Dalai Lama’s 2-day teaching concludes

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 10

The Dalai Lama concluded his two-day online teaching for Asian Buddhists on Thursday evening. He said that he had wanted to lead a ceremony to generate the awakening of ‘bodhichitta’. He guided his listeners through the all-encompassing yoga, leading first to a short meditation on ‘bodhichitta’, followed by another short meditation on emptiness.

In regard to preparing for death, the Dalai Lama said it was important to be free of attachment and anger. Buddhists may keep an image of the Buddha nearby, while Tibetans keep a picture of the Dalai Lama. The point is to have a virtuous object on which to focus your attention as you go through the process of dissolution. If you can, it is good to remember the awakening mind of ‘bodhichitta’, he said.

He summoned thoughts of ‘bodhichitta’ from the very moment he wakes up in the morning. “I declared that there is nothing more effective than ‘bodhichitta’ for purifying negativities and gathering merit. Since good-hearted people easily attract friends, cultivating thoughts of ‘bodhichitta’ is beneficial even in ordinary day to day life, he said.

While delivering the teaching, the Dalai Lama said, “We all have Buddha nature. The true nature of the mind is clarity and awareness. The subtlest mind has an innate quality of luminosity and awareness. There are no stains or afflictions at that level. The obstacles that stain the mind are not part of the mind. Ignorance and so forth can be eliminated. When you understand this and can combine an understanding of conventional and ultimate reality, you will be led to the state of omniscience”.