• Dharma bliss
• Where the seed syllable meditation fits into our Dharma practice
• The four reliances
• Vows 15-17 are to abandon:
  • 15. Falsely saying that you have realized profound emptiness and that if others meditate as you have, they will realize emptiness and become as great and as highly realized as you.
  • 16. Taking gifts from others who were encouraged to give you things originally intended as offerings to the Three Jewels. Not giving things to the Three Jewels that others have given you to give to them, or accepting property stolen from the Three Jewels.
  • 17. (a) Causing those engaged in serenity meditation to give it up by giving their belongings to those who are merely reciting texts.
    17. (b) Making bad disciplinary rules which cause a spiritual community not to be harmonious.

Bodhisattva ethical restraints: Vows 15-17 (download)

Let’s come back to our inner feeling of joy at having the opportunity we have now, knowing how rare and precious it is, and how much progress we can make on the path through just persisting day by day, moment by moment, in cultivating renunciation, bodhicitta, the correct view. Let’s continue to do that, learning about the bodhisattva vows so that we can practice the bodhisattva path and become Buddhas, and have the capability to be of the most effective benefit to all living beings.  

Bliss

I want to come back to something that somebody brought up a few weeks ago, because I think that some people may have misunderstood it. The question arose about what is this talk of “bliss in emptiness,” and what is the bliss about. There are many different kinds of bliss. Some of it is ordinary bliss; some of it is Dharma bliss.  

I think we’re quite familiar with ordinary bliss. There are different ways people feel quite joyful and quite happy. With Dharma bliss, sometimes just doing the visualization itself of the deity is quite blissful because the deity is so beautiful, and just the qualities and the connection you really feel. Just the visualization can be quite blissful. Sometimes they talk a lot about the bliss of samadhi. When concentration gets very deep, then it’s very very blissful. And then they talk also about the bliss that comes in tantra, which is different from the bliss in samadhi, which is different from ordinary bliss. They all have some qualities in common, but they also have some differences.  

It may happen, when you’re doing retreat, that in certain sessions you feel quite blissful, and that’s great. Go for it—that’s fine. What you want to avoid is any kind of mind that gets attached to it and tries to recreate it. As soon as you do that, you usually get frustrated because it won’t come back the way you want it to. I know when I am able to let go of something I’ve been carrying around for a long time, there are a real sense of satisfaction and peace and bliss in the mind. When you have that kind of thing, that’s great and stay with it. That’s good.  

Somebody was saying that an FPMT teacher had come to their Dharma center and had taught the nine-round breathing like I taught you last year, and then also taught the seed syllable meditation. So, this person was asking why I taught the nine-round breathing and not the seed syllable meditation. It’s because the seed syllable meditation that Lama taught us was actually the tummo meditation from the completion stage. And Lama, I think, was kind of experimenting with us, kind of seeing “Well, what’s going to happen with these Injis,” because none of my other teachers have taught that. But Lama did.  

I remember an instance where one of Lama’s students was relating at a conference to His Holiness that he had been teaching the seed syllable meditation to other people who weren’t necessarily Buddhists, but that it provided them some sense of bliss and peace. His Holiness was not really in favor of that. He said people need proper guidance for that kind of thing. His Holiness has also said at other times that these practices of working with the winds and channels and drops are not particularly a Buddhist practice. The Hindus do them also. So, you have to really look. The same goes for developing concentration. Because it’s a practice that is well known in other religions as well, so you have to really think, “What is it that makes it a Buddhist practice?” The answer is our refuge, our renunciation, our bodhicitta motivation, and especially the understanding of emptiness that is going to make those kinds of things into a Buddhist practice.  

A few weeks ago, when somebody brought up bliss, I was saying that sometimes they give the analogy of it being like sexual bliss. I found that puzzling because while sexual bliss feels nice, it’s not very satisfying in the end because you just have to do it again, don’t you? It feels good and then you have to do it again. So, when they’re talking about the meditations on the channels, winds, and drops in tantra, I think it’s got to be quite different than that kind of sexual bliss. Because, by moving the drops in certain ways and getting the winds to enter and abide and dissolve in the central channel, you’re trying to actualize or make manifest the extremely subtle consciousness, and then use that to realize emptiness. Because if you can realize emptiness with an extremely subtle mind then it very quickly cuts the afflictions—the afflictive obscurations as well as the cognitive obscurations. That’s why that practice is done: to make manifest that extremely subtle mind.  

But you really need to have some skills with the channels and winds and drops and these kinds of things. There are a lot of preparatory practices that you do. The nine-round breathing is great, but the Lama kind of jumped everybody to the seed syllable meditation, which is tummo. Actually, there are a whole number of different practices that you do in between, because you really have to prepare the channels and winds and drops, and you have to not only get your understanding of emptiness quite clear, but you have to develop good concentration. And you have to be able to work with the subtle body in a very efficient and efficacious way. Because if you don’t do it properly then the winds go in the wrong channels, and it can bring mental disturbances, mental illness. So, there are a lot of practices that are done—some of them are physical practices; some of them are meditation practices—to really prepare the body. And then there are also practices preparing the mind so that the motivation is right and the meditation goes correctly.  

