CONDUCT (contd) 1.1.2 The Six Stains In the well explained reasoning, it says: Pride, lack of faith and lack of effort, Outward distraction, inward tension and discouragement; These are six stains. Avoid these six : Proudly believing yourself superior to the teacher who who is explain the Dharma, not trusting the Dharma and his teachings, failing to apply yourself to the Dharma, getting distracted by external events focusing your five senses too intended towards, and being discouraged if, for example, a teaching is too long. Of all negative emotions, pride and jealousy are the most difficult to recognizer. Therefore, examine your mind minutely. Any feeling that there is something even the least bit special about your own qualities, whether worldly or spiritual, will make you blind to your own faults and unaware of others good qualities. So, renounce pride and always take a low position. If you have no faith, the entrance to the Dharma is blocked. Of the four types of faith, aim for faith that is irreversible. Your interest in the Dharma is the basis of what you will achieve. So depending on whether your degree of interest is superior, middling or inferior you will become a superior, middling or inferior practitioner. And if you are not at all interested in the Dharma, there will be no results at all. As the proverb puts it: The Dharma is nobodys property. It belongs to whoever is the most interested. The Buddha himself obtained the teachings at the price of hundreds of hardships. To obtain a single four -line verse, he gouged in his own flesh to serve as offering lamps, filling them with oil and planting in them thousands of burning wicks. He leapt into flaming pits, and drove a thousands iron nails into his body. Even if you have to face blazing inferno or razor - sharp blades, search for the Dharma Until you die. Listen to the teachings, therefore, with great effort, ignoring heat, cold and all other trials. The tendency of consciousness to get engrossed in the objects of the six senses is the root of all samsaras hallucinations and the source of all suffering. This is how the moth dies in the lamp flame, because its visual consciousness is attracted to forms; how the stag is killed by the hunter, because its hearing draws it to sounds; how bees are swallowed by carnivorous plants, seduced by their smell; how fish are caught with bait, their sense of taste lured by its flavour; how elephants drown in the swamp because they love the physical feeling of mud. In the same way, whenever you are listening to the Dharma, teaching, meditating or practising, it is important not to follow tendencies from the past, not to daydream about the future and not to let your present thoughts get distracted by anything around you. As Gyalse Rinpoche says : Your past joys and sorrows are like drawings on water: No trace of them are remains. Dont run after them! But should they come to mind, reflect on how success and failure come and go. Is there any other goal than Dharma, mani- reciters? Your future projects and plans are like nets cast in a dry riverbed: Theyll never bring what you want.Limit your desires and aspirations! But you should they come to mind, think how uncertain it is when youll die: Have you got time for anything other than Dharma, mani reciters? Your present work is like a job in a dream. Since all such effort is pointless, cast it aside. Consider even your honest earnings without any attachment. Activities are without essence, mani reciters? Between meditation sessions, learn to control in this way all thoughts arising from the three poisons; Until all thoughts and perceptions arise as the dharma kay, This is indispensible- remembering it whenever you need it, Do not give rein to deluded thoughts, mani reciters! Machik Labdrön says: Be firmly concentrated and loosely relaxed: Here is an essential point for the view. Do not let your mind get too tense or too inwardly concentrated; let your senses by naturally at ease, balanced between tension and relaxation. You should not tire of listening to the teachings. Do not feel discouraged when you get hungry or thirsty during a teaching that goes too long, or when you have to put up with discomfort caused by the wind, sun, rain and so forth. Just be glad that you now have the freedoms and advantages of human life, that you have met an authentic teacher, and that you can listen to his profound instruction. The fact that you are at this moment listening to the profound Dharma is the fruit of merits accumulated over innumerable kalpas. It is like eating a meal when you have only eaten once every hundred mealtimes throughout your life. So, it is imperative to listen with joy, vowing to bear heat, cold and whatever trials and difficulties might arise, in order to receive these teachings.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 02:40:05 +0000
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