup of coffee in the morning,’ but it is just because we have so much attachment and spend so much time on food. But they don’t; food is not necessary for them and smell also. Tangibility, yes, they still have a body. They still have eyes, they see and they hear sounds.

I’m totally attached to my cappuccino, but that’s from my personal perspective. They don’t need to sleep or eat, so they have so much time. I think I remember that they don’t need to sleep. OMG, those eight hours.

This is taught matter-‐of-‐factly by the Buddha as though he was talking about the person next door. Many religions, that we may not be familiar with in the West, but many Indian religions talk about these states and being reborn in such is part of their practice.

(Please note that the cloudless region is one of the seventeen regions of the form realm. The seventeen regions of the form realm will be explained in the next handout. A causal meditative concentration is one of the four concentrations and will be explained on the next page).

DEBATE: CAN NON-‐BUDDHISTS CULTIVATE SUBLIME EYES?

Here, there’s a small debate going on here. Someone cites a scriptural quote to oppose what (Panchen Sonam Drakpa) has said; and then there’s the reply to that objection by Panchen Sonam Drakpa.


• Regarding the statement that non-‐Buddhists cultivate the first two sublime eyes, someone raises the following qualm:

"This is not correct because it says in the sutra:

Great Bodhisattvas who wish to attain and thoroughly cultivate the five eyes are to train in the six perfections.”

The quote seems to be saying the six perfections — generosity, ethics-‐morality, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom — in the Buddhist context are practiced in connection with Bodhicitta. You don’t find Bodhicitta in non-‐Buddhist practices — the wish to become a fully enlightened Buddha isn’t found. Therefore, it seems clear to this person:

"However, there are no non-‐Buddhists who practice the six perfections."

Then the reply from our system is:

There is no fault because this passage teaches that those who practice the six perfections will attain the five sublime eyes; it does not teach that whoever has cultivated the five first two a a sublime eyes necessarily practices the six perfections.

The second phrase shouldn’t be the “the five sublime eyes;” that’s a mistake. Whoever has cultivated the five sublime eyes is a Buddha because the fifth is an omniscient mind. So it probably should read, “that whoever has cultivated a sublime eye”. I need to look at it again. Maybe it is a copy and paste error, but it should not be five. In Tibetan, sublime eye is not marked as plural, so it might be translated as ‘whoever has cultivated sublime eyes’ so I have to look it up.

Anyway, someone who has cultivated a Sublime Eye need not have practiced the six perfections.

The latter three sublime eyes (the sublime eye of wisdom, the sublime eye of Dharma, and the sublime eye of a Buddha) are only found in the continua of Aryas because there are no ordinary beings who are able to cultivate them.

To remind you, someone who has reached what is called the Path of Seeing (after the Path of Accumulation and Path of Preparation, there’s Path of Seeing, Path of Meditation and Path of No More Learning which is full enlightenment) means that person has realized the ultimate nature of all phenomena directly. These people are called Aryas as opposed to ordinary. Ordinary here means something very specific; not just someone who just never thought of spiritual development or is ordinary in relation to others development. Here, in this context of Arya and ordinary: Arya is someone who has realized Emptiness directly; ordinary has not.

Even if you are on the Path of Preparation, before realizing Emptiness directly, that person is said to be ordinary in comparison to the person who’s realized Emptiness directly, but compared to a person like me, they are totally extraordinary. It is a relative term.


So we’ve done the physical basis. Just to remind you: the first two Sublime Eye, you don’t have to be a Buddhist to have the first two higher perceptions; but the practices that allow you to generating the last three Sublime Eye can only be found in the Buddhist scriptures; therefore, they can only be found in the continuum of someone who is a Buddhist. What does it mean to be a Buddhist? To take Refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and engage in the Buddhist practices with that kind of trust in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So that is the physical basis for the Sublime Eyes.

TRACK 5 – MENTAL BASIS OF THE FIVE SUBLIME EYES

So what about the mental basis ? We have a body, we have a mind. What kind of body do you have to generate those; what kind of mind? This is a little harder to understand: what kind of mind must you have.