That’s why that kind of meditation is always done under the guidance of a tantric master who not only gives you teachings on those specific things, but you report back to that person and share with them your experiences. Because otherwise, if you read a book or learn some Hindu prāṇāyāma or whatever but you’re not under somebody’s guidance and supervision, you can get your winds all messed up, and that can take a real while to undo. His Holiness will describe the steps on the tantric path, but he doesn’t teach the meditations of how to do those publicly, because people aren’t ready to do them. And if they try to do them, it could not be beneficial for them at that particular time in their practice.  So, in case there were any misunderstandings about that, I’m not denying the presence of bliss, and bliss in your meditations is quite good, but when we’re talking about working with channels, winds and drops, you have to really have initiation and special instructions and supervision with that. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Yes, the nine-round breathing meditation can be very helpful for settling the mind, because you’re visualizing the air going in, and then expelling the attachment, going in, and then expelling the anger, and so on. It can be very good for calming the mind. That’s fine to do. His Holiness talked about it at Kalachakra this last summer in a public way. He demonstrated it. So yes, that’s fine. But what I’m saying is between that and doing the seed syllable meditation, there are a whole range of other things that you do.  

Audience: [Inaudible].

(VTC): No, looking at the energy winds is not an alternative view about karma. They often say that the winds have something to do with our karma. As we purify our winds we purify the karma; as we purify the karma we purify the winds. That’s because there is a relationship between the mind and the winds. But it’s not that you take away karma and substitute winds—no, nothing like that. You’ll see sometimes, those of you doing Vajrasattva, that when you say a lot of mantra, you can feel the energy of the mantra in your body, can’t you? You can feel the energy in your body. You can feel the energy of the mantra in your mind. Some days when you do the mantra, you feel like everything’s going very smoothly. Sometimes you do the mantra and you feel like your energy and the mantra’s energy are going in opposite directions. 

Did you ever feel that way? That happens when our winds are kind of discombobulated… You have the energy of the mantra, and the wind energy is completely discombobulated. Or, if we have lots of negative karma, or our mind is fully-endowed with afflictions that day, then the energy of the mantra isn’t going to seem to go so smoothly in our mind. We have to readjust our energy. At other times, you can feel that the mantra is very, very smooth in your mind. This has to do with the winds. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): When your head feels very heavy, or when you have pain in your chest, you’re really pushing too hard in your meditation. I think, especially with a deity above your head, if we’re trying very hard to visualize the deity above our head, our attention is going there. Where the mind goes the winds go, and the winds get all stuck up here. At that time, it’s like we’re pushing; we’re trying too hard to see Vajrasattva. At that time, we just need to know Vajrasattva is there and lower our focus.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): Or we need to be more mindful of the light and nectar in your body instead of being so up in your head about “Here and there are the this and that, and how far above is it, and everything’s up there, and then your head…” You can get a headache that way.  

Vajrasattva is there, but here’s this light and nectar that’s filling your body, and it’s the blissful feeling from the light and nectar that you think purifies your karma. Because we’re usually thinking in our Judeo-Christian thing that “Oh, the more I suffer and the worse I feel, the more penance I’m doing.” That’s wrong. Here with Vajrasattva, the nectar is very blissful. We try and let that be, but we don’t have to focus up here so much. Because remember, the light and nectar are going all over the body and mind, especially if that’s happening too much up here. Focus more on your belly. Either focus more on the body in general and the light and nectar there or bring the sound of the mantra down to your belly. Say the mantra at your belly. Because sometimes we Westerners are so up in our heads. We feel like we’re saying the mantra in our head: “Om Vajrasattva samaya.” Everything’s going on up there. And then that can bring some kind of imbalance. So, we really need to remember that it’s not that there is the body and mind with a brick wall in between. There is a whole organism here.  

You need to learn in your meditations that when you’re getting some kind of tightness somewhere like that, you have to think, “Ok, I need to alter what I’m doing.” Check it out. If you’re pushing, that’s often when this happens. You have to just be very accepting of yourself, very kind to yourself. And then sometimes, don’t try so hard. It’s like, “Oh, there is that nectar up there, and it’s not coming down; I can’t get it to come down.”  Vajrasattva is the Buddha. The nectar is flowing down. Relax—it’s okay.  

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): The thing is that we do the best we can. It’s like when you walk in the room here. You are aware that there are many people in the room. Are you aware of what the people in back of you are wearing? No. But you know there are people sitting in back of you. So, it’s kind of like that. You know Vajrasattva is there, but you’re not like, “I’ve got to see everything.” 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): Oh, yes. That’s why it’s very important that you go out and get some exercise, and why we got the land here, where you can look out at the long views. The long views are very important, very important. When the sky is clear, look up at the stars at night.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): It’s because looking long distances expands our mind. Sometimes when we’re meditating, we get so much into “There is Vajrasattva. There is the light and nectar. I’ve got to make it all come.” You know? Then you get tight, and that’s not healthy for your meditation. Then you get unhappy. And you get angry and stuff. It’s different when you relax and look out into the distance at all those beautiful stars. You see the sun and the moon. You look at the clouds. You look over there at the mountains, and see how the mountain changes, and where the snow is, and you are expanding your mind. That’s very good when you’re meditating. 

