"A Tibetan teacher by the name of Tsongkhapa, wrote a book titled 'Stages of Spiritual Path (Tibetan – Lamrim)'.Tonight I’m going to use that framework to introduce Buddhist teaching to you. "

Good evening, I am very happy to be here with you especially the novices. It is indeed wonderful that you have come here to join this Novitiate Program. Today I am going to talk on the Stages of Spiritual Path.

I will be using a framework from a very famous work in the Tibetan tradition for this talk. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet before it disappeared from India. Buddhism flourished in India for about one thousand and seven hundred years. During that time Buddhism was introduced to the different regions of the world. It started when Emperor Asoka sent missionary monks to Sri Lanka, Burma and the other Southeast Asian countries which follow the Theravada Buddhist tradition today. In Theravada Buddhist tradition the scriptural language is Pali.

Buddhism was then introduced to China about six hundred years after the Buddha’s Parinirvana. Over a period of several hundred years many monks from India and the surrounding smaller countries introduced Buddhism to China and some Chinese monks went to study in India then. The Indian and Chinese monks brought scriptures written in Sanskrit to China. Subsequently these scriptures were translated into Chinese. Buddhism was then introduced from China to the surrounding countries like Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

About a thousand and five hundred years after the Buddha’s Parinirvana. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet Many Indian teachers went there to teach Buddhism. Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit were translated into Tibetan. Under the patronage of some Tibetan kings Buddhism flourished there. There are four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The earlier schools were introduced by Indian teachers and but the last, the Gelupa school, was founded by Tsongkhapa a Tibetan teacher. Tsongkhapa wrote a book Stages of Spiritual Path (Lamrim in Tibetan). Tonight I’m goi ng to use this framework to introduce the Buddha’s teaching to you. This is very interesting; here we have a Novitiate Program organized in the Theravada tradition, with a monk from the Chinese tradition using a Tibetan framework to talk about the Buddha’s teachings. This is after all Malaysia, the meeting place of different Buddhist traditions.

In Lamrim or Stages of Spiritual Path, Tsongkhapa first talked about the difficulty of gaining a human rebirth and the difficulty of encountering the Buddha’s teaching. We have undergone countless number of rebirths in the six realms in Samsara since beginless past. An analogy given to describe the difficulty of gaining a human rebirth goes like this : Suppose the whole world were a vast ocean, and on the surface of this ocean there was a yoke floating blown about by the wind, and suppose at the bottom of the ocean there lived a blind turtle which came to the surface of the ocean once every hundred years. To attain a human rebirth is just as difficult as it would be for that turtle to place its neck through the opening in that yoke floating about in the ocean. The reason is that in Samsara, most of the time we are guided by negative emotions of anger, greed and ignorance. We accumulate a lot of negative karma that normally lead us to be reborn in one of the three lower realms. Since to be born a human is such a difficult and extreme rarity we should treasure this human rebirth. Even when we are reborn as a human it is very difficult to encounter the Buddha’s teaching. Take this as an example, we have a talk here tonight, the attendance as compared to the number of people in this neighborhood goes to show that they are not interested to attend such an activity. There are still some countries where people have yet to hear of the Buddha’s teachings. There are some Arabian countries today where you cannot even take any Buddhist literature or Buddhist books there. Therefore now that we have the opportunity to be born as a human and the opportunity to encounter the Buddha’s teachings, we must practice seriously and not let this precious human rebirth go to waste.

I remember a student made a remark that the average Christian seems to be more serious in his/her religion than the average Buddhist in a discussion during an English Dharma class some time back. Another member said that it was because in Christianity, a person only has one chance in this very life to accept God. In Buddhism we talk about the opportunities of having many rebirths so we still have many opportunities to do so in future lives. I think this is only partly true. The other thing that we don’t take quite seriously is the Buddha’s teaching on impermanence. The young normally think that since they are still young, they have time to take religion more seriously when they are older. But if we were to combine the teaching of the preciousness of human rebirth and impermanence then we may be driven to take the Buddha’s teachings more seriously. Once we lose this human rebirth and without practice, we cannot be sure of a human rebirth in the future.

Tsongkhapa, in his works, divided the spiritual path into Three Stages..

He called the first stage the Initial Stage. Here he emphasized on understanding the workings of the Law of Karma. If we engage in wholesome actions then we plant the seeds for rebirth in one of the three higher realms - the human, god and demigod or asuras. Asuras belongs to a realm of beings that have high merits like gods but they unlike the gods have very bad tempers. These three realms comparatively speaking are better off than the three lower realms which are the result of unwholesome actions performed through our body, speech and mind. The three lower realms are that of the animal, hungry-ghost and hell-being.

