Teaching by H.H. the XIIth Gyalwang Drukpa on attachment.

Merigar, Friday December 27th.

transcribed with the permission to put this teaching also on the Internet

by Lucky Loek

This trancript is as literally as possible. It is not corrected or reviewed by His Holiness.

(His Holiness starts with chanting the Seven Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche).

So the preparation to practice Mahamudra, there are as I mentioned

yesterday the common and uncommon preparation. So the common preparation I already

explained. It's like those accumulations and purifications and all these

things are common preparations to Mahamudra practice and also Dzogpa Chenpo

practice - the same. And now uncommon practice, uncommon preparation is,

that you have to prepare yourself by doing calm abiding meditation, shine

practice.

Without shine practice or without help of shine one can never be able to

realise ones own nature.

But that's not true, not necessarily true for everybody, because there are

some kind of categories of people who have some sort of special ability to

realise their own nature without going through the specific practice of

shine.

Those people are considered as very fortunate, very fortunate in terms of

accumulations and purifications they have already done in previous lives.

So if you want, to know the secret of shine is non-attachment. If you are

able to practice or to find out how to really sort out the problem that is

associated with the attachment, then the shine shouldn't be any problem.

The most of the disturbances - not only the most, I mean all, the entire

disturbance coming up in our emotions, is through the attachment. And

attachment brings every sort of different notions, sometimes it can bring

some good notions - good in the sense like useful notions - sometimes, most of

the times it brings nonsense. But anyway it brings some ups and downs in our

life. And some of them are useful, some of them are not useful, but anyway it is

some fabrication.

So this is the function of our own mistake attachment. So therefore many

holy texts, precious texts always mention, very repeatedly always mention, that

the non-attachment is the essence of the meditation.

There is a question whether a person can reach to the level of

accomplishment of shine practice without going through non-attachment or not. That kind of

question comes often in my mind. But according to the texts it is impossible,

if you don't go through the practice of non-attachment, like thinking about

developing that kind of sense of non-attachment, one can never be reaching

to the state of perfect shine.

But theoretically sometimes it can work, it can work, like if those people

who have no idea of developing the non-attachment, but they can also have a

sense of shine, they can have a bit of kind of shine also, through the help of

the exercise and help of the common concentration, only the concentrations etc.

So this kind of shine that has no support of non-attachment but they have a

sense of shine, that kind of shine is a very mundane shine I would say, very

mundane, a very relative shine if you want. And that is not very helpful in

terms of practising Dzogchen or Mahamudra. The shine we are talking about

has to be build or based on the foundation of non-attachment, that's very

important.

So therefore let's talk about the attachment a little bit, because anyway I

am very fond of talking about attachment because I think and we all came to

know that we are very attached to many things. I think we live with attachment,

we are born with attachment unfortunately. So therefore it is interesting to

talk about that also, because we live in that. We don't want to talk about

something which is not familiar with us. Because when it is not familiar

then it is boring, like if we talk about something about which you don't know,

it's not really interesting. It's more interesting if you talk about something

you know. So the attachment is something that we live with, and something that

moves us always, wherever you go, whatever you do, almost hundred percent

of your time is influenced by attachment, no matter if it is a good or bad

thing.

The good or bad, every activity is influenced by the attachment. So it's

interesting to know.

You are attached to the good things as well as bad things.

You are attached to your emotions as well as your physical, the body.

You are attached to the time as well as the whole of phenomena that

externally exist.

So it is not necessary that you are attached to good things, like beautiful

things, attractive things. Those things which are very awful also provoke

your attachment. Maybe indirectly or directly, but anyway it provokes the

attachment.

People think that attachment is only to attractive things or beautiful

things that you like or you love. But that's not true. When you hate something or

somebody else, it is also an attachment, it is even more stronger

attachment than the attachment that is to the beautiful or to normal attachment I

would say. Normal attachment. I mean the attachment towards the anger, the

hatred, is even stronger than the normal attachment. So therefore hatred or hatred

which focuses or concentrate on awful things also is attachment! And the

happiness or the desire to a beautiful or attractive thing is also an

attachment, is also an attachment! So therefore there is no difference

between the good and bad in terms of provoking the attachment.

