Day three: morning
Prayers to Buddha Shakyamuni and to Manjusri.
Practice of the 35 Buddhas
(part 1)
The two benefits of the practice
The 35 Buddhas practice is a method to purify negative karmas, and to accumulate meritorious karma. The practice produces these two effects.
By purifying the bad karmas, your mind will be free from their influences. This means your mind will be clearer. When the negative karmas are diminishing, your wisdom will strengthen.
The other effect of the practice is that your mind will accumulate merit, a necessary condition for enlightenment. Merit supports you as you try to attain enlightenment. Merit affords you the opportunity to be enlightened. For instance, by your very good merits, you can be reborn in a Buddha field. A rebirth in a pure land is deemed optimal for enlightenment because the Buddhas are there. You can learn directly from them. They are there to guide you, and so you will be able to follow the teachings and become enlightened. Excellent causes and conditions such as these are dependent on your store of merits, so you have to know how to gather them. By doing the practice of the 35 Buddhas, you will accumulate useful merits.
To understand through reason and logic
Whenever you hear about karma and the problems caused by it, your mind naturally thinks of it from your perspectives tied in with your traditions and history. Therefore I will give you some clear instructions to make out the differences between the truth of the teaching versus cultural and traditional attitudes.
First of all, when you listen to the Dharma teachings, you have to know that you are listening to a different subject, a different culture than those found in the European or Western countries. Secondly, when you listen, you have to judge whether it makes sense or not. Judge in a way where you consider the information through logic and reason. The teachings actually show you that logic. Learn that logic. It is not just Buddhist logic. It teaches you to think more clearly. It enhances your understanding, judgment, and wisdom. It enables you to understand that mind is mind.
Before a teaching, you could remind yourself, "I will be listening to something new and totally different from our Western ways I will be listening to a subject entirely different than my own culture and values." Then whatever it is you hear, you will know not to associate it with something very interesting you have in the West that you are attracted to. And you will also know not to associate it with Western ways, which irritate or disappoint you.
An example: Take someone who is always criticizing the Western way of life. He is somewhat of a rebel. Others around him look down on him. This person encounters an Asian culture where he finds the Hindu or Buddhist teachings. He draws similarities between them and his ways. Then, armed with the Hindu or Buddhist views on his side, he challenges those in his society who have always looked down on him. He justifies his own thinking and views. "What I thought all along was correct because the Buddha said so, too. I don’t like to wear clothes so I don’t have to. I can go naked. People always say I’m crazy. I’m not so crazy after all. Look at Milarepa, he was naked, too, and so are the Hindu Babas!" This shows how a person could use foreign customs to validate his own ways.
Here is another example: During the Middle Ages when the Church ruled, a "guilt culture" was prevalent in Western Europe. In this respect, some of you may think that to feel guilty is correct, while others among you may think it very bad.
Now I am explaining to you that in Buddhism, there are teachings and practices that involve feeling regret for past karmas committed. However, I also qualify it by adding that regret in the Buddhist context serves a totally different purpose. The Buddhist regret does not mean for you to feel guilty or to blame yourself.
If you are not flexible in how you think, if you don’t try to develop a new attitude in your listening, or if you are stuck in your own views, then you could seriously misunderstand what I have said to you.
Half of you may interpret what I said like this: "What I thought so far about feeling guilty, which the Christian Church had taught me, was right. He just said it, too – to feel regret for the bad karma. So Buddhism also says the same thing." By interpreting what I have said in that sense, then you have given yourself the confirmation you were looking for. You’d feel encouraged to continue to feel guilty. You have associated my explanation with something in your religious belief that attracts you.
The other half of you may think this. "The Buddhist teaching is just as bad as the teaching of the Church. They are also telling us to feel regret, and to purify the bad karma. That is the same as wanting us to feel guilty, that we should be punished. This purification sounds like the burning of witches. They’re all the same." You have associated my explanation with something in a religion that you dislike.
