Auxiliary bodhisattva ethical restraints 25-34

• Discussion of the last three hindrances to concentration
• Not becoming attached to good qualities of calm-abiding
• Understanding how the fundamental vehicle relates to the universal vehicle
• How to relate to non-Buddhist texts
• When it is appropriate to not attend teachings

Gomchen Lamrim 97: Auxiliary Bodhisattva Ethical Restraints 25-34 (download)

Motivation

Let’s begin with our motivation, coming back to the point again and again about the kindness of other living beings.  Our life depends on them and not just the kindness of people we know, but I think especially the kindness of strangers who do all the different jobs in society.  Because of them doing those different jobs, we have the things that we use, and we have access to the services that we need. We may not agree with how all these people work, or what their political ideas are or anything like that. But that is basically irrelevant with the topic at hand, which is their kindness, and our interdependence, and our being the recipient of their kindness.  

When we think like this we don’t say, “But I’ve also been kind to them and they depend on me,” because that too is not related to the topic at hand, nor is their motivation for what they do.  It’s just the simple raw fact that we cannot live on our own, and we depend on others to stay alive.  And I think it’s important to expand it even to include the kindness of the people who harm us or threaten us because those people are providing us with opportunities to practice the Dharma that the people who are overly kind to us don’t provide us. Those people who harm us are kind in the sense of giving us the opportunity to cultivate fortitude, to cultivate patience, to see how judgmental we are and to start to counteract our judgmental mind. Those people who will harm us also show us how attached we are to worldly things.  Doing so, they really do us a great favor, because we have to detach our mind from the exaggeration and attachment to worldly things if we want to attain liberation and full awakening.  

When these people point out to us all of our false expectations and so on, they’re really doing us a service. Of course, it may be painful for us to see our attachment and our expectations, but it gives us the opportunity to banish them, to counteract them. And that is incredibly important if we want to progress along the path, and even if we want to just be happy in this lifetime.  Spend a minute and try and think of the kindness that is all around you at any particular moment and really feel that.  Then, as a way to repay that kindness or to pay it forward, however you want to look at it, let’s recall our own potential to become fully awakened Buddhas and have a determination to really actualize that potential. Repaying the kindness of others doesn’t mean that we become a people-pleaser; it doesn’t mean that we do everything they want us to do. It means that we do what is best for them in the long term. Clearly, our ability to gain realizations is something that would really be beneficial for everybody if we were to gain those realizations.  With that kind of perspective, let’s share the Dharma together this evening. 

25.  Not abandoning the five hindrances to meditative stabilization.

Last week we were in the middle of talking about the bodhisattva precepts: the precepts that guide somebody who is intent on attaining full awakening motivated by love and compassion and altruism. We had reached the part of the precepts that regard the fifth of the six perfections, that of meditative stabilization. Within that, we were in precept number twenty-five which was:

Not abandoning the five hindrances to meditative stabilization.

We talked about the first two: sensual desire and running after beautiful sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches—our obsession with sense phenomena.  And we talked about the second one: ill will and malice—wanting to seek revenge or to harm others.  

Lethargy and sleep

Then the ones we’re at right now are lethargy and sleep.  It’s sometimes translated as “dullness and drowsiness,” but we go with the Sanskrit words, the ones we’re the most familiar with, so it comes up “lethargy and sleep.”  Lethargy is a non virtuous mind.  It’s a very heavy mind, a dull mind that can’t focus, that can’t do anything useful.  You may have it from time to time, or you may have it a lot.  But especially when we’re meditating and we’re trying to develop concentration, the mind afflicted by lethargy is just heavy. It can’t focus, and that lethargy leads to sleep, which is why they’re put together as one, so even though they are two different mental factors they’re considered one of the hindrances.  

Sleep

Sleep is when the consciousness withdraws from sense objects. Of course, we need sleep to stay healthy and so on, but sleeping in the middle of meditation is not the time to do it.  It’s interesting to see how lethargy and sleep come up even when you’re not meditating.  I’ve noticed that whenever I’m sitting in the front row of one of my teacher’s teachings where everybody can see me, that’s where I have an attack of lethargy and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. It always happens then—right when other people can see me, right when my reputation is at stake.  You just get used to saying goodbye to your reputation as you’re sitting there with your head drooping.  You know that one?  I know you know that one, I see you.  

Lethargy

Lethargy is when we’re fading, and sleep is we’re gone.  To counteract those, doing prostrations is very helpful, not only because it gets your body going but because it helps us to purify any negative karma that may be causing this kind of lethargy.  Because it doesn’t matter how many hours you slept before, it has no relationship to your body being tired.  It’s just a self-centered mind having a fit and playing with us in a very unproductive way.  So, prostrating to purify the karma is very helpful as is taking long walks, looking out into the sky, being in a lighted room.  It’s especially helpful to keep your eyes a little bit open when you’re meditating.  It’s always advised not to close your eyes completely unless they do that naturally.  But if you keep them a little bit open—they’re focused down but you’re not really looking at something—the light coming in helps to keep your mind alert.  