Bodhisattva Vows

15.  Asserting falsely, “I sustain the profound.”

Number 15 from  Shantideva says,

Asserting falsely, ‘I sustain the profound.’ The fifteenth transgression is claiming to have spiritual attainments that we do not in fact have. It does not concern realizations that we possess, but those that we have not yet achieved, so involves telling a lie. Since the action involves lying, the object must be a person who can hear and understand what we say. The action is therefore distorting the truth by suggesting that we have realizations that we lack, such as a direct understanding of emptiness. While teaching, we might be led to say, for example, ‘I have understood emptiness directly. Out of compassion, I would like to share what I have realized with you. If you meditate accordingly, perhaps you too can gain a similar understanding and become like me!’

That’s really blatant, isn’t it?  

I’ve heard of people doing it in much more subtle ways. Every time the topic of emptiness comes, they start to weep, or they show something special, or look off into space, roll their eyes back, or like, “Oh, this is some great thing that’s wow, that I’ve experienced,” to give people the sense that they’ve realized something. This is actually, for us monastics, one of our root transgressions. If we lie about our spiritual attainments, we’re out. We’ve broken our ordination. There is no chance to ordain again. You’re just finished.  

Even if you have realizations, it’s not good to talk about them. Because people get all sorts of ideas.  I remember one time, at one of the teachings of His Holiness, there was some other teacher there, and some of his students were there, and his students were always saying, “Oh, I’m sure my teacher has definitely realized the path of seeing. You know, you can see it by the way he teaches. You can see it by the way he is.” And they’re all buzzing: “Oh, yes. This teacher, for sure he’s realized the path of seeing, maybe even the path of meditation.” And they go on and on about this. It’s one thing to have faith in your teacher, but it’s another thing to start evaluating what stage of the path they’re on, and then talking with everybody else who aren’t even disciples of that teacher about it. It’s really rather strange.  

In India you find all these people who say thing like, “Oh, my teacher is an incarnation of this. My teacher is an incarnation of that.” This particular bodhisattva vow is about talking about ourselves. I’m using an example that’s a little bit different, but equally foolish in the sense of sitting in the tea shop and saying, “Oh, my teacher is an incarnation of Marpa, and this other teacher is an incarnation of Maitreya. And I met these teachers. They’re all so wonderful. Here’s a picture of me with them. Maybe I was their disciple in a previous life when they were Marpa. Maybe I was one of Marpa’s students, and that’s why we have this Dharma connection.” They might spend hours in the tea shop discussing their teacher’s realizations. Now, what good does that do for your practice?  

Audience: Zero. 

(VTC): That’s right—not much. Having faith in your teacher because you believe they have realizations is one thing. But sitting and talking about it with everybody is a whole different ball game, isn’t it? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): Yes. Right. Because there is one form of pride, that is “I’m not so good, but I’m associated with somebody who is really wonderful, so I’m special because I’m a student of this very highly realized teacher.” It all comes down to we need to work with our own mind. We need to transform our own mind and forget this stuff.  

With this particular one, it can happen that sometimes people come and say, “Oh, the teachings are so wonderful. You’re a Buddha! This place is like a pure land. All your students are bodhisattvas. I’m sure you’re a Buddha! Your teachings are just so wonderful.” Sometimes people have a lot of faith and enthusiasm and things like that, and they mean well, but they’re praising you in a way that’s like: “Oh, that teaching was wonderful. It was good. You must really have some great realization.” And at the beginning, while you knew very plainly and clearly that you hadn’t realized anything, with all these people telling you “Oh, this is so good. Surely you must have this,” then you’re like, “Well, maybe I do.” All these people are saying, “Oh, you’re so compassionate. You’re so patient. You’re so this, you’re so…” You think, “Oh, well, yes, maybe I have that path of accumulation at least, or higher than that…” 

You must be very careful when students get exuberant. When they’re saying all these kinds of things, sometimes it’s very difficult to handle. You don’t want to say “thank you” because that gives them the impression that it’s true, which would be breaking this precept—saying thank you, and giving them the impression that it’s true. Sometimes, if you say, “Oh, that’s not true, that’s not true,” then they go, “Oh, yes, it is. You’re just being modest.”  Then it’s: “Oh, God, leave me alone.” You have to figure out a good way to handle it. Sometimes, it’s just best you ignore it and change the topic. Because sometimes it can be a little bit crazy.  

As for the motivation, no jealousy is involved. If it were, then it would be the first transgression—praising oneself or belittling others, which is motivated by attachment and jealousy, not the present fault. Consequently, this transgression must occur under the influence of an affliction other than attachment and jealousy.

Because if you do it under the attachment or jealousy, it’s the first one.