If you understand the meaning of regret in either of these two ways, then you are wrong. In both instances, you have misinterpreted the Buddhist meaning and use of regret for past karmas.
It is therefore important to know that you are learning a new subject, new to your Western tradition. Some similarities might be there, but most of it is new. Whenever you receive information, you keep an open mind without bias and judgment. Afterwards, you reflect on what you have heard. You think carefully about the meaning of the explanations given. Do the points make sense, and are the explanations reasonable? The explanations given in Buddhist teachings actually train you to reflect, analyze, and introspect skillfully. Your understanding will then be accurate.
The karmic thoughts
Thoughts are many. Some of them are karmic, which will produce results in the form of illusions. The karma, or illusion, does not come from anybody else but you. Karma comes from your own mind. Some examples of karmic thoughts are: profound desire, a very grasping form of desire; profound anger, a deeply rooted anger; and profound ignorance. Any thought that is related to these three thoughts is a negative karma.
Ignorance, to begin with, is a neutral state— like sleep. It does not immediately create karma. But because of ignorance, because of not-knowing, negative karmas can develop. When ignorance gives rise to wrong views, the consequences can be very serious. Strong negative karmas can be created as a result. One example is Sati, the rite of burning widows.
In India, the followers of a religious sect called, Sati, had believed that it was good to burn widows at their husbands’ funerals. This practice is almost extinct now. More recently, it has attracted the attention of researchers, moviemakers, and authors alike.
A Brahmin scholar who had a very strong attachment to his wife invented sati. When the scholar knew his end was near, he wrote a book. In it, he extolled the virtues and rewards for a wife to be burnt in the funeral of her deceased husband. He wanted to make his wife believe that it would be very good for her to jump into his funeral pyre – that they would go to heaven together. This was the main theme of his book, which had turned out very convincing to the people in those days.
The scholar’s misdirection came from three factors. The first was his very strong attachment to his wife. He was said to have been a very ugly man. His wealth had procured him a very beautiful and young wife, and he grew very attached to her. The second factor was his nature was not good. He harbored much jealousy and lacked compassion. He did not mind that his wife would suffer greatly by being burnt alive. The last factor was his ignorance. He did not believe that his action was absolutely wrong. The scholar did not know about karma, about cause and effect. His ignorance caused him to create the terribly bad action— writing the book— with dire consequences for his wife and so many other women afterwards.
Based on the scholar’s book, a religious practice was founded which attracted followers in many parts of India until recently. The practice stirred up very many negative emotions in the believers. As a result, tremendous negative karmas were created. Now the government of India and the Indian public at large are putting an end to this horrible rite. But some people are still convinced by this book.
Some types of anger, and desire are like drawings on water; they can immediately disappear. They do not create much karma. Other types of anger and desire are like drawings in the sand they can be wiped away. These create some light karma. A third type of the karma from anger and desire are like carvings in stone; they will remain and will always cause problems because they are perpetuating ever more negativities.
Remedies for karmic thoughts
Regret is like therapy. It weakens the karmic thoughts that are like carvings in stone. Regret works like an antidote – it is effective against the power of your negative emotions by weakening and then subduing them. However, regret does not mean to blame yourself. We have to be very careful to distinguish this regret from the Christian guilt where self-punishment is used as atonement. I do not wish you to go in that direction, and this is not a criticism of your traditions and culture. Buddhist teachers are always very open-minded in their communication with their students. They do not talk diplomatically, nor do they try to please the students. They talk very honestly, and wish only to lead the students to a proper understanding.
In general, for someone to help you, you have to cooperate with that person. Your cooperation serves you, as it opens you to receive the help of another. Through the supplication to the Buddhas, you are, in effect, bringing their wishes for you, upon yourself. In the practice, you have to arrange some karmic cooperation on your side.