Otherwise, pouring cold water on your head before you sit down works.  I think I told you about Lama Yeshe putting a small water bowl on the heads of the young monks.  It might be good to try that in the meditation hall.  You start to nod and it falls off, and that’s when you use your afflictions to your advantage.  Your attachment to reputation is gone because the bowl fell off and you’re so embarrassed that it helps you to stay awake.  That’s using afflictions in a productive way.  Another alternative happens with breathing meditation: when you exhale, imagine exhaling the lethargic mind in the form of smoke that then evaporates, and when you inhale imagine the air is a very brilliant light, and that fills your body and mind.  

Restlessness and regret

Then the next hindrance is also two that are often translated as restlessness and regret, but restlessness, the Sanskrit word, is the same word that is often translated as excitement or agitation, which is one of the faults in Maitreya’s way of talking about the faults that interfere with meditative stability.  

Restlessness

So, we can call it restlessness or excitement or agitation.  It’s the mind that is inclined towards attachment and is restless or excited or agitated and looking forward to some nice pleasurable experience it can grasp on to.  There is very gross restlessness where you are actively daydreaming and thinking about something nice that you want where your mind is off the object.  Then there’s a subtle kind of excitement or restlessness where you’re still on the object but you can feel underneath there’s some movement.  The mind is starting to move and get restless, and if you don’t take care of it, pretty soon you’re going to be off your meditation object and on to an object that you want or wish for.  

Regret

Then regret is a kind of remorse.  Usually, we think of regret as regretting our non virtuous actions.  So, there it is, one of the four opponent powers.  Then we wonder, “But wait a minute, if regret is something good, then how come it’s one of the hindrances to concentration?” The answer is because that’s not the time you should be regretting things.  You regret things when you’re doing purification practice; when we’re trying to develop concentration, that’s not the right time.  So even though that type of regret is virtuous, it’s still a hindrance to concentration—let alone the kind of regret where we regret our virtuous deeds, which is non virtuous regret.  You can see that the thing that’s similar between restlessness and excitement and regret is that both of them are quivering in some way.  They’re going off to some other object and the mind is not peaceful at all.  Even though the regret is virtuous, it’s taking you away from the object; it’s getting you involved in another mental state. Your mind is shaking in some way; it’s not like a still lake.  That’s why it’s considered a hindrance here.  

Doubt

The last one is doubt, the last of the five hindrances.  We talked about that this morning.  It’s basically the same, but here especially we start doubting the method to gain concentration.  This morning, we were talking about doubt in general—it could be doubt about emptiness or bodhicitta or whatever.  Here it could include those others but it’s really more pertaining to: “Is this the right method?  Am I doing it correctly?  What’s going on here?” So, the mind is not very clear about the instructions to follow.  We have to go back and really learn the instructions and have a clear idea of what we’re supposed to do.  That’s why it’s important to hear teachings before going off and doing retreat. If we don’t have the instructions, we haven’t practiced them and we’re sitting there trying to develop samatha, it’s going to be torture because we’re not going to know how to deal with these various hindrances nor will we always be able to identify the hindrances.  We study them, we know what to look out for and we know how to oppose it. 

26.  Seeing the good qualities of the taste of meditative stability and becoming attached to it.

Twenty-six is also about the perfection of meditative stability.  Here it’s:

Seeing the good qualities of the taste of meditative stability and becoming attached to it.

That’s what we want to abandon.  This is specifically for somebody who has made progress and maybe who has actualized serenity and is in the process of getting attached to the bliss or the feeling of equanimity that that brings. So, they are not developing renunciation of all of samsara, not developing the wisdom that will liberate us.  That’s something they always warn us about.  After we attain serenity or even some of the dhyanas in the form realm, there’s four kinds of afflictions or mistakes that we can make that interfere with our concentration once we’ve gotten somewhere with our meditation.  

Being attached to the joy of serenity

The first one is being attached to the joy of serenity or of dhyana—what I just spoke about.  You just feel good.  When you read the description in the sutras, it’s like your body is drenched in bliss; that’s how they describe it.  Your body mind is completely drenched in bliss, and you get attached to that.  If you do, that becomes a hindrance to your further meditation because you become stuck there.  And if you become stuck there and you don’t develop more in terms of renunciation or wisdom, then in the next life you get born as a being in a realm that corresponds to the realm of concentration that you developed.  That was one hindrance.  These are hindrances to stabilizing and maintaining our concentration. 

Arrogance

The second one is our old friend arrogance: “I’ve attained serenity, I’ve gone through the nine stages.  In fact, I’ve even gone beyond that and I’m into the dhyanas now.  Aren’t I fantastic? Have you generated even the first or second of the nine stages?” With arrogance, we get puffed up about our attainment and that’s completely useless because basically concentration is a worldly attainment.  Concentration alone does not liberate us from samsara.  It’s good to have because it enables us to meditate on everything else with much more stability and makes our meditation more effective, but there’s nothing to get arrogant about in terms of generating it. 

