Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche used to say that the force behind our negative actions is irresistible, like a falling boulder, and the force behind our virtuous actions is just like leading a donkey uphill.
—HHDL
—HHDL
If one has the notion that one’s practice of dharma contributes toward the dharma, or does a favor for the dharma, that is a wrong attitude.
—Keutsang Jamyang Rinpoche
—Keutsang Jamyang Rinpoche
With much devotion to lamrim and inspiration to practice it, your mind changes. If you don't have this devotion and inspiration, you become thick-skulled and careless. When you hear different lamrim subjects, if you think: ‘Oh, yes, yes, I know that! I have heard that a hundred times!’, no matter how much you listen, the teachings won't move your mind. Your mind will be like a rock under the ocean, which can stay there one billion years but still be the same rock. The outside gets wet, but nothing else happens. Even if you hear lamrim and thought-training teachings a hundred times, your mind will be like this. If you have much devotion to lamrim, you have much wish to practice. Because of this practice, your mind changes, realisations come and you are able to make your life highly meaningful. It is very important to have devotion to the lamrim teachings.
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Your meditation on the lower paths should fuel your desire to attain the higher paths. When you listen to explanations that elucidate the higher paths, your desire to practice the lower paths must be intensified. When meditating on the paths, you must, by eliminating conceptualisations, keep your mind balanced.
—Second Panchen Lama
—Second Panchen Lama
When your respect for the spiritual guide leading you on the path seems to wane, since relying on the spiritual guide has been explained as the root of all excellences, you should strive in it.
Similarly, when your enthusiasm for practice dwindles, principally meditate on the topics of the precious human rebirth endowed with the freedoms and privileges.
If you find yourself obsessively caught up with this life, principally meditate on impermanence and the drawbacks of the lower realms.
If you seem to neglect the obligations you have pledged to honour, meditate mainly on karma and its results.
If your disillusionment with samsara is feeble, since your striving for liberation has come to nothing but empty talk, reflect on the drawbacks of samsara.
If your desire to enact the welfare of sentient beings is not fervent no matter what you do, since wishing bodhicitta is said to be the root of the Mahayana, train in it along with its causes.
If you have taken the bodhisattva vows and yet seem to be tightly fettered by grasping at signs when you train in the bodhisattvas’ deeds, destroy such apprehension with the rational consciousness that targets grasping at signs and train in space-like emptiness and illusion-like emptiness.
If your mind cannot rest on the object of observation and seems to fall under the sway of distraction, train mainly in single-pointed stability.
These nuggets of advice have been provided by earlier masters. Based on the above illustrations, you should deduce how to avoid the pitfalls that I have not explicitly addressed.
—Second Panchen Lama
Similarly, when your enthusiasm for practice dwindles, principally meditate on the topics of the precious human rebirth endowed with the freedoms and privileges.
If you find yourself obsessively caught up with this life, principally meditate on impermanence and the drawbacks of the lower realms.
If you seem to neglect the obligations you have pledged to honour, meditate mainly on karma and its results.
If your disillusionment with samsara is feeble, since your striving for liberation has come to nothing but empty talk, reflect on the drawbacks of samsara.
If your desire to enact the welfare of sentient beings is not fervent no matter what you do, since wishing bodhicitta is said to be the root of the Mahayana, train in it along with its causes.
If you have taken the bodhisattva vows and yet seem to be tightly fettered by grasping at signs when you train in the bodhisattvas’ deeds, destroy such apprehension with the rational consciousness that targets grasping at signs and train in space-like emptiness and illusion-like emptiness.
If your mind cannot rest on the object of observation and seems to fall under the sway of distraction, train mainly in single-pointed stability.
These nuggets of advice have been provided by earlier masters. Based on the above illustrations, you should deduce how to avoid the pitfalls that I have not explicitly addressed.
—Second Panchen Lama
Based on the belief that it is essential to understand the Dharma in order to practice it, you may attempt to dispel your lack of learning by just taking studying as your main goal. However, mere study does not prevent afflictions such as attachment, anger, pride and jealousy. Through the force of negative karma motivated by those afflictions, you will fall into the lower rebirths. Or, based on that belief that it is essential to tame your mental continuum in order to practice the Dharma, you may attempt to take only meditation as your main practice without paying attention to your lack of learning. However, to do so would be a serious mistake too, for your ignorance of the obligations stipulated by the three vows will lead to your mind being tainted by downfalls. Therefore, in brief, you must render your mind malleable toward all classes of virtue impartially.