I always think like that - I mean the entire what you do from early morning

until late evening 'till you go to bed and also even in the dream also,

whatever you do is very much influenced by attachment. You can check

whether it is true or not. It's sort of true to me, it is really true to me but

not necessarily true to you in that sense. So you have to check and investigate

whether it is true or not.

So most of my life whatever I do is very much influenced by my own

attachment, no matter what sort of life I am leading too.

So now non-attachment, when we talk about non-attachment, after knowing

that our life, every minute of our life is led by the attachment, then we would

be trying to do our best to free ourselves from the attachment. That means, we

- how I should say it - I think the best solution to free ourselves from

attachment is to realise the functions of -let's say to realise the

process of the attachment. How attachment comes about, how attachment functions.

That sort of things. If you realise that, there is a kind of a thing that you

can find out as a ruthless or a baseless. So that attachment itself is also

Mahamudra, you will find out, that attachment is Mahamudra actually.

So then the attachment will not function, let's put it that way, not

function as it was, used to be. So that is I think the so-called non-attachment. If

you could manage to do that, that is the typical way of explaining through

Mahamudra. That is Mahamudra, the typical Mahamudra way of explaining.

So if you are very much attached or if you are in a kind of a strong

attachment notion or attitude, then that person or you, you will never have

any peace in your life. For instance, everything becomes too much. For

example, the weather will never be good. I think I said also a little bit

about this yesterday also, that you may not be able to enjoy yourself in

any place, with any kind of condition, any sort of things in this life, in this

world, may turn out to be very bad, very irritating. For instance, the

wether over here is too cold and you may not be able to take it. And I don't know,

this you may say, I mean, there will be hundreds of complaints about the

environment, about the friend, about the cars, about the food and about

that and about this, there will be no end to complaining. Because you're

attached.

So then, one day, I mean, at the end of course you will be complaining

about you also yourself. About how can I be, I mean: how bad I am, or something

like that. So you will be complaining about you. So the whole world will be

negative. Maybe there is a bit of a chance, I mean a bit of chances,

there's a bit of chances like to enjoy a little bit for example when you are drinking

alcohol you may feel a little bit of enjoyment. And when you eat lots of

meat you can feel a little bit of enjoyment and you can do something like maybe

you eat a lot of food and then sleep and in your sleep also a little bit of

enjoyment. That sort of thing.

But this also provokes the attachment! And more deeper and deeper and

deeper into attachment, into the state of attachment. That drives you crazy, that

drives you nuts!

Definitely! So therefore we've got to think about it, yes!

Then one should become a little bit less, a little less, a little less

attached to the things. Or in other words, you become a little bit like an

advanced practitioner in terms of Mahamudra practice. Then you become more

happy and more appreciating. You appreciate the thing that you have, or you

are satisfied with the things that you have and with the friends you are

travelling with. And with the food you are eating and with the temperature

that you are in a little bit, you know, the temperature around you. So

everything will be OK, even though it may not be enjoying things, but you

will be accepting it, because you are a little bit more advanced in terms of

practice.

Then gradually when you reach to the level when there is no attachment at

all, then that time you reach to the level that you can call 'the great bliss'.

The state of Great Bliss. Mahamudra we always say: the great bliss, the great

emptiness. When you are in great bliss, in great emptiness. So that's the

place, that's the kind of level you can talk about the great bliss.

Right now we don't have a great bliss. Drinking is not great bliss. Eating

is not great bliss. It can be a bliss for the time being, but that's relative

bliss. It's not a great bliss.

So everything, whatever mundane bliss, is not great bliss. So that is not

the level that we can talk about great bliss. Which means like always there is

no negative things to you. Everything around you turns out to be perfect.

