The precepts for aspiring and engaging bodhicitta

• The benefits and limitations of seeing others as bodhisattvas
• Being honest with your spiritual teacher
• How to give useful feedback by referencing a specific action
• The origin and historical debate regarding the precepts for cultivating bodhicitta
• Explanation of the first four of the 18 root bodhisattva precepts

Gomchen Lamrim 83: The precepts for aspiring and engaging bodhicitta (download)

Motivation

I thought what I would do today for motivation is read the verses for generating aspiring bodhicitta and let that be our motivation for today.

With the wish to free all sentient beings, I take refuge at all times in the Buddhas, the Dharma and the Sangha, until attainment of full awakening. Today in the presence of the awakened ones, inspired by compassion, wisdom and joyous effort, I generate the mind aspiring for full Buddhahood for the well-being of all sentient beings. As long as space endures and as long as sentient beings remain, until then, may I too abide to dispel the misery of the world.

Take a moment and contemplate that and make that our motivation for listening to the teachings this evening.

Review

Last week we talked about aspiring bodhicitta and that there were two ways to do the rite. One was to just generate bodhicitta in the presence of one of your teachers, and that was it, saying those verses. Another was to generate bodhicitta in the presence of one of your teachers and make the promise never to give bodhicitta up. If you do it the second way there’s eight precepts of aspiring bodhicitta that we want to follow because they keep our bodhicitta from degenerating in this life and keep it from degenerating in future lives. 

To protect it from degenerating in this life, remember the advantages of bodhicitta repeatedly and then generate it three times in the morning and three times in the evening, and all the time in between. That’s what we do a lot at the Abbey before our stand-up meeting, before pujas, before offering service, we always do something, one of the verses to generate our motivation, so that kind of thing. Then don’t give up working for sentient beings, even when they’re harmful, to accumulate both merit and wisdom as a support for our bodhicitta to keep it from declining in this life. Because if we accumulate merit and wisdom, we’re enriching our mind so what we’ve generated is not going to fall apart. Whereas if we don’t keep up our practice of creating merit and generating wisdom, that shows that somehow, we’re either complacent or we lack interest in the Dharma, in which case things like our bodhicitta and so on will decline. 

Four things to abandon

Then how to prevent being separated from bodhicitta in future lives: there are four things to practice and four things to abandon and they complement each other. We were going through the four harmful actions to abandon last time.

The first one

Deceiving your guru, the abbot or other holy beings with lies.

The idea being that if we deceive people with lies, it totally breaks the trust. Also, we’re not being transparent or not being honest, so how can people help us? All we’re doing is doing things to create a good impression, spinning tall tales, making people crazy with our deception. 

Here I want to use an example from today’s news. I was wondering if I should tell it to you. It’s so funny except that it’s true. But it’s an excellent example of deceiving people with lies. What do you call it when your talk is ambiguous, when you’re fudging things, and you don’t come out and say it straight? 

There’s a word for it. like prevarication or double talk, sleazy; it’s designed to make people confused.  

I don’t know how many of you know but two weeks ago, one Saturday morning before going to play golf the “Pres.” without his aides or anybody consulting any of those people, made a series of tweets, early morning tweets, that said that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower before the elections and after the elections, after he had won, before he moved into the White House. He offered no evidence for this. Then he went to play golf, and his aides didn’t know what to say. Afterwards of course, there’s this big hoopla because it’s quite severe for one president, saying that another president wiretapped his things. And then there was this big discussion that he didn’t really mean wiretap, he just meant survey, or surveillance, that wiretap was just an example, it was actually surveillance that he was talking about. 

 Again, with no evidence, he asked the FBI to prove it. But of course, the FBI is not a political agency, it cannot do this kind of thing. So, the FBI is having its investigation, the Senate has an intelligence committee, the House has an intelligence committee. Yesterday in fact, I think both bipartisan, both Democrats and Republicans from both the Senate and House Intelligence Committee say, there’s absolutely no evidence that Obama did this. And there was of course, all sorts of discussion that if Obama had done that, he would have had to request it. I don’t know if there’s some kind of court or judge, if you want to wiretap somebody; you can’t just go do it. You have to get a permit from a judge that shows that there was a legitimate reason to do it, that Obama would have had to do that and gotten the permit, and the FBI would know about it. And Comey was enraged about it because it implied that the FBI had done something illegal. And then two other people who worked with the FBI said there was no indication that this happened. 

Then in the last few days, both Democrats and Republicans in the Intelligence Committee in Congress said there’s no evidence that this has happened. Then it comes up in the news and each day there’s some new twist about it that keeps it going. So yesterday afternoon, Sean Spencer, the press secretary or whatever it is, at the podium in the White House, so this official news thing, starts reading an article from Fox News written by some guy. So, what does the news article say? It says, “Yes indeed, President Obama asked that there be surveillance and snooping in Trump Towers before the election and after he won but it wasn’t done by the FBI and there’s no American footprint in this like having a search warrant or something because Obama asked the Great Britain spy agency to do it.” He read this at the podium. So Britain hears about this and the usually staid, composed Brits are going, “This is ridiculous, it should be ignored, there’s absolutely no such thing, it’s totally false.”

“Then, McMaster and some other guy in the cabinet met with the British ambassador and all, that was this morning, I think. They didn’t apologize but Prime Minister May said that they gave assurance that it would not happen again. That it would not be repeated again. That was from Fox News. This is such a perfect example of prevarication and this kind of deceptivity. Then Trump and Merkel are having a press conference, and one German reporter asked Trump about it: “The White House said that it was a Great Britain spy agency, is this true? Trump says, bless his heart, “We only read the article that Fox News published, we did not express an opinion although it was written by a young, very smart attorney. So don’t ask us about it, ask Fox News about it.”

“Can you believe this? “We didn’t say anything, we just read what this guy on Fox News said!” Not their fault, read from behind the White House podium. “But we didn’t make the statement and we’re not expressing an opinion about it.”

This has been the top of the news!