The mental basis of a sublime eye refers to the type of awareness as which a sublime eye arises.

What does that mean? I’ll just tell you what the basis is for a newly cultivated Sublime Eye.

There’s always a difference between something you newly generate — imagine that you, yourself, have newly generated this higher perception after engaging in a lot of meditative concentration and suddenly, you can see what your mum is making for breakfast or something. Not that is really important or what you are trying to see, but basically , you can see physical things that are far away from you. When you can do this for the first time, and suddenly you can do it. So the first time when you newly have that perception arise in your continuum – another example: the first time when you can have real compassion for sentient beings. There’s always a first time. Likewise, for the first time, what kind of mind, what kind of basis do you need? The mental basis must be any of the four concentrations, which will be explained later.

The mental bases of newly cultivated sublime eyes are necessarily any of the four concentrations because it is easier to newly cultivate a sublime eye in dependence on a concentration.

In other words a very, very concentrated state of mind. These are fascinating states of mind, so much happening. But again, if you have learned Buddhism in the way that it is taught these days — in the future it may change — how it is presented in the West, you don’t hear much about those concentrations.

Do you know anything about them? Anyone? Anything about the afflictions that arise? Anyone?

STUDENT: Does it have to do with shamatha meditation?

GESHE WANGMO: Yes. But shamatha meditation is only the preparation for those.

STEVE: Are these the Four Mindfulnesses (mindfulness – dran pa -‐ !ན་པ་; smŗti) meditations?


GESHE WANGMO: No. You do those as a practice to reach those; there’ll be more on those. However, these concentrations are stressed. There’s a whole topic on the concentrations — from material outside of Panchen Sonam Drakpa.

When we were studying, we heard about them all of the time with explanations. I didn’t know what they are; I just knew the name Four concentrations and the name of each of the four. I could debate them without knowing what they are. You can’t explain everything right from the beginning, so there’s got to be a structure. You have to start with one thing, and something’s always left out. So we just had to be patient. We understood part, but not the full extent. It’s like a puzzle. More and more things come together. It’s too vast; and everything is connected. There’s a topic that explains the steps towards the Four Concentrations.

However, once a sublime eye has been cultivated one does not have to generate it in dependence on a concentration anymore because there are sublime eyes that are any of the four concentrations and there are sublime eyes that are any of the four formless absorptions.

FOUR CONCENTRATIONS & FOUR FORMLESS ABSORPTIONS

That will be explained: Four Concentrations (བསམ་གཏན་བཞི་) and Four Formless

Absorptions (gzugs med – གཟུགས་མེད། or gzugs med kyi snyoms ‘jug –གཟུགས་མེད་)ི་+ོམས་འཇུག; Skt. ārūpya / ārūpyasamāpatti). It goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

Next follows an auxiliary description of the four concentrations and the four formless absorptions. This description is not from Panchen Sonam Drakpa's General Meaning but nonetheless is necessary in order to fully comprehend the topic of the five sublime eyes.

A more extensive presentation of the concentrations and absorptions will be given later during the presentation of one of the subsequent topics of the Ornament.

In Tibetan, the topic on the Four Concentrations and Four Formless Absorptions is called tsam tsug (tsam -‐ (བསམ་གཏན་; Skt. dhyānas)). I didn’t put the title here because tsam actually means concentration, and tsug is the first syllable of the word form, e.g., the Formless absorption, so in English it would be “concen-‐form” which doesn’t work. In Tibetan it works great, because every syllable has its own meaning. So if you have a long word or phrase, but in English, every syllable does not have a meaning. Tibetan is easily condensable. The later topic is on the Four Concentrations and Four Formless Absorptions.

THE FOUR CONCENTRATIONS AND THE FOUR FORMLESS ABSORPTIONS

Please note that there are four concentrations and four formless absorptions (see Chart 1).