Ignorance that mistakes whatever level of concentration that we’re at for liberation

The third factor that is a hindrance for stabilizing and maintaining our concentration once we have it is the ignorance that mistakes whatever level of concentration we’re at for liberation.  They say this is one of the pitfalls that the non-Buddhist practitioners fall into.  You are experiencing this bliss, you’re very concentrated and you think, “Now I’ve attained liberation.  I’m feeling so good, liberation could not possibly be better than this.” So, you mistake it for liberation and again you don’t cultivate renunciation or the wisdom realizing emptiness.  

Wrong views

The fourth hindrance is wrong views.  You’ve attained serenity or one of the dhyana stages, and your mind is just full of wrong views.  So again, you stay stuck.  You don’t generate renunciation; you don’t generate wisdom or bodhicitta or anything else because your mind is just stuck in wrong views.  We hear stories of Milarepa: he generated very high levels of concentration before he became a Buddhist, but he used those states of concentration to cause problems for the people who harmed his family.  It’s a very good example.  You can get that kind of concentration but if you lack good ethical conduct, it gets misused and it becomes a cause for suffering.  

Okay, so those are the ones that we want.  There’s four of them that apply to the perfection of meditative stability.  Now we go on to the ones to eliminate obstacles to the perfection of wisdom or to far-reaching wisdom and there’s eight.  The first five of those eight have to do with our relationship with the Fundamental Vehicle teachings.  

27.  Abandoning the scriptures or paths of the Fundamental Vehicle as unnecessary for one who is following the Mahayana. 

Number twenty-seven is:

Abandoning the scriptures or paths of the Fundamental Vehicle as unnecessary for one who is following the Mahayana.

This is a wrong view.  It becomes a hindrance to developing wisdom because we think, and we also say, that the scriptures or the paths of Fundamental Vehicle have nothing to do with us as Mahayana practitioners, because we are practicing a superior path, and we shouldn’t read their scriptures or practice anything in them.  And that is completely wrong because if you look, so many of the lamrim teachings in the initial level practice and the middle level practice, all of those teachings come from the Fundamental Vehicle.  So, it’s very important to study those teachings and not just say, “Well, they’re from the Fundamental Vehicle; I don’t need them, I’m going directly to the advanced practice of bodhicitta and doing the six perfections.” No, we need to practice those teachings ourselves.  

Second of all, even if we have the bodhicitta, we need to learn those teachings because we’re going to meet people whose disposition is to follow the Fundamental Vehicle, and we need to know those teachings in order to teach those people.  Bodhisattvas need to know and practice a lot of different things so that they can benefit all the different kinds of sentient beings who have different dispositions and different needs and so on.  What it’s saying there is essentially rooted in a positive way.  We should respect the scriptures and paths of the Fundamental Vehicle, learn them and practice them ourselves.  The only thing we don’t practice in the Fundamental Vehicle is renunciation seeking only our own liberation.  That’s the only thing we don’t go with.  

28.  Exerting effort principally in another system of practice [here meaning the Fundamental Vehicle] while neglecting the one that you already have, the Mahayana. 

Number twenty-eight is:

Exerting effort principally in another system of practice while neglecting the one that you already have, the Mahayana. 

The previous one was you gave up the Fundamental Vehicle and just practiced Mahayana.  Here, you’re giving up the Mahayana and practicing Fundamental Vehicle.  While we study and practice things from the Fundamental Vehicle, it’s very important that we give priority to the study and practice of the Mahayana.  There’s no fault in studying and practicing Fundamental Vehicle.  It’s very useful.  It’s the Buddha’s teachings.  But even when we’re doing that, we should give priority to our Mahayana practice.  The reason why is because if we just give up the Mahayana practice completely and do Fundamental Vehicle study and practice, then our bodhicitta becomes endangered because we aren’t bodhisattvas yet.  

So, if we start doing a practice where there’s no mention of bodhicitta, we stop thinking about it.  We start making progress on that path and then we start thinking, “Well, my own liberation is more important than others’ liberation so I’m going to stick with this vehicle and become an arhat and forget the bodhisattva path.” That is very dangerous.  We say everybody has the Buddha potential, everybody can become fully awakened, but if you enter the bodhisattva vehicle directly you attain Buddhahood more swiftly, which means that you can benefit other sentient beings more quickly; whereas if you attain arhatship first you may get to arhatship quickly and get out of your own samsara, but to get from arhatship to full awakening takes you a really long time.  

You’re so blissed out in your meditative stability—your concentrations on wisdom, and on nirvana—that it’s kind of tug of war to get you to come out of your meditation and start to think about the kindness of other sentient beings, repaying their kindness, exchanging self and others, and doing all those meditations to generate bodhicitta.  It really slows you down in terms of attaining full awakening if you become an arhat first.  It slows us down.  But the thing about that is, it means all the people that we can benefit from don’t receive the benefit as quickly because we’re sitting there in our meditative stabilization.  Maybe you’ve even been born in Sukhavati, but your lotus is closed.  It’s difficult to benefit anybody like that.  

29.  Without a good reason, exerting effort to learn or practice the treatises of non-Buddhists which are not the proper object of your endeavor.

Number twenty-nine is:

Without a good reason, exerting effort to learn or practice the treatises of non-Buddhists which are not the proper objects of your endeavor.