Audience: [Inaudible]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Yes, exactly. Yes, it got the Russian News hour. There was one day where people talked about (maybe two days) what they’re doing to Obamacare and how 24 million people are going to be without insurance. But we don’t want to keep talking about that. And then he gave his budget, which is cutting out programs like Meals on Wheels and National Public Radio and the arts and humanities, Endowment of the Arts, and all these kinds of things because he’s upping the military budget. So then Sean Spicer after this, because some news people said, “Oh, McMaster and whoever it was, they apologized to the British.” Then Sean Spicer says, “We did not apologize to the British!”

Yes. But this kind of obvious deception…

Audience: It’s not smart. 

VTC: Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like, because right after he accused Obama of doing this, people were upset about it. Well, if Obama did this it is of course, very bad. Of course, Obama and other people flatly denied it. But if Obama didn’t do it and the FBI did okay surveillance, then what was Trump doing that they okayed it? He didn’t realize that by saying this statement before playing golf, he was putting himself in this bind. Because either he said something totally untrue, so how are people going to trust him, or he said something true in which case, why were they investigating him? How do you get out of it? He said, “Well, it wasn’t the FBI who surveilled us. It was the British!”

I find that so funny. This man, he’s out to the moon. So, isn’t this a very good example? I mean, he’s not doing it to his guru, abbot, or other holy beings (except maybe there’s some holy beings in America), but he is doing it to everybody in the whole world.  I mean, nobody knows what in the world’s going on. I can just imagine Merkel on her way back to Germany, sitting in the plane going, “Where was I? I thought I was going to America, and I went to Looney Tune Town!”

And he made a joke also at that meeting with the German chancellor because she had said that the US had also been kind of tapping the lines of some of their allies. I think they do that regularly. When the German reporter asked Trump about it, he looked at Merkel and said, “Oh, now we have something in common.” 

Anyway, I thought that that was a very good example of what we’re talking about here. Totally confusing people with lies and deception. If you do something like that, to your spiritual mentor or holy being, look what your mind is doing and how in the world are they going to help you? So, we should do away with this mind that wants to look good in front of other people and wants to cover up our mistakes and just be honest and straightforward. Anyway, that was a long detour, but I thought it was an excellent example.

The second one

Causing others to regret virtuous actions that they have done.

So virtuous actions people do include being generous, being kind, and then ridiculing them, telling them kind of how foolish they were that they could have gotten something for themselves out of it. Instead, they were generous, or they were kind to somebody else, they kept their precepts when it would have been smarter in terms of this life to lie or deceive, or whatever it was. Clearly if you do that also, your mind is not in a good place, it’s not valuing virtue. 

The third one

Abusing or criticizing bodhisattvas or the Mahayana. 

Last week we stopped and talked a bit about this one and the injunction to be careful, better not to criticize anybody because you’re not sure who’s a bodhisattva and who isn’t a bodhisattva. What did you think about that?

Audience: It changes my relationship to these. I’d like to go to them with curiosity, a kind of open-heartedness, a kind of trust. I found it really reassuring and really inspiring, it would change my whole relationship to how to relate to them…

VTC: If you saw them as bodhisattvas.

Audience: … if I saw them as bodhisattvas, and that they’re there specifically to help me, so whether I’m getting praised or getting admonished, it’s to help me.

 Audience: It takes the judge out of them.

Audience: It was helpful for me to kind of know how to do it, because I need something practical. So that to me is a very practical way to work with the mind. 

Audience: For me it brought up the idea to not just whitewash things but to approach someone and have to be able to have the courage to be curious and investigate like, “What’s really going on here?” as opposed to, “I can’t criticize and I’m just going to shut down and ignore what’s going on.” But actually, have the courage to approach someone and say, “This doesn’t feel quite right to me, what’s going on?” or something to that effect. A friend of mine is good at doing that, whereas I’m more hesitant because the confrontation aspect of that doesn’t feel comfortable.

Audience: I was thinking about it in a bigger sense; that after retreat I was hoping that we could talk about this as a group because as you’ve told us, reminded us, monastics are the conscience of society. So what is really needed right now for us to do, especially in this country, and where would we overstep the bounds of what we should do as monastics? Always just asking questions in my mind but feeling the need and hearing the need that we can’t sit back and be quiet, because by being quiet we’re condoning what’s going on. But how to do it in a very skillful way. So, I just have more questions. 

VTC: It seems like there’s a few different approaches that people had. One is to really see the usefulness of it, to calm the mind down from just having proliferations of judgments on people and pulling your mind back from that. Then for other people, it made them think, “Well, how do we deal with situations that don’t look so good without whitewashing them?” “And how do we approach the people involved and say something?” Because if you take this kind of injunction to a real extreme, then you get so you can’t even discern virtue from non-virtue, because you just say, “Well, it all might be enlightened activity. It just looks non-virtuous to me but that’s because I don’t understand that person’s motivation and they’re a bodhisattva and they really have a pure motivation. So, I just shouldn’t say anything because I might be interfering with the deeds of a bodhisattva.”

It gets so you can’t even discern virtue from non-virtue if you carry that to an extreme. So, I think it’s wise to see what is the purpose and how can this kind of technique help you? And also, what are its limits? When do you need to say something where you’re not necessarily criticizing the person, but you’re commenting on the action and just saying “Something doesn’t seem right here” or “Something isn’t right here,” if it’s clearly evident that the action is incredibly harmful to others? Otherwise, you just wind up in in some stupid rant like, “Well, Harry Truman was a bodhisattva so dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was the actions of a bodhisattva. I’m not going to criticize that because I don’t know, maybe he was a bodhisattva.” You get to something ridiculous like that. 

So, it takes a bit of intelligence to look at these kinds of statements and see what is an appropriate response. How can seeing people as bodhisattvas protect me from my own judgment and anger? How must I be courageous to be able to ask questions and to intervene when something harmful is being done? Of course, each individual situation has to be looked at separately, there’s no one easy way in this, is there? It boils down to, I just remember Lama Yeshe saying, “Use your own wisdom, dear.” And so, for us, try to develop our own wisdom. 