—Second Panchen Lama
—Second Panchen Lama
To do analytical meditation requires some study, reading of the scriptures, and listening to teachings. Study must precede your meditation session so that you know what to meditate on. Otherwise you won’t know what to do.
For example, if you are trying to produce a strong trust and reliance on your spiritual teacher, you cannot meditate by just repeating, ‘This is my guru; this is my guru,’ or ‘Guru! Guru! Guru!’ or something like that. That will not accomplish anything.
When meditating on this first topic of the lamrim—and it is the same with the advanced stages of the path—you need to examine different points of view in a concentrated, focused way. This analysis is not just a dry intellectual exercise. It develops a powerful understanding joined with a special kind of mental attitude.
You are very fortunate to read these teachings, but an intelligent student should not just blindly jump into them without applying some critical thought and judgment. We have an expression in Tibetan, ‘When a hungry dog finds a chunk of meat, he gobbles it up without checking to see if it is poisoned.’ It is not necessary for you to act that way when you first hear the teachings!
First you should listen. Then you should examine what you have heard; think about it from many different angles. Then, once you have built up a certain confidence in the teachings, you have to put them into practice.
A serious practice comes from a good foundation, a strong background, and a firm mental attitude. You can establish this foundation by studying the broad and deep view of the path that is presented in the Lamrim Chenmo. Then eventually, through analysis and contemplation, you will get a certain feel and understanding. With this firm trust you can make a decision to actually enter the path of practice.
This decision is serious; from that point on you don’t just listen in order to hear something interesting that you can tell your friends. Now you are listening in order to use these teachings to develop your mind. You listen to try to get something out of these teachings by integrating them into your daily life.
—Geshe Lhundup Sopa
For example, if you are trying to produce a strong trust and reliance on your spiritual teacher, you cannot meditate by just repeating, ‘This is my guru; this is my guru,’ or ‘Guru! Guru! Guru!’ or something like that. That will not accomplish anything.
When meditating on this first topic of the lamrim—and it is the same with the advanced stages of the path—you need to examine different points of view in a concentrated, focused way. This analysis is not just a dry intellectual exercise. It develops a powerful understanding joined with a special kind of mental attitude.
You are very fortunate to read these teachings, but an intelligent student should not just blindly jump into them without applying some critical thought and judgment. We have an expression in Tibetan, ‘When a hungry dog finds a chunk of meat, he gobbles it up without checking to see if it is poisoned.’ It is not necessary for you to act that way when you first hear the teachings!
First you should listen. Then you should examine what you have heard; think about it from many different angles. Then, once you have built up a certain confidence in the teachings, you have to put them into practice.
A serious practice comes from a good foundation, a strong background, and a firm mental attitude. You can establish this foundation by studying the broad and deep view of the path that is presented in the Lamrim Chenmo. Then eventually, through analysis and contemplation, you will get a certain feel and understanding. With this firm trust you can make a decision to actually enter the path of practice.
This decision is serious; from that point on you don’t just listen in order to hear something interesting that you can tell your friends. Now you are listening in order to use these teachings to develop your mind. You listen to try to get something out of these teachings by integrating them into your daily life.
—Geshe Lhundup Sopa
Forwarded from Atisha’s Lamp
We do not want to confess our sins; our lack of belief in the laws of cause and effect is at fault and means that we are not afraid of our sins. If we had that belief, we would avoid committing even the smallest sin.
For example, whenever Atisha committed the slightest misdeed while he was traveling, he would halt the caravan and rigorously expiate it. We could do this too, yet we normally think we have no great sins to confess—that is only because we have not thought through how we commit sins.
If we were to think about it deeply enough, we would come to know just how many sins we have committed with our mind and speech—harmful intent, idle gossip, insults, and so on—since we got up today.
We may be ordained, for example, yet, leaving aside any major vows we may have broken, we not only break our other vows with the frequency of raindrops in a cloudburst but also say that this does no harm. Yet not putting the lower garment of our robes on straight, for example, is all that is needed to break a major tantric vow.
We also break the major bodhisattva vows as frequently as raindrops fall. Breaking a minor bodhisattva vow is one hundred thousand times more serious than breaking the major pratimoksha vow of a monk. Breaking a major bodhisattva vow is one hundred thousand times more serious than breaking a minor bodhisattva vow; breaking a secondary tantric vow is one hundred thousand times more serious; and breaking a root tantric vow, one hundred thousand times more serious still.
So if we count up the misdeeds we have done since, say, we got up this morning, we will see we have many full sets of causes for rebirth in all the lower realms.