We can study non-Buddhist philosophy if we already have a firm grasp on Buddhist philosophy.  If our knowledge and understanding of Buddhist philosophy is not so firm, if our conviction is not so firm, then to run around and study all sorts of other different philosophies could even endanger our refuge.  Because you meet some other philosophy that sounds so great and so easy—especially when you go to the new age newspaper and the special $99. 99 bargain path to enlightenment—then you start practicing that and you go way, way off.  

Before we really start studying other philosophies and other paths, we should have a firm understanding of our own path and conviction in it.  Then after that, it can be very helpful to study other paths.  Because then, when you study other paths, you can compare the philosophy.  This path says this, Buddhism says this: which one makes more sense?  Which one is supported by reasoning?  At that point it can actually help you deepen your confidence in the Buddha’s teachings.  Because by that time you’ve done all this thinking about the different paths, so you know how to think in an intelligent way.  This morning, I was talking about how first we figure out what makes us feel good and then we find the sutras and philosophy that substantiate that.  If we’re kind of doing that, studying other philosophies is not very helpful because maybe it just shakes us up emotionally and it feels so good, then we invent all sorts of other ways about why it’s really excellent, but we aren’t thinking clearly.  We haven’t learned how to think clearly.  

When we start doing the text on Thursday night about debate, it really teaches us how to think clearly about things.  And that’s one of our problems as sentient beings: we don’t know how to think clearly.  I think this morning I gave you an example of a bad syllogism: “Your belief is wrong because it’s different than mine.”  Many people think that.  “Your belief, your philosophy, is wrong because it’s different than mine.”  Or they might think, “What you’re doing is wrong because it’s different from how I would do things.”  So many people think that!  Because we all think we’re right, but is that a reasonable argument?  That somebody else’s belief is wrong simply because it’s different than ours.  That’s a ridiculous argument.  There’s no pervasion.  Being different from our beliefs does not make somebody else’s wrong or bad or anything like that.  We have to think and see that’s totally illogical; that’s not a syllogism that even makes sense.  

Like in the Wall Street Journal article, His Holiness says, “Just quoting scripture is not a good reason to believe something.  There has to be something worthy in it.  Otherwise, you come to Jim Jones again.  ‘Oh, Jim Jones’ philosophy is fantastic because it’s written in the scriptures he refers to.’”

You remember Jim Jones?  He was some leader back in the 70s or 80s?  He had this group, and he told all the people to kill themselves, so they all drank poison. They were following the guru’s instructions and he had some ability to see something, who knows.  So, all these people killed themselves.  It was a tragedy that happened somewhere in Latin America—Guyana.  So, you can’t just say, “Well, the guru said so” or “The scriptures said so.” So many people died.  There was even one Congressman who had gone down there to investigate what he was doing because some of his constituents had fallen under this guy’s sway, and he wound up getting killed.  It was horrible, horrible.  

Let’s get back to where we were here:

Without a good reason exerting effort to learn or practice the treatises of non-Buddhists, which are not proper objects of your endeavor.

It is important that we know others’ views because as we know in our tradition, we discuss and we debate a lot so all of that is quite important.  But we shouldn’t study them more than we study Buddhist works, and we shouldn’t prefer them more than we study the Buddha’s teachings.  But it is very good to understand them.  Also, in terms of interreligious dialogue, which we all know is so important in this day and age, it’s very important; we can learn other people’s beliefs. 

I remember going to a conference many years ago called “Nuns of the West.” It was Benedictine nuns and some Buddhist nuns; we had one Hindu nun.  There were really useful conversations. And the conversations we have with Sister Leslie and Sister Nancy—and then one of our community members went to Gethsemane last Autumn—these kinds of things are very, very useful because they help us to see the common points in different religions.  Showing that ability to listen and discuss and respect other faiths is a very important thing to show the general public, because the general public usually thinks of conflict and conflicting faiths and war because you have different beliefs.  But when all religions act together in the name of peace, that is a very, very strong message.  So, we need to learn from each other and express a united view.  

30.  Beginning to favor and take delight in the treatises of non-Buddhists although studying them for a good reason.

Then thirty:

Beginning to favor and take delight in the treatises of non-Buddhists although studying them for a good reason.

Twenty-nine was you’re studying them for not a good reason, which is just your mind being fickle and going to the spiritual supermarket: “I’m a Buddhist but I want to learn all these twenty-nine.  I want to learn all these other philosophies, they may be really good. I want to go sample all however many different flavors of different religions there are.” If you have that kind of mind, you haven’t really taken refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.  

Thirty is when you’re studying those things for a good reason, but you begin to favor them over what you’re already studying.  When we study non-Buddhist texts and treatises and so on, we do it not for our own spiritual enrichment, so that we can practice those things, but in order to help other sentient beings.  Because if we learn the philosophy of other sentient beings, then we know how to relate to those people.  With some people, if they’re very interested in Buddhism and we understand their philosophy, we might be able to show them the weak points in their philosophy, which helps them gain confidence in the Buddha’s teachings.  But there’s other people that have their religion and it’s really benefiting them, so if we know their philosophy we can encourage them to keep the ethical conduct that they’re already being taught in their own religion.  