The Buddhas have fully accomplished the path of enlightenment. Therefore, they have wisdom, and their store of positive potentials powerful. Moreover, all the wishes they have made for sentient beings are happening. All that remains is for you to absorb their help. In other words, from your side, you provide the cause to make their great wishes happen to you. And the cause is your pure devotion. Supplicating the Buddhas with pure devotion actualizes their good wishes for you.
Devotion is a pure state of mind rooted in having full confidence and trust in the accomplishments of the Buddhas. Your confidence and trust can only come about through a precise understanding of the wisdom qualities of the Buddhas, and of their wishes for you. Devotion means you know. It is your devotion and knowing that prevents your not-knowing about the Dharma path, and its result that is Buddhahood. An attitude of pure devotion thus prevents ignorance, and doubts that can originate from your basic ignorance. Devotion is a very pure attitude towards the wishes and wisdom of the Buddhas inviting their wishes and blessings to come to you, to purify your negative karmas.
Questions (Q) and Answers (A)
(Q): What you say is so close to me; it feels like something I’ve always known but now it has become clear and bright. And I am touched by that, so I feel like crying.
(A): That’s very good. I am happy you’ve understood what I’ve explained to you. But again, that emotion should not be something that you grasp. Don’t solidify it.
(Q): What happens to people who have bad concepts about guilt, for example in Christianity, and develop the theory that you can be purified by being burnt?
(A): There is not really a problem. But if you stick to a wrong view then it simply remains a wrong view.
Nowadays people do not practice rites like Sati anymore. They no longer act negatively out of wrong religious beliefs. Still, the people who had created the negativities are receiving very bad karma; for instance, the people who had caused so many women to jump into the funeral fires.
The Buddha had always cautioned, "Don’t write books wildly."
This was why Tsongkhapa invented a new way for people to learn the Dharma – to learn it verbally. It was during the time when he was organizing schools in Tibet to teach Buddhism. He did not want the people to know how to write. So, he invented a unique method to train them in a special verbal skill for learning Buddhism precisely. Tsongkhapa organized a school that allowed thousands of people to learn Buddhism by his method.
This was also why the majority of Gelugpas used to only teach people to learn verbally. Their people did not know how to sign their own names because they never learned how to write. Tsongkhapa did not want everybody writing books. To write a book is a very delicate task. Books that are not written properly will confuse people. That was Tsongkhapa’s concern, and even the Gelugpas then did not know of his real motive.
There is a belief in some cultures that a deceased person would receive things that are burnt in his funeral fire. In those cultures, family and friends therefore offer up many nice things for burning during a funeral. I don’t know how this misunderstanding originated. But again, a book was written about this rite, which became popularized and spread in China. Consequently, many precious things are burnt for funerals. The act is not bad karma per se, but it is a waste, isn’t it?
During the Buddha’s time, as expected, the quality of the teachings was very well preserved. Only the qualified students like Kashyapa, or Ananda were teaching. They taught from memory only. Even for several hundred years after the Buddha’s passing, the teachings were still very well maintained. The standards of the Hindu schools then were very high. My guess is some of the teachings of Buddha Kashyapa were kept in those schools, which accounted for the very high qualifications of some Hindu saints.
For example, in those days there were a very few teachers who taught that if you were to kill 1,000 people in one week, then you would go to heaven. Related to this kind of misconception, there was a man who was collecting thumbs of his victims. He had killed 999 people, and he needed only one more. His last victim was supposed to have been the Buddha, who instead, saved him.
It was people’s misinterpretations of the teachings that had started the decline of the Buddha Dharma and the Hindu teachings. Moreover, it was when those misinterpretations were written down in books that the decline really spread on a very large scale.
Wrong views are always created by ignorance. At the moment, wrong views are not an obstacle for you. But when your practice comes to the really deep levels in meditations such as Shi’nay and Lhakthong, then you will realize that wrong views can be indeed disturbing. They are, in fact, the targets for elimination in Lhakthong meditation.
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