I got a letter from one of the inmates that I write to. He’s never said he’s Buddhist, he hasn’t asked me to send a lot of Buddhist material, but he’s very bright and we talk about a lot of different things in the letters. In a previous letter I had written and said, “Everybody wants happiness and to abandon suffering, just like I do.” He wrote back and he said, “You need to help me with this one, I can’t see it.  If you meet the kind of people that I’ve met here in prison, by the actions they do, how could they be wanting to be happy? Because some of them have done the most abominable things, causing suffering to themselves and others. So how can I see them as people who want to be happy and not suffer just like me? I have a hard time with that one.”

But he said, “If I think of them as Bodhisattvas who know my karma and are acting in ways that will trigger things in me, that gives me the opportunity to learn how to control my mind.” In that way he could see them as bodhisattvas who are triggering stuff and helping him to learn how to control his mind. And he said, “If I see other living beings like that, then that is helpful to me.” I thought that that was interesting. It was similar to what you’re saying that they’re giving you opportunities to stop your judgmental mind. But he had a real hard time seeing them as equal and wanting happiness and not suffering which is something that for me is much easier to see. Though it is interesting how different ways help different people because we aren’t all out of one cookie cutter.

So, to continue to think about that, I think your question is a good one. If we don’t speak up, aren’t we complicit in what is happening? 

The fourth one

Not acting with a pure selfless wish but with pretension and deceit.

This one goes very well with the other one of lying. Except here it isn’t, specifically to your gurus and abbots. It’s just in general, you’re pretending as if you have one motivation when you have another.  Instead of acting with a real mind that cares about sentient beings, we’re acting with pretension, which is a mind that pretends to have good qualities we don’t have, and deceit, a mind that pretends that we don’t have faults that we do have. Actually, with pretension and deceit, it’s so easy to do those and in some ways it’s very instinctive with us. 

Whenever somebody sees us doing something that we think we shouldn’t be doing or we don’t want other people to know that we’re doing, our immediate reaction is, “I’ve got to explain myself.” And usually how we explain ourselves is tinged so that this really wasn’t done with a bad motivation. “I really had a good motivation, because I did it like for da-da-da-da-da-da.” But that wasn’t really completely true. You know what I mean? This is very easy, it’s a form of lying. 

And we pretend to have one motivation while we have another, we pretend to be holy while in fact we’re being quite hypocritical or we’re acting in a contrary way, ourselves. So somehow being able to be straightforward. Here’s the whole thing about transparency that we try and cultivate at the Abbey. This thing of transparency to just be open about whatever it is, instead of designing it so it looks better, but just to be open. It really takes a lot of courage because we’re very well habituated with pretension and deceit and so conditioned that we often don’t even realize we’re doing it because it’s just, “Well, that’s what I do.”

Audience: The whole self-image…

VTC: Yes, to expose our faults is, “Oh no, what are they going to think of me?” as if what other people think of us is the most important thing in the universe.

Audience: Another way of responding to the conditioning of this reward and punishment that we live in and all this pretension is to get rewards or to avoid the punishment, which is very real in the outside world. All this deceit has a function, especially in a work situation. You know, if your boss is expecting a certain thing from you, and either you don’t want to do it because you don’t think it’s right, or you haven’t done it or whatever, then the fear of punishment is there, of punishments, probably a few harsh words, or maybe a few threats. But we don’t even want to hear that so let’s redesign the menu. I think it happens a lot in working situations. How do you get a job and keep the job? You have to pretend to have qualities you don’t have and avoid faults, avoid exposing the faults that you do have. 

So, those are the four to abandon, then the four to practice.

Four things to practice

The first one

Abandon deliberately deceiving and lying to gurus, abbots and so forth.

So be straightforward, be honest, admit our mistakes, admit our shortcomings because if we admit those things we are free from the fear of somebody finding out that we did them. When we cover them up there’s always some anxiety inside of us that somebody is eventually going to find out, and then “What am I going to do when they find out?” But if we just say it, we don’t have that fear anymore. 

The second one

To be straightforward without pretension or deceit.

So here, the first one corresponds to the first one to abandon. The second one corresponds with the last one to abandon. I don’t know why they put them in these orders, maybe just to make sure you’re awake, but again, be straightforward without pretension or deceit. 

I was thinking about, was it at the beginning of the fourth chapter where Nagarjuna said to the king,

Everybody’s sweet talks you and nobody tells you the truth because they all want to win your favor but I’m going to tell you the truth?

How he had to say that straight out and direct to the king and then he proceeded to speak in a very straightforward way. So that’s that kind of way of talking. 

When we speak in a straightforward way, that doesn’t mean that we just can express ourselves any way we want to. It doesn’t mean that we can just, “Oh, I’m being totally honest, baaahhhh!” and throw up all over people. Being straightforward entails also speaking the truth, not exaggerating things, not blaming and also explaining things in an adequate way, in a way that somebody else can understand. Straightforward doesn’t just mean “From my heart, ‘baaaaaahhhh!’ out to your ear.” because as we all know, that can sometimes be pretty disturbing. 

The third one

Generate recognition of bodhisattvas as your teachers and praise them.

Here it’s interesting. It doesn’t say generate recognition of all sentient beings as bodhisattvas. It’s kind of implying that you can identify some bodhisattvas. Maybe we can’t identify bodhisattvas, but we can identify people that we respect. That could be another way to put it; recognize people that you respect as your teachers and point out their good qualities. When it says praise them, there are different ways to praise in the same way as there are different ways to give some negative feedback. There’s praise, “You’re wonderful”, “you’re spectacular”, “you’re so kind”, “you do so much”, “I can’t believe it”, “the whole world should be like you.” Does that tell you anything about what the person did?

No, there’s no information in there. It’s just, “You’re wonderful”, “you’re spectacular”, “I love you.” There’s no information except what the other person thinks about you. And that’s very different than, “I really appreciate when you did xyz, because that relieves me of some anxiety,” or “That gave me the good communication I needed” or whatever. So, you point out exactly what the person did and praise in that way, then you’re helping them. Especially if it’s a child or anybody, if you say what their behavior was, you give them some real information that they can use to guide their decisions in the future. Whereas just saying “You’re wonderful” and “I love you,” doesn’t.

