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Category: Ribur Rinpoche

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The essence of the Buddha's 84,000 teachings is bodhicitta: the awakening mind that aspires toward enlightenment, in order to have the perfect ability to free all beings from suffering and lead them to peerless happiness. On his two visits to Singapore in 1997, Venerable Lama Ribur Rinpoche taught extensively on how to generate that precious mind of enlightenment. Rinpoche also gave insightful teachings on lojong (thought transformation), the practice that enables us to transform problems into the causes for enlightenment.

How to Generate Bodhicitta is available as an ebook from online vendors; see links on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.

CHAPTERS

How to Generate Bodhicitta
Preface and Short Biography
The Seven-Point Cause and Effect Instruction
Exchanging Oneself and Others

Preface

In 1997 the students of Amitabha Buddhist Centre were blessed to receive teachings from the great master Ribur Rinpoche. Rinpoche visited us twice and stayed for a total of three and a half months, during which time he taught lamrim and lojong (thought transformation). This small booklet is extracted from Rinpoche's teachings.

A Brief Biography

Ribur Rinpoche was born in Kham, Eastern Tibet, in 1923. He was recognized at the age of five as the sixth incarnation of Lama Kunga Osel, a great scholar and teacher who spent the last twelve years of his life in strict solitary retreat. All five of the previous incarnations were principal teachers at Ribur Monastery in Kham.

When Ribur Rinpoche was fourteen he entered Sera monastery, one of the great Gelug monastic universities in Lhasa, to begin intensive studies in Buddhist philosophy, which culminated in his receiving the Geshe degree at the age of 25. During his stay at Sera Monastery Rinpoche also attended many teachings and initiations given by his root guru, Pabonka Rinpoche, the greatest Gelug lama of the time. After receiving his Geshe degree, Rinpoche returned to Kham where he spent many years doing retreat in a small hut he had built in the forest. But after the Chinese Communist invasion in 1950, the situation in Kham became increasingly dangerous, and in 1955 he was advised by one of his gurus, Trijang Rinpoche, to return to Lhasa, where he continued to take teachings and do retreats.

But Lhasa itself soon became unsafe. From 1959 (the year of the Tibetan people's uprising) to 1976, Rinpoche experienced numerous hardships and difficulties such as imprisonment and physical abuse, and being a helpless observer of the terrible destruction of the Cultural Revolution. However, during this time he was able to keep his mind peaceful and even happy by practicing the teachings he had learned. As Rinpoche described his experiences, "I didn't really experience the slightest difficulty during those adverse conditions. This was due to the kindness of Lama Dorje Chang [Pabongka Rinpoche]. From him I had somehow learned some mental training, and in those difficult times, my mind was immediately able to recognize the nature of cyclic existence, the nature of afflictive emotions, and the nature of karma and so forth. So my mind was really at ease."

Following the Cultural Revolution Rinpoche worked with the Panchen Lama to restore many of the lost spiritual treasures of Tibet as they could. His main accomplishment was recovering the two most precious statues of Shakyamuni Buddha: the Jowo Chenpo and the Ramo Chenpo. These two statues, originally brought to Tibet by the Chinese and Nepalese wives of King Songsten Gampo (ca 617-698), were taken to Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and kept in various warehouses along with thousands of other statues for 17 years, until Rinpoche found them and returned them to their respective temples in Lhasa.

In 1987 Rinpoche left Tibet and traveled to Dharamsala, India, to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since then he has lived at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, where, at the request of His Holiness, he wrote a number of biographies of great lamas and an extensive religious history of Tibet. Rinpoche has also visited and taught in several foreign countries - Australia, New Zealand, America, and around Europe. His warmth, humor, profound wisdom and practical, down-to-earth teachings have endeared him to many students around the world.

Background of the Teachings

More that 2,500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment and then proceeded to teach the path to enlightenment so that others could follow. His teachings have been kept alive to the present day through the great kindness and efforts of an unbroken lineage of practitioners who learned them from their masters, put them into practice, then passed them onto followers. In Tibet, the essential points of Buddha's teachings were formulated into a system known as the lamrim, or stages on the path to enlightenment, which explains all the steps or practices one needs to follow in order to attain enlightenment.