That’s what you see His Holiness the Dalai Lama doing.  He goes to talk to a Christian group, and he talks like he’s a Christian.  He said, “You should see all living beings as created in God’s image, and you love God, so love what’s divine in all these other living beings and don’t harm them and benefit them.” He knows that he can teach accordingly, so he doesn’t go in and say, “All you guys, you should really become Buddhists.” That’s not very helpful to other people.  You see this when he has interfaith dialogue; I received some pictures years ago of His Holiness Dalai Lama wearing a kippah at the Wailing Wall.  When I was in Delhi a couple of years ago for a conference, there were many different faiths and there were some Sikhs there and some Jains there, and he was wearing the hats that they wear, the different things they wear.  So, he goes and participates, and he is completely cool with all that.  He’s fine with that, other people are fine with it and yet of course, his refuge doesn’t waver at all.  It’s really sweet when you see them mark his forehead with the orange.  

31.  Abandoning any part of the Mahayana by thinking it is uninteresting or unpleasant.

Then thirty-one:

Abandoning any part of the Mahayana by thinking it is uninteresting or unpleasant.

If you’ve already thought about bodhicitta, and if you think about bodhicitta, how can you not have aspiration for it?  How can you not admire what bodhicitta is?  You’re going in the Mahayana direction, and then after a while you say, “You know, this is really uninteresting.  I hear about bodhicitta again and again—bodhicitta, bodhicitta. I want to hear about something different.” Or it’s unpleasant and your mind shifts: “Oh, bodhicitta, I should treasure others more than myself?  Uh-uh, forget it.” If we do that then clearly that’s going to adversely affect our practice in this life and for many future lives.  

Here there are a few different things that we could do.  This one is involved in distrusting: you’re losing your faith in the Mahayana:

1. You start to reject the possibility of generating the wisdom realizing emptiness by practicing the Mahayana.  If you reject that possibility, you’re a goner.
2. Thinking that the Mahayana doesn’t increase our merit.
3. Thinking that it’s not the Buddha’s teachings.  This is a very common one.  Here I refer you to Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, he goes into this in chapter 4, I believe, to a great extent, proving the validity of the Mahayana scriptures.
4. Thinking that the Mahayana is useless for sentient beings.  How could you think that it’s useless for sentient beings?  

But people have all sorts of ideas.  Sometimes you hear these things like, “How could somebody think Mahayana is useless?  How can somebody think it doesn’t increase your merit?  How could they think that you can’t realize emptiness?” But then you live long enough, and you find people who believe that who think that way.  It’s really kind of shocking, because you read about it here, you say, “How could anybody think that?” And then you meet people who think that.  Even if we’re not able to accept everything about the Mahayana—like you read about the perfection of generosity and giving your body, or you read about emptiness and it’s a little bit too much for you or even if you can’t accept everything at this particular time—then at least keep an open attitude.  And don’t shut it off and don’t just kind of say, “This isn’t for me, and it’s hogwash.”  You can see if you really spend some time thinking about these and thinking about how they could happen in your own mind and then think about the disadvantages: what happens if I were to let my mind go in that direction and be filled with all sorts of mistaken attitudes and wrong views?  Then what kind of problem does that bring me?  What’s the disadvantage of doing that?  It’s quite important to think about that.  

When you think about that, you understand why there are these precepts here to guide us.  Because if we don’t think about the disadvantages, we could look at some of those and say, “It sounds like we’re biased towards Mahayana,” so we could even criticize the precepts if we don’t understand the disadvantages of doing the actions that they’re telling us to avoid.  

1. It’s not possible to attain the wisdom realizing emptiness by following Mahayana.
2. It doesn’t increase our merit.
3. It’s not the Buddha’s teachings.
4. That it’s useless for sentient beings.  It’s just imagination.  You’re just imagining those kinds of things.  It’s totally useless to think that this happens.

All of this is regarded as putting down the Mahayana for some reason or another.  

32.  Praising yourself or belittling others because of pride, anger, and so on.

Now, we have some other interesting ones that are interfering with our practice of far-reaching wisdom.  Number thirty-two:

Praising yourself or belittling others because of pride, anger, and so on.

We’ve gone through the five above that have to do with our relationship with other philosophies and then all of a sudden it switches to this one that sounds almost like the first root one.  The difference between this one and the first root one is the first root one was praising yourself and disparaging others out of attachment to respect and offerings.  With that one, the root precept is wanting to make yourself into a great guru, so you praise yourself and you put down others because you want all the trappings of being a great guru without actually being one.  You want the respect and the offerings.  Here it’s doing the same action, but the motivation is different.  

This one is pride; this one is thinking, “I’m really so great.” It’s like in our bhikkhuni precepts; there’s a root precept which is:

Lying about your spiritual attainments in order to get your requisites.

The first, the root precept, is boasting about having attainments that you don’t have, and the lapse is boasting about attainments that you do have.  The lapse is not as serious, but it’s still a downfall to boast about whatever attainments you have.  It’s similar here:

Praising self and belittling others out of attachment to respect and offerings.

