Padmakara Translation Group

The Particular Characteristics of Faith

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

What are the particular characteristics of having faith?

When one has faith, one is like a fertile field, in which the shoot of bodhichitta will sprout and grow. Faith is like a great ship crossing the river of cyclic existence. It is like a reliable escort protecting us from our enemies, the afflictive emotions. Like a good mount taking us to the land of liberation. Like a wish-fulfilling jewel accomplishing everything we desire. Like a mighty hero annihilating all that is nonvirtuous. Faith is thus a sublime quality, and for this reason it is the first of the seven noble riches. People who have faith are especially exalted, and yet they are extremely rare, as the Sutra of the Precious Lamp points out: Faith gives birth to delight in the Buddha’s teaching, Faith points the way to the city of happiness and excellence. Faith banishes lack of opportunity, it is the best of all freedoms. Faith turns one from the path of the demons, Faith is what makes one attain Buddhahood. Among the hosts of ordinary beings, Rare are those who have such faith in the Dharma.

A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete instructions on the preliminary practice of the Profound and Secret Heart Essence of the Dakini By Dudjom Rinpoche; translated by the Padmakara Translation Group

Subdue Self-clinging

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

… the purpose of all the teachings in the Great and Lesser Vehicles can be condensed into a single point: to subdue self-clinging. As we practice, therefore, we should be reducing our self-cherishing. If it does not act as an antidote to the ego, our whole practice of Dharma will be pointless. Whether or not the practice we do is actually the Dharma depends entirely on this, which is why it has been said that this is the scale on which those who practice the Dharma are weighed. Of course, other people who see you may testify to your being an authentic Dharma practitioner, but ordinary, worldly people cannot know what is hidden in your mind. You might feel pleased at having done one or two good deeds, but the real signs of having trained one’s mind in bodhichitta are that one is not ashamed of oneself and that one is always in a happy frame of mind, whatever difficult or painful situations one finds oneself in, because rather than getting depressed about them, one takes them as aids to the practice. Nevertheless, while these may be indications that one has really gone to the heart of the teachings, they do not mean that one does not need to train further. So, until you attain Buddhahood, train in the precepts to make bodhichitta grow more and more.

A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete instructions on the preliminary practice of the profound and Secret Heart Essence of the Dakini
by Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
translated by the Padmakara Translation Group.—1st ed.

Reflecting on the need to guard the mind, which is the root of the Dharma

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

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