FINDING

GENUINE
PRACTICE
The Eight Verses of Training the Mind
AS TAUGHT BY

The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

 
 
TRANSLATED BY

Khenpo David Karma Choephel

 

KTD PUBLICATIONS
DHARMAEBOOKS.ORG
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface: The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Introduction

THE EIGHT VERSES OF TRAINING THE MIND

FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

One: Hold All Beings Dear

Two: Be Confident, Not Prideful
Three: Apply the Dharma as an Antidote
Four: Cherish the Difficult
Five: Train to Accept Defeat
Six: Learn from Injustice
Seven: Radiate Joy, Take on Pain
Eight: Find Ultimate Freedom
Questions and Answers

Glossary of Terms
Acknowledgements
Copyrights
 PREFACE
The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

It was Jowo Atisha who brought these mind training practices from
India to Tibet. Initially, they were secret and taught to very few people.
They were regarded as a high-level practice for experienced practitio-
ners, as not everyone was capable of practicing them. They demanded
great courage, determination, and dedication. Geshe Langri Thangpa’s
Eight Verses of Training the Mind was probably the first mind training
practice that was opened more widely to the public. The renowned
Kadampa master, Geshe Chekawa, who composed the famous Seven-
Point Mind Training, first began to follow the Kadampa teachings having
heard Langri Thangpa’s Eight Verses. These teachings have been preserved
in the Kagyu tradition through the work of Lord Gampopa. He studied
both the Kadampa teachings and the Mahamudra tradition and skilfully
melded them together into the Dagpo Kagyu. Mind training was an
essential part of Kagyu practices from the beginning.

Geshe Langri Thangpa is himself a great example of a genuine, mind-

training practitioner. Lojong was the main focus of his whole life; he

4
 PREFACE

lived mind training every moment. Because he was always focused on

his practice, he rarely smiled, and people nicknamed him “grim-faced”
Langri Thangpa. On only one or two rare occasions, was he known to
smile. Once, there was a turquoise gemstone on the mandala plate. A little
mouse, attracted by the turquoise, scrambled over the plate and tried
to steal it. But it was too heavy, so the mouse called another mouse to
help him. Together, one mouse pulled at the stone, and the other mouse
pushed; as he watched their efforts, Langri Thangpa smiled.

His practice was so effective that those around him witnessed how even
the birds and animals at his monastery refrained from harming each
other. A story relates that after he passed away, the next day, an old lady
came to Langthang monastery. On the way, she was shocked to see an
eagle attacking a smaller bird. When she reached the monastery, she
told the monks what she had seen, and declared, “I think Langri Thangpa
must have passed away because this never used to happen.”

When we talk about lojong or “mind training,” the lo or “mind” referred

to is bodhicitta the “mind of enlightenment,” so primarily mind training
means training in bodhicitta. The Eight Verses contains all the mind train-
ing practices divided into eight stages that can be divided further into
two parts: relative truth and absolute truth. The first seven stanzas are in-
structions on generating relative bodhicitta, and the last stanza concerns

5
 PREFACE

absolute bodhicitta. Some people recite the Eight Verses only as a prayer
or aspiration, but that was not Geshe Langri Thangpa’s intention. He
envisioned the text being used as a handbook for the practice of mind
training. In these verses, he tells us precisely what we have to do. Through
them, he teaches us how to visualize, how to prepare our mind, how to
focus, and how to analyze. They cover all the crucial points for taming
one’s mind and developing bodhicitta. They are not just something to
be understood intellectually or paid lip-service; they have to be put into
practice.

A parallel example would be training to run a marathon. If we want to

get fit, we have to follow a daily exercise program. It requires courage,
hard work, and perseverance. Mind training should be like that too. It
should be practiced assiduously on a daily basis, and we need to create
momentum by planning ahead. In the morning, when we wake up, we
should consciously set out a plan of what we will do with our mind
throughout the day. In the evening, we should reflect on our thoughts
and actions during the day that has passed and assess how successfully
we kept to our plan.

Langri Thangpa practiced what he taught. In the Eight Verses, it says,

“I will take defeat on myself, and give the victory to others.” One day,
while he was teaching the monks in his monastery, a woman arrived

6
 PREFACE

with a baby. “This is your child. I can’t take care of it anymore,” she ex-
claimed, thrust it at him, and walked off. He calmly picked up the baby
and carried him until he found a wet nurse. He left the baby with her
and paid her to raise the child. This incident created a huge scandal and
much gossip directed against Langri Thangpa, but he said nothing.
And so the baby grew up under his protection. Years later, the woman
returned to the monastery with her family and told her story. All her
previous children had died, so when this child was born, the family had
done a mo — a divination. It said that the only way to save the baby was to
give him away to a qualified master. Now the boy had grown up, and they
were full of gratitude to Langri Thangpa.

Genuine dharma practice is not separate from life. Generally, when eve-
rything is going well, when there are no problems or difficulties, anyone
can appear to be a good dharma practitioner. However, when things go
wrong, when adversity strikes, that is the real test of our dharma practice.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has
worked on the preparation of this book for publication. I hope that it
will be of benefit.

17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

June 21, 2020

7
 INTRODUCTION

THE GYALWANG KARMAPA has taught Geshe Langri Thangpa’s

Eight Verses of Training the Mind on several occasions. Though short, this
text gets to the core of Mahayana practice, and each time he teaches it, he
emphasizes different themes. In this particular teaching, he stressed how
we need to bring our practice to bear on the difficulties that face us in our
life and our dharma practice — an issue that all practitioners must face if
their practice is to be effective.

The teachings in this eBook were originally given in a weekend teaching

called “The Art of Happiness” organized by the Foundation for Uni-
versal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (FURHHDL)
in November 2014. We would also like to thank Rajiv Mehrotra and
everyone at FURHHDL for organizing the teaching and their support.

8
 THE EIGHT VERSES
OF TRAINING THE MIND
Geshe Langri Thangpa

By thinking of all sentient beings

As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel
For accomplishing the highest aim,
I will always hold them dear.

Whenever I’m in the company of others,

I will regard myself as the lowest among all,
And from the depths of my heart
Cherish others as supreme.

In my every action, I will watch my mind,

And the moment destructive emotions arise,
I will confront them strongly and avert them,
Since they will hurt both me and others.

Whenever I see ill-natured beings,

Or those overwhelmed by heavy misdeeds or suffering,

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 THE EIGHT VERSES OF TRAINING THE MIND

I will cherish them as something rare,

As though I’d found a priceless treasure.

Whenever someone out of envy

Does me wrong by attacking or belittling me,
I will take defeat on myself,
And give the victory to others.

Even when someone I have helped,

Or in whom I have placed great hopes
Mistreats me very unjustly,
I will view that person as a true spiritual teacher.

In brief, directly or indirectly,

I will offer help and happiness to all my mothers,
And secretly take on myself
All their hurt and suffering.

I will learn to keep all these practices

Untainted by thoughts of the eight worldly concerns.
May I recognize all things as like illusions,
And, without attachment, gain freedom from bondage.

Thus spoke the spiritual master Lang Thang Dorje Senge. This is completed.
Sarva Mangalam.
10
 FINDING
GENUINE
PRACTICE
The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje
THE TOPIC OF THESE TEACHINGS is the Eight Verses of Training
the Mind by the great Kadampa spiritual master Geshe Langri Thanga
Dorje Senge. Mind training is an important practice of the Kadampa
school. When we say “mind,” we primarily mean bodhicitta, so this is
training in bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is not something that everyone is im-
mediately and directly ready to practice and actualize. Instead, we need
to train in it gradually and improve it step by step. Thus when we say
mind training, we primarily mean training in bodhicitta.

The Hinayana or Foundation vehicle and the Mahayana or Great vehi-

cle are also called “yanas.” Sometimes we use the word yana to refer to
pack animals such as goats, donkeys, or oxen. The reason for this is that
they carry packs, hence they can also be called “vehicles.” However, there
is a difference in the size of the burden that they can carry. For example,
goats, which were once used as pack animals, can only carry a very small
amount. In comparison, donkeys or oxen can carry much more, and
elephants can carry huge loads. Likewise the distinction between the
Foundation and Mahayana vehicles is the size of the load — how much
responsibility — they can bear. Some people are only able to carry their
own loads; some are able to bear the burden of many people’s loads and
responsibilities. So that is the distinction between the Foundation and

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

the Mahayana: the amount of responsibility and the size of the burden
one is able to bear.

With regard to the Foundation and Mahayana vehicles, it’s not just
a question of making the aspiration verbally with our mouths, “May all
sentient beings be happy; May all sentient beings be free of suffering,” it’s
not merely the words. Rather, it is a question of our heart. How do we
feel in our heart? Are we able to bear the burden of treasuring all sen-
tient beings? Do we have the courage to do this? This is what the aspira-
tion is dependent on.

But as I said before, in order to develop the courage to carry the burden
or responsibility of the Mahayana, we need to train ourselves in it and
increase our training. Merely reciting the Mahayana practices does not
make us a Mahayana practitioner. In order to become a Mahayana prac-
titioner, we must also practice the other vehicles. We must do the practi-
ces that are in common with the other vehicles and those practices must
precede the Mahayana. And so it is only when we have achieved a degree
or level of the common dharma practices that we will be able to reach
the level of the Mahayana.

