Awakening the Mind, Lightening the Heart: Core Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism

By His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.

(238 pp., HarperSanFrancisco, 1995)

A Flash of Lightning In the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life

By Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Foreword by Tulku Pema Wangyal

Translated from the Tibetan by The Padmakara Translation Group

(144 pp., Shambhala, 1994)

Recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, teacher of Hollywood actor Richard Gere, and champion of human rights, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is probably the most well known Buddhist on the planet. This “simple Buddhist monk,” as he describes himself, has been in the international limelight ever since the fifties, when he and thousands of Tibetan men, women and children fled their homeland into the exiled lands of India, and beyond. Today, for tens of thousands in Asia, the former Soviet Union, and throughout the world, he is the living embodiment of compassion: the kind-hearted Avalokitesvara made flesh. Based in Dharamsala, India, the Dalai Lama and his associates have worked for the past thirty-five years to establish a firm foundation for the cultural and spiritual continuity of their heritage.

Awakening the Mind is published in HarperSanFrancisco’s “The Library of Tibet” series, under the general editorship of John F. Avedon. This is an ambitious project to make available to the general public classics from the vast treasury of Tibetan spiritual life. This is admirable, but I wonder why the editors decided on a format which excludes such helpful and standard features like an index, notes and glossary. Even the cataloging-in-publication data, where one usually looks to find technical information, is embarrassingly scanty. Hopefully, these defects will be eliminated in future volumes in the series.

Awakening The Mind is the product of seminars given by the Dalai Lama on the fundamentals of Mahayana Buddhism. It is not scholarly in tone; it is meant to be applied and put into daily practice. The teachings are on the most basic (and challenging) aspects of Mahayana Buddhism: the practices of open tolerance and compassion.

Specifically, Awakening the Mind is a collection of teachings on “mind training” (lojong), a tradition of Mahayana Buddhism based on the core practices of training and applying the “awakened mind” (bodhichitta) with the altruistic intention of transforming the suffering of all beings into a stable state of happiness. This book offers the Dalai Lama’s oral commentary on a mind-training text known as The Rays of the Sun by the fifteenth century adept Horton Namkha Pel (1373-1447).

[The Rays of the Sun]…outlines a technique through which we can dispel the darkness of ignorance within our minds. This darkness of the mind refers to our misconception of self and our self-centered, selfish attitudes, the negative aspects of the mind. Just as the sun’s rays dispel darkness, this instruction dispels the darkness of ignorance.

What do these teachings offer to the modern Western Buddhist practitioner? Firstly, the language is very simple and direct and the conversational tone is well preserved in the translation. The teachings are not encumbered with the kind of fancy philosophical arguments which many have come to associate with the more rarified aspects of “Tibetan” Buddhism.

Secondly, the content is geared to basics—points which bear pondering over, and over again. Thus, in the first chapter, we are reminded that the purpose of refuge and generating the awakened mind is “to effect a transformation of our attitudes, to positively shape our minds.” But how do we know if this is occurring? “[There] should be a change in your heart. Sometimes you may be so moved that there are tears in your eyes.” A very simple indicator!

We are told that positive motivation serves as the basis for every other practice, that we need to cultivate the aspiration that all our endeavors have but one purpose: “that all sentient beings may be free of every misery and dwell in complete peace.” Without this, we are told that any activity, including so-called “dharma” activities, are not really Buddhist.

In a frank disclosure, the Dalai Lama talks about the practice of transforming adversity into favorable conditions. He makes an unpopular and deeply personal reflection:

It is quite possible that I could have become narrow-minded, but because of the Chinese threats and humiliations, I have become a real person. So what happened in Tibet can be seen as a blessing in disguise.

Mind training helps stabilize a strong interest in creating virtuous thoughts and actions along with the inner urge to discard old negative habits. How long does it take to achieve this? The Dalai Lama gently chastises Westerners for being shortsighted and expecting quick results, and he says something hard to hear, for it goes against the current trends in “fast-food” dharma: “We need to be prepared to put in effort and sacrifice over a long period of time. Our effort and interest should not be just a fleeting obsession, but persistent and steady.” If we do persevere, we will notice the transformation.

The Dalai Lama reflects on the development of his own practice. “Twenty years ago I used to contemplate emptiness. . . I used to think that working for the welfare of other sentient beings, an infinite number of sentient beings, was very idealistic.” But he describes how reading Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life spurred him to change his own approach to practice, strengthening his aspiration for the compassion and tolerance that come with the awakening mind.

In A Flash of Lightning, we are treated to the Dalai Lama’s commentary on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhicharyavatara), arguably the most famous treatise on how to be a bodhisattva. There are well over a hundred commentaries on this work in Tibetan.

A Flash of Lightning is based on teachings given in 1991 in Dordogne, southwestern France, and translated into English by a team of experienced Western practitioners known collectively as the Padmakara Translation Group. Organized into nine chapters, it closely follows Shantideva’s original text, beginning with the benefits and necessity of generating altruistic intent (bodhichitta), and then explaining how to protect and nurture this intent through the practice of care, attention, patience, endeavor, meditation and wisdom. This is not an introductory text; parts of the teachings are quite technical in nature, and for this reason the translators have helpfully included notes, glossary, bibliography and an index.

The Dalai Lama tells us his teachings are based on the oral instruction he received from Kunu Rinpoche (1885–1977), who in turn received it from a close disciple of the great Nyingma master Patrul Rinpoche (1808–1887), author of the recently translated Words of My Perfect Teacher (HarperCollins, 1994).

A very readable work, A Flash of Lightning reveals the Dalai Lama’s breadth of erudition coupled with his incisive practical advice. This volume is a perfect companion to Awakening the Mind. It is highly recommended for those who want to see how these teachings transformed the Dalai Lama’s own practice away from the main emphasis on emptiness toward the embodiment of tolerance and compassion.

∞

From the Spring 1996 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 12, No. 2)

Text © 1996–2020 by Steven D. Goodman