And this is much more serious.  Doing it because you’re proud, maybe you’re proud because you have those attainments so you’re boasting “I have this attainment, that attainment” or whatever.  It’s just because you like to make yourself look good.  Or you might be doing it out of anger. You’re mad at somebody; you want to humiliate them, so you criticize them: “Oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about, they don’t have any realizations.” You’re angry at somebody or you could even be jealous of somebody else. Again, these kinds of things are not so difficult to do.  

Sometimes, we get a little bit too impressed with ourselves, and maybe we don’t brag about attainments because we don’t have any, but we’ll brag about how many empowerments we’ve received, or how many teachings we’ve heard, or how much whatever is something spiritual we could brag about that’s going to make us look good or going just to make us feel good about ourselves.  Maybe we’re not even interested, because in this one we’re not interested in the respect and offerings, but maybe you are just bragging because we like to hear ourselves talk.  And it might also be because we think that we’ll feel better if we brag about things.  All of that is going to be a big hindrance to gaining wisdom, isn’t it?  Because the motivation is corrupt, and we could very easily start lying.  And lying about spiritual attainments is very, very serious.  

I once met one woman who was married to a man who was the leader of some evangelical Christian faith, and she was infatuated with him, too. He had all these powers and attainments, and everybody was following him.  And then it was realized that he was basically lying.  It wasn’t clear whether he knew that what he was saying was false or whether he had some kind of mental imbalance and he thought what he was saying was true.  But in either case it was horrible for the people who were following him.  Because when it came out that he didn’t have these abilities, they lost faith, and their marriage fell apart and the whole thing.  

So, lying about spiritual attainments is not good.  And the Buddha prohibited us even from revealing spiritual attainments that we do have.  That’s what I tell people. If somebody tells you or insinuates that they’ve realized emptiness and they’re close to enlightenment, hold on to your pocketbook. Sometimes I get flyers from people, and they send me their books and publications thinking that I’m going to become their disciple or something. I don’t know what. 

33.  Not going to dharma gatherings or teachings.

Number thirty-three is:

Not going to Dharma gatherings or teachings.

Here it is also out of pride or anger or laziness.  I think this is referring specifically to teachings that your teacher is giving.  It doesn’t mean that you have to go to every Dharma teaching that is happening in the town where you live or in the monastery where you live.  The big monasteries where they have thousands of monks and hundreds of teachers, it doesn’t mean you have to go to everything.  But when your teacher is teaching, this is out of pride thinking, “I know so much; I’ve heard this before.  I’ve mastered this. I don’t need to hear it again.” Or maybe you’re mad at your teacher probably because they pointed out some fault.  And then you’re thinking, “They said this and I’m not going to a teaching tonight because they just bugged me.” Or maybe we don’t go to teachings because we’re lazy: “My little toe hurts again tonight.  You know about the pain I have in my little toe; it just gets excruciating sometimes and so I’m going to stay in my room and go to bed early.  It’ll help my little toe.” It’s all the reasons we come up for when we don’t feel like going to teachings.  

There are some exceptions to that one, which I thought of telling you.

There’s no misdeed if you can’t go because you’re incapacitated by illness.

That makes sense, doesn’t it?  If you’re really sick or you have something contagious, you don’t want to give it to everybody else.  So, you don’t go to the teachings.

We’re unaware that the teaching is being given.

That’s also a good reason. We didn’t know it was happening, so we don’t go.

We suspect that the person conducting the teaching might make mistakes in the explanation.

We’re not so sure about who’s giving the teachings or if they know the teaching well enough to explain it.  We have some hesitancy, so we don’t go.  Another reason for not going that’s okay is:

Not only have we heard the subject explained many times before, but we have also studied it and understood it well.

So, you’re ready to say to whoever’s giving the teaching, “I’ve studied this many times and I understand it well” with the implication that you understand it almost as good as they do, or even better, maybe. 

When His Holiness teaches in India, everybody goes—even the lamas who teach the same text and have taught the same text themselves.  Even if His Holiness is teaching on precious human life, everybody goes.  Another reason:

We’re generally well trained and have already learned almost everything we need to know.

That’s a good reason for not going.  Just check if that’s you.  Next one:

We’re spending our time seriously meditating to achieve a high degree of concentration.

You’re in retreat and you’re doing serious meditation, and it would disturb your retreat.  Or:

For lack of intellectual faculties, we’re incapable of understanding, remembering, and concentrating on what we hear.

We just feel like, “I just can’t understand what they’re talking about.  I can’t remember, I can’t focus on these teachings; they’re way, way above my level.” 

Here’s another one:

There’s no misdeed when we do not go to avoid annoying our spiritual master.  If we suspect that our main teacher would not agree with our going, it is better to abstain.  It is customary when we’re already following spiritual masters to consult them before requesting instruction from another master for the first time.

If you’re already following somebody’s guidance, you don’t just pick up and go to another teacher’s teachings.  You consult with your own teacher and get their permission to do that.  So, if you think that asking that might annoy your teacher or be inappropriate, then you don’t go.  It doesn’t say here that the person giving the teaching has to be your teacher, but I think ordinarily it must be; otherwise, you look in the monasteries in the south and not all the monks go to all the teachings that are being given there.  I think it must have to do with if you’re studying one program and you’re immersed in that and being guided in that then you stick with that instead of bouncing all around. 