For example, there is the text that we are about to discuss here, the
Eight Verses of Training the Mind. If I were to ask you, is this a Foundation

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

vehicle text or is it a Mahayana text, I think all of you would say that it
is a Mahayana text. And so, if we are studying a Mahayana text, does that
mean we are actually studying and practicing the Mahayana dharma?
We would have to say we are not sure.

When we are studying the Mahayana dharma, it does not mean that we
are definitely doing it as Mahayana dharma practice. The reason is that
it depends on our intention. If we do not have the authentic motivation
required of the Mahayana dharma, even though we may be studying the
mind training texts of the Mahayana, it does not necessarily become the
Mahayana dharma for us. So we might point to a text and say, “This is
Mahayana text, or this is a Foundation text.” Or, we might see a practi-
tioner and say, “That person is practicing the Mahayana dharma, so they
must be a Mahayana practitioner.” This is a mistake. Actually, we need
to see what our own motivation is and how we ourselves are training.
We must direct our attention inwards. We don’t need to point the finger
outwards, but instead examine ourselves, inwardly.

In that way, when we talk about training the mind, we mean we are
improving our own mind, seeing whether we have been able to focus
inwards and tame and pacify our own wild way of being. That is what is
important.

14
 ONE:
HOLD ALL BEINGS DEAR

By thinking of all sentient beings

As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel
For accomplishing the highest aim,
I will always hold them dear.

It took me a long time to figure out what is meant here by “wish-fulfilling

jewel” and the best way to explain it. The wish-fulfilling jewel is a jewel
found in the ocean. It is extremely difficult to obtain. You have to go
on a long ocean voyage to get it from the King of the Nagas. According
to the myth, once you do find this jewel and pray and make offerings to
it, it will fulfill all of your desires. It was very difficult for me to think of
what we could replace it with.

I thought about it from many perspectives, and then it finally occurred to

me that often these days we think of money as similar to a wish-fulfilling

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

jewel, because if you have money you can fulfill your desires. You can
achieve a good status, hold influence, and so forth. So having money is
basically the same as having a wish-fulfilling jewel.

The wish-fulfilling jewel will not provide happiness or provide the state
of buddhahood, and neither will money. These days we consider money
to be extremely important. In reality, money is just a means to bring
ourselves material happiness. However, we mistakenly identify money as
being the happiness itself, and it becomes our primary focus. So, in this
verse, I think that realizing all sentient beings are more important than
money makes it easier to comprehend the meaning of “wish-fulfilling
jewel.”

What is the reason sentient beings are even greater and more precious
than the wish-fulfilling jewel? It is because the jewel can only bring us
external wealth; it cannot develop our compassion. It cannot give us
prajna. It cannot give us happiness. It cannot give us the state of buddha-
hood. And yet, if we treasure sentient beings and if we carry within our
own being the conduct and motivation to work for the benefit of others,
we will be able to develop loving kindness, compassion, prajna, the state
of buddhahood, and happiness. For this reason treasuring others is more
precious than owning a wish-fulfilling jewel.

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

Normally we place buddhas and bodhisattvas in a high place. We make

offerings to them and prostrate to them. But when we see someone who
is not so beautiful, perhaps wearing dirty clothes and whose face is filthy,
we do everything we can to keep them away, to prevent them coming
near us. But, actually, when we think about sentient beings and buddhas,
we might make the analogy of clay: we can create various different shapes
out of clay but the essence of clay remains the same. If we then take that
clay and make it into the shape of a buddha and put it in a high place,
we will treasure it, we will make offerings to it, we will prostrate to it. If
we were to take that same material and fashion it into a dog or a pig, we
wouldn’t do those things. The material is the same but the form is differ-
ent — one is a buddha, one is a dog or a pig. If we consider the external
form as being more important than the clay itself, we probably won’t put
dogs and pigs in high places or make offerings to them.

What this verse is saying is that in order for us to bring ourselves happi-
ness and accomplish the state of buddhahood, we must understand there
is no difference between buddhas and sentient beings; in terms of the
material, the qualities, the benefits, they are one and the same. In order to
achieve buddhahood, we are told that making offerings to buddhas and
accomplishing benefit for sentient beings is the important thing and we
consider buddhas, bodhisattvas, and gods as being most important. But
we must also cherish sentient beings and recognize their qualities.

17
 TWO:
BE CONFIDENT, NOT PRIDEFUL

Whenever I’m in the company of others,

I will regard myself as the lowest among all,
And from the depths of my heart
Cherish others as supreme.

This verse is actually quite difficult. Especially in these days when in our
current way of looking at things, we see ourselves and others as being
equal. We may not consider ourselves as being superior to others, but we
do think we are equal. So when it comes to seeing ourselves as being infe-
rior or if we don’t know how to conceive of that idea, how do we train in
it and practice it? It can seem to be contradictory to our present cultural
norm.

The difficulty we have these days is that we often mistake confidence

and pride. We get the two mixed up and often see pride as if it were

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

confidence. For that reason we are unable to distinguish between our

pride and our confidence. Confidence is something we must have, but
pride is something we must give up. It is important for us to distinguish
these two. Here, the text is talking about decreasing our pride by de-
creasing our arrogance and decreasing our tendency to ignore or think
badly of others.

In general we identify pride as being something to be eliminated com-

pletely. But actually, we can distinguish two different types of pride. One
is the pride to be eliminated, and the other is the pride that is an antidote.
We utilize pride as the remedy when we are trying to eliminate the afflic-
tions, because when we are struggling against the afflictions we need to
believe that we can eliminate them. It is because we have been habituated
to the afflictions for so long that they are very difficult to eliminate and
often we will be defeated in our struggle with them. We must not engage
with them, not let them get the better of us. When the afflictions arise in
us, we must be able to apply the antidote, and for this reason we need to
have the pride of thinking, “I am not going to let myself be overcome by
them.” This is confidence and is necessary, in order to know that we can
disregard the afflictions, that we can override them, that we can defeat
them and be victorious. So in order to overcome the afflictions we need
to have the sort of pride that can diminish the afflictions; to not consider
them as being important. We need to be able to say to ourselves, “I can

19
 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

live without the afflictions; I don’t need them.” We must cultivate the
pride that is an antidote, in order to diminish the afflictions and finally
abandon them.

But usually it is difficult for us to disregard the afflictions, to say, “I don’t

need the afflictions.” When we are not desperate, it is not a problem, but
when we are at the end of our tether, we fall back on the afflictions. If we
have the power of virtue, the supporting condition, we can rise above
them, but without that, we will not be able to. Without that strength of
virtue, we are emptied of the positive and have no choice but to look to
the afflictions for protection. So, without any virtue, we have no power,
and consequently we have no choice but to rely on the afflictions. In
place of that, if we do have some genuine love and compassion in our
mind stream, then, only at that point, are we able to really do without the
afflictions. It is only at that point we can say, “I have this precious love and
compassion in my mind and I don’t need you,” only then will we have the
confidence we can rely on and apply. But without it, we get to the end of
our capacity and then it is impossible to not get attached to things that
are pleasing, and angry at things that are displeasing.

The pride to be eliminated is the pride that ignores and disregards other
sentient beings. It makes one look down on others and treat them with
contempt. This type of pride creates big obstacles because it also closes

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

the door to developing our own virtuous qualities. The dharma is some-
thing that requires us to improve ourselves continually in a spiritual di-
rection, step by step. Every day we need to be just a little bit better than
the previous day, and the following day a little bit better again.

We need to continually develop the qualities for ourselves, but if, on the
basis of some small, limited reasoning, we were to say to ourselves, “I’m
important,” this would impede us from developing our qualities. This
pride must be eliminated.

There are many different reasons why we can come to feel prideful: be-
cause of our social position, because we might come from a well-to-do
family; because of our achievements; because of our good looks; but
they all prevent us from developing our virtuous qualities. So it is im-
portant that we move in the direction of developing our own qualities.

21
 THREE:
APPLY THE DHARMA AS AN ANTIDOTE

In my every action, I will watch my mind,

And the moment destructive emotions arise,
I will confront them strongly and avert them,
Since they will hurt both me and others.

Here in English it says, “hurt.” The term nö-pa means “causing harm”
but actually, the Tibetan text reads “ma-rung-wa,” which means some-
thing a little different; the meaning of ma-rung-wa is more like “turning
you wild” or “making you rough or harsh.”

No matter who they might be, in the beginning, when someone is born
they are not bad in any way. But depending on that person’s environment,
personal situation, and their internal constitution, they can become ac-
customed to the afflictions as they arise, and through the force of habitu-
ation they are turned into a rough and unsavory person.

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

Whether we are talking about the Foundation or the Mahayana dharma,

when we are talking about all of the dharma that the Buddha taught
dharma is an antidote for the afflictions and nothing else. Any person
that is practicing dharma, no matter which one, whether this is the
dharma of the listeners, or the Mahayana dharma, or whether it’s the
Secret Mantrayana dharma, no matter what name you call the dharma
you practice, it must all be an antidote for the afflictions. This is the criti-
cal point of the dharma; whether our dharma is functioning or not, is
successful or not, comes down to this.

