Three Principal Aspects of the Path, 29 June 2001

So we’re at the point where we are examining the three principal aspects of the path and we say from among the three, renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view, we are still at the first one, renunciation. Within renunciation, we have three subdivisions. The first one was the reason for needing to generate renunciation, the second one was the method of generating it, and the third one was the measure of having generated. So from among these three, we were discussing in the previous sessions the reason for needing to generate renunciation. Now, the great Lama Tsongkhapa is the one who says that renunciation is the one that needs to be generated in the beginning.

And it talks about those who because it says without pure renunciation there is no means for pacifying this continuous search for samsaric pleasure. So therefore those who are longing for liberation, first they should seek for renunciation. And we talked about the term existence and we said that existence actually refers to cyclic existence. It refers to saṃsāra. And we said that if you want to be liberated from that, it is very important initially to generate the mind that wishes to get out of saṃsāra.

Liberation cannot be achieved unless that initial wish is generated. And nothing will not happen as long as we remain attached and allured to the different things perceive to be pleasurable within saṃsāra. And we said that those things can be either the place that we abide, the abode, it could be our own body, it could be different things that we enjoy and we utilize. So as long as we have attachment towards those things, we do not generate the sincere wish to be liberated. Now here we have a common analogy and let’s say it is very similar to the situation with to the person who has done a punishable action and eventually is taken as a prisoner and is locked up in a prison.

Now this person will never escape from the prison unless they start seeing the situation within a prison as being unsatisfactory. And as long as you feel that you’re comfortable within the prison, you will never generate the wish to escape from it. Now, we’re in a similar situation and we have to see that cyclic existence is our own prison. We are prisoners of cyclic existence and we remain within that. So if we have any chances of escaping and reaching liberation, these chances will only be true if we have the wish to be liberated, if we have the wish to escape from that prison of cyclic existence.

So it is very important in the beginning to generate that mind that is seeking for liberation, is looking for an opportunity to escape. If that wish is in place, then definitely a certain amount of search searching for means to be liberated will be initiated. It doesn’t mean that as long as you generate the wish, then very quickly after that you will attain liberation. It doesn’t come the result doesn’t come so easily, but with time, if the wish is there, definitely the means and the methods will also be developed. Now, in order for any of those things to happen, first of all, we need to understand what is that thing that we call cyclic existence and how is it that we rotate?

What is the mode of rotating again and again within cyclic existence? If you understand those, then on the basis of that you can say that you can generate the wish to get out of this situation. So searching to find out what is cyclic existence, it’s quite useful to look at something that the great master Dharmakīrti has said about it. And he said, this set of aggregates, this is what saṃsāra is. Now we have to explain that.

We talk about a set of aggregates. So in other sense we’re talking about taking another rebirth. Now this rebirth, if it is done under the influence of actions or karma and afflictions, then this type of rebirth will necessarily bring about suffering. And this suffering is experienced or it becomes evident, it becomes manifest on our aggregate, on our body physically and mentally. And we need to examine who is the one who is rotating within cyclic existence.

Well, anyone who’s an ordinary person, an ordinary individual, the I, the self, is the one who rotates. And how is it this mode of rotating within cyclic existence? Well, it is the fact that we are taking one rebirth after the other, one set of aggregates after the other. And this set of aggregates, so this every new body that we take with every new rebirth, is a body that has been established through contaminated actions and afflictions. So everything that is established through this type of karma and afflictions is going to be a set of aggregates in another body that eventually will be exhausted.

But prior to its exhaustion, again, it has accumulated a number of actions and afflictions. So again, due to those actions and afflictions, a new body will be taken and when that is exhausted, another body will be taken and so on. So this is the mode of rotating within cyclic existence. So, actually you can see that there is this process of taking a body and then discarding it and then getting another body and discarding it again and again. And this is exactly this process of rotating within cyclic existence.

And you might ask why? Why is it happening? Well, first of all, we have to identify that we have have afflictions. And under the influence of afflictions, we engage in different actions. So we have afflictions and we have contaminated actions.