Every day we are burdened with many misdeeds—the ten nonvirtues, transgressions of the three vows, etc. We are told that the greatest of these will get us rebirth in the hells; the medium, rebirths as hungry ghosts; and the least, rebirths as animals.
A ‘great sin’ need not be killing a person and stealing their horse; it could even be calling your pupil a mangy old dog in a great fit of anger. Such things as criticising karmically potent beings also become greater sins because of the object [of the criticism]. So just today we have acquired a complete set of causes to take us to the three lower realms.
—Pabongka Rinpoche
For example, whenever Atisha committed the slightest misdeed while he was traveling, he would halt the caravan and rigorously expiate it. We could do this too, yet we normally think we have no great sins to confess—that is only because we have not thought through how we commit sins.
If we were to think about it deeply enough, we would come to know just how many sins we have committed with our mind and speech—harmful intent, idle gossip, insults, and so on—since we got up today.
We may be ordained, for example, yet, leaving aside any major vows we may have broken, we not only break our other vows with the frequency of raindrops in a cloudburst but also say that this does no harm. Yet not putting the lower garment of our robes on straight, for example, is all that is needed to break a major tantric vow.
We also break the major bodhisattva vows as frequently as raindrops fall. Breaking a minor bodhisattva vow is one hundred thousand times more serious than breaking the major pratimoksha vow of a monk. Breaking a major bodhisattva vow is one hundred thousand times more serious than breaking a minor bodhisattva vow; breaking a secondary tantric vow is one hundred thousand times more serious; and breaking a root tantric vow, one hundred thousand times more serious still.
So if we count up the misdeeds we have done since, say, we got up this morning, we will see we have many full sets of causes for rebirth in all the lower realms.
Every day we are burdened with many misdeeds—the ten nonvirtues, transgressions of the three vows, etc. We are told that the greatest of these will get us rebirth in the hells; the medium, rebirths as hungry ghosts; and the least, rebirths as animals.
A ‘great sin’ need not be killing a person and stealing their horse; it could even be calling your pupil a mangy old dog in a great fit of anger. Such things as criticising karmically potent beings also become greater sins because of the object [of the criticism]. So just today we have acquired a complete set of causes to take us to the three lower realms.
—Pabongka Rinpoche
Only rejoice in positive deeds, not negative ones. Rejoicing in others’ virtues allows you to create as much merit as they are creating but rejoicing in others’ harmful deeds causes you to create a similar amount of bad karma. If someone kills a person and you rejoice in that, you create the same amount of negative karma as the murderer! When you watch television or read the news, it’s very easy for negative rejoicing to arise. Such negative rejoicing doesn’t help anybody and harms you. So take care to only rejoice in the positive actions of others.
—Gyume Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa
—Gyume Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa
If you know how to think, then the practice of dharma is really quite simple. The practices of rejoicing, generating bodhicitta and dedicating are so easy to do at any time and create an enormous amount of merit, and these involve just altering your normal ways of thinking. But if you don’t think properly and do not create a good motivation, then nothing you do becomes Dharma. If you’re offering to Buddha or monks just to defeat your enemy, for instance, that’s not Dharma practice!
Since you do have buddha-nature, the potential to become enlightened, however, if you purify your negativities and accumulate virtues then your buddha-nature will become activated and you will become enlightened. This is why practicing the seven limbs is so important.
Even if you cannot practice the entirety of the stages of the path to enlightenment, if you do the various preliminary practices, then you are holding the essence of the entire practice. Just doing the six preliminary practices is sufficient for maintaining the essence of Dharma practice.
—Gyume Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa
Since you do have buddha-nature, the potential to become enlightened, however, if you purify your negativities and accumulate virtues then your buddha-nature will become activated and you will become enlightened. This is why practicing the seven limbs is so important.
Even if you cannot practice the entirety of the stages of the path to enlightenment, if you do the various preliminary practices, then you are holding the essence of the entire practice. Just doing the six preliminary practices is sufficient for maintaining the essence of Dharma practice.
—Gyume Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa
When I study, I increase my contemplation and meditation.
When I contemplate, I increase my study and meditation.
When I meditate, I increase my study and contemplation.
I know how to gather them as the one foundation,
And take the Dharma as my path
I am a Kadampa and don’t do things in parts.
People who wear blinkers are deceived;
Those who well understand the excellent are Kadampas.
—Dromtonpa
When I contemplate, I increase my study and meditation.
When I meditate, I increase my study and contemplation.