Look at the right column of the Chart: the Four Concentrations, Limitless Space (nam mkha’ mtha’ yas -‐ ནམ་མཁའ་མཐའ་ཡས་; Skt. -‐ ākāśānantya), Limitless Consciousness ( -‐


!མ་ཤེས་མཐའ་་ཡས་; Skt. -‐ vijñānānantya), Nothingness (ci yang med -‐ ཅི་ཡང་མེད་; Skt. –

ākimcanya) and Peak of Cyclic Existence (srid rtse -‐ !ིད་%ེ་; Skt. – bhavāgra). The chart becomes more important as we go along. So these eight meditative absorptions are the four different levels of concentrations. Even though we call them absorptions or concentrations, they’re all both: the four formless absorptions are concentrations; the four concentrations are absorptions. So the words concentration and absorption mean the same thing in this context. But we distinguish them by these words.

STUDENT: Is it a different word in Sanskrit?

GESHE WANGMO: I don’t know about in Sanskrit, but they are different words in Tibetan.

STUDENT: So concentrations are the dhyānas?

GESHE WANGMO: I don’t know. Dr. Khanna, do you know?

STUDENT: Dhyāna means concentration.

STUDENT: Samadhi is concentration.3

GESHE WANGMO: I’ll look it up. I don’t know. In Tibetan, concentration is tsam-‐den (tsam-‐den (བསམ་གཏན་; Skt. dhyānas); absorption is nyom jug (snyoms ‘jug -‐ !ོམས་འཇུག་, or

nyom par jug pa (snyoms par ‘jug pa -‐ !ོམས་པར་འཇུག་པ་; Skt. samāpatti); and actual is ngon

shi (dngos gzhi -‐ དངོས་གཞི་; Skt. maula).

So they are different words. In the dictionary, and in other texts I found the translation absorption, nyom par jug pa, means to be totally absorbed. And then you call it a meditative absorption because you’re not talking about oil being absorbed. So there’s some terminology to get used to, but I try to explain what they all refer to.

So these eight meditative states:

These eight meditative absorptions are the product of intense meditation and are cultivated by both Buddhists and non-‐Buddhists.

The four concentrations are simply known as 'first concentration', 'second concentration', 'third concentration', and 'fourth concentration', . . .

Quite simple. In Tibetan tsam-‐den thang po, tsam-‐den nyi pa, tsam-‐den sum pa, tsam-‐den shi pa, is an exact translation.

3 Per Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism, samādhi in Sanskrit means stabilization; in Tibetan: ting nge ‘dzin -‐

ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་ . One of several connotations or meanings for snyoms par

‘jug pa (!ོམས་པར་འཇུག་པ་

) given in Rangjung Yeshe dictionary is “meditate in the equipoise of samadhi.”


. . . whereas each of the four formless absorptions has a particular name that corresponds to its object of meditation. The first formless absorption is called 'limitless space', the second 'limitless consciousness', the third 'nothingness', and the fourth 'peak of cyclic existence".

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE KARMIC CONSEQUENCE OF ANY THOUGHT

This is interesting. As I said, there’s no creator god, so who creates our reality? The mind. In everyday examples, we can identify with that.

CONCENTRATIONS & ABSORPTIONS FOR NON-‐BUDDHISTS ARE METHOD USED TO ATTAIN MOKSHA/LIBERATION THROUGH REBIRTH IN FORM REALMS & FORMLESS REALMS

However, the fact that we are here, in this realm that has physical form, is because of our minds. The minds we had in the past, in previous lives that are responsible for our being born here. Whatever we think, any thought we have leaves a residue. There’s a karmic action, every mental action is a mental karmic action, any thought. So we shouldn’t underestimate any thought we think. They become the cause for where we are reborn. If we think a lot about the kind of objects around us, we have strong attachments to taste and a lot of actions grow, we have those in the future again. We create our own environment.

Each of the four concentrations causes rebirth in one of the four Form Realms and each of the four formless absorptions causes rebirth in one of the four Formless Realms. This means that in order to be reborn in the First Form Realm one must have attained the first concentration, in order to take rebirth in the Second Form Realm one must have attained the second concentration, and so forth. Likewise, in order to be reborn in the First Formless Realm one must have attained the first formless absorption called 'limitless space', in order to be reborn in the Second Formless Realm one must have attained the second formless absorption called 'limitless consciousness', and so forth.