Stating like with a child, “When you cleaned up your room, I really appreciated that because I can walk in your room without tripping,” or whatever it was, so you state the behavior. Similarly, when we have to give feedback, if we just say, “You’re awful, you’re the worst thing that happened to this place, you’re despicable, I can’t trust you at all,” that doesn’t give the person any useful information about what they did. Whereas if you say, “We had an agreement to meet at such and such a time, you didn’t come and you didn’t call. I waited for an hour and that was inconvenient for me.” That gives somebody some useful information about what it was that you didn’t appreciate. 

When it says to praise, I think it’s very helpful to think of what the specific things are. People usually like to praise their teacher for doing all sorts of magical things. I don’t know, maybe that inspires faith in some people. What really helps me is when I hear somebody praise somebody else for how they handled the difficult situation; that gives me some idea of how to handle that similar situation. I find that really helpful, if they praise somebody like that. 

It’s interesting, because in Tibetan culture you use a lot of flowery language. When you do long life pujas, all this incredible flowery language that I guess some people find inspiring, but it doesn’t give me any idea of what the person did. Whereas if I really think of specific instances where I saw really kind behavior or really going out of their way for somebody else, or just saying, instead of “Oh, somebody is a fantastic Teacher,” What was it that made them or is it that made them a fantastic teacher? What did they do? Geshe Sonam Rinchen got us confused! That made him an excellent teacher. And he also when you asked questions, practical questions, he could give you very good dharma answers that applied to specific, practical questions people encounter in daily life. He knew exactly how to apply the Dharma to it so that you could act in a wise way. So, if I were going to talk about Geshe Sonam Rinchen, that’s the kind of thing that I would say.

The fourth one

Assume the responsibility yourself to lead all sentient beings to awakening.

That one is the opposite of

Causing others to regret virtuous actions they have done.

That’s the opposing thing to that. Instead of making them regret virtue, take the responsibility yourself to lead them all to awakening, “By myself alone.” “But with a friend or two, maybe?” “With some help of some buddhas and bodhisattvas, please?” No! By yourself alone! You have to have that strong of a determination.

Audience: So, when we take the (precepts), whether aspiring or engaging, as ordinary beings we’re just taking a similitude. It just makes me wonder if in practical reality, until we have a spontaneous bodhicitta all we’re doing is really aspiring and once we have spontaneous bodhicitta, then we’re totally engaged. It seems like that’s the real line of demarcation. Is that true?

VTC: Yes. But sometimes, like with the bodhisattva ethical code, you take it even though you haven’t generated bodhicitta, and you do the best you can. And that helps you more than if you just said, “Well, I don’t really have bodhicitta so I shouldn’t take it.” But at the same time, you shouldn’t rush in and take it without having a certain level of confidence that you can, that you really value this and that you really want to do your best with it. So not being so hands-off, like, “Uuuhh, I don’t have bodhicitta. I can’t say this at all,” or being too glib like, “Yes, sure. I’ll promise that.” That’s something in between. 

Also, when we take the bodhisattva precepts we’re taking them until awakening. So, then the question comes: “Then what happens if you die and you’re reborn, and you haven’t taken them during that lifetime, are you still breaking them?” I forget what the answer is to that, but I think that it’s something to the effect of, “Yes, there’s negativity being created, but because you have the imprints of having taken that ethical code those imprints will ripen, and your energy will go in that direction more readily. Then at a later time in your life you’ll have the chance of actually taking the precepts again.” That’s what would seem reasonable to me, because they always talk about the benefits of doing something over the long term, the benefits of planting seeds in your mind. 

The next thing was the Bodhisattva ethical code itself. I thought that we would go through these quickly, not in a real detailed way like we did a few years ago, in a briefer way but maybe where people can bring up some examples or questions you have or how you would keep this.

The eighteen root ones, of course, are more serious. I do want to say one thing: that in the Chinese tradition once you’ve taken the Bodhisattva ethical code, then you’re called a bodhisattva. You notice Venerable Hengching in the teachings to all the monastics and the lay bodhisattvas. So, you’re called that but don’t get an inflated head thinking that you are really a bodhisattva. It’s giving the name of the effect to the cause in a way that should inspire you to act like a bodhisattva. Also in Chinese Buddhism, the lay people take different precepts than the monastics do in terms of the bodhisattva precepts, there’s different sets. The Chinese bodhisattva ones for the monastics rely on some of the same sources that the Tibetan rendition of the Bodhisattva precepts does, but also some other ones. 

The bodhisattva precepts are not like the pratimoksha precepts. The pratimoksha precepts were created in the Buddha’s lifetime by one incident after another incident after another incident. So, then you got this whole code of precepts that you take. The Bodhisattva ethical code, what happened is there were different kinds of precepts and instructions in different sutras. Somebody, I’m not so sure who it was, Chandragomin, or it might have been based on a few different people throughout history, pulled these different advices in different sutras, pulled them together and made the Tibetan rendition of the bodhisattva precepts. I know that they’re very strongly taken from Asanga’s Bodhisattva Bhumi and also one or two from Shantideva. And then the Brahma Net Sutra, which is all the Chinese follow, both the Brahma Net Sutra and Asanga’s way but the Tibetans have some from the Brahma Net, some from Asanga, a couple from Shantideva and I’m not sure who put them together. You know, I know Chandragomin did a lot regarding the auxiliary precepts.  So, I don’t know, it’s an interesting historical question. It’d be very interesting to find out the history of how this came about and how it came to be given.

Oh, I do? So, I forgot what I wrote before. What do I have? This is number five. “This explanation of the bodhisattva precepts is drawn from Twenty Stanzas from the Indian sage Chandragomin.” Where was footnote number five? Okay, at the beginning. “He compiled the precepts from various sources, root precepts one through four and the 46 auxiliary precepts are from the Bodhisattva Bhumi by Asanga; root precepts five through seventeen are from the sutra of Akasagarbha and one precept is from the Sutra of Skillful Means.” But it’s very interesting when you read the Brahma Net sutra, many of these precepts in the Tibetan version are in the Brahma Net Sutra, which also is followed in the Chinese tradition, so don’t ask me how that happened.

