VKR Teachings Online
Public Talk: New York City
October 20, 1998
Page 2: Learning What Needs to Be Abandoned & What Needs to Be Cultivated
Now most of you who have studied buddhist texts – especially those who have read The Words of My Perfect Teacher by Patrul Rinpoche – realize that the essence of all the teachings is something that points out certain faults. Most of this text seems to very strongly criticize or find faults in practitioners–and I think rightly so. Atisha’s instructions within this text talk about the kindness of one who is truly able to point out our hidden faults, [and how] that enables us to truly learn what needs to be abandoned and what needs to be cultivated.
This text–and the general buddhist point of view–begin most instructions with the intention of developing [more] openness and mindfulness within ourselves. If we sit down and think about it carefully, we human beings live our entire lives indulging in activities that do not really make that much sense or are that useful. When I examine my own self, I say "thirty years of my life, and what has this life attained that is really beneficial or useful?" There is nothing to show, nothing much that actually says "this is the true essence of having lived so many years."
So, with our pride and our egos and mainly our mental assumptions that we have done something, we tend to fabricate that examination. And out of that fabrication, or pretense, we may assume that we’ve lived full lives, that we’ve touched people’s lives, that we’ve said this and done that. But this is mainly a kind of condolence we give ourselves to satisfy ourselves.
When I open my own diaries, I say, "Oh, in 1996 things were done, almost all the pages are full." And we take great pride in that. And nowadays most of us buddhist teachers–who are said to be renunciates–talk about "what are we going to do...," and "will we have time in July...," and things like that. In this way we are said to be practicing. Nevertheless, if you truly examine this, there’s a real hollowness in terms of seeing a human life and its true meaning. Apart from some kind of thought or mental assumption [about] essence, or true depth of meaning, not many of us are really able to do [it].
Therefore, [let’s] examine and see how we’re ending up as human beings. We’re doing things from early morning until we crash into our beds [at night]. With our bodies we try to accumulate, to do, various physical actions; our speech is always very busy; and our thoughts are always very busy with some form of activity or other. Nevertheless, if at this moment anyone of us were to die, sit down and examine what truly remains. About what could you say "this is the essence," "this is what I’ve achieved," or "this is what I can give to somebody else"? Whether you’ve lived thirty or sixty or seventy years, if it’s condensed down to the one happiness, or one valuable opportunity, or one really helpful thing that you leave behind for another sentient being–other than a lot of mental assumptions of having done this or that–in reality, we don’t end up accumulating anything.
That is one way to look at it: examining [our lives], we find "unnecessary-ness." There isn’t much meaning, or essence, which is nyingpo in Tibetan; in terms of "essence," there isn’t much of value. And so, it’s very necessary to understand that when we talk philosophically about "illusory-like existence," [we are talking about] this way of living where so many of our activities have no truly meaningful essence. Yet we end up being busy our entire lives and having no time.
We hear this all the time: "I have no time, I have no time." If we ask Buddhist meditators if they meditate, they say "I have no time." If we ask parents, they say "I have no time for the children," and children have no time for their parents. Friends have no time for one another, we have no time on the job, and we have no time at home. (Laughter.) So in running from one place to another, it seems, an entire life passes away.
In the middle of all that, we find that nothing actually stops. The movement of life continues, the movement of time continues, and so with time and our lives, some kind of action is being accumulated. When we talk about this from a buddhist contemplative point of view, we talk about four main thoughts, or reminders.
The Four Reminders
In The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Patrul Rinpoche talks about four main thoughts that should precede every meditation, every moment of contemplation: first, the preciousness of human existence; second, impermanence; third, the suffering of samsara; and fourth, karma, or cause and effect. These four reminders are said to be the main foundation of contemplation. Contemplating them, the meditator is truly able to remain without fabrication, or fabricated beliefs about his or her own spiritual path and spiritual motivation. They should truly enable practitioners to be completely honest with themselves.
In spiritual practices, we sometimes talk about benefiting sentient beings, or making life more meaningful, or being able to truly do something that is good. In the beginning, our motivation may be very clear, but very soon our habitual patterns return. These habitual tendencies re-create the same patterns of living, thinking, doing, or saying things. Because of this–[while] we may be doing a lot of meditation or contemplation in our hearts, and we may have a very pure intention to help sentient beings or to do something beneficial–the pull of our habitual patterns, or tendencies, does not allow us to remain in touch with that pure motivation, with what is really beneficial and good. To overcome such tendencies, the Four Reminders, again, are very beneficial.