Perfect! Even though relatively maybe it is very negative, very awful, very

bad thing happens. But for him, for that particular practitioner, never

thinks negatively. Never ever - how to say - affect for his emotion. There are no

negative things around him anymore. This is the result of non-attachment,

of the practice of non-attachment. Then you get to the level where you can

say: "OK, everything is blissful". Everything is emptiness, everything is

Mahamudra. Everything is Dzogchen. Everything is Great Perfection. That's

the time we can say: "Everything is Great Perfection". Right now, even if we

say: everything is great perfection, it doesn't make any sense. Nothing is

perfection, so how can it be great perfection! Nothing if perfection to us!

So, it's very interesting, if you go through this one by one, very

detailed, very sort of - you know - theoretically, it is very interesting.

So I always wish and hope that we all can think about this ourselves.

Because we are the best person to investigate ourselves. Nobody can investigate

you. Nobody can check you. Even if somebody pretended they can check you, you

wouldn't like it. I wouldn't like it! I wouldn't like if somebody is

checking me! I want to have my own privacy.

So you have your own privacy, you have your right to have your privacy. But

you have your right to check yourself also. And there shouldn't be any

conflict between you and you. So therefore you'll have to check where,

which level you are in. Whether you are on the level of strong attachment, or a

little bit less attachment, or non-attachment.

So if you are in a very strong level of attachment, on that level, then

you've got to work hard! In order to free yourself from attachment. If you are

lucky you are a little bit kind of advanced. Very good, congratulations! So then

you can work a little bit less, then you can stretch your legs and enjoy

yourself.

And if you are already in non-attachment then you don't have to do

anything!

Then you can really be - always be free. I mean you don't have to do

anything literally. Because you have done everything. That's the Dharma! That's the

practice. That's the result of practice, that's the result of Dzogchen,

that's the result of Mahamudra teachings: this and that, whatever, it's finished;

so you don't have to do anything!

So you have check yourself first, before we talk about it. Before we sort

of make a bit fuss about it or something like that. You have to check

yourself! And make sure that where you are to be, where you are in! That's a very

practical and recommended sort of path.

So this sort of investment of course has to be used for yourself, for your

sake, your improvement. It is not something that you have to use for

others.

Because if you have to use it for others, then that means misusing: you are

misusing. So then you will be checking others: oh, yeah, he is not... he

reached to nowhere, that's the reason he is upset. He reached to - you

know, now he is very angry, but that means he is nothing, he is a nobody... that

sort of things. It shouldn't be used. That means: misusing your method.

Misusing your teaching, precious teaching. So, the Dharma always mentions

very strongly that one has to use it in a proper way. That means: use to develop

yourself. So therefore you have to use it for yourself. And don't use it as

a needle we say. Don't use it as a needle, use it as a mirror! That is what

we say. And that is what I always hope. (Laughter of the audience).

So I was talking about non-attachment. So practically speaking, the

practice of non-attachment is the essence. Not only of the shine, but the essence of

Mahamudra, the essence of Dzogpa Chenpo. The essence of Madyamaka, the

essence of the whole practice I think. And not only the Madyamaka or Dzogpa Chenpo

or Mahamudra, it is the essence of even Theravadin practice, even the Mahayana

sutra practice, mantra practice, everything; it is based on the

non-attachment.

So as I mentioned before, like yesterday also, as long as you don't have

the attachment to those things which are around you.... they are perfectly OK.,

they will not poke you, they will not penetrate into you as a needle or

something. It won't come, they won't come inside of you, they won't force

you to come in. As long as you don't have an attachment, they are perfectly OK.

So this is the reason why this morning I was saying: the world is perfect.

Samsara even is perfect, everything is perfect. So therefore the

development of non-attachment is very important in terms of Mahamudra practice.

Compassion, devotion, loving kindness and also the wisdom, all these

spiritual practices can be done without any obstacles if you have no attachment. And

speaking about this, people may think that if there is no attachment, how

can we develop the compassion, loving kindness. Caring for others and etcetera.

