The whole of the Dharma depends on the mind, and the mind is dependent on the precious human body. This is an interdependent relationship of support and what is supported: the mind is the root of Dharma, and the freedoms and advantages are the support or accessory for this. For this reason one need train only in taming the mind, as Nagarjuna advises:
The vital point is tame your mind, for mind’s The root of Dharma, so the Buddha said.
And the Great Omniscient One says:
The Dharma depends on the mind, And that depends on the freedoms and advantages, interdependently.
Now that the many causes and conditions have come together, Tame your mind—that’s the main point of Dharma.
The sufferings of fear and poverty that occur throughout this life and will occur in subsequent lives are the negative consequences of using your precious human body to indulge in pointless distractions, while all the happiness and good qualities of higher rebirth and ultimate excellence come solely from not wasting the freedoms and advantages.
As we read in the Sutra of the Arborescent Array:
Child of noble family, it has never occurred to those who wander in cyclic existence that their body ornamented with the freedoms and advantages is so difficult to find; because of their evil friends,f they continue to circle in cyclic existence and are tormented by the fire of suffering. But I, by reflecting on this supreme freedom, have been completely liberated from existence. You too should do likewise.
A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom
Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group
Shambhala, 2011
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