Chandragomin by the way was a lay practitioner at Nalanda. Does somebody remember what he did? He did a few magical things. Anyway, in the library there is one of his things on the bodhisattva precepts. I can’t remember. Chandrakirti milked the drawing of the cow…some memory of Chandragomin doing something. Anyway, the real way he helped us is by putting these things together, whether he milked the lizard or whatever I don’t know, but this is much more beneficial. It inspires more faith in me. 

Precepts of aspiring bodhicitta

So here we’re starting. Like it says in the book, when a precept has more than one aspect, just doing that one aspect is a transgression.

The first one

Praising yourself or belittling others due to attachment to receiving material offerings, praise and respect.

To transgress this one, you have to have that particular motivation. Because there’s another one in the auxiliary, of praising yourself and belittling others, that is much more general. The situation this particularly applies to is if you are a leader in the Buddhist community or a teacher or whatever, and especially out of attachment, you want to have a lot of offerings, you want to have a lot of students, because that gives you a good reputation. You want to have all the groupies following you so you don’t want them to think well of some other teacher who may or may not be better than you because you want to have a better reputation so that you get the offerings and the respect and the praise. What you do is you praise yourself, “I’m so wonderful, I’ve done this or done this, or done this,” or you look at the other teacher and go, “This person did this, and they did this, and they did this, and they did this.” It’s motivated by this kind of greed. Again, it’s not that difficult to do this. Especially if you have a certain sense of loyalty to your own teacher or your own Buddhist tradition, loyalty that goes into attachment, then it’s very easy, “Praise my teacher, praise my tradition.” Or praise myself because I know those people and then put somebody else down. Not so good to do. 

The second one

Not giving material aid or not teaching the Dharma to those who are suffering and without a protector because of miserliness.

So again, particular motivation. It’s not because you’re in a hurry, it’s not because you lack what it is they’re asking for, it’s particularly out of miserliness, and in particular, it has to be that this person has nobody else to turn to. So, it’s not that every time a beggar comes up to you in India you have to give them something because you would get trampled on some occasions because there’s so many, but it’s when people have nobody else to turn to. They’re in dire straits and out of miserliness, you don’t help them. Or somebody really needs the Dharma, they’re miserable, they’re suffering, they need to hear Dharma teachings but again out of miserliness you don’t share it. “I don’t want to give you money, I don’t want to give you my blanket. I don’t want to give you this, that would be for possessions, but not giving the Dharma out of miserliness, what would that be? That would be you don’t want somebody else to know as much as you do because then they may take away your students or become as famous as you are or some other kind of thing like that. You’re miserly, you hold back on the Dharma so that you are the top notch one. You can see that’s totally the wrong motivation, especially if you vowed to really liberate all sentient beings and then you don’t want to teach them out of fear that they’ll know more than you and have a better reputation than you. That’s really yucky, isn’t it?

But you could see that happening. You know, sometimes there’s competition between a student and a teacher. The student starts out low but then they learn a lot and they kind of compete with their teacher. Then the teacher doesn’t want to help them because maybe they’re going to be as good, or the student knows something the teacher doesn’t, but the student doesn’t want to share that Dharma knowledge. There are many different permutations. I remember when I first read this and heard things explained, I was going, “Who in the world would do this?” Especially if you’ve taken the bodhisattva vows, why would you go and act like this? Let me tell you, if you hang around long enough you see people doing these things. And sometimes you may even see yourself on the verge of doing them. So, if you’re questioning “How could somebody do that?” It happens.

The third one

Not listening although another declares his or her offense or be with anger blaming him or her and retaliating.

Somebody declares their offense; they apologize for something that they did, and you don’t listen. You just tune it out, like “This person’s full of BS,” or with anger you blame them. And like, “Well, I’m glad you finally apologized after what you did. You really should have apologized a lot earlier, what you did was really horrible.” And you really rub it in and make them feel lousy out of revenge. Now, does that mean that every time somebody apologizes to you, that you just say yes? It has to be a sincere apology given at the right time and in the right way. So not just “Well, I’m very sorry that what I said hurt your feelings,” and they don’t have time. 

We have all sorts of different ways of getting out of really sincerely looking the person in the eye and saying, “I’m sorry.” Another way we sometimes do it is, “I’m sorry that you were hurt by what I said.” In other words, “I’m not sorry for what I said but I’m sorry you got hurt.” Now, there are situations where somebody could say that sincerely. They could say, “I said what I said in an honest way and I’m really sorry it hurt you.” But it could be another way of somebody not accepting responsibility for their bad behavior and just saying “I’m sorry, you were hurt” instead of “I’m sorry I had poor behavior that was offensive to you.” So, you have to look at each kind of situation. But the key thing in this one is not holding a grudge and really listening with an open heart instead of listening with “Yeah, sure” with a growl underneath.

Anybody have questions so far? There are some interesting things to think about with these.

Audience: I looked at number two, as well I thought, “Who in the world would do that?” But then I was just thinking about that time, you know it’s hour 23 on an intercontinental plane ride, you sort of finally collapse into a seat and the person beside you wants to talk about what Buddhism is all about. It’s like…

VTC: Yes, it’s hard. And sometimes you have to weigh, you may be totally exhausted; on the other hand, they may be totally right, and you have to overcome your exhaustion. Of course, that’s the benefit of carrying an Abbey brochure. Because you can say “You’re interested? Here, we have two websites with tons of material on the website, so look at the website and come and visit us.”

Audience: I’m repeating a question I asked you before we went over these on this number three. Because it still seems to me that I have another angle on it now, before I thought I was thinking like, “Wow, what if the person’s apologizing to me but I’m still angry.” You kind of said, “Well, you need to get over it very quickly and be able to listen.” But I’m wondering if that is the proper time for apology to be delivered? 

VTC: If you’re still angry?

Audience: Yes, I mean, there should be some sensitivity on the part of the other person too, I would think. I think your advice was good for me. 

