SESSION ONE: SOJONG
Report by Gelongma Rinchen Khandro
Today, before
dawn, on the third morning of the 28th Kagyu
Monlam, the whole assembly of monks and nuns gathered under
the bodhi tree, which was lit up by a few overhead lights.
All ordained Sangha were wearing their maroon dagams [heavy
cloaks] awaiting the arrival of the master who would bestow
the sojong vows. This morning was a little cooler than the
previous mornings.
As the sky
began to lighten, HE Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche arrived,
followed by the young Jamgon Kontrul Rinpoche. After the
Karmapa 900 year celebration he had to return to his
monastery in Kalimpong, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama
was turning the wheel of Dharma, and, consequently missed
the first day of the Monlam. Likewise, Ringu Tulku Rinpoche,
who has been at every Monlam helping with the English
translation, was able to translate during the three-day
teaching on Atisha’s Lamp for the Path but then had
to return to Sikkim, the next stop in His Holiness the Dalai
Lama’s itinerary.
Khenchen
Thrangu Rinpoche, Dolob Tenga Rinpoche, Yonge Mingyur
Rinpoche and other senior Kagyu lamas were in attendance
this morning to receive the vows.
HE Gyaltsap
Rinpoche came down the central aisle, stood before the
Shrine, put on his chogu and namcho, and made three
prostrations. He then knelt in prayer towards the stupa
before turning around and facing the congregation. As he
recited the sojong liturgy we all recited after him and
finally with the third repetition we received the vows.
After the
bestowal of the vows, the sun arose. All lights were turned
off as the natural light of the sun lit up the beautifully
decorated shrine. The various combinations of colours were
an offering to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and a feast for
the eyes of all looking. The blue, white and yellow cloth,
beautifully arranged behind the tormas, brought to mind the
colours of the 16th Karmapa's dream flag and the devotion of
the people who set up the Shrine.
Then the umze
[chantmaster] began the Sanskrit prayers, which we do each
morning, as the young novice monks and nuns appeared
carrying large baskets of Tibetan bread rolls to pass out to
everyone, followed closely by the tea kettle carriers. After
everyone was served, the umze began the food offering
prayers. Everyone held up their bowl of tea and bread to
offer it to the Three Jewels, then after the Rinpoches began
to partake of the tea and bread everyone followed suit. For
those who had taken sojong on Thursday, this was their first
food since noon that day.
SESSION TWO: TEACHING BY THE GYALWANG KARMAPA
The King of Aspirations: The Noble Aspiration to Excellent
Conduct
Report by Lhundup Damcho
Parting from
Wrongdoing
As an aid to setting
the motivation for his teaching during the day’s second
session, His Holiness cited a verse from the King of
Aspirations: The Noble Aspiration for Noble Conduct.
As far as to the
ends of the blue sky,
As far as to the
ends of sentient beings,
Until the end of
karma and afflictions,
Thus far are the
ends of my aspirations.
This reflects the
vastness of the spontaneous aspirations of bodhisattvas, he
said, which is grounded in the vastness of their great
compassion that has arisen in their minds. When we speak of
mind, the Gyalwang Karmapa said, Buddhist texts offer
numerous ways to analyze and classify types of mind.
However, the most important of minds or mental states are
wisdom and compassion. The term for ‘wisdom’ in Tibetan is
sherab, with she meaning consciousness or
understanding, and rab meaning best. The term
for compassion is nyingje, with nying meaning
heart and je meaning lord. As such, wisdom can be
understood as the best of minds and compassion as lord or
supreme of hearts. By practicing the two indivisibly,
enlightenment can be brought within our reach, His Holiness
stated.
Between compassion
and wisdom, His Holiness said that Buddha’s own way of
guiding disciples and teaching the Dharma reveals that
compassion is primary. For example, the Buddha did not
insist on having all his students think as he did. Rather,
he offered various presentations in accordance with what
would benefit his students and what they could most easily
understand and practice. For this reason, we may say that
when Buddha opened the door to Dharma, he did so out of
compassion.
Compassion is thus
indispensable, and therefore it is essential that we give up
violence and cease harming others. This does not mean
simply refraining from physically or verbally assaulting
others, but includes the source from which such actions
spring: the mental states of anger, hatred, jealousy,
resentment and greed. Among the 10 unvirtuous actions
described in Buddhist texts, the three of body and four of
speech come about when we harbor resentment towards others.
That is to say, it all boils down to our mind. Even if our
negative thoughts or attitudes do not lead to physical and
verbal harm to others, the mere presence of such mental
states within us is harmful to us. There is a wise saying
that even before anger harms others, it has already harmed
the one who is angry, and this is clearly the case, the
Gyalwang Karmapa stated.