The transgression is incurred when someone actually understands what we say. If the other person does not really hear or fails to grasp the meaning of our words, the misdeed is not complete. If we have vows [ethical restraints] for individual liberation, as well as the bodhisattva vows [ethical restraints], we in fact commit two major downfalls and thereby transgress both kinds of [ethical codes]. 

Although Acharya Shantideva in his ‘Compendium of Trainings’ specifies falsely claiming to have realized emptiness directly, from this we can infer that pretending to have other realizations such as spontaneous bodhicitta, renunciation, meditative serenity, or a direct vision of our tutelary deity also implies accomplishing this transgression.

So, it’s saying, “I had a realization. I saw Tara. I’m sure I’ve realized bodhicitta”—these kinds of things.  

Now, it does happen that some days we have a very strong experience of a particular lamrim meditation. You’re doing the meditation or something’s happening, and clearly, it’s like, “Whoa!” and you have a very strong experience of something. That doesn’t mean you’ve attained a stable realization. But you rejoice that you’ve had this strong experience. Because it shows you that your mind is getting somewhere. It gives you a taste of what it’s like to actually have that experience. So, that’s really good. It gives us something to see: “Oh, I’m getting somewhere. Wow! When you really feel renunciation, bodhicitta, or emptiness, wow! It really changes how you look at things!” Even though you can’t sustain that understanding, that experience, just knowing that you had it is good. But from there you don’t go and say, “I’ve realized x, y and z.” Okay?  Because to say “I’ve realized it,” you really need to have some kind of ability to concentrate on it and to hold it in your mind for some period of time. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have. The experience comes. It’s there, and then it’s gone. It’s still very good. You rejoice at it because you can see “Oh, I’m getting somewhere. This is actually possible.”

If you look at somebody like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he’s continually humble. He doesn’t go around talking about “I’ve realized this, and I’ve accomplished that”—not at all. If you look at the really good teachers, they’re all similarly very humble like that. So, if they are proclaiming their realizations in front of an audience, be quite suspicious. If you are talking privately with your teacher, it could be a whole different situation. But a public thing is, in the Buddhist world, not well looked upon in general, unless there are some very strong specific reasons.  

The four reliances

Here’s where the four reliance’s come in. Remember I said I wanted to talk about those? The four reliance’s really help us hone in on what is important. I’ll say the four reliance’s and then go back and explain them. The first one is:

Rely not on the teacher, but on the teachings.

And then second is:

Rely not on the words of the teachings, but on the meaning.

Third is:

Rely not on the interpretable or provisional meaning, but on the definitive meaning.

And fourth is:

Rely not on a conceptual realization of the definitive meaning, but on a direct non-conceptual realization.  

The first one, where it says, “Rely not on the teacher but on the teaching,” you might go, “Why rely not on the teacher? There is this whole chapter at the beginning of the lamrim about how to rely on your teacher. So, why are they telling me this and that?” What it’s meaning there, when it says don’t rely on your teacher but on the teaching, it means don’t get all hung up on the personality of your teacher. Don’t think that your teacher is the personality and that whole little thing that I was just talking about, “Oh, my teacher is so wonderful. My teacher did this. My teacher did this. I’m sure he’s a holy being.”  Some people get so into that, but then they don’t listen to the teachings very carefully.  

I’ve noticed, when I travel, and I travel a lot, that I’ll go to different centers, and people will tell me about Venerable so-and-so, or Geshe so-and-so, or so-and-so Rinpoche who was there: how funny they were, and how astute they were, and how they really said exactly the things the students needed. How they got everybody fired up. How inspiring the teaching was.” Then you ask, “And what did they teach?” And the people go, “What did he teach?” And it’s amazing. They can’t remember the teachings because they were so caught up in the personality of the teacher. We don’t want to be like that. You get all caught up in the personality. Then, when your teacher is not there or when your teacher dies, then what do you do? You really have to pay attention to the teachings. If we’re going to talk in the chai shop, talk about the teachings. Try and discuss the teachings with our friends so that we come to a correct understanding of them. Go back and forth with, “What does this really mean? And what does this mean? And I heard this, and you heard that,” and so on. Try and really understand the teachings. That’s what it’s talking about there. 

“Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the meaning.” What that means is: don’t get all hung up about whether the teaching was delivered in a very eloquent way, with a lot of meaning and eloquent words and gestures, and the teacher being really articulate, and lots of examples, and knowing the right time to crack a joke to ease everybody up, and this kind of thing. Don’t get hung up on the words. Don’t just pay attention to the words but actually try and understand what the words mean. What do the words refer to? 

The first time we hear teachings, we are definitely trying just to get the words. Sometimes the vocabulary is new to us. The way the words are put together to communicate certain concepts is completely new to us. So, at the beginning, we’re just trying to get the words. We shouldn’t stop at knowing the words and being able to repeat the words. We should actually think about what the words mean and meditate on the meaning. We have hearing, and then critical reflection, and then meditation. So, don’t just hear the words and remember them—really discuss them, think about them, apply some critical reflection so that you can make sure you understand the meaning properly. Rely not on the words but on the meaning.  

