Kathmandu, April 1st 2012 (edited transcription)
I don’t need to explain too much about what has happened during these last days. Rinpoche passed away – relatively, apparently. In the ultimate sense, you may have heard about this, he’s kind of deathless. Rinpoche never moved, he never walked away from us, he´s always within us. But if you are still lacking such knowledge, understanding the knowledge of Buddha Dharma, than obviously he is within you, but you may not feel this way.
You perform pujas, prayers, you call his name and you do supplication and prayers, yet you don’t feel it. Simply crying, feeling sad does not work. Simply being with him or sitting outside his apartment, does not work, does not make any sense. So what you need is the determination of devotion and faith. With this devotion and faith, whether he lives in this world or he´s alive or he´s off, doesn´t make any difference. He´s always within us, his compassion and his loving kindness and his care and his love, is always within us, right? So this will help us to progress in our practice, our devotion, our wisdom. If you are able to realize each and every instruction given by Rinpoche, it’s going to be very beneficial for yourself, and it’s going to be very beneficial for all sentient beings, and it’s going to be beneficial for the Lineage.
This sense of the relationship between the Guru and the disciple is very profound; very profound. This profoundity of the relationship between the disciple and the guru, who is caring until you all are fully enlightened, this depends very much on how you keep the instructions in your own mind. That is very important. In this way we make the relation, this way we make a very profound relationship between disciple and the Guru, or whatever you may call it, between the teacher and the student.
So if you have confidence that your Guru is still within you, you not just simply say that my Guru is with me. Of course your Guru is not with you when you are in a restaurant, your Guru is not in the restaurant with you anyway. When you eat tsampa or breakfast the Guru does not eat breakfast, when you eat breakfast this does not accomplish the fulfillment of his wish. Right? It is rather more profound in the sense of the profoundity of the teaching, which is – realizing that your mind is never separate from His mind. Realizing. Experience. Not only that you are able to make a development of understanding theoretically or intellectually. Intellectual understanding is very basic; very basic. We need to cross from this level to the state of realization. Which means fully experience and fully realize with determination, with confidence. That can be developed through the genuine devotion and the genuine faith towards the Guru.
Sometimes you may say my Guru is not so happy today. When you see him you are expecting his full smile, but sometimes he shows you a long face instead. Then your devotion is shaky, then you come out with tears, sadness and hectic. Then you may think – my Guru is crazy.
So you see – do you have a really solid and stable devotion? You should examine, you should reflect on your devotion, you should reflect on your faith. If there is still a lack of understanding of the Buddhadharma we should read more about the life stories of Milarepa, Gampopa, the life story of the great Naropa, and Tilopa – how profound the relationship between them was. You always say “these stories are very inspiring”, but where is your inspiration? When certain circumstances come to you, you loose your control and sometimes you may hate the Dharma. So this happens very much on the mundane, the worldly sense – although you act as Buddhist, although we act as Dharma practitioner, but when you face certain circumstances, then you are unable to apply the Dharma correctly.
So therefore as a student of Rinpoche or as a disciple of Rinpoche, just simply saying “I am Rinpoches disciple” is not sufficient at all, is not enough. You have a very heavy duty and responsibility to fulfill the wishes of Rinpoche through the application of Buddha Dharma correctly and examining your own characteristics in everyday life and you have to judge yourself how much changes you are able to make through the training of your mind and through the application of each and every instructions, that Rinpoche has given in the past.
Talking about it in the long run: practice is not so easy; it’s not easy. When the weather is good and you are having a good coffee, the good restaurants are around, everything seems okay with you, no complaints. Then you think “I can do the Dharma”. And you may feel “I can do Dharma practice”. But when certain circumstances arise which are unpleasant and irritating, then you loose your control and then you can not apply the Buddha Dharma in that moment. Instead you complain about this and that, and you may complain saying, “I have been Buddhist over 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, how come that I don’t feel any benefit from my practice?”. So it looks like you are trying to blame the Dharma instead yourself. This is not a good idea. Still something is lacking; something is lacking.
Therefore I would like to request you as students and disciples of Rinpoche: you should show a good example to others. When you engage in certain negativities, it may damage your Guru’s fame and your Guru’s position also. People might think “how come?”. If you are a short tempered sensitive person, very irritated person, then the person next to you may think “Oh, so he claimed to be a Buddhist practitioner, yet how come that he could not change his character?”. Then he or she might think your Guru might be as worse than you, right? Cause he was expecting that you are relying on your own Guru, receiving his teachings, might make a change. But now you are still carrying this same negative character, and this does mean to that person the Dharma didn’t work for you. So it’s a very bad image for the Lineage, a bad image for your Guru. Therefore I said, you have a heavy responsibility. To spread the good image to the followers one has to be very careful, full of mindfulness and alertness.