Audience: What about not attending teachings because of cost? 

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): That is what makes me so sad.  Clearly, if it costs too much that you can’t afford it then you can’t go.  And this is what breaks my heart about when Dharma centers charge for teachings because it makes it so that not everybody can go.  When the Buddha taught, everybody could go. And the Dharma should be available for everyone, no matter how rich, poor, or whatever else they are.  This is the reason why at the Abbey we don’t charge for anything and when we go out, we don’t charge.  Sometimes we can’t help. Other centers invite us, and we may say to them, “Please don’t charge,” but they don’t listen.  But we always ask them to please not charge.  Or sometimes what they need to do is charge for the room and board, but we say, “Please don’t charge for the teachings.” This makes me very sad when that happens.  It shouldn’t be like that.  

Audience: It seems like a couple of these exceptions could really come up against someone who is just not going out of arrogance.  They could make these exceptions, or they could gloss their arrogance to some of these exceptions. 

VTC: Right, but the thing about karma is, you may think that you’re well trained and know the teaching, but you aren’t. But just thinking that you are doesn’t mean that you’re not transgressing it. 

Audience: I had a question about thirty-two: praising yourself and belittling others because of pride, anger and so forth.  Does that have to be related to spiritual attainments or could that be about mundane things?  Say you get in an argument with somebody, and you say, “Well, I do it this way and you do it that way and you’re wrong.” That’s a simple example on a different level. 

VTC: The first one doesn’t specify.  I think these are done in the context of developing wisdom, so it’s implying that it’s a spiritual situation.  But I think you brought up a very good point that doesn’t mean that praising ourselves and belittling others in other situations is cool to do.  It’s not. 

Audience: It seems like even in a mundane situation you’re interfering with your ability to develop wisdom because you’re just reifying the self in that situation. 

VTC: Yes, for sure. But then everything that we do reifies the self, doesn’t it?  But it’s true; it’s good.  It can only be helpful, whether it’s a transgression or not of the precept, to reflect on other situations where we could behave like that.  And it’s helpful to see that the mind is definitely going to be non virtuous in doing that, whether there’s a precept or not.  I think the context here is implying a spiritual situation, but whenever we get into, “I know the best way to do things and you’re an idiot; you don’t know what you’re talking about,” that’s certainly not good, is it?  That’s not creating virtue; that’s non virtuous speech—called harsh words—right there in living technicolor.  We should also avoid that as well, definitely.  But you’re right; we do that a lot, don’t we? 

Audience: It comes up more often. 

VTC: Maybe we’re still a little bit more humble spiritually, but each of us in our own department thinks,  “I know this department better than other people,” you know? 

Audience: You mentioned Milarepa having developed siddhis due to his high levels of concentration.  And I was wondering if bodhisattvas can emanate, and partially due to their concentration, can non-bodhisattvas emanate? 

VTC: Yes, yes.  When you attain, I think it’s the fourth jhana but some people may say it’s the first jhana—there may be some differences in opinion when we talk about the five or six super-knowledges—the first one is the paranormal abilities, physically.  So yes, people who have concentration, even non-Buddhists, can develop those.  But it’s so important to have the right motivation for doing it; otherwise you can harm yourself and harm others.  

34.  Despising your spiritual mentor or the meaning of the teachings and relying instead on their mere words; that is, if a teacher does not express him or herself well, not trying to understand the meaning of what he or she says but criticizing them.

Thirty-four is the last one on obstacles to the practice of wisdom:

Despising your spiritual mentor or the meaning of the teachings and relying instead on their mere words; that is, if a teacher does not express him or herself well, not trying to understand the meaning of what he or she says but criticizing them.

The way Dagpo Rinpoche described it, this is basically bad behavior around your teacher.  It’s scorning your teacher or refusing to consider them as our spiritual mentor. We don’t pay respect to them properly; we’re impolite and very critical of them. We interrupt them when they’re speaking.  This is especially if we live nearby.  His Holiness often says that there’s very little risk of disparaging your teacher and not treating your teacher properly if it’s a very high lama sitting on a high throne who’s teaching to a big group of people, and you don’t see that teacher every day.  Then those teachers are very easy to have respect for. We’re very humble. We treat them respectfully.  But the ones that are much more difficult for us to behave properly around are the teachers that we see every day.  

I’m sure you’re very familiar with this.  Let me read you from what Dagpo Rinpoche says, and you can see it’s not me saying it:

The second misdeed that is a deterioration of the causes of wisdom is bad behavior towards the person from whom we hear the teachings.  In its first form it is intentionally scorning the person who teaches us the Dharma and absolutely refusing to consider him or her our spiritual guide.  It may also consist of disdaining him physically by not paying our respects (so not bowing) and not serving him or her according to generally accepted custom.