And then, “Rely not on the interpretable or provisional meaning, but on the definitive meaning.” What this means is that when the Buddha taught to different audiences, he said different things. He was an incredibly skillful teacher. He knew, like with some people, you can’t just tell them the way it is right away—you must say something else to lead them in the right direction. 

It’s like if you have a little kid and you’re going on a cross-country trip. You don’t say, “We’re going to drive 3,000 miles in the car to get there,” because your kid is going to go, “Ahhhhh! I don’t want to sit in the car for 3,000 miles. Ahhhhh!” So, what do you do? You say, “Oh, we’re going to go to Spokane.”  Then the child thinks, “Oh, goody, we get to go to Spokane.” And you get the kid to Spokane, and they enjoy Spokane. Then it’s: “Now we’re going to go to Montana.”  And the child’s response is: “Oh, goody.” You do this and slowly extend the vision. The Buddha was like this when he taught.  

There were some people that if he told them right away that phenomena don’t have even a tiny instance of inherent existence, they would totally freak out and say, “Ahhhh! Nothing exists whatsoever, ohhh!” So, the Buddha didn’t say that to everybody. To some people he just said, “Look, there is no permanent, part-less unitary person, permanent unitary independent person. There are none like that.” And that’s good.The person understands that. Later he says, “Oh, and there are no self-sufficient substantially existent persons.”  The person thinks, “Oh, okay.” The person can understand that. And then he says, “Oh. There are no truly existent phenomena.”  The person thinks, “Oh, okay.” He goes further: “And there are no inherently existent phenomena either.” And the person responds, “Oh, okay.” So, the teacher leads. The Buddha led people in that way, and it’s very skillful. And that’s why they even say that sometimes the Buddha can appear as a non-Buddhist, because even teaching a non-Buddhist path to a specific person could be the best thing for that person at that particular time, and a way of skillfully leading them.  

If you don’t understand this the, when you look at the different scriptures, you may think that the Buddha is contradicting himself. Here he said there are external objects. Here he’s saying there are no external objects. Here he’s saying the mind is truly existent. Here he’s saying it’s not truly existent. You could get very confused.  

That’s why the teachings are divided into what they call either provisional or interpretable. It’s provisional because that’s what the Buddha taught for the time being. Or you could say it’s interpretable because you have to interpret it to understand what the Buddha is really getting at. He’s saying one thing that appears to mean one thing, but actually there is a much deeper meaning, which is what his real intention is. So, you must know how to interpret the teachings to get at the Buddha’s real intention. Then, when the Buddha talks about what he’s really intending, and especially we’re talking about emptiness here, then those are called the definitive teachings. He’s saying very clearly how things are and talking about the deepest level of the ultimate nature. What it’s saying is don’t pay attention to the interpretable provisional ones. Don’t rely just on that but really question and go deeper and try to understand the definitive teachings, which is the emptiness of inherent existence of persons and phenomena. That’s the third one. 

The fourth reliance says, when you’re looking at the definitive meaning, don’t look just with a conceptual mind and be content with a conceptual realization of emptiness. Keep going until you arrive at a non-conceptual direct realization of emptiness. It is that non-conceptual direct realization that is the true path that brings about the true cessation. There you have the last two noble truths, which are the real Dharma refuge. Keep going until you get that non-conceptual realization of the definitive teaching, when you’ve understood correctly, through paying attention to the teachings, by relying on and appreciating the teacher who gives you the teachings.  

16.  Inflicting fines on ordained persons and accepting what has been offered or what was to be offered to the Three Jewels. 

Number 16 from Shantideva says, “Inflicting fines on ordained persons and accepting what has been offered or what was to be offered to the Three Jewels.” Here it says taking gifts from others who were encouraged to give you things originally intended as offerings to the Three Jewels, not giving things to the Three Jewels that others have given to you to give to them, or accepting property stolen from the Three Jewels.  

The sixteenth transgression is acquiring the property of the Three Jewels indirectly, by penalizing an ordained person. It shares certain aspects with the fifth transgression—stealing the property of the Three Jewels. However, there are important differences. The fifth involves stealing the property of the Three Jewels using any possible means, either taking it ourselves or having another person do it for us.

The fifth one is very blatant stealing.

Here, we acquire the goods by indirect means. We use our political or judicial power, for example, to punish ordained people and oblige them to steal. In many monasteries it was a common practice to punish certain mistakes by imposing fines. One can imagine a situation where someone abuses his power to impose a huge fine on a monk, knowing full well that he does not have the means to pay it and that to do so he would have to steal something from the Three Jewels or have a third party do it on his behalf.  