I know how to gather them as the one foundation,
And take the Dharma as my path
I am a Kadampa and don’t do things in parts.
People who wear blinkers are deceived;
Those who well understand the excellent are Kadampas.
—Dromtonpa
When the Blessed Buddha was still a learner treading the path, he was reborn as the bodhisattva, Prince Chandra. There was a man called Sudasaputra, who used to kill people and eat his victims.
One day the prince went into a grove and an eloquent Brahman came to him. While the prince was receiving a Dharma teaching from this eloquent Brahman, suddenly they heard a great noise. People were sent to see what was happening. They found that Sudasaputra was coming.
The prince’s bodyguards said, ‘Sudasaputra Kalmashapada eats people. He is a man to be feared; our army, its many horses, elephants, and chariots have scattered and fled. What are we to do? The time has come to parley with him.’
This idea pleased the prince and, deaf to the pleas of his wives and entourage, he went to where the great clamour was coming from. The prince saw Sudasaputra pursuing the king’s army in a rage, his sword and shield held high. But the prince fearlessly and without hesitation said, ‘I am Prince Chandra. I am here; come here to me.’
Sudasaputra turned around and made for the prince, saying as he ran, ‘It’s you I want.’ He flung the prince over his shoulder and ran off with him to his lair. This terrifying place was full of human skeletons; the floor was red, and the whole place resounded with the gruesome calls of ferocious flesh-eaters such as jackals, vultures, and ravens. The lair was black with the smoke of roasted corpses. Sudasaputra put the prince down in this horrifying place and rested—but with his eyes fixed on the handsome body of the prince.
The prince thought to himself, ‘I had no chance to make an offering to that eloquent Brahman in the grove for the Dharma I received.’ This thought made him cry.
‘Cease! Enough!’ Sudasaputra said. ‘You, Prince Chandra, are famed for your steadfastness. How strange you should be crying now that I’ve captured you. They say, “Steadfastness is useless when you undergo pain. Studies don’t help when you suffer. Everyone cringes when struck.” You know, I think this is true. Tell me honestly: are you afraid I am going to kill you? Are you afraid you will be parted from your friends, relations, wives, children, and parents? Tell the truth, whatever it may be: why are you crying?’
‘I was receiving the Dharma from a Brahman,’ the prince replied, ‘but I was unable to make him an offering. Let me go to him and give him something, and I will definitely return to you.’
‘That cannot be true, no matter what you say,’ said Sudasaputra. ‘After once being saved from the jaws of the Lord of Death, who would return to his presence?’
‘Have I not given my word and promised to return? I am he known as Prince Chandra, and I value the truth as much as my own life.’
‘I do not trust what you say; however I am willing to test you,’ he said. ‘Go back, and we shall see if you really value the truth. Go back, complete your business with the Brahman—whatever it is—then return quickly. I will get the fire ready to roast you, and I will wait for you.’
The prince returned to his home and gave the Brahman four thousand ounces in gold as payment for the four verses the Brahman had taught. The prince’s father tried various means to stop him, but to no avail. The prince returned to the lair of Sudasaputra, who was astonished to see him in the distance. The prince told him, ‘You may now eat me.’
‘I know the time to eat you,’ Sudasaputra replied. ‘The fire is now smoking. If I roast flesh when the fire is smoking, it will stink of smoke and the taste will be ruined. In the meantime, teach me what you heard from the Brahman, which you claim is so important.’
‘The Brahman’s eloquent words told how to distinguish between non-Dharma and Dharma. Your evil ways are worse than the man-eating rakshas. What good could study possibly do you?’
Sudasaputra could not bear this remark. ‘Stop! Enough! You kings kill deer with your weapons. That goes against the Dharma!’
One day the prince went into a grove and an eloquent Brahman came to him. While the prince was receiving a Dharma teaching from this eloquent Brahman, suddenly they heard a great noise. People were sent to see what was happening. They found that Sudasaputra was coming.
The prince’s bodyguards said, ‘Sudasaputra Kalmashapada eats people. He is a man to be feared; our army, its many horses, elephants, and chariots have scattered and fled. What are we to do? The time has come to parley with him.’
This idea pleased the prince and, deaf to the pleas of his wives and entourage, he went to where the great clamour was coming from. The prince saw Sudasaputra pursuing the king’s army in a rage, his sword and shield held high. But the prince fearlessly and without hesitation said, ‘I am Prince Chandra. I am here; come here to me.’