And then when these two come together, when they are combined, they are the ones who produce a new set of aggregates, a new body. And this is what makes the situation to continue. Rinpoche was actually demonstrating that. Suppose suppose the finger is the eye, right? And then we take, let’s say, a pen and this is going to be the body.

And then use your as an example of these afflictions and contaminated actions. So what happens is that the mala ties them together and here it is, this is how they go together. And then there comes the time where this is unraveled, you discard the old body, you take a new body and then you wrap it all together again. You unwrap it when it’s time to discard it, you get a new one in its place and you wrap it all again. This is what it is.

It is like this, it is our afflictions and our contaminated karma that bind bind us inside of existence. And if you are bound in a specific situation, that doesn’t allow you to move out of it. And this is why we cannot reach liberation. We just remain within saṃsāra, bound there. And what is it when that thing that we keep talking about?

What actually is liberation? Well, liberation is nothing more than being capable of cutting through this rope of actions and afflictions. If you can cut through that thing that binds you within cyclic existence, then you’re liberated. This is what liberation is. Now, as long as we are not capable of cutting that rope of affliction and karma that keeps us within cyclic existence, we are going just the only thing that is going to change for us is a different type of migration, of rebirth that we get.

Sometimes we are going to take the body of a human, sometimes we are going to be we take the body of a being in the hells, sometimes we are going to be a hungry ghost, sometimes we are to be a god. This is the only change that will happen for us. But we will remain bound by this rope of actions and afflictions. And when we are capable of cutting that thing, just this moment of releasing that thing that binds us within cyclic existence, that’s what liberation liberation is. This is when liberation is attained.

Now, as we say, the body is actually the thing that remains attached to a person, an eye, an individual, through this rope of affliction and actions. And the body is the one that actually in a sense attracts all the suffering. And because the person is associated with that body, the person is going to experience all that suffering. And how is it that liberation can eventually be achieved? Well, it’s a process but it has to start from somewhere.

And the first step is to actually identify that me, as a person, I’m experiencing all this suffering exactly because I’m associated with this particular type of body. It is within the nature of body to experience all this suffering. In a sense, I can see that my body is the basis for experiencing suffering. The body is almost the mother, the root for generating and experiencing the suffering. So it is important to start looking at the body as acting as this factor of being the basis of experiencing suffering.

And if you see it like this, you start seeing faults in having such a type of body. So seeing this body as being faulty is the beginning and thinking that you have to be disassociated from this type of a body, that’s the beginning of the process of liberation. Now, if we actually examine the way that we look or we associate ourselves with our body, we don’t see the body as, we don’t see anything wrong with the bodies. As a matter of fact, we see the body as being something nice, something that needs to be cherished, something that has many good qualities, is beautiful, is attractive. We generate a lot of attachment and we have craving for our own bodies.

As long as we cherish the body in that way, as long as we are attached and have craving for it, we haven’t even started the process of liberation. And liberation will not occur as long as we view the body in such a way. Is actually talking about the nature of the body, talking about the view that the ordinary person has for their bodies. We cherish our bodies. We think the bodies are good, they are precious.

We consider them to be the basis of good qualities, good characteristics and so forth. But if only we knew the actual, the true situation about the bodies, then of course our opinions about them would definitely change. Now the thing is that we don’t really recognize the body for what they are. In a sense, we think that the body is pure, the body is something which is permanent and the body is something which brings about bliss and well-being. Now, it would have been great if the body was all of this or even one of those things.

But the truth is that it is not. Now, first of all, let’s look at this idea that we have that in a sense we take it for granted that the body has some good qualities because it’s permanent. When it’s obvious that the body is impermanent, the body might start as something which is nice and fresh and we all know that there is this deterioration with time. And when we say time, we don’t talk only about in terms of years. We talk about the deterioration that happens momentarily which means that moment by moment as the hour proceeds in the same way or in the same rhythm our body changes and it doesn’t change for the better, it changes for the worse.

Take an example, the body of a baby. It is so fresh, it is so nice to look at. Everybody rejoices and looks at the baby and everybody smiles, right? It’s a fresh body. But the truth is that moment by moment this body is changing and it doesn’t get any better.