The lamrim consists of three main stages or levels, according to three different reasons or motivations for practicing Dharma. The first level, known as the "small scope," starts from taking an interest in one's future lives. This comes about when we realize that this present life could end at any time, and that after death, we will be reborn in an unfortunate state (as an animal, hungry ghost or hell being), and to achieve a fortunate state (as a deva, titan or human being), by taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and by living our lives in accordance with karma, the law of evolutionary actions and their results.

The second or "intermediate scope" involves developing the aspiration to become free once and for all from the cycle of death and rebirth. Within this scope, one focuses on the Four Noble Truths: the sufferings of cyclic existence, the causes of suffering (delusions and karma), the state of freedom from all suffering (nirvana), and the means to achieve it by practicing the three higher trainings of ethics, concentration and wisdom.

The third level, the "great scope," involves opening one's heart to consider the situation of all beings. Realizing that all beings experience suffering that they don't want and they fail to find the peace and happiness that they wish for, one develops the aspiration to attain full enlightenment in order to help everyone reach that perfect state as well. That altruistic aspiration is bodhicitta.

This booklet contains extracts of Ribur Rinpoche's precious teachings on how to develop bodhicitta, and how to practice thought transformation through which we become less self-centered and more concerned for others.

Numerous people contributed to this work. Rinpoche's teachings were beautifully translated into English by Fabrizio Pallotti. Several ABC students kindly transcribed the tapes, and I edited the transcript with assistance from Doris Low and Rise Koben.

Any errors in the text are entirely the fault of the editor.

Sangye Khadro
October 1998

On two visits to Singapore in 1997, Venerable Lama Ribur Rinpoche taught extensively on how to generate that precious mind of enlightenment.
Published on
The essence of the Buddha's 84,000 teachings is bodhicitta: the awakening mind that aspires toward enlightenment, in order to have the perfect ability to free all beings from suffering and lead them to peerless happiness. On his two visits to Singapore in 1997, Venerable Lama Ribur Rinpoche taught extensively on how to generate that precious mind of enlightenment. Rinpoche also gave insightful teachings on lojong (thought transformation), the practice that enables us to transform problems into the causes for enlightenment.

How to Generate Bodhicitta is available as an ebook from online vendors; see links on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website. This book has also been translated into Vietnamese, as well as a Quick Return Prayer for Ribur Rinpoche composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Published in 2012 for free distribution by Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore. Published as an ebook in 2014 in partnership with Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

On his two visits to Singapore in 1997, Venerable Lama Ribur Rinpoche taught extensively on how to generate bodhicitta: the awakening mind aspiring towards enlightenment so as to have perfect ability to free all beings from suffering and lead them to peerless happiness. Using scriptural understanding and his personal experience, Rinpoche also gave teachings on lojong (thought transformation) which enables us to transform the inevitable problems of life into the causes for enlightenment.

Ribur Rinpoche was born in Tibet in 1923 and spent many years teaching all over the world before returning to India where he passed away in 2006. His warmth, humour and profound wisdom have endeared him to many students around the world.

CHAPTERS
How to Generate Bodhicitta
Preface and Short Biography
The Seven-Point Cause and Effect Instruction
Exchanging Oneself and Others

This is an excerpt from a teaching by Ribur Rinpoche given at Watsonville, CA in June, 2002.
Published on
This is an excerpt from a teaching by Ribur Rinpoche at Watsonville, CA in June, 2002, translated by Fabrizio Palloti. Listen to this teaching online at Lam Rim Radio.

Just like me, others don’t want even the slightest suffering and they want to experience happiness, but that happiness is never enough. Therefore, myself and others are just the same.

However, the way we think of ourselves and the way we think of others is actually quite different. We think of ourselves as extremely important, and we are constantly concerned about ourselves. We are the very focal object of our own concern. For instance, we think, “I’m hot, I’m cold, I’m not very comfortable, I need this, I don’t need that, I wish for this, I wish for that, my health, and this and that.” We are the main focus of our mind, and our thoughts revolve around ourselves, and whether we are well and happy or not.