This actually was a common practice in Tibetan monasteries. If you don’t come to morning puja, or if you sleep in, you pay a fine. What they do now is they serve breakfast in morning puja. If you don’t come to morning puja, you don’t get breakfast. When I was in Hamburg with the Western Sangha there, if somebody missed morning puja, when they came to breakfast, they made three prostrations to the Sangha and said, “Excuse me for sleeping in this morning.” Or if people didn’t do their chores or whatever else they were supposed to do, there were penalties. One way they penalized them was making them pay fines. We’re not doing that here but maybe we should. [laughter] 

Let’s say they there’s somebody who has a lot of power and really has a grudge against somebody, so they could impose a very heavy fine on that person, knowing that person couldn’t pay it and putting that person in a situation where they’re going to have to get money somehow. The easiest way to do it is to steal something from the monastery or take something from the altar or do who knows what—whatever people do when they get desperate. This could be somebody abusing the power within the monastery, or it could be a government official interfering and also penalizing somebody at the monastery.  

The scriptures usually illustrate the transgression by kings and their ministers.

So, it’s not the abbots. I will give an example to clarify. A minister who is backed up by his king wants something that belongs to one of the Three Jewels—gems, for example, that have been placed on the altar of a temple as an offering to the Buddha. Like I was saying, sometimes people will come and bring a string of pearls or diamonds or some precious thing and offer them to the Three Jewels.  

So, this king or this minister imposes a huge fine on the abbot of the vihara and threatens him with dire consequences if he fails to pay. Frightened to death, the abbot has one of his monks steal the gems for him and then gives them to the minister, who has thus succeeded in his mission. He then returns to his office and shares the stolen goods with the king. In the event that the king knows where the gems came from and both he and the minister consider that they now belong to them, then they both commit the sixteenth major transgression.

If the king doesn’t know that they were stolen property, it’s a different ball game. Here, you’re not stealing directly, but you’re forcing somebody else to steal. You’re forcing somebody else to create the fifth one, which is stealing from the Three Jewels, and then you’re taking the wealth and using it for your own purposes.  

Now, you don’t know what happened during the cultural revolution. All the people who went into the temples and stole statues and different things but then put them for sale on the market in Hong Kong, we don’t know if any of them had bodhisattva vows or not. Hopefully they didn’t, but if they did, then this is the kind of thing that would happen. Maybe your higher-ups said, “Go steal this, or go destroy the monastery. This is all bourgeois junk, so go destroy these things.” And they told the people to do that. Sometimes the people did it.   

The minister must not impose a fine on more than three fully ordained monks; otherwise, it would be the fifth transgression, taking the Three Jewels’ belongings.

If it was four or more then imposing that fine illegally would be the fifth one, but here it’s three or less, so it’s taking not from the whole Sangha community but from an individual. 

One of the reasons they say that stealing from the Sangha community is so heavy is that there are so many people who are part of the Sangha community. It’s like stealing from all those individuals who are part of the community. Even if you return the thing that you stole, you don’t know if all the people who were there on the day you stole it are still there. It’s hard to actually go to the people whose property it was on that day and apologize and return it to them. Still, you should return things as much as possible. It’s better yet not to take them.  

Also, here when it says, taking gifts from others who were encouraged to give you things originally intended as offerings to the Three Jewels, it means that somebody has something that they’re intending to offer to the Three Jewels, and somebody else encourages them to give it to you instead. It’s like when we do the zung—the mantra rolls—and somebody wants to offer the gold cloth for that. That’s an offering to the Dharma refuge. Then somebody says, “Oh, but so-and-so, they need another robe. Why don’t you give it to that monastic?” If you know the cloth was originally intended as an offering to the Three Jewels, but you take it for yourself because, “Oh, hey, I get a new robe,” then that’s this kind of thing. Because when somebody has the intention to give something to somebody, it’s as if they already did. And especially since the Three Jewels is a very heavy object with which we create karma, then if we take something that was originally designated for the Three Jewels, it creates negativity.  

Audience: If someone gave a gift for one monastery, but maybe they have two of the same, and you give that to another monastery for the Three Jewels…

(VTC): Oh, you mean you have something that you intended to give to one monastery, but then you realized they already, have it? 

Audience: No. The people in that monastery say, “Oh, we have two, we can give these to another monastery.” That decision to gift to another monastery…

(VTC): Okay, so somebody gave a gift to one monastery, and that monastery decides they want to give it to another monastery. It seems to me that that’s fine, because if somebody gave it to you, then it is yours, and then you can give it to another monastery. If somebody gave it to you, and it was for, let’s say to make a robe for the Buddha, but then you gave it to the other monastery and said, “Use it to make a tablecloth,” that wouldn’t be correct. Because it was an offering given for the Buddha. If you give it to somebody else, you should say, “Please use it for the Buddha.”

Audience: On the first part, about the fines—are you saying that it was just for the kings and the ministers? 

(VTC): No. It is very easy for kings and ministers or government officials, presidents and county officials, to do that, but it could also be, let’s say, if the disciplinarian in the monastery is really out to get somebody. 

Audience: So, it’s okay to have the fines in the monasteries? 

(VTC): Well, I don’t know. I mean, the monasteries, that’s how some of them did it. They had these fines.  Well, monastics shouldn’t be having money to start with, so fining people seems rather strange. On the other hand, when you have large monasteries, and you’re trying to get everybody on the same page, and this one wants to do this, and this one… You can see, even as a small monastery, getting everybody to come is hard, so imagine a large one. I’m not supporting this, I’m just explaining. 