If you engage in these meditative states, where you don’t think of physical forms, or physical forms are not our main objects — physical forms here means sounds, shapes and colors, tastes, smells and tangibility. Our lives revolve around those; right? This is the realm we live in. It’s called the Desire Realm because there’s desire for those five objects of the senses and they govern our lives.

Most of the time, even though I wear maroon and have bald head, my life very much revolves around those. I want pleasant sounds, pleasant tastes, pleasant feelings on my body. I crave those, and I detest everything else. My life is governed by those.

However, if through meditating, I generate concentrations that do not in any way concern those, for example, limitless consciousness (consciousness is non-‐physical) or limitless space (an abstraction of any physical obstructions), if I concentrate my mind over and over again on such objects, I create new karma. Why would I do that as long as I have my strong attachment to sense objects, I wouldn’t? But when I come to see the shortcomings of this attachments . . . Not just Buddhists talk about this. Non-‐Buddhist systems also identify the problems with desire, the problem of attachment. The Hindu scriptures often talk about the shortcomings of attachment and the need to develop concentrative states to try to not focus on those and see their shortcomings, and focus on non-‐physical phenomena because you don’t want to be reborn in such a state of the Desire Realm. You see its shortcomings. If you’re reborn in a formless state, you don’t


have a body to carry around. You have no suffering in those states of peace, extreme state of peace. There’s not even a feeling of happiness because strong happiness is seen as an obstacle to concentration. It’s a neutral state.

Here we’re not talking about the happiness that a Buddha experience, a non-‐Samsaric happiness, trans-‐Samsaric happiness. We’re talking about Samsaric happiness, which of the three types of suffering, Samsaric happiness is which happiness?

STUDENT: The Suffering of Change.

GESHE WANGMO: The Suffering of Change. It is said to be limited. Non-‐Buddhist Indian systems have seen the shortcomings of the Suffering of Suffering and the Suffering of Change. One suffering, Buddha said, they haven’t identified is the All-‐Pervasive Suffering. The fact of just having a body and mind that is within samsara is a type of suffering.

The non-‐Buddhist systems have realized that even samsaric happiness is an obstacle, so it is better to have a neutral feeling. So you can train in these states, meditative absorptions. You can go beyond the Form Realm, to the Formless Realm by focusing on limitless space, and you can be reborn in the first Formless Absorption Realm.

The second level of the Formless Realm is Limitless Consciousness. The third level of the Formless Realm is nothingness. There’s something even greater than nothingness is the Peak of Cyclic Existence. It’s beyond nothingness as even nothingness is an object. It is beyond nothingness. I don’t know what that means. I haven’t tackled Calm Abiding which is preparation for the First Concentration; so forget anything beyond that.

From a Buddhist point of view, these states are not that crucial. You need the First Concentration; and a Buddha has all of those just naturally. But they are not something you need to strive for. At some point they come naturally. You definitely need calm abiding, nothing comes without Calm Abiding.

Once you enter a Path, the Mahayana Path, you’re a Bodhisattva, and then you must develop Calm Abiding. At that point, your renunciation is so strong. It takes about six months to generate calm abiding, but those six months are no obstacle when your renunciation is that strong.

The point is these are the different kinds of existence and the four concentrations are like the steps of a staircase. You can’t go onto the second step without having gone up the first step . . . one builds on top of the other. So these are the eight levels of consciousness that our minds have the capacity to reach within Samsara. They are still within this limited existence, and can be exceeded.

We only know our Desire Realm minds. We had those mental states in the past. All of us have achieved those mental levels. Buddha has very clearly explained that there’s not a single state we’ve not been in; we just don’t remember. We’ve done all sorts of different practices in the past, but we’re still in Samsara.

