Advice from a Spiritual Friend

Rabten, Dhargyey, Brian Beresford, Gonsar, Sharpa, Brian Beresford, Gonsar, Sharpa

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780861719198
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

"Do not wish for gratitude.
Never strike at the heart.
Now if you die, you will have no regrets."
— The Seven-Point Thought Transformation Like wise old friends, two Tibetan masters offer down-to-earth advice for cultivating compassion, wisdom, and happiness in every situation. Based on practical Buddhist verses on "thought training" ( lojong ), Advice from a Spiritual Friend teaches how to develop the inner skills that lead to contentment by responding to everyday difficulties with patience and joy. Following Stephen Batchelor's introduction to the Kadamapa tradition that gave rise to these earthy, pithy instructions, Part One is a commentary by Geshe Dhargyey to Atisha's (982-1054) Jewel Rosary of a Bodhisattva. Part Two includes a commentary by Geshe Rabten to the famous Seven-Point Thought Transformation. First published in 1977, Advice from a Spiritual Friend is a Wisdom classic that has enriched readers in many editions over the years. As Batchelor says in his introduction, "These teachings are as applicable today as they were when Atisha first introduced them to Tibet."

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PART ONE

The Jewel Rosary of a Bodhisattva

Bodhisattvamaniavali

composed by the great Indian pandit

Atisha

with commentary based on an oral transmission by

Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey

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The Jewel Rosary of a Bodhisattva

Homage to great compassion.

Homage to all spiritual masters.

Homage to the deities of devotion.

Abandon all doubts and cherish exertion for accomplishing the practice.

Abandon sleepiness, dullness, and laziness and always exert enthusiastic effort.

With recollection, alertness, and watchfulness always guard every door of the senses.

Three times during the day and night, again and again, investigate your mental continuum.

Proclaim your own faults and seek not mistakes in others.

Hide your own good qualities but proclaim the good qualities of others.

Reject acquisitions and honors and always reject desire for fame.

Desire little, be content, and repay acts of kindness.

Meditate on love and compassion and stabilize the awakening mind.

Avoid the ten unwholesome actions and always stabilize your faith.

Conquer anger and arrogance and possess a humble mind.

Avoid wrong livelihoods and live a life of truth.

Abandon all worldly possessions and be adorned by the gems of superiors.

Abandon all frivolities and abide in solitude.

Abandon all senseless talk and always control your speech.

When seeing your master or teacher, perform services with respect.

Toward a person having the eye of the doctrine and toward sentient beings who are beginners develop the recognition of them as teachers.

When seeing any sentient beings, develop the recognition of them as parents and children.

Abandon misleading friends and rely on virtuous spiritual companions.

Abandon minds of anger and unhappiness, and wherever you go be happy.

Abandon attachment to everything and abide free from attachment.

Attachment will never procure you a happy rebirth; it kills the life of liberation.

Wherever you see practices leading to happiness, always exert effort in them.

Whatever you have started to do, accomplish that very thing first.

Do everything well in this way, otherwise nothing will be achieved.

Always be apart from liking evil.

Whenever a pompous mind arises, flatten such arrogance.

Recall the teachings of your master.

When a cowardly mind arises, praise the sublimity of the mind.

Whenever objects of attraction or aversion arise, meditate on the emptiness of both; view them as illusions and emanations.

When hearing any offensive words, view them as an echo.

When your body is afflicted by harm, view this as your previous actions.

Abide well in solitude, beyond town limits, like the corpses of wild game.

Be by yourself, conceal yourself, and dwell without attachment.

Always stabilize awareness of your yidam and, whenever laziness or lassitude arise, enumerate these faults to yourself and feel remorse from your heart.

If you see others, speak calmly and sincerely.

Avoid a wrathful and frowning expression and always remain cheerful.

When seeing others, continuously be pleased to give without being miserly.

Discard all jealousy.

To protect the mind of another, avoid all conflict and always have patience.

Do not be fickle or a flatterer, but always be capable of remaining steadfast.

Avoid belittling others and remain respectful in your manners.

When giving advice to others, have compassion and thoughts for their benefit.

Do not disparage spiritual doctrines and be intent on whichever you admire.

Through the door of the ten Dharma practices, exert effort throughout both day and night.

Whatever virtues are collected during the three times, dedicate them for the unsurpassable great awakening.

Distribute your merit for all sentient beings.

Always offer the seven-limbed prayer and great aspirations for the path.

If you act in this way, the two accumulations of merit and wisdom will be accomplished.

Also, with the eradication of the two obscurations, thus fulfilling the purpose of having gained a human form, unsurpassable full awakening will be achieved.

The gem of faith, the gem of ethics, the gem of generosity, the gem of hearing, the gem of consideration, the gem of shame, and the gem of intelligence: these are the seven supreme gems.

These seven gems are never exhausted.

Do not tell this to nonhumans.

Examine your speech when amid many people.

Examine your mind when living alone.