Audience: It’s just funny to me that they would have any kind of fines. 

(VTC): Well, this one, it’s not just fining, but making an unreasonable fine that would force somebody to steal. That’s what it is. They would probably just give small fines. But with this one, there is no way the person can afford it. They’re going to have to steal to pay it. They’re abusing. 

Audience: From his commentary, I got that this applies only to when the person you’re getting to steal, like when you’re fining that person, is an ordained person. Are you making that distinction? 

(VTC): Say that again. 

Audience: That the person you’re getting to steal from the Three Jewels… 

(VTC): Has to be an ordained person? 

Audience: Yes, that’s the way I read his commentary. 

(VTC): Yes, he gave that example. The abbot doesn’t know what to do. He tells one of his monks to steal. I don’t think the person who steals has to be a monastic; I think it could be somebody else. 

So, you see, a whole bunch of people are creating a lot of negativity there: the one who steals, the one who told him to steal, the one who gave the unfair fine, the one who told him to give the unfair fine. A whole bunch of people are involved there. 

Audience: This happened a lot in Mexico, in the church, when some architect got into a fix and tried to steal statues and things like that. 

(VTC): They steal them, yes. Well, that’s a very good example. Somebody has been hired to repair, restore some antiques in a temple or a church, and they go in and steal those things. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): Yes, and then just makes something that looks like what it was. 

Audience: [Inaudible]  

(VTC): Yes. You can really see how greed can create so much karma: stealing holy objects and so on. 

Also, with this one, if you’re going on pilgrimage, so somebody gives you some money and says, “Please, use this and make offerings at such-and-such a place for me,” and you don’t do it but keep the money, and do something else with it then that’s stealing from the Three Jewels. Because that money was meant for the Three Jewels.  

As much as possible, even for us, when we think, “I’m going to give something to the Three Jewels,” after a while, we shouldn’t go, “Oh, well, maybe I shouldn’t. Actually, I’d rather keep it. I don’t want to make a hundred-dollar donation. I’ll make a fifty-dollar donation” when you had already, kind of in your mind, settled upon something. It’s always better to think, “I’m thinking about giving this much,” not “I’m going to,” and then changing your mind. 

17.  Causing someone to give up meditation of serenity and giving the belongings of good meditators to those who recite prayers. Making bad rules that increase monastics’ afflictions or that interfere with their Dharma practice. 

Number 17 is “Causing someone to give up meditation of serenity and giving the belongings of good meditators to those who recite prayers.” This one is also called “Making bad rules that increase monastic’s afflictions, or that interfere with their Dharma practice.” It’s creating bad rules. In this one, part A is causing those engaged in meditation on meditative serenity to give it up by giving their belongings to those who are merely reciting texts. And part B is making bad disciplinary rules which cause a spiritual community not to be harmonious or which takes people away from their Dharma practice.  

The seventeenth transgression has two aspects: enacting harmful laws and taking the belongings of good meditators to give them to those who simply recite texts. In the first case, the object is one to three fully ordained monastics who are good practitioners. The motivation is the desire to harm them. The action consists of establishing a vile rule stating that the monks are not allowed to do meditation retreats for two years, for example, and that they have to take up an occupation that stimulates their afflictions, like politics or business. It deprives the monastics of the possibility of continuing their meditations on serenity and insight and obliges them to get involved in other activities.

So, this is about making bad rules. People came to the monastery to further their practice, and you’re making rules that are taking people away from their practice. You’re making them do things that encourage their afflictions. 

It does happen. Like in the large monasteries in India, they will take turns doing different things. It may be your turn to cook in the kitchen. So, for two years what you do is cook in the kitchen. Or the monasteries might have a hotel. I don’t fully agree with this, but they’ll have a hotel, so you go work in the hotel for the monastery for two years.  The monasteries in south India have fields. So, you go work in the fields.  When the Tibetan monastics went to India as refugees, the Indian government very kindly gave them land. They had no money, and so they had to work the fields. This was a desperate situation. I don’t consider it wrong in that kind of situation.  

But what you did see happen is that people who had more money and made offerings to the monastery didn’t have to go work in the field, and the poor monastics had to. This happens now in terms of offering service to the monastery. If you have money and you make a certain offering, then you don’t have to do it. But I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s fair. Also, I think that people learn things from sharing in the different duties of the monastery. Sometimes it happens that there may be somebody who is very intelligent, but they don’t have much money, and they’re sent off to operate the hotel or work in the kitchen when this is exactly the kind of person that you should really encourage to study, so that they can become a good teacher or a good meditator. But they have their own ways of running monasteries. I don’t really want to comment on that because it’s a different culture, and it’s a different situation when you have thousands of people at one monastery. It’s a very different situation. It’s a different situation when you’re refugees.  

In any case, what we’re talking about is like if we started a rule here at the Abbey of “Well, we want to build Chenrezig Hall. Everybody has got to go out and get a job for the next year, give all your earnings to the Abbey, and then we’ll build Chenrezig Hall.”  If somebody unilaterally makes that decision and imposes that rule on somebody, do you want to do it? [Laughter]  

Audience: So, cutting trees? I’ll probably cut the wrong tree! 