These practices are considered extremely important in Tibet. The reason

for this is a particular feature of Tibetan Buddhism: in Tibetan Buddhism
the three vehicles are practiced all together within the person of a single
individual. This is considered very important. In order to practice the
dharma of the three vehicles, an individual must first have practiced the
three types of vows. For that reason, the three types of vows are consi-
dered a different topic and there is particular research into and teaching
on them.

If, when we practice the three types of vows, three different people are
practicing individually, for example: if Person A practices the pratimok-
sha vows of individual liberation, Person B practices the bodhisattva
vow, and Person C practices the Secret Mantrayana vows, it would be

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

simple to practice. But we don’t do this, we are engaging the three prac-
tices altogether.

When one individual practices all three levels at the same time, then
sometimes, the vows conflict with each other. That person might come
to a situation where, if they behaved according to the precepts of the
pratimoksha vows it might conflict with their bodhisattva vow, or if
they were to hold the practices of the Secret Mantra Vajrayana to be
most important, it might contradict the pratimoksha precepts. So when
these different conflicts and contradictions co-exist, it becomes difficult
to practice. Actually this is the area that gives the greatest difficulty to
people who are practicing Buddhism.

The essence of Tibetan Buddhism is the difficult practice of the three

types of vow. There has been a lot of discussion about this. For example,
if we hold the pratimoksha vows, the vows of individual liberation, these
are the vows of the householders — the five lay precepts and fasting vows,
and the vows of male and female monastics. This discussion is not merely
for the sake of being scholarly; it’s primarily about how to use these as
an antidote for afflictions. These vows and lay and monastic precepts are
primarily antidotes to the afflictions when we work with our body and
speech. We make an agreement with our body and speech not to act on
desire. When we come to the bodhisattva vow, however, it’s different. In

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

fact, in some sutras the Buddha taught that for a bodhisattva, desire and
attachment are not afflictions. The reason for this is that the power of the
bodhisattva comes from the power of loving kindness and compassion,
and attachment can be an aid in practicing the path. The problem, what
is contradictory in the bodhisattva practice, which is primarily the prac-
tice of loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta, is our hatred and
aversion. We primarily try to stop aversion and apply remedies. In the
practice of the Secret Mantra Vajrayana, we do work with all the afflic-
tions, including attachment and aversion, but the primary affliction we
work with is delusion — the illusion of grasping at things as being real.

In the Secret Mantra Vajrayana, we use many different methods to pre-

vent ourselves from clinging to things as being real. This is why there is
the description of prajna and developing the wisdoms of the five bud-
dhas and their families. This practice is primarily an antidote for delu-
sion. And so, in summary, all the dharma becomes an antidote for the
afflictions. This summarizes all three vehicles of Buddhist practice: the
three vows or restraints of our body, speech, and mind.

Any dharma we practice must function as an antidote for the afflictions.

The way we often do it is that we set aside a certain amount of time — a few
hours, perhaps — and a particular place for practicing dharma, a shrine
room. But at other times, we just let ourselves behave as usual, giving our

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

afflictions a free rein. If we do that, then we are not really practicing the
dharma: it does not become dharma practice. The text reads, “In my every
action,” so it has to go beyond, into whatever we are doing, not only when
we are meditating in the shrine room. In order for the dharma to work
as an antidote for the afflictions, we have to do it all the time, extending
our practice beyond the shrine room and our formal meditation. What-
ever task we’re engaged with, whenever we are making a connection with
other people, we need to keep this in mind. It’s often said in describing
the conduct of a bodhisattva that even when you fasten your belt you
should check whether that action is helping to decrease the afflictions
or not. Of course, that is looking at it in very fine detail, but in any case,
when we are trying to overcome the afflictions, when we are practicing
the dharma, if we want to have courage in the dharma, and if we want
our dharma practice to be powerful, we need to look this way in all of
our actions. Once we do that, we can have the confidence that we will
actually be able to avert the afflictions.

We need to bring the dharma into our lives. Sometimes when we think
about this, people get a little confused about it and maybe think that you
have to have all the accoutrements in order to be a dharma practitioner
— you need the vajra, you need the bell, you need the damaru and the
skull cup, you have to take your mala everywhere you go. Sometimes
this creates problems. For example, sometimes, if only one member

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

of a single family is a Buddhist and other family members don’t have faith
in any religion or have faith in a different religion, dharma can actually
become a cause of difficulties.

It can appear to others that you’re being weird about it. This is particular-
ly a problem for Buddhists. We need to realize that Buddhism isn’t some-
thing that we have to make a public display of. Of course, sometimes, it
is just naturally visible and that is no problem; but intentionally trying
to show that we are Buddhists does not fit with the dharma. Actually,
it becomes one of the eight worldly concerns. When you are purposely
trying to make an impression, thinking, “Will they be able to see that
I’m a dharma practitioner?” It is actually no longer dharma practice; in
fact it contradicts the dharma. When we talk about bringing the dharma
into our lives, it means that we are able to apply the dharma as an an-
tidote. The dharma isn’t something that we only do in the meditation
room. If the afflictions only occurred when we were in the meditation
room, that would be fine but that’s not the way it is. Afflictions happen
all the time — when we’re at work, when we’re trying to make connec-
tions with other people — that’s when the afflictions occur. Those are
the times that we need the dharma to function as the antidote and work
against the afflictions.

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

Now when we say that you need to apply the antidotes for the afflic-
tions such as anger, you might think this means, “I need to suppress my
anger. I need to quell my anger; I need to crush it.” We have a Tibetan
expression that says, “Even when there’s fire burning in your chest, don’t
let the smoke out of your mouth.” You have the fire of anger burning
inside but you can’t show it to anyone. Actually, that’s not what applying
the antidote to anger means. People do think that when we say “applying
the antidote” or “using the antidote” it means that you should suppress
your anger, be patient and bear with it. But when you do that, often what
happens is that you are just gathering it within yourself and that’s no good
either, because it will only bring more suffering.

We now live in an age where people say that you need to show what you
are feeling, to show what is on your mind, so when people hear, “You
need to apply the antidote for the afflictions,” they think that this means
that you need to suppress the afflictions and deny them. But that’s not
what it means. When you read this line, “I will confront them strongly
and avert them,” there is the danger that you will misunderstand it.

That is why it suggests here that the afflictions will make us wild; we
will no longer be gentle, no longer peaceful. Everyone suffers, for that
reason we need to see the afflictions as being a fault. Then, when we have
identified the afflictions as being a problem, at that point we become

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disenchanted, we feel revulsion and we feel disgust for them. When we

feel disgust for the afflictions, they will naturally subside. We don’t need
to suppress them, there’s no need to crush them, rather you identify the
afflictions as being a fault and, naturally, they decrease. So this is the fun-
damental remedy for the afflictions.

In order to find a remedy for the afflictions, we need two different types of
support: an external support and an internal support. As an analogy, you
could think about the olden days, such as in a movie about ancient times,
when there were kings. There are two kings, King A and King B, and they
aren’t getting along so they decide to fight a war. When King A is getting
ready to attack King B; if he’s thinking like a general, he can only send in
an army when they are ready to go into battle. So the first thing he has to
think about is how to prepare for a war: he has to raise an army, train them,
equip them. The second thing he must do is send spies into King B’s ca-
pital city. These spies need to examine the situation: they need to see
what the economy is like and how people are doing; whether the army
is good or bad; what the people’s attitude to King B is — do they like
him? If the economy is good, the army is strong and, most importantly, if
the people support and love the King, then, no matter how much war is
waged, it will be difficult to win. What needs to happen is for King A to
direct his spies to start spreading rumors, fomenting rebellion, creating
conflict between people, influencing people to dislike King B and feel

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badly about him. Only at that point, when the army is attacking from
the outside and there’s rebellion within, when the external and internal
conditions come together, can King A take the city.

It’s also like that when we are applying the remedies for the afflictions.
First, we need to get ready: we do prostrations; recite Vajrasattva man-
tras; make mandala offerings; and practice guru yoga. There are many
such external preparations we need to make, including supplicating the
guru. So first we prepare ourselves.

Once we feel ready to apply an antidote for the afflictions, the most im-
portant point is that if we lack complete revulsion for the afflictions in
the depths of our heart and mind, then no matter how many things we
do externally such as applying antidotes, gathering the accumulations,
and purifying misdeeds, they won’t help. They won’t be remedies for the
afflictions. However, if we are doing this from the depths of our heart
and mind, then we will really be able to turn away from the afflictions.
The main thing is that we need to be genuinely disgusted with the af-
flictions within our own mind. When we have that disgust and we also
have the powerful external support of virtue, then it will be possible to be
victorious in that battle and overcome the afflictions.

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In brief, even if in the end we can overcome everything else, we may not
achieve victory over ourselves. We are our own greatest enemy; the final
and most terrifying boss. This is why it is important to see the afflictions
as faults when we apply the antidotes to them.