The pain we experienced when we get burnt is nothing when compared to the pain and sufferings the hell beings have to undergo in the extreme heat in hell as described in details in the Buddhist scriptures. Similarly the hunger that we feel if we go without food for a day or two is nothing when compared to that of the hungry ghosts as they perpetually have to go without food for a very long period of time. Some of us say that we cannot see the hell or hungry ghosts’ realm. Well, all we need to do is to look at the animal realm. I do not know whether you have been to the modern day farms where they rear chickens or pigs. You should go and see the conditions of those animal farms where the chickens and pigs there are in very pitiful states. However the sufferings in the jungles are even bigger. There it is survival of the fittest, where the weaker animals are being eaten by the stronger ones. So when we start to contemplate this and when we multiply the human sufferings a thousand times or a million times we will get an idea of the sufferings beings go through in the lower realms.

If we do not want to be reborn in the lower realms, then we should not plant the causes for our rebirths in these realms and avoid doing evil things. We should lead a truly wholesome spiritual life which begins with the taking of refuge in the Triple Gems which forms the very foundation of spiritual practice.

The emphasis when leading a truly human life is the observation of the five precepts or the ten wholesome precepts. If we observe the five precepts or the ten precepts then we can be assured of a rebirth in either the human or heavenly realm in our future existence. This foundation is very important because without this we cannot proceed to the higher stages in the spiritual path. In the Lamrim teaching, Tsongkhapa called this the Initial Stage or the Initial Perspective of spiritual practice.

The second stage is called the Intermediate Perspective or Stage. Observing the five or ten precepts will ensure rebirth in the higher realms. But beings in the higher realms also undergo different sufferings. The gods in the heavenly realms suffer greatly when they know they are about to fall into a lower realm upon the exhaustion of their merits. We can use the analogy of a millionaire who becomes a bankrupt overnight during an economic crisis. The suffering is very great for this person when he loses all his wealth in one night. This is the type of suffering that the gods undergo when their merits are exhausted. The demigods or asuras always like to fight with the gods and ended up as losers most of the time. When they lose, they suffer greatly at the same time their jealousy and hatred increased. We have just gone through the war in Iraq, the leaders of the nations going to war are like asuras – they are full of hatred and like to fight.

The human realm is not free from sufferings. When we are born into this world we go through a very painful process as we leave the warmth of the mother’s womb and as we come out of the womb we feel very cold. When the nurse wraps the baby in a piece of cloth, the baby feels as though he has fallen into a pit of thorns, even if he has been wrapped in the softest and finest garments. So a small baby will cry out immediately after being born because of the pain he experiences. When we grow up and get sick, we experience the suffering of sickness. We do not like to be sick but we get sick anyway. In modern days, we get sick because of the type of life we lead and the food we eat. When we are young we have very good eyesight, but as we get older not only our eyesight starts to fail but our hearing and other sensory powers also start to fail. You can see this when you visit the Senior Citizen’s Home in Mahindarama temple. You can also visit the Senior Citizens’ Home in Than Hsiang temple. Many of the residents could still manage on their own when they came into our Homes but today they are entirely dependent on others and many are on wheelchairs. They need help even when going to the bathroom or the toilet. This is old age. Whether we like it or not we have to die one day. For many people with no religious faith, dying is a very frightening and painful experience. Besides dying not getting what we want is also a type of suffering. A small boy or girl will openly cry when his/her parents fail to let him/her to get what he/she wants in the departmental store. Even when we grow and become adults we also have to go through this type of suffering but of course we do not show it so openly. At times we have to be associated with people whom we do not like. In fact sometimes we seemed to have to meet with our enemies everyday. On the other hand, we are separated from our good friends. Even having this body and mind caused us to suffer. When we go deeper into this contemplation we can easily understand that even the beings in the three higher realms of human, gods and demigods still undergo different types of suffering. If we want to be rid of the suffering in the six realms altogether and experience true happiness or the bliss of Nirvana or Nibbana then we have to develop renunciation of Samsara.

The reason why many of you come to join this Novitiate Program is to experience the life of a monk. The life of a monk is a life of renunciation. But that is not to say that we can only develope renunciation by becoming a monk. As a lay person we can also practice renunciation which is the opposite of attachment to this world. We understand the unsatisfactory nature of Samsara and develop a wish to get out of it.

Practitioners of the Intermediate Stage are sometimes referred to as followers of the sound hearer vehicle – Sravakayana or Savakayana. They are so called because just like the disciples of the Buddha who listened to His teachings of the Four Noble Truths and were able to attain liberation from Samsara; these practitioners can also attain liberation through practicing the Four Noble Truths. In Samsara, suffering is the effect caused by our negative emotions of greed, anger and ignorance which drive us to perform unwholesome deeds. If we understand that unwholesome deeds are the cause and strive to develop renunciation, we can be liberated from Samsara with Nirvana as the effect and the Eightfold Path the cause to attain liberation.

