An Interview with His Eminence Ratna Vajra Rinpoche at Sakya Tharpa Ling, Friday 2 June 2003

Eminence, could you please speak about the importance of a Shedra in the western world.

His Eminence: Generally speaking, in this world all of us are aiming to achieve happiness and to remove suffering and many people in this world put their efforts into focusing on material development. But material development alone will not yield happiness so it's important to know what the right causes and conditions are for achieving happiness - and the right causes and conditions for achieving happiness are to try to improve our mental development. But in order to improve our mental development we need to know what its causes and conditions are, and then we will know that the causes and conditions for improving our mental development are taming our unruly mind or our negative thoughts and emotions. And the best way to remove these negative thoughts and emotions is through knowing the reality of all phenomena, and to know the reality of all phenomena, according to Buddhism, we need learn philosophy. In the philosophy it teaches us what is the real reality and what are the things that are not real reality, and then we will know that all appearances are not independently existent: all phenomena are dependant on their own causes and conditions. And as, therefore, they are not truly existent, all these appearances are projections of our own mind. So, for example, in our dreams we see many different places, many different countries, but they do not exist independently, they are not truly existent, they are not real, they are not true. When we wake up we can't see any of these appearances. Similarly, our present life and our present appearances are similar, or views. So all these appearances are projections of one's own mind; similarly in this present life all these differences are projections of one's own mind. So then we will know that there is no point clinging to external phenomena, including one's self because self is also not truly existent (actually nothing is truly existent). So these things are explained in very great detail in the philosophy and so through this philosophy one can improve one's own mind and finally one can reach Buddhahood. So to learn philosophy is very important.

What is the best way to progress our understanding of the teachings of the Buddha properly?

H.E.: Actually it is very important firstly to generate good motivation – if your motivation is not good, if you are learning this philosophy out of curiosity or to achieve worldly comforts, then you can't study properly because your aim is not good enough. So it's very, very important to generate the highest motivation, which means for the sake of all sentient beings one wishes to attain the enlightened state, and for that purpose one is studying these Buddhist philosophical texts. And also while you are studying it is very important to listen carefully, and then after listening to the teachings and you should contemplate on the meanings. In other words, you should, through self-study, spend more time on it so you can know more about it and what you know will become even more stable in your mental continuum. So it is important to contemplate and after contemplating on the teachings then you should meditate on them. It is especially important to meditate on the teachings or to apply them in your daily life. If you don't apply these teachings in your daily life then they will not affect you in a great way. This is because intellectual understanding alone will not benefit you very much - there are people who are great scholars, who have a very good intellectual understanding of the teachings, but still their negative minds and negative thoughts do not decrease. Still, they are jealous towards scholars who are more educated than themselves and have competitive thoughts towards others who are equal to them. Also when we have an intellectual understanding about the knowledge we gained, we can become arrogant because of our knowledge and also we see uneducated persons as really low and so forth, and so through this we generate lots of negative thoughts and emotions. So intellectual understanding alone is not enough and sometimes intellectual understanding alone will generate more and more negative thoughts than before. So it's very important to apply the teachings in our daily life. So the main purpose of learning the teachings can be fulfilled because the main purpose of learning these teachings is to become a better person, and to become a better person one needs to reduce or suppress these negative thoughts and emotions and finally to eradicate them. So to do that we should apply these teachings in our daily life and through this we can decrease and eradicate these defilements and we can increase qualities such as loving-kindness, compassion, patience and the enlightenment mind and so forth. So it is important to apply these teachings in our daily life. The great Acharya, the great Indian Acharya, Vasubhandu said in his text “Abhidharmakosa” that, based on moral conduct, one should study or hear the teachings and then contemplate and then meditate. So this structure is the same in all the Buddhist schools. So whether it's Hinayana or Mahayana or Vajrayana, this structure is the same, so one should follow this structure because it is very useful for our life.

Manjushri has strong connections with the Khon family, could you please say a bit more about the connection between Manjushri and the Khon family.

