We need heart advice like this!

How amazing! Listen, my two friends!

Now that you have found a free and fully endowed human body, so difficult to attain, You should accomplish your everlasting goal. You have met the one who is difficult to meet- Your Lama, the Buddha incarnate.

You then received the profound instructions, the swift path to liberation in this lifetime. This fortune has been won with your previously accumulated merit’s power, not with wealth of jewels. Therefore, with intense diligence, have your practice accompany you to the end of your life.

The teachings’ foundation is the mind of awakening. The Victorious Ones’ spiritual heirs spend their lives helping others. Lacking this, the hearer’s vehicle does not lead to enlightenment. If anger’s hailstones rain down upon virtue’s bountiful harvest, the fruit may be totally destroyed. Keep the watchman of mindfulness alert!

Individual liberation vows without self-control; Bodhisattva training without compassion; Tantric practice without keeping samaya, these cause rebirth in the hells. Empowerment’s foundation is samaya- If you keep them, tantric practice is the nectar of immortality; If you do not, it is like a deadly poison you have already consumed. With such potential advantages or disaster, such positive or negative effects, protect your tantric commitments as you would your life!

Having discarded one and seized another among the many deep, deep sacred teachings, you will not accomplish even one ultimate result. Therefore, be diligent in practicing one of them!

Apparent existence ~ all phenomena of existence and enlightenment ~ is the false design of your own mind’s delusion: Recognition of awareness as primordial dharmakaya is the view. To settle in the evenness of the natural state within the fresh, continual state of unimpeded original awareness (shes pa) unbound by dualism’s fetters: this is meditation.

To abide within a state of non-action during the ninefold activities of body, speech, and mind, and to conform your behavior to the dharma are the essential keys of conduct.

Not searching elsewhere for what is to be attained but to grasp within yourself Buddha Kuntuzangpo manifest, your own awareness ~ this is the spontaneously present sovereign result.

Know the true nature of view, meditation, conduct, and result correctly as I described, and cultivate their experience single-pointedly. You will definitely reach the unassailable state during this lifetime.

If my Lama’s compassion prevents obscurations by negative acts and pollution due to accepting undeserved offerings and gives the fortune to reach the pure lands to one such as I ~ without spirituality, neither a lay person nor a monk ~ I pray repeatedly that we, teacher and disciples, remain together as inseparable companions.

I, Yeshe Dorje, spoke this so as not to refuse both Chowang and Tsultrim’s insistent request: “We need heart advice like this!”

Wisdom Nectar
Dudjom Rinpoche’s Heart Advice

A virtuous mind is the source of happiness.

The Buddha said that we should completely subdue our minds. Whatever we do, for good or ill, it is our mind that is the true agent. In the very depths of our being, we all desire one thing: we want to be happy. We don’t want to suffer. But because of this—this wanting—the three defilements of craving, aversion, and ignorance arise, and suffering is what we get. It is because of these defilements that we accumulate actions that prevent us from escaping from samsara. So it is important right from the start to see the difference between a good motivation and an evil one. Our own mindfulness should be our teacher. We must examine what is positive and what is negative with mindfulness. If positive thoughts arise, we should go along with them. If nonvirtuous thoughts arise, we should put a stop to them. A virtuous mind is the source of happiness. An unvirtuous mind is the source of pain. It’s as simple as that—as we can see from our own experience. When the Buddha spoke about the hell realms and the pretas, he wasn’t making it up. He was simply talking about how things are.

Counsels from My Heart by Dudjom

Mindfulness Meditation

When thoughts come while you are meditating, let them come; there’s no need to regard them as your enemies.

When they arise, relax in their arising.

On the other hand, if they don’t arise, don’t be nervously wondering whether or not they will. Just rest in their absence.

If big, well-defined thoughts suddenly appear during your meditation, it is easy to recognize them. But when slight, subtle movements occur, it is hard to realize that they are there until much later. This is what we call namtok wogyu, the undercurrent of mental wandering. This is the thief of your meditation, so it is important for you to keep a close watch. If you can be constantly mindful, both in meditation and afterward, when you are eating, sleeping, walking, or sitting, that’s it – you’ve got it right!

 

~ Dudjom Rinpoche

Counsels from My Heart