We may wonder why the Four Noble Truths place the order of effect before cause; we normally talk about cause and effect. Some people who do not understand Buddhism think that Buddhism is pessimistic because the first thing that the Buddha talks about in the Four Noble Truths is suffering. But Buddhist teaching is not pessimistic because in the third Truth the Buddha talks about the cessation of suffering, the bliss of Nirvana and you cannot be more optimistic than that. However Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. Buddhism is a teaching which is realistic; Buddha started off with the teaching on suffering because every one of us experiences suffering.

The precepts that you are holding, the ten samanera precepts, go beyond avoiding rebirth in the lower Samsaric realms. The eight precepts observed by lay people for one day and one night is almost the same as that of the samanera precepts except the last precept of not holding money. When we observe the eight precepts or ten samanera precepts we try to develop renunciation. So if you can develop renunciation and not get attached to this world, you can get out of Samsara. So renunciation is a very important step in spiritual practice and is common to all Buddhist traditions. Ultimately the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to lead sentient beings out of Samsara. All the major Buddhist traditions mentioned earlier tonight have leading a wholesome life as the foundation , emphasizing on the human characteristics, practicing of the five precepts. They also all emphasize renunciation.

We cannot go on to the third stage of practice without going through the second stage but some people do not understand this. In the Buddhist literature there is a story of a man who liked the top floor of his friend’s new house. In our modern day terminology, this is the penthouse. As he was as rich as his friend and he requested the same builder to build him a similar house. When the builder started to build the foundation, he became very impatient and said “Why do you need to do this. I just want the top floor. Why don’t you just build this floor for me?” We all know that we cannot build a house in the sky just like that without a foundation. The lower floors have to be built before the higher floors. Our spiritual practice is just like that.

The third stage of spiritual path is called the Higher Perspective or the Higher Stage. The emphasis here is to develop the aspiration for all sentient beings to attain liberation. We do this by contemplating that all sentient beings have been our parents since beginless past and that we have been born in all the different realms for countless number of times. We must understand that all sentient beings in this world, human or otherwise like the beings in the hell realm, hungry ghost realm, animal realm, heavenly realm and asura realm have been our own parents in the past for more than one time. All sentient beings have the common characteristic of not wanting to suffer and to be happy. However, even when we desire happiness, out of ignorance we keep on planting causes that will lead us to sufferings. Although all the sentient beings who had been our parents before do not want to suffer, they still continue to plant causes that will lead them to future sufferings. When we understand this, we will develop great loving kindness and compassion for them. All sentient beings who have been our mothers in the past are just like our present mother in this life who has been very kind to us, giving all she has to us. So can we think about our own liberation from Samsara and let them continue to plant seeds for their future suffering in the Samsara? If we see our own parents suffering, then of out of gratitude and filial piety we would surely help free them from suffering.

When we expand the scope of renunciation to include all sentient beings to be liberated then this very strong aspiration is called Bodhicitta. Literally Bodhicitta is the aspiration to gain Bodhi. Bodhi refers to the enlightenment of a Sammasambuddha. To attain Sammasambuddhahood one has to develop the aspiration to lead all sentient beings to liberation by practicing the Bodhisatta or Bodhisattva path. Our own teacher Gautama Buddha or Sakyamuni Buddha did the same thing. In the scriptures, it was recorded that the Buddha during the time of the ancient Buddha Dipankara could have gained liberation then, but he wanted to follow the example of Dipankara Buddha. So he developed Bodhicitta and aspired to be a Sammasambuddha like Dipankara Buddha. After developing Bodhicitta, he practiced the Bodhisattva path or what we call the six paramitas for a very long period of time. In the Jataka stories, we have beautiful stories describing how the Buddha-to-be practiced the six perfections of Dana – generosity, Sila- morality, Ksanthi – forbearance or patience, and Virya – vigor, Dhyana - meditation, and Prajna - wisdom, so these are the six paramitas.

Tsongkhapa described this as the Higher Stage or the Higher Perspective. We need to understand that this stage is based on the foundation of renunciation. Without renunciation there is no Bodhicitta. A lot of people today, especially in the Mahayana tradition misunderstand this. Therefore you have to develop renunciation first otherwise there is no Bodhicitta because renunciation and Bodhicitta start from the same base that is the desire to get completely out of suffering. In the first case it is for oneself, in the second it is not only for oneself but also for other sentient beings.

I have briefly introduced to you the stages of spiritual practice as given by Tsongkhapa in his Lamrim teaching. If you are interested to know more about this teaching, I recommend that you read a book by H.H. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama entitled “The Path To Enlightenment” that is published by Snow Lion Publications.