Rather than such
disturbing mental states, what we need is peace and a sense
of comfort within ourselves. Nowadays, His Holiness
observed, there is growing awareness of the importance of
inner peace. Yet our lifestyle has become increasingly busy,
such that it causes us to lose our peace of mind. His
Holiness recollected that during his childhood in a nomadic
region of eastern Tibet, people needed to work no more than
three to four hours a day, and spent the rest of their time
warming themselves in the sun, talking to one another and
drinking tea. By contrast, people living in urban
environments seem to be working 24 hours a day, and even
then do not have enough time to finish their jobs. Our lives
are regulated by the clock, rather than by what it is
necessary to do, His Holiness observed. Technology has
captured our imagination and we are carried away by our
fascination with electronic goods, but this is not the fault
of the machines or electronic devices. It is a mistake, he
said, to expect human beings to function as machines,
working around the clock without rest. We seem to have
developed such an expectation, and there are cases of
factory workers committing suicide due to the pressure
placed on them to perform.
Along with
practicing non-violence and ceasing harming others, the
Mahayana teachings require us additionally to act to benefit
others. This is necessary if we are to live up to the name
of Mahayana practitioners that we claim for ourselves. His
Holiness then related an anecdote, which he emphasized was a
true story, of a person who had recently become Buddhist.
When this man was driving his car, he was struck by a
truck. The truck driver descended from his truck and began
berating the man, accusing him of being at fault. The new
Buddhist had the thought that he lacked the wisdom of a
Buddha, but needed to train himself in the compassion of a
Buddha. Therefore, he did not respond verbally to the man’s
accusations. After a police officer arrived, the truck
driver continued his abusive rant and his false accusations.
Suddenly, there was a downpour of heavy rain, and the truck
driver moved to return to his truck, but then noticed that
the rain was not falling on him, although the driver of the
car himself was being drenched by the rain. As he looked
about, he saw that the driver, practicing compassion, was
holding the umbrella up over his head, exposing himself to
the rain. He was at once struck by the incongruity between
his own abuse of the driver, and the driver’s kindness to
him, and regretted his behavior. The truck driver then
admitted to the police officer that he had been at fault.
This shows the power of compassion, and inspires us to
practice it even if we may lack the wisdom to do so
perfectly.
Returning to the
text, His Holiness made some additional comments on the
branch of offering. One danger in making offerings, he said,
is that our act of offering can be rendered improper or
impure due to the object itself that we offer, as well as
due to our attitude in offering. Nagarjuna’s Ratnavali
gives a clear presentation of forms of ‘wrong
livelihood’ associated with offerings, enumerating five that
monastics must avoid, and five for householders to give up.
In general, His
Holiness observed, it is said to be difficult for monastics
to give up sustenance, while what is difficult for
householders to abandon are their views, particularly their
tendency to seek ordinary refuges and their lack of
conviction in karmic cause and effect. For example, when
they face sickness or a family crisis, householders tend to
turn to worldly refuges rather than to the three jewels.
In Buddha’s day
monastics subsisted on alms given by the lay community, and
continue to do so today in some Theravada countries. A monk
or nun might receive only rice, or only dal, and that had to
suffice for them for the day. Monastics relied entirely on
what others voluntarily offered them. For this reason, there
was a temptation to manipulate or act deceitfully in order
to gain the means of sustenance. These faulty ways of
gaining offerings constitute wrong livelihood in the case of
monastics.
His Holiness noted
that there were instances when even senior monastics engaged
in flattery or were particularly friendly towards potential
benefactors in hopes of receiving material support from
them. Of course, His Holiness commented there is no fault in
showing kindness to others, including our sponsors, but to
do so in hopes of gaining offerings is wrong.
Another fault that
can creep into monastics’ dependence on offerings from the
lay community is giving gifts to sponsors or potential
sponsors in hopes of getting back more later from them. A
further form of wrong livelihood for monastics is to
insinuate that they would like the sponsors to offer
something. For example, if a given benefactor has offered
something to one monk, another monastic might highly praise
that act and stress how beneficial it had been, in hopes
that the benefactor would give something to them as well.
Additionally, pretending to have spiritual qualities that
one lacked in order to gain offerings also constitutes wrong
livelihood, and must not be done.
In the case of
householders, wrong livelihood refers primarily to their
means of earning a living. The five wrong livelihoods in
this context refer to making offerings of objects attained
with money earned by selling sentient beings, such as
animals, by selling meat, weapons, poison or through selling
alcohol.
This concluded His
Holiness’ presentation on offerings. He turned next to the
branch of confession, as expressed in the text in the line:
Under the
influence of desire, hatred
And ignorance, I
have committed wrongs
Using my body,
speech and also mind—
I confess each
and every one of them.
Sometimes, His Holiness observed, we focus on certain
negative deeds done earlier in life, such as killing birds,
frogs or other small animals. Once people gain some
understanding later in life, they may feel great regret for
such acts done as children. To sincerely confess these is
excellent, but confession should not be limited to such
deeds.