From a Buddhist point of view, it is saying, ‘Big deal. We’ve done all of this, and we’re still here.’ So there’s an emphasis on going beyond those. We’ve reached those states, and they’re not enough. We need some of those states and Bodhicitta and the realization of Emptiness, how phenomena really exist.

So I’ll conclude this, and then we’ll have questions.


This explanation correlates to the Buddhist description of the three realms and the nine levels of Samsara.

The three realms are:

I) Desire Realm II) Form Realm III) Formless Realm

DESIRE REALM’S CELESTIAL REALM

We’ve heard about the Six Realms, but they refer to the Six Realms within the Desire Realm. The Desire Realm means those spheres of existence that are governed by desire for the objects of the five senses: shapes, colors, sounds, tastes, smells and tangible objects.

The Desire Realm can be subdivided into six types:

a. Hell Realm b. Preta Realm c. Animal Realm d. Human Realm e. Semi-‐celestial Realm f. Celestial Realm

However, there are Realms other than ་the Desire Realm. Additionally, there are the Form Realms — Desire Realm, Form Realms (gzugs khams -‐ གཟུགས་ཁམས་; Skt. rūpadhātu)

and the Formless Realms (gzugs med khams -‐ གཟུགས་མེད་ཁམས་; Skt. ārūpadhātu).

Don’t ask me why the second is called the Form Realm. I don’t know. You have Form in the Desire Realm; the five sense objects are form. You still have form in the Form Realm but you don’t have that strong desire any more. There’s still form as opposed to the Formless Realm.

The kind of paradise described in Western and other religions, from a Buddhist point of view, those are celestial Desire Realm. They are places that flow with milk and honey; you have a beautiful body, you don’t need to shower or eat. You have a pure body. What we think of as a paradise, those are generally Celestial Desire Realm paradises. You can be in those states for millions of years, but eventually, you’ll come down. There’s no eternal heaven. There’s a limited time you can be in those states. The problem from a Buddhist point of view is that you come back. You do not need to attain any meditative state to reach those paradises.

In order to be return into the Form and Formless Realms, you need to attain the Concentrations.

As mentioned above, the Form and Formless Realms have four divisions each, corresponding to the meditative absorptions that cause rebirth in them.


To be reborn in the Desire Realm, you don’t need any concentration. Other factors are important. To be reborn in the Hell Realm, you need a lot of anger. If for some reason, you want to be reborn there, you need a lot of anger, aggression; you need to accumulate a lot of negativity. Not everyone has accumulated that kind of negativity. To be reborn in the Preta Realm requires less negativity. The Animal Realm is different also. Human and Celestial Realms require a lot of positive actions, but do not require concentration. Having concentration is good, but you can use concentration to be a serial killer. You don’t necessarily use concentration for something positive. Therefore, for the Desire Realm other factors are important.

But if you want to be reborn in the Form Realms — why would anyone want to be reborn in those states? In the past, people found out about these states. Nowadays, in the West, in the 21st century, mental development does not refer to states of meditation, for example. Mental development refers to gaining more knowledge and then being able to utilize machines, calculators. In the past, especially in India as the documentary, the Story of India, shows (not in a lot of detail) and mentions over and over there were incredible spiritual beings. Nowadays, people become computer engineers, doctors and so forth, some people became meditators as a career choice like any other. You’d leave home, meditate in an ashram and become a great meditator. Instead of becoming a high school teacher, you became a meditation teacher. It was very much a part of Indian culture, and it still is in someone areas.

Therefore, it was part of lives for millions of people, or at least thousand and ten thousands did these meditations and found out about these higher states, and started reflecting about the Desire Realm and thought, ‘This Realm is quite limited.” They could see its limitations; this body is so limited. Then they came to see there’s a Form Realm with a lot less suffering. There’s a lot of happiness in the first and second levels of the Form Realm. So they came to see the advantages of the First Form Realm and wanted to find out how to be reborn there, and they trained in these meditative states. Thus, they generated the karma to be reborn there in the next life. Just as you cultivate, accumulate the karma to be reborn as a human, etc., likewise these meditators generated a dislike for the Desire Realm, and then meditated to be reborn in the Form Realm. Once they reached that state, they generated the wish to be reborn in the Second level of the Form Realm.