At the verbal level, it involves addressing our teacher impolitely, making fun of them, speaking roughly, being critical, interrupting them, talking at the same time as them and so on.  We are less likely to belittle a spiritual teacher who lives far away from us or who we meet infrequently.  On the other hand, when we see our teacher very often, perhaps even daily, we must be constantly on our guard because we can easily forget who we are dealing with.  If we are not careful, we may begin treating them as our peer and not as a spiritual mentor.  This would result in behavior that would be inappropriate for a student towards their spiritual guide.  We must always try to remember whom we are addressing and make sure to be polite and respectful, rising when our teacher enters the room, for example, and speaking courteously when we have something to say. 

Je Tsong Khapa said in his short lamrim, The Foundation of All Good Qualities: “The kind spiritual masters are the foundation of all good qualities.”  This is true for everybody.  All of our virtue develops with the blessings and support of our spiritual teachers.  Without them, it would be very difficult for us to progress on the spiritual path.  The corollary of this is that a person who correctly relies on a spiritual guide will easily advance.’

In 1954, when I was still living in Dagpo Shedrup Ling monastery in Tibet, I attended teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the lines of experience in his summer palace in Norbulinka.

Wow!  His Holiness was nineteen years old at that time.

During the lectures, when His Holiness was elaborating on the correct manner of relying on a spiritual teacher, I clearly remember him saying, “There’s not much risk in relying on great masters who sit on the high thrones.  The danger lies in our relationships with the spiritual teachers whom we live with or from whom we receive teachings regularly.”

The second aspect of this misdeed is described as relying upon the letter, which means attributing greater importance to the form of the teacher’s explanation than to the content.  This means scrutinizing the master’s words and trying to find weak spots in the style, the presentation and so on without paying attention to the meaning that is being elucidated.

Especially if we are a very articulate person, we could easily criticize our teacher: “They don’t speak clearly. I can’t understand them; they jumble up the different things. They use language that is too simple. They use language that is too difficult. Their examples don’t apply.” We can find a hundred million things to criticize.  The idea here is that being critical or being disrespectful to our teacher hinders our ability to learn the Dharma because then we think of the teacher as “Just kind of ordinary person, just regular old Joe Blow.” Then we think, “They don’t know much more than me, so why should I go? Why should I do anything?” Then we really cut off our ability to learn.  

One nun who I really respect can be incredibly troublesome; she’s one of these people that can be very troublesome.  But she always respects people, even other western monks and nuns who give teachings, and she will go to everybody’s teachings, even to people who are junior than her, let alone people who are senior to her.  And I really respect her for that.  She’s somebody who’s been ordained for a really long time, but she doesn’t say, “Ah, I’m senior to everybody else; I’m not going to that person’s teachings.” She really is quite interested in going and learning from them in whatever way.  I’ve always admired her for that.  

Because many times you find that westerners don’t respect other Western teachers.  It’s like “Well, you grew up with Mickey Mouse just like I did, so you’re not going to know much more than me.” That’s a form of arrogance, and then we really don’t learn from other people.  There are certain situations where somebody may feel embarrassed if you go to their teaching or something like that, so you have to be careful of different situations.  Here at the Abbey, when people lead Thursday and Friday teachings and when people give BBC talks, everybody goes, and you learn from each other.  That’s very good. You support each other, and it serves as a basis to ask each other questions so that everybody learns. 

Contemplation points

Venerable Chodron continued the commentary on the bodhisattva ethical code. Consider them one by one, in light of the commentary given. For each, consider:

1. What happens if you let your mind go in the direction that the precept is guiding you to avoid? What are the disadvantages and problems of NOT keeping this precept?
2. What are the antidotes that can be applied when you are tempted to act or think contrary to the precept?
3. Why is this precept so important to the bodhisattva path? How does breaking it harm yourself and others? How does keeping it benefit yourself and others?
4. Resolve to be mindful of the precept in your daily life.

Precepts covered this week:

To eliminate obstacles to the far-reaching practice of meditative stabilization, abandon:

• Auxiliary Precept #25: Not abandoning the five obscurations which hinder meditative stabilization: excitement and regret, harmful thought, sleep and dullness, desire, and doubt.
• Auxiliary Precept #26: Seeing the good qualities of the taste of meditative stabilization and becoming attached to it.

To eliminate obstacles to the far-reaching practice of wisdom, abandon:

• Auxiliary Precept #27: Abandoning the scriptures or paths of the Fundamental Vehicle as unnecessary for one following the Mahayana.
• Auxiliary Precept #28: Exerting effort principally in another system of practice while neglecting the one you already have, the Mahayana.
• Auxiliary Precept #29: Without a good reason, exerting effort to learn or practice the treatises of non-Buddhists which are not proper objects of your endeavor.
• Auxiliary Precept #30: Beginning to favor and take delight in the treatises of non-Buddhists although studying them for a good reason.
• Auxiliary Precept #31: Abandoning any part of the Mahayana by thinking it is uninteresting or unpleasant.
• Auxiliary Precept #32: Praising yourself or belittling others because of pride, anger, and so on.
• Auxiliary Precept #33: Not going to Dharma gatherings or teachings.
• Auxiliary Precept #34: Despising the Spiritual Mentor or the meaning of the teachings and relying instead on their mere words; that is, if a teacher does not express him/herself well, not trying to understand the meaning of what he/she says, but criticizing.