It can be difficult for us to apply the remedies. If the affliction and the
remedy were separate people, it would be easy. But it’s not like that: the
affliction is you and the antidote is also you. So it gets confusing.

We might be trying to apply the antidotes, but if we are trying to apply

them outside ourselves, it doesn’t work. Actually, we have to look inside
ourselves. Often, we use the afflictions deep in our mind as our closest
allies: on the outside, we may have the appearance of applying a remedy,
but actually, inside, we may not be really doing that, and so, for that
reason it can be very complicated.

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 FOUR:
CHERISH THE DIFFICULT

Whenever I see ill-natured beings,

Or those overwhelmed by heavy misdeeds or suffering,
I will cherish them as something rare,
As though I’d found a priceless treasure.

“Whenever I see ill-natured beings,” ill-natured or troublesome people,

it is those people for whom we particularly need to feel loving kindness
and compassion. Often what happens is, when we see ill-natured or
boorish people experience some mishap or suffering, we think, “It serves
them right!” That’s often how we feel, particularly when we see someone
who has done us harm or stolen something from us and then, subse-
quently, their car is stolen or their house is burnt down causing injury to
themselves. When we hear they are in the emergency ward we say, “Ha,
they deserved it!”

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That is not the practice of loving-kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta.

That sort of practice is not okay. When we see a person like that, it is
especially the sort of person we need to have compassion for. In fact they
should be the particular focus of our compassion. It is easy to feel love
and compassion for those close to us. If someone we love goes to the
hospital, it is easy to have compassion for them. However, if someone
who hurt us in some way is now sick or injured and is suffering, this is the
moment we need to emphasize love and compassion for that person. It
is at this moment that we can actually tell whether we really have loving
kindness and compassion. That is the meaning of this verse. It is especially
important to develop loving kindness and compassion for such people.

If it doesn’t have an effect, that’s fine, but if there is someone who has
done you some terrible wrong, who has harmed you, and that person is
now in some difficulty or pain or suffering, you should take this as a great
opportunity. You should pay particular attention and interest in them
and observe in yourself whether or not you have actually developed
loving kindness and compassion. If you find that you have not, that’s
okay. But you should at least examine your mind and see. You shouldn’t
pretend. If, when you look to see whether you have love and compassion
for that person, you find you don’t, you might think, “Oh no, I’m a failure
as a dharma practitioner.” And then you recite, Om Mani Padme Hum
and say, “Poor thing.”

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

If that’s what you do, it is actually one of the eight worldly concerns. If you
try to have love and compassion and it doesn’t work, that’s fine, no prob-
lem. But on the other hand, if you are unable to feel love and compassion
and pretend that you do, that is not the dharma. In any case, we need
the chance to examine our loving-kindness and compassion in order to
establish what sort of level of loving-kindness and compassion we have,
and this is the perfect opportunity to do so. If we are always meditating
on loving kindness and compassion but we never assess how much we
have, we will never really know where we are, whether we have it or not.
At this point, with that type of being and that situation, we can examine
ourselves and see what degree of loving kindness and compassion we
actually have.

When you write the word Buddha forward B - U - D - D - H - A, it says

Buddha, but if you write it backward, though it’s still the same letters,
it no longer spells Buddha. Similarly, when we consider sentient beings,
there can be good-natured sentient beings and bad-natured ones, and
yet they both experience pain and pleasure. Just because they’re bad-na-
tured doesn’t mean that they do not experience pleasure and pain.
Whether good or bad natured, they are both sentient beings; they are
fundamentally the same. We need to view them in this way, especially
if there is some way in which we can transform a bad-natured sentient
being into a good-natured sentient being. If through the power of our

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loving kindness or compassion, our intelligence or wisdom, we are able

to make a connection and transform that being; that, I think, is acting
with dignity, a truly honorable trait.

There are a lot of people out there, some people who would harm us and
others who would help us. When people cause harm to us, it’s natural
to feel discouraged. We might hold grudges; we might feel anger and
aversion. When someone is harming us, we should try to remember
that that person is also experiencing feelings of pleasure and pain. If it
happens not just once, but time after time, that they treat us with malice
and ill-will, it is only human if we feel some discouragement and anger
toward that person. But as someone who is practicing bodhicitta, loving
kindness and compassion, we should try to respect that person and treat
them well.

If an affliction arises when an individual harms us, that’s one mistake, but
if, on top of that, we also forget that they are a person who experiences
pleasure and pain, and think they should not be an object for our medi-
tation on compassion, we are doubling our mistake. The first mistake is
that the affliction is arising. Then, on top of that, if we think that the harm
that person causes us is more important, and their experience of pleasure
and pain is less important, that whatever happens to that person serves
them right, we are doubling our mistake. So, it is important for us not to
double our mistakes in this way.
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 FIVE:
TRAIN TO ACCEPT DEFEAT

Whenever someone out of envy

Does me wrong by attacking or belittling me,
I will take defeat on myself,
And give the victory to others.

Generally, when we practice mind training, there are two different types
of practice that we do. There is the practice of meditating on the equality
of self and other, and there is the practice of meditating on exchanging
self and other.

When we think about the instructions on arousing bodhicitta, there are

really three types. First, there are the instructions on meditating on the
sequence of seven causes and results, then; there are also the instructions
on meditating on the equality of self and other, and, third, the medita-
tion on exchanging self and other.

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The instructions on exchanging self and others originate in the Kadampa

tradition and were initially kept secret. They were said to be a special in-
struction, and thus they were not taught widely or to very many people.
Later, these instructions on exchanging self and others were revealed,
and, since then, they have been practiced widely.

The verse reads: “I will take defeat on myself, and give the victory to
others.” So, when we are training our minds in compassion for all sen-
tient beings, there comes a point where we have such intense cherishing
of and love for other sentient beings that we don’t worry about how hard
it is for ourselves, how bad it is for ourselves. We do not think about the
difficulties we face. We are willing to give all of our happiness and every-
thing we have to other sentient beings. So we develop much courage
and conviction.

The first lines are, “Whenever someone out of envy does me wrong by
attacking or belittling me.” Here we are primarily discussing envy. So
when someone attacks us, belittles or criticizes us, we accept the defeat
and give all benefit to them. When we think about other sentient beings,
when we are practicing loving kindness and compassion and someone
is criticizing or belittling us, attacking us in any way, we see that person
as being under the control of the afflictions. Thus what is to blame? It is
not the sentient being that is to blame, but rather, blame rests with the

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afflictions within that sentient being. For that reason, when another sen-
tient being attacks us, criticizes or belittles us, if we were to retaliate in
return, that would neither match the way things actually are, nor would it
fit with our mind training.

I think we all know this. We all understand the reasons and philosophy.
But often when we have an understanding of philosophy it can remain in
the head as an intellectual understanding. It’s not often something that is
felt really deeply in our mind and heart. So, when we come to practice it,
it can be difficult, even though we understand it. An analogy would be
if someone were to strike you with a stick, who would you get angry at?
You would get angry at the person; you wouldn’t get angry at the stick.
The reason we wouldn’t get angry at the stick is because the stick is not
to blame. There’s no fault in the stick. It’s the person who uses the stick,
the one who controls the stick. The stick on its own has no intention or
thought to strike you. It is not under its own control. The stick has no
motivation to harm you, no ill will toward you; it is under the control of
someone else. And so for that reason we do not hold the stick to be at
fault at all and we don’t get angry at the stick. Likewise, when we think
about people, they don’t want to make us angry. Instead, they are under
the control of the afflictions, their negative and disturbing emotions.
However, when we say “emotions,” I sometimes have a doubt about the
use of the word. If we think about the word emotion, I don’t know that

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it actually covers all of the cases of the Tibetan word nyönmong or the
Sanskrit klesha. There are some afflictions that are not emotions, for
example delusion. We are not even aware that delusion exists; it’s not
visible, so we cannot call it an emotion. Following on from that, when we
are under the control of the kleshas or afflictions, what is it that is actually
under their control? It is the individual. So, in this way we need to think
of that individual as being controlled by the afflictions and we need to
forgive them.

We should not respond to their action but give them some space and
forgiveness. So, when it says here, “I will take defeat on myself and give
the victory to others.” one aspect of this is that when a person is attacking
and belittling us, they are under the control of the afflictions and we need
to meditate on great compassion for that sentient being. In particular we
should try to develop great affection and love for them because they are
in an especially wretched state. For that reason, this is a situation where
we really need to try to increase our compassion and increase our wish
to benefit others.

For instance, if someone is set to sue you, that lawsuit itself is not some-
thing that we would meditate on compassion for. We would have to
respond to the lawsuit and the court action. However, as for the indivi-
dual who is suing you, if you were to get angry at them and hold a grudge

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against them, it would disturb your own mind and increase the afflic-
tions. All it would do would be to make you unhappy. Whatever that
individual has done is strengthened by your anger and this makes it
even more uncomfortable. Actually, when we think about it, when
we are being sued, if you can let your mind rest naturally while you are
being sued, then you are able to think about it rationally. When you
have thought about the action rationally, you can make an appropriate
response. If, on the other hand, you are overcome by the afflictions, if
you are not relaxed, if you are not resting naturally, whatever action you
take will be mistaken or in danger of going wrong. So for that reason, we
need to distinguish between the individual and their action. There are
various actions and types of response possible, so we need to make the
appropriate one. However, that individual is not to blame. It’s not their
fault. They are under the control of the afflictions. This is the situation
that they are in, so we need to give them some space and it is important
for us to have some compassion and understanding for the individual.