Sudasaputra turned around and made for the prince, saying as he ran, ‘It’s you I want.’ He flung the prince over his shoulder and ran off with him to his lair. This terrifying place was full of human skeletons; the floor was red, and the whole place resounded with the gruesome calls of ferocious flesh-eaters such as jackals, vultures, and ravens. The lair was black with the smoke of roasted corpses. Sudasaputra put the prince down in this horrifying place and rested—but with his eyes fixed on the handsome body of the prince.
The prince thought to himself, ‘I had no chance to make an offering to that eloquent Brahman in the grove for the Dharma I received.’ This thought made him cry.
‘Cease! Enough!’ Sudasaputra said. ‘You, Prince Chandra, are famed for your steadfastness. How strange you should be crying now that I’ve captured you. They say, “Steadfastness is useless when you undergo pain. Studies don’t help when you suffer. Everyone cringes when struck.” You know, I think this is true. Tell me honestly: are you afraid I am going to kill you? Are you afraid you will be parted from your friends, relations, wives, children, and parents? Tell the truth, whatever it may be: why are you crying?’
‘I was receiving the Dharma from a Brahman,’ the prince replied, ‘but I was unable to make him an offering. Let me go to him and give him something, and I will definitely return to you.’
‘That cannot be true, no matter what you say,’ said Sudasaputra. ‘After once being saved from the jaws of the Lord of Death, who would return to his presence?’
‘Have I not given my word and promised to return? I am he known as Prince Chandra, and I value the truth as much as my own life.’
‘I do not trust what you say; however I am willing to test you,’ he said. ‘Go back, and we shall see if you really value the truth. Go back, complete your business with the Brahman—whatever it is—then return quickly. I will get the fire ready to roast you, and I will wait for you.’
The prince returned to his home and gave the Brahman four thousand ounces in gold as payment for the four verses the Brahman had taught. The prince’s father tried various means to stop him, but to no avail. The prince returned to the lair of Sudasaputra, who was astonished to see him in the distance. The prince told him, ‘You may now eat me.’
‘I know the time to eat you,’ Sudasaputra replied. ‘The fire is now smoking. If I roast flesh when the fire is smoking, it will stink of smoke and the taste will be ruined. In the meantime, teach me what you heard from the Brahman, which you claim is so important.’
‘The Brahman’s eloquent words told how to distinguish between non-Dharma and Dharma. Your evil ways are worse than the man-eating rakshas. What good could study possibly do you?’
Sudasaputra could not bear this remark. ‘Stop! Enough! You kings kill deer with your weapons. That goes against the Dharma!’
‘Kings who kill deer contravene the Dharma,’ replied Prince Chandra, ‘but eating human flesh is worse. Humans are higher than deer. And if it is wrong to eat the flesh of someone who died a natural death, how could killing people to eat them be right?’
Sudasaputra then said, ‘You haven’t learned much from the scriptures if you came back to me!’
‘I returned in order to keep my word, and so I have learned much from the scriptures.’
‘The other men were afraid when I had them in my clutches. But you have proved to be a steadfast hero: you have not lost your composure. You seem unafraid to die.’
‘Those men were full of remorse because they had sinned,’ said the prince. ‘But there is no sin I can recall ever having done. I am therefore unafraid. I offer myself to you—you may eat me.’
Sudasaputra had by now developed faith in the prince. His eyes were full of tears, and the hairs on his body were standing on end. He looked at the prince in awe and told him about his sinful nature. ‘Deliberately sinning against a person like you,’ Sudasaputra said, ‘would be like drinking strong poison. Teach me, I beg you, what the Brahman so eloquently taught you.’ He also said at this point the verse we had above:
When I see the form of my evil deeds Clearly in the mirror of the Dharma,
My mind is terribly tormented;
I shall now turn to the Dharma.
Prince Chandra saw that he had become a suitable vessel for the Dharma and said:
Drink the nectar of these words
While sitting on a low seat,
While wonderfully subdued in manner, Your eyes bright with joy.
Develop respect; listen single-pointedly.
The mind most clear and undefiled,
Listen to these words as a patient heeds his doctor; In reverence, listen to the Dharma.
Sudasaputra laid out his upper garment on a flat stone and invited Prince Chandra to sit on it. Sudasaputra sat in front of the prince and, while gazing at his face, said: ‘O noble one, now teach.’
Prince Chandra then began:
Meeting the holy saints just once
Is enough to grant whatever you desire. You need not know him well;
It still will make you steadfast.
And so on. He subdued Sudasaputra’s mind with the Dharma teaching. Sudasaputra, to return this kindness, presented Chandra with the ninety-nine princes he had been holding prisoner in order to eat them; he vowed from then on to uphold right behaviour and to give up killing sentient beings and eating human flesh.