There are beings still in those realms. And they stay much longer there. Human existence is so short. Other existences can last millions of years. Time is relative. These one and a half hours, from 4 pm until now, can seem really long; but in comparison to something else, it’s nothing. Likewise, Human existence is like a flash of lightening in relation not just to many lifetimes to come but to life spans of beings in other Realms.

Why are we interested in those? Not because we want to be reborn there. Because we may not. Those meditative states are very helpful. We don’t develop those meditations to be reborn in those states; we want to be reborn as human, because the human state is still said to be the most conducive for Dharma practice.

We also learn about this because we want to know more about Samsara where we are right now. We want to know about who lives in the deepest oceans. Here we don’t have any photographs.


TRACK 6 – QUESTION & ANSWER

STUDENT: What is the Form Realm?

GESHE WANGMO: In the Form Realm beings have bodies. What exactly the bodies look like . . .

STUDENT: They are in Samsara?

GESHE WANGMO: Absolutely in Samsara.

STUDENT: You can see them?

GESHE WANGMO: No. They can see us; but we can’t see them. Because their minds are more, less distracted. They are on higher levels than we are as ordinary people.

STUDENT: Are they more similar to the gods then?

GESHE WANGMO: I don’t know. There are descriptions but I haven’t read them. Why? Because it is not considered that important.

It’s not that satisfactory, but we don’t know much about Mars and Pluto and so forth, and even though we’re interested, we don’t know what it looks like on Pluto. What it is really like to be there?

STUDENT: Do we need to have faith in this?

GESHE WANGMO: No, you don’t need to have faith.

STUDENT: Good.

GESHE WANGMO: You don’t need to have faith. The problem is that it is one of the parts that we study that is very important, but without interest, you lose interest before you get to the point where it’s actually relevant. That’s a challenge of this class. As I said before, I actually almost dropped the topic. But for actual Buddhists, if you’re interested in philosophical study, without having studied this, you have huge gaps. At some point, you’re missing something very important, so we have to study it. It may be quite dry, but I’ll try to make it more juicy. I wish I had more descriptions of those Realms, but I don’t.

There were two questions.

STUDENT: Would you say that if you do reach one of those Four Concentrations, you’ll automatically be reborn in the Form Realm?

MAHAYANA MOTIVATION TO ATTAIN CONCENTRATIONS

GESHE WANGMO: There are two different motivations for engaging in those meditations. There could be a third one that I’m not aware of. You’ve got one motivation of wanting to be reborn there. You engage in those meditations because you’re fed up with the Desire Realm, and you’ve found out about those states through Masters or beings in the past that have been there, so you really want to be reborn there. You consider those states a type of Moksha or liberation.


STUDENT: Selfish reasons?

GESHE WANGMO: Selfish is relative. I don’t think someone who wants to be self-‐liberated is selfish. Because you need to overcome selfishness to . . .

STUDENT: Compared to wanting to become liberated for the sake of everyone else?

GESHE WANGMO: Right. But it is not a real selfishness. It’s more that Bodhicitta is a vaster motivation than wanting to attain liberation for oneself because you don’t think it’s possible to become a Buddha.

Here, you have to reduce a lot of selfishness to be able to be reborn there because of something I haven’t mentioned yet: if you gain one of those concentrations, your Desire Realm delusions are gone for as long as you have that concentration. You can lose the concentration, but as long as you have that, your Desire Realm Anger, etc., are not there. Your Desire Realm self-‐grasping is still there, but it is so inactive you can’t have any Desire Realm anger, attachment, etc.

STUDENT: Do you have to rid yourself of the seeds?

GESHE WANGMO: No. The seeds are still there, but they cannot arise as long as you have the First Concentration. Think of a very absorbed state of mind that is so concentrated that you cannot have anger. You can’t have anger; anger is totally gone on the First Absorption (of the Formless Realm) as far as I recall.

STUDENT: . . .

