Vivid Awareness Blog 6

"DENVER CENTER MEDITATION GROUP OUTLINE FOR 10-2-2011 (VIVID AWARENESS 6)"

Last week (page 35-36 of Vivid Awareness) we discussed the first uncommon preliminary which is refuge and bodhichitta. We engage our mind by visualizing the lineage tree, we engage our speech by saying the refuge prayer and we engage our body by doing prostrations in front of the visualized refuge tree. I found this in the Karmapa's explanation of his Short Ngondro practice which involves just the prostrations.

"THE 17TH KARMAPA ON PROSTRATIONS"

Next is how to prostrate, starting with how to join your hands: To your fingertips together but leave space between the centers of your hand so that they do not touch. Then insert your thumbs between the hands. You hands should have the shape of a lotus blossom that has not yet opened but is just about to bloom. Leaving the empty space in the center represents the dharmakaya. The shape represents the form kayas. The right and left hands represent means and wisdom-at least when we act virtuously. If we act unvirtuously, they might represent maras and obstructors! By joining these two representations of means and wisdom, we create the auspicious connection for the path to arise where it has not arisen, never weaken where it has arisen, and continue to grow and develop without weakening, through the union of means and wisdom.

Once we have joined our palms, we touch them first to our forehead. Then we place them at the level of the throat, and then we touch them to our heart. This represents the qualities of the buddhas' three places and the purification of the obscurations of the three gates of body, speech, and mind. Doing this is a cause for purifying the obscurations.

When you do the refuge practice in the future, you are going to have to prostrate, and when you prostrate, you will generally have to do full prostrations. There are also many other types of prostrations, such as half prostrations-prostrations where the five points touch the grounds Full prostrations mainly appear in vajrayana instructions, whereas the half prostration, also called the prostration of the fivefold mandala, is the usual type of Buddhist prostration. It is okay to do full prostrations, and it is also okay to do half prostrations. Alternatively, if your knees are bad, it is permissible to kneel, touch your hands to the three places, and then touch your head to the floor. You don't have to get up but can prostrate while kneeling.

Usually it is said that one should do a few hundred thousand prostrations. But many foreigners complain a lot when they do prostrations-they say that their back hurts or their knees hurt. Prostrating is good, but if trying to do a hundred thousand becomes a huge hassle and causes great difficulties, it is no longer Dharma practice. Since this is a ngondro practice that I wrote, when you practice, you can decrease the number a bit. You do not absolutely have to do one hundred thousand prostrations. The minimum is one thou-sand or ten thousand, or perhaps fifty thousand. Full prostrations are fine, and half prostrations are also fine. If you are able to do more, don't limit yourself to a hundred thousand; it is also fine to do two hundred thousand. But even if you reduce the number of prostrations, you still must recite the refuge prayer at least one hundred thousand times.

The most important thing to understand about prostrations is that a pros-tration is an expression or convention of body and speech that can show our respect. If doing this can demonstrate pure action of the three gates, it is a prostration. Otherwise it is not a prostration. If the prostrations we do f that criterion, it does not matter how many times we prostrate. We can gather the accumulations, and we have accomplished the primary pure In Tibet, prostrations can be scary-when you see them, they seem terrifying prostrations should not be like that; they should be an expression of faith.

THE SECOND SPECIAL PRELIMINARY: VAJRASATTVA PRACTICE.

We now go onto the second special preliminary which is the Vajrasattva practice. In "Vivid Awareness "(page 36-38) Thrangu Rinpoche explains why Vajrasattva is very important. Then in the Short Ngondro text the Karmapa explains the process of how we actually reduce and eliminate our negative karma.

To give one example from a famous Nagpa, when he was a child in Tibet he saw a beautiful fish with all kinds of gleaming silvery scales. He took the fish out of the water to play with and when he realized that he had killed the fish, he ran to his teacher and asked what he could do to erase this bad karma. The teacher then taught him the Vajrasattva mantra. I have also seen Thrangu Rinpoche suggest Vajrasattva for a particular problems in group interviews.

