April 16, 2024
Text: Jikten Sumgön, The Great Drikung Teachings to the Assembly

Practice (not recorded)
Abundantly Bestowing All that Could Be Desired: A Dharma Protectress Achi Personal Cleansing-Offering

From the Seventh teaching – Skill in Methods
0:07: Brief refresher on previous discussion on the field, intention, and object (Special terms to be remembered) during the gathering of the accumulation of merit. Also reminder on the three states of mind during giving.

7:55 The three states of mind during giving: best, middling, and least. Remember the emptiness of the three spheres and the sacred outlook are the two sides of the same coin. Clear Light: the mind is empty but has the capacity to know, to be aware. Even in confused states, mind is still empty and has knowing although knowing is obscured and tainted with confusion and kleshas. Because the mind is primordially empty, the kleshas and confusion can be cleared and removed.

16:41 Four ways of giving in relation to the pure object (from the three spheres): giving material goods; giving the true Dharma (practicing Dharma and offering the practice); giving protection or fearlessness; and giving love.

22:10 Profound Insight from the Seventh Teaching – beyond just intellectual realization of emptiness and emphasizing the practical aspect of wisdom. Wisdom that is necessary to give rise to skillful means and methods to help oneself and other beings mature and progress on the path to be free from kleshas.

41:13 Profound Insight is also defined as knowing how to attain excellent results through the creation of subtle causes.

41:38 Heart Advice: Pay attention to our Dharma sources (teachers). Due to auspicious interdependence, the things they say, especially those pertaining to practice, may be the things we need. But if we are too wrapped up in our own questions and not listening, then we may miss these opportunities. The gurus cannot force us to take this or that course of action. On the other hand, don’t be too paranoid or superstitious, but rather balance with common sense while being careful that common sense does not turn into self absorption.

47:00 Lamas open the doors but the student disciple doesn’t know how to enter. It is said that not entering even after having seen the door had been opened is still better than not even noticing that the door had been opened. Our teachers are (subtly) giving us methods to practice but due to circumstance and conditions, not being able to enter the door yet. This is much better than when our teachers and gurus open the door but we ignore it because we are looking for our own doors and insisting to go into a particular door and pounding and trying to break down the door. Until you meet a guide who can tell you directly why that door is not going to work due to previous lifetime conditions, then we have to wait for the opportunity of interdependence and pick up those cues.

[Notes by Leonard Luar]