If we compare the strength of the thoughts we have about ourselves with the thoughts we have about others, others fall into a dismissible category. We think, “I myself am very important, I need to get this and that,” but others are dismissible and we’re not very concentrated on them. Is this true or not? We are not very concentrated on others, right? We are the main focus of our life. This is a clear indication that we don’t have the thought that equalizes ourselves with others. This is the difference between equalizing ourselves with others and not equalizing ourselves with others. This is the main focus of our meditation.

How we are the same as others

The main reason why we are so obsessed with our own lives is because we have not equalized ourselves with others. We think we are different from others, but in reality we are the same, and everybody else is exactly like us. Just like us, everybody wants to be happy and does not want to suffer. Yet, we keep everybody else in a non-referential state that we don’t need to enquire about, and we are obsessed with ourselves. We need to do well, and we think, “I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to be happy, I need to get rid of this problem or that problem.” Others are totally incidental in this situation. This is the mistaken perception of the obsession that we have with ourselves. We have not realized the equality that is the actual reality for ourselves and others—that we are all the same.

This is not an easy subject to grasp, and we need to work on it really hard. This is the thought process that we must apply in our meditation session. We need to analyze, “Why do I always want to be free from suffering?” The bottom line and the basic reason why we don’t want to suffer is just that —because we don’t like to suffer. It’s just that. We don’t like suffering and we try to avoid suffering.

Just as we try to avoid suffering, so does everyone else. If we check everyone else, they are just the same as us. They don’t want to suffer, and the reason is because nobody likes to suffer. So, just as we don’t like to suffer, everybody else doesn’t like to suffer. Therefore, just as we should not suffer, in the same way, everybody else should not suffer. Why? Because they don’t like it. Do you understand?

Therefore, why should we feel that we are more important than others? Why should we keep the focus on ourselves, as if we are more important, in a situation where we are all just the same? This is the reality.

How we are different from others

What is the difference between ourselves and others? There is a difference between ourselves and others—I am just one, and others are so many. There are six billion humans on this planet, and there are so many bugs, birds and other sentient beings. Like us, they don’t like to suffer and they just want to be happy. The big difference between ourselves and others is that they are much more important from the point of view of numbers. The quantity, the amount and the weight of the suffering of others is much bigger than the weight of the suffering that lies on ourselves alone, because we are one and others are limitless. This is another reason why it is totally meaningless to be constantly obsessed with ourselves as being the most important of all, when we are actually not. This is one way of thinking and meditating in order to equalize ourselves with others.

On top of this, if we think from the point of view of nature, there is no difference. We are all sentient beings, in the nature of suffering and impermanence. We are all born and we are all going to die. We all go through struggles and suffering. From this point of view alone, we are equal and there is not the slightest reason to consider ourselves more important than others. But we should consider ourselves as the object of compassion and love, because we all have the same impermanent nature and we all have the same suffering. Our minds are contaminated with ignorance and delusions, without the slightest difference between any of us.

We should debate this within ourselves over and over again, until we grasp the situation. Suddenly, we see, “For all this time, I’ve seen myself as more important, but it’s totally baseless for these reasons.” If we can grasp this and concentrate on this, and bring it to mind again and again until our mind is imbued with it, there is a transformation.

it is entirely up to us

Following the self-cherishing mind is the source of all our suffering. We need to identify that self-cherishing mind as a demon taking over our mind and make a strong determination with very strong mindfulness, thinking, “I’m going to get rid of it.” With this determination, make a request to the guru to bless us and help us get rid of egoism, self-cherishing, and the obsession with self and with me-first.

Who has been leading us to all the trouble and suffering that we don’t want? Who has led us there? The self-cherishing mind, the self-centered thought that’s taken possession of our mind.

The bottom line is, what is this attitude of self-cherishing? It is an attitude of considering ourselves as more important and better than everybody else, or needing to achieve more than everybody else—whether it is a possession, happiness or getting rid of problems, or whatever. It is that kind of attitude that leads us and is the very cause of all our problems.

All goodness and happiness arises from wishing for others to be happy. Everything that runs smoothly and well in our lives comes from cherishing others. Whatever exists, requires causes and conditions—it doesn’t happen randomly. The same goes for our happiness. When we cherish others, we are generous and we don’t get angry with others—we practice patience, morality and non-harming.

It is entirely up to us. If we don’t want to suffer, we have to cherish others.