Finally, we should not think of Vajrasattva as being a "preliminary" or "lower" practice because the teaching is that when we go on our most important journey in the bardo, we visualize ourselves a Vajrasattva and say the 100 syllable Vajrasattva mantra.

"THE 17TH KARMAPA ON VAJRASATTVA"

When we speak about purifying misdeeds, we talk about the four powers: the power of support, the power of regret, the power of resolve, and the power of acting on the antidote. I think that the easiest of these is the power of support, because the power of support is to rely on the precious Three Jewels or the field of merit. Therefore, even if our own intentions or actions do not quite measure up, that on which we are relying-the power of support-helps us greatly. For instance, when we con-fess misdeeds, even if our actual intent and action in making the confession do not measure up, taking the Three Jewels as a support while making confessions will make purifying our misdeeds faster and easier, through the power of the compassion of the Three Jewels.

When we talk about confessing misdeeds, many people think that when we say, "confess misdeeds," it means, "I killed a bug in the past and now I need to confess it." Or perhaps it is, "I killed a horse and have to confess that misdeed," or even, "I murdered someone and have to confess that." That is excellent, but there is something even more important than that. If we first make a commitment or form a great hope and then later do some wrong that violates it that is a far graver harm. Generally killing horses or a person is wrong and confessing it is good. But performing a misdeed that violates a strong commitment or great hope we have made mentally brings greater harm upon ourselves.

If someone were to kill some insects incidentally-for instance, if a bug were crawling here and they squashed and killed it with their hands or feet-there would not be any immediate harm to them. The suffering that is its karmic ripening does not immediately occur. It is, of course, wrong, but it does not immediately lead to any great harm to them. This is because when we kill an insect, we do it in passing without a long period of advance prepa-ration or premeditation. Because of the motivation, it does not bring us much harm. We frequently kill many bugs underfoot, but we don't particularly feel as if we were killing.

However, if we make a firm commitment and form a strong hope, and then perform a wrong or other act that contradicts it, the harm it brings us is greater. The reason for this is that commitments and hopes are phenomena that can stay with us for a long time, and therefore doing something that vi-olates them is more harmful to us. Thus it is even more important to confess. Wrongs that contradict the three vows than to confess misdeeds such as killing sentient beings. For this reason, when we say that a wrong is either grave or minor, it is not as if there were someone pretending to be a buddha and ranking our mis-deeds on some scale, saying, "That wrong you committed is serious, but this one is not." What we need to look at to determine whether a wrong is serious or minor is how harmful it is to our being and whether or not it creates great damage in our mind stream. If something you have done harms your mind greatly or has a big impact on you, then that is probably a very serious wrong. If it does not have a strong negative effect on your mind, produce an intense feeling, or make a strong impact on you, then you have committed a wrong, but I think it is a minor wrong.

What is the main thing we need to know when confessing our misdeeds? If we have done some specific misdeed and confess it in particular, that is good. It is good to specifically remember the wrongs we have done and con-fess them. But when we confess misdeeds, it is not necessary to remember each and every instance and confess each individually. It is better to do an overall confession of all the misdeeds we have done under the influence of the three poisons of the afflictions from beginningless time up to now. The reason is that it would be extremely difficult to specify each and every mis-deed and confess them all individually. With me, for example, I don't remem-ber committing any particularly serious wrong when I was little, but I did do many small wrongs, none of which I remember. We are all the same: we have done many wrongs but do not remember them. However, none of the wrongs we have done have not been mixed with the three poisons of the afflictions, so if we confess all the wrongs that we have committed when motivated by the three poisons, we will be able to confess all our misdeeds whether we remember them or not.

There are primarily three conditions that lead to committing misdeeds. The one that is like the boss is delusion, and the two henchmen are greed and hatred. This is because delusion permeates all of the afflictions. From the delusion of not knowing, we perceive things incorrectly and then regard them inappropriately. This is why delusion permeates all the afflictions just as the sense of touch permeates the body. "Just like the sense of touch in the body" it is said. That is the reason why delusion is said to be like the boss. When we say that greed and hatred are like henchmen, although there are many afflictions under the control of delusion, the primary ones-the ones that really and truly have power and that we mainly employ-are greed and hatred. That is why they are said to be like henchmen. It is impossible that there is any wrong we commit that did not happen because of either greed or hatred.