But before we are able to really develop a feeling for how it is that other
individuals are controlled by their afflictions, we first need to examine
the afflictions that reside within our own being and recognize them. If
we do not, it will be difficult for us to comprehend the extent by which
others are controlled by them and how strong they actually are.

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We need the experience of how dark the blackness of ignorance actually

is. We need to feel the heat of anger. We need to know all of these and
understand them. It is only once we have that experience ourselves, that
we can comprehend how it is that other people fall under their control.

First, in order for us to recognize the afflictions we need to use mindful-

ness and awareness. If we do not have mindfulness and awareness, it leads
to our making mistakes through anger or delusion; how many times
have we made mistakes out of anger and delusion, or desire? We have ex-
perienced these many times, and such experiences have not helped us. So
it is extremely important for us to develop mindfulness and awareness.

But there are varying degrees of difficulty in recognizing the faults of the
afflictions. Actually, do we know how many different afflictions there
are? It is said in the scriptures that there are 84,000 afflictions. But I think
that is just a figure of speech for a very large number; it’s like a plural
in ancient Indian texts. You read that Indian kings had 84,000 queens.
If a king had 84,000 queens, and he visited a different queen every night,
there would still be more queens than he could visit in his entire lifetime.
It just means there are a lot. So, there are many different afflictions, but
we can summarize them into the three poisons of the afflictions.

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However, some of the three poisons are easier to recognize than others.
The first one, the one that is easiest to recognize as being a fault, is anger.
The second would be desire. That’s a little more difficult to recognize
as a fault than anger. The third one, the hardest to recognize, would be
ignorance or delusion. There are also distinctions based on the relative
strengths of each of the poisons within any particular individual and
this can make it easier or more difficult to recognize some of the others.
Although the order in general is as already mentioned; because of the
distinctions between individuals and their different fortunes and dispo-
sitions, and the relative strengths of the different afflictions, some are
more evident because there are more opportunities to express them.

In any case, when we discuss the faults of the afflictions, someone who
has studied texts can list them and repeat them as they are written. Or
maybe they will say, “The lama said this…” But this is only repeating what
the lama said. Just repeating what is written in the texts or what the lama
said is not enough. That is intellectual understanding, not experience.
Similarly, in order to recognize the afflictions, we need to experience the
faults of the afflictions in our own being. For instance, if you are talking
about a person, there is a difference if you know that person compared
with when you don’t really know them. You can talk about them, but
it’s not the same as if you had really known them at first hand. If you
have that direct experience, there is more depth in your understanding.

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Likewise, with the faults of the afflictions, there is something that we

need to see and experience directly and evidently for ourselves. We need
to have the experience of the afflictions through listening, contemplat-
ing, and meditating.

Recognizing the faults of our afflictions is something we need to make

an effort with every day. We need to try to examine them every day to see
what is their nature and how do they function? We need to use various
different methods and look at them from various different angles and
perspectives, which means observing them from different viewpoints. If
we do not make any effort, it will be difficult to recognize them.

Right now we are talking about recognizing the faults of the afflictions,
but actually if the afflictions seem to us to be one thing and their faults
another, and we distinguish them as separate, then that is a sign that we
haven’t really completely recognized the faults of the afflictions. Actually
the afflictions and their faults are inseparable. The nature of the affliction
is the fault itself. They are not distinct. The affliction itself is what needs
to be eliminated. It is not as if the affliction were one thing and there was
some additional fault that needed to be eliminated. If we recognize that
the affliction in its totality must be eliminated, that is a sign that we have
truly identified the affliction.

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How long will it take to recognize the afflictions? We can’t really

set a time frame for this. When I look at it, it seems to me that some-
times it can take five or six years or maybe ten years to recognize just one
affliction. The process is long and variable. To truly recognize the fault, to
recognize the affliction is something that happens in an instant. So some
people are very quick about it.

When we think about our faults and recognize them as such, we see that
we have them because of the afflictions in this life. When we reflect on
the problems that arise in our life, this can provide a condition that aids
us to recognize the faults of the afflictions. For that reason, if we think
about how many different mistakes we have made, how many different
faults and problems we have had, the more aware we can be of the con-
ditions that created them. If we have the strength to be aware of those, it
will be easier for us to recognize the faults. Basically, when we are think-
ing about a great being, they are not great because they have great qua-
lities. They are a great person because of having overcome their faults.
At first they had great problems and they overcame them; that is what
is amazing. If that person from the very first had all the great qualities,
there would be nothing special about their greatness. When we consider
reincarnation and our past lives, we carry a mountain of faults the size of
Mount Meru on our backs. With that perspective, having a few faults
in this lifetime is not something that should make us discouraged or

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depressed. We must not be weighed down by all our misdeeds; we must

be able to rise up, out from under the burden of our misdeeds. This is the
method we use to turn our faults into precious jewels and generate the
hope that we will be grateful that we had faults.

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 SIX:
LEARN FROM INJUSTICE

Even when someone I have helped,

Or in whom I have placed great hopes
Mistreats me very unjustly,
I will view that person as a true spiritual teacher.

When there is someone whom you have helped and you have tried to do
your best for, someone in whom you have great hopes, who then harms
you or fools you or tricks you, that is even more discouraging, even
more upsetting to us than if it were an enemy who has harmed us in any
way. Yet, that sort of person is the greatest spiritual teacher for us. The
reason is we need to train and develop our mind. We need to increase
our compassion, and that person is pointing out and showing us where
the difficulties are for us.

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These days many of us live lives in cities that are busy and stressful, we
have jobs, difficulties, and a lot of pressure in our lives; there are many
different things that we have to do. Then, at the weekends, we go
to a resort. We go to a spiritual resort and we do meditation, do some
yoga, and receive some massage. When we get there, it’s wonderful and
we call it practicing dharma. We wash away so much stress, it’s so relaxing,
and our mind feels good, our mind feels peaceful. It’s very satisfying, so
wonderful and so fresh. We feel great relief. But, actually, when we think
about it, that’s just a temporary benefit.

We often think that practicing the dharma is like that. This is not really
the benefit that practicing dharma should bring, because that type of
practice is like taking a pain-relieving medicine, and there are lots of
pain-relievers in the world. But dharma is not that type of medicine.
When we talk about practicing the dharma it is an intensive training ex-
ercise. When you train intensively it takes a lot of effort, a lot of strength.
There’s nothing comfortable and nothing easy about it. We have to work
hard. It’s difficult. This is the feeling you get when you do intensive train-
ing. If you look from this perspective, at those friends who harm us, it
becomes easy to see how they are the greatest of our spiritual teachers.
When we are practicing the dharma it is not as easy as going for stress
reduction and relaxation. This is important for us to understand.

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 SEVEN:
RADIATE JOY, TAKE ON PAIN

In brief, directly or indirectly,

I will offer help and happiness to all my mothers,
And secretly take on myself
All their hurt and suffering.

This verse is about the practice of exchanging ourselves with others and
doing the visualization of tonglen or “sending and taking.”

Here it says, “And secretly take on myself.” From one perspective, “secret-
ly” refers to doing it in secret. It is not that we tell the other person, “I’m
taking this suffering and giving you this happiness.” It is not something to
show off. If we were to display it, it would become one of the eight world-
ly concerns. Instead, the other person should not know that we are doing
the practice. For us to actually take on the suffering of another being is
extremely difficult. Instead, what this means here is that we develop the

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motivation in our mind so that if we were able to take on the suffering of

others, we would be ready to do it Thus we develop a strong resolve to
take the suffering of others on ourselves.

Many people come to me and say, “I need to do something to bene-

fit other people so I need to be rich. I need to have a lot of money.”
When I hear this, I get a little suspicious about it, because if you intend
to benefit others, why do you need to be rich, why do you need so much
money? Then, when we talk about it, the reason given is that there are so
many poor people in the world, there are so many people who have no
education and if you are rich, you can provide these people with a basic
livelihood or provide them with a basic education. So you need to get
rich in order to benefit others. But actually, that’s kind of difficult. If we
were all to get rich, there wouldn’t be any poor people left to help. Other
people think that they need to be influential or powerful in order to be
able to benefit others. But, once again, if everybody were powerful or in-
fluential, what use would power or influence be? We think that in order
to benefit others we have to be rich and powerful, but that is not the way
things really are. It is not necessary to be rich and powerful in order to
bring benefit.

We do not know where or who the bodhisattvas are. Until we reach the
state of a bodhisattva ourselves, we can’t tell who is or is not a bodhisattva.

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 FINDING GENUINE PRACTICE

That stray dog in the street may well be a bodhisattva, but we aren’t
in a position to recognize them. We just don’t know.