Rather, the Gyalwang Karmapa stated, the negative acts that
are particularly important to confess are any and all acts
we have done that contradict our vows. Within the
Buddhadharma, we have the opportunity to take three types of
vow—the outer vows of pratimoksha, the inner vows of a
bodhisattva and the secret vows of tantra. Setting aside
these technical Buddhist categories, His Holiness said, in
general terms if one makes a solemn commitment or accepts a
serious responsibility, but later does something that
contravenes that commitment, this has a very deep impact on
our mind within the same life.
Setting aside past lives, if we try to recollect all the
mistakes and wrongs we have done in this life, it would be
extremely difficult to bring them all to mind. So while it
is good to remember and confess as much as possible, more
importantly we need to generate a sense of regret for all
the misdeeds we have committed since time immemorial.
As an aside, His Holiness noted that it is said that
misdeeds or negative actions have one positive quality, and
that is the fact that they can be confessed and purified.
All our misdeeds are commingled with afflictions and arise
based on them. All the afflictions in turn arise from
confusion or ignorance. Ignorance is compared to a boss,
with attachment, anger and the remaining afflictions serving
as the henchmen of ignorance. This is because ignorance
suggests to us mistaken ways of acting, and anger and
attachment impels us to actively engage in them. Yet these
are faults in the mind, and based on those we engage in
physical and verbal misdeeds.
Heretofore, we have been speaking of misdeeds we engage in
ourselves directly. Even heavier than these are instances
when we encourage or get someone else to engage in wrong
deeds for us. His Holiness gave an example from his
childhood in Tibet, where people were unwilling to engage in
killing themselves, and so hired a butcher to slaughter
their livestock on their behalf. This is doubly wrong, for
we are involving others in our own wrongdoing. In this
sense, His Holiness said, it would be better to kill the
animals oneself, rather than make someone else do so on
one’s behalf.
In addition, rejoicing in the wrongdoing of others also
incurs negative karma and is counted as a misdeed. For
example, if we were to hear that our archenemy were beaten,
tied, imprisoned or killed, and then rejoiced, this would
also be a misdeed. If on top of the mental rejoicing, we
expressed our delight or approval of the harmful act
physically or verbally, this would be even more serious. His
Holiness cautioned that rejoicing in acts that one has taken
vows to refrain from doing oneself can actually cause one to
lose those vows. Monastics for whom abstaining from killing
is a root vow are in danger of losing their vows altogether
if they express their delight in someone’s else act of
killing either by physical or verbal means, such as clapping
one’s hands or exclaiming approval. Laypeople run the same
risk of losing their vows through such acts of rejoicing.
There can be many wrongs that we do not recollect and thus
will not regret having done. However, we can reflect that
the buddhas through their omniscience do know all the
misdeeds we have done. With that in mind, we can then
confess all the deeds that the buddhas know we have done
under the influence of the afflictions, with body, speech
and mind, since beginning-less time, and add to that the
acts of all other sentient beings. In this way, our
confession practice can become inclusive, vast and powerful.
Nevertheless, although we may add others’ deeds to our own
when we are generating regret and confessing, we should not
pay any substantial attention to others’ mistakes. It is our
own faults we are concerned with recognizing and remedying.
Purification is made complete through the application of
what are called the four powers—regret, resolve, support and
antidote. Each of the four powers has its own benefit in
terms of purifying, His Holiness, serving to counteract
different forms of karmic results.
The four are called powers because they have the power to
purify our misdeeds. Among the four powers, His Holiness
said, the most important is the power of regret, which
entails recognizing our wrong deeds as wrong. When the power
of regret is combined with the power of resolve—in which we
determine not to repeat our wrongdoing—the remaining two
powers, of support and antidote—will come naturally, His
Holiness said.
If we feel content to have done misdeeds, there is little
chance of changing, and we will continue to enjoy and look
forward to engaging in further wrongdoing, the Gyalwang
Karmapa reflected.
Regret too can be grounded in an understanding of the
results of our misdeeds, which is rebirth in the three lower
realms—the animal, hungry ghost and hell realms. These three
correspond to the three main delusions of ignorance,
attachment and anger, respectively. We can perceive animals
directly, but people often express skepticism about the
remaining two realms. Yet His Holiness suggests that we do
not need to see them directly, for it is sufficient to
observe our own minds when under the power of attachment and
anger. This alone offers a glimpse of what the hungry ghost
and hell realms are like. For example, when we burn with
anger, we can see how anger consumes us like the fires of
hell consume those who live there.
We must examine what anger and hatred do to us—how they
transform us—in order to understand how deeply problematic
they are for us. To fully work to remove them, we first need
to see them as entirely and completely harmful and
undesirable. Often a serious obstacle to our practice is
that, on the one hand, we dislike our anger, but, on the
other, we feel it serves some purpose. Yet we need to reach
the point that we see our afflictions as utterly revolting,
and almost feel nauseous when we see them arising.
