Book Three: True Dharma | See through 4 appearance is illusion
Their heart should stay awakened in this way.
Life can appear in unlimited ways.
All kind of life appearance,
- Have form or no form
- Material form or non-material form (material and energy god style), egg style, reptile syle, mammal style, insect larvae, energy style (no material cause), spiritual will style
- Thinking power (human) or no thinking power
- (insect/animal subconsciousness below thinking power, and above is intuition style energy god, Bodhisattva, Buddha, demon and ghost, dragon and pheonix. They are directly aware without have to pass through thinking.
- Through will or no will
- Ego will, spiritual will
Developing consciousness become Bodhisattva, or Bodhisattva continue to become Buddha:
1st thing: Talk to their heart become a will open heart to help all the life become awakened
2nd thing: Willing to help every life, never have ego ‘I help anyone’
Will to open heart help everyone. But never have ego ‘I help’ anyone
Examples:
- You help someone and then they show bad attitude, you feel “Hey, I helped you!.”
- I help someone and feel proud, proud stops you helping more.
- When you say “I help that person” you are out of wisdom, you confirm you have an I, you are stuck in a dream where that I is real.
Summary, you help someone out of a dream, and then got lost in the dream yourself. Focus on help and then focus onto your I… attitude I so important.
Help needs a I… but you should concentrate on help, not on the I
Link to other philosophy: Tip from Dharma Kindness JC
- While I’m doing things, Remind myself of the 5 ways to wise help / 5 keys to true compassion
- Ability to help
- Joyful to help
- Free will me to choose to help
- Free will them to choose me to help them
- Direction in good/spiritual direction
- Link to post…
Awakened consciousness understand these four:
4 appearances
I is illusion,
Human is illusion
Lifeform is illusion
Lifetime is illusion
Wu Wo (No I)
Wu Ren (No human)
Wu Zhong Seng (No lifeform)
Wu So Tze (No life time)
Guan Zi Zai, Pu Sa
What does no I mean?
Many ways to talk about it
-
- If anything changing and comes from others then there is no true self in the appearance. Example, your body comes from 4 elements (earth is organs, water is blodd, wind is air, fire is temperature, those elements combine to make your I, but there is no I there just appears there is, that’s why illusion
- Basically there is a true I, there, they would not say there is no I at all, otherwise who is learning? They say appearnace illusion, in the appearance I there is a temporary illusion, come from others, because of that there is not true self. Like a movie comes from others, so nothing there, when someone dies in a movie, no one dies.
- Body is 6 sense illusion, 4 element illusion, five developments illusion, they are constantly changing and ahnge from others, they are built by 4 element, and 4 element are temporary appearance, that’s why they say see through.
- You have a True I, that is what you are using, you are trying to understand , and that power to aware of something that is true I that is the power of life, that is but what you understand is not that true power
Your body is what you connect to but it is not what you are
- See through illusion That doesn’t mean it’s not important, in fact it’s very important, because that is your temple for learning life
- See through illusion doesn’t mean you don’t take care of it, see through illusion means you now have a choice, to realise you are going to create good illusion, or you are going to let blind illusion control your heart….. which one you want?
- Blind suffering illusion control your heart, or
- Take care of good illusion and create joyful illusion?
- Which one the choice is now yours?
- follow the wise choice to take care of it, create a good illusion, or be blindly controlled by the blind illusion and blind consciousness around you.
This is also called “First Awakening” we are blindly think our body is us. We connect to it and we think it is us. But we connect to a car but would never think a car is us! This is because we are connected to it 24 hours a day. But if you could meditation and be free from it you can start to realise the body is not you. When your heart is aware of that, then the heart that is aware of that is you, you realise that.
Second is no human
Follow this, our I is already no I. If our I is not I, there is no group I. If there is no group people, no lifeforms. If there are no lifeforms, there is no lifetimes. If you are aware all of these is illusion then you are Bodhisattva.
Because Bodhisattva aware of these four, he is aware, even though consciousness create these illusions in these dreams, Bodhisattva go to comfort that person that it is only a dream. But if Bodhisattva gets lost in the dream how he can help others out of that dream?
We are in a dream, we give ourselves nightmares, make ourselves not free, make our heart. Make life so serious. Our heart not feel free in present. But our heart is naturally free, no time, able to create all kinds of dream, but create a dream doesn’t mean locked in a dream.
So to have a life is to create a dream, but we don’t want to be locked into that dream.
Remain –
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.”
Summary, awakened consciousness aware of this can take everything light.
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra
3. The true way of the Great Vehicle
The Buddha told Subhuti, “All Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, should thus subdue their minds with the vow, ‘I must cause all living beings – those born from eggs, born from wombs, born from moisture, born by transformation; those with form, those without form, those with thought, those without thought, those not totally with thought, and those not totally without thought – to enter nirvana without residue and be taken across to extinction.’ Yet of the immeasurable, boundless numbers of living beings thus taken across to extinction, there is actually no living being taken across to extinction. And why? Subhuti, if a Bodhisattva has a mark of self, a mark of others, a mark of living beings, or a mark of a life, he is not a Bodhisattva.
http://www.cttbusa.org/vajra/vajrasutra.asp
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By having heard the Vajra Cutter Sutra, if you don’t give up faith, merely with that, the merit that you collect is inconceivable, unbelievable, and unimaginable. It is far greater than, for example, giving your body in charity for one day to sentient beings in the morning – for how many times? – For the number of times equaling the sand grains of the River Ganga. This Ganga is not the river Ganga in India, it refers to the Pacific Ocean; and the sand grains are not what we usually think of. They are very tiny atoms, one of the seven types of subtle atoms. Then, again at noon you make charity of your body to sentient beings that many times. Then in the evening, again, you make charity of your body to sentient beings that many times, for the number of subtle atoms of sand grains in the Pacific Ocean. So, like that, every day for eons. It is simply unbelievable the merits of even for one day practicing that much charity to sentient beings, let alone three times a day, then on top of that for so many years, eons. That merit itself is unbelievable. Even giving just one body to sentient beings is unimaginable, unbelievable – just to be able to do that, and then the benefits are equally unimaginable, unbelievable.
Now here, even if you practiced charity like that each day for that many eons, it becomes a small amount of merit compared to hearing the Vajra Cutter Sutra and not giving up faith. That means if you keep it, read it, memorize it, study its meaning, then you collect far, far greater merits than the previous one. Reading Vajra Cutter Sutra is an incredible source of unbelievably powerful purification of all previous negative karmas collected since beginningless rebirths – all those unbelievable heavy ones. This is in addition to the unbelievable, incredible merit you collect by reading it, or just by keeping it.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