H.E.: There are five founders of the Sakya tradition which are emanations of Manjushri in general. Also, talking about main founder the Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, who is regarded as the emanation of Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, when he was young his teacher, Bari Lotsawa, said “you are son of the great master so you should study, and to study you need wisdom, so you should practise Manjushri”. So then he practised the Manjushri deity for about six months and contemplated Manjushri. Then in his pure vision he saw Manjushri and Manjushri gave him the teaching of “Parting from the Four Attachments”. At the same time seven swords appeared from Manjushri and were absorbed into Sachen Kunga Nyingpo and this indicates that in the Khon family there will be seven emanations of Manjushri in the near future, and in the future there will be many more emanations of Manjushri. So that's how we are linked to Manjushri. Manjushri himself appears in the form of the Khon family and this continuity is passed on until now.

Eminence, many westerners are interested in meditation, could you please say something about the benefits of a Manjushri Shedra for these western meditators.

H.E.: Actually you can meditate on many different subjects but according to Buddhists, to meditate on a particular subject, first we need to study and contemplate it – without knowing what to meditate on you can't meditate, without intellectual understanding you can't meditate. It is said that those who don't have intellectual understanding and those who wish to meditate without intellectual understanding are like someone who doesn't have both hands but still wants to climb a rocky mountain. So similarly without intellectual understanding you can't do proper meditation. So to do proper meditation you need to contemplate on the subject that you are going to meditate on. To contemplate on the meanings first you need to study, you need to hear the teachings and then you need to study. So in the Manjushri Shedra you study the teachings and after studying then you will do contemplation and after that then you will do meditation. So without study and without contemplation you can't do proper meditation, so to do proper meditation you need to study and the best place to study is a Manjushri Shedra and so I think the Manjushri Shedra will benefit the meditators immensely.

Could you please say something about the qualities of a Shedra teacher and the qualities of a Shedra student.

H.E.: The quality of a teacher. The teacher himself has to study from a qualified teacher, and the teacher himself has to be a scholar and when he teaches he needs to have good motivation. And particularly your present teacher, Khenpo Ngawang Dhamchoe, he learned his philosophy in Sakya College, same as myself (but at a different time!) and when he was studying in Sakya College, there was a great scholar, one of the greatest scholars of the world in modern times, Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, so he studied from a very, very great scholar. And also Khenpo-la himself became very learned in the college and in the later stages he also became a teacher in the Sakya College itself. Normally when you choose a teacher in Sakya College, within the students, those who are good students, those who are best students, choose the teacher at the Sakya College. So as he was chosen by the students it means he was one of the best students at that time in the Sakya College. So he is learned and also his intentions are good, so I think you have got a very great teacher.

And also about the qualifications of the students. I think it's very important to have faith and devotion toward the teacher and the teaching. In Sakya Pandita's “Three Vows” he said that one should consider the Paramitayana teacher like a Buddha and the Vajrayana teacher as a real Buddha - so you should generate strong faith and devotion and also it is very important to have unshakeable faith and also one should have very a good intention, or good motivation, to study. One should not think that one is studying to become a teacher to have fame and so forth, because our main aim is not to become a teacher, etc, but our main aim is to become a Buddha, so to become a Buddha one should generate the highest motivation which is not other than the enlightened mind. So one should generate the enlightened mind and with this kind of motivation then your study is very effective. Also if you consider the teacher as an ordinary person then you will get ordinary blessings from the teacher, and if you think of the teacher as a noble Bodhisattva then you will get the blessings of a noble Bodhisattva, and if you think the teacher is like a Buddha then you will get the blessings of like a Buddha. So it is very important to consider the teacher like a Buddha so that you will also get more blessings and you can learn more effectively. So, in short, it's very important to respect the teacher and also the teaching. One should not think that this teaching is like any other ordinary subject, because the teaching is not a worldly subject to study, but a very holy, precious and profound subject. So one should respect the teaching and also one should also respect the texts which contain these teachings. One should not step over these teachings; when you go here or there, you should not step over the texts and you should try to put these texts on a table or in a higher place. One should respect the teaching and also one should generate the highest motivation.

Eminence, thank you very much. If there is anything else you would like to pass on to the Shedra students, that we haven't covered today?

H.E.: Hmmm (laughing) I think enough.

OK, thank you very much for your time Eminence