It actually goes worse. The process of aging has already started. And it is very similar with a flower, right? So Rinpoche was saying, this whole obsessions of westerners with flowers, you see a flower and it’s a fresh flower, it has just come out of the ground, right? It has just opened up and everybody has to say, Oh, a nice flower, what a beautiful flower, and everybody’s sitting there admiring the flower.

Fine, you pick it up and you take it home. And then you watch it, you know. The second day, maybe it looks okay but it’s not as fresh as the moment that you picked it. And then you look at it the third day and it has closed down, has wrinkled, it has dried out, it is discoloured, it doesn’t smell anymore, some of the petals start falling off. Then by the end of the third day, somebody comes and says, Why are you killing this flower?

Just throw it to the rubbish. That’s what it is. Very similar things with our bodies. We take them to be permanent but as a matter of fact, they are impermanent. Then we we take the bodies to be pure, to be clean and also to be the basis of well-being.

But wait a minute, let’s examine how the body is established. The body comes about through different actions, as we say, and afflictions. And if we’re talking about karma, this karma is going to be contaminated by afflictions. Karma can be virtuous or non virtuous. In any case, it’s contaminated for ordinary beings.

Now the results of virtuous karma can be to produce a body, let’s say, of a human being. The result of non virtuous karma can be to end up in a body of an animal. Now, whichever the case, this body that is obtained in such a way is going to be the basis of a lot of suffering. And then let’s look at the causes that establish even the human body, the result of virtuous karma. What are the causes?

The substances that actually establish our body is the sperm that we get from the father and the ovum from the mother. Now they’re not particularly clean substances, right? If you find a pile of sperm or some of the female substances somewhere, you wouldn’t necessarily consider it to be pure and blissful and so forth, right? And then, these are the causes that establish the body and then after the body has been established, if you actually stop and analyse the substances, what makes up the body, what is found inside the body, start with the intestines. Intense stents for example, you know, what do you find in there?

Look into your stomach after food has started being digested. Look, for example, how you react if you are cut with a knife and some blood comes out. Very few people are delighted to see blood, right? Most people say, Oh, you know, blood and so many other substances, saliva, urine, excrements, sweat, body care and so on and so forth. There’s a long list.

If you really start thinking like that, you really have to question, is this body really so pure? Is it clean? Is it the basis for bliss, for well-being? Is it something permanent as I thought it would be? Now, remember the characteristics of the body.

The body that actually existed in the morning does not exist by midday and the body that you had at midday does not exist at night. The body that you have today will not be existing tomorrow. Tomorrow you will have another body. And the reason why we mention that is because we want to mention that the body is destroyed momentarily. That means that the body is impermanent.

It is the opposite of permanent. Also, the body is associated with suffering which means that the body does not have the nature of bliss. And the body is not pure. If you look at the substances that establish body, these are impure substances. It is the sperm and the blood.

Now, there are many actually stories of people in the past who have done extensive meditation on the nature of the body. There was this particular story of one fully ordained monk who spent a lot of time meditating on the characteristics of the body. It is said that actually in the older times there used to be quite intensive meditation on the impurity and the impermanence of the body so that people would come to the point to actually see themselves as being almost immersed in filth. They would see the whole body as being a bag of filth and almost feeling that the head was the only thing coming out out of huge area of filth. And it was so powerful that there were people who actually committed suicide because they felt that it was impossible to continue living in this environment of filth, know, in this body of filth.

So there are quite a few stories like that of, you know, how, let’s say, you know, how far you can take this meditation. So, how can we actually establish correct renunciation that we’re looking for? Well, in order to establish that you need to examine the situation and to see that you are bound through your karma and affliction in this cyclic existence. And once you find yourself in that you need to actually stop and examine whether the body that you have at the present time is the basis of good qualities, whether there are good things in this body or not. And having examined that, it’s important to actually start to see the faults that come with this body.