VTC: Yes, definitely. If somebody is apologizing, we have to get over our anger. Your question is, “Shouldn’t they know I’m still angry and not apologize at this time? Shouldn’t they wait until they know I’ve calmed down?” But actually, they may think that their apologizing may be what will help you calm down because they know you’re angry, they know you’re hurt, and they know that if they admitted some responsibility, it could really soothe you. We need definitely to get over our anger. And sometimes somebody apologizing to us makes us aware we’re still angry because we listen to our self-talk. “Oh, so and so just apologized to me. Can you believe it? Ooohhh”, and then say, “Oh, I’m still angry.” 

Audience: But because I think even though we may still be angry, also if someone has recognized quickly that they’ve done something that’s a negative action, the sooner that they make that apology, the sooner that karma is not so present in their own mind right? We help them tremendously if we can get it together sooner. 

VTC: Right, definitely. If we can release our anger and they offer a sincere apology, we can automatically say, “Look, that’s fine, that’s no problem.” The trick is when we feel that the apology wasn’t really sincere, that it was a bit off handed, a bit too facile. You don’t like saying to somebody, “You know, your apology stunk.” You want them to apologize, but maybe it needs some more discussion after you calm down and they calm down and you can listen to each other more. 

Audience: In the apology piece, I was thinking there was once in my life where I kept making promises and breaking them and apologizing. And one day my mother just sat me down, I was doing the usual gig, “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry” and she said, “I’m not going to believe anything that comes out of your mouth until I see a change in your behavior.” And she wasn’t mad. I found that so helpful, that she said, “I can’t accept your apology until I see you change,” then I really had to change instead of hoping that saying “Sorry” would get me out of it somehow.

VTC: Yes, it’s true. Because often we just say, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” and what we’re really saying is, “Don’t be mad at me, I’m not really sorry I said that. I just don’t want you to be mad at me.” So, I say “Sorry, sorry sorry,” but I’m not really sorry, actually I’m quite happy I said that, I just don’t want you to be mad that I said it. In other words, I don’t want to experience the result of what I said to somebody else. I want to be able to just say whatever I say and have them go, “Well, that’s fine,” without any responsibility for my motivation, or my mode of behavior or anything like that. So “Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.” That’s a good way to do it. I think we all did that as kids and some of us keep doing it as adults. It’s amazing how we say one thing when we really mean something else. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” which means “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Audience: (Reading an email) “In the Lama TsongKhapa sadhana it says, ‘Your body of beauty resplendent with the glory of fame.’ Why should we praise a body and fame? I get stuck feeling like this is similar to praising a beautiful movie star, please help.” 

VTC: Ah, that’s a very honest question, I like that; that person’s sincere who asked that. What you’re doing when you’re praising Lama TsongKhapa’s body that way, is you’re not seeing him, as an ordinary human being with a beautiful body, who should have starred in some movie. But you’re thinking of him being an emanation body of a buddha, thinking of the qualities of an emanation body. And there, there may be physical beauty, but the real beauty in an emanation body is somebody’s motivation and their intent to emanate and to teach and to connect with living beings and guide them on the path. So, you’re not like looking at Je Rinpoche “Oh, you have such a beautiful body, and I really like your robes. And that color maroon is so good. I really like that.” Not like a movie star.

Audience: (Reading an email) The next question, “Regarding people lying, how can we skillfully deal with it if we have reason to believe that a friend in particular is not being truthful with us? How do I approach this without sounding accusatory?”

VTC: Well, sometimes, you just have to say, “I saw this or I heard this, and I don’t understand, could you please explain it to me?” You just state the facts of what you saw and what you heard and say, “I don’t understand, could you help me by explaining?” Then let that person explain and if you think that they’re telling a fib, you let them know in some kind of way. “You sound like Donald!”

But if you think your friend is lying to you, if it’s somebody who is a friend, then you really need to clear that up. Because if you think a friend is lying to you, that’s getting at the root of the friendship, so unless you really deal with it, and you might have to be very straight about it “That just doesn’t make sense to me, please be honest, I can handle the truth,” and give that person an opportunity to say what they have to say. Because otherwise, if you don’t, you’re not going to really trust them, it’s going to affect the friendship. 

The fourth one

Abandoning the Mahayana by saying that the Mahayana texts are not the words of the Buddha, or teaching what appears to be the Dharma, but is not.

Again, very easy to do this one. “Abandoning the Mahayana by saying that the Mahayana texts are not the words of the Buddha.” I remember asking one Rinpoche about that one and saying,

Things were handed down orally, there’s got to be mistakes, things were written down by scribes and we all know by copying things that you make mistakes when you write stuff down. We all know that people can put things in certain ways, you add something, and you subtract something. And when somebody is doing critical analysis, historical analysis of a text, they’re really comparing different versions of a text to see what is consistent, what could have been added or subtracted, according to the culture at a different time in a different place. You know, this is what they do.

So, I was saying, “Can we really say that everything in the Canon is 100% out of the Buddha’s mouth? And he said,

You’re right, yes people make mistakes when they recite things, they make mistakes when they write things down but unfortunately, we don’t always know what those mistakes are. It’s difficult for us to really say this part is a mistake, or that part is a mistake, or this part was added, that part was added.

But throughout the ages it’s very interesting. You have the advent of the Mahayana Sutras, which were not made public early on when the Buddha was alive and there’s various explanations for that. Nagarjuna talked a lot about it in Precious Garland, you may remember, and he had some excellent reasons for it. His Holiness always says that Nagarjuna was a real scholar, he lived in South India and then went to North India and taught there. He encountered a lot of texts, a lot of different people. And if he says that these scriptures are valid, I think we can trust it. In Precious Garland, he gives us reasons for it. But still, there’s some people who say the Mahayana sutras are not the words of the Buddha. 

Many times, these are people in academia which is one of the reasons why I feel if you really want to learn the Dharma, it’s good to study with practitioners. An academic person may be a practitioner, Jeffrey’s a good example of that and you can see the difference. But one of my friends who has a PhD was telling me, a couple of them were telling me that you have to criticize in order to be seen as being objective, which is interesting, isn’t it? That saying, “I think this is true” and believing it is not objective, but criticizing is being objective. But both of them are opinions, I think. And you may have valid reasons for both of them. 