When we classify the misdeeds in terms of our motivation, there are three types: those committed primarily under the power of the affliction of delu-sion, those committed under the power of the affliction of hatred, and those committed under the power of the affliction of greed. If we see any act performed under the influence of the afflictions as revolting and confess it, we can confess and purify all our misdeeds. If we explain our actions or karma in terms of what we use to commit them, there are three types: actions of body, of speech, and of mind. Any act we do must be performed with either body, speech, or mind. Any misdeed we commit is thus done with body, speech, or mind. If we classify acts in terms of how they are committed, there are three types: those we perform ourselves, those we have someone else do, and those that we rejoice in having been done. Those we perform are acts that we actually do ourselves. Those we have someone else do are those that we get someone else to do instead of doing ourselves. These are more harmful. We pretend that we have not done anything wrong, but if we have told someone else to do it, then we have made two people accumulate wrongdoing, haven't we? That is a graver wrong. When someone else has committed a misdeed and we think, "What a guy! Way to go!" or "Well done!" and rejoice in that, the strength of that thought creates a misdeed for us as well. How does this misdeed occur? It is not as if a portion of the misdeed committed by the other is allotted to us or we accrue some interest from it. We get the whole misdeed or the entire wrong. An individual who rejoices in someone else's misdeed incurs the entire negativity; the negativity is not divided into portions and each person gets one part. Thus it is the same as performing the misdeed oneself.

FROM THRANGU RINPOCHE'S BOOKLET TEN VIRTUOUS DEEDS

For an action to be unvirtuous and lead to negative karma four conditions have to be present. These four conditions are: (1) there has to be an object of the action, (2) there has to be a negative intention, (3) one has to actually do the action, and (4) the action has to be completed. If these four aspects of an action aren't all present then it is not necessarily a negative action.

(1) In order for the act of killing to occur, there must be the actual object or being who will be killed. It can be any kind of living being from a small insect to a large animal. It must be a being capable of experiencing sensations and sufferings.

(2) For the act of killing to occur, a second factor must be present: the intention. One must have the motivation to harm a sentient being. For example, if we think, "This person or animal is going to harm me" or "It is dangerous and therefore I wish to kill it" we are killing out of the "obscuring emotion" of anger and the desire to cause harm. We can also kill through the motivation of desire by thinking for example, "If I kill this being, then I will have food, clothing, pleasure and enjoyment." One then intentionally kills that being. Or one can kill through the motivation of ignorance such as sacrificing an animal for religious reasons, thinking, "If I kill this being, then the act will be good and beneficial because the Hindu scriptures say that sacrifices are all right." Nevertheless, this is not a good intention because the motivation is ignorance. If one does not realize that one is killing a being, then there is no negative result or karma.

(3) In addition to having the object and the motivation, there must be a third factor of actually undertaking of the action of killing. This means that although one may have the intention of killing someone, one has to carry it out for it to be the negative act of killing. This point is actually carrying out the act of killing someone. One does not need to do this action oneself; one can make someone else do it by instructing and paying him to kill another being. When that person has done the action, one feels happy, "Oh, it is good that person is killed." Even though it is not one's own action, but only carried out according to one's instructions, it is still one's own negative action of killing because one is responsible for having made someone else do it. So, as well as the motivation to kill, there is the actual act of killing, whether done by oneself or done according to one's wishes.

(4) Finally, the fourth factor is called "completion." For an act to reap the negative karma of the action there has to be an actual result of the action. For an act of true killing the being must actually die. So, one might have the intention to kill someone and one might carry out the action, but it might happen that the victim does not die in spite of one's having done one's best to kill him. While this is obviously a negative act, it does not count as a real act of killing. Also, if one has ordered someone else to kill somebody and he disobeys or fails in his job, it is not an actual act of killing. Clearly, one's attempt is a negative action that leads to negative karma; but if one's action fails in its goal, then it does not become the very serious negative action of killing.1 All four factors must be present for it to be a true act of killing.

Credit: asatru-religion.blogspot.com