To see that the body is impermanent, see that the body is impure, to see that the body does not have the nature of bliss. Once you start seeing all these faults in the aggregate, you actually have to transfer this whole situation and say it’s not just the aggregates, it’s saṃsāra as a whole because saṃsāra is described as aggregates. When we say saṃsāra we also have to say not only saṃsāra but also the causes of saṃsāra which means contaminated actions and afflictions as well. Now, that means that if you can see fault in all of that, this incredible longing that you have for this type of existence is reversed, is stopped. And in its place what you develop is the wish for liberation, right?

Once such a thought arises and it’s a strong thought, then you can say you have developed renunciation. Having explained how we generate the thought of renunciation, it is worthwhile to actually see what will happen if we are not capable of generating such a thought, such a wish to be liberated. Well, if we don’t generate renunciation it means that we will remain within cyclic existence. And within cyclic existence we will undergo different experiences. It is true that from time to time we are capable of generating virtuous karma and the result of that virtuous karma is going to be experiences that are nice, they are well, right?

Blissful experiences. But this bliss or this sense of well-being that we experience as a result is always contaminated bliss. It’s never going to be pure and it’s never going to be stable. It is something that changes very quickly and one moment it has the aspect of bliss and well-being and the next moment very quickly it turns into suffering. So we remain within cyclic existence and from time to time we have this opportunity of experiencing bliss that is unstable and unstable and contaminated.

Nevertheless, since it is a blissful experience, it is easy for us to generate attachment for that type of experience. So we remain generating attachment for limited experiences of bliss. In a sense, we remain attached to our own aggregates and we generate craving for these moments. We generate craving for these aggregates. And as long as we do that, we actually remain satisfied with something which is very small, very little.

We look at this contaminated moment of happiness and we say, Oh, that’s very good. It’s great that I have it. I want to have more of that. And it’s exactly that thought that keeps us within cyclic existence. And we’re not the only ones who are doing that.

Every other sentient being within cyclic existence is doing that. But of course by saying that every other sentient being is doing that, this is not any comforting thought. And just because everybody else experiences that, it doesn’t justify the fact that we have to continue experiencing that. As long as we have this craving for this type of pleasure, there is no hope for liberation. And as long as we remain craving and attached for this type of experiences, for that long we can say that cyclic existence will, you know, is unlimited, will not have an end.

Now, if you really want to experience happiness, which is without any trace of suffering, then you have to start looking for renunciation. You must generate pure renunciation. Now, talking about renunciation in the context of this text, it’s very important to always go back and relate to the Lamrim. The two first scopes of the Lam Rim, the small scope and the middle scope of the Lam Rim are actually taught for the purpose of generating renunciation. The practices of the small scope and the practices of the middle scope, they are all geared towards the generation of renunciation.

Now, it is also said that there are particular type of practitioners who say that we are practitioners of the great vehicle and if we want to attain the state of enlightenment, well, all we need is bodhicitta. We don’t need renunciation. We’re doing great vehicle practices. So there is an answer to this type of argument that in order to reach enlightenment, only thing you need is bodhicitta. And if we examine the two vehicles, now there is no doubt whatsoever that within the context of the lesser vehicle, in order to attain liberation, you need renunciation.

There’s no other way of attaining liberation unless you have renunciation. And then if we look at the great vehicle, we see that the ultimate goal which is to reach the state of enlightenment. Now, in order to get there, you need to have bodhicitta. But bodhicitta will not be generated unless you have renunciation. Now, one cannot take on the activities of a bodhisattva unless one has generated renunciation.

Because unless you have the very strong wish to be liberated from saṃsāra, you will not have, let’s say, the fuel that will keep you going with your meditation. And the first difficulties that you find, you will just stop meditating or you stop engaging in the conduct of bodhisattvas. But if you have that very strong wish to be liberated, this is the thing that will keep you going, not only in one life, but in a large number of lifetimes for as long as it takes until you complete the path and you’ll be capable of dealing with a lot of adverse situations that the bodhisattvas have to deal with. So it is actually Tsongkhapa again who gave us some answer to that, and he says, in the great vehicle, not only do you need renunciation, but your renunciation must be very, very strong. And at this point, Tsongkhapa is quoting Geshe Sharawa.

