virtue

Three Excellences of Guidance

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

How amazing! Listen, woman diligent in virtue!

In any virtue you accomplish, large and small,
the key is to have the three excellences’ guide you.

In generating compassion and the mind of awakening (bodhicitta) in your mind,
stable mindfulness is important.

Within samsara and enlightenment’s space-like nature, recognition of awareness’s essential nature as the unfabricated, dharmakaya is the view.

To settle naturally in unfabricated present awareness is meditation.

Take as the key of conduct that all your activity should accord with the sacred Dharma and practice diligently as I’ve described.

I, Jnana, spontaneously wrote this as a woman named Jnana requested.

Dudjom Rinpoche, Wisdom Nectar

A virtuous mind is the source of happiness.

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

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

What is virtue?

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

What is evil? What is negativity? Evil is action that harms others. Moreover, it is said that not only should we refrain from harming others in the present, we should refrain from doing things to harm ourselves in the future (as the result of evil karma). Again, what is virtue? It is the good heart, the wish to benefit others. This is what we call bodhichitta. If we have a good heart, wishing the welfare of others, and if we bring benefit to others and to ourselves, we are practicing virtue. Virtue depends exclusively on a good heart. We may well recite the refuge prayer, but if we harbor evil thoughts, it is meaningless. As the saying goes, “With good motivation, all the grounds and paths are excellent. With evil motivation, all the grounds and paths are ruined.” 41 A good motivation, a good heart—this is what we must have at all times. This is the Dharma and nothing else. It is not something grandiose or elaborate.

Counsels from My Heart by Dudjom

41.  sa, ground or level, and lam, path. The practice of the Mahayana is divided into five paths (of accumulation, joining, seeing, meditation, and no-more-learning), which are gradually traversed as the practitioner progresses toward buddhahood. The third path, that of seeing, is the point where the practitioner has a direct experience of ultimate reality. There then begins a second system of grounds or levels of bodhisattva realization, which extends from the path of seeing through the path of meditation and culminates in the attainment of the path of no-more-learning, buddhahood.