In fact, a bodhisattva is an individual, any individual, who works for the

benefit of other beings. Though we can’t tell who they are, they do every-
thing they can to help us. Sometimes I feel sorry for such bodhisattvas
because we don’t recognize them, and since we don’t recognize them as
bodhisattvas, we do not feel gratitude toward them. We are real ingrates.
Maybe this is actually one good thing about the Tibetan tulku system.
Because of the tulku system, we are able to see this person who is recog-
nized as a tulku as a bodhisattva. So we at least have someone we can be
grateful to. Otherwise, we just wouldn’t know. As well as tulkus, there
are also other beings who are benefiting others without us knowing at
all. Sometimes they are engaged in activities in such a way that we are not
sure whether they are doing something that benefits others or does harm
to them. There are many such bodhisattvas.

Really, if we are going to do something to benefit others, it has to be

something we do with our body, speech, or mind. But at the moment,
our body, speech, and mind are not a sufficient basis or support for us to
be able to really benefit others, and so we need to gather all of the qual-
ities of body, speech, and mind that will allow us to bring them benefit.
We need to form our body into a basis with which we can benefit others.

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We need to make our speech into such a basis. We need to turn our mind
into such a basis. We need to be able to benefit other sentient beings with
our speech. We need to be able to benefit them with our mind. We need
to be able to do things physically with our body that will bring benefit to
other beings.

We need to be able to gather the virtuous qualities of our body, speech,

and mind, because it is important for us to develop the capacity to
benefit all other sentient beings. If we are able to do that, and we also
happen to be rich, we will be able to benefit others. Even if we are not
rich we will have the capacity to benefit them. We can be a beggar but
still have the ability to help other sentient beings. We need to develop
these qualities in order to really be able to bring benefit to other sentient
beings without any mistake. We need to bear that in mind. If we lack that
capacity, even before we had money, we might have thought, “Oh, I want
to do something to help others.” but then once we got the money, we
found we couldn’t carry it through. It’s like some candidates who stand
for an election. There are some, who, before the election make all sorts
of promises: “I will build this road.” or, “I will build these schools.” But
once they get elected, it’s as if they’ve already gone beyond, passed into
nonabiding nirvana, and no longer need to do anything.

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Even if you were to get a lot of money, if you do not have the right in-
tention and actions, the money may change you and influence you in a
negative way.

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 EIGHT:
FIND ULTIMATE FREEDOM

I will learn to keep all these practices

Untainted by thoughts of the eight worldly concerns.
May I recognize all things as like illusions,
And, without attachment, gain freedom from bondage.

Thus spoke the spiritual master Lang Thang Dorje Senge.

This is completed. Sarva Mangalam.

To paraphrase it, this verse is saying: “May we be able to do all these

practices untainted by the eight worldly concerns, and may we be able to
do these practices never separated from the view of emptiness — seeing
all phenomena as illusion.” By doing so, may we gain freedom from the
bonds of samsara.

Regarding the eight worldly concerns, there are many different things
that we can do to bring benefit in this life. If what we want to do is to

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bring benefit in this life, actually it’s not necessary for us to practice the
dharma. The dharma is primarily to accomplish our aims for the next life
and future lives. It’s not impossible that it will benefit us in this life, but
primarily it’s for our future lives. However, sometimes, we may not have
the confidence or belief in future lives, and if we do not believe in future
lives, we might think to ourselves, “What’s the point? I want something
that is going to benefit me now. If it doesn’t benefit me now, I’m just not
interested.”

Often in the Buddhist trainings and teachings we talk about three dif-
ferent types of individual. The lesser individual should at a minimum
wish to free themselves from the lower realms in their future lives. But
some texts talk about two types of lesser individual: the individual who
wants to be free of the three lower realms in their next lifetime; and the
ordinary person who is just interested in the needs of this life, not future
lives. Even though most texts on the stages of the path do not focus on
the ordinary lesser individual, it seems to me that these days the ordinary
individuals are more important. Thinking about whether dharma can
help us in this life has gained special importance.

The eight worldly concerns here mean primarily working to benefit your-
self in this life. When we talk about the eight worldly concerns, I think
the way we need to explain it is through consumerism or materialism. It’s

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as if we all close our eyes and just shop for anything we want, buy, buy, and
buy! We don’t consider whether we need things or not; we just go out
and buy them. You see the advertisements, sometimes the advertisement
is pretty blatant and it is quite obviously a fantasy, but even so, if you see it
enough times, you start thinking to yourself, “I want to be like that.” I’ve
talked about this example many times: a man on the motorcycle flying
through the air. At first you see it and you are skeptical, but, if you see it
enough times, the image of flying through the air with clothes and hair
streaming behind captivates you. Sometimes, I even see this and think,
“Wow. I’d like to be like that, I’d like to try that myself sometime.”

It’s as if the advertising has blinded us and we’re no longer thinking or

examining what we are buying. We get fixated by the ads.

On the one hand, we want to bring benefit and happiness for ourselves
in this lifetime, but the advertisements and so on distract us from what is
really important.

A thousand years ago, the dharma spread from India to Tibet and in
Tibet they treasured it for a thousand years. They preserved and prop-
agated it and researched into it. It’s the place where the dharma has
been preserved. So now, in this day, to come back to the place, which
is the origin of the dharma and to be able to share the dharma with you,

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is, I think, a sign of the real magnificence of all of our dharma forebears.
It is a sign of our great fortune. So, for that reason, I should especially like
to thank all of the Indians who have come here today.

Often, I try to do as little dharma teaching and give as few empower-

ments and instructions as I possibly can. The reason is not because I am
trying to hide anything or be secretive, but because I have very little
experience and understanding. Anything I teach is little more than dry
words, so I am embarrassed to speak too much. But sometimes there is
really no choice, and I do have to speak a little bit and teach. So, if in my
teachings, there have been any mistakes, I would like to beg your pardon
for those mistakes, and I would especially like to thank all of you for
coming.

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 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

When pride manifests in the mind and we think, “I’m so good, I can do
this,” what is the best antidote to apply at that moment of this awareness of
pride?

There is a story about this. In ancient times, there was a king who built
many monasteries and stupas and supported many different sanghas.
He thought to himself, “I have accumulated so much virtue; I’m so great
there is no one else in the world who has such great virtue as me.” Then
he asked a lama, “I’ve done all these virtuous things. What do you think
of it all?” He expected to be praised, but the lama replied, “You aren’t
virtuous at all.”

This is how it is. When we do something virtuous and become proud

of it, that destroys the virtue. We should rejoice in and appreciate the
virtues we have accomplished, but it is not right to think that good acts
are inevitably amazing and wonderful. It is said that we should never be
content with the qualities we have achieved. You can be content with

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other things, but we must always think that we could do even more to
improve ourselves, better our qualities, and help others. It is important
to always have such an intention. This will help.

For those of us who are not adept at placing ourselves below others, as
advised in the second verse, “I will regard myself as lowest among all,” for
those of us who are not good at doing this, please advise us how in our
practice we can develop the habit of exchanging ourselves with others or
cherishing others more than ourselves.

With regard to placing ourselves as lowest among all, it is actually a matter

of comparison. What are we comparing ourselves to? Of course, we all
have our individual importance. But here it means including the infinite
number of other sentient beings that exist alongside us. If we think about
it, when there is someone whom you love, for whom you feel a very strong
affection, you would have no hesitation to sacrifice yourself or your life
in order to save that other person’s life. You wouldn’t even need to think
about it. It’s not that you yourself don’t have personal value, but that you
consider the other to have more value and to be of greater importance.
If you don’t have that strong love, and someone has to explain to you the
reasons why you need to sacrifice yourself and so forth, then there’s no
way you are going to be able to sacrifice yourself for others, because if
you lack that, no explanation would be of benefit. Here it’s a question of

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developing that love for others to such a degree that you feel that other
people’s lives, other people’s possessions, and other people’s happiness is
more important than your own. So this relates to putting others first.

During the Cultural Revolution in China there were lamas who were
ordered to kill other sentient beings but they refused to do so, and be-
cause they refused, their hands were forcibly beaten with rocks. When
later I spoke with some of them, they said they had no regrets. They ex-
pressed the view: “Finally my hand has had a purpose.”

So it is a question of whether or not you have the capability to do this.

You need to examine yourself. If you don’t have such ability, there is no
benefit to be got by trying. You need to examine yourself. It has to be
something you are doing voluntarily. Anyway, when we say, “Regarding
ourselves as the lowest,” at the very least we need to see ourselves as not
being better than others. It is important for us to recognize that we are all
the same in experiencing feelings of pleasure and pain.

If someone has been raped, how could the victim possibly practice love and
compassion or even forgiveness? How could they not want to see the rapist
suffer?

When we talk about forgiveness, or what we often call in the dharma,

“forbearance”; I think many people misunderstand this. Sometimes we
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think that forgiving people or being patient with people means that we
should let them go, let them off the hook. But it’s not that. Sometimes
we have to deal with things peacefully, and sometimes we have to deal
with things harshly. The main thing is that we need to be patient with
the afflictions. Sometimes, when someone has been victimized, when
they have experienced great suffering, they keep it inside themselves. It is
something that they hold in their chest, and it continues to affect them
through their entire lifetime. In that case, it’s the afflictions that we need
to focus on. When we are able to deal with the afflictions, we will find
some relief. Otherwise, if we continue to hold it within ourselves, it will
be difficult to find any respite. The main thing is that we need to apply
the antidotes for the afflictions, yet this is something that is also difficult
to do.