Geshe Sharawa was a Kadampa Geshe and he was one of the great bodhisattvas in the Kadampa tradition. Now what Geshe Sharawa has said is that with relation to that thought or that intention, and here the thought or intention is renunciation. He says, If your renunciation is weak, it is very similar to the situation where you have a glass of water and you just throw little bit of flour. Now if you throw a little bit of flour in water and you just leave it there, it’s not going to mix well, right? So it’s going to be very weak, a very weak mixture.

So if your renunciation is very weak, it’s not going to influence your mind. If renunciation is not influencing your mind, then that means that you’re not really looking at the truth of origin and the truth of suffering. If you’re not really looking at the truth of origin and suffering, you will not be displeased with that thing. Now, if you’re not displeased with that, it means that you will not have any aspiration towards attaining liberation. And liberation here can’t be determined as the truth of cessation, right?

If you have no wish to attain or to actualize the fourth noble truth, then that means you will not engage in the path, the truth of the path which is the third noble truth. And if you have no sincere wish of engaging in the path, that means that you have not really been active in pulling other sentient beings out of the state of saṃsāra. If yourself you see no problem with suffering and the cause of suffering, you will see no reason for needing to help others to come out of this situation. And if that is the case, then you don’t really have strong bodhicitta. And a bodhisattva who does not have bodhicitta is a bodhisattva by name alone, is a practitioner of the great vehicle, but all those things have become empty words.

There’s no substance in their practice. And that thing that we call great vehicle bodhicitta and bodhisattvas become empty words. Now by definition, somebody who is a bodhisattva must be somebody who has generated bodhicitta. Without bodhicitta, you are not a bodhisattva. And the thing is that bodhicitta does not come unless you have generated great compassion.

And what is that thing, great compassion, that is a prerequisite of bodhicitta. Well, great compassion is the state where when you look at other sentient beings and you look at their suffering, you find it unbearable. The mere thought that others are suffering is unbearable, it’s something that you cannot tolerate. And therefore you take it upon yourself to help those beings to pull them out of this state of suffering that they experience. This is what great compassion is.

But great compassion will never be generated in your mind unless you find your own suffering unbearable. If you are capable of tolerating your suffering, if you see that there is nothing wrong with this situation, if you think that you can remain with this situation of suffering, you will have no renunciation. And if we extend that, you will see no need why you should save others from their suffering. If you can tolerate your own suffering, other sufferings could be tolerated. Now the opposite is needed, intolerance towards your own suffering, which means renunciation.

If you don’t have renunciation, you cannot generate great compassion. And without great compassion, there is no bodhicitta. And actually it said that the Glorious Atisha, when he visited Tibet, he found an opportunity to scold what he called the Tibetan bodhisattvas. Because he said, Tibetan bodhisattvas, they are a very special type of bodhisattvas. Without meditating on renunciation, they think they can take on meditations of love and compassion.

This indeed is a very special type of bodhisattvas. It only exists in Tibet. So after this point, actually, we have completed the first part that relates to the presentation of the reasons for needing to develop renunciation. We need to understand the faults and the shortcomings that come in case that we do not develop renunciation. So all the advice you need in order to cover the explanation for the reason is completed.

Now logically, if you have proven that you need to generate renunciation, it makes sense that the second question that will come about is, okay, if I need to generate it, how do I do it? So what is the method of generating renunciation? That’s the second step so we come to the second question which is the method for generating renunciation and in that again there are two parts the first part is the method of reversing allurement to this life and the second part is the method for reversing allurement to the next life. Okay, so there are two ways. If you want to generate renunciation, you have to deal towards your attachment to this life and attachment towards all the future lives.

Okay? And of course, we’re going to start dealing with this very life. Now, so as we say we start by dealing with allurement related to this life and this is something that needs to be stopped. If we look at verse number four, the first two lines are dealing with that subject. So they say: This life with leisure and endowment which is difficult to find is brief.

By familiarizing the mind with this, we stop the allure of this life. So, first of all, there are two things to be established here. The first one is that this opportunity that we have of having a full set of leisures and endowments is very difficult to find. It’s a very precious opportunity. It has great meaning.

