[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
make the glory of the five wisdoms abide in my heart.
Sleeping with bodhicitta
There are many different kinds of meditation you can do before
going to sleep. There are the profound meditations of tantra, but
generally, you can generate the motivation of bodhicitta by
thinking, The purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings
from suffering and lead them to happiness, especially the peerless
happiness of enlightenment. I have this universal responsibility. To
succeed in this, I must first attain enlightenment myself, therefore,
I am going to practice the yoga of sleeping. With this bodhicitta
motivation, go to sleep.
Another common meditation is to visualize your guru on your
pillow, and when you lie down, your head rests in his lap. Then, in
the presence of your guru, who with devotion you visualize as one
with the buddha, generate compassion for all sentient beings and go
to sleep. If you do this, your entire night s sleep will be virtuous, the
cause of happiness. Thus, you can go to bed with devotion to your
guru, with devotion to the buddha and with compassion for all
sentient beings by reflecting on their suffering.
78
HOWTO MAKE EACH MOMENT OF OUR LIVES MEANINGFUL
You can also think that as you go to sleep you are in the pure
land of the deity you practice. This leaves positive imprints on
your mind and you create the karma to be reborn in that pure
land when you die.
You can also go to sleep with the thought of renunciation,
reflecting on the suffering nature of samsara, impermanence and
death and so forth, or by meditating on emptiness or dependent
arising, looking at everything as a dream or an illusion, as merely
labeled by the mind. If you go to bed mindful that everything that
appears to you as not merely labeled by the mind is a dream, an
hallucination, it can help you recognize your dreams as dreams
and to practice virtue while you are dreaming. No matter which of
these techniques you practice, your sleep becomes Dharma, virtue.
In tantra, there are two sleeping yogas: that of conventional
truth and that of absolute truth. If you have received a great
initiation, you can learn the details of these practices from the
commentaries on the practice of that deity.
In the lam-rim there s some advice on how to get up early in
the morning without being overwhelmed by sleep. Before getting
into bed the night before, wash your feet while thinking of light.
Try it; it works.
As I mentioned above, you can also go to sleep visualizing
whichever pure land in which you d like to be reborn. This can
also help should you die suddenly. If you have trained your mind
in this practice and generated the strong wish to be reborn in that
pure land, during the death process you may be able to direct your
consciousness to be reborn there.
79
MAKING LIFE MEANINGFUL
Experiencing illness and death with bodhicitta
The very heart of Dharma practice, the best of all, the ultimate
thought transformation, the supreme psychology, is to experience
your problems on behalf of others.
Perhaps you have AIDS or cancer. Maybe you re having
problems in your relationship or suffering from depression.
Possibly you re dying. Whatever trouble you re experiencing,
think, I m experiencing this problem on behalf of all sentient
beings, to bring them happiness. I am taking on the AIDS [or
cancer, relationship problems, depression, whatever] of all those
who are suffering from AIDS at the moment and for all those who
have the karma to get it. I take it all upon myself. I am experi-
encing this disease on behalf of all sentient beings who either have
it or will get it. No matter what has happened to you asthma,
depression, business failure, being raped you can dedicate it in
the same way.
Throughout the day, as soon as the thought I have AIDS
arises, immediately think, I am experiencing this for the sake of
all sentient beings.
When you are dying, think, I am experiencing death for the
numberless sentient beings who are also experiencing the suffering
of dying at this very moment. I take it all upon myself. May they
be free from the suffering of death and receive ultimate happiness
right now. Try to die with this thought.
Each time you think this way, you purify unbelievable eons of
negative karma and create merit as limitless as the sky. Each time
80
HOWTO MAKE EACH MOMENT OF OUR LIVES MEANINGFUL
you practice taking the suffering of others upon yourself, you
come much closer to enlightenment, which means you come
much closer to bringing all sentient beings to enlightenment.
There is no more beneficial way to die than to die with this
bodhicitta thought.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls people who can die like this
completely self-supporting, because through familiarity with the
various death meditations, at the most critical time of their lives,
death, they can guide themselves skillfully to the next life.
CONCLUSION
If twenty-four hours a day, everything you do is motivated by
bodhicitta, you accumulate infinite merit. Moreover, every single
action becomes a cause for not only your own enlightenment but
also the happiness of every other sentient being.
This is the way to make your life both as meaningful and as
rich as possible.
81
THREE
A DAILY PRACTICE TO STOP ALL SUFFERING
THE BODHISATTVA S CONFESSION OF MORAL DOWNFALLS
To put an end to our samsaric suffering, we must do two things.
One is to purify the negative actions that we ve done every day of
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]