When we are dealing with the kleshas, there is a tendency to get tight
and it gets more and more difficult to relax. How do we approach this
in a more relaxed and spacious way?

When we are working with the afflictions or applying the antidotes for
the afflictions, sometimes it is important not to take them too seriously.
Otherwise, if we try to be serious, or we force things and are really tight
about it, the afflictions themselves will become even more problematic.

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When that happens there will be nothing more that we can do. I think
that we need to try to be more playful with it. Sometimes when we see the
result of being too serious, what happens is we become ashamed, “Oh, it
has overcome me! I have been defeated. I’ve lost.” So we need to be like
children who are playing. They aren’t embarrassed about anything. They
just go out and play and have fun, and they don’t worry about how they
look or who’s to blame. We need to be playful with the afflictions, “Okay,
come and get me! I’m going to fight you.” We need to be a little more
relaxed, more spacious about them. If we are able to do that, we can see
how much we are able to deal with the afflictions, how far we can go. In
general you just need to be a little more spacious and relaxed, with a more
playful attitude and then it will be easier.

Why does a person get afflicting emotions in the first place?

The Treasury of Abhidharma says that there are three causes for the afflic-
tions to arise: not abandoning the kernels of the afflictions, the object
being present, and inappropriate attention. It is because we have strong
habituation to the afflictions and also because we have pleasant and un-
pleasant objects that are close to us. Particularly, living in cities, we see
there are many different things that are either attractive or unattractive.
Also the Internet and so forth bring the objects close to us. Also, we

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have an inappropriate attention, a wrong way of viewing things, and so,

for that reason, the afflictions are more likely to arise. It is because all the
causes and conditions that produce the afflictions are present that we
have so many afflictions.

These days we have social networking, internet discussion groups, and

so forth. In these groups, there are some people who talk about their
experiences of practicing the dharma and the feelings that they have. Is
it okay to do this or not? Is it something that might create imprints or
encourage people to practice the dharma?

The way I think about this is that there are different types of expe-
riences — those that we can share and those that are our own special
experiences, particular to us. It seems to me fine to talk about those that
are shareable, those that are common, but it is not appropriate to talk
about our own particular special experiences, a result of our meditation
such as a vision or a dream, for example. The reason for this is that when
we tell people about our special experiences, while at first we might
have a good understanding and a good viewpoint of it, later on someone
else makes a response and gives a different opinion, then we might devel-
op some doubt about it. Or, you might not be sure, or may not really have
the correct understanding, and you go to a lama who has experience and

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has the instructions. If they say it is fine, then it’s fine, and if they say it is
not, then it is not. They can examine you to see whether or not you have
understood. But when you go to a group like this on the Internet, anyone
can say anything, and it might hinder you or prevent you from improving
your practice or it might cause you to develop a wrong understanding.
So, I think, it’s best not to speak about your own particular special expe-
riences or visions and so forth; it’s better not to say anything about them.

What are the signs of true practice? What is the level or the mark that we
need to get to, the sign we need to have to show that we have truly entered
the path of practice?

There are people who say, “Oh, my practice is going really well.” And
when you question them, “How is your practice going well?” They
answer, “Well, I was in retreat. The food was really good. It was a nice
place to stay. I was able to count all the numbers of mantras I was sup-
posed to count. My practice is going really well.” Or some people say,
“Oh, my practice is going really well,” and you ask them, “How is it going
well?” and they say, “I’m having all these dreams. I see the Buddha’s face in
my dreams. I hear the words of the bodhisattvas. These are signs that my
practice is going really well.”

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It’s rare for someone to say to you, “Oh, my practice is going really well.
My afflictions are decreasing and getting fewer. My pure perception, my
devotion, is getting stronger.” Actually, the meaning of the word dharma,
the Tibetan word chos, is “to change,” it’s “to fix something.” It’s to fix or
heal our wild being, to decrease the afflictions, to increase our pure per-
ception, to increase our devotion, and to increase our bodhicitta so that
they get stronger day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year. If that is
happening, that is the sign that we are on the true path. That is how our
progress in the dharma manifests. If our devotion and our pure percep-
tion decrease, if our mind grows wilder, that is the sign of the dharma not
working and the practice not being effective.

Concerning the distinction between pride and confidence, you said that
we need confidence but we have to overcome pride. I can see in my small
experience that pride really stops me from improving, because I think I’m
already good enough. When I feel confidence in a positive way, then I want
to practice, I want to develop bodhicitta, and so on. Now, unfortunately
this is because of self-grasping and self-cherishing, which is a dualistic
way of functioning, so it’s like a roller coaster. What kind of attitude is
most important to cultivate, as for instance in… slowly, slowly to leave the
negative aspect and promote the good part of it?

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I think when we look at virtue, there are naturally ups-and-downs in our

practice, and that is just the way that practice goes. Particularly, when
we think about our emotional states. If we are in a low emotional state,
our practice will often also be at a low. When we’re at an emotional high,
maybe our practice will be at a high. And so, in this way, in particular
when we experience external difficulties, these can have a great effect on
our practice. When our practice is not stable, our emotions can affect
it. But I think what is important here is that our practice be continuous.
We have to have confidence. We have to continue doing the practice and
then, if we have trust and we practice and bring that inspiration to our
practice, then, no matter what happens, it will go well. If we don’t have
that inspiration or belief in our practice then we will have obstacles in
our practice as well.

So how is it that we should practice? Well, if we know one dharma, if we

have heard one dharma teaching, we need to put it into practice right
away. We need to engage while it’s still fresh within us. It is important to
do this. Otherwise, if we hear a dharma teaching and we don’t practice,
we don’t incorporate it into our being, we don’t apply it to ourselves, then
we hear another one, and another one — none of this is going to help us
in any way.

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This is a question of putting the dharma into practice and incorporating

it into our being. If we listen to many different dharmas and yet we don’t
join them to our beings, our minds will just get wilder and wilder. So
it is not really a question of how much dharma or how many different
dharma teachings we have had; the question is whether we are able to
really put the dharma into practice. If we can make this something we are
able to do, then naturally and gradually we will develop confidence in it.

I think when we habituate ourselves to something over and over again,

we naturally develop confidence, like with new types of food. At first
when you are not familiar with something, you lack confidence. But you
gradually develop and become confident.

It is like that with anything. When I was young and learning to speak
in public, at first it was extremely difficult. My voice would get weaker
than it normally was. I never usually coughed very much, but in front
of a big public audience I’d start coughing a lot. Yet, as I did it again and
again, gradually I was able to develop the confidence and able to speak
in public. It’s not that I trained myself on the side, it’s just that through re-
petition I developed the habit of doing it, and from that I developed the
confidence and the ability to speak in public. I think it’s the same with
our practice. When we do our practice we should keep an account of
it. We need to do that. Normally, when we think about money, we keep

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accounts. If you have a business, you have to make a note of your profit
and loss and keep a daily tally of your income and expenses. You must
take an interest in it. If you just make an aspiration, “May I make a profit
today,” you are not going to make the profit. Success in business comes
by the process of keeping track of your income and expenses and it’s like
this with our practice. It’s difficult at first because from the very begin-
ning we have many negative habits and many afflictions, so it’s difficult
for us at first to meditate. Old habits come up and we naturally fall into
them again; beginning a new habit is extremely difficult.

It’s like if you tell someone to relax, you say, “Relax.” They immediately get
tighter and more tense, especially if that person is not good at relaxing.
When you tell them to relax they can’t relax at all. Of course if someone’s
good at relaxing, they can relax. So I think that it works in this manner.

Let us say that we are working for others, how do we deal with ourselves
and others if they either don’t want to be helped or they do not see your
help as helpful.

This can be tricky. Sometimes when you try to help others, there are
cultural differences that come into play. For example, with Asians and
particularly with Tibetans, when you see an elderly person trying to get
up, you rush over and try to help them. But in the case of someone from

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the West, when you try to help them up, sometimes they don’t just refuse
your help, they berate you, saying, “I can get up by myself, I can manage to
do it.” So, when you are trying to help others you need to think carefully
about it and make sure that you are going to be able to do something
of benefit. Otherwise, it’s not certain whether you are going to receive
thanks or a slap across the face. When we have an opportunity to help
people, we need to realize that there are two different ways to do that.
We can help them physically and we can also help them mentally. We
might think that when we are helping others, unless we do something,
which will be physically beneficial, then it won’t good for them, but, ac-
tually, the primary way of benefiting others is benefiting them mentally.
We can benefit others through mental ways. For example, if through
our love and compassion, we are able to help someone who has a very
coarse disposition to become gentler, more loving, and more compa-
ssionate, and then naturally this will bring more peace to the world and
make a great contribution, so it is beneficial for ourselves as well as for
others. When we practice, there are also many different methods, which
is why the six paramitas are taught. We need to know all of the six parami-
tas, because there are different types of practices to be done at different
times. We must have all of the different qualities — patience, prajna,
diligence, and intelligence — all of these must be present. When we talk
about benefiting others, we have to have a long view of it. It’s like when

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talking about the stories of the bodhisattvas who were able to practice
generosity that is so difficult to do, and carry out really demanding acts
for a very long time, for eons. The stories talk about having enough pa-
tience to bear spending an entire eon in hell in order to benefit a single
person. Whether or not that is necessary, we need to prepare our minds
for the possibility.