And at the same time, we mention that it is brief. And what we want to draw the attention to with this point is that this body or this opportunity we have is not going to stay for long. It is something that can be very easily destroyed. It is something that does not remain. It is something that finishes very quickly.

So, in order to pacify this allure to this life, we need to bring together or we need to understand these two points together: the preciousness of the opportunity and the fact that it remains for a very short time. So actually there are two things to meditate alternatively. One that it is difficult to find and the second one that is very brief. And we need to alternate from one point to the other because it seems that each point is actually supporting understanding on the other point. So we unite the two together, we meditate on both of them in that way and eventually we generate some understanding, some realization on that.

If you can generate a realization on the union of those two, that it’s difficult to find and it’s very brief, then you can stop allure to this life. Now, as we said, first of all, we need to meditate on the difficulty of finding leisure and endowment. And having meditated on that, we generate a specific type of realization of the difficulty, of the rarity of that situation. And then we meditate on impermanence and eventually we generate the realization of impermanence and then we unite, we combine these two types of realizations. If we can do that, then this united resultant type of realization can act as a method that stops allure to this life.

Now, when we talk about allure to this life, first of all, in order to stop it we have to recognize it. We have to know what is it that we are talking about. So first we need to recognize it and then we’re going to really understand how these two types of realization can act as something that can stop it. It’s the same thing as throwing arrows, right? You need to know where the target is.

You need to have the red spot there to know what you’re trying to hit. So we actually, in our text, have almost a definition of what is allure to this life and say for myself in this life I have to be better than others. So there are in a sense there are four elements in this sentence. First of all, we talk about myself. We identify the I.

I myself in this life in this life means from the time of conception until the time of my death, from the whole duration of my life. Be or have to be better than others. I have to be better than others. Whoever is this other person I’m comparing myself to, I have to be better. I have to have more.

And this sense of being better or having more is in effect translated into three areas: having more food, having more clothes and having better reputation. So being better in all of these three aspects when I’m compared with others. This is the allure to this life. So, really, if we try to give a definition of what is allure to this life, it’s actually have a very strong wish, a very strong need and desire to experience well-being and fame in this life. Right?

To be attached to this pleasure and fame. So if we examine something else in comparison to that, if we talk about Dharma, and in particular if we talk about pure Dharma, then if you are somebody who is practicing pure Dharma, it means that you are somebody who is relinquishing this body and by relinquishing this body you also relinquish this need to experience well-being and fame and reputation and so forth. Now there are many people who practice Dharma but their practice is not pure. But for those who do a pure practice and they are focused on reaching a state of enlightenment as soon as possible, well this type of practitioner is ready to completely let go of fame, of reputation, of experiences of well-being, of completely relinquishing that body. So if you want to practice this pure Dharma in a way, it is obvious that you have to abandon allure to this life.

So how are you going to abandon it? You’re going to start meditating on the difficulty difficulty of finding leisures and endowments and on meditating on impermanence. Having generated realization on these two aspects, then you’re going to use this realization as a method that will stop attachment towards the allure of this life. This is how you stop this attachment for things that are related to this life. It’s very clear that if you don’t practice Dharma, Dharma will not be established, will not be achieved.

Now the thing is that quite often we practice Dharma but we find that eventually our practice is not pure. And at this time we have to ask the question, why is it that our Dharma practice is not pure? Who is it that is polluting the purity of our practice? And we have to say it is exactly that thing. Allure to this life is a thing that pollutes the pure practice of Dharma.

So you might ask the question, alright, so then what is the problem with contaminated practice of Dharma? What is the problem with impure practice of Dharma? What is the fault with that? Well, if you practice Dharma and this practice is not pure, then definitely you’re not going to achieve liberation and you’re not going to achieve enlightenment. All you will achieve is to remain within cyclic existence, rotate within cyclic existence, and from time to time experience a type of happiness which is contaminated.

