Wisdom Nectar: Dudjom Rinpoche’s Heart Advice

Essential Advice for Solitary Meditation Practice Part 1

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

Direct Instructions on practice explained in a manner easy to understand called Extracting the Very Essence of Accomplishment.

I go for refuge and bow with devotion at the feet of my incomparably kind, glorious sublime lama.
Grant your blessings to my followers and me that the profound path’s flawless realization arises swiftly in our mindstreams, and that we may then reach the unassailable state in this very life.

In this text I present essential advice for solitary meditation practice in an easily accessible way. My words will place direct instructions for the practice of the innermost secret Great Perfection in the palm of the hands of fortunate individuals. Their previous lifetimes’ positive aspirations and pure karmic propensity have led them to feel heartfelt trust in the teaching of the profound, secret Great Perfection, and in the lama who reveals it; and they wish to take their practice to completion. For them, this text will provide an open gate to the path of Great Perfection.

This can be understood through three general topics:
1. Preparation
How to purify your mindstream: direct your mind toward the teachings after having severed all ties of attachment.
* 2. Main Practice
How to directly cultivate the experience of Great Perfection: resolve any misconceptions regarding the view, meditation and conduct.
* 3. Post-meditation
How to keep your vows and samayas, and how to include all activities of this life within the dharma.

First, the Preparation

Now I will say a little about the first topic. That which is called mind — this so very vivid awareness — appears from the very beginning at the same time as Buddha Always Noble, (Kuntu Zangpo).

Nevertheless, Buddha Always Noble knew this awareness as his own. Alas! Sentient beings endlessly wander in samsara because they do not recognize this, taking rebirth in countless forms of the six types of beings. Everything they have done has been meaningless.

Now, one time out of hundreds you have obtained a human form. If you do not do what you can now to avoid rebirth in the lower realms, your place of rebirth might be unknown, but wherever it might be among the six classes of beings, suffering will be its only sure feature.

It is not enough to have just obtained this human form. You must at once practice the authentic Buddhist path since the time of your death is unpredictable. Furthermore, at death you should have no regrets and should not be ashamed of yourself, like Jetsun Milarepa.

In my, Milarepa’s religious tradition,
We live so as not to be ashamed with ourselves.

When entering the Buddhist path, it is not sufficient to be a person who only adopts the outer appearance of a person on the path. Cut all entanglements to desirable things and to this life’s affairs. When you enter the gate to Buddhist practice without having cut these ties, you will lack determination, but not attachment to homeland, wealth, possessions, lovers, spouses, friends, relatives and so forth. Your attitude of attachment becomes an underlying cause; the objects of your attachment, catalysts. When these meet, negative forces1 will create obstacles. You will once again become an ordinary worldly person, and will turn away from creating positive karma.

The Actual Purification of One’s Mindstream

The common practices are the four thoughts that turn the mind away from samsara. The uncommon practices are taking refuge, generating bodhichitta, purifying obscurations and gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom. Exert yourself according to each of their commentaries until experiences arise. Especially, embrace guru yoga as the vital essence of practice, and practice diligently. If you do not, your meditation will grow slowly, and even if it grows a little, obstacles will arise and genuine realization will not manifest in your mindstream. Therefore, forcefully pray with uncontrived devotion. At some time the realization of wisdom mind will be transmitted to your mindstream, and an extraordinary realization that can not be expressed by words will definitely arise from within yourself.

As it has been said by Lama Shang Rinpoche:
To nurture stillness,
To nurture spiritual experiences,
To nurture samadhi and other spiritual states—
These are common.
But by the strength of your devotion,
For realization to arise from within
Due to the lama’s blessings—
This is rare.

Therefore, for the ultimate truth of the Great Perfection to appear in your mind is dependent upon the preliminary practices. This is what Drigungpa meant when he said:
Other spiritual teachings regard the main practice as being profound.We regard the preliminary practice as being profound.
It is just as he said.

Wisdom Nectar: Dudjom Rinpoche’s Heart Advice
by Dudjom RInpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje
translated by Ron Garry

* 2. Main Practice  Scheduled for June 4th
* 3. Post-meditation Scheduled for June 11th

The Essence of Great Perfection Practice

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

“O sir, the essence of Great Perfection practice is this:
All phenomena of samsara and enlightenment are only your own mind’s magical display. Primordially, your mind’s nature lacks substantiality;
It is unconditioned empty luminosity, the essential nature of awareness. It dwells primordially and eternally as dharmakaya’s essence. Yet not recognizing your own nature, transitory dualistic clinging creates delusion,
deceptive attachment to perceptions of happiness and suffering in samsara and enlightenment. In fact, your mind’s nature transcends the bounds of good and evil, hope and fear. In this space of great emptiness, free from transition and change, self-manifest awareness is present knowing. This relaxed settling in the uncontrived natural state is the view, and is also the key to meditation. When meditating, as soon as thoughts arise from awareness’s dynamic energy, use mindfulness to identify them: Self-arising, self-liberating, like waves on water. Recognize them as such and let them go without prolongation. “Meditation” is just the meager term we use to designate this. Continuously maintain boundless conduct free of action. Discard the six collections of consciousness; leave them as they are, without fixation. Do not hope for a result at a later time. It is in the present itself: reaching the unassailable state, attainment of self-mastery.

I, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, wrote this, corresponding to the request of Ngawang Zopa. May this virtue become the cause for simultaneous realization and liberation!”

— Wisdom Nectar: Dudjom Rinpoche’s Heart Advice by Dudjom Rinpoche

 

 

 

 

 

 

We need heart advice like this!

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

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