So, it’s very hard to say what is accurate and what isn’t. One friend, Analio, is both a scholar, he works in a university, and a monk. He says when he is doing his scholarly work, he does with the usual historical critical attitude of comparing texts and so on. He’s doing a lot of comparison right now between the Nikayas and the Agamas, just doing historical analysis like that, but when he’s in his capacity as a monk, he relates to all these things as valid Buddhist texts. So, he just has these two kinds of compartments in his mind, and he goes from one to the other. Other people don’t do that or can’t do that. 

I think it’s fair to bring up different things. Or to say, even you don’t know, “People who are doing historical analysis on this scripture say XYZ.” I think that’s fair to say and that can be helpful. I think when you are spouting opinions or you just have this adverse reaction to something in one of the scriptures that you just don’t like, and because you don’t like it you say the Buddha didn’t teach it, that is quite dangerous. 

But I’m thinking of, like you look at the eight Garudharmas. If you look at them with a mind of historical analysis there’s some things about them that are hard to understand. Like why did the Buddhists say that the nuns should be ordained by a sangha of nuns and a sangha of monks, when at that time when he supposedly said it, there was no sangha of nuns? I think that’s a fair question. 

It’s like, “Gee, I don’t understand that. Is this something that the Buddha said or is this something that he said one thing, and it got changed by a scribe or was this added later? Because especially when you look at the Garudharmas in the different traditions, there’s some differences in them. There’s some that are very similar and other ones that are different. Same with the Shiksamana. There’s a huge difference among the different vinayas and what the Shiksamana precepts are. So, some people say “Did the Buddha really set these out or is this something that some of the sages added later and attributed to the Buddha?

We don’t know but, in any case, whatever tradition you’re following, following those Shiksamana precepts for two years helps you, so we do it. It’s a fine line here because I think it… I know, for me, seeing that the scriptures also come out of a society, they were spoken for different societies at different times and different people who had different needs. To take that into account.  Even in China with some of the Sitakata Garba Sutras, the sutras in that classification, some of the Japanese scholars are doubting the veracity of a couple of Sutras. They’re saying that they’re apocryphal. Again, I don’t know. I haven’t studied those particular things well enough to make a judgment. I also know that there’s different ways of fleshing out the meaning of different sutras, as we’ve witnessed. So, the sutras may be the Buddha’s word, and some people are misinterpreting what they mean; or they may not be the Buddha’s word, but you can interpret them so that they can become and align with what the Buddha is saying. We see this a lot; this is one of the things that Jeffrey is showing us. This passage literally says this, and it comes out meaning that, so how do you explain that? What is it?  

So, I think this is why His Holiness always refers to reasoning, and values reasoning, because at the end of the day you have to depend on that. But these are just my opinions on this kind of thing. I think the whole thing where you find some people who just with one sweep say, “The Mahayana is all made up,” I think that’s a bit too much. Because if that’s all made up, if you look at the ideas expressed in the Mahayana, if a Buddha didn’t say them, who in the world had the realizations to say that? 

Because what is said in the Mahayana sutras is not just flaky inconsequential instructions, it’s incredibly profound and the vision that is presented in the Mahayana is just spectacular. So, I don’t think, whatever your historical analysis is, to say that this is not the Buddha’s word. I don’t think you can say that because then you’re left with “If the Buddha didn’t say that, then who spoke this? Who was better than the Buddha? Who could say this?” Because what is said in the sutras no ordinary person could say so I don’t think that kind of thing is very good. 

And then the other part,

Teaching what appears to be the Dharma but is not.

This is I think very concerning in our present day and age. People who just say, “The Mahayana is not the words of the Buddha, it’s easy to say, “That’s your opinion, I see things a very different way, you practice what makes sense to you, I’ll practice what makes sense to me.” But the people who make something out to be the Dharma, but it’s not…Nagarjuna talked about that in the Precious Garland too. That the cow that’s wandering near the cliff going into the jungle with all the hornets, snakes and all sorts of things, leading all the other cows down there. 

I think that is something we have to be much more careful of in this day and age: of people just conveniently saying that the Buddha did not teach certain things like rebirth because they don’t like hearing about rebirth, when it’s very clearly in the scriptures that the Buddha did teach that. That kind of thing! I think it is much more dangerous because then people think they’re practicing the Dharma, but they’re either learning wrong views, or they’re learning something that may be helpful but it’s not the complete thing. Like the mindfulness thing, if somebody is teaching mindfulness and it helps other people, great, fantastic. If you say, “This is Buddhism and this is the essence of Buddhism, the most important part of Buddhism,” so that people tend to believe that that’s the quintessence of what the Buddha’s offering, no, that’s not correct, that’s extremely dangerous. So, we need to be aware.

When I was working with Geshe Dorji Damdul on the book, sometimes we’d be going over something and I’d go, “This doesn’t make any sense, this does not make any sense.” He didn’t like when I said that and he said, “No, you’ve got to say, ‘I don’t understand it,’ not that it doesn’t make any sense.” So, I realized that when I was saying, “It doesn’t make any sense,” I was saying, “I don’t understand it and I want to understand it,” but it sounds very much like saying, “This is incomprehensible.”  At the same time, in the Tibetan monasteries they did debate things. So, you may read something from one of the yakshas and say, “This doesn’t make any sense,” have your debate points ready to refute and that’s fine. If you’re open minded, you want to debate and you’re saying, “Your assertion on this is bananas.”  Because on the debate ground, they yell and scream at each other, they call each other names. It’s not polite and sweet. They push and shove. But if you’re doing this for the purpose of getting out what the truth is then that’s okay.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: I don’t know, I don’t think as aggressively as the monks do. The monks really get into it; they really push and shove each other hard. I don’t think the nuns would do that.

Contemplation points

Precepts of aspiring bodhicitta

Before taking the bodhisattva precepts, we prepare our mind by taking the aspirational code in the presence of our spiritual mentor. Venerable Chodron went through the precepts for keeping our aspiring bodhicitta. Spend some time on each.