But that's a big misunderstanding I would say. Without attachment, if you

don't have attachment, that will definitely help you to develop the true

compassion and loving kindness. As long as you are with attachment, your

loving kindness and compassion are always a conditional one. Conditional

compassion. Conditional loving kindness. So in order to make love,

compassion, devotion etcetera, totally unconditional, one need to develop the sense of

non-attachment.

So what we need as a practitioner of Mahamudra-Dzogpa Chenpo? We need

through the unconditional state of mind especially in terms of practising loving

kindness etc. Impartial love, impartial kindness etcetera.

So the non-attachment is the Keypoint to practice, again!

Conditional love, condition compassion, are very common. All the animals,

not only human beings, but all the animals including tiny insects also have

that sort of loving kindness and compassion: the conditional love, conditional

compassion, conditional caring attitude for each other, their family, each

other friends, each other like whatever the community, they have that sort

of things. That's very common.

Actually it is good. Nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong to have that sort

of compassion and loving kindness. It is good. In fact it can be a seed of

developing unconditional love and compassion. But that's common.

But we, as a practitioner of Mahamudra-Dzogpa Chenpo, we need to look for a

little bit uncommon, a little bit higher level than the normal or common

one.

Which is: the unconditional loving kindness and compassion. Which will

never cause you any problem forever.

Some kind of conditional compassion - loving kindness, can cause you - I

mean - not necessarily but can be causing you problems after as a result, after

paying that compassion and loving kindness, can cause you problem as a

result.

But the unconditional love, unconditional compassion never can be causing

you any problem as a result. So therefore it is always recommendable to look

for the unconditional one.

Through the non-attachment practice, and also through the Mahamudra

practice and Dzogchen practice anyway, these practice along with the sense of

non-attachment, strong sense of non-attachment, this will give you

ultimately or eventually you can even turn not only the notion towards the thing or

the attitude towards the environment, not only the changes in your attachment

and the attitude towards the thing, but it will change even you visions also.

For example we call it "pure vision" , the pure vision of Dzogchen, pure vision

of Mahamudra, will be there. And that's something very far from us, from now.

So therefore we don't really know what pure vision is, of course. But I guess

there is a vision completely different from now. The vision right we are

having is something of an impure vision, I would say. And the Dzogchen

vision and the Tsakchen (means the Mahamudra vision) are the pure vision. That is

a totally different, a totally non-attachment state of vision.

Different from those vision that... for example the animals, they have

their own vision. And we as a human being has our way of vision. And also the

thought, when we were young we have another kind of a thought, another

conception, another way of leading life. And then as we get older and we

have changes - I mean there will be changes in our life routine, day-to-day

life.

So everything changes, so that the state of the practice also changes

according to the process of your understanding, or attainment of your

level.

And so according through that attainment or the process of your practice

the vision also changes. So this is the reason why there is no need to have an

attachment to the vision what are having right now. Because this thing has

to be changed. This thing will definitely change when you reach to the level

of Mahamudra.

And even if you don't reach to the Mahamudra level, you will definitely be

dying one day, that is to say: you will be gone. You will be going from

this world. Even if you are not a practitioner of the Mahamudra. Doesn't matter:

you will go from this world, won't you? All of us! So when we go from here,

you will never have this vision constantly. You will have another vision,

whatever we are going to be. E.g. we are going to be born as a dog, or

monkey or horse or whatsoever. We will have our own vision, a new, fresh vision

if you want to say. So there is no need to have an attachment. And even if you

have an attachment, that is useless, completely useless. Not only being

useless, this can cause you various types of obstacles in terms of practice

as I mentioned before.

Speaking about the vision: somehow we - for some reason I don't know why we

have only two eyes. So just because of the two eyes, the two little wholes

in our face, we can see something. And this (H.H. refers to his spectacles)

is also supposed to be in that shape. And if it turns upside down for some

reason - why not - then you can see something different. You can see

triangle, or maybe upside down or whatever. And your whole vision would be changed.

But for some reason most of the people, most of the animals have these two

eyes.

