KHENPO'S BLOG

In Tibetan Buddhism, the Kalacakra Tantra describes three different worlds – external, internal, and secret – and their connection to one another. The external is the universe, including the solar system, Milky Way, etc.; the internal is the physiology of the human body; the secret is the mind. It is explained that our spiritual world is a universe; the structure of our body is a universe; the universe outside is also a universe. All three are closely connected. To a certain degree, they affect one another.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS -Suffering is just a Paper Tiger

In our lifetime, we have never experienced our innate clarity, even though all our suffering, happiness, and emotions come from deep within the mind. Buddhism often uses the term “clarity” to describe the most fundamental level of the mind (luminosity and clear light are other terms also used). This kind of “clarity” is neither visible light, nor non-visible light; it cannot be found in any electromagnetic spectrum in physics. It is a state of purity totally free of defilements. There is no happiness or joy, suffering or anxiety in this state of great equanimity.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS - Suffering is just a Paper Tiger

What is inner impermanence? The term “inner” denotes sentient beings. The sentient beings referred to here are not plant life but living beings that can experience suffering and happiness.

Inner impermanence can also be classified as continuous or momentary.

Continuous impermanence is easy to understand, like when we undergo successive rebirths as a human or god in the previous life, as a human in this life, and as a human or animal in the next life; or when we experience the various changes within this lifetime, i.e., birth, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, aging, and death. These changes which we can clearly observe not only in ourselves but also in other beings constitute continuous impermanence.

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - All Composite Phenomena are Impermanent

What does true peace mean? After liberation, there is genuine freedom from the three types of suffering mentioned before; the seeds of the three types of suffering and their designations also cease to be. This pure and everlasting happiness is true peace. It is not the happiness ordinary people refer to; rather, happiness is just freedom from suffering that arises from contaminated actions. Because it is pure, it is deemed “true peace.”

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - Nirvana Is True Peace

Feeling is a specific aspect of the mind. Objects like steel, cement, brick, glass, etc. do not have feeling – they do not feel either suffering or happiness. After we die, the body is just like a stone or brick. When it comes in contact with earth, water, fire, wind or anything on the outside, it does not react. It is no longer conscious and thus cannot feel suffering or happiness.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS - How to Face Suffering and Happiness-How to Face Suffering

We cannot say that the pure world perceived by a buddha or bodhisattva on the eighth ground is perverted, that the impure world we perceive is actually correct. If we were to insist on being right, then by extension, the world would appear all wrong when we reach the eighth bhumi. Our practice would have done nothing but strengthened our obscurations, misconceptions, and delusions. I doubt if any Buddhist would agree with this!

~Depicted from GATEWAY TO VAJRAYANA PATH - Vajrayana Terminology

Presently, on all the continents except Antarctica, there are children who can remember their past lives. When these children first began to talk, they would say who they were, where they came from; they would give their parents’ names and details of their past lives. Their parents in this life would then check and validate the actual existence and subsequent death of the persons mentioned. Often enough these children inherited very strong habitual tendencies from their past lives—one who loved to smoke in past life would steal his father’s cigarettes to smoke in this life; one who died of a car accident in past life would be too frightened to go near cars in this life, and so forth. Some of them don’t feel close to their parents of this life but take the parents and relatives in the past life as their real parents and family instead. Many parents are unwilling to make this public lest others should think their children are mentally unstable, out of embarrassment, or because it violates their own religious beliefs. Nevertheless, the secret gets out eventually.

~Depicted from THE HANDBOOK'S FOR LIFE JOURNEY - On Death And Rebirth-What Life Truly Is

It is also very important to place the texts of ‘liberation upon wearing’,3 such as the Tantra, Single Heir of the Doctrine, on the head of the beings to bless them. Beings touched by this will soon be able to attain liberation. One may question, “These beings have neither practiced nor received transmissions of the Dharma. Why should they be able to attain liberation simply by attaching such texts to their body or being touched by it?” The only plausible explanation would be the inconceivable power of the Buddha’s skillful means to deliver sentient beings from suffering.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - Liberating Living Beings

What is a Buddha? Is the real Buddha the one appearing in a thangka with golden face and sitting in a full lotus position?

That is only a partially real Buddha. In the view of Mahayana, the Nirmanakaya (Emanation Body) and the Sambhogakaya (Bliss Body) are the manifestations of the Buddha in order to liberate ordinary people and bodhisattvas of the first to the tenth bhumi, respectively.   The Nirmanakaya is for the Buddha to communicate with ordinary people. Although Buddha-nature exists within the mind of every sentient being, the Dharmakaya (Truth Body) of the Buddha is rendered powerless to those who have not attained realization and thus must rely on the Nirmanakaya and the Sambhogakaya of the Buddha for guidance to enlightenment. However, neither the Nirmanakaya nor the Sambhogakaya is the true Buddha, only the Dharmakaya, the union of wisdom and compassion, is.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - Buddhism—the Definition