This has been composed by the Indian master

Dipamkara Shrijñana, the Glorious Illuminator,

the Essence of Primordial Awareness.

Translated from the Tibetan by

Sharpa Tulku and Brian Beresford.

THE COMMENTARY TO

The Jewel Rosary of a Bodhisattva

Homage to great compassion.

Homage to all spiritual masters.

Homage to the deities of devotion.

This short text by Atisha contains one hundred and eleven lines of advice in connection with the practice of thought transformation. It begins with obeisance to great compassion because this is the source of the many manifestations of a fully awakened being. The next obeisance to the spiritual masters implies that all inner development and experience is based upon devotion and confidence in the teachers of the path. This is the foundation for all successful spiritual practice. Both Naropa and his teacher Tilopa have said that without spiritual guidance there could be no fully awakened state. Lastly, obeisance is made to the deities of devotion (yidam). These are reflections of specific aspects of the awakened mind and are called upon when we wish to bring out these aspects in ourselves. For instance, when meditating to generate the conventional awakening mind, we should devote ourselves to Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of compassion, and when meditating on emptiness, to Manjushri, the embodiment of intelligent awareness, or wisdom.

Abandon all doubts and cherish exertion for accomplishing the practice.

Whatever our object of meditation may be, we must learn about it thoroughly beforehand and eliminate any doubts we may have concerning the procedures. If our teacher says merely, “Meditate on emptiness,” and we leave without studying what was meant, we shall not know what to do. We may meditate by thinking about an empty room, having no clear idea what is being negated by emptiness. Thus, we must first learn about the meditation we wish to do and gain a precise intellectual understanding of it. Based on this, we shall eventually be able to transcend the intellectual level and meditate nonconceptually.

This line further implies that we should not become distracted, but meditate single-pointedly without any mental wandering. Moreover, the method we choose must be valid, and we must be convinced of its validity. Then, free from all doubts, we shall be able to meditate with strict concentration, confident that the path we have chosen is nondeceptive. We should not be like water on a tabletop, which can be led by the finger in any direction, easily swayed back and forth by the various opinions of others. We should know how to differentiate between valid and invalid spiritual teachings and be certain about what is right, leaving no room for doubts. If we apply the forces of hearing, or study, and contemplation, or examination, we shall be able to eliminate all indecisiveness.

Yet this is not enough. If we acquire sufficient intellectual knowledge about the meditation but never practice it, we are like a person who stores away food but never eats it. Such food will either rot or be eaten by rats, or the person will die without having ever tasted it. Tsongkhapa said that the purpose of hearing and acquiring intellectual knowledge is to meditate upon it. Therefore, according to our different levels of ability, we should hear and study the teachings as much as we can in order to meditate on or actualize them.

Because each person has different idiosyncrasies and abilities, everyone will not become enlightened as if stamped from the same mold. Bearing this in mind, we should practice in the way best suited to each of us. Without practicing what we have learned, we are like museum guides who know much but for whom the objects on display have no special significance. When we practice, it is important not to pattern ourselves on others; instead we each should examine our own abilities and meditate accordingly. To do otherwise leads only to frustration.

Abandon sleepiness, dullness, and laziness and always exert enthusiastic effort.

We should eliminate laziness, mental wandering, mental dullness, and other such hindrances to our meditation, otherwise we may begin meditating with our head held erect, but later we will find it slouched against the middle of our body with our meditation turned to sleep. This line in the text is not belittling us but is a warning to arouse our energy for venturing into the practices. Even if we guard against all these obstacles, we must still have strong perseverance and diligence so that our meditation will be successful. As Tsongkhapa has said, “Wear the protective armor of enthusiastic perseverance and increase it like the waxing moon.”

Also, Chandrakirti said, “All profound and superficial goals follow from enthusiastic perseverance; with it anything can be accomplished.”

With recollection, alertness, and watchfulness always guard every door of the senses.

We should post recollection, alertness, and watchfulness as guards at the gateways of our body, speech, and mind and have them restrain us from committing unwholesome actions through these three doors. To safeguard the treasure of realizations stored within us, we should lock these doors from both inside and out.

We can liken the mental faculty of recollection, or mindfulness, to an iron hook. When the mind wanders to nonvirtue, recollection hooks it and brings it back to a wholesome position.

Three times during the day and night, again and again, investigate your mental continuum.

At all times we must analyze our stream of thoughts to see whether the actions we are doing will benefit our future lives or if they are just for momentary pleasure.

Proclaim your own faults and seek not mistakes in others.

To hide our shortcomings and harbor them inside only increases our guilt and discomfort. It is far be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction by Stephen Batchelor
• Part One: The Jewel Rosary of a Bodhisattva
• Part Two: The Seven-Point Thought Transformation
• Appendix: Thought Transformation in Eight Stanzas
• Notes
• Editor’s Acknowledgments in the First Edition
• About the Authors
• Wisdom Publications
• Also Available from Wisdom Publications
• Copyright