Learning Dharma everyday is very important. Like food, drink, clothes are our everyday life. Similar to this the Buddha Dharma is the everyday life. For your breakfast you don’t need to prepare much, the lunch and the dinner you don’t need to prepare much; its our natural habitual tendency. Not much attention has to be paid to preparing our foods and meals. And everyday life is similar to the Dharma practice. The minute you get up early in the morning, then the duties, the responsibilities should be carried with the genuine devotion, genuine faith, the wisdom, mindfulness, alertness, carefulness, and cautiousness. They are very important, they are the best supporters, the best friends of the Dharma practitioners. Therefore to fulfill Rinpoches wishes, although his body is left behind but his mind is always within us. Mind is always within you, within us. So that you should know, that you should know! That you should experience! Therefore what I am saying is: simply your feeling sad, simply your just crying is not enough, is not sufficient, is not practical.
To carry out this to practice everyday and remember each and every of those precious words and instructions given by Rinpoche, you should remember them in your everyday life. This way you can fulfill all his wishes and that way you can make him happy. And he will be happy all the time, and his blessings will be thrown upon you, ceaselessly.
Actually in my speech today what I have taught were instructions for the monks, in a profound way, it was about the rules and regulations of the monastery which we have to carry on, But for you I just have summarized from the previous speech that I have given. I would like you to keep all the instructions given by Rinpoche in your heart and carry on. And then as a Buddhist practitioner one should not be so sensitive. You have to be open minded; open minded right?
You read a (Dharma) book and it says everything that you should do and not do. But then if you do act exactly the opposite way then you are not a practitioner. Everyday you pay homage and you visit the temple, you do prostration, and light up lamps, sitting in front of the image of Buddha, you are acting as you are doing meditation, then you think you are Buddhist. No.
As a real Buddhist you should change your mental attitude. That’s the main responsibility of the Buddhist practitioner. Change. Change through training of mind, change through instructions that you have read in the book, change through the instructions that you received from your Guru, apply it within you. With joyfulness, with happiness and full of wisdom you are joyfully changing your character – not forcefully, not with obligation. This is the very profound teaching of Buddha Shakyamuni, and the great masters of India, the Pandits, and the great masters in Tibet.
Nothing more than that, nothing more than that, even if you read pages, pages, pages, pages, no use if you don’t apply them within. The application is the key point in our Dharma practice. Application means try to make a oneness of you and the practice, not separate. That’s very important. If you do that, Rinpoche is very happy, his blessings are always with you. You don’t need to chant the prayers and sing with the great melodies – your melody does not make him happy in the end. Does not. So if you really wish to make him happy, than you should apply the words, instructions that you have received. To apply means to combine, make a combination. So try to peel off all the barriers that we have kept over a long period of time. To tame our mind is his ultimate wish – if you are able to do that.
That’s why I would like to request you to adopt and cultivate those qualities in each and every day. When you are sitting next to Rinpoche’s room, or when you are far away. There is no distance between you and your Guru if you are a genuine Dharma practitioner. The blessing does not make any difference by distance.
Therefore you have to be a very practical practitioner and you have to be very, what we call a wisdom person. Then you will not make any mistake in your practice. And then you will experience that the blessing is ultimately there. So you are never separate from Rinpoche. Therefore your body, speech and mind will also never be separated from the body, speech and mind of the Guru, of Rinpoche.
Please kindly keep the words that I have mentioned in mind. Thank you.
Now I’m going to give a transmission to the prayer for the swift rebirth of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche [here Rinpoche gives the lung].
Although Rinpoche has passed away relatively, and his mind is unified with the Dharmadhatu, but for the sake of Buddhas doctrine and for sentient beings we request you, to come back.
This is very short – come back, just say come back. You don’t have to say it sooo nicely, just say – please come back. Very soon. Come back very soon. And he will come back very soon if you do practice. But otherwise if you just enjoy yourselves, the pain in the body, mental disturbance, and then you say please come back, then he says “Oh no! You are very stubborn man or woman, I won’t come back”.
We expect his swift rebirth, and he will come back, that’s why we say he never move away from us, never. He will come back, he will come back – but under one condition. The condition is – we should practice Dharma genuinely.
We must not forget Guru, when you wake up, when you walk outside, when you eat foot, when you talk with the people. Do any activities but never separate your mind from the Guru. Then although his body is not presented in front of us but his compassion, his love, his profundity of Bodhicitta is always within us. That we can feel – and we do feel undoubtedly. Therefore the request for the swift rebirth is very much based on the everyday practice.With that characteristic, if you are able to associate with those qualities, then he can listen, he can hear, he can hear each and every word that you requested, each and every word that you have said from your prayers, he can feel this – if you are associated, not dissociated, associated with those qualities.
Okay? Thank you so much.
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The Heart Advice © 2012 Drubwang Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche
Edited transcription by Harald Lebherz, Tim Tashi Boldt, Thea Boldt. All mistakes due to the transcribers/editors.