GESHE WANGMO: No, once you have the concentration, even if you come out of the meditation, you don’t have anger. I’ll explain more about this next time, but that only lasts as long as you have the concentration and you can lose the concentration.

So you see, it is an attractive state if you haven’t heard of anything beyond that. Honestly, I would go for it. My anger is just such a problem; not that I would be able to actually sit down and meditate. But I would say, ‘Wow, this is very attractive.’

So people meditated for that purpose, that motivation: wanting to be free of the anger and attachment that we experience daily.

However, from the Buddhist point of view, the Buddha said, ‘No.’ At that time in India when attaining these states was considered to be Moksha, Liberation, and the Buddha said, ‘No, this is not liberation’. It is limited because you’re there for a very long time, but not forever. If you want to reach a state that is beyond delusions” then he described Liberation and Buddhahood.

But these meditative states can be used as tools for attaining Liberation and Buddhahood. When they’re used as tools, you’re not re born in those states because your motivation is different, you don’t desire to be reborn in those states. We discuss them because they are very effective meditative tools. For example, to attain the Sublime Eyes; right?

Taking you back to the Sublime Eyes: to attain any of the Sublime Eyes, you must have reached at least the First Concentration. The first level, at least, you must have.


We’re talking about incredible gomers here. Think of our lamas. They may seem kind of ordinary. Many of them are monks and nuns whom we see as looking kind of dirty. Some of them can be highly advanced; or lay people. Remember the story of Kunna Lama Rinpoche. He looked like a very ordinary Indian man, and he lived with sadhus in Varanasi. Looked like a beggar, but he was an incredible Bodhisattva. When he went to one of the Kalachakra initiations, he was in the teaching area looking like a beggar and people avoided him. Then His Holiness went up to him and prostration. So things changed that day! Prostrated and said, ‘Please teach me on the Bodhisattva Way of Life,’ which was his special focus. His Holiness could see his qualities.

DORIS: When was that?

GESHE WANGMO: A long time ago, in the meantime, he’s passed on and his reincarnation is a grown man now.

DORIS: Was it here?

GESHE WANGMO: Yes, in India. It was in Bodhgaya. You see, he lived with sadhus, looked like a beggar, didn’t care about fame or reputation. He wore old clothes. These are the real practitioners. They may be a beggar just asking you for ten rupees, and you don’t know who they are. Definitely not the shiny bright ones. Many of these practitioners don’t seek fame and we don’t see them. Kunna Lama Rinpoche is a great example.

Then His Holiness totally understood. The story is told that he prostrated in public; I don’t know, but he did treat him with great respect.

You see this with His Holiness. His Holiness sees a guy in the crowd, an old Tibetan man or woman, and suddenly His Holiness pays special attention to them, and you realize, ‘Whoops.’ They’re all around us, which is so inspiring. I hope I answered your question.

STUDENT: I also wanted to ask you: If you have these higher concentrations, are you automatically reborn in the Form Realm or do you choose? Can you say, ‘No, this isn’t my way. I want to . . .”

GESHE WANGMO: Yes, you choose. As I said, two purposes are described: one is you do them to be reborn there, which is usually a non-‐Buddhist practice. Or you do them in the Buddhist context where you want to be in the Human Realm, to benefit sentient beings, especially if you do the Mahayana practices.

STUDENT: . . .

GESHE WANGMO: No. I knew it was maintenance, it’s five. I was told it was five.

STUDENT: If you could choose, why would anyone go to hell?

CAN WE CHOOSE NEXT REBIRTH – FREE WILL?

GESHE WANGMO: No, no, no, no. No, no, sorry. You see, once you’ve reached those gom states, then you can choose. You need to work very, very hard. Then you can chose to be reborn in the First Concentration. We can all choose, if we know how to do it correctly, we will not go to Hell.

You can choose. If you just let your mind go wild with all the negativities, and you go out and slash and kill people, well, in a way we do have that choice. Of course, there is


no real free will in the sense that there’s an independent decision maker. There are always causes and conditions that come together, but we can create causes and conditions.

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