(VTC): It’s making some kind of rule that would really take people away from their practice. Of course there are certain situations that are extreme instances. Or there are certain situations where maybe the community as a whole decides to do something. So, that’s different. This is a particular case of somebody who has been around the Dharma long enough to get somewhere, abusing the power. Remember we were saying last week that you can see that a lot of these had to do with people who were not the newbies but somebody who had been around for a while. 

The second aspect of the transgression is to deprive monastics who are devoted to meditation of their possessions, food and other goods that either belong to them or were intended for them. Instead, they are given to people who merely recite scriptures.

In a traditional society, you’ll see people hanging around the monasteries or around the stupas. You’ll see people reciting scriptures. That’s a very virtuous thing. We do it here on special days. But in the regular monasteries, they memorize all the prayers, they recite scriptures, they recite what they’ve memorized, and it’s considered something virtuous.  

But this is the case where there are other people who are off doing retreat, and they’re really trying to develop serenity and insight, and there are material goods that are designated to them to support them in their retreat. Maybe you’re jealous of them. Or you don’t like them. Or you’re whatever, and you want to interfere with what they’re doing. So, you take the food and so on that was intended for them, or that they already have, and you give it instead to people who are reciting scriptures. That’s not so good because it’s clearly more meritorious if somebody’s actually trying to do the work to get the realizations. We should support the meditators like that, not take their things away and give them to somebody who is reciting.  

Again, the motivation is to harm the meditators. As before, if we dispossess either a monastic who is an arya or four monastics or more, it is the fifth transgression, not this one. For the transgression to be complete, as in all the cases of theft, we must steal something worth at least one unit in the local currency.

I would say we have to steal something at least the value of which the law in that area is going to get involved.  

Finally, if we take good meditators’ belongings but do not give them to those who just say prayers, it will not be this transgression but could be the seventh.

The seventh is: “With regard to a bhikshu or bhikshuni, even with degraded ethics, confiscating their robes, striking them, having them incarcerated, and making them defrock.” If you take something from somebody, and you just keep it yourself, then it’s the seventh one, if the person’s a monastic. But if you take it and then give it to somebody who is reciting scripture, then it’s this one. 

Thus far, we have presented the fourteen transgressions found in ‘Ākāśagarbha Sūtra’ and listed by Shantideva in his ‘Compendium of Trainings.’  The eleventh of the fourteen is equivalent to the first transgression in our list, ‘Praising oneself or belittling others.’  Excluding it, there are thirteen left to add to the four initial transgressions from the ‘Bodhisattva Levels,’ making a total of seventeen. The final major misdeed, which is drawn from the ‘Sutra for Skillful Methods,’ is forsaking the spirit of enlightenment,

In other words, this is forsaking the bodhicitta. That will become our eighteenth bodhisattva vow. 

Any remaining questions? 

Audience: I have a question about one of the others—about teaching emptiness to people who are not prepared. How is that affected by the availability of books and teachings on the internet, and online classes, and things like that? Because you’re clearly not assessing anybody’s ability to comprehend that. 

(VTC): Yes. How does that one about not teaching emptiness to the unprepared relate in this world where so much material is freely available? I’ve been editing Khensur Jampa Tegchok’s book, Insight into Emptiness, and the first few chapters of the book are going through what is samsara, the importance of renunciation, developing bodhicitta, what is refuge, and he says very clearly, “I would feel very strange not teaching this first before teaching you emptiness.” So, the first chapters of the book have that. And I think that’s what he’s doing; he’s giving people some kind of background. In many books, you will find there is some kind of introduction like that. But you can understand that people who are new, who pick up something that is a very complex teaching, and they don’t have the proper background, they get very confused. They may not fall to the view of nihilism, but they do get quite confused.  

Audience: From the person writing it or making the information available, they just need to take steps to make sure that they’ve done their best to prepare. 

(VTC): Right, yes—they take steps to prepare whoever is reading the book. 

Regarding tantric stuff—which this doesn’t concern—the free availability of tantric stuff on the internet is just amazing. Hopefully, if people write books about tantra, and it’s for people with initiations, they should write in the very beginning, “For people with such-and-such an initiation.” Then you have people who don’t have that initiation, but it’s like, “Hey, I want to read this.” Or maybe it’s some completion-stage teaching and they think, “Wow! I want to learn all about this and that and the other thing,” and I don’t know what to say. I personally wouldn’t put that book out. But then other people make different choices for whatever reasons.  

As readers we should be careful, and if we haven’t taken an initiation, don’t read the thing that says for people with such-and-such an initiation only. Be respectful of what the book says. And if we start to read a book, let’s say on emptiness, and we see that it’s way over our head, then go back and read the things that you can understand and put into practice easily. Then, work your way up until you get to the point where you can read the more complicated books. What usually happens is people get so frustrated reading the complicated books, especially because sometimes the terminology is not so easy, that they just put the book down because they can’t understand it anyway.