But we can have three, we can have four, why not? Or we can have only one

also. So the different shapes and number of eyes can have a different

vision.

Forget about non-attachment or Mahamudra or Dzogpa Chenpo, but just simply

changing the shapes of the eyes and the functions of the eyes can have

various kind of vision. E.g. people who have a jaundice problem can see every white

thing as yellow. But the yellow colour is not true. Actually it is white.

But it is his vision. Because of his jaundice problem. So it's the same thing!

We have our own vision, which is totally influenced by attachment. By

ignorance.

So therefore we see that way and we attach to that for no reason. Maybe for

some reason I would say, but there's no good reason I guess we can find. We

cannot.

So therefore, I mean, there is no doubt that when you reach to the high

level of accomplishment like at the final sort of state of the Mahamudra, or the

final state of the Dzogpa Chenpo, you definitely will have a so-called pure

vision. We always talk about pure vision. But none of us know. Except those

highly realised persons like gurus and like these great masters, they know

that. But I guess that it's inexpressible. It is beyond expression I think.

We cannot express through a limited way of expression. It is impossible.

Isn't it a silly thing if you say that this vision, the present vision what

we have, has to be there when you attain the Buddhahood or when you attain the

enlightenment. Or attain the final state of the Mahamudra or Dzogpa Chenpo,

in that sense. Because what we always think is that this vision has to be

there forever, this is what we normally think, like basically. No matter whether

we say it or not, whether we express it or not, it is there. That kind of

believe is very much there in our life. So that's very stupid, isn't it? Because

the vision always can be changed. So when you get enlightenment, of course the

vision has to be changed. The vision will definitely change. That is: you

will get a pure vision.

So therefore, red, yellow, white, big, small, and these beautiful, awful,

these different vision, why do you need to be attached? Why do you need to

be saying: this has to be this way, that way. And this shouldn't be this way,

that shouldn't be that way - sort of like this. Why do we sort of - let's

say fabricate in that way? Why do we upset about, why do we put ourselves in a

situation that upsets us and there is all this disappointments and

excitements and etc. etc. There is no point to do so! Because everything is changeable.

Everything has to be changed. Everything is impermanent.

The impermanence comes always into our life, into our spiritual practice,

into our spiritual life as well as material life. The impermanence is always

there, whether you like it or not, doesn't matter. It's there.

The colour red is not born with the label of "red". There's no label saying

"red" primordially. And also there is no black, white and yellow, all these

different colours and different shapes are not born with themselves. It is

named afterwards. So after naming it, through naming it we fabricate it, we

fabricate them very nicely. And we all believed in one way, and we became a

very big group who are believing in this way. We became a very good friend

in that sense. We say: this is yellow, isn't it! Oh yes, we all will say

"yellow". Yes! We are the kind of big group saying "yellow". Or this is

white, this is red. So we decided to say that. I don't know when, but we decided

to say that in some point, we decided. So this is a decision! This is an

attachment! But that's nothing wrong! That's the way how we live! And

that's the way we establish samaras I would say. And it's OK., nothing wrong! But

why do we need to be attached, mentally attached to these differentiation,

different types of things and all these things? There is no reason! We

don't have to say complain, and we don't have to go against them. We don't have

to do that. We don't go with it, because now a majority and minority is there.

The majority of the beings in the world decided already. So we cannot say

no.

So we'd better not say anything. We just shut up! We just shut our mouths

up and say nothing. But mentally we don't have to accept. We don't have to -

how to say - mentally we don't have them to drive us totally crazy! We have

total right to say inwardly that's not true. That's a wrong decision. Inwardly we

should say that and we should practice. This is what Mahamudra ment to be,

the practice of Mahamudra ment to be.

Attached as a kind of let's say glue, like if you glue something on top of

a surface and then attach to that. So if you want to be liberated from -let's

put it like this - from ignorance, into the wisdom, the state of wisdom,

then you have to be practising non-attachment literally! Otherwise you attach!

So you cannot be liberated.