So your experiences will end at this point of experiencing contaminated happiness. It will never go as far as liberation and enlightenment. Now, it is not that we can just say that such a practice of Dharma is completely without any benefit. There is some benefit. At least you have avoided falling into the lower migrations.

At least you practice enough to experience some sort of happiness. It is contaminated, it is mundane happiness, but at least there is that benefit. Which page are you?

Oh, okay. Just a minute. I just lost myself in the in the text. We have another quotation again, as I said, it was Mañjuśrī who passed down these teachings on the three principal aspects of the path to Lama Tsongkhapa. Further on, we have some further advice on that on what is called the separation from the four longings or the four cravings, right?

So it says that if you have craving for this life, then it is not Dharma. If you have craving for saṃsāra, then it is not renunciation, and so forth. So if we look at this first line where it says, if you have longing for this life, then this is not proper Dharma or you’re not a proper Dharma practitioner. What do we mean by having longing for this life? It means to be completely attached to the experiences of this life, limited experiences of this life.

As long as you crave for them, as long as you remain attached to them, then you are not a Dharma practitioner. You might be thinking that you practice Dharma, but this is not a pure practice. The line that said that if you are longing for cyclic existence, then you do not have renunciation. And when we say longing for cyclic existence, what we actually mean is to have this incredible attachment for your own body. To see this body that has come about through actions and afflictions as being something that is pure, that is permanent, that is the basis for for experiencing happiness and so forth.

As long as you conceive the body being that way, and as long as you have great attachment and craving for that, then you do not have renunciation. So, at this point, it is quite important to understand who is a Dharma practitioner and who is not. In other words, we need to understand what is Dharma and what is not. What is pure Dharma and what is not pure Dharma. So we have an answer to that, and it says that the Dharma that can actually relinquish this life is the proper Dharma, is the pure Dharma.

If Dharma cannot relinquish this life, then it is not pure. Was saying, let’s look at this great thing that we do all the time, which is to say prayers and to do our commitments. Does that relinquish your life? Quite the opposite. You make prayers that you have a long life, a healthy life, you have no obstacles, you experience happiness in your life.

Does your prayers and does your recitation become almost a cause for letting go of the life? Quite the opposite. Opposite. They seem to coexist quite easily. They don’t contradict each other.

Which makes us think that all these prayers and all this recitation actually are mundane practices. But as a matter of fact, the Dharma can never coexist with something which is mundane because the Dharma is that which relinquishes this life and that which is mundane, it’s something that delights, it takes on voluntarily anything that has to do with this life. Now those two things are mutually exclusive. You can never combine them, you can never unite them, you can never have them go existing. If it is pure Dharma, then it is the opposite of the mundane.

Now, really what is going to make the distinction between that which is Dharma and that which is mundane is the motivation. It all comes down to the motivation. And unless you have the correct motivation, no matter what you practice, it does not become Dharma. So you could very well be doing different practices in order to bring about happiness for this life. You could be meditating on the deity, you could be practicing Guhyasamāja, you want to practice Yamāntaka, you want to practice Heruka, whatever you want to practice.

If you’re practicing with the purpose of bringing about the happiness of this life, then this is not a proper Dharma practice. But if you do things with the intention to completely relinquish this life, even if you were to recite Om Mani Padme Hum once, just one time, that would have inconceivable result. So really, it all comes down to the motivation, it’s difference in motivation that will bring about difference in the quality of your practice. It’s very important to understand what is Buddhist Dharma. Now the word that we use in English, you know, the Sanskrit word, the Sanskrit root of the word Buddhist, it comes in Tibetan if we were to translate literally, it would mean something that has to do with something which is inside.

Buddhist is an insider and what is inside is the mind. So when we talk about Buddhist Dharma, we talk about the Dharma of the mind. Why? Because whatever you achieve and whatever transformation is brought about, it will always come from the inside. It will come through a transformation of the mind.

It will never be an external transformation that will bring about the changes we are looking for. Everything comes from the mind. And it is really in all those things we’re talking about renunciation, bodhicitta, generating faith, right? Love and compassion. All these things, in order to be a Dharma, a pure Dharma practice, they really have to come with this purity of motivation from inside, from the mind,