Right Conduct During This Time of the Pandemic

A Message from His Holiness Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal Rinpoche

During Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s two-week online summer retreat on the topic “The Seven Mirrors of Dzogchen,” attended by more than 600 participants from around the world, we were honored with the presence of His Holiness Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal Rinpoche, the 34th Menri Trizin. His Holiness offered blessings and teachings on the final day of each week, with Tenzin Rinpoche translating. Here is an edited excerpt of His Holiness’ teachings from the first week, on June 26.

His Holiness teaching during the summer retreat

Hello everybody, with my love. Greetings to all of you. Today’s subject of teaching here is on right conduct, positive behavior. I felt I wanted to share this. This principle is regardless of whether or not you believe in religion; right conduct is something that everybody needs to do, to understand and to follow.

Everybody seeks happiness and wants to avoid suffering, but we need to understand that this depends on our human conduct or behavior. During this pandemic time, globally we are suffering so it is necessary for everybody to work together to overcome this collective issue.

Seeking happiness and trying to avoid suffering is basic human nature. We all seek that. Whether or not we have it depends on our individual behavior. We must try to be more inclusive, try to bring more concern to other people, particularly during this time of the pandemic. There is no way to overcome this global issue unless we collaborate with each other. When we are only focused on ourselves, we have problems.

In the Yungdrung Bön tradition, we follow the teachings about view, meditation and conduct. That’s how we are trying to overcome our suffering and tendencies. The understanding of impermanence, sem mi tak pa, and belief in causes and conditions, karma, and the consequences of samsara and the benefits of virtues – these are the principal practices that we apply.

The first teaching, on impermanence: we all hear it and can intellectually understand it, but if we don’t practice it, it will not be helpful in everyday life. If we practice with maturity and some familiarity in hearing, reflection and meditation, and then apply it in our practice, we are prepared and won’t face that much pain and suffering. We understand this is happening, so it is not a total surprise. We will have our own experience of impermanence and so during these times we will not be challenged as much or suffer as much.

The four human sufferings – birth, aging, sickness and death – are part of our existence and our life. Intellectually we can know about it, but when we truly know about it, during this time if we do actually face sickness and death, we will be less challenged. We know this is part of our life and not something totally separate from our life. True realization about the message of these teachings and experiences is very important.

This investigation and analysis and awareness we need to have. We have heard the teaching and learned about it and know about it. If we are suffering as normal that tells us that what we know was not realized in ourselves. That is a message to say we have to really understand it experientially. What you hear from teachers has to be realized.

The knowledge of impermanence and meditation on impermanence are part of the practice. The practice of impermanence is important in our teaching. We have the view, meditation, result and conduct in the Seven Mirrors. Impermanence is part of the view. Everything is interdependent; nothing is solid inherently.

The practice of compassion and love are part of the conduct. Refuge also is very important. Whether you are a follower of a certain teaching or not, refuge defines it and also is an important part.

We talk about four refuges in Yungdrung Bon tradition: lama (master), sangye (buddha), Bön (dharma) and shenrap (bodhisattvas). Buddha, one who is free from all afflictions and fully perfected by all enlightened qualities, is a very important part. Buddha is the model we look up to and follow. What we are trying to achieve is to be like a buddha, free from all our afflictions and trying to perfect all our enlightened qualities. Bodhisattvas are the ones who are giving these teachings and instructions, and the Bön is the instruction itself, the knowledge we are learning. These all are a place of refuge, a place of trust, and that is important.

Just as impermanence is part of the view, refuge and bodhicitta are part of our conduct. It is very important to have refuge and bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is really like caring for others’ enlightenment.

Having this deep understanding of impermanence as view, and understanding refuge and bodhicitta as conduct – these define being a Yungdrung Bön practitioner or not. It is also very important to understand the teaching of this precious human life. It is very precious to be born as a human and something you don’t want to waste. Not wasting precious life means applying these views and practices of meditation like refuge and bodhicitta.

All our experiences with birth, aging, sickness and death – the four sufferings – are part of our samsara, part of existence. Don’t be too surprised when you are suffering. How you can overcome these sufferings is to have the right view and conduct. Applying these practices toward liberation is the only way to overcome these sufferings and achieve enlightenment.

I am trying to remain with the pith instructions, the main essential points, without elaborating too much so everyone can understand. We talk about le jung de, karma, causes and conditions; our parents always talked about this when we were children. Don’t steal, there is a karma for that. Don’t kill. Don’t be mean to someone, there is a karma for that. Whatever you do there are consequences for that. So be aware of your actions. This is what we were all taught growing up. All the virtues we do bring more happiness in our life. All nonvirtuous actions bring more suffering. If you want to be happy, virtuous actions are necessary. If you are producing negative actions, the consequences are unavoidable. To achieve results, we have to pay attention to the causes.

When talking about causes and conditions and karma, this coronavirus pandemic – the suffering and pain caused by the virus – is also our karma. The cause has been before and now the result is manifesting. And humans, we are very individualistic and egoistic; we think of ourselves so much more than other beings, and there are consequences. We are paying for that.

The main point is there are causes and conditions, and impermanence is part of our view, and refuge and bodhicitta are part of our conduct, and suffering is part of life. Nobody wants to suffer and everyone wants to be happy. There are consequences of karma. That means there is something we can do in this special precious human life that we have. If you want to overcome suffering and the causes of suffering, it means not wasting this precious human life. You don’t easily get this life, so don’t waste it. That is very important.

There also is khor wé ne jung, basically getting tired of suffering. Are you tired of it? Is it enough suffering? It is enough; I need to do something different. What you can do differently is engage in the practices of bodhicitta, refuge, impermanence and the view. That’s the only way you can stop suffering. There is no other way. Don’t waste your precious human life. Practice to overcome the suffering you don’t want. This is the essence. Thank you, everybody.