The power of support entails going for refuge and generating
bodhicitta. These two basic practices that we do regularly
have a purifying effect. However, only when combined with a
resolve not to commit the wrongdoings is the purification
full and complete. His Holiness raised the question of
whether failing to keep the promises or resolves we make to
abstain in future from negative deeds constitutes a form of
lying. It does not, he explained, as long as we have a
sincere and genuine wish to refrain and feel a sense of
resolve at that time that we make the resolve. If later we
find ourselves unable to follow through, this is not a lie.
For example, we might be asked if we plan to go somewhere
and reply yes, because at the time we do intend to do so. If
later it turns out that we do not make the trip, this does
not render the previous assertion a lie.
The crucial point is to regret the misdeeds we have done.
However, if we allow ourselves to wallow in guilt and cling
to a self-image of ourselves as wholly faulty and good for
nothing in this life or in the next, this is extremely
harmful, and is clearly not the point of confession
practice. Reflecting that we did not arrive in this life
perfect, but came with a beginning-less personal history of
engaging in wrongdoing, we should not feel shocked or
discouraged by our present misdeeds. On the contrary, the
mere fact that in this life we recognize our wrongdoing as
wrong is already wonderful, and can be a source of great
reassurance and joy.
His Holiness related that he once had the thought that the
Tibetan word for confession – shakpa – is
etymologically connected to dividing or splitting, in the
sense of cutting something in half with a knife. This aspect
of separating ourselves from our own misdeeds is an
important component of the practice of confession, he said.
This shakpa or parting from our wrongdoing entails
not only giving up misdeeds in the future. It also indicates
that we ought not to continue carrying our past wrongdoings,
holding on to them as if they were still part of who we are.
With this profound advice, His Holiness concluded the
teaching and turned to guiding the motivation for a
meditation on bodhichitta.
All sentient beings in the three realms are wandering in
samsara, not just at the moment, but at all times and
continuously, the Gyalwang Karmapa reflected. Yet they are
unaware that they are mired in suffering, and do not see
their suffering as suffering. In their confusion, they would
not recognize the magnitude of their own suffering even if
it were pointed out to them.
His Holiness offered the analogy of a frog in a pot of water
on a fire. The frog might find it pleasantly warm at first,
and by the time it realized that it was being cooked it
would be too late. Similarly all our mother sentient beings
are trapped in fiery pits of suffering, but do not recognize
this fact, and do not know what they ought to do or what
they ought not do.
With these deeply moving comments, His Holiness sounded the
gong and the vast assembly sat together for several minutes
of meditation.
WEBCASTING IN SAMSARA:
THE WEBCAST FAILS TO GO OUT
Report by Jo Gibson
There were several hundred disappointed viewers who tried to
log on to watch the live webcast of the first session of
today’s Monlam. There was no webcast.
The webcasting team had arrived on time at 5.30am in the
chilly pre-dawn to find that they had lost their internet
connection. They began a rigorous sequence of checks and
established that, unbeknown to them, during the night, the
fibre optic cable which delivers the fast 2 Mbps connection
had been cut. Meanwhile, the minutes were ticking away. It
would require checking three to four kilometres of cable to
find where the fault lay and the Gyalwang Karmapa was due to
arrive at 9.00am to continue his teaching on The King of
Aspirations.
The absence of any sign of panic at this point is a tribute
to both the technical expertise and the professionalism of
this team which comes together each year to deliver the
webcast of the Monlam. Displaying remarkable calmness, they
set out to find a solution—and found one. One of the team
had a USB modem Internet connection, and this was used to
send out a low resolution webcast of the second session.
Meanwhile, the internet engineer, Tenzin Norbu from
Dharamsala, was checking the cable, and miraculously located
the break within a couple of hours (it could have taken as
many days!), so was able to repair the cable. The webcast
was back on line by lunchtime.
As a member of the team commented later, “Every year, we
expect to encounter obstacles – it’s all practice here –
keeping calm when there are difficulties. We have to see
these problems as opportunities for practice. As His
Holiness says, it’s ‘living the Dharma’.”
SOME STATISTICS
Ordained sangha from 84 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and
nunneries have registered for this year’s Kagyu Monlam
Chenmo, the greatest number of institutions ever. And
they’re not only from the Karma Kagyu tradition. The
breakdown of institutions is as follows: 57 Kagyu, [both
Karma and Drukpa Kagyu] 14 Nyingma, 9 Geluk, 3 Sakya and 1
Jonang.
In addition there are guests from both Theravada and
Mahayana Buddhist traditions in India, Burma, Korea, Taiwan,
Vietnam and Singapore.
