[From a teaching by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche on the Seven-Line Supplication to Guru Rinpoche based on Mipham’s commentary, White Lotus. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed by Linda Lee. Edited by Basia Coulter. All right reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.]

In considering Khenchen Mipham’s White Lotus, his commentary on the Seven‑Line Supplication, we need to think about the outer, inner, and secret aspects of Guru Rinpoche (Padmakara). Previously, I have identified the inner aspect of Padmakara as the nature of mind, the absolute bodhichitta. That absolute bodhichitta—our true nature—is stainless, immaculate, and pure like a brilliant lotus flower, and this is something that we all have. In order to reveal this, however, we depend largely on relative bodhichitta.

The cause of achieving non‑abiding nirvana—the state of buddhahood that transcends both samsara and nirvana—is our generation of bodhichitta. And one cannot generate bodhichitta just once or twice, and think that is enough. It must be constantly reinforced. Only through constant reinforcement will our relative bodhichitta develop through increasing familiarity. That is why our practices begin with the re‑affirmation of the vow of refuge and of the generation of bodhichitta.

Much of our practice consists of familiarization, which is important. As is said, there is nothing that cannot be achieved if you become familiar enough with it. Sometimes we have problems with this because the process of familiarization involves putting time and effort into practice. Sometimes people say, “I like Dharma. But I’m very lazy. I don’t want to practice.” And so they’ll ask, “How much do I need to practice?” To the point where if you say to someone, “Well, you could simply say one hundred OM MANI PEME HUNG every day,” they will say, “Whoo! A hundred? That’s hard. A hundred. That’s a lot.” And they are right. If you think about it, one hundred repetitions of anything is a lot. But when it is OM MANI PEME HUNG, it takes far less than five minutes.

We have to be realistic. We are trying to remedy or overcome all of the bad habits and obscurations we have accumulated with our bodies, our speech, and our minds throughout beginningless time. That is a lot of stuff. As with any illness, as with any negative situation, the remedy must correspond in strength to the problem that we wish to solve. If it were enough to remove a mountain of wrongdoing and obscurations by simply saying one mantra such as OM MANI PEME HUNG a few times, that would be fantastic. But if that were the case, we would all be liberated already. Therefore we have to be courageous and we have to accept that this is going to take effort. And we have to resolve, “If I cannot engage in more virtue than I have engaged in wrongdoing up to this point, I must at least and at all costs engage in the same amount of virtue.” Otherwise our hopes for awakening are as unrealistic as confidently believing that you can put out a huge wild fire with a couple of gallons of water.

Training in Dharma consists of hearing, thinking, and meditating. We start with hearing. And sometimes, unfortunately, we stop there. When we hear teachings from a lama, we may be very inspired; we may think, “This Lama is a great siddha. This Dharma is very profound. I’m very fortunate to receive it. This is fantastic.” And then we might just go to sleep and forget about the whole thing. If we leave the process at only hearing, then it serves no real use whatsoever. So having heard one or another aspect of Dharma, we have to go on to really think about it, to analyze its meaning. And we have to think about it repeatedly until we gain certainty. By “certainty,” I mean the kind of certainty that is knowing—beyond any kind of doubt or any need to ask anyone—what Dharma really is. This kind of certainty is exemplified by the great early Kadampa masters, such as Geshe Langri Tampa, who said, “Of all the Dharma I have studied, I have resolved that there is nothing more profound than the instruction, “Give all victory and joy to others and accept all defeat and sufferings for oneself.” Other than this, I have seen nothing that needs to be understood or practiced.” We need that kind of resolution, that kind of certainty, because only from that kind of certainty will come the commitment, which will enable us to engage in effort. As long as we lack certainty about the meaning of Dharma and how to put it all together, our practice will be like shooting an arrow in the darkness. You might know there is a target out there somewhere, but you cannot see it. So no matter how much effort you put into shooting the arrow, you have no idea of whether you are shooting it in the right direction. You might kill one of your friends! So just as if you are going to practice archery, you need to do so where there is light, if you are going to practice Dharma, you need to do so on the basis of the certainty that comes from assiduous and careful thought. And then, you actually practice.

Practice has to bring us to a state of resolution which is even more certainty. It is the resolution whereby you trust in your own experience; you trust yourself and your own practice. This resolution is exemplified by the statement of Jetsun Milarepa, “From today onward, even if I have the opportunity to meet one hundred great gurus, I will have nothing to ask them.” That type of resolution can only come from the practice of Dharma that is free from personal worldly ambition. If we allow our practice to be corrupted by the eight worldly Dharmas so that our practice is really devoted to ambition for fame, for wealth, for position, or simply for the successful competition with others, then our practice will be like the consumption of food mixed with poison. You might be nourished by the food but at the same time, you will be poisoning yourself. We have to remember that we practice because we want to free our mind from kleshas. We practice because we do not want this beginningless series of rebirths to continue. If we do not achieve liberation, it will continue. And we have no way of knowing whether we are going to be born in a higher or a lower state. So we have to practice with effort and with courage.

We have great examples to emulate. When His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa was giving the Treasury of Kagyu Mantra empowerments in Nepal, he met Palsingha Rinpoche, a Nyingma tulku who lived mostly in retreat in Yolmo Kangra, which is a place where Jetsun Milarepa used to do retreat. Palsingha Rinpoche’s practice was principally to do the preliminaries. He had done the preliminary practices fifteen times (that is 1,500,000 prostrations and so forth), and he was going to do more. We were all so impressed with him that we said this person was like a second Milarepa. Well, if somebody who is already an incarnate nirmanakaya, is willing to put in so much effort, it need not be said that we need to work a little harder. And there are many people who do. There are people who, regardless of what their other practices may be, will do a thousand prostrations or five hundred prostrations every day. This kind of constant, unremitting effort is what is needed in order to reveal that self‑aware wisdom, which is our fundamental nature.

We cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot think, “Well, I did a hundred prostrations. That’s good. I’ll stop there. That’s enough.” and then go to sleep. If you become complacent about what you have done, it is very uncertain whether it is going to do you any good at all. Practice that leads to complacency or that is corrupted by complacency is of dubious effectiveness in either the purification of wrongdoing or the accumulation of merit. Dharma needs effort; it needs austerity and it needs to be free from complacency. So regardless of what we practice and how much or how little we practice, we must at all cost never become complacent. And in order to avoid this, we must always honestly scrutinize our own minds. There is no need for us to attempt to scrutinize or speculate about the minds of others, but there is a great need for us to scrutinize our own mind. Of course we are concerned with the well being of others. It is our aspiration to bring all beings to the state of the perfect buddhahood and, at best, we want to be able to do that. But in order to do that, we first have to save ourselves. It is as though we are all drowning and we want to rescue everybody else from drowning. But if we are still drowning ourselves, we cannot pull anybody else out of the water. So in order to get your head above water, you must examine your own mind. And, in fact, examine everything about your behavior—your body, speech, and mind. If your body, speech, and mind are employed in virtue, they will ripen into the trikaya—the dharmakaya, sambogakaya, and nirmanakaya. And if your body, speech, and mind are devoted to wrongdoing, they will cast you into the three lower states. Our bodies, speech, and minds are very powerful. They have a tremendous potential for both good and bad. And we also have to accept responsibility for ourselves because, finally, each of us knows ourself better than anyone else ever could. If we take this kind of responsibility, practice with effort and with commitment, then we will gradually develop absolute bodhichitta; all of the problems and defects that assail us will disappear, and all of the qualities that we possess will grow to their full potential. So that is [what I have to say] about the inner Padmakara or inner Guru Rinpoche.