Is there a method for generating bodhicitta in a very short time?

Actually, I think, before you think about generating bodhicitta, you first
have to know what bodhicitta is. Teaching and explaining what bodhi-
citta is would probably take a day. In any case, when we talk about gen-
erating bodhicitta, it does not arise without causes and conditions. The
cause and condition for bodhicitta is great compassion, you need a com-
passion that encompasses all sentient beings without exception. You
need to have the wish to bring all sentient beings, without exception,
to freedom from suffering. That wish to free them from suffering is the
compassion, but that compassion, many people say, is also not sufficient.
You also need to have the extraordinary intention: the thought, “I will do
it.” You must have the willingness to bear that responsibility. It’s easy for
us to say, “I want to free all sentient beings from suffering.” But that is just
an aspiration. When Milarepa was discussing what bodhicitta and great

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compassion are like, he said that when great compassion arises from
within, it is as if you are surrounded by fire. When you are encircled by
fire, it is impossible to stay there. It’s too hot. You do everything you can
to escape the fire. Likewise, when the great compassion for all sentient
beings grows from within, you feel, “I must do something about it. I have
to do it. There’s no way I can just sit still. I have to do something about
it.” Otherwise, if we were just to recite a prayer, look at it and think, “Oh,
this is what bodhicitta’s like,” that is a little strange. We must first develop
great compassion as the method for giving rise to bodhicitta.

In today’s world we are bombarded by messages promoting desire and

aspiration, so how do we distinguish between affliction and virtue?

Nowadays development in the world is happening very quickly. We

don’t have any time to think about it and we feel proud of that. Yet, when
we think about it, all the people in the world, the bosses of all the large
companies, the people who made Facebook, the people who made Mi-
crosoft, the boss of Apple, or any of these other companies, and if you
ask them what will happen in ten years they won’t be able to say. No one
can tell us what’s going to happen or what it’s going to be like in ten years’
time. Things are changing too rapidly. This is the way of these times.
Things are changing so quickly that we are unable to distinguish the good
from the bad. There are always new things happening, so wherever we go,

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both outside in the street or inside a building, we are always seeing little
TV screens displaying advertisements. These days, you go into the toilet
and there are advertisements in there. So we don’t have the opportunity
to really think or differentiate between them. This is really affecting and
disturbing our minds. As a result of this, some things seem attractive to
us, and then without thinking we start to feel attachment or greed, or we
start feeling stingy or tight about things. This just naturally happens. For
this reason, I think, we are unable to distinguish what we need from what
we want. We confuse these two.

If we can use this as an analogy for virtue and nonvirtue, what we need
can be seen as virtue, wanting corresponds to nonvirtue. When we need
something we have to identify it, we have to think about it. We have to
examine it. We have to ask, “Do I really need this? Is there a reason for
me to have it?” With wants, we don’t look for a reason. Just wanting it is
enough. “I want that. I desire that.” That alone is enough for us to act and
we don’t need any other reason.

When we recognize a need, we have control over our minds, it corre-

lates with when we have virtue. When we are afflicted, that takes control
of our mind away from ourselves. Virtue is what gives us the control of
our mind, and yet, when an unvirtuous cognition, an unvirtuous mind
manifests, then we have no flexibility or control over it. So I think we

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can consider it like this, “Is this a moment when I have control over my
mind, or not?” If we can have that control over our mind we can also
have a little bit of space to be able to distinguish what it is that we should
engage with, and what it is that we should give up.

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 GLOSSARY OF TERMS

afflictions: The mental events of desire, aversion, ignorance, pride,

wrong view, envy, and so forth that motivate harmful actions that
perpetuate samsaric suffering.

bodhicitta: The wish to achieve buddhahood in order to bring all

sentient beings to perfect enlightenment.

bodhisattva: A person who has roused bodhicitta and taken the vow
to achieve buddhahood for the sake of all beings. In common usage,
this refers especially to those who have developed realization of the
nature of truth.

bodhisattva vow: The vow to bring all beings to enlightenment.

buddhahood: The state of complete enlightenment, in which all the

obscurations have been removed and wisdom is fully developed.

damaru: A small, two-headed hand drum used in Vajrayana rituals.

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eight worldly concerns: Feeling happy about gain, fame, praise,

and pleasure and unhappy about loss, obscurity, criticism, and pain.

five buddhas and five families: The five buddhas and their
families are each associated with the purification of particular
aggregates and afflictions and the five wisdoms that arise from that
purification.

guru yoga: One of the four uncommon preliminary practices. It

involves supplicating the guru in order to receive their blessings and
develop realization swiftly.

Hinayana (Foundation vehicle): The initial teachings given by

the Buddha to his disciples that emphasize the importance of self-
discipline and teach the lack of an individual self.

Kadampa School: A lineage that sought to restore the pure

teachings of Buddhism that originated in the eleventh century.

listeners: The shravakas, or disciples of the Buddha who follow

the teachings of the Foundation vehicle with the goal of nirvana and
freedom from samsara.

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Mahayana (Great vehicle): The second set of teachings given by

the Buddha, which emphasize teachings on compassion, bodhicitta,
and the selflessness of all phenomena.

mala: A string or rosary of 108 prayer beads.

mandala offering: The third of the four uncommon preliminary

practices, in which one imagines offering the entire universe as a way to
gather merit.

nagas: Water serpents and otherworldly beings that dwell in caves.

paramitas: The six transcendences of generosity, discipline, patience,

diligence, meditation, and wisdom. They are so called because they
transcend ordinary, worldly generosity and so forth.

prajna: The discernment that distinguishes what is dharma from what

is not.

pratimoksha vows: Vows such as the monastic vows and lay

precepts that primarily involve committing to refrain from harmful
actions of body and speech.

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pratyekabuddhas: Literally the “self-awakened.” Individuals who

achieve nirvana in their final lifetime on their own, without relying
on a spiritual teacher.

samsara: The never-ending cycle of birth-death-rebirth driven by the

afflictions, especially ignorance and craving.

Secret Mantra: Another name for the Vajrayana.

seven causes and results: The contemplations for generating

bodhicitta: 1. Recognizing all sentient beings as our mother;
2. Recognizing our mother’s kindness; 3. Returning her kindness;
4. Affectionate love; 5. Great compassion; 6. Extraordinary intention,
and 7. Bodhicitta.

skull cup: The upper portion of a human skull used in some

Vajrayana practices.

three poisons: Greed, hatred, and delusion, which are the basis from
which all other afflictions develop.

tonglen: The practice of visualizing giving away all your merit and
happiness and taking in all the suffering of others in order to decrease
your cherishing of yourself and increase your cherishing of others.

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Treasury of Abhidharma, the: One of the five great texts

of Buddhist philosophy. Written by Vasubandhu in the fourth
century, it presents the Foundation vehicle teachings on Buddhist
phenomenology. The English translation of this text is available on
dharmaebooks.org or Namse Bangdzo Bookstore.

tulku: A lama, especially in Tibet, who is recognized as the

reincarnation of his predecessor.

Vajrasattva practice: The second of the four uncommon

preliminaries, which purifies misdeeds and obscurations.

Vajrayana: The highest or swift vehicle which includes practices for

training the mind using visualization, mantra, and other techniques.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FIRST AND FOREMOST we would like to thank our precious guru,

Gyalwang Karmapa, for offering these wonderful teachings and allow-
ing us to publish them. His Holiness also made the calligraphy “Nyingje”
(Compassion) featured in this book. 

His teachings were translated live by Khenpo David Karma Choephel

and then Jo Gibson took on the task of transcribing them from the re-
cordings made by Gyalwang Karmapa’s webcast team. The transcript
was later checked against the Tibetan by Maria Vasilieva and
throughly edited by Annie Dibble. Final proofreading was done by
Maureen McNicholas, who prepared the book to be published by
KTD Publications. Beata Stepien coordinated and designed the cover
and the eBooks. We would like to thank everyone involved and also
Dharma Treasure for their cooperation and support.

The root translation used in the teaching and presented here w as pre-
pared by Rigpa Translations and published on the Lotsawa House

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website at https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/geshe-lan-
gri-thangpa/eight-verses-training-mind. We would like to thank them
for making the text freely available to all.

May it bring lasting happiness!

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 COPYRIGHTS

Publishers: KTD PUBLICATIONS & DHARMAEBOOK.ORG 

© 2020 by The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Translation by Khenpo David Karma Choephel

Root text translation by Rigpa Translations (Lotsawa House)
“Nyingje” calligraphy by The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa

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First e-book edition: June 2020

E-book ISBN: 978-1-934608-91-3

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