—Pabongka Rinpoche
Sudasaputra then said, ‘You haven’t learned much from the scriptures if you came back to me!’
‘I returned in order to keep my word, and so I have learned much from the scriptures.’
‘The other men were afraid when I had them in my clutches. But you have proved to be a steadfast hero: you have not lost your composure. You seem unafraid to die.’
‘Those men were full of remorse because they had sinned,’ said the prince. ‘But there is no sin I can recall ever having done. I am therefore unafraid. I offer myself to you—you may eat me.’
Sudasaputra had by now developed faith in the prince. His eyes were full of tears, and the hairs on his body were standing on end. He looked at the prince in awe and told him about his sinful nature. ‘Deliberately sinning against a person like you,’ Sudasaputra said, ‘would be like drinking strong poison. Teach me, I beg you, what the Brahman so eloquently taught you.’ He also said at this point the verse we had above:
When I see the form of my evil deeds Clearly in the mirror of the Dharma,
My mind is terribly tormented;
I shall now turn to the Dharma.
Prince Chandra saw that he had become a suitable vessel for the Dharma and said:
Drink the nectar of these words
While sitting on a low seat,
While wonderfully subdued in manner, Your eyes bright with joy.
Develop respect; listen single-pointedly.
The mind most clear and undefiled,
Listen to these words as a patient heeds his doctor; In reverence, listen to the Dharma.
Sudasaputra laid out his upper garment on a flat stone and invited Prince Chandra to sit on it. Sudasaputra sat in front of the prince and, while gazing at his face, said: ‘O noble one, now teach.’
Prince Chandra then began:
Meeting the holy saints just once
Is enough to grant whatever you desire. You need not know him well;
It still will make you steadfast.
And so on. He subdued Sudasaputra’s mind with the Dharma teaching. Sudasaputra, to return this kindness, presented Chandra with the ninety-nine princes he had been holding prisoner in order to eat them; he vowed from then on to uphold right behaviour and to give up killing sentient beings and eating human flesh.
—Pabongka Rinpoche
If you do not sincerely confess your past misdeeds by feeling regret for them and generating the intention to refrain from committing them in the future, then excellent qualities that have not yet been produced in your continuum will not be produced and those that have been produced will decline.
If, instead, you sincerely regret the misdeeds you have committed in the past as if you have ingested poison and produce the mind of restraint that resolves not to repeat them again even at the cost of your life, then excellent qualities that have not yet been produced in your continuum will be produced and those that have been produced will increase.
Therefore holy beings of the past have regarded the confession of misdeeds and downfalls as of utmost importance. During his journey to Tibet, whenever the tiniest of misdeeds occurred, Atisha would immediately assemble the leaders of the caravan, offer a mandala and perform confession.
‘Should I die before confessing it, I will reborn in the lower rebirths,’ he would say. Accordingly, he would carry a wooden stupa with him wherever he went and would perform confession and restraint right there and then. This was done so that he would ‘not be accompanied by misdeeds or downfalls for longer than a day.’
Upon arriving at Cholung Monastery, Tsongkhapa was highly inspired and strove assiduously in accruing the collections of merit and wisdom and the purification of misdeeds. He first perceived Nageshvararaja and later the Thirty-Five Buddhas and so on. We must emulate these holy beings of the past and train accordingly
—Second Panchen Lama
If, instead, you sincerely regret the misdeeds you have committed in the past as if you have ingested poison and produce the mind of restraint that resolves not to repeat them again even at the cost of your life, then excellent qualities that have not yet been produced in your continuum will be produced and those that have been produced will increase.
Therefore holy beings of the past have regarded the confession of misdeeds and downfalls as of utmost importance. During his journey to Tibet, whenever the tiniest of misdeeds occurred, Atisha would immediately assemble the leaders of the caravan, offer a mandala and perform confession.
‘Should I die before confessing it, I will reborn in the lower rebirths,’ he would say. Accordingly, he would carry a wooden stupa with him wherever he went and would perform confession and restraint right there and then. This was done so that he would ‘not be accompanied by misdeeds or downfalls for longer than a day.’
Upon arriving at Cholung Monastery, Tsongkhapa was highly inspired and strove assiduously in accruing the collections of merit and wisdom and the purification of misdeeds. He first perceived Nageshvararaja and later the Thirty-Five Buddhas and so on. We must emulate these holy beings of the past and train accordingly
—Second Panchen Lama