Note: Some of these are really difficult because we’re so used to doing them, we don’t even realize it. But you can practice, start to habituate, these precepts through these contemplations, imagining difficult situations, what you have said and done in the past, and how you might act differently in the future. In this way, you start to build up new, more beneficial habits and create the causes to generate and sustain bodhicitta.

How to protect bodhicitta from degenerating in this life

1. Remember the advantages of bodhicitta repeatedly.
   • What are the advantages of bodhicitta?
   • How might remembering the advantages protect your bodhicitta from degenerating?
2. To strengthen bodhicitta, generate the aspiration three times in the morning and three times in the evening.
   • How might reciting the refuge and bodhicitta prayers in the morning and evening help protect your bodhicitta?
   • If you are already doing this, how has it benefitted your mind and practice?
   • How does it protect your bodhicitta from degenerating in this life?
3. Do not give up working for sentient beings, even when they are harmful.
   • When you’re having a difficult time with others, what thoughts can you generate to counter the desire you have to give up on them?
   • Why is this point so important to the bodhisattva practice?
   • Why does it protect your bodhicitta from degenerating in this life?
4. To enhance your bodhicitta, accumulate both merit and wisdom continuously.
   • Why does accumulating merit protect bodhicitta from degenerating in this life?
   • Why does accumulating wisdom protect bodhicitta from generating in this life?

How to keep from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives

1. Abandon deceiving your guru/abbot/holy beings.
   • Take some time to think about lies and deception you have done in the past. What were the driving thoughts behind your deception? Why did you do it? Consider the mind that wants to look good and cover up mistakes. How does it harm you? How does it harm others? Why can being honest be so difficult sometimes?
   • Why is lying, in particular, to your teachers and the holy beings a problem?
   • How does being honest with them help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
2. Abandon causing others to regret virtuous actions they have done.
   • Think of personal examples in your own life where you’ve caused others to regret their virtue or they have caused you to regret yours. Why is this harmful to you? To them?
   • Why does abandoning this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
3. Abandon abusing or criticizing bodhisattvas or the Mahayana.
   • What does it mean to criticize the Mahayana? What does it meant to criticize bodhisattvas.
   • Venerable Chodron made it a point to say that this doesn’t mean that seeing everyone as a possible bodhisattva, we say and do nothing when we see harm in the world. Consider how to live practically in the world, how to keep this aspiration while still working for change to benefit sentient beings. Be specific, thinking of harm you see in the world today.
   • How does seeing others as possibly being bodhisattvas lessen the proliferation of anger and judgment in your OWN mind? Why is this so important?
   • Why does abandoning this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
4. Abandon not acting with a pure, selfless wish, but with pretension and deceit.
   • Venerable Chodron said this one is easy to do. Think of situations in your own experience where you acted with pretension (pretending to have good qualities you don’t) and/or deceit (pretending that you don’t have faults that you do). Why is this so harmful to yourself and others? What can you do to begin to habituate a sense of transparency, of being straightforward with others?
   • Why does abandoning this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
5. Practice abandoning deliberately lying to and deceiving gurus, abbots, and so forth.
   • This is the companion to #1. How is being honest with your teachers and the holy beings beneficial to yourself and others?
   • Why does practicing this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
6. Practice being straightforward without pretension and deceit.
   • This is the companion to #4. How is being straightforward with others beneficial for yourself and others?
   • What does being straightforward mean? There is a kind way to do this and an unkind way. Consider how you have communicated in the past with others. Has your honesty been harsh at times? What was your motivation? What motivation is this precept steering your towards and how would that translate into straightforward speech?
   • Why does practicing this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
7. Generate recognition of bodhisattvas as your teachers and praise them (or Recognize people you respect as your teachers and praise their good qualities).
   • Why is this beneficial to yourself and others? What is it about praising the qualities of your teachers that creates virtue in your own mind?
   • Take some time now to think about what it is you appreciate in your teachers, mentors, and others you respect.
   • Venerable Chodron said that there are different ways of praising others. We can do it in a way that is non-specific (You’re wonderful!) or specific (I really appreciated it when you did ____ because it gave me ______ that I needed). How has specific feedback made a difference in your own life in shaping how you move forward? Consider developing the habit of praising others in this way?
   • Why does practicing this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?
8. Assume the responsibility yourself to lead all sentient beings to awakening.
   • This can feel really BIG, but why is it so important to have this thought even at the stage of aspiring bodhicitta?
   • Why does practicing this help you from being separated from bodhicitta in future lives?

Conclusion: If you have already taken the bodhisattva vows or aspiring bodhicitta with a spiritual mentor, allow this contemplation to reinforce your virtuous goals and aspirations as you move throughout your day, resolving to continuously cultivate and never abandon bodhicitta. If you have not yet taken aspiring bodhicitta, consider the benefits of doing so. Even if you are not ready at this time, cultivate a feeling of appreciation for those who have, consider the benefits of doing so, and generate a wish to take and follow these guidelines at some time in the future.

Engaging bodhisattva precepts

Venerable Chodron started giving commentary on the bodhisattva ethical code, which are the guidelines you follow when you “take the bodhisattva precepts.” Consider them one by one, in light of the commentary she gave. For each, consider the following:

1. In what situations have you seen yourself act this way in the past or under what conditions might it be easy to act this way in the future (it might help to consider how you’ve seen this negativity in the world)?
2. Which of the ten non-virtues is the precept keeping you from committing?
3. What are the antidotes that can be applied when you are tempted to act contrary to the precept?
4. Why is this precept so important to the bodhisattva path? How does keeping it benefit yourself and others?
5. Resolve to be mindful of the precept in your daily life.

 

Precepts covered this week:

Root Precept #1: a) Praising yourself or b) belittling others because of attachment to receiving material offerings, praise, and respect.

Root Precept #2: a) Not giving material aid or b) not teaching the Dharma to those who are suffering and without a protector, because of miserliness.

Root Precept #3: a) Not listening although another declares his/her offense or b) with anger blaming him/her and retaliating.

Root Precept #4: a) Abandoning the Mahayana by saying that Mahayana texts are not the words of Buddha or b) teaching what appears to be the Dharma but is not.